Quaker Spring June 24-29 Barnesville OH

Oh, no, Not a RantWoman e-e-ennndorsement????

RantWoman who had absolutely no leading to attend say the FLGBTQC midwinter gathering, more accessible on RantWoman's transportation horizons? Probably more congenial on multiple grounds than hanging with conservative Friend? RantWoman who skipped the FLGBTQC midwinter gathering over silly things like winter getting in the way of swimming in the outdoor pool at Menucha because even the living water would still be too darned cold?

THAT RantWoman.

RantWoman continues to be intrigued by Quaker Spring. Even if she never gets herself there in body, the website has all kind of interesting minutes and epistles. RantWoman will hold discernment about attending herself but definitely recommends checking it out!

http://www.quakerspring.org/quakerspring2014.php

Digression from disaster deluge: prayers....

Warning: discussion of child pornography

RantWoman is digressing from non-stop media deluge about various local disasters about which RantWoman herself can offer only prayers.

Instead, RantWoman posts this with prayers for anyone touched by this subject
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/kristof-he-was-supposed-to-take-a-photo.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Human Rights and Conflict Resolution in Context

RantWoman is a nerd! If RantWoman had ANY spare time fror reading with now, this new book about differing approaches to situations based on human rights or conflict resolution sounds fascinating.

http://forusa.org/blogs/rene-wadlow/book-review-human-rights-conflict-resolution-context/12913

The Army War College reviews obstacles to recruitment

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Army-Makes-Case-Against-En-by-David-Swanson-Army_Army-War-College_Army-Promotions_Iraq-Army-Troops-140319-699.html


The Quaker House Read Every Line Before You Sign video

Superman in Shannon

It would be unQuakerly to use the first widely circulated St Patrick's Day internet quip that comes to mind. So RantWoman will let the story speak for itself.

http://www.afriendlyletter.com/?p=244

No New Youth Jail in Seattle

Youth Undoing Institutional Racism (YUIR),

End the Prison Industrial Complex (EPIC),

& European Dissent present:

 

NO NEW YOUTH JAIL

Night of Education & Call to Action

THURSDAY, MARCH 20^Th 6:00-8:00PM

6230 Beacon Ave. S. Seattle, WA

Bethany United Church of Christ

 

NOW is the time for those of us who are white to take a stand.

Did you know that a $210 million youth jail is being built in Seattle? 

Youth crime has decreased by 50% but racial disproportionality has increased: young Black men are now 4.5 times more likely to be jailed in Seattle.

That is NOT what justice looks like.

NOT IN OUR NAME.

 

Featuring:

 A community art project on the criminal justice system.

The voices of leaders from Youth Undoing Institutional Racism.

An interactive presentation on the impact of the Prison Industrial Complex by

Gary Perry and Rose Ernst, Seattle University professors.

 

**Free Dinner & Childcare Provided**

 

Questions?  Contact Megan Wilbert at 206-715-2530 or meganameliaw@gmail.com

Interview with Adam Lanza's father

Blog as Filing Cabinet:

New Yorker interview with Peter Lanza, Adam Lanza' father.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/17/140317fa_fact_solomon?currentPage=all

Honest.

Challenging for any parent who has ever not known how to deal with a child.

Can you believe?: Ukraine: May faith replace fear

Important enough for its own entry even if redundant with blog roll:



Can you believe?: Ukraine: May faith replace fear: Orthodox memorial to international reconciliation at All Saints Sokol * . Source . After this week's meeting for worship, our Moscow...

Carolyn Hax speaks to RantWoman's condition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-after-an-abusive-marriage-she-has-the-right-to-avoid-the-ex-at-a-wedding/2014/03/09/776a0dc2-9f10-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html

RantWoman is meditating about the formulation that ABUSE conditions one to poor self-care and not thinking of one's own safety boundaries. RantWoman does not dispute the point as far as abuse but does note that other dynamics also condition one to put others ahead of oneself.

Resolving Conflict: Restorative Circles Learning Event March 13-15

RantWoman thinks the following event is so important it is geeting publicized on BOTH her mostly non-geek blogs.


Dear friends of Seattle’s Community Restorative Justice Pilot Project,

I write to invite you to participate in an upcoming Restorative Circles Learning Opportunity on 3/15/2014.  As leaders in the community and in this work, it is my hope that if you haven’t already taken a Restorative Circles workshop that you will participate in this or another full day session to get a felt sense of the practice.  This workshop will inform the ongoing conversations and decisions about how we build our community-based restorative justice systems, serves as the first step toward being a facilitator of Restorative Circles (with connected practice opportunities following), and is the type of workshop that we can offer to community partners as we build awareness and capacity for Restorative Justice in our communities. 

This learning opportunity is hosted by a community partner, the Center for Spiritual Living, but is free as “Service Learning” for those who are committed to service in support of the Community Restorative Justice Pilot Program.  

Here is the description:

Are you interested in greater harmony and deeper connection in your communities, family and organizations? Can you imagine engaging conflict in a way that builds relationships, deepens connection and learning?  Restorative Circles support people to step into important and bold conversations with safety and provide a mechanism for vibrant, ongoing, community-based restorative justice systems.  

The "Restorative Circle" we are sharing is a restorative justice practice developed by Dominic Barter in Brazil that is used in a wide range of communities, schools, court systems, and organizations in Seattle and around the world.  www.restorativecircles.org. It is one of the core Restorative Practices in the Community Restorative Justice Pilot Project being developed by the City of Seattle's Restorative Justice Initiative.  A recent University of Rochester video helps bring this practice to life.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bazgiTyieKo.

This facilitated, face-to-face dialogue process empowers those involved in and impacted by conflict to understand and take responsibility for the consequences of their actions, meet the needs of  those who caused harm, those who were harmed, and the community, and engage in collective action to repair harm, restore relationships, prevent future incidents, and promote healing.  Restorative Circles provide a proven, evidence-based alternative to punitive justice and disciplinary systems and a way to interrupt the disproportionate and negative effects those systems have in our communities. 

This Restorative Circles workshop  will allow you to explore the Restorative Circle practice for yourself and, if you like it, consider participating as a leader in establishing restorative systems in your own organizations and communities. We provide hands-on experience and tools that you can use right away to advance a culture of peace. 

In the immediate aftermath of a Seattle police officer's fatal shooting of John T. Williams, a First Nations wood carver, a Restorative Circle was held between
Police Chief John Diaz, top department officials, and the grieving family. See Andrea's article at:  www.tikkun.org/nextgen/a-restorative-circle-in-the-wake-of-a-police-shooting.

Registration on line: www.spiritualliving.org/classes or in person at Center for Spiritual Living Seattle. Contribution: $95.  DISCOUNTS to $55 per person for registration
of groups of two or more to encourage the creation of restorative systems.  Free Service Learning opportunities are available for those supporting Seattle's Community Restorative Justice Pilot Project or Restorative
Practices at the Center for Spiritual Living. To register for service learning, please notify Susan Latta at AdultEd@spiritualliving.org or (206)
527-8801.
 
About the Facilitators:
Andrea Brenneke is a passionate advocate for justice and facilitator of individual and community healing and empowerment.  Andrea now serves as the Director of Restorative Justice for the City of Seattle's newly established Restorative Justice Initiative after twenty years of practicing civil rights and employment law and mediation.  She also serves as a licensed practitioner with the United Centers for Spiritual Living, Seattle. Andrea offers facilitation in Restorative Circles and Peacemaking Circles and works with communities to build restorative justice systems.  She is an apprentice to Dominic Barter.  

Susan Partnow is a community builder, mediator, organizational development and training consultant.  She serves as a catalyst for positive changes through workshops, retreats, and coaching. Co-founder of Conversation Cafes and Let's Talk America, Sr. Trainer and co-creator of the Advanced Training and Certification track with The Compassionate Listening Project, founder and Executive Director of Global Citizen Journey, Susan wrote Everyday Speaking for All Occasions and currently works as Sr. Organizational Development consultant for Swedish Medical Services. www.susanpartnow.com.  She also is an apprentice to Dominic Barter.

Future Restorative Circles workshops sponsored by Center for Spiritual Living:  June 5, 2014 and October 25, 2014. 

On-site workshops can be arranged for communities of 10 or more.
Questions? Please contact Andrea Brenneke at abrenneke@gmail.com or 206.696.1843.
 Andrea Brenneke | Director of Restorative Justice| City of Seattle
Andrea.Brenneke@seattle.gov | 206-233-3750 | PO Box 94749, Seattle, WA 98124

Restorative Circles, mediations, facilitated conversations and negotiations for the purpose of reaching a voluntary resolution to conflict through Restorative Justice are conducted under the Uniform Mediation Act RCW 7.07.  All communication made for the purpose of considering, conducting, participating in, initiating, continuing or reconvening efforts to resolve conflict are privileged and confidential.  

(RantWoman infogeek note: RantWoman is trying to figure out how the "privileged and confidential" part of the above boilerplate squares with wanting to publicize this event and the logic and process of restorative circles widely through social media.)

(Further, not ONLY sarcastic aside: awhile ago at RantWoman's Meeting, the Adult Religious Education had a whirlwind tour of various topics related to conflicts. If it were up to RantWoman though RantWoman would send her whole Meeting through a specific set of focussed exercises...



The Youtube video listed above:

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/