I always wonder

"I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on Earth. Then I ask myself the same question." - Harun Yahya

Oakland Community Builders

One of my former students from Berkeley just emailed me to let me know that my UCB community organizing class inspired her to pursue labor organizing.. so much so that she's now officially going to work as an organizer-in-training at the UPTE Local in NJ.

Best e-mail of the year. 

The Root Of The Problem

In China today: 22 children and 1 adult injured in knife attack versus
In the U.S.: 18-some children and 9 other people shot dead.

"That's the difference between a knife and a gun...guns don't attack children; psychopaths and sadists do."

While I disagree with the article's notion that there is "nothing to be done," I do believe that gun legislation/control isn't the answer and we certainly should not reinvigorate the anti-gun movement. Sadists, psychopaths, the mentally disturbed, etc. will always find other ways to wreak havoc-- much like the knife-murderer in China. Let's think of other practical and more efficient solutions, perhaps community-wide strategies that can help support people and foster growth, positivity, and effective communication and openness amongst members of our respective communities. I believe that's a far better approach than instituting laws that don't really deter a (mentally incapacitated or troubled) criminal.

Instituting gun control and infringing upon or limiting our "democratic" right to bear arms at the hope of *potentially* deterring these criminals seems sort of...counter-intuitive? What's to say that these criminals don't find alternative methods to harm: bombs/grenades, poisoning/chemical weapons (we all can't forget the Anthrax scare), and we can even stretch it as far as to include the pervasive act of bullying that has subsequently lead to hundreds and thousands of suicides every year. Our society's mental and physical desensitization to caring for others, of camaraderie and open-communication is what is preventing mass-murdering criminals from growing up in loving, caring, supportive environments. All I'm saying is-- gun control might not be the answer, and to restrict or forbid possession of such will only likely open the floodgates to alternate measures.

The Buddha

"The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both."

Remember remember the SIXTH of November
Of voting and feeling distraught
I see no reason why this election season
Should ever be forgot...

~r

Bittersweet

“Finishing a book is bittersweet. You spend days getting to know the characters. Learning their nuances, their faults, their loves, their lives. They become your friends, acquaintances, enemies. And after the story ends, you miss them. You look for them in your own life, wonder where they’ve gone, you forget that they aren’t real. You fall in love with the hero and dream of him at night. The strange girl becomes your best friend. Their heartaches become your heartaches. You laugh when they laugh. And cry when they die. Eventually you realise they aren’t a part of your world, you were just briefly visiting theirs.” 

~

a half finished book is, after all, a half finished love affair 

Is it really in the eye of the beholder?

Ever since she was 10, Nadia begged her mother for an operation to pin her ears back so that her peers at school would stop bullying her and calling her Dumbo for her "elephant ears." Read the article here. Four years later, a charity provides Nadia with a free otoplasty, but they don't stop there- adding on to the laundry list of corrective, elective surgeries rhinoplasty and mentoplasty, all totaling $40k. 

At the risk of sounding insensitive, my initial reaction to this was disappointment. Want to deal with the psychological effects of bullying by resorting to surgery? Fine. Join the 90 thousand other teens who went under the knife for cosmetic surgery in 2007. But, courtesy of a charity foundation, deciding to add on a bucket list of multiple corrective and cosmetic measures to fit a certain mold of aesthetic "beauty" defined in the eyes of our American culture and society is..well-- sad.

                                                                                                                         ~Ro

Colorado gunman

We moved to Colorado just a year or so after the Columbine High School massacre; post-shootings, high schools and middle schools all throughout the state began employing metal detectors, all students were prohibited from wearing trench coats and sagging/baggy clothing, gun control measures were taken via federal and state legislation, and bullying and adolescent/teenage psychopathy stood at the forefront of issues that were *finally* being acknowledged and addressed. Over a decade later, a 24-year old med school student and gunman kills 12 people in a Colorado movie theater. Read about it here A pre-meditated killing, as the perp entered the premises, gas canister in one hand, firearm in the other, equipped with a bulletproof vest and gas mask. Where do we go from here? What more can we control and regulate? Where and how else shall we be imposing security precautions? What the hell is going on?

Things I learned when I studied abroad in Italy

Lesson 1: Don't ever ask a local Italian for directions, otherwise you will go "right-left-straight-around-under-and-over"-to nowhere only to ask another Italiano who will then re-direct you leftward, rightward, around on a loopty loop. But be careful if they also give you an eta towards your destination, because...

Lesson 2: If an Italian tells you it's a 5 minute walk- expect to walk for at least 20 minutes. Plan accordingly.

Lesson 3: If you ask an Italian if they speak English- 99% of the time they will answer that they don't speak a lick of English or they know "a little." Expect them to be more fluent than you are.

Lesson 4: Italian stallion men are as charismatic and charming as women/people stereotype them to be. Ciao bella.

Lesson 5: Everyone and their grandmother (quite literally) drives a vespa/moped/motorbike.

Lesson 6: Almost every store/supermarket/everything shuts down on Sundays because "the country still  believes in God"-- Counselor S. Lask

Lesson 7: You will consume alcohol (more specifically, wine and champagne) like it is juicy-juice by your second day. Your excuse for developing such high tolerance is that the culture forces you to partake in evening aperitivos (appetizers) where finger-food is consumed in conjunction with copious glasses of fine wine.

Lesson 8: "With Italians, your problem becomes our problem" said a local Italian friend after I shied away from seeking his advice and told him I couldn't burden him with my problems. Refer to Lesson 4.

and finally, Lesson 9: Studying abroad= oxymoron.

Arrivederci.

~roma italiana