Seasoning with Annotations and a side of eldering.

RantWoman's Meeting is seasoning the first draft of its annual State of Society report. In humble appreciation of the opportunity to read the draft in advance of Meeting for Business, RantWoman is seasoning....

On RantWoman's mind are threads from these two blog posts.

Item 1:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/10/horrors-oops-well-care-and-counsel.html
RantWoman is unclear what if anything from this rant needs to make it into the State of society report. RantWoman particularly notes:

   --RantWoman made a simple information request: would SOMEONE please look it up and answer RantWoman's question. Is the word Oversight freighted with the same associations with enslavement as the word Overseers?

  --A concern about relying only on one overburdened person to answer the question when any number of other members of the newly renamed committee MIGHT conceivably also have been able to assist RantWoman

   --Oh crap. RantWoman already wrote in this post one aspect of her concern. Now RantWoman HAS to follow up with the other piece, part of RantWoman's give things up for Lent on behalf of other people thoughts. Oh crap. Hold in Light.

Item 2:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/01/community-teas-about-rape-and-violence.html
RantWoman needs to season desired improvements to the draft State of Society wording and the content of this blog post are not sufficient to articulate RantWoman's concern.

  --If RantWoman were clerking, she would need both to focus on what needs to make it into the state of Society report and ways to work with what else might come up.

   --If RantWoman were a complete bitch, ...

RantWoman was distracted from the above freight train though by need to elder over what the first time could be considered an honest mistake, one not unlike the one RantWoman actually also made in private conversation. Then the public mistake got repeated and corrected and repeated and corrected again.

Hold that issue in the Light.
The Lord is our Shepard. May we please be delivered of the right words and, if it is not way too much God as personal butler, at least some of it also out of others' mouths. Hold in Light....

Independent Lens Spies of Mississippi

Independent Lens: Spies of Mississippi

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365163372/

This movie is about African Americans, some of whom themselvesplayed roles in enforcin segregation.

RantWoman sincerely thanks a Friend who went to a public group viewing of this special. The public showing was in RantWoman's very own neighborhood, close enough that RantWoman could have walked there. And RantWoman greatly regrets missing the live discussion.

For Lent

RantWoman has come to clarity. RantWoman has a whole list of people on whose behalf she is gladly giving up a variety of behaviors for Lent. Who cares whether the people in question WANT to give up these behaviors? RantWoman has discerned that the behaviors should be given up for Lent and RantWoman is generously going to give them up on behalf of those attached to them.

For instance, stealing words from a Russian historian Friend, On behalf of Vladimir Putin, RantWoman will be too happy to give up the centuries old habit of treating the Crimea like an imperial tug toy.

On behalf of President Obama, RantWoman is very happy to give up some drone strikes.
RantWoman does not intend to mess around only giving up things on behalf of people far away. In fact, RantWoman has a WHOLE list of people near and mostly dear to her on whose behalf she is very happy to give up an even larger list of behaviors. In fact, the lists of people and behaviors are so long that there is a decent chance it is going to take RantWoman all of Lent to spell out what behaviors she is giving up and on behalf of whom.

Hold this in the Light!

But it's Mardi Gras and there will be too much partying somewhere tonight to say more.

What? You think it's not supposed to work this way?


Here RantWoman is going to invoke the Active Listening clause. Once upon a time, someone in a meeting was actively feeding back things RantWoman said. As soon as RantWoman had a sense of her words not disappearing into a faceless cloud, RantWoman also was MUCH better able to interact with what other people were saying.

Word!

Digression because RantWoman appears to be fixated:
RantWoman THINKS she has articulated some big not hearing back concerns a couple ways. RantWoman THINKS that she has also made the point that when she is in meetings where interpreting is occuring, she always makes a point when she speaks of echoing things said through the interpreter. RantWoman does not do this because she is instantly endowed with empathy and perceptiveness. RantWoman does this because she knows from BEING an interpreter how hard it can be for the person being interpreted for to get a word in edgewise. RantWoman also jumps up and down on the "being interpreted for" because RantWoman, Lenten Leadings notwithstanding, has all kinds of people eager to spekaon her behalf and to tell other people they do not need to talk directly to RantWoman.
End of Digression, sort of.
Back to the Active Listening clause: as soon as RantWoman compiled her list of people on behalf of whom behaviors are to be given up for Lent, RantWoman's eye landed closer to herself.
Ummmmm.
Behaviors. ... The Light of God...Daffodils... Stay tuned.

In Conversation: Michaela Angela Davis and Melissa Harris-Perry

Re Melissa Harris Perry's book "Sister Citizen: Shame Stereotypes and Black Women in America."

"I get how you can go from Zora Neale Hurston to statistics."

Misrecognition

Politics of respectability: "In Jim Crow, everyone's pants were up and they still had to sit in the back of the bus."

Duboisian double consciousness: "Michelle (Obama) felt alienated at Princeton and today is Wednesday."



Another book: Dog Whistle Politics  Ian Haney Lopez

A man writes of supporting his wife after rape

RantWoman offers this blog as filing cabinet item with attention to the holiness of different stories and the care of sharing experiences. RantWoman is seasoning further tirades which do not belong splattered all over this powerful and in places upsetting story.

http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/cc-how-men-an-support-women-post-sexual-abuse/

Grupos se movilizan contra el gasto militar.

RantWoman reposts this link as a reminder / refresher or for people who did not see it recently in blogroll from FOR

http://forusa.org/blogs/susana-pimiento/grupos-en-america-latina-se-movilizan-contra-el-gasto-militar/12886

The Nerf War, Take Two

(Look World, RantWoman knows there are supposed to be some trademark signs in here. There aren't. Cope.)

And what is RantWoman doing for the cause of peace and centered attention to questions of those involved in wars:

--Trying to offer centered presence for the likes of the Coffee Strong GI Coffeehouse or in other words welcoming home people from wars RantWoman did not want people sent to in the first place? Umm, EARTH TO RANTWOMAN... Calm down. These people need you to be centered WAY more than you need to have a spell of the vapors.

--Eldering weighty elders for offering spoken ministry about attending an event at the University of WA about the life of local resister to WWII Japanese internment Gorden Hirabayashi and not getting news of the event into the bulletin in time for such as  RantWoman to think of adding the event to her already overloaded schedule?
Mental Note: Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and of course Kenzo Nakamura, World War II fighter pilot and war hero: names to sort out and remember even if one is not terribly well-versed in this history.

--Getting updates on the bus about The Nerf War, Take Two. Ding! Ding! Ding!
Irrepressible Nephew has come in SECOND PLACE, with a unique strategy about which more in a moment.

Bring on the nerf war?

The Nerf War? The annual battle to what, the undeath, between middle school boys and zombies in Irrepressible Nephew's faith community?

Oh Holy Jesus, yeah. That Nerf War.

For weeks RantWoman has been receiving updates about topics of which she would not necessarily prefer to speak. In particular, updates about "modding Nerf blasters."  "Modding Nerf blasters" means doing something to enable these plastic machine gun-like monstrosities to become semiautomatic, to fire without having to cock between rounds. Irrepressible Nephew is good at modding Nerf blasters. In fact, Irrepressible Nephew is highly esteemed among his peers for exactly this skill.

Please note: O Quaker Auntie would just like to crawl under the floor in the presence of this entire issue. On one hand, RantWoman has ranted previously about brown children getting shot for being out in public carrying things that look bad to someone and turn out definitely not to be viable weapons. On the other hand, RantWoman notes the incredible unexamined privilege inherent in chattering openly, in Irrepressible Nephew's innocent, middle school way, all over the bus on Sunday mornings about this. RantWoman could just suffer a severe spell of the vapors.

RantWoman IS glad Irrepressible Nephew is highly esteemed among his peers. RantWoman, though, definitely would not mind for Irrepressible Nephew to be esteemed for something other than "modding Nerf blasters" or semiautomatic anything.

Fear not! God is great and wise and sometimes simply splashes O Quaker auntie in puddles of divine humor.

The middle school nerf war involved a Friday night sleepover but Irrepressible Nephew was still dragging on the bus to Sunday church. He beamed proudly when telling RantWoman about his achievement, but RantWoman asked for more details. RantWoman did not absorb the full details of the point system for staying alive as a human and avoiding getting grabbed and turned into a zombie. RantWoman though is deeply amused to learn that Irrepressible Nephew's strategy for a good bit of the event was simply to stay in a corner out of the main fray with  two Nerf blasters pointed opposite directions away from him and to fire as little as absolutely necessary.
Phew! RantWoman is SO intrigued. RantWoman will manage to put off having a spell of the vapors at least for a little while!