a thousand rainy days

If there was ever a genre of music that syncs true to the Mom's Apartment episodes from 1996 to 1999, that man would definitely be Yanni.

So I have finally finished the project of converting the Italian subtitles of the German silent film Metropolis to English. I'm excited to watch it through, but those goshbedanged subtitles just took a lot out of me. My mind is all german now, with all this sprechen and sprachen and zweitausendjahrigen and entschuldigung.

I have not found my badge, which they tell me is required for getting my final (partial-period) paycheck. Which is somewhat of a load of crap, considering I am an employee in good standing who has worked 56 good hours for that paycheck. That will all come tomorrow.. tonight I have to make something to eat, put some pages behind me on Sense and Sensibility, see if I can win some RDRAM sticks on Ebay toward the end of the bidding, and man, hit the sack early because I have things to do tomorrow. Wow, do I.

The first ten articles or so of the Bargaining Agreement seem very reasonable. They read like an employee handbook, more or less. Well.. Article 4, describing the Union activities, particularly 4.2 describing Union Security is somewhat infringing, in my opinion.. the Union requires the company to extract dues from paychecks, from union and non union employees alike. Granted, a non union worker will enjoy many of the benefits of working for a unionized company -- minus of course the inconveniences that the Union employees have set into the Bargaining Agreement to make life harder on non unionized coworkers. For instance, Section 8.2, internal Job Openings / Selection process states that where the company has to decide who to award the position to, union employees will be given preference over non union employees of equal or lesser qualification.

The seniority system, fortunately or unfortunately, seems to apply to all employees.

Largely these are mostly fair and sensible practices. I suppose the book serves as a legal defense against infringement of certain lines. Anyone who's worked at Wal-Mart (as a primary example) has no such advocate, I recognize (I got into a fierce argument with a drunk Unioner yesterday about this, hehe). Wal-Mart has a terrible workplace environment, reputedly. The fair and sensible practices that we find universally respected and upheld at other notable non union workplaces, notably Bridgewell and the Arc -- and might I add, the familylike and positive atmosphere nurtured at those workplaces -- are not seen in every company, the facts testify.

If I find more about SEIU 509's role as a political machine, I'll have to write about that. I can't pass up that opportunity. Even if they turn out to have no objectionable rules but have some kind of objectionable ideology, I may not be able to cast my lot with them. Depending on how radical or how ecumenical it all turns out to be.

The reason Bridgewell didn't get the contract, is because Eliot's union would not abide the loss of 700 union employees to non-unionized companies. (Despite the fact that in Bridgewell there was never any need for a union, both from individual employee's and individual client's perspective.) Major strings were definitely being pulled from far outside the bounds of normal contract competition.

It's in the materials, under Your Rights and Responsibilities in the Union: "The responsibility to help build a strong and more effective labor movement, to support the organizing of unorganized workers, to help build a political voice for working people, and to stand up for one's coworkers and all workers." Which is bullshit. Because the whole tone of the union guide book is to set worker against management and against fellow worker, with the union forcibly centered as the mediator, with all the power and strings.

It seems to me, if you need a Union, it follows that your company's internals must be a savage hell, right? In order to need such a thing, I mean. Management versus worker, to the point where large scale political mediation is necessary? I've never seen it before. Not in Bridgewell. Certainly never in the Arc. But the union was able to happily bowl through, demolish our company's internals, regardless of our innate capacity and readiness to make the transition -- Eliot was in no way prepared for this, and still is not -- and I watched about twenty three people just willingly sign up for this thing, as the union salespeople sang songs of sweet fat paychecks and sweet benefits.

The biggest trouble with the union even after all that, is that -- at least in the handbook! -- they express no regard for the work that they do, that is, OUR CLIENTS, which is our whole point of existing. An entirely selfish beast, joined together with others to be more powerful in its selfishness. I can understand that a union has a specific purpose and singleminded dedication. Singlemindedness can't be abided in this field, and any such dangerous animal that would contradict healthy workplace culture ought to be swiftly expunged, purged..

"..and if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth."

My economic theory of cities smacks of laziness, I know. My attitude toward complex society in general probably falls on the more destructive side that most people would chide anyone for, but no one would deny my reasons.

I know how economically depressed cities form. Roughly. Enough individuals get to hard times, and factors such as upbringing changes the culture involuntarily over some decades and a generation or two, and before you know it, no-one in the city is really capable of bringing the city around to a positive thing. You have a downswing with no upswing. Because in my little theory, it's not a swing, it's a chasm, which you roll down, and which you have to climb out of by exerting a little effort.

Effort: that's where my lazy view of cities comes in. Bulldoze 'em I say! Hopeless, completely hopeless, I proclaim. Meanwhile I do "my part" at keeping things from teetering too much at the brink.

I came to Lynn with all this energy really. As if I could pull out a bullhorn and all of a sudden, people would rally about, and become happy, and fix everything. Or a least just a little of that on a very small level anyway. But the big picture is just that: big! The tides are against you sometimes! And I realize it's dangerous to look at the big picture in the wrong way.

Rich mentioned how a good plan, one that would really work inevitably takes twenty to twenty five years to work. It would take that long to cycle all the kids out of the schools, and get a fresh batch in. It would take that long to retire all the current (entrenched) city employees. It would take that long to raise a new generation of kids, assuming the current parents in the meantime are even going to know how to do that correctly. That plan, precisely because it would be complicated and take a really long time, would be screwed up. Some bonehead would have a better idea or an ulterior motive, and all would fail, and nothing would change.

(I'm tempted at every turn to begin some kind of Harry Seldon theory of predictive history, but such megalomania would never do)

I still maintain that the fault of the poverty lies in the infrastructure: the over-dense geography of homes, the get-rich-quick devil-may-care town planning that leads to over-dense population centers (very similar to getting greedy, rolling and rolling and rolling the dice, and suddenly losing your shirt and wondering how it happened) and all this has roots as far back in history as industrialization if not further.

This attitude about population is part of a dissatisfaction with culture at its deeper levels. Should it be governed in a way that avoids such tragedy? If there is any role of government beyond vouchsafing a free society -- and this is very difficult for me to say since I an loathe to admit brave new functions for government (and I may say differently at some later date after I have wrestled with this) -- it may be that an aspect of government ought to anticipate such societal tragedies and subtly direct its society away from such irreparable and costly ills.

A new government for instance ought to have, as part of its institution, a forward-thinking predictive and corrective mechanism, which would be somehow essentially correct or at least effectively accurate in its predictive power, at least as politically independent as the judiciary, and powerful enough to not only restrict the other branches of government from making long-term-related mistakes, but also pass foundational guidelines for the people as to how they might circumvent a certain well-described tragedy.

It would prevent the senseless proliferation of slums and things like that. I'll have to keep chewing on that.

I have orientation later today. Maybe I'll bring a pad and pen and doodle a little.

Father's Day. Solstice. Gathering Decennial.

I blink awake. A thousand little dreams scurry away into their corners and under my bed. For some reason it's one minute before the alarm. Funny; I'd set it to a new time. How convenient. Yawn. There's the alarm. (smack) Shower. Orange Juice. Hey to the roommates. So it looks like I have a shift.. guess I'll be missing the all-day decennial party. Ugh. Down three flights of stairs.. cold outside.. Rain.

I check the mailbox. Reflex. It's Sunday. Start my car.. wipers.. periodic? Better go with continuous. (spatter, spatter, scrub scrub) Whoa there buddy! My brakes seem to be working okay, how about yours? Here's Lafayette Street - what's this? Traffic Barrels. Detour, detour. I've never been on these streets. I hug somewhat close to my known route. Lafayette street the whole way down: inaccessible. Inadmissable. Inconceivable. Unacceptable. I have to be on shift in 3 minutes. I park at the other end.

Like a zoo or a parade, there are pedestrians.. it's Salem.. so, Solstice? No.. cancer walk. Music is everywhere. Rain is everywhere. People in different shirts, teams, causes, colors. Policement on the sidestreets. An alternative rock band. A folk guitar and singer. A zither.

This is taking longer than I thought.

Which cross-street am I supposed to be at? It's one of these. The Mexican-looking house. Adobe. Not that Mexican looking house, must be the next one.

My glasses are getting to be impossible. Has it been a half mile or what. I have doomed myself to walk back in this, too. Aha - there we are.

Alright, free thunderstorm! People say there aren't free things in life. People forget that that's just a commentary on human nature and society, not much more. The rest of it - the rest of life (grand sweeping gesture at canyon vistas, himalayan snowswept ranges, fruited plains, etc) is pretty much free.

Having a bit of trouble db:migrating my nice little database into the framework. So just playing around.

Professor Plum hit 90,000 miles yesterday. Now he's got a proper name : P

Dave's been having computer trouble lately. Anytime people have computer trouble, my heart goes out to them all the more, because I know how impossible computers generally are to fix; when they expect me to know answers (this isnt Dave, this is other people) I can only placidly state the immovable Truths, that there are some things in life that are just broken, get thee used to it.

Tom and Pam are writing about this one song where they talk about the bleak emptiness of life - it really "gets my goat" though.. I mean here's how I perceive this: certain Christians will link their experience of fulfilledness with their relationship with Christ, to the point where nothing else has meaning or can hold joy - an incredible nihilism builds inside just out of notice, an unhealthy trap that builds because Christians are often trained to regard things as temporary, to take the entire universe and treat is as a ghastly hell which we want to escape from one day. People have told me just today they welcome death because it is so much easier than living, and how much better would it be on the other side - Christians say this. You can easily go from birth to death and not live a day. An absolute waste.

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The salt wind whips around our faces, the spray is our constant companion. Our journey aboard this transoceanic steamship has brought us to this bustling port town. We are nearing our hub, we are disembarking, down the gangplank, ready to make a new life of it. But something about the air, or the people, cues our suspicion.
We are still on the dock. "They are loading a bomb onto that freighter" she alerts me quietly.
"Not another one of these," I groan, "That could flatten the city, we would be dust in seconds."
"The ocean?"
"Yes.. if we stayed under.."
"Then it's decided."
With no time to waste, the freighter ignites, a blazing inferno challenging the morning sun. We plunge from the docks into the murk beneath as the freighter's bomb levels the town above the waves. The underwater shock rips through us, and from beneath we see the chaos of the ocean surface and the spreading ash and unearthly fire. Many seconds pass.. we surface, gasping, choking on acrid smoke and putrid vapors, horrified at the holocaust unfolding above the waves. Blistering heat has reduced the shipyard to grey slag. We decide it would be better not to surface.

She and I bring our canoe to shore, leaving our belongings behind and emerge from the forest. The neighborhood beyond is bright, unexpected. We follow our traveling companions into the house they'd chosen as their destination. Inside we immediately sense it. She and I exchange glances, quietly excuse ourselves and meet outside. We have one another's hand. Around us the air is still - she breaks the silence.
"Something's wrong."
I agree. "The architecture, the speech, it doesn't add up. All these houses, look- it's as if they were newer than they should be."
"The way our host was dressed - it looked like the nineteen-thirties," she shivered.
"But look- horse-drawn carriages," I offered, and it was true - the streets weren't paved properly. Only the smells and signs of carriages and animals plodding past lingered here.
"The nineteen-tens?"
"That would put us before the world war," I whisper, anxiously holding her hand tighter.
A pause.. "What do we do?"
"We could wait it out. Live life here, move to Chicago - maybe when the crown prince is assassinated, we can get our hands on an original print of that 'WAR' headline.."
"Don't be ridiculous."
We ran back to the canoes

Tom Newman says that life is war. He says roadblocks are constantly thrown in our way, we charge through the fire each day, and standing back and choosing to do nothing is unacceptable.

Name: Hairullo Tilloev
Location: Vahdat, Tajikistan
Primary Activity: Animal Sales
Loan Amount: $1,200.00
Loan Use: To increase livestock headcount
Repayment Term: 14 months - View details below
Lenders Repaid: Monthly
Date Listed: May 1, 2009
Date Disbursed: Mar 26, 2009

Hairullo Tilloev lives in Vahdat. He is 62 years old, married and has eight children. He works as a foreman in a collective farm. Besides this work, he is involved in animal husbandry. He buys young bulls, feeds and raises them, and then resells them at markets. Hairullo plans to obtain this loan to increase his livestock headcount. He will be able to repay the loan within 12 months.

Translated from Russian by Anna Sorokina-Hailey, Kiva Volunteer

Тиллоев Хайрулло проживает в городе Вахдат. Возраст 62 года, женат и имеет восемь детей. Работает бригадиром в совхозе. Кроме того занимается животноводством. Покупает молодых неоткормленных бычков, откармливает их , а затем перепродает на тех же рынках. Планирует получить кредит для того, чтобы увеличить поголовье скота. Погасить кредит сможет в течение 12 месяцев.


Field Partner: MLO Humo and Partners
Field Partner Risk Rating: 4 stars
Fundraising Status: Active
Time On Kiva: 23 months
Kiva Entrepreneurs: 1669
Total Loans: $1,243,000
Delinquency Rate: 0.00%
Default Rate: 0.00%

Kiva Message from the Field Regarding Tajikistan

Entrepreneur: Hairullo Tilloev
Location: Vahdat, Tajikistan

Dear Kiva Lender,

My name is Boris Mordkovich and I'm a volunteer from New York who has spent the last two months working at a Kiva field partner in Tajikistan: MLO HUMO & Partners. Kiva has been working with HUMO for over a year in order to reach borrowers in Tajikistan. Through this critical partnership, lenders like you can lend funds directly to entrepreneurs in this region to help them improve their businesses and their standard of living.

The Borrowers

Kiva lenders have supported more than 5,600 borrowers in Tajikistan, more than 1,500 of whom have received assistance from HUMO. For many of them, starting their own business is the only way to support themselves and their families. Job opportunities are scarce, and even if people do find full-time work, their salaries are usually not enough to cover living expenses. For example, a teacher in Tajikistan makes about 280 Somoni (about $75) per month, while it costs at least $300 to 500 per month to feed and support a family in the city.

If you'd like to view some of their stories, I invite you to visit the “Stories of Five Micro-Finance Borrowers”:

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/03/26/the-stories-of-5-micro-finance-borrowers/

Current Economic Crisis

Due to a lack of developed infrastructure and industries, the country's economy has been supported primarily by remittances sent by migrant Tajik workers, who are based primarily in Russia. However, as the world's economic crisis worsens, many of these migrant workers are now unable to find work abroad, just as the situation is getting more dire in Tajikistan itself.

Access to micro-credit is becoming more important than ever in order for people to sustain their businesses and themselves during these difficult economic times. Many of the bigger banks have stopped their lending activity altogether or have significantly increased their rates. Smaller micro-finance institutions, such as HUMO and others, remain one of the few reasonable options for the low-income population.

If you want to find out more about the impact of the economic crisis in Tajikistan, visit:

http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/02/10/impact-of-the-economic-crisis-in-tajikistan/

How Does Your Involvement Make a Difference?

Over the two months I've spent at HUMO, I've wound up explaining how Kiva works to dozens of people. Most of them were aware of the organization, but not everybody fully understood how it worked. When they learned about the hundreds of lenders that were behind all of these loans, they were often amazed and impressed by people’s generosity and their desire to help. On behalf of Kiva, HUMO, and its borrowers, we thank you for supporting our work.

To see current fundraising loans from HUMO on Kiva.org, please check:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=63&status=fundRaising&sortBy=Old+to+New&_te=mj

If you have any follow-up questions or comments, feel free to contact me at boris.mordkovich@fellows.kiva.org and I'd be more than happy to try to address your concerns.

Signing off from Tajikistan,

Boris Mordkovich [Kiva Fellow, Class 7]

We went to see that new Star Trek movie. It was cool with respect to the casting and the graphics but I couldn't help but notice there wasn't any convincing acting or maybe a plot. It was a little bit like watching Hannah Montana or whatever passes for filth on the Disney Channel these days, or even those Star Wars movies they tried to pander to us just a few years back. When I go see a star trek movie, see, I want to see some intriguing political conondrum or gritty ethical dilemma - something not even I can solve without disturbing myself; moral shades of grey maybe, where the Bad Guy ship isn't necessarily a Horrendous Cavern of Doom, and the Federation ship polished as the Apple Store; I admit I even enjoy a complicated character or two with perhaps some problems or flaws or exhibiting some believable emotion.. Sometimes I enjoy a nice tragedy, or even sometimes a movie where the camera and greenscreen isn't doing all the acting and shaking and holy pitching and rolling. Gene Wilder in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had more dimensionality than the whole cast of cliches and guffaws that was the crew of the Enterprise put together.

Sigh..

I guess what I really wanted to happen, was for an artistically bankrupt and irrelevant franchise to dramatically redefine itself, to pour forth that rich storytelling potential..

But if THIS is what fans wanted, then by all means. Let 'em roll in it.

It is true, it was the last day of January when I became honest with myself (Tiff Dyess' honesty ethic got taken to its logical conclusion). The marked seismic shift from not facing facts for so long was dangerous but fortunately by mid March the tenor of the situation was unexpectedly rectified by the coming of the blue tubs. Over a game of cards last saturday, Alex and I talked on those things. (Alex won)

However it was not until this Wednesday evening that I was able to hash it through with Hillary Jane and Don Taylor. It's almost as if .. I now know what I have to do. I turn the Dyess Honesty Ethic on its head, and now as best I can, I have to be honest with everyone else. The prescribed action is so subtle, yet the thought makes me shiver in my shoes.

My whole life I have followed the precept to not make waves, to mend what is broken, to incite harmony. It's what made January come so late to me: all the what ifs, all the work that would have to be done. The fact that I shy away from it - it's just like me, heh, perpetual loner, thinking no-one would be interested in my business, creating fictions - facades! Aagh, a facade! I'm not so good at friendship as I'd like to think.

But I am though. In peace I know I am. And so maybe it's easier than I think.

:) It's always thinking that gets in the way.

Touareg? Not just a Volkswagon anymore.

"Preparation is a rather complex and long procedure, and takes green tea (usually strong *Chinese tea, e.g. gunpowder, chun mee, or zhu cha), fresh mint leaves in large quantity and a lot of sugar (approximately five teaspoons of sugar for one teaspoon of tea). The tea is first put in the teapot and "cleaned" by adding a small quantity of boiling water, that is poured out after one minute (this operation lessens the bitterness of the tea). Mint and sugar are added, and water at the boiling point is then poured in the pot. After three to five minutes, a glass is served and poured back in the pot two to three times, in order to mix the tea. Tea is then tasted (sugar if needed may be added) until the infusion is fully developed. Tea is poured into glasses from height in order to swirl loose tea leaves to the bottom of the glass."

It's pretty good and now I need to grow also some Spearmint for this.

*No wonder all that Chinese tea was in the Arabic convenience store. Mint tea is a Maghreb specialty!

So I turned my mazdamobile into a Sport Utility Jetta with the assist of a few bungee cords and tie-downs, and within a lick and a jiffy, we were out in the ocean, rowing rowing rowing, towards Great Misery Island. Well -- first we had to sneak around a blockade: there were these snotty rich people on huge beaches with huge diamond rings yelling, "hey! no dogs on this beach (filthy creatures - think of the children!)" But we found a chink in the hate-fence, where the joggers were friendly and let us park, and like I said, the ocean was great once you get out on it. Once you're away from all the hate and the despair, the rich people and their out-of-touch fearmongering, the great unwashed and their myriad cigarette butts and their tumbleweeds of trash blowing in your eyes - once there is only the ocean, and the sky, and the islands far away, there is peace. And fishing. And having a friend and a little beagle and a few snacks. But no lodestone compass, no cell phone, no astrolabe, no facebook, no case full of charts and slide rules to tie you down, none of the niceties of frantic existance that take your mind away from the present, the magnificent present. And that island was cool too.

Tom's metal detector was screeching every few square yards, but all we found was 3 cents, a .22 shell, two nails a bottlecap and two beer tabs. No gold, surprisingly. I was dismayed, but for the multitude of hills and paths and overgrown ruins, as well as vistas overlooking other nearby islands. And the tide was pretty cool - we didn't count on it coming in and washing our canoe off the beach, but that's life, you know?

What if there were no continents, what if there were instead myriad tiny-little 80-acre islands, all over the place (you could always see at least one or two other ones from where you were) and you had to use canoes? That would be great. Of course there would probably still be famine war and plague, but it would still be awesome.

Was it the recent reconnection with old nemesis Dave Critchlow? Was it the broccoli I shared with friends, after I read about the benefits of raw vegetables? Was it the funeral on South Commons? Was it the lunch shared and glasses raised at the Blue Ox?

Was it the pep talk from Paul Wizikowski? Was it the rising market triumph of NPR news? Was it the quiet wisdom of Ella Thomas, or the transcendentalism of Susan Boyle? The tang of the beet, the crackle of the onion, the snap of the pea?

Was it Lynn's beach, full of life by blue sea and the blue sky? Was it this mason jar, full of hot sweet green tea?

We may never know why today was so awesome.

You know me. I'll take anything. Anything genuine.

And it came to pass that the waters of the sea, they rose up, and loomed low and dark over the whole earth, and the light of the sun receded.

And lo, the clouds were tumultuous over the whole earth, and the raindrops created a colossal negative electrostatic charge in the heavens, creating a colossal voltage between the earth and its firmament.

Men scurried and swore, beasts and scurrying things sought shelter, while the flora of the earth drank and rejoiced. Groundwater flowed and joined to streams, streams turned to floods, floods washed away the filth and litter of men from roundabout them, even as men cursed the skies.

The food of men drank their fill; cattle, foul, game, crops and fruits, and grew strong as the heavens washed and fed them. The lilies of the field, free of toil, blooming brighter, considered their good fortune, even as men ran in fear, discomfort and hatred at the great feast of a rainfall.

And heaven discharged blinding peals of thundering power, a reminder to all creation what immense and dynamic power feeds and refreshes all life. And men cowered in the dark, waiting for the tame light of day to dispel their fear.

Ah. So organized. So organized it hurts. Blindingly organized. Who knew I could just put all my work into one tabbed binder, and all of a sudden enter a mystical stress-free zone where all my work gets done, almost automatically. It's like they say when someone plays basketball, that that guy's a machine? Except what if there really WAS a machine playing basketball? It would be that much better. QED.

Dad visited Monday night.

Wow, how do I unpack that. It's always great when he comes - even when briefly. He got to meet Tom, Mary and Alex this time around, which was amusing as always when you bring people in from multiple walks of life - and then late that night we scoured Salem for something to do, but the only thing open really was Beerworks. So Alex Dad and I hung out there and watched International Baseball Classic amid bites of food and glimpses of conversation. Good old times.

I don't know if he meant to or realized it, but he left a gold mine here for me. See, he had room in the truck for my old dresser-drawers from growing up on Claytonia Road, so he brought that, and maybe 5 huge Tupperware tubs-full of my old stuff. It was exciting that night to glance through it all.

But last night I rooted through every last bit of it. My God. What a life!

I was talking with Ella about that - about going through your childhood possessions, years on. It's the same for her as for me - it's such a freshening experience, it takes your head out of the clouds, it makes you far-sighted again, and makes you feel great about being old and having so many memories. Man, I'm glad I kept what I did.

I tossed some things, but the other half - the meaningful half - I'll be keeping in the basement for when I open it again. Maybe year 2020 or something like that : ) God knows between now and then, my head'll be in the clouds again, I'll feel lost and alone and whatever, but that's where my family comes in; they've always been able to fill that gap.

So off I go again.