The Year That Was 2011: Holy crap, what just happened?

Like a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes, end-of-the-year recaps and best-of lists have become the comforting if somewhat bland staple of blogs during the last few weeks of the annum. You can certainly dress them up with gravy and butter and such (funny videos, surprisingly novel subjects, genuinely interesting dot connecting), but they are what they are: navel-gazing.

Which isn’t to say that staring deep into one’s own bellybutton can’t have constructive uses; honestly, we’d all do well to be at least a little bit more self-reflective.

So it is that I always find myself thinking back on the Year That Was—usually around the time my new day planner insert arrives in the mail. And this year, as I started to conjure up all the events and goals, frustrations and triumphs of the past year, all I could think was: WTF, 2011? WTF.

There are interesting times and then there are Interesting Times, and with the way things went this past year I can only imagine that the seeming glut of Big Happenings will only continue, if not get more hectic.

Worldwide you had the Arab Spring, the earthquake and tsunami (and ongoing nuclear catastrophe) in Japan, serious economic uncertainty, the long overdue deaths of several powerful madmen (OBL, Gadhafi, Kim Jong-il), a record tornado outbreak in the US, the Occupy movement, the terrorist attacks in Norway, the shooting of Rep. Giffords, the end of the space shuttle program, the royal freakin’ wedding—and it goes on and on….

Here in Wisconsin it was like the whole state was plunged rather suddenly and unexpectedly into a kind of political civil war back in February when still fresh-faced Gov. Scott Walker announced his “budget repair bill” (Act 10) that would strip public workers of their right to collective bargaining and otherwise significantly weaken their unions. Starting then, and especially after all of the Senate Democrats high-tailed it to Illinois to avoid a vote on the bill, hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites descended on the Capitol building here in Madison to set up camp, protest, testify, for weeks—months—on end.

On the first real day of protest (Feb. 14, 2011), I found myself wedged between a marble wall and a crowd of people watching as Peter Rickman, who has since become one of the ubiquitous faces of the protest movement in Wisconsin, dumped pile after pile of “We Love UW” Valentine’s Day cards on the desk in front of the governor’s office. I watched as the group then filled the rotunda for a short while, chanting and waving signs, having no earthly clue just how often I was to see the same thing (and on a much, much larger scale) over the coming weeks.

Or just how much pizza would get sent/eaten, though (being wildly lactose intolerant) I never got to eat any of it myself.

That's a lot of folks.

I snapped a half-decent cell phone picture of the bigger crowd in the rotunda a few days later, posted it to Twitter, and suddenly my inbox began filling up with notifications of new follows, retweets, questions – people wanted to know what the heck is going on in Madison? I’ve spent much of my time, almost non-stop, trying to convey an answer through tweets, photos, videos, and essays about what I’ve been seeing unfold. Because with the recalls and new legislation and everything else, it hasn’t stopped.

What’s happened, and continues to happen, in Wisconsin isn’t the biggest story in the world—but it’s the biggest story for most of us who live here. This year has dramatically changed the way the citizens of this state interact with and think about one another, for better and for worse.

It’s still an overwhelmingly polite and hospitable place to land and live, but there’s a certain wariness and weariness evident even in those folks who, up until February, would never have called themselves political. Whatever you think about what Walker and the like are doing, we can all probably agree that it’s had a profound effect on Wisconsin.

In many ways, too, what happened at the Capitol last winter was the spark that set fire to the Occupy/99% movement. Many of the tactics, impromptu and planned, employed in Madison provided the template for some of what was done at Zuccotti Park. This unified outpouring of discontent would have happened with or without Wisconsin’s example, of course, but you can’t disconnect them, either.

Meanwhile, because this is a personal blog, I’m compelled to note just how much my own life changed in 2011, to point out the sheer volume of shit that went down in the last 12 months. It’s a little overwhelming to think about, honestly, especially in light of what it might mean for the next 12 months.

I turned 30 in November and someone asked me if I was where I had expected to be in my life. I had no answer, because I’ve honestly never put age deadlines on my goals and hopes. When I was a little girl I never thought, “I’m going to be married by this age!” or “I’m going to have kids by this age!” or “I’m going to own a house or make a living wage by this and that age!”

For better or worse, that’s just never been how I operate. What I had hoped, abstractly, was that, as I grew older, I would find a way to make money doing things about which I felt passionate and useful—and, in that regard, I can say (with a not inconsiderable amount of relief) that I’ve been pretty damn successful.

I don’t make a living wage…yet. But I get by with a little help from my partner and friends and community, all of whom I do my best, every day, to give something back to in return. And I do this as a writer, as a musician, as a part-time barista (because of course), as an event organizer, as an actor in a web series, as what I hope is a good partner and good friend.

I mean, I get paid to write articles and take pictures and do interviews with interesting people. How cool is that? How lucky is that? (Because I recognize that while I’ve worked really friggen hard for what I’ve got, it’s been pure luck that I was born where I was born, at the time I was born, raised by a particular, decently well-off family in an absurdly well-off country, etc. etc.)

The best band that ever banded.

And I had the good fortune to have some of my words and pictures included in two very excellent books about events in Wisconsin from this year. Lovely to be in such good company.

And I made a lot of wonderful new friends. And I got to go on tour with my band, which is made up of three of my best friends in the world, one of whom just had one of the most beautiful babies I’ve ever met. One of them also co-wrote and produced a musical this year. And we opened for m-f’ing Tiffany. Not bad, not bad.

Oh and did I mention that I got married? I mean I’ve been with the guy for over seven years now so, yeah, shouldn’t have been a big surprise. It was just never one of those stated goals for me and so kind of crept up and was an entirely awesome shock to find myself standing in a friend’s backyard on an unseasonably gorgeous early September day saying “I do” to this incredible human being.

So there’s that.

And about a million other things, too, that I’ll leave out for the sake of brevity and privacy and also the realization that my life may be the most important thing in the world to me, but is not, in fact, the most important thing in the world to the world. I’m OK with that. It’s best that way. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN.

Now, then, what to do with this new year that promises to be even more thrilling and exhausting and world-changing than the last?

I don’t believe the world will literally end in December 2012 (the Mayans had to pick some date to stop writing their thousands-of-years-into-the-future calendar, after all). I do believe in massive change, though—the kind that alters the world we know so much that it may seem like a kind of apocalypse, and I’ll be buggered if it doesn’t feel like we’re smack in the middle of such a transition.

I got to eat a cupcake this one time in 2011. That was pretty cool.

I won’t guess at what that means for the world—I don’t have that kind of foresight or omniscience—but I can say that I predict 2012 will involve some upheaval in my own little life. I think I’m ready. I hope I’m ready.

Here’s wishing you all a year full of the right kinds of challenges, rewards, and good naptimes.

New episodes of "Chapel" coming in January!

We just wrapped filming on TWO new episodes of our web series, "Chapel," and I'm actually really excited to see them finished. We had a really talented cast of people involved, the highest body count for an episode yet, and a nice mix of character development and action.

In other news, now that our butt-hurt wounds are mostly healed from that time Youtube inexplicably deleted all of our Chapel videos (and doesn't have a tech department to speak of to help with such instances) - we've decided to re-upload all of the episodes for easy watching there. New episodes will still debut on our Vimeo channel, but then eventually get posted to Youtube as well. Because The People Demanded It (well, a few did).

Here's a trailer to whet your appetite:



Did I mention I got to use a Tommy gun in the new episodes?

It's "Pay a Blogger" Day!

Did you know? Apparently some folks think we should actually value the work of blog writers a little more highly. Imagine that! (Granted, I haven't done much writing here lately - all of my writing ends up at dane101.com these days, though, so I think the sentiment applies)



Go tip a blogger you like, or donate to our dane101.com Start Some Good campaign to help us fund our freelancer budget in 2012! You'll be glad you did. ;)

Live, on the air and very silly

Hey so I did a guest stint on WSUM 91.7FM (the local student radio station) for a show called "Fundamental Pete's Ass-Jammery." Yep. That's what it's called.

Despite the terrible, terrible name, all of the people involved were super nice and a lot of fun to kill a couple of on-air hours with that afternoon. Plus, they gave me a money cat as a parting gift. F-A-N-C-Y. And it was good to hang out at WSUM again - I used to have a show there back when I was in college and they had much less shiny and new offices. Good times.

Take a listen to the alternately very silly, and also sometimes serious, conversation at their podcast here.

Occupying a Movement

Movement: a (1) : the act or process of moving; especially : change of place or position or posture 2a : tendency, trend (movement toward fairer pricing) : a series of organized activities working toward an objective; also : an organized effort to promote or attain an end (the civil rights movement)

You say you want a revolution

Stop talking about a revolution - circling away and around from something only to end up back where you were in the first place - and look, instead, to the idea of movement.

I'm a history nerd so my instinct is to view current events through a much more macro lens - what actions over the decades, centuries, even millennia, got us to this point here? This kind of thinking can be instructive, as it helps to build a more comprehensive understanding of the structures and motives that underlie everything that happens in human society (which is, for better or for worse, terribly cyclical). It can also be somewhat limiting, since it excludes the micro view of the needs, right now, on the ground - so I'm constantly reminding myself to look at both.

In the case of the Occupy Wallstreet movement, the long-term machinations that led to this moment are incredibly complex but could have only really ever led to this one outcome, this situation on the ground right now.

I can't help but see the OWS thing as heavily connected to what went down in Wisconsin earlier this year - and it is, just as it's connected to the Arab Spring, to the riots in London, to the major protests of the last century, really: from WTO Seattle to Haymarket 1886.

The system of the world has been on a collision course with itself for a long time now.

You've only to look at the numbers to get a handle on why:

• The top 20 percent of Americans now holds 84 percent of U.S. wealth
• The 400 richest Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined
• "Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928"
• Charts!
• The richest 2 percent of adults in the world own more than half the world's wealth

OK yeah, but those are just numbers, what about the human face of this massive wealth inequality? Some of the same people bringing us the OWS movement have also put together the "We are the 99 Percent" campaign - simple messaging from regular people, explaining what the current economic and social climate means for them in their day-to-day lives.

People buried under tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt they'll never be able to pay off, homes foreclosed on, jobs lost, children to feed, injury and illness to pay for, the list goes on and on.

Here is the human face behind the numbers - all the frustration, despair, anger - and, ultimately, hope. After all the big banks got their bailouts (funded by us, the taxpayers, who should be the real "too big to fail" group), after the endless, trillion-dollar wars, after all of the deregulation (campaigns bought and paid for by a wealthy few, the natural environment sacrificed in the name of profit and short-term, low-wage jobs), after years and years of being on the receiving end of what's actually trickling out of the backsides of the wealthy, powerful few - of course people are fed up.

Of course they're taking to the streets and parks in New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Madison, Colorado Springs, Wichita, Louisville, Buffalo, Richmond, Santa Cruz, Omaha, New Orleans and dozens of other cities and towns across not only the U.S. but worldwide, too.

Because the 99% have skin in the game. We're tired of being crushed under debt, told if we get sick we should just die already, given only more of the same out-of-touch millionaires to vote for, being sent off to fight wars on behalf of people who could care less if we live or die, losing our homes, losing our jobs, losing our families, losing our minds.

The trouble is, the one percent that remains mostly in charge can still afford to ignore us.

We're taking to the streets, more and more every day, because we're suffering - our daily lives have been affected. Sadly, maddeningly, it takes serious upheaval before lasting, hopefully positive change can come. We have to reach a critical mass of people giving enough of a shit to take action before progress can be made. We have to make sure our tactics make the entrenched interests at the top sit up and take notice - without resorting to the kind of violence and personality cults that too often sabotage otherwise well-meaning causes.

It's a tall order. What OWS and related movements are talking about is nothing less than a fundamental reshaping of the way we do business in this world (a major paradigm shift, if you will). And if the protests in Wisconsin taught me nothing else, it's that strong, lasting movements are built from the ground up - not top down.

They also require diversity - of age, of ethnicity, of sexuality, of affiliation, of everything. One of the main reasons I tend to avoid otherwise well-meaning lefty gatherings (like Fighting Bob Fest and the like) is because they tend to feature the same handful of typically white, typically boomer-or-older speakers and attendees and don't really engage with the community as a whole. It's a lot of talking in circles.

I recognize this is dangerous critical territory, but let me set the record straight: I strongly believe in respecting and listening to one's elders. People who've been fighting the good fight since before I was born have a lot of crucial insight and experience to offer and they should never be written off.

For a movement to be sustainable, and to achieve any real forward momentum, we need to see far, far more involvement by younger people, though. And since younger generations are trending toward being less white (therefor on the front lines of the massive cultural shift that's already in process, and all the growing pains that entails), more open about their sexual orientation, and more aware of environmental issues - they're/our involvement is absolutely crucial.

Plus, as a friend of mine recently reminded me: Gen X and younger are the ones dealing with the massive fallout of the student loan policies enacted by our parents' generation. We are being crushed by debt that they never experienced. Student loan debt in the U.S. is right around one trillion dollars - far outpacing credit card debt.

I've got tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt that I've long since resigned myself to never seeing paid off. It's likely that my expensive degree will result in my just struggling to make interest payments for the rest of my life. And I'm far from being alone. (And at least I even got to go to college in the first place)

All that money we're shoveling over to the banks could be going toward starting new businesses, buying houses or cars, raising families, travel - in other words, toward contributing to a healthier society. Instead, thanks to the continued hacking away at funding for public education and kowtowing to big banks, my generation exists in a kind of invisible debtors prison.

They told us to go to college so we could get jobs so we could earn retirement so we could die well.

What they didn't tell us was that they were busy dismantling that system, bit by bit, so that when the time actually came for us to graduate there were no jobs, and when the time came/comes for us to retire, there would be no safety net. Neat trick.

So now we're in the streets and the parks because we don't know what else to do. How else can we get their attention?

If they don't listen soon, and if we don't start energizing a wider array of the people most affected by these inequalities, then I'm afraid we'll end up with just another revolution that deposits us back in the same place where we started--but not before people get hurt.

So it is, then: Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

(photo by Mat McDermott on Flickr)

Esenberg's itchy blogger finger

Conservatives in the Legislature/their lawyers love to pull in Marquette Law Professor Rick Esenberg to testify on behalf of some of their favorite pet projects, despite his seeming lack of knowledge of what, exactly, those projects entail. Esenberg has proven himself to be a willing patsy of the Republican Party, both through public testimony and his frequent blogs and op-eds, by distorting and/or ignoring key components of the law to suit his and their ideological needs.

So I suppose it should come as no particular shock that Esenberg has engaged in some serious false comparisons in regards to blogger Chris Liebenthal's chronicling of the ongoing "Walkergate" John Doe investigation. He thinks it's just terrible that Liebenthal has chosen to call out Walker aides for apparently campaigning on state time.

Liebenthal (aka "capper"), a social worker and official with the county employees union, was earlier this year found to have been using his work computer for personal reasons - a violation of department rules - and suspended for 10 days. While the finding said he had "engaged in political activity at work" it was, it turned out, merely browsing and reading political websites that ended up being the problem. Liebenthal had not been posting to his blog or making political comments at other sites, though several right-wing bloggers and commentators attempted to paint it that way.

The whole investigation was spurred by a pro-Walker outfit called Citizens for Responsible Government, in a sort of knee-jerk need for retribution in the wake of Darlene Wink, constituent services coordinator for then-County Executive Scott Walker, resigning after admitting to posting highly partisan comments to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel articles while at work.

That's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but already different enough from what capper got up to to warrant notice.

As far as we can now tell the allegations in the current John Doe investigation that just recently involved an FBI raid on top Walker aide Cindy Archer's home would appear to go even further - and become full-on apples to the capper case's oranges.
That hasn't stopped Esenberg from squeezing off a few rounds, of course. Seems like someone could stand a few gun safety classes, because both his choice of target and overall accuracy are way off.

Shifting gears, again...

On November 1, 2009 I started my gig writing a twice-weekly opinion blog, Emily's Post, for Isthmus' online presence, The Daily Page. It's been a great run - very challenging (to stay on schedule, to be more well-researched, to respond constructively to criticism) - and I'm incredibly grateful to the time and platform the folks at TDP have given me.

Now, two years (and two "Madison's Favorite Blogger" awards) on, it's time to shift my focus. My post of Thursday, September 29 will be my last with TDP - though I hope to continue writing features and things for their print edition.

Which isn't to say that I'll cease to have an opinion about things - and that's where this good ol' Lost Albatross blog will come in handy yet again. But I will be changing most of my focus to telling stories, researching, and investigating for the purposes of writing progressive-oriented, grassroots-based news for dane101.com and other Wisconsin outlets. I'm excited about this because, frankly, I think that's where my strength and passion really lies.

Check back here at the beginning of October for more news about this change, as well as future opinionated blurbs and/or juicy tidbits of info.

And thanks.