Instead of a lengthy post summarizing all of the fires and floods I know of in the last few weeks worldwide (think Canada, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Siberia, Alaska… or Louisiana/Tennessee, Nigeria, France/Germany/Belgium, China, India) and the concomitant commentary about how this is becoming more destructive every year it occurred to me that I needed to reach out to my congressperson who makes policy decisions. What I wrote is below, with an attempt to edit our where I live. When you think policy and environment you think of the Green New Deal or Red New Deal, but what I wrote was intentionally open-ended to see what response I receive.
You too should write to your representatives!
Dear Representative,
I’m a constituent. I am concerned about threats to our environment, habitat, and species.
This month our district experienced an unprecedented heat wave that caused dozens of sudden deaths. Heatwaves have contributed to a fire season which starts earlier every year. This is connected to the droughts, which means we have less water supply than usual.
Globally, there has been heatwaves and unprecedented heat in at leave five continents this month. At the same time, there has been torrential, destructive, flooding happening in many places in the U.S., and least seven major world cities in the last couple of weeks. These floods have devastated at least five continents in a short amount of time.
These disasters have been intensified by climate change. The climate crisis we’re now in is made worse by human carbon emissions. There are several good ideas to mitigate this crisis and make sure that us, and future generations, have an environment that we can live in. My question in what action or legislation you would promote and cosponsor to mitigate the climate emergency we are in?
With appreciation for your representation,
Oregon Department of Forestry Central Oregon District // https://www.opb.org/article/2021/07/14/new-fires-force-new-evacuations-as-dry-heat-and-wind-persists/
As a driver of a Toyota vehicle for the last several years I figured that when my lease was up I’d go through the formalities of looking at other cars just to go back to Toyota and lease a different vehicle.
It was strange and eerie – fitting for the times we’re in – that there were hundreds of cars at the Toyota dealership, and most of them weren’t Toyotas and none of them were new. As far as I could tell, no one was looking for a car – maybe they already knew what they’d find, and I didn’t get the memo.
I explained to the salesman that I wanted to look at a new Corolla to lease,
or a compact SUV (also known as a crossover). I got the message that there were no new cars to look at, but I could look at a used one. Not only did it feel used, but it felt cheap. My only option at Toyota was to leave my name on a list – behind presumably dozens of other people on a list – to get a new car. It could be ready in a month (wait, make that a week!), or whenever the company gets a massive shipment – and they don’t know when that will be.
The industry is full of antiquated car features I didn’t know existed. Hyundai, which is probably the only car company that will have an inventory this summer – a verbose salesman told me they bought all the electronic components that were in short supply because of the pandemic – offers a car with manual roll-up windows. Every base-model car of every different car company appears to have basic seat that are still adjusted manually, with no electric option.
At Honda, the saleswomen tried to lease me a car that wasn’t for lease. I actually did end with a very nice Honda (with a lease). Even there, where there were options, Honda thinks that unless they can get a huge shipment in the next few weeks, they’ll have no new cars on the lot.
If you see some Hondas or Hyundais on the road that look new, it might be that no other companies can get new cars made and delivered during the pandemic. The lot isn’t really empty, but it’s devoid of anything new.
This article would have been in defense of Naomi Osaka’s choice to not talk to the media during Roland Garros; it still is, but as things have developed over the last week it becomes something more.
Naomi – as those that follow the tennis world know her – is known to be an introvert. This gives her great poise during tennis matches as she uses the energy she draws from herself – rather than those around her – to battle for every point without putting on a show. It also means that she’s somewhere beyond “shy” (different from being an introvert) if you make her talk. On the other hand she uses her platform as the second-ranked female tennis player in the world to advocate for social justice, and uses her voice well when not compelled to.
The issue that arose this week is that Naomi Osaka, like other tennis players and athletes, are compelled to talk. Naomi has learned to talk, as people who’ve watched her rise in the sport know – after the match during an on-court interview. It is the press interviews that Osaka said she wouldn’t participate in during this tournament. If you look on threads of comments on the internet you’ll find that nobody watches a press interview, and no one outside the media cares about a press interview.
Naomi knew, of course, that in declaring that she wouldn’t talk to the press during the tournament – required after every match, of which of Osaka may have won several – that she’d have to pay a fine. What she didn’t know – nobody expected it – is that Roland Garros, along with the other three Grand Slam tournaments threatened to default her and ban her from future tournaments if she continued to not talk to the press. So Osaka, the number two player in the world, decided it was better for everyone that she drop out of a Grand Slam. Good move, tennis!
In her decision to withdraw, Osaka cited depression and mental health issues brought on on by the media. Read that again – she withdrew because of depression and mental health issues brought on on by the media. (Osaka expressed that the fine she knew she would have to pay go to supporting mental health). Not long after compelling to Osaka to withdraw by threatening her with a ban from the sport – good move, tennis! – Roland Garros and the other Grand Slam’s said they’re sorry that players have mental health issues and they’ll be happy to work with players.
I won’t make light of mental health – Osaks’s original statement on social media that she wouldn’t talk to the press during this tournament was made at the end of Mental Health Month – but this issue goes beyond mental health and depression.
The app for Roland Garros has very little news about Osaka’s withdrawal – only a statement by the head of French Tennis (he read the his statement to the media and walked away without taking questions) about how sorry he was she chose to withdraw. The internet itself has a lot to say -ranging from “she signed as contract, so she must talk to the media” to “take care of yourself; your mental health comes first”. The media itself has recognizes a few things beyond the standard AP article of “Osaka Withdraws” (not the actual headline that I’m aware of). The players no longer need the press conferences – the idea is for the media to be able to share with the world news about the players, and the players have their own platforms with all forms of social media. Tennis is a very lonely, individual sport; some articles said it’s draining on the psyche. Asking players to justify their shot choice – win or lose – does not help the mental health, or psyche, of the player. As Okaka pointed out, it brings a lot of doubt into the players’ mind. Then their are the questions the media asks, which are generally gotcha questions or sometimes race-based or about the player’s sex life.
Some commentators of the media are aware of the negative effects the media has on players. Many of the players, both in tennis and beyond, are supportive of Naomi (one has to wonder how many tennis players saying “take all the time you need would just rather not have one of the best players in the sport in the game). What matters in the end is whether other players support Naomi with actions and not just words, what the media itself will do to stop ruining the mental health of players – as one person pointed out, if they were physically hurt everyone would understand – and what tennis itself wants itself to be.
This is has been a sad episode in the history of tennis.
It’s hard to know what to do in these dark times when we the news is filled with death, doom, and destruction coming from Israel proper, East Jerusalem, and Gaza – in essence, the Occupied Palestinian Territories plus the land inside the Green Line.
The U.S. provides Israel with $3.8billion a year (more than a million dollars a day) in military aid, no questions asked. During this time that Israel is bombing media outlets and killing civilians and children, the U.S. is set to provide Israel with another $735,000,000 (735 million) in arms sales.
The president – Biden – made this decision to authorize this 735million dollar deal, but Congress holds the purse strings. Unless Congress objects to the sale – by tomorrow – Israel will get more weapons to kill more Palestinians. Realistically, Israel will get more weapons.
One of the best ways to remind Congresspeople that Congress is funding human rights abuses is to remind them, gently – or they’ll never listen to you again. It’s a big deal that the annihilation (recently, someone wrote that annihilation doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on) is happening in Palestine, mainly in Gaza. It’s a big deal that the U.S funds this. It’s important to reach out to your Congressperson without over-reaching out to them (don’t send messages every day). Nonetheless, because this is such a big deal, I’ve written twice to my Congressperson in the last week. Here’s today’s message (if you’re looking for words you can use something like this):
Dear Representative [name],
I’m concerned that the situation in Gaza has reached the point that war crimes are being committed. As of yesterday, May 18, at least 59 children and 35 women have been killed by Israel in Gaza over the last ten days. This information comes from the well-informed UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs.
In addition, more than 40,000 people have been displaced while the COVID pandemic continues in one of the most populated places on the planet. Doctors have been killed, and the hospitals lack electricity.
In an effort to end the US funded of this, will you sign on to HR 2590 and join your colleagues in preventing more arms sales to Israel at this time?
Your efforts to prevent this humanitarian disaster, violations of international law, and US culpability is appreciated.
Thanks for your work,
Your constituent,
Find words. Contact your elected representative in Congress.
The Seattle Times weekly magazine this weekend was about the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980, and and one couple’s experience with the blast.
The Mountain reminded us that it’s there. Anyone in the Pacific Northwest, caught between the mountains and the sea, are reminded that the Mountain is still there, and it’s in a long chain of active mountains. How active, we don’t know.
The Pacific Northwest was reminded a few years ago that it’s geologically behind for the next big earthquake.
If you look – and you don’t need to look closely – you can see that the ocean was where land is now. We know that the water will rise again and swallow the land.
Forty years is a very short time, geologically speaking. Will it be the next big blast, the next big quake, or the rising of the waters that will alter the…
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In 1897 Theodore Herzl was inspired to create a Jewish Homeland after he heard “Death to the Jews!” in Paris during the Dreyfus Affair. This week “Death to the Arabs!” was yelled with equal equal intensity by Jews in Israel.
The spineless mainstream media has called the most recent violence against the Palestinians “clashes“. The media is loath to acknowledge that Israel is a occupying force supporting settler-colonialism and state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing. It would be interesting to see if the media continued to use the term “clashes”; the building that houses the Associated Press and other international media outlets in Gaza was destroyed this morning by the Israeli air force.
It would be easy to say that all hell has broken out in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, what’s happening is just a continuation of the norm. Gaza has been occupied since 1967 and been under blockade for fifteen years, the West Bank is a nightmare of constant military and settler raids, and East Jerusalem is being annexed in what-is-no-longer-slow-motion.
I’ve been working for several days to try to find the words to describe what has been happening. Some Gazans have said that it’s worse than 2014, and that words like “annihilation” and “destruction” are inadequate.
Nakba (The Catasrophe) Day happens to to on today, May 15. The Nakba, which marks the period where 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes, and about 400 villages destroyed, during the same time in which Israel became a state in 1948, is ongoing.
The word “conflict” is usually used to describe continuance of the “clashes”. The media is predicting an “all-out war” in Gaza. What’s actually happening is not a “conflict” and not a “war” -even if becomes worse than 2014 – because a “war” implies two equal sides in which one side has an opportunity of winning. In reality, Israeli has one of the best-funded, strongest army’s in the world, and the Palestinians have no army, no conventional weapons, and little way to fight back.
It would be desirable for violence to be avoided, and from what I hear from both Israelis and Palestinians they would also like that. The United State government, which gives the Israeli army more than a million dollars a day, no questions asked, has also blocked in international effort for negotiation and a cease-fire.
The good news is that there are ways to make sure that US money does not support Israel’s land seizure or detention of Palestinians. HR 2590 does just that, and it’s easy to tell your representative to support the bill either with your own words or a pre-written one.
As Israel enters full “war” mode and calls up reserves to destroy Gaza it’s interesting to note that today is also International Conscientious Objection Day. To truly end “clashes” and the resulting “conflicts” and “wars” we must conscientiously object to war and the military. Demilitarization is often demanded of the Palestinians; it should likewise be demanded of the Israelis.
A few months ago the U.S Capitol was breached as a mob stormed the building. January 6 has etched itself into U.S. history in the same way 9/11 has; if you mention the date people know exactly what day and event you are talking about, without any reference to the year or what might have transpired on that day. People already know exactly what you’re referring to.
A lot has been revealed in the past few months about how this day was planned and how its planning was ignored by intelligence and security, and that the intelligence and security apparatus that requested assistance to prevent and stop the breach was ignored or ordered down. We know a lot about of what motivated people to show up that day at the rally that was intended to be violent, and a lot about their personal history.
We can’t be surprised that this day happened, and not because people were openly planning it on social media. Shortly after the economy collapsed in 2008 the Tea Party movement began. Not a political party by nature, but more of a conservative populist movement, the Tea Party advocated for massive reduction in the size of government and used methods ranging from protests to political candidates. Although no candidate runs under the Tea Party on the ballot, a significant portion of the Republican caucus in government likely adheres to its ultra-conservative standards and a lot of the conservative electorate moved farther right because of it. It’s not a conservative movement, but more of an anti-government movement.
This is not to suggest that the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol were adherents to Tea Party. But the Tea Party – which took the Republican Party farther right – that advocates for a small government combined with libertarianism, right-wing populism, and anti-elitism is representative of the groups that led the mob. The elected elites simply had no right to sit in the U.S. Capitol affirming the results of an election.
Happy Easter/Ēostre!
Most languages use Aramaic to describe Jesus’s resurrection. Why is English different? Meet the ‘woman’ to blame
Source: The pagan goddess behind the holiday of ‘Easter’
… “Ēostre is variously depicted by scholars as a fertility goddess and a goddess of dawn and light. The dawn connection could explain a linguistic link between Ēostre and the word ‘east.'” …
The best part of my dismal newspaper is probably Sudoku, Work Scramble, or the Funnies. This year for my birthday my parents got me the day calendar of 365 days of Pearls Before Swine. On the back of the comics are daily tidbits. Today’s facts of the day read thus:
- In 1945, U.S. military forces declared the island of Iwo Jima secure after twenty-five days of fighting.
- In 1968, U.S. Army soldiers massacred more than 300 civilians in My Lai in South Vietnam.
- In 1988 Lt. Col. Oliver North and U.S. Vice Adm. John Poindexter were indicted on charges of conspiracy during the Iran-Contra affair.
- In 1998 mass trials began in Rwanda for roughly 125,000 suspected perpetrators of the country’s 1994 genocide.
On this day of war and intrigue what the calendar doesn’t mention was the death of Rachel Corrie. Eighteen year ago today Rachel was crushed to death by a U.S.-made, U.S.-sold Caterpillar (as her dad recently described it) bulldozer, in Gaza while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house by Israelis forces.
Rachel’s murder by Israel (for which it has denied responsibility) thrust Rachel’s parents into the issue of Gaza. Her death inspired more than her parents; seventeen years later Phillip Weiss of Mondoweiss wrote about the enduring legacy of Rachel, who had inspired a play and is celebrated worldwide – not for dying, but for acting for justice.
When Rachel was killed in 2003 Gaza was merely suffering. It has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. One of the most densely populated places on the planet, full of refugees, Gaza has been under siege, illegally, by Israel (with the help of Egypt and a blessing as well as help from the United States) for fourteen years. During those fourteen years it has been invaded (war is the wrong word; war is two sided) by Israel three times, plus daily incursions of Israeli military forces that detain people – including children – without charge, and determine whether a Palestinian farmer can farm his land, or a fisher fish.
Gaza has not been immune to the world-wide effect of the corona-virus. As a densely populated place under siege this is challenging; in addition, Palestinians mainly do not have access to a vaccine, despite Israel being one of the highest-vaccinated populations in the world, and Israel’s requirement under international law to provide for the health of Gazans, including the provision of a vaccine. Two months ago even the New York Times was accusing Israel of medical apartheid against Palestinians.
The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, which Rachel’s parents began after her death (I volunteer for the Foundation), hosted an excellent webinar today about medical apartheid and the current situation in Gaza. The important takeaway is that the U.S. supports the occupation of Gaza, and that local actions, from community-building to contacting our representatives, is essential to ending the oppression of people.
Every day Gazans are fighting for the right to exist, a right that Israel tries to deny them. At times the treatment of Palestinians has been labeled a slow genocide. At times, such as during the fifty day Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israelis have massacred the people of Gaza. Recently, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled it has jurisdiction to prosecute both Israelis and members of Hamas for war crimes during 2014, despite the protestation of Netanyahu in Israel and Biden in the U.S. It’s as if the fighting of 1945, the massacre in Vietnam in 1968, and the human rights violations of Rwanda are replaying themselves in history. And, of course, Iran is still and issue – or perhaps a red herring. Meanwhile, Rachel Corrie is dead but her ideas of justice and of what is right has not and will not die. Her legacy, her words, and her work will live, while the violence will disappear into footnotes of history.
In the Israeli settlement of Havat Gilad, west of Nablus, Rabbi Raziel Shevach was murdered on January 9, 2018. A month later, in the early morning of February 3, Israeli Defense Forces soldiers in the village of Burkin – near Jenin – burst into the house of elementary school teacher Mabruk Jarrar. At around 4am, thirty-nine year old Jarrar told Gideon Levy, the family was awakened by an explosion that came from the direction of the front door. The family was awoken to find IDF vehicles outside; about twenty soldiers entered the house, said Jarrar, along with a dog from the army’s canine unit that ravaged Jarrar for several minutes. After the soldiers ripped Markruk’s clothes – apparently to get the dog off of him – a solider punched Mabruk in the face twice. Handcuffed, Mabruk was taken to the detention facility at Salem, near Jenin he said. For hours he received no medical attention. Jarrar was arrested for reasons he didn’t know and spent two weeks in the hospital, chained and handcuffed to his bed.
Mabruk’s wife, thirty-seven year old Innas, was prevented by the soldiers for tending to Mabruk while in the hospital. Both in the second marriages, they had been married for about a month before Israeli soldiers burst into their house. Mabruk’s two children, he told Levy, were both traumatized by what they witnessed. Mabruk’s two brothers, , Mustafa and Mubarak Jarrar, were also arrested that night. Mubarak was released; Mustafa remains in custody, reported Gideon Levy on February 16.[1]
A few days later, on February 8, Innas said, at around 3:30 in the morning twenty soldiers showed up again. They ignored her pleas to stop stepping on the bed. They asked her where Mabruk was – apparently unaware he was in army custody at the hospital. “They told her there was Hamas money in the house and that they had come to confiscate it,” Levy reported. In search of the money – or other reasons – a female soldier “took the three women – Jarrar’s wife, his 75-year-old mother and his 50-year-old disabled sister – into a room and ordered them to undress completely.” The search turned up no Hamas money.
Innas said that she received permission from these raiding soldiers to visit in Afula. She was told he was in prison there; he was not. Innas reached out to B’Tselem where a “kind redeemer” found that Mabruk was in the hospital in Afula, not the prison. She was allowed to visit for forty-five minutes.
Gideon Levy reported that Ha’Aretz reached out to the IDF for comment about the treatment of Mabruk. The spokesperson said
On February 3, 2017, security forces came to the village of Burkin, to the house of Mabruk Jarrar, who is suspected of activities that endanger security in Judea and Samaria. Once they were at his home, the troops called him to come outside. After repeated calls and after he did not come out, the forces acted according to procedure and a dog was sent to search for people inside. The suspect had locked himself in a room on the upper floor of the building together with female members of his family.
“When the door opened, the dog bit the suspect, injuring him. He received immediate assistance from the army’s medical forces until he was evacuated to the hospital. Thereafter other activities were conducted in search of wanted individuals. We stress that in contrast with what is claimed in the article, the women of the house were not stripped by army forces.[2]
What the Israeli army said should be taken with a grain of salt.
Also on February 3, Gideon Levy reported in the same article, a similar incident occurred, involving different IDF forces, in the village of Al-Kfir, near Jenin. At around 4am Israeli soldiers “broke into the home of Samr and Nour Adin Awad”. An army dog was brought into the bedroom; it both and wounded Samr and Nour, the parents of four children. Nour told a field researcher from B’Tselem
I held my 2-year-old son Karem, who was crying, to my chest. I opened the door, which the soldiers were banging on, and a dog attacked me, jumping on my chest. Karem fell from my arms. Later I saw that my husband picked him up from the floor. I tried to push the dog away after it bit me in the chest. I managed to move it away but then it grabbed my left hip [with its teeth]. I managed with all my strength to push him away. At that moment, the soldiers looked at the dog, but did nothing. During this whole time my husband was begging the soldiers to release the dog from me. One soldier spoke to the dog in Hebrew and then it grabbed me by the left arm [holding me] for a few minutes, until a soldier arrived from outside the house and removed it. I was bleeding and in great pain.[3]
Ahmad Ismail Jarrar and his cousin Ahmad Nasser Jarrar – were killed by Israeli soldiers on 17 January and 6 February respectively by the Israeli army for the death of Rabbi Shevach. Although Gideon Levy leaves the impression that Mabruk is not related to either Ahmad, Maureen Murphy quotes the rights group al-haq as saying ‘Israel orchestrated a series of attacks against the extended family members of the Jarrar family and the broader communities of Jenin and Nablus.’. Beyond the strip-searching of Innas and her dwelling, al-haq says that the collective punishment included ‘widespread movement restrictions, punitive house demolitions, attacks using police dogs, arrests, indiscriminate killings and the retention of the bodies of the deceased.’ Ahmad Samir Abu Ubeid, was killed by Israeli soldiers during confrontations that erupted when Israeli occupation forces raided a village in search of Ahmad Nasser Jarrar, Murphy reported.[4]
Palestinians inspect the site where Israeli forces killed Ahmad Nasser Jarrar in Yamoun village in the northern occupied West Bank on 6 February (Ayman Ameen APA images) – found at
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-troops-force-woman-down-syndrome-strip
The story doesn’t begin or end here. Shevach and some of the Jarrar family are dead but their stories is a broader story of military occupation, international law, oppression, and retribution.
[1]Gideon Levy and Alex Levac Feb 16, 2018 1:52 AM https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-palestinian-schoolteacher-mauled-by-idf-dog-as-soldiers-watch-1.5824682 accessed 2/25/18
[2] Gideon Levy and Alex Levac Feb 16, 2018 1:52 AM https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-palestinian-schoolteacher-mauled-by-idf-dog-as-soldiers-watch-1.5824682 accessed 2/25/18
[3] Report and quotes found in Gideon Levy and Alex Levac Feb 16, 2018 1:52 AM https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-palestinian-schoolteacher-mauled-by-idf-dog-as-soldiers-watch-1.5824682 accessed 2/25/18
[4] Maureen Clare Murphy 3 March 2018 https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-troops-force-woman-down-syndrome-strip accessed 3/10/18 at times quoting al-haq
The Dole Blog 