Meditations @vancebryce-blog - Tumblr Blog

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When I was little, we had a geometry computer game where you picked out shapes and made more shapes with those shapes. I’ve been doing the same with the ceiling of Union Station this afternoon. (at Union Station, Washington D.C.)

Working for the Californians has its perks.

Happy 2018! (at Sahuarita, Arizona)

maptitude1

Voting in yesterday’s UN treaty banning nuclear weapons

Labor Day

Some mornings I do not feel at all brave.

Some mornings the world is too big.

Some mornings my covers are my shield.

Some Mornings are cloudy, even on a sunny day.

Some mornings I lose my voice.

Some mornings I wish my bed were my grave.

Some mornings I feel very small.

Some mornings are a losing battle.

Some mornings it is hard to see a possible way.

Some mornings I have no choice.

Some mornings don’t end until the next morning sun.

Other mornings are an adventure

Other mornings I am unstoppable

Other mornings are busy and fun

Other mornings are sunny, even when it is raining.

Other mornings are sweat and smiles.

Other mornings are a treasure

Other mornings I am so capable

Other mornings I know I’ve won.

Other mornings are post card perfect and rose colored bliss.

Other mornings I run for miles.

Other mornings you wish could be morning forever

This morning is like some mornings, but I need it to be like other mornings.

#poem #ptsd #numb #lifeblock

sprawlnation

SN: I think I’m nerdy enough that given the free time I might make such an attempt to reproduce a city at scale. A childhood full of Legos makes me feel as if I’ve had the training, but I am in denial about my failed attempts to build landscapes for model trains..yes that nerdy. None the less, this was a cool find today out of Newark, NJ. The first photo of the kids smiling down on the model is all that needs to be said about the value of a public installation such as this. Click through to the full article to see the urban planning discussions and observations made possible by this artwork.

Newark 3-D model shows city in detail – and transition

Everyone has the same reaction to the 3-D model of Newark in the lobby of the main branch of the city library. Kids, grown-ups, even the mayor. They lean in and try to find their houses. There are hundreds of thousands of color-coded pieces on the roughly 15-by-15 foot model, which represent every building in the 26-square-mile city. One- and two-family houses are yellow, apartments are orange and high-rises are a brighter orange. The long answer is this: The model is the centerpiece of an ongoing installation of a project called People Power Planning Newark, created by several civic entities and artist Bisa Washington. It was primarily funded by the National Endowment of the Arts. Close to 200 volunteers, many from the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture and Design, worked on the project for more than four years.

vancebryce-blog

To read for later. :)

urbnfutr

Watch out for the asshole on the left. #Chicago (at Chicago, Illinois)

anniekoh

fear no fruit / color of food

Something to watch and something to read.

The Color of Food: Stories of Race, Resilience and Farming

At the height of Black farming in the U.S., a million farmers owned almost 17 million acres of land. Between 1920 and 1996, however, Black land ownership dropped by 70 percent and in 2012, there were only 44,000 Black farmers in the nation.Thanks to evidence uncovered in a landmark lawsuit Pigford v. Glickman, we now know that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) denied credit and benefits to Black farmers and gave preferential treatment to White farmers, essentially forcing Black farmers out of agriculture. By 1992, the number of Black farmers in America had declined by 98 percent.

I interviewed over 75 farmers from the Southeast to the Northwest. When I transcribed these stories after five months on the road, I was instantly transported back to the farms where I might have been sitting in the farmer’s living room looking at old family photos, or riding in a truck listening to a farmer tell me why growing food was so important to them, or kneeling in the sunshine harvesting side by side as they told me the history of the very land we had our hands in.

Our conversations would run from family histories to historic discrimination in their communities; land love and loss; barriers to successes; and traditional foodways they are trying to preserve in their communities. (source: Civil Eats)

[Image source: 40 Acres and a Cubicle]

Fear No Fruit chronicles Frieda Caplan’s rise from being the first woman entrepreneur on the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market in the 1960s, to transforming American cuisine by introducing over 200 exotic fruits and vegetables to U.S. supermarkets. Still an inspiration at 91, Frieda’s daughters and granddaughter carry on the business legacy.

nprbooks

Elizabeth Strout’s new novel, about an estranged mother and daughter reconnecting during the daughter’s illness, is a marvel of quiet simplicity. Critic Annalisa Quinn writes:

Some novels, regardless of their relationship to actual events, feel true. It’s like something gentle has taken you to one side, where things you already half-knew but couldn’t articulate are finally explained to you. You feel relief, you feel understood, you feel realer, even. You think, that’s it. That’s what life is like. My Name is Lucy Barton renders familiar universal tensions — family, sickness, money — quietly and aptly. It’s a true novel.

Simplicity And Restraint Make ‘Lucy Barton’ Shine

vincemontague

“To become a maker is to make the world for others, not only the material world but the world of ideas that rules over the material world, the dreams we dream and inhabit together.”

Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

iztac-coatl-deactivated20190408

The Women’s Building - San Francisco, California

by Juana Alicia, Meera Desai, Miranda Bergman, Irene Perez, Susan Kelk Cervantes, Littleton Yvonne and Edythe Boone

(photos: Anthony Byrd)

urbangeographies

Beautiful photos of this colorful building in San Francisco’s Mission District! I love how the Latin American-style murals capture the feminist spirit of the neighborhood with images of women all over the world.

bears-inspriations

The Rock

A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might. This the man did, day after day.

For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain. Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, the adversary decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s weary mind: “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn’t budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it. ‘Thus giving the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man.

"Why kill myself over this?” he thought. “I’ll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.” And that is what he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the Lord.

“Lord” he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”

The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all, your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push, and now you come to me, with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass: that which you used to have. Yet you haven’t moved the rock. But your

calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. This you have done. I, my friend, will now mo~ the rock.”

At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple obedience and faith in Him…. By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves the mountains.

P.U.S.H!

When everything seems to go wrong…. just P.U.S.H.!

When the job gets you down,…just P.U.S.H.!

When people don’t react the way you think they should,…just P.U.S.H.!• When our money looks funny and the bills are due…. just P.U.S.H.!

When you want to tell them off for whatever the reason,…just P.U.S.H.!

When people just don’t understand you,…just P.U.S.H.!

P.U.S.H – Pray Until Something Happens!!!!!

– Author Unknown

anniekoh

Food Justice Summit in Hawai‘i

“Challenging Impacts of the Global Agrochemical Industry”

O`AHU - MONDAY JAN. 18, 6-8 PM Art 132 Auditorium, University of Hawai`i Mānoa

Jonathan Likeke Scheuer, Ph.D., Local Host Andre Perez, Hawai`i-based Speaker

Adelita San Vicente Tello, Director, Semillas de Vida Fundacion (Seeds of Life Foundation) in Mexico & a leader of Sin Maiz no hay Pais (Without Corn there is no Country) coalition that successfully kept Monsanto transgenic corn out of Mexico. Her talk is entitled “Stories from the Birthplace of Corn: How Mexico has successfully kept Monsanto out (and protected local farmers and biodiversity).”

Mariann Bassey Orovwuje, Program Manager, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria & Coordinator, Friends of the Earth Africa’s Food Sovereignty Campaign. Her talk is entitled “Lessons in Food Sovereignty from Africa: Community Rights Over Corporations.”

Sarojeni V. Rengam, Executive Director, Pesticide Action Network Asia & the Pacific (PAN AP), Malaysia & Steering Committee Member, Asian Rural Women’s Coalition (ARWC). She will be speaking on “Land Grabs and The Struggle for Farmer’s and Farm Workers’ Rights in Asia.”

Eva Schürmann, activist with MultiWatch, a Swiss-based group that monitors multinational corporations headquartered in Switzerland (such as Syngenta) and their violations of human rights around the globe. She has a Masters in Law degree from the University of Basel and is a practicing attorney. Schürmann and Multiwatch helped organize the Kaua’i delegation to Switzerland last April. Her talk is entitled, “Activism in the Belly of the Beast: Switzerland and The Precautionary Principle in Europe.”

January 19-20, 2016 "Convergence on the Capitol"

During these two days, there will be workshops and educational sessions in Honolulu which are open to the public as well as policy-makers; plus activities on Opening Day at the State Legislature (January 20th) in collaboration with community groups leading the charge for land protection, water rights, and food sovereignty.

January 19, 2016 - Day of workshops and educational sessions (UH, Mānoa, 9am - 4pm, Exact Location TBA)

January 20, 2016 - Activities at Opening Day of State Legislature at the Capitol (Honolulu, 9am - 1pm)

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I think it’s important to realize you can miss something, but not want it back.

Paulo Coelho (via h-o-r-n-g-r-y)

Today is Joseph Smith's birthday. I would like to honor this man for his courage. It must have been quite difficult to speak about speaking with God to an unreceptive world. It must have been very validating and joyful to find friends who would listen, who could also share their own experiences with the Holy Spirit. The wonderful circumstances of my life: my loving family, my home in Arizona, my desire to be kind, my relationship with God, our Heavenly Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, come as a result of Joseph Smith's courage to pray, to ask, to listen, and to share. Here is an excerpt from his 1832 first vision account: "therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in <the> attitude of calling upon the Lord a piller of fire-light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me . . . . my soul was filled with love and for many days I could rejoice with great Joy and the Lord was with me but could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart." Happy Birthday, Brother Joseph. #sharegoodness

#sharegoodness

Today I submitted my application to the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law at Arizona State University. This is an artist's rendering of the building under construction in downtown Phoenix that will open in Fall 2016. The pros of going to this school are that it is in Arizona, they have programs that connect students with the state legislature and externships in Washington, DC. They have an excellent writing program. #MyLawSchoolSearch #ASULaw #LawSchoolApplications (at Provo, Utah)

#asulaw #mylawschoolsearch #lawschoolapplications