Patrick in the Northeast this week

My friend Patrick Bond is over from South Africa giving several talks in the Northeast this week. Check them out if you're in Boston, NYC, or D.C. this week:


6 APRIL: CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, GRADUATE CENTER

CLIMATE POLITICS OR CARBON TRADING?
The Story of Cap and Trade

Film screening and discussion with Patrick Bond

The Story of Cap and Trade (http://www.storyofcapandtrade.org, featuring Annie Leonard), launched on December 1, 2009 and was seen 400,000 times before the end of the (failed) Copenhagen Climate Summit. The nine-minute film helped open a global and US debate about the core modus operandi for top-down climate governance: commodification of the air. Patrick Bond, an advisor to the film, will address social, spatial and temporal features of climate politics in an era of fading financialization but durable neoliberalism.

PATRICK BOND is senior professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies in Durban, South Africa, where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society: http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs. He has written or edited numerous books including Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society(2009); and Looting Africa (2006). He was a founding member of the Durban Group for Climate Justice and is active in Climate Justice Now!’s South Africa branch.

Moderated by ASHLEY DAWSON, Faculty Fellow, the Center for Place, Culture and Politics

April 6, 2010
Room C198 at 6:30 pm

THE CENTER FOR PLACE, CULTURE AND POLITICS * CUNY GRADUATE CENTER * 365 Fifth Avenue @ 34th Street

***

8 APRIL, CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS

Patrick Bond speaks on Development, Environment and Social Struggle at Clark University, 8 April

10.25-11.30am: Development Policy class, Geog104: “RDP, GEAR and South African Development Policy”

12.00 noon “Carbon Trading: A Critique” and “Dennis Brutus: A Tribute”

3pm Worcester State College Dennis Brutus Memorial

***

9 APRIL, ENCUENTRO 5, BOSTON

http://www.justicewithpeace.org/node/1243

Patrick Bond on South Africa, the World Bank, and Climate Justice

When: Friday, April 9, 2010, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Where: Encuentro 5 • 33 Harrison Ave, 5th Floor • Chinatown T Stop • Boston

Start: 2010 Apr 9 - 12:00pm

End: 2010 Apr 9 - 2:00pm

South Africa now has its 4th post-Apartheid president... But the country is more unequal than ever! It is also under consideration for a World Bank loan to “modernize” it ailing electrical power generation and distribution infrastructure. Revamping its grid would normally be a decisive opportunity to set a new course, redress inequalities and deveop a green strategy. But activist-intellectual Patrick Bond warns that the opposite seems likely with the Bank loan. It will strengthen the private sector and sharpen the gap between rich and poor: urban residents prepay their electricity at 4 times the rate of large transnational corporations. Further, the proposed loan will finance the world's 4th largest coal-fired plant and raise rates on working people.

On April 8, 2010, the World Bank will make its decision. Patrick Bond will reflect on the outcome.

Also invited to the conversation is Tufts University professor, William Moomaw who consulted with the World Bank and who is in support of the loan.

This Bank critic meets Bank supporter discussion allows for a reasoned engagement of ideas.

For Patrick Bond's biography, see: http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?10,24,8,55

For William Moomaw's biography, see: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/faculty/Moomaw/

See http://www.encuentro5.org for more directions. Also check website

***

10 APRIL, BUSBOYS&POETS, 5TH & K Sts, WASHINGTON

Social Movements; the World Bank and Energy Financing

Africa Action

With: Friends of the Earth- US, GroundWork, Institute for Policy Studies: Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies: Foreign Policy In Focus, Jubilee USA and Haymarket Books

This week, Thursday, April 8th, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors will decided whether or not to lend a US$3.75 billion loan, the vast majority of which would be for the 4800 MW Medupi coal fired plant in South Africa.

Africa Action and coalition partners will be hosting a public education event Saturday, April 10th at Bus Boys and Poets (5th/K Streets, DC) at 6:00pm to learn more about the loan to Eskom and its affect on communities and the environment.

Who: Patrick Bond

Patrick Bond has longstanding research interests and applied work in global governance and national policy debates, in urban communities and with global justice movements in several countries. He is professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Development Studies where since 2004 he has directed the Centre for Civil Society. His research focuses on political economy, environment (energy, water and climate change), social policy and geopolitics, with publications covering South Africa, Zimbabwe, the African continent and global-scale processes.

Dave Zirin

Named of the UTNE Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World", Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for the Nation Magazine. He is their first sports writer in 150 years of existence. Zirin is also the host of Sirius XM Radio's popular weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio. He has been called "the best sportswriter in the United States," by Robert Lipsyte. Dave Zirin is, in addition, a columnist for SLAM Magazine, the Progressive, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. He was Press Action's 2005 and 2006 Sportswriter of the year. He recently traveled to South Africa and he will share his experiences interacting with social movements and civil society.

And….

This discussion will include other coalition partners involved in the No Coal Loan Campaign

Where: Bus Boys and Poets, 5th and K Streets (1025 5th Street NW, DC)

When: Saturday, April 10th at 6:00pm

For more information on the loan, please visit

http://www.africaaction.org/no-coal-loan.html

Be sure to read our new resources, including a response to World Bank-Eskom Panel Report and Fact Sheet, the coalition statement, and Letter to World Bank Executive Director

RSVP to outreach@africaaction.org for updates before coming to the event.


Also check out this video clip from the Colbert show with Patrick's friend Annie Leonard (scroll down): http://www.storyofstuff.org/

- Perry

Saint Marks Wildlife Refuge

Whenever Perry and I get to return to Tallahassee we try to enjoy some of the nature in the surrounding areas. We try to get to Saint George Island, or the Wakulla River for canoeing, or Saint Marks. This time Perry didn't get to go to any of these places but I was able on the last full day I was there to get away for awhile and go to Saint Marks.

I first went to my friend, Rachel's, house. I had wanted to see her little girl, but she was at her dad's house. Rachel and I reminisced about going to Saint Marks the week of my graduation from FSU. She was my neighbor at Hidden Villas then. My Mom and Dad had both come down to see my graduation. Martha, Rachel, my Mom, and I had all gone to Saint Marks. My Dad was flying in later so Perry picked him up from the airport and brought him out to meet us at Saint Marks. Once we were all there we ate dinner at Ootz's Too. As Rachel and I drove by Ootz's we laughed about the drive back on the dirt road that led to Natural Bridge.

Perry, Vincent, and I when we lived in Tallahassee would always go down to the lighthouse and then go to the right to walk out to a rock jetty. Because of several hurricanes the grassy walkway is still there separating the fresh water from the gulf but the rock jetty that we could climb out on during low tide has been swept away. Since the jetty wasn't there Rachel and I headed out to the left of the lighthouse, breaking from tradition but allowing me to see several beaches that I don't think I ever realized were there.

Spring was defiantly in the air. Flowers were blooming and grass was growing everywhere. Looking back from the gulf towards the wildlife refuge I kept thinking that if I didn't know better the grassy areas could be mistaken for the Savannah grasslands of Africa. I even joked that I could imagine seeing a long neck of a giraffe in the clumps of pine trees growing here and there.

Flowers in Tallahassee and especially along the beach don't seem to be as showy but they are still pretty. I found these tiny little pink buds growing in the sand. If you look closely at the picture you can see the holes from crabs peeping out from the sand. The purple flowers below were also along the beach but a little further from the water. They were growing on a low lying shrub. They seemed to be everywhere.

Rachel and I walked along several different paths until the water bottles we had drank during the drive down caught up with us. Hearing the water from the tide coming in didn't seem to help matters.

Here is a better picture of Rachel. It was warm and windy, but after this past February it was a welcomed change.

I tried to catch the sea foam that was along the edge of the water. You can also see some of the grass growing along the beach.

Here I was trying to be Samson! The palm trees were so close together I couldn't help myself. You can tell I was having fun, enjoying the break, and catching up with Rachel.

Tallahassee had a lot of rain before Perry and I got down there. It even rained pretty heavy one night while I was there. When Rachel and I were leaving Saint Marks and driving back towards the visitors center we noticed lots of high water along the road.

There were signs along the way saying they were preparing for prescribed burns but I'm sure all the water was keeping them from doing it when they had planned.

While Rachel went into the visitors center I walked a little of the trail around the pond outside the visitors center. The shade felt good but also seeing all the plants and nature was very calming. The whole time Rachel and I were there the only time we really saw people was down at the lighthouse and a few horse back riders along the road.

Riding a horse or bike along some of the trails at Saint Marks would be fun but it could get pretty buggy. This was probably early enough in the year that it wasn't too bad for some people. We did notice that the horseback riders were actually walking the horses (probably because of the heat) on our way out of the park.

Sometimes getting to see all of the nature around Tallahassee reminds me that I don't get out and see the nature in Louisville as much as I should, just as when I lived in Tallahassee I didn't get out to see nature as much. I guess sometimes you have to pretend to be a tourist in your own city to actually appreciate some of the things that are there. Or, better yet...I could invite lots of friends and family to come visit us in Louisville so I can show them around...and get to be the tour guide for them!

---Stephanie

Car accident

A little more than a week after being at Bobby’s service, we’ve been to a couple of visitations in the past weekend. More harrowing, even, was visiting one of Stephanie’s English as a new language colleagues at the same downtown hospital rehab center where I visited another church member a month after he’d had a stroke. Stephanie has been to several conferences around Indiana with her colleagues – mainly from other schools – and then last July she and one of the middle school ENL teachers, Laura, went to the READ 180 conference in Nashville together, roomed together, and went on the ghost tour together. Practically the same month, Laura had gotten married to a man she’d known less than year and moved with him and her kids out to the country. During one of the snowstorms in February, she drove off the road and suffered a head injury (also in the car was her won, who turned out to be OK). It took four hours to get her to the hospital in Louisville and she was in coma or unconscious for a couple of weeks.

We visited her Sunday afternoon. Her brother and nephew had just flown in, but her new husband – who’s been there a lot – told us most what was going on. When we got there, Laura was taking her first shower. After she came out and sat in a wheel chair, she mainly stared into space or interacted with her husband. But she did smile at a joke Stephanie made and looked over at her (although I never heard her speak). I had never met her before. (I’ve visited one other person in the hospital after she suffered a head injury, but Laura’s injury seemed even more severe . . . ) She’s obviously made a lot of progress, but Stephanie said it’s hard to imagine she’d be ready to go back in the classroom. She and her husband are obviously very religious – in an upbeat way – but – even with the progress – it’s hard not to be sad too. Laura is probably going to come out a different person, for better or worse. Laura’s husband talked about some logistical issues too – like car registration, bank accounts, power of attorney. It makes you think – puts current challenges in perspective, make you wonder how things would go if we were in their shoes.

Say a prayer for Laura and her family.

-- Perry

Happy birthday, Sarah!

For - I think - the third year in a row we got to help our friend Sarah celebrate her birthday. For the 2nd year in a row we were at the Corner Cafe in Linden, near Sarah's Y. Sarah is always incorporating new people into her circle, and this year there were a number of people from the Y and Sarah's new salsa dance class, which turns out to be in town right near where the church where we're doing the English as a foreign language ministry. We were just about the last of some dozen plus people there to arrive (sans birthday present, but with a card). Below Stephanie shares a laugh with Sarah's friend Sara, with whom we've rollar skated and who we're Facebook friends with.




Below is Sara's husband Jonathan, who's talked with Vincent (who was elsewhere at a movie) before.

Below is one friend of Sarah who left early.

Like last year, Sarah put on her de facto cruise party director hat and engaged us in party games. Dennis and I - who had not met before - tagged a variety of colored M and Ms with quetions and discussed things in the questions like our pets and funny times with Sarah. Dennis is a Southern (Baptist) Seminary student who is from Wisconsin - and has 10 brothers and sisters!

Julia (sitting) and Sara (standing) helped Sarah (sitting, right) arrange the party, and Sara brought carrot cakes (I confess, I had two pieces). My camera is acting up and has no video capacity so there are not videos this year - and us singing "Happy Birthday" to Sarah, of her blowing out the candles, or of her and Wayne demonstrating salsa dancing.

But, with some effort, Sarah did blow out all of the candles - on BOTH of her cakes!

Another red-headed friend of Sarah stopped by before leaving a little before we did. Julia, Sarah, Stephanie, Sara, Jonathan, and I stayed on until the restaurant was closing. I didn't get a good picture of Dean, who was also there.

Happy birthday!

-- Perry

Figure 8 racing

During the past week we've seen some publicity about a special event at the Sportsdrome speedway in Clarksville, IN, near the freeways we sometimes take to the mall, movie theater, or Target in Southern IN (and near another short freeway Stephanie takes to work). Weeks ago my co-worker Gail had mentioned she was interested in taking her son to the speedway. Somewhat like at the old Columbus (OH) motor speedway (and like the straightaway National Trails raceway where Stephanie used to race), cars race here all summer (essentially through baseball season). But this track is unusual - we learned - in that it has an optional Figure 8 part of the track. Many races involve cars racing around a short oval track. But other make use of the Figure 8 and go around the turns but also through the Figure 8 portion. This is much more dangerous and - as it turns out - entertaining but as cars become stragglers it's hard for them not to hit each other in the middle of the Figure 8. The special event Friday was not only eight school buses racing - but eight buses painted pink - with some of the proceeds going to fight breast cancer. Pictured above was the Speedrome speedway as I walked up from my camera. The image is kind of deceptive - it wasn't really that dark yet, at 7:20 (I missed the 7 p.m. race). The place was packed, with the corporate sponsors promoting the fund-raiser and people excited about the Figure 8 school bus races. Below is the black "pace bus" - with insignia from the Hooters restaurant chain, one of the corporate sponsors. At that point it was in the parking lot - later it was the real pace bus.

The place was packed - apparently even more so than usual - The food lines were terribly long - reminded me about what I'd heard about the beer lines at the first Churchill Downs night racing night. The souvenir and beer lines, ironically, were not too long. It looked like a third of the people had bought the cool black "Stop Cancer" and "Sportsdrome Blackout" on the back T-shirts (which raised more money). This was definitely a white working class crowd - that reminded me of the non-ESL families at Stephanie's school and of Hamas. Some of this Vincent would have loved when he was a kid. Lots of smokers (since it was basically all outdoors - although people smoked in the men's room with the one long latrine also - Clarksville has no smoking ban and it probably woudn't have been enforce here anyway). Except for the fact that it's private property: I wonder how I would have done trying to get pro-Obama health care reform signatures here. Pictured below are some Hooters staff members selling fund-raising raffle tickets.

I had gotten my colleague's cell phone number, but apparently written it down wrong (and got someone else twice - apparently in NYC - since she has a NYC cell phone number). So I looked for her and her son Tugi for a while. Meanwhile, the racing continued - conventional, stock-car oval racing - only there were a lot of wrecks - Lots of the cars were all beat up and there were lots of red and yellow flags. The announcer was omnipresent, and his trademark message when full-speed racing returned: "We go green! We go green! We go green!"

I was still hungry. There was a VIP area - corporate sponsors? where there was a wider selection of food and no lines, but it didn't look accessible. This was one side bleachers. There were two main sets of bleachers, one on each side.

With my poorly functioning camera and the sun starting to set, one can barely make out the racing cars below.

I was really missing the video feature on my lost camera, partly since much of the thrill of this is in the motion and the noise. The crowd loved the crashes - but not the clean-up wait in between crashes and full-speed racing resuming.

I took this picture below of the west bleachers while looking for Gail and Tugi. I was starting to lose faith that I would find them after I'd been through all of the bleachers two times.

But they yelled out at me - they were sitting in the front row of the east side bleachers. I crawled up there, taking a slightly better picture of the cars racing on my way up.

Even though I had not seen them on my own, Tugi did kind of stick out - He and I were the only Asians in the crowd of some 10,000? - there were a smatteirng of Latinos (any of Stephanie's ESL students?) and African Americans. He's also very outgoing. He appeared to bother an Anglo kid sitting behind us for an hour - talking, jabbing - until the kid finally relented and talked with him and let him sit next to him. He sat in Gail's lap part of the time before that. But still this wouldn't have been half as fun to watch without a family there to watch it with. Stephanie was out with her colleagues on a largely girls night out (partly - it turns out - at a bachelor's party with guys from Ohio!) evening at Fourth Street Live. I had dropped Vincent and Jessi off to see a movie at the Baxter Avenue movie theater. Otherwise, I might have persuaded one or more of them to go. Again, I still hadn't figured out how to get the flash on the camera not to work.

Enjoying the evening and the whole scene with Tugi and Gail was fun - although the whole scene was kind of incongruous - the only two Asians in this white working-class racing crowd with the woman who still has a NYC cell phone number.

The other folks behind us - perhaps after some beers - became impatieht with all of the crashes and long yellow and red (yes - they really came to a complete stop - though I couldn't always understand how the jockeying for places during yellow flags - or whatever color they were - was allowed) flags with no racing - and became rather profance in expressing their dipleasure. Still, none of the three of us could have predicted the thrill when the car Figure 8 racing began - with a really incredible driver who - after the first few of 30 laps - continually daringly threaded the needle so that he got way ahead (with just one other driver, car near him - conceptually - in actuality, they were always "lapping" other cars - so there were cars - and, sometimes, conventional crashes everywhere - amazingly, while I was there, there were no figure 8 crashes - but plenty of very close calls. From this YouTube video, it's clear that there are sometimes such crashes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9v8bYXqlGI

This more like what I saw - plus without the distracting music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbXbPr6D94

And, then, finally, the pink school buses emerged. There was a lot of excitment and hoopla - but I needed to go pick up Vincent from Jessie's - and - while it was cool - frankly, ti was a little anticlimatic because it was very hard to beat the cars Figure 8 racing and that daring lead driver. The buses did not go as fast, there were no wrecks of any kind while I was still there, and that daring driver's bus conked out after not very long. Clearly, there are sometimes wrecks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv8nqzqlZPs

I continued to watch some as I walked towards my car and headed out into the night, past Slugger Field where the Louisville Bats had just lost a Game 3 International League playoff game to the Durham Bulls, and ontowards the Highlands.

-- Perry

Working more days and working it out

Stephanie got a couple of pictures of Vincent working Tuesday, unbeknowst to him. Wednesday Vincent's managers asked him to come to work in black pants that might go with the orange shirt they're going to give him. That suggests that they're going to keep him on on the retail side once the store opens Friday. Thursday Vincent gets his first pay check. Wednesday also Vincent apparently misinterpreted a Facebook post by his friend Jessi, as if she were breaking up with him - which apparently wasn't true. But the tizzy Vincent went into briefly - upset about the possible breakup - has convinced us that the romance between Vincent and Jessi - which I wondered about - may be for real.

-- Perry

4-H fair

Thursday evening at 6:30 p.m. I stopped by the Floyd County (IN) 4-H fair - invited by my colleague Christy's little sister, Alexandra, was playing in some bands. The fair was actually not too far from Stephanie's former school and I ended up running into some school personnel. I felt a little guilty because Floyd County (New Albany) is one of the places we're trying to gather health care reform signatures and I didn't do any of that. There was a Democratic Party booth - and Republican party - but they were focused on local races, busy, and I didn't get to talk with them. I didn't stop by the little midway either. This is one of the types of events Vincent might have loved when he was younger. Stephanie missed it because she was belatedly reminded that day about her book club. I missed one of the bands in which Christy's sister may have sung - Girl Talk - but caught G-Force, where she was subbing for the drummer, who was on a mission trip. In fact, - as I understand it - four bands were to play, and she played drums in all of them. I guess she and her various bandmates are involved in the bands through a music center in Jeffersonville, IN. G Force had a 6-year-old boy who sang lead vocals (above). The guitarist (below) - 12 years old - sang lead on one song.



After G Force finished, a pie eating contest took place in front of the stage. The MC asked Alex (12 - below) asked Alex to go back up on stage to play the drum part of "Wipeout" during the contest.



About a dozen people participated in the pie-eating contest. They asked the military person who had won the previous two nights to eat two pies.

There he is (below). One of his comrades - who only had to eat one pie - won. Most people - none of whom could use their hands - didn't get that much of their pie eaten. Pre-Weight Watchers, I might have been good at this.

I missed the racing pigs. But I did catch - in a traveling set up - pigs who jumped into a little pool of water. The female pigs were bolder about this than the males.

Speaking of pigs - just like at a state fair but in much more manageable sizes - there were horses, pigs, chickens, cows, etc., etc. - some that had won awards - on display - and for sale - all apparently raised by 4-H kids - mainly out in the rural part of Floyd County (where few of Stephanie's students live - though a few colleagues of hers live out there). Below is one of the pigs being sold. I noticed they didn't seem to have names - (partly since they are probably going to be butchered).

There was an auctioneer and all.

These were relativedy small areas, but the auction area was pretty crowded (see below).

They kind of herded the animal being sold into the area and then the kid who had raised the animal showed the animal off, and then the animal got herded back into a pen.

Stephanie'd district ESL office colleague Angie (who didn't have with her their baseball tickets to give us) and her husband John said hello. They're involved in the Lions Club - partly because it gives so many free eyeglasses to ESL students, with their sight emphasis - said hello to me. I had a couple of hot dogs from their Lions Club concessions booth (John working it below).

Then I went back to the stage, where I saw another group Alex was in: First Impressions - this one with two sisters as singers. They did some covers - including a couple that G Force had done - that I recognized - then got more interesting with some Christian rock songs and a cute song I didn't recognize and then a Go Gos song Stephanie loves - and then back to "Wipeout" (the surfer rock classic).

The singers and a friend danced in front of the stage while Alex played a drum solo in "Wipeout."

And then I was off for home, where I had almost enough time to walk Frisco a little before Stephanie came home from book club. Vincent was off at our neighbors, after Wednesday night's unpredictable airport run.