this is a picture of rome in the slideshow from the nytimes site of protests today around the world (http://nytimes.com/slideshow/2004/03/20/international/20040320_PROTESTS_SLIDESHOW_1.html) (note: keep clicking if you see repeat slides, it will go to other photos)

anyways, this picture from rome reminded me of being at a march in brazil. i was surrounded by thousands, not just a couple of hundred people. and it was so energetic, everyone was singing and dancing.

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greenpeace activists scaled big ben in london and hung a sign that said 'time for truth'. not a huge banner drop, but a good juxtaposition nonetheless. theres a pic in the same said slideshow.

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i started to write something about my own frustration with fragmentation of messages, and i stopped myself. but looking at stickboy's entry, i came back and wanted to say more.. partly bc i was one of the people there who talked to him about his dog at the rally and not about anything important. the funny thing is that i spend a lot of time on organizing, spend a lot of time on issues like these that i never spend time at rallies talking about it. its so tough in the belly of the beast, for so many many reasons. but im curious.. whatd yall think of today? email me if you don't want to post..

check out terry's journal for info on the rally (http://www.elmwoodstrip.com/linkme.php?u=terry). i hope to see yall there...




for everyone who is critical of bush and the current administration and wants them out this november, come out to this. last year feb 15 was HUGE. make this march 20 huge too.

this is a global day of action, and all over the world millions of people will be out in the streets. talk about 'writing history,' especially a history that often doesn't get written up in the papers.

"Freedom from Fear" antiwar rally/march
Saturday, March 20th, 2 PM
Lafayette Square, Downtown Buffalo

The Bush administration has manipulated post-9/11
fears to justify wars abroad and abuses at home. On
March 20th, Western New Yorkers will join together to
reject the politics of fear and say:
No more war and occupation
No more anti-Arab discrimination
No more anti-immigrant policies
No more violent policing in our community

For more info, or to get involved, call 894-2013 or
email colin@wnypeace.orgcolin at the peace center

you can read more about it on the United for Peace and Justice site (http://www.unitedforpeace.org/)

you are the first real person from this site that i knew as a real person before (e:strip)ping it up. i just tried testing an email to myself and it didn't work. it sounds like your prose was lost, too bad. but no lamentations..

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did you know... (drumroll) that the central library has beckett on film (part of the pbs stage on screen series) on videos? i know a couple of kids who would wanna watch it...its ok to hang out without the presence of that whatshisname-- saul?.

i was gna email all of this to you, but then thought of how beautiful it was that elmwoodstrip was reuniting people, and wanted to share with the whole wide world. or at least the rest of our elmwood strip community.

cheers,
lady e

time my friend

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864

mighty taco here we go

on the cover of this weeks village voice: generation debt: the new economics of being young (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0411/fkoerner.php) on the same day that the nytimes reports that alan greenspan, chairman of the federal reserve, has a theory about the deficits as a positive shift..

"
Mr. Greenspan's thesis, which is not accepted by all traditional economists, is that increases in personal wealth and the growing sophistication of financial markets have allowed Americans — individually and as a nation — to borrow much more today than might have seemed manageable 20 years ago.
..
Adjusted for inflation, the average family's debt, including a mortgage, has climbed from $54,000 in 1990 to $79,000 last year. Mortgage foreclosures, credit card delinquencies and personal bankruptcies are all at near record levels.

Mr. Greenspan's view is that household balance sheets are "in good shape," and perhaps stronger than ever, because the value of people's homes and stock portfolios have risen faster than their debts." (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/business/16FED.html)

how are you home values and stock portfolios doing, friends?

oh boys i hate ringing you for there is never any un-machinelike voices talking back.

safety point #2 has evaded, for the white flakes all around. jjt isn't going to be the temptations to our halls and our oats and even if the tap routine improves, i don't know that its forgiveable. we will follow the effervescent threads of destiny the sitting room to hibernate yet again with nippole. it is funny looking back on lost years. things like these 'journals' aid in the recall, what would be remembered in between sleeping if it werent for these cues. chicken scrawled handwriting that is sposed to indicate things are different but when you get 5 or so pages in comfort food is in the toronto chinatown restaurant where real chinese people eat, in the form of rice noodle cheung fun with special soy sauce thats not the table sauce. five years and theres only sleep and hibernate. happy tax filing to all of you stress-free suckas. oh the places to go and the things to see. it used to be something to look forward to. now it is all just lackluster, the names of all of those who have moved on haunts: but even if they always come back for the aunt rosie's special, stephanie said it: my candy heart is broken. friends who don't even pretend to exist for some people will all of the sudden pop up and let you ftp their secrets as you download away and get at the real person behind the myth. some of them marry, buy houses, settle down when all you want is to move down and get rid of all the furniture, it makes your perspective different to wake up 2ft higher. to reach up, or down. relative meanings. get rid of all of the furniture and keep only the (H) essentials. if anything changes, thats when i believe it can and thats when i ll believe it does.

part deux: i scrawled a secret note in the magnifulous peoples hall and tore it to shreds. i'll make that phone call soon, we will reveal and repeal and repeat. the words of past existence. tis not worth moving backwards when you can stand in the same spot with the illusion of moving forward, there goes those metaphors that we live by yet again. what is your motivator, do you like the discomfort of being you and facing yourself or do you need to run away and not look yourself in thee eye. lepers come out again with their tools of desperation and coffee cake hits the brain as many others but it falls in the same classless category. story. dexy says its time to go. smile.

refrain: just the claps. kick me in the head, i like it. tin where are you. its got the same disorganized organization and meticulous adding. 30 statements to live by and die trying to be. don't forget your soul and the potato chips. and don't make fun of the finer distinctions. its all a spot, a dot on the side of this bottle. it is lost to me, a second is all you need to forget now days. theories, relatives, all in the name of. it will come back again and this will have a proper shit n shovel

herstory potluck

What:
A potluck dinner for self identified women of any age, interested in sharing their "story" within a supportive feminist context.

When:
Sunday, March 21st at 4 pm

Where:
197 Allen Street (at Elmwood), Apartment #4

Why:
To meet new people, build connections, and share our diverse experiences

What to bring:
-A dish to pass, vegetarian or vegan, along with a list of ingredients for individuals with food allergies

-Yourself, ready to listen to others and share any part of your story. this could be in the form of story telling, poetry, artwork, or any other way of sharing a piece of who you are and where you have come from

Other information:

We welcome women with children and would like every one who attends to consider taking some of your time at this event to help take care of any children that are present, in order to give moms a chance to share their stories and enjoy the evening.

If anyone is in need of transportation to or from this event please contact us, we will try to organize carpools.

Please contact Mary or Erika with questions at: (716)886-0377 or e-mail:
maryellencarney@yahoo.com or ewoodams@yahoo.com

radical history of wny

learn about the alternative history of the area (i havent got a flyer or description but keep an eye out for one on the street or in local shops.)

sunday march 21 evening
at m.a.p.- massachusetts ave project
382 massachusetts avenue, buffalo ny 14213
716-882-5327

that flash oyster thing on paul's page is so scary, i had to load another page right away.

speaking of scary

trisha, my crazy food weakness is... boar's head bologna. i havent had it ever since i went vegetarian/vegan, but for years and years i was totally addicted to bologna sandwiches. this is yet another food product where its a total mystery what exactly is in it, but still, i would eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, you name it. i don't think i'll ever break the edge for it, but it's definitely got its spot in my memories.

speaking of food im craving pizza. yum pizza..

i have to admit, i end up looking at the journal statistics more than i would like. i think it ends up making me consciously not want to post unless i really have something to say, since i don't have computer/ online access problems and can potentially post all the time.. but even if i don't want to look at the numbers i still do it. its stupid kinda some sort of double bind.

i have been reading about other blogs in other cities and how much they get into the shit-talking of the town and border on a real fucked-up set of identity politics. (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0409/essay.php)

i love the fact that this is made by real people that i know (and that maybe many of you know too). even if i hadn't happened to meet the folks at 567 lafayette, it would still blow my mind that these are people doing this for people in the buffalo area, that its all open source and is not in the game for getting sponsorship and setting people up on dates and such.

design--
i think that many people identify with what type of fonts there are, and with customization options like colors and whatnot. i'm too spoiled by my computer and chat program. but i'm real split; i don't know what to think about estrip customization, it seems like it would get super complicated keeping track of what styles ppls journals used. i think that people would take advantage of it, but at the same time i think the one style keeps you very focused on the words and what ppl have posted instead of their 'look'

im trying to think large scale. how would one take care of this site/ drop down menu when the list of names get too long to view? what kind of distinguishing factors would set this apart from any other site, or any of the journal keepers from each other, for that matter?

and other random things..

maybe the key is the arts community. that is one of the shining proud things about bflo, and there are so many media studies folks involved or keeping journals, and i know that one of pauls intentions was to have ppl post their creative endeavors on the site. i think itd be great to develop that aspect of it. i mean, we can all only get to squeaky wheel or hallwalls or cepa or the other galleries every so often, but it seems like such a great thing to have ppl post their work and have it available for viewing. of course that prolly takes some bandwidth, etc etc. but maybe there is potential in working with community folks to make that available. the local places i just mentioned have their own businesses to run, and itd be amazing to have a diverse group of artists writers etc being able to show their stuff through this.

i love that its not the same type of ppl who are posting either. i mean, many of us might have more left-leaning ideas but theres still debate and more than just political talk, ppl are posting about such a variety of things. i would hate it if everyone talked about the same types of things that i did, and if i wanted that i would visit a message board or something.

other things i d like to see?

i think the main page should be sort of an intro page. i think if ppl stumble onto this, itd take a while for them to figure out whats up with the site. for all a newcomer could know, every single person who keeps a journal could be friends of each other and youd need some delving into every journal and the faq's to figure out what it is and why. i love the idea of the community and open-source, no ads, no ulterior motive qualities of the site, i really think it should be mentioned in a more noticeable place than the faqs. i would put an 'about (e:strip)' or welcome page with all of that info, in case ppl don't look at the faq; and id reserve the faq for the how-to stuff, like basic code, how to post, how to get a star. maybe thats the idea, get ppl to look around and check it out and pique their interest, but if i was new to this i might not bother taking that much
ti
me
.

help.. too much going on at once. every other day, everything slows to a crawl, and then one day everything is expected to happen all at once.

next point of safety is tomorrow night.