Data Various Flavors; Ouch statements and promises of juicy details.

Smoke

 First some #SeattleSmoke observational data in the form of today's photo of the day from RantWoman's balcony. 

 
The view S from RantWoman's balcony

Standing Reasonable Accommodations request

RantWoman has had a standing reasonable accommodations request for at least 15 years. The request has been something like "I do not know what will work, so we need to keep trying." RantWoman would say this has been a BUMPY ride, and RantWoman has plenty of additional detail but will do the flyover here. 

Concisely, Meeting has been unevenly willing to accept RantWoman's offers and suggestions about what would help; Meeting has also frequently specifically refused to do things RantWoman considers reasonable accommodations. In other cases, completely inappropriate "help" has been offered or unreasonable requests have been made. RantWoman will elaborate separately because she hopes at the end of this post to arrive, without TOO many digressions at a blunt observation about ONE recent really glaring ouch statement and some commentary that needs to go with a specific email thread!

 

The ListServe and Reply/all

Next, some data and commentary about email. Yes. Email. Email from people who clearly do not unite with ...

Email that indicates, HORRORS, that people have been using that horrid dreadful Reply/all command on a community listserve. RantWoman offers two perspectives. 

The result is about what one can expect. Interesting text items intertwined and entangled so one is not sure what exactly is supposed to come of the exchange. The text items are valuable. There is not, mercifully, additional commentary and the new texts contribute to a larger conversation. The result is definitely kind of a mess, the kind of mess RantWoman does not want to see too often but is VERY happy to tolerate sometimes. 

Second, RantWoman is VERY grateful that community practice if not actual guidelines have evolved. RantWoman raises the question: do the guidelines need to evolve at least a little? RantWoman would definitely be down with evolution from "RantWoman is the only one who cares so instead of asking RantWoman to elaborate on her point of view, let's just steamroll her, make rules, send three supposedly weighty Friends over RIGHT NOW to elder her for violating The Rules. Come over RIGHT NOW did not include even the SLIGHTEST interest in where people were demanding invitation to and we will not even go near one of those Friends' perpetual self-important difficulties with the space-time continuum, at least as far as anyone else's time.  

This  exercise was THREE years ago. RantWoman does NOT apologize for still being steamed, but is not the least bit distressed to bypass such visitations for the present circumstances. RantWoman still wishes this were not the only data to add to her Unsafe at Any Speed list, about which more to come. And by "Unsafe At Any Speed, RantWoman also means "cannot ethically just walk away from."

Unsafe at Any Speed? "oh everyone is doing the best we can and the community really is not ready to try more?" Not if no one asks them! RantWoman is called to be faithful to her Light on several grounds, not all of them Quaker. RantWoman would SO MUCH rather have a list of "here's what's wrong. Here is how we can all do better in the future."  But instead she has a years old stream of emails from the now-clerk basically of the "I don' wanna..." form. Yeah, we know you don' wanna. But what does God require of you?

Ouch Statements. Ouch Statements.

Yep. RantWoman promised ouch statements. The email in the Reply/All thread is an exchange between two Friends younger than RantWoman. RantWoman appreciates that one Friend introduced the concept of Ouch statements. Oops / Ouch / Snap is a set of language used among many activists RantWoman knows. Oops, I realize I said something wrong, committed a microaggression, ... Ouch is You did something that hurt me.Snap is "nicely worded." 

Unfortunately, the concept of Ouch statements came in a sentence that RantWoman experienced as a serious sharp-edged  Ouch directed at the other person. RantWoman will express her observation in specific terms to the parties involved, but RantWoman finds herself VERY relieved to recognize: that Friend is just really good at Ouch statements, and RantWoman needs to labor carefully about her concerns but definitely does not need to take the ouch statement issue personally. Eureka!

Actual substance.

The target of the ouch statement posted an extremely helpful piece related to the Friend's work. RantWoman thinks the Friends work offers rich ground for further discussion and hopes to formulate a clean comment about substance freed of the bramble here.

In Light and Faithfulness.

RantWoman