I have to tell ya, the Olympics this year are just making me sad. The 1984 Olympics are the first that I remember. I was big into track and field back then, my little 9 year old self. The big news in the running world was whether or not Zola Budd could run for England (since South Africa was excluded from participation due to their political practice of apartheid, which is just a fancy word for extreme racial oppression of an indigenous minority by the white, landed class). Since Budd could bring home a medal, England had her on the team. Of course I was a huge Mary Decker fan, and was just crushed/confused when she tripped herself up on that little bare-footed Zola Budd.

I also remember the big hullabaloo about Russia not being there. My parents described it somehow as the USSR retaliating against us for dissing their 1980 games, because our two governments didn’t agree. It all made the whole thing seem somehow less grand, since not everyone showed up for the party. (Ironic, isn’t it, that 65 nations boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics in protest of the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan.)

So politics dominated the first Olympics of my life (too young to remember) and the second. But then, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens….things pretty much went off without hitch, till now.

What is making me sad about the Beijing Olympics is the escalation of oppression being carried out by China in an attempt to keep order, to gain all the honor of the Olympics without addressing the dishonor of human rights violations. So they say, “the Olympics is not political, just let us honor the Olympics and the athletes”. They try to dictate the terms of their presence on the world stage. All that counts in their eyes are the number of western venues they have built, the cleanliness of their purged streets, the false calm in their public squares, the sanitized reality that streams through the Great Firewall, the fact that China has arrived on the world stage. China is the world’s biggest control freak.

The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
- Aldous Huxley

To me, when you take the world stage, the spotlight shines equally on all your flaws as it does on all your successes. The figure skater who misses their triple sokow but sticks the ending still fucked up. It’s the sum of the parts, and you can’t ignore the debits as you calculate your balance. You can’t make everyone take all the pictures from the pretty side.

The things that do not count, in Beijing math: the Chinese government’s support of a genocidal regime in Sudan, the extreme repression of Tibetan Buddhists, the internal displacement of thousands for the sake of a corporate-sponsored Olympic “village”, the toxic air quality attributable to unchecked industry. I am sure the list goes on.

In the 7 year run up to the Olympics, much has been made of China’s role in Darfur, of its oppression of Tibet. Does China ever say, “we are concerned about the Sudanese government’s role in Darfur.” No. It says, “we don’t have to address the issue, because we are only here to talk about the Olympics.” Does it address human rights in Tibet? No, it calls the Dali Lama by names and uses violent military crackdowns on Buddhist protests. It is a man who hits his wife and answers to the authorities that he rules his household. By the logic of the official international community, we accept his answer, he may hit his wife.

I can’t help but wonder, “what the f*ck was the IOC thinking in awarding the Olypmics to China?” No doubt they wanted to believe that China would change in leaps and bounds by 8-8-08. They would improve on human rights. It would practice freedom of the press. The air would be healthy.

But now, as China demonstrates that all it cares about is the glory and a propaganda version of a sanitized reality, the IOC stands mute, afraid to offend its gracious host. By its silence, the IOC says that China fulfills the following ideals:

• Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.
• The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man,
  with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.
• The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising
  sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual
  understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The organisation, administration
  and management of sport must be controlled by independent sports organisations.
• Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion,
  politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.
• Belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and
  recognition by the IOC.

I guess I will never understand how jailing of journalists and activits can be consistent with ethics.

So what is the most radical official thing happening in the run up to Bejing? For goodness sakes, it’s George Bush’s rebuke of China’s human rights violations and his attendance at a church. (China, for its part, told W to butt out.) W is the most official murmur of a protest that the world can muster? Oh paint me in shades of doom and call it January 20th!

In unofficial land:

Mia Farrow is hosting an alternate Darfur Olympics, to bring attention to the crisis in Darfur:

1.    Watch the Alternative Opening Ceremony
August 8 at 8:08 am EST in the US / August 8 at 8:08 pm in Beijing

REM, Talib Kweli, Bette Midler and others have donated songs to our “Alternative Opening Ceremony.”

2.    Watch the Darfur Olympics with Mia Farrow
August 9 to 16, 2008 – new content everyday at noon EST in the US

Mia Farrow is webcasting a daily report from a Darfurian refugee camp. There will also be information about the Darfur crisis – and opportunities to take a daily action.

And Student’s for a Free Tibet are making their presence known:

And the Olympics? This year, they’re just making me sad.

dama del día de los muertos, Panasonic LUMIX (textured with these and this)

I love how this lady of the Day of the Dead turned out.

Recipe:

1. shoot coveted folk art object in low-light at local,orange-walled mexican joint.
2. Fret over blurry images obtained with point & shoot tucked into purse, yet refuse to submit to the flash.
3. Back home, crop photo as desired.
4. Find textures on flickr, apply as overlays.
5. Delight in the effect.
6. Flickr immediately.

~~~

I read this over at Dancing Mermaid this evening, and I have to tell ya, it really resonated. I loved the part about “there’s the me I should be in my head…and there’s the me now…the whole me, that is who i want to be.” I think I am going to be walking around for a few days turning this over in my head, making it a smooth rock I can feel in my hands.

~~~

Today I am feeling…HAPPY and CONTENTED. Like genuinely so. It is a lovely little glow. I think to myself, “how am I feeling?” and a little wave of joy passes over me. And while I could mentally wander about the tangled weeds of why this is not a more frequent state of being for me, I think instead I shall just bask in it, maybe count my blessings and let the little endorphins pulse through me.

~~~

Last night Ken and I were taking a shower. He was shampooing his head, but for some reason, he blew big, soapy bubbles out his mouth. It made him look like he was a soap dispenser and I laughed harder than I have in weeks.

~~~

The dog, my sweet dog, is such a joy. Yeah work, but I have found the routine to be grounding. We’ve had her four months now. She adores me and we’ve got our little habits and silly games like Indy 500 spazz-out at the park and rapid recall. Next up: agility training!

~~~

Perhaps one reason for the glee is that we are about a month away from moving into our little Casa Amarillo. One month! Oh it will feel so good to stretch out in our new space, with its lovely light and textures and colors, with so many trees blessing our views. Ken has been working so hard and is so proud of the quality of his work; I think he is glowing too.

~~~

And I am so love-lovin’ this song especially so today…

All At Once, Jack Johnson (acoustic and live)

xoxoxoxo

Crow at Yosemite, Canon Digital Rebel XTi, June 2008

~~

“I hab a cold.” I think I’ve had this same cold before, a tickly throat, achy lungs like I’m breathing through a clogged air filter, nose goes drip-drip-drip, just bleh. I’m now on Day 3, and feeling better, but not quite 100%. Of course, now Ken has it too, so we’re just a pile of fun and cloud of germs.

~~

Le Tour de France is over. I have been walking around the house saying Champs-Élysées with a pretentious French accent, “shahm-zey-lee-zay, shahm-zey-lee-zay!” In Le Tour, there is a staff that includes the people who make the lunches, and they are called soigneurs (swan-yeirs), rather than lunch ladies. And the lunch bags? They’re mussets (mu-zets). Oh the French.

~~

We harvested the first two tomatoes off the ‘maters up at Lakeview. Yumz. Our first attempt at planting a kitchen garden became deer food. Yep, 40 bucks down the gullets of 4 bucks, leaving just stumps calling out meekly for the protection of chicken wire - “save me! I am not Cervidae hors d’œuvres!” Take-2 and we bought a couple of big gallon sized maters, since we were a couple of weeks down. These two we harvested are actually tomatoes number 3 and 4 to be ripe, but seems that the Einstein-haired, plaster faced, caucasian, drywall guy got to those about a day before I did. Bandit! Well, given that we inspected the plaster with spotlights at night, just to make sure trowel marks and skips were sanded away to reveal only the smoothest of finished walls, I guess that partial payment in tomatoes is nothing to fret over. Anywho, the two we plucked today were mmm-mmm good, sweet and juicy just like a homegrown tomato is supposed to be.

~~

I so love my new haircut. (LOVE IT!)
I hadn’t gotten my hair cut
for - get this - 5 years.

I’d had like three dreams
where I took big scissors to my own hair,
cropped it into various versions of short and shorter,
then walked about town with it bouncing and feeling free.
So it feels like that.

Raquel from Guadalajara has got mad skillz I tell ya.

(And, if you’re curious about that camera strap, check out the etsy store of this blogger. Molto fabuloso.)

~~

shahm-zey-lee-zay, shahm-zey-lee-zay!

P.S. The crow pic has nothing to do with anything, other than it was the best photo I was able to texturize today.

Well I already knew this, given my engineering degree and general academic superiority over most of my male classmates throughout college, but a study has shown that girls can do just as well in math as boys, and they’ve got the math to prove it. Der. Well, I guess this means that at least my aptitude for linear differential equations is not attributable to me being a freak of nature.

Researchers had detailed personal info on the test takers. Researchers checked out math tests in different grades. They took the average. No difference. Some critics have said that the difference only shows up among the highest levels of math skills. So the team checked out the most gifted children. Again, no difference. From any angle, girls measured up to boys. Still, there’s a lack of women in the highest levels of professional math, engineering and physics.

We cruised up to Berkeley last night to see the Stone Temple Pilots show at the Greek Theater. First, ya gotta love the Greek Theater, at the same time you hate it. Show was sold out, which means that STP was rakin’ in the dough, and the place was packed.

The hard core rockers and rockerettes rocked it down by the stage, the less hard core (yours truly) staked out spots on the uber-steep lawn. The lawn is so steep that you slide down a few inches every half hour. As luck would have it, we randomly ran into both sets of peeps we knew were going to the show. Pretty random to run into the four people you know among like, what 8000, within a few short hours.

As for the show, the band rocked and seriously so. I was pretty afeared that Scott Weiland be would strung out and useless, like he was on the first show of the tour, but the methadone must be working or else his bandmates scared him straight-ish, because, although I am sure that he was a bit sauced, he rocked it. They sang all the best singles (Interstate Love Song, Plush, etc.), and some more besides that. All-in-all, pretty kick ass night.

got a lovely haircut, all bouncy and flouncy and full of fun, yippee
off to see STP live at the Berkeley Greek, rock on, woohoo
cabinets go in tomorrow, yay
TGIF

“Neoconservatism in foreign policy is best described as unilateral bellicosity cloaked in the utopian rhetoric of freedom and democracy.”
~ author Joe Klein, in an article titled McCain’s Foreign Policy Frustration

meme courtesy of zena moon…

What time did you get up this morning?
7:30, spent an hour or so reading a water infrastructure upgrade Construction Management Plan. Thrilling, eh?

Diamonds or pearls?
My mom gave me some pearls that look pretty classy with a business suit. Definitely no diamonds for me.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Cinema? Who calls it the Cinema? I last watched the new Indiana Jones. Action flicks kinda bore me, since I’m more of a plot and good costumes kinda gal.

What is your favorite TV show?
Right now, the Tour de France.

What do you usually have for breakfast?
Weekdays: a mocha and a bagel with cream cheese
Weekends: eggs/taters/morningstar veggie sausage/toast with jam. or bagels with cream cheese, shredded carrots, and chopped olives. yum.

What is your middle name?
Leann

What food do you dislike?
Watermelon, processed meats, fennel seeds

What kind of car do you drive?
2005 Scion Xa, silver. (it’s the hatchback scion, not the milk truck)

Favorite sandwich?
BLT with homegrown tomatoes, PB&J, turkey/avocado. all on wheat of course.

What characteristic(s) do you despise?
lying, cheating, meanness

Favorite item of clothing?
jeans, sensible shoes

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
this is a very long list. If I had to pick a place to go tomorrow…more Italia. Bali

Are you an organized person?
could be more so, but pretty much yes

Where would you like to retire to?
this seems like a very long ways away…pretty much my thinking about retirement at this point is limited to my 401k contribution. I think I will retire to our home in Redwood City, and we will travel to the far away places.

What was your most recent memorable birthday?
I guess the one I had most recently? I don’t like having people make a big dealio out of my bday, would rather hang low.

What are you going to do when you finish this?
beddy bye

When is your next birthday?
the same day it’s on every year! Feb 17th, Aquarius.

Morning person or night person?
night owl

What is your shoe size?
7.5 or 8

Pets?
a friggin’ zoo here: 3 kits and 1 pup

Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us?
eerrrr, I get to pick out my granite next week! And I learned how to do overlays in photoshop.

What did you want to be when you were little?
A teacher, because I loved my teachers.

How are you today?
feelin’ pretty damn good actually. I feel like I’m in a good place. And, I made the bestest roast veggie & chicken enchiladas this side of Sonora.

What is your favorite flower?
ohhhh, too many to pick from. Wild irises were my first love. Roses that smell as good as they look. Lilies are new favorite.

What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
August 1st. I find out if I passed my damn engineering test

What are you listening to?
I’m back in a Jack Johnson phase again

Do you wish on stars?
oh yes of course

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Cerulean blue

How is the weather right now?
Well, now it is night. But the days have been sunny, highish-80s+

Last person you spoke to on the phone?
Erin. And before that my sis.

Favorite soft drink?
coca cola…I know, I gotta get off that crack

Favorite restaurant?
Milagros, it’s a Mexican place with a lovely outdoor patio - I love the atmosphere, all Day of the Dead, colorful and vibrant. And the guacamole is yummy.
Also love Bonsai sushi, but I’ve cut back on my endangered fish consumption so it’s been awhile since we went there.

Hair color?
’tis brown but dark auburn in certain light. and little strands of gray.

What was your favorite toy as a child?
My Speak-n-Spell.

Summer or winter?
the days between the seasons

Chocolate or vanilla?
chocolate!

Coffee or tea?
mochas and chai

When was the last time you cried?
at Mary Ellen’s funeral, and on the way home from there too

What is under your bed?
coupe of pairs of shoes, a book or two, dust

What did you do last night?
went to a birthday dinner. peeps was getting hammered and loud, and I was happy to be sober and we bailed early.

What are you afraid of?
being without my sis and mom

Salty or sweet?
salty more so, but nothing against sweet

How many keys on your key ring?
5 or 6

How many years at your current job?
approaching 10 years in my profession, 6 years at my current company

Favorite day of the week?
Saturday

Do you make friends easily?
errr, used to, but not as much these days, seems harder to meet people after a certain age. I definitely need to do a better job of keeping in touch with my friends.

There’s a spot a couple exits up the freeway where we like to take the dog to run free. I’m sure that there’s a leash law that we’re in violation of, but we call her close when runners come toward us, have her sit and wait while they come from behind, put her back on the leash when we approach a dog on a leash, etc. so hopefully we’re not botherin’ no one.

Sadie Thinks About Jumping on the Salt, Canon Digital Rebel XTi, July 2008

Mostly we let her sprint up and down the rolling hills. There are a mazillion fat squirrels standing sentinel like meercats, chirping their warnings: “another f’n dog is here to storm our nests!” Sadie charges toward them, no stealth at all, a vain attempt, a good excuse to sprint. She goes flying through the air like a ballerina, all four feet in the air in a graceful leap for no excuse at all, landing at full speed ahead.

The Marsh Road trails are are built upon an old, closed landfill. The rolling hills are dotted with eucalyptus and oaks. The edges of the trails are bordered by old salt ponds, sometimes tidally full, bright with strange reds and oranges, glassy still or rippled by the wind. Today the tide was out, the margins of the ponds were thick with white salts, and the salty water was a deep red. I like the reflection in the photo above, a reflection of some wooden relic from the salt harvesting days.

Marsh Road Reflection, Canon Digital Rebel XTi, July 2008

Textures from: this lovely flickr set