Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Free Mojtaba and Arash I have a blog.  (The BBC. by the way, has defined "blog" nicely.  Quoth the Beeb, "Blogs are free sites through which people publish thoughts and opinions."  They're so smart.) Anyway, I have this blog where I post my opinions and thoughts.  I rant and rave about our President, complain about my workplace, and voice controversial and unpopular opinions.  I have also worked as a professional organizer, helped to organize protests and various types of civil disobedience, and voiced unpopular opinions about elected officials.  Sometimes, I've voiced these opinions directly to their faces, and sometimes, I've done this on television or in print.  As much as I bitch about the current resident of the White House, he will not arrest me for saying anything about him.  (Well, I could say certain things and get arrested, but I'm not going to say them, cause I'm not stupid.)  He will not incarcerate me without trial.  He will not have me killed for using this blog. I just finished reading "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth, and was surprised how comforting it was.  As bad and horrible and evil as Bush is - and he certainly is all of those things  - we will survive him.  We have a healthy and vibrant democracy, with millions of people who will fight for our freedom.  I know he's bad, but we have the ACLU, EPIC, Media Matters, and hundreds of other noble groups that fight for our rights.  We will not go willingly into fascism.  And as bad as Bush is, we will survive him and take our country back. I'm not supporting the idea that Iran is an evil state, or that they deserved to be bombed or invaded or attacked or their leaders beheaded.  But free speech is free speech.  Bloggers or reporters should not be arrested for speaking out.  Free Mojtaba and Arash. 6:12:27 PM    Speak up!  []

House Cleaning Three-day weekends are the best.  (I'm trying not to be jealous of my wife, who gets the whole week off.  It's her mid-spring break.  Or mid-winter.  Or sub-mid-post-mid-solstice break.  I get them all confused.) I spent a good amount of time cleaning out my categories yesterday.  I moved all of my posts about my work into "the Movement," so hopefully, you all can actually find them as a separate category.  (As always, Radio is being a little finicky about updating my list of categories.  So you can just use this link to see the new work.  As I was doing this, I realize I haven't posted about the new job in a while.  There's a good reason:  there's nothing to report!  Honest, folks, I'm just working a straight forty a week as an admin assistant, and it's boring and ordinary and just what I wanted.  I order supplies.  I've straightened out file cabinets and book shelves.   I ordered some highlighters last week. Boring is good.  I like boring.  Boring is so so so much better than working crazy hours, or working in an organization on the way to ruin.  We had a board meeting last week, and aside from the board members not showing up (we had eight attendees out of 21) they're fine.  They're actually interested in our organization and its work, and care about its funding.  They seem fairly attentive.  My last board, if you recall, was tragically inept and distant, which is why they're still on the verge of collapse.  Oh, and as for my last organization, the news is not good.  I mentioned before that they were on the verge of getting a huge deus ex machina gift.  Well, deus is not playing anymore - the prospective gifter changed their mind about giving this organization a six-figure gift, and now they're back on life support.  I feel bad about it, but more than that, I feel lucky that I escaped into a good job. 7:06:39 AM    Speak up!  []

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