Here's to the Crazy Ones

You know, I constantly feel like I'm being a downer when people say, "We did it well." Because I feel like more often than not my response is: "We need to do it better." I'm not trying to dwell in the imperfections, but rather the possibility.

It can be frustrating to think these thoughts, especially when these thoughts are met with push back. I have a theory that people who fight for something, and are constantly met with resistance, will eventually bow out of the fight forever (I'll blog on this more in another post). For only a few through out history have been successful in keeping their gloves on their entire lives, starting revolutions or sparking widespread change or improvement.

"The reasonable man adapts to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Thus, all progress relies on the unreasonable man."



But things like these help me to decide that I am going stay unreasonable and crazy for as long as I can.

Does anyone else find this frightening?:

1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says

Why do people keep bringing up alternative sentencing and different tracks for non-violent offenders as if it's a new and novel idea every time? People listen, shake their heads yes, and think: "That would be a good idea."

We need to start taking action on the good ideas we're having, because clearly something isn't working.

#72 Study Abroad

In addition to accumulating sexual partners, binge drinking, drug use and learning, white people consider studying abroad to be one of the most important parts of a well rounded college education.

Study Abroad allows people to leave their current educational institution and spend a semester or a year in Europe or Australia. Though study abroad are offered to other places, these two are the overwhelming favorites.

By attending school in another country, white people are technically living in another country. This is important as it gives them the opportunity to insert that fact into any sentence they please. “When I used to live in [insert country], I would always ride the train to school. The people I’d see were inspiring.”

If you need to make up your own study abroad experience, they all pretty much work the same way. You arrived in Australia not knowing anybody, you went out to the bar the first night and made a lot of friends, you had a short relationship with someone from a foreign country, you didn’t learn anything, and you acquired a taste for something (local food, beer, fruit). This latter point is important because you will need to be able to tell everyone how it is unavailable in your current country.

It is also important that you understand the study abroad ranking system. Europe/Australia form the base level, then Asia, then South America, and finally the trump card of studying abroad in Tibet. Then there is the conversation killer of studying abroad in Africa. If you studied in Africa, it is usually a good idea to keep it quiet, it will remind white people that they were too scared to go and they will feel bad. Use this only in emergencies.
-The Stuff White People Like Blog

Gotta admit it's pretty funny. I will probably be studying abroad, I won't be studying in Europe or Australia.

Come to the AIESEC Face the Fear Event on Thursday at 7 (TIGH) where you can learn about traveling to all sorts of places you apparently should not mention in conversation.

La Blogotheque

If you guys haven't already heard of this blog, you should check out the Take Away Shows.

Sweet, random, generally spontaneous mini-concerts, like the one below of Beirut:

STR2J

-Since 1980 the prison system has expanded four times, from 500,000 to close to 2 million inmates. The violent crime rate has dropped by 18% since 1980.

-The number of women in prison has increased seven-fold since 1980.

-"More than 60% of all prisoners now are incarcerated for non-violent offenses," according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

-"The ratio per capita of white to black drug users in the U.S. is roughly 1 to 1. But the sentencing rate of whites to blacks for drug possession is 1 to 10. The amount of crack you need to get a five-year mandatory minimum is 5 grams, but for powder cocaine it's 500 grams-- which is interesting once you learn that 75% of those arrested for powder cocaine are white, and 90% of those arrested for crack are African-American."

-"The annual cost of incarcerating a prisoner for one year is enough to put about seven people through community college or drug rehab. Never mind that California has built 21 prisons since 1984 and only one university."

-These quotes and statistics taken from William Upski Wimsatt's "No More Prisons: Why are all your friends in prison?"

IN DANE COUNTY:
-78% of the youth locked up are youth of color.

-1/3 of all African American youth will be suspended at least once throughout their k-12 experience

-From "A Brief History of Youth Organizing and Juvenile Justice Issues In Madison"


If these statistics don't make you think at least a little bit, then I don't know what will! Are we really investing more money into people being locked up, rather than enrichment programs that could stop something from becoming a problem before ever reaching the court system? Or at least investing into rehabilitative programs to help lower the extremely high recidivism rates.

Example: Million Dollar Blocks (Burbs posted this here first)

Last year I got to be one of the organizers for the Stop the Rail to Jail youth issues conference that has been held in Madison for the past three years focused on addressing the issue of Disproportionate Minority Confinement, youth knowing their rights, and making positive opportunities available to youth. Last year our conference brought in groups from all over the Midwest, like Urban Underground, running workshops ranging from School Violence to Turning Your Talent into Profit.

This year I'm going to be facilitating the class with three others, with the end goal of running the conference on April 20th during Hip Hop as a Movement Week! (Where I heard El Guante is going to be giving a free concert :)

We're collaborating with a bunch of new youth, and the class starts tonight at 6:30, I'm pumped!

Now, who wants (or knows someone who wants) to give us food donations for our planning sessions with the youth, or for the actual conference? Or just a donation for the conference, we're not picky.

Cumbia Steps

As I step out of the taxi the aroma of cinnamon and filth dances in the air, cumbia (1) steps that seem to be choreographed for the smog. The smog that inevitably comes along with a developing city nestled in the valley of fourteen mountains, and that will without a doubt turn tissues black for people who don’t call this place home.

“Chiquita grande, agua: cien pesos, gringa, gringa, promoción, mona linda!” (2) Hundreds of calls fill the air, some people want to sell me things, and others just want to call attention to the obvious contrast I create walking down the street at five feet ten inches tall with pale skin and green eyes. It is enough to make people stop in their tracks and stare for a straight half hour, should the time and situation allow. But let’s be honest, it’s Colombia, and time always allows.

While my presence warrants double glances from every passerby, no one seems to notice the shantytown next to the river that is set against a backdrop of the latest government-built parque (3) complete with seven fountains, three sculptures, and a bamboo forest. This seems to create a more weighty contrast than my five-ten frame could ever carry. But, as a barefoot African woman selling fruit from a basket on her head brushes elbows with a man, briefcased and business suited, everyone continues their daily dance, unquestioning. Maybe it’s because they already know the steps, or maybe their feet just can’t escape the rhythm.

1. Cumbia: a type of Latin-American dance music of Colombian origin, similar to salsa and using guitars, accordions, bass guitar, and percussion.
2. Little, big girl, water: one hundred pesos, foreigner, foreigner, sale, cute light skinned girl.
3. Parque: Park









This was the submission I made to a new publication they're going to have on campus about international experiences called Souvenirs. I had already written that piece for my creative writing class last semester, and I figured it'd be good marketing for AIESEC. All of you other UW AIESECers reading this, submissions are due by Feb. 22-- and they can be writings or photos from any type of international experience...ask me if you want more details!

The Wisconsin Idea

Fellowship

I finally finished my proposal right before I had to leave for the AIESEC conference this last weekend.

I had to submit a full proposal, budget, etc. but here's the abstract for my proposal:

With the recent growth of the Latino population in Dane County, numerous community concerns about the quality of life have been brought to the forefront. This project, “Building Leadership Capacity in the Latino Community through Grassroots Organizing,” is a collaboration between El Programa de Liderazgo Comunitario and their parent program, Grassroots Leadership College; a UW-Madison professor in Human Development and Family Studies; and myself. El Programa de Liderazgo reaches out to Latinos in Dane County by providing them with grassroots organizing training. This program trains community organizers in the Latino community to act on their concerns through their own means. This project will address a request from GLC to strengthen their Spanish language programming by conducting a formative evaluation of their program and curriculum. This will be accomplished by reviewing program materials and conducting indepth interviews with past program participants, organizers and facilitators, and Latino community leaders. The research will also include a literature review of leadership models used in Latin America. A final report including recommendations supported by the data will be provided to GLC. The strengthening of this program will expand the mission of GLC: “Everyone a learner, everyone a teacher, everyone a leader.”

It would be pretty sweet if I got it because I could use my Spanish, participate in their grassroots organizing training program....and the professor told me I would have to buy transcribing software that includes a foot pedal you hook up to your computer that starts and stops the recordings, so your hands can be typing all the time.

A transcribing foot pedal that hooks up to your computer....now that's pretty B.A.

Knowledge Helps Citizens, Secrecy Helps Bureaucrats

Who knew that Ralph Nader was so right on about so many things, at least he is in the Ralph Nader Reader that I have to read for my consumerism class.

"What they fail to realize, however, is that knowledge is power and that secrecy is one of the principal tools which an unresponsive bureaucracy can use to perpetuate its existence and its way of doing business, regardless of what reforms are being demanded by the public and elected officials."

Take this sinking boat and point it home.

I think I completely missed the release of the movie Once while I was in Colombia, but I just watched it, and I loved it. It is awkwardly beautiful and very genuine, and the music is fabulous.

This is what I did over the weekend...

There were 270 people at the RoKS conference, that's insane.

I know Katy has already got this in her blog, but I gotta put it in mine in case my grandma wants to watch :)

This was during Adam, Katy, and I's Bodacious Babies Go Abroad session!

What happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk?

Everything, nothing, everything, nothing.

I Heart Huckabees was not the best movie ever, but this scene is amazing.

Babies

And I don't mean the Swingers kind.

Yesterday I received one of the nicest compliments I probably ever have in my entire life. My friend Meena said:
"Molly, can I babysit your children please?

I know they are going to be spectacular."
I'm not sure if it was her faith in my ability to bring little people into this world and guide them into growing into spectacular individuals, or which part, that I was so flattered by.

I was in awe that Meena said that...because I think she is the spectacular one.

I think it's funny that a lot of people spend their entire lives admiring someone, only to find out that that person had been thinking all of the same things about them.

The other funny part is that the idea of babies to me lately has just been.....
I don't know

I've got some serious time to think about this, as I will be bringing no child into the world younger than the age of 29.

But the whole physically popping one out is not appealing in the least,
and I don't think it ever will be.

I once used this video

to teach slang at an English class in Colombia, haha

"Ensure a Hospitable Environment for Whistle Blowing"

"Alfredo North Whitehead wrote, 'Duty arises from our potential control over the course of events.' Since the early 1970s, this insight has given rise to the ethics of whistle blowing-- the lone individual of conscience within a corporate of governmental organization who sees wrong and tries to right it, often at great personal risk.

Society has an acute interest in fostering a more muscular whistle blowing ethic. Corporate and government employees are among the first to know about fraud and corruption, industrial dumping of toxics into waterways, defectively designed automobiles, or undisclosed adverse effects of prescription drugs and pesticides. They are the first to understand how to prevent existing hazards. But they are very often the last to speak out.

There is a great need now to extend the reach of this ethic into such organizations as corporate and governmental bureaucracies. But the ethic will only flourish in these settings if employees have the right to due process within their organizations..."

"Democratic Revolution in an Age of Autocracy," from The Ralph Nader Reader

Who knew that the readings from my "History of Consumer Movements in the U.S." class would actually turn out to be interesting! The overlap between all of my classes this semester with my interests, my job, the nonprofit world, my future goals, and AIESEC has been amazing so far...more blogs to come.

"This is the curse of direct service: we make a difference, just not enough of one"

I love this poem by El Guante. Partially because I knew El Guante before he was famous, partially because I have worked in an after school program where I felt just like this, and partially because I think it can apply to so much more then just after school programs.



"My job these days is not to make a difference, it is to fight for a world in which I don't have to. My job these days is to try and find a way to be both brick and building, to teach starfish to fly."

The age old story of starfish: we don't need to just throw them back in, we need to teach them to fly. Empowerment. Addressing old problems with new and innovative solutions, social entrepreneurship, anyone?

There has never been anything false about hope

Regardless of your political affiliation, you've got to admit that this is a pretty sweet video, even if based solely on how it was put together. Point, Obama's marketing team.


"Because we are not as divided as our politics suggest"