花見

the commute by bike up north williams boulevard can be hectic, frustrating, blood-boiling, and dangerous.  the busiest bike lane in portland, williams pushes straight north next to two lanes of vehicular traffic.  cars swerve into the bike lane; slow bikers take up the entire bike lane, demanding that i swing out into traffic to pedal past them; and fast bicyclist breeze past, leaving me in the dust, leaving me jealous and slow feeling and inadequate and tired.  cyclists in this town comprise some of the most self-righteous people i’ve ever met.  having just lost your bike light - they’ll let you know how difficult they think it might be to see you even on the most well lit street.  not wearing neon yellow - they’ll let you know how your dark clothes are inappropriate.  biking too slow - they’ll let you know how much this inconveniences them.

on clear days, spring and summer and early autumn, the bike ride up north williams seems quicker than the trudge through the winter gray.  north williams carries a lot of bicyclists north through portland every afternoon, but the spring seems a significant increase in traffic up the bicycle lanes.  sunnier days, the weather fairer, the other cyclists seem more placid, less aggressive.

the air smells damp, but dirty and vegetive, the trees above light green with new buds.  i smell the diesel fumes from a passing bus.  i smell coffee as i past the waypost.  the smell from pizza-a-go-go makes me hungry.  then weed, someone smoking a joint as they walk down the street.  i laugh and shake my head and continue pedaling north.  too early yet in the season, i'm waiting for the days i smell jasmine growing as i bike through the neighborhood.  my favorite scent, i love the tiny white star-shaped flowers.

the bike ride in the afternoons can be uncomfortable this time of year.  a sudden rain shower can drench me as i bike home.  or the day can become warm enough that i sweat under the raincoat i still wear most days.  it's almost time to start biking in shorts and a t-shirt - almost warm enough.

i have made this commute down the river from my house to john's landing and back every morning and evening for over four years.  i'm not loosing weight with it.  it's become static, cardiovascular maintenance at most.  but i love it.  i love the thirty minutes it gives me to bike in silence, maybe with a bike of music, introspective, unobligated to entertain, to talk.  meditative, i like running into other friends on the road, but i cherish the brief time alone.

i slowly bike through the fields of so many agents - that man smoking a cigarette, those boys on their skate boards, those two women embracing as they meet on the sidewalk, the grandmother waiting to cross the street with her grandchild.

the days when the cherry blossoms bloom on the waterfront, a fat pink cloud that floats over the river, may be some of my favorites.  i love the delicate white and pink blossoms of the low trees, the dark bark striking underneath. i love biking down the path to the steel bridge under the branches, the sidewalk soft rose colored from the fallen petals.  men with big stupid grins back up into my path as they try to frame in the view of their cameras their girlfriends sitting under the blossoms.  the women preen themselves and do not consider that the cherry blossoms might overshadow their beauty.  annoyed by their bliss, i still love seeing portland happy like this.

Voting and representation in America

One-Person-One-Vote Rule Reaches Supreme Court - NYTimes.com

"The droghte of march hath perced to the roote"

in the morning, should i take a shower, i will open the bathroom window when i finish, an oregon habit to prevent mould growth.  this past week the entropy of warm, steamy air hasn't shocked my body as terribly, and the in the post-daylight-savings morning glow, the open window lets in springtime birdsong and not just cold air.

the ceo of the company for which i work came into the office singing: "i love the spring.  i love this time of year with the warmer weather and the flowers and the sunlight."

as she walked toward her office away from me i added, "and the birds singing."

"yes.  and the birds..."

then suddenly she poked her head around the corner and said to me, "actually no.  i hate birds."

understandable.  it's just the seagulls that terrify me.  horrible creatures - they seem to have at least flown back to the coast to enjoy the warm weather there.  otherwise, the sound of birds chirping in the morning seems pleasant.  sadly at my age they no longer dress me in the morning before work.

i guess portland isn't thawing out because it never really freezes over here.  it just gets cold and rainy and will remain cold and rainy until the beginning of summer in july.  after this past weekend though, something does feel different.  a greater gradient range of green: trees budding and daffodils blooming and plants pushing up from the soggy ground.  the city spent an entire weekend without rain.  our minds thawing, the spell of hibernation is broken.

adam and i went to the skidmore bluffs with ryan this saturday.  sunny, adam worried about sunscreen and sunburn.  we shed jackets and long-sleeved shirts, envying other friends we found sporting shorts.  i grew warm in the sun and ryan planted a pearl of summer in my consciousness: tacos and margaritas.  so we had lunch at por que no.

everyone seems happier suddenly.  the cashier at new seasons agreed with me yesterday - everyone seems less grumpy, unless they lost sleep over the time change.

day to days

he said, "that's the wrong stroke order."

i said, "no, look: this stroke should align with this stroke."

he said, "they can still line up.  believe me.  i'm pretty good at stroke order."

i texted adam the next day after i had looked up the stroke order for haku.  北. "you were right.  as you always are."

this is one of my favorite games: oh! do you know this one? 東 "hee-gah-shee.  higashi," i say as i draw the character in the air with my finger.  of course adam does.  that one's easy.  he's got this.  and i think sometimes this game becomes exasperating to him, but he still plays along.

zebra said, "wait.  shut the door."

close to two in the morning, zebra had pulled up in front of my building after driving me home from ryan's event at holocene.

"how are things with adam anyway?"

i responded that everything was fine, everything was going well.

he said, "sometimes you listen to everyone else's life, everyone else's problem and become so concerned about them that you don't open up as much as you could about your own life."

i didn't tell zebra this but here's the thing: how should i say that i find myself incredibly happy that adam knows really well the stroke order for writing out chinese characters.  how should i say that over and over i am so happy dating adam.

i know a few characters from studying japanese (half-heartedly) and adam teaches me chinese sometimes (我是美国人。)

i walked down the block from adam's house to buy a bottle of wine.  back through the backdoor into the kitchen, adam had the preparation of dinner in motion.  he blanched brussell sprouts and sliced sausage and heated coconut oil in a sautee pan.  i sliced mushrooms while he heated water for quinoa.  a beautiful meal developed from what adam randomly had in his refrigerator.  and he made it seem easy as if to say, yes, you can do this, too.

finishing our wine, we watched girls together in his bed, at the conclusion of which i fell promptly to sleep, tucked in like a big snoring baby. 

yes, i seem to snore, but adam says it doesn't bother him.

adam and i let ryan take pictures of our butts for his slideshow to be displayed at holocene during the party.  adam stayed home, but while at the event i received a text message from him: "how does my bum look on the projector?"

"every time your ass came up i said proudly, 'that's my guy.  doesn't he look good?'  your butt looked hot over and over."

"ha i know you didn't but it makes me smile to think you did."

section five

the supreme court heard arguments yesterday on a case brought by shelby county, alabama concerning the validity and necessity of continuing section 5 of the voting rights act which requires federal review of changes to voting and registration regulation in nine states and other counties throughout the country.  the county in alabama argues that the law has outlived its usefulness and succeeds only in continuing to shame certain states and counties for past transgressions and tensions with racism.  adam liptak in his coverage of the arguments for the new york times reports that the conservative members fo the court seem to be leaning toward agreement with this argument.  in writing for the majority for a 2009 decision which considered the constitutionality of the 2006 extension of the law, chief justice john roberts wrote, "Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity.  Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare.  And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

i have to question if parity between registration and turnout is really a great measure of inclusiveness and access.  and just because there are more minority politicians than ever before does that actually correspond to true political representation of minority communities.  finally, i have to wonder if perhaps violations of federal decrees are no longer blatant but rather now discrete and systemic.  i posted recently that adam liptak mentioned another recent case in alabama that ruled against changes to voter registration regulations, changes that disenfranchised a significant portion of black voters and seemed to systematically cheat a large black community from accurate representation.

in this article today, charlie savage outlines the difference between section 5 and section 2 of the voting rights act.  should section 5 of the act be struck down by the court, guarantees the entire country freedom from discriminatory voting policy.  however if discrimination the legal burden of proof resides with different sides depending under which section the discrimination is found.  Under section 5, the "jurisdictions, because of their history of discrimination, must prove that any proposed change would not make minority voters worse off... By contrast, under Section Two, the burden of proof is on a plaintiff to demonstrate in court that a change would prevent minorities from having a fair opportunity to elect representatives of their choice."  With section 5, a federal court in Washington, D.C. must determine whether a change in voting law would adversely affect a population that had been discriminated against in the past.  greater liberty with redistricting could be used to effect a greater representation of the populace, but the voices of certain minority voices could be under-represented.  let's be frank, politicians across the nation use gerrymandering to disempower not only blacks but ethnicities across the country; democrats and republicans use redistricting against each other to maintain power.

there may have been a time i would have argued that this provision of the voting rights act seems to unfairly shame a new generation of alabamians, of southerners, of men and women who may not share the same prejudices of their forebears.  however the more stories of fraud and disenfranchisement emerge the more i understand that even as slowly each generation may shed the racism that existed before, the legacy of that ignorance continues to hinder true equality for all communities in this country.

from the price of inequality

joseph stiglitz, winner of a nobel prize for economics, tells us why the sequester is the opposite of what our government should be doing:

"Underlying the myth that austerity will bring confidence is often another myth - the myth that the national government's budget is like a household's budget.  Every household, sooner or later, has to live within its means.  When an economy has high unemployment, the simple rule does not apply to the national budget.  This is because an expansion of spending can actually expand production by creating jobs that will be filled by people who would otherwise be unemployed.  A single household, by spending more than its revenues, cannot change the macroeconomy.  A national government can.  And the increase in GDP can be a multiple of the amount spent by the government."

structural prejudices

it would be wonderful to be able to declare that racial tensions finally see a decline in this country.  but i would be lying if i wrote that.  as a young man having grown up in alabama, with the awful weight of a history of slavery, oppression, and violence, it seems to me that i should at this time, this many decades away from the marches in selma, that i should be able to say at least that things have changes, that things are different, that racism does not exist to the extent that it did.  it has come loudly to my attention recently that this is not true, that not enough has changed.

adam liptak, legal correspondent for the new york times, reported on a provision of the voting rights act that to be considered by the supreme court later this month.  the voting rights act of 1965 requires that the governments of several states obtain permission to change voting law and regulation.  the provision applies to alabama, alaska, arizona, georgia, louisiana, mississippi, south carolina, texas, and virginia and as well as certain other local governments in other states. i have heard the argument for a few years now that this part of the law should be retired, that the nation has moved past requiring such a provision, and that the law discriminates against southern states.

i wish this provision were not necessary or warranted.  liptak reports that in evergreen, alabama jerome gray was inappropriately culled from the distict's voter roll when a clerk reviewed the registry in comparison to utility records.  the federal court in mobile ruled that the city could not use the new registry as it had not been approved according to section 5 of the civil rights act by the department of justice or a federal court in washington, d.c.

liptak writes, "The court in Mobile this month said the case before it, concerning Evergreen, was simple: because the city had not obtained preclearance from federal authorities, it could not revise its voting list using utility records. Nor could it use a municipal redistricting plan enacted by the City Council that had concentrated black voters, who are in the majority, into just two of the five districts, limiting black voting power."

it seems insane that anyone still thinks they can get away with promoting disenfranchisement like this, even in alabama, but honestly it must happen all the time.  even if the motivations of such gerrymandering are political and not overtly racial, we still must conclude that these efforts are racist as someone can believe it is okay to take advantage of a black population for political gain.  and manipulation like this affects not just black communities in america, but communities of various ethnic groups and low income communities as well.

i find it frightening that instances of racism like this could be covered over, that we would never even catch such systemic disenfranchisement.  this change in regulation which would have greatly affected the voice and power of a community could have been accepted if it were not for a provision of the voting rights act, which some argue the south no longer needs.  this sort of political manipulation should not even be possible.

if these large acts of disempowerment exist in american politics, potentially without being noticed by a larger public, then how many small acts of racism get passed over and unacknowledged?  i think i must be guilty for not saying anything, for not doing anything, for not being aware enough.  this must be the first step for me as a caucasian american: awareness.

in another article yesterday from the new york times' series of philosophical articles, adam etinson writes about ethnocentrism.  he argues against thinking of ethnocentric morality as relative.  however, he does believe that in acknowledging the danger of ethnocentrism, in awareness, one can begin to deconstruction the morals we accept as objective in our life and begin to dig for deeper truth.

"[John Stewart] Mill is quick to acknowledge the 'magical influence of custom' on our thought, and the way in which local beliefs and practices inevitably appear to us to be “self-evident and self-justifying,” but he does not see this as a reason to lapse into skepticism. Instead, and quite reasonably, he takes it to be evidence of both our intellectual laziness and our fallibility — the ever-present possibility that our beliefs might be wrong. The fact that our deepest-held beliefs would be different had we been born elsewhere on the planet (or even, sometimes, to different parents farther down the street), should disconcert us, make us more open to the likelihood of our own error, and spur us to rigorously evaluate our beliefs and practices against alternatives, but it need not disillusion."