This is a re-posting to the blog entry I wrote for Sustainable Seattle about the Smart Growth Conference that just wrapped up on February 6, 2010.

For the original posting please go to:

http://sustainableseattle.blogspot.com/

Smart Growth Conclusions
The Smart Growth Conference ended on Saturday in one of the most inspirational ways with a powerful speech by former King County Executive and current Deputy Secretary of HUD Ron Sims.

In a wide ranging speech from the immediacy of combating Climate Change to the revitalization of our Urban centers, which Mr. Sims defined as any gathering of people with a semblance of central population and industry, Mr. Sims brought a reverential tone to the closing ceremonies. Many in the audience were shouting out agreement, clapping and nodding their heads. Many times the speech would be humorous and laughter would erupt suddenly to disperse as Mr. Sims slammed home a truism.

He spoke of sustainability and livability as two sides to the same argument often pairing the two terms in a quick slur of a phrase repeatedly. The two terms were then tied to the process of social justice and fair treatment. He made the point numerous times that nothing of consequence will change until we realize that we are all in this together and what happens to your neighbor does affect your own happiness. If there is no social justice everywhere there is no social justice anywhere.

Social Justice is an integral part of sustainability and there must not be a wall between the rich and the poor and a wall between the classes. We need to make the aspect of equality reach every section of our sustainable theories and practices. Make equality a means and an end.

The speech was a call to action for the three hundred or so crowd who gathered in the Convention Center Ballroom. It was practical and far reaching. It sent goosebumps at times with a silenced crowd when Mr. Sims talked about the struggles his parents went through and the incredible amount of personal strength it took them to be dehumanized in front of their children. The struggle of civil rights and fair treatment was used as an example of an idea that seems self evident in hindsight, but was unheard of when it began. He challenged us to again challenge the status quo and the expected outcomes.

“Think like a movement,” Mr. Sims said, “Give up your single interests and your silos. Everything is connected whether you are a builder, a planner, a teacher, or an advocate.”

A major theme in the speech was the power of diversity and terminology. “Begin to realize the power of terms. Terms have power.” He wanted us to realize that the actions that take place in the communities we are trying to reach will fail if we do not frame the issues in terms the community will understand. We need to find the terms that are accessible and precise. We need to stop using our acronyms and jargon and connect the meaning back into our talk.

“The United States is the great human experiment. We are the first nation in history to be an economic power, a military power and a social power without a common ancestry. Our diversity of cultures, peoples, and backgrounds is what gives us our strength. Can you communicate with the people who look different than you?”

“Ignorance creates terrorism, disease, and war. We need to break the chains of ignorance.”

“You may have a big house, but if you can’t even talk to your neighbors, you are lonely.”

“Poverty will not keep us apart.”

The listening crowd was paying attention. They were not tapping on Blackberries or checking their Facebook status. They were looking and leaning forward. They stood up when called to and the ovation was genuine, positive and energized. Now the challenge is to keep going.

“In a relay teamwork matters and it doesn’t matter how big a lead you have if the baton doesn’t get passed on. You are the person I hand the baton to. Now, how are you going to win?”

After hearing about the Haiti earthquake and seeing the devastation there, I decided to take my Boston for a long walk.  I often cope with sadness with exercise and the walk was down from my apartment to the Seattle Center where we met quite a few dogs, a couple of rebellious squirrels, and a flock of seagulls, the birds not the band.

As I was watching my dog run around and sniff everything it got me thinking about how much time we seem to waste on trivial things that don’t matter.  We are too concerned with objects and status that doesn’t bring the true meaning of being alive to fruition.  What truly matters in the face of the pain our fellows are facing right now?

I want to re-imagine myself as a more giving person and someone who is focused on helping others.  I’m working for an organization that is giving me many opportunities to strengthen my skills and make a difference.

In Haiti there are estimates of one hundred thousand people dead and most of us here are still running around trying to get the bigger TV and the newest Ipod.  Please go the Mercy Corps and contribute if you can to help relieve some of the suffering.




The New Mayor of Seattle

I’ve been writing the blog over at Sustainable Seattle and I wanted to repost what I wrote here today as well.  I was in person at the swearing in of the new Seattle Mayor and I was twittering like mad and taking notes throughout the ceremony.  Here is the post.

The atmosphere at the swearing in event was hopeful, optimistic and rushed. The new mayor of Seattle Mike McGinn was sworn in today for the first day of his term at the City Hall on Fourth and James at 2:00 p.m. right on time. The general feeling that the newly elected officials were: renewal, cooperation, collaboration, and sustainability.

Mayor McGinn spoke in front of a crowd of over one hundred and fifty and a additional overflow room of seventy or so citizens after his swearing in ceremony. He spoke of his campaign to be elected hearkening back to his promises he made during the grueling fight with Mallahan and promised to put his progressive values to work right away. Mayor McGinn announced that he had ready to sign a series of executive orders that were mainly economic in nature. One order was a wage freeze for senior level city employees and another executive order was to review all consulting contacts the city has in order to trim the fat from the budget.

The mayor talked about how he wants his administration to be open and transparent. He also spoke about the need for citizens, which he referred to over a dozen times in his ten minute speech, to be more involved in civic life. Town halls and citizen actions are to be a center point in how he collects information and gets ideas.

“The citizens of Seattle believe in this city.” Mayor McGinn said as he wrapped up his speech. He then rounded out with a list of our common beliefs such as: opportunity, fair treatment, economic security, innovation and solutions to be an example city to others. He also spoke about making his “Progressive Agenda” come to fruition.

The other swear ins were the new City Attorney Mr. Peter Holmes and City Council members. Peter Holmes was sworn in immediately after the Mayor left the stage and the first words out of his mouth was a quote from Mark Twain. “If you carry a cat by its tail, you will learn more than any other way.” He compared the campaign to a wrangling of different cats and the struggle to remain focused and forward thinking. Mr. Holmes went on to talk about his main objective as city attorney was to keep Seattle in the forefront in a nation of law.

Mr. Holmes took a strong stance against simply locking up those who commit crimes. He stated that the United States puts more of its citizens in jail or prison than any other country in the world. He then said that “Seattle will not be in the jail building business.” to scattered applause. He then pointed out that civil liberties and public safety are not mutually exclusive themes and he pledged to do his best to protect civil liberties and work in partnership with law enforcement and citizens to uphold public safety.

The council members who were sworn in today at City Hall were: Richard Conlin, Nick Licata, Sally Bagshaw and Mike O’Brien. All the new council members spoke after their swearing in session for a few minutes highlighting their main objectives with the exception of Mr. O’Brien who spoke only thanks to his supporters, family and constituents.

Mr. Conlin spoke mostly of renewal and neighborhoods working together. He also emphasized transportation as a means to connect neighborhoods more efficiently, such as light rail and bicycle paths.

Mr. Licata was sworn in by his stepson who needed assistance up to the podium as a person with physical disabilities. Mr. Licata thanked his stepson and supporters while wiping away tears after he was sworn in. He went on to speak about the power of commissions and participatory democracy.

Mrs. Bagshaw gave a truncated version of her acceptance speech with five priorities: creating a job growing economy, housing for all economic levels, transportation reform with more focus on bicycle boulevards and pedestrian pathways, strengthening the public school system, and neighborhood character protection in regards to population growth.

After the ceremony there was a brief session of the city council with the voting for the president going unanimously to Council member Conlin. He was the only person nominated and before the process even began one of the members jokingly said into the microphone, “The fix is in.”

Now that the officials that were elected are officially in their positions it is time to see what they will do. We need to be involved and hold them accountable to us their constituents and we must be ever vigilant and grateful for this new chance to make this city better.

What are the priorities for Seattle and the surrounding areas for 2010? What can we accomplish and how are the ways we can accomplish them?

This is a reposting of an important article about the dangers of overreacting about Yemen. It is from Foreign Policy and the author is Marc Lynch. I do not own the rights to this article and am posting this for your own information.

Don’t lose perspective on Yemen
Posted By Marc Lynch Saturday, January 2, 2010 – 7:53 AM Share

The failed underpants bomber’s alleged (and in my view probable) ties to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have led to an outburst of calls to “do something” about Yemen. President Obama says it is a high priority to partner with the Yemeni government. British PM Gordon Brown calls for a global Yemen summit. Joe Lieberman warns that Yemen will be the next war. In fact, this risks becoming a classic case of massive overreaction playing right into the hands of a terrorist group. The Obama administration, which actually has been working on the Yemen issue all year, now risks falling right back into the classic catalog of Bush-era conceptual and practical mistakes as it scrambles for a response. To get Yemen right will require getting the complicated terrain of Yemeni and Gulf politics right — not just looking for some kind of military intervention or an influx of foreign aid in order to be seen to have “done something”, and not reducing it to an al-Qaeda or COIN problem.

Direct American military intervention in Yemen is so obviously ludicrous that it shouldn’t even need to be said. Even the hyper-interventionist conservatives at the Washington Post op-ed page allow that “U.S. ground troops are not needed, for now.” They never should be. The U.S. is already struggling to fully resource and equip a mission in Afghanistan which has been defined — rightly or wrongly — as vital to American security and interests. The U.S. simply does not have the resources to embark on a military mission in Yemen. If you think Afghanistan is a sinkhole, you will love Yemen. The yawning gap between the extent of U.S. interests and the resources necessary to make a difference is even greater in Yemen than in Afghanistan. And the optics of yet another American military intervention in the Arab world — under Obama, no less — would be devastating to the wider Obama outreach strategy. (On the positive side, at least committing scarce U.S. troops to Yemen would make a military strike against Iran that much less likely.)

But the intellectual framework for such a commitment to Yemen is already there. The great principle of the new American global COIN thinking has been that ungoverned spaces and failed states offer safe haven for terrorists, and must be brought to heel through the spread of legitimate government supported by population-centric counter-insurgency military intervention. Applied crudely to Yemen, this suggests encouraging the Yemeni government to spread its writ by force through the ungoverned spaces of the vast country. This would be a disaster — provoking many more rebellions of the Houthi variety and radically destabilizing an already disastrous situation. Applied more thoughtfully, it leads to the kind of whole-of-government engagement recommended by Andrew Exum and Richard Fontaine in their recent CNAS brief.

But it is important to think carefully about the nature of the U.S. interests there, the kinds of resources which would be required to seriously affect the dynamics which matter to the U.S., and how actions in Yemen would fit into wider strategic concerns. I’ve always thought that the global COIN conception is a recipe for overstretch and exhaustion, as the frontier endlessly recedes and American resources are squandered in a futile attempt to bring order to the unorderly parts of the world. To say that Yemen’s state failures produces conditions which allow some dangerous things to develop does not necessarily mean that massive action is required — the world is full of suboptimal outcomes beyond our means to repair. Decisions should not be made to escalate or initiate commitments to Yemen in a politically-charged, reactive way. And what ever is done had better take seriously the key political issues in the Gulf and Yemen — where AQAP is only one small part of an extremely complex environment.

The rush to partner with the Yemeni government to “tackle extremism”, as Gordon Brown says, illustrates the need to think carefully about the political dimension. The government of Ali Abdullah Saleh is to a great extent the problem, not the solution. Ever since Saleh recanted on his vow to not seek re-election and cheated his way to victory over Faisal bin Shamlan (who symbolically died this week), Yemen’s political system has taken a sharp turn for the worse. Corruption, always bad, has skyrocketed. So have human rights abuses and political repression, including a wide range of attacks on media freedoms. Heavy-handed security services have a lot to do with the outbreak and perpetuation of the Houthi rebellion; as Joost Hilterman points out, “the Houthi leadership has portrayed its position as purely defensive against acts of state oppression and attacks by the Yemeni army.” In short, partnering with the Yemeni government to provide honest, legitimate government may seem like a good response, but it is not likely to succeed. If you like working with Hamid Karzai, you’re going to love Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Saleh government is more preoccupied with the Houthi rebellion, raging since 2004, than with AQAP even if we care more about the latter. The Yemeni government is also worried about the southern insurrection, and about keeping Saleh in power at any cost. Combating “extremism” is a vague formulation which misses the complexities of these multiple insurgencies and political challenges. The Yemeni government will no doubt be happy to take American and international money and support to strike against its enemies, but don’t expect that it will do anything approaching what we want them to do.

Many smart people have proposed that the U.S. rely on the Saudis to play a pacifying, stabilizing role. This would be a mistake. The Saudis have a long history of meddling in Yemeni affairs. It never goes well. Yemenis deeply mistrust their larger and wealthier neighbor. The recent Saudi military incursion against the Houthis has not exactly pleased Arab or Yemeni public opinion — and has been a major story in the Arab press for months now, even if largely ignored in the U.S. The Saudis have also unleashed a massive propaganda campaign in support of their intervention which ties the Houthis to Iran as part of a wider regional agenda — a dangeorus reinvigoration of the Sunni-Shia tensions which reverberated through the region in the mid-2000s. What’s more, the Saudis hardly need to be convinced that defeating AQAP is in their interest — the main reason that APAQ is in Yemen now is that the Saudis ruthlessly destroyed the al-Qaeda organization inside Saudi Arabia after 2003, and many of its members fled to Yemen to regroup. Inviting more Saudi interventions into Yemen is a recipe for disaster.

Other very smart people suggest — correctly — that military solutions aren’t going to do it, and that the better response would be more development assistance. Development assistance is nice, and I’m generally for this kind of whole-of-government assistance and engagement, but Yemen is one of the most underdeveloped places on earth, with a vast expanse and an inhospitable terrain and extremely limited state penetration. It is also mind-bogglingly corrupt. Development aid sent to the Yemeni government will likely simply be funneled in to the same kinds of projects that are currently well-funded (many of them on the Riviera), or else wasted like water in the ocean.

So what should the U.S. do? Pretty much what it’s been doing in the Obama administration, which has in fact been thinking seriously about Yemen all year and which has quietly been working there in some constructive and some unconstructive ways. It’s never as satisfying as a morally pure call to battle, but the administration shouldn’t over-react or under-react. Be patient, build intelligence and CT assets, strike against clearly AQ targets when available but only where the civilian costs will be minimal and the rewards high, search out local partners… the usual. But the administration shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking it must “do something” to fend off political harping from the right and end up over-committing… or taking steps which ultimately make the situation worse.

KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images

The last few weeks of the year have been the busiest I’ve been for the past few months.  I’ve been writing almost everyday and I’ve gotten assignments and projects and meetings and conferences.  It feels good to be back at work even if I’m still on a voluntary basis.

I’ve learned quite a few things as I’ve been looking for employment and one of them is definitely to stay busy and to be useful.  I’ve gotten much better and making connections with kind, warm, and connected people and that has only come about by doing for others when I myself needed some assistance.

This last year has been one of transition moving from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington without an existing job was a bit more stressful than I initially planned, but it is all coming together now as I continue to volunteer and write write write.  I almost made my goal of writing at least one post every three days and I will aim for that target again in the coming year.

Always use your gifts that have been given to you.  Relearn and grow those other talents that may have abandoned you.  Always put others needs in congruence with your own and never become too self-absorbed.

I am now writing for Sustainable Seattle mostly online.  I have posted a few posts to their blog already at www.sustainableseattle.blogspot.com and I will also be checking the Facebook and possibly twitter as well.

I’m excited about this opportunity because it is an organization that is doing good work in a team friendly manner.  The organization is focused on sustainability, social justice and environmental issues.  I’ve learned so much from the past few weeks of being associated with them and I look forward to learning even more.

I will still be posting here at WordPress and will make this blog a more personal one that will focus really on what I am thinking.  I’m going to be blogging in a more neutral tone than I would on this site as I’m representing an organization and not only myself.

I used to tell my students about the pitfalls that they needed to avoid when they were looking for work and I always fully believed every example I gave them.  I’m finding out that I do actually know what I’m talking about.

One of the interesting things about being unemployed, or self employed as I tell potential employers is the mental state that slowly begins to creep into your mind.  I’ve found that I am more tired, get upset easier and in general I feel ragged and torn.

I have been taking positive steps including studying up on different areas and disciplines in order to round out my gifts and talents.  I’ve also been volunteering to get me out of the house and to actually make a difference while I have the time.  I’m doing well on that front.

The problem with unemployment is that it is almost a self reinforcing dilemma.  You cannot find work so you get upset and no one responds to a person who is upset.  It is as if you are spitting out whatever you drink and then complaining about being thirsty.

I’m still standing and I have a few things in line that look very promising, but I have to remember that I actually do have good advice that I should follow.

As more and more people are beginning to reevaluate wasting money on gifts that they truly cannot afford, people are starting to look at alternatives for their holiday needs.

Some alternatives that are starting to gain ground are gifts of recognition of a person’s particular beliefs and wishes.  One way that this is seen is in the purchasing of acres of forestland, or in donating to non-profit organizations in the name of others.

Many consumers are leaving behind the malls and the black friday events to simply buy what really matters to their loved ones.   Donating money or time in someone else’s name is an economically sound idea and it shows that you actually value that person’s beliefs.

For some ideas on where to look for such unique gifts simply go to a few of the more reputable non-profit websites such as:

Mercycorps.org

Unicef.org

Unitedway.org

natureconservancy.org

The best part of giving to charities is that everyone wins and you do not have to worry about gift receipts.

Read this article and be informed.

The Tajik Solution

Also Happy Thanksgiving.

This disturbing story about another step in a more intrusive government on the rights of journalists is cited in this CBS story about a news organization getting a request from the Department of Justice for information about the users of this website including IP addresses.

The story can be read here.

Now, I am all for free speech and the role of the journalist is sacrosanct in a democracy or representative republic like the States.  We cannot allow the media to be muffled no matter how much we may disagree with what they say.

I can’t stand Fox News for instance, but I’m glad that they are doing what they are doing.  A democracy or representative republic like the States needs conflicting views and debate to shake out the extremists on all sides.  Only through comparison and contrast can we reach a balanced view.