Really Rough Route/Itinerary!

Five days to go (not counting today)!  Needless to say, things have been heating up in Tuyen-Joel-and-Ruth-go-on-a-massive-adventure-ville, as Ruth joins us in Cleveland, we secure the remaining necessary gear, and generally bid farewell to our settled, responsible lives.  And also, yall (come to our going away party Wednesday the 24th at 8:00pm at 2225 West 11th Street!)

Many people have asked me when we are going to be in various parts of the country along our route.  An excellent question!  The short answer is that it’s hard to say.  We are pretty intentionally taking two months to do what could otherwise take us a month and a half to do in order that we may occasionally meander, gamboll, detour, make mistakes, overstay our welcomes, and gaze in awe at the majesty of our great country for long moments at a time.  So while we’ve got a rough idea of where we’ll be and when, I don’t want to make this thing sound set in stone.  Beyond just trying to take our time and take in the scenery, there’s also the fact that so far, most of this sucker has been planned with the invaluable support of google maps.  But as we get closer to our various benchmarks and discover sweet trails or better ways of getting places, things will probably shift a bit.

All that being said, here is a rough outline that should give at least a sense of when we’ll be where and for how long (below!):

Shameless Appeal for Assistance

17 days yall.  Daaaamn.

This trip has already benefited from the monumental support, encouragement, inspiration and generosity of friends and family in a number of ways.  Emelio and Alex’s journey last year was a big part of what inspired me to take this on.  Traveling to Indianapolis with Lilah helped me realize I needed to do this in the South (yeah, I know Indianapolis isn’t the South- but it’s South-esque [A scene- Woman at the convenience store counter: "you know that's a colored newspaper you're buying, right?"  Me: "Uh... what?  I mean, I'm cool with it, I read all kinds of news."  Woman at the convenience store counter: suspicious gaze following me out the door- true. story.]) Ruthie’s joining on is what helped me stay committed over the last year to doing it.  Krissie turned me on to the AMAZING deal on Craigslist that landed me my beautiful bike, with Alex and Renato (of Joy Machines Bike Shop on West 25th Street, open 11am-9pm M-F, 10am-9pm on Saturday, and 12pm-6pm on Sunday or something like that, with great service and gentlemanly mugs if I do say so myself) giving me advice and guidance that gave me the confidence to feel competent enough to make the purchase, and with Janina road-tripping with me out to ERIE, PA to get the bike-that-requires-a-name (no, Emelio and Krissie, I’m naming it neither ‘Joel’ nor ‘Krissie’.  Rump Ranger is definitely still in the running though).  Matt lent me his tent.  My mom and dad don’t think I’m a crazy idiot (and have supported the trip through ample Christmas and Birthday presents besides) and actually support what I’m doing.  And of course, as I’ll get into moreso in my next blog post, we’ll be crashing on the couch of many a friend across America.  More below the flip, with pics, solicitations for bike trip gear and jokes!

38 Days

Oh, hey!

Many apologies for having dropped the ball on updates for the last five months or so.  Part of it was just being really freaking busy with my job, this side project I’ve been working on in my spare time, this other side project that was kinda a big deal there for a sec, and this pretty amazing group of people I’ve had the privilege of hanging out with and learning from.  Also recently, having some really groovy times with fellow Midwest movement friends, old and dearly missed Obie friends, my nearest and dearest housemates and their incredibly rambunctious extended families, my own somewhat smaller but no less wonderful immediate family, my oldest of New York friends, and some new Cleveland acquaintances to boot.  It’s been a good month.

But another part of it was being, well, overwhelmed.  Not just in terms of being super busy on a personal level, but in terms of incorporating the absolutely bonkers array of things that seem to be changing at the speed of light.  It was only five months ago that I was freaking out about Egypt.  Since then we’ve had the fall of freaking Mubarak, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Malaysia, South Sudan, Japan, Joplin, News Corp-Gate, the death of Bin Laden, the release of Google+, Powershift 2011, deficit lunacy.  And the Indians were doing pretty damn good.  To those inclined to pay attention to the news (something of a key premise of this blog), it’s been kinda dizzying.

Amidst all that, my perspective and approach to citizenship and community membership (which has always, and probably will always be the focus of this blog) has been quietly changing in ways subtle, obvious, unprecedented, grounded, deep, significant, insignificant, revelatory, pedestrian, measured and radical.  It’s both profoundly shaped how I see my role as a social agent, and how I see a better way to live on a day-to-day basis (which is again, a big theme here).  It’s been a really fun process (though it would have been difficult to put into words and succinct blog-posts as it’s been going on for the last few months), and I may try to get into it at least a little before bike trip- as those shifts have given me a much clearer vision for the project I intend to be working on in Cleveland over the next five to ten years.  But if not, no biggie, I’ll be returning to it when I’m back and have begun my process of working on my project in earnest.

Move Something (Anything!)

“This ain’t the time or place for you to prove somethin’, cut the star-gazin’ yo move somethin’”

One of the great, and terrible things about this moment is that because everything and their mother is under attack (geddit?), there are about a million things, wherever you are, that you can get involved with to participate in the great upsurge that is going on.  I hope that the movement that is being stirred by the fight for Wisconsin public employees’ rights to workplace democracy also embraces and supports the numerous other resistance movements that were initiated by attacks against both their funding streams and very integrities in the rush to fiscal ‘austerity’.  That’s certainly the indication I get from Van Jones, but let’s hope there’s some follow-through.

I say this because we have seen, over the last couple of years, no shortage of assaults on not just isolated organizations, communities, and individuals, but assaults on our sources of power, mobilization, and movement capacity, what Chris Bowers calls the ‘Progressive Feedback Loops‘; assaults that have left our ability to respond to further assaults weaker than before.  The destruction of ACORN, the witch hunts against Van Jones and Shirley Sherrod, and all the attempts to degrade and undermine Obama and progressivism in general, was not just about taking out random institutions.  It was about knocking the wind out of progressive organizers, it was about demobilizing and taking out the engines and fuel supplies of the movement that is so much more than Barack Obama.  And so far we have not seen the rush that we see now to support, on a national level, those key communities that are under attack, all at once.  We are all in this together, and they’re attacking us all for the same reason- to diminish our ability to fight back.  Let’s remember that going forward, and know we can’t afford to lose a single piece of progressive infrastructure.  With that being said, here are just a small slice of the struggles that are going on, and a small sample of the ways to get involved:

“The Movement for ‘Hope and Change’ has a Rare, Second Chance… All Who Love This Country Need to Do Everything Possible to Spread the ‘Spirit of Madison’ to All 50 States”

If they can, we can

Weeks ago, I wondered if the spirit that had transported Egypt would catch on in America, where, for many reasons, it is equally urgently needed.  And we are so blessed that that looks to be happening.  I’ll admit that earlier, at the time, I would have thought that given the crisis our country’s youth faces (from unemployment, climate change, health insecurity, deportation, incarceration, debt), and the energy with which we delivered Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008, the spark would be lit by my generation again.  But if the fire that’s spreading across the world has any single lesson it’s that you won’t be able to guess where it catches on next.  So thank God for Wisconsin, for Madison, for Egyptian pizza-benefactors, and for the public employees unions out there.  You find yourselves in excellent company.

“The New Weapon Of Choice Is The Broom”: “Yesterday, I Was A Demonstrator. Today, I Build Egypt”

Cleaning up Tahrir Square, the day after Mubarak steps down

Jubilation in Tahrir at Mubarak's resignation

Supporters that, I'm going to hazard a guess, are not in Egypt

"Mini-state of the people's revolution"

Honoring the dead

I could go on and on about this (and already have, to my poor friends here in Cleveland), and I swear I’ll get back to stuff closer to home soon, but wanted at least something about the awesomeness we were lucky enough to bear witness to on Friday:

More From Sharif Abdel Kouddous

I can’t get enough, more out of Democracy Now!:

Cairo, Egypt—In the second day of defiance of a military curfew, more than 150,000 protesters packed into Tahrir Square Sunday to call on President Hosni Mubarak to step down. The mood was celebratory and victorious. For most, it was not a question of if, but when, Mubarak would leave.

Military tanks have been stationed at entrance points around the square with soldiers forming barricades across streets and alleyways. In another departure from ordinary Cairo life, people quickly formed orderly queues to get through the army checkpoints. Soldiers frisked people and checked their identification cards. One soldier said they were making sure no one with police or state security credentials could enter. [More below the flip:]

Dude, Check Out Egypt!

I really ought to be working right now, but seriously, you need to check out what’s going on.  I say this because I’ve had conversations over the last week with young folks who haven’t been following it, and it is a big f@#!ing deal.  Democracy Now! has a lot of good coverage of the on-the-ground conditions, which for the moment interests me vastly more than the fact that a lot of others have been covering, that the US’ role in this in the immediate term ranges from regressive to irrelevant.

Below the flip are the highlights of my understanding of how this is going, and what’s important, but you should really do yourself the service of watching the videos, checking the photos, and reading the accounts- they are compelling and deeply inspiring:

Ohio’s Callin; It Wants It’s Rail Funds Back!

Cross-posted from the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition (OSEC) Blog, by Janina Klimas

Ohio students have wasted no time in registering their disenchantment and disapproval of our recently-inaugurated Governor, matching the speed with which John Kasich began  undermining Ohio’s recovery, environmental progress and industrial sector-development with a slew of austerity measures,  anti-environmental policies, and conservative attacks on public services, upper education,  and organized labor. Even before being formally inaugurated as one of the least popular starting governors in our state’s history, Gov. Kasich was overseeing the wreckage of our infrastructural aspirations through the unabashedly-nonsensical and lopsidedly-partisan initiative to kill the ’3C rail corridor;’ a project designed to not only provide alternative transit to one of the most densely traveled corridors in the U.S. currently  not served by high-speed rail, but also to provide jobs for Ohio’s families and beleaguered construction sector, and mobility and access both to Ohio’s young talent and elder residents.

The wash out from his success in killing 3C before even taking office? 16,000 jobs lost, $400 million federal stimulus dollars shipped to other states, and Ohio students joining the rest of the state in their lack of interest in any kind of honeymoon.

Thus, Ohioans sent a bold message on inauguration day; they’re not only mobilizing to hold Kasich accountable from day one, but they’re also building coalitions with labor, education, public services, industrial manufacturing and progressive organizations intent on ‘Defending Ohio’ from Kasich’s backwards policies.  These coalitions represent the true breadth of Ohio’s diverse and vibrant society; families and steelworkers and folks who love their green spaces and lakes and rivers, rather than asphalt industry lobbyists and silicon valley venture capital managers (notable additions to Kasich’s administration).  They represent the true strength of Ohio’s citizens in times like these, and amount to a movement not only for Ohio’s future in socio-political realms, but also for the green economy we know our state deserves and is capable of building.  A green economy our mothers and fathers would recognize, and our kids can be proud of.

Thus, Ohio students amplified their power not only in numbers at Saturdays rally, but also in their ardent potential as Ohio’s future; as intellectual capital in a state battling brain-drain, as an organized and cohesive force to be reckoned with, as social actors who embrace the wholeness and richness of Ohio, and as a movement being DRIVEN crazy by lack of effective public transit, students are showing the leadership and vision they deserve to see matched by our incoming administration.  So far, we’ve found it lacking.  After an outstanding student-caucus following the rally, we’re all excited to keep working together for the Ohio we want; one with it’s rail funds staying in the state, and it’s vibrant public sectors intact. Stay tuned for more student-led actions as Kasich settles into his new office; we’ll be making sure he doesn’t get too comfortable.

The Ohio Student Environmental Coalition is a statewide network of student groups working for a clean, safe, and just future for all, guided by a Steering Committee comprised of student representatives, alumni, and staff supporters.

Call for Kelley, Call for Justice

“you always was committed, a poor, single mother on welfare, tell me how you did it.  There’s no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you that I understand, you are appreciated.”

I’ve posted for a couple days on Facebook about the Williams-Bolar case, occurring right here in my own Northeast Ohio, but I wanted to dig a little deeper, and encourage everyone reading this to both sign the Change.org petition to Governor Kasich and call both his office and also that of your State Senator and Representative.

For some background, Kelley Williams-Bolar was accused of falsifying records to obtain school services for her children in the Copley-Fairlawn school system, in the suburbs of Akron.  A senior at the University of Akron, where she was a few credits away from a teaching degree, Ms. Williams-Bolar will now be unable to give back to society (more than she already has) as a teacher, because of the felony charge.  She also, incidentally, has been totally antagonized in her quest to improve her ability to provide for her two young daughters.  Her daughters are presumably at least a part of why she wanted to improve her employment prospects in the first place, to say nothing of trying to do what white families have been doing for decades- sending their children to the good schools in the suburbs, where they can have a shot at avoiding grinding poverty (and too often, black people), or at the very least growing up in a safe and healthy environment.  More below the flip,