Let’s all try to be as loving and supportive as Nick’s mom in Heartstopper
Category: rants
ruby’s rants & randomness
If you’re not outraged, you’re not reading my blog.
Yom HaShoah
On this Holocaust Remembrance Day it feels more important than ever that we understand how such a nightmare could happen so that we ensure it doesn’t happen again to anyone.
It breaks my heart to see Jews taking away the lesson that it’s us against the world (as Prime Minister Netanyahu said today) instead of taking away the lesson that we must not allow fascists to divide us and turn us against each other by fighting over scraps of land and resources.
Yom Hashoah 5784
they told me
never to forget the Shoah and then reminded me every day
i have never needed their reminders the Shoah lives always in me in my life far, far way from the shtetl and in the absence left by family i never met and in the righteousness cradled deep in my heart and in the fear that clings to my doorstep like grave dust and that every morning i try to sweep away
they told me, cynically that we would never let it happen again but deep in their hearts, they cradled the fear and flocked to false idols
now i am reminded every day by images beamed to me across seas from the phone of a journalist murdered in my name
i feel the terror and confusion of unarmed men loaded onto flatbeds i feel it through remembrances of my great grandfather, who i could never know he was loaded onto a truck by men with guns and never seen again
i am reminded how we found his final resting place a mass grave in the forest floor just a few miles from the shtetl just a few days later they did not try very hard to conceal their crimes
that which is buried must always be unearthed that which is obscured, brought into the light
today they closed the offices of the journalists they have not yet murdered they have remembered, cynically and melted our memories into a golden idol shrouded in cloth, blue and white
– Yom Hashoah 5784, by Noah Gordon
Ceasefire yesterday. Ceasefire now. Ceasefire for the future.
There are many many of us Jews that don’t feel that our own safety depends on the control or suppression of others. While many of the refugees who came to Palestine as pioneers after the Holocaust had intentions to live peacefully in harmony with the Palestinians*, almost every action of the Israeli government since it was founded has been to treat Palestinians just as badly as we had been treated in Europe.
The ultimate consequence of this has been to harm and dispossess several generations of Palestinians which is extremely effective at ensuring they continue to resent Israel’s existence and feel that they must do anything they can by any means necessary to ensure the survival of their people. If Israel can’t exist peacefully with Palestinians, what gives Jews the greater “right” to the land than they have? How can we go from being refugees with no safe place to go, to violently forcing the exact same situation upon another people just for the gall of wanting to continue to exist with their families on their own ancestral land?
Even if I was a Zionist I would think that the last 6 months were creating long term curse on the country of Israel by creating a whole new generation of Palestinians with nothing but rage for Israel and nothing to lose. You can look at even the most sanitized accounts of the assault on Gaza see absolute cruelty on the part of the IDF as well as no concern for human life or international law.
(*) For anyone interested in the politics of Israel’s founding, I highly recommend I. F. Stone’s book Underground to Palestine about the heroic (as he tells it) journey of Jewish refugees trying to reach Palestine in 1946. In 1978 it was republished with 2 new essays from him. One about how Zionism was hijacked by Jews with no regard for Palestinians’ rights or well-being, and the other about how it has become completely impossible to have rational conversations that are critical of Israel.
Today is Long COVID Awareness Day
And my friend Liza Sabater (the OG Blog Diva! Respect!) wrote a great thread about it on Mastodon. I thought I would do a public service and post it for easy reference and sharing.
TODAY IS #LongCovid AWARENESS DAY
here’s a few reasons why USGOV is trying to swipe under the rug the consequences of #COVID19 (re)infections:
1. LABOR LAWS would have to change to make sure employers not only provide more sick days but pay for them
2. INSURANCE COMPANIES would have to start “connecting the dots” of pre-existing conditions caused by COVID and other viruses like the FLU
3. OSHA/BUILDING CODES would need to be re-written to deal with AIR CIRCULATION challenges to health
4. PUBLIC HEALTH CARE cannot be “left to the market” anymore; forcing the government to untether health benefits from employment
5. DISABILITY & UNEMPLOYMENT rights & social services would have to be expanded to deal with both temporary & permanent services; which means…
6. SOCIAL SECURITY would have to become the de facto federal system to deal with this new generation of disabled people; which also means,
7. HEALTH CARE FOR ALL would have to be biggest priority of the century
8. MEDICAL SCIENCES would have to re-evaluate the causes of many diseases; changing protocols that would have to take into account questions like: is this cancer caused by a genetic predisposition or a virus like #COVID19 (there’s papers about COVID advancing cancers in people who didn’t have a genetic predisposition, btw)
9. HOUSING, HEALTH CARE, NUTRITION, TRANSPORTATION, would have to be center stage going forward if you want to control the amount of disabled people due to reinfection
these are some of the real life causes of #LongCOVID that come to my #COVID19 #cancer and #ADHD addled mind, so add yours to the replies.
there is no other reason for the #Biden administration and #Democrats to turn their backs on #COVID19, than their #eugenics loving billionaires telling them to do so or else.
this is yet another reason to vote with your protest boots on.
this is why partisan Democrats need to push the party away from fascism.
COVID19 is the 21st century’s turning point.
–https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/112101449994927536
we have become / the pharaoh
I have been so incredibly grateful for the leadership and energy of people like Jewish Voice for Peace who are making it abundantly clear that there are many many of us American Jews that do not support Israel at the expense of Palestinian human rights. The best time to make this clear would have been decades ago but the second best time is right now.
For years I have been called “antisemitic” by Jews who conflate Israel with the Jewish people. Not only do we not owe any loyalty to that colonial apartheid state, I believe Jews are actively harmed by their actions as Israel rightly becomes a global pariah and claims to be acting for US!
Tema Okun is a long-time anti-racist trainer and changemaker. She is the author of the widely circulated article “White Supremacy Culture” which was originally written and published in 1999 and continues to educate and transform the way white people understand ourselves and our impact in the world. Last week, Tema offered us this poem, “If our survival is to be Jewish.”
If our survival is to be Jewish
i
my tears are crying
I am drowningno longer wandering
in the wilderness
we have become
the pharaohii
centuries of
sacred celebration
and suffering
sunk into strident subjugationthe mirror is cracking
iii
my despair is desperate
I am tremblingour prayers
so full of longing
mock uswe chant
in the shade
of a homeland
shuttering for half a century
the lives of humans
we push out of sight behind
(prison) Wallsiv
my anger is angry
I am shakingour silence grows deadly
with the deal we’ve made
to defend our hearts
from knowing
they love their children
their laughter their lives
as much as we dov
my rage is raging
I am bent
overJewish godmother to
an exuberant Palestinian boy,
now a manmy love for him
a kind of genesis,
his love for me a kind of gracehe would hate us
otherwisenot any kind of anti-Semitism
consequences
for making of him a demon,
and discarding him daily in the dust
of so many, too many checkpointsvi
my trauma is traumatized
I am brokenwe condemn them
for making corpses of
our children
as we make corpses
of theirsthe math of it
is bleeding usdry
vii
my people, my Jewish people,
I don’t know how to reach youour fear is afraid
and forgets
we are the ones
settling, seizing, sequesteringwe pile fear upon fear like
stacks of rubble from
houses demolished
dreams destroyed
for decadesviii
my grief is grieving
I am wailingwe did not outlive
the horrors of holocaust
to hoard survival
like thisto hollow ourselves out
ix
or did we
x
my people, my Jewish people,
tell me it is not too late
Tema Okun, Oct. 26, 2023
to choose another way.
the madness of seeing
Sinead O’Connor’s death has me wondering if it’s even possible to exist and thrive while living a life of integrity.
Another Cassandra that tried to warn us and was rewarded with derision and exclusion. How can we ever learn if we don’t listen to the voices of integrity?
tribute for shuhada sadaqat – sinéad o’connor
by adrienne maree brown, 7/30/23
what comes first
the madness of seeing thru
to the truth of an institution, a time
or the bravery to point
to show everyone what you see
i suspect it’s the survival
of a brutal childhood
& being told to recover
& being told you are resilient
& being told you are beautiful
when you already know the cost
of looking thru sweet fairy eyes
upon corruption
Continue reading “the madness of seeing”
An Open Web for Who?
In the Drupal community we’re hearing the term “Open Web” being used a lot lately. The Pantheon hosting service has used it to justify their platforming hate groups such as the “Alliance Defending Freedom.”
And now the Drupal Association has issued their own Open Web Manifesto which specifically references inclusion and diversity as requirements while expressing no awareness or concern about how the “Open Web” is being used as a dog whistle for free speech absolutists that don’t mind seeing many of us marginalized, attacked, and pushed out of the community.
Continue reading “An Open Web for Who?”
Celebrate Pride by stopping book bans
I was enraged, but not surprised when The Washington Post reported recently that “an analysis of book challenges from across the nation shows the majority were filed by just 11 people.” While many on the far-right would have us believe there is some kind of grassroots groundswell against teaching accurate history and respecting people of all genders and sexualities, the truth is that this “unprecedented” astroturf movement has been skillfully crafted by people who only care about money and power.
[L]ibrary and free speech advocates warn that the rise in book challenges, especially those targeting LGBTQ texts, will imperil teachers’ ability to do their jobs, undermine the mental health of LGBTQ students and rob children of exposure to lives different from their own.
– “Objection to sexual, LGBTQ content propels spike in book challenges” Washington Post 5/24/23
This is so important for us to understand (especially during Pride Month since more than half of challenged books have LGBTQ+ themes) because Americans can and should stand up for the values of freedom and equality that our country was founded on. Hate groups like the so-called Moms For Liberty, American College of Pediatricians, Alliance Defending Freedom, and many more are fronts for the same forces that have been working for my entire lifetime against the equality of everyone who doesn’t look like they just stepped out of a meeting of President Nixon’s Cabinet, pictured here in the year I was born.
Continue reading “Celebrate Pride by stopping book bans”
COVID hasn’t moved on from us
Because I love you all (even the people I don’t like), I’m going to keep yelling at you about COVID. Vaccines are essential and you should get every shot you can, but to avoid catching and spreading COVID you must wear a good mask indoors at all times. It’s annoying to me too, but that’s the deal.
From You May Be Early, but You’re Not Wrong: A Covid Reading List:
Over the last few months, there’s been an avalanche of studies telling us that Covid poses a major threat to our health, our lives, and our sanity. The biggest risk now comes in the weeks and months after we recover. Our politicians and media have done a poor job communicating this threat. Instead, they’re doing their best to manipulate information to protect their own political interests. The public has bought into these lies. They want to believe they can return to normal.
The latest studies tell us that’s not possible.
There’s no permanent immunity from this virus. Each time we catch it, this virus attacks our hearts and minds. It weakens us. It tries to kill us. It imprints on us, so a future variant has a better shot next time.
That next time could be a few months later.
Here are the key points:
- You can catch Covid multiple times.
- Reinfections are common, not rare.
- Breakthrough infections are common.
- Covid can kill you months after you recover.
- It can cause brain damage.
- It can cause blood clots and heart attacks.
- It doesn’t spare children.
- Vaccines help, but only some.
- Masks work.
Everyone should know about these studies. I’ve linked to the original articles. I’ve tried to summarize them in clear language. I’ve also linked to summaries written by journalists who still care about the truth.
https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/you-may-be-early-but-youre-not-wrong, 11/15/22
RIP Twitter
I have been using Twitter actively since 2006 and have had the best of times as well as the worst of times there. It’s very likely to stop existing as we know it very soon, which is a real shame. It didn’t have to be that way. I would like to write more about what it’s meant to me and the world but for now I want to share this urgent advice that I wrote up for my colleagues this morning.
The Twitter situation is not a drill. It could stop working at any moment, and until it does the nastiest trolls will be running amok. I recommend you do a few things on your personal accounts:
- Put alternate ways for people to follow you in your bio. Could be Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, TikTok, Tumblr, Discord, whatever.
- Turn on 2-factor authentication if you haven’t already. You must use an app (like 1Password or Google Authenticator) and not SMS to authenticate. Also enable Password reset protect.
- Request an archive of your Twitter data. You will have to authenticate for this by e-mail and not SMS. It can take a day or two but you’ll get an e-mail when it’s ready to download.
- Consider making your tweets private so that you have to manually approve new followers.
- You may want to deactivate your account, but DO NOT DELETE it. That could allow others to take your old name.
- Even if you’re not signed up for Mastodon, run this FediFinder tool and download a list of your follows’ addresses on Mastodon and other federated services. (You can decide whether to use it later.)