Outrage! Scandal!

• Location: Pikalo Pizzeria, IFA Villas Bavaro Resort, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
• Date: May 11 (?), 2008
• Description: yellow crane with some words on it.  I’m not sure which ones.  It’s some quote that I wrote down a few months ago and then gave to my sister and then she didn’t leave the crane for months.  Months!  But it’s a yellow crane with orange lettering.

My sister went to the Dominican Republic last week for a destination wedding (not her own) and left a crane as well.  I gave her this crane way back in February, and I guess she got a little stressed over finding the perfect spot for it.  This looks pretty ideal to me.  It’s kind of driving me bonkers that I can’t remember the quote/lyric/poem/words.

In lieu of a quote, we’ll have to discuss this article.  Summary: At some point during his campaign, Obama said he’d be willing to meet with the leaders of hostile nations.  Today at Israel’s 60th Independence day anniversary celebration, Bush insulted Obama in an underhanded way by comparing leaders who’d be willing to talk before war to Nazi appeasers during WWII.

Essentially, Bush is saying it’s a really dumb idea to try to put off war with preemptive peace talks.  I think I’d be okay with Bush’s stance on things — not saying I agree, mind you, but just agreeing to disagree since he’ll be gone next year anyway — if a member of Bush’s own camp didn’t let this jewel of a quote slip yesterday: “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them.”  Does Bush not talk to his own Secretary of Defense?

There is a difference in preventative negotiation vs. 5-years-into-the-war talks, but how is one any less honorable than the other?  I would think the first option deserves more commendation because when you’re trying to prevent something, that means both sides are already mad enough to go to war but very few or no lives have been lost yet.  It takes some effort to keep a cool head when you’re angry — I imagine it takes tons of effort to keep an entire nation cool enough to consider peace talks when all its citizens are angry, like after 9/11.  And we’re all angry now anyway, but we’ve suffered more casualties.  Could we have prevented the 4000+ US troop deaths if we had sat down and talked beforehand?

Okay, I’ve changed my mind; Bush’s stance is dumb.  This is not the Nazi era, and our weapons are far worse than they were when we first joined WWII, so going straight to war is a bad idea (not like it was good in WWII anyway), and comparing people willing to talk for peace to Nazi appeasers is tasteless, rude and unnecessary.  Jeez.  I don’t know if I have the heart to send Bush a peace crane — sometimes his choices irk me so bad.  But isn’t that the point of this whole exercise: to extend the olive branch to those you normally wouldn’t?  Hm.  I guess that means I’m sending the President a peace crane.

Oh, by the way, I think I remember that I wrote the definition of peace on this crane.  I think.

Peace is my Business

• Location: near You’re Fired, Salem, NH
• Date: April 13, 2008
• Description: blue crane with big black peace symbol

I decided to draw a really great peace symbol on this crane.  It turned out nice and big, and the folded design looks geometric and kind of reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work.  I left this crane in a commercial plaza in Salem, New Hampshire near the paint-your-own pottery place called You’re Fired.

I also spent some time today redoing all the categories on my posts to assist in navigating around the site.  I’m trying to branch out a little and make the website more about peace than my life, so I’ve joined the flickr group called “One Million Peace Signs.”  You can see their website here.  They have a blog too.  Stay tuned for more updates on other pages.

The Mystery of the Lost Peace: Nancy Drew Series # 57

• Location: romance section (?), Used Books Store
• Date: May 10, 2008
• Description: small yellow crane with the Dwight D. Eisenhower quote, “I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it,” written in brown.

I love old Nancy Drew books — the ones that are hardcover and blue-bound and so old that the pages crumble whenever you thumb through them. I collect these, but I’m not a hardcore collector who makes sure the dust jackets are intact and no one’s written on the inside cover. I just like them. And every so often, I poke my nose into a store that sells used books in search of ones I don’t have. This particular store had one blue-bound edition that I happen to own already. Rats! But on the bright side, they had an amazing setting for this crane picture.

If anyone could find peace, I’m sure it would be Nancy Drew. In the early books, she questioned authority all the time. She broke into houses and trespassed, and all she had to do was tell the police her suspicions and they would be right behind her. With her cool-headed decision-making skills, she would’ve been great in foreign relations when she grew up. Too bad she never aged past 18. (Did you notice, by the way, that I revised the Senate letter and posted it to the Think Peace page? I sent that crane out last Friday.)

I would like to be in politics. I think I could influence a lot of change, but I’m not sure if that’s my vanity talking, or my experiences in college — sometimes I think they’re the same thing. Does enthusiasm and hard work count for anything anymore? I keep thinking about that Dumbledore line in the end of book 7, where he says, “perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you [Harry], have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.” What happens when the people who have leadership thrust upon them find themselves liking the position and eventually seeking it? Do they become the people Dumbledore talks about in the first part of the quote? I keep going back to this, trying to figure out where I fit in and if I’m actually suited to leadership. I know this isn’t the only judge, or even the best way to judge what I can or should do, but it’s stuck in the back of my mind.

I worked a bit on my “garden” this weekend. I wish it were as easy to get my hands dirty working for peace.

Citizens of Peace

I had a bunch of errands to do this past Saturday, so I headed out of town. As I sat in traffic while trying to get through all of our lovely Main Street construction projects, I saw a miniature peace demonstration:

This was one of the nicest sights to me. The woman’s sign reads “Wage peace not war,” and the rainbow flag says “peace” across it. (At first, I thought this was a GLBTQ event, and that made me just as happy.) I drove on, thinking it might be nice to stop and have a chat with these people if they were here when I passed this way again. In fact, I thought about it the entire time I was at the store, and ended up hurrying through my errands so I could go back to the town common.

Victory! They were still there. In fact, they had grown:

I caught them right at the end of their vigil, which was how I convinced them to gather into a group for a picture. It would be neat if they stood like this all the time, but no — when I first approached, they were lined up against the sidewalk so the waiting cars could read their signs.

It turns out, my town has a “Citizens for Peace” group. They admit it’s more of an email list, and once a month they join together to stand on the town common. Many had never introduced themselves. I hung around for the introductions, passed out a few business cards, and signed up for the listserv. Then the clock struck 11 and the spell was broken — the demonstration ended.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow: a new crane. Hurray!

Check this out!

Check this out! I was perusing the doodles for National Doodle Day when a familiar symbol caught my eye… I might have to buy this one.

Cleaning out the Files

• Location: scrapbooking section, Joann Fabrics
• Date: Unknown
• Description: Unknown

There’s something strange in my neighborhood. I opened a flickr account today to show off my hawt!!!1!1! crane photos. As I uploaded my goodies off this computer, I realized that this photo isn’t on my blog. Unless you’ve seen it before. But I don’t think you have! Which means I left this crane on one of those days where I left six other cranes, and this one slipped my mind. I’m not even sure what’s written on this anymore. So I thought I’d show it off, and if you’ve seen it, let me know. The funny part is, I remember going back to see if this one was still there, and it wasn’t. Why wouldn’t I blog about it?

Oh well. I now have a flickr account to take the place of those teeny thumbnails that used to be on the Crane Project page. I haven’t had the time to fully explore it, so I’ll do that another day. And I’ll finish uploading everything I’ve got. And that’s it.

More Bostony Goodness

• Location: lobby table, Mezzanine, Omni Parker House
• Date: March 7, 2008
• Description: white crane with a quote that I can’t remember written in black. It was a good one though. I’ll think of it eventually.

I went into Boston today for work, to thank the restaurants that participated in my first big schmooze. It was a nice day for power-walking around the city, and I enjoyed having a few hours off from my recent work task of stuffing envelopes. Days like today make me glad to be where I am right now.

Towards the end of the trip, I stopped in at the Omni Parker House, which is a hotel with a few restaurants restaurants thrown in, for lunch. There turned out to be a lot of people hanging around, which is why this picture is a little blurry — I only got one shot before someone came by. But you get the idea.

Ah, here we go. I found today’s quote. It’s by William Ury:

We tend to think the problem is human beings have this natural tendency to kill, and yet in the middle of a hot war, WWII, a “good war,” as it were, the US army was astonished to learn that at least three out of every four riflemen who were trained to kill and commanded to kill, could not bring themselves to pull the trigger when they could see the person they were ordered to kill. And that inner resistance to violence is a well kept secret.

In light of this quote, I think now’s a good time to bring up Pat Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire while serving in Iraq, and then the military covered it up from his family. I don’t want to debate the cover-up; I’d rather talk about the friendly fire. Apparently, no one could see what was going on because the shooting took place at dusk, and no one heard Pat Tillman shouting out his name and the order to cease fire. The people who ended up killing him thought they were shooting at insurgents instead of friendlies.

My questions: What did they think while they were shooting? Were they scared? What makes this situation different from WWII? I imagine the visibility plays a big part. I’m all confused about this. Obviously, if the friendlies had seen who they were shooting at, they would’ve stopped. But if they had seen who they were shooting at, and it turned out to be insurgents, would they have stopped? Would they have continued to pull their triggers because they’re trained differently than men were trained in WWII? Or is it that we are taught to think of people in the Middle East as less than human?

That last question is loaded, I know, but it’s been running through my head for a few days. I like to think of myself as an open person, but I don’t know how to address racism because I’ve had no practice with it. The more I’m out of college, the more I realize the less I know.

If Storks Bring Babies, What do Cranes Bring?

• Location: The mail
• Date: Hopefully tomorrow, May 7, 2008, but definitely by the end of the week
• Description: small pink crane with blue peace signs all over

That, my friends, is a mail crane. I’m going to write a very nice note to one of my representatives, enclose a crane, put it in the mail, and send it on its way. Do you like the stationary? I made it to send a crane in, but then no one I didn’t know asked for one, so I never got the chance to send it out.

If I already had a letter written to one of my people, here’s what it might say:

Dear Senator __________,

I am writing to ask you to encourage peace whenever possible. Let’s define “peace” as the dictionary does: “the normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world” and “a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, esp. in personal relations” (www.dictionary.com). If we take this at face value, we can talk about peace in terms of a global perspective as well as a personal perspective.

There are certain ways that you can inject a little more peace into your life. Try to be accepting of those who annoy you, and let it go when it happens. For example, please consider a more bi-partisan relationship with Republican senators. It’s easier to think peace when you’re not caught up in your anger at someone.

Although I advocate for peace, I’m not anti-military; on the contrary, a military is useful in certain situations. I would like to remind you, however, that having a military does not mean we should use it to respond to every threat or action we perceive is against us. At the moment, there is a bill going through the House of Representatives that would establish a Department of Peace, whose main goal would be to “work to… divert from armed conflict” (HR 808). I urge you to read the bill and learn about it so that if and when it does come through the Senate, you’ll be ready.

In addition to the skills necessary for war, we need to have the skills required by peace: namely the ability to defuse and resolve conflicts before they escalate to violence, as well as knowing how to maintain peace through reason and compromise. We can use these skills on a personal as well as a political level, and I am asking you to support both.

Respectfully yours,

Q Finder

Not bad for a first draft, eh? If I have time, I can go over it tomorrow and send it out. But since I worked 11.5 hours today, I think for now I’ll just go to bed. You’re welcome to take my text and use it for yourself to ask your representatives to think peace. And if you have constructive comments, I’m all for them.

P.S. The plan worked today: I went to the gym and I feel much more inclined to be at ease with myself and the world. Excellent.

Think Peace, Article 2

I do not feel very peaceful today. I feel annoyed a lot at people for little things, or nothing at all. I know it’s bad because I’m annoyed at Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre for not telling Jane about his big secret — and I’ve read this book several times before. It’s not like I don’t know what’s coming.

Some days I find it easy to go along with Article 2 of my Think Peace page. Today was not one of those days. Maybe it has to do with the skipped gym visit. Well anyway, I came across a few news articles that are happy-ish.

This first one is about the death of Mildred Loving, a pioneer in the inter-racial marriage movement. While it’s not nice that she died, I enjoyed reading her story. I’m glad we haven’t forgotten our history, though I do wish we wouldn’t talk about the 1960s like they were ages and ages ago. Forty years is not that long. We can still learn some lessons from the Civil Rights movement.

This next one talks about the number of registered voters going up this year. Lots of media hype around the primaries = more voters turning out. They say that figures are up for “blacks, women and young people,” which historically have been the least represented in elections. I like reading about political involvement. Maybe we need to examine this trend of new voter registrations, and ask ourselves why the numbers are going up in these demographics; could it be there’s more diversity in the presidential campaign? Or is it that the candidates are getting better at reaching out to people? Hm. Or it could be that more people are registering so they can vote against certain candidates (i.e. Hillary haters voting Republican to keep her out). Well gee, I was excited at first. Now I wonder about new voter motivation.

Must be one of those days. Tomorrow I’ll sing “Get me to the Gym on Time!” (to the tune of “Get me to the Church on time” from My Fair Lady, obviously. Shame on your for not knowing that) and get my rear in gear. All I have to worry about is my energy level after tomorrow’s 12-hour workday. Too bad no one will be there to carry me to the gym (again, a reference to My Fair Lady. You really should brush up on your Audrey Hepburn).

A New Tactic

I just read this article entitled, “US-backed Plan Sees Shiny Future for Embattled Green Zone.” The summary: We have control (mostly) of the Green Zone in Baghdad. Now U.S. Developers are looking for ways to profit off it by planning to build luxury hotels/resorts there in a few years.

I especially love the part in the article that says, For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a “zone of influence” around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

I can’t get over the fact that no one knows who actually owns the land in the Green Zone, and yet there’s already a Marriott deal in place: If you talk to people at the State Department, they still believe a hotel isn’t going up. But it is a done deal,” Karnowski said of the Marriott project. Maybe we should figure out whose land it is before we start building a $5 billion development that will be in place mainly to benefit us. Not to mention that the Green Zone isn’t a secure location. Yeah, I sure want to visit a war zone for my spa vacation.

What do the Iraqis think about this? Has anyone bothered to ask them? I guess we’re doing essentially the same thing that Saddam Hussein did when he was in power of the Green Zone — he put lots of family and friends there to extend his range of influence. How is it possible that we’re not up in arms about this? I’m up in arms. I don’t even know where that term came from, and I’m up in arms. I’m all riled up now, thinking about how pretentious we are according to other countries — and for good reason. How is it not arrogant of us to already have plans to build this?

Thoughts? I’d love a little feedback. And while you’re at it, check out this photo. The smaller sign above the big one says 4000 dead•$3 trillion•100 years. And is anyone else annoyed with the endless squabbling between Clinton and Obama?