HITCHHIKING & TRAINHOPPING–Part IV

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THE CONFESSIONS OF FOFI LITTLEPANTS

PART IV

by Fofi Littlepants


IV. THE JOURNEY

Our odyssey spanned 29 states, 3 countries, and 1 federal district. We didn’t have much of a plan when we started, except that we decided to head north from California, rather than southeast, because we had already explored those states in the past.

In the end, we went through every major geographic region of the country, with the exception of the Southwest and the Deep South (unless you place Arkansas or Tennessee in the Deep South, but I think most people consider them to be in a distinct region, like the “Upper South”.)

We started in the most quintessentially Western of states, California, and hitchhiked north into the Pacific Northwest through Oregon and Washington, then took a bus over the border into Canada (nobody would give us a ride over the border), and hitchhiked around British Columbia. Then we came back into Washington, and then hopped a train east, through Idaho and into Montana.

We hitched around Montana and Wyoming, but rented a car to go to Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks (there was no public transport, and we didn’t want to have to follow the schedule of families on vacation with their kids). We also visited Apsaálooke (Crow) nation, and then hitchhiked east to South Dakota, through the Black Hills, and got a car to explore the Badlands and visit Lakȟóta (Sioux) country. We were planning to trainhop south toward Texas, but failed a number of times and then ended up having to flee the state in a hurry ~ we were camping on the side of a rest stop off the freeway, when a stupendous storm with tornado potential started gathering ~ a trucker rescued us at 2 am, and we sped away in his 18-wheeler into Minnesota, with the storm following us a few minutes behind; we eventually arrived in Wisconsin.

After exploring a bit of Wisconsin (we were in Madison, and then went to Oshkosh just because we liked the name), and after visiting a wonderful friend in Chicago (who drove an hour outside of town to pick us up from an obscure White Castle where we had gotten dropped off), we hitched southward through the vast flat expanses of the Great Plains, crossing from Illinois through Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and on to Texas.

In Texas we explored Austin and Hill Country, and while Joey was visiting people in the north of the state, I got a car for two days and drove around at great speed through north, central, east and south of the state, and went into Mexico twice to just see what the border was like (the second time, I got detained for inspection, and had to wait while my rental car went through all sorts of probes that included lots of agents, dogs, mirrors and banging.) Joey and I then hitched through the Upper South, through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia, and finally ended up in the South Atlantic ~ Maryland and D.C.

By the time we got to Maryland, we celebrated that we had gone coast to coast by train or thumb; we retired that part of the trip, in favor of Chinatown buses, which will take you to and from most major East Coast cities for $20 or less. Our justification for this was that we only had a couple of weeks left and didn’t have the time to hitchhike in the face of East Coast paranoia ~ it had taken us 12 hours to get from Richmond, Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland, over a distance that would have been a one and a half hour drive by car.

From a basecamp of our friend’s house in Baltimore, we rented a car for 3 days and explored New England: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. And finally, going through mid-Atlantic Pennsylvania and New Jersey, we brought the journey to a close in the most quintessential of eastern states, New York.

We were well aware that this trip really just scratched the surface of what there is to see and know in the United States. But I guess we’ll save the rest for another trip.

***

It’s cliché to say this, but the United State is an enormous, endlessly varied place. Every place we passed through exhibited a splendid diversity along innumerable dimensions: from landscape and vegetation (snow-topped peaks in Washington and Montana covered in pines, to the total desolate flatness of the many Plains states); the number of people (you don’t realize in California people are living like crowded ants, until you go out to Wyoming and drive miles and miles to see the next house); weather (from tornados and hailstorms in the middle of summer in South Dakota, to the ginormous sauna that is Texas), wildlife (from deer, bear, moose, foxes, skunks, and raccoons in the wooded north and east, to marmots, mountain goats, mountain lions, elk and birds of prey in the mountains, and bison, prairie dogs, porcupines, and rattlesnakes in the Plains, to name only a few).

Even the color of sunlight and sky, the shapes of clouds, and feel of the air can vary greatly. Dusk in the Plains casts the richest orange light on everything ~ a portraitist’s dream ~ then it slowly gathers itself into a sunset glowing deep purple. In the sea of Montana Big Sky, Botero clouds backfloat voluptuously across unending blue. In the woods of Maine, the air is so warm and velvety that you feel like you’re being held in an embrace.

Sounds and vibrations also vary greatly. I don’t think I had ever experienced the absolute stillness and silence that envelopes the Great Plains and the Mountains. Nor the reverberation in my chest from the humming of Texas insects, which miraculously hide themselves in trees despite surely being the size of helicopters. And as Xena Warrior Princess said, there is also much to be heard if you “Listen not just to the sounds, but what’s behind the sounds.”

Another salient regional difference was in driving style. In the Plains, where there are flat roads and few people, people push the 80-mile per hour speed limit, grumbling all the while that there used to be no speed limit at all; they couldn’t comprehend the ludicrous 55-mile per hour limits in California. But even that paled in comparison to the East Coast, where even peace-loving Buddhist progressives transform into maniacal terminators on testosterone when they get behind the wheel.

Other interesting road-related indications of regional differences were the variations in street signs ~ depending on where you are, they can manifest silouettes of deer and moose, as well as tractors and snowmobiles. A related (sadder) one was the diversity in roadkill ~ dogs, cats, and deer are ubiquitously littered on the side of the road, but in some regions, porcupines and skunks add themselves to the pile.

***

Some people ask what the highlights were out of the things that we got to see. We don’t have a very good answer, there isn’t a really obvious list. The best we could do is to name a few experiences that we remember and come to mind: In Glacier National Park in Montana, we hiked through the snow along the edge of a cliff, looking over our shoulders for bears. In Apsaálooke (Crow) country, we watched dancing competitions at a pow-wow while chewing on Indian fry bread. In South Dakota on the eve of Fourth of July, we caught a ride with a motorcycle gang to Mount Rushmore for fireworks (though it was too foggy to see any), and the next day visited the Crazy Horse Memorial, a colossal mountain statue that is being carved into the Black Hills of the famed Lakȟóta warrior Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse), designed by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski at the invitation of Lakȟóta leader Henry Standing Bear. In Lakȟóta country, we felt lucky to be allowed to attend a wi wanyang wacipi (sun dance), a traditional ceremony that represents life and rebirth, in which dancers connect spiritually to the center of the universe. We also talked to people and read historical materials at Wounded Knee, the infamous site of the massacre of 1890 and the standoff with the American Indian Movement and the FBI in 1973. In Texas, we discovered a magical blue spring in rolling Hill Country; I also watched baby turtles pull themselves into the sea in Padre National Seashore, then watched a U.S.-Mexico soccer match on a television at a border town fruit stand. In Little Rock, Arkansas, we visited Central High School, where federal troops had landed in 1957 to enforce the Brown v. Wade desegregation decision in the face of virulent resistance by local whites. In Memphis, Tennessee, we went to the National Civil Rights Museum, constructed inside and adjacent to the motel outside of which Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, reading about the long history of the civil rights movement, and the various theories on the perpetrators of the assassination. In Salem, Massachusetts, we watched a reenactment of a witch trial, and saw a memorial for the 19 people that were hanged for witchcraft in 1692, and one who was crushed to death with rocks. At Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, we floated on the water and on our philosophical musings, and sat in the replica of Thoreau’s cabin. We also watched in wonder as a fuzzy green caterpillar, over the course of almost an hour, contorted and writhed in existential ecstasy/agony to haul itself up on a translucent string, from the ground all the way up to a tree branch far above. We followed its progress intently, afraid it would fall and die, but little by little it danced ever so effortfully closer to its goal. We would have found it incredibly inspirational to witness it cross over into its tree branch nirvana, but at the last moment, we lost site of it, and could not find it again. Maybe such things are not for human eyes to see.

***

There is one story I feel I have to include here, because no odyssey is complete without a trip to the underworld.  Mine came in the guise of a sacred quest to navigate Spunky the Guinea Pig down to the depths of hell, the entrance to which can be found on 110th Street in Manhattan.

The story goes like this: in New York, a wonderful family I knew had agreed to let me and Joey stay at their house while they were gone on vacation. In exchange, I was to take care of their two guinea pigs, “Spunky” and “Lonny”, the pride and joy of the family’s 12-year old daughter. I went by a few days early to meet the guinea pigs and to be initiated into guinea pig care training ~ I diligently took notes on the two baby carrots, handful of greens, excess of hay, minimalist layer of pellets, two bottles of water, and air conditioning that the guinea pigs required daily.

When Joey and I finally arrived on the fateful day, it was after much trial and tribulation hauling our luggage around in the subway from downtown in Chinatown, to the apartment all the way uptown, in Innwood around 200th Street. When we arrived at last, I offered to introduce Joey to Spunky and Lonny. But when we went into the airconditioned room in which they lived, I almost had a heart attack ~ one of them was missing! Spunky was nowhere to be found. We crawled around the whole apartment and looked everywhere. In the midst of this, my friend called. He asked how things were going, and I had to admit sheepishly, Spunky was not in his cage! In response he said, “That’s because he died this morning. If you look in the refrigerator he should be in there.” (!) A neighbor that had checked in on the apartment earlier that day and had found him, he said. He asked me to look in the fridge to see if he was there. I was expecting to see a stiff guinea pig belly up in the middle of the center rack with its face contorted into a Ringu scream, but instead found a heavy shoebox in a plastic bag. “Well, there’s a shoebox in the fridge in a bag”, I said into my cell phone. “That’s him,” said my friend, “we don’t put our shoes in the fridge.”

I was instructed to take him down to Animal Control Center to get him disposed of. It was on 110th Street, on the east side. The apartment was on the West Side; Manhattan is split into East and West by Central Park, and the train only runs north and south on the sides of the park. So I figured out that the best thing was to take a train down to 110th to the top of the park, and take a bus across town. Then, after Animal Control, I could go downtown to Trader Joe’s, which was toward the east side ~ we needed groceries.

The next morning, I put poor Spunky, shoebox and all, into my backpack and started for the Animal Control Center.

I was following my plan to take a train down to 110th, but, this was thwarted because the train turned out to be express, and before I knew it, the train had already passed 110th street and ended up in all the way downtown. I ended up on the east side, miraculously close to Trader Joe’s. After some amount of tortured internal debate, I ended up swinging by the Trader Joe’s and shopping for organic pasta sauce and herbal salad, with Spunky still in my backpack. I wondered what the reaction of the other shoppers might be if they found out I had a dead guinea pig in my pack ~ would there be a screaming stampede? Was it a violation of a health code of some kind, I also wondered, to bring along your pet corpses to the supermarket? Would I unleash some kind of new epidemic on the world ~ like “Guinea Pig Flu” ~ if I handled any of the food? I tried to shop and get out of there as quickly as I could (though it seemed an eternity because it was so crowded), all the while occasionally sniffing over my shoulder to check that Spunky wasn’t starting to smell.

When I reached the Animal Control at last, it was with Spunky and a bag of organic groceries in hand. It all turned out fine ~ Spunky’s body seemed to have held up just fine in the New York summer heat even with the detour to Trader Joe’s (and to a pizza joint afterwards to get a slice of pizza.) (I just hope Spunky’s family doesn’t read this and get offended ~ but Trader Joe’s was airconditioned, so I thought it would be okay!! But oh… now I don’t remember if the pizza place was…sorry!!!)

The Animal Control Center on 110th Street was clearly the gateway to Hell. It had the feeling of a prison, and a stuffy, chemically smell. The reception window reminded me of a police station counter window (though it didn’t have bullet-proof glass), and there was a line of people looking like they were waiting to cross the River Styx. Most of the people in the queue had old-looking dogs, I guessed they were bringing them there to have them put to sleep. The place gave me the creeps ~ though it wasn’t visible to the eye, it had the heaviness of a place where living things were getting imprisoned and killed. Fighting off a suffocating feeling, I shuffled into the line with everyone else, and with the gray, doomed dogs, to drop off old Spunkaroo to his final fate.

While in line though, a remarkable thing happened. I guess mythical descents to the netherworld require a glorious ascent, and I think I saw one happen. While Spunky didn’t miraculously resurrect from the dead, another beloved pet may have been given new life.

A lady had come in, with a happy looking dog but herself on the verge of tears; she talked loudly to herself and anyone that would listen.

“Oh, you know this is a bad place!” she said over and over, and I couldn’t agree more. She was moving to Atlanta to work, she went on, and couldn’t take her dog with her because the building she was going to live in didn’t allow pets. She had nowhere else to take her but this pound. The dog’s name was “Beautiful”. She had had all her shots, she was a good dog, she was trained and everything. The woman really hoped that she would get adopted, so she wouldn’t get killed. The lady sat on the side of the line, distraught, obviously having second thoughts about leaving the dog ~ pets only had three days to get adopted before the ax dropped.

People in the line started sympathizing and giving suggestions. I got in the fray, my suggestion being to find a no-kill shelter, and so started looking up some numbers on my Blackberry and calling them. Everyone in the end was admiring Beautiful and trying to help find a home for her. This generally consisted of each person attempting to convince the next person that walked through the door to take the dog home, because they themselves couldn’t.

It was really kind of wrenching. The woman was obviously not wealthy. Someone gave her the suggestion to put the dog on Craigslist, but she didn’t know how to use a computer. If she had money she probably could have found an apartment where she could take the dog, or maybe she wouldn’t have had to be moving to Atlanta in the first place. I always knew that when you’re poor you have to go without so many things that other people take as a given. And this brought it home that it’s not just with material things, but with things even as fundamental as love. It was obvious that this woman loved this dog and it was breaking her heart to drop it off to its likely death. It occurred to me that all the people in line bringing in their old gray dogs loved them, but they couldn’t afford the luxury of a vet that would allow the dog and the family the peace of the pet dying painlessly in loving arms.

Then a miracle happened. A young couple walked in, and almost immediately took a liking to Beautiful. And it turned out that one of them worked for a no-kill shelter. The shelter was full, they said, like all the others I had called, but they told us that we should call later, and could drop her name (Lara). She gave the owner-lady a card, who handed it to me and asked that I call. I did, even though Lara had suggested calling later, not now. After quite a bit of confusion and running around with the phone and some embarrassment for Lara (it turned out that I had eventually gotten her boss on the phone), Lara said that she had gotten approval to try to take Beautiful with her, if she fit in the car. The owner was overjoyed.

I left before I found out what ultimately happened. I felt like I had done my part, and couldn’t do anymore. I didn’t want to insist on knowing what happened in the end, because I have to believe that when you contribute what you can, it has meaning even if you don’t get the exact gratification or rewards you think you want. (“Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.” ~ Gandhi.) And no matter the final outcome, it wouldn’t have changed the lesson that I carried away from that journey to the underworld ~ that love can transcend, transform, and redeem.

–Fofi Littlepants

_________________________________________

Read the complete:

CONFESSIONS OF FOFI LITTLEPANTS

I  Trainhopping

II  Hitchhiking

III  Other Particulars

IV  The Journey

V  Society I ~ Native America

VI  Society II ~ Identity

VII  People

VIII  Penises

IX  Of Dreams And Spirits

X  Conclusion

Sunday Poetry Series Presents Shaindel Beers

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WHAT WILL WE DO WITH YOU? THIS BONE HAS ALMOST NO FLESH PROTECTING IT…

by Shaindel Beers

 

But I am like any porcelain doll, waiting to be destroyed

by a hammer.  Brothers do these things

to incite the cries of their sisters.  They think

This is power.  Someday they will learn that power

is smiling gleefully up at the anvil.  Where I am from,

everyone looks like a corpse.  We are ivory

and blue-veined until cooled at 0◦ for 28-32 minutes.

Then we begin to color up—cheeks become pink,

eyes, a teary blue, lips, a red slash,

sometimes painted crooked by a drunken artist.

Because, as Linus Torvalds said, “there is nothing to

do at home but drink.”  Where I want to take you

the mountain passes are cleared in July—

until it snows at the end of August and some years

Hidden Lake is always under snow, but I

will climb until I find it.  Though you seem

to be made of sand and fashioned for warmth,

I will lock you in a cabinet—porcelain dolls are

dangerous like this sometimes.  You and I are not

so different, the same color when the sun shines

through the khaki sheets.  But this sun is too much.

Even the sheets can’t stop it—It is scarier than

the hammer.  This sun, even in the morning,

in February, is going to obliterate us all.

 

Shaindel Beers’ poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She is currently an instructor of English at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon, in Eastern Oregon’s high desert and serves as Poetry Editor of Contrary (www.contrarymagazine.com).  The above poem is used by permission of the author and is from her recently released book A Brief History of Time.

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: KRISTEN HOLDEN

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WHO SAYS

by Kristen Holden

We said the sky was white, that was the weather

we walk through a seeming window and chime

the sound of non-grey. The city had a backdrop

a canvas a watercolor paper, skyscrapers took

with us a loosing of our blankness. Some of us

have our fingers beating on our thighs a something

piano song, a beat we’d figure with each finger.

We bent down de-valved. Then the biggest buildings,

Paintless! they cried. We’re dry and you are this way

Kristen Holden is a poet and visual artist living in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, SFist and Phoebe. Holden is a Feminist, works in the fashion industry, and blogs at holdenarchive.com.

Editor’s Note: Holden believes in Feminism with a capital F, in fashion with a small f being anything but small, and in banana slugs, which is how I have the pleasure of knowing this multi-faceted artist. She is quoted as saying: “Plan things, then make things.” And she does just that, drawing from a world of art and urban living to make poetry happen. You may add model and Russian-trained dancer to her bag of tricks, but for today, let’s focus on her poetry, as it ought to be.

Want to see more by Kristen Holden?
Holdenarchive.com
San Francisco Love Story
SF Love Story’s Photostream

WILFRED OWEN

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Holographic manuscript page for Wilfred Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum Est. The title is part of a line from an ode by Horace, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, which means “it is sweet and right to die for your country”.

LETTER TO SUSAN OWEN — OCTOBER 31, [1918]

by Wilfred Owen


To Susan Owen

Thurs. 31 October [1918] 6:15 p.m.
[2nd Manchester Regt.]

Dearest Mother,

I will call the place from which I’m now writing ‘The Smoky Cellar of the Forester’s House’. I write on the first sheet of the writing pad which came in the parcel yesterday. Luckily the parcel was small, as it reached me just before we moved off to the line. Thus only the paraffin was unwelcome in my pack.  My servant & I ate the chocolate in the cold middle of last night, crouched under a draughty Tamboo, roofed with planks. I husband the Malted Milk for tonight,  & tomorrow night. The handkerchief & socks are most opportune, as the ground is marshy, [fn1] & I have a slight cold!

So thick is the smoke in this cellar that I can hardly see by a candle 12 ins. away, and so thick are the inmates that I can hardly write for pokes, nudges & jolts. On my left the Coy. Commander snores on a bench: other officers repose on wire beds behind me.  At my right hand, Kellett, a delightful servant of A Coy. in The Old Days radiates joy & contentment from pink cheeks and baby eyes. He laughs with a signaller, to whose left ear is glued the Receiver; but whose eyes rolling with gaiety show that he is listening with his right ear to a merry corporal, who appears at this distance away (some three feet) nothing [but] a gleam of white teeth & a wheeze of jokes.

Splashing my hand, an old soldier with a walrus moustache peels & drops potatoes into the pot. By him, Keyes, my cook, chops wood; another feeds the smoke with the damp wood.

It is a great life. I am more oblivious than alas! yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly glimmering of the guns outside, & the hollow crashing of the shells.

There is no danger down here, or if any, it will be well over before you read these lines.[fn2]

I hope you are as warm as I am; as serene in your room as I am here; and that you think of me never in bed as resignedly as I think of you always in bed. Of this I am certain you could not be visited by a band of friends half so fine as surround me here.

Ever Wilfred x

Footnotes:

1. The Ors Canal was some 70 feet wide bank to bank, except at the locks, with an average depth of 6-8 feet. All bridges had been demolished or prepared for demolition. Low ground on both sides of the canal had been inundated by the Germans; most of iti was swamp. The Germans held the eastern bank.

2. Strong patrolling continued till zero hour for the IX Corps attack, 5:45 a.m. 4 November. 14 Brigade crossed; 96 Brigade, which included 2nd Manchesters, was not successful. The engineers got a bridge across, but the area was swept with shell and machine-gun fire. Two platoons made the crossing, but the bridge was then destroyed. The remainder of the battalion crossed at Ors, where 1st Dorsets had secured a crossing. Wilfred Owen was killed on the canal bank on 4 November. One other officer (Second-Lieutenant Kirk, posthumously awarded the VC) and twenty-two other ranks were also killed; three officers and eighty-one other ranks were wounded; eighteen other ranks missing. A week later, the war was over.

Wilfred Owen, Collected Letters, pp. 590-591 (London: Oxford Univ Press, 1967); edited by Harold Owen & John Bell.

I’M GAY AND I’M MARRIED! … NOW HOW DO I GET DIVORCED?

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ASK LADY ESQ.

Relationship advice from a divorce attorney.

Dear Lady Esq.,

If California doesn’t recognize your marriage (because you were married in a different state to someone of the same sex), can you still get divorced in California?  What else should I know about same sex marriage rights and issues in California?

– Curious


Dear Curious,

The short answer is, it depends.

The long answer is: This is a burgeoning area of the law, and one that is far from settled.  It is hard to give straightforward answers to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (“LGBT”) clients: much of the law in this area remains unclear and undefined.

Same-sex marriages are currently legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and, as of January 1, 2010, New Hampshire.  I would say something celebratory here, but I have a hard time crying “yippee!” over a status that is long overdue and a choice that should be an inherent basic human right.  Seriously? This is still an issue in 2009?

California, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Washington, Oregon, and Nevada recognize domestic partnerships, civil unions, and other “marriage-equivalent” legal statuses, while lesser registrations are available in Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Colorado.  Having a “marriage-equivalent” option is great in that it bestows rights where otherwise unavailable, but falls far short of what is deserved, and can have the tendency to make LGBT couples feel like second-class citizens.

And then there is the truly bigoted Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA“), which ensures that federal law does not recognize same sex marriages, thus causing significant legal difficulties for married LGBT couples as well as those who are in registered domestic partnerships, civil unions, and other marriage-like legally recognized relationships.  The Respect for Marriage Act (“ROMA“) is currently before the House of Representatives for consideration as the antidote to DOMA.  President Obama has stated his opposition to DOMA (though as per his MO he hasn’t actually done anything about it), and at least one state is challenging DOMA.

Same sex marriage was legal in California from June 16, 2008 to November 5, 2008.  As of today it appears that same sex couples who were married in California during this time can be divorced in the same way that heterosexual couples are, however, DOMA issues can complicate certain aspects of the divorce process, particularly in the areas of palimony, division of property, taxes and estate planning.

Same sex couples who were married November 5, 2008 or after or prior to June 16, 2008 in a state other than California where same sex marriage is legal and have since relocated to California are strongly encouraged to become Registered Domestic Partners in California, as it may be impossible for your attorney to protect your “marriage-equivalent” rights otherwise.  This is where my personal passion and my professional duty diverge.  Personally, I don’t think same sex couples should have to register as domestic partners, but should be able to protest this differentiated status.  Professionally, as an attorney, I must counsel people to protect themselves as best they can within the confines of the current law, and in doing this I must encourage any member of the LGBT community who wishes to protect marriage-similar rights to register as domestic partners in California.  In fact, due to a lack of clarity in the current status of the law, I might even encourage same sex couples who were married in California between June 16, 2008 to November 5, 2008 to register as domestic partners, just to be on the safe side.

California Registered Domestic Partnerships can be dissolved in essentially the same way that marriages are dissolved, however, DOMA can complicate the process.  It is unclear whether or not those couples who registered as domestic partners in states other than California may currently dissolve those domestic partnerships here.

It is important to note that a city-registered Domestic Partnership status may not have the same effects, rights, and responsibilities as a state-registered Domestic Partnership status, so it is important to register with the state to ensure the full extent of rights available to you.

Other issues that come up specifically in LGBT cases include adoption and parentage cases, transgender law issues, health care, and estate planning including transfer of property at death.

You should consider contacting an attorney if you:

– are considering domestic partnership,

– were married in a state where same sex marriage is       legal and you have since relocated to California,

– want to know how to ensure that your property   transfers to your partner or spouse at your death,

– want to have your partner or spouse covered under   your health care plan

– want to have a biological or adopted child with your   partner or spouse, or

– have any other life choices that you want to make   that may have legal ramifications.

Depending on your situation you may want to meet with a family law attorney, an estate planning attorney, a tax attorney, or an attorney specializing in LGBT rights.

There are a number of excellent resources available to LGBT couples and individuals with legal questions, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights (“NCLR“); and Equality California.  Contacting one of these organizations is a great first step to ensure that your rights are protected.

At the end of the day it is imperative that we be proactive.  Donate to NCLR, Equality California, and other such organizations.  Volunteer.  Protest.  Write or call your Congressman, your Representative, your Governor.  Make your voice heard and fight for your rights and for the rights of your fellow human.

– Lady Esq.

askLadyEsq.com

HUGO BALL

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Hugo Ball in ‘cubist costume’ reciting his poem ‘Elefantenkarawane’ at the Cabaret Voltaire, 23 June 1916.

DADA MANIFESTO, 1916

by Hugo Ball

Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. It is terribly simple. In French it means “hobby horse”. In German it means “good-bye”, “Get off my back”, “Be seeing you sometime”. In Romanian: “Yes, indeed, you are right, that’s it. But of course, yes, definitely, right”. And so forth.

An International word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications. Dada psychology, dada Germany cum indigestion and fog paroxysm, dada literature, dada bourgeoisie, and yourselves, honoured poets, who are always writing with words but never writing the word itself, who are always writing around the actual point. Dada world war without end, dada revolution without beginning, dada, you friends and also-poets, esteemed sirs, manufacturers, and evangelists. Dada Tzara, dada Huelsenbeck, dada m’dada, dada m’dada dada mhm, dada dera dada, dada Hue, dada Tza.

How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world’s best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality.

I shall be reading poems that are meant to dispense with conventional language, no less, and to have done with it. Dada Johann Fuchsgang Goethe. Dada Stendhal. Dada Dalai Lama, Buddha, Bible, and Nietzsche. Dada m’dada. Dada mhm dada da. It’s a question of connections, and of loosening them up a bit to start with. I don’t want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people’s inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own. If this pulsation is seven yards long, I want words for it that are seven yards long. Mr Schulz’s words are only two and a half centimetres long.

It will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I let the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a cat miaows . . . Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of words. Au, oi, uh. One shouldn’t let too many words out. A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed language, as if put there by stockbrokers’ hands, hands worn smooth by coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of words.

Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn’t I find it? Why can’t a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance.

–Hugo Ball

Read at the first public Dada soiree held at the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich, July 14, 1916.

HITCHHIKING & TRAINHOPPING–Part III

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DSCF2688-OPT

THE CONFESSIONS OF FOFI LITTLEPANTS

PART III

by Fofi Littlepants

III. OTHER PARTICULARS

The following information is provided because, of the people that learned of our hitchhiking / trainhopping venture across the country, a number expressed a surprising amount of interest in the details, making particular inquiries about this mode of travel such as: how did we pay for such a trip, where did we sleep, what did we eat, whether we weren’t afraid of serial killers, tattoed truckers, the police, and the KKK?

Financing

Joey and I were able to finance this trip because we were doing remote work with non-profit organizations part-time, on a flexible basis that could accommodate our trainhopping and hitchhiking schedule (and being the responsible little people we are, we adjusted our travels to our work demands of course).

I don’t know how most hitchhikers and trainhoppers make a living. Traditional hobos by definition hopped trains to look for jobs from town to town. Of those that might be termed “tramps” (who travel for adventure), like many of the kids that we would see on the road, begging seemed to be very common: one trainhopper/hitchhiker I met on the street seemed to assume that it was part of the package ~ when I asked for advice on train routes, he happily gave me specific information on those, as well as unsolicited advice on clothing, equipment, and the most effective techniques for begging (his advice was to try to make people laugh). In addition to begging, some trainhopping kids seemed to stop and look for work for certain periods. One we met was working on a record deal and spoke about his dream of finally having something work out for him. (We didn’t meet any recreational travelers like the professional computer geeks, doctors and lawyers that Duffy Littlejohn describes (we were probably the closest to that than all the other people we met); presumably they would use their savings while on the road.)

Throughout our journey, Joey and I received multiple offers from people that wanted to give us money. We never asked for it, people would just come up to us and try to hand us some, ranging from one to twenty dollars. I guess they assumed that nobody with any financial resources would be traveling in this manner. Some people looked at us mournfully and said that they had daughters our age. One girl, who seemed to be a teenager, thought we were runaways and really wanted to give us ten dollars.

We had a general rule against taking money because we were in the habit of obsessing about social and ethical questions, and didn’t think that it would be appropriate. Wouldn’t it be disingenuous of us to take money, we thought, because people made the offer thinking we were really poor, without knowing that we had jobs? And would it take that money away from another person that really needed it? Later I heard of the term “faux-bo”, which means someone who pretends to be poor for fashion or other reasons. I certainly didn’t want to be that, and one ethical line I felt we should draw was to not exploit the kindness and sympathy of people under false pretenses.

We never accepted any offers of cash, except for $1 from a mom who said she was a recovering co-dependent who would not let us out of the car without giving us some money and saying an extremely long, drawn-out prayer for us. Though later, I wondered if we should have accepted a tiny bit from a few other people too, just because it would have made them happy to be able to help someone.

Gear

Duffy Littlejohn recommends the following gear for trainhopping: dark clothing to sneak around at night in the trainyards; food that doesn’t require cooking; lots of water; sleeping bag; cardboard for insulation; layers of clothes for cold and heat; gloves (for grabbing onto trains); bandana (for dust in tunnels); and for women, a milk carton to pee in (!). All gear together should not be more than 20 pounds, because they must be thrown on and off the train. We did our best to collect such an assortment of things, all in black.

We did have more cheerful, colorful clothes for hitchhiking though ~ we thought we might scare possible rides away if we looked like practitioners of the Dark Arts. We also had realized, after trudging away many a morning from the trainyard after a night of failed trainhopping attempts, that walking around during daytime with completely black clothing and gear is a blaring signal that you were seeking to do something illegal.

Unfortunately, while we did assemble the gear recommended by Duffy Littlejohn, we had much more: we were definitely not the romantic Depression era hobos, but internet-age railriders ~ we were loaded down with a wide variety of electronics. In addition to my Mac, I had a Blackberry with phone, email and web service, which could also be used as a modem for the laptop, plus a camera (though just a small point and shoot ~ I decided to ship away my digital SLR early because it was really way too much), an assortment of cords and cards, two computer batteries, three Blackberry batteries, plugs of all kinds, and headset to be able to make international calls on Skype. (I had also explored getting roll-up personal solar panels to juice up all this stuff, but couldn’t afford the more reliable looking ones.) We did hear that some trainhopping kids have GPS systems (!), which I was envious of ~ we just had old fashioned compasses attached to our bags, which is probably why we were lost much of the time.

Our gear was the primary reason that we ended up hitchhiking more than trainhopping. We just couldn’t get ourselves on to even the most slow-moving of trains ~ it had to be completely stopped for us to laboriously climb on safely. It was a pretty obvious lesson in life ~ carting around too much baggage really limits your freedom and options.

Accomodations

While Joey and I felt guilty about begging for money, we had no qualms about exploiting every free form of accomodations in the country, including squatting. Land, we figured, could never really belong to anyone, and private property was a false construct. (Further, even if land could be put in the care of a particular person/family/community, all title in the United States is suspect because it was all basically stolen from Native Americans; the only exception of course being ancestral lands in the possession of American Indian tribes.)

But we didn’t want to encroach on, offend, inconvenience or scare anyone unjustifiably, so we tried to avoid intruding into tribal lands or anyone’s homes without permission, and were careful not to litter or destroy anything.

The most socially acceptable form of accomodation we used were couches of friends. We both had friends sprinkled throughout the country, and we visited them, bummed around in their places, and amused (or bored) them with our stories as payment.

We also relied on couches of strangers. The network we relied on the most was CouchSurfing, an online community through which people offer (and utilize) free couches for travelers. CouchSurfers consider this to be a movement ~ says its website: “We strive to make a better world by opening our homes, our hearts, and our lives…CouchSurfing wants to change not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!” One musician that offered us a place in New York was a committed Buddhist, who considered offering his prime Manhattan floor space to others as part of his Bodhisattva service.

We also camped, in a tiny pup tent that Joey found at a thrift store. It was light blue, not waterproof, and would almost blow away in the wind, but it fit the two of us and our gear (barely). We did camp in some places that were permissible, such as national parks.  However, the principal type of camping we did was “urban camping”, otherwise called squatting. The first time we pitched the tent was under a bridge in the park of a small town in Montana. Other places where we engaged in such camping included in a wooded area on the side of a hill next to an urban housing project, by a stream in a public park in a small alcove off the pathway, and in the back of a rest stop on the middle of the freeway.

We also at times slept in a car. Though “sleeping in your car” is often used as a phrase to denote that you’ve hit rock bottom, after weeks of squatting in tents amidst strange creatures (we would hear them scratching about outside our tent), this seemed luxurious to us. Some of the places we did this included a parking lot overlooking a rocky bay in Maine, in some national parks where we were paranoid about bears, and in the shadows of a tree in front of a house in Salem, Massachussetts, where we scared ourselves by wondering if we would get possessed by evil spirits during the night.

We also at times slept in open air, under big starry skies. This, like camping, sounds beautiful and idyllic, but in fact, was usually pretty absurd. Most such nights we so spent came about because we were in some ditch all night trying to hop a train. Once, after a sleepless night of foiled trainhopping attempts, we startled some people who had come out on their morning run: they stared as they jogged past us lying in a ditch next to the train tracks (we had failed to account for the fact that the tracks were right next to a suburban housing development.) Another time, we spent the night in an open wooden cart parked in front of some houses; it inexplicably tipped over onto one edge suddenly at 3am with a loud BANG! and almost catapulted us out of it. And of course there was the less than glamorous two nights that we spent while waiting for 30 hours at a trainyard. The complete glamourlessness of this was compounded by the fact that we had arrived there only after tromping around a hill covered with chest-high grass in pitch blackness, in the process of which I had suddenly landed in a humongous hole face-first, and after digging myself out of that, had immediately fallen waist-deep into a stream. In a sad, soggy state, we lay amongst scurrying rats at night, whacking occasionally at the bushes to scare them off, and then when day arrived, fried in the blazing sun in our black trainhopping outfits; when night returned, we again lay whacking at the rats.

Another memorable open air moment was when we got dropped off at a gargantuan truck stop in the fringes of Dallas at midnight, and couldn’t find anywhere outside of the truck stop to camp where it didn’t seem likely that trigger-happy Texans would be firing shotguns into our tent. We therefore snuck back into the truck stop and ended up sleeping behind a dumpster. We didn’t even pitch our tents, as it would have been too conspicuous; we just stretched out on a big plastic tablecloth I had brought along for possible deluges. It was actually not that bad, though I was awakened for a moment in the night when a big truck came barreling into the parking lot right next to us; I watched as the driver got out hurriedly, threw himself on the concrete and did a bunch of push-ups, then ran back up into the truck and roared away.

But the coup de grâce for us was in trespassing on corporaty property to spend the night in a tipi on the grounds of a Wild West museum in Wyoming. We snuck in, avoiding being seen by people in neighboring houses by waiting till darkness, darting between bushes to get to the tipi (which was in Plains Indian style), and diving in through the flaps; we laid our sleeping bags along its edges away from the opening. The next night we had fantasies about sneaking into another display tipi that was perched at the main museum entrance, smack at the main thoroughfare, painted in bright red white and blue and lit up with spotlights. But careful investigation, we figured out that the tipi was lit up from the inside and therefore all within its depths would clearly be visible for the world to see. We reluctantly decided against it because we concluded that while this would be fabulous for putting on a shadow puppet show, it would be equally conducive to getting ourselves arrested.

Food

We were vegetarians and had some trepidation that we would starve to death in middle America, but succeeded in surviving with our veggie integrity more or less intact (though I periodically ate seafood.) There was surprisingly more meatless fastfood at truckstops than we expected ~ Subway Veggie Delight, Wendy’s baked potatoes, Burger King Garden Burgers, and the ubiquitous generic cheese pizza. But when we started smelling like that Subway sandwich perfume, we went on a boycott of the place; this made life on the freeway harder.

Good food, especially organic food, is non-existent at truck stops, and difficult to find even in many cities. In some cool places though, like Austin and Providence, there is lots of great, interesting veggie food, if one is willing to pay for it. But we didn’t want to spend a lot so we ate simply, popped our fish oil tablets and vitamins, and tried to cook when we could, either in friends’ kitchens, or on a Lilliputian camping stove we had brought along for the purpose. We also had a few nice truckers cook for us in the truck ~ there was a ton of Korean food from our Korean trucker friends, and another trucker baked us potatoes in his microwave.

Recycling

An additional green challenge we found on the road is that in many states, recycling is not commonly available. Thus we carted around empty bottles and used paper from Montana through Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota to Wisconsin (this surely did not help our trainhopping attempts.) When we reached Madison and saw a recycling bin in the middle of the sidewalk, with three different slots for paper, plastic and glass, we were so overjoyed that we almost hugged it.

Bodily functions

Nomadic life has unparalleled joys, but we did realize that it lacks certain amenities. A fixed toilet is one of them. When you’re on the road, you pretty much take your toilet with you, or find it where you are.

In trainhopping, you could be on a train for hours or even days. In the train that we caught, it took about 12 hours to get from Washington State to Montana. For men this is an easier practical matter; for women, it’s more complicated. Duffy Littlejohn recommended women to take a milk carton, and open it up at the top. We figured out that this was really spoken like a man ~ we quickly figured out that a milk carton is too tall for women to squat over, so we ended up cutting ours in half to make it shorter, but in any case the opening is still way too small. We toyed with the idea of inventing a collapsible funnel of some kind for women trainhoppers, in fashionable black, of course.

I did manage to relieve myself on the train without falling off, but I didn’t survive all peeing episodes unscathed. One early morning, right around dawn, while squatting down to do my business in a peaceful alcove created by two giant pine trees behind a church, a sudden, strange noise started near me. Basically it was a long hissing sound, following by a series of clicks, like so:

Ssssssshhhhhhhh….chkkchkchk……chkchkchkchkchkchk…..SSSSSSHHHHHHHH!

I was frantically looking around, still in position, trying to peer through the branches to see what in the world was going on, when I realized that jets of water had started to shoot through the pines and were rotating toward me ~ the automatic sprinkler system on the surrounding lawn had gone off! Despite valiant attempts to hop away while my little pants were still shackling my ankles, I got my little butt sprinkled.

Security

People talked to us endlessly about how scared they were for us, but we didn’t really feel that we were doing anything that dangerous. In trainhopping, we had done tons of research and were really conservative about safety. And hitchhiking for us, except for a couple of hiccups, felt entirely safe. In our belief, hitchhiking as two women was actually less risky than any other form of hitchhiking, because more normal people pick you up. Thus we didn’t wait around very long, and the people that picked us up were generally not scary. My opinion is that hitchhiking can be more scary for men, because more people are afraid of them and consequently don’t stop, and the people that do stop tend to be more freaky.

I should note though, that I do think hitchhiking alone as a woman is significantly different than hitchhiking as a pair. I had hitchhiked in my twenties across South America (from Buenos Aires to Santiago) with a female friend, and then back the other way alone, and the experiences were radically different. With a friend it was uneventful and smooth, as it was with me and Joey, but when I was alone, I was subjected to a constant barrage of sexual invitations and at one point, begging a rodillas (on his knees); but in order not to completely malign all South American drivers, I should mention that one person took me a very long distance and didn’t hit on me once.

Joey and I agreed to refrain from trying to hitchhike when we were apart ~ our guess was that U.S. truckers would be similar or perhaps worse than the South American ones. For us hitchhiking together, it was all fine 95% of the time, though we did get a handful of bizarre come-ons, which for the most part arose when one of us fell asleep in the truck. (These are described in Part VIII.)

I’m not discounting that there were potential dangers on the road. We heard about a few serial killers that have worked the trucking routes (one was a prostitute killing truckers; others were truckers killing hitchhikers); we also heard a horror story from a woman that said she had gone hitchhiking with a friend in her youth ~ they split up on the way home, and tragically, her friend got murdered by a truck driver.

And I should note that if we had had different gender, racial, class, or immigration status, there might have been significantly higher danger of persecution and violence by others, whether crazies from the KKK, the Minutemen, or the police. This is discussed in Part VI. Yes, we were afraid of the KKK and such, especially in the South. The nature of the South is visibly different than the West; some people glared at us like they positively wanted to kill us. And we didn’t even go through the Deep South, we only went through the Upper South, which is not even as bad. (We did get picked up by someone that we think might have been a current or former member of the KKK, but it was in the Midwest ~ see Part VII.)

With regard to the police, we were a bit worried in the beginning that we would be harassed, arrested and/or beaten up, but as it turned out, cops actually tended to help us more than anything else (a rather embarassing thing to have to report for lefty activists such as ourselves). This will also be discussed more fully in Part VI.

There was just once when we felt that we may have had a brush with some potentially real danger. But it might just have been frivolous imagination. See Part IX.

Objectively, probably the most undisputedly dangerous thing we did was tromping around blindly in the grass in the Plains, which we only realized later abounded with rattlesnakes and spiders.

But as Emerson said, “As soon as there is life there is danger.” We took it all as part of the journey. In the end, belying popular belief, I didn’t think that our lives on the road had much more risk than would have been present in any average city.

–Fofi Littlepants

_________________________________________

Read the complete:

CONFESSIONS OF FOFI LITTLEPANTS

I  Trainhopping

II  Hitchhiking

III  Other Particulars

IV  The Journey

V  Society I ~ Native America

VI  Society II ~ Identity

VII  People

VIII  Penises

IX  Of Dreams And Spirits

X  Conclusion

“Object” by Jonathan Monroe

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Bust of Demosthenes by C.C. Felton (1807-1862)
Bust of Demosthenes by C.C. Felton (1807-1862)

OBJECT

by Jonathan Monroe

Some purpose mounted on the wall. A target date for propositions. Concrete instances in thrall. One magic carpet frazzled, frayed. Sample exhibitions on display. In which direction, nothing moved. The shape of the shadow the shadow made. What size manacles did he wear? The finders free when less is more. Minimum strategies. Maximal selves.


Jonathan Monroe is a Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University. He is the author or editor of several scholarly books. “Object” is from his 2009 collection of prose poems and short fiction, Demosthenes’ Legacy. The poem is reprinted here by permission of the author.

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: BARBARA GUEST

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BarbaraGuest

PARACHUTES, MY LOVE, COULD CARRY US HIGHER

by Barbara Guest

I just said I didn’t know
And now you are holding me
In your arms,
How kind.
Parachutes, my love, could carry us higher.
Yet around the net I am floating
Pink and pale blue fish are caught in it,
They are beautiful,
But they are not good for eating.
Parachutes, my love, could carry us higher
Than this mid-air in which we tremble,
Having exercised our arms in swimming,
Now the suspension, you say,
Is exquisite. I do not know.
There is coral below the surface,
There is sand, and berries
Like pomegranates grow.
This wide net, I am treading water
Near it, bubbles are rising and salt
Drying on my lashes, yet I am no nearer
Air than water. I am closer to you
Than land and I am in a stranger ocean
Than I wished.

From The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest, Edited by Hadley Haden Guest, © 2008 Wesleyan University Press


Barbara Guest (1920 – 2006) is one of the most impressive and inspirational poets of this century. By the time she passed away at age eighty-six she had been writing poetry for sixty years. She stands out among the group of American poets born in the 1920s, a generation various enough to include poets as dissimilar as Allen Ginsberg and James Merrill, Adrienne Rich and Robert Creeley, and was associated with the New York School, including poets John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara. Guest’s bibliography is extensive, including several books of poems, plays, and prose, and cannot be captured in this space alone. Her primary task in writing poetry was, in her words, “to invoke the unseen, to unmask it.”


Editor’s Note: Barbara Guest is, to me, one of the most influential and important poets of all time. Her place among 20th and 21st Century poets cannot be overstated. This Saturday Poetry Series would not be complete without a shining spotlight upon her and her work, and this particular poem is my personal favorite.



Want to read more by and about Barbara Guest?
Barbara Guest Author Home Page
Barbara Guest on Poets.org
Barbara Guest: Fair Realist by Peter Gizzi
Ceaselessly Opportuning: On Barbara Guest by Barry Schwabsky

RUSSELL-EINSTEIN MANIFESTO

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Bertrand_Russell

Bertrand Russell

RUSSELL-EINSTEIN MANIFESTO (1955)

by Divers Hands

IN the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.

Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.

We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old, and that, while one A-bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one H-bomb could obliterate the largest cities, such as London, New York, and Moscow.

No doubt in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.

It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radio-active particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish. No one knows how widely such lethal radio-active particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. What they do say is that these results are possible, and no one can be sure that they will not be realized. We have not yet found that the views of experts on this question depend in any degree upon their politics or prejudices. They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert’s knowledge. We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.

The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.

This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.

Although an agreement to renounce nuclear weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes. First, any agreement between East and West is to the good in so far as it tends to diminish tension. Second, the abolition of thermo-nuclear weapons, if each side believed that the other had carried it out sincerely, would lessen the fear of a sudden attack in the style of Pearl Harbour, which at present keeps both sides in a state of nervous apprehension. We should, therefore, welcome such an agreement though only as a first step.

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.


Resolution:

WE invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

Max Born
Percy W. Bridgman
Albert Einstein
Leopold Infeld
Frederic Joliot-Curie
Herman J. Muller
Linus Pauling
Cecil F. Powell
Joseph Rotblat
Bertrand Russell
Hideki Yukawa

–Issued in London, England, July 9, 1955. Albert Einstein signed the draft declaration before his death on April 18, 1955.