Memorial because what else does one do?

RantWoman has little to add to the torrents of words already written about 9/11 and instead grabs some images in prayer.

A budweiser ad?
Uh-huh.
RantWoman does not buy the beer but does appreciate the ad.





WARNING: powerful, stunning, some will find upsetting!
A stunning reflection about all the people who jumped out of the burning towers.

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN



And for a window into the spooky world of people trained and accustomed to thinking about what bad things might happen, a peculiar contribution to NationalPreparedness Month, #NPM2013, a History Channel item about RickRiscola, the Director of Security atn Dean Witter / Morgan Stanley and all of his drill practices.

http://youtu.be/w9jUEp_l7cE

Morning pages mid afternoon

RantWoman recollects Hurricane Katrina anniversaries, global climate change, and sundry world concerns while praying fervently along with radio updates that good sense holds as far as Syria and international supervision of chemical weapons.


By way of digression / distraction / reflection on what does or does not change, an interesting web based history snapshot via RantWoman's #NatlPrep tweet stream from the Presidential recordings program about Lyndon Johnson and Hurrican Betsy:

http://whitehousetapes.net/exhibit/lbj-and-response-hurricane-betsy

Presidents are required to show up at disasters and sound sympathetic; RantWoman always appreciates historians who can pull at all the other threads of motive and decision in such moments.

Warning, if you need one thought at a time, feel free to stop and to come back or not as led to read further.

RantWoman finds herself peculiarly grateful to have the time to reflect on Lyndon Johnson and digressive #disaster responses or the shadows of climate change in modern hurricane realities or the life-upending effects of earthquakes rather than, for instance to endure a barrage of breathless war-themed broadcasts.

Here, RantWoman does not even apologize to all her readers who wish she would do one thing at a time gosh dang it and have only simple messages and ... and... RantWoman IS trying to keep a handle on giant leaps but lately has been gratified to notice that other people have gotten that SOME things on RantWoman's mind are IMPORTANT. RantWoman is also grateful to get that RantWoman sometimes just trips over giant leap observations that take a lot longer for other people to come to. RantWoman has not necessarily gotten any more patient about this, but maybe appreciating the phenomenon is a good place to start.

In the rest of life, RantWoman is observing National Disaster Preparedness Month, seeing what kind of time commitment she can compress into meaningful daily messages. Besides #npm2013 #natlprep #disaster #preparedness #accessibility, be insistently but hopefully appropriately present in conversations goals, RantWoman has undertaken this effort just for the soul-purifying exercise of doing at least one blog post a day but TRYING not to singe her Meeting around RantWoman's Inner Blowtorch. Hold that effort in the Light.

O Syria

Dear World


1. RantWoman will dutifully communicate her distaste for Us military activity in Syria to her Congressional representatives.

2. RantWoman is faithfully praying for a mass outbreak of good sense among multiple parties in the Syrian situation. RantWoman is embarrassed to admit she has no clue what circumstances should change and in what directions for "good sense" to reign. RantWoman has to assume humans have some role in the desired outbreak of good sense but is generally having to leave things in bigger hands than her own.

3. RantWoman has been thinking about what measures would both convey international distaste with a dictator who gases his own people and MAYBE deter said dictator from doing so ever again. Again RantWoman is slightly embarrassed by the ideas that have sloshed out of RantWoman's spiritual compost heap. RantWoman presents the following in order of frequency / urgency in RantWoman's head:

--Send Congress to Syria. When RantWoman first saw this suggestion on Facebook, RantWoman initially demurred. Are we SURE we want to do THAT to Syria? But the idea has grown on RantWoman: "You want to gas your own people some more? How about you wait until we have another 3 zillion House votes to repeal Obamacare?"

--Send the NSA to Syria. RantWoman thinks that surely an entity with as much electronic finesse as the NSA gets credit for having should be able, say, to infest all the electronics surrounding chemical warfare munitions and keep it from going off ever again anywhere. What? You doubt this?

--Send Millie Cyrus to Syria. Can you say Porn Performance for Peace?

What are the odds that any of these offers will just make the Syrian government hurry up and gas themselves in lieu of accepting the offer?

Thunderless Braille

Perhaps God(dess) was looking out for RantWoman last First Day during Meeting for Worship.


RantWoman dutifully picked up the weekly bulletin and another paper at the entrance to the Worship Room. RantWoman and others receive the weekly bulletin by email. For RantWoman who finds reading regular print torturous, this is an accessibility measure. For various reasons RantWoman still reflexively collects paper. RantWoman was peeved to realize she seems to have picked up an emanation from Worship and Ministry which she is not sure she has received by email and has no easy search string to check.

RantWoman immediately thought of the item from Friends Journal about children--and much older children--sometimes having trouble in Meeting for worship.

http://www.friendsjournal.org/bringing-children-to-worship/

RantWoman was all set to have a fit in braille all over the offending document to calm her nerves and help her settle into something like the centered presence needed worshipfully to help interrupt the March to War of the Week.

In particular, Worse Auntie has been seasoning all sorts of contributions to the bedlam that is end of worship announcements right now.

--Follow the Bouncing Balls, all ages. Why should the little kids have all the fun with large stuffed animals? Let's get the great big, much older kids involved. Enough said?

--RantWoman has been considering whether to accept a promotion from Wing Commander, 907th Psalm, Airborne Paper Ministry Squadron to Supreme Commander of the same noble ministry. Initially RantWoman did not realize that the Airborne Paper Ministry Squadron has two formations, the Peace Crane formation and the Weekly Bulletin repurposed Avaition Team. So far, praise god the most merciful, beneficent...., neither formation has flown in for Meeting for Worship. So far.

To have a fit all over anything, RantWoman needs her braille slate. Look, RantWoman IS flamboyant, but does ANYONE really think RantWoman is just goind to write in fat pen big enough for any old snoop to read over her shoulder? RantWoman NEEDED her braille slate but RantWoman could not FIND her Braille slate.

RantWoman looked high. RantWoman looked low. RantWoman looked in her purse. RantWoman looked in the RantWoman bag of the day. RantWoman spent ALMOST enough time fiddling with her various pockets and fasteners to be thoroughly embarrassed. Almost. There were no Velcro noises. Finally RantWoman stopped and settled appropriately.

Worship as befits Friends Meeting while the nation and the world are trying to find routes past US militarism in Syria featured several messages on the theme of alternatives to violence. The children entered. RantWoman, all Meeting, had been seasoning a message on a different War and Peace theme but God gave the end of Meeting culminating colliding messages to others. RantWoman shook hands. RantWoman was called, surprisingly, to speak during announcements.

Then RantWoman moved her foot and saw a flash of yellow. RantWoman's braille slate had fallen out of RantWoman's purse! Thanks you God, RantWoman GUESSES, for both losing and finding.

Condolences; Thunderous Braille

Worse Auntie offers condolences of the sort needed a few months after death when the grieving are sometimes assumed to have returned to normal. These condolences occured in the context of Worse Auntie doing something, getting eldered, and offering one of her trademark "You're darn right and here's my side." responses. One of these millenia RantWoman / Worse Auntie MAY yet evolve into a more consistently presentable human being. Or the worship angel woven into our community's worship experiences MIGHT become more precisely verbal and less persistently vexed by throbbing non-verbal resonances.



Dear Friend seated near RantWoman during the same Meeting for Worship after which RantWoman was called to elder....
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/06/ministry-not-ministry.html


Thank you for bearing with thunderously loud braille Sunday in Meeting for Worship. I think I am supposed to be contrite; I am not and I do not even apologize but I do promise to TRY to keep some kind of grip on the behavior. As I said,

1. I got a new stylus that I really like. It works! So it is loud. Sigh.

2. I WAS scrawling tasteless comments wildly inappropriate in their raw form but which did in fact make it through RantWoman's spiritual taffy pull to a blog post.,
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/07/free-nelson-mandela-free-nelson-mandela.html

3. The theme of suicide turned out in undercurrents to touch even more people than RantWoman had initially noted. That theme needs continual holding in the Light.

4. Considering all the people around with hearing loss, Worse Auntie SEASONING a desire to tell anyone who complains that they should be glad they have enough hearing to be bothered--AND glad if that's the worst problem of their day. But you were sitting right next to me and RantWOman thinks it's good that neither of us so far has yet clobbered our hearing, for instance with loud music.

But seriously, It took me all meeting to get most of the way to a message about how we never stop loving someone even long after they died. I don't know how things are going for you about (your recent loss) but if that death is weighing too heavily, please feel free to stop.

Now the simple possibly more than you want to know request: my condolences on your loss. Please hold me in the Light about losses in the same month: RantDad, a friend who died in a comical fizzle of nearby fireworks, and another friend, all different years, someone killed in an awful bicycle vs dump truck death from 4 years ago, the mother of someone who suddenly spoke very differently about her after her death than while she was alive...

And when I Am Not Interested in Your Thought Processes Friend opens his mouth, I sometimes find myself less confident that God is speaking than that Friend himself is; I was definitely having that problem in principle about his ministry; I am aware that might be MY problem. Sigh.

And how does thunderously loud braille help? I am right handed. I slate left-handed. I still have to think about contractions and freaky braille contraction orthography rules. AND expending all that physical and psychic energy is ONE way to keep a handle on all the definitely not appropriate for Meeting for Worship language sloshing around in my head. If being in Meeting for Worship really helps but I cannot be there without... sometimes I just need to do that.

Anyway, if you have made it this far, thank you for reading and consider yourself still held in the Light about your recent loss.

(RantWoman)

Recommended items about the White Privilege Conference

RantWoman gratefully reads and enthusiastically recommends articles here by White Privilege Conference attendees Liz Openheimer, Joan Broadfield, and Kitty Taylor Mizuno

http://www.fgcquaker.org/deepen/enrichment/help-your-meeting-challenge-racism/white-privilege-conference/quakers-reflections

Give us this day our daily...

RantWoman is THRILLED that the search engine of her choice yielded these two wonderful resources when RantWoman fet it Joan Broadfield's name:


Center on Conscience and War
http://www.centeronconscience.org/

RantWoman is terribly happy to realize this site exists because it encompasses acronyms RantWoman had lost track of and because what the heck kind of Quaker is it who cannot provide current resources about conscientious objection!

And from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting pastoral care resources, an interview about recognizing white privilege.

http://www.pym.org/pastoral-care-support/2013/05/recognizing-white-privilege-an-interview-with-joan-broadfield/

RantWoman finds herself delighted about several points in the delivery of this item:

--Paying attention to issues of privilege is considered pastoral Care!

--Recognizing White privilege is treated on par with helping people with other challenges remain connected with the Meeting community.

So what's not to like????

Look, okay, most readers are going to be happy to stop here, with positive, uplifting, centered, inspiring items like the two above.

RantWoman herself would be delighted to stop here.

But...

Give us our daily "I didn't tell you about my day" opportunity to have a full-blown, froth at the mouth, lose all perspective on almost everything accessibility tirade!

RantWoman whipped out her search engine to get to the two items above because she had one encounter too many with Yahoo brand non-accessibility through Quaker.Quaker trying to read an item there by Joan Broadfield called something like Silent or Waiting.

RantWoman did her customary click on the link off her blogroll. Enough of the article flashed before RantWoman's eyes that RantWoman can tell it indeed is there and then RantWoman's browser did one of it's standard "this is too weird and I will phone home to the computer brand mothership but not take you where you want to go" messages.

RantWoman's computer does this nearly all the time when she tries to read things on Quaker.quaker, especially when JAWS, RantWoman's main screen reader is running. RantWoman has tried quaker.quaker with other combinations of operating system and software version. NOTHING works except sometimes turning off the screen reader. RantWoman is glad that is an option for her, in VERY limited increments.

RantWoman wishes she had the slightest desire to troubleshoot accessibility but she does not. In fact RantWoman has so much experience with people complaining about yahoo and very unevenly implemented accessibility that she is fine with just going straight to scorn and recommendation of other platforms.

RantWoman would, though, be undyingly grateful if anyone involved with quaker.quaker wanted to take up the issues of yahoo accessibility with someone from yahoo. RantWoman does not mind complaining herself, but RantWoman is likely to get around to this months down the line. But all the accessibility issues make it a big pain for RantWoman to interact with a big part of her community. Website accessibility issues mean the precious Yahoo brand around RantWoman primarily gets associated with negative experiences. And RantWoman really does not need any more practice feeling blessed to have so much to complain about!

Word!