today is July 5, 2014. yesterday was american independence day. hawaiian independence day is nov. 28. i live in kailua on oahu. every third house on the block and the blocks around the street where i live flies an american flag. i suspect it's because people need a material reminder that they are americans, hence they fly the flag. or maybe they feel like hawaii is not really america, so displaying the flag is to remind us hawaiians that america owns us. or maybe they're just feeling patriotic and want everyone to know how proud they are to be americans IN america. i hate that! hmmm...these are the folks who don't know the history of america and may not want to know. they live according to the dream of what america should be/should have been. i think i've seen maybe 5 hawaiian flags flying in the area called coconut grove. that makes me happy, except when a house has two flags flying and one of them is the hawaiian flag flying underneath the american flag. i suppose that some folks feel we need to be reminded of our subordination to the americans in our own homeland. i think kekuni would have something to say about that, lol. i'll ask him next time i see him. yesterday afternoon, because the house i live in is so close to the marine base, we got to see airplanes doing loops in the sky over the base and watch the fireworks without having to go to the beach. the kids were happy about that. i couldn't help but think back to when i was growing up in kapahulu and how my grandpa and uncles, who were so fond of fireworks, spent tons of money buying and exploding the biggest bombs they could find. i swear they spent almost their whole pay checks on bombs and fireworks that you couldn't find today unless you bought them in china. as a kid, i loved it. didn't get my hands blown up, of course, but some close calls. when i grew older and realized the amount of pollution caused by fireworks that polluted the air and firecracker papers that ended up in the ala wai canal, i began to rethink what it meant to hang on to cultural (local culture, i mean) practices that were harmful to the environment. even though my grandma (and everybody else's grandma on the street) made us sweep up the mess we made the next morning, we didn't mind. we made the mess, so we had to clean it. i stopped wanting to pop firecrackers and watching fireworks displays. none of that stuff was worth it because the harm done far outweighed the momentary pleasures of watching exploding lights. things changed for me when i became aware, because i knew we really couldn't clean it. the harm, as i said early, really did outweigh the small thrills we got as kids. when i started this blog, years ago, i started it as a rant. i wasn't sure what i was ranting about. but the years have made me wiser and i notice more and more the relationship between my experiences of life and the future i envision for the hawaiian nation. hence the change in title from 'rants' to 'on the road to (national) recovery'. we really are on the road to recover, and it's that that i want to write about. how do i know we're on the road to recovering our nation, our country, our sense of who we are as a people? well, i got a chance to sit in on some of those DOI (dept. of interior) meetings that were held throughout oahu since june 23. i attended the meeting in heeia. i watched some of the livestreaming of meetings held elsewhere. and what struck me about the testimonies that were submitted was how knowledgeable people seemed to be about our history. yes, there was ranting, raving, crying, yelling, etc. i'm used to that every big meeting should build in time for those kinds of responses. but in addition, there were some wonderful, knowledgeable testimonies from folks who had done their homework and who questioned why the hell the DOI, as opposed to the US state dept. was here in hawaii. well, we all know why. kamanaopono crabbe wrote a letter (and mahalo to his coaches, whoever they are) to john kerry asking about hawaii's status relative to the u.s. what a wonderful, gutsy thing to do. no one really expected an answer. why would the u.s. answer, anyway? but in some cases, no answer IS an answer. so the US's answer was the DOI in hawaii holding these hearings about whether or not they should chance the rules governing their operating procedures so that hawai could then be recognized as a tribe. of course! this gave hawaiians (and others) on all islands a chance to share their knowledge about hawaii's history with the u.s. and why 'tribe' was nowhere on the horizon of most hawaiians (by nationality, as well as blood), except for those who already considered themselves both american AND tribes, and who already got their piece of the american pie in the form of homesteads. loyal and true americans, for the most part, and not many of those want to upset the status quo, since they already got theirs. so, recovering our nation is also about recovering our history. and many of those who testified at the hearings talked of a recovered history. good on them. what kind of response could those DOI folks have in response to learning a history they didn't know about? do they care? probably not. they came to get us in line so that when the tribal status comes, we'll be all happy about it and not surprised! it became clear, listening to testimonies, that most people reject the idea that the turning point in our history and the potential for our independent nation relies on our being placed back on the list of non-self-governing territories through the process established by the UN following WWII. we can go back to that OTHER fork in the road in 1893 and recovery that history and the illegal taking of our nation, our country, by a bunch of traitorous shitheads, who happened to be haole, and who used the US military might to back their play. how can we forgive that? we can't. they caused harm to our queen and to our country and, at some point, we ought to even the playing field in such a way that it is both just and pono. balanace--we seek balance and rightness. as uncle tommy maunupau would have said, "he pono no."

I need taro-py

i'm departing from my ongoing road tale for this post. this one really is a rant! last night there was a meeting where michael moore's video 'capitalism, a love story' was shown, with discussion to follow, on what i thought was meant to be an exercise in building the best-case scenario for a new nation. hawaii (the nation, not the state) has the opportunity to actually create something out-of-the-box and truly life-affirming and aina/kai/wai-friendly. i made the mistake of thinking that people want to go there. and in a sense, they do, but not right now. maybe later, when some of the pressures are off, or as soon as this other thing is done, or as soon as obama is able to do something useful and not corporate-driven, or as soon as... well, you get the picture. this was the hardest thing i've ever had to do, primarily i think because i made some assumptions up front (silly me) that everyone was fed up. but even though some will admit systems failure on the part of governments and corporations in terms of the rest of us, the truth is that the system hasn't failed for many others, esp. those in control of resources. so what i had hoped would have approximated poka's idea of discussion within the 'dream state', all i heard was how to fix the abysmal mess we're all in, rather than how to create something that might work better. everybody's got their two feet in two worlds. i admit i'm there, too. i have a job that i need to keep myself in a house and food on the table. the job isn't too bad. i get to do what i want, mostly. and some people are impacted positively by what i do. but the university, like all school systems inside the 'system', is failing to meet the needs of the future, of a world that hasn't yet owned up to how ongoing use of diminishing resources robs young people not even born yet of things they need to survive (read: clean air, water, healthy food, shelter, basic stuff). the university system helps us to be what the system needs us to be (read: just another brick in the wall).

back to the meeting: the film was good, interesting, and the wrong one to launch a discussion about 'what next'. might have been better to show something that impressed on people why fixing the system wouldn't work, why it would be impossible to fix a system that is not necessarily perceived as broken. because truth is, it actually does work very well. and that's why no one is excited about planning for survival 'after' system failure. it won't fail, even as the banks go bust and the unemployment rate is up to 50% and houses are empty while people live on the streets or in parks. the system is doing what it was designed to do. no systems failure unless you're on the receiving end and have nowhere to go. i feel like a crazy person thinking about all this and wondering why no one else thinks it's important enough to address now.

one other thing i learned from last night's meeting was that people inevitably go where it's comfortable to launch resistance. no one seems able to do two things at once--resist and plan. resistance always seems to take precedence, and the planning part goes down the tube. and it makes people feel like they're doing something, so they feel better. it was depressing for me to talk about the need to get the philosophical stuff down first, and build that thing we want (whatever it's called) on top of it, knowing that everybody was giving me looks like 'what?'. how come no one notices that the needs of the individual is something that underpins societies that are selfish? societies that steal, make war, cause harm to its own members? societies built on self-interest and short-sightedness? what about the needs of the group? what about respect and caring, sharing and responsibility? what about aloha and aloha aina? if we laid that down as foundation, and built on top of it, what would we get? certainly nothing like what we have now! so the rant is because we never got there. we never had the discussion. and we may never have the dicussion, especially if activist types, which most of us were, don't want to go there. there is a certain amount of comfort and status in being at the top of the activist movement inside the system that currently exists, the one i think is in system failure. we don't know how to step outside and take a good, hard look at who we are and what we are doing.

i think i should retire. this is turning out to be far more difficult than i had imagined. and it's lonely, too. and i'm too old.

Writing from memory, now

couldn't write while we were on the road, but i get to catch up now that i'm home and all the photos have been uploaded to shutterfly. here's link below to pics from our arrival in phoenix until we took off for globe: http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/album.sfly?fid=e141a399683e2375&startIndex=0&sid=0QbtmTRu2bMmMq

we did the swapmart/flea-market trips, of course! and i ended up buying fried bread (which was ono), incense, and a couple of other small things. then we were off to globe, which was a long way off for me, but not too far for others who grew up in an area where 'far' meant really far. we passed lovely mountains, and all the tall stones looked like people to me, like they were sentinels guarding their sacred land from invaders (a bit too late, unfortunately).

also, i happened to look out the window of the hotel we stayed at in phoenix (aloft) and noticed their mass transit system. it was fabulous looking and very quiet. wish hawaii were as progressive and artsy as phoenix. even their highway walls have south-west type designs built into them; not ugly and cement-looking.

there's something about sitting in the back seat of a comfortable car while traveling 150 miles on smooth road that makes people sleepy. i include myself in that 'people' group. i kept dozing on and off, and finally woke up when we got to the first stop on the road with the turkey jerky sign. while maria and evern bought stuff, i went into the little trading post shop behind the jerky seller. tons of interesting stuff in there, but i didn't buy anything. i did look at signs, however. and took zillions of pics.

eventually we got to globe, stowed our gear at the quality inn, and ate dinner next door to the hotel. in the morning we drove over to the san carlos apache reservation to meet vern and her husband and to visit one of the families whose young daughter (12) was preparing for a 'dance', a kind of coming of age ceremony in which traditions are passed on from the older to the younger generation. they were way out on a piece of land that looked both beautiful and isolated, far from everything. the young lady dug post holes for setting up her wickiup and in the process uncovered a beautiful arrowhead (good luck!) and some other artifacts. her family had already constructed a kitchen and posts with a kind of wire fence for a wall around the compound. some of the male relatives were bringing in willow branches to weave in and out of the wires on the posts and when we left they had completed just a small portion. while we were there, a member of the tribal council came by to visit the family and to wish them good luck.

what does this have to do with anything? at 12 years old, this young girl has the benefit of being inside a system that promotes traditional practices. she'll be in a position to mentor some other young girl when she gets older. we don't have anything like it. that's very sad.

Aloha from Phoenix

i can't believe i haven't posted anything for nearly a year. my bad! but in that time, a crapload of things have happened. so i welcome myself back, as well as any readers (with nothing better to do than read this rant) interested in looking at my self-reflections. aloha from phoenix. i'm on a road trip with two other women, evern and maria, and today is the first day of what might very well be a life-changing experience, a chance for each of us to recharge our waning spiritual essence individually and as a group (read "we're all burned out from too much work and not enough ancestral and universal connection").

in the last year life has changed drastically. my husband of 18 years went on home to his kupuna, na aumakua and na akua. guess he had had enough of driving me around and being dragged along to various and sundry protests and meetings. he didn't know how to say no to me, so of oourse he became as much of a regular fixture as me at some of these rather long and boring things, so that at some point he simply refused to come in the door and hung out outside talking to old friends on the phone. anyhow, this post is as much about him as it is about me.

james died at home, sometime between breakfast and lunch. i'm reminded constantly of what a sweet thing he was. a nice guy. a loving husband. a good friend. seldom grumpy. always busy. constantly engaged in self-reflection. so this is something of a tribute to him, as much as it is a journal of reflection for me, being on a road trip, and all. in many ways i brought him with me.

sometime later, after i get home, i'll post the eulogy i wrote for him, and that i read at his celebration of life at nuuanu valley park. he passed on sept. 9, the day after fall semester began. so that sorta bombed out my semester and the truth is i'm not sure what the heck i was doing for the next few months. but friends and colleagues, ever faithful to both me and james, took over my teaching duties. to this day i have no idea what they did in my classroom. students were lovely--caring and compassionate. understanding and forgiving of my forgetting sometimes what i was doing. lucky me. and sad me.

james' celebration of life was lovely. it was a potluck in the park, complete with music and kind words, chants and other craziness. it was also a protest of sorts of all the things in the world that were screwed up. and it wss also a celebration of the life of our queen. for that i mahalo all the diehard activists who can be counted on to do their thing. on that day in the park, they did their thing and james would have been proud. and from what i heard afterward, he really was.

one of the reasons for this road trip is that i couldn't, for the life of me, stop working as long as i was home and connected to my computer. so, sans computer, i hit the road (via hawaiian airlines) with friends, thanks to my angel hanai brother, and am now writing up a journal entry after a year's absence. so with a different kind of connection, seeing as how it's not my computer and i have to schedule time on it, i write merely to log in my own experiences for future reference.

i have a new camera, but failed to bring the connector for uploading pics, so these get to be done later. at some point i'll load up the thousands of pics i'm taking and posting the link for viewing to this blog.

Kahoolawe

i meant to post some photos of the trip and of our excellent crew! it was interesting and intense living in extreme (for me) circumstances for 4 days, kinda like Lost, without being lost. good crew. good lessons about what works and what doesn't. i was particularly impressed by one of the kua there, kau`i, whose commitment to the PKO project and the need to heal not only the island, but the people as well, was...outstanding and apparent. those are good words, and applicable to her behavior and her feeling about trying to walk the path with the ancestors. what did i learn there? things are not always what they seem. trust your gut to tell you when things are not exactly in synch. hope for the best. ask the ancestors. i do. and i will.

Back from the (near) dead

It's been a while since i was here last. and since then, a zillion things have happened. i took students to kahoolawe, for one. that was a life-changing event for many of them, and certainly for myself, as well. i learned things about how the pko trips are organized. i also learned that it's not always a good idea to offer constructive criticism (another way of making "recommendations", but phrased more positively). i learned, most of all, what it means to some to 'own' a piece of history and struggle. this was a message for me, personally. so now i'm thiking about what it means to me to be a person in struggle, trying to follow the example of those who came before me, like the queen, and poka, and soli, and dallas vogeler. being in struggle is not just about social justice, but also about how to live one's life, and how to stay in the good fight while still trying to pay rent, and eat, and deal with debilitating health issues, not to mention old age. being in struggle is having to put up with stupidity from those around you, even those who say they love and support you. sometimes that love and support only go as far as people are able to align with your philosphy or your values. i imagine that's what separates the spectators from the allies. those who keep their distance appreciate that you do what you do, but it really has nothing to do with them. they have nothing to add, will never participate, think it's all interesting, but are too busy to contribute to the cause. the others, people like me, for example, try to show up, schlep stuff around, pay for supplies out of their own pocket, stay up late at night sending email testimonies to legislators who act in their own self-interest, volunteer for everything, take flack from non-believers, hold signs that generate jeers and negative responses (but not yet thrown tomatoes!). it's hard work.

i am grateful for those who do anything at all to signal support, from the smallest word of kindness for our work in the cause of independence, to sharing photos of an event; from helping us set up a performance of ka lei maile alii -- the queen's women, to being willing to loan us a flag for back drop; from individual sign holders at a 'fake state' demo, to videographers who post our actions on youtube. it's a kakou thang. we can't do it alone.

this brings me back to kahoolawe and what i learned there. i learned i needed help. that's something i've not wanted to acknowledge for a long, long time. i needed help. and our little group of 10 helped each other out. but mostly they helped me. i was reminded that i'm a bit too old to be traipsing around in the bush doing extreme camping. i had so much help, i began turning into a lazy person. i didn't do the 8 hour hike on the day before we left. instead, i sent my hookupu with a student, not thinking really about what that would mean to my student. i did other things, easy things, like making pili bundles. and carrying rocks from the beach for the floor of the hale. i took my time. i acted like the old person i am. yikes! realization had set in that i was slowing down. and then a second realization that it was okay to slow down.

life as an activist is crazy. knowing the right thing to do, trying to keep one's spiritual life in order (he pono no), remembering that there is also family waiting out there in the wings for some attention, dodging the 'slings and arrows' of critics who know everything and hate you for not doing what they want you to do, being happy in the flow when the feeling of rightness, of doing the right thing, settles over the work. it's crazy, alright. but it's also happy-making hard work, when it pans out. and if it's done right, it pans out more times than not. kahoolawe was the biggest challenge for me personally than anything else i can remember. i made new friends and new family. i think i alienated some other folks, too. the place did not benefit from my presence as much as i had hoped it would. i didn't know what to do, but when i did know, i felt constricted--i couldn't do it without proper protocols, and i didn't know what those protocols were. but ultimately, it was probably the best experience of my life. i learned that kimo mithell and george helm hang out near the plaques in the stones, and they had much to say to the folks who passed by. i learned that women need to spend some time by themselves on an island that had become too masculine and male-dominated; and men, too, need to spend time alone to talk about whatever men talk about. the women had no problem articulating their own challenges. i learned that 'interdependency' was that thing that helped us through some rough situations, in the sea and on the land. and penultimately, i learned that everybody missed me and coming home was really, really good.

Really early Monday morning

i just realized it's after midnight. still uploading 714 photos from the kauai civic club convention and from various site visits. it was a long week. james and i went up on sunday and returned late saturday night. our club performed the re-enactment on sunday, oct. 19 at the kauai hilton. we had a pretty good crowd--about 100 people, most of them from the community, as not many civic club members had arrived by sunday. keanu's presentation was longer and different. he talked a lot about how to fix the problem and stressed that what he offered was a legal, as opposed to political, resolution to the illegal overthrow and so-called annexation of hawaii to the united states. ho`ike (kauai public access tv) videotaped the event.

monday we did two things: met with and videotaped a dialogue with kaiulani edens huff, a radio commentator who hosts "songs of sovereignty" on KKCR radio on kauai. it was a fabulous discussion and she shared with us some of the issues surrounding the development at naue by brescia and how absolutely essential it was to protect the iwi. she and several others had camped next to the burials for several months, hoping to convince the owner not to build there, but to no avail. next to kaiulani's house, in the area way above kapaa high school, is a goat farm. couldn't resist hanging out with the goats for a bit, even though on the other side of the fence. i had my trusty camera, so pretty much tried to get into their faces. but they were having none of it. goats are cute except, i imagine, when they're trying to bite you.

after taking goat photos, we headed into town for lunch. i have to admit, we ate a lot. even though we had rented a house, it didn't have a stove, so we didn't eat at home much, except for some microwaved coffee and cold cereal in the mornings. still, eating in town was way cheaper than eating at the hotel. in the afternoon nani rogers took us to naue to visit the grave sites and to offer hookupu. long ride to hanalei area. naue was/is beautiful! i can see why haoles want to speculate on property there. mr. brescia owns 6 other lots in the area and has developed and is selling all of them. the site being developed now is not very large. it's also surrounded by black cloth so no one can look it. concrete pilings have been put in, one set of which covers some of the iwi. in the photo above, taken from the beach side when a mysterious hole suddenly appeared, shows poles with orange netting wrapped around. the orange net or color marks the site of a grave. this is a very sad place.

something crazy is going on here. and everywhere. i thought the sky falling would wait at least 4 more years, until 2012! omigod! it's here now.

more tomorrow!

Super Saturday

it's actually sunday as i write this, almost 1 am. wanted to talk a bit about what an amazing saturday i had. started out at 4 am riding out to kukaniloko with pilipo and leota to participate in ceremony on the fall equinox, sept. 20-21. we watched the swearing in ceremony of mahealani (forgot his last name) as he became kahuna for kukaniloko. it was pitch dark as we walked along the newly cut trail, among tall grasses (cows would have had a ball there!). i truly felt the presence of all kinds of folks other than ourselves and it made me happy. sometimes i get tired of thinking that we can actually make any kind of change at all. i don't think we can unless we have lots of help from outside this world. after the ceremony we headed over to dot's at wahiawa for breakfast (james, me, maria, robert, pono, kamuela, leota, pilipo). later we were joined by another couple who were at the ceremony. they trace their genealogy to queen kalama and gave us lots and lots of genealogy. it drained my energy. but talking with robert was really interesting. his major interest is in geomancy. luckily i had a little bit of knowledge about that, so didn't come across as a total idiot. the more he explained, the more fascinated i was. my energy level went up.

we got home around 10 am, took a shower, and hit the bed for a couple of hours. then we went down to palolo studio for some 'downtime', at evern's invite. it really was downtime! there was a karaoke machine set up. everybody brought food and some serious singing took place. i hadn't laughed so much in a very long time. and i didn't know all these folks around me could sing! jeff, who works at the studio, brought his saxophone and played a bit. check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okSksqM24AQ

i noticed my own reaction to jeff's playing. i felt like he was giving us all a present and i was honored by it all. we were there several hours, listening to all the attempts at singing and laughing at our silliness. kamuela put on his elvis persona. what a crack up. haven't had time to upload kamuela yet, but will tomorrow.

saturday - an almost free day

i've gotten a few mini complaints about not updating my blog. too busy. and too lazy. and not a hell of a lot to write about, once school started. i'm always just trying to keep up. but there are a couple of things of interest to report.

i got an interesting email from a friend, which i've posted below. some of you also received it and some of you witnessed it, especially if you live on the leeward coast. i ran into him yesterday with his little girl (of whom i have numerous photos since the time she was a baby, and that's because she's there with her parents at all the ku`e functions!) at kaneohe mall in the food court. he mentioned that subsequent to his sending the email, he talked with a number of folks at makua, and the whole community is aware of these sitings. even more, apparently some uh professor has gotten a grant from the military to monitor these ufo sitings on the west side. i deleted some of the names (to protect the innocent!) and just included the substantive part of the message.
On Aug. 2nd, Sat., we were camping out at the place called, Camp Mokuleia. Since dogs are not allowed at the camp site, I was taking my dog for a walk on the beach for a long time until the night got solid.When I was looking at the night sky on the beach (I could see so many star), I immediately recognized two bright lights. One towards west, ka‘ena point and the other towards north. Both of them looked like a bright planet and the ka‘ena point one was hovering over the horizon and the other one was about midpoint to the zenith.Now those on ka‘ena point turned out to be two lights merging one occasionally. My first thought was fishing boats as it was close to the horizon. Then I realized those lights start floating over the horizon smoothly coming to a new position.At that point I called my son and another boy. I asked them to watch those two lights towards Ka’ena point for awhile and see what happens.They were looking them for awhile and they too recognized that those were indeed moving and in between those two we could all see a domelike “force field” expanding and contracting constantly.Then the other boy called his father, and his baldhead friend (I don’t know his name) came over and first his dad said “it must be optical illusion.” But he watched them for quite sometime enough to recognize that they are actually moving.Then he said it must be the “RIMPAC.” Not too long after he said that those two lights moved to the north west direction (quarter point between ka’ena direction and north), all of a sudden an explosion like flash of light (with no sound) took place quarter to mid point to Zenith and we all saw legs like Figure coming out and started to walk towards us. It was like a moment of flash but it was clearly recognized by all of us and all we could say was “what was that?” It was like a mega-gigantic human or he’e or some other being revealed at an instant. Even after that those two lights were moving along as if they were playing with each other hovering over, up and down, This whole thing took place between 45 mins to 1 hrs. we were able to go back to the tent and grab something to keep ourselves warm and also something to munch while we witness this cosmic event. As those light came right in front of us they began to go down into the ocean come back up and down again. And those two lights eventually sunk into the sea. And we realized the bright light on the right side was gone by the time they went below the ocean.The following morning I discussed with the other boy's father how UFOs and ETs are part of Hawaiian Sovereignty.

k-den. is that interesting or what? i recall kawehi telling a similar kind of story some years back, but this siting took place in waikiki in the early morning. something came up out of the sea and later went back in. at the palace on sunday, after we did the play, i mentioned this email to a few folks and, of course, other people started sharing their own stories of their own experiences. now i hear that a similar occurrence was witnessed just off kualoa a while back, only the 'thing' actually came up on the land. yikes!

is it related to sovereignty? i think it's way bigger than that. if the military contracts with a u.h. researcher to find out what's going on, can we assume it's not them? or maybe they just want to know how many other people have witnessed stuff they're doing. dum da dum dum...

i wonder if folks in kaneohe ever see anything?

oh, and by the way, i dyed my hair last night with two red streaks, one on each side. preparing for halloween. my son said i look like the joker in batman. i'd better get a hair cut today.

no pix of either ufo or hair.

Thursday, July 31

today is really la ho`iho`i ea, but we celebrated that last sunday, on the 27th. it was okay. lots of booths and kid games. i must be getting old because i'm constantly listening for new info or ideas, but seldom find them at these gatherings. maybe because that's not what these gatherings are for. actually i think it's about activists celebrating themselves. i can relate. we certainly don't do enough of that!

tomorrow evening i'm heading out to san francisco with cast and crew to do the re-enactment at berkeley and in ukiah. our club got a small grant from people's fund to cover airfare (actually we were short of money and had to kick in our own funds!). keanu's coming along as part of his, and our, attempts at exposure--exposing the truth of the continued existence of the hawaiian kingdom and the work of our ancestors who signed their names to the petitions against annexation of hawaii to the u.s. i think it's good work. and we never know who will be in the audience who may hear something that will cause them to take up the cause. if the queen were here today, she might be directing the re-enactment and the broader work of our club! last friday we did a performance for students at hawaiian studies. i thought there were a bunch of flubbed lines, but only the cast noticed! the students seemed to enjoy it and spent another hour talking with keanu after we had all left. good news! na opio will definitely have to pick it up! we're gettin' too old!

last week i went to kalaeloa with shad kane to look at the sites that are, ultimately, slated for destruction. made me very sad. but i took some videos and posted them on youtube. check it out: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kalaeloa+shad&search_type=&aq=f

i also took a ride to the omega station and took photos of the H-3 from underneath. i didn't realize there were so many buildings in the area, and all of them have been tagged. some of the artists did a great job! impressive. check out the video below:

Tuesday

i've uploaded the video of claire's excellent talk about imiola young to youtube. hope this link works: http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=QUvarKArMno&rel=1&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//i.ytimg.com/vi/QUvarKArMno/default.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskKc3eBIkva0rQmKqjcy6R3m

Sunday morning

james and i went to community church of honolulu yesterday for imiola's celebration of life. this was the second one, for his "townie" family and friends, and those from out of town. the service was nice and relatively short. jon osorio sang a buffalo springfield song (come on, people, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now). god, i love that man! we took classes together in grad school, but i think he was way smarter than me. the song was appropriate! made me remember how old i really am!

imiola was a man of depth. i didn't know, for example, that he spoke several different languages, having joined the peace corps and lived in mississippi, guam, and different places across the pasifik and the u.s. just after he graduated from college. he marched in washington with mlk in 1963, and worked in the voter registration effort in mississippi in 1964--risky work! but i was particularly impressed by the short talk given by claire shimabukuro, which i had the good fortune to tape so others could hear her description of the kalama valley resistance on oahu. imiola, because of his experience in vietnam, helped the kalama valley effort by teaching them how to build latrines, as there was only one small house and one toilet for the hundreds of people who gathered at kalama valley to help them resist eviction. for some reason, i'm unable to add this short video on blogger.com (i probably went over my quota with the last video of a`o) so will post claire's talk on youtube and link to it in my next blog. btw, the photos, left to right are: jon and pua burgess, imiola's photo with ho`okupu, and claire and jade young, imiola's sister.

Friday evening

things are settling down in our 'new' home. we have furniture! we have an interesting yard. the owner/landlord likes color, obviously. she wired a lot of pretty pink and red plastic flowers to the fence. looks a bit weird up close, but from afar i guess it looks okay. mountain apple, avocado, and banana trees in back. one bunch of bananas is about ready to cut down. after years of carrying around all these rocks from every place i ever visited and having friends bring them to me from all over the world, i finally decided to put them somewhere where they could be seen and enjoyed. i carried them over in buckets, from one house to the next, and never really did anything with them. but now they're out in the yard where they can enjoy the rain and sun, and chameleons and toads hopping around on them. i think they're happy. i'm happy to see them. when gabe and i graduated from u.h. in 2003, we had a joint graduation party, and all our guests signed in (with their good wishes) on rocks (yup! rocks!). and i've had them since then. right now they're all spread out in a circle surrounding some plants in the backyard, as you can see from the photo.

last tuesday, i attended the dcca hearing at mckinley high school on what should be done with cable franchise. re-contract with oceanic time-warner? what happens to olelo community television? will time-warner continue its contract with olelo? or will it opt to bring in some other non-community type management firm? the place was packed. i signed up to testify as no. 33, i think. i got to speak just before the scheduled end time, but there were another 70 people waiting after me! at 6:30 i left for another meeting, but heard that it went on for 3 more hours. the consultants that dcca brought in didn't seem happy. oh well... i videotaped some of the folks who gave testimony while i was there, but particularly liked a`o pohakuku's kickass statement, which i've included here. it made all of us laugh.

July 15 random thoughts

Kitty Sitter (Mexican Superheroes) i came across this neat pic on 'mother jones' photo essay on mexican superheroes. neat! spiderman was washing windows, and the hulk was doing construction work. what great photo ops to catch people doing interesting and weird things.

spent the weekend at makaha resort doing an oahu council institute training. learned something, especially about roberts rules of order. the meetings i run are based on consensus decision making, but most of the ones i attend use rro. i never know what to say or how to say it appropriately, so i don't. and 90% of the people at these meetings don't say anything, either. rro will silence everyone who doesn't understand the rules, so it's either assimilation or silence. pretty clever for those who want to move people away from native cultural behaviors of respectful process, toward dog-eat-dog nastiness of "order" that can cut people to shreds because the rules rule and feelings/emotions are downgraded to less than zero. i think it has the effect of putting the rules front and center and leaving the issue, whatever it is, somewhere in the back. of course, some people think that's good.

Sunday (low key) rant

taking off from saturday's low key events... imiola's celebration of life at the opelu project in waianae was good. most of the activist-types sat on one table. i guess it's always time to hook up again with folks in struggle whom you haven't seen for a while. james greeted kalani ohelo as "maurice", which dated their relationship to "before" the movement. everybody's gettin' old. most of the folks i recognized were long time activists in the movement, certainly long before i came along. i remember when i met soli back in 1992 and first listened to him speak at a hui na`auao meeting. i was blown away by what he said at the time--it all made sense to me. at the gathering yesterday, he pretty much reiterated what he said back then: we should never forget that for those who seek social justice, it's important to know who the enemy really is. it's not about race or ethnicity (although that may play into it), but rather who calls the shots, who has the power to call the shots. so developing a strategy (i'm using my own words here, but i think i got the gist of it) is about identifying who the players are in the struggle and realizing that the big players are the same in all the struggles. money, power, the ability to manipulate someone else's life, these things feed into (and are part of) a system that oppresses us all. what to do about it? soli says use political analysis to determine what the action should be. okay! i'm good. i may not agree with every little thing, but i won't counter what he says, as he is correct. let's not ever think that all hawaiians are in the same boat. some actually call the shots, or think they do, so those hawaiians-by-blood participate in the oppression of other hawaiians. soli's talk was a lead in to how he knew imiola. imiola helped introduce political analysis into the discussion of activists at the time. he did his part. the question for us today might be 'what is our part?'. i had to go home and sleep on it, which i did. this morning i woke up thinking about what it's like to feel oppressed (in several areas of my life, actually) and what i can do about it. i also thought about the lesson for me to learn in trying to deal effectively with the issue. i'm afraid to look, for fear i might actually see something. yikes! i don't want to be the oppressor!

i stuck in a photo of soli and kekuni, and kekuni, jade young (imiola's sister), marsha joyner, and claire shimabukuro, just to give folks a sense of who all was there at imiola's life celebration. it was a really nice day, but hot as hell.

today i'm packing up more stuff (i have too much stuff, hence no light footprint for me). while i was outside in the garage, i saw a beautiful green gecko catch a roach. it was a huge roach, and that whole encounter caught my eye. so of course i had to run in to get my camera and see if i could get a good, clear shot without getting too close and frightening the gecko. i've posted this shot, too. i think i'm turning into a crazy person driven only by my own spur-of-the-moment desires. get that photo! yesterday, while i was walking around taking pix i thought about how intrusive i might have seemed. but after a short moment of reflection, i decided i didn't really care what anybody thought. i feel like (for the most part, except for some shots of ducks and lizards) i'm serving the movement and capturing a sense of what it is/was like to be an activist type in service to the movement, to humanity, to life in general. what would the world be like without activists? activists are the ones who advocate for 'fixing'--wages, job safety, cultural rights, human rights, environmental rights, animal rights, cultural practices, truth in labeling, healthy everything, pono everything. the system itself is not interested in fixing things as, for those who (again) call the shots, everything works just fine.

ginny metaxas, my friend from connecticutt, left yesterday. james and i didn't even have time to say goodbye to her. we ran from meeting to meeting until we were exhausted, then finally went home. i think i have to re-think my life. even though all the meetings seemed essential, what if i didn't go? would anybody notice? probably not. except when i take photos. then they'd notice they didn't get any. so i'm useful because i archive the movement and aspects related to it. that's a good thought to end with on a hot and still day in kahaluu. i added a photo of what this area looks like from makai side, at the bus stop on kamehameha highway.

Saturday's (low key) rant

it's been a while! my email program was corrupted yesterday and i sent out a zillion emails (the same one) to several different people who didn't appreciate it. oh well... i think my computer is, along with several other entities in my life, beginning to "give up the ghost". i use such terminology as remnant of my church-y days, when james was still ministering (for real!) and i was in the congregation. them days is long gone, i tell ya. now i try not to wince when i hear some hallelujah/praise the lord benedictions floating down from heaven to land on me (ancestors forbid!). i try to remember that, as a matter of fact, our queen was a christian and, obviously, found some solace in the christian religion, even as the missionaries and their chillun did their best to swindle her (and, as a result, us) out of a nation and all that came with it (again, i say, "us"). what comes around goes around, we hope. let us hope we stay intact (we're already in the constant ducking mode!) when the u.s. collapses from the sheer weight of trying to control everything in the world.

today is imiola's memorial services at mt. kaala. doubt if james can hike up to the site, so we'll go instead to the boat harbor at waianae for the service there and scattering of ashes. i actually have some photos of imiola from a zillion activities in the past, none of which are accessible to me at this moment. but i will post later. we miss him. he was an all-around good guy. but one of the things he regularly did was videotape any number of activities from different sovereignty events. i think those tapes will likely end up in our sovereignty archive, when and if we get a place to put all the stuff saved over the years. as i recall, imiola came to my house in palolo, several years ago, with boxes of files, papers, and other memorabilia about stuff that happened in waianae, including all poka's published materials and (i swear) everything that johan galtung ever wrote in his life! and because of his travels all across the pacific, his time spent in guam, and all the other places he visited or lived, he saved stuff about those areas and passed on to me. imagine having to store and then move all that stuff (plus my own stuff) everytime i moved house!

anyhow, the moving house again stuff is another story. in preparation for moving from our rental on waihee road, i decided to put all this stuff in storage. i rented a pretty large storage area in kaneohe and, after 8 trips in the van, managed to fill it about 3/4 full. and there's more! in some ways i feel sad about leaving this house. it's a nice place and the view out the window (where my desk is) is pretty good--a big field with chickens running around. we live downstairs, which is cooler than the upstairs unit. i have refrained from feeding the chickens, as i did in palolo, because last time we ended up with 30 chickens who came for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday. pretty noisy! the kids from palolo housing would come up the walkway into our backyard to catch chickens. roosters tend to crow all day and all night, and i didn't want to encourage them to crow next to my window. so...no feeding, even though the little chicks are cute! they will all end up on someone's dinner plate, sooner or later.

yesterday i went to visit my daughter in kailua. on the way to the market, we saw a momma duck and a line of chicks crossing the street. i couldn't whip out my camera fast enough to catch them until after they were in somebody's driveway, but i thought i'd post. not sure this happens anywhere else on oahu, but in kailua it's a regular sight!

thursday was last day of school for summer session I at HPU--a happy/sad day for all of us, i think. the students were fabulous for both my classes, which were rather small--six in one and 13 in the other. everybody got a chance to know everyone else and i got to know them all. we spent a considerable amount of time outside of class, during field trips, to get to know each other, so that was really nice. i've also posted photos of the last day for both classes. my intro anth course final project for students was titled "my culture/my life". i think i'll use that as final project theme for all the intro classes, hereafter. the presentations were both funny and charming, and we spent a great deal of time laughing and eating. interestingly (but not surprising!), almost everyone brought food to share, so it turned into a party--a celebration of culture and life, and end of semester. one of my students is from mongolia, and his presentation focused on music, particularly an instrument called "morin khuur", or horsehead fiddle. he showed a little clip from youtube so we could hear what it sounded like. it was the most interesting thing! and another student, because of his zeal, prepared a slide show with around 80 slides--for a 10 minute presentation! i urged him to cut to the chase, so he went from slide 5 to the last two in about 5 minutes. but all of it was totally enjoyable. hearing so much laughter on the last day of class was good for my soul. i'm writing this part for all the teachers who may be reading. i know they can relate.

poka, mel, and i have been working on the 'hawaiian roundtable' series. so far, the response has been good. we did our first meeting at the oha boardroom, with oha staff and 4 trustees present. around 40 people attended. we had advertised via email notice and on poka's radio program. that was supposed to have been a planning meeting, basically asking those present if they felt that a dialogue that helped us all to develop a way of speaking with one another (i'm beginning to sound like poka, now), instead of at each other would be useful in building bridges among ourselves. poka uses pukui's method of hooponopono in his own work, and felt it could be used in the service of the movement. our second session was at jarrett middle school cafeteria. there were 39 people in attendance, no trustees, and a couple of oha staff. the third meeting is scheduled for july 4, friday, 4 pm, again at jarrett school. more people may attend, as both poka and i were on oha's radio program with brickwood and kimo kahoano last tuesday advertising the next meeting. i'm pretty sure folks got the invite, so hopefully we'll expand our reach. in the meantime, we heard from maui folks that pekelo listened to the radio program and really liked the idea, so is now starting a roundtable of his own on maui. it's all good, considering we're all going to be riding on our own dime.

in the meantime, bumpy's moving forward on calling for a hawaiian concon, one more way of gathering people together to talk, but way more focused. i'm looking forward to participating in that one, which is open to everyone, regardless of ethnicity. manu kaiama and i both interviewed him and steve tayama for our olelo programs, and these are up and running now on olelo.net, so can be viewed via computer. there's something in the air. it's all good.

a bunch of us are leaving in early august for s.f. to do the play, "ka lei maile alii--the queen's women". we got a little bit of money to cover travel costs (mahalo to people's fund). it may not be much, but it's what we (our civic club) has to offer the movement--educational outreach on hawaiian history. keanu's coming with us to provide context for the play and, hopefully, bring everyone up to date on what else is going on with him.

okay, i'm off to waianae boat harbor. i'll take lots of photos and post some on the next rant.

June Rant #1

i can't believe i haven't posted anything for so long. so much for commitment to write stuff down. i think i've been in constant mourning for friends and colleagues who keep dying on me. it's too sad. on the one hand i feel like crying all the time. on the other, i have to remind myself that death is part of life. so my friend imiola (carl young) passed away on saturday, june 14. his sister, jade, called to tell me while i was on a field trip with students at kahana fishpond. it was such a beautiful day and students worked hard cutting back hau trees and clearing brush. her call made me cry. i think i'm still mourning my friend nalani's death, and my nephew, Lono's death. and kumu lake. and john kaimikaua, and did, who wrote the play, and...and... our other friend gloria passed away a couple of weeks ago. james called to say hello and found out she was in hospice. when he called her at hospice, she said she was about to take a bath and would call him back later, but there was no later. yesterday, her husband, maluhia, called just to "talk story". james later related to me that in all the years that he has known maluhia, he has never called just to "talk story", so james suspects that maluhia is putting his affairs in order, contacting old friends, and saying goodbye in various ways. i hate the idea of death (i mean other people's death) because it's so final. but i don't hate the idea of my own death, as i look forward to (hopefully) a new adventure. i think others will be sad, however--certainly my kids.

today i finished up a report i contracted to write for a friend for the board of water supply's well in haiku. it took forever to write and i had to keep shortening it because there was so much to include. i read numerous docs about the omega station at haiku and its connection to the military's development of new technology during WWII. even though the omega station officially closed down in 1992, the infrastructure laid down in that valley is still there. the haiku stairs was built to allow maintenance men access to the tower at the top of the mountain in haiku, and the stairs later became a popular hiking spot for island residents. when H-3 was built, hiking was cut off. the 'friends of haiku stairs' was formed to urge access be resumed. the state had to insert some protections into the freeway while it was being constructed to neutralize the impact of the signals coming out of the ground to those who traveled on H-3. maybe that's the best reason not to travel on H-3. even though the omega station is officially shut down, i get the sense that the underground complex still exists and is still beaming short pulses to various places in the u.s. and globally. reminds me of a doomsday science fiction movie. there's a web of antennae all around the world, and the omega station at haiku covers the whole pacific like fingers! mahealani cypher ma, from koolaupoko hawaiian civic club and the koolau foundation have requested use of the abandoned omega station building as a museum to house information and artifacts from the koolaupoko moku. maybe not a good idea, if crap is still being broadcast on ultra low frequency from that area. yes! scifi! maybe the aliens from roswell were transferred to the site via (black) helicopter!

i'm obviously losing it. grief rules my life at this moment in time, despite the beauty of nature at kahana and elsewhere.

Monday, Memorial Day (the set aside)

it's not really memorial day, but i suppose it will do, as it gives me a day off to move house. what a hectic week! no time to blog. friday evening went to visit imiola at his house in kapahulu. he's looking thin and has bruise marks all up and down his arms where nurses have been poking him relentlessly. imiola said 'no more', so he decided to go home. stella made a pot of curry stew. we brought dessert. then poha arrived to hook up his computer on the chair near the bed. so he can read and send email more easily (one does not give up one's virtual life!). then evern arrived. we all ate together around the bed in a very tiny room with not enough chairs. but it felt homey and family-like. i think imiola ate a tiny piece of custard pie while the rest of us chowed down on stew and poi and stew and rice. i could have cried, but waited until we got into the car. and even though i had my trusty camera, i did not take a photo of him or of anyone else.

i don't remember when i met imiola, but i think it was around 1992. imiola is carl young, a great friend and supporter of poka and of all social justice issues. i worked for hui naauao, back then, as oahu island coordinator. i set up educational workshops in schools, homes, and for public events. poka was present for many of these, as was imiola. imiola was a substitute teacher for many years, and is a student/admirer of johan galtung, a peace activist who taught for a while at u.h. manoa. most of the papers i have from imiola are of galtung's writings. back then, in the early 1990s, i remember having numerous talk story dialogues at iolani palace grounds. one time, in particular, it was pouring rain. we had a tent and everybody, including galtung, tried to jam under the tent. it leaked. we were wet. but no one left. the discussion was so important to have that we simply couldn't let the opportunity to talk pass because of the rain. i mention this because 16 years later, we're still trying to have the same kind of dialogue--one of peace, justice, aloha, malama aina, malama i ke kahi i ke kahi. i can't believe it's such hard work.

on thursday next week, june 5, we'll be doing a similar kind of dialogue, trying to move away from the strictly political/legal/analytical kinds of educational gatherings we've had in the past, toward a talk story format that allows us to be honest in expressing how we feel about hawaiian sovereignty in this hectic and sometimes scary world. i sent out the invite the other day--and wouldn't you know i'd get the damn info wrong! so i re-sent. already got several responses, positive ones, from those who want to attend. maybe there are others tired of the never-ending barrage of "my way is the only way" rhetoric. we've been spoiled by the push for self-determination (at any level)--we actually do want to choose, and any process that comes down already made has obviously made the choice for us. where's the self-determination in that? sometimes it's so crystal-clear to me that nothing can be 'created' for someone else, not if you want that someone else to take kuleana for it. we need to create for ourselves so we live and die by our own actions, good or bad. part of growing up, of evolution for the whole human race.

yesterday i took my students to palehua. we were hosted by shad kane, who shared a ton of info with the students. there's stuff up there, and a few people mentioned they felt the presence of something/someone in the area. one of the students didn't want to walk around in the pa, even though it should be okay, as permission was requested to enter. since nobody dropped dead, it should be safe and we could take that as a "come on in" sign. anyhow, his hair kept standing on end, so he walked in and out quickly. on the way home in the bus, one of my other students shared his own native american genealogy. his great grandma, and grandma practiced shamanic rituals. we talked about ritual and blood. then he showed me his hand and a cut that was drying up. he had been watching from a little distance as shad took students around and noticed a stone over which a number of dragonflies were flying in a circle, which he though was odd. then a bunch of butterflies came (white ones, brown ones, and golden ones) and flew around in a circle over the same stone. so finally he figured there must be something special about that stone and went over to take a look. he put his hands on the stone to feel it. then he walked away. but he noticed a moment later that he had blood on his hands, which is when he noticed the cut. he didn't feel it and couldn't remember where he cut himself. so he went back to the rock and saw that his blood was on it, so he obviously cut himself there. i asked him how he felt about that. he said he felt really, really good, as if leaving his blood there, on the stone, was an appropriate thing to do. i was happy he was happy, as i'm not sure of the significance of that act in his culture. but i was intrigued about its significance in hawaiian culture. we'll see...

Sunday at Makua

despite the oppressively hot weather, it was a fabulous day at makua today. around 13 students and friends showed up for today's access. we were all cooking in the heat. but the students seemed to really enjoy the walk around and history of that aina. the army guys weren't too happy to be there and took it out on us. pretty rude bunch, i have to say. nevertheless, it went well. leandra was super good with protocol. fred did a great job of sharing history and story telling. i think the younger archaeologist, alton (?), was the most hospitable of the bunch and shared a bit of history about the army's strategic plan for makua. he gave me a brochure to share with my students, and i saw a photo of a petroglyph that i hadn't seen before. it's in a different area/valley that we haven't had access to--yet. curtis, trevor, and jean emptied the mud out of the drying up spring. the kalo growing there the last time i was up had died. trevor removed his shoes to work in the mud and got yelled at because not wearing shoes was against the rules. and fred got yelled at because he found (and picked up) a spent shell from an M-15. that's also a no-no. oh well. it was a really good crew, however, and i'm glad we had a chance to experience the power struggle that goes on there between community and military and between rules and culture. obviously the military personnel are not interested in having a relationship with any of us, hence the rude treatment. it just makes me want to go more often and try to give them a hard time whenever we can. the option is to kowtow, and aint none of us going that route.

on the way home to kaneohe i noticed hundreds of tents stretching from makua to beyond kahe point. it's amazing! i had read in the paper that the state would be cracking down on the homeless living out on the leeward coast. that's pretty sad. where else could they go? how can it be against the law to be poor?

not much has changed in the last 18 years or so. the poor get poorer. the super rich don't give a rip. the middle class--where is the middle class? i used to think i was the middle class, but i feel much, much poorer and living on the edge all the time. having an education and an 'average' income guarantees nothing.

Tuesday - First Day of Summer School

haven't written anything in a week! can't believe it! too many things going on and i'm overdue on everything. sunday was a good day. had lunch with three of my kids, my grandson, his girlfriend, my son's girlfriend, and my son in law. it was enjoyable and we pigged out. my grandson, koa, is the same age as my son, akoni. koa flashed his tattoos at everyone, and i was happy to see the hawaiian flag on his hand. i thought it was kinda cool. after lunch james, akoni, and i went over to the house in kahaluu to cut the grass and haul away assorted trash for ruth. we'll be living downstairs--moving out of here at the end of the month.

monday i started unpacking more boxes. so much stuff! i read george kahumoku's book "a hawaiian life". that was pretty fascinating, the stories he tells about his dying and being revived when he was six weeks old. reminded me of john kaimikaua's story about his experiences in molokai when he was a child, and watching the revival, hours later, of a young girl who had died in her sleep. there were all kinds of kahuna practicing their arts in those days, and bringing someone back from the dead apparently wasn't unheard of, and we're not talking about ancient history, here. so if this is still happening during our lifetime, and maybe our parents' lifetime, then it wasn't so long ago. it might still be happening now. i hope so.

today was the first day of summer session I. i have two classes, 3 hours each, back to back. that was grueling! on the other hand, both classes are relatively small and went really well--six students in one and 10 in the other. we did a lot of talking. nobody dozed off. during the second part of the first class, i took the students for a walk to iolani palace. the hawaiian kingdom government folks are still there, although we didn't stop to visit, as they looked like they were having a meeting. this was my ahupuaa resource management class, so we went to look at the ahu and to give them a sense of what the makai side of the honolulu ahupuaa looked like. in a couple of weeks we'll be going to upper nuuanu, to kaniakapupu and to the pali to look at ahupuaa from the top (or almost top) down.

last saturday james and i went to the democratic party pre-convention meeting at kalakaua intermediate school. i chaired the national/international affairs committee meeting. that was hectic! we had 43 resos to plow through. took us about an hour to get through the first three! there was a reso submitted in support of giving lt. ehren watada an honorable discharge. there were a number of former military personnel at the meeting and all of them were adamant that he be denied an honorable discharge because he didn't follow orders, he signed a contract, he made an agreement, etc. i was kinda shocked--not sure why. but it seemed to me that no one wanted to look at the larger picture, at the justification for/reason behind people committing inhumane acts on other people. it came down to an issue of legality. made me very sad. but i had to remind myself, of course, that watada wasn't protesting war in general, just that particular war, the one in iraq. he was okay with war elsewhere. he wasn't advocating peace.

for my ahupuaa class i'm showing them an inspiring video on youtube, on the TED site. go look. http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=william+mcdonough&hl=en&sitesearch= i'm beginning to use youtube as a regular resource--so many current things going on in the world that students can relate to. today in my cultural anth class we watched a five minute clip on youtube about some jazz artists jamming with pygmies in the congo. talk about a meeting of cultures! i find the whole idea of relationship building through music and art as something that transcends politics. there's a tremendous amount of joy generated by people who love music, who play music, who dance, eat, sleep, walk music. the video "playing for change" documents street musicians, some extremely talented and professionals in their own right, who play on the streets for the love of playing and interacting with audiences, strangers, who are captured by the sound of their music. each one says the same thing--if you want to make money, this is not the way to go because you won't make much. but if you love people, and you love the way they receive your music (your gift), then this is the life for you. but you'll be poor unless you have a regular job, too. i showed the short clip in the beginning. we had a discussion (fairly long and drawn out), then at the second half i showed the video, which i thought was a good illustration about how class, race, age, and gender become irrelevant in the sharing of music, something that transcends all of the above. it was a good day.