Heavy humanity on this Tuesday

It's a heavy Tuesday. Haiti earthquake. Afghan government crumbling as US pulls out after 20 years. Global pandemic still happening as people reject vaccinations and masks. Climate change wreaking havoc everywhere. Crisis in Lebanon.

This bulk of this is straight from my Instagram post, but I wanted to share it here in case you're not on the gram and are also out there sitting with your teeth in your mouth wondering what the hell to do as a regular person. And a place where I can easily edit and add resources as I come across them.

We woke up today in a home where we are comfortable, coffee in hand and all of our creature comforts around us with a knowledge and expectation of safety we have always had and don’t ever think about until it is clear others both in our own country and outside of it do not have that expectation. 

We are white, we have not lived in a war zone or occupied land, nor have we been the ones with the dangerous mission to occupy it. 

You can and should read all the articles and get all the perspectives. 

You don’t need to make a statement on something you don’t know shit about. 

But as a human being, your heart leans toward those who are hurting, whether they are next door or around the globe in a land you will never set foot in. 

The bad thing about humanitarian crises are that they exist. 

The good thing about a humanitarian crisis is there is no side to pick other than the human side. There is only one side. 

If people need help because they are impacted by world events beyond their control, there is only one thing to do: meet people where they are and help in whatever way you can. 

Maybe that is researching to get money, time, and goods to people doing work on the ground helping & and not profiting from the crisis; advocating for refugees in writing or via phone with your government or any groups you are involved in that may be able to help; opening your home if the opportunity arises; sharing vetted resources for aid if you do not have the resources to give right now. It all matters. Be open to the ways you might be able to help.

Governments, military maneuvers, occupations, 20 year wars, they can all feel too big for regular people sitting on couches or at desks on heavy Tuesdays like these - acknowledge and have gratitude for the privilege of safety and do whatever you can to help. 

We spend so much time talking shit about governments but nearly always it is regular people moving mountains to help other regular people. 

There are real people desperate for help. So desperate for safety that they think attaching themselves to the outside of a plane and falling to their death is a better option than what waits for them on the ground. Try to imagine that mindset. The images are fucking gut wrenching. But we cannot pretend this desperation does not exist. We cannot file this under something political and wipe our hands of it. We are all we’ve got and as regular citizens we have more in common with each other than we’d like to admit sometimes. Be a good human. Be a helper in every situation where that is possible. 

May we work together in the pursuit of peace and safety here in our own country and everywhere the world over. I hope the next generation of world builders can address the circumstances that lead to our human downfalls in our communities and around the world. And those of us past that time do our part to help them or at the least to get the fuck out of their way. 

Some resources to help, will be editing and adding when I come across more.

Afghanistan: Afghan Institute of Learning, Women for Women International, some resources gathered by Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. From Instagram the Quentin Quarantino account is coordinating Flyaway: An emergency Afghan rescue mission with a huge goal of getting people on a Taliban Kill List out of the country on two planes as soon as possible. Resources to help Afghan refugees coming to the Philadelphia area

Help for US veterans - orgs to point veterans to or for you to donate to/volunteer with

Haiti - Haitians have asked people NOT to donate to the Red Cross based on experiences in previous disasters. Sow a Seed, Hope for Haiti

Lebanon - Lebanese Food Bank

General humanitarian effort groups I have donated to in the past and trust use the money where it is most needed: Doctors Without Borders, Together Rising (all donations received through Friday are going to urgent relief in Haiti)

Do whatever you can. And take care of yourselves and your neighbors. It is bad enough people are living through these things. Take the time to nourish yourself in all ways so we are strong enough to do what we can from where we are. 

Thursday Thoughts - One Night and One More Time, Thanks for the Memories

1. Every day I emerge from the train station surprised that it's a day earlier than I think it is, and having to remind myself that it's an entire week earlier than I think it is too.

2. Does anyone else buy shoes and to get a true idea of how they look, photograph them from all angles? Ben was not interested in getting out of these photos. If you're interested, I love the shoes. They're Toms and they're comfortable and substantial.

3. Huge love for libraries and librarians. All the yesterdays, today, and all the tomorrows.

4. While we're on the book topic, I've started and stopped a record number of books over the past two months. Another one this week.

5. I finally settled in on a book (forget the title, LOL), but MFD put a movie on. Sunshine. SPOILER ALERT IN IMAGE FROM A 2007 MOVIE THAT SUCKED. 12 years later, not sorry. As far as I'm concerned if you didn't see it and I spoiled it for you, I have saved you time you will never, ever get back.

6. Bruce is always sacked out on Mondays due to jackassing all around the shore. It's awesome.

7. Things that have made me happy this week: fresh sheets, sleep, new lids to Pyrex to replace cracked lids. 

8. In this week's hell, the Amazon rainforest continues to burn, your buffoon president thought he could just buy Greenland and offended an ally in the process, trump's DOJ has asked the Supreme Court to permit employment discrimination against transgender workers (which will open up interpretations of Title VII that will leave all of us vulnerable to discrimination - EXCUSE ME, all of us aside from cis white men), remaining a healthcare option for poor women forced Planned Parenthood to withdrawal from Title X funding and if you think those funds went to abortion and are feeling smug I have a garbage island in a swamp to sell you (supporters open your wallets),  migrant families would face indefinite detention under a new trump law, and Stephen Miller's plan for people to die in cages is coming to fruition as children detained in cages are denied the flu vaccine (even though three of them have died of it). The cruelty and dehumanization of marginalized groups is the point of this administration. It is vile and disgusting and anyone who supports this administration in any way owns these actions. I'm about 12 months past done building a fucking bridge with people who watch as cruelty and unnecessary and inhumane brutality is committed in the name of making America great again. FOR FUCKING WHO. Get the fuck out. This is being done to feed a sense of superiority that should not exist. 

9. Reminder: Nothing else and no one else first. Your ability to love and care for everyone in your life feeds from your love and care of yourself. To be the best for others, you have to give the best to you.

10. Ecards:

That's what I've got today. You? Anything to contribute?

What appears after the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts is a song lyric to whatever I'm listening to when I start to write the post. This week is Thnks fr the Mmrs by Fall Out Boy, a song I don't even like. That's two weeks in a row

Not in the mood

For this political climate

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon for Reuters

To argue with people defending teargassing children in any way. The correct response is “that is wrong” full stop - no but or any type of qualifier or waxing poetic or strutting around like the only voice of reason in existence - children, tear gassed, there is no reason. Shut up unless you are speaking against this 

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon for Reuters

To cite sources for others on what immigrants do and don’t get for “free,” the situation in Honduras and how it was created by the U.S., or any other information that is available in a library or on, you know, fucking Google

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon for Reuters

To listen to people rant about how immigrants are taking jobs/resources/opportunities and THEY WILL NOT PAY FOR THAT be totally fine with limitless corporate welfare and tax cuts that feed the rich and kill the middle class and be completely unable to connect all of these things and how they actually work

For people being so fearful of brown people coming in while okay with mass shootings and domestic terrorism by white men

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon for Reuters

To see one more person call thousands of exhausted, hungry, poor people who have walked 2,000 miles for a better chance at safety for themselves and/or their children an “invasion.” Get the fuck out of here with an invasion.

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon for Reuters

To see people value what they think of as legality above all else, including morality. How did that work out for Nazi Germany, when people valued what was the current law over what was morally right?

To see "maybe they should try legal immigration" one more fucking time - do you have any idea how outrageously expensive and bureaucratic our current immigration system is? Most of our poor Irish and Italian ancestors would not have been able to pay their way through that

To listen to people say they just want immigrants vetted but not say a damn word when their government sent 5,000 military personnel to the border instead of 5,000 agents to process applications

To need to convince others to remember common decency and basic humanity for all people

Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon for Reuters

To listen to bullshit from anti-abortion people who are A-OKAY with these real, live children living like this

For people who cannot acknowledge the lengths they would go to to keep their kids safe, the laws they would break, the miles they would walk

To meet anyone in the middle when they are coming from a vile, hateful, fearful place

To be nice about any of the above, even frivolously, to remain civil. Not in the fucking mood even a tiny bit

Also, all of this copied from a public status of Alex Schiller on Facebook:

It is less expensive to fast track the vetting, court cases, and processing for asylum seekers than it is to separate families and detain them.

It is less expensive to feed, clothe, and house every member of 'the caravan' than it is to mobilize troops to defend our borders from people who have just walked 1000 miles with no food.

It is less expensive to create a public works project, and let migrants and asylum seekers build bridges and roads, than it is to spend taxpayer dollars on 2,000 miles of wall to keep them out.

It is less expensive to deal with imbalanced tariffs than it is to allow 98% of the soy we would have sold to China rot in a field, and watch GM lay off 15% of its workforce.

The amount of money spent by super PAC's on disinformation campaigns supporting Kavanaugh, the tax breaks, ACA repeal, and a host of other attempts by billionaires to rally public support for whatever benefits their bottom line (while the GOP held the executive and legislative branches, and had the votes to do all of this themselves) could have rebuilt half of Puerto Rico.

The ruling party, the one of God and financial responsibility and conservatism, takes every opportunity to spend the most money possible to solve the least pressing problems in the least efficient ways; all while signaling their own virtues of faith and family, decrying the financial mismanagement of past administrations, and turning a blind eye to the sea of open corruption they so painstakingly crafted.

I never imagined such an innovative and intelligent country could be so easily manipulated into doing the most harm at the highest cost, all in the name of defending ourselves from ghosts.

My Republican friends... whatever it is you think your party is now, you're wrong.

Whatever it is you're scared of that allows you to so hypocritically support such a hapless, inefficient, and often cruel administration; I assure you it does not exist. And if it does, these perceived threats are nothing compared to the real world problems we're both creating and ignoring.

It's probably time for you to wake up, because "gassing children at the border" is the type of headline that we would normally go smack the shit out of another country for doing... not something my friends and relatives defend on the fucking internet.

For giving Tuesday, try to give a shit about people.

Thursday Thoughts - lights out tonight trouble in the heartland

1. Can you even? Should I just make this an entire post of dog photos? LOL forever at Mae's lip in the bottom shot.

2. Things I do not advise: carrying a big crockpot (empty) from your car to the train to the DD to the office without a bag. One of our shore guests left it there and I'm meeting her husband today to hand it off. Which I meant to do in a nice big carrier bag. I forgot that this morning and I lost a stainless steel straw and muttered under my breath at pretty much everyone in the process. I hate carrying awkward shit in on the train. I also do not advise walking down the street staring at your phone because you make normal non violent people want to bust a cap in your ass. Look up! The world is going on around you and you're walking into people.

3. I had to drop something off to Aubrey Tuesday and she fed me and I got to see the hawk that's been hanging around their yard. I like being able to pop in on the fam in the middle of the week.

4. Aside from the forgetting the bag for the crockpot snafu from this morning, I've actually done everything that has been on my list this week - Monday was calling about an alarm hearing, going to the pet store and Home Depot, doing some shore laundry, painting nails and toes; Tuesday was going to the bank and Stephen & Aubrey's, emailing future renters, and making marinade for chicken; Wednesday was getting my eyebrows waxed, ordering a lock for the shore, picking up around the house, grilling chicken, more laundry. I've gotten most of my stuff on my daily lists done at work too. Productivity level expert this week. Pin a rose on my nose.

5. Not on the agenda but a damn good use of time: a Tuesday night group text on glamour shots and bringing them back. Not in today's styles. In 80s or 90s only. It's the only way and it needs to happen.

6. I'm spending some extra time down the shore next week with Kim and her fam in from Boston and I cannot wait. MFD will actually be there too instead of me being there while he's home working and campaigning - well, instead of doing those things in person...he never actually stops doing those things. Still, I'm looking forward to a little bit of normal in a year that has been anything but.

7. Not normal: a fucking embarrassing NATO insanity act accusing Germany of being on Russia's tit when he himself is, nominating a judge who was Kennedy's clerk and doesn't believe in women's choice and healthcare and doesn't believe in presidents abiding by the same laws as the rest of us to SCOTUS (some of his fellow Yalies are not pleased with this), not reuniting the motherfucking kids with their parents and causing truly irreparable harm to children, on and on and on. Amy Siskind's Weekly List on Authoritarianism is the only way to keep up with it all. There's not enough bullet points in Thursday Thoughts for the huge shit avalanches that happen daily. I don't care if your senator doesn't care. Be on the phone and on ResistBot and sending postcards to these people. We are tired but we are not nearly done until we get the people who choose greed over their souls out of office. On both sides of the aisle.

8. I'm about this.

9. Reminder:

10. E-card of the week: Constantly.