moominmuppet

First of all, the new online presence for the workers at Kenyon who are protesting:


http://www.facebook.com/PreserveOurKenyonCommunity
40 pics from the protest are up over there, as well as basic "how you can help" info. Please join!

http://www.facebook.com/KenyonWorker?sk=info
The anon account for Maintenance workers to share their perspectives. Please friend!

http://twitter.com/#!/KenyonCommunity
The Twitter feed from the Facebook Community.

preserve.kenyon.community@gmail.com
Our new central email account. I keep an eye out over here, and UE 712 has access as well.

How to help:
http://www.change.org/petitions/kenyon-college-stop-kenyon-from-partnering-with-sodexo

President Georgia Nugent: 740-427-5111

Like us here on Facebook, and/or on Twitter @KenyonCommunity

SPREAD THE WORD!

News
Previous writeup from June 10th: http://moominmuppet.livejournal.com/1668260.html

Mt Vernon News coverage of yesterday's protest:
http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/12/06/14/kenyon-outsourcing-decision-protested

Official Responses from the College:
https://today.kenyon.edu/news/sodexo

Notes from Faculty Meeting, June 13th:
Provided to me (SY) for unattributed posting:

Here are notes from the meeting -- two notetakers combined into one. Pass them around, no attribution please!
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My write-up of the Protest and the rest of my day at Kenyon yesterday:

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Overall I found it an extremely productive day and use of my energy.

Emotionally, I needed to connect with my people and show them my support.

Practically, I could do more to coordinate with the workers if we could put our heads together in person at least once.

Politically, due to my current position as an Alum who isn't beholden to the College for employment, I can take certain actions that most others would be unable to do or would be likely to be punished for in some manner (I remember the warnings I got all over campus when I was an employee involved in this stuff back in '97). Prime example -- holding a protest sign on College property before the staff meeting. The PR nightmare of escorting a peacefully and cheerfully protesting Alum off-campus is just not something the college wants, I guarantee that.

Personally, this role is something I'm particularly well-suited for; I'm still reasonably well-recognized on campus, mostly with at least a decent amount of fondness. I may hate conflict, but I have an activist temperament, so I tend to do a lot of explaining in cheerful ways why I think something is totally kerfucked. Basically, I'm good at being a really damned friendly nuisance, and right now that's a big part of my goal. It's the kind of pressure I, as a perpetually broke Alum who doesn't make significant financial contributions, can apply to the College.

I don't hate people for disagreeing with me on these issues, although I do find the conflict itself painful. I just need to be very clear that I am going to be advocating for the workers. Other people will advocate for the College, some will sit in the middle and try to work out compromise. Those are not my roles here. My role is to amplify the workers' voices in the ways in which I can.

Planning on making a picket sign for Wednesday. A quick run through the current Kenyon course catalog gives me these courses that all seem to directly apply to "Do as we say not as we do? Shame on Kenyon!", which I'm going to follow with the course listings.

SOCY 107 Institutions and Inequalities
SOCY 223 Wealth and Power
SOCY 229D Social Movements
SOCY 234 Community
SOCY 235 Transnational Social Movements
SOCY 243 Social Justice:The Ancient and Modern Traditions
SOCY 250 Systems of Stratification
SOCY 463 Intersectional Theory
SOCY 477Y Fieldwork: Rural Life
PHIL 110 Introduction to Ethics
PHIL 115 Practical Issues in Ethics
ECON 344 Labor Economics
ECON 382 Economics of Education
ECON 383 American Economic History
IPHS 113Y Odyssey of the West: Love and Justice
INST 121 Globalization and Migration-at Home

I was trying to remember "One Tin Soldier" to sing to Kidlet last night, and that got me thinking of other peace and protest songs from that general era. This is me playing around with which of those I think are most likely to connect with kids (while also not getting them singing lyrics about sodomy and weed in school). In those cases where it's an option, I'm going with the Muppet versions. With other major songs recorded by multiple artists, I'm going with whichever version I feel like. So there. It depends a lot on what I find available on youtube. Unfortunately, I can find links but can't view vids from here. I'm hoping most of these vid links are working and reasonably close to what I think they are.

Mostly meant for Chad, but sharing it here just because.

Coven - One Tin Soldier (animated version)

Muppet Show - For What's it's Worth (Something's Happening Here)

Harry Belafonte/Muppets - Turn the World Around

Hair Soundtrack - Hair

Hair Soundtrack - I Got Life

Hair Soundtrack - What a Piece of Work is Man

Cat Stevens - If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out
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Help buy Body Positive billboards!
More: We are standing up for kids and saying enough is enough! By now you’ve heard of Strong4Life, a campaign by the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta that shames and humiliates fat kids under the guise of promoting health. They have billboards up all over Atlanta, reinforcing a message of shame and stigma every day for those driving by. It’s time to take a stand and support developing healthy habits in kids of all sizes without stigmatizing fat ones.
We are raising funds to put up billboards in high traffic areas around Atlanta with positive messages to counteract the negative Strong4Life campaign.
Sponsors:
Fat!So? and Marilyn Wann
More Of Me To Love
Voluptuart

Fat Kids United -- Totally awesome posters. I really should submit something for this too.
More -- apparently Stand4Kids was taken by an evangelical group, so now it's I Stand Against Weight Bullying

Facebook: Billboard Against Bullying Money Bomb

Association For Size-Diversity and Health: Basic Principles of Health At Every Size

HAES Community: HAES Resources

Big Moves: Because Every Body Can Dance

If you'd like to find more general resources, "fatshionista", "HAES", "body-positive", and "fat-positive" are excellent search terms.

Dammit, forgot that the pics from Thursday were on the old phone, and are now only on my laptop at home. Those'll have to wait. It was a gorgeous day for a bit of protesting action, and a pretty good turn-out for Cleveland (I'd guess about 150-200 people or so). We cheered, we chanted, there was hippy protest music, it was good. I met every dog in attendance, and also Greg Proops, randomly. I was there from noon 'til about three, Caleb and Grafton (and a number of our other friends) substantially longer. I think they might've gone over again today while I've been at work, but I'm not positive. Our living room table was covered in sign-making materials last I saw.

RTA busdrivers loved us, and honked on every circuit. Cops have mostly been friendly and supportive. Helps that they've right in the middle of fighting our asshole governor to save their unions. There were a lot of nurses, firefighters, and SEIU members there, too.

Occupy Cleveland main informational page

Some of the proceedings are being streamed live via Justin.tv

Hundreds turn out for 'Occupy Cleveland' event downtown

Occupy Cleveland demonstrators are continuing their push for an "equal America"

Cleveland: Public Square 'Occupy Cleveland' goes on
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Finally, finally, finally finished the interminable KB cleanup work I've been doing since mid-January. Such a relief! Lots more to do before we move all the info into the new system, but it's a major milestone, and at least a bit of a break for me.

Also, we're finally getting into something resembling spring thaw. This would be much more awesome if it did not also herald the beginning of the GodAwfulPostWinterDogPooCleaning of the yard. Got started today. Ew. Much ew. Still lots too frozen to tackle, even with the real shovel. Still, it's progress, and by the time I've got that all done, maybe it'll be garden prep and porch-painting weather. I can hope.

Tomorrow's going to be busy; volunteering at Preterm, then straight to patient-instructing, then home for a SANE prep meeting.

Now I need to catch up on Linketies, Ramblings, and computer documentation for Mom, as well as my very backlogged email account and checking in on folks on LJ and Facebook. That's going to take a few days to get back to my usual status quo of only being moderately behind on everything.

Also, Kirikou and the Sorceress is really quite charming; I enjoyed it immensely. Highly recommended for kids and adults, as long as you're not bothered by large amounts of totally non-sexual nudity.

OK, on to the Linketies!

The second, equally unsatisfactory option is that you take the issue to your own journal. Then you can be accused, with some justification, of retreating to a space that is even more supportive to privileged people and rejecting of oppressed people than the general public world is. On top of that your journal is full of your friends who will automatically give you lots of benefit of the doubt and dismiss the concerns of those who argued with you. Not necessarily because they care more about privileged people than oppressed people, but because they care more about you personally than about random strangers.

Incidentally, this ties in some with what this has gotten me considering in terms of my own psychology around conflict, and how I handle it. One of the things I know about myself is that once I get myself into a defensive mindset - once I commit to something dumb - I have an extraordinarily hard time compromising, apologizing, changing my mind. If I say the sky is green at some point in my argument, I'm going to end up defending it to my last breath, feeling like an idiot the whole time. The best way I've found around that in my personal life (and I'm sure as shit far from perfect about it) is to STOP, and reframe as "us against the problem" instead of "you against me". If I have to win or lose, I'll fight to win, cut off my nose to spite my face, display every worst element of my own monumental stubbornness. If I can manage to reframe, the problem becomes the puzzle and we are in common purpose to solve it. (In interpersonal relationships, this means I do a lot of letter-writing)

A large part of sorting out issues in front of the people I care about and respect is that it encourages me to be my best self. It makes me feel more honor-bound to argue devil's advocate against myself if I see the need, and that process is often very helpful to me (and was here).

I think this is becoming a top-level post, so I think I'll move it there... Thank you for the thought-provoking.

This also ties in very closely with my approach to life and activism. I think it takes a lot of different personality styles and approaches to make the world go 'round. I think we need people who are much better at being confrontational than I am, who are much more in touch with their own anger. I'm not all that interested in making judgments on other people's choices in that regard, except in monumentally egregious cases. I am interested in finding the best way to make use of my particular psychology to the benefit of those issues I consider important. For me, that seems to be to function as much as possible as a bridge and an educator. To plant seeds rather than demand response. To explain my beliefs rather than requiring others to defend theirs to me. To try to meet people where they are, and as who they are, and find where we can connect, and try to expand understanding from there. To be honestly myself in ways that challenge people in little ways on a regular basis. To share information and perspectives people may not otherwise have been aware of. To be a safe space for others to ask questions and express themselves. I have reason to believe that this approach has generally served me well in my goals in the long run, and well as dovetailing with my nature as a social and multi-communal sort of person.

It doesn't mean I shouldn't get better at handling my own anger. I have an extraordinarily powerful physiological response to it; the people who have been in interpersonal fights with me know the sight of me flaming-faced, shaking, tearing up, storming about. I dislike and distrust the feel of that adrenaline surge controlling me, and I generally have to burn it off before I can get anywhere productive again. Anxiety or anger seem to be my emotional responses to conflict (except in cases of people fundamentally hostile to me, like the antis at the clinics -- in those cases, winning is not letting the bullying elicit a reaction beyond laughter, and I'm damned good at that), and while I don't like either, I'll take anxiety over anger most days; it clouds my judgment less, and pulls me toward thinking before acting instead of vice versa. The good thing about the anxiety is that it does give me a good deal of impetus to try to resolve the issue at hand, at least to my own satisfaction inside my own head. I can't get my heartrate back down until I do. In the two days of this particular explosion, it probably hasn't been fully off my mind for more than 15 minutes or so at a time, my stomach's been in knots, and my heart has been racing (insomnia ahoy). That is emphatically not a request for sympathy or a "poor me", I'm simply talking about physiological responses, and ones with which I'm well-familiar. It's informed by what I've learned about interacting with my own physiology in regards to the bipolar and the fibromyalgia, definitely. It's a particular way of thinking about myself and my states of mind and body as objectively as I can.

Oh, one other point worth talking about -- finding the balance between one of my strengths being my openness and willingness to talk about things, and one of my weaknesses being my tendency to go off on tangents, ramble, and take over conversations. It's a work in progress, to say the least. It's part of what I find valuable about having a journal -- a place that by definition is my space to ramble to my heart's content, that isn't encroaching on anyone else's space unless they choose. It's a good release valve so I'm less likely to do so in less appropriate circumstances (obviously doesn't always work!)

Well, I've rambled more than enough. It's my weekend, and I'm currently ignoring a particularly entertaining Tom Baker Doctor Who, and have to get ready for patient-instructing in a few hours. It's still abyssmally hot here, and we've got an extra dog next door temporarily (very sweet story) that's adding a good deal of chaos to our mutual yards and dog dynamics. Casey's coming over tonight, and I'm really looking forward to her feminist sociologist's perspective on all this, in between screaming at So You Think You Can Dance and getting fucked up. I still have some other thoughts about my long-term approaches to politics that I want to move to top-level posts, but I may wait a day or two to do that, and I may be slow at replying to comments here as well, since I don't normally spend much time online when I'm at home.

Edit to add: One final note that popped to mind; being over-reactive to being misunderstood. I know I've written about that before, so this is just a mental note to myself.