ما همه مجید توکلی هستیم We are all Majid Tavakoli

While the major news from Iran this week was the death of opposition cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montezeri, another story almost got by me. What's with all the men in hijab? Here's an explanation from the L.A. Times. It's pretty awesome.
Peace/سلام

Copenhagen - FAIL

Even before this thing started, I sort of knew this is where it would lead. It's still very disappointing. Some called it a "sound beginning". A little late for beginnings, no? Getting two people to agree on pizza toppings causes enough hand wringing (nobody else likes anchovies?). Getting nearly 200 countries to agree on the future of the planet...? Basically, we have a document agreeing that there's a problem and there's a line we shouldn't cross related to said problem, but we'll all have to trust each other with how each of us keeps from crossing that line.
Copenhagen closes with weak deal that poor threaten to reject (The Guardian)

Highlights of the climate accord (NYTimes)

The grim meaning of 'meaningful' (The Guardian)

Climate activists declare Copenhagen a disaster (AFP via Grist)

Climate scientists underwhelmed by Copenhagen accord (AFP)
"From the evidence of the last two weeks, I would say we have a heck of a long way still to go if, as a species, we are to avoid the fate that usually afflicts populations that outgrow their resources," said Prof. Andrew Watson, East Anglia University
Peace/سلام

Today is Everybody's Day

Peace/سلام

One year down & one to go

Quote for the moment: "When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive." - Henry Rollins (who was so great this season on my favorite show - especially in facing his end)
In Heavy Rotation on the iPod: Dead Kennedys, Sleater-Kinney, The Clash, Black Flag, Rollins Band, Sex Pistols, Dropkick Murphys

Hard to believe I've been back in the U.S. for a whole year. Hard to believe I just finished my first full year of graduate school. It feels much, much longer and that old familiar itch to move has crept into my bones and blood, a feeling not helped at all by what turned into a rather difficult semester full of fighting the powers that be to wrench my higher education back onto the road toward my desired future. I figured it would be the workload that would get me, but I was wrong.

It's actually a bit complicated, but I'll try to parse it out. The end-result is a bit easier to state: depression, anger, frustration, rage, lots of questioning my decision-making, wanting to burn The System down more than ever, terrified that I am formally being trained to be part of he Problem and NOT The Solution. Good times. A dear friend here who I had a serious talk with about all this said she loved that I feel things so strongly. I suspect not many share her sentiment.

I didn't want to sign on for just a technocrat's degree and I sure as hell didn't want to be a counselor or therapist, but at this point Social Work is feeling an awful lot like a psych or therapy program. Pat disclaimer to calm folks down: While I laud mental health professionals (some are buddies of mine) for their valuable work, I have no background or interest in the matter and certainly no business treating anyone or coming close to it, which is a lot of what direct service feels like at this point. As I've previously noted, I am a big picture girl. As one of my favorite professors in my program recently told me, "You're so macro your almost meta." However, I believe viscerally that a bunch of technocrats and do-gooders cannot end poverty without actually speaking to and working with those in poverty. The times I've worked with communities on the ground have been some of my favorite experiences in life and something I hope to continue in the future. There is a vast gulf between "educated" and "intelligent". I love the big agency I was placed at. The folks there want me to run with my ideas, projects and partnerships. They want this to be my learning experience. And, in shooting for a U.N. internship (I'm like Mulder - I still want to believe!) getting some experience at a big public agency can't be bad.

So, what's the rub? It's not my learning experience. It's not oriented to my goals at the moment in any way. When I lay out how I feel I could fix the situation, I feel like I've been ignored until recently. The future I once could envision at the end of this 2.5 year road is evaporating like a mirage while I rack up a hefty student loan debt. I am not able to see how this will get me to any of the places I want to go and I wonder why in the hell I made this decision. I have not been challenged intellectually at all this semester. There's no going elsewhere at this point and I don't really want to. I just want to make this work, for me and for those down the road.

I didn't mind that this program was not as internationally oriented as I'd hoped. It's given me a great chance to dig in and work with the faculty who are trying to move it that direction and get involved in pushing the change. I didn't mind that I didn't fit into either our program or the global public affairs program entirely. I never really fit in anywhere anyway and it gave me a chance to dive in a work on finding a solution for the next poor soul who falls between the two. And may give me a chance to serve as Guinea pig for a new internationalist dual degree if I push hard enough. I don't like to just bitch. I like to rumble and I like to solve things. I don't even think the problems lay just with the school or program. I have developed some great relationships amongst the faculty and admin, enjoyed a few great courses, so I don't mean to insinuate the whole place is a total loss. However, I believe the profession on the whole and the Council on Social Work Education need a swift, substantial kick in the ass. What happened to the radical traditions of social work? What happened to focusing on social issues?

I've been told the mantra pushed on those who question our department is "trust the system". No, sorry. I don't. Granted, now that I've completed my work for the semester in the last 48 hours, my urge to find a match and some gasoline has gone down considerably. I have a few weeks off now, to read what I please and do some thinking and planning for the coming year. I may have eased off for the moment, but I remain uncompromising about my future and the fight to get there.
Peace/سلام

What's So Hard About This?

No man is an island, but Helwan University might be

I'm just going to put this out there....
I am trying to get in touch with the School of Social Work at Helwan University in Egypt regarding their 2010 social work conference, to be held March 10-11, which I would like to submit a paper for it and attend. My department may even help send me to the conference. The problem has been that emails have bounced back and fax numbers turned out to be wrong or just wouldn't connect. I've had a great deal of trouble even just confirming there would even be 2010 conference. One of my professors, who has attended the conference in the past, has been working his contacts, so far to little avail. So if ANYONE out there can help me make contact with ANYONE in the Helwan University School of Social Work, please let me know!
Peace/سلام

Song for being a poverty wonk

Running the World
by Jarvis Cocker
In heavy rotation on the iPod of late.
We have to keep a weekly journal of our internship experience and for last week's we were asked to write about a work of art that a particular person we've worked with (I refuse to use the term client, but that's another post in and of itself) may have reminded of us. Sadly, this one came to me too late. For me, it's not one person, it's all the people and all the issues and all the seemingly eternal systemic injustices that lead these people to our door. And for some reason this song seems to nail the whole thing. It's not one to play for the kiddies, though. The term he uses to describe who runs the world is used as a term of absolute frustration, not in some misogynistic way, at least in my opinion. And it's all wrapped up in sparkly, Brit Pop sonic wrapping that manages to suck you right in.
Peace/سلام

Adieu, Monsieur Lévi-Strauss.

Lévi-Strauss Dies at 100

L'ethnologue et anthropologue Claude Lévi-Strauss est mort

Peace/سلام

One Nation, On Food Stamps...

Wow. Just...wow.
Peace/سلام

What to say?

There's really nothing to say about Sunday's bombing...or, at least I can't come up with anything. It's being analyzed, denounced, reported on by others...
Is it worse, aside from the number of fatalities or especially that the number includes children from two on-site day care centers, than too many other days in Iraq? I suppose that depends on if you lost someone yesterday. I didn't, but it still bothers me. Then again, that's not the right word for the feeling. Maybe it's because I've lived with and been friends with people fleeing this chaos, but I don't believe you have to have lived in the region or known a single Iraqi (or Afghan) to have those images and stories tear at you. I hope it's simply a human response. I'm just not so sure, though.
Peace/سلام

Philip Spooner Schools Us All

This got me.
Thank you, Philip, for your decency, courage and clarity.
Salaam/سلام

What the heck is social work anyway?

In my quest to patch the gaping "international" holes in my grad program, I went over to our school's public affairs department to see about taking some of their international affairs/international development courses to augment my program of study. I've suggested a dual degree with their international division, but that'll take years to pull together for reasons best illuminated by the following:

The grad adviser was nice enough, but puzzled as to why I was in the School of Social Work and not his department, given my background and goals:

"Social work? I thought all you guys did was help old people or something."

Yes, that's me. Helping the oldsters with their old people stuff. *sigh*
(Did I mention one of my favorite films is Soylent Green? No? Well, it seems the thing to bring up here...)

As with so much else in life, I feel I don't entirely fit here and I don't entirely fit in his department either. So I'll just keep plugging along, advocating my tail off for myself in my department and trying to fill those holes.

I now want a t-shirt emblazoned with the words, "Social Workers: We don't just take your children away and help old people!"
Salaam/سلام

You Might Be a Macro Wonk If...

You may be more community, organizational and macro-level systems-focused in your social work if:

Your social work professor mentions the word "development" and you immediately assume she's referring to organizational or community capacity development, not personal psychological development.

You are watching a short film in class about a grandmother raising her grandchildren. The camera pans across the name of the hospital where her grandson is being treated. You immediately pop open your laptop to find out if it's public or private, if it's covered by Medicaid and related budget & stimulus financing analysis on that state's medicaid system.

You have to fight the urge to somehow organize the people who come to see you for assistance at your internship placement into a coalition or front to fight the systemic inequalities that landed them at your agency at the first place.

Off to yet another class...
Salaam/سلام

More News From Hard Times

If you're applying for food stamps in Texas, I hope you and your family are not actually hungry. Because this is going to take a while...

Also, the clock is running out for 55,000 Texans.
Salaam/سلام

The rich get richer and the poor get what exactly?

In completely unsurprising news, inequality in the U.S. got worse, according to recently released Census data.

Most mornings at the social service agency I intern for there is a line of people wrapped around the building waiting for the doors to open. It's first come, first serve for appointments with case workers, who can connect people to the direct assistance programs our department offers, and those appointments are filled within minutes. If you weren't able to be seen, you'll have to come back early the next morning and maybe the next and maybe the day after that. Hopefully, in the mean time, you won't be put out on the street, or your utilities won't be cut off, and maybe you can find another food pantry and not go hungry. My criticism isn't of the department, but of the larger system. And the fact that the people we see everyday don't make the news cycle and have yet to crack the reality of too many people in this country.

It's one thing to help people escape poverty, but why not enact programs to keep them out of poverty in the first place? Why do we talk about poverty alleviation, but not eradication? I know, I know...radical, lefty, do-gooder nonsense. Or, if your some of our fantastically frightening uber-right wing pols in this country: "Socialism!" One of my greatest pet peeves is when people use an important sounding word when they have no idea what it actually means. For one of my favorite examples, see the "plethora of piñatas" scene from the film The Three Amigos. I digress...as usual.
Salaam/سلام