Memes

Hum I'm not very fond of being tagged in blog tag, but I've got to admit that I do enjoy it when others play. I've been tagged and with great trepidation, I'll play along.

The first is a meme started by Natalia Antonova The 8 Homes Game: Where would you have yours, if you were as insanely rich as the McCains?

The full instructions:

Where Would Your 8 Homes Be?

List them. You don’t have to list your reasons, but if you do at least for a few of them, it would be more fun. And remember that the only rule is: the homes must be within the borders of the United States of America or else, within the borders of the country you live in, so as to utterly emulate the McCains. When you’re done, tag 8 people, so that they may join in the self-indulgence, forgetting about the crappy property market and the equivalent of The End of Pompeii on Wall-Street. You could spend your time hammering your doors and windows shut in preparation for the apocalypse instead, but it would be much less fun.

Egads! Thinking rich isn't so easy. I might say "Screw the rich!" but I've never really had much contact. There might rich people I'd like very much, but maybe not to be screwed by them.

My eight houses:

1. Thistlemoor, New Sewickley Pennsylvania
2. Manufacturing Village, Jinja, Uganda
3. Urban neighborhood, Kampala, Uganda
4. Farm in Deschapelles, Haiti
5. Sustainable resort, Goa, India
6. Resort hostel, Da Lat, Vietnam
7. Small house in Iquitos, Peru
8. Small hotel, Elkins, West Virgina

1. If I were rich one of my homes would surely be where I live now. We call it Thistlemoor and Pingting has a nice set of photos of the place. If I were rich I fix the place up a bit, insulation, windows, porch floors and stuff like that. I would also build a small greenhouse and find some way to use the old silo to good effect. But I love where I live very much.

2. Mostly I'd like places where I'd be welcomed more than anything else. If I were rich I would like to make comfortable places for my friends to live too. LOL many of my friends are online friends.

So I would start in Uganda. My friend Nathan lives near Iganga and the city focus is more towards Jinja. Jinja was once the manufacturing center of Uganda. I think what I would build there would be something that supports mixed housing and light manufacturing.

3. I've got several friends in Kampala. Part of the complexity of urban architecture has to do with the way money flows. Often the way money flows determines what gets built in all sorts of crazy ways. I'm sure I could build a nice house in Kampala. What I would like to build is a nice neighborhood to live. If I were rich I would try to build following along the ideas of Christopher Alexander in his book The Production of Houses. I don't want just a house I want a neighborhood where me and my friends can live.

4. Being rich must be really weird. Here's a story of a local rich man, now deseased:

Larry Mellon, who had left his family home in Pittsburgh as a young man to become a rancher in Arizona, became inspired by a 1947 Life magazine article about Albert Schweitzer and his hospital in Gabon, West Africa. Larry began a correspondence with Dr. Schweitzer, and with his encouragement, attended Tulane Medical School where he studied tropical medicine. While visiting Haiti to complete a malaria research project, Larry and Gwen discovered a setting for what would become their lives’ efforts.

I'd build a small sustaining farm near Deschapelles, Haiti.

5. Sustainable resorts are quite possible, I think. Going on long with my idea of connecting my houses with friends on the Internet a couple of resorts come to mind. The first is Goa, India. I'd like a nice resort village near Goa very much.

6. Another beautiful place on Earth is Da Lat, Vietnam.

7. About a year back I started checking out various social networking sites. At Hi5 I've met some really nice folks from Peru. When I thought of Peru before Hi5 I thought of the Andes Mountains. But many of the folks I've met are from the Peruvian Amazon region. I have a hard time deciding between a house in Pucallpa or Iquitos. I bet I'd choose Iquitos, if for no other reason than it's the largest city anywhere that cannot be reached by road.

8. I was born in Western Virginia. There are very many very sacred locations everywhere. But the mountains of West Virginia and Virginia are especially blessed. Along Otter Creek in the Monogahela National Forest is the most sacred ground I've ever walked. In my mind's eye I see a small cabin in the woods. But I suspect I'd like a little in near Elkins, West Virgina.

The next meme is the Seven Things Meme, seven random facts about myself. The rules:

* Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

* Share 6 / 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.

* Tag 6/ 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.

* Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

1. I don't like blog tag very much! I'm a wimp when it comes to tagging others--hardly have the courage for it.

2. I like to make paper party hats.

3. I like crystallized ginger very much, have since I was a very small lad.

4. I'm wearing my hair in a pony tail nowadays. So far as I know there's not a photo of me showing it yet. It's the longest my hair has ever been. For years I cut my hair myself about four times a year whether it needed it or not.

5. I have it in mind to write a book on gardening called The Incompetent Gardener.

6. Sometimes my temper gets the better of me. The picture is taken from a page at Resiting Women.

In May 2007 in Knoxville (USA), a ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block has disturbed a VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK rally. Maybe the most sublime and funniest, non violent, antiracist and feminist action you have ever read about!

That's how I'd aspire to tame my temper.

7. Of all my crazy ideas one I really would like to put some action to is to organize an I Love You Day Parade. I saw the idea for I Love You Day at the old Omidyar.net site, but haven't been able to locate whose idea it was. Still, it's the greatest idea for a holiday. What better way to celebrate than a parade!

Okay the business part. First the photo and content from Resiting Women is published with a Creative Commons Attribution--Share Alike licence. I tag: Ndelo, Linda, Norbert, Shawn4lia, Grace, Wilfred, and Amanda.

Blog Tag

That's a picture of the City of Pittsburgh Mounted Patrol, or whatever they were. Not sure who took the picture, but it was at the Pittsburgh action against the Iraq War on January 26, 2003. Of course the photo has no relevance to this post. But posting it made me go back to the press reports and there's a picture there with the caption: Veteran peace activist Molly Rush lies in the middle of Fifth Avenue during the "die-in" protest yesterday. I was disappointed not to find a great link to share about the indefatigable Molly Rush, here's a brief one.

The culmination of the march squeezed everyone into a block in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. The horse patrol blocked that egress and the others were blocked by scores of police vehicles. It was a very cold and snowy day. With the initial speeches and the March I was darn cold buy the time we were standing in front of the cathedral. Then Molly Rush and a small group, primarily old women, lay down on the pavement to commence a die in. I didn't wait around but talking to a police officer later she said that the group lasted more than two hours motionless on the ground.

I'm not a fan of blog memes because strangely I can never think of anything to say and am not good at making lists. Daisy of Daisy's Dead Air tagged me with two memes. The first is: five things you regret and five you don't. I'm bad with lists and so will have to pair it down:

I regret my long love affair with tobacco.

I don't regret the cats and my lovely dog, Sheila, sharing their lives with me.

I would probably have ignored the tagging thing, except the other meme was something that I discovered I could do fairly easily. Lady Banana tagged Daisy. Here's the deal:

Rule #1
Copy all the links below and replace a single link under the appropriate alphabet. If your domain name, or even the title of your blog, starts with an ” A,” you’d replace the link under that alphabet and put the replaced link at the bottom. Also, don’t forget to credit the tagger, or where you got the list from, at the end of the list with a full URL of the post so that a pingback gets generated.

A. A Glimpse of the World
B. Bazungu Bucks
C. Composing
D. Dani Rodrik's weblog
E. Eschaton
F. find the time to rhyme
G. Gukira
H. Hats For Health
I. Insight Kenya
J. Jack Saturday
K. Koranteng's Toli
L. Learning Is Change
M. Mentalacrobatics
N. No Longer At Ease
O. Open Office.org Training Tips, and Ideas
P. Paper Forest
Q. 3Quarks Daily
R. Rootless Cosmopolitan
S. Steve Ntwiga Mugiri
T. Transition Culture
U. Uganda's Scarlett Lion
V. Vietnamese God
W. White African
X. Xylophone Building
Y. YouTube
Z. Zone5

Replaced link: Blogging With Cents
Previous tagger: Daisy's Dead Air

Rule #2You now have to “tag” at least five people and encourage them to participate so that this thing spreads like a virus. Remember, though, that not everyone’s into these kinds of things, so don’t be upset if they don’t participate. Just simply replace your tag. Remember to tag blogs only and no pornographic ones as we do want to keep the integrity as a blogging community.

I'm tagging:

Oh heavens! This is the another reason I hate blog memes. I'm not tagging, but I hope anyone who would like to will play the Alphabet Game. It's interesting to see the lists and learn some new blogs.

There's a #3 Rule too, something about asking a question, but you'll have to go visit Lady Banana if you're interested.