Friday, July 29, 2005

why no Meg
Why no Meg? Because she is in NYC shooting an indie *cough* Corporate Ho *cough* movie. And I will be there too, along with her friend (and blogmate) Teresa and J to the L-Yo! And there will be ships and rigging and food and enough hot hams to feed the whole Chelsea FC starting squad but I'm sure Lancaster will also be nice and I surely hope you all have a good time and take care of yourselves.

laters
posted by sasha @ 10:27 AM

KATIE O'HARA!
guess who's coming to Lancaster??? (laura shank and tasara for a wedding, but who cares about them, heh heh heh) ....... MEEEEEEEEEE and my mom and guiseppa are coming to lancaster! so we're going to be in Lancaster just for the hell of it! on saturday and sunday! wooooo
unless i don't come because there's a bike race saturday night with free beer after, grrrr
posted by kate @ 7:13 AM

Thursday, July 28, 2005

As Debt Collectors Multiply, So Do Consumer Complaints
"In every sector, there are bad apples, but 95 percent of all debt buyers are good, nice business people," said Warren Dedrick, chairman of Marlin Integrated Capital Holding Corp., a large buyer of medical and utility debt.

So according to this guy from a debt collection agency, one in twenty debt collectors are in fact not good and nice people. One in twenty. This in the context of an article pointing out that debt collectors use abusive and illegal techiniques. That's not really a ringing endorsement of the debt collection industry if one in twenty are acting in an abusive and illegal fashion. A similar ratio at GW Law or Goshen would mean that there are about fifty students who cheat on their exams.

You can read the full article here.
posted by weiss @ 12:11 PM

a note: laaaaaa
did you know that usps receipts (those from the evanston branch) burn with little fireworks dancing alongside the flame? i'll bet you a pair of sasha's undies you didn't.
posted by joel @ 9:42 AM

Oh man, yesterday was the bomb-diggity! I didn't spend a dime until dinner. It was great! Sasha invited me to a friendly outing with the HRC! Which meant free rides, free food, free ice cream, free fans/flashlights, lots of roller coasteres, swimming, a gold filling in my foot, switching shorts with sasha, relying honesty of the people of 6-flags so much as to trust them with sasha's passport, our wallets and most of sasha's clothes, and having fun when the bus broke down! way cool! THEN! I went to murky to get some coffee and instead found kate, who was like, dude, we're taking guiseppa to have a real american hamberger, so I made some iced mochas and then headed up to teresa and guiseppas house, well, acutally my mom's house, and then we went to the sylum and had cheap beers and cheep foods and then we went to the most bomb diggity part of the day: There was this theater that was hosted by a large man in a pink lobster suit. The opening act was a modern day freak show complete with a fire eater, a balloon eater/contortionist, and a guy who could hammer a nail into his nose. then, the main performers came on and OH MY DOG! it was crazy. it was a this thrusting, crawling, kicking, vibrant, homo/hetero erotic, marching band made up of a cross dressing or half naked, or thong wearing drumline, brass line, and pom pom dancers who take center stage by moving the audience onto the stage and then marching/rolling/spinning around for two hours in the hottest, sweatiest, loudest, closest, marching band performance that I've ever seen in my entire life. outrageous.


And now it's time for some old man prose!
posted by meg @ 12:14 PM

storms and whatnots...
yes, yes, i'm still in chicago, but loving it more than i ever imagined. reba place community rocks. last time i came through, '01 i think, the community lacked a presence of young folks. the next generation if you will. but this time passing through, the community is bursting with energies, ideas and action planning. ten interns, including our very own jesse benjamin miller, are working on projects including urban gardening, a bicycle cooperative, sustainable lifestyles and spiritual matters to boot.

alas, my time is drawing to a close in chicago. thursday i'll board amtrak and travel to ottumwa, ia where my family will retrieve me for my aunt's wedding and photography assignment in grinnell. next monday, august 1, jesse stoltzfus and i will begin the journey between goshen and bloomington. he is moving south and i agreed to help haul his writing desk. we go by bicycle. if i can arrange for a digital camera i hope to take pics along the way. if not, film will have to suffice. then, after adventures between g- and b-town, i'll be headed back north for the nuptials of paul and sara. then...back to work at the bakery. ah, the life of an adventurer. the fath.
posted by joel @ 1:02 PM

apt 11 goes shopping
unions
boozers
ceredbol
cheezums
breadiz
lunch meeties
weggies
poppinkerns
des fruits
zoup & tuna
J-Lo
baked beans
yogi
brokoli
meatoes + chikums
laundry soap
posted by meg @ 8:15 PM

  SHOPDROPPING!
posted by sasha @ 3:27 PM

in case you haven't seen this yet...
ERB TO MARRY NAFZIGER
KALONA, IA - Charletta Erb of Wellman and Tim Nafziger of Goshen, Indiana announce their engagement and plans to wed.

Ms. Erb is the daughter of Sylvia and Gary Erb and the granddaughter of John and Nita Erb and Bernice Miller and the late Wayne Miller.

She is a 1998 graduate of Iowa Mennonite School, Kalona. Ms. Erb and her fiancé are both 2003 graduates of Goshen College in Goshen and are serving at the London Mennonite Center in the United Kingdom.

A September 9, 2006 wedding in Goshen is planned.
posted by sasha @ 9:27 AM

in case you haven't seen this yet...
NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa , officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed ! Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean , then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP.

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added.

"The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender! age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with t heir mothers for four years," he explained.
posted by meg @ 10:08 PM

IRAN EXECUTES 2 GAY TEENAGERS
posted by sasha @ 9:27 AM

Some shit
For people with too much time and Supreme Court curiosity:

• www.scotusblog.com
• www.naral.org
• www.savethecourt.org
• underneaththeirrobes.blogs.com
• court.thinkprogress.org
• www.legalaffairs.org
• www.sctnomination.com
• news.yahoo.com/i/701
• www.becker-posner-blog.com
• appallingblog.blogspot.com

Also:
Went to hear Hillary speak this afternoon. She was a little underwhelming, especially compared to the oratory juggernaut that is Rep. John Lewis. But so many young, fresh-faced 21st Century Democrats! Where do they keep them all?
My hypothesis: chained to their cubicle chairs, with intermittent happy hours of freedom.

And:
Chelsea FC plays DC United on July 28. I won two tickets! Man, Redekopp better learn to love her some football.

That's about it. Oh, and there's free hip-hop in the park tonight. What an exciting day!
posted by sasha @ 3:27 PM

So exciting!
posted by sasha @ 10:27 AM

the future home: goshen
personally speaking, "i'm waiting for the rv industry to fail when peak oil kills the market. houses and land will then be free (or near to it)." the fath. oh, i'm still in chicago.
posted by joel @ 5:04 PM

SCOTUS nominee tonight
On the TV.

9pm, EDT.

(Edith Brown Clement is trading at $45 and random Ted Olson is at an improbable $83 on the SCOTUS Futures Market. Everybody else is trading under $10.)
posted by sasha @ 4:27 PM

Housing Bubble
Recently I've become very annoyed at the concept of rent. I mean, you pay the money each month and it's gone! I don't think it would bother me if everyone in the world was renting, but knowing that some people have mortgages where they are slowly accumulating equity drives me mad. I need to save up for a downpayment pronto so I can buy something.

Because of this interest in housing, I keep a tight eye on news that the housing bubble is near bursting. There was a fascinating article in the NYT today. You can read it without registering at The Denver Post. Apparently housing price increases have slowed to just above inflation in Denver. Now, this is probably because of a weak telecom sector, which is a major Denver employer. But hopefully it's also a sign of things to come. One other fascinating is in Kiplingers) which establishes probabilities of housing price decline. I note sadly that except for DC the cities I intend to be living in after graduation do not make the list, and DC doesn't rate as that likely to be facing a decline. But hopefully things are worse than expected and yours truly will be able to get his grubby fingers on that central facet of the American dream: homeownership, baby.
posted by weiss @ 8:53 PM

Open-Ended Questions
What should Goshen College STOP doing?

* Having all these identity crises

* Raising tuition by ridiculous amounts

* Worrying about USN&WR rankings

* Trying to position itself with regards to the spectrum of Anabaptist political and religious thought. It is precisely because there is such diversity of opinion (at least, for Mennonites) at GC that we are such an interesting and engaging institution. It is a strength! Market THAT.

What should Goshen College CONTINUE doing?

* Recruiting ALANA students

* Supporting int'l students financially (and in every other way--maybe the ISC could be a real club, with a real adviser?)

* Encouraging, guiding and funding student initatives

* Producing quality student journalists (Record, WGCS, GC-TV)

* Rocking it!
posted by sasha @ 4:27 PM

WHAT THE FUCK?! are they threatening me?!?!?
You have been selected to take part in our Goshen College Survey .

Instructions for completing the survey are on-line. Please complete the survey within one week of receiving this notice.

We will be sending you a reminder notice every 48 hours until you complete the survey. Your prompt response would be very much appreciated. This notice contains your link to the survey. We suggest you save the notice until after you have completed the survey and clicked Submit. Note: You can exit the survey at any time by clicking on the X in the upper right hand corner of the screen or go under File/ Close/Exit in your browser window. Use the link below to re-enter the survey.

Click here to Begin
When you are done, click Submit on the last page to complete the survey. We will process your results. I thank you in advance for your participation!
posted by meg @ 3:08 PM

Jesse, I sent you a message through friendster with my phone number. Call it. E. Meyer, I left a message on the answering machine at your house. Call me back.
posted by weiss @ 9:39 AM

Scotland and Stuff
It's funny how the frequency of my blogging seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of interesting things happening in my life. July thus far has been a major example of this.

I've spend the last week vegging out and recovering from the week prior, which was one of the most intense I've had in awhile.

It started out on the 2nd of July with the big Make Poverty History event in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was great to see over 200,000 people all wearing white in support of the global campaign against poverty. I helped put up SPEAK's biggest dress in the world and staff it as people wandered through. It was 2 m shorter it should have been due to the centre pole breaking during set up. This meant that the skirt caught the wind much more than it should have, putting pressure on the stakes that were holding down the edges. So throughout the day we were constantly fighting what one person called a "Marilyn Monroe" situation. then watched it almost blow away in the wind. Near the end of the day we lost the battle and had to evacuate the dress and do a chaotic, but controlled take down.

After resting on Sunday I went on to Stirling where I was part of the Prayer-I58 neighborhood at the rural convergance space and eco village. The week was the longest time was the longest and most immersive time I've spent in an autonomist/permaculture space. It was a really positive experience. The vegan food was amazing. The composting toilets were impressively non-smelly. The consensus-based meetings, though sometimes ridiculously long, were bearable because they were facilitated by Starhawk, my favorite pagan and all around amazingly committed activist.

On Wednesday, the 6th of July I left the camp at 3 am to do support work with a march that was aiming to block the M9, an express way 5 miles away. After 20 minutes we ran into our first police line. Which is when I realised I wasn't in the U.S. anymore. Instead of standing around and chanting and linking arms, etc, the folks at the front of the line charged in immediately with their intertubes leading. You can see video footage here: https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/07/317377.html

European protestor street tactics leave Americans in the dust when it comes to charging police lines and controlled chaotic energy. The police couldn't contain them, partly because they didn't have enough people, but also partly because the march of 500-1000 people didn't quite know where it was going, a tactic that in retrospect seems to have been successful but at the time was just really annoying. After about half an hour the affinity group I was with decided to break off. We ended up reading the litany of resistance to riot cops as they surged past us. Driving rain and helicopters overhead combined to make it my most powerful experience of the litany ever. After a lengthy search by police we made it back to the eco village, exhausted but content. We found out later that a fair chunk of the marchers somehow made it past police lines to the M9 which they blockaded for most of the morning. Chalk one up for chaos as a tactic.

The next morning at 2:30 am we were all awoken by shouts that the police had arrived at the camp. Seems they had realised that it would be much easier to blockade us in the camp rather than chase us all over the surrounding area. So I was one of about 4000 people sitting inside a police blockade on Thursday when I heard about the bombings on Thursday.

This attack hit home for me in a way no terrorist attack thus far has. The routes and stations affected are on the north side of central London and I know them well. The number 30 bus runs from Hackney, where the SPEAK offices are to central London. I take the Picadilly line from Kings Cross station every time I meet friends coming into Heathrow. Edgeware Road is blocks away from Regents Park where I play ultimate Frisbee every Sunday. These are places as well known to me as County Road 38 or Plymouth Avenue.

This is not to be overly dramatic, but just to say that these bombings were close to home, not far off and surreal like those in Madrid or Bali. As I've processed the news over the last two days I've noticed and grief and anger coming to the surface in ways they haven't during other attacks. Although this attack was many times less devastating, I've begun to understand what 9/11 meant for many New Yorkers. And I've begun to appreciate the resilience of Londoners in the face of horror.

So all this is to say why I haven't been blogging recently. But now that things are back to more mundane and normal I'll be sure to post with much more frequently.

P.S. To see some other of my photos from the week you can go to http://gallery.nonsensesoftware.com/G8
posted by Unknown @ 7:05 PM 0 comments

west coast hey!
so i'll be haunting the streets of seattle soon. any foa out there have a place for me to eat and sleep? anticipated dates of bodily presence are: july 21 through july 25(6). i'll be coming in on the train. the fath.
posted by joel @ 8:20 AM

ice cream

Home made ice cream from mennonite central committee today from 4-5 in the lawn infront of the methodist building college mennonite church style! 110 maryland ave NE

posted by kate @ 7:12 AM

you may remember this guy...

So I saw Clinton give a speech today on the tsunami, in his capacity at the UN. The room was definitely packed out by eager UN and NGO policy nerds.

I'm always a little surprized with what a good speaker he is. It was definitely a different style than the UN is used to seeing--because it's actually good public speaking instead of policy experts slugging through very specific, technical jargon.

He also took a nice jab at Bush's approach to foreign policy without addressing Bush, the War on Terror, or anything that would seem provocative by saying something like, "Once you realize you can't capture, detain, and kill all of your enemies, then you realize you have to compromise." But given the audience, it was clearly addressed to both the focus on governments dealing with rebel groups while providing aid, but also realizing that the Bush doctrine is always on everyone's mind at the UN. It got a pretty loud chuckle from folks.

Check out the UN News story.
posted by Landon @ 6:13 PM

Need a job in DC? How about a (somewhat) paid internship at SOAW? click
posted by weiss @ 8:10 PM

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Worried about riding Milwaukee County Transit? Well, don't be because Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. is taking terrorism seriously. He's called out bomb-sniffing dogs to the new Amtrak station and ordered bus drivers to "keep a closer eye" on suspicious packages. That's right, the bus drivers are keeping a closer eye on things, so you can sleep at night.

But seriously folks, there's a reason the article is funny, and here it is in the words of Sheriff Walker himself: "There's no reason to believe there's any threat here." Or in Pittsburgh. Or in Tacoma. Which is why I'm staying in sorts of places as much as possible.
posted by weiss @ 10:30 PM

      
posted by sasha @ 2:27 PM

Charletta writes:

Good to hear from you!

Thank God that everyone on our course arrived safely, travelling just before the blasts!

Pray now for Alastair McKay, director of Bridge Builders as he awaits news of where his wife is.

We're putting up extra folks here at The London Mennonite Centre tonight and have purchased enough food for everyone. I just reached my parents who were very anxious. We're OK.

posted by weiss @ 9:59 AM

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Wow.
If you're in the mood for a good film (and one of the best movies/documentaries that I have ever seen), you should really check out The Times of Harvey Milk. Enough said. Watch it.
posted by D-Bo @ 12:43 PM

Get it while it's hot

Also: I am still very much a heterosexual!
posted by sasha @ 9:27 AM

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Joel
The bomb-diggitiest site for weather is the noaa

It's got radar and satellite images with looping animation for short and long range base and composite reflectivity and for rainfall and shiznit!


posted by meg @ 2:42 PM

Goshen radar
Joel,

Try some of this on for size:

posted by sasha @ 1:27 PM

yesterday's doppler...
foas,

any of youins know a web link to radar images* from past days? i'm doing some research on weather patterns in goshen. such a farmer. the fath.

*animated images preferred
posted by joel @ 11:14 AM

Monday, July 04, 2005

I'm back from the wedding, which was a lot of fun. Didn't get to see as much of Spokane as I would have liked, but did see a lot of the hotel pool with water slide, so what can you say? Also saw a lot of the B terminal at O'Hare, which I totally could have skipped.

Jeff and Vanessa are terribly cute, and lucky, too, for being homeowners in the Washington, D.C., area. And homeowners in the best of the D.C. suburbs, to wit, Silver Spring. Though they're heading to Hawaii before moving in to start their married life together.

How people put up with being the center of attention for an entire wedding day is beyond me. I would die, die of embarassment.

Got to spend a lot of kwalitee time with Harvard Housers, present and past. I'm very happy about getting back there in September. Maybe I shouldn't go to Seattle, maybe I should stay at Harvard House forever until the whole building finally crumbles into a pile of bricks and wet horsehair plaster.

And tonight went to watch fireworks with Rachel E and Celeste. We watched them from the park, so the fireworks were largely blocked by the skyline. But that's okay, because I like skylines. We could see them in between the buildings, flashing and banging.
posted by weiss @ 10:00 PM

Vote for Murky Coffee! We're trying to beat Tryst once and for all! Their coffee sucks.
posted by meg @ 11:14 AM

Sunday, July 03, 2005

2 pictures posted on my flickr account of the bike messenger race.
posted by meg @ 1:25 PM

o'o free bikes o'o
come to "chain reaction :: goshen" next wednesday in the pre-lunch hours to get a piece of freedom...for free.

in other news: paul horst needs to contact me about details for his wedding. i need to order film soon.

in yet other news: my digitacl cameraca died. any leads for a free pic snapper?

in more other news: my goshen e-mail is dead. call me for my new e-mail account. that said, i don't really check e-mail. write letters!

love, the fath.
posted by joel @ 1:06 PM

Saturday, July 02, 2005

oh boy! yay
we're all in ny or goshen! me, meg, val, guiessepa, teresa, carol, not landon anymore he's in goshen and julia too. my dad is also up here and jordan and jonah and james and mihal and philip and doug and 30 kids from dc and 40 kids from japan and like a thousand other bike messengers and girls too from all over! i rode down from the hostel yesterday trough the park and mid town to register in soho, biking here is crazy! i had so much fun, after registration me and "mohawk" mike rode to the empire state building and then to the top of central park and back to registration! there was a big party at this plae called the warsaw in williamsburg for messengers only, with gold sprint races and as much free beer as you wanted, i wanted two! imagine walking by your neighborhood park and tennis courts, then in the tennis courts attatched to two cables running the length of two courts were thousands of (nice) bikes locked tight together the length of the cabels and against the fence and to the trees and signs along the way to a rowdy messenger party. it was cool. yay! i race today, i also smell bad, it'll be fun, wish me luck!
posted by kate @ 7:42 AM

Friday, July 01, 2005

all right!

I just put up our official statement and made a banner link for it:



rockin'!

Also, happy Canada Day!
posted by sasha @ 11:18 AM

YOWZA!
Thank you for the CSS tip, Shoup Guest! Considering my job is to craft CSS for a new HRC site, you'd think I'd have figured it out.

In unrelated news: Holy Shit!

I've got to get to our national conference call. Team Supreme in full effect!

ps: I love you all.
posted by sasha @ 9:44 AM