My Review of “Global Industrial Complex” Published

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The new issue of the Green Theory and Praxis Journal, a project of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, is now available online here; it includes my piece, “Unpacking the Dominant Paradigm: A Review of Global Industrial Complex“, on pages 53-55.

Here is a short excerpt from my essay; this portion addresses the chapter “Agricultural Industrial Complex” by Vandana Shiva, an Indian physicist and activist for sustainability, small farmers, and food justice:

“[Shiva] demonstrates unequivocally how industrial agriculture is completely fallacious and unsustainable; it eviscerates the soil and water and environment as a whole (accounting for 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of this caused specifically by animal-based agriculture); it jeopardizes and even kills the small farmer—200,000 farmers in India alone have committed suicide in the last decade as a direct result of corporate practices, especially those of the loathsome Monsanto and its dangerous GMOs; and industrial agriculture produces food that is far less nutritious than more sustainable and traditional methods. Indeed, it is the very “technologies and economic systems that are offered as solutions to hunger that are actually creating hunger” [emphasis added] (172). She also indirectly demonstrates how the catastrophic effects of overpopulation—namely, mass hunger, as 33 countries at the end of 2008 were experiencing moderate to severe food crises—predicted by Thomas Malthus in the early 1800s and reaffirmed by Paul Ehrlich in the late 1960s are now unquestionably a reality.”

Please check out the issue and support this grassroots academic and activist project!

Celebrating the ‘Real’ MLK!

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Happy MLK Day!–possibly the ONLY legit national holiday in this racist (see e.g. prisons) burgeoning police state called Amerikka.

The government and media have completely whitewashed (no pun intended) King and his beliefs; but please, NEVER FORGET that Martin was actually a radical anti-war socialist, and the FBI knew his life was in danger, and they did NOTHING to protect him (in part because he was speaking out more and more against the Vietnam War, and criticizing the vast economic disparity in the country). One of the few pacifists I truly, genuinely, wholly respect and love.

“Martin Luther King Jr. was not just the safe-for-all-political-stripes civil-rights activist he is often portrayed as today. He was never just the “I Have a Dream” speech. He was an antiwar, anti-materialist activist whose views on American power would shock many of the same politicians who now scramble to sing his praises.” [emphasis added]

The above is from a great article called, “The Forgotten, Radical Martin Luther King, Jr.“, published today in the National Journal.

And finally, every year I celebrate his memory in my own way, which is to think and talk about everything he stood for–not just the simplified, toned-down mainstream versions–and do so while listening to U2’s phenomenal (and phenomenally gorgeous) 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire, which features not one but TWO songs about MLK. Here’s the first, Pride (In the Name of Love):

And here’s the FULL album if you want to join me this evening in my yearly tradition =)

From the song MLK:

“Sleep
Sleep tonight
And may your dreams
Be realized.”

May they, indeed.

–Love and Liberation–

Jan

Dream-Sequence Excerpt from my Prison Memoir

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This dream sequence occurs after I’ve been in prison for about 9 months, from my memoir-in-progress, REBEL HELL: DOIN’ TIME FOR BARELY A CRIME.

I’m back home in California, the only place I ever belong to live. No—not back home—I never left in the first place! The whole incarceration-thing was just a terrible, and terribly vivid, dream. A nightmare that went on for an absurd length of time. But now it’s over. I’ve told Rebecca about it, and now the three of us—Rebecca, Rikki, and I—are running along a path through the towering old-growth redwoods of Humboldt County. We’re laughing at the idea that I’d ever go to prison. And yet there’s immense relief there in the laughter—relief that I’m not in prison, that it was just a terrible nightmare. Rikki’s running around joyously. Being Forest-Rikki, as we say. She’s bolting in and out of the thick vegetation, appearing for a second on the path and then disappearing again into the bush. A fog bank is rolling slowly into the forest and it brings with it the smell of the nearby Pacific. The air is so clean, fresh, moist, invigorating, life-giving. I close my eyes and hold out my arms as the fog swirls around me and breathe deeply, so deeply, inhaling hard and long enough that it brings a spike of pressure into my chest—but it’s good, oh so good, everything’s good, it’s perfect. I’m with my two favorite people in the wide world, in my favorite place. I’m smiling so much it’s starting to ache, my lips are, but I can’t stop. To stop would infringe on the magic of this moment.

Rebecca comes to me, wraps her arms around my back and presses her body to mine. Our faces are inches apart. She’s smiling, too, that amazing toothy grin of perfect, pure happiness that just lights up her face with an almost-visible aura, a ghostly reflection of her inner state, like she’s encased in it, like the whiteness of a fresh Polaroid that’s just starting to reveal its subject. She kisses me. Then she’s saying something, but I can’t hear her. I can’t hear anything anymore.

Because I’m coming out of the dream.

And I realize it, there with her arms around me and her smile and the fog and the redwoods and the palpable earthy fecundity of the moistened woods, I realize that I’m just dreaming. Everything begins to fade, to drop away, the finished Polaroid in reverse. I try to hold onto the image, the smells, the soft soil under my shoes, the feel of her body’s weight against mine. But I can’t make it stay, no matter how hard I try. I’m shackled, powerless—a slave to reality.

And then I’m awake and the dream’s over, it’s all gone except in flashes that I have to willingly conjure instead of just being there; my eyes are still closed, but the sensations and images appear only in brief flitting pops, like the white veneer over everything in sight that pulses on and off and on in your vision after a bright camera’s flash.

Now I know it was just a dream, that I am in prison, that I won’t be with Rebecca and Rikki again for another year, 52 weeks. But I refuse to accept it. I haven’t opened my eyes yet. I keep them closed tight. I’m willing reality to change; why not? There’s no sense behind any of this. Maybe I’ve awoken in a parallel world, where the threat of prison was real, but where true justice was the norm rather than an aberration, and where Judge Hamer didn’t pretend to believe Trooper Marlow’s blatant lies, where the judge decided that the Fourth Amendment and my life and the truth was more important than political gain and money, a world where I dodged the prison-bullet and I am free, and I’ll open my eyes and see Rebecca’s sleeping face, and Rikki splayed out at her feet. That’s what will happen. If I just want it bad enough, and will it hard enough, reality will realign itself into something sensible and just. Still my eyes are closed. I have to give it just a few more seconds for the shift to occur. And then I’ll open my eyes and everything will be right again—I’ll be free, and we can collect the shattered fragments of our lives and put them back together and move on….

My First Ever Glossy Publication AND Cover Story!!

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The new issue of The Animals’ Voice magazine is now out, and I WROTE THE COVER STORY!!

If you haven’t read it yet (it’s on my blog and has gotten around a lot), the piece is at turns riveting, heart-wrenching, beautiful, enraging, and of course militant. The issue is available for free download and print purchase here:

https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/666827?__r=20874

It’s only $6.40 for a beautiful, glossy, sleek print copy. May I suggest that it could make a fabulous stocking stuffer or 1/8 Hannukah gift or a present just b/c you’re awesome, given that there are various holidays coming up that I neither care about nor celebrate, but encourage you to do so by purchasing this awesome magazine that features SIXTEEN (16!) pages of text/pics from my piece?

Here’s their website: https://animalsvoice.com/the-magazine/

May I also suggest, if you’ve read it and/or read it soon and/or love me and/or want to support my work, that you tell the amazing editor and activist Lauren Moretti how much you liked the story and/or how much you appreciate her publishing it and/or how you found out about the magazine because of me/my cover story? Her email is 4rights@animalsvoice.com

Hoka Hey!

NaNoWriMo, Week 2!

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Oy, I’ve been SERIOUSLY derailed on my feverish prison-memoir-writing spree. Something came up that has made it extremely difficult to get much of any writing done the last week. Right now–with 20/30 days of the month up, I’m at 128,000 words on Rebel Hell: Doin’ Time For Barely a Crime; I started the month at 96,000 words. Grand total thus far is about 32,000 words. I’m actually still on track to meet my low-end goal, which was 40,000 words on the memoir. But what I really wanted to accomplish was getting in a novel’s-worth of writing done in November on the current book. 50,000 words. It’s still possible, but unlikely–I’ve reached the end of the time period for which I’d hand-written notes and diary-type entries while incarcerated. I no longer have much of a skeleton–except for that which is in my mind already–to work from. Which means overall slower-going.

I’m still loving what I’m writing, I just haven’t been doing enough of it. This book is my most experimental narrative BY FAR. I’m employing all kinds of different techniques to try and create in the reader feelings that are similar to the ones I was experiencing while locked up. These include footnotes, jumbled chronology, flashbacks, flash-forwards, dreams, and tons of foreshadowing. I’m happy with how it’s going. I had no idea as to whether or not I’d be able to pull off what I’m attempting, given that I’m juggling so many different techniques and variables, all while trying to maintain a coherent, compelling narrative. But I think I’m managing to do a pretty damn good job with all this weirdness–it’s necessary weirdness, to me, because it’s such a weird and unusual and unique story! Hoping I can get back on track and finish out the month strong! Here’s a tasty little tidbit I wrote today:

In any case, I get fed up with busing tables after 5 days. I can’t take it anymore. The pain is accruing. I’m not miserable just during the actual work; it also carries over into my non-working hours in the unit. Finally I decide to do something about it. Every night, I ask the nurse at Medline if my records have arrived yet, so I’ve got at least a weak pulse on that. On workday 6 in Dietary, I check in and then immediately head to the supervisor’s office at the back of the kitchen. The blonde female supervisor, Mrs. Wilson, is in there, as is Watson. As I mentioned, the former is fairly nice. But Watson—he’s a serious dickwad. He’s tall and ugly with a wild thatch of dark gray hair; his sagging face has that constant morose look of the unhappy, middle-aged man with the potentially-unconscious suspicion that his life is a pitiful waste. I’m not even looking at him. I’m speaking directly and only to Mrs. Wilson. Explaining why it’s too difficult for me to bus tables.

“Ohh, what’sa matter,” Watson says with thick sarcasm, “you got back problems or somethin?”

“Well, a little bit, but my knees are the real problem. I’ve had 5 surgeries on them.”

“I got bad knees too.”

Finally I look at Watson. He’s a heavy smoker—I can tell because he always emanates that ash-smell. Being around him and his unbearable smarminess and lack of compassion makes me alternately yearn to smoke a cigarette, and yearn to put out a lit cigarette on his eyeball. “That sucks,” I tell him. “Knee problems are no joke.” At this point I’m still trying to be cordial to him. Already it’s a struggle.

That’s it for this week. Good luck with the rest of the month–finish strong, you’re rounding 3rd base! 🙂

May the Writing Gods fill me with inspiration and motivation to get back on track!!

May the Writing Gods fill me with the inspiration & motivation to get back on track!!

NaNoWriMo, Week 1!

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Me with the 1st draft of my handwritten-in-prison, epic animal liberation political thriller: The Liberators, 1,600 pages!

The first week of NaNoWriMo has passed. Read my previous blog to see how I’m doing things a little differently. In a nutshell, I’m not trying to write a novel, because I was already well into writing my prison memoir Rebel Hell: Doin’ Time For Barely a Crime when November began. So my goal was to write at least a novel’s worth of words on the memoir this month (50,000 words). And so far it looks like I’m on track!!

I started the month with 96,000 words written. I’m now at about 112,000, meaning 16,000 words written in 8 days. 2k/day on average, which puts me well on my way to accomplishing my personal challenge. I’m also very pleased with what I’ve been writing. This is by far my most experimental book; I’m trying to craft a Januscript that, in the reading of it, makes the reader feel like they’re actually feel certain elements of the prison experience. Mainly the way it creates in the Inmate’s mind a certain sense of the malleability of time. So I’m using footnotes and flashbacks and flip-flopping chronology and dreams to try to mirror those sensations for the reader, and I’m pretty pleased so far with how I’m doing—especially since it’s just a first draft and I’m writing fiendishly! It also happens to be (I think) very, very funny. Funny in pitch dark, irreverent, grotesque, heart-wrenching ways. Which is exactly what I’m going for!

I tend to heavily overwrite on my first drafts; I’m not always sure what I want to say, or what I want to happen. So I kind of “doodle” my way toward the (soy-) meat of the scenes and the socio-political themes. Then, in the second draft, I edit heavily, with the aim of cutting at least 20 percent or so. Couple examples: The first draft of my (rewritten) first novel High Society was about 355 pages, and now it’s at 285 (24.5% cut). The first draft of my third novel Redwood Falls was 460 pages, and now it’s 365 (26% cut). Of course it would be nice if I could just write it the “correct” length the first time around, but that’s just not how it pans out with my writing style and abilities. And hey—all that extra writing, and hence editing, that I have to do because I have what Stephen King calls “diarrhea of the word processor”—it just means I get more practice. And even though I’ve been writing novels for 11 years now, there’s always room for improvement!

Happy NaNoWriMo, and good luck for Week 2!

My NaNoWriMo Challenge

Pro-Gay Soapbox Excerpt From My Prison Memoir

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Anti-religion/pro-gay soapbox-screed I just wrote in my prison memoir, Rebel Hell: Doin’ Time for Barely a Crime (it’s referring to a book I was skimming through called “Free On the Inside”):

Let’s not forget that the bible was written thousands of years ago by men. Men who believed the Earth was flat, and that it was the center of the universe (typical human delusions of grandeur), that giant sea monsters were a legitimate threat, that women were to be subjugated and were ethically and socially beneath men, and so on and on. But oh wait, it’s okay, these men were prophets. God spoke to them. Do you realize, my Dear Reader, that today we would call these people delusional and prescribe them anti-psychotic meds?

Anyway, the parts where people have written about their drug and/or criminal history are entertaining. After I’m finished with those, I turn to the front of the book and read the section for questions frequently asked by inmates (FAQ). They’re amusing, albeit annoying—at first. But then I get to question (21): Is there a way out of addiction (drinking, drugs, sex, gambling, homosexuality)? As my eyes hit that last word, I cry out, “Oh my god!” in disgust. Lip curled, I heave the fat book across the room, its pages fluttering, and it crashes into the cell door with a loud echoing bang. “Fucking scumbag pieces of SHIT!” The implications of it are repulsive to me, unconscionable. As if human (homo)sexuality were a disease, like drug addiction!

Stop reading right now if you think I’m wrong.

People don’t have severe physiological cravings for, say, heroin—unless they’ve already tried it. But there are uncountable droves of men and women who were physically attracted to members of their own sex since they were very young, before EVER having homosexual encounters.

Pretty fucking intolerant for people who *claim* to be followers of Christ; you know, the Prince of PEACE? It is this kind of thinking that leads to the routine violence and atrocities committed against gay men and women. Remaining silent in the face of this level of bigotry is a tacit approval of that violence and hatred. The FAQ plainly stated that homosexuality is an addiction, which means that it is a disease.

…..

I’m NOT looking forward to the barrage of conversion attempts I’ll have to fend off during my prison bit.

FUCK Columbus Day!

Tattoos and Suicide