Local TV Coverage of Boarding School Remembrance Day

End of the Month Yucky Topics Festival: Suicide awareness, disasterpreparedness climate disaster threat of nuclear war.

 RantWoman aims to achieve both bravado and humor. Enjoy?

#SuicideAwarenessMonth 

NPYM Friend in Residence Carl Magruder opened his address by saying among other things "if you are feeling suicidal, Ministry and Counsel is here for you." RantWoman evaluated her experience with and acquaintance with all the current members of Ministry and Counsel and thought "Really?" That is enough on that topic for now, though RantWoman is going to try again and again and again with some kind of a "wouldn't be fun to build community with some sort of well-facilitated Mental Health Triage workshop.

Interest Group: Disability AGAIN

RantWoman is falling down on her zeal for relentless self-promotion and invitation to idiosyncratic interest groups experiences.

Here is the interest group description as returned with a request for a Zoom link:

> | Interest Group: | Disability AGAIN??? |
> | Description: | Those gathered will go where lead about the topics of
> disability, ableism, persistence.
>
> Oops. Ouch Whoa--AND DISABILITY?
>
> Spoons?
>
> Friends hosting ALL interest groups are encouraged to ask those present to
> share any accessibility needs. Hopefully this practice can become as routine
> as mention or non mention of pronouns.
>
> In the event that no one shows up, Team RantWoman will be visiting another
> Online Interest group and may or may not share all her accessibility needs until the issue comes up. 

The space was needed.

Shamelessly amplifying a good bit of the fall quarterly descriptive material.

Theme Summary

Plenary Recording

Practical Peacemaking

As we travel to Lazy F, we will pass by people we don't quite agree with. If "there is that of God in everyone", these people are our neighbors too. How do we make peace with -- or even just talk with -- all our neighbors, not just the ones with whom we have easily-found common ground? Perhaps you have challenging relationships with family or co-workers or childhood friends with whom you disagree on closely held beliefs. Our hope for this session is that we will learn more about how to encounter ALL our neighbors with love, and build bridges where all we can see now are rifts. For some of us, this may be a new experience. For some of us, it is daily life.

We will hear from our F/friends living across the Quarterly Meeting about how they practice day-to-day peacemaking, no matter where they live or who they meet. Let us learn from one another.

HOSTED BY EASTSIDE AND SOUTH SEATTLE MEETINGS

PNQM Fall Quarterly Meeting September 23-25, 2022

The flyer has 3 lovely pictures, two of car bumpers each plastered with a different but sort of predictable combination of bumper stickers and a third one of a road straight down the middle of some flat dryland with low shrubbery on the side. RantWoman has enough eyes to tell this with magnification. 

On Planet RantWoman with RantWoman's screen reader, these pictures sound like "unlabelled graphic unlabeled graphic photocredit.

RantWoman is not going to spend more time adding the images here.

Queries the panel responded to:

1- How are you practicing peace-making in these divisive times?

2-How does your non-Quaker community - neighbors, friends, workplace,

extended family - and their political leanings inform these choices?

3-  What would you like to share with Quakers who are living in a different

political environment?

RantWoman feels vaguely responsible for not sending out suggested worship group queries until after she herself had registered. The worship group RantWoman was in was well-held regardless.

Video Highlights From Fall 2022 Quarterly Meeting

Practical Peacemaking - Plenary

Quaker Voice

Diverting welfare funds to endow a volleyball stadium--and trying to use prison labor to build it. In training for T***p level grift???

For readers seeking a wholesome minor league scandal as an alternative to the vortex of scandals swirling around... and also as a break from a certain retired football player's Georgia Senate campaign, let us "appreciate the antics of another former professional football player. Can he claim brain injury too?




And a punchier account of the behind the scenes negotiations behind this "gift" to the University of Southern MS.

Documentary: Since I Been Down Free screening 9/22

But is it audio described? Does it have captions?

RantWoman will henceforth be asking the questions above on a regular basis. But for now, Mark calendars

Check out "SACA Racial Equity Movie Night: Since I've Been Down" on Eventbrite!

Date: Thu, Sep 22 • 4:00 PM PDT

Location: 167 Republican Street, Seattle, WA 98109https://t.co/hy1lsAoEy8

— Dorene Cornwell (@DoreneFC) September 19, 2022

Alla Pugacheva VERY famous Russian folk singer comes out against Putin's war

 RantWoman is not posting every Russia's was on Ukraine item that comes across RantWoman's media streams. RantWoman invites reader to follow the original authors.

This is HUGE on top of voices in civil society and troops refusing to fight.

Alla Pugacheva was one of the most famous singers of the USSR. She remains an icon in 🇷🇺 and has > 3.400.000 Instagram followers.

But, today she came out against the war in Ukraine🇺🇦. The more that established icons/influencers reject the war, the harder things are for Putin. pic.twitter.com/Yh45eYaTGL

— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) September 18, 2022

Drunkenness among Putin's officials | Break the Fake | TVP World

One of the takeaways from this piece: there are measures in Russia to prevent drunken button pushing.

And still a window on many threads of danger.

Ben Hodges 'The Russian Federation could collapse'

Advice from Ben Hodges to NATO allies:

Maintain Unity

Deliver everything we said we are going to deliver

Develop a strategy for the whole Black Sea region NOT JUST MILITARY

RantWoman posts this video without further comment as much for a marker at this point in the war as any kind of concurrence with parts of the narrative.

Compline in memory of HM Queen Elizabeth II September 11

This year RantWoman appears to be into EXTREMELY quirky ways to commemorate the Sept 11 attacks of 21 years ago. 

RantWoman does not at all mean to take away from the gravity of the situation or the grief of the whole world. IRantWoman does commend the music even if one is theologically nowhere near an Anglican. 

On the contrary we are supposed to remember in spite of the deluge of current events. And if the question "where were you on September 11th?" or "What do you remember about September 11?" is starting to sound like "where were you when Kennedy was assassinated?" Think of it as one more marker of marching time, of age and rolling centuries. 

First the Queen and then the rest of the news

Congratulations Ashley!

I am so happy to announce that New Garden Friends Meeting has called me as their interim pastor!

I will be preaching next Sunday and everyone is welcome!#Quakershttps://t.co/qU5aUDsyWG

— Ashley M. Wilcox (@ashleymwilcox) September 11, 2022

To get to peace sometimes it matters to see the war(s) Putin's career and what comes next

RantWoman has been trying to identify a Quaker framing for her willingness to watch a mix of testimony on the ground, military activity and strategy, and geopolitical perspectives on the was in Ukraine. 

Other than bearing witness and holding in the Light and seasoning how often just to let her head explode and the word outrageous fly from her lips, so far ... 

Warning: this video interview of longtime British war correspondent includes graphic description of war crimes. Toward the end there is also a very funny moment involving drinking and Ukrainian checkpoints

And a couple more vids from today's viewing

Please be advised: avoid looking and listen to the sound. 

Meidas Touch Interviews Bem Hodges a former NATO military commander

France 24 Peter Zalmaev on Ukrainian counteroffensive

CBS: CIA chief says Russia will pay a heavy price

Jake Broe today

WION on honeytrapping via Facebook

Al Jezeera English also reporting that Zaporozhia NPP was reconnected to main power grid long enough to properly shut down the 6th and last reactor still operating.

TVP (POlish) on fleeing russians

TVP Break The Fake on the media. A wholesome alternative to Trumpiana

Faith Action Network stands against Christian Nationalism

First a video, then shameless reprint of the Faith Action Network weekly newsletter with several specific steps to resist Christian Nationalism..

Friends interested in more about FAN are invited to sign up to be on their mailing list and / or to follow them on social media.

PS RantWoman is all for being clear-eyed about what she considers a cult. RantWoman considers herself a person of faith who strives to be clear-eyed about both outrageous crimes committed in the name of religions as well as soap operas in every faith community RantWoman has ever been close to. RantWoman also gets DARNED tired of all the voices that are, frankly, clueless, dismissive, and openly ignorant of and hostile toward. In other words, RantWoman is at war with religion wars no matter what the flavor.

And with that unQuakerly metaphor, good night beloved readers.

Stand Against Christian Nationalism

A group of Christian clergy and allies in the Spokane area, led by Rev. Rick Matters, is organizing a local response to the ReAwaken America tour coming to the Washington-Idaho border September 16-17; see our previous announcement here and this news article from Spokane FāVS. FAN is supportive of these efforts toward denouncing this ideology that breeds division and hate. We know that such events in one part of our region have ripples throughout the state. We invite you to consider an action step you can take in the week leading up to the event: Pledge to lift up the liberative themes of our multi-faith traditions in prayer, vigil, and the media as a counter-narrative during the weekend of Sept 16-18 by filling in this Google form. Sign the local organizer’s petition in advance of the event: bit.ly/ChristianNationalismPetition. The Episcopal Diocese of Spokane is helping lead the way with this powerful recent statement by Bishop Gretchen Rehburg and will offer vigil resources. Our partners at CURE:PDX are working to intervene where there is threat of violence in our region and Meta Peace Teams offer regular Peacekeeping and nonviolence trainings. FAN will continue to work across the state to create forums for learning and action to respond to Christian nationalism. Here are a few upcoming opportunities: The Interfaith Alliance reminds us that Christian Nationalism is on the ballot this fall and offers resources on behalf of religious freedom. Theologian Carter Heyward is releasing a new book on the topic this month in an online event September 21: The 7 Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism. Here is a video perspective from Christians Against Christian Nationalism.

Inviting Sponsors and Volunteers for Annual Dinner

We are excited to join in person for our annual celebration in Renton and Spokane, and we are preparing to welcome tables of sponsoring friends, our Network of Advocating Faith Communities, and hundreds of individuals in both venues, as well as online. This will take many hands, and we invite you to sponsor or volunteer! Sponsor our 2022 annual celebration and keep FAN advocacy moving forward! Download the sponsorship form here or email Elise for more information: degooyer@fanwa.org. Volunteer to make the evening a success! Help with registration, outreach, parking, set-up, or clean-up, and then enjoy dinner and the program with us! Email fan@fanwa.org.

Coalition Partner Spotlight

FAN participates in more than 25 policy coalitions, each working towards justice, equity, and the common good through intersecting issues. The work of Health Care for All – Washington to achieve universal health care is based on religious and constitutional values that demand justice for all. We are pleased to highlight this upcoming event shared by FAN advocate Ronnie Shure, President of Health Care for All – Washington, and featuring the work and perspectives of FAN supporter and member of Washington Poor Peoples’ Campaign, Ming Chen: Healthcare is a Universal Value, September 14, 7pm on Zoom. RSVP here!

Opportunity

Space for a SHARE shelter needed in Seattle by September 17: SHARE is currently looking for a location for a 10-person, self-managed shelter in Seattle, needed to temporarily replace another site by September 17. For more information, contact SHARE at shelters@sharewheel.org or 206-448-7889.

Events

Saturday, September 10, 9-4 pm, Esther Short Park, Vancouver Peace and Justice Fair. FAN is pleased to co-sponsor the Vancouver Peace and Justice Fair. Please drop by the FAN table to talk with FAN Partnership Coordinator Elizabeth Dickinson, take action for food security, and get your passport stamped! Find out more here. Saturday, September 10, 1 pm, Sullivan Center, 14350 International Boulevard, Tukwila, Raise the Wage Tukwila! Fall Campaign Launch. Find out more here. Sunday-Wednesday, September 11-14, on line, Green Team Summit, hosted by St. John United Lutheran Church with Earth Ministry, featuring Dr. Katharine Hayhoe exploring her most recent book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. Find out more here. Sunday, September 11 to Saturday, October 2, on line. Global Interfaith Compassion Challenge. Join people from many faith communities in exploring ways to bring the timeless virtue of compassion into our lives and work toward bringing about large-scale social change through compassion. Find out more here. Tuesday, September 13, 12-1:30 PM, on-line presentation, Racial Equity - What Do We Do Next?, sponsored by Eastside Interfaith Social Concerns Council. Find more information, contact eastsideinterfaith@gmail.com. Wednesday, September 14, 10 am, on line, The Future of Work. This webinar explores how “digital trade” proposals could impact jobs, wages, gig economy worker protections, and more. Find out more here. Saturday, September 17, 10am-5pm, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon. 2022 Labor & Immigration Summit hosted by the Washington State Labor Council and the AFL-CIO Labor & Immigration Committee. FAN is pleased to co-sponsor this year’s event with the theme “Immigrant and Refugee Workers Rising and The Future of the Labor Movement.” There will be workshops, a guest speakers' breakfast, lunch, and free parking. Register here. For more information, email Dgutierrez@wslc.org. Saturday, September 24, noon, Cal Anderson Park to the Federal Building. Seattle Rally and March for Nuclear Abolition, sponsored by Citizens for the Universal Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. Find out more here.

We always post the E-News to our website each week at fanwa.org/news/. Stay connected with our emails! Please be sure to list fan@fanwa.org as a safe sender by adding us to your contacts.

Clean link for Carl Magruder's address at NPYM 2022--with brief content warning.

RantWoman invites readers to appreciate Friend in Residence Carl Magruder's address at the 2022 hybrid annual session with a clean link and opportunity to hold the whole address in a time of "crumbles.".

Western Friend Call Magruder

Small content warning: near the beginning of the address there is a brief invitation, for anyone considering suicide to please reach out.  The exact terms of the invitation made RantWoman's head explode for reasons RantWoman is happy to hyperventilate about in a separate post.

The short version, if the invitation in the speech doesn't sit right for any reason, take the advice twitter offered when RantWoman was checking hashtags: call 988.

Today in Quaker Adjacent history.

RIP Queen Elizabeth II 👑

She Achieved Her Dream of Dying Before Being Seen in a Wheelchair ❤️ pic.twitter.com/pXixdgVt9L

— The Squeaky Wheel (@TheSqkyWheel) September 8, 2022

Quaker Adjacent Item 1

Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022

Long Live King Charles III and Queen Consort Camila.

The Quaker adjacent piece: many better students of history than RantWoman can probably be way more articulate about the relation between King Charles II and early Quakers than RantWoman can even after a long-ago romp through Barclay's Apology.

Quaker Adjacent Item 2

On this date in 1974 President Gerald Ford unconditionally pardoned sort of kind of raised Quaker former president Richard Nixon.

Topical Twitter threads include whether or not the pardon was a good idea considering everything else that was going on and the example it set for The Former Guy, #POTUS45.

RantWoman's 30,000 feet view:

--Nixon won his second term by an electoral landslide and still, thanks partly to his own party losing faith in him, had the grace to resign less than two years into his second term.

--TFG lost the popular vote twice and the electoral college on his second go, and he is still blubbering to be let back into the White House.

--What would happen to election outcomes if every state ended Winner Take All electoral count designations and allocated electors proportionately to the ballots cast. RantWoman perfectly well knows the racist roots of the electoral college. As a lifelong Westerner, RantWoman is also prepared to argue why big sparsely populated resource rich states need a little bit of an edge compared to the massive coastal cities. Who knows whether one democratic electoral vote from deep read WY could ever be decisive, but RantWoman is definitely into Count all the votes.

--Nixon gets big points for the opening to China. Thankfully the US public also had the backbone to object to burglarizing the democratic party headquarters and then a massive coverup. As far as anyone knows, no scandals about classified documents. No whiff of any innuendo that he might be horsetrading secrets to who knows who all.

--How many ways, how many times is the Current #MarALago document dumpster fire far worse than what Nixon is accused of doing?

--There is some UGLY lack of awareness of history, misunderstanding, and mis-information about among some younger tweeters. NO, liberals hot about TFG are NOT just nostalgic for the 1970's

And how is your Thursday going?

Watch It. Watch it. Barr Burns Trump's Defense and then there is the rest of the news!

RantWoman is taking a sanity break from NPR reporting on Zaporozhia NPP and UN calls for a demilitarized zone around Zaporizhia NPP and, holy guacamole, NUCLEAR SECRETS at a golf resort in FL to (SHUDDER) look at Faux Snooze???

Will the country be healed, healed I say if Youtube sends RantWoman whole Faux Snooze segments instead of the slices digested by other media streams?

Ummm

Note former Attorney General Bill Barr, lately of the bury the Mueller report send decidedly mixed messages: The Former Guy has not defense about the documents at Mar a Lago

but

Barr hopes his former boss doesn't get indicted in spite of the many options to do so.

and oh by the way just in passing an esoteric but probably important aside about investors and money flows that has little to do with the controversy du jour.

Stay tuned?. 

Back to nuclear tidings, all the nuclear reactors at Zaporizhia are now disconnected from the local power grids though one is still generating enough electricity to run the cooling systems.. That is unsettling news for anyone worried about nuclear safety.  Russia is also ignoring the UN call to demilitarize. Add what is happening or not happening for various pipelines and restarting French nuclear reactors. 

Also Russia and China just made a deal to evade sanctions against Russia and to trade oil in yuan and rubles instead of dollars. RantWoman was wrong about the timing of that. RantWoman figured a total oil market shift out of dollars might be one outcome of The Orange Guy's regime. RantWoman would not have minded being totally wrong. 

Anyway it's likely to be an intense winter on world energy markets.

Isn't RantWoman just a veritable Yucky Topics Festival and barrel of fun to read!

Kazakhstan emancipates itself from Russian influence | Eastern Express |...

RantWoman will from time to time be posting resources that seem to provide credible and useful background related to Russia, countries of the former Soviet Union, energy, and trade.

These posts are intended to be informational. RantWoman may or may not offer in-depth commentary beyond the content..

RantWoman invites readers who find these posts interesting to follow the content creators as led.

Oh NOES! Not Lesbian dance theory!?!?! Student Loan Forgiveness! And disincentive to join the military to boot

#CivicsForLauren #LaurenBoebert

Say one thing for Lauren Boebert. She believes in recycling, at least when it comes to her soundbites.

For the record, 

1. Rantwoman appreciates many points in the video above. RantWoman wouldn't mind a tad less excessively plain English and a teeny bit gentler language, but basically these friends speak RantWoman's mind.

2. RantWoman knows exactly no one who has paid off student loans who resents Pres. Biden's student loan forgiveness. On the contrary RantWoman knows many people who are also happy to launch into critiques of the costs of and underfunding of education in the US. Plus the measure SHOULD help drive voter turnout in the midterms elections. RantWoman calls that playing to win.

3. The loan forgiveness program will cost most households a few dollars per year, a tiny sum compared to the costs of The Former Guy's tax cuts. Considering Rep. Boebert's financial history, RantWoman has little expectation that Rep. Boebert will wind up paying any of these costs.

4. Believe it or not there are young mothers who take out student loans, work multiple jobs, raise a family, AND go to college. MANY people who have a GED go to college. If Rep. Boebert were even slightly interested in college she is also at an age where there are services at many colleges specifically for Returning Women Students. RantWoman also notes from her bio that her high school education may have been disrupted by family circumstances. In short RantWoman wishes the internet would stop bashing her for being, charitably, uneducated and instead embrace the concept of lifelong learning, a concept that applies no less to Lauren Boebert than to millions of other mothers.

There. RantWoman will go back to steeping herself in over-the-top rhetoric and ridiculousness on YouTube.

Not so fast: student loan forgiveness will also make it harder to entice people to join the military. Oh my.

Preview Sarah Palin | Christopher Titus | NEW STANDUP SPECIAL "Zero Side Effects...

It's been awhile since RantWoman made any contributions to the Association of Bad Friends so let us celebrate an item that is so wrong in so many ways, the level of making fun of, the snark about guns. RantWoman is trying to decide whether she gives Christopher Titus a pass because of really raw material about his family

And RantWoman laughed very hard

Witness Wednesday with memorial and nuclear edge

Witness Wednesday Prompt and query

“Your obsession with productivity as a function of your worth is preventing you from tending to your soul.”
-- The Nap Ministry

Query: How are you tending to your soul?

In addition to the thread below, and coming to Witness Wednesday straight from another meeting that ran long RantWoman also feeds her soul by enthusiastically upholding the work of younger people working on issues important to RantWoman. So welcome new program assistants.

(In afterthought, RantWoman also blurted out something about tending to one's soul IS work, sometimes actually hard work that can get in the way of productivity if one tries to do without such work.

Ministry in the chat because shared space:

Apparently I feed my soul by cross pollinating among different spaces.

(Tuesday night) I was worshipping with Kiev Friends. There are two things to hold in the Light from that worship.

The situation with the Zaporizhie nuclear power plant and help from IAEA inspections to ensure safe operations and demilitarization of the area.

In memory of Mikhail Gorbachev it's important to know what he meant for the former Soviet republics.

RantWoman's memorial scrapbook of media pieces about Gorbachev's death

Nikolai Sokov Controlling Soviet / Nuclear weapons in time of Instability 

General Stavridis on Zaporizhie NPP

A couple of nuclear vignettes of Gorbachev's rule at the cusp of the Soviet collapse:
- Gorbachev wasn't interested in the arms race with the US. He was also not keen on continued nuclear tests but wasn't powerful enough to deal with the Soviet military-industrial complex. 1/8

— Togzhan Kassenova (@tkassenova) August 30, 2022