My Meta-Meditation List

• Crazy neighbor and his crazy pit bull
• Quigley Road Vehicle Impound employees
• Middle-aged sidewalk vendor who whistles at me in Lincoln Park every time I walk by no matter what, and even followed me in his white, late model station wagon and whistled at me from his car a number of times
  
• The RTA transit cop who “wouldn’t give a nickel for Ohio City”
• The Lakewood Division of Taxation that needs constant proof that I no longer live in Lakewood, forcing me to retain utility records from 2003 in my files
  

Disparate Thoughts

Reading:

I spent an afternoon at the Algebra Teahouse on Friday. I had forgotten about its unhurried feel, the fava beans on the menu and the quality of the coffee. I sat by the wood-burning stove and read Small is Beautiful . . .

Our scientists incessantly tell us with the utmost assurance that everything around us has evolved by small mutations sieved out through natural selection. . . Every complexity, we are told, is the result of evolution. Yet our development planners seem to think they can do better than the Almighty, that they can create the most complex things at one throw by a process called planning . . .

An unemployed man is a desperate man and he is practically forced into migration. This is another justification for the assertion that the provision of work opportunities is the primary need and should be the primary objective of economic planning. Without it, the drift of people into the large cities (Here Schumacher is talking about the shift from rural to urban in developing countries. In Cleveland it would be the drift of people to the suburbs or the Sunbelt) cannot be mitigated, let alone halted.

The amount of real leisure a society enjoys tends to be in inverse proportion to the amount of labour-saving machinery it employs.

The prestige carried by people in modern industrial societies varies in inverse proportion to their closeness to production.

Other Quotes:

Voltaire: “Anything too stupid to be said is sung”

Lustfelt: “Anything too stupid to be said is twittered”

Strategic Essentialism & MTB:

I attended the Meet the Bloggers conversation with Ward 13 Councilman & 10^th District Congressional Candidate, Joe Cimperman. I’d like to take a moment to apply the over-used, yet useful theory of Strategic Essentialism to the situation.

In the conversations that occurred both during MTB and after the microphone was turned off, many of the bloggers focused on the one or two topics on which they disagreed with Cimperman. I felt that most neglected to appreciate commonalities. Not seeing the forest for the trees, they failed to recognize the value of an ally that is not “of the system”, but knows how to operate “within the system”.

Moving On:

I am moving soon (only about a mile away) and am feeling the tension between my desire to be light, free and portable and my wish to be connected to my past. My paternal grandmother, Mentoria recently passed away and my maternal grandmother, Jeanne recently had a stroke that has left her non-verbal. I regret not asking them more question about their lives.

My family history stems from both the African-American, rural, deep-south and white Appalachia. I have experienced neither place beyond short visits.

I am resisting the urge to scour basements and attics for creased photos and diaries. What would I really do with those artifacts?

I remind myself that possessions are impermanent. Trying to trust that I have the useful and necessary past stored away in heart and mind and that more is not always better.

My mouse stumbled across this social networking site, Rustbelt Bloggers. I joined it namely because of the name, but I like the idea of a site that links the region.

As a resident of the Tremont neighborhood, I have been following conversations about the mixed income housing development, Tremont Pointe. I lived on Fairfield Avenue from 2001-2002 when the Valleyview Estates was still inhabited. The neighborhood’s look/feel was more diverse (age-wise, race-wise, income-wise, artist-wise).

I moved away and then returned to the neighborhood in 2004 around the time Valleyview residents were relocated. Valleyview was demolished in 2005. I have noticed some changes in the community since the loss of the public housing project, mostly in attitudes from new residents as to what kind of community Tremont should be and who should live there. It seems to me that many neighbors don't know that many of the Tremont Pointe residents' families have lived in the area for generations prior to their relocation; Ninety-five former Valleyview residents currently live in the new development.

There has been some fear and discussion related to the reintroduction of low-income housing to the community and some positive changes too.

In a context that moves beyond the neighborhood, other HOPE VI developments are popping up in Cleveland and around the nation. The controversy is that city officials seem to encourage these developments in gentrifying neighborhoods, perhaps to make poverty more palpable to higher income individuals who have stayed/returned to center city neighborhoods. How can neighborhoods reconcile the goal of de-concentrating poverty with initiatives to replace public housing in neighborhoods in which property values have significantly increased? Hotel Bruce has elucidated this conundrum better than I have.

Keeping my eye on it.

Feel. Drop the caffeine buzz, the buzz of the cathode ray, the hangover, the career ambitions, the list, the perfect stilettos, the cyber-kin, drop the blizzardnoise off our shoulders like warm rain and feel in silence for bellied clang, yell, whimper.

An excerpt from Systems are Cowards, part of Cleveland poet/author/humanitarian, Kate Sopko's recently released book, Stewards of the Lost Lands.

I recently had a conversation with my boyfriend's mother during which I confessed that I am not dating him for his car. . . just doing my part. He does his part too. He rarely drives his beater of a car choosing transport that is bike heavy and RTA lite.

I recently read the The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. He writes about what would happen to the planet if humans vanished (he offers rapture, disease and other scenarios for the disappearance). For example, he details how long the island of Manhattan would take to return to wilderness, how long it would take for tamed rivers to un-dam themselves and recreate wetlands, and how long beachfront properties would last.

The chapter that I can’t stop thinking about has to do with plastics. It is unknown how long plastic takes to return to the earth in a natural form. I cringe when I see “disposable” items made from plastic. Plastic is not disposable. It never, ever goes away. Not even “biodegradable” plastic, it just breaks down into smaller pieces.

I’ve been ruminating that not-recycling plastic is not only environmentally disastrous, but poor foresight. Plastic is essentially a nonrenewable and super useful resource. I envision a future of high-paid trash pickers unearthing old landfills in search of long-buried recyclable plastics.

Additionally: Your Stuff: It Isn't Grown, It Must Be Mined

. . . ultimately, one day our industrial economy will be made up entirely of recycled and biologically grown material. That day, however, may be a long way off. How do we get there, and what is the world of mining like today? How rapidly are we depleting the minerals we have, and how do we get to sustainable mining?

To maintain our standard of living, each person in the United States requires over 48,000 pounds of minerals each year:

* 12,428 lb. of stone
* 9,632 lb. of sand and gravel
* 940 lb. of cement
* 276 lb. of clays
* 400 lb. of salt
* 302 lb. phosphate rock
* 639 lb. of nonmetals
* 425 lb. of iron ore
* 77 lb. of bauxite (aluminum)
* 17 lb. of copper
* 11 lb. of lead
* 10 lb. of zinc
* 6 lb. of manganese
* .0285 T oz. gold
* 29 lb. of other metals

Plus:

* 7,667 lb. petroleum
* 7,589 lb. coal
* 6,866 natural gas
* 1/3 lb. uranium

It is the day before the day before Christmas, and I just finished shopping for presents. I wound up last-minute desperation shopping today at Borders to purchase a CD for my father and a book for my brother. The excursion was intended to be short and pain-free.

Dad wants new Alicia Keys CD, daughter purchases CD. Brother will like Steven Colbert's I am America, sister plunks down $23 for it hardcover. It's not about me, it's about what they will like. Everyone will be happy. I remain energetic, spirited and ready to bake oatmeal cranberry (I don't know Karate, I know Craisin) cookies with my cat, Steve.

However, at this point I still haven't found gifts for my brother's longtime lady-friend and my mother's boyfriend. In an uninspired amateur consumer move, I decide to check out the store next door: Bad Crap & Beyond. It seems this big box store exists solely for bridal registries and for people to buy home items that appear thoughtful when they have no idea what said people actually might like.

Depressing--As Seen on TV! I embody self-loathing. I bought my mother's boyfriend battery powered massage slippers. I lost my mind in a whirlwind of scented socks and electric candles. I can return them tomorrow, but that would require going back to the store. My brother's girlfriend? She is getting a real candle. Yup, so lame.

I made the cookies, but all I could think about are the stupid slippers and thoughtless candle. Shame! At this point it is either those awful presents or gift cards. I can only hope that they give me equally awful presents to assuage my guilt.