Many awareness campaigns begin with the very sincere but unfortunately naïve sentiment, “If only people knew the truth…” Armed with little more than that, they spend millions of dollars on celebrity-endorsed commercials, speaking tours, and marketing campaigns that does little more than leave people disempowe(RED).

That’s the sad end to the second half of the sentence that people never finish. “If only people knew the truth, they’d be even more scared than they already are and feel even more powerless than they already do.”

I’m not speaking from a high horse. Consider the tragedy going on, as we speak, in Darfur. I’m aware that it’s going on, I even have friends intimately involved in the struggle. Throw it into a blender along with the perpetual occupation of Iraq, our Constitution being shredded by an outlaw Executive Branch, corporations scrambling to make money from climate change instead of fight it… hit purée and try to drink that concoction. Anyone who claims to be truly aware of what’s going on it our world and not clinically depressed is lying. So I turn away and try to concentrate on the things I have some control over. Let me be clear, awareness-raising efforts on the Darfur issue have made me less inspired to take action.

To eat my own medicine, let me end the ranting about how activism is screwing the proverbial pooch by encouraging blissful ignorance over action and start offering some solutions. Similar to “the only thing we have to fear“, solutions are the solution. However, most of the solutions that organizations offer are signing my name to a declaration, spreading the word, and giving money. Of these, giving money is the only action that actually affects an outcome. Sure, spreading the word might indirectly—but only by encouraging more people to give money.

The solutions that get me really excited are the ones that openly share campaign strategy with me. MoveOn.org‘s emails typically, even when asking for money, lay out a clear plan for how I help. Maybe they want to hire more on-the-ground organizers for an upcoming primary, maybe they want lots of lawyers to email Alberto Gonzalez, either way I can see their strategy and—by taking part—I see how my actions are part of something larger that needs me.

The core of this is that those people enlightened to the point where they feel responsibility for the world and want to take action won’t feel satisfied with activism that strips them of that responsibility. Which is a good thing, because “absolution activism” is a false solution anyway.

Back to the signs that have gone up in my neighborhood. They are a clear example of taking the “If only people knew the truth…” to an illogical extreme. Being a big city with nice weather, San Francisco has more than it’s share of homeless out on the streets. My neighborhood is not the worst in the city in that regard, but the only that I’ve noticed to try to address the problem by putting up infographics about what is and is not acceptable behavior.

There’s a lot more to say on this topic and, like many of my posts, this one has seemed to get away from me without my feeling like I’ve reached any sort of clarity. I expect this will not be my last word on the current disempowering nature of activism. Comments are welcome from those who both seek inspiration and to inspire.

Stan is currently in the desert of Nevada and “robo-blogging” while he’s gone. He wrote this last week and set it to publish today.

1. Come up with your criteria: Under $2000? Has to allow cats? Laundry on premises? These are things you need to know. If you’re living with someone else (or moving in with them because you’re tired of leaving your cat all alone when you’re over at their house) talk to this person about his or her criteria. Since you’re in a healthy relationship, hopefully the lines of communication are already open.
2. Focus on a few neighborhoods: Chances are that there are going to be some places you can afford to live but won’t want to and some places you want to live but can’t afford. Best to get that out of the way before you get much deeper. Head on over to HousingMaps.com and visit San Francisco. You can pretty quickly scan and see what it costs to live in different neighborhoods. You might enter you criteria from step one to make the job easier.
3. Make it a daily habit: The best way I’ve found to do this is to grab a feed from Craigslist. After you search, according to your criteria and in the neighborhood you’re excited about and can afford, Craigslist will generate an RSS file for you (visible as an orange icon in your addressbar if you’re using Firefox, which you should be). Throw that link into your feedreader and check it daily along with your favorite blogs.
4. Check the place out: Virtually, of course. From your feedreader, you can jump to the Craigslist post and then jump to Google Maps. You might as well jump all the way to Street View and check the street out. Is it where you thought? Maybe take a virtual walk around the block, looking for cool coffee shops, laundromats, or peddlers of assorted sundries? Does it feel like home? Or, more importantly, does it feel like bothering to call for a viewing? Yes, even I like to actually visit the place before I move in.
5. Staying connected: It’s important to me that wherever I live has pretty good access to mass transit. I don’t know why I love mass transit so much, all the diverse faces and personalities, each with their own exciting fashion and smells—all with the same iPod earbuds. It really gets me. At any rate, the official MUNI maps might be helpful. Of course, if you’re more of a bicycler, walker, or excited to get a pair of his and her matching electric scooters powered by your residential solar panels and zoom around the city like Italy in the 60s… You should check out the SF Bicycle Coalition Bike Map & Walking Guide.

That’s just what I’ve picked up so far. It’s been working for me. Of course, I’ve only just recently started looking and haven’t actually found a place yet… but not for lack of finding possibilities. It’s just that sometimes they forget to mention that the bathroom has a brick wall in the middle of it or that they’ve used four different kinds of tiling for each room or that the house was built before refrigerators were invented so it sits in the middle of the living room. Stuff like that you can’t enter into Craigslist searches. As my friend Brianna mentioned the other day, “Each time I post an opening for a roommate, I have to add more things that I would’ve never thought I had to put in a roommate ad—like, please don’t cook kimchi at 4am.”

Saturday was the Second Annual Maker Faire, where people show off stuff they’ve made themselves. Yes, themselves. Everything from wallets made from recycled bike tubes to fire engines that spit flames instead of water, these are people who have an obviously different relationship with their “stuff” than a lot of us. How much of what we own is completely pre-fabricated (probably by sweatshop workers who are shocked that we want holes in our brand new jeans)? How many of us smile with satisfaction at merely putting something together from Ikea, according to their instructions? Maker Faire people eat people like us for breakfast.

Despite my girlfriend’s frustration that countless hours manufacturing a steam-powered car could maybe be better spent, I believe there is something inherently political about creating something that no one else in the world but you thinks is a good idea. At a minimum, it’s mechanical expressionism. Optimally, it’s providing the necessary noise that culture needs to evolve.

The very next day was an exercise in noise if ever there was one. San Francisco’s Bay to Breakers 12k run. Of course, this being San Francisco, people do a lot more than just run. They dress up in ridiculous costumes (or go nekkid) get exceedingly intoxicated (sometimes even running behind a shopping cart with a keg in it) and then run. I’ve been a participant before (and finished in the Top 10%) but was only a spectator this year.

Bay to Breakers was almost as inspiring from a DIY standpoint as Maker Faire. The costumes range from low-tech but creative to painstakingly accurate. What surprised me the most was how many groups dressed in what they had to assume were extremely innovative ways, only to find that a lot of others dressed the same. There were more bull-runners than you could keep track of, multiple Double Dare teams, and scores of Spartans (my favorites were the flamingly gay Asian Spartans, for which I cannot find a picture).

The weekend left my girlfriend and I very excited to leave the sidelines and get into the DIY game. After listing all of the projects that we might be interested in pursuing, I compiled them all into one mega-project just for fun. Don’t be surprised if you get invited to our fancy DIY dinner party, featuring homebrewed liquor from our hydroponic grapes complete with hand-pressed labels printed on recycled paper—oh, and make sure to sew your own formalwear to match the slipcovers in our solar-powered mock pre-fab backyard chateau.

I was watching the final showing of the final film in San Francisco’s International Film Festival, to which I had vowed greater attention this year. Takushi Tsubokawa’s “Aria” begins with the methodical tuning of a piano by protagonist Ota. My mind drifts to the mathematical nature of music and, as Ota tests and corrects octave intervals, I think of how a note an octave higher than another vibrates at precisely double its frequency.

Having spent the previous week in Mexico reading (among other things) “Society of the Spectacle“, my mind is steeled against attempts to assert any unexamined narratives into my head. I am delighted with “Aria”, as it seems to speak an entirely different visual language than the ultraslick MTV style pervading our media. Shots are framed with excessive white space (a head and shoulders against a bleak sky, for instance) and prolonged to the point where I become aware that a less elegant movie would’ve cut long ago. The characters—a piano-tuner, an antiques dealer, a puppeteer, a high school principal, and more—are eccentric without being caricatures and resist any taxonomy I try to impose upon them. I become hopeful that an escape from the Spectacle is possible.

We are lucky that the director is available to speak with us afterward. He takes questions from the audience, via an interpreter who does his best to translate both Japanese to English and ethereal director-speak to something comprehensible. He does a good job until someone asks about the “Wizard of Oz” nature of the film. It hadn’t occurred to me before the question but all the elements are there: characters leaving home in search of fulfillment, a brightly colored path (albeit red trellis instead of yellow brick), a wizard telling them to go home instead of solving their problems but then having a change of heart and helping them on their way, even the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is included (though played on a musical saw).

“Yes, someone asked about that in Korea, too,” the interpreter offers. “All I can say is that it’s a coincidence. I haven’t seen that film in thirty years, but I guess I need to again. And that’s the only song the actor knew how to play on the musical saw.”

Walking out of the theater, I’m reminded of Spider Robinson’s “Melancholy Elephants“, as it was recently featured on Boing Boing. The story, which I’ll let you read on your own, posits that we artists are not creators but discoverers. Beautiful music exists in some universal form and we, as artists, merely stumble upon it. Art, then, is an applied science—the application of fundamental wisdom (like the Golden Ratio) to express aspects of the human condition. As such, the raw materials of art (be they characters or chord progressions) are as finite as the raw materials for any other industry.

Takushi Tsubokawa says that he wrote “Aria” the last time he was in San Francisco. He didn’t know any English and felt very alone, spending most of his time at the beach. In contrast, Frank Baum (author of the Wizard of Oz) cites Lewis Carrol’s “Alice in Wonderland” as a major influence. From drastically different methodologies, such similarities yet surface. Is it possible that life is and has always been the same old story rehashed over and over using different languages of varying quality? That The Spectacle is not a bourgeois plot, but merely a manifestation of the plot? That “all the world’s a stage”?

“Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily/Life is but a dream.”

Working in the communications department of an environmental non-profit, a film about the disinformation campaigns staged by energy companies about global warming probably wasn’t going to contain a truckload of surprises for me. In fact, I cover such things all the time on this blog. It did surprise me how the filmmakers managed to make a potentially bleak subject pretty funny (they describe it as a “toxic comedy”) while leaving the issue its deserved respect.

Before the showing, writer/director Daniel Gold addressed the crowd. The film had began years ago and, after months and months of researching for a film about whether or not global warming was real, it became absolutely clear to everyone that what was really needed was a film about why there’s still any doubt—they name it the “global warming gap”, or the difference between what scientists know to be true and what the public thinks. Journalist Ross Gelbspan puts it plainly in the film, “they’ve stolen our reality.”

Ross is but one of many heroes and villains interviewed in the film, I couldn’t help but think of him as the star. Years ago, he co-wrote an article about climate change and disease; skeptics immediately attacked it. His first reaction, as a journalist, was to research their side of the argument. Thinking the jury was still out in the scientific community, he backed off and even felt guilty. Later he discovered that these skeptics were all funded by the coal industry. He gets pissed and becomes determined to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. A decade later and Ross has retired because it’s too damn depressing. He shrugs to the camera, admitting that article after article has made no dent and that—his daughter sitting not three feet from him on the couch—we’re probably fucked. Another few years later and we see him pulled out of retirement by Katrina and traveling all over the nation speaking with high schools, colleges, the next generation. His is an irrepressible heroism.

The “next generation” is full of cameos of people I know. While climate crusader Bill McKibben inspires a crowd, we see Billy Parish listening intently. Billy has done his fair share of inspiring others as founder of the Climate Campaign and co-founder of Energy Action, the nation’s largest youth climate coalition. Another next-genner can be seen as the dastardly Competitive Enterprise Institute counter-protests a climate action shouting, “Greenpeace kills! Greenpeace kills!” Campaigner Dan Firger smiles at the camera, “uhm, we’re not even Greenpeace.”

I had mentioned before that I was worried that Nordhaus and Shellenberger, co-authors of “The Death of Environmentalism” didn’t come off as heroes. I’ve only met Nordhaus in person but followed the whole debate from a few years ago quite closely (just google “death of environmentalism“). The film gets them just right: smart as hell, a tad reckless, and more than a tad completely full of themselves.

Unfortunately, mine was the last screening at SFIFF, but you can learn more, get involved, and pre-order the DVD on the official website. It’s got more laughs than Inconvenient Truth, that’s for sure.

Last year I managed to make it to three films:

“Who Killed the Electric Car?”

I describe this movie, whenever I get a chance, as the Schindler’s List of Electric Vehicles. To watch the amazing EV1 get shredded to bits because some fat cat is trying to hide that they’re better than the stuff GM currently makes is absolutely heart-wrenching. Well, it wrenched my heart at least. Plus, I’m dating one of the supporting actresses.

“American Blackout”

I acknowledge that Cynthia McKinney is a little batty, if not very batty. But the House of Representatives is supposed to represent America and I know plenty of people who share both her politics and her penchant for conspiracy theories. Ignoring her controversial ego, the much stronger part of this film was the rigorous documentation of how systematic the campaign to suppress the black vote has become. The Republicans have quite an impressive playbook for that game.

“The DaVinci Code”

Okay, so I didn’t quite make it to three. Embarrassing, I realize. Given that both of the above films are the kind you can’t just walk into a theater in Middle America and watch, it’s truly a crime not to take better advantage of this festival.

Keeping with that sentiment, here are the ones I’m planning to catch this year, alphabeticalish:

“The Deal”

The writer/director combo of “The Queen” swings their attention to Prime Minister Tony Blair and shady backroom wheeling and dealing among Labour Party. Intrigue! World politics! British accents!

“Everything’s Cool”

As I work for an environmental non-profit, this one’s hard to miss. Promising to be a vaguely comedic send up of what my girlfriend calls (only quasi-ironically) the “Non-profit/Industrial Complex”, the film follows the re-explosion of environmentalism thanks to climate change going mainstream. My only hope is that Nordhaus and Shellenberger aren’t framed as the heroes.

“Paprika”

It’s only got one show time, which I’m going to miss, but someone really should see this just to make sure it’s as wonderful as it looks. I’ve been an anime fan for a long time and very pleased that the genre has grown up with me (Thundercats, on the other hand, is completely unwatchable now).

“Reprise”

A group of 20-somethings determined to stick together whose careers take them in different directions. Considering that very well describes the last year of my life, I’m treating this one as a documentary—and praying that it doesn’t with the death of the main character or something suitably tragic.

“When the Levees Broke”

Spike Lee. Katrina. Documentary. Should be intense.

“Aria”

I have a feeling that this one’s going to be very Murakami-esque. Maybe because it takes place in Hokkaido, a place inextricably linked in my mind with magical sheep and a seemingly perfect destination for vaguely surreal character-driven drama. Of course, I might be off.

I’m planning on going fully Ebert (sans the missing jaw) this year and posting reviews as I cross the above off my list. You may have to sit tight for a bit though, as I mentioned before, I’ll be in Mexico next week.

I really will be in Mexico next week, but if I wasn’t, that would be a great way to end every post, eh? “Thanks for reading and, before I forget, I’m going to be in Mexico next week.” Kind of like, “Most likely kill you in the morning…“

He set down a case—his surgeon’s black bag—and pulled two trashcans out from an alley to form a makeshift barrier from passersby on the sidewalk. The surgeon’s bag opened and out came a simple Krylon spraycan. One of many. He stepped back and surveyed the three flats of particle board. Shaking the spraycan sounded a rattle that may have evoked a ball bearing stirring up gas-compressed paint to you or me; to him it was power, energy, excitement… art.

Three puffs into the air, to clear the nozzle, and a deep breath. He pulled a gas mask over his mouth and nose. Suddenly, any doubt vanished and with a samurai’s deft strokes his arm sliced through the air and paint met particle board. Thick black scribbles dashed across the wood. Grain yielded to gloss. Canvas yielded to creation. Bold shapes began to emerge from the barrage, he doubled back to fill them in. Chunky letters materialized.

Across the street eating in my favorite breakfast spot, I was unable to see exactly what was being written. I am notoriously bad at deciphering graffiti and, had a tree not partially obstructed my view, I would still have a hard time with a translation. My best guess was “DIE, PLAYGROUND, DIE!” which would make sense as the storefront belongs to Upper Playground and, as mentioned above, it had recently received the business end of an entire car.

Nor could I hear the conversations with pedestrians, but body language betrayed most of the subject matter if not the details. The young girl in a pink jacket and matching pink boots wanted desperately to touch the bubbly letters—probably unaware that they they said “DIE!”—but her father kept her reined in. A group of high schoolers, themselves neither skinny nor white, seemed to be searching for the right balance of “nice piece, man” and “fuck you whitey, that’s our subculture”. They watched for a while, passing a joint back and forth. Two hipster girls, replete with all the necessary two-tone bangs and cheap-looking expensive accessories, gathered and pointed.

The artist’s friend joined him. The first stepped back—looking much older now, white flecks of paint salting his hair—and the second stepped up, grabbing a blue spraycan from the array of colors. Shapes gained outlines. Lines gained depth. The audience nodded. Where ten minutes ago destruction had rendered a city block derelict and depressing, now there was life, color, and culture. They were still going as the rain started and I headed home.

When I left Indiana years ago, one of the reasons I cited was Hoosiers’ general disdain for marginally il/legal activities such as street art, underground music events, and controlled substances. Having my morning coffee and watching my neighborhood come together over exactly that, I realized that whatever I was searching for in a community, I had found a long time ago.

It’s not the first time O’Reilly has expressed his unmitigated hate toward the city of San Francisco. Almost exactly a year ago, he told Al Qaeda, “You want to blow up Coit Tower? Go ahead.” This time, his current rhetoric is more aimed at our gay pride parades, “pot shops”, and mocking of Christianity.

I should know better than to assume anything O’Reilly says is rooted in reality, but assertions that San Francisco is some sort of secular playground is ridiculous. I’ve attended services at Glide with a Jewish friend and managed to make it to a Solstice or Beltane party every once in a while, too. Further, the Mission District is very Catholic and there are neighborhood celebrations around Confirmations or Baptisms every week.

So what exactly are “San Francisco Values”?

He’s hitting on something with the gay pride parades. San Francisco definitely values diversity. The tremendous Chinese New Year Parade has been named one of the world’s top ten parades. I loved going last year and seeing all the little kids dressed like puppies for the Year of the Dog. Last week’s Dia de los Muertos celebration was a beautiful colored stone in the mosaic of cultures that is San Francisco.

The “pot shops” crack may be a crack at our hippie heritage and I’m pleased to say that the treehugger’s have left a lasting legacy. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland are all in the Top 20 greenest cities in the U.S. according to the Green Guide. Personally, I take one of the four excellent forms of mass transit San Francisco has (none of which use gasoline) to work every day.

One thing that Bill has left out, however, is San Francisco’s value of innovation. I’ve long said that the DNA of San Francisco contains, across the board, the “I wonder what’s West of here?” gene. That spirit of imagination and adventure has given the world some amazing things. Considering just the illustrious internet marvels, the Bay Area is home to Apple, Craigslist, Flickr, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube among many, many others. Let’s not forget popsicles and fortune cookies!

One more invention that had its root in San Francisco that Bill O’Reilly may be especially thankful for and not even know it. On a foggy day in September, back in 1927, Philo T. Farnsworth brought to life a device without which the world would never come to know the No Spin Zone, the motherfucking television.

Diversity, sustainability, and innovation? Those are San Francisco values and Congress could sure use all of them.

In chronological order, both in terms of the evening and human history, let’s start with the Commonwealth Club. The presentation was named for Nunberg‘s new book Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show, itself a reference to those hilarious anti-Dean ads. The combination of the title, the $18 admission, the copius wine and hors d’oeuvres, and the lobby photo gallery with a small plaque saying “sponsored by ExxonMobil” made me suspect I was going to have to do something to get myself thrown out.

My suspicions were largely unfounded as Nunberg, a Berkeley Professor, clearly acknowledged the entire spectrum of Liberalism. Further, he well-illuminated the fact that it’s not for lack of political unity that the Left feels so disjointed but another conflict entirely. In fact, most of America agrees with Liberal issues. “Ask a welder,” Nunberg offers, “if he’s for healthcare, social security, reining in corporate greed, and protecting the environment and he’ll say yes. Ask him if he’s a liberal and he’ll tell you he can’t afford the granite countertops and the hybrid car.” The Right, he claims, has made deliberate effort over the last 40 years to divorce the Left from its politics and re-attach it to a decadent, elitist, sanctimonious, spineless lifestyle. Thus all political discourse is over conservative Middle America vs. liberal Coastal Fringe.

Add the Culture War to the long list of wars the Right has manufactured to distract us from the real debate. Fortunately, ending wars is one of the things the Left does pretty well. One of the more recent efforts is the STORY program, who were giving a reportback on their last Collaborative to End the War in Iraq.

It was markedly different than the Commonwealth Club. Where that had been downtown with escalators and people in suits, this was in the Mission with a rickety staircase and you had to be buzzed in. Also, the presenters here were easily 30 years younger here than at my previous engagement. The presentation was therefore understandably less confident (some may replace “confident” with “smug”) though equally as knowledgable. While a professor speaks in nuggets of wisdom, these youth leaders asked salient questions, “How can there be leadership in a community that doesn’t identify as activists? How can we make room for the pain and anger of our veterans in the public discourse? What is the peace symbol of our generation?” Answers were carefully revealed, especially as the discussion opened up to the audience. Strategies for crafting stories, and passing on the stories of previous generations, emerged along with great advice like “activism must present itself as strategy, not therapy” and “we must recruit more graphic designers”. I may have giggled in delight at this proclamation.

The similarities were plentiful as well. Both groups recognized the power of language as a tool to bring about change. Nunberg noted that as language became more driven by advertising, the Right seized the opportunity to direct it. Products that were soft or white (like chardonnay and brie) were deliberately associated with “Liberals” in order to brand them as weak and exclusive. STORY shared a victory where 750 people turned up for a “silent procession” and “town hall meeting” that would have found a “march” and “protest” too confrontational. Ultimately, the Left needs to shift culture to the point where standing up to one’s government is not confrontational but expressly democratic (and it would be nice if “freedom” could mean something again, too) but battles are being won. Baby steps, baby steps.

This message of incrementalism was perhaps the most common thread. The Right did not suddenly control the airwaves or the words we use or the White House. It has been lost over the last 40 years. Likewise, we won’t win them back with a clever t-shirt or perfect bumpersticker, it may take 40 more. I was left with a vision of these twenty-something youth leaders in their 60s giving a similar presentation to the Commonwealth Club of 2046. They would be wise, well-spoken, and victorious. Or, I suppose, they could have lost and San Francisco would be underwater.