Twin Oaks Community

So this is a long, highly insider game post on commune micro decision making and politics.   You have been warned.

So i am one of the hammocks business general managers, an august group called the RPM (for Ropes Products Management).  Shal, Hawina and Alex sit with me on this team.  We do a bunch of things, many micro-managing (which we are striving to get out of) and some far reaching.

One of the high impact things we do is we set weekly production goals (during the cooler months) and when the community fails to make these goals our labor obligation for everyone in the community increases [AKA quota goes up].  So this year, after a long run of making our goals, we got swatted by the double whammy of New Years party and a ring shortage.  Goals were eliminated for two weeks and then we were out of practice and we started missing goals when they came back on again.  We missed goals two weeks in a row and quota went up to 44.8 hours a week (from a normal of 42) and the number of hammocks needed to get quota back down went up also (since we have to clear the amount we missed the goal by).

i think i am resolving to not complain about or even mention being busy.

i think this is part of my particular social conditioning and is too often used as an excuse or a dodge for not doing something, which i am failing to do out of a lack of interest or desire.  Lots of people are busy and many of them dont get much done.  By complaining about being busy, one simply puts themselves in this large group for people using poor planning as their excuse.

Correspondingly, folks who think i am always busy (because i have complained about it) often ask “Is this a good time?”

to which i often quip, “there are only two times in my life: now and not happening”

When i write the mtg notes immediately after the mtg, they come into being.  If i wait until i “have time” to write them, they mostly never come into existence.

When i am feeling grandiose and clever about myself i put out this thesis.  Most people choose there thing to be good at.  It might be work, it might be a hobby, usually there is a primary focus of activity, perhaps two.  This focus increases practice and generally builds ability.  Sometimes these people become masters of their area, more often their egos are tied up in how well they do this focus area.

“Who is she?” i said to my co-worker in the San Francisco high rise office building

“Stay away from her, she is dangerous.” Was his reply, i did not ask him to elaborate, i should have.

But at 24 i was a bit hypnotized by this striking woman with the long hair and mysterious manner.  And after a couple false starts we ended up dating.

Alexandra did film editing and stayed up late.  i was working a lot of hours so she often picked me up after midnight to take to go out into the San Francisco night, which was much wilder back in 1980 before the city shut down the bath houses.  She said she worked with the San Francisco Youth Ballet and she certainly was an impressive dancer, but in retrospect, she might well have been lying to me.

One night i was staying with a friend of mine who lived near the then-abandoned Kezar Stadium, this part of the Haight district of San Francisco was pretty seedy and i had had a couple of run ins with aggressive street folks when i went to see my friend who i was staying with there.

So i live in this unusually wonderful place.  There is tremendous freedom, there is basically no crime, low stress, guaranteed work, no bosses, we grow our own organic food, equitable distribution of resources, rich social culture, very stable, small footprint and much more some of it quite hard to describe.

So it is not surprising that we attract with some regularity some amazing personalities.  I co-manage recruiting here (the self-proclaimed Minister of Propaganda) so i watch with interest most of these extraordinary characters as they consider living here.  Often i can tell it wont last, these are the shooting stars.  We get them here for a while, they shine their light on us, we enjoy them, and then they whisk off to another adventure or romance.

One such shooting star was Raven.

He was extraordinary in a number of ways.  He was the only practicing Muslim in my 14 years at this commune.   He was mercurial – One month he would do all tofu and scheduled work, the next he would do all hammocks and unscheduled work.  He was a bike racer who took that haste into almost everything he touched.  And i knew from before he became a member, we would only have him for a while before the next amazing opportunity caught his eye and he flew off.

Raven and the infamous Cardin

Raven told me a story, which captured some essence of him for me and it is tangled in one flavor of this shoot star identity.  It goes something like this.

i am having a mysterious honeymoon with my blog.  Traffic is up – over 200 hits a day most days (not counting the 150 RSS feeds). Which of course i love.  But i have to confess i dont understand where it is coming from well.  This is not for lack of investigation on my part.  I pour over the statistics about who looks at my blog and where they come from.  Over the last 28 months, these are the top 5 search terms which found my blog and the number of hits which went thru to this blog.

One of the principal teachings from when i was a real Dungeon Master was “If you believe in an illusion, it can kill you.”  I was reminded of this today when i read this quote from Vandana Shiva

Jerry Mander goes further in his brilliant book “In the Absence of the Sacred”.  In it he identifies the Eleven Inherent Rules of Corporations and this fiction’s key effects.

Amorality: Not being human, corporations do not have morals or altruistic goals. So decisions that maybe antithetical to community goals or environmental health are made without misgivings. In fact, corporate executives praise “non-emotionality” as a basis for “objective” decision-making.

Corporations, however, seek to hide their amorality and attempt to act as if they were altruistic.. Corporate efforts that seem altruistic are really Public relations ploys or directly self-serving projects.

i’ve never really had a good lawyer til today.  Jeff was great in the Cville Occupy 18 case which was tried today.  At my favorite point in the trial, Jeff got the city manager to admit that the complaints about Occupy Cville were from representatives of the 1% in the ritzy housing around Lee Park and these got the Occupy protesters (representing the 99%) removed.

Jeff basically vanished the indecent exposure charge against co-protester Beyonce in several clear cross examine questions to lead cop at the arrest. After the cop got off the stand, it was clear that they had no idea about the relevant law and thought it was not simply “arrest all nude people”.  Tragically, Beyonce’s message about black youth in the Cville criminal justice system was completely vanished by the media.

Protesters immediatley after the trial

Don is having surgery at the same time he is changing rooms.  This creates another complication in the elaborate chess game of commune room assigning.  Typically, members recover from surgery in Nashoba which is designed for convalescence.  So Jim (who lives in the infirmary in Nashoba) is getting bumped out of his room while Don is recovering.  Jim knew this was possible when he moved in and has chosen to stay in the building, even though several “unbumpable” rooms have opened up since he moved in, presumably because Nashoba is quite a nice building to live in and we have perhaps one recovery process a year, so he does not get bumped often,  this may be his first time.

Jim was excited about the prospect of moving into the old room of the member who was having surgery.  He got ready to move down there and then found that a neighbor in that building had decided to move into the room which was being vacated.  Upon hearing this Christina commented “Well, that’s rude.” knowing that Jim had been excited about moving (tho only for the period of recovery) to this room.  Bochie and Aubby quickly countered “No it is not”

“Do you like doing trays?” Sabrina asked me one night while i was making hammocks.

i laughed.  “Not really, but tofu trays is honest work and i dont do much honest work around here.  So i keep doing it.”

What i meant by that is i do a lot of lighter work: marketing, recruiting, managing, organizing, home schooling, child care, political work.  Work on the phone, work with keyboards or pencils or toys.   I get labor credits for these and the community recognizes them as important aspects of our collective economy and culture.

But when i got up at 6 this morning to put in 3.5 hours before 10 AM moving basically non-stop in the loud, hot, busy, wet tofu hut – it feels like real work, like some of the heavy lifting that keeps this farm crossed with several small businesses going.

me & curds in action

Sabrina was asking, because in this off winter season there were a number of people asking for additional shifts and she believed (i am somewhat flattered to say) that i was busy with other things (especially managing the hammocks business) and that i could stop doing early morning tofu trays for a while.

This morning i did what might well be my last tofu trays shift before the big upgrades are finished.  The job wont at all be the same and i have already watched it change dramatically.

When i started working in tofu in 1999, Hawina was managing the business and she needed more workers.  She made a pitch to me that she thought trays would be the job i would like.  Really what she was saying was, since we needed all hands on deck, there was not really a “not interested” option, so trays would be the best of the available options for me.

Random Character Line up

Queen and baby bee

i was the MC in my '80s bag lady jacket

Willow had a flaming sword

Zadek with different weapon

Hawina read a pirate shanti

If the on-going Fukushima nuclear crisis is to teach us anything, it is that even after these multiple meltdowns the government would rather lie to its own people than risk loosing the nuclear option.  Here are a couple of examples.

Because of the long tradition of local governments needing to approve reactor restarts, the number of closed reactors in Japan is now 49 out of 54.  By this summer, unless some local governments change their minds or the national government changes its policy all the reactors in the country will be idle.  The central government issued a report saying that this would result in about a 10% shortage in electricity during the summer.  Which of course sounds reasonable, you close 30% of your generating capacity, presumably there will be shortages, right? wrong.

According to a recent report by English edition of the Mainichi Times, even with no reactors operating and assuming record high 2012 summer heat there will be no electricity shortage in Japan.  A key piece of this report is that renewable sources will make up 7 full reactors worth of power, a point ignored in the initial government document declaring the shortage.  The recalculated report shows there will be a 6% surplus in electricity, even without the highly successful energy rationing program from last summer.

So what you cant tell from this photo is that the old aquarium for Scuba Steve was so small he had trouble turning around in it.  This was my big Xmas present this year and it seems like a perfect choice.

Red is teaching Willow how to weld things with the shouldering irons in the hammock shop.  Willow made all manner of presents for people he cares for, including the polypropylene rope one for me in the picture below.

The simple truth is the thing is not beautiful and had anyone else made it and had anyone else given it to me i would not even consider wearing it.  But Willow is not anyone else and he likes it that i wear it and i am proud to show off his handy work.  Tragically, he burn his hand on an iron shortly after making this one, so it might be the last of this for of artwork for a while (Bochie is encouraging him to “explore other medias”).

When i first came to Twin Oaks, my plan was to learn how communities worked (or didn’t) and go back to eastern Europe and start an activist community with my lover Alyson.  Of course, it worked out nothing like that.

What i knew going in was that if you wanted to start a community you should learn from the people who are already doing it, by living in an existing community, so you dont unnecessarily recreate the wheel or other devices.  What i thought i was coming to learn about at Twin Oaks University was the decision models and how communities make money.  i figured, if i understood these two things i would have the most important aspects of community down.  As is so often the case, i was completely wrong.

Artist rendition of campus of Twin Oaks University - not

What i learned was that the Twin Oaks decision model was hopelessly broken and that the businesses earned well below the minimum wage.  And i discovered that this was not the most important stuff of community.

The day after dozens of websites protested proposed government censorship of the internet, the Department of Justice (DoJ) shutdown subscriber based upload site megaupload.com.  The next day in direct retaliation the hacktavist group Anonymous shut down whitehouse.gov, DoJ.gov and FBI.gov in what Russia Today is reporting as the largest strike against US government websites ever.

Russia Today on Anonymous hack of government sites

Taking credit for a giant illegal attack US government sites makes you a target for the nations law enforcement agencies.  But we have to wonder, is this even a real person we are watching.  My guess is that these cyber-geniuses who can take down sites which are designed by very highly paid computer consultants to block exactly these types of attacks, can also generate a video image (albeit a grainy one) which can interview with Russia Today in real time (complete with smirk in mid interview) in a convincing manner.

My guess is that the Anonymous folks recognized that for the media coverage that they wanted, they needed a face to be interviewed and that it could not be in a Guy Fawkes mask as they have done in the past.  So they created one.

It’s getting hot in here.

The Obama Administration just shot down the proposed extension of the giant Canadian-US pipeline called Keystone XL.  This is largely a symbolic measure, since the deadline was set arbitrarily by Republicans in an effort to make political gains and Obama has said they can refile the permit application again next year.

What is interesting is looking at the lies told about this project and why the Republicans, especially the political candidates for president, think they will stand.

The first big lie is that Keystone XL will create lots of jobs.  Gingrich parrots recent oil industry numbers of 20,000 jobs.  House speaker Boehner is claiming 100,000 jobs.  Turns out when TransCanada submitted their original application for the project in 2008 they estimated “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel” in temporary jobs building the pipeline.   [It is worth noting that nuclear power, which is the most capital intensive way to produce electricity is often "sold" on the grounds that it creates jobs]

Typically, i post just after 11 PM, so i maximize the number of hits i get in a day for a post (for some reason WordPress has me on Nova Scotia time).  Right around then on January 18th, Greenwich Mean Time WordPress actisits along with Wikipedia and the Cheezburger Network (which includes LOLcats and other popular sites) will blackout their sites in protest of SOPA/PIPA legislation.

So what are these bills?  Basically, they are Hollywood funded pieces of legislation which are designed to combat music and video piracy by turning search engines, social networks and service providers into internet cops.

Eric Cantor (the fascist rep from my district who is also the House Majority leader) has claimed SOPA is dead until a consensus can be found, which would appear to be never.  But PIPA trundles along in the senate.

These protests take a leaf from the European newspaper censorship protests where the front page is the masthead and otherwise blank.

If you can read this page it means that i was unsuccessful in getting the WordPress plug in to function and that WordPress itself is not closing any of its member sites in protest.  So if you think internet censorship is problematic, you can join the electronic frontiers foundation petition,

For the first time in a year i have a room of my own.  There is no one to blame for this situation other than myself.  i gave up my room in Tupelo and then various temporary room situations i had so that other people, who i perceived had greater need, could land in rooms in the community.  But now i am back in my favorite building in the room Angie left when she moved to Philly.

And there is a slightly mysterious process of unpacking.  Mysterious because perhaps 1/5 of the things which have gotten stored as mine are not mine, for when i had a room it was the way station for many an interesting wayward person, many of whom left me presents.  So as Sara and i were unpacking me last night one of the larger piles was “Stuff of known people who dont live in Tupelo (anymore)”. So there was a box of Angie’s awards and Shiloh’s books and Tobias‘s Love Letters and Lylette’s Transoceanic shipments and then several boxes of unrecognizable things.

i studied Game Theory in college.  This highly applied field solves real world problems by modeling them as mathematical games and finding optimal “objective function” values – thus winning the fame.  This fairly new field was used to schedule allied troops landing in Normandy in World War II and to break into divisions General Motors when it had appeared to reach the limits to successful growth.

And Game Theory has a more theoretical side, which is often applied to recreational games.  It is a game theory principal that in pure strategy games (like chess, go and tick tac toe) the player moving first can at least create a tie, if not win – if they play optimally (which is quite hard to do for anything more complicated than tic tac toe).

What Game Theory does not spend a lot of time on, is the relatively new set of games where the players have different rules.  I happen to love these games.  The grand dad of these is Cosmic Encounter.

In “Cosmic” as it is called by most fans, you have your alien powers which allow you to uniquely change the rules in your favor.  Then there are cards which allow the rules to be further bent.  So cards give you permission to cheat and then once you get caught, it is made easier for you to cheat again, and when you get caught by the other players you have to pay a penalty.

[This piece is slightly dated now, but there is so much good stuff in it, i wanted to go public with it.]

Sadly, i must admit i have all but stopped reading books.  I still read a lot every day, most of it on the internet.  There are books that i am interested in reading; one was the much discussed When Corporations Ruled the Earth by David Korten.  So i was excited when i saw he co-authored an article for TruthOut.org called Ten Ways the Occupy Movement Changes Everything.  Unfortunately, i read the article and was disappointed.  While everything in it was true, it felt like it had missed many of what i thought were the key points around this important movement.  So in the spirit of “passport to complaining,” i wrote my own version.  i hope you like it. Even better, i hope you link to it and share it with your friends.

10 Ways Occupy Changes Everything