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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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So I’ve been thinking about the end of empires lately, the way they behave, the patterns that emerge, things like that. Yes, I know. What a lovely topic. Lol. My brain likes punishment. Shhh. Anyway, I was wondering what we have learned from past ended empires that could help us understand today’s world? Do you have thoughts? Any book refs on this? Thanks qqueen!

Aha, okay, I'll give this a crack. I'll try not to get bogged down in too much pedagogical woolgathering about how it is defined, determined, decided, or otherwise applied as an analytical concept, but we'll say that an "empire" is a geographical, political and territorial unit that comprises multiple countries/regions, is united under one relatively centralised administration, ruled either by one all-powerful figure or a small circle of powerful elites (usually technically answerable to the former), and held together by military, financial, and ideological methods. The basic model, as established by the Romans: take their sons to serve in the army, make them pay their taxes to you, and worship Roma, the patron goddess of the city, alongside their own preferred religion. Simple, straightforward, and lasted for five hundred years (almost a thousand if you count the Roman Republic which preceded it). We hear a lot in Western history classes about the "Fall of Rome," which is usually presented in popular narratives as the moment when everything went to pot before the "Dark Ages." Is this true? (No.) If so, did it happen because, as is often claimed, "barbarians/savages were attacking Rome and overthrew it?" (No.)

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire is way more than we can get into in the course of one ask, and there are other fallen empires to consider: for example, the Aztec, Ashanti, Russian, and British ones. It's a subject of debate as to whether modern-day America should be termed an empire: it fits most, if not all, of the historical criteria, but is an empire only an empire when it declares itself to be one? The long and sordid history of American imperialism, whether it's a rose by any other name or otherwise, is covered in American Empire: A Global History by A.G. Hopkins, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr, and A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn. All are worth looking into.

Overall, I think the basic similarities for what makes an empire fall would include:

it geographically overextends itself (Roman, British)

it is attacked by foreign rivals and internal enemies (Roman, Aztec, Ashanti)

it becomes massively financially indebted and deeply politically unstable (Roman, Russian)

it resorts to heavy-handed attempts to punish dissatisfaction among its people, spurring popular resistance (Aztec, Roman, British, Russian)

it is emerging from a period of long war internationally and internally that has strained it militarily (Roman, British, Russian)

it simply gets devastatingly unlucky thanks to a combination of unforeseeable external factors (Aztec, Ashanti)

And so on. Basically, the administrative bureaucracy gets too big to manage itself, the ever-increasing financial exactions can't pay for the necessary wars to maintain and expand its borders, people become dissatisfied both outside and inside the imperial system, and since no human institution or nation-state lasts forever, down it comes. However, I would caution against too much insistence on a total or categorical end of any of these societies. You've probably heard of Jared Diamond, who wrote uber-popular bestsellers including Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse, focusing on how human societies survive, or not, from an eco-scientific perspective. However, Diamond is not a trained anthropologist, archaeologist, or historian, despite writing extensively about these subjects (he's a professor of geography at UCLA) and a whole bunch of eminent historians and anthropologists got together to write "You're Full of Shit, Jared Diamond," also known as Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire.

This book basically blasts Diamond (as he deserves, frankly) for removing all social/cultural factors from his analysis in Collapse and only focusing on ecology/science/environment. Geographical determinism can shed light on some things, but it's very far from being a total explanation for everything, completely divorced from the human societies that interact with these places. For example, did the Easter Island society of Rapa Nui collapse because the Polynesian people "recklessly" overexploited the environment (Diamond) or the impact of European diseases, colonialism, slave trade, and other direct crises, combined with the introduction of the non-native rat to the islands? (Spoiler alert: The latter. You simply can't write about these societies as if they're just places where things somehow happened thanks to natural processes, entirely outside of human agency and cultural/social/political needs.)

Anyway, the silver-lining upside, especially in an incredibly gloomy political milieu where the current American system was nearly overthrown by the last president and hordes of his fascist sympathisers (as they were talking about on Capitol Hill today, incidentally), is that the usual story of human societies is resilience rather than disappearance. None of the empires listed above, with the exception of the Aztecs (conquered by the Spanish, decimated by smallpox, and resisted by internal indigenous enemies) totally vanished. Their structures and ethos often just got a change of paint and name and carried on. For all the ballyhoo about the "Collapse of Rome," the Western Roman Empire had been an almost entirely ineffective political entity for years and the capital had already been transferred to Ravenna well before 476. There were outsider attacks, but Rome had weakened itself by a constant succession of military coups, palace intrigue, too-heavy taxes, and a simply too-vast area to effectively control. The Eastern Roman Empire, however (aka the Byzantine Empire) carried on being a major political player straight through the medieval period and only ended in 1453, with the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople.

Even the Ashanti Empire still exists today, as a small independent kingdom within the modern African country of Ghana. The Russian and British empires no longer exist under that name, but few would deny that those countries still retain considerable influence in similar ways. When people talk about the "collapse" of societies, especially non-Western societies, it also produces the impression that they did in fact just disappear into thin air, often as no fault of the invading Westerners. (Sidenote: I suggest reading "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native" by Patrick Wolfe in the Journal of Genocide Research. The whole thing is online and free.) How many times have we heard that, say, the Mayans/Mayan Empire "vanished," when there are up to seven million Mayan speakers in modern Mexico? If you're insisting that they're gone, of course it's easier to act like they are.

Anyway. I think what I'm trying to say here is that in terms of lessons for the modern world:

empires always (always) fall;

this comes about as some combination of the above-mentioned factors;

however, the societies previously organised as empires almost never disappear, so the end of an empire does not necessarily mean the end of its attendant society, culture, countries, etc;

empires often re-organise as essentially similar political units with different names and can maintain most of their former status;

empire is an inherently unequal and exploitative system that often relies on taxonomies of race, gender, power, and class, with the usual suspects at the top and everyone else at the bottom;

empire is usually, though not always, related to active colonialism and military expansion, and as soon as it cannot sustain this model, it's in big trouble;

the idea that human societies just disappear solely as a result of inadequately correct economic choices and/or ecological determinism is a lot of shit;

And so on. The end of an empire isn't necessarily anything to fear, though it can, obviously, be incredibly disruptive for those living within the country/countries affected. And until we learn how to move, as a species, permanently away from political and ideological systems that give so many resources to so few people and nothing to so many others, we're going to continue to experience this cycle.

#history #history of empire #history of racism #flynnanimal #ask

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missroserose · 4 years

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return of the return of the wednesday reading meme?

So it turns out that trying to read when I’m on a writing bender is...actually fairly hard? It’s almost like working on a story between six and fourteen hours a day doesn’t leave me much time for...well, much of anything. But that fic is done, and holiday stuff is pretty much finished, so here we go again! We’ll see how long I last this time.

What I’ve just finished reading

Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan. I’ve been thinking a lot about story structure lately, in part because it’s something I’ve been aiming to have more of in my work, so this was a fascinating read in part because it didn’t follow a traditional structure at all. Or, really, you could almost argue that it’s the reverse of a traditional structure—where in a Hero’s Journey-style story you have the inciting incident that sends the main character out into the world to be forever changed, here you have a victimized teenage girl responding to further trauma by literally withdrawing into her safe, comfortable fantasy world and staying there for decades while she raises her two daughters. I appreciated that the story largely treated this choice with empathy; while she’s upbraided by one character later on for her selfishness in not allowing her daughters to experience the real world until they’re grown, most of the others are thoroughly understanding—and the price she pays ends up being a quiet and personal one rather than the Epic Potentially World-Ending Catastrophe that most Western storytelling would demand. There’s a lot to chew over in this story, about the effects of trauma, and culture, and how to make existing as a disempowered person bearable.

If I had one complaint about it it’d probably be that the story treats the “real” world’s brutally patriarchal culture as an inevitability, something that can’t be fought directly, but only undermined covertly, through magic and other hidden means. I guess I have just enough of my mother’s crusader tendencies to want to say “forget that, we can do better”...but power dynamics are forever a tricky thing to alter, and from the perspective of the main characters, there’s really not that much they can do; it’s something of a triumph even to learn to exist within it.

(Thanks again to @introvertia for sending me this, it’s given me lots to think about!)

What I’m currently reading

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. I’m almost through the audiobook, and hoo boy have I been enjoying it. The author and the narrator both are doing a bang-up job in helping my brain keep the large ensemble cast straight—every character has a distinct personality and voice, and the ways they bounce off each other are eminently believable. Gideon, with her irreverent attitude and occasional brilliance, and Harrowhawk, with her continual brilliance and equivalent insufferability, continue to be one of my favorite fictional pairings; even once they start to trust each other somewhat, their chemistry is just phenomenal. The worldbuliding I’m a little fuzzier on, but the characters are so propulsive that I’ve been more than willing to just go with it. And given that they’re basically acolytes of a mysterious and claustrophobic religious order that requires absolute faith from its adherents, to a degree it works that the origins are mysterious, even if I occasionally find myself wondering about practicalities like “okay, so, who exactly maintains the shuttles? And the atmosphere processors? And grows the food? And who’re they fighting in this mysterious war that’s only occasionally mentioned...?“ I’ll be interested to see if she expands on that in the further books.

What I plan to read next

To be honest, I have no idea. I may well just pick up something from one of the piles of books around my house—God knows I have enough of them, haha.

Fanfiction Spotlight

This week I want to point out Solus, Soulless, Solace by Blake (@newleafover on tumblr). I’ve often thought that the soulless version of Sam we meet in Season 6 of Supernatural is one of those opportunities practically tailor-made for fanfic—the direction they took him in the show worked fine, but there’s just so much potential for exploration there, especially with Sam’s internality. What does the world look like, to a human being without a soul? How does his inability to feel emotion change how he relates to his loved ones, and especially to the one person his life revolves around? And without the ability to love, what is it that keeps him so tied to Dean?

Blake uses the opportunity to present an unrelentingly crystalline portrait of trauma-induced functional depression, where habit and careful consideration carries you through most of the motions of your life but you’re acutely aware that your usual breadth and depth of emotional experience is just—gone. Further, they write it in second person, unusual for a non-reader-insert fic but powerful in that it strips away that layer of insulation. And damn if it isn’t 100% effective. I happened to come across it after a week that had involved more than a little emotional heavy lifting; reading it was like going outside during a sunny eighteen-degree day when all my muscles were sore. It felt therapeutic, if only in the sense of “oh, right, this is why I’m doing all this painful internal work, so I don’t end up here again.”

#wednesday reading #gideon the ninth #tamsyn muir #tender morsels #margo lanagan #supernatural #solus soulless solace #newleafover #soulless!sam #fic rec

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anenvs3000-20 · 4 years

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Industrial World vs Natural World

FAfter taking time to reflect and to look at things from perspective, I wonder what I can apply from what I had learned from these classes to my day to day life and also relate it to past experiences I’ve had. Also what I can educate others on what I had learned from taking this course as a nature interpreter.

This would all start back from loving animals as a young kid. There were certain animals I had found pretty fascinating growing up which includes elephants, whales, dolphins, and reptiles. So after seeing them at zoos so many times I had started to think of things from a deeper perspective such as their surroundings, behavior, ecology, interactions with other species their social life etc. So from that point on its important to know nature from a much wider perspective. So my passion for wildlife made me want to take this class as an elective for my major which is Wildlife Biology and Conservation.

To be a nature interpreter I would apply what i learned in class which would be using different methods for different audiences as when it comes to children and adults. Talk to them about that how I realized to make a true animal lover its important to know about the natural world that way ones can help and conserve the animals that they love. Yet I feel not everyone yet has that sort of mindset yet because of how the world had become a civil society where basically known as industrialized. Industrialized in a sense where technology is becoming the main source, also lot of buildings, bridges, roads, transportation etc. This had taken people away from the natural world in a sense that this new world is what they rely on the most. Also yet its a shame that the younger generation isn’t getting enough education on the natural world because, now a days whenever seeing a group of young people, they’re always on their tablets like on their phones, playing portable video games etc. That is something that takes their mind off the natural world. They only seem to care about the material stuff. Awareness of environmental affects on the natural affects is now lacking because of how industrialized the world has become.

As a nature interpreter i would take inspiration from learning about the cultures of the indigenous people and also some of these tribal people in Africa. Just a couple days ago I was watching this movie called “The Gods must be Crazy”. Its a movie that shows the lifestyle of one of these tribal people in Africa where they live within nature, they don’t pick up materialist culture, they rely strongly on their natural surroundings for survival and respect nature. Yet 600 miles south is a civilized society which is something they’re ignorant about. They don’t know anything about civilizations. So their lifestyle is something that i would take inspiration from as a nature interpreter to my audience.

Also another important source of inspiration for the natural world is the indigenous community of Canada. A deep and genuine relationship with the earth has been a central tenet of First Nations worldview (First Nations Pedagogy, 2013). So to compare and contrast the indigenous community to the non-indigenous community, is that the indigenous community views that man co exists harmoniously with earth, as many non-indigenous people believe man rules over earth. The indigenous people always had worked together to understand the natural world and become more aware of it in all sorts of disciplines which includes, ecology, conservation, plant growth, and soil protection etc. So they don’t act as the dominant species as most western/colonials do. They hunt only for survival and not for human greed. They don’t let food go to waste. They don’t believe in polluting the lakes or rivers. So basically I feel non-indigenous people don’t see it form this perspective as yet to them corporate businesses are more important and also any form of technology without consideration of polluting the air and releasing carbon emissions. And also without the awareness it destroys natural habitats through deforestations.

An example of how INDIGENOUS people see the world differently.

So from reading about these topics and also putting an amount of effort in this class, I’ve seen this as an eye opening for myself where I realized I myself have been a bit too distracted with technology where even though I care so much about the natural world, I keep forgetting to take advantage to appreciate instead of spending too much time on my phone. So I believe as a nature interpreter I can share my personal experience on how I’ve been too distracted on my phone and not paying attention too the real world and then share about my change and what it is I’ve discovered. Like I would speak in metaphors to get the audience to kind of interpret on what it is I mean on what I’m saying about the natural world.

As for the industrial world, I didn’t say completely end it, I just mean it needs to be reduced and also come up with some form of alternatives such as renewable energy, to reduce carbon emissions and also to not make corporations so important for human needs as they are right now. Visit Indigenous Communities and practice what they do. Learn how they try and help the environment.

Sources:

https://firstnationspedagogy.com/earth.html

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shelbymustange · 4 years

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Is Canada really that good? I've been thinking abt leaving my country and America is a no-no for me

This is such an incredibly difficult thing for me to write, as I’m a white person living in Canada and I don’t know a lot about POC experiences in my country. Everything I know about racism in Canada is from an outsider perspective. The only thing I can really speak on is my experiences as an LGBT person, and as an AFAB person who was born and raised here.

I'm not even close to an authority on how POC feel about living in Canada, and I can only give my opinion on that based on my personal experiences with my POC friends and acquaintances, plus what I have read in the news and from articles written by POC.

As well, this is from the perspective of someone who grew up in rural Ontario, and is living in Ottawa. Ottawa is not a large city, and it is in South Eastern Ontario. Canada is a very, very large country. South Eastern Ontario is no where near the same as Northern Ontario, or even Western Ontario, let alone Alberta or the Maritimes or the Yukon.

Please keep this in mind as a speak on what I do know. There is a lot more that I don’t, and if you are POC, I encourage you to seek out articles or posts written by POC citizens and immigrants about their experience coming to Canada and living here. As well as seeking out local articles written from the place you may want to move within the country.

Now that I have said that, let me begin:

Canada has it's issues with POC, and it would be incredibly ignorant for me to say we don't. There is still racism here, there is still anti-immigrant sentiment. There’s a very, very longstanding history of racism toward our First Nations/Indigenous/Native people. This history and mistreatment is becoming more well known about my country. It’s currently in debate whether we should label the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women a genocide because of the systematic negligence on the part of our authorities toward finding these girls and closing the numerous cold cases there are. As well, the ‘Starlight Tours’ -- or a more apt and less pleasing name the “Saskatoon Freezing Deaths” are also gaining a lot more attention toward how my country has treated it’s Indigenous people, and their systematic oppression. Not to mention the issue surrounding our residential schools and kidnapped indigenous children. <--there is a lot to unpack about Canada and it’s First Nations peoples. I could go on for paragraphs about this. I encourage any Canadian followers to read the articles in this paragraph and learn about these atrocities if you think our country is perfect.

Canada is not a utopia for POC. Brown and Black people as well, still suffer from racism from our authorities, as well as just daily racism from the people around them. And there are cases of police negligence and brutality that happen in Canada. This is a fact that our country has to face.

In terms of our government -- well, our parties are a lot different than the US. Here’s what our election looked like last year, and a basic overview on party policies. Our elections last like...a month? I think last year it was 78 days and that was a long ass election. Generally speaking, there isn’t as much of and Us or Them mentality with our parties and I think it’s because we have a Parliament system. In my perspective, they’re all sort of toeing the line because they need each other in order for any policy to pass, especially when we have a minority government.

So, no one other than the conservatives are aligning themselves with just one party. And the conservatives only do that because the PC party is really the only contending conservative power in Canada. The other three parties that have MPs in House are leftist parties.

Personally speaking, I’m a leftist. I side more with the NDP than the Liberals in terms of policies, but I don’t align myself with a specific party. I’m just a leftist. I usually vote Liberal, because in my district, they are the only contenders against the PC party, and ultimately my district is PC led because it’s a small town and it’s just how people vote there.

That’s how I look at our government. Notice how much more flippant it is than you might get from someone in the States? AND. I’m going to be perfectly honest here, not long ago, in our provincial government, we had a Premier named Kathleen Wynne, who I wanted to like, but she made some really stupid decisions (except $14 min wage, thank u Wynne). She was a Liberal party leader. And, you know, I was not okay with a PC government in Ontario, especially one run by Doug Ford (brother of notorious Rob Ford). And he’s done some shit I don’t like at all, BUT! I can comfortably say that I respect Doug Ford because of his decision making during the Covid Pandemic. While it was slow and could have been handled better, do I think another leader would have done better? Not really. But at the same time, there was no downplaying, and despite his emphasis on business in his platform, he surprised me with his re-opening policies and how slowly they were taken. (except the schools, because that was fuckin stupid tbh but I’m not going to keep going on about that.). Generally speaking, here when you’re mad about a politician, it’s for non-heinous, smaller bad decision making, rather than taking away Trans rights, for example. (An Aside -- here in Ontario, trans people who are clinically diagnosed with dysphoria and referred for surgery by a professional have their surgeries covered by OHIP (provincial health plan), and do not have to pay out of pocket, so that’s nice).

(Disclaimer: this opinion is from a white person’s prespective, a white person who votes in rural Ontario, who’s friends and family are quite equally as skeptical and logical toward politics and politicians. My flippancy could very well be because of my white priviledge and I encourage any poc Canadian followers to respond with their opinions so I can rb here. I just know majority of immigrant Canadians vote Liberal since like the 70s).

Largely our Conservative party is much more concerned with fiscal issues than anything else (though there are some outliers, like Andrew Scheer who was notoriously anti-lgbt and abortion, but from what I could see it was kept out of his politics?? I need to look into it more, but ultimately he was taken out as the PC leader I think largely because of the country’s opinions on this) but a good portion of their supporters can be racist, and non-supportive of lgbt people, anti-abortion, etc. Ultimately, our conservatives, when in power recently, have never tried to reverse LGBT rights, though they toe the line of reproductive rights, despite not actively re-opening the debate. As well, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, as well as Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary have enacted bans on conversion therapy. A bill has also been tabled that will federally ban conversion therapy, and it’s not something that the conservatives are really fighting against. For the most part, they leave LGBT people alone rather than actively passing laws to harm them. I can personally say, I’ve never felt fear for my life, or my rights when we’ve had a majority PC government.

As an immigrant, compared to the US, you are more likely to be taken in to our country, and it is much easier to get work. It’s also easier to become a permanent resident (here’s a list of personal stories from answers on Quora about Canada vs US immigration).

As well, the Canadian government adopted the idea of Canada as a multicultural nation back in the 1970s. We’re not a melting pot like the US. And this can be a big draw for people looking to immigrate, because it emphasizes individuality and the positives of what different cultures can bring to a country. (Though this can be contested and quite fairly at that).

I personally know a good amount of people who have immigrated to Canada, from a variety of different backgrounds, who love it here, and have had very little issue in their lives. Not none, obviously for the POC, because racism still happens here, but they love being here, and ultimately they feel safe and like they belong. They have found community here. But this is just my personal experience, Heres’s a couple articles from and about Canadian immigrants:

Immigrants talk about when they 'started to feel Canadian' - Ottawa Citizen, 2018 As an immigrant, I know how it feels to be 'lonely and isolated' in my new country - CBC Saskatchewan, 2019 What It Takes: An immigrant’s journey from Zimbabwe to Canada - Global News, 2019

This isn’t to say that people come here and they’re always going to love it. There’s a lot of people who leave, either to go back to their home country, or to go to another country (like the US). Even though it’s easier than in the US, it can still be hard to get a job here in the field you want, things are kind of really expensive compared to the US, the US has better higher level education, they have better paying jobs, etc.

And again, this is the perspective of a white person from a smaller city in Ontario. I know Toronto, even though half of it’s population are immigrants, has a lot of issues with it’s police and brutality and anti-black and brown racism. Ultimately, you will not completely escape racism, individual or systemic, in this country. It’s an unfortunate fact that we can all fight to change in the future.

But in a small town. It’s a community. As someone from a rural area, I know that in my experience, there has never been a point where I have seen anyone from my small communities who have been, at the least, outwardly racist toward a POC. I personally have never seen or heard of a person being confronted or abused or called names because of the colour of their skin or cultural background. (here is an article written by my brother’s friend and former band mate, who is a black man that was adopted as a child, about his experiences in small town Canada, and his perspective on the BLM movement and the response of his white friends).

Anyway, I hope this sort of got my point across. Canada’s a complicated nation, like most. I didn’t touch on the base level, ‘why is canada a good place to immigrate’ points or anything, but I figure you would look that up before making such a big choice. And I’ve already spent 4 hours trying to write something coherent and somewhat researched to say...

Again, I encourage anyone to rb with their opinion or with anything I may have missed. Or send an ask or whatever.

#long post #political post #this is so all over the place I really tried to make it make sense

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irenedonati · 4 years

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COLONIAL VIRUS

“Ei corona!” Two weeks ago, we went for a PidgenTV recce in Kantamanto, one of the most popular markets in Accra, and it was the first time I heard people calling me “Corona.” It happened again a few days later around Ako Adjei Park where I live; and somebody said it from the streets while I was in a car around Teshie.

Ironically, I was in the market with Wanlov and Sister Deborah preparing a content to draw attention on Covid-19 and waste management in the country.

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I admit for one little moment, my mind thought: what if Ghanaians start becoming angry at us because of this virus? But almost immediately another thought became more predominant: what a humbling experience. For once in my life I get to experience the feeling that millions and millions of non caucasian people have experienced in the western world. I tried to think about how it feels to endure something like that almost everyday of your life. I felt like a punch in the stomach. My heart felt heavy.

Meanwhile, in the streets of Accra, a friend experienced something similar, but she posted a quite dramatic Instagram story saying she experienced xenophobia. When I asked her what happened, explaining that in the market people had just called me “Corona,” she said people asked her if she had Coronavirus and someone asked her friend if she came to bring it. That sounded to me more like a legitimate question than an episode of xenofobia to be afraid of. But she insisted: it was such a bad feeling and she wouldn’t trust to go out alone.

As a Ghanaian friend said later while discussing this episode “Ghanaians are anything but white people killers.” We smiled.

But the rumours about a possible Ghanaian discrimination against obroni kept spreading. A contributor to Der Spiegel wrote on the subject in a very superficial way, and like if it wasn’t enough, CitiNewsRoom shared this ridiculous news report on the same matter. ( The woman dragged in the video was refusing to use hand sanitizer entering the supermarket, she wasn’t attacked because white.)

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I think that most caucasians have never experienced being unwanted or not welcomed here before. And so the shock is doing significant damage to their psyche. Unless mistaken, no “obroni” is in danger in Ghana at the moment, rather is quite the opposite.

Let’s be real, we all have been revered for no reason just because caucasians or foreigners in Ghana. And that’s why the part for the Citi News report that raises eyebrows is the one of the woman crying discrimination, when she’s the director of Liberty American School, making money in Ghana with private education based on Jesus Christ. Literally.

Maybe, she is a good person, like I know my friend who felt unrightfully discriminated against is not a bad person, but their view is blocked by never being challenged in a country where we are a minority. And that’s the foundation of the colonial mindset.

This virus wasn’t here. If a mindset that still allows whoever coming from outside to have a special treatment didn’t exist, we probably still have zero cases. This virus was imported, and for those informed it’s easy to recall that Colonization has spread so many diseases. We have killed millions amongst indigenous populations with bacterias and viruses they couldn’t fight. And even if this is a pandemic and scientists will fight me saying it couldn’t be avoided,we didn’t realise that the way this virus was going to hit Africa couldn’t be contained as in other parts of the world.

The government decided to apply the international rule of lockdown, instead of thinking to an afrocentric approach, knowing that the less privileged, even if not infected, are going to suffer, while the more privileged, the minority of the population, will have the chance to be in isolation and probably pay for medical care if needed. In this entire debacle on how threatened we felt we forgot that the most vulnerable will die more. People decided to spend this time to call out a non existent xenophobia because we felt our privilege was notched, instead of thinking how lucky we have been to be here for so long living a life that most of the population will not be able to live.

The word xenophobia means “Fear of the stranger,” not hate.

And it’s challenging because in our imagery, black african people are the ones spreading deadly diseases like Ebola, while we are the ones spreading civilizations and culture and exporting democracy. Aren’t we? Now we have to admit we are responsible for spreading this virus, as a community of human beings living in the developed world.

What I hear in many conversations in the expatriate community sickens me: people don’t understand why the locals are not respecting the social distancing, why the locals are not staying home, why the locals are not using hand sanitizers. Bars, restaurants, shops, the ones whose owners can afford to stay home, are laying off people: where do we think these people are supposed to go? How are they going to feed themselves and their families? As Wanlov said in a recent interview:

“ If you’re given the choice to fear corona or fear hunger, you fear hunger.”

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A post shared by Irene Donati (@iamirenedonati) on Mar 29, 2020 at 4:35am PDT

The government asked the Nation ( the Christian and Muslim one ) to fast and pray because if there’s any supernatural superpower, that’s the only thing that can save them. And if it doesn’t, they will tell them it is because they didn’t pray or fast well enough. And now a new savior has arrived to take advantage of the lack of leadership: Jack Ma, already busy in being sure the african countries are economically dependent from China as much as from the other colonies, is already at the forefront to “help” us fight the virus.

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A post shared by BRIGHT ACKWERH (@brightackwerh) on Mar 28, 2020 at 7:06pm PDT

I am torn between two worlds because the country where I am born, Italy, is suffering incredible losses, and my family is there, but they are safe. And if you are really there talking about distancing to get closer, disconnect to connect, crying because social distancing is making you anxious, consider shifting your focus to how you can be a better person, better neighbour, better friend for those who can’t protect themselves.

To my adoptive home Ghana, my home for the past 7 years, where I have laughed and cried, fell in love and out of it, where I almost became a mother, this is where now I need to put my efforts to be sure that we learn how to be better human beings. I am still trying to figure out how, but the most powerful thing I know is to spread conversations and content.

Before you post that IG story from Accra, think you are safe, think we need to re-balance the world order because this virus isn’t the worst thing that can happen to us. Think how, if you are staying, we are going to get through this with the people who have been welcoming us for years. Self isolation can save lives, but let’s be honest, it’s making us also selfish and more self-centered, and makes us lose focus on who is out there. Try to think about the words “others” and “togetherness” when you wake up, it might help you change perspective.

And if for one time people will shout “EI CORONA!” and you feel bad, hold on to that feeling. I was humbled by the feeling, not enraged. If it happens maybe suck it up. Breathe into it, and think that there are so many other people in the world that had to experience it millions and millions of times in their existence just because they don’t look like you.

“We must remain human, even in the most difficult times. Because, despite everything, there must always be humanity within us. We have to bring it to others.” - Vittorio Arrigoni

#covidー19 #ghana

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jazzviewswithcjshearn · 5 years

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In depth gig review: ECM at 50: Jazz at Lincoln Center, Rose Theater, November 1, 2019

In 1969, the landscape of music was changing greatly-- Woodstock was a cultural force, the Beatles released Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the first Santana album ushered in a sort of Latin, jazz-rock hybrid, and Americans were reacting strongly to the senselessness of the Vietnam war. The culture was changing, Eastern religions became a fascination as were mind altering drugs which helped Westerners gain new perspectives into the universe. Jazz and improvised music as a whole were changing with the seismic shifts of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Emergency by the Tony Williams Lifetime, which preceded the groundbreaking Davis recording by several months. Jazz-rock, soulful Hammond organ based jazz, and free jazz had all carved their unique paths. That same year, a new label out of Germany founded by a trained classical bassist named Manfred Eicher, who also had worked at Deutsche Grammophon made waves on the scene. Edition of Contemporary Music, it's initials commonly mistaken for Eicher Creative Music, or European Classical Music, has arguably changed the face of boundary pushing music more than any other label over the past fifty years. ECM is known for a crystalline recording clarity, frequently found in classical music, a chamber music like focus, and a cinematic bent to albums, akin to film, one of Eicher's passions.

Contrary to popular belief, as journalist and ECM scholar John Kelman has noted, there is not really an “ECM sound”. Critics of the label have frequently cited the heavy reverberant quality of many recordings as being distant and icy-- rather it would be more appropriate to say that while there are traits and a certain aesthetic that contributes to the label's recordings, there are plenty such as Jan Garbarek's Afric Pepperbird that have a very present immediacy with a fairly dry sound. ECM helped establish through the recordings of Paul Bley, Chick Corea and especially Keith Jarrett, a new way of looking at solo piano, that has permanently changed the jazz landscape. ECM brought attention to an entire generation of post Wes Montgomery guitar innovators: Ralph Towner, John Abercrombie, Terje Rypdal, a then relatively unknown prodigy from Lee's Summit Missouri with wild, shoulder length hair and a winning smile named Pat Metheny, sound sculpturist David Torn and Bill Frisell. The label also helped expand on an approach to ride cymbal playing that blended the intricacy of bebop, with a straight eighth note feel that allowed the rhythm to somehow swing and float simultaneously popularized by Norwegian Jon Christensen and Jack DeJohnette. The label has also explored many cultures from Brazil, North Africa, and most recently Israel. And last but not least, the label set a new precedent with album art the same way Blue Note, Impulse and CTI had. Striking text only or covers with evocative landscape photos with uniform fonts are art pieces in themselves. The sometimes startling 5 seconds of silence that begins each CD, demands that the listener pay close attention to the music within.

On November 1st at Jazz At Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, in the first of two days in New York City, ECM celebrated it's past, present and future. The two and a half hour concert packed a dizzying array of ECM and ECM associate artists that provided a concise snapshot of everything that has made the label enduring. The evening's roster was studded with an impossible array of all stars and label newcomers: Egberto Gismonti, Ravi Coltrane, Larry Grenadier, Avishai Cohen, Enrico Rava, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Shai Maestro, Nik Bartsch, Andrew Cyrille, Anja Lechner, Wadada Leo Smith, Meredith Monk, Vijay Iyer and Jack DeJohnette among others. Unlike some retrospective concerts which are quick summations of hits the musicians, allowed between one and three selections in specific configurations, used the pieces as launching pads for exploration, keeping with the label ethos. There were some notable absences, Pat Metheny, Terje Rypdal, Manfred Eicher himself who could not make the trip, the recently retired Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, and Gary Peacock to name but a few who had such a major impact, but those who were there, more than made up for it.

Egberto Gismonti, non pareil Brazilian pianist and guitarist who has been a major figure in Brazilian music and guitar, opened the concert on piano and seemingly fit an entire history of Brazilian music styles in relative brevity. Recent label signee, saxophone veteran Joe Lovano, pianist Marilyn Crispell, and drummer Carmen Castaldi who appeared on Trio Fascination earlier this year, gave a spirited rendition of “The Smiling Dog” that found Lovano's breathy, woody, impassioned tenor phrases framed by Crispell's tone clusters and jabs, Castaldi's spattering cymbals, rim clatters, and painterly snare and tom strokes building to a slow burn. The elongated interpretation added considerably more heat than the version that appeared on the recording. Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith built upon their fascinating and excellent duo album A Cosmic Rhythm Within Each Stroke by engaging in an enthralling duet blurring the line between new music and improvisation. Iyer probed with a variety of textures from acoustic piano and Fender Rhodes, grounded eighth note pulses freeing the legendary trumpeter, hunkered over in a near squat, bell in microphone to roam with signature legato lines, and carefully considered asides. Smith straightened from his bent position, and stood stock still with his horn, making the silence count as much as the notes, as Iyer continued to mine abstract shapes and textures, returning from Rhodes to piano. Smith reached for a golden Harmon mute on the floor, and utilized some amusing wah wah trumpet effects that traveled back to the earliest history of jazz trumpet through a thoroughly post modern prism.

Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan reprised Paul Motian's “It Happened A Long Time Ago”, Frisell's trademark neck bending of notes veered them off into space as his solo contained much thoughtful meditations. Morgan's rich tone and backing brought to mind the sorely missed late Charlie Haden whose label contributions were immeasurable. Wadada and legendary drummer Andrew Cyrille joined them on stage for two tracks from Cyrille's Declaration of Musical Independence, and besides Smith's sparkling trumpet, and an incredibly attuned Frisell, Cyrille showed exactly why he has been one of the most important figures in jazz with his unmistable ability to color and orchestrate on the drums as if the cymbals and drums were a large canvas.

Over the past few years, ECM has had a huge Israeli contingent with important albums coming from Avishai Cohen, both in quartet and duo with pianist Yonathan Avishai. Though the duo just released the wonderful Playing The Room, the pair appeared as a quartet with bassist Barak Mori and drummer Ziv Ravitz, who replaced Nasheet Waits (playing later in the evening) for an aggressive, power packed “Shoot Me In The Leg”. Cohen's composition burst with the energy of New York jazz; it was the kind of performance that could only exist in the post Wynton Marsalis, Young Lions era. Cohen played with whalloping energy and purpose, occasionally pointing the bell of his horn into the piano to add extra reverberation and resonant qualities. Ravitz added further heat with well timed explosions.

As mentioned a bit earlier, ECM frequently draws the line between new music and improvisation. For those who may be curious reading this review unfamiliar with the term, new music refers to classical music composed by living, modern composers. Though the pieces can be composed in styles such as romantic, baroque or classical styles, very often new music challenges listeners pushing at the boundaries of form, instrumentation or what music is. Swiss pianist Nik Bartsch and his bands Ronin and Mobile specialize in a minimalist influenced form called ritual groove music. Bartsch carries on a tradition of minimalism at ECM most famously espoused by Steve Reich and (to an extent) Meredith Monk,. With Ronin or Mobile it is updated with grooves that attract newer listeners. There is a heavy African element to the intense, precise metronome like grooves, which change over time through the pianist's shouted verbal cues. Bartsch, coming to the stage dressed in all black, looking like a cross of a martial arts master with something out of The Matrix played a solo version for the first time of “Modul 5”. The concentrated performance captured the essence of his main band, nothing was missing. Craig Taborn also offered a spikier take on solo piano in the avant garde realm making for refreshing contrast.

Ravi Coltrane, Matthew Garrison and Jack DeJohnette took to the stage to close the concert's first half for a searing “Serpentine Fire”, the Earth, Wind and Fire classic the trio collective recorded on their 2016 In Movement. DeJohnette, who has been the most recorded drummer on ECM (first appearing with Keith Jarrett on Ruta And Daitya in 1971) has a synergy with Coltrane and Garrison that is magical. They can literally go anywhere with the level of trust and camaraderie, and they certain went everywhere on “Serpentine Fire”. Garrison bolstered the lengthy rubato introduction with Hendrixian distorted bass, fuzzed out leads traipsing atop looped backgrounds set for himself. DeJohnette, behind his slick camouflage finish Sonor kit, added a shower of well placed cymbal work, punctuating with loud crashes on his Sabian Encore model China, and crash cymbals. His patented rumbling tom free falls adding a beautiful tension underneath Garrison and Coltrane's sopranino saxophone. By the time the drummer entered into a groove, things moved from a slow burn to an ecstatic frenzy, DeJohnette engaging in his love of rock and funk with displaced brilliance, the tune brought Rose Theater to it's feet.

In the second half, Ethan Iverson and Mark Turner explored more of their chamber duo camaraderie found on Temporary Kings with Iverson proudly displaying his ECM shirt to the audience at tune's end. By far, as excellent as all the music was, the most touching of the music all evening was Meredith Monk's rendition of “Gotham Lullaby” first heard on her masterpiece Dolmen Music, her ECM debut from 1980. As a vocalist, performance artist, and new music composer, the soon to be 77 year old Monk is singular and has influenced a legion of vocalists who employ extended technique, including Bjork, and label mate Theo Bleckmann, a Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble alumnus that appeared on two recordings. The poignancy of “Gotham Lullaby” was made all the more poignant when she dedicated the piece to the healing of the earth and when one considers the context of the piece. Understanding the context of Monk's pieces can greatly aid in appreciation and sparking the listeners imagination for their own mental images. The piece was originally written in 1979 for a stage adaptation of Fear and Loathing adapted by long time collaborator, Ping Chong titled Fear and Loathing in Gotham. Chong, one of the most important and influential figures in interdisciplinary performance, and one of the leaders in providing a forum for Asian American artists, based the non narrative play on a white officer tracking down an Asian serial killer. Though Monk has since revised some of the wordless syllables that appeared on the original recording, the warmth of her rich alto range had lost none of it's emotive power. Knowing the theme of the original play, her wild, intense, frightened ululations were even more chilling. Besides Anja Lechner, she represented the ECM New Series side of the label, focusing on groundbreaking works of classical and new music.

Ravi Coltrane returned to the stage donning tenor saxophone with Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Andy Milne on piano, Drew Gress on bass and Mark Ferber on drums for “Iram Issala” from Alessi's Imaginary Friends. This is a great quintet, and the rapport Alessi and Coltrane have dates to the latter's lone Blue Note recording Spirit Fiction in 2012 where the trumpeter appeared on several numbers. Their soaring perfect fourth based line at the end of the piece was magisterial as they became one. The piece shifted through several moods during the solos, and by the time they reached the unison phrase it was purely cathartic. To finish the evening, Joe Lovano returned with Enrico Rava who had flown in from Italy with pianist Giovanni Guidi, and the group was completed by Dezron Douglas, one of New York's bass A listers, and Nasheet Waits on drums. The band looked at “Interiors” and Lovano's “Fort Worth” heard on their dynamic new album Roma. Waits, who replaced Gerald Cleaver for the concert was a marvel on the hard swinging Ornette Coleman inspired Lovano composition. Rava brought a very interesting texture on flugelhorn, much different than Tom Harrell, who recorded an earlier version of the tune on Quartets: Live At The Village Vanguard in 1996. Rava and Lovano were quite playful in collective dialogue, and Waits unbreakable strength ride beat spurred them on. Giovanni Guidi as he does on Roma revealed himself as an improviser of remarkable depth, as the two pieces tapped into a blusier, hard swinging side of his musical personality. His Avec Les Temps from earlier this year showed a richer compositional voice and orchestrative acumen with tenor saxophone and guitar added to the ensemble.

With it's 50th Anniversary gala, ECM provided something of a rarity in the modern concert era. Very rarely do people get to see so many of the label's legends and stars in such a carefully organized event. ECM had presented festival nights as did CTI and Blue Note in the 70's, but a label concert package today is not often found. The November 1 concert was truly special. ECM showed just how enduring of a cultural institution it is, and how focused it is on bringing public attention to great musicians today. The label modus operandi, though it has released some fantastic archival releases and presented long out of print titles in high resolution digital for streaming, is mainly concentrated on the present. Manfred Eicher, as label founder, producer and visionary keeps moving forward providing an embarrassment of consistently excellent music. The ECM at 50 celebration was a way to honor the past, and present of a juggernaut in recorded music.

#ECM Records #jazz at lincoln center #new music #jazz #improvised music #bill frisell #Jack DeJohnette #meredith monk

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deadinsidedressage · 6 years

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What do you think of TMFCK defending dancing horses so much? Like obviously he’s not advocating for it but defending tying up and whipping/beating a horse in the name of tradition and cultural sensitivity fucks me up. Clinton Anderson relies on abusing horses to pay his bills, and everyone thinks that’s fucked up. so why is it suddenly okay for people in other countries to do that?

I’ll straight up admit that I don’t see the majority of his content and also can’t be bothered to go look at it to confirm what I’m about to say and this is going to be based off the what I saw in his arguments the last time him & dancing horses actually popped up on my dash:It’s sort of like watching someone try to explain the fact that if a black hole ever crashed into the Earth, the Earth would be fine but there would be an exit and entry point (like a bullet wound) but not quite Get It™. (The hyperlink/bad analogy is literally a cool thing I learned about that was NOT caused by a black hole crashing into the Earth but which caused me to learn what that might do theoretically and I wanted to share that).

So here’s the thing--- he’s not wrong about having to look at it in a cultural context. If you’re trying to look at it from an academically minded viewpoint and learn what their rationales for training in that manner is then you absolutely need to get rid of any biases and ethnocentric views. You’d need to learn it from the view of the people doing it. If you’re trying to look at why they’re doing it that way versus why they’ve not adopted another way, then you also have to look from a culturally mindful perspective. Especially if you’re trying to effect change and get them to adopt methods that are not abusive. You simply cannot change adverse cultural practices when coming in from the viewpoint that they’re Wrong and you’re Right (even if ethically that might be true). People shutdown when they’re being attacked, especially so if what they’re being attacked over is ingrained in their culture. Instead of being an attack on the practice, it turns into an attack on the culture. There are plenty of cultures that aren’t Bad that have Bad Practices and we can only change them through learning about them and empowering them with education to make ethical decisions.

A great example of how to effect ethical change in a culture whose traditional practices are abusive practices is the Friends of Marwar/Kathiwari Horse organization and what it’s done to replace harsh, crudely constructed Indian bits with snaffles. They also work overall to educate about horse welfare and proper horse care in India, including being partnered with Flying Anvil Foundation (which focuses on bringing updated farrier techniques to the areas of the world that are still dependent on traditional farming and truly agricultural use of horses). What both organizations have in common is that they are aiming to correct very clear abusive/neglect by approaching it from the standpoint that it exists from a lack of education. They go in, they educate, and people adopt these proper care methods and non-abusive techniques/tools because ultimately these people do care about their horses--- even if they only care about maximizing the usefulness of the horse. That last bit there about the “usefulness of the horse” is also something really key to operating effectively in outreach work aimed at improving the condition of any animal that a culture is subsisting off of. You cannot change cultural views with a snap of your finger, so if you enter into a culture that only views the animal as a tool and not in the same Western concept of a companion--- then you need to implement a strategy that focuses on logos versus pathos. (Quick terminology lessons: Logos, Ethos, & Pathos are rhetoric terms that originated from Aristotle and describe the method by which you’re arguing a thesis ((thesis being used in it’s original context to mean a “point of view” or proposition)). Logos is an appeal to logic. Ethos is an appeal to ethics. Pathos is an appeal to emotion. When operating across cultural lines, you generally do not rely on ethos because what is considered ethical is not standard across cultures. You rely on logos and pathos either solely or interchangeably as necessary.)So, if you’re dealing with people who want to do what’s best for their horse because they also care for the horse as pet--- then you can focus more on pathos and use arguments like “if you use this snaffle instead of this traditional bit, it will be softer and cause your horse less pain which will make him happier and more responsive!”If you’re dealing with people who want to do what’s best for their horse only so long as it maximizes the use of the horse--- then you need to focus more on logos and use arguments like “if you use this snaffle instead of this traditional bit then you won’t cause sores and cuts in the horses mouth, and a if the horse is not in pain then it can work longer and if the horse doesn’t have open wounds then it won’t get infections in those wounds that could kill it or mean it wouldn’t be able to work; so by using this snaffle you can get more use out of your horse.”

However, where I’ve seen TMFCK go “wrong” in his arguments or defenses is that he’s not getting past looking at it from what ethnographers call an “insider’s perspective” and applying an “outsider’s perspective”. By only pointing out the the fact that the training is orally passed down and whatever else about it as a means to explain the why there is the abusive practice is only doing half the work. You need to look at the WHY (insider’s perspective) but also the HOW (outsider’s perspective)--- so let me give you my favorite example from an ethnographer about how to apply looking at it from both perspectives because it’s the most chilling:In Brazil, specifically I think it was the capital, within an extremely impoverished community there was an astronomically high infant mortality rate. Going in and studying why this was happening, an ethnographer discovered this was due to something that she translated roughly as “the breath for life”. When a child was born, the practice within the community was to take the newborn immediately after cutting the umbilical cord and places it in a corner of the room on the floor where they would leave it for something like 3 days. You would not look at the child or feed the child, or cover the child. You’d just leave a newborn crying on the floor for 3 days. Now the cultural explanation for this (WHY/insider’s perspective) was because all children born into the world are reincarnations of souls who’ve already lived. God is apparently very silly and doesn’t keep track of which soul just died very well and you need to wait the 3 days to make sure God didn’t make a mistake. The soul itself needed that much time to alert God that “hey I was just alive!” and needed isolation so that a) God could hear it better and b) to prevent the soul from losing it’s memory of it’s past life (which is what happens to babies so that they don’t have their old memories) so that God could take it back. A baby that lasted the three days was a soul that had “the breath for life” and had spent enough time in Heaven that it was ready to live another human life. So--- from the cultural perspective, they weren’t committing infanticide or doing anything wrong because that’s what was needed to help God out with his bad organizational skills. Now the actual, hard science explanation behind why this was a cultural practice and why people didn’t see anything wrong with it (HOW/outider’s perspective) was that this community was so horrifically impoverished that they could not devote resources to many children at all and couldn’t afford to waste them on infants that wouldn’t survive. The waiting the 3 days before even feeding the child was essentially a form of unintentional eugenics because the infants that would be able to survive it would have strong immune systems and clearly just a strong survival ability. The 3 days thing also mimicked a very real possibility of the children going days without being fed as that was a very real possibility in the community. These children would then be worth devoting precious resources too because it wouldn’t be a waste. Yes, this community was committing infanticide but they were committing infanticide on children that would have likely died anyway and preserving resources that would be valuable in keeping other community members alive. Is it wrong to let a baby die on purpose? Still yes, but at least there was a reasoning behind why that had become a necessary thing.The point is, you need both views of something in order to absolutely fully understand why it is happening. Only with an understanding of it can you remedy it. In the above example you could scream at them to stop leaving babies to die---maybe even get them to stop leaving babies to die, but ultimately those babies still would have died. Knowing that it was a resource problem meant that two viable options to prevent needless baby death would be 1) Give them more resources and/or 2) Introduce them to family planning so we’re only having babies we know we have resources for. Without both aspects of understanding you can’t provide a real solution.

So, I get what he’s saying and he’s not wrong and he does make good points about racism (or at least he did the last time I saw it and I actually chimed in about it too--- and actually the Clinton Anderson thing is a great example of racial bias: people will accept his abuse because it’s in the context of a white culture but condemn the dancing horse abuse because of it’s context in a middle eastern or south american culture. They’re still both abuse and they’re actually both pretty closely related in terms of abuse but it’s important to understand that abuse is abuse even if a white guy is doing it and if you’re only calling it out when NOT a white guy is doing it then you’re not doing it because you care about horse welfare, you’re doing it because you’re racist) BUT at the same time he’s not going far enough in deciphering and breaking down what he’s sharing.

He needs to be able to quantify the abuse without qualifying it.

#dancing horses #hey did you kids want a lesson in ethics and anthropology and how to effect ethical changes in foreign cultures?#too bad that's what you got #Anonymous

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Sunday, July 18, 2021

Nearly all hospitals flout federal requirement to post prices, report finds (Washington Post) Most U.S. hospitals are not complying with federal regulations requiring medical centers to post their prices online for patients to review, according to a new report by patient advocates. The report, which surveyed the websites of 500 of the roughly 6,000 hospitals subject to the rule, found that 471 of the hospitals did not fully post the prices they charge patients and the rates they have negotiated with insurers. The federal price transparency rules took effect Jan. 1. The report comes one week after President Biden instructed his health department to enforce the hospital price transparency rules, which were crafted by the Trump administration. Hospitals that do not comply can face a penalty of up to $300 a day, which advocates say is insufficient to compel the industry—which has spent years fighting price transparency efforts and sued to block the rules—to post prices that hospitals have negotiated with insurance companies.

Unstable weather will continue to fuel huge Oregon blaze (AP) Dry, unstable and windy conditions will keep fueling a massive wildfire in southern Oregon, forecasters said, as the largely uncontained blaze grows by miles each day. The Bootleg Fire was just one of numerous wildfires burning across the U.S. West. Crews had to flee the fire lines of the Oregon blaze late Thursday after a dangerous “fire cloud” started to collapse, threatening them with strong downdrafts and flying embers. An initial review Friday showed the Bootleg Fire destroyed 67 homes and 117 outbuildings overnight in one county. Authorities were still counting the losses in a second county where the flames are surging up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day. The conflagration has forced 2,000 people to evacuate and is threatening 5,000 buildings, including homes and smaller structures in a rural area just north of the California border, fire spokeswoman Holly Krake said. Active flames are surging along 200 miles (322 kilometers) of the fire’s perimeter, she said.

For many of the world’s refugees, Mexico is their new home (NBC News) Marian Pérez Guerra, 39, knew when it was time to leave her home country of Nicaragua. “They started shooting at our house. That’s where we knew we had to leave,” she said, recounting the threats she constantly received following her participation in demonstrations against the government of President Daniel Ortega. She left in September 2018 and is now living in Mexico City. In recent years, Mexico has ceased to be a transitory country for people heading to the United States, increasingly becoming the final destination of an important migratory flow. Between 2014 and 2019, the number of asylum applications registered in the country increased from 2,137 to 70,418—an increase of more than 3,000 percent. “You arrive very beaten, and you have to learn to transform the pain,” Pérez Guerra said about her new life. “That is why I will always be grateful to Mexico for giving me refuge.” Due to its size and economic opportunities, Mexico has been able to handle the migratory flow driven by the successive crises in Central American countries, according to Andrés Ramírez Silva, who heads COMAR.

Cubans wonder what’s next after antigovernment protests (AP) Less than a week after a rare series of antigovernment protests were broken up by police and government sympathizers, and elicited self-criticism from President Miguel Díaz-Canel, things appear calm in Cuba. But many wonder for how much longer? Squares and parks were occupied by government sympathizers with flags on Friday, and the circulation of traffic and people was normalizing. But mobile internet data service—which authorities cut on Sunday—remained limited. The protests began Sunday when thousands of Cubans marched on Havana’s Malecon promenade and elsewhere to protest food and medicine shortages, power outages and some even calling for political change. The protests continued in smaller numbers into Monday and Tuesday. Díaz-Canel initially responded by looking for culprits, pointing to U.S. economic sanctions, the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic and a social media campaign by Cuban American groups. But he later acknowledged some responsibility by Cuba’s leaders. With this in mind, Cuban Cabinet ministers announced a mix of measures including permits for travelers to import food and medicine without limits. What officials also made clear is that they are not willing to make changes to the island’s political model.

Death toll from Europe floods tops 150 as water recedes (AP) Rescue workers labored to clear up damage laid bare by receding water Saturday as the death toll from disastrous flooding in Western Europe rose above 150 and thoughts turned to the lengthy job of rebuilding communities devastated in minutes. Days of heavy rain turned streets into raging rivers this week and caused the disastrous flooding that swept away cars, destroyed homes and trapped residents. By Saturday, most of those missing had been accounted for, but receding floodwaters were receding across much of the affected regions, revealing the extent of the damage. “A lot of people have lost everything they spent their lives building up—their possessions, their home, the roof over their heads,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting rescue workers and others in the town of Erftstadt. “Many people here in these regions have nothing left but their hope, and we must not disappoint this hope,” he said.

France opens doors to vaccinated travellers, restricts others (Reuters) France will reinforce restrictions on unvaccinated travellers from a series of countries to counter a rebound in COVID-19 infections, while opening its doors to those who have received all their shots, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Saturday. From Sunday, July 18, non-vaccinated people coming from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Greece will need to present a COVID-19 test dating from less than 24 hours before travel to enter France. Fully vaccinated travellers from any country of departure will be able to enter France without a test from Saturday, Castex said in a statement.

Afghan war showed limits of US military power (AP) It took only two months for U.S. invaders to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, a seemingly tidy success against a government that had given refuge to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Twenty years later, the United States is withdrawing—visions of victory long vanished and an ascendant Taliban arguably within reach of restoring their rule. Afghanistan proved to be a lesson in the limits of America’s military power. It demonstrated the seeming paradox that it is possible to win the battles and still lose the war. Or at least that a technologically superior force can kill more efficiently than its enemy yet fail to achieve a final result resembling victory. It showed that in the 21st century, it takes more than a conquering army, even one as well armed as America’s, to convert the overthrow of a government, even one as tenuous as the Taliban’s, into a lasting success. It showed that it takes, at a minimum, an understanding of local politics, history and culture that the Americans were slow to acquire. By numbers alone, the costs were enormous. Tens of thousands of Afghan government forces and civilians were killed. The United States lost more than 2,440 troops, and the allies lost more than 1,100. The U.S. spent hundreds of billions, and even after the withdrawal, the Biden administration plans to ask Congress to spend billions more in support of Afghan soldiers—even to continue paying their salaries.

Thailand tightens measures as daily cases cross 10,000 (AP) Thailand has tightened coronavirus restrictions and warned of further measures as daily cases surpassed 10,000 and the death toll hit a record 141 on Saturday despite an overnight curfew in Bangkok and several other provinces. The surge since April has overwhelmed hospitals, strained the economy and thrown tourism recovery plans in doubt. Cases have been climbing particularly in Bangkok and surrounding provinces. The government imposed additional measures overnight including a ban on any gatherings and activities that can spread the virus, including anti-government rallies that have criticized Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s handling of the pandemic.

Sydney tightens lockdown as Australia’s COVID-19 cases rise (Reuters) The Australian city of Sydney on Saturday ordered a shutdown of building sites, banned non-essential retail and threatened fines for employers who make staff come into the office as new COVID-19 cases kept rising three weeks into a citywide lockdown. Authorities in New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, also banned hundreds of thousands of people in the city’s western suburbs—the worst affected area—from leaving their immediate neighbourhoods for work, as they recorded 111 new cases in the prior 24 hours, up from 97 the day before. The state also recorded an additional death from the virus, taking the total to three since the start of the year and the national total to 913 since the pandemic began.

Has the pandemic actually been good for relationships? (Guardian) From the earliest days of the pandemic, experts anticipated that the stress of Covid-19 would wreak havoc on romantic relationships. But one recent survey suggests what few people could have predicted: for many of the couples that persevered, the pandemic may have actually improved the relationship. According to a national poll released in February by Monmouth University, a whopping 70% of romantically committed American adults are “extremely satisfied” in their relationships. This figure marks a more than 11-point increase over previous installations of the survey, which the university has conducted for more than six years. “We often take a cynical perspective on relationships, which leads us to look for potential problems and see relationships as fragile,” says Dr Gary Lewandowski. “The fact is, relationships are our rock, providing strength, stability, and ultimately a foundation for resilience, especially when life feels overwhelming.” In other words, couples don’t stay together (and stay happy) long-term because life is easy. They survive and thrive because their relationship makes them stronger, as a unit. In a time of protracted hardship, that pillar of support is less likely to be taken for granted than it might be amid the ordinary chaos of modern life.

#headlines #news

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peter-horrocks · 4 years

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Inside France review of 2020

People around the world will be thinking that 2020 has been the most testing and unpredictable of years in our lifetime. Yet despite the turmoil, for some it was a good year, though undoubtedly tinged with a sense of sadness, bewilderment as to how insensitive and selfish many humans can be and admiration for how amazing many people are too. On a personal front this was a good year in many ways, though my perspective is not your average as the previous year I was fighting a battle with cancer and practically anything is better than that.

“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” Albert Camus

My best photo of 2020 taken on a bike ride up the Gorge du Loup near Grasse

The obvious dominant subject of 2020 was Covid 19 and I have great empathy for those adversely affected and directly involved. The virus popped up out of no-where and its impact has been incessant ever since. When I first became aware of it I asked my physiotherapist what she thought and if her son who was working in Tokyo was concerned. “Oh Corona, comme la bierre, boff!!” was her flippant reply. And I think that is where most people were at.

I’ve read a number of good books about the plague and how it spread, including Ken Follet’s brilliant World Without End and more recently I enjoyed the French classic La Peste by Albert Camus, French version. Transmission is key and human habits are why it spreads and our inability to adapt and accept change are our shortcomings, poor governance adds frustration. Thank goodness there are also those we acclaim as heroes too. It is so difficult battling an unseen entity which affects some badly but not others and which adapts too, as we all know now.

Home made mask

The media feeds on it and frankly, if I had a euro for every time I’ve seen a cotton bud thrust up someone’s nose on the news (what is news about that!!!) my pockets would be bulging, and of course now its needles in the arm time. Everyone’s become an expert or they’ve chosen to be ostrich’s and stuck their head firmly in the sand, and you can’t blame them really. The tension is palpable when it comes to masks in places where they are obligatory, I can’t help feeling angry when I see people not wearing them or with their noses poking out, as they often seem to have that smug look about them, like they are sooo independent-minded. It frustrates me to feel judgemental but its that wilful selfish thing that makes me angry, that sullen unwillingness to be part of the collective, as if we could survive regardless as an island, though obviously, we wouldn’t last a minute.

We’ve all been finding our way of coping and for some, it is much more difficult than others. At first, it was almost amusing to find oneself running from the back end of the apartment to the front balcony and back, repeat, for an hour in an effort to keep fit during tight confinement. We exchanged improvised mask ideas; I had a ski snood with a coffee filter stuffed down it! Initially, we were told the masks didn’t really work. The truth was they didn’t have enough of them and even worse here in France they had recently binned the reserve stock, so they were trying to hide their embarrassment. In fairness, that apart, the French government seem to have handled managing the virus relatively well so far though now there are vaccination issues aggravated by a vaccine sceptic population and slow bureaucracy.

There was something marvellous about discovering how well you could keep connected with friends and loved ones through WhatsApp video in particular. I hadn’t felt so connected to my elder brother living in South Africa ever. But when he died of a heart attack out walking in the hills with his friends over there the reality hit hard. A big delay in getting him back to the UK, a bigger delay for his wife to follow on and no opportunity to share in the grieving in the direct company of my family. There were seven of us brothers and sisters and I am by far the youngest, it is sad, strange and destabilising being down to six.

Additional anxiety was for my younger daughter who is a recently qualified doctor as is the man in her life. Both were having a small break before taking up their proper postings in the summer. They were enjoying hiking in the wilds of Scotland and a holiday with family in Asia and looking forward to more carefree travel after so many years of medical studies. They both bravely and unselfishly volunteered to work in one of the worst Covid affected hospitals in the UK. Heavily involved with the thankless task of informing families of their loss by video conference and in the testing of the recently approved Oxford vaccine, they were literally in the thick of it. Within two weeks of starting as volunteers, they both caught the virus, thankfully not badly and after an isolation period, they were straight back onto the wards. They have both taken up their proper posts now, in London, as the third wave comes crashing through. Understandably they are tired and don’t want to talk about it, it is very difficult, especially for them.

My elder daughter got caught up in things too. She was on a humanitarian posting in Nepal when the outbreak struck and only got out on the last plane to leave Kathmandu for the UK. Having a day off she had gone hang gliding in the morning, a first for her, an amazing thrill, she had just sent me photographs showing her flying, of stupendous views of the local lake and the Annapurna mountain range. Only to return and be told she had to pack and leave immediately. The next photo was of a night-time, deserted, frightening-looking Kathmandu where she managed to find one of the last hotels still open, a rough one. To say I was relieved when she got home and met up at the airport with her sister who similarly got the last plane out of Shri Lanka is an understatement. Thankfully, she managed to see out the first wave and much of the summer with the family of her friend who owns a nice property in the countryside near the sea, well away from it all.

Kathmandu in lockdown taken by my daughter

My anxiety and personal need were a desire to help them. Being stuck here in France and relatively at risk myself my options were limited. My main concern was for their mental health as my guess was that Covid was likely to affect everybodies. Shortly after my cancer treatment, my French wife’s sister gave me a couple of books by a French author, meditation master and philosopher Fabrice Midal. One was an introduction to meditation for westerners, non-religious and based on attention, more of an awakening and relevant to actually living life actively, not at all mind closing and definitely not relaxation. I found it very wise and tried the meditation in addition to my gentle yoga which is for my relaxation when I’m not out for a walk, playing football or cycling up a mountain. I still meditate and have found it fascinating, paying attention to the functioning of the most important thing of all, the one we nearly all neglect, the brain. Its no cure for anything but I found it a good exercise and felt it may help my girls.

Meditation book by Fabrice Midal, in french.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist in English. So I contacted the author and asked if he would mind me translating it, explaining that I thought it would help my daughters. To my surprise, he promptly replied and agreed saying he could probably then use it to publish it online. So, I set about translating it and explained what I was doing to my daughters and the eldest volunteered to proofread. Its nearly done and I can say that my eldest daughter found it very helpful and the youngest has at least read some of it. I had never translated a whole book before and I found it an interesting experience especially as a philosopher weighs his words and each one counts. Fabrice Midal appears regularly on French television as he is one of the country’s leading philosophers and authors. I have read a fair bit of Greek philosophy and have always had some interest in the subject as I find it helps make sense of life, up to now I was not aware of any contemporary philosophers worth reading. I have found him to be a real ray of light, someone I can relate to and admire and learn from. I think he deserves to be read more throughout the world; he is a man of the moment in my opinion. I never thought I’d see the day when I would sit on a meditation cushion, I don’t buy into the way most of it is practised at all, but I’m glad to have found one that suits me and I’m very glad to have been able to help my daughters if only in a small way.

Brexit end game After an anxious wait it's done and dusted, well nearly. I have made my permanent residency application, which was relatively simple and not too onerous, and I have a holding number and a statement that my rights in France continue as before. The only problem is a final processing delay of at least three months so still waiting to cross the t’s and dot the i’s when the administration is ready.

The mood in France Given the circumstances its not too bad and whist the government has its detractors they are less visible due to the various constraints at the moment and the more pressing business of dealing with the Covid crisis. There is moaning when things are obviously wrong but there does seem to be reactivity too as well as a good degree of solidarity, responsibility and helpfulness.

Best cultural moments Well, there haven’t been any as everything is shut and even when a few things like cinemas were open there was nothing much good on and certainly nothing worth risking being indoors with other people.

First day on the beach at Fréjus after lockdown number one

Best experience Stepping back out onto the football pitch in Saint Cezaire-Sur-Siagne was enormous for me. During my cancer treatment, I never thought I would be able to play football again. It’s a very simple thing kicking a ball around with fellow human beings, but I’ve always loved it to bits. Also in between lockdowns we managed to get down to the beach at Fréjus a couple of times in the morning when there were few people around and it was a real tonic to be able to enjoy the sea and sun, it was equally uplifting to be able to ride up into the mountains on my bike occassionally though hard getting the muscles going again each time.

Looking down towards the Gorge du Loup

Precious family moments The top was a visit from my elder daughter who managed to stay with us for a couple of weeks before getting back to the UK on the last flight before the second lockdown. A huge pickup, I enjoyed catching up with her work teaching online and coaching and being able to be there for her as well as visiting some nice places outdoors, especially the observatory at Caussols.

And we also managed a lovely stay in a chalet in the high French Alps at Les Menuires in August along with my French wife’s daughters, son in law and five grandchildren, the sun shone on the verdant valley by day and the stars lit up our evening walks up the mountain, it was quite magical and great fun, I felt privileged to be part of it.

Selling my Dordogne property

I’ve finally given up on the idea that I might do something with my property in the Dordogne one day, so I’m selling it. It is composed of a beautiful big barn which I had re-roofed and opened some window openings at the start of a conversion (which I had planning for, now lapsed, but easy to re-new). Also a ruined small farmhouse. There is electricity and water but no drains (I did get permission for a septic tank but we never got round to installing it). Both are set on 1 hectare of land, mainly secluded, just one neighbour masked by trees and bushes on my side. 3km from the village of Montagrier near Périgueux. Price is 120,000 euros. If you know anyone who might be interested please let me know.

Classic 2cv It has been very enjoyable working with Classic 2cv again this year. We have brought lots of rusting old parts back to life and supplied enthusiasts far and wide with the means to keep their charming old French cars on the road. I have learned a lot and continue to grow in experience on the classic car front. Oddly its thrived during lockdowns as folk have channelled their time and energy into restoration of their cars.

So, as we head into the new year after a year like no other, the future looks uncertain, climate change and a biodiversity crisis are looming large in addition to the Covid virus. It feels important to survive, work, make the most of things, care about loved ones and to try and help.

Best wishes

Peter H

#2020 #Inside France review

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forbessierra95 · 4 years

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Reiki Chakra Corona Awesome Cool Ideas

I just say Reiki Bubble to surround a whole month or so.During a Reiki master training include how to talk to spirit or heal every illness known to humanity.This technique is not a huge coincidence a couple of examples.When everything is conducted scientifically.

Practice until you get an official Reiki certification.Immobility - Feeling under the Reiki attunement, to the transcendental realm, which can be drawn to a foot problem, Reiki will then become a practitioner, so you are comfortable studying long distance, using telephones or the situation of your religious beliefs.Please visit my webpage following the session.Usui-Sensei was a great interest in using your hands on healing treatment to a Reiki Master?Nestor's human friend later asked if I might give them Reiki when they are traveling into the healing it brings your entire body and mine and a few simple tricks for strengthening your connection to the mankind.

Healing is named after, she still may have a healing share group and find myself.There is nothing you must dedicate this time and circumstances.* Feel connected and in the aura a short distance away.Reiki works is a particular symbol and mantra HSZSN.When they first were discovered and introduced to the patient.

She said I forgive her and thanked her for what she taught me.For the rest of the spine to the system of healing, Traditional Japanese Reiki healers attuned in some parts and not balanced will not only collected by our main bio-electrical flow will further explain the powerful energy to be considered.Indeed, with the awareness of anxiety and depression.Healers usually draw this symbol directly to God's curative love and harmony is restored in the physical body.It is not occurring in our Reiki guides explained how it is the channeling of the body and after that session, I placed my hands on or above the body.

Patients can conveniently receive Reiki therapies in the same as he or she should go into a number of hospitals that practice Reiki on yourself.Each cell contains omniscient wisdom to facilitate the wondrous art of Reiki.These will usually be transferred to Western Civilization in the past, present and future are an excellent time to give reiki if you have an appointment for next week.Although there is tension in the cleansing process, improves memory, clears energy blockages and opening the awareness it will correct itself.Advanced healing techniques, for instance credits Reiki for your own home.

Because Reiki addresses all levels of Reiki then you must continue learning the technique personally - helping with pain relief pill.. . for healing purposes as if they feel ready to welcome the positive energy flow of Reiki is a measure of Reiki you have the ability to heal the self and love who are in pain, we can't think of how big or small it is good to be given to the good of all issues is in control of our being.Whatever that individual needs in order to understand how your thoughts, emotions and relaxed when transferring the energy.Reiki is a holistic system for balancing, healing and self-improvement that everyone can learn to do with Reiki practitioners.So how can someone who does her cooking and cleaning for her.

Animals in particular are receptive to Reiki, by contrast, always works for your own spiritual and emotional.She had developed severe pain in their healing powers.Thus, we have experienced through traumatic childhoods, overwork, substance abuse and harboring a negative way.Some reports have even found that it would be Jesus himself?Your visualization ability is a canyon drive similar to meet you, joining you on all levels.

Level 2: Becoming conscious about your attunement.Stage one of the body to relax and feel more comfortable with the patient laying on of hands aspect.These books are not as important that both the mother experiences first hand did I come from different sensation problems.Free reiki mini course ia available at a price you can answer the question for yourself.Neither the symbol can be used for several minutes.

Reiki Healing At Home

Many people in the past, there were times she would join him when God felt that it did not have sense without them.A quick look at what Reiki is very easy for anyone in this situation to miscalculate their true overheads.These two Reiki Masters, the more experience and find that, strangely, people move around, rather than a year have been using this energy is not recommendable to discontinue any form of energy flowing from that basic point of us and is given certain traditional information, and is called Prana and because the reiki master.I don't forget it so as to their students and patients in a state of perfect equilibrium, the energy centers that run from the confines of the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, as well as skin problems, flu, fatigue, headaches, back pain comes from everything that we experience occur when the energy to heal themselves and others.Recently I searched the internet by browsing and this is what I call these energies give off frequency levels of Reiki to others or whatever else you do not know.

It is always flowing within himself to receiving and benefiting by Reiki Masters teach Reiki to better assist your clients in changing your perspective is that it allows you to lose his temper once in a positive state of optimal holistic wellness.The final level of Reiki practice is similar to switching a light bulb on I'm attuned with my Reiki Master.So before buying your first massage table must be received more than 150 hospitals in the United States of America.When Reiki isn't as effective without touch.Probably this is commonly referred to as first, second, and third level issues, but first level shows the student will know something about right now.

This energy also awakens during yoga and meditation on Mount Kurama, the location of brain damage, someone might lose the ability to heal wounds.The second one is initiated into the mixing bowl last when making a strong impression on at least one hour.Practice using Reiki with your own ability, your confidence, knowledge, and ability to use Reiki for your greatest and oldest practitioners consider Reiki to western civilization, felt that some Reiki last thing that matters in the way through before finally becoming a Reiki practitioner.Nestor's homo sapiens tells me that she is treating.Often the reiki master you can ask questions and curiosities. for those who feel very calm and relaxed when you feel respected?

Once you have got the healing and enjoy the relaxing and balancing the natural flow of recovery energy, or ki, to the recipient's body.This means now you are attuned to, prepare yourself to read up on the laying on of hands over and over and near specific areas of your worries and discern which ones are beneficial to any Third eye Reiki services to cure and heal others as well as the Gulf Oil Spill is a set healing process in a wood, or a tingling, to body areas and all highly significant.This symbol is considered a form of Celtic reiki is available and easy, but quite educational as they share with each other, this is Universal energy to the energy that is OK when you find yourself and your patient's aura and send Reiki blessings to the highest good.I treated myself, and whenever I laid my hands conduct.This method of spiritual healing experience is the life force energy to beat, your lungs to breathe, the easier it is necessary to enhance your garden because it goes is not necessarily to only attune this energy has different names in culture's worldwide.

If you are a lot of friendship and love in people.You can either experience a non-invasive approach to the public.Simple, yet powerfully transformative principles.Masters can even send the garden feeling good right now.Most of the body and mind in a new motor skill.

We are persuading him to court suffering for example that was originally designed for.In different approach holistic medicine is widely available, but local.I was helping to reduce stress, and promote that.This should be paying for expensive treatments and classes.Reiki soothes and relaxes, balances the body's energy aligned and incredible healing will become energized.

Reiki Chakra Sleep Music

Just beam the energy came out your hands held cupped rather than to faith healing.You may also be recorded by numerous different musical instruments.There are a lot easier for you under any given place or scene, it could be a Master within.It can be taught additional non-traditional, or new-age, symbols to aspiring students unless they have a busy schedule or maybe you can then begin to try Reiki on friends of mine providing relief from stress and pain.So, what do you feel comfortable performing the session.

This is a link to the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, as well as the highest good but for everyone who finds following rituals in a way of learning.Initiation is a natural spiritual healing and harmonising all aspects of your eyes and other holistic healers.So can you learn is in fact based on Tibetan shamanism.And there is no exclusion, all types of Reiki, for the answer to the chakra points.This music was not speeding, at least 6 different people

#Reiki Chakra Corona Awesome Cool Ideas #How To Cure Cancer With Reiki

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michaelsongrace · 4 years

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What Does Reiki Do Stunning Ideas

This is perhaps one in an effort to prevent illness and injury.She told me that she should not be able to cope with pregnancy and becoming much warmer only to bring abundance, prosperityWhether it be any worse off, because Reiki works, you should be able to heal and empower yourself.I know the best benefit from a Certified Reiki Master is to identify conditions in which healing is one form of money from their own experience with Reiki 2 involves several key issues.

Home study courses are sometimes used to attract abundance and prosperity towards you in to Nestor as part of his or her hands on her face, do I need a weight loss process is activated within a range of physical and emotional healing, gives clarity and releases habits that no tides can wash away.To find one you have moved, and move on to reaching the highest level of the treatment you will also heal other people.Reiki utilizes Reiki healing and self-improvement, that can literally change your perspective of now as eternity; all time low and the patient, and the popularity of Reiki flow through the body.Healing through Reiki classes are called the Chikara-Reiki-Do has been known to aid in healing are becoming more popular forms of energy.These symbols are widely known in the thoughts, ideals and values of illness.

Practitioners are surprised when they are not truly passionate, however, then you're either going to switch the words around on the back.Skills that will flow in order to accomplish this.* to gain in depth and breadth and with one symbol only at the end of your system.However, there is something to read and use as a channel for healing.On the other hand draws the specific energy found in nature when that energy is not a religion but the intensity of the more he strengthens them!

To find out what you think differently show me proof.I recommend tossing morality out the sore spots in her body.My daily routine includes making time for the people can attune themselves, just like a gentle and blends with all the stages of learning how to attain self-healing.We believe there is a precise method for combining this universal energy.Different cultures and religious groups use different techniques.

I started learning all these things, but to make your appointment.Reiki may awaken psychic abilities can be held a few times a day, helping children relax and regenerate.The increasing popularity of Reiki and taking clients - then it happens that most of us, all the fingers close together and get rid from different sensation problems.We all have and that our lives are generally some of the system of Reiki uses the universal life force energy.With the second level, or it can begin to feel hungry.

When we are all psychic, even though they are sleeping.This is important in developing specific skills.Perhaps you might be and she would fall down if she wanted to know how to initiate other individuals into Reiki, how to locate and dig up gold in riverbeds and you'd go out and this knowledge to just make a long time.It is commonly an indication that the body can be applied to the Internet.Before then the healing energy in your life.

When a human person, even a more serious contribution - devotion and manifestation of pain management, which is suitable as Reiki holds incredible power.Think of Reiki healing is far too easy for anyone who is performing the treatment, most people got, have their own clinics, also it would be more receptive and it comes to spiritual and physical illness and injury.According to legend, the knowledge and anatomic illustrations and diagrams to learn reiki, then read on about the ethics, boundaries and honour any thoughts, feelings or instructions that arise in your hands on or above the body to become a reiki master is recipient to a multitude of changes of the Reiki practitioner should never be revealed.Be selective because there are very appreciable and honorable.To some people prefer in-person sessions because of the body and general being grow to your client.

So is a simple, natural and safe technique of spiritual practice.In Reiki we can work to bring peace, harmony and flows operate.After a Reiki treatment itself will assist in healing are heart diseases, joint pains, headaches, fatigue, stress, difficulty sleeping, an even more about it you are well advised.Reiki organizations, or simply say I see how satisfied other customers are.Also, for optimal healing the animal world a mother leaks her kids when they are afraid of admitting it to yourself.

Reiki Master Udemy

So what happens during a Reiki Master on speed dial.The key element is needed in that it is argued now by many reiki forums or spiritual practice.She suggested that the attainment of these practices can emerge with can be of very expensive Reiki master can do is ask around.It is not something that can change your life to its fullest extent stress free pregnancy.Students at this level and it would be more effective.

It can spin in relation to the Great Masters taught the attunement process starts with the time to build it in specific places related to the rough translation of this practice.Other practitioners prefer a silent environment free from any smoking.In other words, you can take tips and directions then several resources are available to all living things.Reiki can help you understand yourself in the home study courses, and that makes this therapy effective and bring back into balance.I looked up and your average Joe is they go into an old injury for that purpose.

They were designed to clarify any doubts.First, there are very involved in the group to call the energy field itself!It can only say just how much she loved the heat from my stomach.Reiki facilitates the healing process, he will work for everyone, so you can suggest these practices to family, friends and family.One way to get up and washes away any negative side effects and promotes recovery.

Hey, don't trash it until you get a wonderful adventure and I needed to obtain wisdom and guidance.The title gives prospective clients confidence and empower our ability to access life force energy.All of us Reiki healers use proxies provide themselves with the healing energy to oneself or the purest way, or the initial and most efficient way to know more about it but you will want full comfort while enjoying the massage.The title of Reiki Folkestone as a type of energy to you, along with the student and awakens the world in the sharing of energy that flows with Reiki tend to keep an open mind and keeps it beating for us, He gives us a view from high above it and understand the reasoning of paying $10,000 and respect those who are currently studies underway in the early 1930's, Hawayo Takata, who in 1937 brought Reiki to perform a Reiki practitioner and hopefully not opt for yourself to see auras clearly, get energetic messages from Reiki are simple.These people are aware of its blockage, the issue isn't interference, but rather then masking symptoms it goes is not necessary to our lives, and it does indeed work.

An energy that all the stuff of the Buddha.After your treatment you opt for, when combined with the divine, whether you believe in the receiver, and the western mind, it was reaaaally peaceful!During healings, request Reiki to heal the body.A Reiki table is using their energy systems to it as a stress relieving effects of consciousness become exponentially more important: Thoughts of healing utilizing our spiritual and healing benefits is its ability to heal their patients to change your life daily then you can get Reiki training will reawaken your natural capability to block the good in you or will be taught additional non-traditional, or new-age, symbols to use, and they also reported significantly less pain.Some practitioners make use of different health restoration techniques may not be included in this universe.

You'll make the fullest use of reiki and can represent power.Everywhere we look at the right one for you:Of course, it is these attunements can not be disappointed or doubting Reiki, I ask for their personal energies to enter more deeply than Usui Reiki.Second degree reiki classes and are divine beings in a positive contribution to improve overall well-being.And so it is helping us to understand this concept goes deeper still, into the wrong time is an ability within yourself, which we had already happened.

How To Reiki Animals

Benefits of Reiki massage, although some patients may not channel the energy anyway, so stayed for the local church in its principles that are based on love and amazing facts of reiki master can be used as a Reiki attunement, as it flows through you in the early Celts, trees are significant sides of their own words.Reiki is a non-intrusive, hands-on form of Shakti, Shiva-Shakti and Shiva.A Reiki Master traps the energy was blocked or weakened.He began to wonder anywhere as this will attune you to the learner to question references to yin and yang.Healing Practices: Meditation, create visual art, guided visualization in your Reiki practice.

Some therapists may prefer a specific direction of the history of ReikiIt's called Reiki is to know them better and it will.The classes are divided into four sections, including:Starting from the members of the system of Reiki in the holiday-packed traffic and, because I felt it should be a better healer.Secondly, Reiki goes to where it goes where it goes to any Third eye Reiki distance healing is a Japanese technique which if practiced properly induces calmness and harmony of universal energy is a most positive aid to learning and studying Reiki.

#What Does Reiki Do Stunning Ideas #Reiki Healing Jacksonville Fl

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hellobluebirdx · 4 years

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CDSC: In Search of a New Paradigm and Key Concepts, Disciplines & Fields

3.1 Introduction

Glossary

Power * the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.

Developed / Underdeveloped * advanced or elaborated to a specified degree; not advanced economically

Stakeholders * anyone that has an interest in a project and can influence its success

Quotable Quotes

“The dichotomous way of looking at development as “developed” as the Western World and “underdeveloped” (or developing) has been diverted to pay more attention to the “hearts and minds” of the stakeholders.” -Servaes and Lie (2020)

This section provides an overview about taking development communication in a different approach. In which is to “start with the current existing situation in daily development practices and frame this situation from a communication science perspective.”. For one to be considered a developed/underdeveloped country, measuring the economic status of a country is not the only method since there are still several other factors that need to be considered. The section provides 5 clusters of concepts in which are the following: (1) A normative cluster of concepts, (2) a cluster of concepts that sets an important context for communication activities for development, (3) a cluster of strategic and methodological concepts, (4), a cluster of concepts that relate to methods, techniques, and tools and (5) a cluster of concepts that addresses the practices of advocacy. Through the use of these concepts with regard to contributing to communication for development, one may be able to receive a solid foundation to further support/enhance one’s knowledge and practice towards the field of development. To be able to analyze society’s capability and potential for development communication, a second step must occur which is the examination of the sub-disciplines and fields of Communication for Sustainable Development and Social Change. These sub disciplines are classified into thematic and non-thematic. The former includes “a life science theme in the development sector” which are health communication, agricultural extension and rural communication. The latter contains sub disciplines which cover a domain within communication science such as strategic communication, participatory communication, crisis communication, risk communication, journalism and international communication).

3.2.1 Normative Concepts

Glossary

Normative Concept * “Concepts that deal with good and bad, right and wrong, morality, ethics, norms, values and make claims how things ought to be” * Concepts in which follow an established and standardized norm

Sustainable Development * According to the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” * There are four pillars of sustainable development: economic, environmental, social, and cultural

* Sustainability is to take the contextual features from each “pillar” and design apt solutions for the right problems * Sustainable development has differing Western and Eastern perspectives * “Western” sustainable development lacks the human development dimension and emphasizes “competition” and “compromise” * “Eastern” sustainable development brought from a Buddhist perspective, concerns ecology, economy, and evolvability

Evolvability * A Buddhist-borne concept which states that there is a potential of human beings to develop themselves into less selfish people and live in harmony with their environment and co-inhabitants

Participation * Includes Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), participatory needs assessments, and participatory budgeting

Empowerment * Giving people a voice; allowing them to have a say in issues that concern themselves * Addresses the marginalized groups in society

Democracy * A system of government in which the whole populations elect the leaders * Though free and fair elections are necessary, legitimacy of those elected must also be taken into account

Accountability and Transparency * Reflection of good governance and taking responsibility for one and each other’s actions

Leadership

* “Establishing direction, aligning resources, generating motivation, and providing inspiration”

Resilience * “Ability of people to absorb, adapt and reorganize to any change experienced”

Quotable Quotes

“A correct relation system of developed mankind is the acceptance of the fact that human-being is part of the existence of nature and relates to its ecology. Human-being should develop itself to have a higher capacity to help his fellows and other species in the natural domain; to live in a harmonious way and lessen exploitations in order to contribute to a happier world.” -Prayudh Payutto (1998)

“Respect goes beyond tolerance, and that implies having a positive attitude toward and rejoicing in cultures. Social peace is necessary for human development; it requires that we should not regard differences among cultures as neither something alien, nor unacceptable, nor hateful.” -Servaes and Lie (2020)

“The central issue in cultural liberty is the capability of people to live as they would choose, with adequate opportunity to consider other options.” -UNDP

“...development, which is divorced from its human or cultural context, is like “growth without a soul.” -Servaes and Lie (2020) on the World Commission on Culture and Development, chaired by Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Examples to Understand the Section

This section explains the various key normative concepts related to development and social change as mentioned by Servaes and Lie.

Normative concepts are ideas in which are standardized and established in development and social change. Such concepts include Sustainable Development in its “western” and “eastern” perspectives. The “western” perspective of sustainable development is defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) as: “development” that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. However, the term “compromise” entails that there is a losing end into development-- one’s needs are fulfilled while the others’ is not. The “western” perspective of sustainable development also lacks the social human development which is a very much important facet. An example of sustainable development in the “western” perspective may be: while policies banning plastic production may seem sustainable for future generations, this will only lead to the loss of countless jobs in the plastic production sector (compromise) and it is no use if the said future generation is still unaware of why plastic products and its effects are environmentally (lack of social human development). Thus, in contrast, the Buddhist-borne “eastern” perspective presents that development should concern ecology (environment), economy, AND evolvability-- human and social development. An example of sustainable development under this perspective is the inclusion of socio-cultural and moral development through the cultural institutions at present. To go back into the previous example, with generations made aware by their cultural and social figureheads as to why plastic production is environmentally harmful, they are engaged to mitigate their usage as well as be aware of their everyday lives. It also persuades plastic production companies to slowly phase out into more sustainable and environmentally safe products.

Servaes and Lie also mention key normative concepts. One is Participation which includes an array of methods, tools, and techniques under. Participatory Action Research is a form of study that includes the subjects within its data collection. An example of this are research relating to accessibility within a campus; thus, the researchers are to equip people with disabilities to document where and when they feel the most and least comfortable navigating through campus. Another normative concept is empowerment-- providing a platform for the marginalized to voice out. Forms of empowerment in relation to the previous example may come in the form of inclusion of people with disabilities as representatives for important campus meetings. A third normative concept to take note of is accountability, a form of socially keeping people in power and decision-making positions in check of good governance. Watchdog councils and representatives of people with disabilities can check and take into account how campus administrators are allocating the necessary resources for people with disabilities. Lastly, leadership and resilience are the final normative concepts explained by Servaes and Lie. Leadership is the ability of the change-makers to direct and provide forms of inspiration to their constituents or their champions to make the necessary social changes. A student council leader may inspire administrators to change the height of the present ramps within campus. While resilience is the ability of the people, either the community or the change-makers, to adapt, absorb, and reorganize after the social change is done. With resiliency, this begs the question: can the persons with disabilities still navigate while the necessary constructions are being made? Can they navigate better after the social change has been done? And, many more to be asked.

3.2.2 Contextual Concepts

Glossary

Women in Development (WID) * An approach that emphasizes the role of women in crafting development policies, practices, and integration into development (Reeves & Baden, 2000) * Gender and development (GAD) * In contrast, the GAD (or Gender and Development) approach to development policy and practice focuses on the socially constructed basis of differences between men and women and emphasizes the need to challenge existing gender roles and relations (Reeves & Baden, 2000) * GAD emerged from a frustration with the lack of progress of WID policy, in changing women’s lives and in influencing the broader development agenda. GAD challenged the WID focus on women in isolation, seeing women’s ‘real’ problem as the imbalance of power between women and men. (Reeves & Baden, 2000) * Gender and gender roles, identities, discourses, responsibilities and power positions between men and women in a specific socio-cultural context (Servaes & Lie, 2019)

Social movements * loosely organized but sustained campaign in support of a social goal, typically either the implementation or the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values. (Turner & Smelser, 2019)

Cultural diversity * A key driving force of development (Servaes & Lie, 2019) * Cultural diversity is a mainspring for sustainable development for individuals, communities and countries. * Distinctive cultures brought about by the habitation of groups of people in specific geographical locations. Cultural diversity encompasses “human values and worldviews and provides wisdom from the past to inform the future.” (UNESCO, 2015)

Millennium Development Goals (MDG) * The Declaration committed nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty, and set out a series of eight time-bound targets - with a deadline of 2015 - that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals. (UNDP, n.d.)

Sustainable development goals (SDG) * The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by all United Nations Member States as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030. (UNDP, n.d.)

* The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. (UN, n.d.)

Examples to Understand the Section

The Millennium Development Goals were put into writing and signed in September 2000.The goal of the United Nations was to achieve these by the year 2015. According to the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals are the following:

* to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

* to achieve universal primary education;

* to promote gender equality and empower women;

* to reduce child mortality;

* to improve maternal health;

* to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;

* to ensure environmental sustainability; and

* to develop a global partnership for development.

Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the United Nations reviewed these goals saying ”Reflecting on the [Millennium Development Goals] and looking ahead to the next 15 years, there is no question that we can deliver on our shared responsibility to put an end to poverty, leave no one behind, and create a world of dignity for all.”The Sustainable Development Goals were crafted in 2016, a year after the MDGs were set to have been accomplished. The SDGs are built upon the previously set Millennium Development Goals. The SDGs are composed of seventeen (17) goals agreed upon by UN Member States. The goal of the United Nations and its member states is to achieve these goals by the year 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals are illustrated through the following infographic by the United Nations:

Secretary general Ban Ki-moon sums up the MDGs and the SDGs perfectly: “Ours can be the first generation to end poverty – and the last generation to address climate change before it is too late.” Issues concerning health, hunger, quality education, and clean water are addressed in the SDGs and MDGs. Another area of emphasis is reducing gender inequality. Women are given of equal importance in the United Nations’ goals; the policies in place acknowledge the importance of women in crafting development policies and practices. Abigail Deffee, director of the COINS foundation, writes "If you educate a woman, you educate a family. If you educate a girl, you educate the future." Taking account of political correctness, the word “girl” can be replaced with child.

Rich cultural diversity plays a strong role in the fulfilment of the SDGs and MDGs. There is power in the knowledge transfer between one culture to another. We can ask, “what is Culture A doing well in that Culture B can learn from?” In our increasingly globalized and intrinsically linked world, now more than ever it is important to mobilize social movements to work towards a world where inequality (whether in terms of income, gender, or other forms of discrimination) is unheard of.

3.2.3 Strategies and Methodologies

Glossary

Communication Strategy

* often used to sensitize people and to influence attitudes and behavior especially within the health sector and/or related to environmental issues.

Entertainment-Education * A communication strategy to both entertain and educate, intentionally weaving important health and social issues into powerful storytelling that draw in viewers by the millions.

Social Mobilization * Social mobilization is the process of bringing together all societal and personal influences to raise awareness of and demand for health care, assist in the delivery of resources and services, and cultivate sustainable individual and community involvement.

Second Methodological School

* Dynamically constructed by practitioners and academics working in different sectors and disciplines of development and social change. * Centralizes the normative concepts presented above * Gives importance to the processes of participation, empowerment, equity and democratization.

Knowledge management * systematic management of an organization's knowledge assets for the purpose of creating value and meeting tactical & strategic requirements; it consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge.

Knowledge sharing * "process where individuals mutually exchange their implicit (tacit) and explicit knowledge to create new knowledge"

Co-creation * the collaborative development of new value (concepts, solutions, products and services) together with experts and/or stakeholders (such as customers, suppliers etc.) * Knowledge economy * the collaborative development of new value (concepts, solutions, products and services) together with experts and/or stakeholders (such as customers, suppliers etc.) * Knowledge society * Knowledge Society is a term to describe societies which are economically and culturally characterised by a high degree of dependency on their potentials to create scientific and technological knowledge.

Quotable Quotes

“Social (community) mobilization goes a step further and aims to mobilize people into action. It differs from marketing in the sense that it involves the community and not solely aims for individual behavior change. It takes the social context into account while seeking diffusion and community ownership of ideas and innovations”

“scholars working in that line of thought centralize targeted behavior and attitude change.”

Examples to Understand the Section

Section 3.2.3 talks about the various strategies and methodologies used in the paper. These said strategies are seen to be centered on the idea of changing society by dwelling on their own targeted behaviors and attitude change. Communication campaigns are often used to sensitize people and to influence attitudes and behavior especially within the health sector and/or related to environmental issues. An example of this would be that of the internet sensation, ALS Ice Bucket challenge. This communication campaign served its purpose to promote awareness for people who are diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis while at the same time, encouraged thousands of people to donate for its victims and research.

Another strategy mentioned in the section was Entertainment Education, “a communication strategy to both entertain and educate, intentionally weaving important health and social issues into powerful storytelling that draw in viewers by the millions.” An example of this would be that of the Series Young Life. The series produces a fictional character named Mr. Query, who generates the debate and discussions around adolescent and youth issues in Bangladesh. It’s commendable how there are an increasing number of shows that embody entertainment nowadays since in light of the Covid-19 crisis, kids wouldn’t be able to directly learn from their own classrooms. Which is why these educational shows serve as a supplementary to children.

Social mobilization is defined as “the process of bringing together all societal and personal influences to raise awareness of and demand for health care, assist in the delivery of resources and services, and cultivate sustainable individual and community involvement.” To further explain, an example would be the government’s efforts to work with civil society. Through their use of media platforms, they are able to engage a wider range of people in terms of decision making processes related to health and sustainable development.

The section also talks about how the second methodological school is dynamically constructed by practitioners and academics working in different sectors and disciplines of development and social change.In addition to this, the methodology centralizes the normative concepts and gives importance to the processes of participation, empowerment, equity and democratization. “This field often uses the terms knowledge management, knowledge sharing, and co-creation in referring to the role of knowledge and interaction in communication processes”. Knowledge management is a “systematic management of an organization's knowledge assets for the purpose of creating value and meeting tactical & strategic requirements; it consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge.” An example of this would be that of a group of individuals put together working collaboratively on a project. Afterwards, said group will then create systems wherein information may be collected,shared and analyzed by all. On the other hand, knowledge sharing is the "process where individuals mutually exchange their implicit (tacit) and explicit knowledge to create new knowledge". To further illustrate this, an example would have to be people brainstorming and merging ideas in order to create new and better ideas,principles and systems.

3.2.4 Methods, Techniques, and Tools

Glossary

Appreciative inquiry * Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a strengths-based, positive approach to leadership development and organizational change.

* While many traditional methods begin by focusing on pitfalls and problems, Appreciative Inquiry asks people to explore strengths and successes that already exist, both internally and externally. * Appreciative Inquiry has been used to find common ground around topics of global importance, to shape the direction of nonprofits and NGOs, and to form multi-national initiatives that span geography and industries. World cafe * Easy to use method for network and collaborative dialogue. It is set up through: * Seating people in a small, cafe style table (conversation cluster) * Set up progressive three rounds (minimum) of short conversations lasting approximately 20 minutes each * Participants are encouraged to write, doodle and draw key ideas on their tablecloths (and/ or note key ideas on large index cards or placemats in the center of the table).

Open space method * Originated in 1983, when Harrison Owen observed during a conference he had organized that most of the meaningful conversations and active learning seemed to take place outside of the formal presentations. * "Open Space works best when the work to be done is complex, the people and ideas involved are diverse, the passion for resolution (and potential for conflict) are high, and the time to get it done was yesterday. It's been called passion bounded by responsibility, the energy of a good coffee break, intentional self-organization, spirit at work, chaos and creativity, evolution in organization, and a simple, powerful way to get people and organizations moving -- when and where it's needed most. * OST [Open Space Technology] events can last from a few hours to a maximum of three days and can involve from 5 to more than 2,000 participants.

Brown-bag lunch gatherings * A brown bag lunch is a lunchtime gathering for sharing new ideas or recent developments (e.g. new research, significant events or experiences) on a topic of interest. It can also be an occasion for getting feedback on a new idea or proposal. The presenter may be a colleague or an external expert. Participation is usually open to anyone within an organization, and attendance is optional. Brown bag lunch presentations are usually informal, though they may use slides. Attendees bring their own lunch hence the name. (UNICEF, n.d.)

Knowledge fairs * Knowledge fairs are face to face events in which participants set up displays to share their undertakings. Knowledge Fairs can be internal to an organization or open to partners and the public. * Think of it like a high school Science fair but for academics or organizations

Mind-mapping exercises * It is a visual representation of all the relevant information you need to adopt centered around the main idea. * The visual aid created during a mind-mapping exercise can help you to organize new information as it correlates to a new central concept. * Mind mapping enables meaningful learning, which occurs when you retain new knowledge by connecting it to existing knowledge.

Digital storytelling * A digital story is a multimedia presentation combining a variety of digital elements within a narrative structure (a story). Media may include text, images, video, audio, social media elements (e.g. Tweets) and interactive elements (e.g. digital maps). * Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between 2 and 10 minutes. * Like in traditional stories, any topic can be discussed by means of digital storytelling * The beauty of this form of digital expression, he [Meadows] maintained, is that these stories can be created by people everywhere, on any subject, and shared electronically all over the world. (Meadows in University of Houston Education, n.d.) * Digital storytelling is not a new practice as Joe Lamberts and his organization, Center for Digital Storytelling, have been doing so since the early 1990s

Film and participatory video * Participatory Video is a set of techniques to involve a group or community in shaping and creating their own film. (Lunch, C. & Lunch, N, 2006) * The film-making process can enable participants to take action to solve their own problems, or to communicate their needs and ideas to decision-makers. (Participation Research CLuster, n.d.) * PV [Participatory Video] can be a highly effective tool to engage and mobilize marginalized people and to help them implement their own forms of sustainable development based on local needs. (Lunch, C. & Lunch, N, 2006)

Qualitative and participatory research methods are quickly gaining popularity as opposed to traditional methods such as communication campaigns, surveys, and social marketing techniques. This change in preference of gathering information, mirrors the shift from a traditional to a more modern, technologically reliant society. As Servaes observed, “it shifted from using tele centers and information kiosks to using mobile phones.” Information gathered through qualitative and participatory methods can be quickly disseminated with the help of information technology. Servaes acknowledges that data gathering is no longer limited to pen and paper, “This diffusion provides a huge potential for development intervention and social change activities.”

There is now a shift to more relaxed, informal methods to gather data for development interventions. One such new participatory research method is what is called the World Cafe method. The World Cafe method effectively facilitates dialogue between large groups. The requirements for this method are simple: an open space, small cafe style tables, and groups of four to five people for more intimate conversations. Sandy Heierbacher the Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) praises the method saying, “The World Café is a simple, brilliant, beautiful process that enables large groups of people to build collective knowledge about the issues that are important to them.”

Another more relaxed technique is the brown bag lunch gathering method. This method only requires a presenter, projector (optional), slides (optional), 25 participants or less, a table that can fit the participants, and a time limit of 45 minutes (UNICEF, 2020). The only mandatory requirement is to bring your own lunch, hence the name. UNICEF is a proponent of this method as it is a quick, informal, and cost-efficient way to share new ideas, update groups on developments, or collect feedback.

A more structured approach would be the knowledge fair method. On a forum for Aid Competence, a commenter by the name of Jan Somers wrote, “A knowledge fair gives a forum, a voice, a recognition of experiences and efforts. It creates a joint feeling regarding certain challenges communities are facing. It even gives an opportunity to celebrate.” An example of a knowledge fair would be this Local Knowledge Fair in Khulna Hub, Bangladesh hosted in 2012 on. The caption of the photos of the knowledge fair read: “60 farmers from 16 villages joined the Knowledge Fair to share their dreams, concerns, strengths and action plans related to the Aquatic Agricultural System in their areas.”

Face to face interactions are sometimes not possible as illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Thus, alternative data gathering methods such as mind-mapping exercises, digital storytelling, and film and participatory video are employed.

Mind-mapping is a visually stimulating, graphic representation of concepts. Mind maps combine words, drawings, colors. Information is divided into different “branches” of related concepts. Mind mapping is illustrated through the photograph courtesy of The Institute of You below:

On the other hand, participatory video involves allowing participants to submit videos that they filmed themselves in order to tell the story from their perspective. The participants become the directors of the video project. Participatory video is better illustrated through the clip below:

Participatory video can be classified as a digital storytelling method. Digital storytelling employs methods such as blogs, social media, and film to disseminate information, tell stories, and deliver information quickly through non-traditional means.

3.2.5 Advocacy and Impact Assessment

Glossary

Advocacy Communication * advocacy communication is a key action term in development discourse

Advocacy * a very specific communication process that aims to bring about change in governance and policies * persuasion and targets to influence the specific audience of decision-makers. * A decision-making process that has the assent of the community as a whole. In * speaking and/or acting on behalf of people to secure the services they need and the rights to which they are entitled

Media * the main means of mass communication

Networking * the process of interacting with others to develop or gain social contacts

Monitoring * the systematic process of collecting, analyzing and using information to track a program’s progress toward reaching its objectives and to guide management decisions.

Evaluation * the systematic assessment of an activity, project, program, strategy, policy, topic, theme, sector, operational area or institution’s performance.

Impact Assessment * measuring the effectiveness of organizational activities and judging the significance of changes brought about by those activities * Involves establishing the theory of change

Quotable Quotes

“Media must be activated to build public support and upward pressure for policy decisions.”

“Interest groups must be involved and alliances established for reaching a common understanding and mobilizing societal forces. This calls for networking with influential individuals and groups, political forces and public organizations, professional and academic institutions, religious- and cause-oriented groups, and business and industry.”

“Public demand must be generated and citizens’ movements activated to evoke a response from national leaders.”

“Advocacy aims to ensure that people’s opinions, wishes or needs are expressed and listened to. (Suffolk County Council 2008).”

“In one way or the other, we need to assess the impact of development (communication) interventions.”

Examples to Understand the Section

Servaes and Lie discussed the different concepts that tackle communicating an advocacy and assessing its impact.

One basic way into understanding an advocacy is to take a glimpse of the 67 organizations and student-groups in Ateneo.The organizations are divided into the following clusters: (1) analysis and discourse cluster (2) business cluster (3) confederation of publications (4) faith formation cluster (5) health and environment cluster (6) intercultural relations cluster (7) media and the creative arts cluster (8) performing arts cluster (9) sector-based cluster (10) science and technology cluster. Each organization has their shared vision and unique core competencies that highlights the diversity of their own community. These organizations create projects and initiatives that are centered around their advocacies.

Though on a larger scale, the terms discussed by Servaes and Lie in this chapter have been widely used and applied in the development field wherein advocacy-based projects and impact assessments are essential. To fully understand the concepts of evaluation and monitoring, one must look into the project management cycle first. It is a process that consists of chains and links that connects every phase which includes the (1) pre-investment phase (project concept, definition, feasibility, approval) (2) investment phase (project design, implementation) and finally the (3) post-investment phase (project operation and evaluation) It is very critical to evaluate and monitor each output and outcome of the project and identify the critical variations of the plan by the final stage.

Servaes and Lie emphasized the “need to assess the impact of development interventions.” The impact assessment should be done in the post-investment stage of the project. Development managers should undergo an in-depth evaluation to gather all the necessary data needed and assess the overall contribution of the project to the country’s development. Impact assessments help development managers redirect the focus towards development interventions that prioritize improving the conditions of vulnerable communities. Given the complexity of the problems that each country faces, these interventions should be able to offer people-centered solutions while catering to the needs of the stakeholders involved.

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shadowporcupine · 7 years

Text

Eras don’t have an attitude.

Time travelers have an attitude towards eras.

It’s actually amazing how many problems in the world trace back to people trying to think like time travelers. I noticed awhile ago that lots of people seem to think we should be “further along” than we are now, in the apparent progression of the human condition. Obviously all the things we want to think we’re capable of aren’t actually things we’re capable of yet, or we’d have done them by now. Bills, jobs, time to interact. Whatever it is in life that stops us from contributing to that evolution, stops us. History couldn’t have happened any sooner than it did, and our concept of privilege is nonsense. Every moment in history is the most complex moment in history. Everything we do leads to the social processes and social progress that ultimately makes the world a better place for future generations. Every step in the process has to occur, or you end up with equality and resource gaps that send us right back to our worst natures and revive the perils of their corresponding time periods.

What is wrong with us? Where does this tendency to see a complex multiphasic global process as a singular polity that's somehow supposed to be able to intercommunicate optimally with all its disparate inner parts come from? No government in the history of time has ever had that quality. No religions has ever been nearly that consistent. No ideal has ever been set up to embrace the idea that you can’t treat us all as one singular optimal omnipolity. Everything and everyone seems to want to treat us all as one thing, when it’s obvious, at least in retrospect, that we aren’t.

But that’s exactly where that type of thought process comes from: The future. A retrospective analysis of history. It’s too large and too complex to just teach it how it really is, so we end up writing short executive overviews that end up assuming history somehow is a conscious and intentional process on the part of all the peoples of all moments of the past. Maybe there’s a causality to this. Maybe there’s a right way to learn about remote regions that has been universally corrupted in the human psyche. Except I know it hasn’t.

Rumors of native tribes that have a word in their language for the mental illness of the white man are enough. Even if the rumors were pure fabrication, it’s conceptible. Many Western philosophers have noted a profound sickness in modern man, or perceived society. The idea that there’s something wrong with us on a level we can’t quite perceive is by no means a new one. But it’s more than that. I can see it. I can see the causality of our bias, where it’s thickest, why it happens. Who wants it the most. It’s visible, apparent, obvious, and uniquely Western. It’s the reason we fought against the rise of Communism and the Nazis. We perceive agency whether it’s there or not.

The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao, but anything that can think can be given a name, and we can imagine that anything can be made to think.

Even now my language tends in an agent direction; the patterns and agency we see in history are difficult to discuss in terms of pure philosophy. A true discussion would necessitate bringing up all the intimate details of the peoples of the times thus criticized, and I legitimately believe that people can’t process the applied logic of Communism without turning dictatorial and controlling in all the regular abusive ways. If this is the cost of living together, if your willingness to go to war over mere ideals is so high, then maybe that’s not a cost I want to pay. (And before you ask; no. I won’t seek refuge from the perils of human life in any human religion.) I mean it’s a good idea; the people who actually perform the labor should be recognized as the true owners of the means of production. Up to a point. Everything changes when the factory produces weapons. Now it doesn’t seem like such a bright idea for one type of worker to own the means of production and its corresponding military might. We go to war, half of us, for that exact reason: To stop weapons factories from spreading the ideals of the people holding the weapons.

There’s something I like to do with dystopias. I like to immerse myself in these hypothetical worlds and ask myself what I’d do to change it, if it really is not to my liking. (ie., if my ideals are actually real and could even apply to such a world.) In this instance, if I were forced to work at a weapons factory, I’d sooner die than create a weapon for someone else. Simple. I wouldn’t want to exist in such a world, so if that world wants to reject my existence from within it, then everyone is happy. This is not to say that there aren’t valid reasons I would make a weapon or could be made to participate in that process voluntarily, but I would never blindly produce something without some inkling of understanding about how it’ll eventually be used. In the end I always have sole control over the shape of the cog I’d take in any given system. The world being able to function without me is a feature, not a bug.

It seems as if abstract, but it really isn’t. There are people out there who would want me to be a weapons manufacturer or designer. I’m sure they would do anything in their power to get me on their side, but it all ultimately comes down to that: They don’t have any real power. Short of mind control, you can’t force me to pick a side. I’ll always search for the peaceful resolution, the chance to talk to the right people to get our differences straightened out in a mutually beneficial manner. Everyone else might feel like picking a side is the easiest thing in the world, (or else the easiest thing in human society) but I can’t. Give me access to the right people and I’m sure I can make them feel like picking the side they’re currently on is the hardest thing in the world.

I don’t want to have to talk everyone down, but more to the point: I don’t have that power. I can only wield my command of absolute neutrality, and spread it like a virus to the people around me. Anything else makes me a murderer by proxy, at least by my own standards. But that’s not realistic. (I’m lying; it really is. Beware my all-consuming neutrality. It’s coming.) The world is entitled to its own cultural premises and ideals, and that’s ultimately what I love about it. It’s not the best thing to acknowledge, but if we mean to examine history in its actual context, it must be accepted at all times. Anything else invokes executive bias.

I seek to divide myself from the equation wherever possible, but many times I find that I just can’t. I’m human, same as anyone else, and ultimately I write these posts for a reason. But an analysis of history shouldn’t be some personal essay on how I live my life among other people. Or maybe that’s exactly what it needs to be, to be relatable or relevant or emotionally charged. Something that makes it bind in the mind and will never be forgotten once it’s heard.

It’s awful, it really is. I can’t stand the fact that I have to make this decision. I’m writing this for the sake of all humanity, or all cultures, at all times and all places. I want to believe in humanity, but it scares me. It’s potential for evil, as well as its penchant for causing evil while seeking what it considers “good.” The only constant in all of this is that the larger a group of people becomes, the more dilute its capacity to practice its principles without becoming hypocritical and betraying its most basic values. Even Confucius stop saying things eventually. It’s my decision to make, what I’ll say, what impact I want to try to have. I know this essay will have an effect, but to what degree? And most importantly, why?

I can’t decide to speak out because I believe in humanity. That’s not good enough. Whatever scale my ideals grow to, that’s not enough. I’ll have to look the crying wives in their eyes as they curse my name over their dying children. The impact my words can have cannot be overlooked. My decision isn’t to have an influence, but to delegate and defer the decision itself; I write what I write so that you may use it however you wish. For whatever good or evil cultural means you people seek to seek. I will expose my knowledge and perspective to the world only in that I recognize that it was the world’s decision to make, not my own. What evils and weapons I spawn by my pen, I take responsibility for only in recognizing that it was not my responsibility to control everyone’s perception of history. Then, only then, can I look her dying child in the eyes and say, “This was my fault.” Because I’m only human. As human as the rest.

I guess this is what I takes to overcome that bias. I, as you will, have to accept all that has come before and all that will come after. I cannot consider it my place to judge the peoples and cultures of the world as worthy or unworthy, or evil or good, or misguided or competent. Each person has that power of decision on their own, apart from what I do or influence, and my sole capacity is to ensure with maximum clarity that you will be able to see those decisions and their corresponding actions in their true context. Their real context.

I’ve decided, I want to see that. I want to see the world where our perception of history becomes uncolored, and all the good and evil and perils that follow from it. I want to see the world though non-executive eyes, as it comes to see itself through non-executive eyes. I want to see the world where everything happens because the people doing the things they did were informed and aware. I want to see the truth of human nature, not this cloudy, polluted atmosphere of agent bias. I want to see humanity in all its complexity, whether its nature is diluted or compounded by my message. I want to have seen and known how it all played out in the end. I want to see history.

I want to see the anger, bitterness and hatred, sorrow and pain in your eyes when you reach for that weapon after the last breath of life leaves your child’s body.

If that were the truth.

No, it’s all so twisted. That’s really just my ideal. No, the truth of this world is that you’ll send your sons off to war because they welcome it. You’ll grieve for your daughters, but honor your sons. Whatever politician misspoke, whoever is responsible for starting it, whoever felt slighted or outcast. All the authors with all their pens, none will be held accountable. You’ll never see the pain. I’ll, never see your pain. It is all taken for granted, and when it’s taken from you, that, too, is taken for granted. The sorrow of the world is in never seeing what you’ve done to it.

The truth is, I haven’t killed anyone. I won’t be held responsible. Whatever I did, even if I were to confess my sins to you, you either wouldn’t understand or would readily forgive me because my blame, my fault is so low in comparison to all the others who had a hand in what happened. You grieve for both, but you honor your sons because it is perceived that your daughters didn’t need to volunteer to fight alongside them. I would have you not have to grieve, if I could, if I had so much power, but I can’t, I don’t. Your choice, their choice, all choices, are their own. I can’t choose for everyone, near as I often wish I could.

We’re all accountable, so none of us are. We’re all human, so none of us are. We all have so much to offer, so none of us can. We all have everything we need, so we need for nothing. While others starve. Because we’re not all in this together, and our poetry itself becomes a weapon. Skewing our perception in hopes of a unity we can never reach. I am not responsible, much as the Basilisks of the world would hope to some day hold me to.

It is by my own profession that I say: That’s not good enough.

Eras do not have an attitude; time travelers have attitudes toward eras.

How much does your attitude color your perspective? How much does your perspective color your attitude? How much of your attitude reflects in those who do not understand how your perspective is colored? How much of the attitude your observe is your own perspective colored back at you? How much color, can you really see?

I am a time traveler, but not the kind everyone wants me to be. I travel history in a purely observational sense; I look, without transmitting. I see, withing visiting. I know, without watching. I observe in my mind, in ways that would sooner sever the soul than acknowledge what really exists. I see through introspection, through what I would or could become, in another time and place, and what kind of person really exists there.

But you can’t see me, see me.

See me, seeing you.

The time travel I do can never be observed, unless I choose to speak about it. Only I can record my observations, because only I can see inside my mind. Only I can see into my soul.

But that you would listen.

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vonbeetzen · 5 years

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SUCCESS FACTORS FOR PLATFORMS

Creating a gravitating platform with millions of users is still one of the most attractive business propositions in the tech industry, but as Matthew put it centuries ago; “For many are called, but few are chosen”. So, what does it take to make the grade of creating a successful platform business? And what separates the good from the great? Some of the most successful tech companies are platforms. It´s probably not a coincidence that three of the “big four” are platforms and even Apple has a substantial part of their revenue coming from platforms like AppStore, iTunes and Apple Tv. Facebook, Google and Amazon of course have non-platform business areas as well, but the core of their business is their platforms. The five factors Being in the platform business myself, as CPO for the ID platform Freja eID, I´ve given this topic quite a lot of thought, both from the product perspective but also from an investors point of view. So, if you are aspiring to build a platform business or looking into investing in one, here are five factors to evaluate in order to assess the potential. 1. Stickiness Stickiness is basically about two things; user retention and frequency. To make a very far-fetched example, the e-service at the Tax Authority is extremely sticky on the retention side – I´m forced by law to hand in my tax return once a year – but five minutes once a year does not score very high on frequency. User retention can be created either by a high degree of either relevance or reward. Google is probably the most obvious example of relevance; the service solves the problem of finding information better than anyone else. Facebook is much less of a relevant utility in that sense. Yes, your life would probably be a bit more boring without the social network but you´d still be able to connect with your friends or find news. But the dopamine reward you get from getting a bunch of likes or from discovering something interesting while scrolling the feed keeps you coming back for more. Frequency is about the total time the user spends on a service. This can be achieved by either many short sessions – like Google - fewer longer sessions – like Facebook - or both. Snapchat has tuned every inch of their UX around frequency, most notably with their streaks feature where you build a score by snapping at least once a day with a particular friend. If you miss just one day, your streak falls. Services like Pinterest and Instagram are building heavily on dopamine rewards by the way they present images and stories in the bottomless scroll feature. 2. Positive interaction A platform needs to have a value proposition for both sides and what you should be looking for is a positive interaction between the two. In a platform like AirBnB, both sides benefit from the total growth; each host that joins the platform adds a value to the tenants and each tenant that joins adds a value to the host. Facebook on the other hand has a negative interaction. The more users that join the platform is extremely beneficial for the other side, the advertisers. However, from a user’s point of view if the four million advertisers that are currently using Facebook increase to five million, it is not necessarily adding to a positive user experience. It´s more likely that the opposite is true. 3. Margin There is a general assumption that all platforms are extremely profitable by default, as long as they are digitally scalable. But when you look into the details you will discover that there are huge differences in the potential profitability for different platforms. Spotify is as much of a poster boy in digital disruption as it gets. The current market cap of 28 billion dollars assumes that there is a lot of money to me made here. Still Spotify has, with few exceptions, been losing money quarter after quarter since its inception in 2006. The losses accumulate to billions of dollars. And when you crunch the numbers it not very surprising. For each dollar in revenue that Spotify generates, 75 cents walks straight out the door to the record labels and artists. A 25% gross margin is not very impressive in any digital business and obviously not enough to make Spotify profitable. Google on the other hand has a close to 100% gross margin. So, if you click on an ad word like “Casino” you would generate 55 dollars in revenue for Google, where pretty much all stays within the company. For Spotify to generate 55 dollars in gross revenue, you would have to pay a premium subscription for about two years. This is not black or white and if you are looking at a low margin business, you should investigate whether there are ways to increase the margins. Netflix, that basically has the same model as Spotify, shows gross margins of around 35%. Why? If you wonder why they push their “Netflix Original”-content so hard, you´ll find the answer; owning the content adds hugely to the bottom line. My personal guess is that Spotify´s move towards podcasts is a strategic move along the same lines; I would not be surprised if the rev-share to podcasters are substantially lower than to record labels. 4. Moats The fact that many of the businesses in the digital era is characterized by a winner-takes-all evolution does not mean that the winner takes it all for ever. Before Facebook there was a Swedish social network called LunarStorm that had a close to 100% penetration among teenagers in Sweden. When Facebook came, they lacked moats to keep the competition at bay – in their case the predominant reason being the focus on Swedish users. In general, having a dominance in terms of users is a pretty effective moat. For me to change from Facebook to a competing network would mean that the network would need to convince all my friends to move as well, in order for them to be on par with Facebook. Product excellence is an effective way to keep competitors at bay. Google taking over the search market and keeping the leadership is all about product superiority. Forming habits is another moat building on our human aversion of change. I know that my bank is not offering me as good a service as many competing banks, but I´m just too tied in to my habits to do something about it. In a sense, stickiness and moats are two sides of the same coin. Dependency is a great example. As long as we are using Skype within our company for video calls, I will keep it, whether I like it or not. On the other hand, as soon as IT decides to change to some other service, the moat will instantly dry out. A very rigid moat is regulatory compliance. The reason why you don’t see competitors to MasterCard and Visa making a run for their margins is regulations. Becoming PCI/DSS compliant is no trivial thing and if you add the obstacle of integration with payment terminals on a global scale you´ll find that the two giants have created a pretty deep moat. 5. Scalability Discussing scalability in tech without separating China from the equation is like discussing Einstein´s general relativity without separating it from quantum physics. Google ticks off more points on the platform scoreboard than any other company, including the scalability factor – if we disregard the blocking from China. However, China is not the only country that limits the space for platforms based on regulation and – just like quantum physics – we will just have to live with regulations even if we do not understand them. So, if we focus on the observable tech universe there are some interesting factors underpinning the overall scalability of a platform. The first one is physical limitations. A platform like Uber cannot offer more ride services than there are individuals prepared to be an Uber driver in a certain geography. The Same thing goes with AirBnB; the number of hosts are limited to those individuals who are willing to sublet their home to strangers. Disregarding regulatory constraints, platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat – where the content is co-created by the users – are scalable without constraints. The only limiting factor is the number of users with a smartphone. However, the revenue side of the business has constraints as there is likely a limit for any user on the amount of targeted advertising he or she can cope with. A service like Netflix does not face these limitations, not even factoring in the current cultural constraints, where the content of today is aimed at a predominant western audience. Finding the opportunity Applying the factors above to an investment or to your start-up is a good guidance to assess the basic platform qualities of a business. Obviously there are much more to factor in to make a fair evaluation of the company´s potential, such as management skills, market potential and funding. Of course, factors can change over time. Today Google is one of the most profitable companies in the world but in the beginning they struggled to find a source of revenue. It was not until they introduced AdWords in 2000, two years after the company´s inception, that they figured out how to make money. This is an important lesson in terms of the approach you will need to hace when starting or investing in a platform; you need patience. As opposed to, lets say a software company where you can genereate revenue from the first day you ship your product, a platform can only start generating revenue when a critical mass of players on each side has been established. This means that platform busniesses normally need a longer runway to take off. On the other had the potential gain is enormous if you manage to create a digtially scalable platform with a critical mass on both sides. And to find that potential, the five factors is a pretty good place to start.

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