An alternative to....

I designed a business card today and, first draft, came up with a motto, "Blogging...an alternative to civil disobedience."

As I proceeded to write that phrase here, however, inspiration struck. Blogging, an alternative not to civil disobedience, but to jail-time. That's much closer to the truth.

I started to blog after making a decision to participate in civil disobedience against this second Iraq war. When I ran the idea of getting arrested by family and friends, though, not one of them was in favor. No surprise there: a transgendered person faces special risks in jail.

Enter blogging. I've been a fan for some time--Tom Tomorrow's fault. Not only that, since I graduated from journalism school, I've known that editorials and opinion pieces are my true loves. So, blogging it was, rather than jail.

But...blogging--putting what are in essence first drafts out there for public criticism--carries its own risks. Enter another inspiration, Arianna Huffington.

I remember when she first surfaced in the op-ed pages. "You ought to check her out," my father insisted, but I was a hard one to convince. How could this diva of the Far Right, ex-wife to failed Californian Republican Senate candidate, Michael Huffington, have anything to say that I'd want to read?

My first exposure was by accident. I found myself drawn in by an op-ed piece in the pages of the L.A. Times. I can't remember the topic--SUVs, cuts in education funding, corporate greed, something.... I read it all the way through and was thinking Right on! when I looked up at the author's name. Arianna Huffington? No way!

After that, I began watching for her name, regularly reading her columns--almost surreptitiously. Months went by and never encountering an opinion piece I didn't like, I had to admit: this woman could write and her keen wit and biting criticism were on-target!

And speaking of risks! Huffington evolved from Republican vamp, darling of Newt Gingrich's Revolution, to one of the hardest-hitting, progressive political pundits in the nation--all while in the public eye. What an inspiration.

I met Huffington this evening. She spoke and signed copies of her new book, Pigs at the Trough, at a local, independent bookstore. It was standing-room-only, even in conservative San Diego! And Huffington did not disappoint. She is as articulate and courageous in person, as she is on the printed page. (Not so me. Tongue-tied, brain-dead and shuffling my feet, I pushed a book across for her to sign. Along with one of my first-draft business cards. She's a big fan of blogs, it seems.)

She bills herself an unflagging optimist, confident that the groundswell of progressivism sweeping the country, if given 6-9 months to grow, will transform the upcoming presidential election. "We do not want a repeat of the 2000 campaign!" she said, to loud audience approval.

She will never run for public office, she stated in response to a question from the audience. "Eighty percent of the time is spent raising money. You have to be some sort of psychotic to do that!" Moreover, once elected, the system corrupts even the most idealistic and well-meaning of candidates.

"We've got to change the system. And systems in this country," she said, citing the Civil Rights Movement and Feminism, "are not changed by politicians, but by mass movements." She added that there are now two super-powers in the world: the U.S. and organized popular movements.

I especially appreciated her definition of fanatics. "They're impervious to evidence," which perfectly describes Bush, Wolfowitz, Perle and the other self-anointed millennium crusaders.