Source: Quilts
Tag: cooperation
AbuelaVida: project GrandmothersLives
Muchas gracias a Berta-Isabel Cuadrado Alvarez:
“Ya lo publiqué en mi FB y en este blog http://acharo.blogspot.com.es/2016/01/proyecto-abuelavida-y-bibliotecas-como.html“
por haber compartido mi idea de poner en cada biblioteca la historia de cada familia, sobre todo de cada BisAbuela y TatarAbuela, del lugar.
Many thanks to BI Cuadrado Alvarez for sharing my idea to put the history of every local family, especially of every Great Grandmother and GrGreat Grandmother, in every public library.
Review/Revu: Les Fourmis
Les Fourmis by Bernard Werber
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Don’t kill any more ants!!
This book is worth learning French to read. Honestly. It had me worrying for the fate of an ant by page 40! Fascinating swap of perspectives, and hair-raising cliff-hanger ending. I have the 3rd book in this trilogy, but am anxiously waiting to get the 2nd from the library!
Ne tuez plus de fourmis !
Ce livre vaut la peine d’apprendre le français pour le lire. Vraiment. Il m’a fait soucier pour le destin d’une fourmi avant la 40e page ! Changement impressionnant de points de vues et fin incroyable. J’ai déjà le 3e tome mais j’attends avec impatience le 2e de la bibliothèque !
Build my own laptop generator (treadmill or pedal-powered)?
Ok, someone please explain to me: why do even my ecolo/Green friends laugh at me when I express my desire to write using a pedal-powered generator, or even a treadmill or walking powered electricity generator for my laptop? This should not be that difficult.
In fact, I’m sure I read somewhere of an author who wrote her 2nd novel using a pedal-powered laptop.
So has anyone else done this, and how can I do it?
Edit: 15.1.12016 HE: It has been done before:
Human-Powered Treadmill
and
http://www.instructables.com/id/Treadmill-Desk/
(So it’s not a lost cause, after all…)
Read, Write, Run, Teach !
In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
ShiraDest
16th of December, 12015 HE
Running, Writing, Relaxing, and Belonging?
I find that anger can often be useful, if I follow it back to the source and then look to see how I can fix the problem. This week, I was feeling frustrated for a variety of reasons, and wanting to do more running than my current running plan seems to allow, since I lost 9 weeks due to illness. I had assumed that that blew my GreenMarathon plans out the window.
In a fit of pique, and irritation with myself for being unable to finish the detailed planning for my short story, I searched and found, Lo and Behold, a 41 Week walk-run Marathon Plan shown on PBS (that looks safe enough to jump 41MarathonVert2016 into) after losing my running base! 🙂
So now I can relax, if I could only figure out how to do that. My usual way of relaxing is to read something interesting (or watch an episode of Sihirli Annem (My Magical Mother) and share it with someone who might enjoy it, but that hasn’t worked lately. So I go back to the question of how to relax if one feels alone? Feeling lonely can make it difficult to smile.
Which brings me to the sense of belonging, or the lack thereof. How does one develop a sense of belonging (without joining a cult or accepting the first marriage offer) when one lacks family and does not have a strong sense of cultural identity? You can try borrowing other people’s stories, but that doesn’t always work.
Any suggestions, friends?
In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
ShiraDest
12th of December, 12015 HE
Neville Longbottom and Harry as kids with PTSD?
It is interesting to see how different cultures hide the mistreatment of kids. The Brits seem to be a bit more up front about it, but also more harsh than say, Turks, who adore children.
I am being lazy and re-reading HP2 to work on my Turkish reading, instead of continuing to slog through something by Orhan Pamuk, because I am just too tired (and I am starting to hit words like bequeath while watching my favorite family TV show of all time: My Magical Mother! (Sihirli Annem!) so it really is time to get back to some reading to keep up my Turkish.
But back to Nevile -I identified with him immediately: I was the one walking into walls in Middle School, forgetting everything, and being told to come down out of the clouds. Now I know (and we see in later books with Neville) that these are symptoms of childhood PTSD, which presents differently than with adults.
So please, for the love of God, Humanity, Children and the Human Race, or at least for the love of the planet and the potential creativity of the human race, please look out for such signs in kids and try to understand and help them rather than yelling at them. Don’t let them turn into Invisible Children, or worse.
In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
Review of Invisible Children: A must read for all American Citizens of voting age
Invisible Children by Mike Tikkanen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Check it out at a library, via Worldcat:
https://www.worldcat.org/title/invisi…
First, “States will also discover that investing in children pays big dividends for better schools, safer streets, and happier communities.”
This is the real problem:
“Because so many of us accept snippets of TV coverage of complex stories as the story, we are unable to understand and evaluate what needs to be done to solve the problem that caused it. We don’t take the time to investigate, and it’s easier to assign blame than to solve complex problems.”
Actionable take-home message:
1. “Draw attention to the importance of adequate mental health services for abused and neglected children in your community.”
2. “It is only learned coping skills and behavior modification that will keep children out of the Criminal Justice System, not medications without therapy.”
and
3. “Let your political leaders know you expect them to provide mental health services in your schools and for abused and neglected children.”
Note: “we would rather build prisons than libraries or playgrounds” yet “countries with the lowest rates of poverty and illiteracy have the lowest crime rates.”
KARA founder presents evidence of what has always been obvious to abused kids:
“Our standards for success in dealing with abused and neglected children are too low. Small achievements seem to warrant a stamp of success. Too soon the state decides: that’s enough of the state’s resources for that one. ”
but
“Pre-school programs are affordable, well run, and common throughout the rest of the industrialized world. Only the U.S. makes early childhood learning and day care unaffordable to poor people.”
Result(s):
“UNICEF found that the teen pregnancy rate in America is twice that of the industrialized nations.”
Children need far stronger community protections, partly because:
“unless a parent kills them, a care-giving perpetrator is not likely to suffer any consequences”
yet:
“If you look, you will see that children are protected, cared for, and educated better in the rest of the industrialized world. … Our systems are not functioning to solve these problems. Many of our institutional policies exacerbate the problems. A lack of resources leads to poorly trained providers and inadequate services. To ignore the inter-relatedness of the issues is to guarantee continued failure”
and on race, see: “Minnesota Spokesman Recorder, “Special Ed: The New Segregation,” Rosi Tavf, February 12, 2004).” and “a convict in China makes about twelve cents an hour compared to eleven cents an hour paid to a Minnesota convict. About 50 percent of the prison population is African-American, while African-Americans make up under 13 percent of the general population.”
and on poverty: “Americans have agreed (by voting) that incarcerating vast numbers of poverty stricken uneducated people, mostly for non-violent offenses, is a better alternative than anything else we can think of.”
Let’s think of better.
This is a book that all citizens, particularly of the USA, need to read. Then, do your part to support early and continuous learning for All, please.
In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
Remember Patty Hearst, anyone?
Sorry, not to defend them in any way shape or form, but terrorists are not all psychopaths. This is a crucial distinction to make because most of those kids who blew themselves up recently were brainwashed, just like Patricia Hearst, just like the people in Waco, TX, and just like the 600 followers of Jim Jones. They were all people who felt, maybe felt too much, even had compassion, and got that compassion used against them because they did not know how to ask questions and keep asking where the answers to those questions came from. Just like when I was in a cult group.
First they love-bomb you, half a dozen bear hugs from people you do not know, and the leader and sub-leaders welcoming you with open arms into the family. Kind of like the military, only generally fewer push-ups. But just as much peer-bonding, belonging, and then starts the real pressure. You help convert others to believing because you care about them, you want to save them from suffering, and in any case, a better life awaits them on the other side. So almost no matter what you do TO the non-believer, you are actually doing FOR that person’s own good, whether they know/accept it or not. This is USING a vulnerable believers Compassion against him/her, to obtain compliance and even active support when that person (who is neither a leader, sub-leader, nor even a psychopath) is made to feel guilty for not helpping the non-believers -help being defined as the leader defines it. Pamphlets, tracts, harrasment, stalking, forced-conversions, exorcisms, even torture or killing are all justified by the leader as better-for-the-non-believers-and-you-as-a-True-Believer are A BAD Believer if you do not Help these unbelievers in The Way that the leader tells you to. No Questions Asked.
And yes, I speak from experience. Fortunately, I started having panic attacks when I could no longer swallow what my cult leader said, and left, but it still took my months to get out, and years to understand what had happened. And that was with help! These kids indoctrinated by DAESCH are being brainwashed in a similar way, and they also feel isolated, or they would not have been attracted to DAESCH/ISIS, which is essentially a very large, very well-organised and very sophisticated and yet still manipulative cult group.
So please, when The Canard enchaîné (p. 8 yesterday, 25.11.2015) says that Gerhard Roth in Brême is reporting a psyopath gene in an article on terrorism, please remember that the majority of terrorist foot soldiers are only dupes, manipulated to pull the trigger, and in need of help, not just tracking and certainly not torture. It was the torture in Abu Garib and other American prisons that created this in the first place, remember (cannot find the show that re-aired on France television last week, but it showed all the top guys having met and ‘hardened’ in the big US prison in Iraq…).
Remember that Eisenhower ended segregation for similar reasons -to deprive Japan of potential progaganda against the US, which is what the terrorist leaders are now using to convert western kids into their pawns.
Bottom line, we need to walk our talk as a society and take care of the most vulnerable so that there is less to use against us. We need to feed our hungry, clothe our naked, and comfort our sick. Educating our folks for free would be even better, so they can ask the right questions, and create the cooperative jobs that will give us true democracy and equality.
Backk to trying to write 2200 words of climtic chapter, ughghhh…
In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
ShiraDest
26 November 12015 HE
Glad I shared a Smile that day…
Short story: glad I smiled at someone I did not know -who thanked me, and made me grateful to be alive, back in 2005. And also today.
Less short version of the story:
Ok, so after a useless day yesterday of only 1100 words written, and desperate fears of 8 more days zero, (I have another 10k words to write), I was reflecting on the use, or lack thereof, of my life.
moving morose meditation on beauty to bottom…
When I lived in Izmir, that summer I took long walks on Saturday afternoons. I had the habit of smiling, or at least nodding, to every person I saw because frankly, I hoped someone would smile or nod back at me. At least acknowledge me as a fellow human being, as I tried to do, even passing the homeless people lining the streets as you go into the Metro (DC).
So, I nodded at a lady in passing, never met her, just kept going because I was too tired to say Gunaydin (Good Morning/afternoon in Turkish), and my Turkish was only rudimentary any way.
Then I heard a call behind me. I turned to see that woman walking back toward me, and her eyes were glistening.
She put her hand on my chest, nothing scary, nothing sexual, just an ordinary safe contact, and said, in very simple Turkish that was clear and slow, that in five years in Izmir, no one had every greeted her. She thanked me, and I nodded in return, too moved to get out even one word of Turkish. We both turned and went our own ways. And now, over ten years later, I am glad that I smiled at a random person whom I had never met, and never saw again.
I hope that I can share that joy with …
Everyone.
On the uselessness of being beautiful:
I have always hated being called pretty, beautiful, fine, foxy, etc, and being thanked for existing by some guy who apparently thought I was the equivalent of a painting on the wall for him to admire. well, not so useful. But when YOU (any of you, dear readers!!) smile, you too are beautiful, no matter what you look like. You are beautiful, and USEFUL, when you smile at another human being just to acknowledge that he (or she) too, exists, and is worthy of recognition as a human being.
Smiles, (2000 more words to go, it is 3:30pm -aghh!!)
Shira
24 November, 12015 HE
19.2.12016 edit via old LJ post from 2008-11-28 00:19:00
“kalbin temizmis”
“Feeling very grateful recalling a friend telling me ‘my heart must be pure’ to have found her just when I needed her, to help another friend with a CV.
Feeling grateful for the lady in Izmir who expressed such appreciation for a simple greeting in the street, and the other lady in Izmir who told me that our half hour conversation on life (in Turkish) was worth more than any English lesson. Grateful for those whom I have helped, and for those who help me, for my dostumlar, my truest and closest friends, who really are family for me. May I always remember your love, and love you all in return." (STILL grateful!! :-) Peace, ...)
Why we should be doing Tai Chi (and training pigeons) in the Parks
First of all, it gives us something in common with our future conquerors, ok just kidding!!
First of all, it is a Free way to socialize in a non-superficial way.
Second, it is physically and mentally health-full (free) activity.
Third, it teaches part of the skills needed for physical self-defense.
and
Fourth, it teaches moving meditation, needed for emotional self-defense.
Did I mention that being together thing, next to other folks of all ages, especially those older folks, who know how to do it all best for having done it for years?
And did I mention the FREE thing, as in spend no money, just move slowly in the public park?
1. If the first point needs explaining, please let me know.
2. I think everyone knows the health benefits of Tai Chi.
3. Many people may not know that this Soft side complement of Chinese Kung Fu is required by many instructors, like my own Shi Fu, in addition to the so called hard side, the fast Kung Fu. The same blocks and attacks or counter-attacks are used, but as slowly as possible, forcing you to develop your balance and stong muscle coordination.
4. On emotional self-defense, of which I believe meditation is an important part, having the strength of sternum to straighten your back and say “I Refuse” to a big drunk guy can often come from your memory of many expensive Tai Chi lessons after those expensive Kung Fu lessons. Worked for me. Again, ask for details if interested, please.
Ok, time to make dinner, too bad the baby lima beans I remember as a kid no longer seem to be around. Oh well, just have to train those pigeons to go fetch some decent corn and beans. Oh, no more carrier pigeons either. What, did Tom poison them all?
Peace,
In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
ShiraDest
21 November, 12015 HE
Lessons not to forget of abuse survived 