Yep, Spring is here, and it’s time for a short return to my favorite topic: local food.
Why now? Well, because in most places, local food is growing again, and this is a good time to jump in and start preparing for a summer full of wonderful local goodness.
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If there’s one thing all of us here know, it’s the power of stories. We know how it feels to be so immersed in the lives of beloved characters that it’s like we’re living the story with them. We’re familiar with cheering on the good guys and hoping that the villain gets what’s coming to him. We know the feeling of staying up until the wee hours of the morning, holding our eyes open by any means possible, just wanting to finish one more chapter…one more chapter…one more chapter.
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When I was little, I was so jealous of the kids who got to wear their scout uniforms to school. Oh, man. All of the patches that they could earn for learning all kinds of things were so fascinating to me, not to mention selling cookies and getting to go camping. Eventually, I wore my mother down and joined the Girl Scouts, and as it turned out, my suburban troop was a bit allergic to camping. Blast!
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Somehow, bullying has become so engrained in our society that it’s often difficult to know how to begin stopping it. The hulking bully has been a stereo-typical cliché of every school yard scene for years; and somehow, we’ve just stood by and allowed that to happen. More than that, we’ve accepted it. Somehow, we’ve decided that “boys will be boys,” etc. and therefore constant bullying is just a fact of childhood. People even go so far as to blame the victims of bullying for not standing up for themselves or fighting back or whatever. Yeah, go figure.
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Watching the news, it’s very easy to get discouraged by all the horrible things going on in the world. We all know that bad news sells, so very often, that’s all we get to hear. But in spite of that, good news keeps on doggedly occurring.
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Sometimes I feel like a superhero. No, hear me out, really. By day, I’m an excitable clerk at a state legislature, but by night, I’m a gamer. Yes, I admit it. I come home, pull out my video game player, and run Link around the Water temple, trying to remember which water level I need to hit now.
via Cria-cow on Flickr
Only a few years ago, gamers hid in basements with their controllers, bonking Mario’s head on every block and avoiding those blasted goombas for the twenty-fourth time. Now, things are changing. Gaming culture is coming out of the basement, and bringing some amazingly creative things with it.
For example, take a look at this: Poland’s CD Projekt RED created an entire interactive launch campaign around their newest game. (Make sure you go to the second page of the article, most of the good stuff is there!) It takes storytelling to the next level, immersing the participants in the world and the story, giving them the chance to actually experience the world personally, not just through a controller.
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So last night I was watching the Daily Show and Jon Stewart did a segment on whether or not the war on women was an actual thing, or a construction of the liberal media as Fox News said. To be fair, we have a startling habit in this country of declaring war against all sorts of intangible ideas and vague and absurdly generalized nouns – crime, poverty, drugs, terror, christmas, food, etc. etc.
What with Rush Limbaugh equating contraception with prostitution, Wisconsin lawmakers introducing a bill that would classify single parenthood as child abuse AND repealing their Equal Pay Act because, and I quote “money is more important for men” because they “expect to be the breadwinners,” Texas enacting a law that excludes Planned Parenthood from getting funding through the state’s Women’s Health Program as well as several other incidents over the past few months, let me just say I’m getting a little bit scared.
I didn’t realize we had rewound the tape to 1900.
The State of Women's Rights?
That means decisions about women’s rights, about families headed by women, about women’s bodies, are being made by men. There aren’t enough women in politics to tip the scale in our favor. And that is part the fault of history and part because more women need to stand up, but in the meantime, I’d appreciate it if old white men stopped making decisions about my body, my time and my health care. It’s my job to make those decisions, and I feel like the media and Congress are taking it away from me.
I’m supposed to be using this time for a question, so here it is: can I have it back now? (ten points)
My, how time flies when you’re having fun! It’s hard to believe, but the Hunger is Not a Game campaign is coming to a close. The HPA’s very first non-Harry-Potter campaign was a huge success, and we’re so glad you all came along for the ride. Here’s just a few of the things we accomplished:
First Appalachain State Food Drive
Of course, the fight against hunger is far from over. I have no doubt that we will back in the midst of it very soon (and, indeed, we’ve still got food drives going on as we speak), but for the moment it’s time to take a well deserved breather and look forward to the next battle. We at the HPA have been proud to fight alongside Katniss Everdeen and the citizens of the Districts, and we would like to thank each and every one of you for your support. Thank you for making this campaign a tremendous success!
Keep an eye out for new campaign information coming up soon, and please take a moment to tell us what you thought about this campaign in the comments below. The Imagine Better Project has lots more in store for all of us, as we take up the reins (or bows, or wands, or sonic screwdrivers) of our world’s fate, and create the world we want. And with that, let’s go forth into our next adventure with heads held high, and remember…
The odds are always in our favor.
State Government has been getting a bit of a bad rap lately. From bills trying to define when life starts to regulations on who should have or pay for birth control or pills to enhance guys’… performance, there have been some really odd things trying to go through legislatures.
That’s not everything, though. There have been a lot of wonderful things that have been happening on the state level lately. Three separate legislatures passed marriage equality bills, almost within the same week about a month ago. Even though one was vetoed by the governor, the fact that the bills even got through the legislatures was huge.
And then, there’s Connecticut. I admit, I’m biased. I love my state. I think we’re doing some really great and progressive things while no one’s looking. We’ve had full marriage equality since 2009, last year we passed a bill granting full anti-discriminatory protections to transgender people, and this year, we repealed the death penalty. That’s right. Sitting here, quietly (well, mostly quietly), Connecticut became the 17th state to repeal its death penalty.
This was not easy, however. A few years ago, in the city of Cheshire, there was a hugely prominent murder, and frankly, half the state is still out for blood for the killers. Much of the debate around the repeal centered around that murder, and the question of whether or not justice is being done for the murderers if they are not put to death. Others said that no penalty is fair unless it is equally applied to all, and finally others maintained that jail was too good for these people. I couldn’t help but think about Azkaban and the Dementors, actually. There are fates out there worse than death.
In the end, those in favour of repeal prevailed, and Connecticut made quiet history yet again. What’s your state up to? Is there anything going on in your state that should be pointed out to people? Let me know in the comments!
©2012 The HP Alliance. All Rights Reserved. The Weapon We Have is Love.
