My Blog

Olympia May Day Incident and Prisoner Solidarity

Rachael — Sun, 04 May 2008 04:17:18 GMT

Hey all, one of my good friends is in jail right now and we're trying to bail him out, he was participating in a march when some rocks were thrown through bank windows and police started arresting anyone who looked like they could have thrown them (pretty much, arresting people in black). If anybody can help us out that would be really really amazing. His bail is $5000 and we have about half that right now, we're trying to get the rest by Monday. Once he goes to trial (should be within a couple of months) we'll get the money back and can pay back anybody who send us cash. It's pretty much an interest-less loan. Even a few bucks would help. We have a paypal account set up that's at the bottom of the following article that you can send contributions to. Thanks! On May 1 there was a rally and march in solidarity with the immigrants' rights an anti-war movements with the goal of rallying support for Olympia becoming a sanctuary city. The march went to the capital and then moved downtown. Rocks were thrown through the windows of the Bank of America and US Bank which was followed by a violent response by police. Six members of the Olympia community were arrested. One, Daniel Wilson, still needs funds for his bail. On May 1 in Olympia, WA a group of about two hundred people had a rally in solidarity with the immigrants’ rights and anti-war movements. The rally was followed with a march to the capital where activists gathered outside of the governor’s door, making their presence known and urging her to support the proposal of making Olympia a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants. After the capital the march continued downtown, where rocks were thrown through the windows of Bank of America and US Bank, two banks notorious for their social and environmental injustices. A scuffle ensued in which protestors clashed with the police. Pepper spray and pellet guns were used on the protestors and six people were ultimately arrested. The names of the people arrested are Daniel Busby, Forrest Student, Stephanie Gottschalk, Bryan Riggins, Randall Hunt and Daniel Wilson. Busby and Student were arrested on suspicion of riot and 2nd degree theft. Gottschalk was arrested on suspicion of riot without a deadly weapon and 3rd degree assault. Riggins, Hunt and Wilson were all arrested on suspicion of 1st degree malicious mischief and suspicion of riot. Busby, the only person with a private counsel, was released on personal recognizance. Gottschalk’s bail was set at $2500, her bail was posted Friday, and she has been released. Randall Hunt’s bail was set at $2500, his bail was posted Friday, he has been released. Student’s bail was set at $7500 and his bail was posted Friday, yet he must remain in jail until Monday when his place of residence can be verified. Bryan Riggins’s bail was set at $10,000 and his bail was posted Friday, yet he too must remain in jail until Monday when his residence can be verified. This is where it gets complicated. Daniel Wilson’s bail was set at $5000. The $500 needed to bail him out was promptly raised, and he was set with a co-signer that had a car title to put up for the bail bond. However, the co-signer fell through and we have been unable to find another co-signer able to put up the collateral necessary (a car or property title). Due to this fact, the only option we have is to pay the entire bail, $5000. We have roughly half of the money raised and we are hard at work raising the rest. However, the people with the deepest hearts often have the shallowest pockets and the rest of the money has proven hard to raise. We are asking for you to put up any amount of money you can spare so we can get Daniel out of jail to live his life until he can get his court situation figured out and, hopefully, justice can show its face. The positive thing about paying the entire bail, $5000, is that that money will be returned once Daniel shows up to his first court date. ANY MONEY YOU CONTRIBUTE WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU as soon as Daniel has appeared in court, probably within the next 2 months. Money can be sent on paypal to ramblini@gmail.com . Actions of solidarity would also be welcome.

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Rachael — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:39:21 GMT

hey hey I'm gonna be okay

Zeitgeist

Rachael — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:29:43 GMT

I just watched this film and it had a huge impact on me, I would love to get some serious discussion and deconstruction and perhaps some dumpstering for facts going on. Watch it, you'll be glad you did. ZEITGEIST the movie : Official Release www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ Zeitgeist was created as a not for profit expression to inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective and to understand that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. The information in Zeitgeist was established over a year long period of research and the current Source page on this site lists the sources used / referenced. Soon, an interactive transcript will be online with detailed footnotes and links. It's important to point out that there is a tendency to simply disbelieve things that are counter to our understanding, without the necessary research performed. For example, some information contained in Part 1 and Part 3, specifically, is not obtained by simple keyword searches on the Internet. You have to dig deeper. For instance, very often people who look up "Horus" or "The Federal Reserve" on the Internet draw their conclusions from very general or biased sources. Online encyclopedias or text book Encyclopedias often do not contain the information contained in Zeitgeist. However, if one takes the time to read the sources provided, they will find that what is being presented is based on documented evidence. Any corrections, clarifications & further points regarding the film are found on the Clarifications page. That being said, it is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth, but find out for themselves, for truth is not told, it is realized. Thank you www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ "They must find it difficult... Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority." - Gerald Massy -

I am an infatuated kitten

Rachael — Thu, 17 May 2007 05:44:13 GMT

I love poi.

To all you strong, beautiful, amazing ladies out there (this means YOU!): TRY KICKBOXING!!!!

Rachael — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 01:46:49 GMT

IT IS SO AMAZING I haven't felt this good in a loooong time. Punching is fun. FUCK YEAH!!! DO IT

Port of Tacoma Police Riots

Rachael — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:12:07 GMT

I am way too tired to adequately explain this but I don't want to wait to put it up. Maybe I'll edit this in a day or so when I'm not chronically exhausted and it's not five in the morning. I've been participating in non-violent anti-war protests all week at the Port of Tacoma in response to the movement of Stryker vehicles through the port on their way to Iraq. Last night a significant group of us went on a march to take one of the barricades. I was in the middle of the front line. We only gained about ten feet or something like that past the barricade before the riot police closed ranks, fired some pepper spray and fired rubber bullets into the crowd. The majority of people scattered (I stayed right the fuck put thank you) but closed in again, it became clear we weren't going to gain any ground so we decided to sit. We sat down, singing "all we are saying is give peace a chance", and they opened fire on us again with pepper spray pellets and rubber bullets and a fuckton of tear gas (at least 20 canisters) and gassed us out. Needless to say it was pretty fucked up. There was also NO MEDIA there. We got a couple indy camerafolk who captured it, videos have been filtering into the media secondhand, LARGELY THANKS TO YOUTUBE. I would really, really appreciate it if you would take the time to watch and rate this video. Even though there's an embarrassing I'm-going-to-puke-if-I-try-to-breathe closeup of me. It would really help our efforts. THANK YOU!!!!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfhUaUuG1sM PS I'm totally fine now just bruised

mystery box

Rachael — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:02:03 GMT

I just had a box delivered to my door by a very nice delivery man.....this box contained two boxes. One was empty. The other contained three ENORMOUS poppyseed hamantaschen. It's from Florida. Who do I know in Florida?? Anyone? Anyone???? :) Made my day.

a moment of appreciation for living in a fucking RAINFOREST

Rachael — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:24:39 GMT

This morning I looked outside to see a brilliant blue sky.....decided to skip the coat and by the time I was halfway to class it was starting to snow. The mass of robins who are always imperiously stomping around the field looked just as confused as I probably did. Couldn't help but start laughing at myself and managed to forget the constant peril of muddy slippiness while jumping after the snowflakes. By the time I made it to class (late) my hair was frosted with snow..... During lunch the sky went from rain to clear and back again, as we walked from one building to another it started to rain, then sleet, then snow, then was sunny, then was raining again..... After class I hit the trees behind my house and realized, I can decide to love it here. I can decide to immerse my spirit in the things I love about the pacific northwest and set aside my lust for the bay and for far off countries of beautiful people and warm waters and red earth for this brief time that I am here. I love that I can walk out my front door straight into the forest and wander through giant trees for hours. I love that I can skloosh through mud with sword ferns brushing against my face and pick my salad growing wild. I love that I live right next to a beach that's a fucking NATURE PRESERVE, that I can walk across a field of live oysters, the size of my palm yet they can bear my weight as I dance on the uneven ground. I love the caves formed by massive roots in the hillside floored with the only sand on the beach, sand washed down from the hills instead of up from the waves, and I love all the stone art tucked away in those caves, and I love the geoducks that bless my feet with holy water as I walk across their sky, and I love the loons, and those funny birds whose names I do not know whose wings sound like squeaky hinges when they fly. I love waking up and looking out the window to see deer on their hind legs gnawing ivy off of trees. I love the fucking crazy weather. I love when I'm caught up in foolish worry and look up to see an eagle gliding by overhead and snap back to the present thinking hey, I can do that too! I love being surrounded by crazy feminist activists and the powerful community of women I have found myself in. So. I'm going to try and focus on what's here, while I'm here, instead of on what isn't here. Because I'm going to be here until June and I'm not going to change that. But Jesus. I get to live in a rainforest!

LMAO

Rachael — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 06:27:28 GMT

Type "miserable failure" into Google's "I'm feeling lucky" search. It will take you directly to the White House's biography of George W. Bush. No joke.

the most interesting things happen halfway between this world and the next...

Rachael — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 19:24:27 GMT

Two hours later I'm still in a daze because of a dream....I almost hesitate to call it a dream.... I spent half an hour trying to wake up, waking up over and over only to realize I was still asleep. That in itself isn't unusual. But the pieces in between, and the process, was very, very unusual. I generally have vivid dreams and have control over my dreams, but until now that control has only been triggered when I want to change something, when something isn't going well in a dream. This time, I was awake, in my dream. Aware I was dreaming, but aware of my surroundings as if I were awake, able to interact with my surroundings as if I were awake, yet stripped of the abilities I usually have in a dream to control my surroundings. In between dreams I could feel the part of me that was still sleeping but my mind was awake. The first few pieces were merely walking around my house, seeing the walls undulating like the digital clocks in Waking Life. I walked into the bathroom and stuck my head under a stream of cold shower water to try and wake myself up. I could feel the icy shock of the water as if it were real, but I could tell a part of me was asleep...vague realization that I was in my bed, then I was sucked into another dream. The world I was in was not my world, I could not control it. I was in a world of white floor, with huge (locked) gates keeping me out of the waking world. I decided I'd just fly over....to discover I couldn't fly. The ability just wasn't there. There were some windchimes hanging in the nothingness to my right and I decided to make them ring. They didn't. Somehow came a thought out of the whiteness, that "these (dreams) were sent to me from the one who owns me, I am their magician". No resistance, merely compliance. I played with the chimes again and this time they moved slightly, after several attempts I made them ring. I still couldn't fly. I started playing with a moth, directing its flight. Slowly, exponentially I saw/felt my strength increase. Then an older man, dressed like a butler with a serving tray, came down some white stairs which were in front of me to the right/above/another direction of the gates. On the tray was water and some small black frogs. My immediate response was delight and curiosity--I love frogs. He sprinkled borax on them and looked into my eyes as they writhed and shriveled like salt on slugs.....then he turned and walked away, I grasped for wakefulness and my roommate entered our bedroom, giving me an anchor to grasp to pull myself out of sleep. It feels like somehow things were backwards, that instead of my waking self controlling my dreaming self, my dream self was dreaming my waking self. What happened??

Lots of screaming drunk people out the window

Rachael — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 04:49:05 GMT

I'm at Evergreen. Woohoo. My roommates are decent. My real class doesn't start until tuesday which will hopefully give me time to finish my assignments, ballet starts tomorrow which should be fun. I'm still in a bit of a daze. I'm in college? I miss Berkeley.

One Last Week in Berkeley

Rachael — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 20:00:43 GMT

It's hard to believe that one week from now I'll be steppin on a plane to Seattle for what may be a long stay. Time pulls some funny tricks, I swear it's accelerating towards something... I'm gonna really miss this place, but thank god I'm getting away from all those fire-wielding dancing joyful juggling creative BEAUTIFUL hippie types! ...just kidding... I'm really going to miss you guys. That's the part I'm looking forward to least, is leaving the amazing community I was first introduced to at FireDrums in the fall, who inspired me to stay near the bay and grow my magic through movement. I may be back sooner than I'd planned, I don't think I'll be able to stay away for long....Thank you, thank you, thank you for your pure spirits and inspiration.

CJ

Rachael — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 20:57:14 GMT

Dammit Greg! Since last wednesday when Greg had us all playing with contact balls all sorts of random day to day stuff has been somehow connected to that orange sphere rolling around my hands....I just finally broke down and ordered one. My mantra of "I don't need another toy" has failed me yet again. Oh and don't try explaining an idea that you can extend your being beyond your body to a physics major.

butterfly hyperloops?

Rachael — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:25:01 GMT

I think that's what I started doing on accident last night.....whatever it is they're decently consistant now. hmmm fun! :)

Oh and I almost forgot

Rachael — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 02:52:17 GMT

There's a quote in the International Herald Tribune from Tony Blair about the report. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/30/news/britain.php) "The consequences for our planet are literally disastrous," Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said in a speech discussing the report, which is one of the most comprehensive attempts yet to predict the economic impact of global warming. "This disaster is not set to happen in some science-fiction future, many years ahead, but in our lifetime," Blair said. "What is more, unless we act now, not some time distant but now, these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be irreversible." When are people going to listen?

WAKE UP

Rachael — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 02:36:38 GMT

This particular article quoted from: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1935706,00.html#article_continue There's currently 884 others like it and probably more every minute. ---------------------------- Simple verdict after a complex inquiry: time is running out · By 2100, an upheaval not seen since the last ice age · Famine, disease and mass extinction as heat rises David Adam and Larry Elliott Tuesday October 31, 2006 The Guardian Sir Nicholas Stern was commissioned by Gordon Brown to write a landmark report on climate change, amid growing fears about the human and economic cost of global warming. Sir Nicholas, an internationally regarded economist, spent more than a year examining the complex problem. After a week of rumours and leaks, yesterday he formally launched his 579-page report. Though dry in its delivery, it had a simple and apocalyptic message: climate change is fundamentally altering the planet; the risks of inaction are high; and time is running out. This is a summary of the key findings. The science Out of this enormously complex report comes a simple conclusion: human activity has raised the amount of the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Stern uses the standard scientific measure to show how the amount has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution to 430ppm now. The gas traps heat and has caused the Earth to warm by more than half a degree, with a further half degree at least to come over the next few decades. If carbon emissions continue as they are, the level will reach 550ppm by 2050 or sooner. Scientists believe that would drive global average temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels. It could also release natural stocks of carbon from the soil or permafrost, making the situation worse. Stern warns: "The scientific evidence points to increasing risks of serious, irreversible impacts from climate change associated with business-as-usual paths for emissions." With no action to cut emissions, by the end of the century the atmospheric level could hit 750ppm, with a 50% chance that a 5C temperature rise would follow. "An illustration of the scale of such an increase is that we are now only around 5C warmer than the last ice age," the report says. The scale World emissions of greenhouse gases were the equivalent of 42bn tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2000. The biggest source (24%) is the use of fossil fuels to generate energy, such as power stations that burn coal, oil and gas to produce electricity. Energy as fuel for transport (14%), industry (14%) and to supply buildings (8%) is also a big emitter. So are agriculture (14%) and changes in land use (18%), which mainly means chopping down forests. Harvesting timber from tropical forests and using the land for oil palm and soya can boost income per hectare from $2 to $2,000. Stern says: "The loss of natural forests around the world contributes more to global emissions each year than the transport sector." Impact on the planet Significant warming will profoundly change our planet, the report says. One of the first impacts will be on the water cycle. Droughts and floods will become more severe in many areas. Rain will increase at higher latitudes and decrease in the dry subtropics. Hotter land drives more powerful evaporation, which brings more intense rainfall and flash floods. "Warming may induce sudden shifts in regional weather patterns such as the monsoon rains in South Asia or the El Niño phenomenon," the report says. Differences in water availability between regions of the world will become more pronounced. Already dry areas such as the Mediterranean basin, southern Africa and South America could lose 30% of their water if temperatures rise by 2C. By contrast, South Asia, Russia and parts of northern Europe could get 10% more water, causing rivers to burst their banks. Glaciers are melting - a quarter have gone from the South American Andes since the 1970s - and "some small glaciers are likely to disappear completely in the next decade given current trends". Slight warming may lift crop yields, such as wheat and rice, in the US, Europe, Australia, Siberia and parts of China. But beyond 3-4C there will be increasingly negative effects. Experiments suggest worldwide cereal production could fall 5% for a 2C rise and 10% if the rise was 4C - a level that would make entire regions unsuitable for crops, including parts of Australia. Africa, western Asia and the Middle East could lose 15-35% of their main crops if temperatures rise by 3-4C. Maize production in tropical regions such as parts of Africa and Central America could suffer substantial declines. Extra carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolving in the oceans is making them more acidic. An atmospheric level of carbon dioxide equivalent to 560ppm (double pre-industrial levels) would decrease average pH by 0.15 units. Such a rapid change has not happened for hundreds of thousands of years and "makes it harder for many ocean creatures to form shells and skeletons from calcium carbonate", Stern says. It could disrupt sea life irreversibly, halting the growth of corals with knock-on effects up the ocean food chain as far as salmon and whales. Seas will rise by between 20cm and 80cm if the Earth warms 3-4C, increasing the risk of coastal flooding and storm surges. Extreme weather events such as hurricanes and typhoons will become more intense: peak wind speeds of tropical storms increase 15-20% with a 3C rise in sea surface temperature, Stern says. Warming over the last 40 years has driven species an average of four miles towards the poles a decade, while seasonal events such as flowering and egg laying have come forward several days. Coral bleaching has increased since the 1980s and Arctic and mountain ecosystems are struggling. Climate change has helped wipe out more than 1% of the world's amphibians from tropical mountains. With further warming, many more species will be unable to adapt or move quickly enough to survive. In the Arctic, species such as polar bears and seals are likely to be very sensitive to the rapid warming and substantial loss of sea ice. Stern cites one scientific study that found 1C of warming could leave 10% of land species facing extinction, with tropical mountains badly affected. A 2C rise could see 15-40% of land species threatened, including 25-60% of mammals in South Africa and 15-25% of butterflies in Australia. Half the tundra and a quarter of cool conifer forest could disappear. Warming of 3C threatens 20-50% of land species, with thousands lost from biodiversity hotspots such as African national parks and the Queensland rainforest. Large areas of coastal wetlands will be lost to the rising sea. Some models suggest the Amazon could severely dry and then start to die off, the report notes. Impact on people "The impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed," Stern says. "The poorest countries and people will suffer earliest and most." Changes in water availability will affect billions of people. Population growth combined with a 2C rise could leave 1-4 billion people experiencing growing water shortages, predominantly in Africa, the Middle East, southern Europe and parts of South and Central America. The review says: "Melting glaciers will initially increase flood risk and then strongly reduce water supplies, eventually threatening one-sixth of the world's population, predominantly in the Indian subcontinent, parts of China and the Andes." Disruption to agriculture from a 2-3C rise will put 30-200 million more people at risk of hunger. Once temperatures rise 3C, 250-550 million extra people will be at risk - more than half in Africa and western Asia. At 4C and above, global food production is likely to be seriously affected. Stern refers to a World Health Organisation estimate that climate change has killed 150,000 people since the 1970s, mainly in Africa, through diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition. "Just a 1C increase in global temperature above pre-industrial levels could double annual deaths from climate change to at least 300,000, according to the WHO." In higher latitudes such as the US, Europe, Russia and Canada, cold-related deaths will decrease. But worldwide, deaths from malnutrition and heat stress will increase. Malaria and dengue fever could become more widespread, with one study saying a 2C rise in temperature could expose 40-60 million more people to malaria in Africa. Other studies say the risk of malaria in west Africa could recede as rainfall decreases. In cities, heatwaves will become more dangerous, Stern says, with extreme temperatures and more dangerous air pollution. A 4C temperature rise could expose 1.5-2.5 billion more people to dengue fever. On sea level rise, Stern warns: "According to one estimate, by the middle of the century 200 million people may become permanently displaced due to rising sea levels, heavier floods and more intense droughts." Risks and a need for coastal protection will rise for Bangladesh, Vietnam, small islands in the Caribbean and Pacific, and large coastal cities such as Tokyo, New York, Cairo and London. The report adds: "Damage to infrastructure from storms will increase substantially from only small increases in event intensity. Changes in soil conditions, from droughts and permafrost melting, will influence the stability of buildings." The new Qinghai-Tibet railway, planned to run over 300 miles of permafrost, has a costly insulation and cooling system to stop melting; most roads, houses and railways are more vulnerable. Impact on the economy The Stern review says doing nothing about climate change - the business-as-usual (BAU) approach - would lead to a reduction in global per capita consumption of at least 5% now and forever. That would represent a fall in living standards more than double that experienced in Britain's worst year since the second world war. Stern warns the cost could be much higher and approach levels not seen since the great depression of the 1930s, when the US economy shrunk by almost 25%. The cost of BAU would be higher still had the model used by the Stern team taken into account three additional factors. Firstly, if direct impacts on the environment and human health are included, the estimate of the total cost of climate change increases from 5% to 11% of global per capita consumption. While the report admits measuring these effects is difficult, it says the estimate is a cautious one. Secondly, it says the planet may be even more sensitive to an increase in global temperatures than previously thought, because the carbon sinks that absorbed greenhouse gases are no longer as effective as they were and feedback effects have increased. Once this is factored in, the cost of climate change goes up to 14% of global consumption. Finally, climate change affects poor parts of the world more than wealthy parts, even though developed countries are responsible for the lion's share of emissions. If the unequal burden was distributed more fairly, the estimate of the impact could rise by more than a quarter than without such adjustment. "Putting these additional factors together would increase the total cost of BAU climate change to the equivalent of around a 20% reduction in consumption per head, now and into the future," it says. The report also puts a price on the economic damage caused by every tonne of carbon we currently emit - $85. "But these costs are not included when investors and consumers make decisions about how to spend their money." Big natural disasters can today cost a low income country about 5% of its GDP and the report says the cost of climate change to India and South-east Asia could be 9-13% of GDP by 2100. An additional 145-220 million people could be forced to live on $2 a day and poverty could kill an extra 165,000-250,000 children every year in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. For developed countries, some initial economic benefits (one study said early climate change could boost the US economy by 1%) will be overrun by the cost of extreme weather events. The report says: "In the UK, annual flood losses could increase from around 0.1% of GDP today to 0.2-0.4% of GDP once global temperature increases reach 3 to 4C." Main points · Carbon emissions have already increased global temperatures by more than 0.5C · With no action to cut greenhouse gases, we will warm the planet another 2-3C within 50 years · Temperature rise will transform the physical geography of the planet and the way we live · Floods, disease, storms and water shortages will become more frequent · The poorest countries will suffer earliest and most · The effects of climate change could cost the world between 5% and 20% of GDP · Action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the worst of global warming would cost 1% of GDP · With no action, each tonne of carbon dioxide we emit will cause at least $85 (£45) of damage · Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should be limited to the equivalent of 450-550ppm · Action should include carbon pricing, new technology and robust international agreements

YEAH

Rachael — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:00:15 GMT

Been spinning poi for about 5 hours....just thought I'd try crossers and it worked. I love that shit.