The Treatment of Peaceful Protesters vs. Violent Insurrectionists | Full...

But a tiny nibble of the media streams available about how much more harshly non-violent protestors with a clear and positive message have historically been treated than the mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6

Survey about the Pacific NW Quaker Women's Theology Conference. Please respond by 2/20/2021

RantWoman has great affection for the Pacific NW Quaker Women's theology conference. Partly this is because of stumbling onto planning committees more than once in the past. Partly this is because of RantWoman's concern to pray across differences, in this case different strands of Quaker tradition. For more than two decades women, people who identify as female mainly from North Pacific Yearly Meeting and Northwest Yearly Meeting, as well now as the Sierra Cascade Yearly Meeting have met to worship and share lives. 

RantWoman is happy to say more or to encourage Friends to check out the conference Facebook group. In particular, RantWoman promises to look up the statement about gender inclusivity, people who identify as female or non-binary. Every planning committee RantWoman has been a part of has considered the question specifically of including men. RantWoman is glad for men who finally had leadings to organize events for Friends who identify as male.

Here RantWoman posts a slightly edited version of an email seeking Friends' Light about timing, an in-person conference and interest in joining the planning committee for the next gathering. There are several questions with open-ended comment blocks, so RantWoman posed questions about a virtual gathering rather than an in-person one.

From the current planning committee

In these times of hope and uncertainty, we know that the Pacific NW Quaker Women’s Theology Conference will be a meaningful way to re-connect, learn, and enjoy nature and each other's company after the covid-19 crisis is over. The conference theme “Cultivating Faith and Hope in Troubled Times” is ever more relevant.

But when will that be? The answer is not yet clear. 

So we want to hear from you!  We would like to know your thoughts, plans, and insights for this great conference. Please click on this link to respond to a survey: PNWQWTC survey It will help us tremendously as we plan when to hold the conference. Please respond by February 20, 2021.  

If you’d prefer to respond by paper, please leave a comment with an email or a mailing address and permission for RantWoman to pass along to the planning committee. (Comments are moderated and private information is not posted.)

Last spring we postponed the 2020 Quaker Women’s Conference, originally scheduled for June, 2020 at Cascades Camp in Yelm, Washington. At that time we rescheduled for June 9-13, 2021.

As we move into 2021, great uncertainty remains. We have discussed options such as 

• keeping the date of June 9 to 13, 2021

• rescheduling the conference for later in the summer or fall, 2021

• postponing the conference until June, 2022. 

Some of the meeting spaces, amenities and accessible facilities at Cascades Camp may not be available if we meet later in the summer or in the fall of 2021. This will probably affect our ability to serve everyone who might be interested in attending later in the summer or fall of 2021. 

However, every group who reserved space at the camp this summer is facing the same challenges, so many answers about our options are not yet clear. In addition, we do not know what we do not know about the pandemic’s easing off.

It would help us immensely to hear from you. 

We started this journey as a planning committee with a specific end goal in mind, an event we would make happen. But another beautiful thing has come out of our time together: the opportunity to form relationships, hold the uncomfortable uncertainty and love each other in the midst of difficulty. Our task has been different than we expected, but we are grateful. We remain committed to the purpose of the Pacific NW Quaker Women’s Theology Conference.

We are also asking more volunteers to come forward to help continue this important conference that has built so much understanding and connection within our Northwest Quaker world. We’re looking for women with all kinds of skills and abilities, including computer skills.

Please consider if you can join the planning committee, or can help in some of the tasks of putting on the conference with the most relevant theme, ever: “Cultivating Faith and Hope in Troubled Times.”

Blessings,

(The Planning Committee)

Impeachment 2.0, the prayer warrior version?

Warning: This post contains hope and joy tangled in various threads of tirade and trauma with a dollop of time travel. Please hold the problem in the Light. For one thing, it's the pandemic and, like everything else, RantWoman's personal prayer life is kind of hiccupy. Plus the circle of politically divergent Blind Prayer Warriors in RantWoman's life didn't pray together this week because of the Super Bowl. Also the WA state legislature is in session with many measures RantWoman is able to pay attention to thanks to both electronic and human connections. RantWoman further offers:

--Appreciation for the internet, for the devices and skills and connectivity in this age of pandemic to go many places, to meet many faces behind Twitter handles, to hear of young adults finding FCNL as an anchor point in the hustle and bustle of Washington DC.

--Appreciation and querulousness for that was then this is now. RantWoman a long time ago was an intern for the organization that is now Peace Action. The organization, then called SANE, had an office on C Street SE less than half a mile from the Capitol and the FCNL office. Though RantWoman has never visited the FCNL office, though RantWoman assumes people may be working from home due to the pandemic, RantWoman thinks razor wire and barricades are ugly, a drag, no matter where they get put. 

--A moment of electronic accessibility awe: All of the photos on the FCNL website have alt text so when RantWoman is resting her eyes while letting Mr. JAWS scream through text considerably faster than average speech, RantWoman has some idea what is in pictures without having to look at all of them. No this is not a digression and NO, RantWoman does not care how many clerks and former clerks of Quaker everything think this essential reality of RantWoman's life is somehow beside the point. For now, RantWoman will keep trying to CHILL and reach out to other Friends with vision issues who have come her way.

--A link to the EXTREMELY traumatizing video montage played at the start of Impeachment 2.0 hearings. RantWoman has previously seen SOME  the clips of January 6 events in Washing ton DC; RantWoman is glad to have watched the video on her cellphone so she could not really see some of the most disgusting and gut-wrenching moments others have told her are there. Watch with EXTREME caution.

Video Montage shown at Impeachment Hearing

--A link to a Trevor Noah segment about day 1 of Impeachment 2.0. RantWoman is truly grateful a. that Trevor Noah has a clip somewhere of African Dictator does coup and b. that Trevor Noah makes RantWoman smile without treating every Trump partisan like a flaming idiot. If you are afraid or not ready to laugh at all, don't click on the link

Trevor Noah on the proceedings and the defendant's floundering lawyer

There. More than enough tangle for tonight.

In Light and Faithfulness

RantWoman

This week in legislation, gender dynamics, climate change

 RantWoman WHY are you putting these three Congressional representatives in one post, and why on this blog instead of that other one?

Basically there are some gender dynamics, party identity, battling racism and climate change thoughts RantWoman is muddling around. They are nowhere near the level of conciseness RantWoman aspires to on her other blog. And People May Disagree about some hot-button topics. So maybe know that going in and hold the flow of conversation in the Light.

First Rant: Sen. (?) Joe Manchin of WV. His name came up in a young Friend's report to his public of the evolution of his ministry related to climate change. RantWoman invited young Friend to do a guest blog with the initial report. RantWoman basically likes the proposed concept. It's just that RantWoman would be inclined to draw out discussion and even be argumentative in ways Young Friend may or may not have time for. RantWoman can also imagine reasons someone might decline this invitation. The point is WV is a coal-producing state so Sen. Manchin is seen as a strong opponent of many measures that would lessen green house gas production. RantWoman's only comment: it does not make sense to demonize Sen. Manchin. It makes sense to consider what is needed to get the people of WV to buy into measures to reduce climate change.

Second Rant, also related to an energy producing state with a dollop of gender dynamics. Rep Liz Cheney, R WY one of the highest ranking women of either party in the House of Representatives has NOT been censured or stripped of her committee assignments in retaliation for her vote to impeach Mr. Former President for the second time. The Republican caucus voted by a large margin in private session not to strip her of her roles. She has however been censured by the WY state republican party. Ms. Cheney is a very accomplished politician by anyone's standard; RantWoman is sitting with whether or not it matters in the current controversy that WY was one of the first states to grant women the right to vote, several years before the ratification of the 19th amendment about nationwide women's suffrage.

Interestingly Cheney in a public vote voted with most of her party against the Democrat-backed proposal to strip Marjorie Taylor Green of her assignments. Loopy conspiracy theories are one thing; old images of Ms. Taylor Greene pointing an AR 15 at 3 women of color fellow legislators are actually for RantWoman even more disgusting. If RantWoman were going to write a speech for Ms. Cheney to give on the floor, RantWoman would have her say to her newly elected colleague: we came here to legislate and to bring out the best in the country not even to hint at violence. My constituents believe in the Second Amendment too, but we also take responsible gun use very seriously. That would sidestep the issue of the Second Amendment and AR 15's among civilians, but oh well. We can't have everything and RantWoman is unlikely to score a speechwriting gig for Ms. Cheney anyway..

And now in appreciation for the beleaguered voters of GA04, a scolding for your representative.

Today in Insurrection Aftermath: Judgment Day?

Featured in today's sample of RantWoman's media diet:

1. Hark. The National Review has discovered racial disproportionality. Posted on Twitter by RantWoman's favorite transphobic anti-abortion newspaper columnist

White Terrorism often leads to harsher punishment for people of color

There is, of course, never a wrong time to talk about unintended consequences and white people's unending capacity, while trying to redress some harm committed against them--by other white people, to inflict punishment on People of Color. Somehow though, RantWoman would be more interested in seeing reflection from the National Review about what they would consider appropriate ways to hold the Capitol Rioters accountable.

2. RantWoman is touched by the gesture of having the remains of Officer #Sicknick lie in honor on the Capitol rotunda. Reading about this on Twitter, RantWoman was overcome by need to have a snit fit in the direction of all the #BlueLivesMatter Trumplings present in the mob that beat Officer Sicknick to death. RantWoman is thinking of all the #BIPOC individuals warming our nation's penal institutions for merely being in the vicinity of serious crimes. If it were up to RantWoman any police officer not on duty who was present at the #Capitol Riot should get suspended for six months without pay; anyone who flashed their badge should lose the badge permanently.

Careful RantWoman. Rule of Law. Rule of lawwww....

3. Finally, the Proud Boys.

Congratulations guys, newly listed as terrorists in Canada. And locally, via the Seattle Times

Auburn Man Charged in Capitol Riot

Perhaps what most makes RantWoman's skin crawl: Ethan Nordean was involved in and bragged about on social media an assault that knocked out a counter protestor. Has he faced ANY kind of consequences for that crime. Enquiring RantWoman wants to know...

Statement of Mike Nordean, father of Ethan Nordean who was just charged

Hold this family in the Light the same way one has to hold every family who has tried to get a loved one help with substance abuse and / or mental health issues!

Vocabulary about rioters

 WARNING: this post contains several paths to outrage about objectionable language. If you ain't offended about SOMETHING here you probably ain't listening.

Sample vocabulary to get us started:

Al Cracker  To quote Chris Rock "I ain't afraid of Al Qaeda. I'm afraid of Al Cracker."

vanilla Isis

Diversity Recruits for Vanilla Isis

RantWoman is posting this litany of linguistic offenses connected with #CapitolRiots arrests here first rather than in her repository of lexicography on her other blog so that RantWoman can get one important piece of Quaker heresy out of her system: be in love all you want with the Testimony on Simplicity, but THANGS AIN'T ALWAYS SIMPLE.

First let us consider the plight of the Insurrection Shaman: he needs his organic diet. So why aren't all his fellow prisoners rioting: if HE gets organic diet We Should Too!

RantWoman comment: what would be wrong with that?

Important references 

Food Deserts 

Jars and jars of Mayonnaise (not a reference to food.)

The what? Listen for it.

Also not in reference to food: Adobo sauce on some unseasoned white meat

All RantWoman has to say about this last item: one heck of an art seminar.

ARREST THIS SCARY GENTLEMAN | A Tale of the Postmaster

It's way past time for Christmas carol parodies and RantWoman should probably find some Quakerly way to cross herself vigorously for even summoning mention of the previous administration..

Oh and how does a good prison abolitionist or even a lot of prison reformers joke about throwing the old administration in jail? How about massive civil fines? How about an ankle bracelet someone has to wear and pay for for say 10 years.

Anyway, such is the state of RantWoman's #pandemic brain tonight.