Sunday April 20th in San Francisco there was an Earth Day event where I saw Cake, Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, Tracy Chapman, Julia Butterfly Hill, and a large number of others. It was a great day of talking to people.

I went to lots of Earth Day events during the week that followed. Palo Alto's had a feel of direct action to heal the ecosystem, featuring tablers looking for volunteers to weed out the invasive species along our few pristine creeks and the like. Santa Clara University's was the most practical and hands on, with exhibitors who were tuning up bicycles for free, handing out pine tree growing kits, and soft drink vendors sampling new products. I'm sorry I didn't attend the other half dozen we had around here, but they conflicted with the ones I did go to.

The most satisfyingly radical event was the Unanswered Questions from 911 one at Gunn High School. It featured a film where speculation on weather the knocking down of the World Trade Towers was a "Reichstagg Fire". It was followed by a panel discussion where two paths forward from today were presented. One was the path of Empire being pushed by the Bush Administrations, and the other was the sustainable, organic, and creative path of good global citizenship. I particularly liked it because they made no bones about the fact that good citizenship involves using less energy than average modern Americans do living the way we do now.

The author of this book was the most outspoken advocate of change on that panel. I'm looking forward to reading it.