Help Emerald City Bible Fellowship and Community Passageways Recover from a Shooting

 Check out Community Passageways

Help restore ECBF Sanctuary and provide counseling for Community Passageways Team

 

March 17^th, a shooting happened at Emerald City Bible Fellowship in one of our partners programs.  A young man lost his life, a family lost their son, and our community is reeling from this tragedy. 

 

Many have inquired in how they can support, both ECBF and Community Passageways.  Prayer is critical and we have outlined some specific prayer needs below. There are also tangible needs both physical and financial.

 

We have set up a fund at Emerald City Bible Fellowship to meet the unexpected needs and help restore what has been lost in this tragedy.  The Restore Fund will support:

 

1)      Emerald City Bible Fellowship. Restoring the church’s Sanctuary and free the physical space from the memory of this tragedy.  The carpet was damaged and needs to be repaired.  Rather than make a patch that carries the memory of the incident, we want to replace the carpet and refresh the whole space.

 

2)      Community Passageways.  Their team needs resources to provide ongoing grief and trauma counseling.  Many witnessed the event and need time to process.  We want to support them and help alleviate the financial burden of caring for those impacted.

 

Let’s help take care of the physical space and financial burdens, so the ECBF family and Community Passageways, can work on healing the emotional space and continue their ministries to those most impacted.  Let’s help restore what was lost.

 

You can send a gift to Emerald City Bible Fellowship, 7728 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA 98118 or give online at EmeraldCityBible.org. when using either method designate your gift to the “Restore Fund”.

 

Continue to Prayer for:

 

·   Tragic loss of a young man’s life that occurred the week in our building. Pray for his family, friends and community surrounding this incident.

 

·   Pray for the Community Passageways staff and young people who witnessed this event and are processing the grief and pain from the incident

 

·   Pray for the shooter who is on the run.  Pray for his soul and trauma, for healing and release from his hate, anger, bitterness, and desire to retaliate for crimes done to him.

 

·   Pray for leadership and healing as we work with our partners and church to re-create a sense of safe place, in the physical space, among our community and in relationships surrounding the event.

 

·   Pray for Emerald City Bible Fellowship as we work to redeem this time and space in our sanctuary and prepare to move forward into our season of Easter celebration. 

 

Can Service Pythons get COVID? What about Elijah

 RantWoman is (Check all that apply)

--Observing Holy Week with the custom of leave room for Elijah

--Taking another nip at her involuntary accessibility testing habit.

--Crash landing after an accessibility tour de force, okay not hitting every possible button but PLENTY at the recent virtual session of the FWCC Section of the Americas.

--Terrorizing the technologically reluctant with way too much tortuous detail about the accessibility vexations always besetting her interactions with space, time, and community life?

--Trying to find a spiritual spray can to graffiti in something about, contrary to the proclaimings after a certain survey about disability, "it's NOT only about accessibility because there are things no one can fix, but ya know there have been stampedes of people (NOT) visiting RantWoman's workshops trying to explore themes like spiritual accompaniment." And we will not even discuss spiritually fortifying experiences such as vocational rehabilitation and skills and technologies and accommodation needs that are the same whether we are talking about a volunteer activity or a workplace.

--Offering mass baptism of points that matter to RantWoman about accessibility that when people have to wash their hair or tend to a bad back or stay within the time they want to offer Meeting or... that many hands can carry the work and the world will not blow apart because one person is indisposed for whatever reason. Geez. Ya know there is no Good time to have to deal ... and yet...

--Channeling Gogol (yes, the19th century Russian author, not the search engine) about either The Overcoat or The Nose and meandering around Absurdistan, cluttering her version of Blog as Quaker journal with WAY too many metaphors for people to want to hang around with?

--Seeking acceptable Quakerese translations for "pearls before swine" and  '...eyes to see and ears to hear..." every time one of the offerings from RantWoman's soul falls to the floor of the forest without so much as a whisper of interaction. One exchange sticks in RantWoman's mind: two members of pastoral care committees approached RantWoman about messages they did not find God in, right after two other people spoke of great regard for the messages. It would have been entirely appropriate to say "Friends, have you considered that maybe the messages were not for you and your task was to sit in worship?" Had RantWoman opened her mouth at the time though, there might have been too many pearls before swine.

--Handling with great care some other uncomposted deposits that could still either catch fire or fuel fascinating transformations.

--Ding. Ding. Ding! Trying to step through the process for reserving a seat at the slowly relaunching Meeting for Worship. (Please note there are of course other topics to tend to along this line.)

The reservation process involves a platform called RSVPify. The website flunks RantWoman's default first-pass accessibility test: does it say something about accessibility linked from the homepage? No, but the page is navigable enough for RantWoman to find a bunch of gushy reviews which also say nothing about accessibility. High volumes of gushy marketing text seems to be a hallmark of the site in general and RantWoman is definitely not as into idle grazing with screen reader as when she officially could see or at least could see a lot better than now.

So onward. RantWoman will come back to tests on the PC. Let's just say, after RantWoman had two rotten experiences on the PC, she decided to try on her Android phone. RantWoman got all the way through the process, including lots of text about complying with public health, management of the data collected for contact tracing, and even the checkbox for the required waiver of liability. The Google map takes up too much space at the top of the form on both the phone and the PC, but the visual experience overall with all the limitations of RantWoman's wonky eyeballs was better on the phone.

RantWoman did notice that there is no option for editing the number of people unless one cancels the whole reservation and starts over.

Wait. It's Passover. People leave room for Elijah. Stray relatives, COVID-safe, fully vaccinated, of course, wander into the picture and maybe one would like to add a new person. Again, no edit. Cancel and start over?

RantWoman, the contact tracers are not going to care about Elijah. Or the service python. But try one more time about the PC.

The service python needed to register on the PC with a separate email address. Screen reader navigation was a nightmare. Lots of unlabeled buttons which meant RantWoman had to guess about a number of points. RantWoman did not make it to the waiver of liability checkbox, inconveniently both unlabeled and inoperable withthe screen reader. RantWoman does not think the Service Python got registered because there should have been a confirmation email. But the service python did an email about his reservation being cancelled. Go figure.

The visual experience on the PC was surreal, bad contrast, text getting written over a busy background, things coming and going from view way more erratically than average with what RantWoman calls screen scrolling, moving around to see different parts of a screen not visible on the screen because of how screen magnification handles what is displayed. RantWoman figured out that some of the text on busy background effect had to do with screen magnification: when RantWoman lowered the level of screen magnification, some of the effects went away.

RantWoman, what do you want us to do with this screed? 

Hold it in the Light, ALL of it.

RantWoman is interested in hearing whether others are having the same difficulties. For example, RantWoman could probably replicate some of the PC issues trying the right things within browsers even without the screen magnification software.

RantWoman has a couple database nerd questions she will ask. RantWoman will try to grow enough patience to report the problems to the developers but will probably try to cope with the phone version of the app.

RantWoman, on a different topic, it's Holy Week. Maybe you should try footwashing, like the pastor at RantMom's church does.

Footwashing? How many people would have no idea what that's about.

Please stop sending paper. Oops. Wait. Way Will Open

 RantWoman picked up a piece of mail ready to grumble about "Will people please stop sending RantWoman paper? However!

Way Will Open
FGC Gathering
June 27 - July 3, 2021

RantWoman was able to read enough to tell that FGC gathering is all virtual again, that RantWoman needs to check her calendar for an event that often conflicts with FGC, and that RantWoman definitely means to check out Way Will Open 2021 Gathering website

RantWoman recommends that readers unfamiliar with the FGC gathering just start by checking out the website.

Early Registration  starts April 15 and ends April 29. A key benefit of early registration is first choice for workshops, the weeklong education series on a variety of Quaker topics 

Psst: don't tell anyone yet. RantWoman scraped her eyeballs over enough of the print to have all kinds of good thoughts. Stay tuned.

Fourth Saturday Worship 3/27/2021

 Hello Friends,

Fourth Saturday Worship continues. My practice of getting the invitations out unpardonably late also continues. I hope that spring is bringing new light as well as continued COVID vigilance. I would love to see the faces of anyone interested in attending. I will start the meeting early at 2 pm Pacific time in response to comments i have received.

As usual unprogrammed worship for about an hour followed by worship

sharing and social time.

RantWoman's capacity to inflame the internet--or to amplify other important content continues.

DRW Statement about offensive language in the WA State Senate

FWCC Section of the Americas Interest Group

Themes on my mind: what rises for Friends from either of these blog posts?

I checked the library website for what they call Road to Reopening. The short answer: not yet

Seattle Public Library COVID services

I have not adjusted the time this month. I heard one suggestion to meet at 2 pm rather than 3:30 and would appreciate feedback about that idea.

Our April worship time falls during Quarterly meeting. Expect further thoughts in the announcement for next month.

Zoom link Below

in Light and faithfulness.

RantWoman

Join Zoom Meeting Fourth Saturday Worship

Memorials, layers of sediment, rehabilitation

Yes, RantWoman, We KNOW you are certain the world is entitled to a tantrum related to memorials. We KNOW that. Just not now, 'kay?

RantWoman feels both very well fed and very well used during this year's virtual meeting of the FWCC / CMCA section of the Americas. As with many such events, a memorial worship was in order. The worship was seeded with the names in the video below. RantWoman imagines that somewhere in the online traces of this meeting, there is fuller biography. Many other figures appeared in the worship, Friends whose names many recognized. A father in law. Close friends, mentors. 

RantWoman found herself sitting with two names, Charlotte Schrieber, a very widely published sedimentologist and William Allen Hadley, summoned from Wikipedia after mention of the Hadleys of the midwest during introductions in home group. Both names came with an aura of "Hey, did you know that person was a Quaker?"

Thinking of  Dr. Schreiber, with more of the needed words in English than Spanish so the message came in English. RantWoman was thinking of more than made it out of her mouth in worship: a woman of science, the love story that reportedly defined her scientific collaboration with her husband

room in quakers for both data and faith, deposits of plant material and the theory of plate tectonics,

a woman equal to or .. her male colleagues buying hijabs for work in the middle east.

The sediment came back in another Friend's message as the rock of the church.

William Allen Hadley, en español sin pedir disculpas a los que solo leen en ingles. Pido disculpas de antemano si hay errores aquí.Yo no sé cuándo el murió.Probablementes que nací yo.

En ingles hay cuentas para niños donde algun caracter usa pedazos de pan como señales por un sendero. A veces no sabemos de donde vienen los pedazos de pan en camino adelante despues de algo traumático..

Durante introduciones en mi grupo de base, una señora explicó algo sobre la familia cuáquera Hadley en los estados de Indiana, Ohio, Illinois. Yo le pregunté, ¿tiene ese apellido algo que ver con el Hadley que fundio una escuela para ciegos? Despues de la reunión del grupo, yo busqué a él por el internet.

De veras, William Allen Hadley,  cuáquer, graduado de Earlham College, en 1915, a la edad de 55 sufrió desprendimiento de la retina y perdió la vista. El aprendió braille y luego fundió Hadley School . Este instituto ofrece cursos de braille y hoy de otras temas por corespondencia, completamente gratis.Yo creo que cada vez que alguien studia en uno de los cursos de la escuela Hadley, eso es como renacimiento Se. Hadley.

Yo no soy tal ciega como Sr. Hadley que fundira una cualquiera escuela. Para mi el crisis climático requiere que nosotros pensemos en nuevasa formas de transporte ademas que los automoviles. Para mi organizar esfuerzos politicos para apoyar el desarrollo de redes continuas y para peatones y para bicicletas, andenes, ciclovias quiere decir y ser miembro de mi comunidad y hacer pasos en el camino a la paz mundial

How To Win An Argument Without Making Enemies

Look, if RantWoman had this down, this blog would not need to exist!

John K Samson - Plea From A Cat Named Virtue

Perhaps By the time RantWoman allows this to post, she will have more fully fleshed out the ministries of cats, and the threads about rest on RantWoman's journey onward after the 2021 FWCC / CMCA Section of the Americas virtual session.

The main point: yet another of RantWoman's exclamations of gratitude that modern Quakers have figured out that music nurtures both the light within and living people sharing lives together.

This particular meditation on music comes via the term "Recording Clerk" although Wikipedia, the only biographical resource RantWoman has consulted has nothing to say about Quaker Connections.

Words from a separate Meeting for worship about turning an old admonishment "Don't just sit there. Do something" on its head in Quaker expectant waiting terms: "Don't just do something sit there." RantWoman's official household Twitter coach, the Queen of Spades is definitely all over the idea of "just sit there."

John K Samson Millenium for All

John K Samson A Cat Named Virtue

The Weakerthans A cat named Virtue

John K Samson Interview by Nick Mount

John K. Samson Wikipedia Listing 

RantWoman posts for purposes of connection, but with other language nerd notes mainly about the nuances of  US vs Canadian dialects.

Mark your calendars; Sign up early Social Justice Fund Fundshifting Workshops

 RantWoman should just shut up and post announcements for really cool events. However, this is RantWoman and as long as phone and certain obvious email lists continue to be unavailable to RantWoman, RantWoman is going to permit herself a tirade. The tirade can be found at the bottom of this post. Readers should expect to have to scroll past the initial announcements.

But please, don't let RantWoman's need to have a tirade get in the way of a really great way to engage, copied verbatime from an email.

Hello Fundshifting Friends: We have two new activities to share with you:

• Giving Plan Thinking: A Social (Justice) Happy Hour--Thursday, April 15th; 5:30-7:00 pm: If you've already participated in an Anti-Racist Giving Workshop, this event is for you! We'll reflect on the successes and challenges of our current giving plans, spend time together updating or completing them, share resources and ideas, and discuss new opportunities for being involved in fundshifting work. To register: go to Giving Plan Thinking     

• Anti-Racist Giving Workshop--Thursday, March 25th; 5:30-8:00 pm: If you haven't participated in a workshop yet, this is your chance!  In this workshop we will come together to answer the following questions: How do we decide when, where and how much to give? How do our social and racial identities shape our relationships with money and giving?  What does it look like to center the giving of money as part of our anti-racist practice? SJF (Social Justice Fund) and CARW (Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites) have teamed up to present this interactive workshop where we will dig into these questions and begin to build our personal social justice giving plans. To register: Anti Racist Giving
• 
  

Please share the Workshop flyer with family, friends, and colleagues. And we hope to see you at one of these events.

Liz, on behalf of CARW

CARW = Coalition of Antiracist Whites. Look them up on facebook.

RantWoman's tirade in teh form of queries, SOMEWHAT more subdued than the whirlwind initially blowing up in RantWoman's head:

--Do I have to believe in #AbolishThePolice to find constructive ways to demonstrate that #BlackLivesMatter to me? Look, RantWoman thinks #AbolishThePolice is a good conversation to have steadfastly, but things like the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage both took a lot of talking about to get done.

--Do I need help from something like a resource fair to connect with this or other valuable local projects?

Interest Group on Disability because there needed to be one

 

 

Interest Group Outline

FWCC Section of the Americas Virtual Session March 19, 2021

Descapacidad, Diferencia, y dificultades  en comunidades espirituales

Disability, Difference, Difficulty and Spiritual Communities

Jeff Keith and Dorene Cornwell

 

Welcome and a few minutes of worship

 

Intros

Name, where you are from 

Choose at least one of:

Pronouns

          What you are wearing

          Who else is with you: Pet? Roommate? Service animal including service python? Elijah?

          Any access needs

          A Fun Fact about you, maybe disability-related

          Something you hope to take away from this interest group

 

Discapacidad, diferencia, dificultad y comunidades espirituales. Este grupo explorará los temas del título reflexionando sobre las siguientes interrogantes: 

Milagros - ¿Qué son? ¿Existen?

Cuando hablamos de discapacidades y dones, ¿a qué nos referimos?

 

Disability, Difference, Difficulty and Spiritual Communities. This group will explore the themes in the title reflecting on the following queries: Miracles? Are they a thing? Are they not a thing?

When we talk about disabilities and gifts, what do we mean?

Closing worship     

Miscellaneous notes

Zoom and flow of Interest group.

If you have video, please turn it on while speaking

Please use Raise hand which is *9 on phone

Please be sparing about chat to everyone.

Suggesting resources is cool

If there is someone who can only use the chat, listen.

Brave Space / Confidentiality / Narrative Theology

Dorene’s Access needs:

           Pay attention to others’ access needs. For example,

People who lip-read can leave Zoom in active speaker mode.

           Please remember to turn video on before speaking if possible.

I cannot see faces very well especially in Gallery View. So let’s all watch for each other and help hold moments of distress.

 Screen share visual accessibility is very limited for me so I always like or files shared in the chat.

I am unlikely to use screen share myself. I use 4x screen magnification which I can turn down if needed. However, even at 2x, me moving around on the screen can give other people vertigo. But I am happy to email people before or after with what I have presented. 

Why do I ask what people are wearing?

I have been going to a series of webinars c

alled CripCamp. Crip Camp is about the intersection of disability and BIPoC issues. All sessions have both ASL interpretation and a live transcript. They now use a model for chat of write in questions, someone reads and then presenters answer.

            I have discovered that one of the most fun things about the panel intros at the beginning of the session is when people describe what they are wearing. So as another way to connect, let’s try it. I only want to know that you are zooming in your sleepwear if there is something really interesting about your sleepwear.

 

How it came about.

 When RantWoman registered for this year's section meeting, she indicated that she was interested in doing an interest group on disability. Initial followup noted that some topics had more than one person offering. RantWoman wrote to inquire and was put in touch.... 

When in touch, RantWoman and ... both admitted we had no idea what we were supposed to do but that we were clear that an interest group was needed. Four phone calls later spaced over several days, the first part of the outline above emerged. 

The miracles question is partly related to a passage in Acts about Peter healing someone who had asked him for money. Among topics that came up in planningL what if one prays for a miracle and the requested miracle does not happen. RantWoman also would have tried to comb out threads about miracles in interpersonal form. In the event, miracles did not really come up.

The second part of the outline is RantWoman recycling snark. It was not shared except  with...

The actual event:

RantWoman would not actually say Friends got too far past introductions. But that meant safe space to talk in real terms about different experiences and things Friends came to the group with.

RantWoman likes a question she remembers as something about barriers. Truthfully, probably no one can ever remove all barriers. The point is more to have different ways to do things, to recognize that two people with the same issue may very different ways of dealing with it. Continuing revelation and openness to new approaches also seem relevant.

Translation / interpretation was a group effort. RantWoman is self-absorbed and only looked up "desprendimiento de la retina."

One additional language note: capacidades diferentes came up; RantWoman much prefers diversas capacidades which also came up.

RantWoman hopes others also felt the event was well held. RantWoman felt well used.

Go the f**k to sleep, read by Samuel L Jackson

Peculiar child-reading reflections

 

Go the F To Sleep as read by Samuel Jackson

Yes, RantWoman is making readers with delicate linguistic sensibilities do an actual click to interact with the video.

And no readers do not have to wander too far into a digression about whehter "click" is ableist because it excludes people who can't click. People who can't click have all kinds of technological options for translating "click" into something they can do. RantWoman invites Friends curious about such to leave a comment and RantWoman can respond either in private or for public consumption.

But back to the content of the video: RantWoman honors every parent who is exasperated as the parent here. RantWoman especially honors self-awareness in interplay described in a radio interview between a daughter who jokes back to her father along the same lines.

The RantParents never ever would have used such language. Their alternative was probably more unfortunate, only one of the family threads that regularly gets recycled in RantWoman's spiritual compost heap.

T Vail Palmer Remembered

 Settle DOWN RantWoman. You absolutely are entitled to full-blown rant about things to do with memorials. Just for     now, try to let Vail's presence rub off on you. 'kay? And MAYBE let loose a leading it is perfectly reasonable to wish would land on the right person.

RantWoman has never met T. Vail Palmer. RantWoman only knows him through people he mentored. Usually one only goes to memorials if one knows the deceased or wants to offer specific support to someone close; a time or two RantWoman has gone to a memorial out of a sense of protocol. This time RantWoman had a clear leading to go.

RantWoman jotted down a few impressions.

RantWoman appreciated the music chosen, everything from "There's a wideness in God's Mercy" to something of Bach.

There were a number of remembrances from family. These made it clear both that Vail has a wonderful family and that they havea rich history. RantWoman did not note details beyond that.

RantWoman is touched by one remembrance, something like "he was very gentle, but he knew you would want it to be correct." RantWoman is going to TRY to live up to both sides of that standard whenever her badly calibrated Idiot detector goes off. 

RantWoman always enjoys knowing memorial nods from family members. There were several even RantWoman could see in Zoom

One Friend recalled a belief in "the ministry of all whether recorded or not."

One Friend invoked the Martin Buber quote "not I it but I thou."

One person spoke of how Vail's grandfather loved Ministry and Counsel meetings because he had a bent toward philosophizing

Vail pointed out that Marx 12 times in Das Kapital referenced John Ellers late 17th century Congress of Industry. Vail recognized Christian roots in socialist ideas.

Vail every year read an MLK speech in Albany; he believed in putting out true things. Friends noted that he was an awesome reader and the Lutheran Church recognized this.

Vail had a profound need for meeting for worship. Before the pandemic Friends who helped him get to worship began to have concerns because of his frailty and need for a walker.  The last time one Friend saw him they had a conversation because maybe Friends should not be bringing him out in the pandemic.

Vail's comment, as reported at the memorial: "I can accept the wisdom of that and you'll come for me when it's over."

The Friend continued. "Vail did not believe in hell and was agnostic about heaven, I hope he was pleasantly surprised and is in Meeting for Worship."

Memorial photo album

Personal preparation for the FWCC Section of the Americas Virtual Session. Here. There. on Video

RantWoman here compiles some video moments as part of her preparation for the 2021 virtual FWCC Section of the Americas Session.

From the planning committee materials

1. A lovely concise video about how to work with an interpreter.

2. A highly visual exercise full of noodly music. There is a map of the Americas with each country, whether they speak English (Here) or Spanish (Aqui) along with the number of Quakers in each country. RantWoman figured this out grudgingly because there is nothing audible to describe the content of the video for people who don't see well.    

Noodly music and no audio description

On RantWoman's Own Initiative

And because RantWoman will Zoom host a couple social times, and because RantWoman needed to refresh her own vocabulary and speak to her needs, but with apologies if the posting makes the planning committee feel unappreciated.

1. Here are two Zoom in Spanish videos that might be useful both for
some Spanish speakers and for people like me who can benefit from
topical vocabulary reinforcement.

About 16 minutes, has a couple things a really basic user may find overwhelming
Tutorial paso a paso de como usar Zoom
Como usar Zoom Poco a Poco

Como Usar Zoom Poco a Poco

Starts out pretty basic and instructions for joining meeting are very
early in the video
37 minutes and aiming at Zoom hosting.
Totorial Paso a Paso de como usar Zoom

2. Both of the videos have things that a very beginning user probably
will not care about but I like to things better than the item in
today's bulletin:

--The Zoom is in Spanish. I assume when people download Zoom in a
Spanish speaking country that they probably get the Spanish version
without having to do anything different.

--The screen shots are much easier to read. The video sent out today
is probably spot on for Spanish speakers in the US but I could not
read the text in the screen shots at all even with magnification.

And Gather Town

Gather Product Commentary

Meeting for Sufferings with concern for Myanmar Tuesday 3/16.

 As many Friends probably know, Myanmar has had a very difficult six weeks. See for instance NPR reporting on the Coup in Myanmar

Friends in Davis, California will host a Zoom-based Meeting for Sufferings, this time an opportunity for Friends to both worship together and share information about how we can be of service to the people of Myanmar. The Meeting will be this coming Tuesday evening, 16 March, 6-7:30 pm Pacific time. 

Friends who would like to participate can request the Zoom link from Rebecca Ambrose rcambrose@ucdavis.edu

T. Vail Palmer Memorial Signup and Obituary

 RantWoman again reminds readers of the memorial on Saturday March 13 at 11 am for Quaker Theologian T. Vail Palmer.

This link makes relevant points about this weighty Friend much better than RantWoman can.

Obituary and Sign up for T Vail Palmer memorial

RantWoman testimony on memorials, especially for young Friends imagining different versions of elders: People come to Quakerism lots of ways and the Quaker tree has several distinctive branches. sometimes as with weighty Friends it can be very instructional to go to a memorial and just sit with the mix of history and theology that comes up. So consider signing up and if someone asks why, tell them RantWoman sent you.

RantWoman also feels very seen. Look what got posted on Twitter on Sunday.

Meetinghouse BP (@MeetinghouseBP) tweeted at 9:05 AM on Sun, Mar 07, 2021:
News of Quaker theologian T Vail Palmer's passing came to rantWoman via Twitter while RantWoman was attending a Ben Lomond center virtual workshop about Quakers and the Internet. https://t.co/NKZik5ppPH
(https://twitter.com/MeetinghouseBP/status/1368608638240231425?s=03)

RantWoman has more to say about Quaker materials, access, and other possibly heretical meditations but not here and not now,

How Racism Harms White People: Drained Pool Politics

 

RantWoman will be tagging anything involving the voices of women #WomensHistoryMonth

Megan McGee, self-proclaimed policy nerd and author of 

CNN Interview

And a story similar to the ones cited in the book.

I have followed Heather McGee even before her book and I totally AGREE with this concept.   In Kansas City, MO we had ONE amusement park when I was growing up ...

but want to share this with you.   I studied African American studies when I was in college because I was so angry that schools hadn't taught any of that to me when I grew up, and I had come from a very bigoted family (and was pretty much ostrasized for my own beliefs, which

were that people are wonderful, no matter their skin color, beliefs, sexual orientation, etc.,   So when we were growing up, there was a small Black community and our high school class was the first integrated class.  My last name was Robbins before I was married, and I had the

good fortune to share a gym locker with the only other Black female student in our class, because her name was Joan Robinson.  Joan and I became friends in school.  I knew I could never invite her to MY house, of course.  She wouldn't have been welcome.  But she and I knew

we shared many values, and we laughed together.  She dated one of the other REALLY nice black kids in our class, and at the end of our junior year, he was voted the boy most likely to succeed.   I say this to lay the groundwork to tell you that on the other side of the fence was this

story.   We lived in the smaller town of Independence, MO.  (I don't know the population, but in Kansas City, there was one large amusement park in those days called "Fairyland Park"...with Ferris wheel, big old wooden rollercoaster (this is back in the early 1950's, all kinds of rides,

fun houses with mirrors and the like, and it was always a special treat for us to have a big group of our teenage kids get to go to Fairyland Park for special occasions.   Never ONCE did it occur to me that my BLACK friends (or any other people of color were not allowed at this facility!

As a kid in the 1950's, I was too busy having FUN to even notice that not everyone was able to be included. (shamefully)   I did not know this until JUST THIS YEAR!  Finally, in the 1960's, a group of  People of Color protested, and the owners of Fairyland Park CLOSED THE DOORS

so NO ONE ever entered the park again!     It made me think of all the other facilities we had gone to as teens where we'd had so much "fun" but we had been oblivious to the fact that none of our Black and Brown friends were there.    And so today, (now I live in Phoenix, but it still hurts

me to think that perhaps the malt shops we frequented, the hamburger joints, the movie theaters, the rollerskating rinks, and so many other places WERE DISCRIMINATING.....and many STILL ARE!    We all have to be aware of this, and make sure that the people who are open for

business are open for business to EVERYONE.....  Heather McGee is absolutely correct with the premise of her book.  No one in business should be able to get by with only serving SOME people.  When I was a waitress, I wrote down orders for customers who could not speak, and though

I could not sign, I found people who could, and we always found a way to HELP people, not turn them away....  There is never a way for HATE....   And if we give into it here, our country will perish.....  

Mountains, meditations, service, and forgiveness pro and con

WHY?

RantWoman WHY are you posting these links TOGETHER?

1. They are true to many themes on RantWoman's mind.

2. There is a difference between digesting ideas with good oral or written conversation and fitting one's Light into the preferred 30-second messages of some Friends around RantWoman.

3. Pope Francis is in Iraq promoting interfaith dialogue. RantWoman generally considers interfaith dialogue a good thing, no matter how many other questions might be swirling around a person or an institution.

Read on for more.

And WHY do you insist on tagging the post #Women's History Month???

The short answer: there are some inspiring female figures here. There is an article that calls itself feminist and that reminds RantWoman why feminism needs to be a big tent. Also not every moment of women's history is glorious and inspiring and part of women's history is what women deal with on an ongoing basis.

Flashback? How far back?

Flashback Friday 100th Anniversary of Mt Rainier and Featuring Floyd Schmoe

Floyd Schmoe was a founder of UFM. At the time of this interview he was older than Mt. Rainier National Park. He died in 2001 at the age of 105.

It would be catty to post the details of what this story has to do with #WomensHistoryMonth

Old Stranger item about Seattle's Best Christians

WARNING: there is cringe-worthy  mention of a now-disgraced politician. RantWoman has no basis for any opinion about what anyone should write now about this individual and faith.

Aside from the admirable struggles and service chronicled here, RantWoman did her customary count names and measure space exercises.  The Stranger article mentions 3 men and 2 women. Each man gets considerably more space than either woman. 

In case anyone has missed a generational theme, 

Radical Discipleship Dreaming a World to Come

A letter to young activists

RantWoman thinks some of the language here might have spoken to Friend Floyd.

Feminist Killjoys on apologies

Apologies for Harm Apologies as Harm

Happy Reading. Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Apropos of Homelessness

RantWoman awhile ago heeded a call to deliver, unsolicited, some questions to a younger Friend by email. RantWoman assured the young Friend that she was heeding a call to deliver but did not have any specific expectations of results. RantWoman has been gratified to see seeds sprouting over time from that exchange.

Resources anyone?

With that in mind, RantWoman is heeding an inner call to deliver some contributions to discussion about homelessness.

 

Bill Radtke The Record several segments about homeless issues

One of RantWoman's consistent go-to journalistic sources about homelessness issues is Erica C Barnett.

Here is an article from May 2020 that covers many homelessness related issues.

May 2020 article on REACH programs

Also presently, find Erica at Publicola.com and on Twitter at @EricaCBarnet

Does anyone besides RantWoman care about bus benches and grafitti?

Grafitti and a bus bench

The Light Rail is Coming.

    And finally, lest anyone forget that a new Light Rail Station is opening near UFM in SEPTEMBER 2021 (Are we ready?)a slightly edited version of an email RantWoman fed into the work of Quaker Voice:

This item overlaps with economic justice and criminal justice. I am passing it along in case anyone has time / capacity to monitor. and decide whether any alerts would be helpful.

Via Twitter from Rep. Fitzgibbons   

House voted 96 to 1 to pass my bill HB 1301, allowing @SoundTransit to develop a non-judicial system to resolve fare evasion citations. When @kcmetrobus did this, they got a system that's more effective, sees less fare evasion, and resolves more citations than before. #waleg

RantWoman:

For background at some point King County Metro or someone in the county audited all the citations issued for fare evasion on Metro buses. Probably to no one's surprise, the vast majority of the

citations were issued to people living unhoused; and a very low percentage of the fines were ever collected. So Metro switched to a program of the formmerly fare enforcement staff emphasizing paths to help rather than fines of something like $194.

To me it's a no-brainer that the Senate should allow SoundTransit to do as Metro has done. I have no read on whether there might be howls of protests from the suburban afraid of light rail anyway crowd particularly places north and east of Seattle set to get new stations and service in the next few years.

FWIW also, perception of safety is one key driver of whether people who have the choice about travel method are willing to get out of their cars and on to transit.

Questions to consider

What does it mean to be a good neighbor either in UFM standards or for others?

Where might be some points of conflict besides p-p-p-arking?

What is within our Light and capacity to do?

 
Invitation!

Okay RantWoman, what to you would indicate that people have interacted with many topics raised here?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING!

Leave a comment. Post questions for discussion.

Will word reach RantWoman of what themes might emerge from discussion?

"How The British Took Over India" - TREVOR NOAH (from "Afraid Of The Dar...

RantWoman is delighted by two things in this video

--the theological worlds in collision

--the sounds of laughter indicating that there was a live audience.

This video is a much younger Trevor Noah. RantWoman needs laughter and acknowledgment of worlds in collision.

Marianne Kaba prison abolitionist

 

The inspiration for today's #WomensHistoryMonth moment

"I very carefully and deliberately choose how I'm going to show up in the world. I always want to make sure I'm always opening the door for other people" 

Marianne Kaba Wants Us to Imagine a World Without Prisons

Saturday Night in Pandemia with The Justice League, daffodils, riots, tear gas, cockroaches and organic food.

Live from... it's SATURDAY NIGHT (technically already Sunday morning but who's counting?) RantWoman is not under the influence of any substances wackier than ice water and slightly glarfy overly saltybut low fat snacks from the (not very accessible but manageable for RantWoman) vending machine in the lobby of RantWoman's building.

RantWoman reminds her readers of her blog as Quaker journal model of blogging. There are several topics not ripe for blogging. RantWoman may or may not get them actually blogged and therefore may or may not at some future date remember what she was talking about. RantWoman encourages readers to do the best you can to find nuggets meaningful to you.

In honor of day 366+1 since RantMom's debate watching buddy died of COVID in her retirement community, RantWoman could be penning meditations about a year of COVID inconveniently. Stay tuned.

In sync with signs of spring and messages in moer than one worship space, RantWoman could be penning meditations about daffodils, cigarette butts or possibly other more biodegradeable material impeding the enjoyment of daffodils, or about releasing oneself from hopes for a better past in conjunction with the word compost, metaphorically for the moment transformation of something smelly and not wanted into fertilizer in the cycles of life.

In honor of a story time and a picture book and seeing or not seeing, crying or not crying RantWoman could let her keyboard clatter over more than one strand of children and "oh, OWWW," oww's it would definitely be preferable to avoid in the future and other owws that no one is going to be able to avoid completely.

In honor of a moment from the book My Grandmother's hands, RantWoman could write about colorism, a grandmother, and the difference between clean pain and dirty pain, the reality of trying not to pass along negativity while equipping ...by fostering resilience.

RantWoman is going to do none of those things. Instead RantWoman is going to permit her inner snark monster to run wild in connection with various #CapitalRiots themes. Where to start?

Did antifa organize the #CapitolRiots, even indirectly? RantWoman is terribly glad that despite some efforts to seed media streams with this lie, many of the #CapitolRiot suspects are proudly standing up and taking responsibility for their work and saying in various terms "How DARE You assign credit for our (cough) brilliant achievements to antifa?

Besides, if antifa had organized events on January 6, there most likely would have been plenty of masks, clouds of weed smoke, bottles of water, street medics, maybe some inspiring drumming, food stands selling edibles and vegan treats, and flocks of helpers with biodegradeable trash bags moving among the crowd collecting waste.

Or would there be? Permit RantWoman to do a little compare and contrast exercise: over the summer, the thankfully former president called in the national guard and dumped tear gas all over peaceful protestors in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White house so that he could look manly and in charge and hold up a Bible in front of a church. On the other hand when insurrectionists violently breach several layers of barriers and swarm the Capitol building, it took over THREE HOURS from the time a request to call out the national guard to when orders were given to deploy. The reason cited for the delay: optics after public outrage over the summer. Come on! Do not try to fly that hard into RantWoman's BS detector. Just don't.

Here RantWoman digresses to a recent Adult Religious Education session where a Friend told amazing stories nonviolent Quaker witness and humanitarian service. This Friend spoke of always trying to do her actions in a spirit of worship. For example, one Vietnam war protest across from the White house involved 300 silent Quakers. President Richard (very lapsed Quaker) Nixon ordered the protestors arrested. One protestor even wrote the judge about how the Quaker testimony on equality meant that mean of those arrested would not stand for the judge in court. The judge accepted this and a campaign organized by AFSC got everyone released in short order.

But Back to the 21st Century. 

Sen. hawly about investigating techniques involvig various cellphohne and cellphone network parameters. Dude read your user agreements. RantWoman is pretty sure ... 

Likewise surveillance technology and facial recognition software. Convenient that the city can't use. Would they except donations from private citizens, freelance volunteers...

White people go to jail?

After all the investigating gets done, how many prison abolitionists are just going to want to Send the Defendants to Jail For a Long Time? 

And if too many white people get sent to jail and start caterwauling about jail amenities such as cockroaches and non-organic food, will there be a groundswell of voices clamoring to upgrade conditions for everyone?

Never mind that. How many of the rioters will have access  to Alternatives to Violence programs and how will AVP facilitators be able to adapt their curriculum...?

History in White and otherwise

Process? Content? / Tools? Content? / Access? Shareability? Think of the above as some kind of outline or several lenses for finding paths through what RantWoman is going to write.

Tagging this post #WomensHistoryMonth for one thing because the podcast below features the work of NW journalist Leah Sottile, clearly an able journalist and historical recordkeeper.

Even though RantWoman needs to noodle around about what "reading" means for her and how she does or does not absorb information, RantWoman is dead serious about the value of the two items here.

Two resources have come RantWoman's way related to racism in the NW and the white supremacist movement, a phenomenon RantWoman specifically means to distinguish from the general societal soup of white supremacy we all swim in 

--An episode of what seems like a very cool podcast

Militias, White Supremacy, and the US capitol Insurrection

--Blunt assessments of many contemporary realities 

--History most of which RantWoman has lved through but stunning when laid out event to event.

George Bush; the one who launched a Puget Sound Settlement

Tools ?  / Content?

Does RantWoman have the necessary device and connectivity--and additional adeptness with accessibility tools to be able to consume the content?

Is the content available in pathways that operate in RantWoman's tools / connectivity / skills environment?

True confession: RantWoman does not really know how to deal with podcasts. Also RantWoman kind of thinks it would be cool to keep her hand-me-down iPad as a media device for ebooks, podcasts, and of course email and the raw internet. So far RantWoman is barely fluent enough in iOS and Voiceover to get close to this aspiration. RantWoman probably needs to find a person geeky in the right flavors of technology and just hang out with them. But in the meantime, check out the above items.

Judi Dench discusses working while losing her sight

 #WomensHistoryMonth

Judi Dench discusses working while losing her sight: 'I've had to find another way'

One thing she's not doing is hiding out; Dench says she'll continue working.

Feb. 26, 2021, 3:25 PM EST / Source: TODAY

By Randee Dawn

Dame Judi Dench has been a presence on TV and film screens for 60 years, and at 86, she's not planning to stop acting anytime soon.

That enough would be inspiring, but Dench is currently battling an issue that makes it positively extraordinary: She's losing her vision.

Currently suffering from age-related macular degeneration, which affects nearly 11 million people in the United States, Dench recently told The Guardian that while she may have to adjust her life and work styles, she's not going to retire.

"You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult," she said. "I've had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again. So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won't notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!"

The petite, white-haired, no-nonsense actor is familiar to American audiences from her turns in films like "Shakespeare in Love" (for which she won her Oscar); "Mrs. Brown," "Victoria & Abdul," "Skyfall" (and several other modern James Bond films) and "Philomena," among others.

She's also delighted us in recent years by getting a tattoo at 81 and being the oldest person on the cover of British Vogue at 85.

The loss of her sight, Dench explained, appears to be genetic: Her mother also had some sight loss; her daughter, Finty, "goes and has her eyes checked" regularly. 

Still, she noted what she considers an upside: "It does enable you to do one thing and that is that you have to get very close to people before you can recognize who they are. During lockdown I made a film and I was up close addressing people wearing masks during rehearsals, nothing to do with any scene I'm in. It's kind of exquisite if you can do that and that's the good side of it, and you have to look at that side of it."

And you have to admire that Dench can even laugh a bit at the way her body is changing.

"I was doing 'The Winter’s Tale' with Ken Branagh a couple of years ago, playing Paulina, and after we had been running for three weeks or so at the Garrick (Theater) he said to me — I have a long speech at the end — he said: 'Judi, if you were to say that speech about eight feet to your right, you'd be saying it to me and not to the (proscenium) arch," she said.

Then she laughed: "I rely on people to tell me!"

https://www.today.com/today/amp/tdna210187

Judi Dench Wikipedia article

Did readers know, without using the search bar on this blog, that Dame Judi is a QUAKER?

RantWoman could just leave this moment of admiration for Dame Judi here and leave things at that. But since when has RantWoman been known to quit just because everyone else thinks she should. Instead RantWoman needs to riff, yes again, on a number of topics.

Long ago in a previous Meeting effort to talk about disability, RantWoman made a list of 13 people in Meeting dealing, some more openly than others with vision lost. Three were women in their 90's all suffering from Age Related Macular Degeneration. They have all since passed on. And yet, blindness...? Meeting Conversation...?

RantWoman wishes Friends to consider a number of terms, some of which have gotten repeatedly edited out of Meeting conversation by well-meaing ableds who think they knoew better than RantWoman does about what needs to be said.

--Vocational Rehabilitation, ie what changes and accommodations are needed so a person can continue to work or to do new work?

--Spiritual accompaniment or walking alongside: if there are things that no one can fix, now what? 

--Inspiration porn. Okay, okay, RantWoman has not been trying to use the term "inspiration porn" but uh, one form of ableism, when say a journalist, eve n a very well-meaning one about "oh, wow, someone can do something I think is impossible..."

RantWoman will now return to admiring Dame Judi for all the reasons there are to admire Dame Judi and try to dial her own inner blowtorch to somewhere below "singe" about matters of blindness closer at hand.