tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75936642024-03-18T05:49:22.164-07:00wmtcwe move to canadalaura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.comBlogger7355125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-42977993876956051752024-03-11T05:54:00.004-07:002024-03-11T05:54:59.481-07:00rtod: democracy or oligarchy<p> Revolutionary thought of the day:</p><blockquote><p>We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.<br /><br />Louis Brandeis (1856-1941)</p></blockquote>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-8434889803007359092024-03-05T05:34:00.007-08:002024-03-05T05:45:32.633-08:00the ballad of polly bee: in which newbie homeowners learn things they didn't want to know, but turn annoyance into opportunity<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe2-SYgaaD-L2CbMjDpaBiPn1JjZd79vAZnceVikJ6ERY4Pp5Kd6BR17Pe9NlNF0A4k1pIGxmTP0JjHZxEGePzqYL_FvejYMb_DWUm_v7LCwXOMrCgKJpu6XLIFDj5x3eWzxlZs-rjey8_9hNMt45YmlqFqyEzausuXmBlOUhb71_eLMOXpNqU/s358/poly%20b.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="358" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe2-SYgaaD-L2CbMjDpaBiPn1JjZd79vAZnceVikJ6ERY4Pp5Kd6BR17Pe9NlNF0A4k1pIGxmTP0JjHZxEGePzqYL_FvejYMb_DWUm_v7LCwXOMrCgKJpu6XLIFDj5x3eWzxlZs-rjey8_9hNMt45YmlqFqyEzausuXmBlOUhb71_eLMOXpNqU/s320/poly%20b.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evil!</td></tr></tbody></table>As you may or may not recall, Allan and I are first-time homeowners. In 2019, both of us in our late 50s, we bought a home in Port Hardy, BC, on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. We were lifelong renters, and had no desire to change that. But circumstances conspired... and here we are. <div><br /></div><div><b>Statement of privilege</b></div><div><br /></div><div>We love our home, and we were incredibly fortunate to be able to purchase it, taking advantage of a government option for <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/rrsps-related-plans/what-home-buyers-plan.html" target="_blank">first-time homebuyers who have RRSPs</a>, a temporarily depressed housing market, low interest rates, and a gift from my mother. We bought a modest home by North American standards, and we hope to live here for the rest of our lives.</div><div><br /></div><div>I love our home. But I can't say I love being a homeowner. Maintaining a home is incredibly expensive and time-consuming. It was a big adjustment. I'm grateful to have the privilege, but I was happier renting. </div><div><br /></div><div>Bethatasitmay, I'm a homeowner now. I tell you this story with full awareness of my privilege. I have a secure, middle-income job, as does my partner, and we can afford our life well enough. So as you read this story, please know: I'm not complaining. I just want to share.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>First there was a bubble</b></div><div><br /></div><div>On New Year's Day 2021, Allan noticed a discoloration, a bulge in the ceiling. When he poked the bulge, water leaked out. <i>Holy moly!</i> Move the TV, get a bucket, call a plumber. It turned out an upstairs toilet need a new seal. But... while the plumber was there, the told us our home was full of Poly-B. Read about it online, said Plumber. And so I did. </div><div><br /></div><div>Poly-B was an inexpensive plumbing material used in the 1980s and 90s. It was very popular in western Canada. Turns out, 10-15 years after installation, Poly-B deteriorates and disintegrates. Not <i>might</i> deteriorate. <i>Does</i> deteriorate. There are class-action lawsuits and law firms specializing in Poly-B. </div><div><br /></div><div>Our house was built in 1994. The horizon for plumbing failure was already visible. We realized that the smart move was to replace the plumbing now -- while we are both employed, and while the ceiling was already open. Why wait until the plumbing fails and we need everything done on an emergency basis? What if the plumbing failed while we were out of town? How could we ever be comfortable knowing that a plumbing time bomb was ticking behind our walls?</div><div><br /></div><div><i>And</i> if you do have a flood because of Poly-B, the insurance company won't look at you. In fact, if you have any homeowner's claim at all, and Poly-B is discovered, insurance won't pay, even if the issue is not water-related!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The fun begins</b></div><div><br /></div><div>So. We had the plumbing replaced. One plumber did 80% of the work, then moved out of the area. </div><div><br /></div><div>We found another plumber, and waited for his availability. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then at last, all the Poly-B was out of the house.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then there was no ceiling in the family room and there were holes throughout the house.</div><div><br /></div><div>Eventually we found a drywaller and waited for his availability. </div><div><br /></div><div>He filled the ceiling, and now it had an ugly flat patch in an otherwise-textured look. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then he disappeared.</div><div><br /></div><div>We found another drywaller, and waited for his availability. </div><div><br /></div><div>He patched the rest of the holes. (We opted not to fill the holes beneath the sinks, hidden by cabinets.)</div><div><br /></div><div>This whole process was really difficult for me. Money that I thought would be saved for travel or retirement was being used for maintenance. Important maintenance, yes. We could afford it, yes. But still. Ouch.</div><div><br /></div><div>So. Now the necessary work is done. The rest is cosmetic. </div><div><br /></div><div>We were going to paint the drywall patches ourselves, thinking the previous owners left cans of paint to match every room. But the paint was old, the colours were off, and we realized it would look crappy. The house looked beautiful when we moved in, and I wanted it to look beautiful again.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Turning annoyance into opportunity</b></div><div><br /></div><div>So. I made a decision. </div><div><br /></div><div>The house, as purchased, was painted in shades of gray -- a light charcoal gray with a darker charcoal gray border. One room was a mustard yellow, another a very pale blue. </div><div><br /></div><div>I love colour. I have always loved the look of colourful walls. We've painted accent walls in rental houses, and I've <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2018/12/true-confessions-or-will-laura-buy-new_65.html" target="_blank">spent scads of money on colourful window treatments</a> and other colour splashes. When I see rooms on TV or online with richly colourful walls, or when we visit countries where colour is a prominent design feature, I always love how it looks. </div><div><br /></div><div>I also like bright white walls, and the brightness that brings to a room. Bright white + colours = exactly my look.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here was an opportunity to bring my own aesthetic to our home. </div><div><br /></div><div>I found a professional painter. I started putting money aside. I looked at colours. Choosing colours was crazy! Especially if you love <i>teal</i>. Teal can mean dozens of different things, depending on the mix of green and blue.</div><div><br /></div><div>Painting finished last week. I absolutely love it.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='452' height='376' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzj73Oa_oCQW14o2I_fNOjAjUlGl89wIngofdta4p2F8b1KNID3mBevchoBdhLCdCehu2vLEeEnn7w' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='439' height='365' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxfc7rmGkNYJp2gCwHLVnonJ_VHHsaQPrXsaFP3095S2NbRiYxlKUnLJtwP9RgI5_JArq2hH2wd9Ms' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='427' height='355' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzK17ez3I06mpjQoZDdYGyKzViMDHrbnaRSQ4eKAQwDUH7KLf1-nz1uNCszvQtUykKZgOUSpi_3_x0' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Our social/hangout/watching room has a teal accent wall,<span style="text-align: left;">and the teal also borders the bright white kitchen, hallways and stairs. </span><span style="text-align: left;">The laundry room and downstairs bathroom (not shown) are also bright white.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='406' height='337' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxrbDOyvHGzyA-vT4j9zCWLm0vGJHLVTGxw8WkV-ZKgGurJFkFPZjuFVt3UIw-Tkh58cXM8c9M-ICo' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A wall at the top of the stairs, visible when you enter the house, is also teal.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='407' height='338' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxB0YiNtN1WmUXqtPySW46UXLPF3BiX-1hmV6artbt8-yXvwm548_4To3ZzDnaYZvidjLtvVO9DNE0' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The upstairs bathrooms are both tangerine.</div><br /><div><br /></div><div>We didn't have the bedrooms repainted. The walls in our bedroom are a light sage green. The two rooms we use as offices, which were previously kids' bedrooms, are a bright swimming-pool blue (mine) and the colour of a greenscreen (Allan's). We both like the colours, so we kept them. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'll also throw in a vid of the best part of this house, the feature that sold us, and that is very dear to my heart: the deck. The deck is roofed, so useable in all weather, but the roof is 12 feet high, and translucent, so you don't feel like you're indoors. It's my little slice of heaven.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='445' height='370' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw3eqyGDMvLO_Qtv6NAzyeewGep_3YwovmkXbVk0zCoZFdeUWL28ZW1JZ-8nK7hAszVH7qM1VwM30E' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-41214174852408108332024-02-17T12:21:00.002-08:002024-02-17T12:21:26.371-08:00what i'm reading: a first time for everything, delightful autobiographical tween graphic<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvN4R_C0DuxH6THbvQBydAKAGQSLFNdYhCpSBJ_8nKzeOMv8tTjpD1miO9TCAg_cBxu8cSwWtvVHxYfCozvTnd1yHZT6KQzK0aOwHDgOdOp58N3KKi3Lo5-ZtStCwUaqPo2WqA5fqvtuLPD1fj2_8mOQQIS2i1eHL1yLlz6PNviNJ6I3wi_7Z3/s439/first%20time.JPG" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="299" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvN4R_C0DuxH6THbvQBydAKAGQSLFNdYhCpSBJ_8nKzeOMv8tTjpD1miO9TCAg_cBxu8cSwWtvVHxYfCozvTnd1yHZT6KQzK0aOwHDgOdOp58N3KKi3Lo5-ZtStCwUaqPo2WqA5fqvtuLPD1fj2_8mOQQIS2i1eHL1yLlz6PNviNJ6I3wi_7Z3/w273-h400/first%20time.JPG" width="273" /></a><i>A First Time for Everything</i>, by Dan Santat, is a perfect tween book. </p><p>It's funny, sweet, honest, sometimes poignant but not sad. It's a gentle comfort for every kid who has ever felt awkward and different, and an incentive for everyone who is afraid to try new things. </p><p>It's a sensitive and perceptive portrayal of how groups are formed. We often hear that kids can be cruel, and we see that in this book. But kids can be kind, too, and the book affirms that.</p><p>I read this book a while ago, and had been planning on writing a group review with some other tween graphics dealing with friendship. I read a few, flipped through a bunch more, and didn't find anything that came close to this book in quality or authenticity. I found each of them either too heavy-handed and preachy or too superficial and vapid. </p><p>In <i>A First Time for Everything</i>, Dan Santat, the author of several children's books, tells the story of the class trip to Europe that he took in middle school. </p><p>In school, Santat had some very embarrassing experiences and was bullied. Now he just wants to keep his head down and make it through middle school without further humiliations. The last thing he wants is anything involving a school group, and certainly not a group that includes some of the same girls who had bullied him. </p><p>At first, it's as awful as he expects. But then Dan tries something new. And it makes him happy. Then he tries another new thing. And he enjoys it. He makes a new friend. He crushes on a girl, who is nice to him. A teacher encourages him. And... Dan starts to enjoy himself. He starts to feel comfortable in his own skin.</p><p>The new experiences young Dan has are very small, but they are meaningful. With each new experience, he gains a bit of confidence. And those small steps give him the confidence to try a slightly bigger steps, until he becomes a bit brave, a bit bold, and has a great time doing so.</p><p>Santat's portrayal of the beauty and power of the first crush and the first kiss are dead-on. In fact, I found all of it dead-on. </p><p>In flashbacks, we learn more about young Dan's prior bad experiences, which deepens our understanding of his growth. Knowing that Santat wrote this about his life, his own experiences, makes the story more poignant -- and makes you cheer Dan's triumph even more.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhttXjn0Qhb3_4GvRAvwwau9bCsX8Zs60IVP0ZXaYctSmqeJw6U5-9-PwFru19i-giCMCiuHOjzgg7V5RPE5W6WU1owJObKYM0Lm2obZ7_neSgYL54lVunx4KoMRJtH_x29lw7IAh1FSUiskTVv_co2M4HYHeouK5nQ4IXfofLhUlEZSkWbf4gF/s1020/first%20time%2001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="1020" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhttXjn0Qhb3_4GvRAvwwau9bCsX8Zs60IVP0ZXaYctSmqeJw6U5-9-PwFru19i-giCMCiuHOjzgg7V5RPE5W6WU1owJObKYM0Lm2obZ7_neSgYL54lVunx4KoMRJtH_x29lw7IAh1FSUiskTVv_co2M4HYHeouK5nQ4IXfofLhUlEZSkWbf4gF/w640-h466/first%20time%2001.JPG" width="640" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-O7AfE2DeUQ8vu1YLxjDduQuOkqBVGX1msW4c2lcbwWnKSUU-rXtYvKUdS9PvN0UzYeellxHE0ztHeDwT5xDdnlIOepyM-VryLm9Wdw5fnjUfz-qAdIizxswOKaNd5V3mpBkBU_SjJuFaN1CjeqA0eAF5g1765uf6ORr7DOf59Y4PT7Ok4Zj5/s764/first%20time%2004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="764" data-original-width="489" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-O7AfE2DeUQ8vu1YLxjDduQuOkqBVGX1msW4c2lcbwWnKSUU-rXtYvKUdS9PvN0UzYeellxHE0ztHeDwT5xDdnlIOepyM-VryLm9Wdw5fnjUfz-qAdIizxswOKaNd5V3mpBkBU_SjJuFaN1CjeqA0eAF5g1765uf6ORr7DOf59Y4PT7Ok4Zj5/w410-h640/first%20time%2004.JPG" width="410" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsyYCPxHeHTqtqbS1tHBuvcdg0jqHVv-Y9tWpnXSF_9UQ9H3LcOAVysg1sj9ij5tR9oBVL1S6cI96BCY4FfWnxXiBWsDnsKxPBbdPa0poVrW0hq8wfIWZiYmC4-NOZ9nrb7U5Tm0QyX8N94GU7JazFhDbiiYNuW72LtZlbV5VIRDMuuKVlBgk/s446/first%20time%2005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="394" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsyYCPxHeHTqtqbS1tHBuvcdg0jqHVv-Y9tWpnXSF_9UQ9H3LcOAVysg1sj9ij5tR9oBVL1S6cI96BCY4FfWnxXiBWsDnsKxPBbdPa0poVrW0hq8wfIWZiYmC4-NOZ9nrb7U5Tm0QyX8N94GU7JazFhDbiiYNuW72LtZlbV5VIRDMuuKVlBgk/w566-h640/first%20time%2005.JPG" width="566" /></a></div><br /><p>One thing I absolutely loved about <i>A First Time for Everything</i> was Santat's inclusion of actual photos he took on the trip, along with a little who's who guide to the characters. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh1rChsyYgEHxqJjafh5VhLUeq9VkwAdT2bA6CGq6mZ7bPPNQSXzQDw91lWIc5xB3HXB0An0P6oNNISTuCrDhJqd3uSX3VFLW8zAibSUzNa1aF90KxDKXZNKFFeT80WDIZ9jYp9HC-3MuP2bORI-YNGMfXs7Xium8OBy3dJ-u5ATw1-hk1NGF9/s460/first%20time%2006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="460" height="586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh1rChsyYgEHxqJjafh5VhLUeq9VkwAdT2bA6CGq6mZ7bPPNQSXzQDw91lWIc5xB3HXB0An0P6oNNISTuCrDhJqd3uSX3VFLW8zAibSUzNa1aF90KxDKXZNKFFeT80WDIZ9jYp9HC-3MuP2bORI-YNGMfXs7Xium8OBy3dJ-u5ATw1-hk1NGF9/w640-h586/first%20time%2006.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gcg90_HErUfQpTepfUVINCkjSwAGf2j3WC82xZctKz-4E03qJvM_1IhoGa7RYv5zg09THvWQRDygnOwbQVqcp370EOH4wpxb8PXOFDIkI_PB5AjNrgn7iZNGmEhh6ooJmX9E2fJ_W1Ds3LZMUuZ7tCqrZpZ4WUJKnVvTeIuXW7AakC4kweKn/s763/first%20time%2007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="763" data-original-width="492" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gcg90_HErUfQpTepfUVINCkjSwAGf2j3WC82xZctKz-4E03qJvM_1IhoGa7RYv5zg09THvWQRDygnOwbQVqcp370EOH4wpxb8PXOFDIkI_PB5AjNrgn7iZNGmEhh6ooJmX9E2fJ_W1Ds3LZMUuZ7tCqrZpZ4WUJKnVvTeIuXW7AakC4kweKn/w412-h640/first%20time%2007.JPG" width="412" /></a></div><br /><p><i>A First Time for Everything</i> is not so much a coming-of-age story as a journey of self-discovery. It's the best tween graphic I've read in a very long time.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-57323429275326838842024-02-11T14:07:00.007-08:002024-02-14T07:06:19.771-08:00another insidious bit of the digital divide: access to customer service for smartphones only<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9eau_P0FDivBUiaiAgD--3ty05Be6uG9SrGeMZ-lLOLTiRSO-ItyoqOIfS8dNGysCyXUI0kE0iySuT_7jbG01bnwINsovRXWmwSuedZJqW5g5PReFcdVInDzC_NJzMgAfx0LdSxT8pp7ThypKFFtOSh0mzizMjKAB7FWFrZ7bFBTLWYTengjR" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="609" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9eau_P0FDivBUiaiAgD--3ty05Be6uG9SrGeMZ-lLOLTiRSO-ItyoqOIfS8dNGysCyXUI0kE0iySuT_7jbG01bnwINsovRXWmwSuedZJqW5g5PReFcdVInDzC_NJzMgAfx0LdSxT8pp7ThypKFFtOSh0mzizMjKAB7FWFrZ7bFBTLWYTengjR=w400-h259" width="400" /></a></div>We need another word for it.<div><br /></div><div>The digital divide -- the gap between those with access to modern information and communication technologies and those without -- has been recognized since at least the 1990s. Attempts to narrow this gap are usually publicly funded, always operating from scarcity, or small concessions eked out of corporations. Either way, the bridges are tiny, flimsy, and often temporary. Untold numbers of people have been left behind.</div><div><br /></div><div>Over time the digital divide has widened and deepened. The words <i>digital divide</i> are grossly inadequate, almost quaint. Digital canyon? Digital chasm? Right now it feels like a digital abyss.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Better living through apps -- or not</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I recently stumbled on a bit of this gaping divide. I knew about this vaguely, in some abstract way, but now understand it more clearly: improved access to customer service for smartphone users. Sometimes, access to customer service <i>only</i> for people with smartphones.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wasn't an early adopter of the smartphone. I like to add technology as I need it, not simply because it exists. I prefer not to fork over any more of my income to mega-corporations unless there's a demonstrable benefit in doing so. New technology should save me time or effort, or bring me joy, or why should I bother? So I do use a smartphone, but I apply this to the use of apps as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are apps that simplify processes, so they're worth using. There are apps that make our lives easier. But many apps appear to be more for a company's access to me, rather than the reverse. For example, when I shop online, I prefer sitting at a computer, using full websites. It's easier to see products, read reviews, compare one company's offerings against another. Which of course is why companies want to drive us to their apps: once we're there, we're captive.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Customer service of privilege</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Which brings me to what I recently learned. Perhaps I'm the last person on the <i>haves</i> side of the digital divide to discover this, but I've been astonished to learn what improved customer service I receive through apps.</div><div><br /></div><div>I had a problem with a credit card, and needed to speak with someone. I called the phone number on the card and on the website. I navigated my way through the menu, went down the wrong path, and was cut off -- more than once. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I finally found the correct pathway, I was on hold for 50 minutes. Of course I had the call on speaker, and was doing other things while I waited, but still, I had to listen to the hold "music," and I was limited in what else I could do. </div><div><br /></div><div>When at last I spoke with a human, it turned out I would need another phone call to a different department. I asked the customer service rep for a more direct number, and was told: call through the app, you'll get through immediately. Now <i>that</i> is a reason to download and use an app. So I did. I called the bank through the app, and was speaking with a human in less than five minutes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some months later, I had a question about Aeroplan miles, which means calling Air Canada. Air Canada is renowned for poor customer service. The company has shred their workforce to the bone, so getting anyone to help you with anything is a nightmare. </div><div><br /></div><div>I tried finding the answer to my question online. Fruitless. </div><div><br /></div><div>Dreading the next step, I called the Aeroplan number and was on hold <i>for two hours</i> and never got through. I am not exaggerating: I am looking at my call history as I type this: 1 hour, 58 minutes. I gave up.</div><div><br /></div><div>I then downloaded the Aeroplan app and had my answer in under five minutes. I didn't have to speak with anyone: the information I needed was available through the app, but not through the website.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is terrible customer service. But beyond that, it's customer service as privilege. What happens to customers who don't have smartphones, who can't afford them, who don't know how to download an app? One would think that companies would still want those people's money, but apparently the savings in labour force outweighs the benefits of reaching potential customers.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's disgusting. It's wrong. And it's only going to get worse. </div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-6020177188119228052024-02-03T10:17:00.003-08:002024-02-03T10:32:28.868-08:00i used to be an activist: another piece of myself has gone missing. or maybe it's on hiatus. <p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj87Jh2yvPJFn2hNnPShptQU1dkqfyefIGl94z09PpHmfSUvptjgXmUzCdOkHZFeFpZaA_c67-5zy-62WVj9FfmoHw_ZEiFOmnkwNxUhgz9ItFmDzA40nKqXY2Tn2av0-1C9eAnHNmuKwtVpub-WyIHVbzJ0-y7VBpyCnmshrw3cHcYyupW2QV2/s2560/smart-recovery-vs-aa-scaled.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="2560" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj87Jh2yvPJFn2hNnPShptQU1dkqfyefIGl94z09PpHmfSUvptjgXmUzCdOkHZFeFpZaA_c67-5zy-62WVj9FfmoHw_ZEiFOmnkwNxUhgz9ItFmDzA40nKqXY2Tn2av0-1C9eAnHNmuKwtVpub-WyIHVbzJ0-y7VBpyCnmshrw3cHcYyupW2QV2/w400-h266/smart-recovery-vs-aa-scaled.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">In my experience, the best activism begins like this.<br /><br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>I used to be an activist.<p></p><p>Not being actively involved in a grassroots movement, a part of myself is lost. It's an intentional choice, given the realities that I cannot change. It's what I need. But it's a loss. There's a part of my life that I truly miss.</p><p><b>My purpose and meaning</b></p><p>I've been an activist my entire life. </p><p>I would usually focus on one issue, and explore what I could do within it. South Africa apartheid. Reproductive rights. Violence against women. At-risk youth. Abortion access. US war resisters in Canada. Labour. Each of these, for a time, was a central focus of my life. What gave my life meaning and purpose.</p><p>Writing was also part of this. At its best, when I could snag the opportunity, my writing was advocacy. And it certainly was my meaning and purpose. But my activism was in its own sphere. </p><p>When I first became active, I was not a leader. I wasn't even much of a joiner! I wasn't comfortable in group settings; I hadn't found my niche. Realizing my potential as a leader, and becoming comfortable within activist spaces, were big areas of personal growth.</p><p>I quickly realized I wanted to work in the grassroots. A group of like-minded people, drawn together by a shared purpose, figuring out a way forward, planning actions, creating opportunities for others to get involved. </p><p>My areas of focus developed organically, expressions of what was important to me, what was most on my mind. I took breaks between issues. I chose what to do next and it chose me.</p><p>Throughout most of this time, I didn't work full-time. I was more than full-time busy, but I could cycle through my writing, my various day-jobs, my friends and relationships, and my activism. </p><p><b>It broke down, and I almost broke down with it</b></p><p>When I became a local union leader, I was also working full-time. This was a big adjustment; more than that, it was unsustainable. I have a chronic health condition, and it was -- to use the common euphemism -- extremely challenging to take care of my health while working and unioning. </p><p>I did that for five years. I have no regrets -- I think back on that time with great pride and joy -- but it took a great toll. Before we decided to move to BC, I had already decided not to run for re-election, and to take a less intensive role in the local.</p><p>After we moved, my new local union was led by a group of super smart, talented, badass leaders. I knew I would be active, but I also wanted to put strict limits on my involvement. Now I'm a steward, and a member of my local executive. I was on the last bargaining committee, and I would like to be on the next one. Union is an important part of my life -- I love knowing and working with union people -- but it's well contained.</p><p><b>So here I am</b></p><p>My current work is very challenging and demanding. I love it, but it's full-on. When I'm not working, I very much want a quiet, focused life, and I've committed to that. Reading, writing, cooking, walking. Solo pursuits like working on a puzzle or practicing piano. Time with friends and family. When possible, some travel. </p><p>That I can even talk about this is a sign of my great privilege. It's no accident that most people cannot be active in issues they care about. Our society -- the economic system -- is structured in a way that keeps us busy, too busy to question and work on dismantling the system itself. Full-time work, or more likely, multiple part-time jobs, leaves little enough time for the demands of family, and even basic pleasures, never mind changing the world. For millions who also live with chronic illness -- often linked to trauma -- accomplishing just the basics is a huge undertaking.</p><p>And it just gets harder all the time. As capitalism continues its death spiral, the cost of living rises, supports shrink, and life just gets harder. <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2023001/article/00013-eng.htm" target="_blank">Food insecurity is on the rise.</a> <a href="https://hoopp.com/docs/default-source/newsroom-library/research/hoopp-research-article---senior-poverty---canada-next-crises.pdf" target="_blank">More seniors are living in poverty</a>. These statistics are always lower than reality, defining poverty too low, and not measuring hidden poverty. People choosing between eating and staying warm. Parents skipping meals so their children can eat. Seniors caught shoplifting food. Tiny increases in benefits don't even approach the rising cost of living. More people starve, and freeze, or barely scrape by. </p><p>That we can even talk about this in a nation as wealthy as Canada is a disgrace. And it is completely preventable. Meanwhile, profits soar.</p><p><b>What I'd be doing, if I could</b> </p><p>There are two issues right now that I'd like to be more active in: the movement against Israeli apartheid, and end-of-life choice. But when I think about how I might do that, it breaks down. </p><p>I write letters, I sign petitions, I stay informed. But I'm not out there trying to get others to write letters or meet with their MPs. I'm not organizing, I'm not leading.</p><p>Recently my MP had a petition, focusing on a way to remove more harmful waste from the ocean, and an important step for coastal communities like mine. I thought I would solicit signatures in my town. I wanted to... and I never did. </p><p>I joined Labour for Palestine and have attended a few meetings, but I couldn't follow through. </p><p><a href="https://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/get-involved/" target="_blank">Dying With Dignity Canada</a> suggests many ways to get involved, but I haven't taken the first step.</p><p>I never adopted the language of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory">spoon theory</a>, because I had these ideas decades before the term was coined and popularized. But no matter how we visualize it, time and energy are finite. Health comes first.</p><p>It's not only health. I want a quieter, more focused life. A life with more white space on my calendar. In this sense, what I want and what I need align.</p><p><b>Maybe tomorrow, maybe some day</b></p><p>If I'm lucky enough to stay alive and healthy and mobile past retirement, perhaps I'll find my way back to activism.</p><p>I have similar thoughts on travel. I don't know if or when we will travel again, other than for family visits. Now in our early 60s, we know our priority must be putting ourselves in the best position for a semi-comfortable retirement, or at least a retirement without poverty. </p><p>I know this, yet travel nags at me. It's not just something I love: it's who I am. Not traveling is giving up a part of myself.</p><p>The same is true for activism. My work adds value to the community. I am involved in advocacy -- for my community, and for library workers. Perhaps that is a form of activism, but I miss the grassroots. </p><p>This is my choice, and it isn't. I'm choosing to be more mindful of my health, to not burn out. I didn't choose the conditions that make that necessary. </p><p>Everything in life is a trade-off. Every choice brings both opportunity and loss. I'm truly happy with my life now. And these pieces of myself are left behind.</p><p>I'm not fishing for validation or approval. Just putting this out there.</p><p>---------</p><p>Some related reading:</p><p><a href="https://www.filmsforaction.org/news/i-used-to-be-an-activist/" target="_blank">"I used to be an activist."</a> by Daniel Giles Helm.</p><p><a href="https://smalleststeps.ca/first-step/" target="_blank">My first activist step</a>, by Nicole Bedford</p><p><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/spoon-theory-chronic-illness-explained-like-never-before#1" target="_blank">I'm a "spoonie": here's what I wish more people knew about chronic illness</a>, by Kirsten Schultz </p><p><a href="https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/" target="_blank">The original spoon theory post by Christine Miserandino</a></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-22912490060528174012024-01-26T07:01:00.004-08:002024-02-03T10:49:29.502-08:00capitalism won because it is better and other right-wing lies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVoY_seZPLqejpq0iTMwNC8-fmmYu_27he78N329YI9MdIuYeilPWjIkvPriQ6Zt8hbbwCDz7r1zyHmI8IltjTFFI4uKQpqXA1qJzDCTQinQkvzxhgfNbHFMZpbRaDyc7c17YxSoEmUYa4BJoSwXc1Zjg8C0v9oteygzotPnrl64EaAkBUJ1v/s1072/better%20world.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1072" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVoY_seZPLqejpq0iTMwNC8-fmmYu_27he78N329YI9MdIuYeilPWjIkvPriQ6Zt8hbbwCDz7r1zyHmI8IltjTFFI4uKQpqXA1qJzDCTQinQkvzxhgfNbHFMZpbRaDyc7c17YxSoEmUYa4BJoSwXc1Zjg8C0v9oteygzotPnrl64EaAkBUJ1v/w400-h299/better%20world.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>In recent years, I see a greater awareness that capitalism -- at least in its present form -- is the root cause of so many issues that plague our society. This awareness makes sense, given how extreme the evidence has become. <div><br /></div><div><b>Proof is all around us</b><br /><div><br /></div><div>We grapple with the failures of capitalism every day, as the pressure to show "growth" (<i>i.e.</i>, higher profits for shareholders) strains the limits of possibility.<div><br /></div><div>The cycle of planned obsolescence has become so short, that if we buy the least expensive option for our needs, we're lucky if an item lasts more than one use. A more expensive choice -- something that in the past would have easily lasted 10 years or more -- might last six months.</div><div><br /></div><div>If the price of a staple hasn't gone up, it's probably smaller. Or it very well may be smaller <i>and</i> more expensive. This has become so common that it's led to a new word.</div><div><br /></div><div>Choosing between eating and keeping warm. Parents skipping meals so children can eat. Employed people supplementing their budgets with food banks. In Canada, one of the richest and most privileged societies in the world, nearly 20% of families report doing one or more of these at least monthly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then there's our Earth, which continues to be ravaged for profit, despite the global awareness that this has brought our species to the existential brink.<br /><div><p></p><p>All this, and so much more, has led to a growing awareness that capitalism has been a total failure for the planet, and almost everyone and everything that lives on it. That the intersection of so many intractable horrors can be laid at its feet. </p><p>This recognition is encouraging. Whether or not that recognition can lead to change is a different question, but this is certain: nothing can change without it.</p><p><b>The anti-socialist soundbites</b></p><p>In response to this widespread awareness, there are a few choice soundbites -- copy/paste responses people parrot without knowledge or understanding -- about the virtues of capitalism and the horrors of socialism. Myths. Lies.</p><p>One of the most common myths is that capitalism spread throughout the world because it is the natural state of humanity. That around the world, people adopted capitalism, and rejected socialism, because capitalism is a better system. That socialist governments have failed, because socialism is doomed to fail.</p><p>We could ask, did Christianity spread throughout the world because it was the best and most natural religion? In reponse, we could learn about the history of forced converstions: the Crusades, the Conquistadors, the Inquisition, Colonialism. Capitalism has a similar history.</p><p><b>Some facts</b></p><p>Here are some facts. </p><p>In the US, socialist leaders were jailed, deported, surveilled, blacklisted, executed. Labour organizers were falsely accused of crimes, executed, beaten, blacklisted, ruined. </p><p>Worldwide, democratically elected leaders were assassinated by the CIA.</p><p>Democratically elected governments were toppled by CIA-backed coups.</p><p>Countries were held hostage by IMF policies: drop your plans for a socialist economy, or we will ruin you.</p><p>In Latin America, leaders on the left have been murdered outright for generations, leaving new generations of socialists to start over without the knowledge and guidance of previous generations. The US, in most cases, was only slightly less brutal. </p><p>Here's a partial list, off the top of my head. I'm not going to spend time linking, because everything is easily verified; there are dozens of good links about any and all. Skeptics can google. The Fox News crowd will close their eyes as per usual. (I googled only for spelling.)</p><p>Emma Goldman<br />Eugene V. Debs<br />Bill Haywood<br />The IWW<br />Patrice Lumumba<br />Salvador Allende<br />Jacobo Árbenz<br />Daniel Ortega<br />Queen Lili'uokalani<br />Mohammad Mosaddegh<br />José Santos Zelaya<br />Achmed Sukarno<br />Jean-Bertrand Aristide</p><p>Martin Luther King, Jr.: under constant FBI surveillance, leading to smear campaigns against advisors and associates, blackmail, and at least one FBI suggestion that King kill himself.<br /></p><p>South Africa: when unconditional support for the apartheid state was no longer feasible, the IMF smashed the democratically constructed socialist constitution. (Don't see the connection between white supremacy and capitalism? There's a good reason to google.)</p><p>Joseph McCarthy<br />Taft-Hartley<br />The Chicago Boys<br />The IMF<br />Palmer Raids<br />Pinkertons<br />The Ludlow Massacre<br />Espionage and Sedition Acts<br />"Right to Work"</p><p>Illegal union busting, allowed to continue with impunity in the US and Canada. Legal union busting throughout Asia. In China, labour unions are illegal.</p><p>Stealth campaigns of climate change denial funded by the fossil fuel industries -- and the courts and laws that protect them.</p><p>* * * *</p><p>So yeah, sure, capitalism won by being better. </p><p>Leftists are obsessed with self-blame. Activists are always on about "the failure of the left to..." -- [fill in the blank]. It's healthy to be self-critical -- and sectarian fighting has certainly hobbled movements. But we are not where we are because of the failure of the left. Might as well blame survivors of sexual abuse for being provocative. The ruling class recognizes people's movements as contrary to their interests, and acts accordingly.</p></div></div></div></div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-43796474010517569392024-01-20T06:18:00.004-08:002024-01-26T07:35:51.494-08:00yet another post about tuna: tuna pasta salad, my current favourite way to eat tuna<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02gnBTZ86tkMuhRy8D3JExZ6-y9ltwAi6aA3cXLvESvR2tKrqLGfrsxmMhsjHol2BBsflPknzxanrJhZN4JGNG43L9CvxowsZXa3inRwTEumEhJhyphenhyphenCoiqqSUpnr3qUQ3-K7r-cHCf4rtbS9w3iUTWTP1Wy7KEr5CrQEB39YcY5OPTTpaadpdC/s3000/20240122_081854.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2906" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg02gnBTZ86tkMuhRy8D3JExZ6-y9ltwAi6aA3cXLvESvR2tKrqLGfrsxmMhsjHol2BBsflPknzxanrJhZN4JGNG43L9CvxowsZXa3inRwTEumEhJhyphenhyphenCoiqqSUpnr3qUQ3-K7r-cHCf4rtbS9w3iUTWTP1Wy7KEr5CrQEB39YcY5OPTTpaadpdC/w388-h400/20240122_081854.jpg" width="388" /></a></div>You might not think that <i>tuna</i> is a frequent topic of this blog. But I blog about tuna more than you might think.<p></p><p>In 2009, after reading about the decline of tuna worldwide, <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2009/04/in-which-i-vow-to-stop-eating-tuna-in_77.html" target="_blank">I said I would stop eating tuna</a>. </p><p>This didn't last. I ended up eating tuna, but feeling guilty. Not helpful.</p><div>In 2016, <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2016/08/in-which-i-test-bit-of-conventional_93.html" target="_blank">I questioned whether it was less expensive</a> to make tuna salad myself, or to buy the delicious tuna salad I loved from Whole Foods. Answer: It was less expensive, and a lot easier, to buy the WF version. </div><p>However: shortly after that, Whole Foods sharply increased their already-expensive prices, and in 2017, <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2017/07/the-great-whole-foods-experiment-of-2017_70.html" target="_blank">we curbed our addiction</a> to that store, and stopped shopping there altogether. Of course, now I don't have access to WF, so it's no longer an issue. </p><p>In 2019, I learned that the tuna I eat is not the same tuna that is in decline. This was a huge relief. I'm using skipjack tuna that is (supposedly) caught without the nets that are so often fatal to so many other sea creatures. I find that skipjack tuna is not delicious enough to flake in a green salad with dressing. It needs more help. I <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2019/02/how-to-eat-tuna_23.html" target="_blank">posted my then-current tuna salad recipe</a>: tuna, lite mayo, Dijon mustard, sweet pickle relish. </p><p>Almost immediately after that, I changed this staple of my diet to: tuna, lite mayo, Dijon mustard, scallion, minced celery, and shredded carrot. This was decidedly more work than the earlier incarnation. I ate this for several years.</p><p>In 2022, <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2022/07/what-im-reading-four-fish-future-of.html" target="_blank">I read the book <i>Four Fish</i></a> by Paul Greenberg (published in 2010). I learned more about the amazing and endangered bluefin tuna, and more about how the world's food supply has been poisoned and corrupted -- more about a lot of very interesting things, some of them very sad. Greenberg also confirmed my belief that personal choices about seafood do not impact ocean health or seafood health. (Although I'm sure I'd be healthier if I ingested less mercury.)</p><p>Last year, in an apparent bid to spend even more time doing food prep, I tried making tuna-pasta salad. I fell in love with it and it is now a go-to staple. It's full of lean protein, healthy fats, and raw vegetables, and the pasta substitutes for the bread or crackers I ate my old tuna salad with. I love the creaminess, and I find a small amount is very satisfying. </p><p>How to make tuna-pasta salad</p><p>Combine:<br />2 cups pasta: use elbow, rotini, penne, orecchiette, or any cut pasta, cooked al dente. I use classic elbow macaroni.<br />3 cans skipjack tuna, packed in water: drained, flaked, and broken up so there are no chunks<br />3 ribs of celery, minced<br />3-4 scallions, green part only, minced<br />1/2 cup or more shredded carrot<br /></p><p>In a separate bowl, combine:<br />1 cup plain yogurt: I use Greek style, 2% fat, but any plain yogurt of your choice will work<br />2 tablespoons lite mayo<br />2 tablespoons Dijon mustard<br />These proportions are approximate. Adjust as you see fit.<br />Blend the above ingredients. Then whisk in:<br />Juice of one lemon: you can substitute red wine vinegar, but lemon is better<br />Fresh dill: optional</p><p>Add dressing to the tuna-pasta mix and blend well. Refrigerate for at least a few hours before eating.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-48080203527640975892024-01-16T05:43:00.002-08:002024-01-17T23:37:39.746-08:00historic news: south korea bans dog meat trade<p>I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the email from HSI Canada: <a href="https://www.hsi.org/news-resources/south-korea-bans-dog-meat-industry/" target="_blank">South Korea has banned the dog meat industry</a>.</p><p>Humane Society International Korea, along with many other organizations and individuals, have been working on this for decades. I think everyone echoes JungAh Chae, director of HSI/Korea, who said: "This is history in the making I never thought I would see in my lifetime".</p><p>Decades ago, I saw a tiny, incredibly brief, blurry image from a dog-meat market, a millisecond in a documentary about dogs. I have never been able to get the image out of my mind. </p><p>We contribute a small monthly donation to HSI Canada, and I follow their news -- although I often won't open their emails, for fear of what I may see. The dog-meat industry is a big focus of their work -- rescuing and rehoming dogs destined for slaughter, and campaigning locally to shut down the industry. This has already been successful in several countries, along with many regional and municipal bans on the industry.</p><p>I doubt anyone wants to argue with me about this, but just in case, here, in advance, are answers to the standard questions and objections.</p><p>No, I am not vegan. Yes, I support animal welfare initiatives in all forms. There is no contradiction in this. I can eat meat and still oppose inflicting needless suffering, abuse, or cruelty to sentient beings. </p><p>There is no requirement to be an absolutist in our moral and ethical choices. In fact, the false construct that only absolutes are valid is often used as to justify immoral and unethical behaviour. </p><p>Yes, I believe it's all right to eat some animals and not others. This is, in fact, an almost universal belief among humans, across all eras and all cultures. The humane treatment of animals is more important to me than anyone's personal decisions about what to eat.</p><p>I don't believe that campaigning against the dog-meat industry is imposing western values on non-western cultures. In every case, the principal campaigners -- the people driving the change -- are local. They are working to change values, then to create laws based on those values. At bottom, that's what most activism is about. </p><p></p><p>The details of the new South Korean law, which provides compensation for workers in the dog meat industry, are incredible.</p><p>My heart is full of appreciation and admiration for everyone who has worked to make this historic win possible.</p><p>+ + + + + </p><p><a href="https://www.hsi.org/news-resources/south-korea-bans-dog-meat-industry/" target="_blank">BREAKING: South Korea bans the dog meat industry with historic vote at National Assembly as animal campaigners 'overjoyed'</a></p><p>'This is history in the making I never thought I would see in my lifetime,' says JungAh Chae, director of HSI/Korea</p><p>SEOUL—South Korea's National Assembly has today voted through a ban on the dog meat industry in what animal campaigners at Humane Society International/Korea have called "history in the making." Up to 1 million dogs a year are factory farmed and killed for human consumption in the country. The ban, which comes into force in six months' time with a three-year phase out, will make the breeding, slaughter and sale of dogs and dog meat for human consumption illegal from 2027, with penalties of up to three years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 30 million KRW.*</p><p>This news follows considerable public and political momentum. With over 6 million pet dogs now living in Korean homes, demand for dog meat is at an all-time low. A 2023 Nielsen Korea opinion poll shows that 86% of South Koreans won't eat dog meat in the future and 57% support a ban.</p><p>JungAh Chae, executive director of Humane Society International/Korea, which has campaigned tirelessly for a ban, welcomed the news by saying: "This is history in the making. I never thought I would see in my lifetime a ban on the cruel dog meat industry in South Korea but this historic win for animals is testament to the passion and determination of our animal protection movement. We reached a tipping point where most Korean citizens reject eating dogs and want to see this suffering consigned to the history books, and today our policymakers have acted decisively to make that a reality. While my heart breaks for all the millions of dogs for whom this change has come too late, I am overjoyed that South Korea can now close this miserable chapter in our history and embrace a dog-friendly future."</p><p>Dog farmers, slaughterers and restaurant owners will be eligible to apply for compensation, and after review, government support will be offered to transition or close those businesses, similar to the Models for Change program run by HSI/Korea. Since 2015, HSI has helped 18 dog farmers across South Korea switch to growing crops such as chili plants and parsley, or water delivery and other livelihoods.</p><p>HSI/Korea urges the government to use the three-year phase out period to work with animal groups including HSI/Korea to rescue as many dogs as possible in a state-sponsored, coordinated effort.</p><p>Kitty Block and Jeff Flocken, respectively CEO and president of HSI globally, issued a joint statement, saying: "This is a truly momentous day for our campaign to end the horrors of the dog meat industry in South Korea, and one we have been hoping to see for a very long time. Having been to dog meat farms, we know only too well the suffering and deprivation these desperate animals endure in the name of an industry for whom history has now thankfully called time. This ban signals the end of dog meat farming and sales in South Korea, and we stand ready to contribute our expertise until every cage is empty."</p><p>South Korea now joins a growing list of countries and territories across Asia that have banned the dog meat trade (with varying degrees of enforcement), including Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, Thailand and Singapore, as well as the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai in mainland China, Siem Reap province in Cambodia, and 45 cities, regencies and provinces in Indonesia.</p><p>[<a href="https://www.hsi.org/news-resources/south-korea-bans-dog-meat-industry/" target="_blank">Go to original for links.</a>]</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-26307035090937391872024-01-14T11:48:00.019-08:002024-01-15T20:47:00.389-08:00what i'm reading: an immense world by ed yong<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinb6hNUDaPtZYidexsFnKsWdPHg3hio7r53r5h1JzkvXktGV5qZBJKCjP2Fw6ku7Oz1pAvk3mREEUGqmoWy_AXfdZrLfePUIGT6-Im4kZ6XWPh1hNrDIGXojiDR8FRCWbNYcOVbxbjWR6t0RsrfpyPlm2cV_Tut-G6ZvpNYwSavLjZp4ixIC3p/s705/immense%20world.PNG" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="467" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinb6hNUDaPtZYidexsFnKsWdPHg3hio7r53r5h1JzkvXktGV5qZBJKCjP2Fw6ku7Oz1pAvk3mREEUGqmoWy_AXfdZrLfePUIGT6-Im4kZ6XWPh1hNrDIGXojiDR8FRCWbNYcOVbxbjWR6t0RsrfpyPlm2cV_Tut-G6ZvpNYwSavLjZp4ixIC3p/w265-h400/immense%20world.PNG" width="265" /></a></p><p>Long ago, I briefly observed one of our dogs do something that has always stayed with me. </p><p>I was walking Cody in our New York City neighbourhood, and saw, in the distance, a neighbour walking a dog that Cody was in love with, called Little Bear. Cody had never interacted with Little Bear beyond passing, with both dogs on-leash, but nevertheless, Cody was smitten. When she saw Little Bear, our mild-mannered lab-shepherd mix became almost uncontrollable -- barking, whining, pulling, and generally freaking out.*</p><p>On this particular walk, I didn't have a lot of time, and needed to make it brief. Cody was unaware of the presence of Little Bear in the distance, so I slowed down, waiting until the dog and its person had turned a corner and were headed away from us.</p><p>Some minutes later, Cody and I approached where Little Bear had been. Cody sniffed the base of a tree. Her head shot up, and she frantically looked all around, her eyes wild and expectant, whining the way she only did for Little Bear, then pulled in the direction I had seen Little Bear go. From that one sniff, Cody knew not just that <i>a</i> dog had been there, but what <i>individual</i> dog had been there and in what direction they had gone.</p><p>I thought of this while reading <i>An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us</i>. In <i>An Immense World</i>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/search/?q=ed+yong" target="_blank">Ed Yong, a science writer at <i>The Atlantic</i></a>, takes the reader on a tour of animals' <i>Umwelten</i>. <i>Umwelt</i>, Yong tells us, is a term for the "sensory bubble" in which an animal lives. It is the world the animal perceives. That sensory bubble is perfectly adapted to the animal and what it needs from its environment, and utterly different from our own.</p><p><b>Umwelt: the world according to dogs. Or whales. Or rats. Or spiders.</b></p><p>Dolphins, dogs, hundreds of different species of insects and spiders, different species of birds -- and so on and so on -- each have their own <i>Umwelt</i>. These sensory bubbles are best understood by removing humans from the picture completely. It's not that the dog has better hearing or a better sense of smell than humans. They do -- but that's not what's most interesting, and not what Yong wants to show us. It's what smell and hearing do for dogs. It's the world according to dogs (spiders, rats, whales, crocodiles, elephants, etc.).</p><p><i>An Immense World</i> includes so many eye-popping stories and facts -- all examples of its subtitle -- that choosing a few for a review may be the most daunting writing challenge I face this year. </p><p>Alligators and crocodiles are covered -- head to tail -- in sensors that detect vibrations in the surface of the water. These pressure detectors are 10 times more sensitive to pressure fluctuations than human fingertips. Even with its eyes covered and its ears plugged, when a drop of water hits the surface of its tank, an alligator test subject lunges and snaps where it lands.</p><p>A spider's web is a "vibrational landscape" -- made from the spider's own body -- that tells the spider what and where its next meal will be. What's truly astonishing is that the spider can adjust its web "as if tuning a musical instrument", altering the speed and strength of the web's vibrations by changing the stiffness of the silk, the tension in the strands, and the shape of the web, depending on the type of prey that's available. And some spiders can <i>camoflage their footsteps</i> to encroach on another spider's web and steal their prey without being detected. </p><p>Owls, renowned for their huge eyes and raptor-sharp eyesight, actually hunt by hearing. The disc of stiff feathers on an owl's face funnels sounds towards its ears -- which sit asymmetrically on the owl's head, enabling it to pinpoint the location of prey in both vertical and horizontal planes, as if on a radar screen. </p><p>Many insects have ears on their legs; many butterflies hear with their wings. Rattlesnakes hear with their tongues.</p><p>Dogs can detect (by smell) a single fingerprint on a microscope slide that has been left outside, exposed to elements, <i>for a week</i>. </p><p>A seal's whiskers detect vibrations in the water, and can discriminate among shapes and textures. Swimming fish leave a trail of moving water -- a "hydrodynamic wake" -- not visible to human eyes. A harbor seal can follow a herring from almost 200 yards away. Even blindfolded and with their ears plugged, seals can follow the hydrodynamic trail of their dinner.</p><p>Rodents call to each other in frequencies too high to be audible to humans. </p><p></p><blockquote>Pups [of rats] that are separated from their nests make ultrasonic "isolation calls" that summon their mothers. Rats that are tickled by humans make ultrasonic chirps that have been compared to laughter. Richardson's ground squirrels produce ultrasonic alarm calls when they detect a predator . . . Male mice that sniff female hormones produce ultrasonic songs that are remarkably similar to those of birds, complete with distinctive syllables and phrases. </blockquote><p>The section on bird calls and whale sounds is absolutely mindblowing. If I tried to summarize it, I'd end up copying whole pages from the book. Trust me: the sonic <i>Umwelt</i> of birds and whales is not at all what you might think. </p><p></p><p><a href="https://allanwood.substack.com/p/books-of-the-year-2023" target="_blank">Allan has more examples in his review here.</a> He chose <i>An Immense World</i> as the best book he read in 2023.</p><p><b>An immense world, and a small language</b></p><p>Dogs perceive the world primarily through smell and hearing. What smell means to a dog -- the information dogs receive from smell, what they can know through smell, how they need it and use it -- is so different than our own sense of smell, that they shouldn't even be called the same thing. </p><p>The animal sense that is perhaps most difficult to comprehend is the one that most humans rely on most heavily: vision. We imagine we are seeing the world as it is. In fact we are seeing the world <i>as it is for humans</i>. Rattlesnakes see infrared radiation. Birds can see ultraviolet light. Some animals see in almost total darkness. Others see fantastically long distances -- but only if they look downward.</p><p>One of the many insights this book has brought me is the paucity of the English language when it comes to describing sensory perceptions. </p><p>We are taught that humans have five senses -- but more than that, we are taught that there <i>are</i> five senses. We speak of "a sixth sense" or "extrasensory perception," as something freakish or otherworldly. <i>An Immense World</i> has taught me that there are at least six or seven general senses, and within those broad categories, perception is wildly varied. </p><p>An elephant, a peacock, an iguana, and a spider are all animals -- but that broad category tells us very little, and bears no hint of how completely different those four animals are. Likewise, the words touch, taste, hearing, sight, and smell mean completely different things within the <i>Umwelten</i> of different species.</p><p><b>It's great, don't be afraid</b></p><p>Yong's writing is so engaging and captivating, and sprinkled with gentle humour. The book is framed as a journey of discovery: the author connects with scientists who study the sensory perception of a huge array of animals. He is continually fascinated by what he finds -- and the reader comes along for the ride. This infuses <i>An Immense World</i> with a warmth and generous joy of discovery. </p><p>The science of perception -- what produces vision or hearing -- is somewhat beyond me, but that's a few paragraphs sprinkled here and there, not the majority of the book.</p><p>I was hesitant to read this book because of the terrible sadness that underlies so many animal stories -- habitat destruction, pollution, slaughter for human greed, rampant cruelty and abuse. Cruelty to animals is the one place I cannot go, the thing I cannot read about or watch. Allan assured me that <i>An Immense World</i> was not that book. There are sentences here and there that are sad (and stay with me) but overall, it is a celebration of the wonders of animals. As Yong says, the book is about "animals as animals," an attempt to understand how animals perceive their own worlds -- to enter their <i>Umwelt</i>. </p><p>I am actually still reading <i>An Immense World</i>. Every so often, I think, this is very detailed, perhaps I'll just skim this bit. Then I skim maybe one paragraph, and realize I'm missing yet another incredible example, or some gem from one of the many humourous footnotes, and I return to my close read. This book is just too good to miss any page.</p><p>-------------</p><p>* Many years later, Tala displayed this same smitten behaviour, even more vehemently, towards a beautiful Collie we referred to as The Boyfriend. Becoming aware of The Boyfriend from any distance, Tala would whine and cry and drag me over to him. She would put her face against his cheek, and close her eyes, in apparent rapture. The Boyfriend, as is often the case with dog romance, was indifferent to Tala. The Boyfriend's people, sadly, weren't amenable to any interaction. To avoid breaking Tala's heart every day, when I spotted The Boyfriend, I would quickly make a U-turn to avoid them. From a great distance, Tala would sniff the air, stare into the distance, and quietly whine. </p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-27948313317326398732024-01-08T16:27:00.000-08:002024-01-08T16:27:42.886-08:00we movie to canada: best of "what i'm watching" 2023<p>These are the best movies and series I watched in 2023, in no particular order.</p><p><b>Five stars: the best of the best</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCEBTBYzyMkyySAKDAOqRWLLP_iF2Wk3JYqogWuF3PwLfKDqc9Ik2hcfLvKNu5rwbxvFyHG3Hcbg-YWw2GDdTNWMAAxVyfL0T1nMHZDz-Byjv3hepr_YMc-Eq1U-s6vXvxdNke1ti7923sO6aCu_jNjEcoGXGbxxkAfChGBLR0PJEoLSqwDlP/s686/kimi.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="686" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCEBTBYzyMkyySAKDAOqRWLLP_iF2Wk3JYqogWuF3PwLfKDqc9Ik2hcfLvKNu5rwbxvFyHG3Hcbg-YWw2GDdTNWMAAxVyfL0T1nMHZDz-Byjv3hepr_YMc-Eq1U-s6vXvxdNke1ti7923sO6aCu_jNjEcoGXGbxxkAfChGBLR0PJEoLSqwDlP/s320/kimi.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Kimi<br />This overlooked thriller is as taut and suspenseful as it gets. Zoë Kravitz is brilliant as the agoraphobic tech worker who must face her fear in order to bring a crime to light. But the real star is a screenplay (David Koepp) and direction (Steven Soderbergh) that doesn't waste a word or a single frame. <p></p><p>Women Talking<br />A powerful story about women collectively liberating themselves from an oppressive, authoritarian religious community. Sarah Polley wrote and directed this film based on the Miriam Toews novel of the same name, which itself was a fictional account of documented events. Based on a true story, and true stories that are all around us. See it.</p><p>I Lost My Body (2019)<br />This intense, inventive animated film will haunt me for years to come. It is suffused with existential heartache: the pain of mortality, loneliness, and regret. I haven't seen anything like it since BoJack Horseman -- but this one comes without comic relief. (Interesting that these two works that I found so meaningful are both animated.) I Lost My Body is one of the very best things we saw in 2023, and/but it was almost too painful to watch.</p><p>I'm a Virgo S1<br />What would happen to a 13-foot-tall Black man in 21st Century America? Boots Riley, the genius behind Sorry to Bother You (2018), again finds a way to reflect and skewer our world through fantasy comedy. This series is absolutely astonishing, with layers upon layers of meaning. I can't wait to see where it goes.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj01E51nM7-KneVnBe0h48X_F0jVzBL_K7-BNi_X-Aq0sB2Dy_PbI6NK_1pbTgzafaF7GzfMdLp6y0497X6n34oFIqa0hnea2h273l_pZqrWOwgN9dxEE8lM_7x5YWzMc5o4dRBOSQaoLdUMRlRTU44mpzuF7_IGAbNecV_gFw-b2LWZKcPwODp/s614/lost%20my%20body.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="614" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj01E51nM7-KneVnBe0h48X_F0jVzBL_K7-BNi_X-Aq0sB2Dy_PbI6NK_1pbTgzafaF7GzfMdLp6y0497X6n34oFIqa0hnea2h273l_pZqrWOwgN9dxEE8lM_7x5YWzMc5o4dRBOSQaoLdUMRlRTU44mpzuF7_IGAbNecV_gFw-b2LWZKcPwODp/w320-h223/lost%20my%20body.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">I Lost My Body: the loneliness of the human condition</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>Descendant<br />In 2019, the wreckage of the ship <i>Clotilda</i> was found in Alabama's Mobile River: it was the last known ship to bring kidnapped, enslaved African people to America, legally. Filmmaker Margaret Brown spent four years with the community of Africatown -- where many residents are descendants from the people held captive on that ship -- exploring how the discovery impacted their lives.<p></p><p>Everything Everywhere All At Once<br /><span>Add my voice to the chorus proclaiming the wonders of this movie. </span></p><p>Shining Girls re-watch (S1, full series)<br />Last year, I wrote this about Shining Girls:</p><p></p><blockquote>This genre-blending thriller/mystery/sci-fi series is mind-blowing, and features yet another insanely good performance by Elisabeth Moss. I'm planning on re-watching: now that I know the outcome, I can concentrate on clues and how it all fits together. </blockquote><p></p><p>I did that, and I loved the series again, possibly even more than I did the first time. </p><p>Bicycle Thieves (1948)<br />Kanopy streaming service -- available free through your library -- is great for exploring classics that you haven't seen, or perhaps saw long ago. This story of a working-class man trying to eke out a living in the bleak, starving world of post-war Italy, his young son in tow, is gripping, heartbreaking, and masterful.</p><p>Hunters S1-2 (S1 re-watch + full series)<br />I don't know why Hunters is so under-recognized and under-rated. A conspiracy thriller with a good dose of comedy, it benefits from great acting by Al Pacino (finally doing television!), Lena Olin, and Dylan Baker, among others. Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/02/15/275877755/the-secret-operation-to-bring-nazi-scientists-to-america" target="_blank">Operation Paperclip</a>. I gave <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2020/05/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie.html" target="_blank">S1 a 4 out of 5</a>, but after seeing both seasons in succession, I moved it to the top category. Not for the violence-averse.</p><p>Chinatown (1974)<br />Chinatown is what all noir movies aspire to. It's one of the best movies from an era of great moviemaking. Yes, it was directed by a rapist and pedophile, but it's a great movie. If you see it, you are not condoning the director's crimes. I promise.</p><p>The Sting (1973)<br />The Sting is one of the all-time great con movies. Pure joy. Plus Paul Newman! This movie is so good, it almost made me like Robert Redford. (Not really, but that's how good it is.)</p><p>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)<br />See above. When I was a kid, this was one of my favourite movies, and watching it now brought me that same kind of uncritical joy. The movie inspired a (probably bad) TV show called <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066625/">Alias Smith and Jones</a>, which I also watched avidly, back in the day. </p><p>Fitzcarraldo (1982)<br />Would we have thought this movie was great if we didn't know the crazy backstory, if we weren't already fascinated by Werner Herzog, if we didn't know Mick Jagger was originally cast in it, if there hadn't been a blood feud between Herzog and Klaus Kinski? That's a question with no answer, but we did thoroughly enjoy the film. We also watched My Best Fiend, Werner Herzog's ode to his relationship with Klaus Kinski, and Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's 1982 documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigW9ETiIvSmoi8An7TCMd22yZ3lxh-eLo33rVq8XXQfzHowW_Y5tNGZlSX3c0McdIggita_6fB_8-UDunM7Hc3E3GnUvB43-0E5EznmGC3iE_EOUmH1PqWS7BI8QnXoswIjaWc-B1DQEsxZfOSHcfPfnl-2Q5Zsml6M3wGb2SjglOWHzY6Uv2m/s598/unpregnant.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="598" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigW9ETiIvSmoi8An7TCMd22yZ3lxh-eLo33rVq8XXQfzHowW_Y5tNGZlSX3c0McdIggita_6fB_8-UDunM7Hc3E3GnUvB43-0E5EznmGC3iE_EOUmH1PqWS7BI8QnXoswIjaWc-B1DQEsxZfOSHcfPfnl-2Q5Zsml6M3wGb2SjglOWHzY6Uv2m/w320-h177/unpregnant.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Unpregnant: teenage abortion without apology</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Unpregnant<br />Now that people are <i>finally</i> making honest movies about abortion, I plan to see them all. This one did everything right -- humour, honesty, authentic teen relationships, and just the right amount of political context. Thanks to the horrific US anti-abortion laws, a new subgenre is developing: the abortion road trip.<p></p><p>Reservation Dogs S3<br />Season 3 of this stellar show included more of what we might call magical realism, but what an Indigenous worldview would embrace as simply part of the web of life, some of which is unseen, and occasionally revealed. The episode dealing with the death of an elder must be the best piece of Indigenous culture ever seen by a mainstream audience. I also found the boarding school / residential school episode pretty much perfect. Through the whole series, the young actors are <i>so good</i>. </p><p>Never Have I Ever S4<br />I didn't think they could do it, but Devi Vishwakumar's coming-of-age stayed brilliant through four seasons. Funny, sad, sweet, and authentic. Nearly perfect.</p><p>Triangle: Remembering the Fire<br />This HBO documentary is a great, concise overview of an important piece of women's/labour/New York City/American history. Even if you know all about the Triangle fire, you'll be glad you saw this. For the full story, see if you can get your hands on a copy of <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2009/06/what-i-reading-triangle-fire-that_10.html" target="_blank"><i>Triangle: The Fire That Changed America</i> by David Von Drehle</a>. </p><p>All the Beauty and the Bloodshed<br />This documentary about the artist and activist Nan Goldin is notable for the brutal honesty with which Goldin bares her life -- a stark and welcome contrast to the typical sanitized biopic. Although Goldin's activism exposing the Sackler family's culpability in the opioid crisis is one of the film's central themes, the film is not about the Sacklers or the drug crisis. It's about Nan Goldin. It's fascinating, gripping, and at times a bit grueling. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm54aARL5H-vn8QOkbhW7GVpqtmTewh_rC4IPvXw4iGA6kjsHL3yARX3AEK6tWfqbCMM-Ftnqnj69FpSZr3jsW77zDsh2le3oFEvEaiiXPhlN6s7HZ3AU9DT0oCZH3fZqMLYD9JXyV28IQ7fMKxX41JvTNDr0fKt3NJvCmsDr6zq44TSYac9WU/s904/chinatown.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="904" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm54aARL5H-vn8QOkbhW7GVpqtmTewh_rC4IPvXw4iGA6kjsHL3yARX3AEK6tWfqbCMM-Ftnqnj69FpSZr3jsW77zDsh2le3oFEvEaiiXPhlN6s7HZ3AU9DT0oCZH3fZqMLYD9JXyV28IQ7fMKxX41JvTNDr0fKt3NJvCmsDr6zq44TSYac9WU/w320-h159/chinatown.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>ER S1-5 (1994 - 1999)<br />Re-watching ER for the first time since it originally aired reminded me of what a great show it is -- at least for the first five seasons. I'm currently slogging through the rest of the series, as original cast members fall away and the show becomes a soap opera set in a hospital. Which is not to say it's not entertaining. <p></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>Four stars: highly recommended</b></p><p>Rita S1-S5, full series<br />I'm so glad I went back to this. Rita is such a refreshing protagonist -- smart, sexy, iconoclastic, utterly independent, often wrong, always fierce. If her free spirit is partly a mask over the pain of early trauma, that doesn't make her any less free. A joyous and sometimes sad show that deepened with every season.</p><p>Outside In (2017)<br />A man gets out of prison, having served 20 years for a crime he didn't commit. The emotional fallout impacts many lives in a small Pacific Northwest town. Really well done.</p><p>Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker<br />Art, AIDS, and activism in 1980s New York. A moving portrait of a pioneer. Coincidentally, the subject matter intersects with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, above. <br /></p><p>The Old Man S1<br />Jeff Bridges plays a Vietnam veteran and former spy, and John Lithgow plays his former handler. Also, there are dogs. The first season was a credible and exciting thriller. We've been waiting for S2.</p><p>Shrinking S1<br />I really enjoyed this smart, funny, and sad show, a comedy about grief, loss, therapy, honesty, and reclaiming joy. Add another title to the list of smart adult drama-sitcoms, which for me includes Episodes, Silicon Valley, Hacks, and a few others.</p><p>Severance S1<br />A strange and exciting sci-fi thriller about -- at bottom -- labour and capitalism. Related to Sorry to Bother You, but without the humour. Definitely waiting for S2.</p><p>Perry Mason S1-2 (full series so far)<br />We were happy to see the return of this smart, stylish, retro noir, an origin story and prequel to the old Perry Mason TV show. I hope it continues.</p><p>American Experience: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid<br />A short, factual look at the daring and charismatic outlaws who inspired the 1969 movie. <i>American Experience</i> documentaries are consistently excellent. I'm glad several of them have made it onto Kanopy, Prime, and occasionally Netflix.</p><p>Succession S1-4 (full series)<br />Although this series sometimes felt repetitive, it was utterly addictive. I've heard people question the value of a show about rich assholes. To me, interesting characters, complex relationships, good writing, and great acting are the elements of a great series. The backdrop hardly matters. Plus, any really good series will peel back the assholic behaviour to reveal the pain and trauma that drives it. </p><p>Unknown: Cave of Bones<br />When Allan and I can't agree on what to watch, we can always reach for some nature, anthropology, or archeology doc. This is a fascinating look at new research on early hominids, and the likelihood that they were more advanced than previously thought.</p><p>The Killing (1956)<br />This early Stanley Kubrick film, which Kubrick co-wrote with the seminal hardboiled crime writer Jim Thompson, is classic noir. You know the heist is doomed to fail, but how many lives will be lost or wrecked in the process, and whether or not anyone will get away clean, are always open questions. </p><p>C'est comme ça que je t'aime (Happily Married) S1-2 (full series)<br />A crime comedy by the makers of Series Noire? Say no more! This series belongs to the "what lurks beneath the quiet suburbs" tradition -- taken to an extreme. Of course, like most crime films, it requires a certain suspension of disbelief. But it's funny, insightful, and super twisty. </p><p>Our Flag Means Death S1-2, full series so far<br />Love, loss, discovery, and revenge on the high seas. A fun -- and sometimes sad -- dark comedy, full of LGBTQ love. Thoroughly enjoyable.</p><p>Vjeran Tomic: The Spider-Man of Paris<br />A documentary, told in the first person, by the man who pulled off the greatest art heist in the history of Paris.</p><p>Lupin S1-2 rewatch + S3 (full series)<br />More Parisian art heists! Despite some twists that were simply not credible, even in the world of criminal fantasy, Lupin S3 was still great. The anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and literary angles add depth, and Paris adds sparkle.</p><p>The Banshees of Inisherin<br />This story's descent into tragic darkness somehow feels both shocking and inevitable. It's very, very sad, and more than a little strange, with an all-star Irish pedigree. </p><p>The Sound of Metal<br />A drummer in a metal-punk duo is losing his hearing, and with it, his identity. What kind of future he will choose, what new self will emerge, is what he and the audience must discover. A moving exploration of disability, identity, and recovery.</p><p>Slap Shot (1977)<br />Paul Newman always said that Slap Shot was his favourite of his own films, and that it was the most fun to make. With George Roy Hill's light touch, and a hilarious screenplay by Nancy Dowd, this sweet comedy has a loose-jointed feel that draws you in, warm and welcoming. The following year, Dowd won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for Coming Home. With The Sting and Butch Cassidy, Slap Shot makes three George Roy Hill movies this year, and each a gem. </p><p><b>Honourable mentions: worth seeing</b></p><p>Jospeh Campbell and the Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers<br />We watched this when it first aired on PBS in 1988. I bought the book and became a huge fan. All these years later -- and knowing the standard criticisms of Campbell's ideas -- I am still interested and impressed. </p><p>Helvetica<br />A documentary about a font? Sure, why not? It missed a few obvious opportunities that would have greatly improved it, but solid and worth seeing.</p><p>Bill Russell: Legend<br />An incredible athlete, an outspoken civil rights activist, and a prickly, cantankerous man. This two-part bio-doc is not perfect, but it is excellent.</p><p>I'm Thinking of Ending Things<br />Charlie Kaufman's movies are always challenging to parse and invariably provoke good post-watch discussions. Which is not the same thing as saying I like them. But I do continue to see them. Sad note: in the role played by Jesse Plemons, I kept imagining Philip Seymour Hoffman. </p><p><b>Previous "we move to canada" awards</b></p><p>- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2008/03/we-movie-to-canada_74.html">Canadian musicians and comedians</a> (2006-07 and 2007-08)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2009/04/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_12.html">my beverage of choice</a> (2008-09)<br />- <a href="http://www.wmtc.ca/2010/05/we-movie-to-canada-annual-wmtc-movie_91.html">famous people who died</a> during the past year (2009-10)<br />- <a href="http://www.wmtc.ca/2011/05/we-movie-to-canada-annual-wmtc-movie_17.html">where I'd like to be</a> (2010-11)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2012/05/we-movie-to-canada-annual-wmtc-movie_91.html">vegetables</a> (2011-12)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2013/05/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_28.html">big life events</a> in a year full of Big Life Changes (2012-13)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2014/04/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_96.html">cheese</a> (2013-14)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2015/05/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_37.html">types of travels</a> (2014-15)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2016/06/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_43.html">famous people who died</a> plus <a href="http://www.wmtc.ca/2016/06/we-movie-to-canada-2015-16-this-year_77.html">famous people who died, part 2</a> (2015-16)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2017/04/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_99.html">the picket line</a> (2016-17)<br />- <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2018/06/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_32.html">movies</a> (2017-18)<br />2018-19: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2019/05/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie_1.html" target="_blank">1-5 ☮s</a><br />2019-20: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2020/05/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie.html" target="_blank">1-5 💉s</a><br />2020-21: <a href="http://www.wmtc.ca/2021/04/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie.html" target="_blank">1-5 </a><span style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.wmtc.ca/2021/04/we-movie-to-canada-wmtc-annual-movie.html" target="_blank">😷s</a> (without the tear!)<br /></span>2021: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2022/01/what-im-watching-best-of-2021-april-to.html">best of 2021 april to december</a><br />2022: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/01/we-movie-to-canada-best-of-what-im.html" target="_blank">best of 2022</a></p><p></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-85777065322257401982024-01-05T06:25:00.006-08:002024-01-14T16:13:40.385-08:00the secret pocket: children's books on residential schools, reading for reconciliation, and other library things<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJpBiubOHj6IelBH0vWFEqCy1JHiKof_gckgb5DhaeRCsV86tqblglkGWgHVNgKHtDypcI9DbkfJdaAm5c6sxHUSbQl6J29CmVLRehO_tTak-hmq7wTbqXPKrwWyniD6PF8YqZ8WHInS2hR4Y3UqEmoQtgW98RnvIx1rV1prrxjvuYLVg3uW6/s531/secret%20pocket.JPG" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="428" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpJpBiubOHj6IelBH0vWFEqCy1JHiKof_gckgb5DhaeRCsV86tqblglkGWgHVNgKHtDypcI9DbkfJdaAm5c6sxHUSbQl6J29CmVLRehO_tTak-hmq7wTbqXPKrwWyniD6PF8YqZ8WHInS2hR4Y3UqEmoQtgW98RnvIx1rV1prrxjvuYLVg3uW6/w323-h400/secret%20pocket.JPG" width="323" /></a></p><p>This post started as a standard "what i'm reading" post. But as I thought about it, I realized that it touches on several other themes that are important to me: history, Reconciliation, libraries, readers' advisory... and maybe some others I'm not seeing yet.</p><p><b>The Secret Pocket</b></p><p>In September, for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, I was updating a list of children's books about residential schools, and found <i>The Secret Pocket</i>, by Peggy Janicki. It immediately became my favourite children's book about the residential school experience.</p><p><i>The Secret Pocket</i> tells the story -- in the first person -- of a Dakelh girl who was taken away from her family when she was four years old. She is brought to a place far away from her home, where the children are always hungry and cold. The girls are forbidden to speak their own language, and are frequently punished -- often by the withholding of food.</p><p>The older girls sew hidden pockets into their clothes. They secretly gather materials and sew at night, then use the pockets to hide pieces of apples, carrots, and bread to share with the younger girls, and the girls who are hungriest.</p><p>In the Dakelh culture before contact, sewing skills were passed down through generations of women. The girls who were a bit older when they were forcibly removed from their families already had this knowledge. So not only were they helping to feed each other, they were keeping a piece of their culture alive. </p><p><i>The Secret Pocket</i> records and preserves the stories that the author's mother told her about her own experience -- a story of courageous, creative, and collective resistance. I highly recommend it to all adult readers as well as children. </p><p><b>How to talk to kids about...</b></p><p>Canadian schools now teach about Canada's colonization of Indigenous people, and about the Residential Schools, at every grade level. <i>It's about time!</i> My Canadian-born friends never learned about this when they were growing up. Many of them lived right near a Residential School but never knew about the genocidal system that they represented, let alone what went on behind the prison walls. </p><p>Many people I know are particularly upset at learning that <a href="https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/duncan_campbell_scott_information_sheet_final_updated.pdf" target="_blank">Duncan Campbell Scott</a> was one of the principal architects of the system that vowed to "kill the Indian in the child". (Apparently this phrase is <a href="https://macleans.ca/culture/books/conversations-with-a-dead-man-the-legacy-of-duncan-campbell-scott/" target="_blank">falsely attributed to Scott</a>. Nevertheless, he created the system that tried to make it a reality.) In school, my Canadian friends and co-workers learned about Scott as a celebrated Canadian poet. They learned about his dark legacy as adults, through Reconciliation education through their workplaces. </p><p>(Incidentally, those three names -- Duncan, Campbell, and Scott -- are found all over Vancouver Island place-names. I hope one day those names will be expunged, and places returned to their ancestral names.)</p><p>Reconciliation education stands in stark contrast to so many school districts in the United States that are <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/06/slavery-was-wrong-5-other-things-educators-wont-teach-anymore/" target="_blank">no longer teaching about slavery</a></i>. This choice is truly Orwellian, even surreal. And so indicative of the progress of the fascist state.</p><p>There are ways to talk with children about difficult topics, in age-appropriate ways. I'm no student of education, so I'm not well-versed in method and curricula, but I see it taking place all around me. </p><p><b>Reading for Reconciliation</b></p><p>For non-Canadian readers, Reconciliation is the process of educating ourselves about the historical (and ongoing) colonization and oppression of the Indigenous people who live in what is now called Canada, and finding ways to create more equity and justice. </p><p>This work is happening in workplaces, schools, unions, churches, and other organizations, and it is also happening on a personal level. Individual Canadians are taking responsibility for learning, and to the extent that we can, for decolonizing our lives. The <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/british-columbians-our-governments/indigenous-people/aboriginal-peoples-documents/calls_to_action_english2.pdf" target="_blank">94 Calls to Action created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> provide a framework for this. </p><p>Obviously not every Canadian cares about this, and a certain percentage of the non-Indigenous population is blatantly hostile to the idea. But evidence also shows that huge numbers of non-Indigenous Canadians care deeply about this and are finding ways to participate in acts of Reconciliation.</p><p>One of the ways that Canadians further their own Reconciliation journeys is through reading. Books written by Indigenous authors, both fiction and nonfiction, for every age group and nearly every genre, are burgeoning in sales, libraries, and book clubs. I find this especially heartening when I consider that much of the subject matter in these books is disturbing -- and many people (unfortunately, in my view) avoid reading anything with disturbing content. </p><p>I want to note that in <i><a href="https://www.ictinc.ca/books/indigenous-relations" target="_blank">Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality</a></i>, author Bob Joseph lists reading work by Indigenous authors as a tangible act of Reconciliation.</p><p>If you have not already done so, I highly recommend reading Joseph's <i><a href="https://www.ictinc.ca/books/21-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-indian-act" target="_blank">21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act</a></i>. It's a short, highly accessible book, and my number one pick for beginning Reconciliation awareness. Here's a very good <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/05/09/Bob-Joseph-Tips-Reconciliation-Reality/" target="_blank">interview with Bob Joseph in <i>The Tyee</i></a>.</p><p><b>We💓booklists</b></p><p>Many library systems, including mine, offer booklists -- lists curated by librarians, grouped by subgenre, age group, or subject matter, to highlight hidden gems and help customers choose titles.</p><p></p><p>Booklists are an important form of readers' advisory. Staffing levels -- in every library in North America -- are very low, and in many libraries, there may be no professional staff who have been trained in readers' advisory. Even if staff are available, many customers won't ask for reading recommendations, for various reasons. So most libraries offer various forms of passive readers' advisory. Booklists are a part of that. </p><p>In our system, lists are created by any staff who have an interest. A call goes out, staff sign up for topics within an audience group (adult, youth, or children), or suggest creative list ideas. We put our annotated picks into a template, so the lists have a uniform look and feel. Our lists are always diverse and current, and many are really creative.</p><p>I love readers' advisory, and my position doesn't give me much opportunity to keep those skills alive, so when the call goes out, I always raise my hand. It's an opportunity "to librarian". Right now I'm working on two adult lists -- current travel memoirs, and memoirs and biographies. I almost always choose nonfiction lists, with one exception: I love the challenge of creating diverse lists of modern classics. I also sometimes contribute to lists of children's books, which is how I found <i>The Secret Pocket</i>.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-24880536560400414622023-12-31T06:00:00.002-08:002023-12-31T06:00:46.370-08:00happy new year from wmtc<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisCgSPip2CvxBAKMRhuAmyLn3BY7DzB49ub022gSgdpZT6m_b3Y3kad5xmdhPaIQPdDggZdxujThOnOv1ypWKPVwdSgIsHUwOPJMG8zrLAy7FVACTaB6IT7hnjXumCLH9dr17wBmev-7A1Sdrup1aS0lffAO-uD_2OwOUOvI_fDUktZBcoLXPc/s618/new%20year%202024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="449" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisCgSPip2CvxBAKMRhuAmyLn3BY7DzB49ub022gSgdpZT6m_b3Y3kad5xmdhPaIQPdDggZdxujThOnOv1ypWKPVwdSgIsHUwOPJMG8zrLAy7FVACTaB6IT7hnjXumCLH9dr17wBmev-7A1Sdrup1aS0lffAO-uD_2OwOUOvI_fDUktZBcoLXPc/w464-h640/new%20year%202024.JPG" width="464" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-52869125159776805132023-12-22T05:25:00.005-08:002023-12-22T08:02:17.732-08:00what i'm reading: 2023 wrap-up, a reading plan for 2024, and why i now create reading plans<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsq9E1cHpvUqOQviu69v1LzIWCq-yhBmx6jlYLjGCvrp6m27f3rCcqydfn-wkrLsGMJuFi-DbTt0DncoP2IARl5zzNcjeMtZ0lj4yWRRvCMHcZtcByqgcHQNrxmOakUPmod1rUwuJPzFmT8INrWF4EpMVxNV1DMozNXdK7Lt0qd3QwSDBolK-M/s595/read.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="595" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsq9E1cHpvUqOQviu69v1LzIWCq-yhBmx6jlYLjGCvrp6m27f3rCcqydfn-wkrLsGMJuFi-DbTt0DncoP2IARl5zzNcjeMtZ0lj4yWRRvCMHcZtcByqgcHQNrxmOakUPmod1rUwuJPzFmT8INrWF4EpMVxNV1DMozNXdK7Lt0qd3QwSDBolK-M/w400-h181/read.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>I've finally figured out this reading plan thing. A list that will guide me but not overwhelm me. A way to make sure I read at least a few old titles that have been languishing on my Books Universe list for ages. A list that will keep me obsessively reading, but not obsessed with the list itself.<p></p><p>Here are the results of <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/01/a-reading-plan-for-2023.html" target="_blank">my 2023 reading plan</a>.</p><p><b>Five current (within three years) nonfiction</b> ✅</p><p><i>Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family</i> (2021), Patrick Radden Keefe (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/03/what-im-reading-empire-of-pain-secret.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness</i> (2022), Meghan O'Rourke (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/12/what-im-reading-invisible-kingdom.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>Madame Restell: the Life, Death and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Independent Abortionist</i> (2023), Jennifer Wright (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/05/what-im-reading-madame-restell.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service</i> (2022), Laura Kaplan (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/06/what-im-reading-story-of-jane-legendary.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>Galileo and the Science Deniers</i> (2020), Mario Livio (review to follow)</p><p><i>An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us</i> (2022), Ed Yong (currently reading; review to follow)</p><p><b>Five older nonfiction from my Books Universe</b> ✅</p><p><i>How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence</i> (2018)<i>, </i>Michael Pollan </p><p><i>Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream</i> (2006), Bruce Watson (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/04/what-im-reading-bread-roses-mills.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia</i> (2019), Christina Thompson (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/10/what-im-reading-sea-people-puzzle-of.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference</i> (2010), Cordelia Fine (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/10/what-im-reading-delusions-of-gender.html">review</a>)</p><p><i>Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement</i> (2014), Jane McAlevey and Bob Ostertag</p><p><b>Ten fiction </b><b>✅</b>, including five (total) from authors I have not previously read: Margaret Laurence ✅, Donna Tartt ✅.</p><p>This year most of the fiction I read was for the Labour Book Club I was leading through my union. The reading wasn't particularly satisfying, but I loved LBC, so on balance that was a win. </p><p>Of the list of authors I hadn't read but want to sample, five turned out to be too many. But I did read two of them, and in previous years read another two or three, so that is slowly happening. </p><p>Here's the fiction I did read.</p><p><i>The Goldfinch</i>, Donna Tartt (loved, recommend highly)</p><p><i>Crook Manifesto</i>, Colson Whitehead (loved, recommend highly -- of course!)</p><p><i>My Notorious Life</i>, Kate Manning (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/03/what-im-reading-my-notorious-life-by.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>Shuggie Bain</i>, Douglas Stuart (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/02/what-im-reading-shuggie-bain-brilliant.html">review</a>)</p><p><i>Young Mungo</i>, Douglas Stuart (loved, recommend highly)</p><p><i>In Dubious Battle</i>, John Steinbeck (LBC) (had read before, a <i>very</i> long time ago)</p><p><i>God’s Bits of Wood</i>, Ousmane Sembène (LBC) (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/04/what-im-reading-gods-bits-of-wood.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>In the Skin of a Lion</i>, Michael Ondaatje (LBC) (had read before; a very good book)</p><p><i>The Stone Angel</i>, Margaret Laurence (second time I've tried to read this)</p><p><i>The Cold Millions</i>, Jess Walter (LBC) (had read before)</p><p><i>The Last Ballad</i>, Wiley Cash (LBC) (had read before)</p><p><i>For the Win</i>, Cory Doctorow (LBC) (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/10/what-im-reading-for-win-labour-book.html" target="_blank">review</a>)</p><p><i>Gilded Mountain</i>, Kate Manning (LBC)</p><p><b>Advance one ongoing goal</b> ✅✅ </p><p>Completed weekly installments of <i>Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898</i> (<a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/11/achievement-unlocked-what-im-reading.html" target="_blank">whoo-hoo!</a>)</p><p>Returned to Taylor Branch's <i>America in the King Years</i> trilogy, and finished the final third of the final book, <i>At Canaan's Edge</i>, abandoned in 2007</p><p>My 2024 Plan will separate this goal into two: "advance one ongoing goal" and "one massive book to be read in weekly installments".</p><p><b>Also read</b></p><p><i>A First Time for Everything</i>, Dan Santat (excellent children's graphic novel, will review)</p><p><i>The Secret Pocket</i>, Peggy Janicki (children's, indigenous, excellent, will review)</p><p>Many feature-length stories in <i>The Atlantic</i>, <i>The New York Times</i>, <i>Harpers</i>, <i>The Guardian</i>, <i>Vox</i>, <i>The New Yorker</i>, and elsewhere, saved and tracked through "Reading List" on Chrome</p><p><b>Why do I have a reading plan? </b></p><p>Sometime in the late 2000s, I realized I was spending less time reading. Or, more accurately, I was spending too much time reading a whole lot of nothing -- scrolling, reading headlines, a paragraph here and there. It was very unsatisfying, and was contributing to feelings of disconnection, lack of focus, and general dissatisfaction. I had all but lost the deep reading that I love, and have done all my life.</p><p>With this realization, I began a gradual lessening of time spent on social media, less time consuming news, and more time reading books. The more I did this, the better I felt. </p><p>This is not only because I love and value reading. The larger issue is being intentional about how I use my time. Time is our most valuable resource. Time is our only non-renewable resource. I don't want to waste it -- and by <i>waste</i>, I mean using non-work time in unsatisfying ways. We're all familiar with frittering away time and not knowing where it went. That's what I'm striving to avoid.</p><p>I've always been a bit obsessive about how I use my time. I never take on a new project without first figuring out how I will prioritize it in my life, what I will reduce or move in order to fit in the new thing. The internet and social media had fractured that, and I wanted to reclaim it. </p><p><a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2017/09/what-i-reading-attention-merchants-by_2.html" target="_blank"><i>The Attention Merchants</i> by Tim Wu</a> was enormously helpful for this. By the time I read <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2021/12/what-im-reading-digital-minimalism.html" target="_blank"><i>Digital Minimalism</i> by Cal Newport</a>, it was clarifying and articulating what I already knew. If this is something you're looking for, I recommend reading both these books.</p><p>So in keeping with all of this, a reading plan has helped me focus my reading, and be more intentional with my reading time.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-41286872591710041772023-12-11T11:52:00.001-08:002023-12-11T11:52:52.299-08:00what i'm reading: the invisible kingdom: reimagining chronic illness<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0IVUZknw2jT125X_uBDan4Qt47ZG23LOg9XAfInrlcDnvoUqSIDnnDcIERgyXXf9HTUFkJPGDH96tjXG7u79Bk6ix5xlG7htPHrmDfwZzoe8diTOzmKBEz0KYYvkt64XbaCzQSxVLSRTeifJyf3DdwIq3aJZpTKhsFmw46E7AwopeYf3Wu6_T/s545/chronic%20illness.JPG" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="351" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0IVUZknw2jT125X_uBDan4Qt47ZG23LOg9XAfInrlcDnvoUqSIDnnDcIERgyXXf9HTUFkJPGDH96tjXG7u79Bk6ix5xlG7htPHrmDfwZzoe8diTOzmKBEz0KYYvkt64XbaCzQSxVLSRTeifJyf3DdwIq3aJZpTKhsFmw46E7AwopeYf3Wu6_T/w258-h400/chronic%20illness.JPG" width="258" /></a><i>The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness</i> by Meghan O'Rourke is a important book. I would even call it a landmark. </p><p>For ten years, O'Rourke suffered from a debilitating condition that was either misdiagnosed or dismissed. Her search for answers forms the structure of this book. </p><p>Although the author writes about her own experience, <i>The Invisible Kingdom</i> is not a typical illness memoir. It doesn't follow the familiar trajectory of illness-adjustment-recovery-lessons learned. O'Rourke uses her own story as a springboard to explore chronic illness from social, cultural, and political perspectives, intertwined with the personal story.</p><p>O'Rourke exposes how the American healthcare system, medical training, and culture conspire against chronically ill people, creating insurmountable obstacles and destroying lives. </p><p>This book is a must-read for anyone struggling with chronic illness, but even more importantly, it's a must-read for health care practitioners. </p><p>It's written in a US context -- a culture which worships individualism, where healthcare is not a universal human right, where both the amount and quality of care one receives is dependent on privilege. However, readers from countries with universal health insurance (that is, all other so-called "developed" countries) shouldn't dismiss this an American problem. While some conditions aren't in play, far too many still apply. At its core, this story is happening all around us, no matter where we live.</p><p><b>A complicated gaslighting</b></p><p><i>The Invisible Kingdom</i> illuminates how the dynamics of conventional medicine obstruct and prevent people with chronic illness from receiving appropriate care. The issues fall into three categories.</p><p><i>Not being believed.</i></p><p>This is the one condition nearly universal to people with chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities: doctors discount and dismiss their patients' stories. When test results turn up negative, doctors -- at best -- shrug their shoulders and move on. At worst -- and frequently -- they assume that the patient is exaggerating, attention-seeking, or drug-seeking, or that their symptoms are the result of anxiety or depression. I venture to say that everyone -- and I do mean <i>everyone</i> -- with chronic illness has encountered this. A majority of doctors simply <i>do not believe</i> their patients. </p><p>Instead of realizing or admitting that their diagnostic tests are inadequate -- that medical science is imperfect and incomplete, that it has not conquered every condition, that this patient's symptoms exceed either the doctor's own knowledge or the current limits of medical knowledge -- the doctor discounts or dismisses the patient. Rather than question the adequacy of the tests, the doctors question the validity of the individual's own experience. <i>The Invisible Kingdom</i> shows how one group of doctors who dealt with Lyme disease took this to extremes. They </p><p></p><blockquote>long seemed unwilling to acknowledge that patients were coming to them with their own knowledge. . . . Instead of devoting compassion and energy to patients with persistent symptoms, many doctors focused on discrediting their testimony.</blockquote><p></p><p>Hypochondria is a thing, as is <a href="https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/munchausen-syndrome" target="_blank">Munchausen Syndrome</a>. But those psychiatric conditions are relatively rare, and not difficult to diagnose. Most people do not seek the care of specialists for fun or out of compulsive need. It's exhausting -- physically, emotionally, and in the US, financially. The vast majority of sufferers are, in fact, suffering. Yet all too often, doctors attribute undiagnosed pain as evidence of a psychiatric condition.</p><p>More than one doctor told O'Rourke that "everyone is tired," or "it's normal to have some aches and pains as we get older". This was maddening to even read about! O'Rourke reminds us that most people have no trouble distinguishing between normal tiredness and all-encompassing, crippling fatigue. As she writes:</p><p></p><blockquote>Just because a symptom is common -- and subjective -- does not mean a patient cannot tell the difference between a normal version of it and a pathological one, the way we experience the difference between the common cold and the flu.</blockquote><p></p><p>I can't help but wonder why this dynamic is so common. One maverick autoimmune specialist O'Rourke interviews espouses the necessity of a personalized approach -- which is exactly the opposite of how western medicine operates.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Alongside the usual standardized protocols, [patients with unusual and persistent symptoms] clearly call for the tactics of personalized medicine, because the immune system is so complex -- and so individualized. . . . This complexity is a problem for the conventional medical system. . . . The conventional folks are very, very good at what they do. . . . But a patient with a constellation of symptoms that doesn't clearly fit a diagnosis is not somebody that they want to deal with. . . . Nothing is more threatening to who you think you are [as a doctor] than a patient with a problem you cannot solve.</p><div></div></blockquote><div><i>Medical silos.</i> </div><p>As she searched for answers and relief, O'Rourke saw many specialists. Throughout, she was forced to coordinate all the results and manage her own care -- while enduring mind-bending physical pain, extreme fatigue, and the added stress of not being believed.</p><p><i>Insurance companies, and doctors who allow their practice to be driven by billing systems.</i></p><p>Insurance companies expect doctors to see patients for 10 minutes at a time, no matter what their needs, and to see massive numbers of patients every day. Chronically ill people can't fit their needs into this system, so the system shunts them to the margins. </p><p>This is typically as true for publicly-funded systems as for private, for-profit healthcare. (BC's NDP government recently changed the provincial health authority's billing system in recognition of this barrier to care. It can be done!)</p><p><b>Alternative medicine may be useful, but is not a panacea</b></p><p>O'Rourke also sought help from practitioners of alternative or complimentary medicine. She had some good experiences, but she also brings a critical eye to this system. </p><p>Complimentary medicine is typically very expensive, and not covered by insurance -- meaning, it is usually only available to people with privilege. Offerings run the gamut from those well supported by evidence to outright quackery. A person who is hurting and desperate, and who has been abandoned by conventional medicine, is easy prey.</p><p>However, alternative practitioners offer two things that conventional medicine does not: they believe their patients, and they have time for them. This is a powerful combination, and that power makes it a potentially dangerous (and incredibly expensive) path.</p><p><b>The mind-body link: a confusing picture</b></p><p>Complicating this picture is the undeniable link between the neurological system and the immune system. Simply put, our state of mind does impact our health. As everyone with chronic illness knows, stress can trigger and exacerbate symptoms. Yet this doesn't mean the illness is <i>caused</i> by stress, and it certainly doesn't mean our symptoms are psychosomatic or imagined.</p><p>It's a conundrum. Positive thinking will not make illness go away, yet negative thinking actually does make it worse. With some autoimmune conditions, <i>hopefulness</i> has been correlated with a lessening of symptoms. This confusing and seemingly contradictory reality can bolster the disbelieving doctor's suspicions. As O'Rourke's husband said at one point, "This seems like one of the hardest things about being sick in the way that you're sick: being sick makes you stressed. But being stressed makes you sicker."</p><p>O'Rourke writes about the growing field of <i>psychoneuroimmunlogy</i>: a new, greater understanding of the interactions between the nervous system and the immune system -- between body and mind -- is beginning to emerge.</p><p>One glimmer of hope is the emergence of autoimmunity centres, modeled on cancer centres -- a multidisciplinary approach, with same-day specialist appointments in the same facility, and cases discussed in a team setting. In her research (but unfortunately, not in time for her own illness), O'Rourke finds an automunine centre boasting 17 disciplines and a commitment to streamlined continuity of care. In this setting, physicians may spend hours meeting with patients and with one another, searching personalized answers.</p><p>Practitioners in this emergent field acknowledge that diagnostic tools are limited -- as they have been throughout medical history -- and that there is much medical science does not know. The research arm searches for more tools, while doctors from the clinical arm <i>listen</i>,<i> </i><i>believe</i>, and brainstorm creative solutions<i>.</i></p><p>Another sign of hope is the conventional medical community's recognition of long covid. Long covid has proven that medicine's understanding of viruses is flawed and incomplete. Many doctors are suffering from long covid, and this has apparently brought an <i>ah-ha</i> moment to treatment of viruses and autoimmune disease.</p><p><b>Social determinants of health</b></p><p>O'Rourke also reminds readers that systemic racism, substandard housing and nutrition, food deserts, intersectional bigotry, and other social determinants of health are always in play. As she fights for care, she is always aware that as a white, cis, educated, middle-class woman, she has access to care that so many others do not. Suffice to say that if the author found it nearly impossible to access appropriate care, we can assume that many others are left behind at the outset.</p><p><b>A story known to many</b></p><p>Meghan O'Rourke lost ten years of her life to this struggle -- ten years that should have been her most productive professional years, and her best childbearing years, as she did want to have a baby. She was in nearly constant pain, and subject to fatigue that made it impossible to function, with no way to predict or control when a cycle would strike. </p><p>It's no wonder that O'Rourke became severely depressed, and at least one point, lost hope. That she continued to search for answers and function to whatever extent she was able is testament to remarkable inner strength, grit, resilience, and determination. Reading <i>The Invisible Kingdom</i>, I often thought of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu" target="_blank">original meaning of the Finnish word </a><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu" target="_blank">sisu</a> </i>(not the current, pop-culture meaning). <i>Sisu</i> is used to describe the Finns' national survival in the face of multiple Russian invasions. Meghan O'Rourke did the same.</p><p>I have never faced an illness as debilitating and mysterious as the one that O'Rourke writes about. But although my experience was more mild by comparison, the elements and the trajectory were very familiar. I believe most people with chronic illness, especially women, will also recognize the pattern.</p><p>I frequently say "I was misdiagnosed for seven years." But actually, my original diagnosis was correct. For insurance reasons, I had to see a different family doctor, and he threw out that initial, correct diagnosis, pronouncing it a "garbage can diagnosis" for a nonexistent syndrome. He decided I had a different condition. When my bloodwork did not confirm his diagnosis, he ignored the results. He supposedly knew of a cutting-edge treatment that was getting good results, and applied that to me. I now realize I was used in a long-term, nonconsensual treatment experiment. </p><p>For seven years, I took the wrong medication, while my symptoms worsened and expanded. The medication negatively altered my digestive system and my metabolism. </p><p>As my symptoms worsened, I became less active; eventually the joint pain became so severe that I was nearly sedentary. The wrong medication, inactivity, and stress-eating led to weight gain -- at which time my doctor declared that my joint pain was caused by my weight. In reality the cause and effect were exactly the opposite.</p><p>This doctor refused to refer me to a specialist, claiming a specialist would only confirm what we already knew. Of course, the insurance scheme included financial disincentives for doctors to make referrals.</p><p>I felt like I was falling apart. I felt desperate. Friends urged me to insist on a referral. When the doctor said I appeared to be anxious and stressed, and suggested I go on anti-depressants, that was the last straw. Once again, he was reversing cause and effect. I <i>was</i> anxious and stressed -- because I was in so much pain, and because he wouldn't help me. Not the other way around.</p><div>I insisted on my right to see a specialist, and the doctor finally wrote a referral. In one visit, the specialist made a diagnosis: the original diagnosis I had gotten seven years earlier, the one the family doctor threw out. I never returned to that family doctor, and I began the long road back to health. (If you are interested, <a href="https://wmtc-fibro.blogspot.com/p/diagnosis.html" target="_blank">the whole story is here</a>. I share that link only in that it may help someone.) </div><p><b>A vow of honesty</b></p><p>Meghan O'Rourke teases out the many threads that are woven into this story -- how an invisible, chronic illness impacts friendships, relationships, work life, family life, and worst of all, our very sense of self. O'Rourke is also a poet, and some of her metaphors and descriptions were too esoteric for me; other readers might find them exactly on point. Regardless, she brings a unique and compelling storytelling style to the issue. </p><p><i>The Invisible Kingdom</i> contains many reflections on illness, pain, and suffering from a wide spectrum of sources -- Susan Sontag, William Styron, Elaine Scarry, Barbara Ehrenreich, Alexander Pope, Bernie Siegel, Alice James, and Norman Cousins, among others, and a wealth of complex medical information rendered in plain language.</p><p>The book is equally notable for what it doesn't contain: there's no bright-siding. O'Rourke rejects "the wisdom narrative", where "illness is a vehicle for self-improvement and hard-won acceptance". She writes:</p><p></p><blockquote>There is a razor-thin line between trying to find something usefully redemptive in illness and lying to ourselves about the nature of suffering. </blockquote><blockquote>It is difficult to look at the shadows of physical suffering clearly, because to do so, I know, is to risk inviting depression, or a terrifying apprehension that the world is made of pain. But when I was at my sickest, I resolved that if I got well enough to write about my experience, I would not give false assurances. I would not write letters reassuring those I loved that my life had not been utterly compromised. Now that I am somewhat better, I can tell you the truth: When I was at my sickest, my life <i>was</i> utterly compromised, and my very sense of self was gone. When I was less sick -- and there were periods of relief in my illness -- I could step back from the experience and take pleasure in the vividness of the blue sky from my bedroom window. But I will not repeat falsehoods; I will not say that wisdom and growth mean I wouldn't have it any other way. I <i>would</i> have it the other way.</blockquote><p></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-13596144743564949032023-12-03T08:00:00.018-08:002023-12-05T12:28:36.159-08:00write for rights 2023: my fifteenth year #w4r2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6v1QN0DqFaMPF9KTBITTd_tDw8o-CtBVGl4aG8pIPJY_VhIZKNxIYIDPvh7x5Pf4bT3e5gpwUZPOcQA4zhztUJEOMFdzzv1ztRk6zsI8msLED1dQ-9zsiUYFta0vWIDal4cdCe5M-Ve-ZHNBVWUHCe3zUOp4tn9ZnwoOBviVI4lnN764N8upB/s1591/w4r2023.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="1591" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6v1QN0DqFaMPF9KTBITTd_tDw8o-CtBVGl4aG8pIPJY_VhIZKNxIYIDPvh7x5Pf4bT3e5gpwUZPOcQA4zhztUJEOMFdzzv1ztRk6zsI8msLED1dQ-9zsiUYFta0vWIDal4cdCe5M-Ve-ZHNBVWUHCe3zUOp4tn9ZnwoOBviVI4lnN764N8upB/w640-h180/w4r2023.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>2023 marks the fifteenth year that I have participated in Amnesty Interntional's <b><a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/" target="_blank">Write for Rights</a></b>.<p></p><p>Fifteen years ago, I chose one case, one person. I wrote to officials about them, and wrote to them as well. </p><p>I upped the ante a bit more every year, until the year (date unknown!) when I challenged myself to write a letter for every featured case. Since then I've written at least one letter for each of the 10 featured cases, and at least one letter of support.</p><p>In 2014 I also joined <a href="https://amnesty.ca/what-you-can-do/urgent-action-network/" target="_blank">Amnesty's Urgent Action Network</a>. Urgent Action sends you cases on an occasional basis; you write to officials on their behalf if you can. I respond to about half the emails I receive, depending on what's going on in my life. </p><p>There is one more piece I want to add: I want to organize a virtual letter-writing group event. This is an obvious step for me, but so far I haven't been able to get it off the ground. But I haven't let go of the idea. Eventually I'll figure it out.</p><p>I'm not sharing this to win praise or admiration. <i>I'm sharing it to encourage you to write with me.</i></p><p><b>It's very easy</b></p><p>My annual W4R letter-writing takes about an hour -- and that's because I choose to write for every case, 10 global cases plus one from Canada. You could easily do the whole thing in 15 or 30 minutes.</p><p>The only cost involved is international stamps, as I like to send paper mail when possible. I consider this part of my end-of-year charitable donations (albeit not the tax-deductible kind). If postage money is a barrier, you can easily choose only cases that can be contacted by email.</p><p>Amnesty offers tons of support. There are sample letters, toolkits, case cards. If you're intimidated by doing this on your own, there are groups you can join to help motivate you. There are also resources for educators and organizers. </p><p>This year there was even an option to receive a paper kit by postal mail. That's a lot of paper, so I didn't order a kit, but if it would help motivate you, <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/" target="_blank">sign up for Write For Rights</a> and Amnesty will send you one.</p><p><b>It works</b></p><p>Amnesty has developed Write For Rights <i>because it works</i>: <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/write-for-rights/#:~:text=Success%20stories,-Joanah%20Mamombe%20and&text=Supporters%20wrote%20over%20half%20a,justice%E2%80%9D%20by%20the%20High%20Court." target="_blank">go here and scroll to "success stories"</a>.</p><p>Last year, people in more than 200 countries took over 4.6 <i>million</i> actions -- letters, emails, tweets, petitions. They helped individuals in dire circumstances, while exposing conditions and highlighting urgent issues.</p><p>Write For Rights saves lives. It gives comfort and support to people who are suffering for their activism. It shows families of these heroes that they are not alone. </p><p><b>W4R 2023: this year's global cases</b></p><p><a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/" target="_blank">This year's global cases</a> focus on these individuals, countries, and human rights.</p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/maung-sawyeddollah/" target="_blank">Maung Sawyeddollah, in Myanmar</a>, is exposing Facebook's role in the murderous campaign against people from the Rohingya ethnic group. </p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/uncle-pabai-uncle-paul/" target="_blank">In Australia, two Indigenous people known as Uncle Pabai and Uncle Paul</a> are fighting to save their ancestral lands from the ravages of climate change. To save a culture that has been passed down through generations for thousands of years, they have gone to court to demand Australia take immediate and meaningful action against climate change.</p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/thapelo-mohapi/" target="_blank">Thapelo Mohapi, in South Africa</a>, is in hiding and fears for his life. Thapelo is a leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a grassroots movement working to improve the lives of people in South Africa. Members of the group are being targetted and murdered.</p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/chaima-issa/" target="_blank">In Tunisia, Chaima Issa</a> speaks out against an autocratic government. She has been arrested, detained, and banned from meeting with others or speaking in public. She remains defiant, despite facing decades in prison.</p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/rocky-myers/" target="_blank">Rocky Myers is an intellectually disabled Black man in the US state of Alabama.</a> He is on death row for murder, despite there being no evidence linking him to the crime. His trial was a riddled with issues, including a witness who has since admitted that they lied. After nearly <i>30 years</i> on death row, Rocky could be executed at any time. </p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/justyna-wydrzynska-poland/" target="_blank">Justyna Wydrzyńska, in Poland</a>, has been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for helping women access safe abortions. </p><div>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/ahmed-mansoor-uae/" target="_blank">In the United Arab Emirates, Ahmed Mansoor</a> is being held in an isolation cell. Ahmed's "crime" is speaking the truth about the UAE, providing the world with a very rare glimpse of the rampant human rights violations in that country -- including fake trials, and the detention and torture of dissenting voices. For more than a year, no one knew where Ahmed was being held. Now he faces a decade in prison.</div><div><br /></div><div>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/thulani-maseko/" target="_blank">Thulani Maseko, in the southern African nation of Eswatini</a>, endured more than a year in prison, until he was executed in his own home. Thulani's "crime" was defending human rights in a country ruled by an absolute monarchy.</div><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/ana-maria-santos-cruz/" target="_blank">In Brazil, the son of Ana Maria Santos Cruz</a> organized "Walks of Peace", where people would speak out against police abuses. He was repeatedly threatened, and then murdered. Ana continues to fight for justice for her son.</p><p>➤ <a href="https://amnesty.ca/rita-karasartova-kyrgyzstan/" target="_blank">In Kyrgyzstan, Rita Karasartova</a> leads the Institute for Public Analysis and is a member of a democracy movement. For her peaceful work against poverty and injustice, Rita was arrested, detained, and denied access to healthcare. She is now under house arrest, charged with attempting to "violently overthrow the government".</p><p><b>Human rights abuses in our own backyard</b></p><p>In the list of annual cases, Amnesty reserves one spot for the letter-writer's country. I love this idea. It reminds us that urgent human rights issues don't happen only in faraway lands. The cases in Canada usually involve Indigenous peoples, and are often taking place in my own province -- still known as "British Columbia".</p><p>➤ The <a href="https://amnesty.ca/write-for-rights/wetsuweten/">Wet'suwet'en First Nation is under threat</a> from a huge pipeline being constructed through their traditional and unceded territory. Wet'suwet'en land defenders have been harassed, intimidated, forcibly removed, and criminalized by the RCMP, Canada's national police force. They need our support.</p><p></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-85853366982824271772023-11-27T10:31:00.009-08:002023-12-05T12:25:04.477-08:00five years on: reflections on the big life change<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgytI-wd0WiXK7zw1SyIkLj6h8TU3WCgsCMT0hOZ584CbMqL1P59wLCv54sFgteCZsXQbwsLS0V6OV233o9VoLpTGgomF01VayhYxcJKUpDHgphOn8AtlU79DyNuMqV_eQAoUFRrIyXTXOvtiy6rMxbFXvPlY0Z0iky9c6jpGoDnBs6RT0NPqv3/s1848/hardy%20skyline.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="1848" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgytI-wd0WiXK7zw1SyIkLj6h8TU3WCgsCMT0hOZ584CbMqL1P59wLCv54sFgteCZsXQbwsLS0V6OV233o9VoLpTGgomF01VayhYxcJKUpDHgphOn8AtlU79DyNuMqV_eQAoUFRrIyXTXOvtiy6rMxbFXvPlY0Z0iky9c6jpGoDnBs6RT0NPqv3/w400-h265/hardy%20skyline.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Port Hardy skyline</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Since starting this blog in 2004, I've experienced three Big Life Changes. <p></p><p>The first, of course, was emigrating to Canada. </p><p>The second was becoming a librarian. More than a career change, this was a huge shift in lifestyle and identity. </p><p>The third Big Life Change was moving west, to a small, remote community on Vancouver Island.</p><p>So this feels significant: five years ago today, we arrived in Port Hardy. </p><p><b>27 November 2018</b></p><p>We started the day in Delta, took the ferry, then drove north, the final day of our seven-day road trip. We were driving our little Kia, our <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2017/06/kind-of-dog-is-that-part-2-in-which-we_10.html" target="_blank">big boy Diego</a> in the back seat. Behind us, my brother was driving the truck; my sister-in-law had joined us in Calgary. (They travelled from Oregon to do this with us!)</p><p>As we left Campbell River, it was dark, and it was raining, and it felt like we were driving forever. Every time we passed a sign showing kilometres to Port Hardy, we cheered. And then: the welcome sign, and some lights. And finally, our rental home, which we thought would be our permanent home for many years, and turned out to be a brief pitstop.</p><p><b>Professionally, a rocky start</b></p><p>Only days later, I drove down to Nanaimo, for two weeks in both Nanaimo, my employer's headquarters, and Campbell River. I always say, "I had a rocky start", but that's a euphemism. My first few days were a disaster. When I finally started working in Port Hardy, my confidence was in shreds.</p><p>My job was a newly-created position; I was (am) the only professional librarian in all five of my branches. Early on, I had many good experiences, but for every one of those, there were two or three (or five or ten) uncomfortable or disturbing ones. </p><p>I had never seen such under-resourced libraries. The conditions that were accepted as normal were shocking to me. I had to fight the bureaucracy just to get basic supplies. Most of my tech didn't work. </p><p>Managing people remotely, by phone and email, was a new challenge. Some of my staff were unaccustomed to being supervised. Some were suspicious of outsiders and sought to undermine me whenever possible. Much of my experience didn't translate easily, or at all. I made many wrong turns, hit many dead ends.</p><p>In addition, and unbeknownst to me, there was a systemic barrier between the library and the local Indigenous communities, and between the library and the public schools. Both had suffered dismal, disrespectful experiences with our library, and wanted nothing to do with us. </p><p><b>There was much reason to be hopeful</b></p><p>Luckily for me, sprinkled amid all that frustration, there were lovely exchanges with customers, and some staff who welcomed me and were eager to work together. My professional colleagues, although geographically distant, were incredibly welcoming and supportive, and so engaged with our union -- far more so than I had experienced in Ontario. </p><p>There was also an upside to things being in such bad shape: I was making improvements all the time. There was so much room for growth.</p><p><b>Personally, a magical beginning</b></p><p>While the professional situation was challenging and frustrating, the personal end was simply wonderful. We instantly loved the quiet, simple life. Allan loved working from home, and I loved my five-minute "commute".</p><p>There was so much natural beauty all around us. Down the street we could see the bay, fringed by distant snow-capped mountains. Driving anywhere meant winding "country roads" (known here as a highway) through the rainforest. We saw eagles every day. Ten minutes away, we could take the dogs to <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attraction_Review-g184839-d10628329-Reviews-Beaver_Harbour_Park_Storey_s_Beach-Port_Hardy_Vancouver_Island_British_Columbia.html" target="_blank">a magnificent beach</a>, mountains on the horizon, eagles overhead.</p><p><a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2019/05/pupdate-diego-progress-report_5.html" target="_blank">Diego needed surgery</a>, and was near the end of his life. That was as horrible as we knew it would be, but we very quickly found <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2019/05/pupdate-two-kids-and-bemused-senior_71.html" target="_blank">a whole new pack</a>. Then we did something completely unexpected, another massive change: we bought our home. About ten minutes later, housing prices skyrocketed. Timing is everything!</p><p><b>Five years on</b></p><p>Fully understanding my new library role and the organization I work for took longer than I expected. It's been extremely rewarding. It's never boring -- which is fortunate, since I intend to stay in this job until I retire.</p><p>Becoming part of the community of service providers took <i>much</i> longer. When I share this observation with other professionals in our town, everyone remembers the same experience. Working in the North Island region is often a career stepping-stone; people come for two or three years, then move on. Because of this, whether consciously or no, locals are reluctant to invest. People are waiting to see if you mean business. It took the better part of three years to get past this. </p><p>It's wonderful to feel at home, both personally and professionally.</p><p>Of course there are limitations and annoyances of living in a remote region, but everything's a trade-off. There are plenty of annoyances about living in New York City, but I wouldn't have traded my years there for the world. It's great to feel that way again.</p><p>_________</p><p><a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/search/label/moving%20to%20bc" target="_blank">My moving to BC post are here.</a> Allan was sharing his reflections and observations in comments on those posts -- now lost.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-91327029374543900512023-11-14T05:00:00.003-08:002023-11-16T05:50:08.453-08:00an obvious life hack: how to make streaming more affordable and still enjoy ad-free viewing<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZcjFdWc4hwH4Gm6TntV9Sv7pnt1HtlPd9qBZxuY6UeGB-tfrcf_oaGi8ASFh7vyyZuAeqE1qDSA0eQsOaFJP4B4Uo3U5RNWRH4zspAk1PVZvkc4RCCX5AuXWB04O2XwnYbB_w4dJxAu9iHSWVIc5-P4zEs4R7cx4ruOrHpYnX2BijTxOndIEv/s240/no%20ads.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="240" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZcjFdWc4hwH4Gm6TntV9Sv7pnt1HtlPd9qBZxuY6UeGB-tfrcf_oaGi8ASFh7vyyZuAeqE1qDSA0eQsOaFJP4B4Uo3U5RNWRH4zspAk1PVZvkc4RCCX5AuXWB04O2XwnYbB_w4dJxAu9iHSWVIc5-P4zEs4R7cx4ruOrHpYnX2BijTxOndIEv/s1600/no%20ads.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>Much ink is being spilled, metaphorically speaking, about the changing trends in subscription-based streaming services. Headlines scream that shows on Netflix and Prime will now include ads, implying that users will pay the same rates <i>plus</i> see ads, as we did with cable TV. <p></p><p>But that's not true (at least not yet). So far, most streaming services have started offering a tiered system, with a less expensive, ad-supported level, and a more expensive level without ads.</p><p>For Netflix, the difference is substantial: $5.99 vs. either $16.49 or $20.99 for the two ad-free options. Disney also has three tiers: $7.99 with ads, $11.99 or $14.99 without. Amazon's deal is worse: in order to avoid an upcoming price increase for Prime Video, you'll need to pay an additional three dollars a month. (These are Canadian prices only, of course.)</p><p><b>No ads. Ever.</b></p><p>No one likes price increases, and I'm no exception. But for me, ads are a deal-breaker. I'd go back to watching on DVD before I'd subject myself to advertising during shows. No question.</p><p>The only time we see ads are on YouTube. We've opted not to subscribe to YouTube Premium -- me, because I don't use it often, and Allan, because he's more motivated to keep expenses down. (The apps that block ads on YouTube can't be used on our streaming devices.) But I don't watch full movies or series on YouTube, so it's not a big deal.</p><p>Up until now, I've enjoyed the convenience of subscribing to multiple platforms at the same time. With the price increases, the convenience feels more like a luxury. </p><p><b>Streaming on rotation</b></p><p>So I'm using a simple solution: rotate monthly subscriptions according to what we want to watch. </p><p>As my thrifty partner points out, you can only watch one show/series/movie at a time. (Even if you follow several series at a time, your eyeballs are only one at any given moment.) So when you're watching something on one platform, you're still paying for all the other service that you're not currently watching. </p><p>Like most people, I find the movies and series I want to watch scattered across different platforms, and there's a limited number of shows that interest me from any one service. Take AppleTV+ as an example. When we first got Apple's streaming service, I thought it was amazing -- so many great shows! Then we saw five or six really good shows*, a few others... and that was it. There was nothing else we were interested in.</p><p>So why not rotate?</p><p>Subscribe to Netflix to watch specific titles, then after you've seen what you're there for, find something that appeals on a different service, subscribe to that one, and cancel Netflix. Keep an eye on what other services are offering, cancel and subscribe, mix and match. </p><p>It will take a bit more planning, for sure. I'll put reminders on my calendars for the monthly renewals. That's not a big deal, plus if I miss one, it's not a disaster. (I acknowledge this is challenging for some people. I have many challenges, but staying organized is not one of them.) </p><p><b>Current streaming lineup</b></p><p>Right now, I'm subscribing to Disney and Crave on annual plans. I fell for what appeared to be a better value, imagining I would want to continue indefinitely. When those annual subscriptions run out, I'll put those on rotation, too. </p><p>I'll continue to subscribe to Prime, to get free shipping on Amazon.</p><p>I want to get Paramount, to finish "Yellowstone," then watch the two Yellowstone prequels; I've been waiting for the second half of Yellowstone S5 to drop. Now I'll also wait for a good break from some other service, cancelling something before I get Paramount. </p><p>There is one Canada-only snag: when licensing runs out, shows disappear. With this mix-and-match approach, I may miss something I wanted to see. But that's what downloads are for.</p><p>Many people will choose lower prices over ad-free, because paying less or "saving" money is more important than not seeing advertising. And for some people, Netflix may suddenly become affordable. But I can't imagine that many people will go back to cable -- expensive, tons of ads, limited viewing options, scheduled (as opposed to on-demand), and for the most part, crappy shows.</p><p>------</p><p>* Best: Bad Sisters, Shining Girls, Slow Horses, The Morning Show (S1 and S2 only). </p><p>Very good: Severance. </p><p>Good: Ted Lasso (S1 only, emphatically!), Truth Be Told (S1-S2), For All Mankind (S1-S2), Shrinking.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-6764533237125630942023-11-11T11:08:00.003-08:002023-11-13T08:30:04.129-08:0011.11: as genocide continues in gaza<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRR43PkMixVnANtsb1au8bL61cCb6f6g6rT_5WCn2cHiep8xFrgYU6H_iPXTA2TUQjiL7CduNS75zYMysDl8cbbf8hNlB_DeiLEPqkdtW5jhjicT6bU3OiG6GW26_MDODGv4LPBYIpA0ADgrtCG_8MjLCf7NbXYd2u1hVzD44_67ih7oGwlYBO/s501/dontsayyoudidnt.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="501" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRR43PkMixVnANtsb1au8bL61cCb6f6g6rT_5WCn2cHiep8xFrgYU6H_iPXTA2TUQjiL7CduNS75zYMysDl8cbbf8hNlB_DeiLEPqkdtW5jhjicT6bU3OiG6GW26_MDODGv4LPBYIpA0ADgrtCG_8MjLCf7NbXYd2u1hVzD44_67ih7oGwlYBO/s320/dontsayyoudidnt.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/PalestineProjectPage/" target="_blank"><i>The Palestine Project</i></a></td></tr></tbody></table>I almost missed my annual Remembrance Day post. While a handful of countries commemorate the most pointless and horrific of wars to end all wars, a genocide against the Palestinian people is being perpetrated by the State of Israel.</p><p>In the English-speaking world, people are being punished for condemning it. </p><p>Many American Jews continue to rationalize it, or worse, defend it.</p><p>When I was a child, I would frequently hear: "How did the world let the Holocaust happen? Did they not know it was happening? Was there no way to prevent it?" Now, today, we can never say, <i>We didn't know</i>. </p><p>The sight of the Star of David flag turns my stomach now, like the swastika. </p><p>There's no coming back from this. Any possibility of peace, justice, and coexistence has been destroyed. </p><p></p><blockquote><p>There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, forget the rest.</p><p>Bertrand Russell</p></blockquote><p></p><p><a href="http://www.russfound.org/" target="_blank">The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation</a></p><p><a href="https://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/" target="_blank">The Russell Tribunal on Palestine</a></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-79706360246667170672023-11-06T12:05:00.000-08:002023-11-06T12:05:15.641-08:00achievement unlocked! what i'm reading: gotham: a history of new york city to 1898<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS11rQ1kyidyg5AhHGOt15iGVa7xqOvaw92Md84WaLg0m2bt-8vNEKmwbwnWpMRFqzhv1y8-pYXQHgiZjd_1jJxk6iJ1-0aZidShehU86ZFdtXA3jW5Ni-_IZWOadAOP5E5jiPzMr9PiXz6vaAyjipPfraVcX4XsUH84xErlsF8HazQt6fs9T8/s350/gotham.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="256" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS11rQ1kyidyg5AhHGOt15iGVa7xqOvaw92Md84WaLg0m2bt-8vNEKmwbwnWpMRFqzhv1y8-pYXQHgiZjd_1jJxk6iJ1-0aZidShehU86ZFdtXA3jW5Ni-_IZWOadAOP5E5jiPzMr9PiXz6vaAyjipPfraVcX4XsUH84xErlsF8HazQt6fs9T8/w293-h400/gotham.jpg" width="293" /></a></div><i>Ta-da!</i> I finished! <div><br /></div><div>I've been reading <i>Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898</i> in weekly installments, since March of 2022. And now I have finished it.<div><br /></div><div>I thoroughly enjoyed both the book and the reading experience. I have a list of doorstoppers that I'd like to approach the same way. I'm thinking of reading one giant tome each year, in addition to everything else I'm reading.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>An absolutely brilliant book</b><br /><div><br /></div><div><i>Gotham</i> is a marvel. Authors Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace write history from a progressive point of view, and in a lively, entertaining style. The book brings to the surface the histories that have been hidden from the mainstream. It's honest and refreshing, and naturally full of myth-busting.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although the book is organized chronologically, it is also organized topically. The authors periodically check in on the status of women, the lives of Black Americans, and the progress of the labour movement, along with religion, politics, media, entertainment, social attitudes toward poverty, the lives of the elite, and other areas that bring each period to life.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I have so many notes -- in more than one notebook, and in the camera on my phone, and the book itself is bristling with yellow sticky notes -- that it feels exhausting and pointless to try to encapsulate even a small portion of them. I have a huge number of notes on socialism, unions, the rights of women, Black Americans, the media, the theatre, sports... and more. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Many New Yorks</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div><i>Gotham</i> is divided into five sections. </div><div><br /></div><div>The first part looks at the geological formation of the island now known as Manhattan, and its original inhabitants, the Lenape and other Indigenous peoples: "Lenape Country and New Amsterdam to 1664". We visit New Amsterdam and meet the Dutch colonists. New Amsterdam was undeveloped and very short-lived, although the Dutch legacy lives on in the modern era in dozens of place-names, in the City and throughout New York State. </div><div><br /></div><div>Almost immediately, an oft-repeated origin story disintegrates into dust: no one "sold" Manhattan for $24. This sets the overall tone: almost everything I thought I knew about New York was wrong. Not that I believed the racist myth of the $24 purchase. But again and again, I found that the scraps of history I had received over the decades were misreported, distorted, or just plain wrong. </div><div><br /></div><div>Part two looks at "British New York" (1664-1783). For women, Blacks, Indigenous people, and anyone without money and a family lineage, this was a painful transformation. Dutch women enjoyed a high degree of independence and many rights: they were able to own property, which remained theirs after marriage, and could enter into their own legal agreements -- status Englishwomen would not see <i>until the 1920s</i>. Dutch women could live independently without becoming social outcasts. The British brought an end to all that, and much more. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is also the time leading up to the American Revolution. And let me tell you, if you learned (as many Canadians have) that the American colonists break with England was did not constitute an actual revolution, <i>you are wrong</i>. (I've had a post in drafts about this for years. Maybe it's time to bust it out.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The third part is called "Mercantile Town" (1783-1843) and part four is "Emporium and Manufacturing City" (1844-1879). Now the City is expanding, mushrooming, ballooning. And of course, it is utterly unprepared for this rapid growth, both physically and culturally. Immigration, labour, the Civil War, so-called race riots (anti-Black pogroms), massive building projects, machine politics -- everything is rapidly changing. The City is being transformed from a mostly English, Protestant city into a giant polyglot of languages, traditions, and cultures.</div><div><br /></div><div>The final section is called "Industrial Center and Corporate Command Post" (1880-1898). In this era, the robber barons and another tsunami of immigration are remaking New York yet again. Entertainment and sports begin to look vaguely recognizable to modern eyes. Industry, technology, and imperialism are transforming the country, and New York is leading the way in everything, assuming its place as a powerful global city, and the most important city in the country.</div><div><br /></div></div><div><b>So much I didn't know</b></div><div><br /></div><div>One topic that was particularly fascinating and surprising was <b>slavery</b>, and how utterly integral it was to New York City. Indeed, the entire northern economy completely relied on slavery. Although as an adult I've always known that slavery and racism were not exclusively Southern, I didn't know how enormous extent that New York City profited from slavery. Whether directly from free labour (and there was plenty of it), or indirectly through the shipbuilding industry that literally kept the slave trade afloat, the massive importing and exporting industries that revolved around sugar and cotton, or the financial institutions that supported the whole horrendous enterprise, New York City was as much of a slave power as Atlanta and Richmond.</div><div><br /></div><div>German immigrants played a huge role in the development of the City, far earlier and far greater than I knew -- forming unions, agitating for socialism, and generally influencing culture at every turn.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anti-Catholic bigotry was virulent and rampant for decades, as the Catholic Church, at first reviled and feared, gained a toehold, then a seat at the table, before becoming a major power in the City. </div><div><br /></div><div>I knew about the struggles of Irish and Eastern European Jewish immigrants -- why they left their home countries, and what they found in their new world. But I was ignorant of the struggles of Italian immigrants, and what motivated so many people to leave southern Italy in the 1880s.</div><blockquote><div>Where the Jews were trapped in the shtetls, southern Italians were mired in the isolated valleys and lowlands formed by the mountain chains into which the <i>mezzogiorno</i> was divided. Within these provincial pockets, society was frozen into a quasi-feudal mode. A handful of aristocrats owned the bulk of the land and exacted profit and prestige from peasant tenants as their forebears had done for centuries. With the higher clergy and professionals, they formed a tiny ruling elite, utterly uninterested in agricultural improvements. As a result, the <i>contadini</i> (peasants who leased land or owned small plots) and the <i>giornalieri</i> (day laborers) worked the soil essentially as their Roman ancestors did, with wooden plows. . . . </div><div><br /></div><div>The area also suffered from primitive housing conditions, illiteracy (perhaps the highest rate in Europe), microdivision of farm plots, an absence of public welfare programs, limited diet, earthquakes, deforestation, soil erosion, malaria, and harsh sirocco winds blowing up from North Africa. The result was <i>La Miseria</i> -- a miserable, impoverished way of life.</div><div><br /></div><div>. . . The northerners dominating the new nation [after Italian unification] considered southerners little better than African barbarians, and just as available for colonial plundering. The authorities failed to provide roads or schools, which could help eliminate backwards conditions, but siphoned off in taxes what capital and resources existed. </div><div></div></blockquote><div>Another revelation of something I thought I knew: Coney Island! </div><div><br /></div><div>Both my parents grew up in Brooklyn, my father in Coney Island (which is not an island at all, just a section of Brooklyn), and my grandparents and other relatives lived in Brooklyn their entire lives. We visited the Boardwalk off and on throughout my childhood, and I even went to Coney Island a few times on day outings in the 1980s. So I had always heard stories about the old days: Luna Park, Steeplechase, the Cyclone. But what did I really know about Coney Island? Next to nothing. </div><div><br /></div><div>In its heyday in the late 1880s, Coney Island was divided into four "wildly diverse communities". Each area offered entertainments catering to people of different socioeconomic levels, from rough brothels and gambling dens, to raucous but harmless music and dancing, to elite opulence.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Coney Island, in the space of a decade, had leapt from marshy obscurity to preeminence among the world's beach resorts. It was remarkable for its size and its segmentation -- the way its component parts were sorted and sequenced by class, from "low" to "high," with each zone governed by its own conventions. Even more remarkable -- and alarming, to guardians of the traditional order -- was the way West Brighton encouraged unconventional behavior. Reformers called it "Sodom by the Sea." They were upset by the doings in the Gut, of course [brothels, peep shows, gambling, opium], but also by the spooning on the beach, the frolicking in the waves, the way people acted (said one shocked observer) "precisely as if the thing to do in the water was to behave exactly contrary to the manner of behaving anywhere else." </div><div></div></blockquote><div>One of my favourite historical novels about New York is <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/356389" target="_blank">Peter Quinn's <i>The Banished Children of Eve</i></a>, which includes the horrific 1863 draft riots. This, too, turned out to be more complex than I knew. </div><div><br /></div><div>That year, in the midst of the bloody Civil War, the National Conscription Act went into effect. In response to "heavy losses, dwindling recruitment, and soaring desertion rates," Congress had passed a sweeping draft law which included a "crude assertion of class privilege": $300 could buy your way out of service. This at a time when workers were paid around $1 a day.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Irish were the poorest and most despised of all the immigrant groups. There was only one group "beneath" them on the socioeconomic ladder: Blacks. Employers could hire Black people for wages even lower than what they paid Irish workers, stoking Irish belief that Black people were "stealing their jobs". Now poor Irish immigrants would be drafted into a war to "free the slaves". </div><div><br /></div><div>This much I knew. </div><div><br /></div><div>What I didn't know: thousands of federal troops normally stationed in New York City had been deployed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to defend the country against General Lee's advancing Confederate Army. This left New York City "virtually stripped of defenses" -- which is why the rampaging mobs easily overwhelmed the police prescence, and the extreme violence raged unchecked for three full days, and into a fourth.</div><div><br /></div><div>Four thousand troops were pulled out of Gettysburg to contain the violence in New York, and it would take another two days to bring the pogrom to an end. (The <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/draft-riots/" target="_blank">Zinn Education Project</a> is a good place to read more about this.)</div><div><br /></div><div>And this is how it went, as I read. I knew a little, but the reality was so much more complex and fascinating than I knew. Or I knew nothing. Or whatever I knew was wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Some things change, some not so much</b></div><div><br /></div><div>There were many parallels to our contemporary world. Foremost among them is probably the boom-and-bust, uncontrolled cycles of capitalism. The economy was wholly unregulated, and crashes occurred with regularity. People like John Jacob Astor made fortunes during good times and bad, while workers were pushed into poverty, and those already in poverty died off in the streets. Poverty was generally blamed on bad breeding or moral failure. Government corruption was a given. The police were little more than a gang with fancy uniforms and permanent immunity. </div><div><br /></div><div>Did you know that in the earliest days of electrification, having electricity at home was a luxury enjoyed by only the wealthiest citizens? Power monopolies scooped up the means of production and delivery, often operating under different names to give the appearance of competition. Even for the wealthy, prices soared while service sank. Only government regulation transformed electricity into a basic public good, albeit one laced with many layers of profit. Sound familiar? It's the same pattern we've seen with telcos and internet providers, heaping profit and controlling access to what should be a public utility.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>And the people!</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The sheer number of fascinating individuals -- writers, revolutionaries, organizers, politicos, entertainers -- in this book is breathtaking. Many became household names -- Joseph Pulitzer, P.T. Barnum, Teddy Roosevelt, Nellie Bly, Alexander Hamilton, Walt Whitman -- but dozens were unknown to me, yet no less fascinating. </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2023/05/what-im-reading-madame-restell.html" target="_blank">Madame Restell</a> shows up, as does her nemesis <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-anthony-comstocks-chastity-laws/" target="_blank">Anthony Comstock</a>. I fell in love with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Wright" target="_blank">Fanny Wright</a>, a feminist, socialist, abolitionist who founded <i>(be still my heart)</i> a utopian community. With <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Henry_Evans" target="_blank">George Henry Evans</a>, Wright formed the Workingman's Party, known as "the Workies". I discovered <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Byllesby%2C%20L%2E%20%28Langton%29%2C%201789%2D1871" target="_blank">Langton Byllesby</a>, who wrote <i>Observations on the Sources and Effects of Unequal Wealth: With Propositions Towards Remedying the Disparity of Profit in Pursuing the Arts of Life, and Establishing Security in Individual Prospects and Resources</i>. Gotta love those Victorian-era titles.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a chapter called "White, Green, and Black," I learned more about Black resistance to slavecatchers and kidnappers, which was thrilling.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>With young girls being snatched on trips to the water pump, black parents began keeping their children off the streets after dark. Then, with white abolitionists on the defensive or concentrated on their national campaign, the city's African Americans formally organized for their own protection. On November 20, 1835, David Ruggles led in setting up a New York Committee of Vigilance. Ruggles, a migrant from Norwich, Connecticut, had opened a bookshop and circulating library at 67 Lispenard Street, specializing in antislavery publications. Now he became the eyes and ears of the black community.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ruggles identified slavecatchers by name in the <i>Emancipator</i>. He pointed them out to blacks on the street. He publicized descriptions of missing Afro-Americans. He went door to door in fashionable neighborhoods inquiring as to the status of black domestics, implenting a New York law that freed any imported slave after a residence of nine months. . . . He boarded incoming ships, to see if slaves were being smuggled in, and on one occasion won an indictment against a French man from Guadeloupe. (Such actions were denounced by the <i>New York Express</i>, a militant Whig organ, as an embarrassment to trade.) Ruggles had to change lodgings repeatedly to foil efforts at kidnapping <i>him</i>. </div><div></div></blockquote><div>The Vigilance Commitee also aided those they called "persons arriving from the South." They explained to fugitives their rights, protected them from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbirding" target="_blank">blackbirders</a>, and established them in new locations. </div><div><br /></div><div>At one point, Ruggles hid the young Frederick Douglass for two weeks, before sending the "penniless fugitive" on to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Ruggles' work became a cornerstone of the developing Underground Railroad.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>The Vigilance Committee was not always successful. On July 23, 1836, George Jones, a "respectable" free black man, was arrested at his workplace, an attorney's office at 21 Broadway, supposedly for assault and battery. At first he refused to go along with his captors, but his employers advised him to submit, promising they would help. However, once in custody, Jones was whisked before <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Riker" target="_blank">Recorder Riker</a>*, where several notorious blackbirders declared him a runaway, a propostion to which Riker assented. Less than three hours after his arrest, Jones, bound in chains, was dragged through the streets of New York "like a beast to the shambles" and carried south. Ruggles described the kidnapping in the <i>Sun</i>. The piece, widely reprinted, helped Ruggles win public support for granting accused "fugitives" a trial by jury -- a right secured five years later.</div><div></div></blockquote><div>I also learned more about the violence faced by abolitionists, fanned by a lying nativist (anti-immigrant) press that hurled bizarre racial and sexual accusations at activists. The southern states, with help from the federal government, successfully blocked the flow of abolitionist pamphlets and letters. People in the movement faced intimidation and violence on a regular basis, but they had plenty of company. There were riots against Irish immigrants and riots against Catholics. Then the victims of those riots would turn around and do the same to Blacks.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>1,236 pages and not a wasted word</b></div></div><div><div><br /></div><div><i>Gotham</i> took 20 years to write. Burrows and Wallace unearthed an enormous amount of published research, and synthesized it into a narrative that reads like a novel. They illustrate history with the perfect details about both ordinary, everyday life, as well as the outsized people who influenced the development of the City.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is one time where it's fun to read reader reviews on Amazon: <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Gotham-History-York-City-1898/dp/0195140494" target="_blank">one unqualified rave after the next</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Having read this book feels like the nerdiest thing in the world, but it shouldn't be. Don't be put off by the length and weight: if you love history and you love cities, this book will delight you. Sometime in the future, I will definitely read the second volume, <i>Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1989-1919</i>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>I think my next year's weekly read will be <i>Visions of Jazz: the First Century</i> by Gary Giddins, a birthday gift from my esteemed partner some years ago.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>__________</div><div><br /></div><div>* Yep, that's who Rikers Island, New York City's main jail complex, is named for: a notorious anti-abolitionist who sent kidnapped Black people (both fugitives and free-born Blacks) into enslavement at every opportunity. Irony upon irony, given the demographics of the US prison population. It's time to change the name.</div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-46984822884084370302023-11-03T04:36:00.002-07:002023-11-03T05:15:42.518-07:00from the archives: my journey to palestinian solidarity and the myth of the self-hating jew (a three-part story)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAwFF2rQzb1vvYRR6aiJfWvm3lQkfQlKntcH-Dp0B5_IVw4l-F-nqCTi5dTct9vMKcPRbPPbSETKN6n3-9KwaUaS_pe1tpkO94ACwehJBVAEFFumb1bMVQEtjwok9ubaACjy0Q4jJFxWu3JiT3FYawjpA_xgJRviGMdvgLi6dNcw6aypHvXb1I/s320/star%20david.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAwFF2rQzb1vvYRR6aiJfWvm3lQkfQlKntcH-Dp0B5_IVw4l-F-nqCTi5dTct9vMKcPRbPPbSETKN6n3-9KwaUaS_pe1tpkO94ACwehJBVAEFFumb1bMVQEtjwok9ubaACjy0Q4jJFxWu3JiT3FYawjpA_xgJRviGMdvgLi6dNcw6aypHvXb1I/s1600/star%20david.png" width="300" /></a></div>This seems like a good time to re-post this three-part series. It remains one of the best pieces I've written. <p></p><p>Part one, my Jewish identity: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2013/06/my-journey-to-palestinian-solidarity_39.html" target="_blank">my journey to palestinian solidarity and the myth of the self-hating jew</a></p><p>Part two, my awakening: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2013/06/my-journey-to-palestinian-solidarity_27.html" target="_blank">my journey to palestinian solidarity and the myth of the self-hating jew, part 2</a></p><p>Part three, my response to typical anti-Palestine and pro-Zionist arguments: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2013/06/my-journey-to-palestinian-solidarity_30.html" target="_blank">my journey to palestinian solidarity and the myth of the self-hating jew, part 3 and final</a>.</p><p>There were many interesting comments on the original posts, now gone. I'll make commenting available on this post, with the caveat that this blog is not a forum for debate, nor for racism, anti-Semitism, or Islamophobia.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfFLYW6jVYdKK5VN1qnN068g30Ill1CdJODmBINRYth7AQif6u9nQ2O6xAUA35OgRTIX63r7aMijuzazipArh_4jQn165RAgosiLPd6H5hTrKWFzvlDNvjKW8CpQdMgR2GyJI0WqA64OH3YKn1rN3_CvVUjRA-sQulHV9c3okfszISyaU2msu/s629/free%20palestine.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="629" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVfFLYW6jVYdKK5VN1qnN068g30Ill1CdJODmBINRYth7AQif6u9nQ2O6xAUA35OgRTIX63r7aMijuzazipArh_4jQn165RAgosiLPd6H5hTrKWFzvlDNvjKW8CpQdMgR2GyJI0WqA64OH3YKn1rN3_CvVUjRA-sQulHV9c3okfszISyaU2msu/w640-h404/free%20palestine.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-53417266632674661042023-10-29T13:34:00.009-07:002023-11-03T22:14:46.124-07:00a genocide is happening right now and nations are doing nothing to stop it<p>Right now the State of Israel is committing genocide against the people of Gaza. Many humans around the globe are horrified, grieving, raging. But people with the power to stop it are either defending it or remaining silent. And as we know, silence equals complicity.</p><p>In this post, I have collecting my Facebook posts from the past weeks, saving them here for my own reference, in reverse chronological order. </p><p>I have turned off commenting on this post. </p><p><b>29 October</b></p><p>Blaming victims for their own deaths is different than seeing actions in context. Or: providing political context is not victim-blaming.</p><p>"The left" was supposedly insensitive and morally bankrupt about the deaths of the Israelis terrorized and killed on October 7. I can't speak for "the left" (obviously), but I can say this. What happened on October 7 was mind-boggling, terrorizing, murderous, horrendous, and absolutely undeserved -- because no human beings deserve to be slaughtered. And I can say that Israeli apartheid, imperialism, and the continuing subjugation of Palestinians stoked Paliestinian hatred, put Israelis at risk, and led directly to terrorist violence. Both of these things are true.</p><p>I don't see anti-Semitism in that sentence, and the idea that there's a "fine line" between denouncing apartheid and hating Jews is bullshit. Maybe some who speak out against apartheid do hate Jews -- I've never encountered it, but of course it may exist, since Jew-hating is a popular pastime -- but that doesn't mean the two are the same or even similar. (I've encountered plenty of antisemitism, but none of it was connected to the anti-apartheid movement.)</p><p></p><p>It's important to write and talk about these things, and I'm glad that is happening, but meanwhile the world is debating these concepts WHILE GENOCIDE IS TAKING PLACE.</p><p><b>* * * *</b></p><p>Between 200 and 300 people were arrested in Grand Central Terminal two days ago, in a demonstration organized by Jewish Voices for Peace. I know that there were huge protests all over the world, but this, in my hometown, from Jewish people... it makes me weep. A feeling so profound, I cannot name it.</p><p style="text-align: center;">
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<br /></p><p><b>28 October</b></p><p>My friend Beth reports: </p><blockquote><p>There is now no land or cell phone service in Gaza, no power, no water, no internet. Henceforth the people can be obliterated in a vaccuum. And no government cares.</p></blockquote><p>Jews who have wondered how the world let the Holocaust happen, where are you now?? What can possibly justify this slaughter???</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWnp9_yGLd5PZMGgOb1rpTo5N3BuA5S3bfn7i8tQQVdyo-NgBIK84E-rKCHEBDCCpvi1OoUjcyDgVUigC29zvbBFEg6Iw_6gzqMYO3f5VoD7cxvM-kB3_7cA05gJA4YRMKj0XAbIzqyUX6n5UoYX2Q1TUtBjm8rHxW1CnF40XXBV40JClI9hb/s894/comments%20gaza%2002.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="894" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWnp9_yGLd5PZMGgOb1rpTo5N3BuA5S3bfn7i8tQQVdyo-NgBIK84E-rKCHEBDCCpvi1OoUjcyDgVUigC29zvbBFEg6Iw_6gzqMYO3f5VoD7cxvM-kB3_7cA05gJA4YRMKj0XAbIzqyUX6n5UoYX2Q1TUtBjm8rHxW1CnF40XXBV40JClI9hb/w640-h210/comments%20gaza%2002.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>This was taken in Grand Central Terminal, NYC, on Friday October 27. Lots of arrests. I'm heartened to see so many people willing to get arrested for peace.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHPJT4aKww1rTBv_PeZN5udPV6GK9FW89_Qc4n37QCqq15cgesDJIFkNFvzZSDwe4IxsztO88vJ2AWkrMt3cMTDc4YPaifbEF_sD0MgJFPpi2-oto0MybdQEcSowNt0Ke96vTB30KphTw9PS759k-kT3CPz50uqzC74VUpySdczM3ezXXNUwUv/s1137/grand%20central%20terminal.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1137" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHPJT4aKww1rTBv_PeZN5udPV6GK9FW89_Qc4n37QCqq15cgesDJIFkNFvzZSDwe4IxsztO88vJ2AWkrMt3cMTDc4YPaifbEF_sD0MgJFPpi2-oto0MybdQEcSowNt0Ke96vTB30KphTw9PS759k-kT3CPz50uqzC74VUpySdczM3ezXXNUwUv/w640-h390/grand%20central%20terminal.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>27 October</b></p><p><a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/petition/demand-a-ceasefire-by-all-parties-to-end-civilian-suffering/?fbclid=IwAR1Vv2Fe8H6FSlfiTm317u7rVyuqsh7Qn20sVT-Oxg77TTtT-REr7hXUT3o" target="_blank">Join Amnesty, the world's conscience, in demanding a ceasefire.</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnKMVUz4vDvICqpmPkZGBpB1hGaD36xyVXt_OW1s_cRrNaca-70IHR36yYcFM4_RLPPeKN64QUFxZ1VEBngkJheSiIOaMZfLPx8Dr-zGIlTMuShOWbUQGMFQTSm_erTkPvGkTB0t80Gun4XqVolseO6RjRx2XbfzhgDEqreJOTP-d3MsAdnm8/s1824/amnesty%20ceasefire.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="1824" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEnKMVUz4vDvICqpmPkZGBpB1hGaD36xyVXt_OW1s_cRrNaca-70IHR36yYcFM4_RLPPeKN64QUFxZ1VEBngkJheSiIOaMZfLPx8Dr-zGIlTMuShOWbUQGMFQTSm_erTkPvGkTB0t80Gun4XqVolseO6RjRx2XbfzhgDEqreJOTP-d3MsAdnm8/w640-h282/amnesty%20ceasefire.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>From <i>The Globe and Mail</i>:<blockquote><p><a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-gaza-aid-convoy-trucks-unrwa/" target="_blank">Aid convoys to Gaza were ‘set up to fail,’ UN official says, as humanitarian crisis worsens</a></p><p>By Geoffrey York, Mark MacKinnon</p></blockquote><blockquote><div><p>With aid convoys stalled and dwindling, and Gaza on the verge of civil disorder, a senior United Nations official says the Palestinian territory and its humanitarian workers are victims of a system that was “set up to fail.”</p><p>Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, told The Globe and Mail that some of Gaza’s two million people will soon be dying from Israel’s siege of the territory, not just from the relentless bombardments that have reportedly killed thousands. Water, food, fuel and medicine are all nearly exhausted.</p><p>Mr. Lazzarini described a riot that erupted Thursday in a southern district of Gaza after people were falsely told in text messages that the UN would be distributing food there. “Civil order is breaking down,” he said. “People are just completely desperate.”</p><p>Aid agencies were able to get 40 trucks of relief supplies into Gaza from Egypt last weekend, and Western leaders said that was just the beginning, with an increase in the daily number of trucks expected. Instead, the number has dropped, with only 34 trucks entering the territory over four days this week. Aid trucks have routinely been held for many hours at Israeli inspection zones, with Israel saying it must ensure that no weapons or fuel are reaching Hamas fighters.</p><p>Before this war, Mr. Lazzarini noted, Israel was able to inspect about 500 trucks daily at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza. “So why does it take so long now for a handful of trucks?” he asked.</p><p>“It’s a very good question. There is certainly a lack of will. If there was a will, we would have much more. … The system in place today is set up to fail.”</p><p>........</p><p>“Everything is crumbling and collapsing,” Mr. Lazzarini said. “People are struggling the entire day to try to find some clean water. Sooner or later, under our watch, we will see people dying not just because of the bombardment but also because of the impact of the siege being imposed on the population of Gaza. How is this possible, when this is unfolding live, 24 hours a day, on all possible media, social media and television?”</p><p>The world’s focus on a small number of aid trucks is “almost disgraceful” when it is abundantly clear that the convoys are a tiny percentage of what is needed to avert deaths from starvation or dehydration, he said. The siege has resulted in the “collective punishment of an entire population.”</p><p>“You have a weakened community of the people. They are completely exhausted after two weeks of war. Many of them are displaced two or three times. They don’t find clean water or proper food.”</p><p>UNRWA had warned that it would have to halt its humanitarian operations in Gaza if it did not receive fuel supplies by Wednesday night. It was able to push the deadline back by tightly rationing its use of fuel, he said.</p><p>“We have given less to hospitals, given less to bakeries, and that has allowed us to go one or two more days. Maybe we will decide not to go to our shelters every day, just to add one day or two. But we are coming to the end. We’ve done all possible to ration our limited remaining resource. We have agonizing decisions all the time. We are on the edge of a breakdown of our operations.”</p><p>........</p><p>He added that the situation in the West Bank, the other half of the Palestinian Territories – which he characterized as “already boiling” before Oct. 7 – was also deteriorating rapidly. He described a dangerous mix of economic pain, as Palestinians who work in Israel have lost their jobs since the Hamas attacks, alongside a rising number of attacks on Palestinians being carried out by Jewish settlers who live in illegal settlements in the occupied territory.</p><p>“All this is a recipe for more violence,” Mr. Lazzarini said, pointing out that October has already seen the highest death toll among Palestinians in the West Bank in two decades, since the height of the last intifada. More than 90 West Bank Palestinians have died in clashes with Israeli security forces since the start of the war in and around Gaza.</p><p>.......</p><p>Mr. Lazzarini said the hardest part of his job has been managing the organization while 43 of UNRWA’s 13,000 staff members have been killed over the past three weeks, a number he said roughly correlated with an overall situation that has seen more than 7,000 Palestinians killed, according to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-ruled Gaza.</p><p>Just like the rest of Gaza, UNRWA staff have lost homes and families, and many have become aid recipients themselves.</p><p>“It’s deeply distressful to see so many colleagues, not just our staff [who have died] but all the other staff who have lost kids, have lost relatives. It’s just endless,” he said. “You feel powerless. Your word is not enough any more. Being UN is not enough any more to bring safety. You feel that Gaza is definitely a place where there is no safe place for anyone.”</p></div></blockquote><div><p></p><p>* * * *</p><p><b>25 October</b></p><p>Please read this powerful, honest, heartbreaking essay by Hala Ayan, a Palestinian American writer, psychologist, and professor. </p><p></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/opinion/palestine-war-empathy.html" target="_blank">Why Must Palestinians Audition for Your Empathy?</a></p><p>Oct. 25, 2023 </p></blockquote><blockquote><p>By Hala Ayan</p><p>I’ve moved back to the United States twice since my birth. Once as a child, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Then again for graduate school. I’d had the privilege of a youth — adolescence and young adulthood — in countries where being Palestinian was fairly common. The identity could be heavy, but it wasn’t a contested one. I hadn’t had to learn the respectability politics of being a Palestinian adult. I learned quickly.</p><p>The task of the Palestinian is to be palatable or to be condemned. The task of the Palestinian, we’ve seen in the past two weeks, is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it. To earn it.</p><p>In the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched Palestinian activists, lawyers, professors get baited and interrupted on air, if not silenced altogether. They are being made to sing for the supper of airtime and fair coverage. They are begging reporters to do the most basic tasks of their job. At the same time, Palestinians fleeing from bombs have been misidentified. Even when under attack, they must be costumed as another people to elicit humanity. Even in death, they cannot rest — Palestinians are being buried in mass graves or in old graves dug up to make room, and still there is not enough space.</p><p>If that weren’t enough, Palestinian slaughter is too often presented ahistorically, untethered to reality: It is not attributed to real steel and missiles, to occupation, to policy. To earn compassion for their dead, Palestinians must first prove their innocence. The real problem with condemnation is the quiet, sly tenor of the questions that accompany it: Palestinians are presumed violent — and deserving of violence — until proved otherwise. Their deaths are presumed defensible until proved otherwise. What is the word of a Palestinian against a machinery that investigates itself, that absolves itself of accused crimes? What is it against a government whose representatives have referred to Palestinians as “human animals” and “wild beasts?” When a well-suited man can say brazenly and unflinchingly that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?</p><p>It is, of course, a remarkably effective strategy. A slaughter isn’t a slaughter if those being slaughtered are at fault, if they’ve been quietly and effectively dehumanized — in the media, through policy — for years. If nobody is a civilian, nobody can be a victim.</p><p>***</p><p>In 2017, I published a novel about a Palestinian family. It was published by a respectable publisher, got a lot of lovely press, was given a book tour. I spoke on panels, to book clubs. I answered questions after readings. There was a refrain that kept coming up. People kept commenting on how human the story was. You’ve humanized the conflict. This is a human story.</p><p>Of course, literature and the arts play a crucial role in providing context — expanding our empathy, granting us glimpses into other worlds. But every time I was told I’d humanized the Palestinians, I would have to suppress the question it invoked: What had they been before?</p><p>A couple of weeks ago, in a professional space, someone called Palestinians by name and spoke of the seven decades of their anguish. I sat among dozens of co-workers and realized my lip was quivering. I was crying before I understood it was happening. I fled the room, and it took 10 minutes for me to stop sobbing. I didn’t immediately understand my reaction. Over the years, I’ve faced meetings, classrooms and other institutional spaces where Palestinians went unnamed or were referred to only as terrorists. I came of professional age in a country where people lost all sorts of things for speaking of Palestine: social standing, university tenure, journalist positions. But in the end, I am undone not by silence or erasure but by empathy. By the simple naming of my people. By increasing recognition that liberation is linked. By spaces of Palestinian-Jewish solidarity. By what has become controversial: the simple speaking aloud of Palestinian suffering.</p><p>These days, everyone is trying to write about the children. An incomprehensible number of them dead and counting. We are up at night, combing through the flickering light of our phones, trying to find the metaphor, the clip, the photograph to prove a child is a child. It is an unbearable task. We ask: Will this be the image that finally does it? This half-child on a rooftop? This video, reposted by Al Jazeera, of an inconsolable girl appearing to recognize her mother’s body among the dead, screaming out, “It’s her, it’s her. I swear it’s her. I know her from her hair”?</p><p>***</p><p>Take it from a writer: There is nothing like the tedium of trying to come up with analogies. There is something humiliating in trying to earn solidarity. I keep seeing infographics desperately trying to appeal to American audiences. Imagine most of the population of Manhattan being told to evacuate in 24 hours. Imagine the president of [ ] going on NBC and saying all [ ] people are [ ]. Look! Here’s a strip on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. That’s Gaza. It is about the same size as Philadelphia. Or multiply the entire population of Las Vegas by three.</p><p>This is demoralizing work, to have to speak constantly in the vernacular of tragedies and atrocities, to say: Look, look. Remember? That other suffering that was eventually deemed unacceptable? Let me hold it up to this one. Let me show you proportion. Let me earn your outrage. Absent that, let me earn your memory. Please.</p><p>I don’t hesitate for a second to condemn the killing of any child, any massacre of civilians. It is the easiest ask in the world. And it is not in spite of that but because of that I say: Condemn the brutalization of bodies. By all means, do. Condemn murder. Condemn violence, imprisonment, all forms of oppression. But if your shock and distress comes only at the sight of certain brutalized bodies? If you speak out but not when Palestinian bodies are besieged and murdered, abducted and imprisoned? Then it is worth asking yourself which brutalization is acceptable to you, even quietly, even subconsciously, and which is not.</p><p>Name the discrepancy and own it. If you can’t be equitable, be honest.</p><p>There is nothing complicated about asking for freedom. Palestinians deserve equal rights, equal access to resources, equal access to fair elections and so forth. If this makes you uneasy, then you must ask yourself why.</p><p>***</p><p>Here is the truth of the diasporic Palestinians: They are not magically diasporic. Their diaspora-ness is a direct result of often violent, intentional and illegal dispossession. One day a house is yours; one day it is not. One day a neighborhood is yours; one day it is not. One day a territory is yours; one day it is not. This same sort of dispossession is grounded in the same mind-set and international complicity that is playing out in Gaza.</p><p>I’m a poet, a writer, a psychologist. I’m deeply familiar with the importance of language. I’ve agonized over an em dash. I’ve spent afternoons muttering about the aptness of a verb. I pay attention to language, my own and others. Being Palestinian in this country — in many countries — is a numbing exercise in gauging where pockets of safety are, sussing out which friends, co-workers or acquaintances will be allies, which will stay silent. Who will speak.</p><p>Here’s another thing I know as a writer and psychologist: It matters where you start a narrative. In addiction work, you call this playing the tape. Diasporically or not, being Palestinian is the quintessential disrupter: It messes with a curated, modified tape. We exist, and our existence presents an existential affront. As long as we exist, we challenge several falsehoods, not the least of which is that, for some, we never existed at all. That decades ago, a country was born in the delicious, glittering expanse of nothingness — a birthright, something due. Our very existence challenges a formidable, militarized narrative.</p><p>But the days of the Palestine exception are numbered. Palestine is increasingly becoming the litmus test for true liberatory practice.</p><p>In the meantime, Palestinians continue to be cast paradoxically — both terror and invisible, both people who never existed and people who cannot return.</p><p>Imagine being such a pest, such an obstacle. Or: Imagine being so powerful.</p><p><i>Hala Alyan is a clinical psychologist and professor in New York City. She is the author of the novels “Salt Houses” and “The Arsonists’ City,” and several collections of poetry, including the forthcoming “The Moon That Turns You Back.”</i></p></blockquote><p>* * * * </p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ3fExLhXfB9FMIRiHI2BvX2sReyytyvIe8OyH2UNpdSSqjnszuE8Sd5YNDK5E4dwI4xvdSrvHkYCbHppdb7UsiRQcEjk1BnYZtfdaiTRuedKUEjEMhCwEJvGytGgiF-B24ZPBQwzn4dg7PPAPtzH_kWP6bj1POQcD3z4PVw6EmabwVvIH3wy8/s843/never%20again.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="843" height="590" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ3fExLhXfB9FMIRiHI2BvX2sReyytyvIe8OyH2UNpdSSqjnszuE8Sd5YNDK5E4dwI4xvdSrvHkYCbHppdb7UsiRQcEjk1BnYZtfdaiTRuedKUEjEMhCwEJvGytGgiF-B24ZPBQwzn4dg7PPAPtzH_kWP6bj1POQcD3z4PVw6EmabwVvIH3wy8/w640-h590/never%20again.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p><p><b>21 October</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjORmEwrZcFXx1AfxKeu4J8VnBdoAsI42zz3UCtPiRry3SwoTqx-MnlWjgpEOS7FfUvlNRD0XGOoOSz7d6CjAFyhPgCYszUjQexL7k2qJQ024cgSDg1xCQLy0uuqG3cqBU3PfaNUc7nNIAilspE_7YoireXcCsWhLfgaC0Dsc7mm3kR8aK_318I/s940/palestine%20guernica.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="491" data-original-width="940" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjORmEwrZcFXx1AfxKeu4J8VnBdoAsI42zz3UCtPiRry3SwoTqx-MnlWjgpEOS7FfUvlNRD0XGOoOSz7d6CjAFyhPgCYszUjQexL7k2qJQ024cgSDg1xCQLy0uuqG3cqBU3PfaNUc7nNIAilspE_7YoireXcCsWhLfgaC0Dsc7mm3kR8aK_318I/w640-h334/palestine%20guernica.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><b><p><b><br /></b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG45TnvbKfIygy3_WluXGLhxo1EKIoNfsIZpYyLsnGE5pJKoIXd1qEvNUnTwdZ7RINQvAsnSUwdmwj-ytTgF4g8BzI610QLPdzL1dq2t6ALKHMRsnYn9sK6_uQCDa6KfJTa5xrA6JvxLttsk4123OroOpAwohki3eVnglF9xWRQ6GktzW6i5oY/s697/gazameme22.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="669" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG45TnvbKfIygy3_WluXGLhxo1EKIoNfsIZpYyLsnGE5pJKoIXd1qEvNUnTwdZ7RINQvAsnSUwdmwj-ytTgF4g8BzI610QLPdzL1dq2t6ALKHMRsnYn9sK6_uQCDa6KfJTa5xrA6JvxLttsk4123OroOpAwohki3eVnglF9xWRQ6GktzW6i5oY/w614-h640/gazameme22.PNG" width="614" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p>20 October</b><p></p><p>Headline of Nicholas Kristof's column: "We must not kill Gazan children in order to protect Israel's children." I'm glad he's writing this but WHY DOES THIS EVEN NEED TO BE SAID????? WTF people??? And seriously, if you believe for one moment that Israel did not bomb that hospital, you need a crash course in the history of imperialism.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhum0sI8WzGz5whj02HckSspdd_AfPC_Jn70wKVqMLnZUX0dJiT5Xv-TjY1hTGAvRBpWdbValtolZGl1N6zqc22Yq1o0thUGbPE0gFjvqO9CKa3ByjMfCag_jUuxpRDEUZF5ttlO75VBNd_MCM-o3fYriAbowLusuEmag09WN8pAyKMogfja1Fa/s832/gazameme21.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="832" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhum0sI8WzGz5whj02HckSspdd_AfPC_Jn70wKVqMLnZUX0dJiT5Xv-TjY1hTGAvRBpWdbValtolZGl1N6zqc22Yq1o0thUGbPE0gFjvqO9CKa3ByjMfCag_jUuxpRDEUZF5ttlO75VBNd_MCM-o3fYriAbowLusuEmag09WN8pAyKMogfja1Fa/w640-h288/gazameme21.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>* * * *</p><p>The Onion: <a href="https://www.theonion.com/dying-gazans-criticized-for-not-using-last-words-to-con-1850925657?fbclid=IwAR2Q5Ij3ZFMelbBJMqexBwBtdLSroVNII-5hHYYcp58HmSrDY2t4LxvLh-Q" target="_blank">Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUwqbuN4n669g7min4QGr97hye959v7HLkHHnVJW4G8_rRm7L5XhgLsKexYv_Y3WQ4LjSEQiNp3D20EyEQ0n6fyBAa1W8e85zdgVKnr2bj7JMqCJJqF2p_Pye-NNwzbm4oetPLVQadQ59wL8r0uS-jQ791ic2pBmShcMyJNDuSaFf7fA3_piH7/s692/gazameme20.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="692" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUwqbuN4n669g7min4QGr97hye959v7HLkHHnVJW4G8_rRm7L5XhgLsKexYv_Y3WQ4LjSEQiNp3D20EyEQ0n6fyBAa1W8e85zdgVKnr2bj7JMqCJJqF2p_Pye-NNwzbm4oetPLVQadQ59wL8r0uS-jQ791ic2pBmShcMyJNDuSaFf7fA3_piH7/w640-h434/gazameme20.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>19 October</b></p><p><a href="https://drgabormate.com/beautiful-dream-israel-become-nightmare/" target="_blank"></a></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://drgabormate.com/beautiful-dream-israel-become-nightmare/" target="_blank">Gabor Mate: The Beautiful Dream of Israel Has Become a Nightmare</a></p><p>As a Jewish youngster growing up in Budapest, an infant survivor of the Nazi genocide, I was for years haunted by a question resounding in my brain with such force that sometimes my head would spin: “How was it possible? How could the world have let such horrors happen?”</p><p>It was a naïve question, that of a child. I know better now: such is reality. Whether in Vietnam or Rwanda or Syria, humanity stands by either complicitly or unconsciously or helplessly, as it always does. In Gaza today we find ways of justifying the bombing of hospitals, the annihilation of families at dinner, the killing of pre-adolescents playing soccer on a beach.</p><p>In Israel-Palestine the powerful party has succeeded in painting itself as the victim, while the ones being killed and maimed become the perpetrators. “They don’t care about life,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, abetted by the Obamas and Harpers of this world, “we do.” Netanyahu, you who with surgical precision slaughter innocents, the young and the old, you who have cruelly blockaded Gaza for years, starving it of necessities, you who deprive Palestinians of more and more of their land, their water, their crops, their trees — you care about life?</p><p>There is no understanding Gaza out of context — Hamas rockets or unjustifiable terrorist attacks on civilians — and that context is the longest ongoing ethnic cleansing operation in the recent and present centuries, the ongoing attempt to destroy Palestinian nationhood.</p><p>The Palestinians use tunnels? So did my heroes, the poorly armed fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery. Out of impotent defiance, they fire inept rockets, causing terror for innocent Israelis but rarely physical harm. With such a gross imbalance of power, there is no equivalence of culpability.</p><p>Israel wants peace? Perhaps, but as the veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has pointed out, it does not want a just peace. Occupation and creeping annexation, an inhumane blockade, the destruction of olive groves, the arbitrary imprisonment of thousands, torture, daily humiliation of civilians, house demolitions: these are not policies compatible with any desire for a just peace. In Tel Aviv Gideon Levy now moves around with a bodyguard, the price of speaking the truth.</p><p>I have visited Gaza and the West Bank. I saw multi-generational Palestinian families weeping in hospitals around the bedsides of their wounded, at the graves of their dead. These are not people who do not care about life. They are like us — Canadians, Jews, like anyone: they celebrate life, family, work, education, food, peace, joy. And they are capable of hatred, they can harbour vengeance in the hearts, just like we can.</p><p>One could debate details, historical and current, back and forth. Since my days as a young Zionist and, later, as a member of Jews for a Just Peace, I have often done so. I used to believe that if people knew the facts, they would open to the truth. That, too, was naïve. This issue is far too charged with emotion. As the spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has pointed out, the accumulated mutual pain in the Middle East is so acute, “a significant part of the population finds itself forced to act it out in an endless cycle of perpetration and retribution.”</p><p>“People’s leaders have been misleaders, so they that are led have been confused,” in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. The voices of justice and sanity are not heeded. Netanyahu has his reasons. Harper and Obama have theirs.</p><p>And what shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives. That Israel’s “right to defend itself,” unarguable in principle, does not validate mass killing.</p><p>A few days ago I met with one of my dearest friends, a comrade from Zionist days and now professor emeritus at an Israeli university. We spoke of everything but the daily savagery depicted on our TV screens. We both feared the rancour that would arise.</p><p>But, I want to say to my friend, can we not be sad together at what that beautiful old dream of Jewish redemption has come to? Can we not grieve the death of innocents? I am sad these days. Can we not at least mourn together?</p></blockquote><p></p><p>* * * *</p><p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cair-bomb-death-threats-cair-major-muslim-group-move-annual-banquet/"></a></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cair-bomb-death-threats-cair-major-muslim-group-move-annual-banquet/">Bomb and death threats prompt major Muslim group to move annual banquet</a></p><p>A national Muslim civil rights group said Thursday it is moving its annual banquet out of a Virginia hotel that received bomb and death threats possibly linked to the group's concern for Palestinians caught in the Israel-Hamas war.</p><p>The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, canceled plans to hold its 29th annual banquet on Saturday at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The group, which has used the hotel for a decade, will imove the banquet to an undisclosed location with heightened security, the group's statement said.</p></blockquote><p>* * * * </p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4cH20s1ehCp1p0dzMZ-4Cor6crY13OLAuhXkdsQfCB8tH4XMb3CgmYDK1OQnm8vcnHn0zJl39Htxn9FC-uDOHTVBzW5L_qqO7rnat6gcHM772jTDaOdUxCQ66mXBVTnidgLk8JpzRkOjio6qi524nzi8ZKxKaYflx1CGvdDcgvUxDSrqNJBnH/s665/gazameme19.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="665" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4cH20s1ehCp1p0dzMZ-4Cor6crY13OLAuhXkdsQfCB8tH4XMb3CgmYDK1OQnm8vcnHn0zJl39Htxn9FC-uDOHTVBzW5L_qqO7rnat6gcHM772jTDaOdUxCQ66mXBVTnidgLk8JpzRkOjio6qi524nzi8ZKxKaYflx1CGvdDcgvUxDSrqNJBnH/w640-h214/gazameme19.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>18 October</b></p><p>You claim your point of view is righteous and just. Then why is it necessary to silence opposing views? Job offers pulled, academic admissions rescinded, books removed from prestigious conference. Hiding behind specious claims of anti-Semitism -- while pretending that all Palestinian people are terrorists. Jewish people should know better, and should do better.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUNLI-pvq5-WdMDT4BWq45USqM7ZKtPBN8bDEjlKuFesregmcUKi6B-mPOyrHf-0SjCzuvgeqb5yJrOQGXhxGK7wPBRsEIlG8KP4ab29HBeDI-gpiCPM5-7zDj_UvnP2qVMmWU-qKtrOK6xF35P5lKFp4OeYbvlWPvRCq1HJl4X-LHn0s473k3" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="750" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUNLI-pvq5-WdMDT4BWq45USqM7ZKtPBN8bDEjlKuFesregmcUKi6B-mPOyrHf-0SjCzuvgeqb5yJrOQGXhxGK7wPBRsEIlG8KP4ab29HBeDI-gpiCPM5-7zDj_UvnP2qVMmWU-qKtrOK6xF35P5lKFp4OeYbvlWPvRCq1HJl4X-LHn0s473k3=w640-h180" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><p>* * * * </p><p>Canadians, you can make tax-deductible donations to <a href="https://www.cjpmefoundation.org/" target="_blank">humanitarian aid to Gaza through the CJPME Foundation</a>. </p><p></p><p>As I'm sure you know, Facebook posts are being blocked, job offers are being rescinded, people have been fired, novels (longlisted for the Booker Prize!) dropped from international book fairs -- all for showing support to the Palestinian people. And in at least one instance, for <i>being</i> Palestinian. </p><p>This week Israel dropped bombs on a hospital -- and we're being censored for supporting the victims. </p><p><b>17 October</b></p><p>I hope American Jews who are still defending Israel's actions in Gaza will read and heed this column by Michelle Goldberg. She is a Jewish person who supports Israel and who sympathizes with Jews who equate Hamas' attacks in Israel with genocide. I hope that any of my American Jewish friends who are still seeing my feed (i.e. have not yet un-followed me) will read and share this with their own communities.</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Piling Horror Upon Horror</p><p>Michelle Goldberg<br />New York Times<br />October 16, 2023</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/opinion/israel-palestine-mass-death.html" target="_blank">Watching from afar as people race toward an abyss, I find it hard to know what to write except “no,” over and over.</a> In the face of massacres that for Jews around the world brought back memories of genocide, the language of some Israeli leaders has, in turn, become murderous. On the cusp of a likely ground invasion of Gaza, many people I’ve spoken to, Jewish and Palestinian alike, are terrified that this rhetoric will become reality.</p><p>Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, said that the “entire nation” of Gaza was “responsible” for the attacks at a news conference on Friday, telling reporters, “It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved.” Herzog later clarified that civilians are not legitimate targets, but his words, coming from a member of Israel’s center-left Labor Party, were still chilling, suggesting a broad political consensus that Gazans are collectively to blame for the horror that befell Israel. “All gloves are off,” Ron Prosor, a distinguished Israeli diplomat, told Politico.</p><p>In such an environment, the ruling Israeli right, some of whose members spoke of forcing Palestinians out of Israel even before Hamas’s latest rampage, has little to restrain it. Tally Gotliv, a member of the Knesset from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, urged the use of “doomsday weapons” on Gaza. Another member of Likud called for a second nakba, the Arabic word referring to the mass expulsion of Palestinians at Israel’s creation in 1948.</p><p>I can empathize with liberal Jews both in Israel and throughout the diaspora who feel too overwhelmed, at this moment of great fear and vulnerability, to protest the escalating suffering inflicted on Palestinians. It is not fair that events are moving too quickly to give people time to grieve the victimization of their own community before being asked to try to prevent the victimization of others. Nevertheless, as atrocities are piled on atrocities, I hope Jews will attend to what is being threatened in our name. And all Americans should pay attention, given how much our country underwrites Israel’s military.</p><p>In Gaza, mass death has already begun. Last week the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, announced that Israel was cutting off Gaza’s water, electricity, food and fuel. There was hopeful reporting over the weekend that at the urging of President Biden’s administration, water to a town in Gaza’s south had been turned back on, but for many, drinking water is still unavailable. The Associated Press reported on Sunday that clean water has run out in U.N. shelters across Gaza. On Saturday, UNICEF reported that, according to local sources, more than 700 children in Gaza had been killed. The number by now is surely higher.</p><p>Some readers, I suspect, will respond that while this is all terrible, it is also all Hamas’s fault. In many ways, I agree. Hamas’s terror is clearly the immediate cause of the hell raining down on Gaza; most countries attacked as Israel was attacked would respond with war. That does not, however, license Israeli indifference, or worse, to the lives of civilians. Israelis have a right to their rage; I imagine that if I were Israeli, I would share it. But incitement against Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of whom have nothing to do with Hamas terrorism, is leading us toward somewhere even darker than where we are right now.</p><p>Influential voices in America are intensifying the bloodthirsty atmosphere. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” the Republican senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas dismissed worries that mass civilian casualties in Gaza will work to Hamas’s advantage on the world stage. “As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza,” he said. That phrase, “bounce the rubble,” is a reference to a Winston Churchill quote about apocalyptic military overkill. To Cotton’s right, the language is even more incendiary. “If it comes down to ethnic cleansing — you want to cleanse my people, I’ll cleanse yours first,” said Joel Pollak, a senior editor at large at Breitbart News, on the webcast of the leading young conservative Charlie Kirk.</p><p>We can already see where the total dehumanization of Palestinians leads. This weekend, a 6-year-old boy in Illinois was allegedly stabbed to death by his landlord, who is also accused of gravely injuring the boy’s mother. According to the local sheriff’s office, the victims were targeted “due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”</p><p>If this is the atmosphere in parts of the United States, it is exponentially more fevered in Israel. On Monday morning I spoke to Diana Buttu, a Canadian Palestinian lawyer in Haifa who once served as a legal adviser for the Palestine Liberation Organization. “I can understand what my grandmother felt in 1948 when she fled” from a town near Nazareth, Buttu said. “Because it’s a climate of total fear that you’re next. And this isn’t just in the Gaza Strip; it’s also spread to the West Bank.” Already, according to Al Jazeera, at least 55 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed, some by soldiers and others by settlers. Haaretz reported that five Palestinians were shot dead by settlers in the village of Qusra. A message to the village on WhatsApp said, “We have no red lines. We’ll punish you in order to make an example out of you.”</p><p>Buttu sent me a link to a mostly Hebrew-language Telegram group with over 82,000 subscribers in which people had posted celebratory photographs of dead and injured Palestinians. “The people of Gaza are not innocent!” said an introductory message for English speakers. If and when those who believe this act on it, we can’t pretend we weren’t warned.</p></blockquote><p><b>16 October</b></p><p>I stand with Fred. I stand for peace and justice for all people, including Palestinians. I also believe in the right of every person to express their views. Thank you Fred Hahn for being a voice for truth and justice. Please share and tag CUPE Ontario.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wOFAyTwYjv1FSn6bXSrgQlyToDDJGLo8Zy0AWuprI_rRqvIVzImKtnfjA4L-txJDmCERwAFAfu4w4Wud8mQ5kNK5YZb84Jw1zC7ip5oTrXGa_btDux4qVGl_TenERb2x_FIB1nvP4QkYWRAVeL6EW1OwsnV2cMvWOpHZuQUFKKba7ijEhIe8/s655/gazameme16.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="655" height="564" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wOFAyTwYjv1FSn6bXSrgQlyToDDJGLo8Zy0AWuprI_rRqvIVzImKtnfjA4L-txJDmCERwAFAfu4w4Wud8mQ5kNK5YZb84Jw1zC7ip5oTrXGa_btDux4qVGl_TenERb2x_FIB1nvP4QkYWRAVeL6EW1OwsnV2cMvWOpHZuQUFKKba7ijEhIe8/w640-h564/gazameme16.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7iZij5vEryMiAgA4LL3gd-2IFwS3WspLqTbtF4hurCUSx2aF4d7-rH90HRIJ2nJOs8rEU43AsU0MR-VkaVBDVbD_7MnT-iC_qxr6Ab6GssA1Wty5vXfqKBgKO7b656kDypZ5Gx13zosHwSPvYwi5YuhWLkHgujPpW0zbo_jyqDYf2G4Etd8fR/s651/gazameme17.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="651" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7iZij5vEryMiAgA4LL3gd-2IFwS3WspLqTbtF4hurCUSx2aF4d7-rH90HRIJ2nJOs8rEU43AsU0MR-VkaVBDVbD_7MnT-iC_qxr6Ab6GssA1Wty5vXfqKBgKO7b656kDypZ5Gx13zosHwSPvYwi5YuhWLkHgujPpW0zbo_jyqDYf2G4Etd8fR/w640-h402/gazameme17.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>13 October</b></p><p>"Israel has a right to defend itself." That's what the Zionists say. </p><p></p><p>Any Jewish person who defends or rationalizes this has lost their way.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjImLNPOUvforh8JHbuaCySgUx37C-HUDLkzexxGYHz9EF6atDr-yZ_PX9kyRRHToB443cbdy2wLJMRudjnwvB3xHP47cVG7TRQFNPjwS2r1YXsFVZ8N-EW0ILz_BUpl5LnA9a2DHeSUxwlngcD-a6xv8dPif6Rx1ymRtlLuVNMhaukF4DhqwFF/s767/gazameme15.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="692" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjImLNPOUvforh8JHbuaCySgUx37C-HUDLkzexxGYHz9EF6atDr-yZ_PX9kyRRHToB443cbdy2wLJMRudjnwvB3xHP47cVG7TRQFNPjwS2r1YXsFVZ8N-EW0ILz_BUpl5LnA9a2DHeSUxwlngcD-a6xv8dPif6Rx1ymRtlLuVNMhaukF4DhqwFF/w578-h640/gazameme15.PNG" width="578" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Pmooo4Jm9dsl6Tf8G0L39nldIdkwHxrDlS4tu3ggRXLbWhagVgwPWyIZVtUv3v2iM7tLgDgjuOeYPj6NvHXBm4Dmt_J4kZmmvatXtmANmnud22ohU9mpchg652co9rILG-BTmhUIwT1-e84c8lNr1yy64hbs9gve-em4wmYmeKz16fEePE5y/s682/gazameme13.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="682" height="576" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Pmooo4Jm9dsl6Tf8G0L39nldIdkwHxrDlS4tu3ggRXLbWhagVgwPWyIZVtUv3v2iM7tLgDgjuOeYPj6NvHXBm4Dmt_J4kZmmvatXtmANmnud22ohU9mpchg652co9rILG-BTmhUIwT1-e84c8lNr1yy64hbs9gve-em4wmYmeKz16fEePE5y/w640-h576/gazameme13.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguW1CXg7tNyH9xkEQLaPQhRARpfuZacZLvDe53PYZNRM_4r-5ev0WdPeAxrThat83dwHFh0dddxvnKwmhuByyXH-TXGbvnfwSjMhNwSNJ8zc7ed_GQZhoT5Qw2yJPZJ_IEH1M4A6Hu3NZptu70-cBvRkQFhh3Vp1RHqnhaLZrNd9Hpe0VyoRrb/s644/gazameme14.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="154" data-original-width="644" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguW1CXg7tNyH9xkEQLaPQhRARpfuZacZLvDe53PYZNRM_4r-5ev0WdPeAxrThat83dwHFh0dddxvnKwmhuByyXH-TXGbvnfwSjMhNwSNJ8zc7ed_GQZhoT5Qw2yJPZJ_IEH1M4A6Hu3NZptu70-cBvRkQFhh3Vp1RHqnhaLZrNd9Hpe0VyoRrb/w640-h154/gazameme14.PNG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>12 October</b></p><p>As per usual, anything less than 100%, unequivocal, lockstep support for Israel meets accusations of antisemitism and support of terrorism. I am so friggin sick of that. I hope Fred Hahn does not apologize for anything he has said.</p><p></p><p>Sharing this oldie but goodie from wmtc (with all the great comments gone: <a href="https://www.wmtc.ca/2010/03/a-simple-lesson-how-to-tell-difference_7.html" target="_blank">a simple lesson: how to tell the difference between hatred of a people and criticism of a nation's policies</a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGMvHgmJskHlGFJbLmlpT95xsdlRVlDo6nVYHoN5Kmqbl3F736TQeCVzTeLc5KYVav-SwzkcDCXcjlOoEnKCEKF0_UEp3Moa2CxammuvLcGWhHhu8cYrhzLhlxPXVf7uFlFzL-CyaN04cOpxrVyI-6I4RfJu0_Z-QdyNafq_WVzCByvXz883J/s672/gazameme12.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="166" data-original-width="672" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguGMvHgmJskHlGFJbLmlpT95xsdlRVlDo6nVYHoN5Kmqbl3F736TQeCVzTeLc5KYVav-SwzkcDCXcjlOoEnKCEKF0_UEp3Moa2CxammuvLcGWhHhu8cYrhzLhlxPXVf7uFlFzL-CyaN04cOpxrVyI-6I4RfJu0_Z-QdyNafq_WVzCByvXz883J/w640-h158/gazameme12.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ3CegA5omNKf_M9xi73aIGB1LfYoMfrWyy1WFpFdPhHWSXMYMzFjOkRPdkeaAtyNI9QI4g2ZaJidKNq2tJK21L4xF8IuIK2gVezchc2R09Kb6_HwRXIRlDLbJwfdKLR8g43GM8_x5HIvcBhj-R7oPhnBNeQYmXhJzXTVTadOXvrl5I1ex_GRf/s674/gazameme11.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="597" data-original-width="674" height="566" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ3CegA5omNKf_M9xi73aIGB1LfYoMfrWyy1WFpFdPhHWSXMYMzFjOkRPdkeaAtyNI9QI4g2ZaJidKNq2tJK21L4xF8IuIK2gVezchc2R09Kb6_HwRXIRlDLbJwfdKLR8g43GM8_x5HIvcBhj-R7oPhnBNeQYmXhJzXTVTadOXvrl5I1ex_GRf/w640-h566/gazameme11.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie5Dc8_x0J92a0FkA8Re-Qz69bAymrHyYgGKdLuMuDTKxSOuhPAd-ISLK2QhVxSu2ZEK_SO4tAbMEYiAOQOXYpLMk9HIn9ZxXvhjEuUwarAj9RbNUaPEzaB-O8YVaLGh47pAb7OJvOs2ZY3EyCD8sZykxKlz0QY4aVxZbTPyvj1UIbTxcBikf9/s767/gazameme09.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="767" data-original-width="680" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie5Dc8_x0J92a0FkA8Re-Qz69bAymrHyYgGKdLuMuDTKxSOuhPAd-ISLK2QhVxSu2ZEK_SO4tAbMEYiAOQOXYpLMk9HIn9ZxXvhjEuUwarAj9RbNUaPEzaB-O8YVaLGh47pAb7OJvOs2ZY3EyCD8sZykxKlz0QY4aVxZbTPyvj1UIbTxcBikf9/w568-h640/gazameme09.JPG" width="568" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOxoL-RLMmyTNqc2BG451Zac6JitHkWjjOTtqxnhVxL98_mHWH6QwnVAJZFXQ1gXY6aWXpRYSuzS5A1kP8rfdLtwxcAYc8ZmUhoUH3URn_5h537kxeAeRyyqfdycMJAFx-oB6uSzD4lwJoKozwKqNW04tvJDZF6JVsPAGjSEy3ItEhcNt8DNI1/s658/gazameme10.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="658" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOxoL-RLMmyTNqc2BG451Zac6JitHkWjjOTtqxnhVxL98_mHWH6QwnVAJZFXQ1gXY6aWXpRYSuzS5A1kP8rfdLtwxcAYc8ZmUhoUH3URn_5h537kxeAeRyyqfdycMJAFx-oB6uSzD4lwJoKozwKqNW04tvJDZF6JVsPAGjSEy3ItEhcNt8DNI1/w640-h484/gazameme10.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>11 October</b></p><p>Here's something to think about. Every Israeli attack on Gaza -- every single bomb, every blockade, every shooting, every bulldozing, every siege -- and there have been many -- for years and for decades -- have been attacks on civilians. ALL OF THEM. This does not justify the Hamas attacks in any way. It does, however, make me wonder at all the horror and sadness being poured out for Israeli dead -- all the shock over civilian targets. I've never heard that kind of shock and horror when Israeli bombs drop on the civilians of Gaza.</p><p></p><p>Is it really so shocking that after a country isolates, abuses, and subjugates a people, that some of those subjugated people will strike back with violence? Is it shocking that Israel's imperialism has put its own people at risk? Not only isn't it shocking, it's inevitable.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDAFMtJFi-2ZaXuzX_diz8Rv2aMu66dVF2QosY4cnXbDzwod_Tb0PHSmj7DQHY3_K2c7WIkX9aLSHUjPrE_yP5rMtD4lK8lQ_q90DrF85pNy75RgkF2OXpmJnLceVuUMrzPK7wR6oivKSWGPfABID9z2s9qoVOChGK0-RKrc3cmz4WMf6Vxcz/s767/gazameme08.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="767" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDAFMtJFi-2ZaXuzX_diz8Rv2aMu66dVF2QosY4cnXbDzwod_Tb0PHSmj7DQHY3_K2c7WIkX9aLSHUjPrE_yP5rMtD4lK8lQ_q90DrF85pNy75RgkF2OXpmJnLceVuUMrzPK7wR6oivKSWGPfABID9z2s9qoVOChGK0-RKrc3cmz4WMf6Vxcz/w640-h622/gazameme08.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><b>10 October</b></p><p>Does "Never Again" mean never, for all the world's peoples, or does it only mean never again *to us*? Because if you don't support freedom and independence for Palestine, if you support Israel's apartheid state, you're not concerned with humanity. You're only concerned with your own kind. How does that square with the rest of your values? </p><p></p><p>Hearts are breaking for the deaths of Israelis, and rightly so. But for the deaths of Gaza? Silence.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSAd_WNEvs8NcaQp8ZREDOR6qDWlxVhkX5QE4B85ok-pJ1hLxOHkmMa9nRz6krEivNdZWXtHwea-oizphmNy2spWL5Fh4VAsoEYv_eHChE0m4MLuhzZiHlQXDhZ1S9zzQDWOW0_-rtlRs_-wEKR49cODzE6U8blzeJS4EkUuCVrkQC9E0EqJKg/s734/gazameme07.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="585" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSAd_WNEvs8NcaQp8ZREDOR6qDWlxVhkX5QE4B85ok-pJ1hLxOHkmMa9nRz6krEivNdZWXtHwea-oizphmNy2spWL5Fh4VAsoEYv_eHChE0m4MLuhzZiHlQXDhZ1S9zzQDWOW0_-rtlRs_-wEKR49cODzE6U8blzeJS4EkUuCVrkQC9E0EqJKg/w510-h640/gazameme07.JPG" width="510" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b><p></p><p><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-10-09/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israel-cant-imprison-2-million-gazans-without-paying-a-cruel-price/0000018b-1476-d465-abbb-14f6262a0000" target="_blank"></a></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-10-09/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israel-cant-imprison-2-million-gazans-without-paying-a-cruel-price/0000018b-1476-d465-abbb-14f6262a0000" target="_blank">Israel Can’t Imprison Two Million Gazans Without Paying a Cruel Price</a></p><p>Gideon Levy</p><p>Get email notification for articles from Gideon Levy</p><p>Oct 9, 2023</p><p>Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed.</p><p>Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed.</p><p>We’ll arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers busy with their pogroms. We'll visit Joseph’s Tomb, Othniel’s Tomb and Joshua’s Altar in the Palestinian territories, and of course the Temple Mount – over 5,000 Jews on Sukkot alone.</p><p>We’ll fire at innocent people, take out people’s eyes and smash their faces, expel, confiscate, rob, grab people from their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and of course continue with the unbelievable siege of the Gaza Strip, and everything will be all right.</p><p>We’ll build a terrifying obstacle around Gaza – the underground wall alone cost 3 billion shekels ($765 million) – and we’ll be safe. We’ll rely on the geniuses of the army's 8200 cyber-intelligence unit and on the Shin Bet security service agents who know everything. They’ll warn us in time.</p><p>We’ll transfer half an army from the Gaza border to the Hawara border in the West Bank, only to protect far-right lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and the settlers. And everything will be all right, both in Hawara and at the Erez crossing into Gaza.</p><p>It turns out that even the world's most sophisticated and expensive obstacle can be breached with a smoky old bulldozer when the motivation is great. This arrogant barrier can be crossed by bicycle and moped despite the billions poured into it and all the famous experts and fat-cat contractors.</p><p>The Gaza Palestinians are willing to pay any price for a moment of freedom. Will Israel learn its lesson? No.</p><p>We thought we’d continue to go down to Gaza, scatter a few crumbs in the form of tens of thousands of Israeli work permits – always contingent on good behavior – and still keep them in prison. We’ll make peace with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinians will be forgotten until they’re erased, as quite a few Israelis would like.</p><p>We’ll keep holding thousands of Palestinian prisoners, sometimes without trial, most of them political prisoners. And we won’t agree to discuss their release even after they've been in prison for decades.</p><p>We’ll tell them that only by force will their prisoners see freedom. We thought we would arrogantly keep rejecting any attempt at a diplomatic solution, only because we don’t want to deal with all that, and everything would continue that way forever.</p><p>Once again it was proved that this isn’t how it is. A few hundred armed Palestinians breached the barrier and invaded Israel in a way no Israeli imagined was possible. A few hundred people proved that it’s impossible to imprison 2 million people forever without paying a cruel price.</p><p>Just as the smoky old Palestinian bulldozer tore through the world’s smartest barrier Saturday, it tore away at Israel’s arrogance and complacency. And that’s also how it tore away at the idea that it’s enough to occasionally attack Gaza with suicide drones – and sell them to half the world – to maintain security.</p><p>On Saturday, Israel saw pictures it has never seen before. Palestinian vehicles patrolling its cities, bike riders entering through the Gaza gates. These pictures tear away at that arrogance. The Gaza Palestinians have decided they’re willing to pay any price for a moment of freedom. Is there any hope in that? No. Will Israel learn its lesson? No.</p><p>On Saturday they were already talking about wiping out entire neighborhoods in Gaza, about occupying the Strip and punishing Gaza “as it has never been punished before.” But Israel hasn’t stopped punishing Gaza since 1948, not for a moment.</p><p>After 75 years of abuse, the worst possible scenario awaits it once again. The threats of “flattening Gaza” prove only one thing: We haven’t learned a thing. The arrogance is here to stay, even though Israel is paying a high price once again.</p><p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears very great responsibility for what happened, and he must pay the price, but it didn’t start with him and it won’t end after he goes. We now have to cry bitterly for the Israeli victims, but we should also cry for Gaza.</p><p></p><p>Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees created by Israel. Gaza, which has never known a single day of freedom.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><b>9 October</b></p><p>I can see how if a person sees only US or Canadian mainstream sources, it could seem like Hamas attacked Israel out of the blue, unprovoked. That's how one-sided the coverage is. There's no context. Occupation, pogroms, blockades, deliberate power and water outages, settlers claiming more and more land, a denial of the very right to exist. The daily brutality that Americans and Canadians are rarely, if ever, exposed to. When a colonized people lash out, it is never out of the blue.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk2tkhnKszM9QfAEhuz-YgOJ8tg0M1Wp0ppTj7JMTSGtserzFx3BnaxYjGFTPR1sxLFKMDK96ykW21xzWw8reHVgrhXkicOzdsRGP64Qlc3X4N8Zs6MaGnV-65HS4-OIX16hmmMZo5rrFOVOtTaw81G3_VBVg2rHTlgweYLwb7ViDPcCL3lban/s802/gazameme06.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="802" data-original-width="575" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk2tkhnKszM9QfAEhuz-YgOJ8tg0M1Wp0ppTj7JMTSGtserzFx3BnaxYjGFTPR1sxLFKMDK96ykW21xzWw8reHVgrhXkicOzdsRGP64Qlc3X4N8Zs6MaGnV-65HS4-OIX16hmmMZo5rrFOVOtTaw81G3_VBVg2rHTlgweYLwb7ViDPcCL3lban/w458-h640/gazameme06.JPG" width="458" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BimxmOIMKWtaFk_v7QoqXNpm7fx4oHqszB84SiLTKh0Ezv3iT24IRaARMsZzdS6k8fHMvIgXZ6t5gU3nX9jDKgDYfferqDajdqT8wV6kRA6DRMvNI49tZNEwm0DXM73w8vVgN9J1ZmXkBjZSCK2vR9mThBNN1qsSLzRRYosX7dSxL_FFalf8/s636/gazameme05.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="636" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_BimxmOIMKWtaFk_v7QoqXNpm7fx4oHqszB84SiLTKh0Ezv3iT24IRaARMsZzdS6k8fHMvIgXZ6t5gU3nX9jDKgDYfferqDajdqT8wV6kRA6DRMvNI49tZNEwm0DXM73w8vVgN9J1ZmXkBjZSCK2vR9mThBNN1qsSLzRRYosX7dSxL_FFalf8/w640-h434/gazameme05.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr56c0E5-RfB-WphmByRETZTxsibkNLlGG-9s4j5QryvywRO1gNn1Ab_FWjGKM42e8sr2e7Ylo8Zf_8SCYM-KiMtm0iOxUt9Pk3SGlqW_KYcyp1AkuBLv7M17oaKRHpzrYxDSdvXGUaGQCW6J9D4GUSfDqY0Zyv2RGiX-RfPtZF4zTa93Zu8N2/s698/gazameme04.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="584" data-original-width="698" height="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr56c0E5-RfB-WphmByRETZTxsibkNLlGG-9s4j5QryvywRO1gNn1Ab_FWjGKM42e8sr2e7Ylo8Zf_8SCYM-KiMtm0iOxUt9Pk3SGlqW_KYcyp1AkuBLv7M17oaKRHpzrYxDSdvXGUaGQCW6J9D4GUSfDqY0Zyv2RGiX-RfPtZF4zTa93Zu8N2/w640-h536/gazameme04.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9BEa5mISpG3gul76UKuBBUWy5P2pW2O7-4JHFUX7JSrCr6xXu87fFqLKmfDtC3VizVu6-4lhyphenhyphenL8mO81pwKJQYJvcXixGC_oR1PtcDz2Z0Yo8e8DA5am8BNFv2a-Xj7r2lqSKU1eJOaT8R6T7r4SY4FhHCBwCaprtSfTNla-JqnE_ieXOEte9S/s801/gazameme03.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="801" data-original-width="581" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9BEa5mISpG3gul76UKuBBUWy5P2pW2O7-4JHFUX7JSrCr6xXu87fFqLKmfDtC3VizVu6-4lhyphenhyphenL8mO81pwKJQYJvcXixGC_oR1PtcDz2Z0Yo8e8DA5am8BNFv2a-Xj7r2lqSKU1eJOaT8R6T7r4SY4FhHCBwCaprtSfTNla-JqnE_ieXOEte9S/w464-h640/gazameme03.JPG" width="464" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQaTrHEjhYtsh3hCuN7UNpblo1qPZXFNky3pw3PcZTD6Tng7luHeqcW0mZCh8tyCFfWhBD_-xpoKNASx9yxUsrg_CjTUxLQC-aiwPgaJ3PTN-vVO4gNhTgnGI0GrhY5YuM96xtKfkOo9YS4oa92I7WGqyCCcKoxh8psTOuZZsQYfvhUvkFIwiR/s719/gazameme02.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="719" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQaTrHEjhYtsh3hCuN7UNpblo1qPZXFNky3pw3PcZTD6Tng7luHeqcW0mZCh8tyCFfWhBD_-xpoKNASx9yxUsrg_CjTUxLQC-aiwPgaJ3PTN-vVO4gNhTgnGI0GrhY5YuM96xtKfkOo9YS4oa92I7WGqyCCcKoxh8psTOuZZsQYfvhUvkFIwiR/w640-h378/gazameme02.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><br /></div><p><b>8 October</b></p><p>When the oppressed rise up against their oppressor, they are not starting a war.</p><p></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/israeli-lawmaker-blames-pogroms-against-palestinians-for-terrible-attacks" target="_blank">Israeli lawmaker blames pogroms against Palestinians for ‘terrible’ attacks</a></p><p>Ofer Cassif says he warned the situation would ‘erupt’ if Israel did not change its treatment of Palestinians.</p><p>By Eliyahu Freedman</p><p>8 Oct 2023</p><p>An Israeli lawmaker has told Al Jazeera that his party warned about events like Saturday’s Hamas attack on Israel if the country’s government continued its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.</p><p>Hamas launched a multipronged assault at dawn on Saturday with thousands of rockets fired at Israel, and the Gaza-based group’s fighters infiltrating Israeli towns and illegal settlements.</p><p>The attack left at least 600 Israelis dead, including dozens of soldiers, with bodies strewn on roads. Meanwhile, at least 313 Palestinians have been killed and more than 1,700 others wounded in Israeli bombardments of the besieged Gaza enclave.</p><p>Ofer Cassif, a member of the Knesset and leftist Hadash coalition, said he warned the situation would “erupt” if the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not change its policies towards Palestinians. Hadash has four seats in the 120-member Knesset.</p><p>“We condemn and oppose any assault on innocent civilians. But in contrast to the Israeli government that means that we oppose any assault on Palestinian civilians as well. We must analyse those terrible incidents [the attacks] in the right context – and that is the ongoing occupation,” Cassif said.</p><p>“We have been warning time and time again… everything is going to erupt and everybody is going to pay a price – mainly innocent civilians on both sides. And unfortunately, that is exactly what happened,” he said.</p><p>“The Israeli government, which is a fascist government, supports, encourages, and leads pogroms against the Palestinians. There is an ethnic cleansing going on. It was obvious the writing was on the wall, written in the blood of the Palestinians – and unfortunately now Israelis as well,” he added.</p></blockquote><p></p><p><br /></p></div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-82155590861014453172023-10-27T07:52:00.001-07:002023-10-27T07:52:12.370-07:00what i'm reading: for the win + labour book club update<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5L855a3gUB9Qp1WhiTG7qiyReShEBPSx3j2WkdyNVnqm-OgHKoiLBbhHvtNUeqQeinknW6XJqHHeAyqG3erBLQJZCx6Rxlo3nRnjJIk1fIdfn9hjn-n9mqiu-pTIaoSQcY9AMgm8PmTovDMdaKda_BTN4dPw1-vnWGTyq5YevilmtRUIffl0E/s350/for%20the%20win.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="233" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5L855a3gUB9Qp1WhiTG7qiyReShEBPSx3j2WkdyNVnqm-OgHKoiLBbhHvtNUeqQeinknW6XJqHHeAyqG3erBLQJZCx6Rxlo3nRnjJIk1fIdfn9hjn-n9mqiu-pTIaoSQcY9AMgm8PmTovDMdaKda_BTN4dPw1-vnWGTyq5YevilmtRUIffl0E/w266-h400/for%20the%20win.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>Cory Doctorow's novel <i>For the Win</i> may have been the most unexpected title on my Labour Book Club booklist. It's kind of science fiction (but not really), kind of YA (but not), and it doesn't show up on most "books about unions" lists. But it is most definitely a book about workers, exploitation, unions, and solidarity, from a strongly sympathetic point of view.<div><br /></div><div><i>For the Win</i> was the only book our group read that addressed the issues of workers in the global economy, including the digital economy -- where workers are invisible to the outside world. </div><div><br /></div><div>Much of the action in <i>For the Win</i> revolves around the world of massive multiplayer online role-playing games, known as MMPORGs. Millions of people play these games, so they are -- of course -- giant businesses with correspondingly giant profits to be made. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm sure some wmtc readers need some background info in order to understand this. I sure did! So here's my explanation; hopefully it's not too awkward.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a MMPORG, a player assumes the role of a character, often in a fantasy context, and controls that character's action. Huge numbers of people play the game at the same time, and because players are all over the world, the game goes on 24/7/365. The most well-known MMPORG is probably World of Warcraft. It's estimated that 1,200,000 people are playing WOW on any given day, and that more than 10 million people play it altogether. It's estimated that the game's annual revenues are more than a billion dollars. </div><div><br /></div><div>And that's just one game. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now, within the MMPORG world, there is something called <i>gold farming</i>. When I read <i>FTW</i>, I assumed gold farming was a fictional concept, and was amazed to learn it is very much a Real Thing. I'll let Wikipedia explain.</div><blockquote><div>Gold farming is the practice of playing a massively multiplayer online games (MMO) to acquire in-game currency, later selling it for real-world money.</div><div><br /></div><div>. . . gold farming is lucrative because it takes advantage of economic inequality and the fact that much time is needed to earn in-game currency. Rich players from developed countries, wishing to save many hours of playing time, are willing to pay substantial sums to gold farmers from developing countries. Gold farming has also been linked to credit card fraud, with game accounts used for gold farming being paid for with stolen credit cards.</div><div><br /></div><div>. . . . 2001 reports describe Korean cybercafes being converted into gold farming operations to serve domestic demand. This model, with full-time gold farmers working long hours in cybercafes, was outsourced to China and initially served demand from Korean players. Gold farming in China was experiencing swift growth c. 2004. Cheap labor from inland provinces had washed into more cosmopolitan cities, and these real-life farmers were promptly pressed into service farming gold. In 2011, <i>The Guardian</i> reported that prisoners in some Chinese re-education camps were forced to engage in gold farming for the benefit of prison authorities.</div></blockquote><div>Many characters in <i>FTW</i> are working as gold farmers. These are young people with a great deal of technical skill, working under brutal conditions in internet cafes which essentially function as sweatshops. It's a very shady business, with brutal subcontractors who take advantage of the players' precarious positions to exploit and abuse them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Other characters in <i>FTW</i> toil away in more traditional factories, making plastic parts for plastic toys to be shipped to the other side of the world. They also work under brutal, dangerous conditions for very little pay, and they face nearly constant sexual harassment. </div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, in the western world, another game is being played: <i><a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arbitrage.asp#:~:text=Arbitrage%20is%20the%20simultaneous%20purchase,markets%20or%20in%20different%20forms." target="_blank">arbitrage</a></i>. You may remember reading about arbitrage during the 2008 global financial meltdown. It involves traders moving money around in arcane, convoluted ways, taking advantage of small fluctuations in currencies. Arbitrage traders create nothing. They add no value to the world. They just make, lose, and remake their own fortunes -- while the impacts of their wins and losses are felt globally, by people who lose their jobs, their homes, and their retirement savings.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Parallel worlds</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>FTW</i>, Doctorow creates a world of parallels. </div><div><br /></div><div>MMPORGs are games, but they are big business. Arbitrage is also big business, and it is also a gambling game. The world of arbitrage resembles the MMORPG world -- both complicated, opaque, and hidden from public view. Both are often exploitive.</div><div><br /></div><div>The issues faced by the gold farmers and by factory workers are nearly identical. </div><div><br /></div><div>As the workers organize, strategies they use in their gaming world are echoed in their organizing. In the online games, characters can virtually die in myriad ways. In union organizing, real people are beaten by thugs, shot by police, rounded up and sent to work camps. </div><div><br /></div><div>Employers close up shop and move to new locations. Union organizers and pirate radio broadcasters are always moving to new locations to avoid detection. </div><div><br /></div><div>And so on. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Great characters and a lot of action</b></div><div><br /></div><div>There are some great characters, especially great female characters. I find this heartening, given the struggles of women for visibility and recognition in both tech and gaming. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mala and Yasmin are both powerful leaders, strategizing amid the teeming crush of poverty in Dharavi, India. Matthew and Lu are organizing exploited tech workers in Shenzhen, China. Big Sister Nor is working out of Singapore. Jie, a pirate radio broadcaster and organizer extraordinaire, and the best character in the book, is everywhere and nowhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the midst of a book full of characters and a lot of action, every so often the story stops for a didactic set-piece: on unions, arbitrage, the currency system, inflation, and other topics. I found these interludes boring and mansplainy -- but one member of our Labour Book Club enjoyed the digressions and felt they were the best part of the book. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Solidarity must be global</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>At bottom, <i>For the Win</i> illustrates how workers everywhere face the same issues. Labour transcends borders, transcends language, transcends the specific nature of our work. Everywhere, capital exploits workers the same way. And everywhere, only solidarity can win. <i>FTW</i> is about the need for solidarity beyond nations, immigration status, age, ethnicity, gender. We may be many things, but when it comes to how we earn a living (or don't), we are workers first. </div><div><br /></div><div>A character says:</div><div><blockquote>We come to Guangdong province because they say that we will be rich. But when we get here, we have bad working conditions, bad pay, and everything is stacked against us. No one can get real papers to live here, so we all buy fakes, and the police know they can stop us at any time and put us in jail or send us away because we don't have real documents. Our bosses know it, so they lock us in, or beat us, or steal our pay.</blockquote><blockquote>I have been here for five years now, and I see how it works: the rich get richer, the poor get used up and sent back to the village, ruined. The corrupt government runs on bribes, not justice, and any attempt by working people to organize for a better deal is met with violence. The corrupt businessmen buy corrupt policemen who work for corrupt government. I've had enough! It's time for working people to organize -- one of us is nothing. Together we can't be stopped. </blockquote><blockquote>China's revolutions have come and gone, and still the few are rich and the many are poor. It's time for a worldwide revolution: workers in China, India, America -- all over -- have to fight together. </blockquote></div><div>Doctorow very consciously links these current struggles to labour history: the organizing gamers call themselves International Workers of the World Wide Web (IWWWW), using the nickname “Webblies,” in tribute to the old IWW’s nickname, “the Wobblies”. So many of the books we read for Labour Book Club featured the Wobblies. The IWW will always be the movement that is closest to my heart -- so this detail really struck a deep chord for me.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>For the Win</i> is an ambitious book. Doctorow is trying to do many things at the same time, with uneven results. But at its core, this is an inspiring story of young workers organizing. In that it succeeds brilliantly. All the workers of the world can read this book and be inspired.</div><div><br /></div><div>* * * *</div><div><br /></div><div>Labour Book Club ends in November with <i>Gilded Mountain</i> by Kate Manning. After that, I'll post our reading list and reflect on the experience.</div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-8919234965731840022023-10-16T09:50:00.002-07:002023-10-17T06:30:09.743-07:00national truth and reconciliation day 2023: blankets, and an apology<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqogNCkb2mV5cypa8YaNZrh1J-27nsdE9OFFbFyL113a-RGPC7_dPrVdMevakajMPTipYyNJYMEutV9TC1rEBeqIumBAB5K3eKRHZG4C2If5L3lmZYDWHZ1p8ZUIAAutSeQmxyqjNgYKOO1SeCc-ckg43XAvpIz51bS3v1Sx1_u-lGrpad71_Q/s500/ndtr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="500" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqogNCkb2mV5cypa8YaNZrh1J-27nsdE9OFFbFyL113a-RGPC7_dPrVdMevakajMPTipYyNJYMEutV9TC1rEBeqIumBAB5K3eKRHZG4C2If5L3lmZYDWHZ1p8ZUIAAutSeQmxyqjNgYKOO1SeCc-ckg43XAvpIz51bS3v1Sx1_u-lGrpad71_Q/w640-h354/ndtr.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Port Hardy was especially meaningful this year. Not quite as many people joined the walk as in the previous two years, but there was still a good-sized crowd of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.<p></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGm4v-XGECVx6Nqv8QgEtkBMkWPhhtW4kEN9uTJedUsq_DfAmpGtFKiYC6KSnF_3td_mwKjC7sRkzGiRJNzBxpJiAMbcQFSx-AzPnZ1p7kPQUY3DPy286lQuTMI2IB0lDBTypbwfpXoEd2i3fR83k5qFyr-tbOM9cXWtjIr8zTQU1t9mX69cUb/s450/phss%20pole.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="288" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGm4v-XGECVx6Nqv8QgEtkBMkWPhhtW4kEN9uTJedUsq_DfAmpGtFKiYC6KSnF_3td_mwKjC7sRkzGiRJNzBxpJiAMbcQFSx-AzPnZ1p7kPQUY3DPy286lQuTMI2IB0lDBTypbwfpXoEd2i3fR83k5qFyr-tbOM9cXWtjIr8zTQU1t9mX69cUb/w256-h400/phss%20pole.JPG" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Totem pole at Port Hardy Secondary School</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>In Port Hardy, NDTR begins with a gathering at the high school, where this a magnificent totem pole, and a drum and song blessing. Then everyone walks (elders ride) to Carrot Park, on the bay, for a ceremony. In the park, folding chairs have been set up, and food is being prepared under a huge tent. <p></p><p>Elders sit in the front row, and most non-Indigenous people wait to be invited to sit if they choose. The emcee always encourages everyone to sit; clearly they know that the settlers present don't want to presume. There are <i>many</i> families there, both First Nations and settler -- although not as many non-Indigenous children as I think should be there (as in, everyone). </p><p>After the ceremonies, elders are served lunch in their seats, and everyone is invited to partake. I've never stayed for food; it just feels wrong to me. I'm here to witness this catastrophic trauma in your community, now please feed me? I'm sure our Indigenous hosts would insist that I eat -- I've never been to a First Nations event that didn't include food -- but I don't feel right, so I don't. I also don't bring a camera or use my phone for photos or videos. </p><p><b>NDTR 2023</b></p><p>This year's ceremony included two pieces that were especially meaningful.</p><p>The emcee invited two people to the mic, people who are employed by Island Health, our health authority. I know them to be the director and manager of mental health and addiction services in our region.</p><p>The spokesperson from Island Health acknowledged the historic and systemic racism that caused Indigenous people to go without appropriate care, and the actions disguised as care that actively caused harm. They called all Island Health workers who were present (many of whom I recognized from my community connections) to come up. </p><p>As all stood facing the assembled crowd, the speaker apologized for these past wrongs, and pledged to move forward as partners with the Nations in timely, appropriate, and culturally safe care. They announced the opening of a new local health resource. It was a huge piece to witness.</p><p>Naturally, the emcee and the local chiefs talked about the residential "schools," and the impacts of intergenerational trauma. The speaker asked survivors of the schools to stand. Members of the Nation came out with brightly coloured blankets and wrapped each of them in a blanket, standing and holding these elders in a tight, blanketed embrace. It was deeply moving. </p><p>I recognized several regulars from our library. I knew they had been affected by residential school trauma, but did not know they themselves were survivors. I'm glad to know this about them.</p><p><b>Never assume</b></p><p>We left shortly after, stopping at a food truck for something to eat. There, I saw a lovely library customer I know, and her husband. She told me that he is Métis, and a residential school survivor himself. She told me she is also mostly First Nations, but her family somehow escaped this fate. </p><p>I didn't know this about her or her husband, and never could have guessed based on their appearance. This conversation was a perfect example of something I frequently encounter. <i>You never know.</i> You never know someone's background or their experience. You cannot make assumptions.</p><p>A few days later, at the library, I received an invitation that read, in part:</p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-CA">We invite
you to celebrate with us and witness the cedar blessing of the opening of the
Port Hardy Primary Care Centre's A’ekaḵila’as Room One—a welcoming,
culturally-safe space for our Indigenous Community Partners, our patients and
their families. We invite you to share with us how you see the space evolving
over time. It is a meeting space, a place for care and a sacred space that we
hope you will call your own.</span></p></blockquote><p>This must be the health resource mentioned in the ceremony. There's an open house that I look forward to attending.</p><p>When I think about what Canada and the Church did to Indigenous people, I wonder how there can ever be justice, and I despair. And when I witness the spirit and resiliency of the Nations and their peoples, and I connect with all the non-Indigenous people who want to help the healing, I have hope.</p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-7647813225732689372023-10-16T07:17:00.009-07:002023-10-16T15:37:57.462-07:00a trip to victoria: beyond van gogh, puzzle lab, library... and food. lots of food.I had two recent experiences that I want to preserve on wmtc -- a trip to Victoria, and this year's National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Port Hardy.<div><br /></div><div>* * * *<br /><div><br /></div><div>Victoria is a lovely small city that's perfect for us for a relatively inexpensive urban fix. I once imagined that we'd visit Vancouver that way, since Port Hardy has an airport, and Vancouver, the air travel hub, is a puddle-jump away. That was before I knew how expensive that puddle-jump is. If we're en route to anywhere else, the price of the flight from Hardy to Vancouver can easily be twice or three times as much as the long-haul flights we're connecting to. Plus, there are only two or three flights a day, so flying anywhere usually means an overnight in Vancouver. This makes "off-Island" travel a very expensive proposition. </div><div><br /></div><div>Victoria, on the other hand, is only a six- or seven-hour drive -- the other end of the only "highway" on the island. (Highway: a beautiful, scenic drive, one lane in each direction.) Victoria is nowhere near the size and variety of Vancouver, but there are lots of restaurants, a smattering of cultural activities, good hotels, nice neighbourhoods to explore, and enough variety to give me the little break from small-town life that I need once in a while. </div><div><br /></div><div>Victoria is also a short ferry ride from Washington State. Much of our family now lives in Oregon and California, so Victoria is a natural stop when we're doing a family road trip. On this last trip, our friends M&M (a/k/a my brother and sister-in-law) arrived by ferry, and we drove down to meet them. We rented a lovely VRBO in a great location, and had a really good time.</div><div><br /></div><div>The trip included Allan's special birthday present, referenced in this post: <a href="http://www.wmtc.ca/2023/06/too-much-honesty-can-be-very-bad-thing.html" target="_blank">too much honesty can be a very bad thing: a story about a birthday present</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYgl3SUbqj7x_v6zlSmPmh6RGY7MMu2WNG-r-m8in1BiOcUjLCjjAKShsNu_jEElr3kbQsMK6BzU8r71a9PCSPEsjcPxSBN6llIQ1dg9mgc_142GYK5RLIz64_qdyGeFr5a1mUzU3NHTGdDoCAi8f6s6CgkaFnl5Y_Kx1yP64qlCbco6pKf-I5/s804/squier%20box.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="804" height="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYgl3SUbqj7x_v6zlSmPmh6RGY7MMu2WNG-r-m8in1BiOcUjLCjjAKShsNu_jEElr3kbQsMK6BzU8r71a9PCSPEsjcPxSBN6llIQ1dg9mgc_142GYK5RLIz64_qdyGeFr5a1mUzU3NHTGdDoCAi8f6s6CgkaFnl5Y_Kx1yP64qlCbco6pKf-I5/w640-h357/squier%20box.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>By wonderful chance, the "<a href="https://www.beyondvangogh.com/" target="_blank">Beyond Van Gogh</a>" exhibit was in Victoria when we were. I had read about this, but never expected to see it, so I was thrilled at this coincidence. If you have a chance to see it, <i>go</i>. It was extraordinary. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mxvC-HE5mJFnB4sKfI7u5uMz85BTNMSXVa4AlIdndZImXbR3QRzmpllk_Cy9SSbPJrst4katA3flW6hF2MNpPFm6bG4GBq_0EbCbeTjVoYC3JcpS8XO2QiqAp7ezKHLY5rxklCJbDvEvCe-I9CXaiAfAha2wNBafh3sZAgRurJCmMX1RftU1/s3699/20230914_113923.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3699" data-original-width="3000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mxvC-HE5mJFnB4sKfI7u5uMz85BTNMSXVa4AlIdndZImXbR3QRzmpllk_Cy9SSbPJrst4katA3flW6hF2MNpPFm6bG4GBq_0EbCbeTjVoYC3JcpS8XO2QiqAp7ezKHLY5rxklCJbDvEvCe-I9CXaiAfAha2wNBafh3sZAgRurJCmMX1RftU1/w520-h640/20230914_113923.jpg" width="520" /></a></div><br /><div>Of course, nothing compares to seeing art in person. If you're ever in New York City, "Starry Night" lives in MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, and there are several Van Goghs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And of course there is the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. But even if you are fortunate enough to experience either or both of those, Beyond Van Gogh is more than just an accessible substitute.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyo9nAulgvpvhfLU58uV4nd6fzknO4xUvNtvN7QoXydP-l0wEXDcGDfN8rSPQlQMJFnaXuUq1nynQquU2dR0k-_8ofIw3pdCPVMjZPPXfMX9arBAVZvvIroD1HP90UtXMJcE9ZIOrL0ZebKwVoqVL-Y-LqYQpeJmRtagGBGklXMkSLYicvOYc5/s4032/image00023.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyo9nAulgvpvhfLU58uV4nd6fzknO4xUvNtvN7QoXydP-l0wEXDcGDfN8rSPQlQMJFnaXuUq1nynQquU2dR0k-_8ofIw3pdCPVMjZPPXfMX9arBAVZvvIroD1HP90UtXMJcE9ZIOrL0ZebKwVoqVL-Y-LqYQpeJmRtagGBGklXMkSLYicvOYc5/w640-h480/image00023.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>The exhibit is a celebration of Vincent Van Gogh's life and his work -- an art-history lesson, an insight into the mind of a unique genius, and a celebration of art and beauty.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-e5NzOC3g0bXt4AeKTdS9zkkFhBT0okTI_vL5WIdGwxUmEbWOT45FTOCqyn0_nWDKneQTWGTvVDMjo_JADSl8tF6xyXwloHn4nSsxg9xAfvcqc2hwDwRwN2EQh-dMH_INYo0omAw5TCbIN12V7HNEQmCH9fwmR4viO9LVE6UZ-3lsypAwU_de/s4032/image00020.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-e5NzOC3g0bXt4AeKTdS9zkkFhBT0okTI_vL5WIdGwxUmEbWOT45FTOCqyn0_nWDKneQTWGTvVDMjo_JADSl8tF6xyXwloHn4nSsxg9xAfvcqc2hwDwRwN2EQh-dMH_INYo0omAw5TCbIN12V7HNEQmCH9fwmR4viO9LVE6UZ-3lsypAwU_de/w640-h480/image00020.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>These images from the show cannot capture the breathtaking feeling of being surrounded by this beauty, along with well-chosen music and voice-over narration. The narration is excerpts from Van Gogh's diaries, and from his correspondence with his beloved brother Theo, who was his lifelong, stalwart friend and champion.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9BSLKiEY8XajLonxZAou1-sfQBLngx1ZzkZiCfeYAXYHnc6n3coCa1USMAP0FXueSvvXBgW7QpZ0qMAgtZEPp8Dgqryc-m413T7y_aEsoddgjEe-zsvmUP38oN3jRqJ5MFaugX2gpmMPaGBQYRe3ck7QW_kgYuL5a1c_bq53-CgIBw0T_TAuu/s4032/image00008.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9BSLKiEY8XajLonxZAou1-sfQBLngx1ZzkZiCfeYAXYHnc6n3coCa1USMAP0FXueSvvXBgW7QpZ0qMAgtZEPp8Dgqryc-m413T7y_aEsoddgjEe-zsvmUP38oN3jRqJ5MFaugX2gpmMPaGBQYRe3ck7QW_kgYuL5a1c_bq53-CgIBw0T_TAuu/w640-h480/image00008.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>I have only one criticism of Beyond Van Gogh, and my colleagues and co-workers would know instantly what it is, if they saw this.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEWJT8q-b4i1RNY6-jx5iWgAugvYmI5iFxaw2S7Jpa-igHCjvfQzz5gdnC3rrCXkOvB5GGZMY5M2VvZBxGdehKjIRKRlfp5D8756oaMoWwnwPtPnsghaB0l5DmW8Ms9SeEd4S6eutHd25nulc1vOd-7XnbY7ct9_SPf36uCumWYw0ksg10POky/s4032/image00061.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEWJT8q-b4i1RNY6-jx5iWgAugvYmI5iFxaw2S7Jpa-igHCjvfQzz5gdnC3rrCXkOvB5GGZMY5M2VvZBxGdehKjIRKRlfp5D8756oaMoWwnwPtPnsghaB0l5DmW8Ms9SeEd4S6eutHd25nulc1vOd-7XnbY7ct9_SPf36uCumWYw0ksg10POky/w640-h480/image00061.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQVPoxEhK7bmk2I1VvOgC1P1662YhwrzRhgjzs_LqexVY7vcb3OonyymAqF6up2vGbSHs90qsebYDsx-0X5UHmrfwQXSFTR9AGZCUZ3U-8JsEO8tXp4tlPCd8jLQ8WAqq-BngCDYuVDGsCoRfufzlxgvrDgurIwt-lw-6Yps4nxbNvOfsQ-bO/s4032/image00062.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMQVPoxEhK7bmk2I1VvOgC1P1662YhwrzRhgjzs_LqexVY7vcb3OonyymAqF6up2vGbSHs90qsebYDsx-0X5UHmrfwQXSFTR9AGZCUZ3U-8JsEO8tXp4tlPCd8jLQ8WAqq-BngCDYuVDGsCoRfufzlxgvrDgurIwt-lw-6Yps4nxbNvOfsQ-bO/w640-h480/image00062.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Much of the textual information in this show was not <i>visually accessible</i>. Text placed over an image is very difficult for many people to read. People with visual or print disabilities may not be able to read this at all. This is a design challenge, easily resolved -- <i>if</i> the designer is aware of it. The curators and designers of Beyond Van Gogh obviously were not. This is especially sad in an exhibit that is fundamentally about making art accessible to more people.</div><div><br /></div><div>* * * *</div><div><br /></div><div>Poking around downtown Victoria, we found this unusual store: <a href="https://www.puzzle-lab.com/" target="_blank">puzzle lab</a>. Puzzle lab sells wooden jigsaw puzzles, handcrafted with unique shapes, featuring images by local artists. Artists actually see royalties from their work sold at puzzle lab, which is practically unheard of. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is from their brochure.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJMrxs5kupsiyDopYl1puwJ2f0_XFAIbbhgkUPnrDe67xNJSAcAM-IuMleZI7b2165t770VqgefF8Lm0LpUiN3I8qwrqusGckEuZHopCb9GLt-C_7mJsC58DaeSqZXfYHHNpIvCiIuNBJ9SpRsTN-5OHQee7StVcjNrlypqiD-tSUXRHDyWLk-/s3822/20231016_063559.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3822" data-original-width="2004" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJMrxs5kupsiyDopYl1puwJ2f0_XFAIbbhgkUPnrDe67xNJSAcAM-IuMleZI7b2165t770VqgefF8Lm0LpUiN3I8qwrqusGckEuZHopCb9GLt-C_7mJsC58DaeSqZXfYHHNpIvCiIuNBJ9SpRsTN-5OHQee7StVcjNrlypqiD-tSUXRHDyWLk-/w336-h640/20231016_063559.jpg" width="336" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgys4H27VRDAKh_6ugsCmbyOz6fsGQCtEJTWRE17i1uVHw0NVTvq7ttFk1XG_59Fi7mNBpqp80kvC34G5I7Cz4wyPBZD0trf35iP6kPRJdEdSPkFaBEWpE24ed4ub0WTHqR1o53GXfX4rd88dGmPZLCOFM3wzGHrvU4vHfSHgpSeAV7Nfdp8Mp1/s4000/20231016_063629.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgys4H27VRDAKh_6ugsCmbyOz6fsGQCtEJTWRE17i1uVHw0NVTvq7ttFk1XG_59Fi7mNBpqp80kvC34G5I7Cz4wyPBZD0trf35iP6kPRJdEdSPkFaBEWpE24ed4ub0WTHqR1o53GXfX4rd88dGmPZLCOFM3wzGHrvU4vHfSHgpSeAV7Nfdp8Mp1/w640-h480/20231016_063629.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>I <i>love</i> doing jigsaw puzzles. (I share pics of my completed puzzles on Facebook, but have kept them off wmtc.) I was very excited to buy something from puzzle lab, but even the smallest puzzles were well out of my price range. I hope they can sell enough expensive puzzles to stay in business.</div><div><br /></div><div>We also drove out to Sooke to visit the <a href="https://virl.bc.ca/branches/sooke/" target="_blank">beautiful new library branch</a> there, and a lovely colleague of mine gave us a tour. It's an incredible space, with amazing resources. It made me envious, both of the size of the branch and the staff complement. I wish so much that my community was receiving resources on that scale. </div><div><br /></div><div>One of the things we did most in Victoria was <i>eat</i>. There are very few restaurant options in our area, so when we are out of town, eating good food is a high priority. In Victoria, we are very partial to <a href="https://jamcafes.com/victoria-menu/" target="_blank">Jam</a> for breakfast/brunch and Ebizo for amazing sushi. (There are actually two sushi restaurants in Port Hardy! But neither comes anywhere close to Ebizo.) On this trip we also discovered great pub food at Spinnaker's, where we connected with a friend from Ontario who was in town.</div></div>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7593664.post-89613143931336340532023-10-09T07:09:00.095-07:002023-10-10T05:12:47.832-07:00what i'm reading: delusions of gender: how our minds, society, and neurosexism create difference<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnzCRKb2NXjexkZVAsLBPPpz7oPFMbpqCiP13uiQghF3icmqmWWFBgtt3S3UiW-AfNHgIe0f3FX22Psn7vuKbBnIwC8ylBotRhC3NGhSRoxTTFc1wHL93fwX4nd9BoX6RYvRePWd1l7nIhBwMpdJeiszzWhOn027rAp47VfVccbD25vIQlh3-n/s430/delusions%20gender.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="291" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnzCRKb2NXjexkZVAsLBPPpz7oPFMbpqCiP13uiQghF3icmqmWWFBgtt3S3UiW-AfNHgIe0f3FX22Psn7vuKbBnIwC8ylBotRhC3NGhSRoxTTFc1wHL93fwX4nd9BoX6RYvRePWd1l7nIhBwMpdJeiszzWhOn027rAp47VfVccbD25vIQlh3-n/w271-h400/delusions%20gender.JPG" width="271" /></a></div>When I was in library school, much ink was spilled discussing a "crisis" of "boys not reading". Countless articles were written, studies were launched, hands were wrung. <i>How do we get boys to read???</i></div><p></p><p>For a paper I was writing, I dug up the original study that launched this literacy catastrophe. Any guesses on what I learned?</p><p>The percentage of boys who self-reported not reading was only marginally larger than the percentage of girls who didn't read -- barely statistically significant. In other words, lots of girls also were not reading. But apparently this was not worth mentioning.</p><p>The coverage appeared to follow a predictable, maddening pattern. First the data from the original study was cherry-picked and interpreted with a great deal of bias. Then educators and journalists read that badly-reported interpretation, never bothering with the study itself, and reported the researcher's biased conclusions.</p><p>I thought of this often as I read Cordelia Fine's persuasive, powerful, and often amusing <i>Delusions of Gender</i>. (The book has been published with two different subtitles.)</p><p><b>Neurosexism: a cottage industry</b></p><p>There are whole shelves of books that purport to explain that differences between men and women are innate, hard-wired, and immutable, rather than the result of upbringing, education, and social conditioning. <i>Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus</i> is perhaps the most famous title of a subgenre that includes <i>The Female Brain</i>, <i>The Essential Difference</i>, <i>Why Gender Matters</i>, <i>What Could He Be Thinking?</i>, and my personal favourite title, <i>Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps</i>. Seriously. This is the title of a published book.</p><p>These books claim to demonstrate the definitive resolution in the age-old nature/nurture debate -- which has not really been a debate in several decades, as it is widely acknowledged that human behaviour is affected by myriad influences, and that these two oversimplified, supposedly irreconcilable explanations actually engage in many complex, little-understood interactions. And, at least regarding gender, this supposed debate has been solved by... <i>science!</i> The neuroscience is there! We have the data to prove it!</p><p>Or not.</p><p>Cordelia Fine demonstrates how the studies cited in these books are:</p><p>-- tiny: five people here, seven people there; </p><p>-- deeply flawed: based on false assumptions, grossly open to interpretation, not scientific in any way; and even still,</p><p>-- do not even demonstrate what authors claim they do.</p><p>These unscientific, flawed, and in many cases, <i>fake</i> studies are used in service of political ends, by people telling other people what they want to hear: that modernity is a scourge, and if we could just turn back the clock, we'd all be so much happier. </p><p>Or by people who want to blame relationship issues on something immutable, thereby absolving them of the hard work of empathy, communication, and intimacy. </p><div>And most often, it seems, this specious data is used by people who believe their privilege is threatened and don't want their dominant worldview challenged. </div><p>Tl;dr: all the world's evils are caused by feminism.</p><p><b>Even the neurosexists can't keep their stories straight</b></p><p>Of course, people have long claimed that differences in gender -- that is, the mainstream differences seen in the dominant culture -- are innate. But the reasons have changed over time. </p><blockquote><p>For example, in the nineteenth century, when the seat of the intellect was thought to reside in the frontal lobes, careful observations of male and female brains revealed that this regional appeared both larger and more complexly structured in males, while the parietal lobes were better developed in women. Yet when scientific thought came to the opinion that it was instead the parietal lobes that furnished powers of abstract intellectual thought, subsequent observations revealed that the parietal lobes were move developed in the male, after all. </p></blockquote><blockquote><p>. . . . Of course, there's nothing wrong with changing your mind in the light of new evidence about the sexes. But those who are tempted to play this game, by claiming that sex differences in the structure of the brain yield essentially different kinds of minds, should be aware that this sort of flipping seems to be a common part of the process. </p></blockquote><div><b>Beware of brain blobs</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In the neurosexist world, it's common to show images of the brain, taken through PET scans or MRIs, as proof of the gendered brain. The thinking goes like this: this portion of the brain is responsible for x behaviour. When we give people task x, the portion that lights up in women's/men's brains is bigger/smaller that the portion that lights up in the other gender's brains, therefore men/women are better/worse at this behaviour.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Bzzzzt</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Take, for example, a study that supposedly proves that males have a greater aptitude for mathematics than females.</div><div><br /></div><div>First, the researcher posits a concept called "systemizing". Systemizing is loosely and vaguely defined. </div><div><br /></div><div>Next, we are told that systemizing is correlated with an aptitude for math. This is stated but unproved. </div><div><br /></div><div>Next, the researcher says that a certain task, such as how quickly one can group images into categories, is proof of good systemizing skills. This is also an unproven assumption.</div><div><br /></div><div>And <i>then</i> we told that a brain scan (either fMRI or PET, both used to measure brain activity) shows a portion of the brain "lighting up" more in men than in women during this task proves that men are better at systemizing, and therefore, people with penises have a greater aptitude for math than people with vaginas.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not only don't we really know what systemizing is, nor do we know how systemizing relates to mathematical aptitude, nor do we know that the ability to complete the assigned task is proof of a systemizing mind. It turns out that the colours shown in the scans don't prove anything! The colours do show brain activity, but what relationship that activity bears to the task at hand is mostly unknown.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is because very little is understood about the relationship between the physical brain and the human mind. If there is a correlation between certain aptitudes, thoughts, or feelings and brain activity as shown in a scan, there is no clear interpretation of what that correlation is. As Fine writes:</div><blockquote><div>There just isn't a simple one-to-one correspondence between brain regions and mental processes, which can make interpreting imaging data a difficult task. As Jonah Lehrer recently explained in the <i>Boston Globe</i>: </div></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p>One of the most common uses of brain scanners -- taking a complex psychological phenomenon and pinning it to a particular bit of cortex -- is now being criticized as a potentially serious oversimplification of how the brain works. . . . Critics stress the interconnectivity of the brain, noting that virtually every thought and feeling emerges from the crosstalk of different areas spread across the cortex.</p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><p>. . . Then, there is the sad fact that, at its most precise, functional imaging technology averages over a few seconds the activity of literally millions of neurons that can fire up to a hundred impulses a second. (For PET the time-scale is even longer.) 'Using fMRI to spy on neurons is something like using Cold War-era satellites to spy on people: only large-scale acivity is visible,' says <i>Science</i> journalist Greg Miller. This severely limits the interpretations that can be made about brief psychological events. </p></blockquote><p>In fact, the "familiar spots of colour on brain activation maps" are so vague and misleading that that neurosexism skeptics have a name for it: <i>blobology</i>. </p><p><b>So what does it all mean?</b></p><p>So what is known about the science behind differences in gender? An incomplete, confusing, ever-evolving jumble that true scientists are unable and unwilling to draw conclusions from. Which is a very flimsy foundation on which to build university admissions policies, hiring practices, social policy, or relationship advice. </p><p>Because I read a lot of social history, I come across proclamations, made over the centuries, of what girls and women supposedly aren't capable of by virtue of their gender. Higher education. Running a business. Understanding politics. Driving. Performing surgery. Managing money. Enjoying sex. </p><p>Then there are all the behaviours that men are supposedly incapable or barely capable of. Empathy. Nurturing. Nonviolence. Keeping an orderly home. Caring for children. </p><p>These sexist assumptions were all supposedly based on science. </p><p>Now the current interest in neuroscience has provided bigots with the perfect cover for their agenda. It's still the same old sexism, in a new, pseudo-scientific package.</p><p></p>laura khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05524593142290489958noreply@blogger.com0