i wish to be a norwegian cyclist

a recently discovered blog i love:
www.copenhagencyclechic.com

These pictures make me yearn, from the bottom of my aching heart, for the days of biking to start for me again. Manila is hardly bike friendly, and even if it was, it's far too sweaty to wear such cute tights and jackets. I would also like to live in a place where heels seem like a rational choice while biking. Not that I wear heels, because I don't, but because it means there aren't too many hills around. Or else these Norwegian ladies know something I don't about biking without working up a sweat.

Oprah: You let me down, yet again.

Can we scrap the word "feminism?" In a word, no.

By Guest Blogger

Nona Willis Aronowitz is a 25-year-old writer and author living in Chicago whose first book, Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism, was released November 1. She blogs at www.girl-drive.com. In 2007, my friend Emma and I drove across the country asking young women what they think about feminism, and whether it relates to their lives. We were self-proclaimed feminists—having a gender consciousness was essential to us—but we wanted to know what our peers thought about the history and concept of feminism. We got this question over and over again—since the word “feminism” is too exclusive, too loaded, can’t we just think of another word? Something that means the same thing, but one that doesn’t drag around this exclusive history and these disparaging stereotypes? Emma’s and my gut response to these questions was always, “Hell no.” It was partly because, as Andi Zeisler, founder of Bitch Magazine and one of our Portland interviewees, said to us, a word that means “women’s rights” is always going to garner a negative connotation, so we might as well save our energy and stick with what we've got. But it was also something else—something I couldn’t quite articulate until today. This morning, Oprah.com’s Karen Salmansohn echoed some of the women we talked to, saying that “feminism” conjures up images of “controlling, bitchy women” and women who are “basically unattractive both in looks and spirit.” Feminism doesn’t make women’s lives better; according to Karen, it apparently “den[ies] the existence and the benefits of either our male or female sides.” So instead of attempting to rail against these sexist, harmful stereotypes, she has invented a new word—“feminine-ism.” This new word brings back the old phrase “getting in touch with your feminine side.” Wow. I’m sorry, but that’s just a cop-out. Not only is this new word and its accompanying explanation letting the backlash against feminism win and reinforcing infuriating and false assumptions about feminism, it’s also implying that being feminine is some sort of “answer” to feminism, as if the two are always mutually exclusive. Since when can you not be feminine and a feminist? If you think of “feminism” as believing in the equality and freedom of women, whether someone wears lipstick or pink tights wouldn’t even appear to matter. Granted, I don’t hold up Oprah.com as a beacon of feminist analysis, but it pisses me off that the only way mainstream sites like these give feminism air time is when they’re trying to refute its importance. I agree that the meaning of feminism needs to be shaped to fit the cultural consciousness of each generation and the issues they grapple with--Emma and I went on our road trip to discover just that. Modern feminism is intersectional and inclusive, more a feeling than a movement. But when I see the word “feminism” cast to the wind in favor of a word that means—well, not much—I start to feel indignant. Feminism is a powerful, amorphous word that means different things to different people. No matter whether you agree with or identify with it, it sparks conversations, acts as a code word to bring to light gender issues, and keeps us on a continuum of history. If a word can do all that, then it’s sure as hell worth fighting for.

Feminist Celebration of Flashdance

Redemption Blues » Women and Multiculturalism

Seyran Ates, thank you for critiquing multiculturalism. Next time, can you please critique it with specific references to the Canadian context? We are badly in need of your scathing social commentary.

The Legacy of Indifference: Interview with Seyran Ateş

Feminist, lawyer and women’s rights campaigner Seyran Ateş, author of The Multicultural Fallacy (Der Multikulti-Irrtum, Berlin, Ullstein Verlag, 2007) and the autobiography Große Reise ins Feuer (Berlin, Rowohlt Verlag, 2006, henceforth Ateş) has written fearlessly and eloquently about the problems of radicalisation of young Muslims, integration, the desperate isolation in which many Muslim women live, their oppression and social separatism (on both sides of the ethnic divide) in her home country, Germany, all of which are only too familiar in France and Britain as well.

From an early age, her language skills meant that she was expected to accompany adults on administrative business: "At offices and in doctors’ surgeries I noticed how awful it was if you couldn’t communicate properly. The staff were unfriendly as a general rule and completely devoid of any willingness to help. They sneered at the people for whom I was acting as interpreter and adopted a very curt tone. To start off with they frightened me with their loud and overbearing voices and their self confident manner, but as time went by I grew accustomed to it. As long as you stuck to their rules they left you more or less in peace or behaved as if you weren’t even there. Which at any rate was more pleasant than being bellowed at" (Ateş, p57).

Before addressing the issues at stake, she first defines the terms in which her argument will be presented: “By feminism, I mean the belief that women should not be disadvantaged by their sex, that they should be recognised as having human dignity equal to that of men, and that they should have the opportunity to live as fulfilling and as freely chosen lives as men can. Multiculturalism is harder to pin down, but the particular aspect that concerns me here is the claim, made in the context of basically liberal democracies, that minority cultures or ways of life are not sufficiently protected by the practice of ensuring the individual rights of their members, and as a consequence these should be protected through special group rights or privileges (…) In other cases, groups have claimed rights to govern themselves, to have guaranteed political representation, or to be exempt from certain generally applicable laws” (pp10-11, emphasis in original).

Individual and group rights may be discordant: “Suppose, the, that a culture endorses and facilitates the control of men over women in various ways (even if informally, in the private sphere of domestic life). Suppose, too, that there are fairly clear disparities in power between the sexes, such that the more powerful, male members are those who are generally in a position to determine and articulate the group’s beliefs, practices, and interests. Under such conditions, group rights are potentially, and in many cases actually, antifeminist. They substantially limit the capacities of women and girls of that culture to live with human dignity equal to that of men and boys, and to live as freely chosen lives as they can.

Advocates of group rights for minorities within liberal states have not adequately addressed this simple critique of group rights, for at least two reasons. First, they tend to treat cultural groups as monoliths – to pay more attention to differences between and among groups than to differences within them. Specifically, they accord little or no recognition to the fact that minority cultural groups, like the societies in which they exist (though to a greater or lesser extent), are themselves gendered, with substantial differences in power and advantage between men and women. Second, advocates of group rights pay little or no attention to the private sphere. Some of the most persuasive liberal defences of group rights urge that individuals need ‘a culture of their own’ and that only within such a culture can people develop a sense of self-esteem or self-respect, as well as the capacity to decide what kind of life is good for them. But such arguments typically neglect both the different roles that cultural groups impose on their members and the context in which persons’ sense of themselves and their capacities are first formed and in which culture is first transmitted – the realm of domestic or family life” (p12, emphasis in original).

The potentially adverse impact of setting aside a space within which group rights take precedence will be disproportionately greater for women: “First, the sphere of personal, sexual, and reproductive life functions as a central focus of most cultures, a dominant theme in cultural practices and rules. Religious or cultural groups often are particularly concerned with ‘personal law’ – the laws of marriage, divorce, child custody, division and control of family property, and inheritance. As a rule, then, the defence of ‘cultural practices’ is likely to have a much greater impact on the lives of women and girls than on those of men and boys, since far more of women’s time and energy goes into preserving and maintaining the personal, familial, and reproductive side of life. Obviously, culture is not only about domestic arrangements, but they do provide a major focus of most contemporary cultures. Home is, after all, where much of culture is practices, preserved, and transmitted to the young. On the other hand, the distribution of responsibilities and power at home has a major impact on who can participate in and influence the more public parts of the cultural life, where rules and regulations about both public and private life are made. The more a culture requires or expects of women in the domestic sphere, the less opportunity they have of achieving equality with men in either sphere” (pp12-13).

Feminism Online

The third wave - at a computer near you

Feminist blogs are booming. But are they globalising emancipation - or just playthings for the rich and well educated? By Kira Cochrane

Nina Wakeford, a sociologist at the University of Surrey, is cautious about blogging's influence. "I think the way blogs can provoke debate is useful," she concedes, "but it isn't clear how much they feed into activism. In the past, there was a clear role for women's organisations as regards representations to government, but I'm not sure whether women can affect public policy through blogging. Just who are they representing?"

This last question is interesting. As with second-wave feminism, this online movement is open to the accusation that it simply represents privileged white women. "Blogging is still somewhat limited, of course," says Georgia Gaden, a postgraduate researcher who has studied feminist blogs, "because although we take our access for granted, many women, globally, don't have that luxury."

That said, these blogs do redress the balance by highlighting global stories. And the Carnival of Feminists is trying to reach as many women as possible, with the most recent carnival held on the Indian blog, Indianwriting. "That was our fourth continent," says Bennett, "and I'm looking for an African blogger, so that we can reach our fifth."

The links between feminist blogs and activism are nascent - in January there was a "blog for choice" on abortion, and earlier this month saw mass blogs on street harassment and sexism - but they look set to grow. And for now, the sites provide both an insight into the strength of feeling among young feminists, and a much-needed alternative to mainstream women's magazines. If a young woman asked her about feminism, says Gaden, a blogosphere is the first place she'd direct her to. Traister agrees. "There are so many authentic voices out there that it's really invigorating. It just goes to prove that the internet isn't just for accessing porn!"

Alternative Press, Alternative Powers

We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. Too long has the public been deceived by misrepresentation of things which concern us dearly. It shall ever be our daily duty to vindicate our brethren, when oppressed, and to lay the cause before the public... From the press and the pulpit we have suffered much by being incorrectly represented. Men... have not hesitated to represent us disadvantageously, without becoming personally acquainted with the true state of things.
- Freedom's Journal, 1827

In a broad sense, the history of the dissident press is often also the history of the social ideas that changed America. Many of the proposals it broached eventually became acceptable mainstream positions, even if. others remained on the fringes. The fundamental changes in the nation's economic system advocated by the socialist press have never been accepted, but abolition, women's suffrage, child labor laws and the success of some of this century's antiwar movements are only a few examples of ideas that worked their way from dissident pages to the courts and the statute books.

Although often harassed for their advocacy in spite of the First Amendment, these David-like papers accepted the challenge of disseminating opinions, beliefs and information against the Goliath of the established power structure. The minority press, in addition, presented radical ideas on behalf of its group and helped to persuade readers that they were worth working toward. Abolition, civil rights, reparations for World War II internment, reimbursement for appropriation of Native American lands — all became believable, and thus possible, when they were printed in the black-and-white of their representative newspapers.

feminist theatre (my secret love)

COLLECTIVE CREATION AND THE CHANGING MANDATE OF NIGHTWOOD THEATRE

Rubess observes that two realizations are important for a collective to function effectively; first, it must be acknowledged that not everyone can do everything, so people should be encouraged to do what they are best at and also to discover other things they can do along the way. Second, each collective member must be committed to and understand why they are working as a collective. The first point explains why, even with the collective creations, the programs from Nightwood productions generally list certain people as being responsible for particular functions, while the show itself is credited to the group as a whole. The second point signals the greatest potential danger of working collectively, which is the question of "ownership." Part of the problem may be inherent in the process of collective creation itself, in that "job descriptions" may be largely self-defined and therefore easily subject to dispute. Individuals who put a lot of time and effort into a project are not always able to give up a sense of personal "ownership" of that work for the greater good of the company, and there are many who argue that they should not have to. But the issues can be further complicated when the collective members are assumed to share the same feminist principles; unspoken assumptions can be made that everyone is more in agreement than they really are, and individuals can be afraid of voicing dissenting views for fear of looking "not feminist enough." Apparently, collective creation may involve a discrepancy between process and product; in some cases a beneficial feminist workshopping process (as in the annual Groundswell festival, for example) may not necessarily result in a written script, while in the case of an example like Smoke Damage, an extremely troubled collective process still resulted in a valuable feminist play.⁽⁸⁾ It is the combined efforts and enthusiasms (or lack thereof) which spark the creative process in a collective; individual moments of genius may not add up to an overall production, but the multifaceted result of collective effort may convey something about the process and the feminism of its participants which is valuable on its own terms.

Haiti/Martin Luther/illdoctrine

What Martin Luther King Would Say About Haiti On His Birthday

Today is Martin Luther King’s birthday. Today a horrific tragedy is going on in Haiti. While some men of the cloth are using the incident to spread their twisted world views, Martin surely would’ve used the occasion to spread wisdom and good will and encourage his fellow man to help out our Haitian brothers and sisters in need. But still what happened in Haiti is deeper than that.

For King, giving money to Haiti would not be enough. In order to be good citizens of the world, it is not good enough to just to give money, we must make sure to end the economic and social climate that led to the disaster. Here’s an excerpt from his speech “Beyond Vietnam.”

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

King goes on, addressing America’s foreign policy and how it is destructive to the Third World.

With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

King also condemns countries that spend more money on wars than social program. The USA has pledged $100 million in aid to Haiti, while pledging upwards of $30 billion to add 30,000 troops in Afghanistan.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

So on Martin Luther King’s birthday, let us reflect on our fellow human beings in Haiti. Let us help them out with our donations, but also let’s fight so third world people do not have to suffer through the poverty that has inflamed this natural disaster. Let us be reminded of how what goes on in our own country affects the rest of the world.

Martin Luther King “Beyond Vietnam”

"Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire."

- Slavoj Zizek

Forest from Guernica Magazine on Vimeo.

Drawing from film, music, cartoons, and dance, I like to blend earthly fact, blatant fiction, and lots of oil paint to form a stage of tragedy, farce, and raw, ominous beauty—at times capturing otherworld buffoonery, and other times presenting a simple earthly dignified moment.

“Hobo Clown” and “Forest” are two recently completed clay-mation videos by Allison Schulnik. Forest is also a music video for the world renowned and critically acclaimed band Grizzly Bear.

Allison Schulnik is a painter, sculptor, and filmmaker who lives and works in Los Angeles. Her paintings have been exhibited in galleries internationally and at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. She was recently selected as one of the “Ones to Watch” by Art Review. She is scheduled for her next major solo exhibition of new work in Los Angeles at Mark Moore Gallery from January 9 to February 6, 2010.

Making Globalization Work

MAKING GLOBALIZATION WORK

By Joseph E. Stiglitz.

358 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $26.95.

NYT Book Review

Stiglitz walks the reader through a series of issues, from trade and intellectual property rights to global warming and the role of the multinational corporation. Each of the book’s chapters frames a problem, provides some analysis and proposes solutions. On page after page, Stiglitz argues that globalization holds out great promise as a force for good, but that the rules of the present international economic order are designed and enforced by the rich nations to serve their interests. As a result, they are inequitable and inefficient.

Developed countries manipulate international trade rules to protect their factories and farmers from more efficient producers in the developing world, Stiglitz tells us. Multinational corporations evade responsibility for the damage they do. Meanwhile, the international financial system, led by the I.M.F., rewards improvident lenders (the wealthy) and penalizes hapless debtors (the poor).

Stiglitz often invokes the concept of negative externalities: the costs that some individuals, firms or nations impose on others. A factory that skimps on pollution control, for instance, may increase its profits, but it harms the rest of society. The polluter is responding to incentives without having to pay the cost of its activities. Similarly, interest groups in developed nations benefit from favorable treatment by their governments, but these favors victimize people in developing nations who are trying to compete. It is bad enough, Stiglitz says, that thousands of wealthy American cotton farmers get billions of dollars in government subsidies; it is even worse that this depresses the world price of cotton, further impoverishing millions of African cotton farmers.

“Making Globalization Work” is an optimistic book, offering the hope that global society has the will or the ability to address global problems and that international economic integration will ultimately prove a force for good. Certainly Stiglitz is right that the world would benefit from a concerted effort to address problems of the environment, poverty and disease. However, his proposals are almost utopian in their reliance upon good will, enlightened public opinion and moral imperatives to overcome selfish but deeply entrenched private or national interests that do not share his goal of making globalization work for as many countries and as many people as possible.

juxtapositions

Catch

For Dina, the comic books are both medium and inspiration. “I use the artworks or images of previous generations as conceptual and formal techniques in order to create a new one by making fun of the images, twisting it and injecting humorous juxtapositions," she says. "To be ugly in some way. Like a cult film, I choose my work to remain in the 'so bad it’s good' variety. I want it raw, bad, and tough yet funny.”

YouTube - Haiti's history of hardship

YouTube - Haiti's history of hardship

social media, social change?

As I read about Haiti on my twitter feed, I wonder what kind of impact the outpouring of information provided by personalized social media is having on society... can it serve to bridge the north south divide in politics and perspective? Or do we merely become desensitized? Is it pushing the boundaries of what the global north can ignore, hearkening back to the days of Vietnam, where televised battle inspired widespread resistance to war in the US? Through the uncoupling of media from global capitalism, can we create news sources which challenge the oppressive nature of globalization? I sure hope so, because if Copenhagen was any marker of where multilateral governmental co-operation will be heading in the coming decade, we are going to need something else to help us out of this heap of environmental and social troubles...

article follows:

Haiti Earthquake: Twitter Pictures Sweep Across the Web [PHOTOS]

An outpouring of well wishes and support for the Haitian people has swept the web in the wake of a devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. And just like during the Eureka earthquake, tweets have quickly spread moving and gut-wrenching TwitPics of the disaster.

Photos taken by journalist @CarelPedre on his mobile phone are providing a glimpse into the devastation that has slammed the Caribbean nation. Another Twitter user, @MarvinAdy, shared those pictures through TwitPic (Twitpic), resulting in tens of thousands of views and countless retweets.

There are also thousands of Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter) updates on the disaster appearing every minute. The web has been moved by the plight of the Haitian people. Social media has quickly become the first place where millions react to large-scale catastrophes.

Our best wishes go out to the victims of this devastating natural disaster, as well as their families. Below is a collection of the most retweeted pictures coming out of Haiti, courtesy of TwitPic.

Style Rookie

Sometimes... I am in awe of thirteen year old people, and their fashion sense. Although the blatant commercialism is a BIT of a turn off...

i-site.ph

LAND as a source of wealth and power is waning; instead the business interests of the members of the House of Representatives are more varied, a sign of the modernization, if not the democratization, of the Philippine elite.

Rising Tensions

BBC News - Security boosted in Philippines ahead of May elections

The Philippines has a long history of political violence. Society is awash with firearms - both licensed and unlicensed - and dominated by rich and powerful families, many with their own private armies.

There is even a well-known local saying that election results depend on which candidates have the most guns, goons and gold.

More than 120 people were killed during the course of legislative and local elections in 2007, when there was a similar ban on firearms. Almost 200 died in 2004's presidential, legislative and local elections.

Is my sex life a progressive cause?

ActForLove.org online dating for activists!

Welcome to ActForLove.org -- the largest matchmaking site for Democratic singles. ActForLove.org was founded by progressive activists, for progressive activists. ActForLove.org is the place to meet liberals, Democrats, activists -- folks who actually care about the world. Best of all, just by using ActForLove.org, you're helping to support progressive causes. There really are great people out there -- why not take a minute and take a peek?

Guernica / Sin City

Emiratis like to say that thirty years ago, their gleaming metropolis was scarcely larger than a fishing village. The UAE began as a loose federation of oil-rich British protectorates—a sparsely-populated, mostly Bedouin land controlled by a few wealthy families. Today’s image of the UAE as a Middle Eastern capital of finance and culture is due largely to the foresight of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of the UAE from 1971 to 2004, who saw that the country’s long-term success depended on spending oil wealth to diversify the economy.

As of 2007, the country still exported about 2.7 million barrels of oil each day, the world’s fourth-biggest exporter. But efforts to wean the country from its once oil-based economy have been successful. Lured by “Free Trade Zones,” multinationals like Bayer, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft have dropped roots in and around Dubai. Dubai’s beaches, over the top attractions, and endless shopping anchored a huge tourism industry.

But Dubai’s blazing economic figures don’t account for the emirate’s non-citizens—about 80 percent of the total population—some of whom rarely, if ever, see a paycheck. A staggering 90 percent of the country’s overall workforce is foreign, and foreigners account for up to 98 percent of domestic laborers—housemaids, chauffeurs, nannies, etc. And that’s just among the documented.

But because of Dubai’s dependence on foreign workers and investment, its new economy is more vulnerable—at least in the short term—to the global recession. Corruption scandals implicated some of Dubai’s biggest players. In 2009, former executives at Nakheel—a subsidiary of Dubai World Group, and the developer of the three palm-shaped islands, with uncertain futures, and the map of the world—were jailed. Construction projects around Dubai stopped. The cranes froze. Premium condos sat empty.

It was a wildly speculative market, dominated by foreigners. Second- and third-home owners, enticed by the absence of property taxes, found in Dubai a homesteaders free-for-all. They planted their flags on artificial beachfront property for a song—for vacation homes or a quick flip.

Emma Bee Bernstein's Photos

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_MTVWa9gwCOk/SAPuqkOzPQI/AAAAAAAAB2o/nZO6jcRlo38/s512/antoniaroom.jpg

women on web

women on web

I need an abortion

Do you have an unwanted pregnancy? Click here. This online medical abortion service helps women gain access to a safe abortion with pills in order to reduce the number of deaths due to unsafe abortions.

2009: year of terrifying, satirical and fascinating art|19Dec09|Socialist Worker

2009: year of terrifying, satirical and fascinating art|19Dec09|Socialist Worker

Joanie 4 Jackie

Joanie 4 Jackie from Miranda July on Vimeo.

Women in the Arts 2009 Honors Kiki Smith

i'm excited about this.

"Ever is Overall"

This is an excerpt from Pipilotti Rist's 1997 video at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

This video says so much about gender and femininity...

bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation

2010 Olympic Impact Update - Impact on Communities Coalition

New Year's Kiss

Woke up with fingers crossed
In a boy's bed with your pants off.
After polite declines of coffee and toast,
walked home itching in last night's clothes.

Past the Phone Booth and the Beauty Bar,
the broken windows of your neighbors' cars.
Through the backdoor to a message from Sis,
asking, "Who was your New Year's kiss?"

Took the afternoon to piece it all,
plus a half a dozen phone calls.
Crashed a party with Larissa and Chris
in pursuit of a New Year's kiss.

Not the way that you'd imagined it.
On a balcony with champagne lips.
But in a pantry against the pancake mix,
you had your New Year's kiss.

010110

It's the eve of the first day of the first week of the first month of the new year, and I've decided to start a blog. Why, you may ask? Is it to enhance my new strep throat induced shut in lifestyle? Or to document new years resolutions? Enhance my e-personality in some vain attempt to increase my self-esteem? Yes, yes, and yes. As the smoky haze covering Quezon City is finally clearing after ten bajillion fireworks exploded last night, I've got a lot on my mind, and even more at my fingertips. So, dear blog, or journal, or whatever you may become; happy new year, happy birthday.

New Years Resolutions: (Disclaimer: To assist in the prevention of the predictable sense failure caused by unachieved new years resolutions, I am simply going to place the words "more" or "less" beside a verb. This way, it's more of a general hinting towards a direction than an out and out goal, shall we say, and thus, harder to judge if it's been achieved or not, and thus! less likely i will even notice if said goals are unattained. This may or may not defeat the purpose of the excercise, but i think not because I have a suspicion that the excercise is really about just feeling good about all of the things which I might achieve this year, before given the chance to actually do them.)

10. Blog MORE (an easy one to start with. this resolution is technically already achieved because once is more than none)
9. Hike to waterfalls and then swim in waterfalls MORE (excercise MORE)
8. Cook/Bake MORE (this naturally follows excercise)
7. Invest MORE in language learning (hopefully French)
6. Drink LESS (predictable)
5. Learn MORE about fixing my bicycle
4. Apply to MORE grad schools (scary!)
3. Spend MORE time with loving friends (whom I miss deeply at the moment)
2. Express myself MORE truthfully/soulfully/artfully (so say the Tarot cards of oh nine)
1. Honour, Love, and Respect self MORE (with the aid of Bell Hooks and other wise women in my life)