The Writing Is Done, The Umbrella Project Has Begun

     I have finally published the Do Better manifesto as a manual for community organizers looking for a long term plan that they can modify for their own communities, and use to work together with other projects and communities to help build a unified movement for the Common Good.
     The book,  Project Do Better: Enough For All, in Four Phases, comes in various sizes of PDF, as an epub, and as a mobi file from the stores that would allow me to set the price to Free, meaning that Amazon and the library systems, which require a minimum price well above that, did not allow me to publish through them.  Note that I personally prefer the ePub, since most PDF readers on the phone are not capable of showing the thumbnails or bookmarks that bring up the left hand side Table of Contents in the published PDF, so if reading it on a mobile phone without an eBook Reader, one may prefer the draft 9 pdf, which has the Table of Contents inside the document (but it looks much better using the left side tab, in a desktop PDF reader).  I can download and send about 20 different sizes of PDF if needed, and copies are currently available:
    Draft2Digital says that the distribution will shortly also include Smashwords, so that should also make the epub and mobi versions more easily accessible in a few months or so.
    I still need a logo for the project, and help with getting the word out about this project, from all willing hands.  I plan to start sending a copy of the book to each person cited in the notes, page by page, and then to look for communities and organizers who might be interested in collaborating with the project, or using the book as a starting point for their own long term planning.  I will happily send the editable version of this book to communities wishing to modify it and publish their own versions of this plan.
Thoughts, Fellow Writers?
Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

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Project Do Better: A Call for Helping Hands

    Project Do Better works  to create a society where every child is safe, and that is more fully inclusive for all of us. 

       Feedback and  Reviewers needed on the community manual for Project Do Better

     Project Do Better presents a vision of a world in which we all work toward a full safety net, and a better tomorrow, for all of us. 

   I have a request to make:

   I believe that planning ahead is a good idea, so:

 

  We need, still,  a  central portal set up for the project.

Oh, and a logo, please, although a friend of a friend may be working on this, not verified yet.

   The sections, of the Do Better book were posted every Wondering Wednesday,  seek  to build up a Community of Interest around this vision to both share the idea, and eventually also help to share the work, as this project will obviously be inter-generational. I’ve tried to explain the entire idea in the post for the Preface to this book, which several readers found helpful in clarifying my idea.  I am  seeking other Willing Workers On Our Future, hopefully younger than I am, who wish to take up the baton.

So, any sort of way that anyone would like to participate is great, from

1. simply liking and commenting on these posts, to

2. re-posting or otherwise sharing any Project Do Better posts,  to

3. posting your own publications on The Educational Round Robin blog, if you wish, and I can give you publishing authority to do this, as I’ve already given others, to

4. actively collaborating on  the project detailed in the book, or even just reviewing the manual in places like GoodReads, or even on The Archive, as there are many areas to subdivide, between now and the next 60 years, and many hands will be needed.

 

   So, in terms of what you can do, there are as many ways to contribute to this work as there are individuals with their own callings to read and share, to write, to draw, to teach, to build, etc! 

   In terms of being a part of what works to make the world a more just place, certainly there are many ways. What is essential to hold on to is the idea that there is more than just the one song, strike, campaign, movement, or even decade: each action that we take must be tied to a larger picture, so that that movement will keep generating progress for the whole, and to remember that there is always a next step to take.

 

Action Prompts:

1.) Share  your thoughts on how this project  could be improved, in the comments, here, please.  Consider sharing some ideas you may have on how our society can solve homelessness and child abuse, starting right now.

2.) Share your thoughts on how we can build empathy in our society today

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

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Click here to read, if you like:

Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows,  Lupin, or Money Heist

Holistic High School Lessons,

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better.

Shira

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Repost of Review of A Free Man of Color and His Hotel: Race, Reconstruction, and the Role of the Federal Government, Plus A Rant

Found lots of new notes on this book, so am reposting the updated post, which incorporates a few explanatory links as well… -Shira

Context, Critical Thinking, Continuous Learning: Project Do Better

     This might become more of a rant, but I doubt it.  This book needs more circulation, and Black History needs more attention.  See the book review first (for which I just found my reading notes in my old Research notebook, and have updated the post, May, 2023…):

A Free Man of Color and His Hotel: Race, Reconstruction, and the Role of the Federal GovernmentA Free Man of Color and His Hotel: Race, Reconstruction, and the Role of the Federal Government by Carol Gelderman 

     Here is yet another important book on Black History in DC that I read in 2010, but neglected to review, in the rush to leave DC, and then finish editing Stayed on Freedom’s Call (linked to below, in the .sig…). Gelderman’s book (of which I seem to recall confusing at first with another book carrying a title like ‘The Wormley Hotel’ or such, which likely explains the long title without Wormley’s name for this book…) details the success of…

View original post 649 more words

Review of Madhuri Blaylock’s The Girl (on Day 64…)

The Girl teaches us in a different way than the lesson plan for day 64 does. From the stars, to the depths, but we do learn. The protagonist, a hybrid from the poorest district in India, begins and ends very well. In between, she tells us how inter-generational commitment to shared ideals outweighs, but is affected by, historical differences. Opposing communities use open communication (telepathy helps force the issue), positive action, and common ideals to confront oppression.

While there are areas where the writing is a bit confusing, the ideas ring true, and the reader is drawn into a conflict where a young woman must find herself, and lead others in the fight. A refreshing turnabout. I look forward to reading the sequel.

Excellent opening. Reads like YA.

page 132

33.0%”Good point wrt strong women leaders: “she was an Academy Head. If she could
not have a warrior sent out on a mission without worrying about his or her well-being,
then she needed to resign her post.””

September 7, 2014 –

page 132

33.0%”Nice working in of Zora Neale Hurston.”

page 241

60.25%””Constantly defying us at every turn, with their
equality-for-all nonsense.” -a bit over the top, King Arthur dissintegration style, but good sentiments…”

page 251

62.75%”Very nice internal conflict: “how could she feel bad for causing pain to a
member of the same group that killed her family””

page 308

77.0%”Nice social commentary: “Dev was right; he was trying to protect her. Replace Dev with Ryker and they would be
sitting side-by-side, sharing ideas and strategizing together. Instead here he was, trying
to hide the truth from her, doing exactly what he swore he would not.””

September 7, 2014 –

page 334

83.5%”Another nicely worked in reference: “One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez””

page 369

92.25%”The question I, seen as “mixed” or metis by most people, have always asked: “why
did they do this? And by this, I mean me. I want you to tell me exactly why they made
me.”

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this book, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli AnnemLupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

Fellow  Readers, please consider reading and then telling other readers about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

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Book Notes, & Embarrassing Myself With A Poem

     From my research notebook!  Apparently jotted down in 2010 as I took notes for the DC Black-Jewish cooperation tours I was creating.

My mouth longs to glide

over poem and song.

To wrap my tongue

around each word.

To caress the hips

of every letter.

To kiss the liquid sounds

savoring each syllable.

     What I found in my research notes, btw, was interesting, but I have no where to put this interesting bit of information that is too small to write up as an article, given that I don’t even know whether or not I finished reading this book:   “On P.  5 of his 2005 book Creating Diversity Capital: Transnational Migrants in Montreal, Washington, and Kyiv, Blair Ruble mentions something that he calls  “Pragmatic Pluralism” and says that every city needs to have a large  tolerance for diversity, which expands that city’s ability to adapt to the changing world”  Shira

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

 Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Overscheduling on SoL Saturdays

    Today is SoL Saturday, for remembering to share freely on what a Statute of Limitations is, and how to find them, especially the debt related SoLs, for your state, District, or  territory.  Reminder done.   Now to today’s post:  The featured image for today is a calendar that I drew up several years ago, hoping to fix in my mind all of the various major calendars (Islamic, Hebrew, and Gregorian) together with the Holocene Calendar.   Maybe this was planning a bit too much to do in too little time, without leaving space for the larger picture… This calendar was meant to help me schedule in all of my daily tasks, back in 2018 and over that next year and a half, to remember to work up to starting to learn to read ancient farsi or Persian (so that I could read Rumi), after writing my second novel, by the end of 2019.  Now, I see that that was just a little bit overly detailed, and also lacking in allowance for suddenly being knocked in the head by another important idea, like that of #ProjectDoBetter.    cropped-dobettercover.jpg

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

or

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

     Thoughtful Calendar lovers, please consider making time to read and share your thoughts about Project Do Better.  This work is my personal way of helping (as one friend said we should all do, back in 2009) to build tools that other people can use to help each other make a better life for all of us on this little blue planet.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

also known as:

ShiraDest

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Finally, a Glimmer of Global Health Light

    This spark needs to be fanned into a global health care flame of hope for all of us, through learning, and through persistent caring about all of us:

“This is a long overdue technology”

From NPR, by Fran Kritz

   Indeed, it is long overdue.  With no need for cold storage, medical bio hazard waste or the sharps disposal infrastructure needed, not to mention the trained medical staff, needed to deliver vaccines via shots, and no clean water for rendering the concentrate into individual doses (which I had never read about until now, and that requires even further training and staff time…), and no wasted doses.  Why has this not been done far, far earlier?  Yes, I know that the big pharmaceuticals and other groups benefit from costly supply chains, need for electricity, transportation requirements, and even from the wasted doses, but really, people, where is the humanity of all of those few who benefit from the suffering of so many?  If enough citizens of countries which are supposed to be governed by the consent of those citizens would make enough noise, and also be willing to sacrifice enough of their own over use and excess wealth, then this would not be a difficult problem to solve.  If enough of us had the sense of solidarity, the willingness to walk, and the empathy to put ourselves into the shoes of the ‘other’ who suffers, we could easily do so much better.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here for:

Learning through story:

and here, for

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

     Empathetic Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBettercropped-dobettercover.jpg   Please help me share the work of this project.

Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ruth’s Holiday (Shavuot): Some Thoughts on Accepting Laws

     The Jewish holiday that started last night, Shavuot, or Weeks, commemorates the acceptance by the Children of Israel of the Law of Moses.  Without laws and the rule of law being accepted by people, there can be no life in community or as a society.  Of course, that acceptance is based in the idea that laws will be applied equally to every person in our society.  Some thoughts  on Building Community and Intergenerational Participation from a class I gave just about ten years ago, back in DC : Shavuot (Pentacost) as one of four Biblical pillars of building community.

My books on community cooperation, past and possible, via Stayed on Freedom’s Call…

This original post about Hillel, Gandhi, Harry Potter, and a few characters from Sihirli Annem (show reviews linked to just below…), was originally published on September 10th, 12017 HE, and then updated in in 2022 CE/12022 HE… 

We can Do Better

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Click here for ideas on learning and teaching in other ways:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The ProtectorSihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil


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A Language Too Far For The Bus Stop?

One Language Too Many?

So, as you can see, I started off taking my notes in Spanish, as I often think in Spanish, but “Como” does not mesh with “quatr-vans” in most cases, even if como sounds like comment (fr), and I have no recollection of why I made that comment(en)

Greek will have to wait a few months for me to post some of my notes, but many thanks to Juanjo Fantoso for his free video series on learning Greek in Castillian (European) Spanish, which is much easier to learn from Castillian Spanish than from English.

Given the interest readers have expressed over the years, I thought I might share some of my newest language learning journey here on my blog.  Once I have found others to help with Project Do Better, I will rework these notes in my other languages.

Any thoughts, fellow Language Learners, on how your previously learned languages help hook the new material?
More soon,
and

delighted friends having lunch in cafe
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto.

        Hopefully, the empathy that studying languages builds will rub off on others as we work to build a more compassionate world, and to build both the ability to put ourselves in other peoples’ shoes, as well as the caring for and about other people, necessary to make a democratic society actually work as such.  We really can Do Better, everybody.
cropped-dobettercover.jpg
Hoşça kalın!  Saluton!  !Nos Vemos!  Salut !

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The ProtectorSihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing, or even writing a guest blog post here, about #ProjectDoBetter.  Phase I aims to build empathy for public goods (libraries, transit, healthcare, and education) via language study and story, among other tools.

Shira Destinie A.  Jones, MPhil

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Book Review: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

        I was shocked when I saw how bravely Tom stood up to his ‘master’ and refused to obey the order to whip his fellow slave, knowing that the price would inevitably be a painful death. I see that the sacrifice is now-a-days considered to be giving in, but in that context, under those circumstances, his only choices were obey or dis-obey, non-violently or make life even worse for the others and himself. Given those realities, he acted heroically, not as we currently use the phrase ‘an Uncle Tom.’    Note that this is a saying within the Black American community, at least in the (American) South, of which (Washington,) DC is a part of (where I am from), and that many of our families were also part of The Great Migration (I’ll link this to the review of Wilkerson’s excellent book on the topic when I finish it later…).  My mother’s paternal paternal (her father’s paternal side) side arrived from Georgia in the 1920’s, while her maternal side was from central Virginia (Byrd plantation in Goochland county).  Even her paternal maternal side came, originally, from VA, five generations ago.  My father’s side is all from DC, with the Booth’s originally from Port Tobacco, MD, apparently.  So, even though many people think of the DC and Maryland areas as north, it is certainly not, as Maryland was very much a slave state, and even the District, until the Compensated Emancipation by Lincoln (nine months before his Emancipation Proclamation, btw, we were the first, I believe, to be freed, but in the case of Federal City residents, as it was known back then, only if the owner took an oath of loyalty to the Union, and then he was paid 300 dollars per freed slave, if memory serves).  So, remember, there is history of a Peculiar (yes, pun intended) kind wrapped around the term “an Uncle Tom,” for us in the Black Community.

   Obviously, this meticulously researched book provided me with both linguistic background for my wip Who By Fire  whobyfireiwilltmpcover   (in terms of how various classes of people spoke during this period), and with the author’s extensive notes at the back of the copy I borrowed from the DC Public Library, with her annotations responding to contemporary criticisms of her novel with verified incidents and records backing up each and every fact or story particle in her book.  And also answering the complaint from many rich Southerners that “for every one master like that one, there are a hundred good masters.”

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

Shira

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Sihirli Annem (My Magical Mom) s1e25: Secrets Hurt, But Striving Helps

  Last week was bölüm/episode 24 ( Sihirli Annem (My Magical Mom) s1e24: Double Standards For Girls and For Boys? )

 

The summary comes from a fellow blogger (Birgit)’s point of view.

Cilek, the little adopted fairy girl, comes home from Kindergarten with the message that she learned that one does not have secrets from one’s best friends. Therefore, she plans to tell her siblings Cem and Ceren and their father Sadik that she is a fairy.

“In my dream, I confessed to dad and my siblings that I am a Fairy.”

Betüs has a hard time talking her out of it. She explains that getting everything by magic interferes with the human way of life, which is having to strive to fulfill their dreams. Fairies should only use magic to help humans in emergency situations.

At the same time, Tarik is fed up with living in Dudu’s house, as she treats him with despise. He has found a little house near Betüs and Sadik and asks Eda to leave her mother’s place with him.

Sihirli Annem 25 02

We’ve decided to leave Dudu’s house and move to our own home.

They persuade Sadik and Betüs to go for breakfast at Dudu’s house and talk their case, which does not go very well. Dudu is threatening her daughter, but Eda decides to go with Tarik. That leaves Dudu angry but also surprised. She turns Taci into a cow, because she blames him for encouraging the young people.

Avni still wants to prove to his wife that fairies exist. She is desperate and tells him that she wants to divorce him and throws him out of the house in his pajamas. He goes to Sadik’s office, who invites him to stay him them. Betüs does the same with Susan, so that she and Avni meet there.

Dudu is working on a new enchantment that will make Eda leave her husband and return to her mother. When the enchantment kicks in, Eda, Tarik and Betüs are at the café. Eda had just confirmed that she has chosen Tarik, when suddenly she starts crying and wants to go home to her mother. Tarik is disappointed and also angry. But, in the end Dudu doesn’t get it quite like she wanted.

Sihirli Annem 25 03

(I am not alone, Tarik …) [A moment later, Dudu is not smiling anymore … 😉 ]

Tarık also came back.

In the meantime, Cilek tells Betüs that she wants to save the marriage of Avni and Susan with a magic that her grandmother used to do, make them forget what they were fighting about, this would figure as an emergency, wouldn’t it? Betüs allows it and it works.

Sihirli Annem 25 04

Cem, dear, Uncle Avni and I came to visit you all.

Remarks:

I learned early on that it is not advisable to tell anybody everything. I learned to ask myself: Will they be able to understand at all? Will it upset them too much?

My conflict always was to find out whether I was authorized to completely rattle somebody’s world/thinking patters, or if that even was maybe my duty to do so?

With some people it is no use trying though. My elder brother for example (may he rest in peace) would not even try to see things from another person’s perspective. What he didn’t understand was stupid, easy peasy. This is a bit the reaction of people towards Avni’s fairy obsession. They are too afraid of the possibility that fairies might exist, so it must be denied and suppressed, if need be, with violence. I sometimes wonder why Betüs or Perihan don’t delete the fairy memory from his brain, but then this funny element would be missing in the story, won’t it? It seems a bit cruel though. In Avni’s case, with the reactions he gets, I would stop telling other people about the fairies … 😉

     Many thanks to Birgit, of the Stella, oh, Stella blog, for today’s summary.
     My comments are that I agree with Birgit, except that in an earlier episode they actually did wipe Avni’s memory (Perhan did the magic, I believe), but they did not think to wipe Suzan’s memory as well (or they could not, without permission from the Fairy Council, which they got in order to wipe Avni’s mind), and when Suzan refused to believe that Avni had no recollection of Fairies, he went to look, in order to see why she was talking about him looking out the window, and then he saw them, again!!  That second time he figured out that Fairies exist was unwipable, apparently.  I’ll have to go back later to find the episode in which this happens, but I am sure that it was relatively early on.  This is an episode that I recall being struck by when I first saw it, back in 2005, given the damage that keeping secrets can do, especially to young children.  Most of the time, those secrets are the secrets of adults being hung around the necks of the children whom they are abusing (at least in my personal experience).  This is one reason that Project Do Better works hard, especially in Phase II (starting in about 12 years or so, unless communities update the manual for their own communities to start it earlier), to arm kids with weapons for emotional and physical self-defense as well as the financial self-defense tool education begun earlier (now) in Phase I.
     And the most beautiful, for me, moment in this episode is in minute 24 and 25 of the episode, when Betüş explains to Çilek that it is in the striving to accomplish things, as with the time that Çilek took to draw her drawing, rather than making it all appear by magic immediately, that people find fulfillment.  Little Çilek finally understands, through that comparison, why Fairies are only allowed to help humans in the most dire and difficult/impossible of circumstances.  Because, it is in the solving of our problems, through great striving, that we find our meaning.
     We also see, in this episode, how Dudu finally confesses that it is loneliness, or fear of being alone, that drives her to want to keep her daughters at her side.  When she says that no one comes over to eat with her, nor invites her over to eat with them, it hurts.  When Taci has a dig at her for having Umur over, she points out that she has no one else to talk with (since she refuses to treat Taci as a reasonable person).  Her insecurity both drives others away, and causes her own misery, to which others have not responded as kindly as they perhaps could.  What do you think, Kind Readers?
Next week will be blm/ep. 26:   ,
Hoşça kalın!

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The ProtectorSihirli AnnemLupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist, El Ministerio del Tiempo  Reviews,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

     Compassionate Secret-Keepers or Non-Keepers, please tell us what you think about this issue, and then, please consider reading and sharing, or even writing a guest blog post here, about secrets, mind-changing, and planning for different ways of thinking, as  #ProjectDoBetter works to do.  The Project uses story and language learning as one way of changing hearts and minds, in order to increase support for essential public goods (libraries, transit, healthcare, and education).

Shira
Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.