Nov 16th was internet censorship day

We tend to criticize China for restricting access to the internet, but there are two bills in congress RIGHT NOW that, if passed, will make Chinese internet desirable in comparison to the USA. They are really bad ideas not just for the internet, but for social and political activism, freedom of speech, and the US innovation-based economy.
Like, I think this is probably the kind of page that could be blocked if the bills go through.

A helpful video on why two bills going through congress in the USA right now are a bad idea:

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

And an infographic! <-click for infographic

A website with more information, and you can go to the Avaaz website to add your signature to the global petition. Avaaz is pretty awesome and if you haven’t already signed on to their news, you should.

Especially if you’re from the US, you can go to this Mozilla Firefox site to send a message to your senators/representatives.

Occupy [city] movements being evicted

Yesterday when a friend informed me that OWS (Occupy Wall Street), birthplace of the We are the 99% movement, was being evicted and sent me a link to a live video feed, I was surprised to find that the various occupy[city].org websites, video streams, and news reports were accessible from China. (The live feeds seem to be no longer available, probably because of being evicted?)

My purpose here is just to post a few interesting links. I am interested in seeing how the Occupy movements will have to transition, whether that is by defining particular goals and demands, or by decentralizing the occupations. I think I have seen this movement as well as other responses recent political and economic trends as particularly interesting especially since reading this 86th Birthday Rage comic (first posted on Reddit). It’s a bit long, but I highly recommend it. For those not already in the know, ‘Rage’ comics allow users to create their own illustrated comic by using stock drawings that have been contributed by the community over time. ‘Rage’ comics do not have to be angry :). Rage comics are often meant to (humorously or not) express emotions the creator feels about some true-to-life event. This particular comic is interesting because it’s basically an autobiography, and in one panel, he writes, “… the 2000’s, a decade during which nothing much happened. Do you disagree? Well imagine the decades I have to compare it to.” Thinking about this blows my mind a little with the possibilities of how much more could be done than is already being done and how much more the world could change in a short amount of time than it is already changing. There’s a lot about the world that needs to change, and when he puts it like that, it makes me feel like the 2000’s are either doldrums or some kind of relatively peaceful eye in the center of the local historical hurricane. Is it a sign of peace and prosperity or of complacency? Can the Occupy movements become a good and influential part of history? If they fail, will it be because of lack of direction, a surrounding environment of apathy, or both? If they succeed, will it direct us towards a future of significant and meaningful change? And all of these thoughts seem to still remain within this quote from one of the last panels of the 86th Birthday Rage: “… Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Occupy Wall Street, the 2011 crash, the 2008 crash, the 1999 crash, the oil crises, Vietnam, the Korean War, landing on the moon, World War 2 … I’ve seen it all happen over and over again.”

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) articles

(old) article on the initial delay of eviction from Liberty Square:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/10/eviction-of-occupy-wall-street-from-nyc-park-postponed/

Occupywallst.org’s updates on the eviction/raid of Liberty Square and new directions for the movement:
http://occupywallst.org/article/nypd-raiding-liberty-square/

Occupywallst.org main page: http://www.occupywallst.org/

Somewhat satirical Occupywallst article about the new NYPD occupation of Liberty Square:
http://occupywallst.org/forum/nypd-occupying-liberty-square-demands-unclear/

Blog post “The Transition Phase” linked to from an Occupywallst article:
http://struggleforfreedom.blogg.no/1321101669_the_transition_phase_.html

Occupy Portland movement:

OregonLive article about Mayor Sam Adams’ message to Portland and WallStreet occupants:
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/portland_mayor_sam_adams_calls_1.html

OregonLive article about the Occupy Portland Eviction:
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/11/occupy_portland_eviction_of_do.html

public notes from the Occupy Portland General Assembly:
http://occupyportland.org/occupation/pdx-general-assembly/general-assembly-notes/

Occupy Portland main page:
http://occupyportland.org/

OregonLive articles related to Occupy Portland:
http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/occupy%20portland/posts.html

–edit–

City Occupy movements need to transition to a larger global movement be recognized as having global support to maintain momentum, significance, hope for change: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/b-dolan/occupy-london-stock-exchange_b_1032333.html

From a link in the above article, a suggested list of demands for the Global Occupy movements, which have been adopted or used for a starting point in some city movements: http://knowmore.org/wiki/index.php?title=A_Proposed_List_of_Demands

Surprise Marriage (他们已经结婚了！）

丁老师 (Ding Laoshi) is about the same age I am and teaches P.E. classes here at the school. She’s an athlete!

I went back to my office after lunch today to find 丁老师 peering over the cubicle and pointing out the 喜糖 to Xu老师, and then to me as well. 喜糖 (Xi Tang) – the candy – is a gift from a couple to their friends to celebrate a marriage. Xu老师 said that 丁老师 had gotten married on Saturday. “I don’t believe you,” I said in English, embarrassing myself for forgetting I could say “不相信” instead. 丁老师 just perched on her elbows over the cubicle divider looking proud. I poked at her hands, “You don’t have a ring.” She said something that Xu老师 translated by describing that they had signed an legal marriage certificate. I think that maybe rings and other stuff might come later when they have time to bother with such things. “你没告诉我!” (You didn’t tell me!) I told 丁老师, and then to Xu老师，”Did you know?”… Xu老师 had been just as surprised as I was. Anyway, once I got over my disbelief, I learned how to congratulate 丁老师 with “恭喜你” (gong1xi1 ni3) and told her I’d have to make her a cake, to which she replied that she’d already gotten the cake (box chocolate cake square) I’d left at her desk on Friday when I gave a piece of cake to everyone to celebrate our new toaster oven (电烤箱, I think).

I think one reason I didn’t believe her is that I am still typing up a description of a wedding celebration I went to 2 weeks ago, and here she up and got married before I could even know about it. It’s fun though 🙂 I’ve met the guy – he’s very nice! The pair of them had invited Kraytul and I over to her apartment for dinner before, and he speaks pretty good English …and I think he looks kind of like the guy on the box of sweets they gave out to celebrate. The picture seems very appropriate:

喜糖 - happy candy!

a congratulatory message that I forgot

peanut tubes, milk candy that is like caramel but different, and Alpenrose fruit/cream flavor hard candy

Sesame Street Gems

I’ve been browsing the internet for Sesame Street videos that might be useful to show the kids here. I found these three most excellent videos. The first two are also findable on Youku, one of the two Chinese sites competing for Youtube-like statues in China (the other is Tudou).

1. G
unexpectedly hilarious

2. Will.i.ams Song ‘What I am’
just a good reminder 🙂

3. Ladysmith Black Mambazo sings the ABCs with Kermit
I still think this is such a great clever song.

moth!

looks like a spaceship

I found this moth towards the end of October! He’s so beautiful! He looked like some kind of sleek spaceship design and had lovely metallic gray/brown/orange wings. He stayed very still and refused to move his wings unless he was being bothered (by me trying to poke under his wings) and trying to escape.

trying to look under wing!

neeerrrrooooommmm!

hello owl-face!

Moth hanging on. Those kids in the background are running over to see what I have.

Persimmon

On Friday, I found some persimmons in the corner of the Walmart grocery section.

A very soft persimmon

Everything I know about persimmons comes from two sources: this poem (Persimmons by Li-Young Lee), and from remembering a friend at college (whose family was of Chinese descent) being excited about discovering a persimmon tree in the backyard of the place she was renting with her fellow schoolmates. Her schoolmates had been ignoring the persimmon tree since they did not know what it was, but she was ecstatic about it.

It had been a long time since I read the poem. I did not remember if I was supposed to eat the skin, but standing in the corner of the grocery store, I did remember that they were supposed to be very very soft. I think I have seen them for sale before from the street-side fruit vendors, but I mistook them for one of those not-quite-tomato fruits, and did not buy any. My loss.

In the grocery store, there were two kinds of persimmons – ones that looked like tomatoes with different sorts of leaves on top and ones that looked like the others, but as though they’d been grown with a string tied around their middle, causing them to bulge on the top and bottom. I got one of each. I got the ripest-feeling one that I dared to carry home. The ripe bulgy one felt like it was made of water swishing in the bottom. It did not smell bad at all, but I could not help thinking of rotten tomatoes. It had the same feel of a thin skin with watery swishing fluid beneath. I was concerned that it might actually be too ripe or rotten, so I got a slightly firmer but still soft one of the non-bulgy kind. It felt about they way that a tomato feels when you know it needs to sit on your countertop for 2 or 3 more days to be perfectly ripe.

The next morning, I ate the bulgy one. It had been a long time since I read the poem, and I did not remember if I was supposed to eat the skin, which looked speckled and beginning to mold on top, so I cut the top off with a knife like a pumpkin. Inside, there were a few wafers of solid fruit material drifting within what I have so far only figured out how to describe as fruit custard.

fruit custard-gel that comes in its own bowl

The fruit had mostly become a sort of custard-jelly texture within its skin. I scooped it out and ate it off the end of my knife. I haven’t figured out how to describe the flavor yet. It was sweet, but not overpowering or sugary or tangy. The sweetness was so soft and almost creamy, just like the texture. A really lovely fruit.

The other persimmon is still sitting on the tabletop, ripening, I hope.