Archive Fever: Writing and thinking with oceans, memory, and attention.

I love the holidays. Yesterday I saw three different people cut off an elderly woman three different times for three different parking spots AND at least two of the perpetrators saw the others ace this woman. The older woman was waiting for a parking spot at a local shopping area in Carrboro, NC. I actually said something to the last person who snaked her and the response (she was a college-age female) was that she was "here" before the woman was. Of course, there was a parking/security guard watching all of this; he intimated to me that his role was to make sure cars did not get broken in to, not to regulate traffic. Now for context, this is a very small lot (maybe 60 spaces) in a small "progressive" town next to Chapel Hill. The stores there are anchored by a local co-op (i.e., Weaver Street ), an outdoor shop, and a fusion restaurant that's owned by the co-op's president. I could go on and on about these places and what irks me about them, but I wo...

I start with a simple question: What sort of consciousness does it take to change the world? Yes, we need a changed world, now. But, too, what sort of consciousness has it taken at various times throughout time and space? And, how might we map such paradigmatic shifts in thought onto current times? One could even posit that, with 2012 mere days away (and 12/21/12 about a year away), this is an extremely apropos time for such meditations and (conscious) actions. For me, it's this critical preoccupation with the environment and the ruin we are currently inflicting upon it. But, too, one can't simply say I want to stop environmental and ecological violence but neglect other atrocities (that are most always inextricably linked to our assault on the natural world and non-human others). It's a matter of social justice, if you will, where one cannot choose to dismantle certain forms of oppression (e.g., racism) while letting other forms of oppression slide (e.g., sexism)....