Yes! Cherice Bock Friend in Residence for NPYM Annual Session July 14-18--and before

RantWoman is so excited that Cherise Bock will be Friend in Residence for the NPYM Annual Session that she almost overlooked the theme: Courage in the face of fear:--Faith Hope Love. 

RantWoman feels very well listened to. RantWoman imagines others might also have suggested that Cherice Bock would be an excellent Friend in Residence, but RantWoman is going to grab every chance she can to feel listened to. More on that in a moment.

North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM) Annual Session is all Virtual this year. All virtual also means not limited to travelling hundreds of miles to spend a few days together. 

Sign up now, by May 1 for 6 weeks of pre-annual session small group worship activities, May 10- June 14

Pre Annual Session Small Group opportunities

Check out the NPYM website for minutes to be seasoned and other updates.

From clerk David Zeiss call

We have been through a year of upheaval and distress throughout our country and our world, bitter divisions in our society, and rampant displays of racism and intolerance. Many people around us are still beset by uncertainty and anxiety. And we realize that in the midst of the urgency of finding wise ways forward through all those difficulties, those difficulties are, in a sense, distractions from the still looming threat of environmental catastrophe.

Nevertheless, we come together again in July to renew and strengthen ourselves and our communities so that we can be the Quakers the world needs!

Our Friend in residence in July will be Cherice Bock. Cherice is a lifelong Quaker and a former co-clerk of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends. She holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and Antioch University New England. She works as the Creation Justice Advocate at Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon and has taught courses at the University of Portland, Portland Seminary, and the Oregon Extension in Ashland. Her special interest is ecotheology.

For full details.

NPYM Call to Annual Session which shortly will have fuller information about registration including pre gathering worship groups, interest groups and some volunteer roles.

April Fourth Saturday Worship--with Beach Towel

What's the beach towel doing in here?

RantWoman invites anyone interested to join the entire virtual gathering of Pacific Northwest quarterly meeting

Virtual Quarterly Meeting Schedule

Exuberant Beach Towel
turned sometime blanket

 Fourth Saturday Worship for April is listed in the Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting virtual schedule as an interest group about disability.

Virtual Quarterly Meeting Schedule

The description in the schedule got edited from RantWoman's original language, something about a basket of topics and seeing where the discussion is led.

RantWoman recommends, in the absence of pine trees, much dryer east of the mountains air and rushing stream at Lazy F camp that Friends do something that can simulate the Quarterly Meeting experience for you. (rantWoman is glad to see--in an overlay her screen reader did not find--that Lazy F is open in a limited way! Interested Friends read for yourselves!)

RantWoman will be bringing her beach towel. There is no beach really at Lazy F. RantWoman though uses the beach towel as a blanket, part of her pack light bedding regimen.

RantWoman was clear in her leading to offer an interest group overlapping with worship. All are welcome. If Friends do not appear by about 4 pm PDT, RantWoman is likely to take her ministry of endlessly insisting on talking about disability to another interest group.

If something involves RantWoman it always involves disability.

What disability-themed (or not?) stumblings on the road to spiritual transformation might lurch out of RantWoman's mouth if she goes to the speakers' panel?

Will RantWoman visit herself on the Bread for the Journey interest group?

Will RantWoman go to the interest group on Reparations and enlighten Friends to the modest limits of RantWoman's capacity about the role of the Black Panthers in the organizing that led to the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Will RantWoman go to the interest group on Uprooting Systemic Racism and enlighten Friends to the modest limits of RantWoman's capacity about the role of the Black Panthers in the organizing that led to the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Will RantWoman bless the discussion on resuming worship with the oppressive awareness that every time RantWoman and her screen readers touch a new pieces of software such as the app being used to register in-person worshippers she has to think about accessibility?

Will RantWoman manage just to be calm and be glad to be among Friends? Come and see!

Earth Day, among other things on very vegan raspberries--and still not being a vegan

Happy Earth Day.with some lilacs blooning nearby!

Lilacs on the way to
one of my bus stops

This week's prompt for Witness Wednesdays at FCNL is a quote from John Woolman.

"The produce of the earth is a gift from our gracious creator to the inhabitants, and to impoverish the earth now to support outward greatness appears to be an injury to the succeeding age." John Woolman, 1777

RantWoman appreciates this quote EVEN THOUGH RantWoman lately has been meditating about how spending TWO YEARS meandering through John Woolman's journal is not particularly anywhere near growing the skills and wisdom to cultivate solutions to today's earthcare conflicts. In fact, it maybe borders on idolatry. 

(RantWoman: Chill. CHILL. The quote is enough for today.)

This month's theme for reflection from the No Arks project is an invitation to consider going vegan.

RantWoman is still not a vegan. From time to time she has and thoroughly enjoys entirely vegan individual meals, but RantWoman is not a vegan. Today's meditation arose while considering fresh raspberries (from Mexico--urk) and decidedly nonvegan yogurt.

RantWoman is trying to be mindful about:

--Raspberries are not in season locally. Imported out of season ones RantWoman bought are actually cheaper than the locally produced in season ones. RantWoman wonders whether the people producing those raspberries have enough to eat before selling to the export market. Should RantWoman consider buying the cheap ones now and putting the money she saves over the local ones into some kind of financial instrument to go back to growers who originally produce the fruit?

--Or should RantWoman also meditate / fret about crop and food supply issues north of the border?

Western Megadrought affects crops and food supply

On the generational themes, one of RantWoman's favorite great uncles was a civil engineer on the Hoover Dam project. RantWoman does not remember during festive dam-themed holiday slide shows whether anything about groundwater or rainfall cycles ever came up.

--RantWoman would not mind some easy table to look up water usage and carbon emissions for different crops travelling to the US from different locations 

And RantWoman is still not a vegan, but RantWoman wants Friends to consider ways to work forward about minimizing climate impact via food witness.

--RantWoman was delighted to hear some reference to care of the environment mentioned in passing in Spanish during some kind of report back at the most recent FWCC section of the Americas virtual gathering.

--RantWoman is glad to hear of and to cheerlead for young people doing cool stuff such as Young Quaker Voices at Quaker Voice in WA. Lord knows RantWoman is not going to get it all done by herself.

RantWoman believes earthcare also means taking care of people and where they live. With that in mind, a map of healthcare disparities in WA:

WA Department of Health Healthcare Disparities Map

RantWoman will now take a break from blogging in order to send an email of legislative encouragement. RantWoman is into battling white supremacy, supporting cleaner transportation, and promoting racial equity by ....paying a lot of attention to transportation meetings..and trying to figure out how to grow some herbs even though the bare balcony police will frown on efforts that involve a magnificent south-facing balcony..

Friends Association in Higher Education Event Tuesday April 27

 from RantWoman's Twitter feed

Friends Association for Higher Education  

Quaker Leadings in Higher Education Series.

Tweet: The Intersection of Quaker Identities and Academic Life

Twitter link contains brief description of event and link to register

Walking in the Light on Campus and Beyond
Cara Curtis and Sa'ed Atshan

"I have become the Zebra: Beiliang Zhu | Bach: Cello Suite No. 6 (5-string Baroque C...

When it comes to centering, RantWoman these days needs all the help she can get. One practice that seems ito help is to designate an earworm of the week, some kind of music that RantWoman will listen to over and over until either the earworm has completely worn out its appeal or some other earworm has grabbed the designation.

RantWoman especially likes this performance of the Bach Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major for references to a zebra at the beginning. RantWoman is also fond of metaphorical zebras because long ago irrepressible nephew and fam would go to a nearby dog park to visit dogs. Dogs were not a thing in Nephew's household so he had to look and love at the dog park. Somehow Irrepressible discovered he had an imaginary zebra. The Zebra hung out around Auntie and somehow frequently needed washing when the fam got near the watering / washing hose. RantWoman had not meant to become that zebra.

With that, enjoy the music.

Young Quaker Voices Speak Event April 23, 7-8 pm

 You are invited to “Young Quaker Voices Speak,” short final reports from the four participants in the first year of our new program. Their reports will be part of the Quaker Voice session at the Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting virtual spring gathering, Friday, April 23, 7-8 pm.

These under-30 Friends have been following legislative issues all session as part of each Quaker Voice working group and will share why they participated; what issue they followed and what happened with it; and what lessons they learned from the experience. The Voices are Ezra Ford, Rebecca Marder, Gabe Sharp, and Ian Stanfield.

For Zoom information see the listing for this event on the QuakerVoice blog

https://www.quakervoicewa.org/young-quaker-voices-speak-friday-april-23/

RantWoman will be eager to hear what Friends made of all the tangles of carbon pricing, road segments, salmon restoration and ped and bike infrastructure measures the WA state legislature is chewing through this session.

RantWoman will also be interested to hear Friends views of the various criminal justice measures. 

Readers wanting to prime the pump with information about this year's QuakerVoice legislative priorities should check the website.

Readers who like RantWoman get to be in permanent Think Outside The Box mode might also be interested in the Disability Mobility Project and the Transportation Choices, both findable with the search engine of choice.

Walk in the Really Bright and Joyous sunlight

 Little Bunny Foo-foo went hopping through the U-District?

Brown bunny
green grass

Actually this here bunny Foo-foo turned up on some Friends' lawn nowhere near the U district on Easter Sunday. It's just that RantWoman needs a visual meme and this is available.

Little Bunny Foo foo previously sent Friends hopping through the world of software accessibility, as relates to registration and list-keeping software needed during COVID for public health record-keeping purposes. 

FINALLY, RantWoman clings to reason to hope, praise God for continuing revelation, and with special prayers for Friends who previously blessed efforts to talk about software accessibility with the verbal equivalent of blank stares. Finally relevant Friends, RantWoman SINCERELY HOPES have been able to put their brains around the point that RantWoman, as an average screen reader using blind person gets to grapple with software accessibility questions every time she touches a new piece of software.

Children Go where I send Thee

Cue one of the recordings of "Children Go Where I Send Thee "on this blog.

And the Lord spake unto RantWoman and the Lord said "get yourself out of bed and put on some clothes. Never mind for now about organizational "sftware." You know where I am going to send you to pray. And don't argue about too many words needing to be typed or furniture needing to be moved. Exercise is magnificent. You will still have too many words tomorrow and Mondays are fabulous days to move furniture.

And lo it was a bright and sunny day and RantWoman's thoughts turned to recovery and rejuvenation and as always for decades already transportation and in particular upcoming transportation transformation in the U District.

(RANTWOMAN! Must you mix stylistic centuries like this? Whatever realism is mixed up in this verbal salad just is NOT magical.)

The route and conveyance

--The Metro Rt. 48 to its last stop, the N side of NE 42nd street to Roosevelt and then around to the right to another street called NE 42nd st and then down 9th Ave. NE to a favorite prayer site.

--RantWoman's feet with RantWoman mumbling mantras about safe continuous travel networks for all modes.

Highlights of the journey

--Magus used book store is open! RantWoman is extremely glad to see this sign of life even though she personally is not much for PRINT and Ambassador Thwack grumbles about having to work to go around their usual sidewalk displays.

--Seriously crumbling sidewalk and the excavation of a new construction site between 12th and 11th. Yes, RantWoman, those graffitti-encrusted Notice of Proposed Land Use Actions signs meant it. New Housing? Tax credity units? RantWoman couldn't tell you. Right now it's just a construction site.

--42nd and Roosevelt, approaching from the east.

A homeless encampment
on the sidewalk
and in the curb ramp.

Look, Thwack the cane has been known to deal badly wit obstacles.  RantWoman has NO desire to call the cops. Still Could people maybe, maybe, maybe try to camp without completely incommoding the sidewalk?

--At last, RantWoman plopped on a favorite wall. And what did she see?

Meetinghouse
built in the style of
a Japanese temple

   --A need to elder the webkeeper about perhaps putting some of the building design history on the website.

    --A closed gate. RantWoman supposes this is one way both to avoid having to deal with unregistered walkins and to avoid making badly-needed restroom facilities available to the peeing public.

 RantWoman mentions the peeing public because today, as on past missions of prayer and observations, RantWoman observed one individual come, try the gate, walk around to look for another entrance and then leave.

What else did RantWoman see? 

Can readers find the "Retail Parking" sign? Business parking as in ground floor retail on the Roosevelt side of a building and a parking garage with entry facing the UFM campus. 

Retail Parking sign

RantWoman, chill, chill. You can ramble in more detail about safe continuous travel networks for all modes SOME OTHER DAY. Just put in the picture.

Further observations

Crumbly sidewalk in the public right of way below / south of the stairs.

How to photograph
a chuckhole

a fabulous chuckhole previously reported to #FindIt Fixit in what would be crosswalk if there were a painted crosswalk.

Bus benches
enhance 
accessibility

A bus bench stripped of both bench and glass walls

Please don't stress out
untrained pets by bringing
themto the grocery store

and finally a grocery store's stern service animal admonishment of no concern to the service python who remains invisible.

This data report brought to you dear readers by the "It's never a good time to deal with midlife vision loss department of vocational  rehabilitation  and vocabulary obliteration.

Still Time to Register: VIRTUAL Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting, April 23-25

In normal in-person years RantWoman always recommends Quarterly Meeting for

--An easy way to find a ride out of the city to fresher air

--Opportunity to Worship and Learn with Friends from all over WA and ID.

 --Opportunity to meet in person with great Quaker activities such as Quaker Voice.

This year, Friends will have to find their own way to fresher air even if it is only to go zoom in a park.

The plenary topic is “Spiritual Healing: what does it mean to you?” .

Queries

What does spiritual healing mean to you?

What experiences have you had with spiritual healing?

What practices strengthen our intention and focus in order to facilitate spiritual healing?

How can we facilitate healing spiritually in any given situation?

How do we apply spiritual healing gifts in our own lives?

How does spiritual healing occur in your MM? How do our meetings collective apply spiritual healing.

 

There is no charge, but donations are welcome.

 

Schedule & links to join the online program will be posted at

https://pnqm.org/virtual .

 

 

See the Registration form on the front page of the Quarterly Meeting web site https://pnqm.org 

And, as a bonus, RantWoman will again heed her call to offer Interest Group space to talk about Disability! This will occur Saturday April 22 during the regular Interest Group time 3:45 - 5:00 pm

Zoom info for RantWoman's Interest group which may soon also appear on the page with all the links.

Disability Accessibility Accountability

Meeting ID: 946 7024 4090

Passcode: 858699

Friends General Conference Gathering Evening Program

 Several things excite RantWoman about this year's virtual Friends General Conference gathering

--RantWoman is thrilled not to have to travel!

--RantWoman hopes many Friends will appreciate the opportunity, if one cannot devote 10 whole days to the event, to register for parts of the program one can attend.

RantWoman heartily recommends the Evening Program

Early Registration begins April 15.

David Zarembka Quaker Peacemaker, died of COVID

 RantWoman is deeply saddened by the news that David Zarembka, longtime observer and re porter of events in Kenya and Africa has died of COVID as has his wife who is mentioned in the obituary..

David Zarembka memorial

Read it. Be inspired.

or be RantWoman?

RantWoman has father envy. RantWoman's father had many ggifts. Most of the time they showed. Most of the time. And RantWoman still has father envy.

RantWoman is both awed and intimidated by Mr. Zarembka's on the ground witness.

He will be missed.

A memorial minute Walter Hinchman Sangree

 RantWoman is linking this memorial minute for the purely sentimental reason that RantWoman knew Walter's first wife.

Walter Hinchman Sangree

RantWoman finds it interesting to imagine the two of them as a couple.

Awesome FGC Gathering workshop list--and an accessibility fit.

 RantWoman would really, really, really love just to say check out this awesome list of workshops at this year's FGC Virtual Gathering.

Workshop Schedule

RantWoman especially also encourages Friends to pay attention to the 3 session in one day workshop opportunities on either end of the 5-day workshop options. RantWoman, for instance is really interested in the session on Quakers in China with Patrick Lozada

Now we come to the part where a single standard of RantWoman is causing RantWoman with a mix of care, tenderness and exasperation to need, hopefully gently, to elder the whole entire Religious Society of Friends about accessibility issues. Please, please do not take RantWoman's need to be RantWoman personally. This world is big enough for all of us and if we are lucky, RantWoman will manage to cultivate joy about sharing.

There is an accessibility page somewhere on the Gathering Site. RantWoman cannot find it just now. It talks about automated captioning and the availability of Spanish interpretation. It invites people to make their access needs known.

Automated captioning is highly imperfect. RantWoman foresees some community night business meeting skits where the recording clerk attempts to assemble sense from the automated captioning. Zoom help also has instructions for working with a human captioner; RantWoman has thought about differing scenarios where volunteer captioners might be a great help.

Back to the Workshops page, RantWoman finds the following.

All workshops will be held on video via Zoom. Some workshops leaders require participants to be able to see the Zoom video, but some workshop leaders have said participation by phone is ok, for those who don't have the ability to use Zoom and need to call in on a phone line. This is indicated in the workshop descriptions under "Audio-only participation". 

Suppose RantWoman can't see at all. Does it matter whether RantWoman participates over Zoom or by calling in?

RantWoman realizes that faceless participants deprive the sight-dependent of participants' facial expressions. Blind people, even the ones who live in two worlds because of, at one point having sight, cope with this all the time.

Suppose RantWoman can see some but for any number of reasons cannot interact with or cannot deal with screen share. Will documents to be screen shared be available as links or to download from the chat? Are presenters who want to screen share interested in suggestions about how to provide more useful narrative than "this one here and that one there?"

Hint: RantWoman is on lots of Zoom events where hardly any blind people even turn on our cameras. And RantWoman in perpetual accessibility pest mode often reminds blind people to turn on cameras in mixed meetings of blind and sighted people. Lots of sighted people rely on lipreading more than they realize.

Hint: RantWoman actually can see some, but RantWoman really likes conference calls because everyone is on the same footing visually.

PS For people who don't like moving their hands back and forth between mouse and keyboard, RantWoman knows or can point people to keyboard equivalents for things many people do with a mouse.

There.

Oops, wait. Lots of accessibility pointers and other practices not listed will be needed for all kinds of other Gathering events. Imagine some physically uncoordinated Quaker cheerleader chanting "you can do it. Friends., we can do it."

And one more thing RantWoman will check out: ebooks. RantWoman ain't buying print. RantWoman wonders whether there might also be interest in audio books. RantWoman is in no position to make promises, but perhaps if the idea is on the table, way will open.

Oops. Still not done.

People have really diverse accessibility needs. On one hand, RantWoman would say be open to continuing revelation.

On the other hand, it's not always and not all only about accessibility. Community, a sense of spiritual accompaniment also matter!

REACH success story from S Seattle

RantWoman permits Ambassador Thwack the badly behaved white cane to have his own Twitter account.  

The following tweet from District 2 Councilmember Tammy Morales showed up in Ambassador Thwack's tweet stream.

Tammy J. Morales (@CMTammyMorales) tweeted at 3:49 PM on Fri, Apr 09, 2021:
This morning my staff joined volunteers & REACH to provide help to unhoused neighbors facing removal from Rainier Playfield. Thanks to Yvonne from REACH, who's been working w/ these folks for months, everyone found connection to shelter. Proof that building relationships matters.
(https://twitter.com/CMTammyMorales/status/1380654052413894658?s=03)

There are an assortment of replies reflecting the same range of opinions RantWoman has seen before.

Ambassador Thwack tweeted that people camping on sidewalks are an #accessibility problem and we need more housing. RantWoman wonders who else might share both sentiments and what leadings might arise from this shared point of view. RantWoman also what other topics also need dialogue among Friends

Enemy? Accountable?

Today's prompt and query from Witness Wednesday.

Prompt for Reflection

"Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of [those] who are called the opposition...The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Query: When you hear the phrase, "it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves," what or who comes to mind?

There is no way anything coherent was going to make it out of RantWoman's mouth in worship.

RantWoman is still muddling "enemy," "opposition," and the question of how to pray around say former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

RantWoman has been meditating on the trial of Derek Chauvin. One thread comes secondhand from a young Friend. Talking to the young Friend directly right now is not happening so RantWoman asks that her words be held carefully.

Young Friend is such an ardent prison abolitionist that he reportedly would not even imprison Mr. Chauvin.

RntWoman wants to say "Come on. Derek Chauvin murdered a man in front of the whole word. He was a training officer who RantWoman imagines taught others to brutalize and break the rules. Come ON!"

On the other hand, RantWoman also wants to say "Friend, there are stories closer to home that need mending. Maybe start local."

As far as the actual #ChauvinTrial, 

RantWoman has changed her mind about the trial of Derek Chauvin the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd live and on many cellphone cameras. RantWoman spent some of the first days of the trial thinking "do we have to go through all this awfulness? Can't we just stipulate a bunch of facts and do a plea deal?"

RantWoman now realizes that the country needs to go through all of it.

It matters that Chauvin was fired by a Black police chief. It matters that a bunch of white officers are testifying against him, saying that what he did has no basis in their understanding of Minneapolis police department. And it matters that Derek Chauvin will never be involved in training any more police officers.

That does not mean white supremacy has been cured. It does not change the fact that police are being asked to do too many things that should be done by others in a caring society. But it matters that this reality is out there for all to see.

And for another take on all the anguish caused by Derek Chauvin's actions.

Seattle Bike Blog on reopening of streets around new Brooklyn Ave. station

 RantWoman posts this article from the Seattle Bike Blog here for future reference.

Seattle Bike Blog on Reopening streets following construction

RantWoman posts this here partly by way of of links on the page to other articles about transportation issues near Meeting.

RantWoman also posts this in her Breadcrumbs on a path meditations. RantWoman is not sure for instance whether she somehow could have spent time better interacting with even more transportation issues than she has or whether it's fine instead to have spent TWO YEARS with pleasant enough company meandering through John Woolman's journal, reading experiences with a side of midlife vision loss. Environmental Sustainability today requires a lot more intellectual engagement than in Woolman's day?

Shameless Reprint of Sound Transit News Release about reopening streets in the neighborhood of Meeting

 

Once again, RantWoman's reprint skills result in content that will be difficult for sight-dependent people without access to screen readers to deal with. This post is an invitation to use the search engine of your choice on the phrase "Sound Transit News Releases."  The post is also an invitation to conversation about accommodate or not accommodate, wonky ways to battle climate change, and a raft of other topics.

Enjoy!

Oh wait: a direct link: Sound Transit, SDOT reopen streets near Brooklyn Ave. Station

1. Home
2. Get to know us
3. News and events
4. News releases
5.  Streets around U District Station are re-opening as Northgate Link construction progresses

Northgate Link Extension

Streets around U District Station are re-opening as Northgate Link construction progresses

Brooklyn Avenue opens to vehicular and pedestrian traffic today; NE 43rd Street opens to pedestrians

Publish Date

April 7, 2021

The streets around the U District Station for Link light rail are reopening to the public starting today, a milestone in the progress of construction for the Northgate Link extension. Brooklyn Avenue will open to traffic and pedestrians today, while NE 43rd Street is opening today to pedestrian traffic.

"The street openings are yet another sign of how close we are getting to the opening of the Northgate Link extension," said Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. "Sound Transit thanks the businesses and residents of the area for their patience in spite of all the inconveniences during construction. We are confident that they will soon see that it was all worth it."

The streets around the U District station were closed in 2013 in preparation for the start of construction on the Northgate Link extension with the delivery of the two tunnel boring machines. The streets remained closed to allow for ongoing construction activity. 

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is completing a new streetscape construction project on NE 43rd Street that connects the University of Washington campus to the U District Link Station at 43rd and Brooklyn.  The design of this project includes wider sidewalks, bike lanes, a natural drainage system, and new street trees. 

"SDOT is a partner with Sound Transit in the work to prepare the streets and sidewalks for the new light rail station opening. This milestone of re-opening 43rd is an exciting step towards connecting those who walk, bike, and take transit to and from the U District," said SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe.  

NE 43rd St is open from 15th Ave NE to University Way NE for all travel modes and is one-way westbound only for vehicles.  The sidewalks on NE 43rd St from University to the U District Station are open for pedestrians but this portion of the roadway will remain closed until the Light Rail Station opens in the fall, at which time it will be one-way westbound transit only. 

"We are thrilled to begin the exciting work of reconnecting our business district with the reopening of Brooklyn Ave NE and NE 43rd ahead of schedule," said Don Blakeney, executive director of The U District Partnership. "These are important connections in our neighborhood, especially this summer as we begin to expand outdoor dining opportunities in advance of the light rail station opening."  

The newly reopened streets will have significant improvements to make it easier to walk, roll and bike through the area and transform how people get around the neighborhood. 

When finished, the 4.3 mile Northgate light rail extension will offer riders reliable, traffic-free travel between Northgate and downtown Seattle in just 14 minutes. Trains traveling in 3.5-mile twin tunnels north to and from the University of Washington Station at Husky Stadium will stop at underground stations in the U District and Roosevelt neighborhoods, exit the tunnels at First Avenue Northeast and Northeast 95th and transition to a 0.8-mile elevated guideway to reach the Northgate station.

Sound Transit is simultaneously working to extend light rail north, south, east and west. Northgate Link will be followed in 2023 by the opening of service to Mercer Island, Bellevue and Redmond’s Overlake community. Additional extensions to Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, Kent/Des Moines, Federal Way and downtown Redmond are planned to open in 2024. 

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QuEST Program seeks applicants

Attention college seniors and recent graduates!

 

Are you looking for meaningful professional experience in the nonprofit field, a supportive community of peers, and opportunities for growth and reflection?

 

QuEST is looking for YOU!

 

QuEST Fellows are placed infull-time positions at Seattle nonprofits and live together incommunity for a year of service. Room, board, and other living expenses are covered by the program.

 

Learn more:

 

www.quest-seattle.org

(RantWoman apologizes for not reproducing two wonderful images)

Something to think about for tax day

 A form of prophetic witness that RantWoman would be happy to have enough resources to need to think about.

In Lieu of Easter Pageantry: Bach Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor and prayers

RantWoman held modest quest for Easter pageantry via Youtube. Then RantWoman settled on Yoyo ma, Bach Cello Suite no 2 in D. 

RantWoman is seasoning ruminations on matters of resurrection and vocational rehabilitation and topics that still need more words than RantWoman should attempt tonight.

Today in a Zoom breakout RantWoman and others were speaking of the trial in Minneapolis of former police officer #DerekChauvin.

The trial is being televised. The entire country needs to be held in the Light!

RantWoman can barely handle the short snippets of story in her public radio diet. RantWoman is in awe of one Friend's spiritual fortitude for using his New York Times subscription to dip into the television broadcast of the trial.

The Friend was particularly commenting on one moment where the lawyers and the judge needed to work something out but the jury was led out of the room. RantWoman is intrigued by this procedural moment. RantWoman assumes that putting discussion on the record was part of the point of having a discussion in open court instead of a sidebar. But RantWoman is not a lawyer and will now go back to permanent cringe mode.

May Easter blessings find us all anyway.

Easter Hallelujahs

RantWoman needs the Easter bunny to bring her laughs and good musical licks way more than she needs an Easter basket full of brightly colored sugar.

This is definitely one way to get a video captioned and also way more visually entertaining than the average Hallelujah chorus performance.

RantWoman does also have some awesome 70% cacao organic fair trade chocolate to help sustain the buzz from getting to hug RantMom for the first time in over a year, just a bit over a year since RantMom's first negative COVID test after testing positive for a little less than a month. The RantFam, the entire Seattle wing gathered chez RantWoman in a very large place INDOORS that RantWoman has a key to, shared pizza, salad, beverages and our choice of toppings (frozen on sale organic blueberries, thank you very much. We are SO blessed.

The IF Project Documentary April 6, 5 pm. Register for Webinar

RantWoman apologizes for imperfections in presentation of this invitation. The button to register at the bottom should work.

This invitation comes via the Criminal Justice Working Group of Quaker Voice. RantWoman will be interested to hear what questions or comments rise for anyone who participates in this webinr.

RantWoman will not complain, beyoned this mention, about the lack of captioning or audio description in the trailer.

RantWoman notes the option of buying a copy of the video but digressing about electronic libraries is a call for another day.

RantWoman also will not immediately be entertaining questions: in several states, women in prison have the opportunity to learn Braille transcription. That is a prized opportunity when available but the issue of prison-based braille transcription programs is the subject of vigorous discussion in the blindness community.

Now, please sign up for the webinar.

The IF Project Documentary Trailer from Kathlyn Horan | TinFish Films on Vimeo.

 

The IF Project - Screening & Panel Discussion April 6, 2021 @ 5 pm PT Join us for a very special screening and panel discussion of The IF Project on April 6, 2021 @ 5 pm PT. In the U.S., there are over 6.4 million people in prison, jail, on probation or parole. That is 1 in every 40 adults. Perhaps even more alarming is that women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population, increasing at nearly double the rate of men since 1980. The IF Project is a feature length documentary that explores the reasons behind these staggering numbers. The film follows a group of women incarcerated in a maximum security prison who are part of a writing workshop co-created by a Seattle police detective and a woman serving a nine-year sentence. The writing workshop provides access to an emotional depth and intimacy we are not often afforded with those behind bars. We journey with them as they take a brutally honest look into their past and work to explore, often for the first time, what exactly led them to prison.   Special Guest Panelists will include: • Kelly Olson - Civil Survival, Policy Manger - MODERATOR • Kim Bogucki - The IF Project, Co-Founder (featured in the film) • Lakeisha “KeWee” Hamilton - The IF Project, Community Outreach Coordinator (featured in the film) • Kurt Myers - The IF Project, Project Coordinator • Cory Walster - Civil Survival, Community Organizer   Screening of the film will start at 5 pm, then followed with a panel discussion with members of The IF Project, including people featured in the film, and other impacted persons. We will also discuss voting rights restoration and the bill that just passed to restore voting rights to people as soon as they are released from prison, HB 1078.   View the trailer @: https://vimeo.com/162596857   Sponsored by:              R

April is Autism Awareness month with automated captioning

RantWoman will get more clearly to autism content in a moment.

First a word about use of Zoom automated captioning.

Friends at one local Meeting have received rave reviews for making Zoom automated captioning available. Another Meeting is not so pleased. RantWoman will not opine further about ways to adjust, strategies for dealing with the imperfections.

RantWoman was very grateful when settling in to last month's FLGBTQC worship to see the captions in use. Captions on a PC look great to RantWoman. On a phone, they hog all the screen space, a little frustrating if lipreading is also part of one's communications strategy. 

Later in that worship, a friend spoke, as RantWoman recalls of his own autism and of the autistic youth he teaches and how they receive or communicate information often more in signs than in words. Then the Friend said he was not sure why he was called to give that message.

The message a little bit brought RantWoman up short partly because of the Tweet stream in this prior post:

Isn't Autism Awesome?

Was RantWoman's wording perceived as hurtful? Were the tweets about non-speaking autistics meaningful? Listening to the message in worship, RantWoman was thinking "I see you. I lift you up. I lift up the people you teach."

Another autistic voice RantWoman is familiar with: Lydia X Z Brown. Lydia is a lawyer, a voice of Disability pride. She can be found on Twitter @Autistic Hoya 

One intern at the STAR Center openly identified as autistic. Just having things to file made her extremely happy. She also is considerably more challenged even than RantWoman about how to relate to sports.

RantWoman has met two autistic men who both apologized a lot. They both had persistent vexing but not necessarily objectionable behaviors and kept saying "I'm sorry." After awhile, RantWoman starts to find all the "i'm sorry" harder to deal with than just accepting the actual behavior.

RantWoman knows someone and realizes she does not know what pronouns they currently prefer. This person has Asperger's, in current parlance part of the autism spectrum. One time this person said they find RantWoman easy to be around because RantWoman does not make eye contact. RantWoman finds that person easy to be around because they don't expect eye contact. People used to eye contact are allowed to find ti belildering when there is no eye contact, and God still asks us all to get along. RantWoman also finds it helpful to know that other people besides blind people have trouble about eye contact.

There. Enough autism awareness for now.