Awaken Your Inner Gaia

Team Gaia Acts Out for Workers Rights

Team Gaia just finished up a pretty hefty side project for the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission.

Our part in the event was presenting to the audience skits that we wrote which showed young adults examples of things like sexual harassment in the workplace, understanding your workplace rights, and even knowing how to dress for your job. We gathered up our actors, which included Karis and me, and got to work on our five skits, while our filmers got their cameras ready and JC prepared the audio.

The morning of our performance, we we were greeted by Anthony Butler, the HRC's education and community liaison, who also presented, explained and discussed our skits with the audience once each one was acted out. The event took place Saturday, Sept 20th in the Jacksonville Main Library, located downtown. Though the walls weren't packed with an avid audience, we did have a good amount of people show up (especially considering there was an Obama rally a few blocks away in Met Park). Nonetheless, we filmed the entire event, so we can still spread the word!

All of us here at TG worked very hard on the project and it turned out to be a big beautiful success!! Look for the videos online.

The news needs some Zoloft

So I've been watching news on television and reading it in the newspapers to search for something -- anything to spice up the blogs I write for Team Gaia. In this journey, I have noticed a trend... if no news is good news, that means the news is always bad. Right?

Do you get my logic here?

On a typical news day, everything is always "Man Holds Up Walgreens," "Intoxicated Teen Wraps Car Around Tree," and the more tragic, "Parent Kills Infant Son."

WHAT IS THAT!? It's terrible, sad and after a while, it numbs a community to just brush off these tragedies like dandruff from a shoulder.

I actually was on the news in 2002 because we bought a rental mattress that was infested with bedbugs -- and the news story focused not on the family striving together to survive, it was about all the gross and terrible rashes me and my brothers and sisters were getting from these bugs. If our family photo wasn't in there, you wouldn't have even been able to tell we were related.

This could have been a great, interesting, and inspirational story if it had just a slight twist on the angle. How's this: "Family Comes Together to Sleep Tight and Not Let the Bedbugs Bite."

Much better.

And as I watch ABC at this very moment, tonight there will be a special about a family who experienced some terrible thing on PRIME TIME. It's even called, PRIME TIME CRIME. What is this world coming to?

(Speaking of crime and violence, at Team Gaia, our JaxTA group plans to campaign against crime and violence for our next group activity.)

So this brings me to ask, where does all the good news go? Well, here I must refer to the wonderful Billy Joel who said, "only the good die young?"

I think the reason that the six o'clock news and daily newspaper, lack rainbows and sunshine, is maybe because of the television drama. It's all about the bad stuff that happens to the characters, and as I said earlier in this blog--the people brush it off onto their plate and eat it for supper.

I've also heard people say "there's no money in good news." Is that all we're about - money? It may be up to us bloggers to criticize, but perhaps now it's also up to us to bring the good news back to life.

Our Time To Be Alive

Dude, our generation has a lot to experience. Also known as Generation Y, Generation Einstein, the iGeneration, the "rear end" of the MTV Generation, we are the Millennials (all those born between 1982-1996. Not to be confused with Generation Z, 1996-2001, the Neo-Disneys). Like the GI Generation (1901-1924), we are the "civic heroes" of the world according to Strauss and Howe's list and book Generations.

Doesn't that alone get you pumped?

And just think about it for a sec.; there is this life changing "war" going on, technology is booming (I mean, MC Lars said it best in his song, iGeneration, "this is the internet generation"), and everyday there is more to know.

The world, as I write, is creating a natural, evolutionary revolution! Every generation has their call to arms, and this is ours: adapting to change. We are right at the age where we weren't born with all this, and we aren't too old to understand it all. With all this change, only the best will survive.

Though as Millennials, we have this awful rep: Millennials have a reputation for being peer oriented and seeking instant gratification. Businesses are scared to hire us because of this! Even 60 Minutes created a warning to the world about us(Part 1)(Part 2)! But something nice to grind your teeth on, fellow Millennials out there, like the WW2 babies (Baby Boomers), we as Cold War babies, are almost equal in numbers (Baby boomers have 76 million, we have 70 million).

What gets me started on this, is that I, along with my fellow Team Gaia members, have been watching I Love the New Millennium on VH1. And it reminded me of all the change we are going through, and really makes me just want to say, "This is our time. Bring it on."

Violent Days

It is a sad, sad week for many here in Jacksonville, Florida.
This past weekend, there were three slayings, another near death, and a police shooting that left a knife-wielding man dead.

The three slayings.

The first of the homicides was Patrick Stafford, 39. He was found dead in a front yard. Sgt. Mike Perry said that Stafford lived on Lem Turner Rd, but may have been visiting family at Academy St. The Autopsy showed that he was shot multiple times. There are no suspects.

The youngest, was 16 year-old Monquell Wimberly, who was shot while innocently riding his bike from one grandmother's house to another's in the Westside at Hollybrook Apartments. Police reported that he died at the scene at about 10 a.m.

At about 2:40 p.m., a man identified by a witness as Nathaniel Grant walked into a Williams Grocery near Talleyrand. Grant had been shot in the head and there were wounds in his torso. He was sent to Shands Jacksonville, where he was pronounced dead.

The near death.

Daryll Alexander, 33, was stabbed at the Hilltop Village Apartments. Friends loaded him into car, and eventually they rendezvous with the Shands Jacksonville Rescue Unit. He was in critical condition through Sunday, July 20th.

The knife-wielder.

Ex-con Daryll Edward Waters, 38, was shot and killed by police officers at about 10 p.m. Police reported that he ran from the police, stole a patrol car, smashed two other police cars, and threatened officers with a large knife. Police suspect Waters may have used the knife to stab Daryll Alexander at the Hilltop Village Apartments.

So what does Mayor Peyton have to say?
"If we do not reverse this trend, we are going to limit our future," Peyton said for First Coast News.

But my question is "How?"

This bloody Sunday has left many community members scared. I wonder why we live in a world with so much violence, and I wonder what we can do to battle it as a community. Violence is caused by people, and only people can prevent it. This large community that we have here in Jacksonville, I mean, we are the largest city in the United States, land-wise. We must have tons of people in that space. Our year 2000 census reported 1,300,823 people here. Thats more than enough to stop violence.

How to be one with the gas pump

Listen up guys, I'm with you about the whole "OMG! It costs $80 to fill my tank--for a week!!!"

But I do have something else a little different to say. Chill out and forget about it! Seriously! The drama is annoying.

So what if Oil recently spiked up there to about $139 a barrel, and many speculate that by the end of the summer gas will be $5 a gallon at the pump. Europe has been paying way over that for gas for many years now, with tax, and with a road tax based on the size of their car.

But one must realize that there is nothing one single person can do in a situation like this. So chill out and forget about it. Its hard to do, I know, but there are ways to ease into a zen way to drive that will help keep cash in your wallet.

1) Try your hardest to drive under or around 60 mph. Your fuel economy goes up substantially after 60 mph, and again after 80 mph.
So think of it like this, every 5 mph you add after 60 mph,is _exactly like paying $0.20 more for gas. (link: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml)

In the seventies, during the last oil crisis, speed limits were lowered to be 55 mph on the highways, and it would be worth it to repeat it. At least I think so.

2) Don't fill up your tank when its empty, fill up at half a tank! It's healthier for your car, and helps one reminisce on when gas was $2.90 a gallon. Oh those sweet good old days...

3) Don't accelerate or brake too hard. It's safer, and burns less fuel!

I honestly think its a waste of time to trade your Camry in for a Vespa at this moment. So calm down and enjoy the summer dude!

Further Reading and Helpful Sites:
Global Gas Prices
We thought we had it bad...
Rense
Msnbc
NPR
CNN
Gas Buddy

World of Nations Celebration

About once a month a group of teens from all over Jacksonville, Fl meet together to discuss social issues that affect them daily. This group has come to be called Jax Teen Alliance!!!

Once convened, the teens use their brain juice to solve issues in the community. The rest of Team Gaia and I are a part of this wonderful group as well as LOUD, One Jax, City Kids Arts Factory, PAL, and The Bridge to name a few.

Our purpose, as a whole, is to:
A) Build a sustainable, replicable coalition of youth
B) Be a catalyst for youth voice
C) Create a dialogue across differences
D) Create a space for youth to empower themselves
E) Create opportunities for youth to be heard by the entire community
F) Dialogue leading to action leading to change
G) Provide a viable future for tomorrow’s youth

Within this supergroup, we are divided into four groups or teams to work on a topic of our choosing. My group is tackling prejudice and stereotyping.

Our group decided that in order to fully bring awareness to the community we needed to have a booth at the annual World of Nations Celebration at Metro Park in Downtown Jacksonville this past May weekend. After months of anxiety stemming from trying to get people committed to the project searching for and gaining sponsors, and organizing some way to get people’s attention at the booth we finally came to the agreement that we would ALL work together as a team to make the booth a success.

We decided that a mural would be one way of getting our message across and we invited people to add their own thoughts to the panels we started. To make it a little more exciting we also filmed a documentary filled with interviews of people expressing their thoughts on the subject, “What do you see when you look at me?”

And through all the hard work, we came out really good. Better than I ever expected. We ended up having T-shirts, a documentary interview, and stamps for the visitor passports, as well as tons of fun! Check out the photos at www.teamgaia.com and see for yourself!

Facebook

To tithe or not to tithe-that is not a question.

CBS did a Sunday morning special in the beginning of March, questioning the point of tithing.

To tithe, as 'translated' by the Christians, is to give 10% to your church the catholic church gets. There is no real place referenced where the money goes, so many churches use the money for remodeling, CCD classes, and buying the body and blood of christ.

CBS News goes on to talk about what the church does with the tax free moolah, should everyone have to give ten percent, should they preach the tithe lalala? I'm not gonna talk about that here.

My gripe is: People shouldn't have to feel obligated to give. They shouldn't feel PRESSURED to give. They should WANT to give. Simple.

In the Gospel according to Luke, there is a little parable of the Good Samaritan. So in the Bible, it says to be good for no reason, to do good for no reason - and you can be a Satanist and still be a good neighbor. Giving money doesn't make you a good person. It doesn't open the door to sainthood. Being good for goodness's sake makes you simply, a good person.

I never understood, in all my life of attending Catholic School, going to Catholic Church on sundays, and also in rejecting Catholicism, the purpose of the tithe, I would just blindly put five bucks in the basket every Sunday because I was taught that was what I was supposed to do. And that was half the reason I decided to reject my mother's religion and return to my father's
and my baptized, Eastern Orthodox. I returned because in the Eastern Orthodox religion, they don't believe in a median between you and God, and the Eastern Orthodox church I have attended didn't say tithe for us or tithe for the sake of being good, they have a modest box where you can give money if you want, and constantly asks people to volunteer their time, not their wallets.

If you believe in giving, I think giving your time is more important. For instance, certain charities have things like 5K runs, that are sponsored, and the sponsors give money to the charity for the amount of people signed up by day X, and they get money from the runners for registration, which more or less covers a tee-shirt and a few water bottles.

If out of the kindness of your heart you want to put a 20 in the basket passed around at St. Whatever's, sure go ahead and do it...but churches shouldn't preach, "give us money, it will be good for you."

Current Events, Schm-urrent Schm-ents

I’ve have recently come to realize that only a small amount of teenagers watch the news of their own accord. Some only watch it when their parents have it turned on the tube, BUT most don’t watch it at all.

I began to understand this concept slightly when I was talking about some pro-choice/pro-life debate with my friend ‘Anthony’ (name changed to protect his ignorance). He had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained the concept to him, and he didn’t understand why there couldn’t be harmony. I am not going to get into this topic now, but I will take it up in a later blog, of that you can be sure.

More and more teachers have begun to ask about current events such as Darfur, vote yes/no on 1, and the newly established Sunshine State standards for Evolution. Perhaps four kids in each class were able to keep the discussion of these subjects going.

And today, a friend of mine, whose dream it is to be a cop, didn’t know a thing about what happened on “Go-Skate” Day (celebrated on the longest day of the year, June 21st, aimed to get kids outside and having fun), nothing about this cop who arrested a kid for calling him “dude,” shown on FOX News recently, and didn’t know about the cop who didn’t believe that a man was paralyzed and tossed him out of his wheelchair! It was all over the NEWS!

Something has got to inspire teens to watch the news or read it. Not only can you view the news online now, but there are so many places that you can see it, read it and write about if you so choose. I mean, there are fun websites like Digg, Wired, Huffington Post, and even my own Team Gaia, which are all pretty cool! Then there is always that thirty minutes when there’s nothing on TV when one can turn on the news.

Long ago, Linda Ellerbee used to air a news show on Nickelodeon, and back then everyone hated it and no one ever watched it so I don’t think it airs anymore, but it was someone trying to take initiative in interesting teens in the news! I mean you’re getting some of it right here at Team Gaia right now!

The future of America needs it. For instance did you see the article in USA Today (Yes, a NEWSPAPER…so probably not!) that most teens do not know anything about History – I mean come on – it’s being made everyday!

What are we turning into? I don’t think there should be a “Current Event Class” to count as something like a History credit, but I think teachers should find more ways to integrate current events (and it would seem past ones as well – DUH!) into their lesson plans. It can be done very creatively, and easily, with a little invention called the Internet, the World Wide Web! In this information age there is just no way that we should be uninformed or news ignorant.
It’s not much to ask for someone to get people interested, if it was a part of a grade maybe it would work! Maybe then the history of now will pave a way for the future.

The Predicament of Evolution

February 19th, 2008 Florida Board of Education changed their science standards. I think to myself, “Awesome, I’ll actually learn something!!”
So I read the article more, and learn that evolution has been adopted into the science standards. No more “changes over time," but yes, EVOLUTION! The basis of all biology! You honestly can’t learn biology without understanding Evolution. Biology is the science of creation, and without evolution…well that’s like teaching chemistry without a periodic table.

What a relief! Especially considering Florida has the worst science department I have ever seen…I can tell you this for fact. I’m a student there.
The only science we learned in Elementary School was the Scientific Method. Imagine five years of learning the same thing. Middle school was a bit better. We “reviewed” the Scientific Method for a science fair. I boycotted the project - half too lazy to do the project, half not caring enough because I was sick and tired of the same old science class. I thought in middle school I was gonna get a full hour of the glorious subject of Science. No. It was a repeat. A broken record.

For the next three years, my teacher would give us an eighty-question questionnaire on Monday, a PowerPoint project on Tuesday, a review of the questionnaire on Thursday, and a test on the questionnaire on Friday. The questionnaire was nothing, but an easy way for me to store the information for short term memory, not really learning anything, further proven by the fact that I can't remember anything from those three years of Science except how to operate powerpoint. In my opinion, being spoon fed information was no way to learn science fundamentals at all.

Alas, I entered high school and found hope. My ninth grade Biology teacher skimmed the edges of the state standards - and I learned I understood Evolution, even though it wasn't allowed to be taught. We had fun projects, an exciting teacher, and I swear it was the best class of my life. The next year, I also got lucky, taking the only Chemistry class that had one teacher for the full year. Of course it didn't help that the teacher didn't care about Chemistry, and really wanted to teach Psychology.

This year, my junior year, to expand my knowledge, I am taking Physics online at Florida Virtual School, and taking AP Chemistry with the seniors in my high school. This has by far been the greatest year of learning in my young life. So naturally, since I plan on taking AP Biology next year, learning Evolution is a super plus. But wait...there’s a catch — Evolution will be taught as the “Scientific Theory of Evolution." Not simply "Evolution." Which raises my brow, last year it was proclaimed not a "theory," not yet a law.

So, what happened to academic freedom? Religious advocates have wanted their say in it, and their say is "NO Evolution all!" It is "Intelligent Design" or "Creationism." But that's mixing religion and state, and shows a religious bias, which isn’t allowed in school either...RIGHT? Hmmm…looks like a predicament, so did the powers that be cave by calling it "Scientific Theory of Evolution?" What does that mean anyway? And what will the teachers teach?

How about this? You religious people send your kids to a school that doesn’t tell the full story, and the rest of us kids that want to learn something that makes more sense than an unproven, disputed, not even the most popular rule of thoought, "God letting there be light..." yadda, yadda, yadda... will go to a public school that should be allowed to teach Evolution and CALL it Evolution.

Now, don’t get pissed off because you think I’m slandering God. Dude, I’m totally Christian and I don’t find any reason that religion and education can't be separate, but equally accepted entities. That Evolution is a scientific fact and it needs to be taught.

And as a final rant, everyone is free to think of their own accord, so if you don’t like what Junior says at the dinner table about the Big Bang, then send him to CCD already!

Relief from Republicans

For the past week the voices of Republican candidates have haunted my Grandparents' home. As RR's (registered republicans silly), it was only simple protocol that they would be on the list of Romney, McCain, Guiliani, and etc., when the republicans debated.

Every several minutes, the caller ID flashed on the television screen,
and when it screamed "toll free number," or it was even an outside area code, we would wait the call out until it went to voicemail. Unfortunately for my Grandparents and I, we still had to sit and listen to the long, equally persuasive calls.

The words spoken slashed other candidates, painted pictures of a perfect America. One time someone called for McCain, and picked out every little fault in Guiliani and Romney, and proceeded to explain that he has practical on teh job experience in the military-and thats why he would be hte best president!

in the end they really all sounded exactly the same.

So I'm here to SCREAM...what is the point soliciting to other Republicans to vote for Republicans and AHHHHHHHH!!!! IT JUST DRIVES ME CRAAAZY!
I understand one call from someone every now and then, but this was insane! My Grandpa actually got a recorded robot-like call from Mr. Mitt himself! And my Grandpa has only been a Republican for a few years (He switched from independent to republican because his ideals changed and the world changed around him).

So, I'm glad that this mess is over for about nine months. I'm tired of everyone calling in the middle of my Heath Ledger/Britney Spears bender.