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11 September 2001

This morning from 7-9 am I was holding a sign for Cheryl Jacques, who's running for Congress from the 9th District in Massachusetts. Many of us holding signs for various Democrats in today's primary remarked on the perfect weather (bright sun, light breeze). Cheryl is a pragmatic, effective legislator (and former D.A.) who provides classical (now sadly old-fashioned) constituent service. It was fun to hear from other sign-holders what Cheryl had accomplished on behalf of their particular towns during her years as a State Senator.

In addition to holding a sign, I was wearing dark blue from head to toe, except for my hot pink gloves (dark blue and hot pink = Cheryl's colors), and waving at potential voters with a smile on my face. Today I chose a challenging location near our town's excellent parochial school, waving at parents who were dropping off their kids. Those who followed their church's teaching strictly were not going to be happy with Cheryl's vigorous defence of a woman's right to choose, but some waved back and gave me thumbs up: maybe they liked the fact that she's a staunch supporter of our police who is tough on crime, or maybe they just liked being waved at. (I will post my long rant about the joys of "visibility" waving some other time.) I overheard one gentleman saying that he and his wife had just yesterday welcomed another son, to be named John Paul...

And then I went in to work, where we had a TV on.

This afternoon I am giving thanks because I've just heard that my friend Betsy is alive. She went in early this morning to her office on the 33rd floor of a part of the World Trade Center. When the plane hit the first tower, she got right out, and I just heard through her mom and our friend Susan that Betsy and her (now my) friend Phil are alive and not physically hurt. Now I am praying for the others who weren't able to make it out, and for their friends and families, and for the people who got out (or were/are helping around the base of the towers) and are now dealing with the emotional and spiritual impact of those planes, not to mention the physical devastation, and for all of us (humans).

I am feeling guilty that some of the planes that were misused in this way came from Boston and I hope Betsy won't think it's too creepy to drive up to New England any more.

Would you (whoever you are, reading this) be willing to take a number of deep breaths as we all assess the situation, try to decode the "message" this activity was meant to send, and decide what to do next (locally and globally)? Lots of deep breaths...

Trying to relate my morning and afternoon preoccupations: in Cheryl Jacques I have gotten used to (some would say, spoiled by) a legislator who actually represents me. I hope my national government takes those deep breaths and then listens to a variety of voices here and abroad before coming up with "responses" that honor the memory of those who died and/or whose livelihoods were damaged, that don't involve bombing anyone with nuclear weapons - heck, let's not even use depleted uranium any more, it harms our own people as well as the "enemy" and makes the "battlefields" dangerous to all humans for a long time...

I'm not questioning U.S. will or strength or capacity; anyone who has tried it knows how much courage and intelligence active peacemaking takes. Cheryl has shown that it's possible to be a creative progressive who solves problems by reaching out, connecting, and collaborating. I hope we'll be sending her to Washington, but she can't do it all herself. I invite each of us to do something towards helping make U.S. relations with other nations and people authentically, athletically peaceful.

Welcome, John Paul. It's a tough week to be born, but maybe by the time you're enrolled at St. Joseph's we adults will have figured out some new approaches and the world will be a safer one for you to grow up in. And Betsy, I always knew your friendship was important to me, and you can probably guess most of the reasons why, but I never knew how much I appreciated the sheer fact of your being alive, until today.

29 August 2001

This week two of my favorite cities have risen, as a result of a great deal of human effort and creativity, in spaces that are normally thought of as sterile and barren and lifeless: an echoing convention center and a windswept playa. The available maps of these cities are at best misleading since one navigates through them using one's heart as a guide...

This year I can't visit either city except in my imagination, but to all my friends: I'm thinking of you!

4 July 2001

New job. New daily routines. New apartment (and tonight, to paraphrase Professor Kinbote, there is a carnival with a large fireworks display taking place across the street from my present lodgings). Dr. Scott Shikora says he'll operate as early as September, or whenever I'm ready. And I'm thanking God for my comparative health and sanity, and asking Her what She has in mind for me to do with all She has given me.

Tonight I'm thinking about patriotism. My friend John MacLeod says we need to redefine it, and I think he's right. So what does patriotism mean to me?

1. I've stopped calling my country "America". The Americas are a couple of large continents and nearby islands; there are a lot of people who live on them besides the USians.

2. Last summer I visited some countries where all the native inhabitants look closely related to one another. I had a blast but I was not tempted to relocate. Home is where I grew up (California) or where I live now (New England), where a person can look or speak however s/he pleases and still be a true USian. Almost all of us came here from somewhere else. I am proud of our experiment, not a melting pot in which we all become homogenized, but a savory stew in which each new addition keeps its own distinctive qualities and yet flavors the whole. California's proposition 187 and similar attempts to incite mutual hatred will, if not strongly opposed in the name of a new patriotism, wreck the recipe that makes it so fun to live and work here, from which comes our vitality and our distinctive national flavor...

3. Before last summer, it had been over 20 years since I'd left the continent. And that was because...I was deeply ashamed of what our leaders have been doing with my tax dollars, and I didn't want to look people from other countries in the face. Systematic murder, thoughtless bullying, selfish resource-grabbing and -hogging and -wasting...and shooting depleted uranium at anyone who pisses us off. Oh, and also endangering the lives of our own armed forces with a variety of ghastly carcinogens, and flooding the globe with mediocre movies and bloated yet insecure software...we USians have a lot to answer for. Another part of the new patriotism would involve repenting of our past stupidity and malice, and working to put things right. Drop the missile defense chimera. Ratify Kyoto. Stop sanctioning and demonizing Iraqi civilians. And so on.

4. Domestically...the new patriotism requires that we regard this last election as a wake-up call, in so many ways. Foreign policy is my area of focus so I'll need to catch up...my homework for this Fourth of July is to read the Bugliosi, Dershowitz, and Sunstein-Epstein books and decide where I can usefully get to work...

Those are the four elements of my own attempts to reinvent patriotism...

What's a rant without links? Nothing! Here are the web sites of friends, most of whom take the Democratic Party more seriously than I do, but from whom I am not ashamed to learn:

I keep meaning to do a page called "where I get my news" (or "yes, I pay for content") but until then I'll leave you with a link to the independent media center, which deserves all our support. And as Scoop Nisker used to say, when delivering the news on KFOG (heck, maybe he still says it, it's just that I'm no longer within range): "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own."

1 March 2001

Thank you Dan! Tomorrow is my last day at Trellix Corporation, and our founder, Dan Bricklin, posted a note about that on his weblog (scroll down to the March 1st entry). Blush!

It was fun to read Dan's log and discover that one of the sample documents I wrote to demonstrate Trellix 1.0 is still online. If you're using a 4x browser or above, hover over the map squares for pop-up titles. The fake emails about the reorg - or if you prefer, the emails about the fake reorg - were my favorite part.

Recommended events this summer:

Mark Driver, quoted in The Seattle Weekly (and I bet this is only true for someone who's single; he hasn't tried to raise kids yet):

I've learned that if you keep your material desires in check, you can always make enough money to live. It's your time you should be defending to the death: That's where your freedom is.

This page last updated 11 September 2001.
Original content copyright 2001 by Julianne Chatelain.
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