March 26, 2022

This

Is why I voted for Joe Biden.

March 25, 2022

Yes. They started redefining the most reliable forms of BC as abortifacients *years ago*...

That’s when I knew it was not just about abortion, but more deeply about every social advance women have made since we got the vote. Every social advance we’ve made since Margaret Sanger went to prison for telling women how they could avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Having a prospective employer say, “But you’ll just get pregnant,” or having your current employer say straight up the reason you as a married woman can’t get that promotion is because “You’ll just get pregnant” is something that will return in a heartbeat when contraceptives are once again unavailable. Because it will once again be true.

It goes further. My grandfather, born in the 1880s, told his 3 daughters that college for them was pointless because they were just going to get married and have babies. His 3 sons went to college.

I hate the RW GOP so much there are hardly words for it.

March 20, 2022

🌻Paradigm Shift -- Zeitenwende -- Turning Point🌻

This is an excellent essay that popped up on my newsfeed this morning. Because it is now late, I will have to kick it a few times myself tonight and tomorrow morning as it sinks out of sight. In any case, highly recommended to read it all.

The use of the term “paradigm shift” struck me in particular because only a little over 30 years ago, the publication of Riane Eisler’s The Chalice and the Blade had us talking about a different kind of paradigm shift altogether. I was one of those enchanted by the possibilities opened up by her book, and it shaped my spiritual and academic path for years to come.

Alas, “Kurgan hordes” and their brothers in arms are not so easily put down. They rose again in 2001, and again, and again just 3 weeks ago.

Would like to know what you think.

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Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60767454


Ukraine war: Putin has redrawn the world - but not the way he wanted
By Allan Little
BBC News
Published1 day ago

It is a rare thing to live through a moment of huge historical consequence and understand in real time that is what it is.
In November 1989, I stood on a snow-flecked Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia, and watched a new world being born.
The peoples of Communist Eastern Europe had risen in defiance of their dictatorships. The Berlin Wall had been torn down. A divided Europe was being made whole again.

In Prague, the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel addressed a crowd of 400,000 from a second-floor balcony. It was an exhilarating moment, dizzying in its pace. That evening, the Communist regime collapsed and within weeks Havel was president of a new democratic state. I sensed, even at the time, that I had watched the world pivot - that it was one of those rare moments when you know the world is remaking itself before your eyes.

How many such moments had there been in the history of Europe since the French Revolution? Probably, I thought then, about five. This, 1989, was the sixth.
But that world - born in those dramatic popular revolutions - came to an end when Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine.

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called this moment a zeitenwende - a turning point - while UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said it was a "paradigm shift". The age of complacency, she said, was over.

MORE AT LINK

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March 14, 2022

How to help Ukrainians via donations

How to help Ukrainians via donations
The photo of the pregnant woman on a stretcher is just shredding my heart…
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142887540

Reposts. People keep asking. Please help consolidate and keep the info flowing.
🌻🌻🌻

DIRECT RELIEF.ORG directrelief.org
They are sending medical backpacks and other aid. Specify Ukraine crisis
🌻🌻🌻

DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND/ Act Blue—. thanks Omaha Steve

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/duforukraine

🌻🌻🌻🌻

How to help Ukrainians via donations

This part initially came from NPR news; addresses and other info can be easily checked
agencies.

UNICEF

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
Someone posted that they have suspended operations, but as it is an evolving situation, please check

VOICES OF CHILDREN (in Ukraine)

SUNFLOWER OF PEACE (First aid medical tactical backpacks for paramedics and doctors)

INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS

SAVE THE CHILDREN

UN REFUGEE AGENCY UNHCR

CARE

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS

🌻🌻🌻

From a reply to an earlier post:

https://snyder.substack.com/p/a-few-ways-to-help-ukrainians?utm_source=url

NGO that arranges life-saving equipment for Ukrainian soldiers: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate

Hospitallers working at the frontline: https://www.facebook.com/hospitallers/posts/2953630548255167

Ukrainian Women’s Veteran Movement: https://www.uwvm.org.ua/?page_id=3437&lang=en

NGO that assists internal refugees: https://unitedhelpukraine.org/

NGO that assistants internal refugees, especially from Crimea: https://www.peaceinsight.org/en/organisations/crimea-sos/?location=ukraine&theme

NGO that aids traumatised children: https://voices.org.ua/en/

Foundation that assists healthcare and education in eastern Ukraine: https://razomforukraine.org/projects/zhadan/

🌻🌻🌻🌻

Earlier links

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=16405971

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216399225

🌻🌻🌻

March 11, 2022

Thank you so much, then and now

https://democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x591230

March 10, 2022

Altars

Our house is so sad right now. First I was just about gutted by the latest news of the all-out assault on American women’s rights— the attack on Griswold, foundational to Roe and so much more. I wept. My entire adult life I have considered how important the bodily autonomy of women and girls is to their lives, their very being.

It was only two or three days after that when Putin laid siege to Ukraine, where my husband’s grandparents came from, to Vienna in 1914. He is feeling rolling grief — not this, not again.

I finally made an altar for Ukraine. It is simple, but helps settle my mind. The background is blue and yellow, and I have blue and amber glass votives. I added two little Byzantine icons I got while in Crete 23 years ago: one is the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ, and the other is her cousin St. Elizabeth holding the infant John the Baptist. The mothers of Ukraine are valiant. There is a heart made of rose quartz. I brought out the bottle of homemade slivovitz, and tucked it in the back. I’ll add a copy of the Invocation to Berehynia, patron goddess of Kiyev. If I can find something to represent President Zelenskyy himself, I will add that. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who like Zelenskyy is a Ukrainian Jew, called him a Lion of Europe.

All my altars, in the end, are about women, and under the circumstances in our own country, where women’s rights are under assault — I feel I need to rearrange some pieces and make one intentional to the moment. My calligrapher friend LK once sent me a print she’d made in honor of Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman:
I had reasoned this out in my mind,
there was two things I had a right to,
Liberty and Death,
If I could not have one, I would have the other,
for no man should take me alive.
1815? - 1913

The print is matted, tho not framed, and is much too large to fit on my usual bookshelf (move books: assemble altar). But I know where it can go, and I will make it the centerpiece of the altar for American women, 2022. Until now I had not known quite what to do with this print. I do now.

Blessed Be.
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March 9, 2022

Oddly enough, when I withdraw money I assume it is MY money bcs I deposited it in the first place

When I transfer money, I am aware that over $10,000 gets the hairy eyeball from the feds (thanks to 9-11). We moved from one county to another several years ago, and we made some changes in our banks, so yes, I was told this.

I was NOT told to assume the position for being handcuffed.

But then, I’m an old white lady.

Both of my brothers had a little bobble with their respective banks some years back over quite different things, but both were easily resolved without resorting to, for gods’ sake, calling the cops.

But they, too, are white.

Makes you wonder. Actually this is in the category of things that make me want to throw heavy objects and scream.

March 6, 2022

There's a bunch of threads about the US negotiating to get missiles & jets into Ukraine

General Mark Millie — https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216442305

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142882755
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216446188

March 5, 2022

How to help Ukrainians via donations

Some repost, some updates. People keep asking. Please help consolidate and keep the info flowing.
🌻🌻🌻

DIRECT RELIEF.ORG directrelief.org
They are sending medical backpacks
🌻🌻🌻

This part initially came from NPR news; addresses and other info can be easily checked
agencies.

UNICEF

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
Someone posted that they have suspended operations, but as it is an evolving situation, please check

VOICES OF CHILDREN (in Ukraine)

SUNFLOWER OF PEACE (First aid medical tactical backpacks for paramedics and doctors)

INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS

SAVE THE CHILDREN

UN REFUGEE AGENCY UNHCR

CARE

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS

🌻🌻🌻

From a reply to an earlier post:

https://snyder.substack.com/p/a-few-ways-to-help-ukrainians?utm_source=url

NGO that arranges life-saving equipment for Ukrainian soldiers: https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate

Hospitallers working at the frontline: https://www.facebook.com/hospitallers/posts/2953630548255167

Ukrainian Women’s Veteran Movement: https://www.uwvm.org.ua/?page_id=3437&lang=en

NGO that assists internal refugees: https://unitedhelpukraine.org/

NGO that assistants internal refugees, especially from Crimea: https://www.peaceinsight.org/en/organisations/crimea-sos/?location=ukraine&theme

NGO that aids traumatised children: https://voices.org.ua/en/

Foundation that assists healthcare and education in eastern Ukraine: https://razomforukraine.org/projects/zhadan/

🌻🌻🌻🌻

Earlier links

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=16405971

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216399225

🌻🌻🌻

March 4, 2022

The Marsh Family sings in support of Ukraine

Damn, it is making me cry.

For those who don’t know of them, this family started posting funny and topical take-offs on popular music during the COVID lockdown in the UK, most of them about the trials and tribulations of the lockdown. I feel like I’ve watched these kids grow up — the oldest boy’s voice broke, the youngest continues to learn to play, they all take on multiple instruments…

They are continuing their videos by popular demand.

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