Monday, March 1, 2021

Thought streams of the day.

The #Pandemic

RantMom planned to eat breakfast and lunch as well as dinner in her retirement community's dining room today. RantWoman still cannot go visit indoors. Also even though RantMom yearns to break out and do a little shopping, she has a painful Just Take It Easy for Awhile tendon injury in her leg. So phone it is and cat photo text messages and goofy emojis still.

Media streams invite reflections on #TheMoment when the pandemic became real for RantWoman: somewhere between when RantWoman read a Seattle Times article about RantMom's debate watching buddy and the bus trip where RantWoman got the call about RantMom's positive #COVID test results. There is more to say but on the whole, the RantFamily has been VERY lucky so far. Everyone but RantWoman has gotten vaccinated. RantMom cleared the virus after a few weeks and everyone else has tested negative whenever necessary. We count our blessings.


#Nisqually20 #NisquallyQuake

Where were you when the earth rumbled? Again, the RantFamily was lucky. RantWoman and Ferrener HUsband were living in a new construction condo. Ferrener Husband was practicing driving; RantWoman initially feared he might have driven the car through the garage to the back yard, but then the second wave hit. Ferrener Husband went to work and as soon as RantWoman heard the Aurora Bridge was safe she headed out on the bus to check on siblings. The building Little Sister was living in suffered some damage that was going to need a capital campaign to repair but was still habitable. Infant Nephew rode out the quake in a stroller while Little Sister showered. 

RantWoman and RantBrother both travelled to check on Little Sister. The 3 RantSiblings hung out together and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The TV was on very loud in English and everyone now and then someone would explain or interpret in Chinese. The most available communication device: an alpha pager good for 500-character emails. RantWoman pinged an aunt with RantMom's work phone number to say everyone was okay; RantMom had gone home to try to call.


What RantWoman Really Means to Memorialize: Nuclear Victimes Remembrance Day the 67th Anniversary of the Castle Bravo nuclear test.

This was the largest nuclear test conducted in the Marshall Islands. 

RantWoman had the good fortune to be able to fit a commemorative Zoom event into her schedule. For the moment, RantWoman is just going to seed theconversation with the event title  to go look for the event video and then dump some speaker bios from the chat and random notes here.



Benetick Kabua Maddison is the Project Specialist for the Climate, Education and Nuclear Issues at the Marshallese Educational Initiative. He was the Keynote Speaker at the 12SL Annual Conference in 2019 about climate change and has spoken at a number of other conferences on climate, nuclear, and Marshallese youth issues. He is also an advisor for Reverse the Trend. Benetick is enrolled at NWACC and resides in Springdale, Arkansas, after having relocated with his family from Majuro Atoll. Benetick’s family lineage represents the Ralik Chain, which includes Bikini Atoll.



n 2016, H.E Ambassador Kabua was appointed as the Permanent Representative of the Marshall Islands to the United Nations. In this critical role, she represents the Marshall Islands and acts as a primary channel for communications between the Marshall Islands government and the United Nations. Prior to her appointment, in 2009, H.E Ambassador Kabua served as Ambassador to Fiji. From 2003 - 2009, she was the Field Service Consultant to RMI’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1997 - 03, she served as Ambassador to Japan.



UN Protectorate Administered by the US. UN allowed 54 tests over objection of the Marshallese people




2021 NPT Meeting



memory mourning sadness but also own rather than let it own us, uphold pursuit of justice and action for the future.




Consul-General Eldon Alik

In September 2017, Mr. Alik was appointed Consul General for RMI in Springdale, Arkansas. As Consul General, Mr Alik plays an instrumental role in promoting the socio-economic interests of Marshallese citizens in Arkansas and Midwest areas. Prior to Mr Alik’s appointment he was a leading member of the Marshallese community having participated in various areas of public life. He was an interpreter for State Courts and Federal Government agencies, Life Guide for the Center for Intercultural Organizing that organizes educational seminars for Marshallese migrants, and as an Enrollment Assister for Northwest Family Services that helps people enroll in the Oregon Health Plan programs. Mr. Alik owns 'EA Cleaning', where he employs 17 Marshallese.



MEI ‘Nuclear Legacy' webpage: https://www.mei.ngo/nuclear

MEI Nuclear Legacy Poster: https://426595d0-b8d0-474b-8711-627ff1c2b4ef.filesusr.com/ugd/503583_3cd2488704cf4cf196b2f8d9c7948a81.pdf

‘No Promised Land: The Shared Legacy of the Castle Bravo Nuclear Test’ by April L. Brown: https://426595d0-b8d0-474b-8711-627ff1c2b4ef.filesusr.com/ugd/503583_f68ab8c447a740e48c59cfa3f5eb8e12.pdf

From Julianne Walsh to Everyone:  05:34 PM

Kommol, CG Alik.

From Jim Haber to Everyone:  05:34 PM

Very heartfelt, all of you. Thank you.



jellyfish babies


Springdale AR

Dr. Ivana Hughes

Dr. Ivana Hughes is the Director of the K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies at Columbia University. She is also the Director of the Frontiers of Science, and a Senior Lecturer in Discipline in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia. In her work leading the K=1 Project, Ivana combines an interest in global issues with her deep commitment to teaching and mentoring undergraduate students with different academic backgrounds on topics at the intersection of science and society. Ivana's responsibilities lie in overseeing the operations and programming of the Center.

From Emma Locker to Everyone:  05:47 PM

Hi Marsha, it is being posted on our youtube channel. We will keep attendees updated.

From Pegasus Collonge to Everyone:  05:47 PM

thank you Yout Excellency


Dr. Tilman Ruff

Dr. Tilman Ruff AM is a public health and infectious diseases physician. He is the co-founder and Australian Chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and since 2012, he has been the Co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Dr. Ruff has been instrumental in building momentum towards banning nuclear weapons. Specifically, he played a critical role in the negotiations on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.


Christian N. Ciobanu is the Policy and Advocacy Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He has been an activist in the field of nuclear disarmament since 2010. He has organized events for youth and diplomats in Geneva, Vienna, and New York. He is one of the coordinators for Reverse the Trend: Save Our People, Save Our Planet.

He helped the Permanent Mission of the Marshall Islands in monitoring nuclear disarmament affairs at the 2015 NPT Review Conference, 2015 First Committee of the UN General Assembly, and 2017 UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination.


How best to support the Marshallese people

safe online space for young Marshallese 


Reverse the Trend

Share testimony on why nuclear weapons should be banned



Women's History Month: Masai Women, solar panels

 RantWoman intends to observe #WomensHistoryMonth by highlighting practical ways women specifically, in their roles as women in their societies, are making practical down-to-earth contributions to the fight against climate change and for our collective futures.


This resource came to RantWoman via The No Arks News, a project whose public face is still evolving. 

Masai Women tote solar panels on donkeys


This project is not specifically Quaker. RantWoman encourages readers to sign up for updates on this and other green development projects through the Thompson Reuters foundation while on the article page..


RantWoman also hopes this post will help the No Arks News project, which is explicitly Quaker, flourish

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Nelson Mandela, the Black Panthers and Disability Rights

RantWoman, you want to get one last #BlackHistoryMonth post out of your system. You want to post a link and just exclaim "Isn't it cool that NBC News has evolved enough to run this story. Why ya gotta go to South Africa first?


RantWoman's knowledge of the nuances of South African society in different eras is defined remembrances when Nelson Mandela died, by South African Quaker leader Dudu Mtshazo, and by Trevor Noah, his Book Born a Crime, and his comedy. Don't forget Paul Simon and LadysmithBlack Mbazo and Diamonds on the Souls of their shoes or one book on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In other words, RantWoman has enough for some metaphors to illustrate her points and other than that much to maintain lifelong learning and endless curiosity about.


Early in Mandela's career, he and others in the African National Congress, ANC did a great deal of diplomacy, reaching out to other African countries at a time when popular culture commentary in the US focused a lot on Cold War terms, much less on countering colonialism or listening to the needs and priorities of different African countries. RantWoman thinks this level of diplomacy is much to be admired. Period. Query: why would RantWoman possibly be bringing up this kind of diplomacy, reaching across boundaries?


Nelson Mandela was still on the US terrorist watch list when he was released after 26 years in prison for opposing the South African regime. The evolution of this image and of US policy is only one part of the recent history of post-apartheid South Africa. Query to justify this digression: what relationships might need to grow or evolve?


Dudu Mtshazo, when she was NPYM Friend in Residence in the late 1990's spoke of 3 categories of people in post-apartheid South Africa, people who went into exile, people who got sent to prison, and people who managed to stay and stay out of prison. Dudu's form of resistance was to violate pass laws so that people of different races could pray together.

Query: Where do readers suppose RantWoman might be going with this?


Now to the article, with special note to look up more about the Black Panthers involvement in the disability rights movement leading up to enacting of the ADA.

NBC News item about Black History and Disability

Queries: do readers suppose that some of the erasures and ableism and closetedness mentioned are unique to people of color? RantWoman does not want to minimize or erase; RantWoman does want readers to consider what needs and emotions might be at work in different situations touched on in the article.


T Vail Palmer memorial March 13, 11am Pacific Time

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. News of a memorial has also come to RantWoman via Twitter.


RantWoman is sharing this post both as invitation to remember this weighty Quaker and with an excursion about what is or is not available via the internet and in formats accessible to RantWoman. RantWoman does not at all mean the latter realities to detract from celebration of a life well-lived. RantWoman will post separately to expand on many threads touched on here.


 T Vail Palmer Virtual Memorial Signup Details

T Vail Palmer page at Barclay Press

Amazon link for Face to Face Early Quaker Encounters with the Bible

Not available through Amazon in E-Reader format

So far no one has created a Wikipedia page and doing so is far beyond RantWoman's Light

RantWoman can check:

--Barclay Press directly for an eBook

--NLS BARD for audio recording

--Reading Ally for audio recording

--Bookshare RantWoman unclear about pathway to alternate format.


Or RantWoman may do none of these, read some reviews, see what conversations happen and then figure out something about having someone read aloud.


In Light, faithfulness, memoriam



Friday, February 26, 2021

Isn't Autism Awesome: Newsletter Disability Article of the Month.

RantWoman are you SURE you don't want to rethink that title?


WANT to is one thing. Whether or not it might be a good idea is another. As RantWoman has been known to say, "...not required to like..."


But RantWoman aren't you a little afraid someone will feel attacked or intimidated or squelched?    

1. It doesn't seem like Friend M intimidates or squelches easily, except when RantWoman is trying to have a conversation in email, with help of a clearness committee....

2. RantWoman could be a little bit worried. And RantWoman would find it easier to worry about this Friend feeling squelched if this Friend had not been helping edit a whole bunch of concepts important and relevant to RantWoman out of community conversation for...

3. RantWoman wonders what if anything anyone else has to say about disability in general or this topic in particular.

4. There is a whole ton of terminology here that RantWoman thinks might be unfamiliar to many readers. So...?


Joyfully Autistic

Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge

So many people associate disability with pain, shame, being kept out or held back. And of course, disabilities often include those things—but that’s like saying that being a woman means being objectified: true in some sense, but nowhere near a whole truth. There’s a lot more to disability (and womanhood) than that.

 I have been enjoying reading articles about being joyfully disabled, or brilliantly disabled, or queerly disabled, or revolutionarily disabled. I’d like to share with you all the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network (AWN), which is a fabulous organization run by autistic people, for autistic people. In paticular, I enjoyed their article, “12 People On What It Felt Like To Discover Autism.”

 Autism is a type of neurodiversity that can be disabling in a world that does not accommodate divergence from one so-called “normal” way of being, thinking, feeling and inter- acting. For many years, it was primarily thought to be something that affected boys and men, but more recently it’s been discovered that autism presents differently in women and girls. Many autistic folks who were assigned female at birth grew up not knowing that they were autistic.

 This article relays twelve people’s responses to figuring out that they were autistic as adults. These two reactions really stood out to me:

 “I finally had an answer: I wasn’t WRONG for being the way I was[,] not a broken version of a “normal” person. I was just different. After discovering, I was able to forgive and go easier on myself. I understand now when not to push myself too hard. It was like putting the key in a lock and opening a door to a world where I made sense.”

 “… being autistic isn’t a disease—it’s a beautifully made puzzle-box. I still struggle with finding a place in the world that suits me, but now I feel less like I’m a badly-made neurotypical and more like a half-open bud with a beautiful neurodiverse future.”

The full article is a five-minute read on the AWN Network website. 12 women on what it feels like to be autistic

 

OKAY RantWoman, and so...?

Do you have to identify as non-binary to be a proud autistic?

Does anyone think they have enough information to answer the question "What does accessibility mean ...?"

But never mind. The answers especially to the second question are much too much for one blog post and RantWoman insists on thinking about more pieces of the picture anyway.


Worried about terminology? How about a whole lot MORE terminology?

Wikipedia article on autism spectrum disorder


By amazing coincidence as a result of RantWoman permitting Twitter to guess at things RantWoman might find valuable, here is an awesome list of tweets and blogs by non-speaking autistics

Thread

Tweet

"So the fundamental question remains - do meltdowns, whether it is due to sensory overstimulation or any other reason, define the entirety of the nonspeaking autistic who is still a living, breathing and thinking individual?" (Cont'd)
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"Will they ever be allowed to be included and visible in mainstream society? What about the potential internalized harm and trauma of this stigma for members of this group?" Read the full text by nonspeaking autistic activist Hari Srinivasan:
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being neurodivergent is inherently traumatic because from the moment we start developing our own personalities we're inundated with messages that we are wrong or flawed in some way. we internalise these messages and our inner dialogue adopts the voice of the criticism.
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The vibrance and joy of autism is often overlooked amongst the trouble that it can cause. The hard parts do make my life hard, but people forget that the good parts are what makes my life really good. - a thread. /1
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Show this thread


And a couple more links in case people want to start from one place instead of seeding search engines with terms such as:

autism or asperger's syndrome


Easter Seals all purpose Disability resource

Autism Career Pathways