Even in Kyoto

On New Year's Day Mom and I set out from her house in Seattle to Hood River, with a stop at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. We drove east along winding Highway 14 in the rain, with a brief stop at Beacon Rock, then headed across the Button Bridge to Hood River. After some coffee, checking in to the Best Western, and dinner at a restaurant called Hindustani, we drove over to Portland to pick up my brother, then back to the hotel to call it a night.

On Friday, after a leisurely breakfast, we drove up along the Klikitat River to Herland Forest, where our Dad is buried and decomposing; it's a green burial site. The freezing rain was cold but the place was beautiful with the wintry lichens and mosses coating the oaks and pines. Then back along the Klikitat, where we stopped frequently so my brother could look for birds, but most especially swans, which he ultimately did not see.

After a second night in Hood River, we set out for Portland again this morning, this time stopping at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery where we got to see the enormous white sturgeon, and then Multnomah Falls where I couldn't resist climbing all the way to the scenic overlook at the top of the falls.

So I've taken a million photos and short videos, but I don't know when I will actually get to posting them. I'm so glad we were able to do and see so much, and my legs will probably be sore tomorrow from the impromptu hike today. The hike up to the top of the falls isn't long, just a mile and change, but I was wearing my everyday clogs, carrying a backpack, and trying to maintain a decent clip. So, a good bit of exercise.

Tonight, the conference I'm in Portland for will get underway, then I suspect it will be another early bedtime for me. I've gotten this sinus/pressure headache down to a background ache, but more rest would be nice before the conference gets into full swing.

I finally finished Ed Yong's book about microbes, I Contain Multitudes, and I'm kind of amused by my personal reaction to the book. The thing is, it's an excellent book, but just for me personally it felt like a bit of a chore to read it. Don't get me wrong, the chapter on lactation was eye-opening and I certainly learned more about microbes such as Wolbachia, it's just that this is a thoroughly-researched popular science book and I'm more often in the trenches. So, if you're microbe-curious, I definitely recommend it, particularly because Yong weaves in some superb metaphors and commentary.

Anyway, I'm on to the next book in the stack already, Let's Move the Needle, by Shannon Downey, subtitled "An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers."

Already there was a helpful section towards the beginning in which Downey defines a series of aspects of activism. This was helpful to me because of some baggage I have around the term "activism" that dates back to reading Galileo's Middle Finger. At one point in GMF, the author questions why an activist chose to keep going with activism, even after achieving the originally outlined activism goals. I can see both perspectives, the "Aren't we done here?" but also the "There's always more work to do." And my sense is that there are a lot of people who wind up clinging very tightly to an identity as an activist, but there are times where that can become really abrasive.

Downey isn't going to resolve those tensions once and for all, but her effort to define different aspects of activism is helpful in this realm. For example, both philanthropy and protest efforts can constitute forms of activism; some activism might be more focused around one or the other or any of a series of other aspects of activism. And Downey also writes specifically about "awareness" activism and how it can feel ineffective and/or performative particularly when an awareness campaign is centered on an issue most people are already aware of (gun violence, to give her example).

And so, I'm optimistic that this will be an interesting book.

Related to this, while I was in Seattle, I naturally picked up the most recent edition of The Stranger, and wound up reading the article about Katie Wilson's win as Seattle's next mayor. What was most interesting about the article was learning about Wilson's background as a community organizer; she honed in on transportation as one of her initial focal issues, and rather than just screaming about what was wanted, put in the time and work to not just advocate for certain things, but to present political leaders with comprehensive draft legislation and ask if they’d be willing to adopt it. This approach is quite different from the approach of a different progressive mayor just elected to head up a large city on the other coast of the USA, who based more of his campaign on charm and charisma and energizing a political base (as best I can tell) rather than on substantive grassroots policy development.

I won’t hazard a guess as to how successful either new Mayor will be in implementing whatever change they think is needed in either city. The contrasts are just interesting. I have a strong preference for substance over posturing.