Red Cedar

does it even matter?

Posted on November 3, 2004 by Megan

although i honestly believe that it makes no difference whether bush or kerry run amerikkka (and thus the world), the announcement this morning that kerry has conceded and bush has another four years is actually making me ill.

uncivil

Posted on November 2, 2004 by Megan

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i think the only good outcome of today’s election would be civil war. 😈

the prelinger archive

Posted on October 30, 2004 by Megan

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okay – i admit it – even though i am supposed to be working on a paper for one of my classes, i spent a great deal of time today perusing the prelinger collection at archive.org. this collection, i’m sure, is what the internet was made for and i’m very happy to have discovered it.

if you are my age, you likely remember being corralled into the gym in grade school and made to watch reel-to-reel films narrated by jiminey cricket about personal hygiene and being nice to others. it was a special treat to get to watch films instead of being in class, no matter how horrid they really were. one in particular about vandalism has stuck with me all my life – the main message being how cruel it is to ruin other people’s personal possessions for no reason. i have a vivid memory of the contents of that movie over and above anything else i ever learned between grades one and five (it really bothered me at the time).

anyhow – these types of “moral lesson” films and cartoons have a long history, as do those promoting corporations and industry – and lucky for us, the prelinger collection not only brings thousands of them into once place, but close to 1500 of them are now archived on the internet under dozens of subjects. from the 30s until the 70s, many companies specialized in moralistic and instructional tales like “gossip“, “more dangerous than dynamite” (without which i would have never known that women used gasoline to dry-clean clothes in the thirties) and “are you popular?“.

lessons from water

Posted on October 28, 2004 by Megan

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revelation on the morning bus ride: rather than feeling as though i’m *in* water – i need to *be* water

drowning, submerged, in over my head – this is how i often feel as a union steward listening to the stories of aggrieved members. i am awash in their frustration, deluged by their heartbreak, carrying their load as if walking from a well with pails full. so much imagery of water as oppressor, as sorrow in the form of tears, as overwhelming in the injustice people face.

since i have returned to work, i have taken on two new stewarding cases – one which i have a great personal interest in (the other more procedural). after a meeting with the individual involved in the case i have the personal interest in, i found myself enveloped in a sadness i could not shake for the rest of the day – so diffiicult is it for me to accept that anyone should de demeaned or harassed in the working environment. this empathetic ability is simultaneously a strength and a limitation in my advocacy work – a strength because i am genuine with each person i represent and they feel listened to by me, but a limitation because i find it difficult to make a boundary between their emotions and mine – a river that runs from them into me, undammed.