On this MLK Day, do we share a dream

Cross posted from Petaluma360.com

by In.Her.Own.Write

Martin Luther King, assassinated at a tender 39 years of age, continues to catch our hearts and minds with his I have a Dream speech and his brief lifetime of work, calling to us to stand up for social justice and overcome racial discrimination wherever it exists in our land. He also called for service, an idea that brings honor, satisfaction.

Sunday radio was saturated with fine words about MLK – and his own words stung. We’re out of touch with the angst of the Civil Rights movement here. Our lovely city-country lifestyle in Sonoma County doesn’t include race riots or in-your-face discrimination against black residents – but talk to a few Latinos and well, that’s another story. Yes, there are occasional attacks on Petaluma’s Latino residents, based on nothing but ethnic background. But today is MLK’s day. His message mirrors much of what we believe the American Dream is about – justice for all.

I appreciated Obama’s comments today on the heels of the terrible Tucson shootings. “We must learn to speak to each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds,” he said. Wish Obama would be the orator MLK was, the leader. But I give him cred for a solid effort.
At a time when violent rhetoric is rampant as more and more people purchase guns, MLK’s message of peace is more relevant than ever.

Watch him deliver his famous speech at or read the whole thing and analysis of it at

Here’s a big chunk I love: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Wow.

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Westside Stories - Leaping into Improv

Westside Stories – making the leap into improv

by In.Her.Own.Write

My friend of the arts, writer/producer Nancy Long, sent me and others an invite/email this week: “AND, Wednesday, January 12th at 7:00pm at the Pelican Art Gallery is Storytelling Night. Those of you that went last month…wasn’t that so fun! Dave from Cinnabar Theatre has a winner and I highly recommend this event. People show up to tell a 5 Minute true story of their life with NO paper. Winner wins $50! at the end of the night. The subject is: Starting Over. You do not need to sign up and tell a story…just show up and listen! (BUT, then again…you COULD give it try…what the heck!)”

So I told a few friendly souls (a few so I wouldn’t be scared off) I’d recite a True Story for the Westside Stories series, Pelican Gallery 2nd Wednesdays of each month, 7pm. This theater can’t be more local – sounds like super fun … but I feel so – EXPOSED. I tell my story – WHAT IF no body likes it? Some will. You take yer chances.

And then there’s the fact that a friend, Laure Reichek, won the first prize, so, ha, I can win, right? Only her story involved living in Paris surrounded by Existentialists. No matter; I feel winning is being gutsy enough to stand up and tell your story at all.

“Take in a story slam with Dave Pokorny” I read in Petaluma Patch this week, the email listing of local stuff through AOL. I’ll meet the editor of that new online pub, Katrina, at Vine and Barrell on Petaluma Blvd. Jan. 13th at 5:30pm.

Instigator of Westside Stories is Dave Pokorny. We saw him recite a story of his own as part of Twisted Christmas at Glaser Center in December. Ironic, funny, twisted.

Read that Pokorny was a comedian, on the road, working with Ellen DeGeneres and Jim Carrey doing stand-up in Las Vegas. Not surprised noting his polished style.

The Petaluma Patch story says Pokorny “likes nothing better than getting up in front of a bunch of strangers and telling stories. So when he and his wife Juliet saw a show at The Moth in Brooklyn, N.Y. – inspiration struck.

“They had 300 people lined up on the street, waiting to put their names in a hat to tell stories; stories from people’s hearts. That’s where we learned about these story slams and we wanted to get involved,” Pokorny said.

Described by The Wall Street Journal as “New York’s hottest and hippest literary ticket,” The Moth was founded in 1997, dedicated to the art of storytelling. It is now in four locations including: Brooklyn, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Pokorny is running Westside Stories in conjunction with Cinnabar Theater where his wife works as well. This next Wednesday will be month 3 with themes thus far “the first time,” “the most awful thing,” and now “starting over”.

Westside Stories works this way: You pay $5 at the door and put your name in a hat if you wish to recite. About ten people go on stage when their names are drawn. And a final name is pulled from the hat tob e judge of who presents the best five-minute story. Winner gets $50 and wine and beer sales benefit the Cinnabar Theater.

Another local theater night upcoming: Nancy Long handed me a postcard in Aqus Cafe’ last night as we watched the fine LOCAL food film, Turning Point, based a lot on experience of people at Findhorn in Scotland with a number of incredible people including Joanna Macy, the Buddhist scholar and author and Richard Heinberg, the Post Carbon Institute guy. Nancy wanted to be sure I wouldn’t miss Petaluma Readers Theatre appearance at Aqus Tuesday, January 18th at 7:30pm. This event is co-hosted by Nancy with Susan Bono of Tiny-Light Publications with the theme: Brats, Bullies and Bras: Stories from Childhood. It is an affordable fundraiser for Petaluma Readers Theatre at only $5.00! Glad to say these events do get packed, so come early.

On my own...

Whole word scene morphing. I did a play Saturday - I say DID as Nancy Long opened the opportunity and Milo Frisbie fell right into it with me - my friend, the arborist, lover of Bonnie - teacher and great, really great, grandpa, though he looks young for that.

So sorry I can't make girlfriend chat date today. Necessary, sometimes even deep talk about everything that comes up!

Trying to concentrate on where I am and am moving to. Crasy, chaotic world and a whole network of clever and good friends and associates to help us through.

Water St. Bistro - such a warm pleasure yet again. Ella Fitzgerald I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, writer/curmudgeon, Peter Byrne, inventing and researching his book on nanobots, my own play featuring them lying sleeping in a drawer.

Reading about A.J. Leibling - can't afford the $40, 1,057 PAGE book just now published about this guy - and the SF Chronicle slowly shrinking along with my other SF media staple, KQED Radio and TV. OUCH, OUCH, OUCH!

So - I will blogspot today, having got more than 1/2 way through The Ultimate Blog book. I have hope for this form after 3 years of writing and frequency improving. Daily?

Probably good mood stabilizer. Will you write me back?

Creating the wheel with Al Gore's help...

Creating the wheel; Al Gore vs our Petaluma, CA General PlanFrom!

Contributed by Connie Madden - Posted: July 22, 2008 8:33:32 PM

"Reducing sprawl called crucial in warming fight," says SF Chron on June 27 - so how's about changing our auto-centric ways?

Since Petaluma Planning Dept's Pamela Tuft said "We're creating the wheel here," when we were looking at the General Plan Draft on greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) - her statement that we can't keep our promise to reduce greenhouse gases 20% by 2012; we can only expect 8% reduction, I've been dipping into what climate change peers to be (don't read about global warming before bed! Nightmares are made of these...) We simply have to do better than this!

Point is we don't have the leisure to just wait till after 2012 or 2025 to change our ways! Heard Jerry Brown, now our Attorney General, is saying we've got just 4 years to turn the bilge barge around; some give us 10 or so. Whole lotta change must be - if you want clean air, water, no huge rise in cancer and bugs bacterial on the ground and in the air. Scientists predict mass die offs and migrations of people and animals as temperatures rise and more dessert is created in Africa, Asia and to a lesser degree Middle and South America. Wish we could just imagine a humugous and perfect CO2 vacuum into existence - but that won't exist anytime soon.

Al Gore to the rescue? At least he makes pure sense:

"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has got to change!" He didn't say, "Gee, I guess we ought to drive a bit less" or just change your lightbulbs or as some Petaluma council members seem to be saying "we NEED more onramps and parking lots and big box stores to fuel our auto-centric lifestyle and bring in more tax revenue" (while doubling our GHG?) And with the new stores robbing from the existing and building up infrastructure costs and medical costs to the city, this helps how? We'll need a balance sheet to see if that in any way could HELP our bottom line, be a net positive for Petaluma - a Community Impact Report (CIR) policy, now being called an FEIA - fiscal economic impact assessment...oatmealish words, but if they get the data on the page, ok!

I know TV and the big corporate guys have fueled our ideas of what we think we want: more everything and now. Wasn't always thus.

Need I mention we got all dependent on foreign oil largely because the Bush administration is laden with Oil Tycoons? Ex: there's a Chevron oil tanker named after Condolessa Rice, who served on their board, and VP Cheney is linked to Halliburton to say NOTHING of where our President Bushie got his dough. Oil money/greed did actually fuel a war here, still a shooting war that made us miss the bigger stories coming out of the middle east in favor of saving oil rights while polluting the universe and adding to a global economic crisis!

So recently the State of CA came out with a 9-page proclamation, reading something like our General Plan, i.e. DENSE copy you can't easily chew your way through.

If you're looking for what you can do at home, their are green self-help lists in the newspaper, if you can find a paper (at least 3 newspaper boxes downtown are empty or broken downtown) and read it, and tomorrow maybe focus on how you can reuse instead of recycling, and if you're really thinking about it, you'll build a rainwater catchment system or cistern (to protect against drought). You could have a healthy veggie garden while the grasses around you are all burned up. Great way to more than keep up with the Jones.

An energy solution for Petaluma I'd dearly love to see is our Community Center at Luchessi becoming our first Community Choice Aggregation cite - solar energy beaming from its broad roof to the neighbors nearby, a practice that could with care and investment become our alternative to foreign oil, to foreign wars as we know them, to saving ourselves from the worst of climate change - broken infrastructure systems, broken energy grid. California is looking to take money OUT of its road repair budget right now. That CalTrans money from the sky just may never be there.

We have a postcard community here - let's learn a lot, change our ways and leave the place for our kids or whoever in at least as good shape as you see it now.

Our lovely little river town; gateway to Wine Country.

Green Energy anyone?

Daniel Solnit for Praxis Peace, Sonoma, CA

Everybody says we need to make huge changes in how we live - locally/globally - if we're to fair even ok through the global climate crisis that will touch the lives of everyone. Way bigger floods; longer droughts; skyrocketing energy costs; high unemployment and transportation costs are on the short list...the long one is just now being written!

Well-informed audiences already know so much about these climate challenges that it is coming out our ears. Katrina may be an early result; lots more disease and death due to lack of food and clean water (but that's Sub-Saharan Africa asnd other countries - so we may not notice). Places in Michigan have decided not to repair their roads! A lot of this is not in front of my face yet but some is working its way into sci-fi-ish dreams!

So it was with a sense of wonderment that I sat and listened to Daniel Solnit's presentation for Praxis Peace Institute a bit ago. Daniel was in great form, complex materials down, his energy up. Daniel asks us direct questions like "Will the War Cost Us the Climate?" and what is the so-called Tipping Point beyond which everything we know looks very scary and "climate becomes a run-away train"?

If climate change will likely cost us $1 trillion per year, as he states, where on our planet does that come from? This would be the entire U.S. military budget? Or, I remembered, the amount of equity held by Charles Schwab when we reached Y2K! Hey! The money is in the corporations, the banks, not just middle class pocketbooks and some unknown angels we keep hoping will save us. We often say things are just a matter of political will - here we gotta pair that with great big bucks from somewhere and somewhere else!

To stop short of the point-of-no-return (whatever terrifying thing THAT is), says Daniel, "we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 80% worldwide...and 94% HERE by 2030 and the way must be paved within 10 years. Jerry Brown, our illustrious current CA Attorney General, now says we've got 4 only years to stop the same train. Figures based on what I have yet to discover...but its all moving too faaasttt... like a Keystone Cops silent movie where a bunch of yahoos are in a crasy car where and the steering wheel breaks off and the brakes don't work. I recall again - this time my Aunt Ruth, may she rest in peace, and me seeing her as if I were there when she skedadled down a mountain in a truck sans breaks. They still have special truck emergency lanes on some mountains for this...but where are OUR climate crisis breaks? She lived; hope GAIA (the earth itself as a living being) makes it through this one. Some scientists are saying GAIA will die. Well, huff to some scientists! I'm always the optimist so I have enough energy to walk away from danger.

Luckily, there is some place to take a breath and think positive. It's still barely possible to act in time if we act together. "Think of the rapid US shift to wartime production in 1941 " says Daniel; "then multiply that ten-fold." Ouch! Some heavy lifting there!

Obviously, changing light bulbs to the cheap ones that sputter and look yellow does little - even if you get the good ones - and I'm starting to hear lots of people will never get around to solar panels or even be able to afford said energy gatherers with government subsidies! So what can a SMART community like, say, Petaluma, Sebastopol, any of our sister Sonoma cities DO to ensure our refrigerators will still work after cheap gas is gone and the economy possibly shattered? There is a whole lot to be done...start your Personal Sustainability Pratice (PSP) list!

The local/global economy is, of course, a complex and mysterious thing. We may just be entrepreneurial enough to be better at these crasy energy and weather challenges than other countries and still reign somewhere in the top 3 or 4 economies of the world - but with more than half of humans without clean water - does that sound ok? Actually, no. Sounds quite spooky. But I always recall Y2K - the non-event that my then-bosses, attorneys at Charles Schwab, stayed up nights planning for. Didn't happen, right? Except now I hear it didn't happen because thousands of low-paid workers in India and elsewhere worked out the kinks we didn't even know were there working all-nighters for who knows how long.

So what can a community, a state, a country do to protect our right to cook and cool food? Run washing machines and TVs? Many Bay Area cities are close to adopting something called Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) where areas create their own energy - say Luchessi Community Center is used as a solar bank for its neighbors in Petaluma. And the Geysers outside Calistoga create enough energy for a million homes - and we have half that - but we don't know how to convert it to useful energy yet. Hoping some young geniouses will figure out some great new young genious solutions...but I'm keeping my eye on the CCA plan because it makes sense...

For way more information than you can digest, check out San Francisco various green departments, Berkeley, Marin County governments - and definately www.iled.org. Thanks once again to Praxis Peace for offering Daniel Solnit's useful and much needed information about a huge challenge most of us haven't really wrapped our minds hearts and hands around. I remember in the early 1960's my Mom used to make me think my job was to face off with nuclear anilhilation - but I don't know exactly where those rogue nukes are or how exactly to dismantle them - and there is this Energy Elephant in the Living Room now...

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Posted March 26, 2008 7:22:44 PM
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Technolust, technophobia…

Ever buy a machine so cool you thought your whole world would change? Just got a MacBook Pro (no; you CAN’T follow me around till I’m sleepy and take it home with you), transferring the best of my files from a humungous PC to a 17” silver envelope weighing just 6lbs and leaving behind the rest of my files/mind-flakes like yesterday’s newspapers… The new Machine makes me feel like I can climb veritable mountains with my mind! I remind myself daily its just me using it…But I promised myself so very much…the novel, the short stories, the proposals that would change history…This baby was made just for dreaming schemers like me…So much to accomplish; so many directions to go in - all at once… Communications is my game and I love it still. Had an auspicious beginning in pr years ago. My First Ever (witness the pr-speak!) release told the tale of a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud painted with a history of San Francisco by my then-boyfriend, Ken Jennings. Owned by famed promoters, Peter Marino and Davy Rosenberg, their whole scene was unbelievable! These guys lived in a house with a Sisteen Chapel-like ceiling over their round bed, had one of the 3 replicas of King Tut’s Throne in the universe in their drawing room and a piano from their dear friend, Liberace. An Evening Magazine camera crew followed the Rolls around one entire day with me in the back! Whew! What an auspicious pr beginning…But Marino and Rosenberg only got in Herb Caen’s column when they crashed the Rolls on Doyle Drive, What a waste of a Rolls, lamented Caen… So based on working with these colorful characters, I slid into a job with Art Blum Public Relations and Advertising and started my own infamous career in pr…exhilarated; sleep deprived, I suffered many panic attacks, felt many surges of pure power... But I digress from, where was I? The Power of the pseudo power of Technology…We believe we are taller, more beautiful, wiser by the Power of the Product…The neurotic Brenda in Six Feet Under has bought a laptop in order to write a novel but finds herself allowing sexual encounters she might not otherwise as “research” for her book…Well, THAT sort of research is definitely in my PAST…So what kind do I seek? Wikipedia and Google are beginners tricks… The novel I intend – sigh; what a lot of work on spec! Read recently that writers shouldn’t expect their novel or play to be read by publishers. Just isn’t done for way the bulk of submittals… Mostly I attempt to leverage my way in – shoot for doable stuff like local theater, local music concerts, local artwork, a press release for the occasional conference. Well, that works! Even global projects like United Nations conferences have not been beyond my reach, at least when I cultivated people (who for some reason believed in me) who could help me find the work that I then did for – free! They never have a pr budget, I’ve learned. And I have talent, actually. Keep having to remind myself still, after 30 some odd years. Very challenging years these were. From my first poems at age 18 and the Quill and Scroll I got for interviewing fellow high school students – trying to see into their souls, I was. And they often formed brief attachments – to their own reflection in my writing I suppose… I use communications in the hope of having an effect on the world; to actually clean up some of the mess or create a corner for beauty. Sometimes I get a chance – when I make my own way, my own path like I always have done. You can do it, too! Even from the library computers, but that’s WAY harder… So here I am with my new technology: my new great light, silver friend and terrifying enemy. I always seem to find that scary part to a thing. Like my Mom as she lost ability to talk telling us with fearful eyes that the inventors of the atom bomb “thought they were doing a good thing.” (Inferring we should do something to stop the impending evil accompanying the BOMB!) So today I notice two girls at the store I visit multi-times a day (Jungle Vibes), are carrying iPods and my friend, Strange de Petaluma, was telling me of 3 teens walking home from school down railroad tracks in Oakland listening to their iPods - and they got killed by a train! Couldn’t hear the damn train! Without the iPods, likely wouldn’t have been nary a scratch on ‘em… So what dangers lie ahead for me with this new café/workhorse MAC? I’m thinking I’ll write proposals for a hiring hall here, for another Farmers Market, for a documentary on Guaxchi, creating relations with Chinese folks in order to do business…I’ll let you know what works! (what succeeds or how I do) And then the blasted thing wouldn’t turn on! And the Home Theater had no picture and, possibly worse, my big old clunky PC no longer had DSL…woe was me until my partner unhinged the backside of this “Powerbook” looking quite helpless as it lay there, took out the battery and replaced it. “It went to sleep and didn’t wake up,” he said. That’s what we’re all afraid of, I guess…

Best year ever? Dream on...seriously!

What have we here at 2008's beginning? Rampant hope, somewhat justified. Futurist Ray Kurzweill says that by 2020 or so we'll all have nanobots inserted in our brains so when we get really, really old, say 150? we'll be able to do amazing stuff and not be bored!

Still, often General Gloom takes ahold for a bit these dark winter days, as it dawns on us we haven't learned how to stop ruining the health of our glorious planet. But the bad ecology news is always mixed with the knowledge that we live in some sort of Paradise here in Petaluma, CA where Country is just a bit down the road from City and City is a pretty little River town with a great music scene!

Flu this year could have been avoided - but somehow was a good thing. I read a lot. I now know what happens when you keep reading the Dalai Lama - he asks you to devote yourself to Others! I mean really, even waking up to devote yourself more thoroughly 3x a night when you thought you'd get a good night's sleep! This from How to Practice, a little paperback you can slip in a big pocket and carry around; good idea. Really, you'll become more good. New York Times bestseller! You go, Dalai Lama! I always find reading him makes me calmer, more resolved to do something or other.

Lying around with a slight fever, I also got to hear another idol of mine, Satish Kumar. Guy walked around the globe with no money and as a strict veggie, befriended by Bertrand Russell and Martin Luther King on the way. You know this guy? Wrote Path Without Destination, another fine tome. Not too long. I met the man once at a Bioneers Conference. Sat there all on his lonesome looking like it was a birthday party. Amazing human. An NPR interviewed Kumar while I was abed. Guy asked, amazed:
"So, you have NO stress?" Kumar (approx) "No; I am always working toward my goals, but I have many lifetimes to do what I have to do, so no worries!" Wow! What a concept. And I totally believe he believes this! Now to subscribe to Kumar's mag, Resurgence, published in Brighton, England, it is the living breathing evidence of Small is Beautiful : Economics as If People Mattered and the whole E. F. Schmacher wonder. I promise to share with those who would appreciate. You?

Also read Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, a sweet little book that is supporting my habit of imagining making the world a better place - through the UN and being a fantastic role model globally. Ha! I'll do it! Well, maybe not, but I'll do something more because of ol' Eleanor. What a gal! Believe I'll read more of her. Inspiring for women, especially, because she wouldn't quit and her kindness made waves in the US and through the UN. She made a wake in the waters for women to follow, to make their own waves.

Another joy this New Year's season is Singing at Julie's - rediscovering Johnnie Mathis? A group of our friends gets together over and over and over and lately there is a jazz pianist, Bob Johns, who seems able to play anything, especially jazzy torch songs I've always loved and sung to myself. Fun to note that others like it when I sing to THEM! Last Sunday it was When Sunny Gets Blue (Johnnie Mathis version) and Summertime (my version loosely from Porky & Bess). Sweet music, especially as my bit was a smallish piece of an afternoon that included fine fiddlin' by pro's, wonderful traditional songs by Scott Gerber and Cori Wood - and I even stole 3 of Julie's thousand camillias on the way out for my turquoise vase at home. She won't mind? I'll ask...