Courtesy of Queers Without Borders
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Francisco. Show all posts
Monday, June 14, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Journal of Aesthetics & Protest: SF Victory Gardens 2007+: A Conversation Between Amy Franceschini & Christina Ulke
SF Victory Gardens 2007+: A Conversation Between Amy Franceschini & Christina Ulke
Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
Christina: SF Victory Gardens 2008 taps into several current and historical movements of participatory urban agriculture, can you talk about your relation to the SF community garden culture?
Amy: I have no direct connection to the community garden culture in SF. My relation to agriculture stems from my parent’s farming practices. My father was an industrial farmer in the San Joaquin Valley and owned a pesticide company and my mother was an organic farmer and activist near San Luis Obispo. Although their ideologies were seriously opposed, my parent’s involvement in growing food was politicized in their own way; my father heavily involved in water politics and labor issues and my mother fighting local strawberry farmers to stop using Malathion. Through canvassing and attending public hearings I was introduced to food politics in action. My interest in urban agriculture evolved through a desire for aspects of the rural, but not being ready to be away from the urban environment. In 1995, my best friend worked for the now-defunct San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners. (1) SLUG had always been in my mind as a successful, municipal project. It had many simple frameworks for cultivating citizen action and collective ownership of neighborhood programs. For example, if ten people in a neighborhood got together and approached SLUG, they would organize a workday and build a community garden for the neighborhood. The process of rallying neighbors took advantage of an organizational network that was already established and it strengthened neighborhood relationships.
Currently the Victory Garden program has teamed up with Slow Food Nation to plant a garden in front of City Hall. The Victory Garden program runs through the Garden for the Environment and a network of volunteers. The garden at City Hall will create a community for urban gardeners. Each major urban agriculture organization will have a plot to demonstrate their growing techniques. This garden will shed light on the diversity of garden practice and groups in the city; City Slikcers, Alemany Farms, Edible Schoolyard, Garden for the Environment, and Quesada Gardens. The City sees this garden as an important symbol of their long-term commitment to urban agriculture; which includes funding, access to land and integration into public programs, schools, libraries, and parks. The city used to fund SLUG, but since SLUG collapsed, there has not been another program in place. When we went to the city to present Victory Gardens, they were extremely receptive and saw our project as a resurrection of SLUG and a promise of a program that would benefit a diverse population through education, support and employment opportunities.
Working on a greater, municipal scale seems to be a crucial component of the project. Why was it important to you to get the city involved?
My desire to work with the city was inspired by a myriad of things: time spent living in Gent Belgium over the last five years (2); the 2003 mayoral campaign in San Francisco for former President of the Board of Supervisors and Green Party member Matt Gonzalez; my general dissatisfaction with politics in this country; reading about the scale and participation of the WWI Liberty Gardens and WWII Victory Gardens.
I first became aware of the WWII Victory Garden program in Laura Lawson's City Bountiful: A History of Community Gardening in America. The program was initiated in 1941 by the Office of Civilian Defense in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture. During a national garden conference a guide for the Victory Garden Program was produced and distributed to cities across the country. Between 1941 and 1943 there were 20 million Victory Gardens and 41% of our total food was being produced in Victory Gardens.
The image of 20 million gardens being planted within 2 years gave me the fuel to imagine a new program with a focus on contemporary food issues. My intentions were set to revive not only a city-supported gardening program, but a personal revival to get politicized and radicalized about the current food crisis. Our food is controlled by profit-driven corporations like Monsanto. The current Farm Bill promotes production of food not fit for human consumption, and destructive farming practices that deplete soil and air through overuse of pesticides, Nearly 70% of farm subsidies go to the top 10% of the country’s biggest growers. This form of corporate welfare encourages the ongoing consolidation of farming and food into fewer hands. I might be naive, but I hope that food can be produced by a smaller network of familiar faces like “neighbors”.
As an idealist I believe that the government is the PEOPLE and was designed to reflect, represent, and support the needs of the PEOPLE. This country has lost touch with what that means. Imagine an amazing potluck with a huge list of ingredients and cooks. Participation is key.
Since more and more businesses and corporations control "public policy", they do have the power and autonomy to develop sustainable systems and products. The homogenizing effect of power being controlled by fewer voices has resulted in the loss of decentralized decision-making made at a local level. But despite our conservative tendencies at the national level, San Francisco has been successful in moving the progressive movement forward on many fronts.
It inspired me to think of the city as a place where progressive ideas can take root. San Francisco is ready for a decentralized and systemic approach to urban agriculture. To be honest I did not even know what that meant when I went to the city, but I knew that I had the historical precedent of the massive participation in the Victory Garden program and a simple proposition for the city. When I approached the city with the help of Matt Gonzalez, I was met with overwhelming interest and support. After one small presentation to the city with images and information about the historical program, namely the photo of the demonstration garden in front of city hall, 12 different city offices were ready to support the program in any way.
To Read the Rest of the Interview
Journal of Aesthetics & Protest
Christina: SF Victory Gardens 2008 taps into several current and historical movements of participatory urban agriculture, can you talk about your relation to the SF community garden culture?
Amy: I have no direct connection to the community garden culture in SF. My relation to agriculture stems from my parent’s farming practices. My father was an industrial farmer in the San Joaquin Valley and owned a pesticide company and my mother was an organic farmer and activist near San Luis Obispo. Although their ideologies were seriously opposed, my parent’s involvement in growing food was politicized in their own way; my father heavily involved in water politics and labor issues and my mother fighting local strawberry farmers to stop using Malathion. Through canvassing and attending public hearings I was introduced to food politics in action. My interest in urban agriculture evolved through a desire for aspects of the rural, but not being ready to be away from the urban environment. In 1995, my best friend worked for the now-defunct San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners. (1) SLUG had always been in my mind as a successful, municipal project. It had many simple frameworks for cultivating citizen action and collective ownership of neighborhood programs. For example, if ten people in a neighborhood got together and approached SLUG, they would organize a workday and build a community garden for the neighborhood. The process of rallying neighbors took advantage of an organizational network that was already established and it strengthened neighborhood relationships.
Currently the Victory Garden program has teamed up with Slow Food Nation to plant a garden in front of City Hall. The Victory Garden program runs through the Garden for the Environment and a network of volunteers. The garden at City Hall will create a community for urban gardeners. Each major urban agriculture organization will have a plot to demonstrate their growing techniques. This garden will shed light on the diversity of garden practice and groups in the city; City Slikcers, Alemany Farms, Edible Schoolyard, Garden for the Environment, and Quesada Gardens. The City sees this garden as an important symbol of their long-term commitment to urban agriculture; which includes funding, access to land and integration into public programs, schools, libraries, and parks. The city used to fund SLUG, but since SLUG collapsed, there has not been another program in place. When we went to the city to present Victory Gardens, they were extremely receptive and saw our project as a resurrection of SLUG and a promise of a program that would benefit a diverse population through education, support and employment opportunities.
Working on a greater, municipal scale seems to be a crucial component of the project. Why was it important to you to get the city involved?
My desire to work with the city was inspired by a myriad of things: time spent living in Gent Belgium over the last five years (2); the 2003 mayoral campaign in San Francisco for former President of the Board of Supervisors and Green Party member Matt Gonzalez; my general dissatisfaction with politics in this country; reading about the scale and participation of the WWI Liberty Gardens and WWII Victory Gardens.
I first became aware of the WWII Victory Garden program in Laura Lawson's City Bountiful: A History of Community Gardening in America. The program was initiated in 1941 by the Office of Civilian Defense in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture. During a national garden conference a guide for the Victory Garden Program was produced and distributed to cities across the country. Between 1941 and 1943 there were 20 million Victory Gardens and 41% of our total food was being produced in Victory Gardens.
The image of 20 million gardens being planted within 2 years gave me the fuel to imagine a new program with a focus on contemporary food issues. My intentions were set to revive not only a city-supported gardening program, but a personal revival to get politicized and radicalized about the current food crisis. Our food is controlled by profit-driven corporations like Monsanto. The current Farm Bill promotes production of food not fit for human consumption, and destructive farming practices that deplete soil and air through overuse of pesticides, Nearly 70% of farm subsidies go to the top 10% of the country’s biggest growers. This form of corporate welfare encourages the ongoing consolidation of farming and food into fewer hands. I might be naive, but I hope that food can be produced by a smaller network of familiar faces like “neighbors”.
As an idealist I believe that the government is the PEOPLE and was designed to reflect, represent, and support the needs of the PEOPLE. This country has lost touch with what that means. Imagine an amazing potluck with a huge list of ingredients and cooks. Participation is key.
Since more and more businesses and corporations control "public policy", they do have the power and autonomy to develop sustainable systems and products. The homogenizing effect of power being controlled by fewer voices has resulted in the loss of decentralized decision-making made at a local level. But despite our conservative tendencies at the national level, San Francisco has been successful in moving the progressive movement forward on many fronts.
It inspired me to think of the city as a place where progressive ideas can take root. San Francisco is ready for a decentralized and systemic approach to urban agriculture. To be honest I did not even know what that meant when I went to the city, but I knew that I had the historical precedent of the massive participation in the Victory Garden program and a simple proposition for the city. When I approached the city with the help of Matt Gonzalez, I was met with overwhelming interest and support. After one small presentation to the city with images and information about the historical program, namely the photo of the demonstration garden in front of city hall, 12 different city offices were ready to support the program in any way.
To Read the Rest of the Interview
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
I Tried to Learn Greek: Police Report submitted to United States Department of the Interior
Police Report submitted to United States Department of the Interior
I Tried to Learn Greek: ζητών του απάντηση
I think this is where police brutality starts - right here, to average people, and it goes unnoticed when people fail to report the misconduct of officers that they suffer from every day all over the country. Don't put up with it - report it, make a paper trail. Call the number on the bottom of your ticket, get your story straight, look up the laws, and send it in to the people who are training these guys. This is the report I just sent in.
July 3rd, 2009 11:15pm
I was with a group of friends and acquaintances somewhere between beach 17 and 18 at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. We had just finished eating a delicious fire-cooked feast of foil-baked food, and were standing around the fire together listening to the waves and talking under a starry sky when we were spotted by some uniformed officers. I believe there were five of them. They drove up behind our group in two beach buggies and began to gather around us, forming a sort of semi circle from the north and east. They shined their flashlights in our eyes when we looked to acknowledge their arrival, then began shining their lights on our bags and asking people questions; Any alcohol? No, we said. What's in those bags? There were some paper bags the groceries had come in, which were now largely filled with trash, and our personal backpacks and coolers. They demanded that someone search through these bags. But that person's search produced nothing of concern and they started poking around themselves. Already they had infringed on our Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our persons and effects. Apparently they were looking for alcohol. However, our group was standing around a public fire pit with a number of other groups.They did not have probable cause, nor does probable cause necessarily circumvent the need to issue a warrant or at least to state a reason for suspicion. Even where a search is deemed valid without a warrant ''...the Court frequently asserts that ''the most basic constitutional rule in this area is that 'searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment” (9/7/2009). This search was unreasonable.
I was standing on the more eastern side of the semi-circle of officials, and I was upset by how nervous our group had become when they arrived, as well as by their unwarranted search. Our group was not being rowdy or loud. The only things about us which may have attracted attention were our numbers and diversity, so I spoke up. There were two uniformed men standing nearby, so I put my question out to them “Why are you searching us?” I got no reply. So I tried another angle. I said “It's illegal to search without a cause, why are you searching us?” This time, the officer farther from me turned around and beamed me in the face with his flashlight as he said “I'll give you a ticket without a cause!”.
My stomach tightened. This man wearing a government uniform, carrying a large heavy flashlight, and very probably armed with a gun, had plainly stated that he was willing to blatantly defy the law. He made this statement among his peers, all similarly out-fitted, and none of them spoke up. None of my peers dared to say anything as we were all prepared only for a pleasant evening out on the beach, not a hostile confrontation with authority.
I was still shocked by his words by the time he approached me. Again the light was in my face, then it traveled down to my left hand in which I was holding a quarter-full plastic cup. “What's in the cup?” he demanded. I saw sand settled in the bottom of the cup and floating near the edges. Without thinking, I dumped the cup upside down in the sand. He instantly grabbed my shoulder, squeezing hard and pulled me roughly away from the fire and my friends. “Come with me” My feet were barely touching the ground. This man-handling was entirely unnecessary. He did not even ask me to follow him before grabbing hold of my shoulder and dragging me across the sand. I was intimidated, I was even scared. I was physically powerless compared to him, obviously the people I was with would not have been able to help me should the need arise, and he had already made it quite clear that he was not compelled to obey the law. This was a frightening combination.
To Read the Rest of the Report
I Tried to Learn Greek: ζητών του απάντηση
I think this is where police brutality starts - right here, to average people, and it goes unnoticed when people fail to report the misconduct of officers that they suffer from every day all over the country. Don't put up with it - report it, make a paper trail. Call the number on the bottom of your ticket, get your story straight, look up the laws, and send it in to the people who are training these guys. This is the report I just sent in.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
-Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America
July 3rd, 2009 11:15pm
I was with a group of friends and acquaintances somewhere between beach 17 and 18 at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. We had just finished eating a delicious fire-cooked feast of foil-baked food, and were standing around the fire together listening to the waves and talking under a starry sky when we were spotted by some uniformed officers. I believe there were five of them. They drove up behind our group in two beach buggies and began to gather around us, forming a sort of semi circle from the north and east. They shined their flashlights in our eyes when we looked to acknowledge their arrival, then began shining their lights on our bags and asking people questions; Any alcohol? No, we said. What's in those bags? There were some paper bags the groceries had come in, which were now largely filled with trash, and our personal backpacks and coolers. They demanded that someone search through these bags. But that person's search produced nothing of concern and they started poking around themselves. Already they had infringed on our Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our persons and effects. Apparently they were looking for alcohol. However, our group was standing around a public fire pit with a number of other groups.They did not have probable cause, nor does probable cause necessarily circumvent the need to issue a warrant or at least to state a reason for suspicion. Even where a search is deemed valid without a warrant ''...the Court frequently asserts that ''the most basic constitutional rule in this area is that 'searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment” (9/7/2009). This search was unreasonable.
I was standing on the more eastern side of the semi-circle of officials, and I was upset by how nervous our group had become when they arrived, as well as by their unwarranted search. Our group was not being rowdy or loud. The only things about us which may have attracted attention were our numbers and diversity, so I spoke up. There were two uniformed men standing nearby, so I put my question out to them “Why are you searching us?” I got no reply. So I tried another angle. I said “It's illegal to search without a cause, why are you searching us?” This time, the officer farther from me turned around and beamed me in the face with his flashlight as he said “I'll give you a ticket without a cause!”.
My stomach tightened. This man wearing a government uniform, carrying a large heavy flashlight, and very probably armed with a gun, had plainly stated that he was willing to blatantly defy the law. He made this statement among his peers, all similarly out-fitted, and none of them spoke up. None of my peers dared to say anything as we were all prepared only for a pleasant evening out on the beach, not a hostile confrontation with authority.
I was still shocked by his words by the time he approached me. Again the light was in my face, then it traveled down to my left hand in which I was holding a quarter-full plastic cup. “What's in the cup?” he demanded. I saw sand settled in the bottom of the cup and floating near the edges. Without thinking, I dumped the cup upside down in the sand. He instantly grabbed my shoulder, squeezing hard and pulled me roughly away from the fire and my friends. “Come with me” My feet were barely touching the ground. This man-handling was entirely unnecessary. He did not even ask me to follow him before grabbing hold of my shoulder and dragging me across the sand. I was intimidated, I was even scared. I was physically powerless compared to him, obviously the people I was with would not have been able to help me should the need arise, and he had already made it quite clear that he was not compelled to obey the law. This was a frightening combination.
To Read the Rest of the Report
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