Cat.

‘Peace be on them. Peace be on you.’

ღ

For the little ones of Uvalde, Sarajevo, Dunblane and every place where innocent souls have been taken!#Uvalde #UvaldeMassacre #TexasSchoolMassacre #Children #innocent #Peace pic.twitter.com/71uLEQZUKB

— Yusuf / Cat Stevens (@YusufCatStevens) May 26, 2022

‘Go in peace.’ -Abraham Lincoln

‘How peaceful do you feel right now? Our nerves, our home and our country crave peace.’ -A. Stoddard

‘What kind of courage is required of us? ~ This is, in the end, the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to meet the strangest, most awesome, and most inexplicable of phenomena.’ -Rilke, 1904

And act.

💯%

The Atlantic

[Posted today, May 31, 2022]

‘Our writer argues that students should not return to school in the fall until Congress passes new gun-control laws.’

#BoycottSchools

#GunReformNow

#AssaultWeaponsBan

by Gal Beckerman

‘The argument that we’ve been here before, that the gun lobby has a generation of politicians in its pocket, that our political system, and particularly the structure of the Senate, will always give outsize influence to Second Amendment absolutists—all of it is true. And yet, as awful as it is to say, we’re learning with every killing. We’re moving closer to the kind of movement that might actually make a difference.

Today, I’m left with one conclusion: The children and parents of our country need to take the summer to organize locally, build a set of national demands, and then refuse to go back to school in the fall until Congress does something.

Let me explain. Social movements need two elements to be successful: narrative and tactics. Borrowing from the political scientist Joseph Nye, we might think of these as soft power and hard power, respectively. Activists need to tell a compelling story that brings people along to a new way of thinking and emboldens them to act. But that isn’t enough. There is also the hard work of mustering actual political power to elect different representatives, change laws, and leverage lobbying.

When it comes to narrative, those whose lives are most at risk in mass shootings make for the best storytellers. This has been a strangely hard-won realization. Dave Cullen, who covered the Columbine shooting in 1999 and later wrote a book about it, has said that in the days and even weeks after the attack, none of the survivors wanted to talk about gun control. Though a common right-wing talking point is that speaking about new regulations immediately after a shooting is “politicizing” the tragedy, few people pay this much heed anymore. “Everybody keeps telling us that it’s not the time to be political,” Kimberly Rubio toldThe New York Times, two days after her daughter was killed in Uvalde, Texas. “But it is. It is.”

Full piece:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/05/uvalde-school-shooting-gun-control-walkout/643120/?scrolltoken=cfYTBeTkXoT9-wU3BAMl_IcZVrEUZbt8q9egu-FeakYI9MKoRcj7zgPZRTqdQPjp4tS0m6tvOPUm_NEpmPPh-MaH3ZgKhsejKH3225Xl1ik6v5DjY_sFLpJFLFmN_VfYuza_wtymO3lvc1MbmA0oQS1HgE68-H9CsqT5etkidC07wsmpt63hsK7K4O9pEkgC2gB70WCBHJFdlCEvhF0rb3yHhj79Ny-S58E.eyJraWQiOiIyIn0

Again.

Uvalde: AR-15

Buffalo: AR-15

Boulder: AR-15

Orlando: AR-15

Parkland: AR-15

Las Vegas: AR-15

Aurora, CO: AR-15

Sandy Hook: AR-15

Waffle House: AR-15

San Bernardino: AR-15

Midland/Odessa: AR-15

Poway synagogue: AR-15

Sutherland Springs: AR-15

Tree of Life Synagogue: AR-15

—

Emmett’s mom opened his casket and started the Civil Right’s movement.

Show the carnage.

#WMD

#AssaultWeaponsBan

Trying to reinstate the ‘94 ban after Sandy Hook attracted 12 fewer votes in the Senate than Feinstein had mustered to renew it in 2004.

See the photo Emmett Till’s mother wanted you to see — the one that inspired a generation to join the civil rights movement

By Jerry Mitchell Mississippi Center For Investigative Reporting

Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, wanted the world to see “what they did to my baby.”

His body looked monstrous, as if the 14-year-old had absorbed every blow of hate delivered by his killers — a photograph that ran in Jet magazine and many other African-American publications, but never appeared in the nation’s mainstream publications.

As a result, many Americans have never seen the photograph.

It is time the world did, his family members say.

In his book, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, Juan Williams concluded that decision by Till’s mother “without question … moved black America in a way the Supreme Court ruling on school desegregation could not match.”

https://www.meridianstar.com/news/state/see-the-photo-emmett-tills-mother-wanted-you-to-see—-the-one/article_128593d9-e08c-5b52-95e6-e53cc00b1031.html

“It is insane that we let an 18-year old go in and buy an AR-15. What did we think he was going to do with it?!” A furious Beto O’Rourke railing on TX gun laws after interrupting The Texas Governor’s presser.

[Reporting from Garrett Haake.]

AXIOS

Speaking to reporters after publicly confronting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott today, a furious Beto O’Rourke rattled off four “solutions” to the mass shooting epidemic that he said have “broad bipartisan support right now”:

1. Banning the sale of AR-15s
2. Universal background checks
3. Red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders
4. Safe storage laws

‘When you vote ask yourself, who running for office has publicly stated that they’re willing to do anything & everything to protect your children from the criminally insane # of guns in the U.S.?’ -Stephen Colbert

“Deeply saddened by the news of the murder of innocent children in Texas. Sincere condolences to the families of the victims, the people of the US and President Biden over this tragedy. The people of Ukraine share the pain of the relatives and friends of the victims and all Americans.”

New York Times front page for Thursday, May 26th.

“And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.” — Isaiah 1:15

The front page of Thursday’s Uvalde Leader-News.

~

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen with Krista Tippett from 2005 and posted again in context of the latest mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas.

This is the story of the birthday of the world. In the beginning, there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. Then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a Jewish story, there was an accident. [laughs] And the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness in the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden until this very day.

Now, according to my grandfather, the whole human race is a response to this accident. We are here because we are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people; to lift it up and make it visible once again and, thereby, to restore the innate wholeness of the world. This is a very important story for our times — that we heal the world one heart at a time. This task is called “tikkun olam” in Hebrew, “restoring the world.”

Ms. Tippett:Is there a connection between the story of the sparks and tikkun olam in Jewish tradition? Are they bound together?

Dr. Remen:They’re exactly the same.

Ms. Tippett:I did not know that those two come together.

Dr. Remen:Tikkun olam is the restoration of the world. And this is, of course, a collective task. It involves all people who have ever been born, all people presently alive, all people yet to be born. We are all healers of the world.

And that story opens a sense of possibility. It’s not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It’s about healing the world that touches you, that’s around you.

Dr. Remen:Well, I don’t want to talk politics here. I’m not a person who is a political person in the usual sense of that word. But I think that we all feel that we’re not enough to make a difference; that we need to be more, somehow, either wealthier or more educated or, somehow or other, different than the people we are. And according to this story, we are exactly what’s needed. And to just wonder about that a little, what if we were exactly what’s needed? What then? How would I live if I was exactly what’s needed to heal the world? I think these kinds of questions are very important questions.

Rachel Naomi Remen is founder of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (RISHI), clinical professor of family medicine at UCSF School of Medicine, and professor of family medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University. Her books Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings have been translated into 24 languages.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/on-being-with-krista-tippett/id150892556?i=1000563596012

~

From Activist and author Courtney Martin.

We belong to one another
and we can do so much better

I dropped my kids off at school today for their last days of kindergarten and 2nd grade. In a couple of hours, I will go back for a little kindergarten promotion ceremony and party for our Stella. She wore a hand-me-down dress with a suit vest over it—her own transcendent definition of “looking fancy.”

Maya is beyond excited because we are having a playdate this afternoon with her two best friends—Layla and Misgana. They have dubbed themselves the MALS and written an original song, choreographed an original dance, and of course, created the requisite secret handshake. This is a layered expression of their devotion for one another, a sentiment I remember so well from being that age and falling madly in love with my friends and the feeling of belonging to a few people.

The 21 people who were murdered yesterday by someone carrying an AK-47 belonged to so many people. The 10 people murdered last Saturday belonged to so many people.

As I oscillate in and out of being able to think and feel this morning, I keep reminding myself: the 19 children murdered yesterday are no less real than my two girls. Their caregivers are no less real than me. Their teachers—two now dead—are no less real than Ms. Galvin and Ms. Price and all the other teachers I have come to respect so much.

If I sit with that—our equal and shared realness—I feel like a Redwood, burned out from the inside, like I’m here, but there is nothing left inside of me that can be solid in the face of that level of real loss. I imagine what it would be like if I were the mother of one of the murdered children. I can only imagine I would be in a coma—spontaneously or by some kind of medical intervention. I know people survive profound loss, and yet, I am incapable of imagining myself opening my eyes ever again if one of my daughter’s was murdered, much less my heart or my mouth.

And then I think of the parents of the Sandy Hook victims—how they did, somehow, manage to open their hearts and mouths again. And how this day must feel to them.

I think of the teachers—the trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma they have been shouldering. The absence and outburst and tears they have been meeting with resilience and unconditional love and an eternal commitment to learning.

I think of the first responders who had to walk into that school and witness those little bodies, into that supermarket and witness those innocent victims. What will they do with those images burned into their minds?

I’ve been trying to do my work this morning, which I can justify has some linkage with building a better world, a better country, but part of me just feels like we should all be lying in the streets right now, refusing to move one more muscle, toast one more waffle, tweet one more tweet, until our kids can expect to live through a day at school and our aunties and uncles to pick up groceries without fearing for their lives.

Some people in this country, as I understand it, are preparing for a kind of war. A race war. Maybe a war for their own sense of superiority in a country with a changing demographic, their sense of control in a season of so little of it, their sense of invincibility when we are all objectively so vulnerable.

I am preparing for a long-awaited after school play date between three girls whose families come from different countries, speak different languages, and yet their love for one another is evident in hand slaps and coordinated spins. I am preparing to hear 25 five-year-olds sing this song, which may, in fact, prove too tender on a day where I am so excruciatingly tender already.

Which is to say, I am preparing for love and care and a fierce resistance to anybody who tries to normalize this level of loss. Death comes for all of us. We have a lot of work to do in acknowledging that vulnerability.

But death by AK-47 need not come for any of us. We have a moral mandate, long neglected, to make that truth undeniable. If it takes donation, walk-out, laying down in the street to make that clear, whatever it takes, I’m there, beside you, tender as hell.

Take care of yourself today. Gather with others. Rely on your rituals or make them up. We belong to each other.

~

And a beautiful letter to our collective compassion from faith healer, author, and documentarian Valerie Kaur.

Oh my loves.

What does it feel like in your body? For me – like a primal scream that won’t stop. When the death toll in Uvalde climbed to 19 children, I knew I had to wash the tears from my face and go downstairs and hug my babies and get them to bed. I wondered: Is the heart big enough to hold this? All this grief. All this rage. All the joy in their faces. My ancestors said: Oh my love, Yes. That is the heart we gave you.

That is the heart they gave us.

If you can’t function, it’s OK. If you can’t feel, it’s OK. If you can’t find your breath, it’s OK. Your breathlessness is not a sign of your weakness; it’s a sign of your bravery. It means that you are awake to what is happening right now: that the violence in our country is getting worse, the hate violence and the gun violence. And that the only way we will survive this – the only way we will change this – is together.

So let’s begin with a breath — 

Let it come.
Hold for four counts.
Let it go.

Here’s why I believe we can change this:

Ten years ago, I worked on the ground in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in response to the horrific white supremacist shooting at a Sikh gurdwara. It was the largest massacre of Sikhs on this soil. I remember looking into the open caskets of people who looked like my family, and feeling like I was going to fall into the abyss. Then the doors of the gym opened, and people started to flood in for the memorial. Thousands of people. They didn’t even know us, but they showed up to grieve with us. You don’t have to know people in order to grieve with them; you grieve with them in order to know them. And because they grieved with us, many stayed to organize with us. And together, we changed federal hate crimes policy within the year.

After months in Oak Creek, my husband and I boarded a plane home to Connecticut. I was relieved to go home and ready for rest. But as soon as the plane touched the ground, my phone blew up with the news: A shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We didn’t go home. We went straight to a church in Newtown to grieve with people we did not know. I had left the site of one mass shooting only to go home to another. 

In one massacre, the gunman hated us. In the next, the gunman hated himself. Both men had cut himself themselves off from humanity, others and their own. 

This week – the same pattern. The news of Uvalde broke an hour before I was about to speak at an event about solidarity in the wake of Buffalo. Once again, we were all hurled from the site of one mass shooting to another. The gunmen in these shootings weren’t even born when many of us began this work. What do we do with when the violence is generational – and firearms are making killing more efficient?

#1 We need gun safety legislation absolutely. The majority of Americans want background checks. A handful of Senators are holding the nation hostage. But we are not helpless. Other countries have taken dramatic steps to save lives after mass shootings. So can we. Scroll down for immediate actions.

#2 We need to build beloved community where we are. We need a shift in culture and consciousness, block by block, heart to heart. I believe we can make every school, every house, every workplace, every community a place where we where we leave no one outside our circle of care, where we help one another be brave and whole. We can become the medicine that stops violence at its root. We can do this by putting love into practice. 

What is your role right now? 

GRIEVE: What is the shape of grief in your body? If you feel the primal scream in you, this is the time to make space for healing. Let yourself touch the sorrow, rest and breathe. Don’t isolate. Show up to a healing circle at your school with parents and teachers. Organize one if needed. Go to vigils. Be with people who make you feel safe. Let in softness and love into the places that ache. Make space to just to stop — and feel this together. 

RAGE: What is the force of rage in your body? Notice where you are constricted, tense, or numb. Now move that energy – curse, scream, shake, dance, run. Don’t choke down your rage. Or let it fester. Be with people who can honor this rage and process it in safe containers. Your rage carries information – what is it telling you? You have something to fight for. You have a role to play, and no role is too small. 

FIGHT: What courageous step are you ready to take? Do not swallow the lie that nothing can be done. You have a sphere of influence. Every choice we make – every word, every action, every encounter – co-creates culture and shapes what happens next. Will you use your voice, your art, your story, your money, your power, your heart? 

REIMAGINE: What is the world you want? What does beloved community look like, feel like? We can only live into what we imagine. Protect time and space to dream and dream big. Then take one step toward that dream.

BREATHE: How will you breathe today? This is the work of a lifetime. Our lifetime. Take time to rest, step away from the news, nourish your body and your beloveds. Remember the wisdom of the midwife: Breathe, my love, then push. When joy comes, let it come. In joy, we presage the world to come.

Imagine that one day we look back on this era in our nation’s history with regret that it took so long to save the lives of our children – and relief that we were the ones who finally put an end to the carnage. 

I believe that world is possible. Believe with me. Breathe with me – choose one thing above – now push.

In Chardi Kala – even in darkness, ever-rising spirits, 
-Valarie

Pathos, compassion, and pleas. Please watch, and share.

5.25.2022

Jimmy responds to the tragic school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and talks about 89% of Americans wanting background checks, our cowardly leaders listening to the NRA instead of the people they actually represent, firearms becoming the #1 leading cause of death for American children and teens, Ted Cruz speaking at an NRA event this weekend, the 27 school shootings so far this year in America, and making sure that lawmakers do something about common-sense gun laws. If you can, please support Everytown in their fight against gun violence. https://www.everytown.org/

[8:52]

“To do nothing about this ongoing carnage is a sin.”

-Joe Scarborough

Talk about it, act, in every community, in every state. The politicians, elected, won’t. Have not. Will not. We must.

• Background checks.
• Gun registration.
• Safe storage laws.
• Age limits on possessing and buying w e a p o n s  o f  w a r.

The least, the least, we can do.

And finally, my prayer remains people will override profit in this country for the safety of people and assault weapons will be completely banned, again. Weapons of war should not be on our streets. The ban worked before, it will work again. I b e l i e v e.

American Dream

“They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

-George Carlin

Absolutely brilliant. #MustSee

Directors: Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio

Personally, a microcosm of my own cultural history, from John Davidson, to Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffon, Michael Douglas, Johnny Carson, first SNL in ’75, and every comedian who was influenced by his work and intellect. Fourteen years after Carlin’s death, his material remains relevant and vital, as the directors illustrate with their remarkable editing, and why Carlin often still trends today with his stand-up soundbites. KQED calls the documentary ‘revelatory.’ Indeed.

The examples of just how many things Carlin got right and/or predicted over the course of his nearly 50-year career are too numerous to list here.  But as W. Kamau Bell notes in the second half of this two-part, three-and-a-half hour documentary: “I mean we all love Lenny Bruce. But no one’s sharing a Lenny Bruce bit to explain what’s happening in the culture right now.”

Jon Stewart:

“I still refer to him all the time, which for a comic … I mean, comedy is so ephemeral in so many ways. It takes him out of the class of pop star and puts him in the class of Bach and Beethoven and classicists—people that created something that was timeless because it wasn’t based on a moment, it was based on a deeper truth.”

More from KQED: ‘George Carlin’s American Dream will expose you to myriad truths—about life, about comedy, about power, about pain. Some of them hurt, some of them entertain, but all, presented through Carlin’s eyes, feel inspiring, motivating and, frankly, like a kick in the ass. Even 14 years after his death, Carlin’s words still have the power to give us a jolt. It’s up to us now to figure out what to do with them.’

He became his ‘authentic self’ on stage and with his material after, as Stephen Colbert shares in the documentary, he went from the Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’ period, to the ‘White Album.’ “He is the Beatles of comedy.”

[“He created the scientific method for comics.” Comedians Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Hasan Minhaj, Sam Jay,Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Burr and many more share how the legendary comic influenced their own work.]

A perfectly beautiful archive of Carlin’s work, what he meant, and still means, to our culture and to all of us.

Religion and politics…equally corrupt.

“There is nothing more tragic in the  modern world than the misuse of power and action to which men are driven by their own Faustian misunderstandings and misapprehensions. We have more power at our disposal today than we have ever had, and yet we are more alienated and estranged from the ground of meaning and of love than we have ever been. 

-Thomas Merton

Contemplation in a World of Action, 1965

‘…you will see that (we) move almost automatically into a pattern of up or down, in our out, for me or against me, right or wrong, black or white, gay or straight, good or bad. It is the basic reason why the “stinkin’ thinkin'” of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, religious imperialism, and prejudice of all kinds is so hard to overcome and has lasted so long…’

[…]

‘Neuroscience now makes very clear that humans deeply love predictability and fear all unpredictability, which encourages us to make all kinds of absolute affirmations, especially about fearful or dangerous things…’

[…]

‘Our religion is not working well: suffering, fear, violence, injustice, greed, and meaninglessness still abound. This is not even close to the reign of God that Jesus taught. And we must be frank: in their behavior and impact upon the world, Christians are not much different than other people. — Christianity is now seen as “irrelevant” by some, “toxic” by many, and often as a large part of the problem rather than any kind of solution. Some of us are almost embarrassed to say we are Christian because of the negative images that word conjures in others’ minds. Young people especially are turned off by how judgmental, exclusionary, impractical, and ineffective Christian culture seems to be. — We must rediscover what St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) called the “marrow of the Gospel.” It’s time to rebuild from the bottom up. If the foundation is not solid and sure, everything we try to build on top of it is weak and ineffective. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise that so much is tumbling down around us. It’s time to begin again.’

-Fr Richard Rohr

“In a sense, Christians have always lived a different epistemological existence than nonbelievers. But this is something new.”

An expose on Evangelical Christianity leaning into civil war written by Tim Alberta, the chief political correspondent for Politico. His piece was recently published in The Atlantic.

“More than a few times, I’ve heard casual talk of civil war inside places that purport to worship the Prince of Peace.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/06/evangelical-church-pastors-political-radicalization/629631/

Washington Post

‘Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, lied to members about secret database, explosive report shows
Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. They also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.

The report — the first investigation of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC — is expected to send shock waves into a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how to handle sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse cases among Southern Bapitists was small.’ [5.22.22]

Full report: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert&wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_news__alert-national&pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YSIsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNWUwMDBiYzU5YmJjMGY0MTRmNTNkNDdmIiwidGFnIjoid3BfbmV3c19hbGVydF9yZXZlcmUiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vcmVsaWdpb24vMjAyMi8wNS8yMi9zb3V0aGVybi1iYXB0aXN0LXNleC1hYnVzZS1yZXBvcnQvP3V0bV9zb3VyY2U9YWxlcnQmdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249d3BfbmV3c19hbGVydF9yZXZlcmUmbG9jYXRpb249YWxlcnQmd3Btaz0xJndwaXNyYz1hbF9uZXdzX19hbGVydC1uYXRpb25hbCJ9.hkvN_HNmvFCt_smR2GkfwgcJb9kpJR0uK-bzs1QfXzs

‘Without the contemplative and converted mind, much religion is frankly dangerous for society.’ Fr Richard Rohr

We all will reach a moment when a voice inside says, “I can’t. It’s too difficult, too dark.” What if these moments were invitations to find another voice inside? The voice that says “You are brave.” The pain of transition is what precedes the beginning of something new. -Revolutionary Love

Dan Rather, journalist and author, “Steady” and the book What Unites Us:

‘As with all that we face, we can find resilience in recognizing the threat and calling it out. We should not let the abhorrent become acceptable. There can be pressure in persistence. 

In resisting and organizing against the forces of division, we can secure our democracy in ways that could leave it stronger. The crises we face are not new. Turning back the tide, through the vote and the mobilization of action, can leave this country more just and better prepared for the challenges ahead.’

[Yoichi R. Okamoto, Munich’s Large and Beautiful Fussgangerzone (detail), 1973, photograph, Munich, Public Domain.]

S U R V I V A L  S K I L L S

From writer and author Suleika Jaouad:

‘When I think of this, I think of my friend Quintin Jones—aka “Lil’ GQ,” if you’ve read my book [Between Two Kingdoms]. Quin survived a childhood difficult beyond measure, including poverty, abuse, mental illness, addiction, and living on the streets as a young teen. In his two decades on death row, he spent 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, and he could have folded in on himself, given up all sense of hope. Instead he reckoned with his past, sought forgiveness for his wrongs, and committed to becoming a light to others, building meaningful friendships from his cell with pen pals across the world, myself included.

To me, Quin is the embodiment of someone who was forced to plumb the depths of their strength and was continually uncovering new reserves. Here on the one-year anniversary of his execution, I’m resharing his prompt “Survival Skills,” which asks us to reflect on our strength—on our ability to endure.’ [5.22.22]

Ending with a story of light ✨from professor Scott Galloway, who returned to his Los Angeles high school recently.

p

r

o

m

i

s

e

‘Scott goes back to high school.’

Addendum, May 23, 2022

Center for Action and Contemplation 

Saturday, May 21, 2022

To solve humanity’s problems, we need well-functioning brains…eating and living well with kindness and awareness…always compassion…building our brain architecture.

Tending body is tending to the self, and tending to the self is tending community, tending community is tending country.

[On Being]

J

O

Y

“The joy of life is to put out one’s power in some natural and useful or harmless way.”

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Valerie Kaur

Oh my loves.

“They’re going to keep killing us.” This was my first thought after the news broke about the shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo. Terror and fatigue.

I’ve organized around white supremacist hate for 21 years, since before this gunman was born. The killings have become more frequent, more effective, and more efficient at taking life. I got the news while working on a memorial video on the white supremacist mass shooting in Oak Creek 10 years ago, revisiting all that pain. How to feel fresh grief when we are already in grief? How does the heart expand, instead of shut down?

Revolutionary love is the choice to labor for others, opponents, and ourselves. What is your role right now?

Will you focus on others? Grieve with Black people, show up to local vigils and gatherings, listen to the stories, fight for anti-racist policies, build new relationships of solidarity. Do one thing in your sphere of influence — your school, workplace, house of worship, or home — to stand in love. 

Will you focus on opponents? The gunman cited “replacement theory” in his manifesto, a theory that nearly one in three Americans believe. Reach out to the colleagues, neighbors, relatives in your life who subscribe to this dangerous and racist belief. Open a channel for deep listening, share stories, stop the spread of misinformation. 

Will you focus on your body and your people? If you can feel how this shooting touches trauma in yourself and in people you love, this is the time to make space for healing. Grieve and rage, wail and scream, rest and breathe. Be with people who make you feel safe. Let in softness and love into the places that ache. Together, we survive this. {And what is yet inevitably to come. -dayle}

[1,000,000 + have died from COVID. 1 in 3 U.S. citizens believe the plague has ended. It has not.]

More from Valerie:

Where do you notice feeling grief in your body? What is the quality of that grief? What is the shape of grief inside of you? If it feels uncomfortable, take another deep breath and stay with it. Breathe through it. 

What does your body need to be brave with this grief? What do you need to feel it and to move through this energy? What rituals are you called to? Who do you need by your side.

Who have you not yet grieved with? Whose story have you not fully let into your heart? What community’s struggle have you not fully taken in? Notice what is happening in your body. If your fists tighten, or your heart beats fast, or if shame rises to your face, it’s okay. Breathe through it. Trust that you can. The heart is a muscle: The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. You don’t need to know people in order to grieve with them. You grieve with them in order to know them.

What do you need to do to be able to grieve with them? What vigils or marches need you? What houses of worship are you ready to visit? What phone call are you ready to make? You can begin where you are, with a simple text or email, saying to someone “I’m here for you.”

How to be brave with your grief.

https://valariekaur.com/2022/04/how-to-be-brave-with-your-grief/

“Loving someone means that one day, there will be grieving. They will leave you, or you will leave them. The more you love, the more you grieve. And so I invite you to honor your grief: it’s a sign of how deeply you have loved.” 

-Valerie

Community, then country.

Coronado Times

Meet Brian Trotier

Triangle Project, located in the East Village of San Diego, just across the bay.

“The Triangle Project is a pilot program created to help improve the lives of unhoused people. Brian has been helping out in this area for about fifteen years and has developed relationships with many of the residents. A huge issue has been the trash in the area. The residents, mainly living in tents, don’t have a place to dispose of their trash which is unsightly, unsanitary, and demoralizing for them. Richard Aaron Horton, 64, a longtime resident, started improving the area by picking up trash. Brian Trotier knows Richard well and has expanded the effort by securing funding from the Lucky Duck Foundation. This local foundation focuses on the homeless and has contracted with EDCO for a dumpster to collect the trash.

The concept is simple, and the results so far have been amazing. Brian reported that, as of last week, the Triangle Project had collected in the previous 20 days, 3,794 bags of trash weighing a total of 23.89 tons. It is likely that much of this, including plastic, would have found its way into our bay and ocean. Here is how it works: every Monday and Thursday, EDCO drops off a dumpster at 8 am. Brian brings bags, gloves, and a stack of cash. Volunteers walk around the area greeting residents and asking if they’d like trash bags. For almost all, the answer is an enthusiastic “yes!” Residents get to work cleaning up their neighborhood. For every full bag of trash they bring to the dumpster, Brian gives them $2. The roughly two-block area goes from being very littered to being very clean within an hour.”

“riangle Project’s results are about double what Brian and Lucky Duck projected, and the benefits have gone far beyond a cleaner neighborhood (and bay). Residents express appreciation for being seen; they get along better with each other. “They have a common enemy—trash,” Brian acknowledged.”

“Keeping the Earth clean. That’s what’s happening in the long run. It’s a domino effect.”

https://coronadotimes.com/news/2022/05/18/meet-emerald-keeper-of-the-month-brian-trotier/

The Independent

My Carbon Footprint: the rise of the nearly new
by, Kate Hughes

“So often, being more eco is inaccurately pinned to greater cost, when actually – especially when it comes to everyday buying decisions – the opposite is true.

This widespread, if subtle shift in the way we shop, including the disintegration of the stigma around nearly new, vintage, and preloved may well have some relationship with the climate crisis but make no mistake, this is largely financially led.

What I love about second-hand too, is that it doesn’t preclude us from layering up further planet and cash-saving approaches.

When the old boy on our street moved into a retirement flat the neighbours bought his lawnmower off him. There’s now one lawnmower between five households, saving space, cash and helping maintain and develop lines of local communication and a sense of community.

More than four in 10 of us gave goods away for free locally in the first few months of the year, while half donated products to charity and more than a third even made financial donations despite experiencing hardship.

Free stuff – everything from haircuts to sofas are also on the rise, the site reports.

So go forth and embrace the charity shop, the quirky apps, the leviathan websites.”

HuffPost

Living With The Far-Right Insurgency In Idaho

A radical GOP faction, in open alliance with extremists, is seizing power and targeting its opponents with cruelty.

Some wonder: Is it time to leave? (Yes. It is.)

Jennifer Ellis, photographed in her home on April 3, 2022, created Take Back Idaho to push back against the right-wing, extremist views and tactics that have dominated the state’s politics.

‘A lot has been written about both the radicalization of the Republican Party and the decline of democracy in the U.S. — about the country being at a precipice. It’s maybe easy for those warnings to become background noise, or to dismiss them as doom-mongering pieces of clickbait. But in Idaho, the nightmare scenario is crossing into reality, as an authoritarian GOP sets about to create a whiter, Christian nation.
These MAGA radicals have gestured at the future they want: no rape and incest exceptions to Idaho’s abortion ban; no emergency contraception; no gender-affirming health care for minors; the banning of books; the jailing of librarians; and maybe no public education altogether.
I recently spent a week traveling across the state, from Sandpoint in the northern panhandle down through the green slopes and whitewater of Hell’s Canyon to the plains of Ada County, and then across lava rock and sagebrush to Blackfoot. In all these places, Democrats and more moderate Republicans view Tuesday’s primaries as an existential affair. Some are considering leaving the state if MAGA extremists consolidate more power. Others are digging in their heels.
The people I talked to were not all that accustomed to alarmism, which made it striking to hear some of their voices tremble when they talked about what’s happening to their home. Their message for the rest of the country? It’s gonna get bad. The GOP really will go that far.

“They have completely rebranded what it is to be a conservative here in north Idaho, and they have literally excommunicated and cleaned house of any rational, regular conservative from their ranks.”

– Shawn Keenan, local Democratic activist

“As much as I want to point to examples of their adverse impact on the legislative process — and there’s many things to point to — part of me, the social scientist in me, the military veteran in me, wants to, you know, not just hate the player, but hate the game,” said Mathias, who served in the Coast Guard and has a Ph.D. in public policy.
A grading system like the Freedom Index makes the often inscrutable process of legislating more accessible to voters, Mathias said, and the IFF is an outrageous arbiter.

Mathias is intimately familiar with the group. Last spring, he watched state Rep. Ron Nate (FI Score: 97%) and other far-right legislators manufacture a racist moral panic about Boise State University indoctrinating students with “critical race theory.” (It was not.) Nate, using talking points lifted from an IFF white paper, argued for cutting part of the school’s budget.

Mathias says he typically likes to “keep his powder dry” in the statehouse — Democrats are such a minority there, it’s not worth the fuss to debate every proposal — but in this case, both as the only Black man in the legislature and as a Boise State alumni, he felt compelled to speak.

Going to Boise State on the GI Bill, he told his colleagues in a speech on the House floor, pausing to fight back his emotions, “provided opportunities I’d never seen in my life. It changed my life.”

Critical race theory, he continued, simply recognizes that there are institutional biases — in “housing, health, education, wealth, income,” Mathias said — that have existed since our country was founded. “People of color always come out on the losing end,” he added, his voice breaking. “Always. And I don’t think it’s unfair to acknowledge it.”

Across Idaho, the far right has laid siege to nonpartisan positions, some of which require specific expertise, and made them partisan, installing loyalists with sometimes disastrous results.

A recent Vanity Fair piece, for example, profiled members of the national neoreactionary movement, acolytes of a philosopher named Curtis Yarvin, who is a close ally of billionaire Peter Thiel. This movement, which has buy-in from powerful GOP figures, is explicit about wanting to usher in the end of democracy by purging the current government of its enemies and establishing one-party control — or, put another way, authoritarianism.

J.D. Vance — the venture capitalist and “Hillbilly Elegy” author who recently won the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate — is a follower of Yarvin’s. He positively likened this prospective purge to the deadly “de-Baathification of Iraq.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” Vance told Vanity Fair. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

Vance and Trump might look to north Idaho for inspiration. 

“We’re losing here. We’re losing our state. We’re losing our town. … It’s just becoming overwhelming.”

– Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad

Full report:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/far-right-idaho_n_628277e2e4b0c84db7282bd6/amp

Buffalo

Here’s a way we can help.

Posted on social media by Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly, 141st Assembly District.

‘…on a moral basis.’

P U C K

The Real Tragedy of Samuel Alito’s Logic

by, BARATUNDE THURSTON

“Yet this leaked Supreme Court ruling would steal that decision away from pregnant women and instead encourage a policy of forced birth in a society that does not value the lives of those being birthed—or those doing the birthing. This decision empowers those invested only in the creation of life, not the quality of life. If we cared about quality of life for the living, we would offer up more than “’houghts and prayers’ in response to our record levels of life-ending gun violence. We would move heaven and earth to reverse the life-ending effects of the climate crisis. But we aren’t regulating gun manufacturers or carbon-spewing industries. Instead, we’re choosing to use our finite resources to regulate women…”

[…]

“We need to acknowledge that this issue is not simple and that morality and legality are different things. From my reading of the Pew Research, even those strongly opposed to abortion on a moral basis don’t believe it should be illegal in most cases. I know women who’ve had abortions, and I can attest to the seriousness with which they’ve made that decision. It’s not fun. It’s emotional and difficult and painful, but it’s also something they deemed necessary. Most people don’t want to be in a position to have to choose an abortion. 

For some women in, abortion is the only way to save their lives, and the new wave of incoming restrictions will bring new stresses and new threats. As a friend of mine and mother of three recently told me, ‘Suddenly planning for my children’s future is not about saving for college—it’s finding ways to protect them from being thrown in jail for having a miscarriage.’ We should not criminalize women or further isolate them. We need to trust women and close that gap between the practice and promise of this country on our path to liberty and justice for all. I think we can. I believe we must. I know it will be hard.” 

[Full Piece]

https://puck.news/the-real-tragedy-of-samuel-alitos-logic/?_cio_id=f6c60605eeab01dfbf0a&utm_campaign=Baratunde+Newsletter+-+SUBSCRIBERS+%285%2F15%2F22%29&utm_content=Baratunde+Newsletter+-+SUBSCRIBERS+%285%2F15%2F22%29&utm_medium=email_action&utm_source=customer.io

T H I S:

Saturday, May 14th, 2022

Like nature this time of year, abundance is all around you and the possibilities for all of us, together, are bountiful, if only we believe.

H

O

P

E

Not easy, is it. This thing called hope. Collectively, we can grow it together.

Can you feel it?

🌒

Tomorrow, the full moon lunar eclipse. From Lena at Power Path:

The Super Moon marks the bookend of this eclipse window that has brought powerful and unexpected change in endings, beginnings and transitions. Whatever you have set into motion over the last couple of weeks has tremendous momentum and will have far reaching effects. It is important to honor and acknowledge any endings and completions, whether they are initiated by you or not. It is also crucial to focus and place some attention on the space created for new beginnings by those completions. Stay out of any judgment or resentment or martyrdom if what has left your life was not of your doing. Instead, notice what is coming into your life and honor it as part of something new. If you only dwell on what you have lost, you will likely create the same thing for yourself, losing the opportunity to create something new, something that marks an improvement in your life. Be careful what you ask for during this powerful time and make sure it is from your heart and not a calculated thought process.

It is a good time to take action and to refine the intentions you have been working with since the new moon at the beginning of the month. This is a transformational time that can expose issues that need to be addressed, processed and changed. You can also be inspired to manage your obstacles in a new creative way. Be encouraged to think and problem-solve outside the box with a focus on improvement and innovation. Creative thinking will be rewarded with new solutions to old problems.

Whatever else happens, keep your energy light, your vibration as high as possible and your thoughts positive. Bring beauty into your life and fill yourself with inspiration and the intention to move forward in a positive way no matter what.

‘In the spiritual Universe, we only keep what we give away.’

-Marianne Williamson

J

O

Y

‘I would not sacrifice my soul / for all the beauty of this world. / There is only one thing / for which I would risk everything: / an I-don’t-know-what / that lies hidden / in the heart of the Mystery.’ -John of the Cross

Noche Oscura del Alma

‘If we stay the course and go through this [dark night], we find our way deeper, deeper, deeper, and then we can see that at any given moment in these ways, through marital love, through parenting, through solitude, through oneness with the world, through silence, through service to community, through art, in any given moment, there can come flashing forth our unexpected proximity to this mystical dimension of union.’ -James Finley

C O V I D

Summer Surge

1,000,000 U.S. (at least) – – let’s lower the flags and move on.

Yet, the virus continues to mutate and infect, and kill. In our small community, zero masks indoors. As if Covid is…gone.

“COVID-19 Rates Rising as Super Contagious Variant Gains Ground”

KRLD News Radio 1080

With Dr. Peter Hotez, Baylor College of Medicine, with his own breakthrough infection.

“This new BA.2.12 sub-variant is the most transmissible one we’ve seen to date and it’s up there with measles in terms of its reproductive number and its ability to infect. So when you have something this transmissible, even a good vaccine is going to be tough to fight.” Any individual shedding that virus is likely to infect 12 other people.

BA.2.12 is now poised to become the dominant variant in the United States. Dr. Hotez says prior infection from Omicron doesn’t offer much in the way of immunity.

“I have to believe this coming summer we’re going to be vulnerable yet again. Don’t screw around. Get vaccinated, get boosted and get your kids vaccinated.”

In Texas? The testing positivity rate was below 2% in the middle of March. Now it’s up to 8.4%. Keeping in mind, many are ‘home’ testing and positive results are not being recorded.

Too few boosted. Too many more will suffer from long Covid complications. And too many more will die.

#

‘You might as well start packing now…’

‘…and practice being alive.’

How To B/e/l/o/n/g Be Alone
Written and read by Pádraig Ó Tuama

~

It all begins with knowing
nothing lasts forever,
so you might as well start packing now.

In the meantime,
practice being alive.

There will be a party
where you’ll feel like
nobody’s paying you attention.
And there will be a party
where attention’s all you’ll get.
What you need to do
is to remember
to talk to yourself
between these parties.

And,
again,
there will be a day,
— a decade —
where you won’t
fit in with your body
even though you’re in
the only body you’re in.

You need to control
your habit of forgetting
to breathe.

Remember when you were younger
and you practiced kissing on your arm?
You were on to something then.
Sometimes harm knows its own healing
Comfort knows its own intelligence.
Kindness too.
It needs no reason.

There is a you
telling you another story of you.
Listen to her.

Where do you feel
anxiety in your body?
The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?
The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing
or the clutch of gut like falling
& falling & falling and falling
It knows something: you’re dying.
Try to stay alive.

For now, touch yourself.
I’m serious.

Touch your
self.
Take your hand
and place your hand
some place
upon your body.
And listen
to the community of madness
that
you are.
You are
such an
interesting conversation.

You belong
here.

---

‘In truth, the purpose of any relationship is that love itself be served, in the lives of all concerned.’ -Marianne Williamson

The generous heart does not collapse into the easy things, but rises up in adversity. – Mirabai Starr [Glosa a lo Divino, John of the Cross]

‘The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.’ -Kahlil Gibran

Power to the Matriarchy ❁

M

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T

H

E

R

S

D A Y 2022

Arise, all women who have hearts!

P l o u g h:

“In the United States, the origins of the official holiday go back to 1870, when Julia Ward Howe – an abolitionist best remembered as the poet who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – worked to establish a Mother’s Peace Day. Howe dedicated the celebration to the eradication of war, and organized festivities in Boston for years.

In 1907, Anna Jarvis, of Philadelphia, began the campaign to have Mother’s Day officially recognized, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson did this, proclaiming it a national holiday and a “public expression of our love and reverence for all mothers.”

This the proclamation Ward-Howe wrote in 1870, which explains, in her own impassioned words, the goals of the original holiday.”

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

https://www.plough.com

Chapter 3, let’s go!

“For Mother’s Day, my mom would like the activism of her youth to not be for nothing.”

Wisdom is the mother of all good things.

“In this time of excessive patriarchy, may wisdom prevail over folly, love over fear, compassion over hate, justice over injustice, the mammal brain over the reptilian brains so that future generations may thrive.” -Matthew Fox

Rilke:

I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood.

Anne Baring:

“The Latin word for ‘Mother’ comes from ‘mater’ (matter)…Divine Wisdom…Holy Spirit.”

Ilia Delio

“The biggest step in the evolution of human morality was the move from interpersonal relations to a focus on the greater good.”

On Children

Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself
They come through you but not from you
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you
You may give them your love but not your thoughts
For they have their own thoughts
You may house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams
You may strive to be like them
But seek not to make them like you
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. -Kahlil Gibran

jai

Saturday morning.

Respite from the tilt toward darkness our planet collectively shares.

Peace.

Compassion.

Love.

Our spiritual compass.

‘It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.’ -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

[My thesis.-dayle ❀]

From poet Pádraig Ó Tuama:

“Friends, there are many things that crowd your attention. And many things deserve your attention. May you find the space to pay attention to what is important, to feel the feel of feelings, and to find ways to respond with action, care, justice, kindness, time, and whatever else is needed. Beir bua.” [Bring Victory]

Sharing a beautiful curation from journalist and author Dan Rather and his writing partner Elliot Kirschner. They title their compilation, ‘Smile for Saturday’ featured on their ‘Steady’ published on the Substack platform. Subscriptions are open. -dayle

https://steady.substack.com

Blackbird

Music has a way of speaking to us, across genres, across performers, and across the years. It is a conversation that builds from what was said before and evolves over time. All these thoughts flooded forth when we discovered a video of the brilliant musician Jon Batiste performing his version of the Beatles song “Blackbird.”

The occasion for the 2016 performance was the 52nd anniversary of the Beatles’ television debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and Batiste was appearing on the very same stage as they had. As many of you likely know, the Ed Sullivan Theater is now home to “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” where Batiste serves as musical director.

https://youtu.be/H46yXW4qR_M

Batiste plays “Blackbird” on the piano, whereas the song’s co-writer Paul McCartney (John Lennon shared the writing credit) played his version on the guitar. The musical style also differs, and so does the delivery of the lyrics. But there is a kinship of evocative musicality linking this version to McCartney’s that brought a big smile to our faces. Batiste’s Juilliard-honed abilities as performer and arranger are on full display. So, too, is the genius of the original.

At a time when we are fractured, this song made us feel whole. At a time when we are unmoored, this feels rooted. At a time when we see far too many acts of hate, this feels like a tribute of love.

Left in awe of this performance, we decided to dig a little more into the history of “Blackbird.” And things got even more interesting. It turns out the lineage of the song goes back well before the 1968 White Album on which it first appeared — as in centuries back. “Blackbird” was inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach — more specifically, his famous “Bourrée in E minor.” We will let Sir Paul himself tell you the story.

Bach’s piece was originally written for the lute but has since become a staple for classical guitar. If you are still with us and want to continue this musical journey, here is a performance of the piece on its original instrument.

Through our research we became a bit obsessed with Batiste, his story, and his music. We encourage you to listen to more from this remarkable talent.

‘Innocent bystander.’ Thomas Merton: I am no longer smiling … for I do not think the question of our innocence can be a matter for jesting, and I am no longer certain that it is honorable to stand by as the helpless witness to a cataclysm, with no other hope than to die innocently and by accident, as a nonparticipant. ♀︎

Friday, May 6th, 2022

♀︎

“I know that I say this all the time, but that’s only because it’s what gets me through the times when everything seems to be on fire.

No one is coming to save us

That’s why we have to save each other.”

-Eva

Director of Cybersecurity EFF

[Electronic Frontier Foundation]

Go forth to what? To uncertainty,

to a country with no connections to us

and indifferent to the dramas of our life.

Is this the start of a new life?

-Rilke

“Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.”

-William James

“Because modern man is in a state of uncertainty, we must not be too quick to think that what he

S

H

E

wants it absolute certainty at any price.”

-Thomas Merton

#MustRead

AXIOS

‘If the leaked [Alito] draft becomes law, court orders could arrive at tech firms seeking info about people searching for emergency contraception, or seen near a suspected abortion clinic.

Anyone who is pregnant and has a miscarriage might find prosecutors seeking their internet search or other data to determine whether a provider delivered illegal services.

Experts say it may be time to rethink period-tracking apps and to rely more on incognito mode in browsers, turning off location tracking and understanding your options for data deletion.’

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-am-cf39f73a-503b-418e-b2ae-d37e9e68a91e.html?chunk=1&utm_term=emshare#story1

‘What you can do: Experts say it may be time to rethink period-tracking apps and to rely more on incognito mode in browsers, turning off location tracking and understanding your options for data deletion.

The Digital Defense Fund has a detailed set of recommendations:

This page is organized into different security-related threats. You can jump to the ones that most concern you. Along with each scenario is a list of digital security tips to neutralize the threat.

These are possible concerns you might have.

https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy/#block-yui_3_17_2_1_1651771016254_439983

Sophia.

sacred

female

knowledge

What are we to do now?

https://www.vote.org

Protests allow venting and give voice.

But.

In the United States of America, only dollars move politics and policy.

Shut downs are possible, we saw this in early March 2020. Everything Stops.

#WomenOnStrike ✿

Not hyperbolic. What’s next?

LGBTQ rights?

Same sex marriage?

Contraception?

All built on the premise of privacy, not equality.

Buckle up.

[Far-Right groups now want to go after Brown v. Board. Precedent?]

~

Abortion “presents a profound moral question.”

-Justice Samuel Alito

Indeed. For a woman to answer.

V A R I E T Y

French Abortion Drama ‘Happening’ Just Became the Year’s Most Timely Film

“Happening” unfolds in 1963 France, but the story of a woman risking imprisonment and her health to obtain an illegal abortion has emerged as the year’s most urgent drama.

“When I started thinking about making a movie about this topic, everybody asked why I would want to do that at this time?” says Audrey Diwan, director and co-writer of the IFC film, debuting in theaters May 6. “Now everybody tells me how timely it is.”

That’s because in the years that it took Diwan to bring “Happening” to the screen, the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court shifted dramatically to the right, with conservative justices achieving a supermajority.

Now, per Politico, the Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision — and with it nearly 50 years of abortion protections — according to an initial draft majority opinion circulated inside the court.

“The story I tell is a poor woman’s story,” says Diwan. “If you have money, you can go to another country and find somewhere where it’s legal and you find a way to have a medicalized abortion. The working class experiences these problems differently.”

The director is also upset that six of the nine-member court are men. What right, she asks, do they have to determine whether women have access to abortions?

“I would love to show them this movie,” says Diwan. “It’s complicated to make this decision. It’s even hard to be pregnant if you want the baby. For these men, it’s all just theoretical.”

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/french-abortion-drama-happening-audrey-diwan-roe-v-wade-1235257003/

~

“Well I know what’s right, I got just one life
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down”

-Tom Petty

~

From Indivisible Guide

Andorra

Aruba

Congo

Curaçao

Dominican Republic

Egypt

El Salvador

Haiti

Honduras

Iraq

Jamaica

Laos

Madagascar

Malta

Mauritania

Nicaragua

Palau

Philippines

San Marino

Senegal

Sierra

Leone

Suriname

West Bank

Gaza Strip

This summer the United States will reverse a Constitutional right for 2.5 generations.

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N E W  Y O R K E R

From Jill Lepore

Of Course the Constitution Has Nothing to Say About Abortion

There is no mention of the procedure in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. This seems to be a surprise to Samuel Alito.

‘True, women are no longer without electoral power [Alito]. But they were without it for almost the entirety of the history on which Alito grounds his analysis of the Constitution and its provisions. You don’t need a leaked document to learn that.’

‘Alito, shocked—shocked—to discover so little in the law books of the eighteen-sixties guaranteeing a right to abortion, has missed the point: hardly anything in the law books of the 1860’s guaranteed women anything. Because, usually, they still weren’t persons.’

‘Alito cites a number of 18th texts; he does not cite anything written by a woman—not because there’s nothing available. Mary Wollstonecraft wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1791: “a man and his wife … she is but a part of him … a “non-entity.”’

More from Jill:

Women are indeed missing from the Constitution, as Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion suggests. That’s a problem to remedy, not a precedent to honor.

I’m not even a hard-liner on the question of abortion; I find it morally thorny. But, when Samuel Alito says that people who believe abortion is a constitutional right “have no persuasive answer to this historical evidence,” he displays nothing so much as the limits of his own evidence. “The page of history teems with woman’s wrongs,” as the nineteenth-century abolitionist Sarah Grimké once put it. It does not teem with women’s rights. To use a history of discrimination to deny people their constitutional rights is a perversion of logic and a betrayal of justice. Would the Court decide civil-rights cases regarding race by looking exclusively to laws and statutes written before emancipation?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-there-are-no-women-in-the-constitution

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Choosing to Inhabit a Better World

The Trunk, a Flourish Foundation Newsletter 🌱

by, Ryan Redman

‘…if I celebrate the preciousness of the human body, the innate capacity for love and wisdom, and the vast potential for beauty, my eyes soften, my mind settles, and my heart opens to a reality of joy.

Again, these two realities hinge upon the faculty of attention.   In the ancient language of Sanskrit, the word for attention, manisikara, literally means ‘creating in the mind’.   In the Principles of Psychology, William James, wrote, “Each of us literally chooses, by (our) ways of attending to things, what sort of a universe (we) shall appear to (ourselves) to inhabit.” 

Because our attention strongly defines reality, it is important to consider what are the objects of attention the mind is drawn to and do these support our own and others’ well being?   

If we engage in this investigation, chances are we’ll discover there is room for improvement.’

Monday, May 2, 2022

Today, sources with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights are reporting 3,000 civilians have died in Ukraine. Understandably, “the real toll is likely to be considerably higher, citing access difficulties and ongoing corroboration efforts.”

‘The metaphysical basis, the stable core must be with Divine Union or it always bounces bock to the

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core of human behavior.’ [R. Rohr] Indeed.

‘Everything in our lives is another lesson in the one continual school of conscious loving.’

And we fail. Humanity fails again and again and again…

Father Richard Rohr at the Center for Action and Contemplation:

“To be clear, it is inconceivable that a true [believer of any faith] would be racist, anti-Semitic, xenophobic, homophobic, or bigoted toward any group or individual, especially toward the poor and vulnerable, which seems to be an acceptable American prejudice. To end the cycle of violence, our actions must flow from our authentic identity as Love.

One of the reasons I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation was to give activists some grounding in spirituality so they could continue working for social change, but from a stance much different than vengeance, ideology, or willpower pressing against willpower. Most activists I knew loved Gandhi’s and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s teachings on nonviolence. But it became clear to me that many of them had only an intellectual appreciation rather than a participation in the much deeper mystery. The ego was still in charge, and I often saw people creating victims of others who were not like them. It was still a power game, not the science of love that Jesus taught us.

When we begin by connecting with our inner experience of communion rather than separation, our actions can become pure, clear, and firm. This kind of action, rooted in one’s True Self, comes from a deeper knowing of what is real, good, true, and beautiful, beyond labels and dualistic judgments of right or wrong. From this place, our energy is positive and has the most potential to create change for the good.”

‘It is normally three steps forward, two steps backwards, and, as Lady Julian of Norwich says, “Both are the mercy of God.”

(I wish I could see the mercy in the backward momentum of this Universal equation.)

Democracy dies in darkness.

Finally, a publication digging deep and giving light to the social and cultural cancer that is Rupert Murdoch’s FOX news and specifically to the hate and darkness that is Tucker Carlson. This is the first of three parts, available to all, that is, not blocked by a pay wall. 

Please read and discover how a man who inherited his father’s broadcast talent only to turn his platform into a vehicle for hate and meanness to weaken, perhaps destroy, the fabric of our democracy, “you vs. them”…distrust of other…night after night, reaching three million views each broadcast, with his poisoned tentacles of disinformation, lies, and clouded deceit reaching across platforms and computers. Ideology? Maybe. More likely because he found a message that gave him the opportunity he wanted, to make money, millions. This is what he always wanted to have, especially after being abandoned by his mother, who “didn’t like him.” He allowed this personal darkness to shape his destiny, and ours. -dayle

How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable
April 30, 2022
American Nationalist: part 1

Reporting was contributed by Larry Buchanan, Weiyi Cai, Ben Decker, Barbara Harvey, Candice Reed, Michael D. Shear and Karen Yourish. Julie Tate contributed research. Nicholas Confessore is a New York-based political and investigative reporter and a staff writer at the Times Magazine, covering the intersection of wealth, power and influence in Washington and beyond. He joined The Times in 2004. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-fox-news.html?smid=url-share

Often think back to this this post on Twitter from an encounter with Carlson at a fly fishing shop in Montana; it brings hope there are, could be, so many more democratic citizens in this country who feel, who know, the same. -dayle

“You are the worst human being known to man.”

—

Trevor Noah at the White House Correspondence Dinner, April 30th, 2022:

“What we’re here for is to honor and celebrate the 4th Estate…and what you stand for…what you stand for…an additional check and balance that holds power to account and gives voice to those who otherwise wouldn’t have one.”

[Pick up his closing remarks at 22:45.]

https://www.c-span.org/video/?519515-102/trevor-noah-remarks-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner

[Image: CNN]