Category Archives: Politics

May 20, 2013

Bangladesh: Dying for Fashion

By Cori

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Wednesday April 24th, a fire broke out in a Bangladeshi clothing factory that ultimately left at least 1,127 factory workers, mostly female, dead. This is not the first time clothing factories manufacturing products for Europeans and Americans in Bangladesh have had such devastating dilemmas (though it is the worst incident the world has seen since the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India). Indeed, between April 24th and today, while recovery operations continued at the Rana Plaza collapse site, another fire broke out in Bangladesh’s industrial district Dhaka, killing 8 more factory workers.

Such catastrophes expose consumers to the dark side of their unwitting demand for fast, cheap fashion as well as making salient those companies that play Russian roulette with the safety of their workers and the health of the environment in order to increase short-term profit. It is unfortunate that it takes disasters such as this to move both consumers and corporations to demand the modification of the sourcing of textiles, dyes and manufacturing toward a more ethical and sustainable operational mode.

I wonder about surf clothing…

While much of the shift in global surf brands towards more sustainable manufacturing has been in the area of hard-goods (ostensibly it is less “political” to work for the good of the environment than for workers rights in far away countries with Free Trade Agreements and/or less stringent or easily bypassed regulations around compensation and work hours), the clothing and textiles industry are incredibly dirty industries (as explained by new Quiksilver Global Head of Supply Chain, Kasey Mazzone in this web seminar from 2012, when she was still the Senior VP of Sourcing at Lands’ End).

I was curious about the countries of origin of the surf clothing industry (see note 1 below) after reading about the fire and factory collapse in Bangladesh so I visited one of the largest retail surf shops in North County to get an idea of where the majority of surf clothing by the largest surf brands (Quiksilver, Billabong, Hurley, Rip Curl, Volcom, Reef, Vans, Roxy) have been sourced. I found that there were several distinctions between male and female clothing as well as differences along the lines of casual t-shirt/trunks and the more dressier fashion (i.e. button-down shirts for men and dresses/dress-shirts for women).

Many of the men’s dressier clothing is made in India while the majority of the t-shirts and trunks are made in places like China, Vietnam, Guatemala and Mexico.

Women’s clothing, perhaps due to the current fashion trends, is by and large made in India with many of the bathing suits and t-shirts made in China. Of note, I did find a couple of Roxy shirts made in the USA.

I documented one Volcom item that was made in Bangladesh from their “Corporate Class” line of clothing, and Reef (see note 2 below) hats that were also made in Bangladesh.

What this verifies, more than anything, is that the surf industry is indeed a global industry that uses multiple countries of origin for their products. But how does the industry go about ensuring the safety of those who make their products?

Patagonia (see note 3 below) founder Yvon Chouinard makes a compelling case for what he calls a sustainability index that would indicate which products are being “produced responsibly” (link to video-> start at 26:45 minutes). In this same video (at 20:25 minutes), Chouinard explains what happens when a surf company does not evolve with its demographic. This is an especially grounding argument given that during the recession, when the surf industry saw its profits tanking, Patagonia grew over 25%. Chouinard contends that the reason for this is Patagonia’s commitment to producing according to its core values, to not simply vomiting a green ( even the Nazis were green), values-based rhetoric (what Chouinard called “the bullshit”) like other companies, which the new demographic of consumers can see right through. The numbers seem to support Chouinard’s contention.

How did Patagonia maintain its integrity and commitment to a clean supply chain (human and non-human naturecultures and environment alike)? Through a 13 year ongoing partnership with Bluesign Technologies. This was accomplished to such a degree that Nike Inc. took notice and recently began its own relationship with the independent Swiss company.

Why wouldn’t the large surf brands, with ample knowledge of Patagonia’s methods, partnerships and business gains (despite a “no growth” business plan) follow suit?

Crux Problema

The answer to this question is less straightforward than it first seems and quite possibly it is the wrong question to ask.

Solutions to these dilemmas seem to come in three parts: consumer, retail, corporation.

The pressure to change must come from consumers and be communicated to retailers (via the buyers) who then pass the news of changing demands on to the corporations. Consumers can also communicate to the companies directly via letter writing campaigns, petitions and boycotts.

After the Bangladesh catastrophe and the uproar that ensued, clothing companies that were willing to take responsibility and enact change, signed a Bangladesh Factory Safety Accord. Others did not.

Who can say why these companies chose not to show solidarity with the mostly female workers who were killed (or their families) in order to stock brightly lit retail spaces in the West. What can be said is that public pressure from consumers and exposure (no one wanted to admit they had product in this building but material products were found and publicized and corporations were forced to admit their error) drove companies who had initially refused, to sign the accord by the deadline.

Letter writing, petitions, boycotting… pressure and exposure… change from the bottom up… but only after a massive disaster and a mind-boggling loss of life.

Kasey Mazzone, new Quiksilver Global Head of Supply Chain, admits that risk management and contingency plans fall to whomever is in charge of sourcing and their team and that often, the CEOs, et al. don’t want to hear about the nuts and bolts of production and manufacturing… as long as everything is delivered on time. At the beginning of this particular webinar, she says (after racing in late to the panel) that the main issue she foresees from 2012 through 2014 is speed, the rate at which a company can keep up with the demands of a consumer base whose rapidly fluctuating tastes for disposable fashion drive businesses to demand the impossible from their manufacturers (invariably South Hemisphere, non-white, low-paid workers). Risk management and contingency plans become the norm because catastrophe is inevitable.

I’d love to offer up Bluesign Technologies and other social auditing firms of high repute as solutions, but they are merely band-aids with no guarantees in much the same way that “alternative” or “green” energy sources are band-aids. The core problem is not where we get the clothing or energy. Ultimately, we must address our insane demands and face the fact that our consumption itself is unsustainable. Our consumption habits are what need to change. If we don’t, ridiculous claims such as those made recently by Monsanto might begin to hold water. After all, if we aren’t willing to curb our consumption, technology and those who own it, will determine all of our futures for us because there will be no alternative. The question “Why can’t I consume like you?” is a valid one and deserves an intersectional analysis (taking into consideration classism, racism, the entitlement of the Northern Hemisphere).

During the interview with Chouinard, the interviewer noted that Patagonia was seen as an “authentic” business implying that the values the company says it is committed to, it actually is committed to, and (most importantly) consumers viewed the relationship between the company’s values and its actions as inviolably married.

Chouinard was asked by the interviewer how companies could project themselves as “authentic” if consumers did not perceive them as such. Chouinard shrugged and said that he didn’t think he could answer the question. Maybe, he pondered out loud, maybe they simply aren’t authentic… maybe consumers, especially this new generation of buyers, can see through “the bullshit.”

“The bullshit,” as it were, is not some projected authenticity (after all, is Nike Inc. now more “authentic” or “in integrity” now that it has partnered with Bluesign Technologies?) or the intimacy with which a company clings to its values. “The bullshit” is how we consume and not asking or ignoring who has to pay for it, with their bodies, their minds, and their hearts. I hope the next generation can see through the bullshit… and I hope it’s not too late.

Notes:

1. I am leaving out wetsuits here for brevity but the “Made In” tags and the sourcing of neoprene, glue, taping, etc. for the suits are also areas in need of attention.

2. Screen Shot 2013-05-20 at 6.01.20 PMVF Corporation owns the brands The North Face (also partnered with Bluesign Technologies), Reef and Vans and initially refused to sign the Bangladesh Accord. I did not find any information that said they buckled to pressure to sign the accord.

3. A little about Patagonia: 85% of Patagonia’s workforce is female. Patagonia’s business plan is no growth and sustainability in its global stores. The company provides on-site childcare for its employees and flextime for surfing and mountaineering. Chouinard cofounded the One Percent for the Planet Organization. (K. Comer, SGNWO p. 238, note 89)

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April 8, 2013

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Surfing

By Cori


ob but really look on…

Los padres de la hacienda had fought the mud from the periphery of the building for years, mud that was laced in the building’s own genetic-code, mud that dressed the building in droplet skirts when La Virgen wept from heaven (so they said), mud that speckled the interior of the building’s cement floors with petite, caramel hued, abandoned footsteps.

We rolled up in one of those huge vans that had three bench-seats in the back and air conditioning vents arranged to reach each of these seats. Half-naked children tepidly leaked from the Tijuana orphanage, curiosity pushing them past their shyness, as we slid out of the van. The adults in our church party lugged trash bags full of children’s toys that had been donated for the visit to the side-yard of the orphanage. The distribution began.

I followed some of the children who had grabbed a human-sized doll head with ratty locks of synthetic blonde hair. They had set it on a low table just inside one of the doorless openings to the building and were gazing at its rouged cheeks, petite rose mock-smile, and sightless blue eyes with some interest. I was excited by the prospect of describing to them how to “play” with the doll head, so I ran back and forth between my father, who carefully translated the phrases I wanted to repeat in Spanish, and the small group of children studying the decapitated head. They dutifully listened when I slowly repeated the words my father gave me, then returned their attention to the head, talking amongst themselves and delicately touching the object in turns. They had no brush with which to comb the doll’s hair, no make-up with which to gussy her up, and I quickly realized what a strange “gift” this must seem. I was about 7 years old and am still haunted by the dawning of this realization. What good are such gifts from El Norte?

I source this moment as the perhaps impetus of what may be termed my personal cynicism toward certain well-intentioned charitable actions. A fair amount of travel to Mexico when I was very young, and a memorable 3 week visit through Tahiti (where we stayed with local families in mosquito infested squalor) and Indonesia when I was 16, helped to open my eyes to the privileged existence I lived. 

If I had to guess, I’d say my family was squarely centered in the middle-class region of US society, give or take a dip here and there depending on the local economy as it related to construction in the 1980s and 1990s. My father worked hard to allow my mother to stay at home and keep my sister and I in Christian schools through Jr. High (with a few notable exceptions in the ’80s when the economy slowed and the construction industry stalled in San Diego), a Herculean task that is impossible to imagine these days, especially for blue-collar workers in San Diego.

The “New Spirit” of Surfing

“At the level of consumption, this new spirit is that of so-called ‘cultural capitalism’: we primarily buy commodities neither on account of their utility nor as status symbols; we buy them to get the experience provided by them, we consume them in order to render our lives pleasurable and meaningful.” (Zizek, Slavoj: First As Tragedy, Then As Farce p.52)

In the 1990s, surfing as a business took a turn and became a tidy case study in late-capitalism’s spirit of globalization (neoliberalism). As surf businesses grew, the demand to keep manufacturing costs low along with rising standards of environmental protection pushed many businesses to factories in the East. Surfing as an industry was riding a tidal wave of growth and gained much mainstream attention. This growth and attention was due largely to emerging women’s surf brands and the simultaneous explosion of a burgeoning focus on women’s athletic lines in the broader clothing industry. “Femininity” was being recoded in US society as “strong, able, athletic”; “more masculine” as some would call it today (as “feminine” is being once again recoded alongside “masculine” to reorient cold-war era gender roles for our constantly at-war times). These new corporeal signifiers drove the female athletic clothing sectors to economic heights while creating new international playgrounds for the awakening outward-focused surf tourist market, some of which marketed themselves as empowerment camps for women and girls only.

The surf industry continued to reap the benefits of its chimerical glamor, filling out the vision it was projecting through the lens of “The Beach Lifestyle” well into the early 2000s with the professional competitive surfer as its cultural icon.

Professional competitive surfers have carried a double burden of projecting corporeal fitness and competitive competence along with an easygoing, happy-go-lucky façade for the consumer, polished through the lens of Big Surfing. That an “easy-going” attitude seems to harmoniously balance with a competitive will to be number one should cause one pause and a litany of subsequent ponderings: is it that this is how our professional competitive surfers are type-cast? Or is there truly some weird on/off switch that allows pro surfers to dampen their competitive spirit once out of the ring? Does this vary by gender and the expectations of gender (do we say of top male pro surfers as a group “they are easy-going” and mean it as a compliment, or simply as an excuse as to why they did not make a heat?)? What happens once professional competitive surfers no longer compete for the top prize? and c. 

Through the early 2000s, this continued to generate revenue for Big Surfing through the ASP’s Dream Tour, Blue Crush hit box offices, sponsorships grew to millions, sales, sales, sales. But the environment and the culture, within and without Big Surfing has since changed. People have begun to ask “at what cost?”

Manufacturing Stoke presents a cohesive and honest look at surfing’s manufacturing practices and how the culture is shifting, and ought to shift, in a concerted way toward more environmentally friendly and sustainable practices. A logical shift for an industry wholly reliant on a natural resource that is in a precarious way due specifically to practices of manufacturing goods for industrial societies with large amounts of “disposable” time and income. 

This film focuses primarily on the manufacturing and environmental aspects of surf manufacturing (both hard and soft goods), the title of this surfumentary is a play on Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, a book that discusses “effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion.”

Once we admit that surfing is indeed a culture (composed of shared behaviors, symbols, and patterns that are not biologically determined), albeit a subculture composed largely of a certain privileged class of humans, we are able to examine it from various different learned perspectives. We are able to use the same tools used to examine social institutions of larger influence (e.g. religion, government, education, work, military) and begin to collate patterns and tendencies, ostensibly for the betterment of our culture. This is all being done, not in the traditional deconstruct-destruct-to-nihilism fashion of Derridean PoMo stylings, but in the deconstruct-so-as-to-rebuild-a-better-culture fashion. This is an optimistic task, though it may feel at first as if it is simply gaming’s DO DAMAGE! scenario. These are beginnings, after all, and there is much to be worked out, and this particular journey requires of each of us to in-look at our own behaviors as individual consumers/experientialists/travelers to find the inconsistencies, hypocrisies, and whatnot. We each of us have them and each of us has a localism (a group of individuals we interact with daily) that might be a solid beginning for altering something we dislike… trash collecting is a very simple, but incredibly powerful example of our solidarity as localisms with intent). 

One of the telling hallmarks of surf culture is a transnational, border-crossing tendency that is ostensibly one of the reasons “surfing” as a term was espoused as the term to explain the activity of what we do when we flit on the internet. Have any of us really thought into why surfing is the verb of endearment for such a global phenomenon? What is it about surfing, as it is known by cultures-at-large, that makes it the perfect metaphor for the lightning quick global browsing communicating we do on the internet today?

Unfortunately, one of the misconceptions of the use of the verb, our verb, is that it is a dispassionate crossing of global boundaries, that it is without impact and also impact-less. That is, to be a surfer is synonymous with a feather touch, an apolitical quality, and a simple exploratory ethos that is innocent. This simply is not true, as Manufacturing Stoke and many others have shown.

And so, what?

Big Surfing is not immune to how the surfing polis sways. But more importantly than the industry of surfing (in its strange hypocrisy of “save the whales” and “make products that destroy the environment the whales–and we!–swim in”) are the localisms that gauge each other and ourselves in micro- movements and moments. Each movement Big Surfing takes is at most, a click off where Surfing is as a localism. That is, Big Surfing is feeding off of Surf Localism once more, a thing that has not happened since Gidget in the late 1950s.

There are certain localisms that are actually, though quietly, defining where Big Surfing is right now: North County, San Diego, California; Byron Bay, Australia; and certain surf blogs and social networks online. Not one of these localisms gives a hoot whether or not Big Surfing is following their lead or not, really (though if it means a cleaner industry, there is surely support when it is seen). But in the fragmenting of this, our culture, there is the possibility of growth. Not the growth of the apoplectic, over-riggéd, culture defining corporations, but the growth of the local, the diverse panoply of those surviving the discomfited surfing that was hijacked for profit. 

As we are shifting as a culture, certain surf corps are attempting to mask themselves in charity in order to cement themselves in the actual compassion surfers feel toward their surrounding world. The problems these charities seek to resolve are problems created by the very strategies they use to make a profit. Charity Navigator is a great tool to help figure out what is and is not a valid help. Surfers do tend to want to help more. We have developed lives that are centralized on plenty of time to play but feel a tendency toward doing something to better the world around us. Please be wise with your help and your money.

Living the Dream or Freedom and Choice.

I live in salt water. My understanding of the world revolves around a saltwater vista, a strange manifest destiny that the Pacific seems to grant with a seemingly unending horizon and no discernible oceanic boundaries. There are promises of something endless (e.g. summers), but… I wonder, because…

Salt itself is one of those things that has a double meaning in the most annoying of ways. That is, it used to be more precious than gold when there was no refrigeration, since it was one of the only means to preserve food, but it was also a painful poultice when rubbed into a wound. Sustenance and pain. Knowledge is just such a preserving and alternately painful offering.

Big Surfing is aware of the power of this idea of freedom and the pursuit of freedom (defined as “freedom from” the stifling urban and suburban sprawls) and has been since The Endless Summer set the stage for a new manifest destiny that took the Western Frontier cowboy ethos of discovery and flung it over an ocean vista. Anything with “freedom” and “free” in it is the selling products and goods that represent this ideal. The surf market is returning to this Endless Summer zeitgeist, this rush away from even its own pernicious chains (the grind of the contest scene and its parallel in society at large: work), electing to capitalize on and promote “freesurfers” (though how free is a sponsored surfer?) and being “Free to Roam”. But we must always ask “free from what?” and “freedom for whom?” How are we allowing the market to define freedom? And who does this freedom exclude?

The pursuit of happiness (only available to those who have first attained liberty in the blessed triune Americans are so used to waving about as rights for all humans) comes with a price, most often a price that cannot be seen but means something more like slavery for others. “Surfing the web” has allowed the opportunity to view the price of this pursuit. We are able to see, actually view, what the pursuit of our happiness (the most material stylings of happiness) cause: computers, clothing, gems, oil… you are free to choose… here in the comfort of your privileged home. But at what cost? Are you willing to pay the cost if it means the blood of an other? Another human being? How many humans is it appropriate to exploit for your freedom to choose? How far are you willing to dig to find out the true cost of your lifestyle? Do you really want to know?

Do you?




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March 4, 2013

How Surfing is a Rhetoric of Pro-Globalization and Surfer Girls in the New World Order (video)

By Cori

…and how the female surfer is an icon for western globalization’s vision for the means of women’s liberation…

Krista Comer’s Surfer Girls in the New World Order, published 2010.

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January 19, 2013

Nuclear Gothic

By Cori
"Nuclear Gothic" by Jen Allen with Carol Jahnkow and Gene Stone

“Nuclear Gothic” by Jen Allen with Carol Jahnkow and Gene Stone

Over the past year, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has become the center of the nuclear debate in the United States (Read: Disharmony of SONGS for more information about why), prompting some news agencies recently to run such grand headlines as Showdown at San Onofre: Why the Nuclear Industry May Be Dealt a Big Blow. [SONGS] may soon redefine a global movement aimed at eradicating nuclear power.

Despite the fact that the plant has been shut down for the past year, tax payers continue to pay for it, to the tune of $54 million a month.

There are some amazing folks who have, and continue to, oppose the dangerous operation of SONGS, with a compassionate heart toward the workers, the work culture, and the surrounding environment(s) and residents.

I first met Carol Jahnkow in 2001 shortly after the Horror* of September 11th. I doubt she remembers me. I barely remember myself then. What I do remember — along with the feeling of complete helplessness re: what I knew was inevitably going to lead to a protracted pile of patriotic bullshit that would green-light more deaths than any single attack on American soil could possibly legitimize — was a compassionate, assiduous, empathetic, human being who was the antithesis of the insouciance I had bathed in as a teen growing up in the 1990s.

This story of my activism in the early 2000s against the invasion of Afghanistan is a long tangent I’ll leave for another day for it includes more heroic characters and troubling self-reflection than is necessary here. It is enough to say that when I saw Carol at my first “Shut down SONGS” protest, I knew I was in the right place.

I was invited to the protest by Mr. Gene Stone, a soft, yet bear-like soul I had just recently met through my dear friend, Sheri Crummer. Gene is representative of the best kind of soul: a human who is not afraid to engage in the kind of life-affirming embrace you absolutely need sometimes while also having the kind of warriors heart and gaze that you simply cannot hide from… which, even if you’d like to, you simply cannot ignore. His presence sort of eats into you in the most honest way, that is, without engaging what he has seen, the observation itself sort of works into you in such a way that it makes you squirm if you aren’t doing what you ought to be doing; what you could be doing. His is a gaze that takes on a life of its own once you meet it… and him.

At one of these protests, I was asked at one point: “Where are all the surfers?!” After all, San Onofre and Trestles are world class waves and the waters that surround the plant are littered with families, contests, and surfers galore. Generations of surfers have played in these waters, enjoyed the rolling waves that are at times, world class. “Where are the surfers?” I was asked. I could not answer but to say “I do not know.”

With the exception of Kyle Thiermann, I don’t know many others who are really engaging in this politically hot issue. I find that more often than not, well known surfers tend to be soft-activists, that is, they tend to be patronizingly simplistic with their activism. They don’t like touching things that are political or taking a stand on issues, publicly, that might garner them abuse, dislike, or disdain. It is as if they, themselves, are playing politicians: unwilling to take a stance on anything that might upset… anyone.

This is why the Lance Armstrong confession is so disingenuous. His apology for doping and lying about doping, rather than admitting that he, and those like him (celebrity athletes) don’t just own up to the fact that they are entertainers and entertainers do what they must to give the masses what they want, returns the focus to the individual (fuck up) and not the society that demands performance above and beyond what is humanly possible… the “evolution” of sport, so commanded. The next level in performance is doping… a sign that we are progressing as a species… and as a nation. Technological enhancement. The purpose of sport, as it were, is to succeed far beyond, yet for “us” somehow. Right? Why would “we” be so uptight about performance enhancers, after all, if “we” take emotion enhancing (AND sexual performance enhancing drugs) to get us through our day? Who is the hypocrite here? Is it Lance?

Don’t think, don’t opine, don’t be complex… be a body; be an idol; be a synecdoche for the rest of “us”. A “whole package” in this vernacular means shutting off any complex emotional humanity that might cause people to think you are human, flawed, or otherwise trying to make sense of the world like every one else, while fitting into the ideal of the moment (and what will you do when this shifts, son, daughter?).

Those humans who are engaging their humanity, and ours, by engaging and questioning authority without the limelight, or other simplistic hero status, or a desire for notoriety for themselves (for they do desire notoriety for their issues), or even a name (the vulgar influence of the anon you cannot deny), are where evolution, if there is such a thing with some Platonic reverberation echoing through, resides within.

(*”The Horror” is a borrowed term from David Foster Wallace’s essay The View From Mrs. Thompson’s, 2006.)

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September 13, 2012

“…reality itself is flux…”

By Cori

“…we still need to ask whether the world is one flux or many.”

But first, a Maui wedding, and love…:

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July 16, 2012

Bearded Ladies of Surf

By Cori

Bearded Ladies of Surf via Surfer Magazine’s Week in Review

Sometimes, the utterly ridiculous offers the possibility of a profound clarity, despite the intentions of its origins and despite how it is initially read.

As Surfer Magazine suggests:

“Bearded Ladies

Nick Rosza is all for equality. Women deserve beards too.”

“In colloquial French, La Barbe also means ‘enough is enough’.”

However, there is the opportunity here for a more subversive reading, one that Mr. Rosza may not have intended.

When viewed alongside the La Barbe movement in France, this tantalizing queering of typical surf imagery is also an effective, visual subversive act.

“The name comes from the group’s pantomime style of protest. Its members infiltrate high-level, male-dominated meetings. In due course they get to their feet and silently don false beards before one of them reads out an ironic statement congratulating the men on their supremacy.”

“The emphasis on facial hair ridicules antiquated male attitudes. ‘It’s meant to be ringuard,’ says Ilana.”

Oh la barbe!

Thanks to Janna Irons for posting this up at the Week in Review and to Mr. Rosza for bearding the ladies.

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July 5, 2012

The Patriarchy?

By Cori

“There is, it should be evident, no universal patriarchal framework that [global feminism] attempts to counter and resist – unless one posits an international male conspiracy or a monolithic, ahistorical power structure. There is, however, a particular world balance of power within which any analysis of culture, ideology, and socioeconomic conditions necessarily has to be situated.”2

“…disrupt the notion of fixity, to discover the nature of the debate or repression that leads to the appearance of timeless permanence in binary gender representation.” -Joan W. Scott

Blind Men and An Elephant, 1909

We are beneath water, surrounded on all sides by a seemingly homogenous, dark sea that is unbroken by light, bubbles, particles, and sound. Now come the creatures of the abyss, swimming with their hobgoblin lanterns poised directly in front of their massive eyes; now come luminescent jellyfish, undulating blindly along with unseen currents. With each passing bit of bio-light that passes, we see a little of our surroundings, but only the very smallest space. We see the sea is teaming with particles and that there are bubbles that slowly flit from the gills of the light-bearing creatures. Once the light has passed, the darkness closes in again.

My friend says to me once we reach the surface, “The ocean is a vast, expansive darkness!” Another of my fellow divers says, “The ocean is teaming with strange life! Each so different from the next!” And a third cries, “The pressure of the depths is suffocating! How much more comfortable it is above the water!”

Now each sets out to writing a chapter in our book about the ocean. Here are their chapter descriptions:

Chapter 1

The Darkness

The need for a high-beam, intense light when exploring the depths is not only necessary, but demanded. One cannot navigate the depths without a light tool of some kind. The type of light recommended is the “Halogen ismvs. The Darkness” model that has been available for decades. The best manufacturer from whom to purchase such a tool is the Occidental Academics Illumination Studios.

Chapter 2

Strange Life

There is no possible way to speak of the incredible diversity of life found in the depths. Each creature is their own individual, sharing nothing in common with his/her neighbor, each seems locked-away from the other, floating in an immense darkness seeking sustenance in the cold, lightless depths.

Chapter 3

Stay on the Beach

Diving to these levels is not recommended. The pressure in ones eardrums, the ringing in the head after, not to speak of the countless hours wasted in adventuring down into such valueless places makes these journeys a waste of time. Save yourself the trouble. Pack a light snack, enjoy the sun’s rays safely, splash in the shallows, and lounge on the beach should you be tempted to dive below the surface.

We can determine a number of things about the authors from their exclamations and their chapter descriptions, but what we do not know is far more profound: the geographical location of this diving expedition, the history of the expedition, the history of the authors/explorers, the exact depth of the expedition, the time of year of the expedition, the length of time of the expedition. In fact, we do not even know the purpose of the expedition. Indeed, using the word “expedition” laces the adventure through with an official, National Geographic tone of scientific discovery. Are we perhaps looking for the Titanic? Or looking for new species of aquatic creature? Or simply out for an amusing scuba dive?

“…language is a system that constitutes meaning. (Cabrera, QoG p. 321)”

“These limitations are evident in the construction of the (implicitly consensual) priority of issues around which apparently all women are expected to organize. (Mohanty, p.182)”

In diving into a discourse about concepts that are recognized as feminist, there is the temptation to assume that categories of meaning and basic concepts (such as “experience, objectivity, causality, and the subject of history”3) have been pre-established. In fact, in using even simple words (like man and woman; masculine and feminine; gay and straight), it can be likewise tempting to believe that the meanings of these words are somehow representative of categories that are concrete and distinct, and often oppositional.

Constructing our language in such a way that creates and allows monolithic, homogenous, ahistorical, categories of oppositional difference limits a concept’s capacity to expand beyond the context of our own cultural imaginations. This is an effective means to limit the scope and efficacy of unsettling ideas that challenge the ways we perceive our culture and deepen our understanding of the world.

An example of this is the assumption that some monolithic, ahistorical Feminism is caught in conflict with some monolithic, ahistorical Patriarchy. What this ignores, indeed, what it inspires, is an abstract, oppositional conflict that is grounded in essentialist, binary, and universalist thinking. Cutting across borders, politics, cultures, religions, races, histories, and economies, this “colonial feminism” or “imperial feminism”, with its roots in US and Euro-centric academia, decontextualizes the specific struggles of women* around the globe.

“An analysis of ‘sexual difference’ in the form of a cross-culturally singular, monolithic notion of patriarchy or male dominance leads to the construction of a similarly reductive and homogenous notion of what I call the ‘Third World[/South] difference’ – that stable, ahistorical something that apparently oppresses most if not all the women in these countries. And it is in the production of this Third World[/South] difference that Western feminisms appropriate and colonize the constitutive complexities that characterize the lives of women in these countries. (Mohanty, p. 19)”

Additionally, the corporatization of US culture (and education) has led to a consumerist, commodity, or protocapitalist feminism that focuses myopically on capitalist values – profit, competition, hyper-individualism, accumulation – while soothingly emphasizing the importance of exercising one’s “power of choice” to advance one’s station within US corporate culture while buying this brand of anti-aging cream instead of another.

This feminism stresses women’s advancement in US corporate culture as central to the feminist struggle. One of the costs of this “protocapitalist feminism” is that under the noses of today’s US women (many of whom seek profit over political involvement), we are seeing a systematic undermining of many of those rights we have taken for granted over the course of a generation.

What is often forgotten in the rush to competitively shape-shift-up in US corporate culture, are those upon whose backs US women stand. What are the added costs of commodity feminists who are more interested in their personal advancement than in those making the very commodities they feel they so richly deserve? Or the effects of shifting our production (dirty and cheap) overseas, to increase the profit of our businesses while decreasing the amounts we pay for flowers and blouses at the register?

The point is we must expand the understanding of “choice” and “empowerment” beyond our own personal, socio-cultural context toward the understanding that women and children are often the workers whose labor and human rights are so often over-looked and undervalued in the rush to produce goods for a commodity-addicted populace, even if this means visibility and acceptance.”

Historical and Cultural Context

“Changes in the discursive context affected the shape of feminist identity and practice. This is because modern feminist identity, feminism, and its practice arose from the historical deployment of established political discourses.”3

My particular and specific experience (as opposed to “identity”) as a white, middle-class, somewhat-well traveled, individual who identifies as female, who grew up in a Christian household living in the SouthWest of the United States at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century, has shaped the context through which I experience the world.

I am mostly same-sex oriented, though I feel that the gay/straight binary is just as restrictive as the female/male; feminine/masculine binary. The concept that encompasses much of this gender/sexuality trouble in the culture as I experience it today, revolves around an explicit and implicit emphasis on heteronormative social mores.

A specific example of the heteronormative occurs when well-meaning folks ask female-female couples “Who wears the pants in the family?” The expectation is that one will exhibit more “masculine” traits while the other will exhibit more “feminine” traits. There are also examples of the heteronormative that revolve around sexual behavior, not only within the straight community, but in the queer world as well.

The heteronormative and the unquestioned acceptance of gender/sexuality binaries is something I have found promulgated by many people who themselves have known the exterior fields of marginalization. One of the most unfortunate aspects of this is that both feminists and the gay community have for a number of years been less than accepting toward transgendered and gender queer individuals. My hope is that this will continue to change and that our ability as human beings to be open to ambiguities, rather than labeled “identities” and co-opted for profit’s sake, will continue to expand.

The expedition must be located in context and the authors, whose vision and language communicates the depths they see (or choose not to descend to see), must too be located in their particular contexts. Similar to the parable of the 6 blind men and the elephant, but laced with an interwoven matrix of influences and biases that begin beneath the structure of language itself to address why we are blinded and in what ways. How do we know the elephant is an elephant at all?

“If this challenge is accepted, … we will pay attention to language and to the processes through which categories and meanings have been articulated’; otherwise, we will continue to impose models on the world that perpetuate conventional understandings rather than open up new interpretive possibilities.”3

*“The assumption of women as an already constituted, coherent group with identical interests and desires, regardless of class, ethnic, or racial location, or contradictions, implies a notion of gender or sexual difference or even patriarchy that can be applied universally and cross-culturally. (Mohanty, p.21)”

1. Cabrera, Miguel A. Language, Experience, and Identity: Joan W. Scott’s Theoretical Challenge to Historical Studies2003

2. Mohanty, Chandra T. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity2003

3. Butler J., Weed, E. editors The Question of Gender: Joan W. Scott’s Critical Feminism 2011

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May 17, 2012

South Korea and the ASP

By Cori

For those going to Jeju Island in June for the Quiksilver 2-Star event at Mun Beach

Jeju Island is also known as “Peace Island”. Despite this, there is great government pressure to build a military base on this island. This is being protested by villagers (blocking bulldozers with their bodies) and international peace advocates. A very interesting political situation going on over there. This contest is an opportunity to raise awareness of the situation and express support for nearly 95% of those on the island who do not want the base built.

NY Times: Gloria Steinem The Arms Race Intrudes on South Korean Paradise

Why You Should Care

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April 30, 2012

The Necessity of Feminist Eyes, Voices

By Cori

'KEEP GOING' photo (c) 2011, marc falardeau - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

“Post-feminists ‘…explicitly define themselves [as] against… [while criticizing] feminists of the Second Wave‘ (women’s liberation movement). [In post-feminist thought], individual improvement replaces collective improvement, while the results of the collective action of the second wave movement are taken as a given. (Dworkin and Wachs, p. 139)”

While taking for granted certain freedoms that were hard-won by previous generations of women, today’s privileged classes of women seek to distance themselves from anything recalling feminism.

Today’s post-feminism is a disempowered one, regardless of how many “empowering” slogans it uses (to get you to the gym!), quite simply because it has become depoliticized and commodified. Post-feminists are consumed by self-improvement, individualism, and swim in a false “us” vs. “them” dichotomy defined by an outdated, defunct understanding of feminism. Post-feminists respond to Third Wave Feminism much like a Victorian era human might respond to a 2012 computer. Misunderstanding its function or purpose, there may be fear, disdain, deflection, or the whole contraption (concept) might be ignored.†

The challenges that face any given gendered population revolve around a variety of influences and factors. It is becoming increasingly clear that Second Wave feminism’s Objectification Theory needs to be expanded to include boys and men in today’s late-capitalist consumer culture. But the ability to extend this theory to include boys and men is possible because of outgrowths of feminism, namely Queer Theory and Third Wave Feminism.

Third Wave Feminism seeks to shift the locus of the gender conversation back to society and culture, uproots the privileged, white, western, female’s point of view in exchange for a plurality of voices and narratives, and takes into consideration the influences and impacts of one’s social location (race, ethnicity, creed, culture, socio-economic status) on the experience of being gendered.

The conversation has changed yet those who would reject feminism are doing so without a clear understanding of the newest wave in feminism. The current US political climate requires political citizens who care about women to pay attention to what is going on. The depoliticization of feminism into a weak, nostalgic “commodity feminism” within which marketing creates, then sells, you the idea that the most important “choice” you can make is what brand of clothing to buy or how best to focus on shaping your body into an elite, strong (but never TOO strong!) yoga (bikram, ashtanga…), runners, walkers, gym, surfing, pilates… body. All this costs money and takes time.

It’s easy to get distracted by all the messages about our lack (lack of the perfect body shape, lack of the best hand-bag, lack, lack, lack) or his lack, or their lack. The consumer culture is an extraordinary distraction, deflecting and shifting attention away from itself onto the gendered bodies of human beings. Though this is a trend impacting men and boys on a growing basis, it must be noted that the body anxiety experienced by women has a more powerful impact due to deeply embedded cultural norms and habits:

“Chronic attention to physical appearance leaves fewer cognitive resources available for other mental and physical activities. One study demonstrated this fragmenting quite vividly (Fredrickson et al., 1998). While alone in a dressing room, college students were asked to try on and evaluate either a swimsuit or a sweater.”

“While they waited for 10 minutes wearing the garment, they completed a math test. The results revealed that young women in swimsuits performed significantly worse on the math problems than did those wearing sweaters. No differences were found for young men. In other words, thinking about the body and comparing it to sexualized cultural ideals disrupted mental capacity.“

“Recent research has shown that this impairment occurs among African American, Latina, and Asian American young women (Hebl, King, & Lin, 2004) and extends beyond mathematics to other cognitive domains including logical reasoning and spatial skills (Gapinski, Brownell, & LaFrance, 2003) (Report of the APA Taskforce on the Sexualization of Girls, Cognitive and Physical Functioning, p. 21).”*

“[T]he near-constant monitoring of appearance that accompanies self-objectification leads to increased feelings of shame about one’s body (e.g., Fredrickson et al., 1998; McKinley, 1998, 1999;Tiggemann & Slater, 2001). Shame is an emotion that occurs when one perceives one’s failure to meet cultural standards of conduct (Lewis, 2000). Individuals who feel shame deem the whole self as deficient and typically have the urge to hide or disappear. Given that so few women meet the dominant cultural standard for an attractive, sexy appearance (Wolf, 1991), it is not surprising that a girl’s chronic comparison of her own body to this impossible cultural standard would result in feelings of inadequacy and shame (ibid., p. 23).”

It is imperative that we stand up from wherever it is we are (don’t wait until our voices are perfect, or our bodies, or…), not be silent, and not be dissuaded by false choice in the realm of consumerism. In an environment that is undermining women’s reproductive and health rights, pay disparity, arguing over who controls the realms of the female body, and is persistent in sexualizing and hypersexualizing the bodies of women, it is equally important that the conversation shift from individuals to the society and culture in general again. We need to embrace feminism in its evolved mode and gaze through this lens in order to question why our society is the way it is and whose interests misdirection, body anxiety, and depoliticization serve.

† To explore a shifting 3rd Wave Feminism- Third Wave Feminism: A Critical Exploration, specifically, Contests for the Meaning of Third Wave Feminism: Feminism and Popular Consciousness pp. 24-36

*The Report of the APA Taskforce on the Sexualization of Girls includes a section on how this trend affects boys, men, and the greater society.

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March 15, 2012

Disharmony of SONGS

By Cori

San Onofre NPP cropped

While countries like Germany are backing away from or at the very least, seriously questioning nuclear power as a viable energy alternative in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the United States is taking two giant steps in the opposite direction. In February, the Congress appointed, five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a group that has come under fire from Senator Boxer for infighting recently, licensed two new nuclear power plants to Southern Company, the first such licensing since 1978. Additionally, seven more plants are due for a renewal of their 40 year license agreements starting next year through 2016.

2022 will mark the year Southern California Edison (SCE) will be up for renewal of their license of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). An SCE spokesperson has stated that the decision to relicense the plant has not been made yet. The city council of San Clemente set up public hearings at the end of last year in order to better inform itself, neighboring communities, and the public about the safety of the plant after the disaster at Fukushima. After the hearings, the city council of Laguna Beach, with Elizabeth Pearson declining, agreed to join San Clemente in demanding that the NRC enforce stricter safety measures and implement comprehensive evacuation plans or else shut-down the generators operated by SCE.

I attended one of the hearings in September of 2011 during which internationally recognized experts not affiliated with the nuclear industry or with the NRC gave presentations about nuclear power in general and SONGS in particular. The information I learned that night from experts like nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen and Dr. Helen Caldicott awakened a sense of discomfort around an architectural structure that had, up until that point, been nothing more than a source of nostalgia for me.

My family spent many summers surfing Old Man’s and The Point just north of SONGS. My sister and I would play with the other kids our age on the beaches, in the waters, and in the bursts of bamboo that we imagined were fairy groves on the sands. At low tide, we would stalk the slugs that littered the exposed rocks close to shore, occasionally encountering small octopi, and star fish. We would come home, exhausted, and crawl into our beds with dirty feet, skin tight from sun and salt, and fade into sleep with wide smiles. These are warm memories I carry within me from my youth, grounding moments in time before life expanded to a more complicated adulthood.

I cannot deny the nostalgia I feel for these memories, nor can I deny the certain bit of warmth that I feel as soon as my truck wheels hit the end of the paved road leading into San O. The bouncing, hopping, and jittering communicates via some secret language to my body that I have returned to one of my nomadic homes.

“Federal regulators have cited Southern California Edison’s 2,350-megawatt San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Clemente dozens of times in recent years for safety violations that include failed emergency generators, improperly wired batteries and falsified fire safety data, records show.” -Bensinger & Sarno; LA Times 3/21/2011

Of the 104 in the United States, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is arguably one of the worst. Based on safety records, potential disasters, and nearby populations, The Daily Beast lists SONGS as the second most vulnerable nuclear plant in the US behind Indian Point.

“Nuclear safety is our top priority,” said Pete Dietrich, Southern California Edison senior vice president and chief nuclear officer. “Everything we do — from normal plant operations and routine refueling outages to specialized repairs and equipment replacement — is done with the utmost care to protect the health and well-being of the community and our employees. There is no timeline on safety.”

“If we would ask the cigarette industry if their product is safe, they would probably come and tell us it is. Or if we asked the oil industry if drilling in the Gulf is safe, they would probably tell us it is.  Let’s face it, industry experts are paid to tell us their products are safe.” -local resident Mike Beenan commenting on nuclear industry experts.

Leaving its location near the ocean and its proximity to the San Andreas fault aside, the most pressing concern, despite claims by Dietrich, continues to be SONGS’ consistently poor safety record and “chilling” safety culture, one that dissuades workers from bringing safety concerns forward because of fears of reprisal. Poor safety culture has been a major factor in nuclear disasters, from Three Mile to Fukushima. The NRC has received 53 separate allegations regarding safety concerns at SONGS in 2008-09, well over the industry average.

“I would also say in reference to whistle-blowing, when I look at the nuclear industry over the years … the whistle blowers are the ones who blow the whistle on safety problems, they’re not the ones who blow the whistle because they don’t like this or that.” -Senator Barbara Boxer in a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Gary Headrick of San Clemente Green stated at the September 2011 city council hearing that he felt he had no choice but to take action after whistleblowers who worked at SONGS approached him about “concerns about short cuts on testing the new generators, unreported safety violations, falsifying records and promoting a culture of cover-up. While these significant claims have been forwarded to the NRC for investigation, they failed to get the various bureaucratic agencies to take any action.” You can view a leaked memo from SONGS’ upper management about their Nuclear Safety Culture here and more whistleblower claims here.

Both Unit 2 and 3 at SONGS have been shut down since January 31st of this year due to a radiation leak. Wednesday, March 14th, officials stated that three steam generator tubes have failed a pressure stress test. The tests are being run because tubes in Unit 3 are showing a higher rate of wear than normal.

There has been no reported change in power services because of the shutdown.
When asked about this, a whistleblower who works at SONGS notes that we have an excess of energy in California, a buffer.

“We use nuclear power because it is available, not because we need it. We blindly accept the risk of a Fukushima scale disaster because we are led to believe we would have to endure blackouts and huge financial loss without it. What more proof is required to understand that we don’t need [nuclear power or the few private companies who reap the benefits of huge profits] after having no nuclear power for [45] days and counting?” -How Do We Still Have Power…?

Problems began at SONGS from the very beginning when only 46 days after it was initially fired up, Unit 1 malfunctioned and had to be shut down. In 1982, the unit was shut down for “a refueling and scheduled maintenance outage” because of concerns regarding Unit 1′s capacity to handle seismic activity. Additionally, around this time, a city ordinance by San Clemente requested stricter safety measures be required from SCE.

The NRC acknowledged that the Unit should remain shut down until it was upgraded. However, in 1984, SCE successfully lobbied the NRC, after pressure from the California Public Utilities Commission threatened an adverse rate treatment if the unit was not restarted, to get the Unit back online despite not having made the necessary changes to the unit. Unit 1 was finally retired in 1992 and buried at the site, where it remains to this day, along with thousands of tons of spent fuel rods.

This dilemma of the storage of radioactive waste is one of the challenges that promises to outlast anyone living today, or their grandkids’ grandkids’ grandkids. It is difficult to grasp the length of time it takes for radioactive waste to become non-radioactive (up to a million years per particle). Hundreds of thousands of years to one million years may be easier to grasp than the trillions of dollars our government is in debt, but imagining 1,538 generations, or so, for each hundred thousand years that pass, is quite a mighty undertaking.

With many of the nuclear plants reaching a crisis point where their collective millions of pounds of radioactive waste need off-site dump facilities — indeed, if SCE chooses to relicense SONGS, San Clemente plans to request they offload their 4,000 tons of radioactive waste from beneath the plant before relicensing — the United States Department of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future has been busy polishing its two-year long investigation for just such a crisis. Their preferred solution? “Centralized interim” storage, allegedly temporary, though potentially permanent, dumpsites that may carry on an American tradition of “Radioactive Racism” by continuing to discard waste on Native Indian reservations or in the back yards of poor communities of color.

© Sheri Crummer 2012; http://www.seasister.com

PBS Frontline:
“Because [the] design [of the Daiichi nuclear reactors] was widely used around the world, is it more of a wake-up call [than Chernobyl]?”

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko:
“I think it’s certainly more directly applicable here in the United States, and that’s something that I think we’re taking very seriously.”

Ms. Kyoko Sugasawa and Mr. Hirohide Sakuma flew to California from Japan to mark the one year anniversary of the Daiichi disaster at a peaceful protest near SONGS on Sunday, March 11, 2012. They noted the similarity in the situations between the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and raised their concern for the people and the environment surrounding SONGS. They spoke at the community center in San Clemente the night before along with Kyle Thiermann, a Santa Cruz local and inspiring activist who has emerged from within the surfing community to take on issues ranging from vulture banking practices to pollution. Kyle’s most recent campaign zeros in on the possibility of a nuclear power plant being built just a short distance from the renowned and beloved Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa.

“Radiation levels in the plant’s cooling system [Unit 2 at SONGS] doubled from January to February 2011 and continued to climb through the end of the year.

..increasing levels of radiation in the water that cools the reactor probably indicates that the metal tubes (called cladding) that contain its fuel pellets are cracking.” -David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists, after reviewing Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reactor operation statistics.

Listening to Ms. Sugasawa and Mr. Sakuma speak brought the distant disaster home. I stood, gazing at the double domes of SONGS as the Japanese guests spoke of their experiences, pondering how many years I, and my family and friends, had played in the water that washed from the plant (reports vary as to the degree of radioactive elements found in the sea near the plant) and in the sands on the beach (radioactive elements tend to fall and collect near the ground rather than hovering in the air). I took stock of my close family and wondered about a certain non-genetic, failing thyroid issue recently diagnosed. With the frequency of exposure my family has with the waters in Southern California, exceptional “horror stories” are becoming the norm for my lineage. Watch my cousin’s gruesome story here.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko:

“…if that system were to fail, ultimately we’ve got a way to make sure that people are protected and that the radiation exposure is minimized through evacuations or other types of methods.”

I wondered at the lack of a viable emergency plan for the 8.4 million people living within a 50-mile radius of the plant — the distance the US recommended American’s evacuate around the Fukushima Daiichi after the earthquake in Japan — in case something went horribly wrong at SONGS. The plan currently in place only takes the 10-mile radius around SONGS into consideration.

Evacuation Map

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko:

“If we do our jobs right, I think ultimately that there will probably be more nuclear power.
… If ultimately the kinds of safety enhancements that are necessary are just not determined to be cost-effective, then there probably won’t be plants.

We have a number of utilities who have expressed interest in nuclear construction in this country. We are reviewing a number of applications for new reactors, and … if those designs and those applications meet our safety standards, we’ll move forward with approvals. If they don’t, then we won’t.”

The argument for nuclear energy revolves around the cost-effectiveness of nuclear energy, evils of dirty alternatives (as if nuclear waste wasn’t itself dirty), and the fact that much land is required for wind turbines and solar cells. Are we so deep into cost/benefit analysis that the “cheapest to produce” trumps “the safest” for humans and our future? What strange mathematics are we using? What deranged mentality continues to put profits over people, as if “progress” were a material goal more worthy and valuable than life itself?

Radioactive Seawater Map March 2012

For more information:

Residents Organized for a Safe Environment

San Onofre Safety

Nuclear Free Planet

Surfing For Change: Kyle Thiermann surfing activist

Helen Caldicott on Fukushima and the Perils of Nuclear Power

Write your legislative representatives to express your concern, repeal the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and stop the NRC from issuing and renewing licenses for nuke plants.

The Atomic Energy Act of 1954

National Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety
6.2.8

“The NRC regulations in 10 CFR 2.206 allow any member of the public to raise potential health and safety concerns and ask the NRC to take specific enforcement actions against a licensee. If warranted, the NRC can modify, suspend or revoke a license or take other appropriate enforcement action to resolve a problem identified in the petition. Recent changes made to the petition process emphasize a timely response to the petitioner and encourage increased, direct involvement of the petitioner (in addition to involvement of the licensee) by allowing the petitioner to personally address the petition review board and comment on the agency decision.”

Gov Brown email: http://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php

Governor Jerry Brown                                 Phone: (916) 445-2841

c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173                  

Sacramento, CA 95814                                 Fax: (916) 558-3160

California US Representatives: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=CA

Find Your California legislators: http://www.legislature.ca.gov/legislators_and_districts/legislators/your_legislator.html

US House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/representatives/

US Senators: http://dir.yahoo.com/government/u_s__government/legislative_branch/senate/senators/

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