Now

I’ve been turned on to the “now” page as a place to try to update about what is most currently on my agenda. However, I’ve been confronted with a series of challenges to this task. First, wrist tendonitis that makes my computer time limited. Second, perpetual website management issues (ah, wordpress and its popularity among hackers as a target!). YET, I continue trying to live, and to share, and so here I am in May 2023 updating this page for the first time in 2+ years.

As of today, I am mostly focused on:

  • Surviving the COVID-19 pandemic in the country with possibly the WORST political response: the USA. I’ve got it once, had the dreaded ‘coronasomnia’ afterwards, which comes and goes. Not fun. Still trying to mask up, but seems most people have given up on this!
  • Finishing up the term at CSU East Bay, where I’ve been teaching in the AGES Program since Fall 2022.
  • Organizing the Agroecology Research-Action Collective (ARC) in North America (website currently busted!)
  • Organizing a special issue of commentaries in JAFSCD relating to the first United States-focused Agroecology Summit, which I helped co-organize and took place in May 2023. Check the website for more details.
  • Co-authoring a piece with Garrett Graddy-Lovelace for that issue, on what the USDA would have to do to actually support agroecology in the USA.
  • Revising my PhD dissertation into a book manuscript, “Others No More”.
  • Promoting the Zine version of the dissertation, available here.
  • Finalizing a commentary for this special issue on Land and Sustainable Food Transitions, on the idea of “land reform” and why it’s not so visible in US food movement.
  • Finalizing a chapter for a new edition of this now-classic book on Food Justice. With the great help of editor Alison Alkon, it’s entitled: “North Star politics of emancipation: how radical and BIPOC traditions influence food movement approaches to the market and state”.
  • Being on the Board of Ecological Farming Association, who put on the annual Eco-Farm conference.
  • Finally gardening again more! At home in Berkeley, mostly.
  • Promoting the two albums I have managed to make in recent years, this one in 2019 and this one 2022.
  • Starting to play drums in a new band (“Yoots”) with very old friends/musicians, who I played with in bands literally DECADES ago. (Wow, I’m old). No bandcamp page yet.
  • Parenting a very charming child who is amazing, but maybe a bit annoyingly enthralled with Minecraft and thus less interested these days in nature, plants, the outdoors, etc. Sigh.
  • Looking forward to a real break!