By: Grainne Rhuad

There is a thing keeping everyone’s lungs and lips locked; It is called fear and it’s seeing a great renaissance. –The Dresden Dolls, Sing

Fear, it’s one of most living beings’ great motivators.  It arouses the senses telling us to pay attention, something may be coming, and we may need to act.

There is nothing wrong with fear, base fear in and of itself.  However most living things address whatever is causing them fear.  When the rabbit escapes the fox, it ceases to be afraid.  When it dies, its compatriots do not live in fear of ever leaving the warren.  Fear and its usefulness have come to its culmination and passed.

Human beings however are different.  We like fear, or we seem to.  We gather around campfires and tell stories of Unseelie things like Balor and the Sluagh, we watch movies to elicit fear responses and a great good deal of us get our fear fix from the nightly news, streaming into our homes, our consciousness, our being without even our notice most of the time.

Unlike the rabbit that allows fear to pass, we bathe in it.  We sit about talking about dreadful things, working each other up.  Interestingly enough, more talk occurs about ‘being’ afraid than ‘doing’ anything with those fears.

When we fear things I think that we wish for them … every fear hides a wish.-David Mamet, Edmond

It often seems that we make fear our pastime.  Do we secretly wish for the things we fear to come about?  Would the actuality of our fears be as terrible as we imagine?  Or would they in fact alleviate our suffering?  Is it possible that even with the most terrifying of our fears realized that we would have the relief of never again having that fear?

Some people say yes.  There are countless behavioral interventions for those perpetually in fear that expose them to those very same fears.  Beyond that, in interviews with survivors of war, torture and abuse the people who come out the other side very often live fearless lives; they have made it to the other side of what was terrifying them.

Other people however say no.  There is evidence that people witnessing their fears, as in say a car accident or death of a loved one will fold up into themselves even further, taking that occasion as proof that every doubt they have whether reasonable or unreasonable is going to happen.

Of course the latter is correct.  Everything we fear will happen, sometime to someone.  But, should we let it destabilize us?  The rational amongst us say “no of course not.”

And yet, we destabilize ourselves every day.  Purposefully, by constantly watching, talking about and thinking about everything that is wrong in the world.  By putting such a great amount of energy into the fears of the day, we are to a great extent missing the things that would normally balance out such fears.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.-Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful

Is fear in fact a passion?  Sometimes it seems so.  There are a good many people who make it their business to seek out and find things that are fear inducing in order to share them with the world.  You see this on news-like shows.  In comedy, on the internet with your friend postings.  The effect is the same:  “Here is something you should be afraid of.”  Almost never with a suggested solution.  This lack of solution runs counter to the very biological function of fear.  Fear is supposed to kick in to jumpstart our bodies into responding.  But, when we are exposed to fears that are seemingly insurmountable, with no discussion further than, “Yes that is fucking crazy and I am afraid.”  All of the fear is backed up with no action in sight to help us realign ourselves.  This creates in us an exacerbated state of stress.  How on earth can we combat all these things?

What is typically seen are people following up discussions like these with comments like, “Time to throw in the towel.” And, “Time to run away.”  This also instills fear into people.  How on earth are they going to manage that?

This brings us to the next bit.

Fear is the enemy of logic.

Frank Sinatra said it in The Way You Wear Your Hat but he’s not the only one.  When we are reacting in a fear based moment, we are making decisions based on preservation, but not logic.  We are not taking time to think things through and make a real and concerted difference.

The big question is why are we not spending more time dispelling fear?  Why are we not instead empowering each other?

It’s easy to blame all of our fear mongering on recent events like 9/11 and the resultant color coded terror scales we suffered through, which thankfully have been retired for now; as well as the constant ticker tape news updates which seems unlikely to go away.  However, it would be unfair to lay all of this at this particular door.

Since the advent of WWI people in the States and Europe have been afraid.  Initially this fear found outlet in an emerging art source: DADA, which on the surface non-sensical was indeed trying to make sense of the extreme shock and fear dealt out by a new type of war.

Humans being humans however; did not stick with the “let’s do something with our feelings,” route, and instead decided almost across the board to beef up on ammunition and war machines, further illustrating when people are afraid it’s easy to make them more afraid and control them.

We still are seeing the effects of this today.  Our fear caused the most recent war in Iraq. Saddam  Hussein obviously had no nuclear weapons.  There was absolutely no evidence of it, and yet our fear of him wielding it was enough for us to universally put a stamp of approval on an invasion.  We almost did the same in North Korea.  Who knows, we may still do so, we have spy submarines off the coast listening in fear to them right now.

If we were thinking with our logical minds we would wait and work with others.  A prime example is the situation in the West Bank.  Logic dictates that no matter how we feel about the “Holy Land”, people were there before the state of Israel was created and no plan was made for any of them.  Thus, logically we are all to blame for the ugly state of affairs and poor treatment of Palestinians.

But we don’t see it that way, because we are afraid.  Afraid of pissing of Israel whose pockets are helpful to us; afraid of the unrest recombining will cause; afraid of Asiatic dark people; and most of all afraid of admitting the world made a huge kerffufleing mistake.

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.-Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

The character Don Quixote may have been mad, but he was imbued with the madness of a saint.  He quite succinctly pointed out that our fears very often have us seeing problems that are not there.  This is true of things great and small.  We have very often discussed at Subversify our irrational fear of Russia during the Cold War.  We currently have an irrational fear of Mexico and Mexicans whether they are citizens or not.  We fear drugs; we fear not having drugs at the very same time.  We fear a police state and we fear not being protected.

But, one thing Don Quixote also illustrated is that throwing off that fear, while it may have you tipping at windmills you think are dragons, gives you a liberation that allows you to live happily, fully and without regret and longing.  Isn’t that what we all really want?

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.-Frank Herbert, Dune

By: Karla Fetrow

Necropolis… A shivering trip into a world without light, a world without hope, a world so destroyed, the rules of society are reversed.  Morality is viewed as the pursuit of pleasure.  Philosophy is an art freely engaged in, as long as it contributes to inertia.  While reveling in their decadence, they do so with the determination to never again repeat the structure and motivations of the past that they are sure contributed to their downfall as a civilization.  That is, until Malice comes along.

Book 1 of The Malice Cycle carries the reader into a surreal future where faith, light and hope are relinquished to forget everything except the collapse of the Old World, using it as a model of what to avoid if they did not wish to see the destruction of their own limited society, where community is declared false and nothing more than a conservative gesture to defend that which would hold us hostage.  Malice, the youngest of the Morbid daughters, a family held in high esteem, begins to question if there was something more than just the dark existence of their lives, replete in fineries, self-indulgence, sexual promiscuousness, but lacking in curiosity and inventiveness.  She is accompanied by the “Shadow”, who compels her to question the rituals that would hasten her father’s death, and to explore the edges of the void, a hostile land of poisonous insects and hallucinogenic plants, in search of a sister who has disappeared and is rarely talked about.

Malice’s journey into self-awareness is a lyrical account that strips back both the layers of personality that define her motivations for stepping away from the society that has molded her and the fabric of society itself, holding up its flaws and poking holes in its weaknesses until the society itself begins to unravel.  The author, Bruno Masse, already has a few remarkable accomplishments.  At twenty-nine, he is an author, researcher, musician, activist and publisher. He has written several novels and poetry collections, as well as five plays, four of which were enacted during the annual International Anarchist Theatre Festival of Montreal. He was the  co-founder and active part of such collectives as The End of the World Comittee, La Foret Noire, Liberterre, the Anarchist Writers Bloc and Anarchistes Anonymes, and remains an active contributing author at Subversify.

I asked Bruno about his day job in environmentalism and if it had been an influence for choosing the stark, barren background for his Malice Cycle series.  Apart from his job as coordinator for the Reseau Quebec Ecologist Group (RQGE), he has also worked also worked on urban agriculture projects and collective gardening, and was a university researcher.  He answered, “that was mostly “brain-mercenary” contract work and I don’t really boast it. I don’t mind if you use stuff from my work or make reference to it, to be honest it generally never overlaps and most people I work with have no idea of my novels or artwork on the side, and I don’t really mind. I wish it was all in sink but it’s sometimes quite contradictory, but that’s self-evident. Just to be clear, the official positions of the RQGE are not the ones I distribute on my own time, even though we’re in the same fields and agree on the basic key principles (a solidarity society, a better natural environment, etc.).

Now, my inspiration for Dystopia is a culmination of my experiences as an anarchist (and precisely, part of the anti-civ or anarcho-primitivist movement), various hypothesis about the fall of Civilisation, mainstream anthropology and a collection of theories on utopias and social change. That, and of course my interest for gothic/dark aesthetics (as manifestations of negative/critical thinking and nihilist philosophy, but something I’m also drawn to quite irrationally). My main idea is that of a utopia in practice that is one exactly because it strives consciously not to be one, which explains why they called it Dystopia. If people who claim to be perfect are the usually the worst, if you actually try to be imperfect, you have a better to chance to be more humble and not give in to totalizing thoughts and practices (which lead to totalitarianism). In a way, it’s a system that most mainstream environmentalists would hope for: a city that is 100% sustainable, supported by permaculture gardens that require little work, and most time is spent on leisure. But by mimicking a model born from the Neolithic revolution, I aim to illustrate that the “roots” with necessarily reproduce the Civilisation process (i.e. Morbid’s takeover). The reasons for that are a population so vast that immediate relationships are not constantly possible, and such emphasis on culture (Dystopians prize literature, music, debate, art, etc.) will necessarily distantiate people from one another, introducing mediations that will enable class divisions.

I delve into gothic/horror/noir themes because they carry a mood of loss and contemplation I think is inherent of the human condition and wish to undertake fully. To me, it’s more honest and liberating than the “dictature of happiness” we seem to live in, where frowning is pretty much forbidden, medicalized and shunned, and so is critical thinking.

The people of Dystopia see themselves as rebels who escaped Civilisation as it collapsed and have tried, as best as they could, to make sure the mistakes of the past would never be replicated. I wanted to do a sort of tribute to the nobility and the courage of such devotion, the kind I have seen in anarchists but also a lot of people with radical ideas and practices. In such a sunless and depressing world, they’re paying the prices for mistakes they aren’t responsible for, and that’s a clear reference to the fact that life conditions in this day and age are receding and that’s something entirely new to mankind, since the industrial revolution. But I also wanted to go beyond all that that and illustrate how difficult it can be not to reproduce the sick schemes of domination and authority.

Also, since I’m bilingual, in a province that seems to strangle itself with split cultural identities, I thought it would be interesting to imagine a people who clearly used to speak a different language and lost it completely, and make the reader feel a bit estranged from all the French dialogue, and show them how it feels at first to encounter cultural references you can’t understand, but moreso, to show how much it doesn’t matter in the end, because we’re just humans after all, who love and laugh and hurt and die like any.

The main character of Malice, besides all her human qualities which I hope are as poignant and vivid as they are to me, is basically a play on the concept of Chaos. She possesses something nobody has, some love her for it, most despise her, and a lot want to use her. She’s like a sort of exotic life form sent into an indigenous habitat, or a sort of technological leap that dwarfs everything else in the field. She’s a paradigm shift, and I want to illustrate how devious power can be, and her tragedy in a way is to echo what happens to anyone who’s opressed when they’ve had enough and finally fing a way to escape. Like the French revolution. The oppressed feel such anger and rage that it has no choice but to come out in a traumatic way, it’s an ugly, violent thing, and it’s a normal natural response to aggression. In that way, she is liberated and beautiful, because we see that the people who hurt her had the very best of intentions, but acted in really horrible ways regardless, and have to answer for that. I wanted to show that sometimes freedom is a “by any means necessary” kind of thing, but that it’s not the answer to everything, and that’s a notion Malice will learn at her own expense.

Also, there will be a sequel and a third book. It’s meant as a whole, the structure itself was done even before I started book 1. I’m currently writing book 2.

As to how much of my background I’ve used for the book, for the setting and the world itself I can say that I’ve had to delve extensively in my knowledge as a forest technician, and as a geographer, if only for the physical, environmental aspects of the Island. But I also drew from years of study into sociology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy – of which I draw mostly from nihilist thinkers like Cioran, Nietszche, Schopenhauer, but also from the Frankfurt School, primarily Adorno. For the critique of civilisation I take a lot from John Zerzan, who’s influenced me a lot (the opening quote is his) and whom I actually know. He has made reviews of all my English novels.

To conclude I’d say I draw a lot from the style of Frank Herbert in his Dune series, because to me any political discourse cut from its setting is absurd, while any storytelling devoid of incisive critical thinking is a waste of time. By trying to weave a compelling narrative and include ethical questions and layers of philosophical complexity, I try to make a read that will entrance and challenge the reader and perhaps help him or her grow in a meaningful way, even if that means feeling angry or depressed at first, because we live in fake world that’s making life agonizing and quickly threatens to take most of the planet in its fall. The logical response is revolt, and that’s what I write about. Like Karl Klaus said: it’s not so much what we create that matters, but what we destroy.”

“Do you plan, at some point”, I asked, “ to use a model of a society in your series that strikes a happy balance between the extreme of totalitarianism and dystopia, or to some viewers, what might be considered decadence?  Or do you think human nature doesn’t make that possible; that it has a tendency to veer from one extreme to another; never arriving at a middle ground for long?”

Bruno answered, “I don’t plan on using an ‘affirmative’ model that I would deem ideal. The island of Dystopia is a failed utopia, many aspects of it (little work, no technology, few social mediations, balance with nature) are true ideals to me, its flaws become apparent as the novel progresses (namely, the roots of civilization). Questions are really what I want to draw. Ultimately, I want people to think for themselves, and that is precisely how I see society getting any better – if at all. But I don’t believe the problem lies in human nature, empathy and solidarity are natural for the vast majority of us (minus those 1-2% psychopaths, who’d hunt you for sport). Culture is the problem, and not just one or the other, but culture itself, which is negation of nature, and is getting increasingly complex. The result is broken ecosystems, pandemic’s, weakened bodies, famine, mass psychological distress, to name a few, and of course, having to be in school twenty years to find a place in the system.”

The book certainly draws questions and the failed Utopia becomes a painful examination of cultural failure as the traditions that rooted themselves into this anti-civilization become the very thing that imprisons these survivors of catastrophe. “I also wonder a little about the environment you place around Dystopia,” I told Bruno.  “The natural environment outside the catacombs and cities seems to be a hostile one with limited resources, yet you symbolize a brighter world with a yellow flower.  Is my perception a result of the darkness around the story itself?  Is Dystopia an inclusive society with no connections with an outside world that might in fact, be radically different, or is it part of an overall disintegration of the cities, with a random rural society that has reverted back to basics?”

“Good question!”  Answered Bruno.  “The Collapse did leave endless spans of land desolate and lifeless, which the denizens of Dystopia call the Wastes. But I’ll leave you guessing. Those points will be addressed in the next two books.”

Bruno Masse’s “Necropolis, Book 1 of the Malice Cycle” is scheduled to be released this year to the general public.  Tangled in a twilight zone that slumbers between science fiction and fantasy, with bold, poetic strokes, it paints a haunting background and an unforgettable character in Malice.  Be among the first to collect the beginning of what is bound to be considered classical anarchistic fiction from a very memorable writer.

By: Ronald Thomas West

How the philosophy ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ makes for ludicrous bedfellows & twisted agenda:

The paranoid Jewish Zionists embrace rabid anti-Semitic Christian Zionists who fully intend the Jewish Zionists will become extinct once they’ve finished the dirty work of retaking the West Bank for the Christian Zionists necrotic vision of a road to Armageddon, meanwhile the Jewish Zionists label non-Jewish anti-Zionist as anti-Semitic when in fact most of the non-Jewish anti-Zionists are the bitter foes of the rabid anti-Semitic Christian Zionists momentarily embraced by the Jewish Zionists.

Now, in the mix of all of this, the anti-Zionist Jewish personalities are in an impossible state of being forced to play a game of ‘shut the fuck up’ or get blasted by all Zionists, Jewish and Christian, while the non-Jewish anti-Zionist is attacked by the paranoid Ashkenazi, who became paranoid and Zionist, on account of the pogroms of anti-Semitic Christian Zionists. These people bite the hand of people who’re actually doing them a favor by taking on the rabidly anti-Semitic Christian Zionists, personalities who intend as soon as the partnership of convenience is over, all those clinging to Judaism will be tossed into a lake of what will almost certainly amount to man-made nuclear fire.

Meanwhile, the Sephardic Jews who’d lived for nearly one and a half thousand years in peace and tranquility in the world of Islam (excepting that period when they’d fought on the side of the Muslims during the Crusades) have become an extinct species in the Arab countries, not in the least because of both Jewish and Christian Zionism via policy and settlement in the West Bank and the incredibly nasty treatment of the Arabs there. Israeli Zionists have enabled this social injustice and American Zionists, including countless conservative Christians, have bankrolled these policies abusing the Palestinians. All this came about because of Jewish Zionist paranoia of living in countries with a majority Christian Zionists and history of pogroms, yet are (for reasons of the social psychology phenomena of inter-generational violence) behaving towards the Arabs like the Christian Zionists had treated them, in turn setting up the present cycle of anti-Palestinian pogroms, based on behaviors Jews learned from Christians, now on a scale of nukes & nations.

It only gets more ridiculous:

The Sephardic Jews who’d relocated to Israel as a result of fallout in the Arab world from Zionist policies are absolutely 2nd class citizens- pointing to the anti-Semitic tendencies of the conservative Ashkenazi Jews, a race based oxymoron of Jewish anti-Semitism. This is obviously as clear as it is ludicrous and self destructive, when a Jewish person in Israel cannot be equal, because this Jew has the appearance, language and customs of an Arab.

I think a moral to this story could be: Any Zionism that is literal Zionism (unlike the benign Zionism of Bob Marley) is a loser. Perhaps this could be the idea behind the UN Resolution equating Zionism with Racism?

Inter-generational hate and violence is a known and understood phenomena of social psychology. Many people have not risen above this malevolent infection of the psyche that is imbued in a very literal sense of the Torah or Pentateuch: ‘the child inherits the sin of the father’. (Or the sins of a xenophobic & nationalist stepfather)

In the larger picture of nations, relating to this inter-generational violence, should it not be the responsibility of several national leaders to stand up and state to the Israelis, whether the leaders of Russia, Germany or Spain, examples given, ‘do not treat the Palestinian as our Christian has treated the Jew’.

If only because it is the responsibility of leadership to demonstrate responsible attitudes in relation to the acts of nations; And crucial, is that nation which had transgressed most egregiously in historic times should demonstrate this courage to again confront the worst of these infantile and irrational behaviors, if only to remind the USA, not only Israel, do not dare to go down this road, do not dare to become the NAZIs.

By Jane Stillwater

http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2012/01/e-cannibus-unum-has-medical-marijuana.html

I’ve just about tried everything there is to make my sore knees and right ankle feel better — physical therapy, acupuncture, SynVisc (nasty stuff), chiropractic, Advil, hydrotherapy, Tiger Balm, xi gong, steam baths, reiki, Filipino psychic surgery, hypnotherapy, Zam-Zam water, deep-tissue massage, yoga,..  You name it and I’ve tried it.  But nothing has worked — until now.

Now I’ve discovered “DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream,” which is made from shea butter, palm oil, vegetable wax and cannabis.  That’s right, you read that right.  I am currently rubbing marijuana onto my knees.

And, yes, it’s legal.  And, yes, it works.

“But where did you get this stuff?” you might ask.  “While standing on a corner in West Oakland?  After skipping across the border to Tijuana?  By following hippies around up on Telegraph?  In the evidence room at the DEA?  Where?”

I got it at my friendly local marijuana dispensary http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/.  And what a trip that was too, with all kinds of types — from arthritic old ladies and dying cancer patients to young men and women who looked like they’ve never been sick a day in their life — standing in a really long line and waiting their turn in front of a huge display counter featuring everything from manufactured doobies and sativa buds to infused chocolates and ointments like the kind that I got.

But, hey, DocGreen’s soothing therapeutic ointment worked.

Plus it also made me sort of happy — a big surprise there.  Not that I was stoned or zonked or nothing, and there was definitely no slow-motion-type incapacitation or uncontrollable munchies like I’ve heard that you get from eating dope brownies or smoking a spliff.  And there was none of that sudden Bob Marley “one-love” positive-vib stuff either.  I still have all the same worries and troubles that I used to have before — that corporatists are still destroying our country and my tooth still hurts and I’m still overdrawn at the bank — but now I’m just a little bit less on edge about all that and a little bit more able to cope.

PS:  I figured that since just a little bit of DocGreen’s healing therapeutic moisturizer helped my soreness and also my frame of mind, then perhaps I should try a bit more.  So I rubbed some of the ointment onto my sore neck as well.  Wrong thing to do.  An immediate headache resulted, and then I started worrying again all over — but this time more fiercely.  Oh rats.  I just knew it was too good to be true.  Looks like I’d better go back to trying holy water and saunas.

But then I listened to Layna Berman on KPFA and she said that many people end up getting addicted to various substances by trying to “take the edge off” their lives.  Hey, I wanna take the edge off!  But according to Berman, no, that’s not a good idea,   Apparently having worries is a good thing — because they force you to act, to try out different things that might end all those worries.  Perhaps like joining OWS in order to end the corporatists’ sleazy reign of terror in Washington?  Oh, okay.

Berman also stated that by using outside means of cheering oneself up, then our body loses its own ability to cheer itself up.

PPS:  Then I listened to a video on “Full Disclosure” that talked about how California is being taken over by Mexican drug lords — even including taking over the legal medical marijuana trade.  Yikes!

According to a recent “Full Disclosure” report, “Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers.  Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.”  http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php

Double yikes!  Now I’m in danger of becoming a member of the Sinaloa drug cartel!  Just because I’ve got bad knees.

PPPS:  If marijuana is illegal, shouldn’t they make all those other artificial feel-good substances illegal too?  Like cigarettes and booze?  Wouldn’t it be nice if you had to have a doctor’s prescription before you could set foot into a liquor store?

PPPPS:  Someone else just recommended that I just simply stick to eating mushrooms.  According to a recent TED video on the subject, mushrooms are the last best hope for this planet and we can even use them instead of fossil fuel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY  Yeah, but can mushrooms make my ankle and knees (and brain) feel any better?

PPPPS:  Then I went up to that dispensary on Telegraph Avenue at http://berkeleypatientscare.com/ and got a chocolate infusion to eat.  Forget that!  One small bite almost the size of a baby’s fingernail and I was absolutely frozen in place for the next TWELVE WHOLE HOURS.  I couldn’t even get to my computer to call for help on FaceBook!

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This article is Part One of an ongoing series regarding the advantages and disadvantages of using medical marijuana. And if anyone wants to try DocGreen’s Therapeutic Healing Cream, please let me know and I’ll give you the 411.

******

From Yoko, regarding an update on the food and radiation problem still haunting Japan:
Kayoko and I have been invited to give a presentation at Pecha Kucha next Tuesday 1/24 in San Francisco.  We will be speaking on our experiences during our trip to Japan last October, in regards to food and radiation.  Please find all the info here:
http://www.umamimart.com/2012/01/umamimart-pecha-kucha-124-sf/

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From Full Disclosure: The Dark Side of legalizing pot:  Is California headed for corruption much worse than in Chicago in the days of Al Capone and prohibition?  Watch this video assessment by Mexican Mafia and Gang Specialist Sgt. Richard Valdemar, who retired after more than three decades with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.   He describes how the Mexican Drug Cartels are controlling industrial farming of Marijuana while enslaving both the illegal alien laborers and the U. S. Farmers.  Once entrapped by the Cartels, they are unable escape with their lives.  Valdemar cites a recent example of the desperation of “medical marijuana” dealers in the U. S. who cannot turn to the police to save themselves from the Mexican Drug Cartels now taking over operations in California.  http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/107.php

by Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

Obama’s State of the Union Speech 

fallout @2012 Karla Fetrow

By Karla Fetrow

When most people think of the Cold War, they think of a time when communism was a palpable threat and Russia loomed, big and powerful, ready to step in and rule the world if America failed to protect Western freedom.  For most of America however, in the roaring nineteen seventies, Russia was little more than just another country half way across the world, dark and looming, mysterious and highly competitive.

Not so for Alaska.  The Cold War meant that you were up against an invisible fence, fortified by very visible artillery.  We always knew when tensions escalated between the East and the West, because tanks suddenly began rolling down pathways cut close to the roads, and jets swarmed, shattering the sky with their mechanical roars.  High in the mountains, you could see the large white discs of the Dew Line alert system and the occasional dome of a covered missile site, and you could never forget we were watching and being watched.

It was strange living in the shadow of a nuclear missile site.  You would think it would be comfortable, looking up at that astonishing projectile, knowing it was there to defend you, but it wasn’t.  The missiles were a reminder of how terribly fragile we are.  The one closest to my home was a part of the anti-missile defense; that is it was a missile to bring down the missiles that were firing at us.  It was so huge, ten people holding hands around the base would not be able to completely encircle it.  The newspapers made a pun that the next missile to be erected would be an anti-anti missile; that is, it would go after the missiles that were going after the missiles we had initially fired.  While it caused a few laughs, mainly it caused people to shudder.

The threat of a nuclear war was so real to us that hotels carried instructions for finding fallout shelters next to the Gideon Bibles on the dresser, the schools held routine drills and every home routinely replenished their cache of emergency water supplies and canned goods.  We had a bomb shelter; a rather makeshift one.  It was a concrete, half finished basement, with one small row of upper windows facing the mountains.  There we kept the ping pong table, the washer and dryer, several folding army cots, a broad band radio, medical supply kit, bottled water, canned goods, hand tools and a small generator.

Going into this basement was like entering a stage area.  Descending the steps you chose which dramatic role you would play, locked down in this half ethereal world of washing machines, ping pong games and basic survival.  Possible scenarios rose over and over again of the close huddling, the deathly quiet, the long hours of wait before you could resurface.  Sometimes it seemed more real, this prepared refuge against the holocaust than the ordinary life circling cheerfully upstairs.

While we were reminded every single day that we were teetering on the edge of war, we still had our own diversions from such morbid warnings.  The pipeline was being constructed and there was so much money in the air, it seemed you could just reach out and snap it up.  Everyone had jobs; good jobs; and the air was electric with flourishing businesses.

I was just out of my teens and sharing my first apartment with my sister, Mary, and our two significant others.  We were on an astronomy kick that year.  We shivered as we discussed black holes that somehow seemed more fearful than nuclear bombs.  We tried to chart constellations with star maps, usually failing.  We constructed a solar system from styrofoam balls and neon colored paints, pinning it to the living room ceiling.  Some of the planets were a bit out of proportion, but we were proud of it and fond of retelling everyone about the kid that informed us we had made a mistake – Venus wasn’t a planet, it was a star.

It was one of those very late nights when we stayed up to watch our local television station’s very own late night talk show.  It would have been boring except the cameramen were stoners with a sense of humor.  The host never even had guests, but conducted his show by sitting at a desk and answering telephone calls, while the cameras took aimless shots at his hands and feet, moved the stage props behind him, replacing them with plastic marijuana plants, and sometimes even let a streaker run across the stage.  It was amazing what you could get away with on the air at two in the morning, even more amazing the things it would occur to people to do if they’re out roaming around.

It occurred to someone to drop the bomb.  At least, that was our impression.  We felt the vibration first, a low muttering that chopped the air into little slow moving pieces.  Our solar system fell, one by one, the neon balls seeming to float.  Time moved so slow, we could track the progress of each ball visually, but so fast, no words could be uttered.  And then it hit us, a roar more thunderous than the crash of an angry ocean, followed by a bright, red-orange flash.  The concussion from the impact knocked the curtains from the windows and sent the chairs and table rattling across the kitchen floor.  Only one person said, “it’s begun…” but it was what we were all thinking.

I reached for the telephone, intent on calling my parents, four miles away, but she had gotten to the phone first.  It rang before I had a chance to start dialing.  “Is everything okay over there?”  My mother asked anxiously.

“Yes, we’re a bit shook up, but no one was hurt.”

“I just don’t know how it could have happened.  The base has been alerted, but they haven’t reported any unusual air traffic.”

I reassured her I’d call her back when I had learned more and walked to our now wide open door where neighbors were congregating.  Nobody knew anything.  The police had been called but the police lived in Anchorage and it would be twenty minutes at least before they arrived.  A few army helicopters hovered and swooped, flashing their spotlights over the clustered residential area and beyond to the wilderness swallowed in darkness.

“We should go to Tip’s bar,” suggested somebody, and everybody agreed.  If there were any expert opinions at all, they would be found at Tip’s.

There was some scattered debris between the apartments and the bar.  Nothing remarkable, just some cracked door posts, a collapsed car port, some broken outdoor furniture tilted like injured animals, but Tip’s Bar was in shambles.  The windows were smashed.  Half the bar stools lay out on the ground.  The customers seemed more confused about what had happened than we were.

“Them commie bastards.  I knew they’d come to this.  They’re blowing the fish out of the water so we can’t have any.  That’s what it is,” said one.

A few had already gone to their trucks and picked out their favorite rifles.  They had formed a posse and they were going out hunting for the culprit.  One had found religion.  “It was a miracle.  I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when the bar stools flew out of the bar, then half of them flew back in again.  It’s a sign.”

Throughout the rest of the night and all the next day, the entire community stayed on the telephone line trying to learn who dropped the bomb and why and debated as to how it had missed its assumed target, the military base just a few miles away.  It wasn’t until a couple of days later, we learned it had not been a bomb at all, but that someone had blown up a military bunker.  Within a week we had learned it wasn’t communists or an enemy agent at all, but four teenage boys who had taken on a bigger project than they had expected.

They had thought the bunker was just a shell and dynamited it, but it had been full of stored artillery.  The explosion had caused a three hundred foot crater in what had once been a rolling hill.  The boys had suffered flash burns and when they sought medical attention, it was reported. It was also reported that one of the boys had been too close and had died.

The bomb scare brought to the little community it’s first police force, but not before the citizens had organized their own patrol and was doing their own volunteer watch for trouble makers.  It also very neatly leveled out a large chunk of real estate that was carved into wealthy homes to be sold on the exclusive Powder Ridge.  Powder Ridge residents, of course, have no idea how their real estate got its name, but the locals who remember would rather leave that capricious piece of land to deal with its ghosts.

The day the East and the West decided to end their race to build nuclear arms and stack them along the borders was a day of enormous relief for Alaskan residents.  The day the missile silo was dismantled was like removing a giant shadow that had lingered too long, its dreary tread too pronounced, from in front of the sun.  We had been frightened by a bomb that wasn’t a bomb.  We had gone out to chase an enemy that wasn’t there.  An entire generation has grown up with no idea of what it means to be in the middle of a Cold War.  It’s dreary.  It’s dark.  It’s filled with distrust.  Every day, when you wake up, you feel lucky that everything is normal, that coffee is brewing in the kitchen, that trees are waving outside your door and that the bomb hasn’t dropped.

By: Grainne Rhuad

So, what did the SOPA/PIPA blackout achieve?

First of all, anything announced that has to do with internet and internet freedoms gets the attention of most people using the internet.  There are precious few people who want restrictions placed on their internet activity and those who do belong in one of two categories.

1. Government /Law enforcement agencies-because they need laws-at least superficially to go after people.  Especially people in other countries. 
2. Large Corporations and Industries like Music and Film licensing ones and Media outlets who want to make money off of people’s work.  Being able to give away your own work for free or sharing music, stories etc. with your friends really puts a dent in their pocketbook.

News of the shutdown seemed to bring retaliation from hackers who claimed credit for attacking the Justice Department’s website. Federal officials confirmed it was down for hours Thursday evening and that the disruption was being “treated as a malicious act.”

‘A loose affiliation of hackers known as “Anonymous” claimed credit for the attack. Also hacked was the site for the Motion Picture Association of America.”

P.S.-I love how the news outlets discribe and downplay Anonymous…scared maybe?

It seems to have worked however since a postponement has been called by SOPA’s author which will be discussed in a moment.

Whose Minds’ did it change?

It didn’t initially seem as if it changed anyone’s mind.  Those who were for SOPA/PIPA got up bright and fresh this morning and arrested people in New Zealand in exactly the manner SOPA lays out should be acceptable to us. 

4 people from the company Megaupload.com including the founder Kim Dotcom and 4 of his executives were arrested in New Zealand for breaking piracy laws in Virginia where one of their servers is located.  Even though they hadn’t broken any laws of New Zealand where they legally reside and at least Kim Dotcom is a dual citizen of Germany and Finland, The U.S. wanted extradition and received it.  Of the other three defendants two were German citizens and one is Dutch. 

Other people whose minds weren’t changed ranged from Musicians themselves to most of the U.S. representatives voting on the bill. 

In a bit of strangeness.  Robin Davey, an Independent Musician lately of the group Bastard Fairies, Writer and Award Winning Filmmaker. Came down on the side for SOPA.  Stating in an article he wrote for Gizmodo “People have further been led to believe that music holds no worth, and can be shared or streamed at little or no price. Piracy will remain as prevalent as ever having seen the legal alternative settle so low, and the artists, content owners, and creators suffer even further as they try to cope with ever diminishing returns.” 

See he is concerned with losing money on his creative potential, which is interesting as his band The Bastard Fairies has given away complete and partial albums for free as well as created music by inserting rap and reading around stolen beats from other artists.  In fact, complete songs produced by Robin Davey are pirated. 

But early this morning Senator Harry Reid (D- Nevada) went public with the following statement:

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”

Also, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced on Friday that he will postpone consideration of his Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) until there is wider agreement on the controversial legislation.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith said. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Just in case you didn’t know, Smith was the author of SOPA and its most vocal proponent. He had repeatedly said the bill did not need to be changed and accused the critics of “spreading lies.”

Do the Internet Outlets in fact have any power?

This is a question I was looking for in this whole Blackout.  Pretty big companies joined the blackout.  Like Google and Wikipedia.  Granted, they didn’t entirely Blackout, their services were still availably but they were pretty clearly supportive, one had to get around their front page to go to anything else.  The message was there.  People use both of these sites every day, several times a day and they will most likely continue to do so, however it didn’t initially seem as if they held much sway in this case.

People went about business as usual the day after and even the day during.  Most News outlets declined to participate and very many individuals commenting in social forums made light of the attempt to sway the government in their decision making.  A fact that at very least shows the lack of confidence the people have in those who govern them. 

Yet in light of the above statement from Sen. Reid and others today it would seem that the public outcry and new type of boycotting did have the effect intended.  Lawmakers took note and at least slowed down to take a better look at this particular set of laws. 

This is in and of itself is a sort of victory.  Yes this sort of protest works.  Particularly it seems if some big names are behind it.  Google and Wikipedia-A big thanks to you. 

Who is hurt by this thing called Piracy?

The people the lawmakers will have us believe are hurt by piracy are individuals who have created things, like art, music, literature, research.   However as we all know by now, at least here in the U.D. an “individual” can be a Corporation thanks to “Corporate Personhood”. 

Other people piracy could potentially hurt are those artists particularly musicians who are just starting out who have been known to have their material swiped off of sites such as YouTube and lately Mac’s Cloud application. 

Most for- sale download sites like ITunes, Amazon and Barnes&Noble make it clear that you are purchasing copyrighted material.  Their TOS already addresses the issue that SOPA and PIPA seek to put in place making them redundant.

It’s not like the early days of Napster where music is freely shared and nobody gets a piece of the pie except the one 13 year old whose mum bought him/her a CD for the holidays.  Although, Spotify raises some of these questions again…but there again their TOS is pretty clear.

Others who claim to suffer from piracy are those like J.K. Rowling who gets really pissed off at any fan fiction using her characters.  I frankly think this is in bad form.  If you have inspired a new generation to write with your characters as a jumping off point you should be quite proud.  Instead she has been quite litigious in her approach to dealing with anyone and everyone.   

Who is helped by it?

With 150 million registered users, about 50 million hits daily and endorsements from music superstars, Megaupload.com was among the world’s biggest file-sharing sites. According to a U.S. indictment, the site, which was shut down Thursday, earned Dotcom $42 million in 2010 alone.

Although the company is based in Hong Kong and Dotcom lives in New Zealand, some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia, and that was enough for U.S. prosecutors to act.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that the arrests set “a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”

Alleged piracy seemed to help this company quite a lot as it was reported they had 150 million registered users and about 50 million hits daily.

Along with the arrests the company’s New Zealand Bank Accounts were frozen in amounts that equaled over $10 million dollars.  Also seized where rare vehicles like a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe valued at over NZ$500,000.and various pieces of fine art.  So it seems they were making a pretty penny off of this thing called piracy.  Most of which was of Motion Pictures. 

The foreseeable trouble with this case is the films were uploaded by other registered members. The company, much like Napster did not put them up for sale nor did they upload them.  They simply offered a membership fee enabling people to share more content.  They were also supported by the very people they were supposedly pirating from.  Music industry giants like Black Eyed Peas and Jamie Foxx participated in videos supporting the service. Although after the arrests most parties denied it.

 

Besides being trance inducing…it’s pretty clear from the video they can’t deny they were a part of the commercial.

Is there a different, better-ish way?

Is there a way for us all to be happy, share content, practice writing, create fan fiction/videos/cartoons while making everyone happy and not costing artists money?

I think the answer is maybe. 

I say maybe because it will require less greed on the part of the J. K. Rowlings of the world.  A lot of artists whose books, movies, music sells on the internet were in fact against the bill and issued statements to that effect. 

Artists against SOPA including Trent Reznor, OK-Go, Neil Gaiman, and more wrote an open letter decrying the bill.  Many artists and celebrities added Stop SOPA to their twitter accts. The difference is these are people who are actively connected to their audience.  They make use of the new ways of communicating and encourage others to emulate them.  They very often give away their works for free.  This is because they have moved with the times and know the best way to get your work out to the people is to let them know about it.  If they love it they will pay.  We see this work very often at places like Bandcamp where naming your own price for music, even if it’s zero very often nets musicians more than they would get from the record companies.  People understand the work that goes into producing something and mostly they are willing to pay for it.  Name your own price works because of that and because of this trust in the artist-fan relationship nobody needs to worry about Piracy.

What have we learned in the last few days?

What I’ve taken out of this whole experience is that unexpected people care about unexpected things.  I never would have thought Robin Davey gave a shit about piracy.  I also never would have thought that the author of SOPA would listen to the world of the internet.  I am pleasantly surprised in that.  I went into this year feeling pretty good about the world in general.  Yes it’s in pretty bad shape and yes we are losing choices daily.  It’s definitely not 31 flavors out there anymore.  But we do still have the choice to stand for something.  And sometimes we are heard.  Which is really nice.  But what’s more important than being heard is standing up, because integrity is everything. 

Also pirates are not all bad, sometimes they take what is on offer and give it away to those who will improve on things and make them better.  It’s really the very wealthy and non-creative people who are most afraid of pirates, because they can’t make anything new.

By Mike

The recent disaster involving the cruise liner, ‘Costa Concorde’, off Giglio, Italy in the Mediterranean again raised the question why it is that when the Captain of a vessel gives the order ‘Abandon Ship’, it is always quickly followed by ‘Women and Children First’. It is suggested that the Captain of the Concorde ‘slipped off the deck into a lifeboat’ before all the passengers had been rescued. Before the Birkenhead protocol was in force on such occasions it was ‘Every man for himself’.

This all changed when His Majesty’s Ship Birkenhead hit a reef in South African Waters on 26th February 1852. The procedure, the ‘Birkenhead Drill’ as it quickly became known, was referred to in history as ‘the height of courageous behaviour in hopeless circumstances’. However, it was the first time ever that records show that a Captain gave the actual order, ‘Women and Children First’ and so it is remembered.

The Birkenhead was built in 1845 in Birkenhead (Liverpool) as a Navy Frigate and had steam engines that drove a pair of twenty foot paddle wheels. It also had two masts for sail when conditions were satisfactory for that mode of propulsion. She was one of the first iron-hulled ships built by the Royal Navy. However when the actual first iron ship, (Brunel’s SS Great Britain), went aground outside Dublin in November 1846, it was found to be nigh impossible to refloat her. For that reason and the fact that cannon that hit the hull could cause jagged holes that were difficult to plug, she was turned into a troopship. A further minor reason was the fact that the more efficient ‘propeller’ had been invented and made the ‘paddle’ inefficient in comparison.

In actual fact, when efforts to refloat Brunel’s Great Britain were successful in August 1847, HMS Birkenhead was used for pulling power.

In January 1852, ‘The Kaffir War’ was ongoing in South Africa and the Birkenhead left Portsmouth in the South of England carrying troops from several different regiments. It stopped at Cobh (then Queenstown) in County Cork and picked up more soldiers. Many of these were victims of the Great Famine and had joined up in order to get three meals a day.

On 23 February 1852 it arrived safely at Simonstown near Cape Town in South Africa. Most of the women and children, mainly families of officers, disembarked together with many sick soldiers. Nine cavalry horses and food for them were loaded for the next leg of their journey to Algoa Bay.

On 25th February she set sail with about 643 men, women and children aboard. The Captain had orders to make full speed to his destination. In order to do so, he decided to hug the coastline and he charted a course, which was basically three miles off shore. The sea was calm and they maintained a steady 8.5 knots.

The night was clear with the ‘leadman’ taking regular depth soundings known as ‘swinging the lead’. At 2am on the 26th February, the depth reading suddenly dropped to 12 fathoms (22 metres). Before he could give a warning or take another reading, the ship struck an uncharted rock near Danger Point, Western Cape.

Apparently the rock is visible during rough weather with the rising and dropping of the waves but in calm weather it remains hidden. The initial impact tore a large hole in the forward section of the ship. However, this was an airtight compartment and would not have been disastrous albeit that it flooded an area where over 100 soldiers were sleeping in hammocks. A second impact was deathly. It ripped open the bilges in the engine room.

The surviving officers and men were assembled on deck where Lieutenant-Colonel Seton took charge of all military personnel. He stressed the necessity to maintain good order and discipline. His commands were issued and received in total silence and there was no panic. Distress rockets were fired but no answer was seen. Men were set to the pumps and others began to try to launch the lifeboats.

That was when the disaster really began to happen. Poor maintenance and hardened paint on the winches resulted in only a few of the lifeboats being launched. Two large boats with a capacity of 150 men each were among those unable to be launched. It was then that the order was given ‘Women and Children First’. The youngest soldiers in order of age took up the remaining places. The boats were then rowed away from the ship.

It was anticipated that those remaining on board would swim to the boats but Seton foresaw the danger of doing so. He believed that the boats would be swamped in such an event. He then issued the order for the men to ‘Stand Fast’. The soldiers did not move other than to release the horses into the sea in the hope that they would swim to shore – a distance estimated at two miles. The remaining soldiers continued to hold their ranks until twenty minutes after hitting the submerged rock the ship began to break up and sink. It was then that they were washed into the sea.

The waters were shark-infested and many of the men were killed. A strange fact emerged in that those who stripped off were invariably killed by the sharks whilst those who kept on some clothing managed to swim to the shore uninjured.

Of the 643 who were believed to be on board, only 193 survived. Eight of the nine horses made it safely to land. There is little or no doubt that had discipline not been maintained on board the sinking ship as ordered by Seton, and the men had swamped the lifeboats, there would have been a total disaster with few if any survivors.

Thankfully, with the Costa Concordia there have been only a small number of passengers reported drowned of the 4,229 passengers on board with about 25 still ‘missing’. It is strange however that with modern instrumentation, satellite navigation and all the other aids to a ship of her size that what has been called ‘human error’ on the part of the captain can still occur. After all the Birkenhead went down 160 years ago……………..

By: Grainne Rhuad

“Being poor is a state of mind, not a condition.” HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson explaining to Congress why he refused to discuss housing the poor. May 21,2004.  It is deeply troubling when our secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) doesn’t want to address housing the poor.  That is, the job description of HUD and its secretary.

A term has been coined for the homeless amongst us: “The Invisible Population” The homeless are invisible only if your eyes are shut.  Even then we should be increasingly aware of those living in poverty and on the streets as America approaches third world status in its treatment of homeless people.

As long as there have been communities there have been people excluded from them.  Some by choice, others due to not following social mores. Some of these outsiders whether they were lepers, criminals or fanatics had no shelter and could be considered homeless.

“Homelessness” is defined in the United States Code, Chapter 119, Subchapter I, §11302, “General definition of homeless individual”:

The term “homeless” or “homeless individual or homeless person” includes:

1. An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and

2. An individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is —

A. A supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill)

B. An institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or

C. A public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.

Now as ever, most people would prefer to not see the homeless on their doorstep.  It makes one feel like they are living in less than desirable circumstances; which they are.  Also for a lot of people it shows a picture that is a little too close to home.

But have the types of people who are currently homeless changed in the last few years?  The answer is yes and no.  Recent statistics show the following:

• 32% were homeless persons in families.
• 68% were homeless individuals.
• 64% of homeless adults were male.
• 62% of the homeless were a minority.
• 43% had a disability.
• 40% of all these individuals were between 31 and 50 years old.

In addition Estimates of subpopulations of the homeless based on the nationwide single-night January 2008 PIT count show:

• About 15% were veterans.
• Almost 13% were recent victims of domestic violence.
• Nearly 26% were persons with severe mental illness.
• 37% were persons with chronic substance abuse issues.
• 2% were unaccompanied youth under age 18.
• 4% were persons with HIV/AIDS.

The chronically homeless are another subpopulation. The federal definition of chronically homeless used by HUD states that a chronically homeless person is either an unaccompanied homeless individual with a disabling condition who has been continuously homeless for a year or more or an unaccompanied individual with a disabling condition who has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.

To be considered chronically homeless, a person must have been on the streets or in emergency shelter (i.e., not in transitional or permanent housing).

There are other subcategories of homeless people that are important to look at.  It’s a lot easier to see the homeless in our cities and urban areas.  However rural homelessness is on the rise as well. The most distinguishing factor of rural homelessness is access to services. Unlike in urban areas, many rural homeless assistance systems lack the infrastructure to provide quick, comprehensive care to those experiencing homelessness. The reason for higher rates of rural homelessness is rural areas tend to have higher rates of poverty, only compounding the risk of becoming and staying homeless in those areas. It’s a basic formula:  Less people=less representation x less money.

Homeless By the numbers:

• There are 643,067 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States.
• Of that number, 238,110 are people in families, and
• 404,957 are individuals.
• 17 percent of the homeless population is considered “chronically homeless,” and
• 12 percent of the homeless populations are veterans.

These numbers come from point-in-time counts, which are conducted, community by community, on a single night in January every other year. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities to submit this data every other year in order to qualify for federal homeless assistance funds. Many communities conduct counts more regularly.

“The homeless don’t need our help. They just want everything for free.” -Ronald Reagan

A broad and insulting statement coming from the man who while Governor of California closed almost all of the Mental Health facilities housing the gravely mentally ill without providing a plan for where they would go.  Ronald Reagan is directly responsible for raising the amount of the gravely mentally ill homeless people on the streets in California.

Mental illness is the third largest cause for single homeless people. “According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness. In comparison, only 6% of Americans are severely mentally ill (National Institute of Mental Health, 2009). “[Source: http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/Mental_Illness.pdf]

An inability to work a regular schedule due to mental illness combined with lack of services and instability of medication makes it extremely difficult for the Mentally ill to find and keep housing. Because we have chosen to not provide institutionalized housing or communal housing for the mentally ill, we are seeing exactly what should be expected.  People on the streets.

But it is a self perpetuating cycle.  Because people have unaddressed problems they will most likely always be homeless.  Their chronically untreated conditions do not allow them to get better.  They make no money and what money they get panhandling goes straight to self medication in the form of drugs and alcohol.  This, because they will never be able to afford appropriate treatment.

Another reason people become homeless is due abuses.  Currently in the U.S. 1.6 to 1.7 million of those who are homeless have at some time in their lives been abused. [Source: http://nccp.org/]  Young people run away from dire situations only to find themselves in another dire state.  While they may have escaped the abuse of home or foster care, another 28% end up suffering abuse while homeless, especially youth, women and GLBT individuals.  Whether that abuse is rape, beatings or the way society looks at them it matters not.  Their internal self ends up further traumatized and they very often do not feel like they deserve any better.

There are the very poor people on the streets.  Very often these people have family in tow.  Once you have gotten to the place wherein you are homeless it is very hard to overcome that.  The ability to look for viable employment is almost an insurmountable task.  The lack of access to clothing, grooming and even paper and computer to use for resumes keeps people on the streets.

It is worth pointing out that there are a small percentage of people who actually want to be homeless.  There are several reasons for this, some of which have been listed above.  However there is the very small amount of people who are actually dangerous even sociopathic.  It is easier to fly under the radar and commit crimes that your sociopathic compulsions demand while homeless.

Analysis by the “Opening Doors Coalition”- a federally funded project;  shows some of the top reasons why people are homeless in America include foreclosures, poverty, less secure jobs, declining availability of public assistance, addiction disorders, and mental illnesses.

The sheltered homeless population is estimated to be 42 percent Black, 38 percent White, 20 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Native American and 2 percent Asian. These interesting statistics point to how we live our lives culturally.  Just glancing at the numbers and employing basic historic knowledge we can see that those who value family responsibility and have a long history of multi-generational living end up being at less risk for homelessness.

A major factor in homelessness in the U.S. is the lack of affordable housing. Many things contribute to this and this is not just a result of the housing market dive.  It was a factor beforehand as well.

Most of us have a picture in our mind of homeless or near-homeless people and families living in cheap motels.  People often wonder why someone would chose hotel living over say renting a house.  It’s a valid question.  Currently the cheapest of motel rooms cost around $42 a night. (Including taxes).  That equals about $1260.00 for the month which seems like enough to rent a house or apartment in most areas.  However, a lot of owners will not rent to someone who has a bankruptcy or a history of missing payments; not to mention a criminal record or conversely no credit record at all. The risk is not worth it to them, even if it helps homeless families reestablish themselves.

Also, renting a home requires deposits very often at a higher amount than the rent itself.  It can be hard enough to come up with the money to pay for your rent but for far too many people it is impossible to come up with rent and deposit money.

The housing market crash does however contribute to lack of affordable housing in a different way.  During the housing boom many people invested in rental properties hoping to make a killing off their investments.  When things took a dive, the rents went up.  Owners had to find a way to make their mortgage payments on these houses or lose them.  They also were and are unable to sell them because they are upside down in their loans.  As a result very often, rents were raised in order to meet the mortgage liability of the owners.

Add to that the fact that single family home owners are continuing to lose their homes. Recently top White House advisers questioned the need for a blanket stoppage of all home foreclosures, even as pressure grows on the Obama administration to do something about mounting evidence that banks have used inaccurate documents to evict homeowners.

There are of course many countries in which homelessness doesn’t even enter into their lexicon.  There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. The countries themselves are so poor and/or war torn that dealing with people without shelter is the least of their worries.  When there is no national stability for anyone, it’s hard to be concerned about the people without roofs over their heads.
2. Some countries care for their own.  By providing housing for extended family and including everyone in the community both socially and with work, homelessness ceases to be a problem.  This is something we and other “developed” nations have gotten away from.  It seems that as we acquire more in terms of tangible goods, the less we want to share.  You will rarely anymore see generations living together in homes in the U.S.  Here especially we want to have reminders of familial duty as well as age and handicap out of our view.  We seem over concerned with how we present ourselves to the public and sometimes having Nan tottering about is a stress inducing picture for the upwardly mobile set.
3. Many other cultures view homelessness differently.  It is not always a given that those without their own homes; either rented or owned are homeless.  It may in fact be a choice.  In the U.S.  This choice would still be counted as homelessness, not so in other places.  Also those living for extended periods of time with family or friends would not automatically be labeled homeless.

For the purpose of illustration let’s take a look at some of the home states of our staff:

In 2008, Alaska ranked tenth among the 50 states in concentration of homeless people, with 0.24 percent of the total state estimated to be homeless. Oregon was number one with 0.54 percent, and California was fourth ranked with 0.43 percent.

Homelessness in the U.S. is concentrated in urban areas. But from September 2007 to September 2008, the number of homeless nationally in suburban and rural areas rose from 23 percent of the homeless population to 32 percent.

In my home county in Northern California, we now have at least 1,772 people who are homeless. As a point of reference, that’s close to the stated population of Biggs, California- a medium farming community also in Northern California

Houston is the fourth largest city in the U.S. and possesses the third highest homeless population in the nation. Approximately 15,000 homeless individuals in Houston live in abandoned buildings, on cardboard makeshift beds, under freeways, and in shelters throughout the city.

“An underpaid worker that cannot afford housing is an industrial slave.” [P.22 American Homeless Land Model]

“On Homeless Empowerment”: “There seems to be an attitude that homeless people are homeless only because they were too stupid to keep their homes and are therefore not very competent at thinking for themselves, and that they therefore need the guidance of more intelligent, “enlightened” people to help them back onto the path to a “normal” life. To any person with an I.Q. of more than 50 who is homeless because of the worsening economic conditions in the country this attitude is, to say the least, extremely insulting. What is lacking here, or maybe only partially formed, is the concept of homeless empowerment: that we should have the power to control our own lives, to use our intelligence to find out own creative solutions to our predicament, and that we are entitled to keep our dignity in the process; that we have the same constitutional rights as every other citizen, and that the very last thing we need is to be treated like criminals or idiots while we are struggling to survive.” -Bridget Reilly

“Why keep the poor weak, then punish them for being weak, and glorify ourselves by handing them charity that they would not need if they were treated justly from the beginning?” [P.24 American Homeless Land Model]

We can work within our communities to combat homelessness and the resultant problems.  In fact this is the most effective way to address this issue.  It does little good to work with National programs as they are bigger and bulkier in their administration, thus a lot of the money gets eaten up therein.

Within your communities vote for measures that provide housing whether temporary or long-term.  For example, my city used to have a housing task force wherein case managers from several different agencies from Hospital Workers to Child Protective services met monthly to present, discuss and approve city funding for apartments.  Criteria to be met included support systems and ability to keep housing once individuals or families were placed in it.  It was a good program which provided housing for around 100 families a year.  The constituents of the city voted out of this program because they didn’t want to pay the extra taxes.  As a result the funding was lost.  This is entirely the fault of the voters.  City managers were in favor of it, agencies working with people in the area were in favor of it and rental owners as well as property management agencies were in favor of it.  Replacing this program was an increase to parks and recreation and public art.

It’s not that either of those things are bad.  However, what good are murals when people are sleeping in their cars and on sidewalks.

In London an orgainization called Centripoint has hosted a very sucessful fundraiser for a number of years now. During its annual event during which participants, called “Sleepers,” give up the comfort of their beds for one night and spend the time outside on the streets. The event allows people to experience a flavor of the daily plight of homeless young adults throughout Britain, albeit with food, security and a roof, amenities the homeless do not have. In addition to a cold, uncomfortable night, Sleepers must raise 500 pounds (a little over $800) that goes to the center.  In its inaugural event five years ago, Sleep Out raised about $65,000; last year it raised about $145,000.

There’s another area in your community in which you can be effective.  Feeding people.  The homeless amongst us obviously have no kitchen access or money.  Providing food is crucial.  Voting in favor of laws that protect food servers like ‘Food Not Bombs’ is also crucial.  Nationwide in the past year, food assistance programs have confronted numerous challenges. The increased cost of food and fuel has made it difficult for food banks to expand or even maintain their normal supply of food. Meanwhile, the economic downturn and rising unemployment have increased the demand for food assistance while decreasing the number of donations from individual donors.

Increased efficiencies among large grocery chains and food suppliers have resulted in less excess supply and thus decreased donations to food banks.  The sharp increase in the price of food means that an increase in funding is necessary just to  maintain supply at previous levels. Over the last year, the price of food increased 6.2 percent, the largest increase in nearly 20 years. The cost of key staples increased even more dramatically – for example the cost of cereals increased 12.3 percent and the cost of fruits and vegetables increased 10.3 percent.  Los Angeles, Boston and Portland reported that increases in the price of food have lead to a decrease in the quantity of food they are able to purchase. Transporting food from large suppliers to those in need also became more expensive because of a significant increase in the price of gasoline.  In Phoenix, where the cost of fuel and trucking expenses has increased by as much as 72 percent, the total amount of food distributed decreased by 13 percent even though the level of funding increased by 30%” [source:U.S. Mayors.org]

Keep in mind however there will always be those who don’t consider themselves homeless even though they technically have no established residence.  It is neither necessary nor helpful to make somebody else conform to your ideal of how a live should be led.

“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing and are not even allowed to enjoy the nothing they have in peace.” –Frederico Garcia Lorca

And let’s leave off with this: A very telling quote which illustrates why those who both have family money and connections.  It is, I think the reason that people are not willing to help their fellow human beings:

“At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that “people are poor because they are lazy.” He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to “free market competition.” To him, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was “socialism.” [Source: Poor=Lazy President Bush and the Gilded Age By Yoshi Tsurumi March 1, 2004 excerpt from article:]

Further Reading:

http://www.homeless.org.au/statistics/

http://www.shelter.org.uk/

http://eohw.horus.be/files/freshstart/European%20Journal%20of%20Homelessness/Volume%20Two/article-2.pdf

http://www.chicoshelter.org/about-homelessness/node/41\

http://www.chicoshelter.org/files/2011_FINAL_Butte_CoC_Homeless_Census__Survey_Report%20web.pdf

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning/homeless

http://www.usich.gov/usich_resources/fact_sheets/

http://www.endhomelessness.org/content/article/detail/2797

http://usmayors.org/pressreleases/documents/hungerhomelessnessreport_121208.pdf

By: Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

I’ve been reading some ridiculous perceptions that the homeless have some sort of freedom and this makes me sick to my stomach.  There actually are a group of people who romanticize homelessness.  They discuss it like it is a trip to some Floridian beach where you set up your tent and barbecue grill and beach chair; then, sit back and observe the setting sun and green flash along the skyline.I can’t tell you how sick this makes me, because it does everything to minimize the condition of homelessness. What I recall from my days of homelessness was about as oppressive and enslaving as some of the poverty conditions I’ve seen in other areas of the world.

I recall a strong sense of exhaustion from simply trying to survive; two sore arms from carting my worldly goods around in a carry-on suitcase every single place I went; and two of the worst weeks of sickness I’ve ever suffered through in my life.

Not only did I come down with the flu during my days in the winter shelter and living for two weeks on the streets; but I was so sick I passed out in one emergency shelter.  The diagnosis when I was treated at the hospital included:

• diarrhea
• syncope
• bronchitis
• a middle ear infection

…All at the same time.  And since I had no place to use the restroom or sleep during the day to get well, I laid on the lawn in front of the Glendale library, begging God to just take my life and end that misery.At night, I was forced to stand in line for two hours just to get a cot in the winter shelter so I could collapse on an army cot and freeze all night (until someone took pity on me and found extra blankets for me). After being forced out of the Glendale Adventist Hospital for not having insurance at 2 a.m. and not knowing where I was since I had been taken there by firemen; I was left to wander around alone and try to find somewhere safe to lay my head without blankets in the cold weather.  I was so disoriented that I walked around the hospital three times before I figured it out and wandered down the street for a mile to a church to pass out under it’s eaves alone.  I never would have been released in that disoriented state had I not been homeless; or had I been accompanied by someone that knew me.  And it was because someone found me that I’m probably alive today; because I’ve never been that sick in my life.

Does that sound like a Floridian vacation plan to you?

I slept on the cold hard pavement of a church for two weeks, not in a tent under the lovely stars and ocean winds.  I ate foods I couldn’t even identify after being starved for four months, just to get some nutrition and keep alive.  I had no money and was denied general relief because I had returned from El Salvador and had to be in the country for fourteen days before I qualified for that.  They called it a residency requirement, even though I had been in El Salvador on a tourist visa.  Even then, it took months for me to receive my first cash aid; because the case worker was playing power tripping games and sending me on goose chases to get four different bank statements, including statements from accounts closed ten years prior.  So I didn’t have those cocktail dollars to sit back and sip margaritas.

Nor did I have time to witness beautiful sunsets, since I had to be in line to enter shelters for two hours before 6:00 p.m. in order to get a cot.  And once I checked in, there was no leaving, even if I HAD the energy to cart my luggage to one more place that day…which I didn’t.  You see, taking your possessions through every type of metal detector and search to qualify for programs to help you takes a great deal out of you.  And toting a 50 pound bag behind you everywhere is not fun either.  And at 6:00 a.m. I was forced back into the cold to sit in the darkness until dawn broke, because the winter shelter closed at that hour.  I sat in the cold until 9:00 a.m. when the library opened and went in there to warm up before the sun came out and I could lie on the lawn as if I was reading a book.

Those were some of the hardest days of my life, because simply trying to exist without a home when you are ill takes vast energy reserves that you really don’t have when you are homeless.  The exhaustion of it all is still a nightmare for me.

So, who ever romanticizes being homeless — oppressed and persecuted by shallow shelter workers each day or case workers with major inferiority complexes to exist, is sick in my mind.  Even more sick than I was when I was homeless.

Declasse or Privileged Freedoms? You Tell Me!

• Deadbeat dads
• People who sponge off government aid
• Young people who prefer not to work
• Alcoholics
• Drug addicts
• Criminals and con artists

All of the people who make it tough for those who genuinely find a time in life where they are down on their luck and need help.Recently, I read a young man’s statements in a homeless forum where he was bragging that he was about to abandon his wife and two kids.  He was choosing to take up some “adventure” of homelessness, and in his warped mind he thought he would be living some life of survival and freedom.  He had the typical profile of selfish young men who abandon their kids: living with his wife’s parents; she was supporting him while he sat around all day conjuring up some Walter Mitty dream of a violent revolution against the U.S.  In short, he blamed the people of the U.S. for his poor decision making and life’s losses and now wanted to abandon his offspring and prove what a real loser he was.Unfortunately, there ARE people like this in homeless shelters.  They are the men who call all women “bitches and ho’s” to empower themselves; and who buck up at the first opportunity they can to prove how tough they are until a man takes up their challenge.  Then, they back off and apologize and become suddenly quiet until they can confront a woman.  They are abusive.  They are the lowest form of scum on this earth.  They are the scrubs that nurse off the social tit of society.

Then, there are the young people who drop out of high school around their junior year, partying their lives away and realizing in their twenties that their personal resume represents them on more on the level of a mentally challenged person than a potential employee.

Many of them have had a litter of kids by the time they’ve reached twenty one; and later had them taken away for abusing them.  They have five “baby-daddies” and are pregnant again.  They are “baby-daddies” who are impregnating another bimbo.  They spend all day in movie houses instead of employment centers; sometimes carting their offspring along to pass time.  They spend all their food stamps at hamburger stands or taco huts, instead of planning their meals to feed the kids healthy foods.  They may attend parenting classes, but they are so focused on themselves that they interrupt the sessions with a flurry of cellular calls instead of listening and learning how to raise their offspring.

In addition, there are the under thirty and thirty-ish adults who have spent their entire adult life smoking pot and other drugs, seeking drugs, selling stolen cell phones to fund it and hanging with others of like minds.  They are chronically homeless because their families have tossed them out long ago for their selfish and disrespectful behavior; and they’ve opted to live up to the loser label.  They will tell you they are “spare changing” and you see them on the streets in that pride-less state, begging for change instead of begging for a job.  They know every trick to get every free meal and every government benefit that exists.

Many of them are also the career criminals and con artists that pay twenty-five cents on the bus, explaining they have no more to pay when they have twenty bucks in their pockets.  They will talk fast to con you out of money.  They are the people who will connect themselves to the opposite gender to suck their financial well dry.  The women will offer oral sex for a pack of cigarettes and consider themselves marital material.  And many degenerate into the drunks and druggies that become chronically homeless.

So there!  I’ve called them what they are.

But the reason I did this is because they ARE NOT the majority of homeless people today. They ARE the most visible though. 

The shelters I stayed in had an assortment of life’s losers…there is no doubt.  I slept beside a crackhead one night that spent all night stroking himself.  I slept beside hardened gang bangers.  I slept beside women so tough from abuse that you didn’t even look their way; or they might have knocked you out.  All kinds of people who screwed up their lives and had a chip on their shoulder to prove it!

But I also slept next to many middle aged men and women who had once been middle-class people like your neighbors.  Ex-home owners.  Past secretaries, cement pourers, construction workers, hospital workers, assembly workers, accountants…you name it.  And they were trying as hard as they could to recover their lives.  They were not the ones that received the opportunities to do so, though.  They were overlooked and left to fend for their selves.  Maybe homeless shelters have the attitude that only the toughest survive.  I know society does.  And I know that to overcome homelessness, you have to adopt this attitude for yourself.

I hope reading this will bring reality to the condition of homelessness.  What you think exists in these shelters DOES exist.  And these people are shameless.

But there are so many people who may have been your neighbors in shelters today in the U.S. that we should be questioning when we decided to accept this spiral in lifestyles for middle class people.  And it is one of the reasons to support the OCCUPY movements across the U.S. and throughout the world.  The average Joe is now homeless, not out of failing in life, but because the wealthy have capitalized on controlling the masses by keeping them in the hardest conditions to survive.

Body Counts and Federal Grants

Why do you have to sign in each time you register for help when you are homeless?  The answer isn’t as simple as it seems.  The simple answer is that it verifies that different people are being helped through homeless services so the facility can qualify for federal and local city grant monies.But is that accurate?  Not if you consider the services offered and who they go to and who they don’t.

Let’s take your average Joe who becomes homeless after years of unemployment who doesn’t have a substance abuse problem as an example.  And let’s compare that to a person who has suffered years of substance abuse issues.

We’ll name the average unemployed guy, Joe; and call the woman with ten years of substance abuse issues, Kate.

Joe signs into a transitional shelter reading the informational sheet that if he uses any substance during his stay it will be grounds for removal.  So does Kate.

Joe has a history of responsible tenancy until he was evicted recently for non payment of rent.  Kate has been kicked out of several apartments for creating a disturbance due to her alcoholism.

Joe is expected to save his money towards a down payment on an apartment and follow the rules of the shelter; so that he can get his life back on track.  Kate comes into the shelter time and time again, so drunk she can barely function; sometimes, she is even brought to the shelter by the local sheriff.  She spends every penny she makes and saves nothing towards the deposit or rent on an apartment.  She is forgiven for breaking the rules because she is a special project of one of the Directors who is trying to gain additional grant monies for placing chronically homeless people in shelter.

Joe spends 60 days in the transitional shelter busting his butt and trying to find work to get himself off of general relief.  Kate busts her butt seeking another bottle to dull her feelings of inadequacy in life.  After 60 days living as a model client in the program of the shelter, Joe is told he has to move to another transitional shelter because his time is up and he hasn’t found a job or apartment.  After 60 days and a long history of breaking every rule in the shelter, Kate’s time is extended and she is told she is about to get a voucher for HUD housing that Joe is not offered.  Joe is caught with alcohol on his breath and is thrown out of the shelter.  Kate is allowed to continue showing up obviously drunk and is allowed to remain.

How does this happen, you ask?

Because placing Kate is a special project.  Her case will keep the body count that the shelter is helping much higher than placing Joe.  Kate will be placed in a Section 8 HUD Housing apartment and most likely fail to maintain it, much as she has done throughout her history of substance abuse; because she is not treated for the condition that causes her problems.  Joe will most likely succeed in maintaining his residency and the apartment will remain occupied and he will have an opportunity to get back on his feet and stop one more person from being homeless.  Kate’s tenancy will end much as it has in the past; and the apartment will open up again for another special project placement.  Kate’s situation offers a body count for placement and opens the apartment up for another body count for placement when she fails.  After all, it’s not the shelter’s fault that she has substance abuse issues and they can say they tried to help her, right?  Joe’s case only offers one body count for placement; because he isn’t a problematic person..

And such is the way shelters handle these “special projects” where they really don’t help the person accomplish the task of gaining a stable life condition.  But it does provide more funding for the shelter who claims they are helping a number of homeless people.  In shelters, those signatures and body counts are everything.  They are used for advertising on web sites…citing hard placement cases that the shelter has overcome; as applications for special grant funding; and for an array of reasons.  Joe’s case is simply one homeless person that most likely will recover his life.  It isn’t a sexy marketing tool for shelters.  It doesn’t qualify for higher funding for having many complexities.

Now the question is…why aren’t grant funding investigators looking into how many people succeed in remaining housed AFTER they are placed and figuring those numbers into success metrics?

And there you have the profit and loss of housing homeless people and why many shelters seem to operate in a biased fashion when dealing with various homeless people.  Why doesn’t the general public know this?  Guess!

For more, check out Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda’s blog at http://lawsonzepeda.blogspot.com/