Celebrate 8 years of your favorite activist couple!

Elijah and I are celebrating our 8th anniversary in November 2010, and we decided to celebrate in a big way.  There shall be a party (comment/email if you want details), and you can bring us presents help us support a noble cause!  We're working with a bunch of awesome people to support the first transgender/gender non-conforming needs assessment study in DC in over a decade.  It's a major undertaking, and such things aren't cheap!  So as we celebrate our many, many, many years together, we hope you'll join us in supporting a cause that's near and dear to our little world-changing hearts.  Please donate as little or as much as you can using the handy tool below!

P.S.  We're handing over the cash to Latin@s en Accion, the fiscal sponsor for the study.  They're one of those 501(c)3 things, and so we can get you a receipt for a tax-deductible donation if you really want it.

P.P.S  If you're mean and don't like queer people, you can give us money to buy a KitchenAid.  We'll take one in either Pear, Ice or Green Apple.

Problem solved?

This weekend I attended a two day training on problem solving workshops, an ancient (and by that, I mean over 30 years old) conflict resolution method usually utilized while a given conflict is still ongoing (like in Cyprus or Israel/Palestine, etc).  It's a method that was discussed frequently in grad school, but we never actually got training on how to do it.  I'm certainly not going to run out tomorrow and conduct one of these workshops, but it's always good to get additional skills in the old tool belt.  Aside from a few quibbles with the simulation part of the training, on the whole it was good to be able to meet new people and learn new things.  I'm really hoping to advance professionally and get the opportunity to get more hands-on experience soon, so it's good to be ready.  

On another level, it was healthy for me to finally get exposed to this method.  I've almost always focused on post-conflict work -- topics like reconciliation and establishing the rule of law.  I had also been a little turned off by the term "problem solving," as it goes against my almost instinctive (yeah, you're surprised) bias toward more positive language.  Of course, ye olde looming question remains:  in order to succeed in my field, do I need to pursue yet more education?  Time will tell.

I've rambled enough.  Yay! for new things. 

Read me elsewhere and read me now!

I've got a post up on the American Evaluation Association's AEA365 blog.  Check it out:  challenges in evaluating peacebuilding activities.

Thank you, dear reader, for your continued support.

Explaining evangelical higher ed

A friend submitted a query to me just now, and my response was so brilliant, I decided to repost the conversation.

A: ignorance is bliss
A: I just learned there is more than one christian law school
J: yes, there is more than one
A: whyyyyy
A: I thought the jerry falwell one was the only one
J: well, on the 8th day, god said "let's kill all the faggots and beat the womenfolk into submission"
A: hahaha
J: and then the mormons said "we've got just the thing"
J: and then the evangelicals said "we'll see your BYU and raise you a whole system of wackjob 'educational' institutions, and jesus shall be pleased once karl rove gives us the new promised land to run, and we fill israel with red cows"
A: lol....
J: and the lord said, "it is good. a little short on logic, but good"
A: ok that's fun to learn
J: and then the hebrews ran around egypt and there were some wars and some dude was nailed to a tree and then at the end a greek dude in a cave had a wicked acid trip

So there, now you know. Avoid them scary schools of evangelical indoctrination, and stick to the good old fashioned loony left variety. :)

More news on trans inmates in DC

Following up on my last two posts on this subject, yesterday the Blade ran an op-ed by the DC Trans Coalition (penned by a great friend and yours truly) on the recent developments regarding DC's new policy on housing trans folks in the DC jail.

Be sure to check it out, and remember, holding your government accountable is fun!

Big dreams brought to you by The Little Man with Big Dreams

The above moniker was bestowed to me by a relative when I was a kid, and deployed whenever I'd get wistful about leaving our dinky little town to save the world, or at least be able to teach a really awesome high school history class. Given that I'm a towering 5'7", it's still basically appropriate. I'm still a big dreamer, but lately I've felt I'm getting a little distracted by life's minutiae, and not focusing on big things. Call it ennui, if you must. Call it "time for change," if you've consumed too much of the Obama kool-aid.

Anywho, when I read Prince's call for us all to dream big, I decided to ponder it for a bit, and then take him up on it. These aren't resolutions, per se, and if things don't go off in the calendar year of 2009, so be it, but I do like the idea of having some big life goals and a few measurables to work from. The big dreams, in no particular order:

• Be more theoretically informed about the world around me. At the very tail end of 2008, I discovered something called the Africa Reading Challenge, wherein participants agreed to read any 6 books by African authors or about African issues over the course of the year. Since I missed that boat, I would like to expand it to African issues and authors plus works on conflict resolution, peace studies, and the like. My goal for this year: 10 books.
  
• Be more dedicated to getting my thoughts out into the world. I tend to blog in spurts, and my friends' and my endeavor over at Practical Peaceniks seems to be hitting a quiet patch. I would like to revitalize this blog, perhaps including more non-international and local content, with a goal of 10 posts per month. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's something. Also, as I start to think about graduate study again, I would like to pursue getting at least one piece -- even if it's just a book review -- selected for publication.
• Be more engaged with my community. This year I started getting involved in the work of the DC Trans Coalition, and that has been incredibly rewarding after a too long lull in my activist adventures. I would like to continue that work, as well as find volunteer opportunities related to engaging local youth in international affairs and/or promoting peace and social justice issues.
  
• Dramatically improve my level of personal and professional fulfillment. I think doing all of the above will help with that tremendously. More generally speaking, I need to stay on top of new opportunities as they develop, and I need to be more intentional about making sure my needs are met. Apathy is not a virtue, and I'm not going to get over my recent slump by sitting on my duff. I am, by nature, an optimistic and active person, with no particular fondness for sleeping too much (ok, sometimes). I need to get back in touch with that, daily.

Sounds modest enough, right? Let's see how it plans out. Perhaps I should file monthly reports with myself. :)

Shameless plug: Go read Practical Peaceniks

Yesterday some friends and I launched Practical Peaceniks, a new blog aimed at "promoting peace with a bent towards reality." I definitely encourage you to check it out and subscribe via whatever medium you prefer.

I'll still be blogging here too, and as you might have noticed, I'm trying to get back into the swing of posting regularly. So look forward to more of my rants, now with two homes.

100th post: now home to the "smurfs thesis communist doctrine"

That, friends, is how one lucky googler came across this very blog, and bless their little souls for getting here this way. Now, I'm not sure which post(s) they may have read when they landed here, as I don't recall ever having written each of those four words in any one post. I know I've written about each of those words in separate posts. Anyway, perhaps this blog, when taken as a sum of its parts, reveals the deeper meaning behind the Smurfs Thesis Communist Doctrine. If so, trust me that I didn't intend it that way.

I'm not even sure what the Smurfs Thesis Communist Doctrine is. But that's the kind of quality scholarship you'll find here at Is that a gavel in your pants?

[FYI, I googled that phrase myself, and this blog didn't pop up within the first 8 pages of results, which is my usual stopping place for more obscure things, so I'm now especially intrigued at how hard one must have to work to make the link between this site and that phrase.]

Anyway, on this particularly goofy note, allow me to celebrate my 100th post. Look for more drivel to come.

Editor's note

Apologies for the severe lack of blogging of late. Job searching/stressing about job searching sort of inhibited my flow.

But now that's done! I'm officially one of DC's newest cube monkeys.

Now be on the lookout for the resumption of our regularly scheduled blogging, already in progress.

Blogiversary: Moments of Wisdom

Today is my Blogiversary!

• We began with little fanfare in my would-be homeland, discussing the time out chair of British politics.
  
• Less than two months into the game, we took 5 weeks off, in an effort to save the planet and go on vacation.
  
• Nothing at all of note happened for a long time.
• In January, I grew tired of Election 2008, and it had only begun.
  
• In March, express noted that apparently the Wall Street Journal agrees with me on how governance changes are seriously needed at the Smithsonian, but just like at AU (a school I dearly depart in 5 days), they probably won't happen.
• Also in March, I told you all how to go get shot up in Iraq. DCBlogs thought this information was worth sharing with you.
  
• In April, I tried to make a funny. Somebody got pissed off at me. I shot them down. This amuses me greatly. Woe be unto idiot commenters.
• Finally, just last week, I whored myself out to the world. :)

So there you have it kids. This blog has been a waste of your time and mine for at least 365 days. Four more wars!!! Er... years...

This is the big one Elizabeth! I'm comin' to join ya honey.

T-minus one week till the end of my graduate education. After that, sweet freedom, and being a productive member of society. I don't yet know what all that entails, but I do know this:

Step one: Find job.

You interested? I'm smart, I'm cute, and I know stuff. I can also add quaint Appalachian colloquialisms to your vocabulary. Them's qualifications, right?

Relatively smart person agrees with me!

David Broder, who is actually a fairly respected columnist, has endorsed my position that presidential campaigning is now a far too long and drawn out process. He even offers some decent suggestions to fix this problem, which may even be better than my own suggestion for us all to go live in caves for the next 18 months.

So there you have it folks, this little-read blog is inspiring greatness!

Mapping and Fighting Corruption in War Torn States

In an effort to demonstrate my academic mettle, I offer this bit of shameless self promotion. Click here to read to full report by the above title which I helped to write, or click here (and scroll to the bottom) for a synopsis of the project.