Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Worth a few thousand words at least

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(More cartoons here)

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Guilty poetry

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Mickey Z. on YouTube:

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Ecofeminism

Combining the words ecology and feminism, ecofeminism has been called a “new term for an ancient wisdom” which “embraces the idea that the oppression of women and the oppression or destruction of nature are closely connected.” What is the connection between feminism and the environment? According to Women’s Voices for the Earth, “when surveyed, women consistently rate the environment as one of their greatest concerns – in numbers greater than men … When an environmental threat affects a community’s health, most often it is women who take on these issues. Frequently they do so in isolation, far from established conservation groups and with few resources.”

In the introduction to their book, Ecofeminism, authors Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva write: “Wherever women acted against ecological destruction or/and the threat of atomic annihilation, they immediately became aware of the connection between patriarchal violence against women, other people, and nature, and that: In defying this patriarchy we are loyal to future generations and to life and this planet itself. We have a deep and particular understanding of this both through our natures and our experience as women.”

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Gym poetry

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Mickey Z. on YouTube:

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Rings

(I decided to keep things personal today)

Once upon a time...

Let’s start with some background: When my parents were married in 1957, they had matching wedding rings made. These rings featured tiny suns carved all around.

My Mom wore her wedding ring - and two other rings - for so long that she eventually became unable to remove them. Over time, my Dad’s wedding ring became too tight and when his mother died (a big Italian woman with thick fingers), Dad decided to wear her ring and keep his wedding ring on a chain around his neck.

On the day Michele and I announced our engagement, my Dad took that ring off his chain and gave it to me. We were thrilled, but Michele always wished our wedding rings matched.

Last year, when Mom went into a hospice (a year ago this past Sunday), my sister and I talked about how Mom’s rings would probably end up being cremated with her. However, when Mom died, her rings slipped right off her finger.

We gave these three rings to my Dad. He put one on his chain, gave another to our niece/his granddaughter, and gave Mom’s wedding ring to me for Michele (she had returned to NYC and was on her way back to Texas at the time). I met Michele at the airport and slid Mom’s wedding ring onto her finger. To our surprise and pleasure, it fit Michele as if it were custom made for her. Meant to be, you might say.

So now Michele and I have matching wedding rings - the same rings my parents bought way back in 1957- and the circle of love lives on.

The End

Who wants to tell us a personal story in the comments section?

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Event news:

Derrick Jensen and yours truly on April 25 in the DC area

(A more formal announcement will follow soon)

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Mickey Z. on YouTube:

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Monday, January 05, 2009

Resist, resist, and resist some more

(Via)

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Poetic Awareness

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Mickey Z. on YouTube:

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Saturday, January 03, 2009

Green Scare

Before we get to imaginary terror, here’s someone living under the Israeli bombs (paid for by US taxpayers) in Gaza:

Top 5 Lies about Israel’s Assault on Gaza
More graphic images here
(Thanks, Mew)

We now return to the fabricated fear:

The term Green Scare refers to “the federal government’s expanding prosecution efforts against animal liberation and ecological activists, drawing parallels to the “Red Scares” of the 1910’s and 1950s.” This term gained notoriety in 2002 in the wake of the February 12 congressional hearings titled “The Threat of Eco-Terrorism” which discussed groups including the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

Here’s how it’s all explained by Green is the New Red: “The animal rights and environmental movements, like every other social movement throughout history, have both legal and illegal elements. There are people who leaflet, write letters, and lobby. There are people who protest and engage in non-violent civil disobedience. And there are people, like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, who go out at night with black masks and break windows, burn SUVs, and release animals from fur farms. Animal rights and environmental advocates have not flown planes into buildings, taken hostages, or sent Anthrax through the mail. Yet the FBI ranks them as the top domestic terrorism threat. And the Department of Homeland Security lists them on its roster of national security threats, while ignoring right-wing extremists who have bombed the Oklahoma City federal building, murdered doctors, and admittedly created weapons of mass destruction.”

“As a society we need to imagine others’ horrors as our own,” suggests Kelly Overton, Executive Director of People Protecting Animals & Their Habitats. “What if the sex worker was our child? The homeless woman our mother? The research dog our family pet? The unjustly imprisoned activist our child? Only when we decide the pain and humiliation of others is not worth economic gain will the need for rights, human and animal, disappear.”

The broader our vision - the more open our minds - the better we are able to recognize reality and take action.

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$1.00 poem

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(More cartoons here)

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Mickey Z. on YouTube:

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Friday, January 02, 2009

Thoreau Down

Once again, before I continue: A few links about the ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza:

Short video, re: US aid to Israel
Good context
Humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Media propaganda
Obama loves Israel
Graphic images
(Thanks, Mew)

And now for something a bit more abstract...

Long before the economy was looted and the environment polluted, Henry David Thoreau said: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.”

Thoreau, with his “deep love of and respect for nature, has been called the father of modern environmentalism. He could describe at length the sound of a loon’s call, the vastness of a forest or the way a berry hangs off a bush.” “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” he wrote. Thoreau was an “early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land.”

Perhaps, to get an idea of what it means to perform a Thoreau Down, let’s hear from the man himself:

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.”

“A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.”

“How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”

Bukowski chimes in:

“At this time, there are too many people buying cars, TV sets, homes, educations on credit. Credit and property and the 8-hour day are great friends of the Establishment. If you must buy things, pay cash, and only buy things of value—no trinkets, no gimmicks. Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase; then your mind might be free.”

And finally, Mickey Z. haikus:

the shortest distance
between this point and that point
is simplicity

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Mickey Z. on YouTube:

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