Radical Craftivism

It was Sunday morning at 7:00 am about a week before my freshman year of high school. My dad and I were standing in line at the checkout in Walmart. Glancing at the cart, I made some observations (my OCD came in handy for the numbers). School supplies for my sister and me: 10 notebooks, 2 boxes with 24 pens each, three fresh binders, a package of erasers, two assignment books, and two reams of paper (not recycled). Moving on to the groceries, every bit of produce had its own plastic wrapping. Eggs and meat were in styrofoam covered with saran wrap. A Costco- sized package of paper towels crowded the 32-pack of water bottles, and have you ever looked at the ingredients on toilet cleaner? Every item in the entire cart was wasteful and unnatural. This was my epiphany; I had to learn to take care of myself in a world that honors the artificial.

I started with simple things. I planted a vegetable garden and committed myself to wearing my clothes until they were nothing but loosely woven threads. This way I could avoid paying companies to use unhealthy means of growing food and wrap their veggies in non-renewable resources. There was nothing that could be done about the clothes I already owned, but I could put an end to needless purchases. I stopped eating meat to become a direct consumer. My transition into becoming self-sufficient was at first almost entirely motivated by becoming more eco-friendly.

Eventually, though, my clothes wore out. My shoes smelled so bad that I was required to leave them on the porch. My mother insisted that I needed new jewelry. Everything was centered on the idea of making purchases at large corporations, who had bought the product from someone who had paid small Somalian children a dollar per week to make the product. Consumerism disgusted me. Self-sufficiency became more than being environmentally responsible. It was the only ethical choice for me.

I didn't feel the needle pierce my thumb when I sewed my first pillow. It wasn't until I finished that I noticed my hand was stuck to my project and bleeding on the white fabric. Fixing that was endlessly frustrating, and believe me, it was followed my some pretty disastrous projects. However, I began to cultivate my skills. I made my own clothes, pillow cases, little stuffed things for gifts, ext. For everything I made, I got the fabric from shirts that were just going to be thrown away. I stitched patterns and made jewelry that reflected my own identity, creating truly unique things without giving a cent to corporate America.

I believe in absolute independence. I wouldn't say I'm ready to march of into the world wagging a middle finger at society yet, but I think that there are too many people in the world who talk about self-sufficiency without ever achieving it. You have to be able to make a choice without having to compromise your own set of ethics. That's why I make things; I know where every resource involved came from and that no one was hurt so that I could have it. Plus, it's economically and environmentally sound.

Envelopes

I'm doing a project as a fundraiser for Life Impact International right now. Life Impact is a Christian organization that is working on humanitarian relief in Pakistan, Burma, and the Thailand/Burma border. Their primary goals there are to establish orphanages and children's homes/hostels, feeding programs for the poor, development works, and aid to refugees and oppressed women. This is done through the context of spreading Christ's love, but that is secondary to helping the people in need.

My project is selling homemade, completely recycled goods with all proceeds going toward Life International. I've made really beautiful envelopes out of magazine pages that not only look really nice, but also are 100% zero-impact on the environment. I'm going to be selling these for 25 cents each, $1 for five. It sounds expensive for envelopes, but they really are pretty, and the money goes to a good cause. I hope to expand to clothing that I make out of t-shirts that would have just been thrown away, cross-stitched art work, handmade journals with paper I make in my sink out of old newspaper, and possibly other stuff. With one person, it takes a long time to manage these things.

I am also collecting school supplies, gently used clothing, and gently used toys. A current project is supporting and improving a school in Thailand, Burma, and Indonesia. Monetary gifts are also always welcome. Thanks for support!

AP US Test

So it's 5th period, and I just finished my AP US test. I'm reasonably certain that I did really well, but sitting for 4 hours filling in bubbles and writing essays makes my brain feel like a poptart left on the blacktop on a 102 degree day. It wasn't even that hard; I just hate long tests.

Tonight my sister is playing her guitar and singing in front of all the parents in a talent-show-type thing. She's really good and I'm excited to see her play since she's probably the best act, but I'm not really looking forward to watching a ton of 8th graders I don't know do a talent show. Those things sort of lose their appeal when you're not connect with the contestants.

I'm on a loaner right now, and every time I nudge the mouse-thing my text starts typing somewhere else. This is probably the shortest blog I've ever done, and I've been working on it for 20 minutes because I have to make corrections.

Joe's Desires

Joe pretty much just rambles out a chain of desires. Now that he is finally able to talk, he can't stop. Not all of his requests are things that he truly wants, but all he can do is spew words. The words come out of anger, out of desperation. What he really wants is to have his body back. He has been driven insane by his condition.

I would certainly want my body back if I were in his state. I would want to talk with universities, with anyone who would listen, about why I ended up how I did. Or at least, that's what my ideal self would want.

If I really truly were in Joe's condition, my only request would be to die, if I were even in a mental state secure enough to communicate that wish. After years of being legless, armless, faceless, and with no senses other than touch, I don't know that I even could tap. But if I could, I would beg and plead for death.

Garden!

Mother's Day is coming up, which means my dad and I can start working our garden. This year we plan on growing cucumbers, radishes, carrots, green beans, snap-peas, broccoli, corn, tomatoes, and a bunch of herbs. I love planting and tending to the garden. Plus, the vegetables couldn't possibly get any fresher considering you can eat them within minutes of harvesting them. More freshness=more nutrients and better taste. For fertilizer, we're going to steal some of my grandpa's horses' droppings. Fertilizing naturally is important because chemicals are good neither to digest nor to allow to seep into the earth and buried water. However, you need the manure to nitrogenize the ground and give something for the nitrogen-fixing bacteria (which live in the nodules of some plants, esp soybeans) to work with.

Right now I'm growing organic basil in my window sill, and I started a tree. It's only about 4 inches tall now, but it's supposed to grow very tall. I can't even transplant it to the outdoors for two more years.

Imperialism

What is it with mankind's need to conquest? Why does everything have to be about exploiting something to drain it of everything it has?

Anyway...

This is written as a rallying call, not a well-reasoned argument. That tells me that he's targeting the little guys-the Joes-to get them behind his cause. It sounds similar to what Joe was told when he was getting signed up for war. We're absolutely in the right! It's for the greater good! We're spreading democracy! Beveridge speaks only in grandiose terms. Basically, he's trying to get people to sacrifice their lives for the sake of words. Land. Resources. Why do they matter to one person living happily in the Midwest with a home and family enough to make him want to lay down his life for them? Democracy is an interesting word. The Indians are living happily under our government w/o their consent, so why shouldn't the Philippines? He just has a blatant disregard for the cannon-fodder folk he's getting to fight for him or the people already living in the land he's trying to take over. Just like Joe's war-the squishing of the expendable is a necessary evil.

American the Beautiful

D'Souza would say that making a few sacrifices on the way to spreading American values is without a shadow of a doubt worth it. However, he says that the reason they lost in Vietnam was because Americans as whole did not see a reason to fight. I think it's interesting how he fails to acknowledge this fact in regards to the war in Iraq. A majority of people are not in favor of the war right now. Also, he talks about how Islamic fundamentalist nations are so behind in technology. Well, the excuse for going over seas was a supposed threat of nuclear weapons, and their "inferior" fighting force has been holding Americans off for years. I have a lot of problems with this guy.

Anyway, not relevant to the blog topic.

D'Souza speaks only in terms of the masses, while Johnny Got His Gun is the story of a single individual. One of my issues with him is the fact that he seems to believe in the logic of the Spanish Inquisition, which is also what the Islamic fundamentalists think. It's worth the fate of the world to sacrifice a few individuals. He believes in what he hates. Johnny Got His Gun is anti-war by talking about how war destroyed a person for the sake of something he barely knew about and certainly didn't understand. The book has a view that war is bad because it damages the lives of innocent boys. D'Souza thinks that war is good because even if a few guys get crushed, it's for the greater good, and they should be proud to have made the sacrifice. I think that if it were he who woke up an armless, legless, faceless torso his opinion would change.