“What do you think I fought for on Omaha Beach?”

“I was raised on the idea that all men are created equal and I never forgot that. … That’s what we fought for in WWII – the idea that we could be different but still be equal.”

Tomorrow, voters across Maine will decide whether their fellow citizens can keep the legal right to marry whom they choose. The issue is politically divisive, fraught with religious undertones and fear. In an age when divorce rates are so high, and so much has changed the social under, it’s easy to see how scare tactics can confuse people and drive people to vote against equality at the polls. Much has been said, yet I wonder how much dialogue transpires in an environment of distrust and politicized discussions.

For me it is personal, because the right to marry means nothing to me if my friends – and fellow citizens – are denied it. A month ago I participated with joy and elation in the wedding of my best friend Drew marrying the man he loves. I was blessed to be a part of the ceremony. I am blessed to live in a time that has seen enormous gains in the application of universal human rights. When I think that as recently as 1967, interracial marriage was illegal in much of the United States, I am inspired by how far we have come. More than that, I’m inspired by the stories of those who sacrificed to get us here, from the Lovings to the six same-sex couples of Polk County Iowa. I’m no constitutional scholar, but I know that the community I want to live in starts by recognizing people equally under the law.

And I’m not the only one. Today, I want to amplify one man’s voice – someone who has seen much more than I have. Inspiring testimony from WWII Veteran Philip Spooner.

 

Hello from the road

Excuse my quiet, I’m traveling for six weeks in SE Asia, and won’t be blogging much aside from my micro-blog. Stay tuned to www.digital-democracy.org for updates.

Making friends – my travel tips for West Africa

A couple weeks ago Erik Hershman of White African wrote a great blog post of 15 Travel Tips for Africa, a response to NYT’s columnist Nick Kristof’s travel tips, that, though intended to be helpful, might reinforce stereotypes about the dangers of international travel.

Between Erik’s thoughts and the great comments that follow, there’s a lively conversation and vision of travel – in Africa and elsewhere – that emphasizes flexibility, ingenuity and friendliness.

Reading his post and comments reminded me of my personal ideas on the key things to keep in mind while traveling, particularly drawing on my experiences living in Bamako, Mali. I wanted to repost those tips here, as in many ways they’re really just anecdotes from Mali/the tricks I keep up my sleeve to charm everyone from babies to elders. Most of these tips are universal, but I specify West Africa because the details are the ones that worked for me there. What has worked for you in the countries and places you’ve grown to love?

Shout-out to Patrick Meier for also emphasizing the importance of making friends. From my comment on Erik’s tips:

Babies love watching the Zabanchi (from my Flickr stream)

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes: When learning new languages or traversing cultural boundaries, nothing will take you further than failure. If you want to learn how to greet someone in the local language (and you should), the mistakes along the way will be well worth it.

Dance, or, don’t be afraid to let others laugh at your expense: What I’ve learned is that a little self-deprecation goes far in making friends and thwarting would-be-detractors. In Mali, my host family/neighbors loved to watch me dance the “Zabanchi,” which I learned at a street dancing party. I looked ridiculous, and they loved it. Laughter’s the best way to make friends. And friends are the best way to experience a new place.

Eat with your hands: This might not apply in all African countries, but if you’re visiting someplace where folks eat with their hands, you should try it too! I have Bangladeshi friends who swear the food tastes better this way, and in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, it will show respect and a willingness to embrace local culture rather than impose your own. And, if you’ve yet to master the art of eating millet porridge or sauce and rice out of your palm, then you’ll give your hosts a good laugh to boot.

(A tip for female travelers) Go one further on marriage proposals: Yes. If you look like you have a foreign passport, you will get marriage proposals. Sometimes it can be annoying, but I never found the would-be-suitors to actually be threatening. So I developed a response that became a delightful conversation starter. “Sure, but you might have to be husband #2 or 3.” Thus ensues a conversation about local norms that is playfully subversive and nonthreatening. In much of Muslim West Africa, polygamy is practiced, and men can have up to four wives. Rather than saying no (what is expected) when asked to be married, or condemning local practices, I merely threw men off their guard and expectations with my response. Their response usually went something like this:

- Man: But women can’t have multiple husbands!
- Me: Sure they can! We can have up to four.

By the end of the conversation, I never had a man who still wanted to marry me (since I insisted on the multiple husbands) but I did find that they were willing to have a real conversation with me and not just view me as a stereotype, green card or intruder.

(A tip every traveler should follow) Question your own stereotypes: Merely writing some of them down, or, if you’re going on group travel, doing a group exercise on this, is invaluable. We all have them. If you’re willing to admit them to yourself, you’re much more likely to abandon them when you come face to face with proof that there’s more to things than you previously thought.

So, I end my tips with a salute. Erik, I think you’ve done a great job at debunking some of the stereotypes that Kristof’s column unfortunately props up. Africa’s merely the oldest and one of the most ecologically/anthropologically diverse continents on the planet. The tips you’ve recorded and collected include ones that are specific to a place or a climate, but the others – about making friends and traveling smart – are applicable everywhere.

Finally, one tip I forgot to add in my comments but that will take you further than any other act I know: Smile.

We Operate Best Together – an inspiring journey

I just donated to support an inspiring project: We Operate Best Together. Morgan Sully, a community technologist with a heart of gold, is embarking on a journey to tell the stories of changemakers and innovators on an upcoming trip to Europe. This May, he helped Digital Democracy as the project champion for Handheld Human Rights. Next, he’s traveling to England, the Netherlands and Norway, and will be doing digital storytelling along the way. I’m proud to support his trip and can’t wait to see what he produces.

He’s also an electronic musician.

Check out his own words about this adventure, and support him on Kickstarter – even a donation of $1 or $5 will help him reach his goal.

The Growing Season

What’s more delicious than local produce in season?

From Snore and Guzzle (found via the awesome and inspiring mind behind OrganicNation.tv)

The Growing Season for New York State

Asparagus: May 5th – May 15th
Rhubarb: May 1st – June 15th
Strawberries: June 10th – 30th
Sweet Cherries: July 4th – Aug. 1st
Sour Cherries: July 15th – Aug. 10th
Blueberries: July 4th – Sept. 1st
Red Raspberries: July 5th – Oct. 10th
Purple Raspberries: July
Black Raspberries: July
Currants Red, White and Black: July 5-August 5
Peaches-Yellow and White: mid July – early Sept.
Blackberries: August
Plums: mid August through mid-September
Apples: September-November 1

Although rhubarb is just past, I saw some delicious-looking rhubarb the other day at Eat Records, where I had perhaps the most delicious juice of my life, fresh apricot juice from a nearby farm in New York.

Thinking about the growing season reminds me of En Los Campos, the photography/oral history I worked on with my mom and Pam LeBlanc about the lives of teenage migrant farmworkers in the Midwest. It was amazing to travel around the fields of Indiana and Michigan – among the corn, cukes and cantaloupe, interviewing young people – some as young as 10 or 12, others my age (17/18 at the time) with kids of their own.

I learned that every piece of produce that I pick with my hands at a grocers was picked by hand in a field or orchard. It taught me that I want to know when a fruit is ripe, so that I can eat in season with the place where I live. I learned that I want to know who helped get the food from the field to my belly – and to know they were treated fairly along the way.

“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart.” – Cesar Chavez

Computers, Freedom & Privacy: Twitter & Dialogue

The opening of the  Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference on Tuesday, June 2 featured Twitter not quite front-and-center, but on a big screen to stage left. Keynote moderator Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times remarked on the novelty of such a screen, explaining it is the first time Twitter has been integrated into this 19-year conference.

This shift seems an apt metaphor for the central tensions between security, privacy and freedom that will be explored over the next three days of the conference, and I really must commend the conference organizers for making these conversations so integral to the conference. Almost a decade into the 21st century, there is much that is undecided on how we as individuals, companies or societies share vs. protect data, the so-called oil of the Information Age.

My biggest takeaway from this morning was Peter Swire’s observation on for the tension between the Privacy and Web 2.0 movements. As he explained it, for a long time it was the Privacy movement that was viewed as the human rights defenders, “fighting the good fight.” But then he challenged this audience – including many in the Privacy movement – to understand that “for young people, information is empowerment.” Drawing on his experiences with the Obama campaign, he explained that, for 20-somethings, data becomes powerful when it is opened up for citizen use, that social networking is viewed as participatory power … an idea that can seem almost anti-thetical to the original Privacy vision.

During the keynote panel I was struck by this talk of a generational gap. One audience member, Saul Hansell of the NYT, even asked panelist Caroline Fredrickson of the ACLU whether younger people who are drawn to sharing would rather have their information centralized in the National ID program that she opposes. It was a question that reflects poorly on the one who posed it … as a young person, I am frustrated by the idea that we’re any more monolithic in our opinions than any other group, or that any one person should speak for us. Understandably, Fredrickson didn’t have a good answer for Hansell. If he wants to know young people’s opinions, he should query a large (random) sample of them.

But that’s why the decision of the conference organizers to have the Twitter feed on stage is so commendable. Of course we all came to the conference in part to hear and learn from the experts – the pioneers of the Privacy movement who are being featured on stage. But we’re also here to take part in a conversation with one another, and the Twitter feed allows for audience comments to be brought into the larger discussion. And it also means that the Web 2.0 folks that Swire was referencing are able to insert their opinions and questions – in 140 characters – throughout the event. Many of the panelists during Tuesday’s opening sessions made good use of the Twitter feed, and Craig Newmark (@craignewmark), founder of Craigslist, received chuckles when he relayed CFP’s twitter request that Hansell, who was interviewing him over lunch, speak more directly into the microphone.

But highlighting the Twitter feed does not guarantee a conversation. On the opening panel there was much discussion of the generation divide, but little representation of it. I’m curious to see, over the next couple of days, how much younger folks are given space to speak, and how much dialogue takes place – not only in the formal panels and breakouts, but in the hallways, during meals and breaks, and in the evening “Birds of a Feather” meet-ups. What’s clear is that the CFP ‘09 Online Visibility Team – who recruited bloggers and others to join the conversation – are committed to sincere dialogue. And that’s something I’m proud to take part in.

What do you need?

Yesterday morning, at the opening session of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference, Susan Crawford of the Obama administration, kicked off the presentations with a striking anecdote. recent article in the Wall Street Journal quoting 37-year-old homeless man Charles Pitts:

“You don’t need a TV. You don’t need a radio. You don’t even need a newspaper. But you need the Internet.”

- On the Street and On Facebook: The Homeless Stay Wired by Phred Dvorak

What do you think? Seems pretty accurate, but the Internet can also be found in many places. And people in much of the world, I could see the statement being phrased differently.

“You don’t need a TV. You don’t need a radio. You don’t even need a computer. But you do need a mobile phone.”

Blogging from ‘Creating the Future’ … exploring the tensions between freedom and privacy in the Internet age

Today marks the official opening of the 19th annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference. I’ll be live-blogging the next few days thanks to the team behind the conference.

The conference is a timely event, as the Obama administration is making frequent news in this arena, from appointing a Chief Technology Officer & team to a new mandate for the Pentagon to wage cybersecurity. Complicated issues, for sure, and I’m excited to hear the speakers weigh in on topics from censorship to cloud computing. I particularly excited for Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, when Rebecca MacKinnon will give a keynote, and I’ll be presenting on a breakout panel on Social Network Activism in the US and Beyond.

People power + digital video = largest protests in a generation

Who knew a feature length film could successfully tell a story through hidden camera footage, blurry images & reenactments? Not to mention a film in which the central character’s face is never revealed? I might have been skeptical before, but not after watching Burma VJ.

Readers who know my involvement with Burmese groups might question my biases, but indeed, I went into the film a skeptic. The subject matter is close to me – I know monks who helped organize the protests of September 2007, the central events of the film. I’ve interviewed and befriended people who fled the country following the crackdown, activists who left behind their families, know others who gave their lives. And so I went into the film with a hope and a fear – hope for the film’s power to raise awareness about a story so important to me, and fear that the film might not adequately tell the story.

How rewarding for my fear to slip away within the first few minutes of the film. Burma VJ elegantly tells the story of the September protests and the video-journalists who documented it. It deserves the awards it’s been getting from Working Films, Full Frame, Sundance and others.

Read more in my review on Tiny Mix Tapes. Kudos to the talented & insightful Judy Berman of Don’t Quit Your Day Job for commissioning me for the review and editing my piece.

Burma VJ opened Wednesday, May 20 at Film Forum in Manhattan. Check them out and find a way to see the film this summer. You should not miss it.

Of note - Film Forum will be playing Agnès Varda’s The Beaches of Agnès this summer, another one that I anticipate to be a must-see. Varda, in addition to being the “grandmother of French New Wave cinema” also inspired this blog title with her film Les Glaneurs et La Glaneuse – The Gleaners and I.

6th Ave without pineapples?

I love pineapples. When I’m working in Thailand, I find nothing more refreshing than a frothy, cool pineapple shake.

But more than pineapples I like the idea of thinking about our food and where it comes from – who picked it? How? How did it get to my hands? What happened to the environment along the way?

Sometimes those questions can be overwhelming. In the United States, and much of the “developed” world, the complex systems that bring food to people’s tables are ones that largely harm the environment and put the humans who handle the food at risk. From meat grown on factory farms to fruit picked by exploited migrant laborers, so much of the food we consume has ethical implications. And even if the food is grown sustainably, and harvested at fair trade wages, what does it mean to consume food that has traveled hundreds or thousands of miles on fossil fuels to land on our plates?

It’s a lot to consider, and I frequently fail to make the most ethical food choices. But I know many inspiring people who are leading by example in the movement for more sustainable food. (Like the Women’s Garden Cycles.) And Mark shared an inspiring thought with me recently:

Walking by the fruit seller on 6th Ave, he said to me, “Won’t it be great when we can no longer buy pineapples on the street in New York?”

I thought for a moment about what he meant, and realized I whole-heartedly agreed. It’s not that I have a personal vendetta against pineapples, or that I want them to be impossible to procure in Manhattan. But it shouldn’t be quite so easy to pick up a piece of the tropics in temperate climes, no matter how delicious. Pineapples travel too far, pineapple workers suffer too much, and pineapple production is connected to environmental degradation.

But my aim isn’t to pick on pineapples. As hefty items with documented labor and environmental concerns, they are simply easy targets. Anyone who’s ever eaten a mango ripe off a tree can tell you not to bother with one from a New York grocer. And, having tasted an apple in Mali, I realized I could wait till I returned to harvest season in the US. What I’m really getting at is what so many great food writers & thinkers are talking about lately (Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Barbara Kingsolver & others). When we eat food that’s local and in season, not only do we reduce our carbon imprint, we have the ability to better monitor labor standards, and we get produce that is healthier and tastier. It doesn’t mean we should never eat pineapple, but it does mean thinking twice before consuming, and savoring those rare bites as special, not standard.

Of note – For more information on how much farmworkers have suffered from the corporate pineapple industry, check out The Sour Taste of Pineapple by the International Labor Rights Forum.