Humanize the Earth!

Show of hands. How many people know what the title of this post refers to?

Yes, bikes do move when you pedal them, or carry them around over your shoulder, but what it actually refers to is the phenomenon of moving from one apartment to another and inviting your friends with bikes trailers to come share in the fun.

Until the past year, I was familiar with the concept of renting a truck and inviting friends over for donuts and coffee in the morning and then pizza when it was all done, but I’d never participated in a truckless-move, or in one done substantially by bike. Today was my 3rd (the middle one did also utilize a pickup truck, but the first one and the one today were done entirely by bike, including couches, dressers, queen-size beds and all).

I think we used a total of 6 or 7 different trailers today, of different shapes, sizes and designs. The one I pulled for several trips was a fresh air trailer. Very cool 8 feet long and 18 inches wide and very sturdy. I’ll post pictures when I get them from the participants.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take any longer than a truck move, and might even be faster due to the multitasking that can occur. The first trailer can leave as soon as it’s packed as long as one or two people ride along on their own bikes to help with traffic control. Since there are so many vehicles involved, bottlenecks are nearly non-existant in the process so it’s very efficient. Riding a bike pulling a trailer isn’t much more strenuous than riding a bike without a trailer so I’m probably not any more tired than I would’ve been after a truck move, but I am very, very tired due to my friends having an exceedingly large amount of stuff that had to come down from the 2nd and 3rd floors and go back up to the 2nd floor.

I’m going to sleep well tonight!

Since my last update, we’ve jumped up to $225 of the $250 goal! While the drop cash site is showing $140 today (56%), that doesn’t count the $85 I’ve received in person or in pledges, so the actual total is 90%!

At the end of November, I’m traveling to the Liberian refugee camp in Ghana and will bring back current photos and progress from the Campaign for Non-violence and Fight Against Malaria that members of the Humanist Movement are working on there.

Thanks to everyone who’s contributed so far: Erin, Lars, Julie, Sue, Pam, Nicholas, Anonymous, John, John, Anonymous and Terry

Wouldn’t you like to be among them to help us finish off this goal? No amount is too small! :-)

There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t…

Debbie, John and I looked at The Principle of Denying Opposites tonight:

“It does not matter in which faction events have placed you. What matters is for you to comprehend that you have not chosen any faction.”

We touched briefly on the anger that some people that choose to support John Kerry level on those that choose not to vote (like me, for example). We then moved on to more interesting experiences.

My uncle told me in an email at one point that my humanist work goes against god because I’m not doing it in the name of the lord. I related that story this week and got a very interesting response.

I believe that faiths have a lot more good points than bad, there is good to be found in most things if you look hard enough for example I think that uncle could even be right. “anything not done in the name of the lord” is open to interpretation, some of the great travesties of history have been done “in the name of the lord” so I am sure your uncle would agree that interpretation is required. He would insist, quite rightly that the interpretation should be made by someone of his own faith. I agree someone of your own faith should always interpret, and you are probably the only person of your faith and therefore the perfect person for the job.

First of all what he calls the Lord is what I call the SB and you call IT. I think that to interpret the Lord as “IT” considering your belief would be a fair thing for you to do.

“done in the name of” well, perhaps this just means “done in a way that is in keeping with the beliefs of”.

So if “what you do in the world is in keeping with your belief” then that fits with his rule in your belief, so now he is right in your view. Of course, you are still wrong in his view, he has not moved, but you you have moved and are, theologically, a little closer to him.

I’m really grateful for this re-framing in such a way as to release me from the grips of the faction I’d felt myself in.

Debbie shared some experiences about being labeled a “bad mother.” John feels he does a pretty good job staying calm and not seeing car drivers as the enemy when on his bike. Debbie also talked about how factions could sometimes be totally internal. She doesn’t know yet if Gerry’s going to get the job in California or perhaps one in Texas so has an internal struggle about getting emotionally ready to leave vs. continuing to do the advocacy work necessary for her daughter’s education.

Good stuff, all.

Just mentioned the co-op in a post about selling my condo and realize I haven’t given an update in quite some time. The deal is this: We have a contract on 2356 S. Marshall Blvd (notice how there’s no street in front of the building – all that greenspace is the boulevard itself, maintained by the city, sort of it’s own little park) and the inspection contingency period ends tomorrow. After that the lawyers may have some more back and forth, but we need to put all resources into getting a mortgage. The building currently is a 7- unit rental property, but we plan to convert it to 5 co-op units, two 3 bd rms, one 2 bdrm, one 4 bdrm duplex and one 3 bdrm duplex. Plan is to close in December and move in sometime in the spring.

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Selling my condo to move into the new co-op – here’s a photo of the outside of the building

• $200,000
• 2bd,2ba 1st floor
• in-unit washer/dryer and central air
• ~800 sq ft
• back deck
• 2003 taxes $1870.14
• assessments $137.50/mo -
• for sale by owner

Lots of time on the airplane to and from Zambia and lots of time in the evenings while over there as well. South African Airways has a new movies on demand system which allows each passenger to choose their movies and start, stop and pause them at will. Pretty cool. As a result, I didn’t read nearly as much as I expected, but saw lots more movies. I’ll be writing more about the trip itself and about some of these selections, but thought I’d just give a list for now.

Sula by Toni Morrison
Will the Circle Be Unbroken by Studs Terkel
Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas K Ghandi
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde (just started this one on the plane coming home and was so struck by it and I couldn’t go on – somehow felt I needed to read it really slowly so as not to miss anything)

I’m a very un-critical movie watcher. They entertain and distract me and that’s that. The only one to really comment on is Before Sunset which I loved. That’ll be for another post.

• Bobby Jones
• The Stepford Wives
• Around the World in 80 Days (Jackie Chan)
• Before Sunset
• Cronicles of Riddick
• The Clearing
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban
• Raising Helen
• Van Helsing

Still in Zambia but thought I’d say hello and share an anecdote.

After my arrival on Monday afternoon I spent Tuesday morning trying to help my friends here get internet access for their small humanist office. Apparently they had set up some sort of DSL or something that didn’t need a phone line last spring but then lost it due to non-payment. When Regula was here in September she paid a company called Microlink for 2 months of night-time only dial-up but they neglected to tell her that they needed a phone line and she didn’t think to ask. James was convinced that Microlink could get the phone line set up faster than if it were to be used for voice and that there would be no monthly or per-minute or per-call charges because of the connection with Microlink. That didn’t sound right to me, but we decided to check it out.

First stop: Microlink. When we asked how long to set up a phone line, they of course said they have nothing to do with Zamtel. When we asked about monthly charges, they assured us that all internet usage is included and there will be no addtional charges (no mention of phone charges).

We then went to Zamtel to ask about monthly and usage charges and made the mistake of mentioned that this line would be used for internet. At that point they refused all further questions and referred us to another Zamtel office that handles internet service.

After a 20 minute walk or so, we found ourselves at ZamtelOnline, an internet service provider owned by Zamtel. They, of course, told us they have nothing to do with the phone charges, but they would be happy to help us with a dial-up service (phone line not included).

Twenty minutes to walk back and then we spoke with our new friend at Zamtel (the same woman that refused to answer questions above). We told her we had our internet situation all straightened out now and needed to know about monthly and usage charges for telephone-only. I was a bit surprised that this was not a standard question but after she consulted with somone in the back room, we eventully got our answers. K20,000/month and K100/minute (~K4800/US$1).

Since the standard internet cafe charges between K100 and K150 per minute, it clearly doesn’t make sense to have dial-up service here. Oh well, Africa!

I’m off to Zambia. See ya’ll in 10 days or so.