The Little Planet Daily

It was very cold and windy by the Columbia this morning, with flecks of snow. The bird cannons at the airport were booming the whole time, as large flocks gathered in the grass near the runways, seeking heat from the passing jet engines.

Look at all the beauty that is still around you and be happy.

–Anne Frank

4000 Native Americans gathered last night at the convention center in Portland for a traditional powwow celebration. The theme for the event was “party as if it were 1491.”

The rain blows sideways and the ocean tumbles in long rills of white and grey, diffusing into the sand and barely holding its own against the sky. A seagull patrols outside our window, constantly turning his head from side to side, watching our movements for a gesture that might suggest a meal. Swaying curtains of rain are drawn over the tide pools that burst with life in the summertime. Flower beds surrounding the hotel are buried in water, forming tiny moats. Life at the beach in winter is about the next friendly conversation, the next cup of coffee and changing out of wet socks.

If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?

—Stephen King

From the morning’s inbox:

On Tuesday Dec 20th, Lucas Fielder – PBX operator at the Vancouver Hilton – stood up and spoke for better wages for himself and his coworkers at his Union’s Candlelight Vigil. He was fired the next day.

UNITE HERE quickly organized an emergency delegation to demand justice for Luke. Yesterday, Thur Dec 22nd, over 35 people gathered at the hotel, only hours after Luke was fired. They stormed into the lobby of the hotel and met with the General Manager. They then marched over to City Hall and delegated the city manager, Eric Holmes, letting him know the injustices at his "city owned" hotel.

At this point, Luke has not been reinstated to his job. There will be future actions and I will keep Vancouver4Peace updated, as you have all been an incredible support for the Vancouver Hilton workers!

“The only way down from the gallows is to swing.”
– Tom Waits

In the houses of new England, where the steep and narrow staircases turned at the landing, they often built niches into the walls so coffins being carried down the stairs could easily make the turn. Death at home, in bed, was a fact of life no less than cooking in kettles hung over a kitchen fire and sleeping in unheated rooms. Passing a coffin corner on your way downstairs to breakfast every morning would have been an unremarkable reminder of what daily life told you in myriad ways, that life is brief and death is inseparable from the day to day experience of life. Mexico’s day of the dead makes the same point with a twist of mordant humor thrown in. In the USA of the 21st century we fear death partly because we have lost our friendship with it.

In the curb in front of my house there are rusted iron rings that were used to tie horses, back when horse drawn wagons delivered milk and eggs and canned salmon in my neighborhood. The rings tend to crack the concrete over time. Last night someone pulled a hunk of the cracked concrete out of the curb and threw it through the window of our car, looking for anything valuable. The guy at the repair shop says this is happening all over now and that car prowlers are getting bolder. People are even leaving their cars unlocked to avoid the broken windows.