Turkish Tuesdays becomes a tribute to the #GU272 (314 slaves sold south…)

One Jesuit did try to help

–I still maintain that this is One possible use of genealogy for in-kind Reparations: restorative justice.

(and so did the students at GU, when they voted to raise their own fees to pay for an endowment to allow descendants of the Enslaved Persons sold off by G’town University to attend GU for free…)

Here is what I said about the GU272 earlier:

–

FYI for anyone possibly descended from slaves sold by Georgetown University, if this is true: check your genealogy and apply for that (alleged) scholarship!! Details: https://www.wikitree.com/…/are-any-descendants-slaves-sold-… Please see the full article here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/restorative-justice-based-genealogy-creative-ways-help- back on 13 Feb. 12017 HE

–

So, it turns out that students at Georgetown U. voted to pay 27 dollars /semester more, to create a fund to allow descendants of those sold down to LA full scholarships. The University board so far has not seen things in the same way.  More on this if you want to know (please let me know in the comments) and more on my continuing striving with the history of those who “stayed behind” in MD, rather than being sold south by G’town college, as I incorporate this history into my WiP, next time, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different parts of the story of the GU272,

2.) Share your thoughts here,

 

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

Preptober, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Turkish Tuesdays and language learning by tracking words in TV shows via Twitter

—

Here is where I am in my study of spoken Turkish this week, reviewing a bit of the first TV show I became addicted to in Turkish: Sihirli Annem (My Magical Mother).  The original, not the new version from 2011, mind you.  I often write down the words I need to look up, either on paper or on an account I created on Twitter to save dictionary links, in both the target language and in a language I’m already comfortable in, if I need to use it as scaffolding.

My old notations from episodes past, give an example:

–

28 janv. 2016

Ben de mutlu oldum (moi aussi, je suis contente): #orphelins #kimsesiz

#SihirliAnnem 116. Bölüm 7:03 (P.6) “Savasa Hayir” NE GUZEL!!! “No to War” WONDERFUL!!

–

I also generally start every new language, for reading at least, with Harry Potter, since I know it by heart: –On page 7 of 314 of Harry Potter ve Sırlar, by J.K. Rowling: “Harry haykirmamayi basardi”

All of these and more are on an old Twitter account, which a couple of years ago, I found useful to cut and paste dictionary entries or website links, but now I see that it is not as easy as I had imagined, back then, to find the tweets on a particular word. Searching through my old tweets is really annoying, so I’m now back to writing the words by hand in my vocabulary notebook, beside the same word in my other languages, in order to give my brain the hook to connect and recall the new word. The other issue is that links often go away, so that the shows I though I was saving the links to often can lo longer be seen via that tweet, anyway.

  More on my continuing striving with Turkish next week, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of language learning and empathy that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different sources to translate the word “magic” into Turkish.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how you like each of the rources you found,  perhaps as an update on your GoodReads reading,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that uses a Turkish word, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

Preptober for NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

October, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

Thoughtful Thursdays and racism, mentioning Dr. King’s Basic Income, in passing, and a Town Hall Link

It’s quarter to 5 P.T., so please watch the long-scheduled Biden Town Hall, and then read this post (I’d love to hear your comments on both, please…)

—

This reference to the Basic or Citizen’s Income, as Dr. King called for it in 1968, is from his last book.

Here is where I am in wondering about some ideas I wrote up a while ago regarding community and safety:

–

Economic Democracy, which as Dr. King pointed out, is the only true means of both riot prevention and thus of lasting social stability, requires a high level of cooperation.
Preventing torture and senseless killings, such as that of Travon Williams and others, depends on the existence and maintenance of respect and trust within and between communities such that that can then cooperate effectively to prevent the dehumanization and hate crimes which ultimately result from lack of understanding and cooperative interaction between individuals and communities

–

So, it turns out that my reluctance to mention racism as an overt factor, possibly because I keep getting told that I don’t look Black enough, by non-Southern White people, to be Black, and that I’m too “high yellow” to be Black by fellow Black folks, yet called a Nigger (1981 VA) or told that “the races don’t mix” (1994 Baltimore), or that people wouldn’t want people like myself on their property (1995 Baltimore) by white southerners. So, not to bring up the Tragic Misunderstood Mullata (or Quadroon/Octaroon, in my case), I hate to say it but I have to say it: racism is involved here, in our dehumanizing of others, specifically of Black folks in the USA. People claim not to be racist or prejudiced, but say things like “los negros si son flojos” (Black people really are lazy), or that there is plenty of opportunity, they just don’t want to work: until I speak up and say, I am Black. Then I am often told to “contain myself,” or that I am simply imagining things.  Interesting how that works.  More on my continuing striving with community and not (intentionally, anyway) passing for White, next week, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) List four ways that you see racism affecting the world today.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

October, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Thoughtful Thursdays and a silly idea on marriage and community as helping each other

—

Here is where I am in wondering about an idea I though up a while ago regarding community-based possible ways of helping singles find nice marriage partners (actually, I need to find that post on the Community Marriage Coop, but this is the why of it):

–

Marriage and community: another reason for the importance of same-sex marriage, or why society must  support all marriages.

Society exists to facilitate the maximization of potential of each member of society.
Couples give more to society if the community (society in miniature, molded to a group) support and encourage the couple to stay together and contribute as a stable couple to society. A synergistic relationship forms where the couple gives more to the community, and is in turn reinforced by the community, enabling them to be more effective both as a couple and as members of the community. Both members of the couple and the community are able to accomplish more through this mutually beneficial relationship.
Marriage, for all couples, strengthens communities and creates synergistic relationships which keep us safe.

–

I think I still agree with this: will find and post the explanation of the Community Marriage Cooperative if anyone shows interest in a comment on this post.

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different resources about same-sex marriage.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how you like each of the resources you found,  perhaps as an update on your GoodReads reading,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

October, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Moody Mondays, and your own story as motivation to work for Justice for All?

Everyone has a story.

Everyone also has some motive for what one does in life, quite likely shaped in some way by previous life experiences, every one of whose is unique.

Racism started my quest, but as I learned that racism is merely a tool used to divide all of us to more easily rule, I looked to our legal structures for the change needed to keep all of us safe in equal measure.

Here is where much of my motivation for doing my part to change the world comes from:

–

 

Injustice Essay, UDC´s David C. Clarke Antioch School of Law

I must admit to finding this essay one of the most unsettling and emotionally difficult to write pieces in my writing career. While there are certainly more cutting incidents and more superficially significant incidents which I have experienced in my forty two years, I have chosen to share this event for two reasons. First, this incident strikes me as an example of the subtle damage done by fear, bias, and the perceptions and uses of power in the absence of mutual trust and full voice in decision-making processes. Second, this particular instance seems to have set in my consciousness a deep understanding of the need for cooperation not only between oppressed communities, but also of the need for each of us to understand the stories and ways of communicating of other people.

I was about seven years of age, a fair-skinned girl of African-American descent, riding through the Lincoln or the Holland tunnel in a car driven by a young Jewish woman, who happened to be both my mother´s roommate, and my defacto babysitter most of the time. As we came to the entrance of the tunnel, a pall of fear came over her face. We were being pulled over by a police officer, a barrel-chested white man, who appeared both unhappy and menacing as he got out of his car. Although I did not comprehend the issue at the time, she certainly felt that being pulled over was an injustice to her on the part of the police officer. She turned to me, the fear palpable in her voice, and said

“now look, this cop will think you are my daughter, and that means he will think that I am dating a black guy, so keep your mouth shut and don´t make any Smart Alec remarks.”

By that age, based on the treatment I regularly received from my classmates in school who took me for a mixed race child, I was well aware that interracial relationships of any kind were unacceptable, even in the New Jersey of 1976. I found myself as full of fear as my visibly nervous guardian. All I could do was to sit and watch, mouth clamped firmly shut, as the officer approached.

To this day, I have no recollection of the events after her fateful words to me, but I will always retain the memory of the chilling effect those words had on me, as I realized that not only my schoolmates, but even adults whom I would never meet, hated me for my mere appearance. I came to admire the courage and patience of this young Jewish woman who took the time to introduce me to both her culture and even to my own, as we listened alternately to Jewish music and to records by African musicians. She emphasized that I should learn about both my own heritage and about the heritages of others. She opened to me a world of possibility, while reminding me that I must always be cognizant of my own origins, and that no person´s origins were without both pain and responsibility. The damage of both self-hatred and discrimination caused by fear of and bias against those who appear to be different from ourselves can best be overcome through inclusive sharing of stories. That kind of openness between communities can create space for cooperative communication. Out of this process can emerge new and creative applications of shared power which enable all parties to safely contribute to building structures which both protect the dignity of all members of society and enable each person to rise to his or her full potential. These processes require high levels of both mutual trust and mutual respect which allow for the differences in power levels to be negotiated in participatory venues which deliberately include the voices of all who are affected by such decision-making processes. This inclusion both requires and generates cooperation between individuals and communities as first stories, and then problems, and then potential solutions, are shared and debated. While solutions must begin in the community, sometimes the end result of such discussion must be finalized in the legal system via reformulation of the legal codes, discovery of already existing codes, as in the case of DC´s “Lost Laws”, or simply providing voice for those who cannot make themselves heard. All of these processes require a sense of shared values and mutual respect. As citizens of a democracy, “we the people” must work together “to form a more perfect union” where the interests of all are protected and promoted equally.

Fear and distrust are most effectively dispelled by building upon our shared values, emphasizing the egalitarian ethos upon which our founding documents are based, and working to make those ideals a practical reality. Cooperative understanding of stories and concerns is a key part of the process needed to banish hatred and bias on the road to building full participation and voice for all. To paraphrase a song we sang frequently in school, our origins carry both a patient faith that the difficult past can be overcome, and a roll-up-your-sleeves type of hope that the present brings us ever more opportunities to repair this pain-filled world. As I reflect upon this incident, there is no way in which I could or even would have responded differently at that time, but I carry forward from thence a fervent faith and hope that through cooperation between communities we can help to lift every voice so that all are clearly heard. Through the kind of legal training provided at the UDC David Clarke School of Law, I hope to serve as a more effective facilitator of both short-term and long-term cooperative empowerment.

(re-reading this essay, it occurs to me that it showed my interest in history and Cultural Change/Cooperation (sociology?) more than Law, which is actually an Adversarial System in our society…)

(Shira) Destinie Jones

Read, Write, Run, Teach !

ShiraDest
18 February, 12016 HE

–

 

So, it turns out that I guess I have to agree with the saying that everyone has a story worth hearing is true: each story motivates some action, does it not?  More on my continuing striving with life next week, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different reasons to tell your story.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that tells part of your story, tells a different good story, or just makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

October, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Moody Mondays, mass transit, failed business plans, and Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

—

I am exhausted today, but wanted to get a blip out there about the importance of every class of people, especially the middle and upper middle classes, using the public transportation systems: please use mass transit!

Regarding the business plan, I can only find the abstract, though I remember writing up about 9 or 10 pages, despite being told that “tourists do not want to walk,” and that they want “to check my brain at the door” and be entertained, not educated, and certainly not about slavery in the Nation’s Capital.  I created the business, anyway…

–

 

Executive Summary
SHIR is a cooperative community enterprise working to provide
educational tools by which the paradigms of critical thinking and
equality, the birthrights of all people, are actively promoted.
SHIR focuses on movement-oriented educational techniques which
simultaneously build love of learning and community in ways which
incorporate natural curiosity and multiple learning styles. SHIR
implements this focus through community affirming walking tours as
the primary form of outside-the-classroom learning.
The long term vision of SHIR is to provide guided walking tours of
Washington, D.C. with emphasis on the history of African-American
neighborhoods in the city. These tours will incorporate multi-media
history from different neighborhoods by time period and demographic
era, and feature participatory discussions of the values held across
those communities and neighborhoods over various time frames.

The marketing section needed more work, as this business failed in 2013.

–

 

So, it turns out that I should have listened about there being no market for Black-Jewish history walking tours, but making the point was more important to me than making money, and I got my wish: I made a point for a few months, but then realized that I was losing all of my savings, and in an apartment with cigarette smoke coming in from the noisy neighbors, I couldn’t concentrate enough around my tours to get paid work. At least I did write and publish a book about it, with the tours freely available (with the bibliography, despite being told to keep it secret: sorry, Knowledge should be free!!) for all walkers in DC. (Please remember to wear a hat, sensible shoes, and bring water and grapes to snack on!!)

  More on my continuing striving with education for Justice next time, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different resources on why History Matters.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how you like each of the resources you found,  perhaps as an update on your GoodReads reading,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that uses history, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

September, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Moody Mondays idea: Fully Inclusive Equality via The Four Freedoms Movement

How can we get to a world in which every human being is safe: fed, clothed, sheltered, educated and cared for so that every person can contribute the most fully to Humanity?

per Covey: starting with The Eventual End Goals of The Four Freedoms Movement (allowing each person to contribute fully):

Phase IV

(With 40-60 years of steps in between…)

1. Each child, at birth, receives half a hectare of land, non-alienable. The person may rent, lend or swap the land, but always remains the owner of the land or the swapped parcel. Where ever the location, it should have a well and be arable. (This way, at a minimum, every person on the planet will own at least 1/2hectare of land, free and clear, with no way to lose it…)

2. Beans, Rice, local Greens, and enough fresh drinking/cooking water, and fresh or filtered salt water for bathing for every individual person;

3. Free Bedsit or Tiny House for each individual person, accessible from the time a child can safely (independently) cook an egg;

4. Each family should have a book in the local public library, containing the autobiography of every adult in the family (which means that each person needs free time and the means to write his or her autobiography).

5. Each ADULT is both:

1. trained to serve in the national protection forces (police or military), and
2. prepared to rotate, if called upon, into a limited time term of either Jury Duty, city, state, or federal level government duty as a local/state or federal Representative or Senator, Governor, or cabinet member. A system of sortition could gradually replace elections for the House of Representatives and state assembly lower chambers, followed by the upper chambers and executive level elected positions via IRV/Ranked Choice Voting, as the national educational system evens up in quality across the country.

Getting there from … some point in the future:

Phase III: The Three Universals:

Free access to all levels of

1.) universal higher or trade-craft education,

2.) universal basic income, which the use of local currencies may help with,

3.) and full universal health care, for every person, are the three key parts of Phase III, which comes after:

Phase II, which is: taking the Adulthood Challenge

1. Each person, as a child, must learn to swim (or at least float).
2. Each child must learn emotional/psychological self-defense and physical self-defense to the greatest extent possible, in a Gandhian context, as well as financial self-defense.
   (1 and 2 are part of the pre-Adulthood pre-requisite criteria:)
3. Then, each child may decide to remain a Pre-Adult, having all basic human needs met, but being barred from undertaking Phase IV adult roles, such as serving in protective or governmental positions.
4. After passing prerequisites 1 and 2, and deciding to test for Adulthood, any Pre-Adult may choose to attempt The Adulthood Challenge, of teaching some person a needed and difficult skill, such as speaking a language from 0 words, or teaching someone to read, beginning with the alphabet. A task, in other words, that ordinarily averages 2-3 years in the classroom setting.

Phase II is about both a new rite of passage into a new form of adulthood, and also about forming a culture in which “each one teach one” is taken seriously as a duty to humankind.

The current stage is Phase I:

Phase I involves both a preparation period for the coming stages as well as an on-going process of empathy-building, while actively building full support for our key publicdomaininfrastructure.

Action Items in support of literacy and inclusivity that you can take right now:

1.) Download two differently sourced documents about sortition,

2.) Read a page,

3.) Share your thoughts on that page,

4.) Write a novel that imagines a safer and kinder world than we have now, and tells a good story, that might make a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Let’s #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness, & #EndMoneyBail and support these four key parts of our #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #libraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!!!, Walk !

ShiraDest

September, 12020 HE

Spanish Sunday is now: fitting in by your own definition as Universal (self) Health Care, and building community via local currencies

We need a Universal health care system, but in the meantime, take care of yourself, and your mental health, by letting yourself fit in to your own universe: you get to choose who you are, since you are always there with yourself (and so you’d better get to like yourself).

—

For me, contribution is a major part of meaning, and that is what I want to have when I look back upon my life: contributed in some long-term meaningful way to humanity, just in some small area, in my own small way, but as much as I possibly can.

Here is where I am in my study of caring for myself as part of caring for others (so as not to be a burden to others): I measure my value by asking myself how I’ve contributed.  Here is a large part of my answer thus far:

–

 

I recall giving a class on Community Cooperation that had far more impact than I’d expected, generating heated discussion, and thanks.  I was surprised that folks thanked me for bringing up the topic of Community, and protection of the most vulnerable members of society, but I was also grateful to have been able to make that impact.  To reach people who otherwise may not have seen Community in that light.

I think it was actually the class I taught in 2011, but this class, in 2010, taught me how to teach in Community:

Page 1 of Handout:

Community Empowerment via Local Currencies “Mifnei Tikkun Ha-Olam”
Shira Jones, DC Beit Midrash, DC JCC, 16 August 2010, Ki Tetse
In Ki Tetse, Aliyah 5, (24:1-24:4 of Dvarim), a man is required to write a Get in order to divorce his wife.
Rabban Gamliel: Mishnah Gittin 4:21
“At first, a man would convene a court in a different location [from where his wife was living]and cancel the get [he had sent and not inform her of his actions]. Rabban Gamliel the Elderpassed a law prohibiting men from doing so, in order to repair the social order Mipnei TikkunHa-Olam.”
Other uses of the principle of Tikkun Ha-Olam occur with an apparently similar aim, accordingto Jill Jacobs2, namely the aim of protecting society and the most vulnerable members ofsociety.
In this vein, money which is created by and issued in and for the local community alsoconstitutes an act of Tikkun Olam, benefiting the most vulnerable members of society.
Local currencies are forms of money created by communities for local circulation in thosecommunities. These locally created forms of money accomplish three main objectivesrelated to protecting vulnerable members of society.
•When issued on the basis of local goods or services, they increase the amount of moneyavailable in local communities, further empowering communities to create sustainable localbusinesses and making more money available for loans, donations and local projects;
•They encourage buying local, thus keeping resources in local communities and reducingsupply and distribution chain travel distances, thereby reducing carbon emmissions;
•When issued on the basis of real goods or services, local currencies incentivize long-terminvestment in the local economy, rather than short-term investment in capital markets.
These currencies return monetary decision-making to communities directly affected bymoney (while by contrast, monetary decisions are generally made outside the community),and retain more overall money in the local community. Local currencies are often referred toas Green MoneyGreen MoneyGreen MoneyGreen MoneyGreen Money Green Money Green MoneyGreen MoneyGreen Money for reasons related to both Governance and Economic Benefit of Money.
1Drawn from “Annulment of Marriage”, Judith Hauptman, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/annul.html
2Jill Jacobs, The History of “Tikkun Olam”, http://www.zeek.net/706tohu/index.php?page=2
Shira D. Jones, destinie_jones@yahoo.com, DC Beit Midrash, “Green Money, Tikkun Olam”

Page 2 of Handout:

How do Green or Local Currencies provide (get, keep and grow) these benefits?
Governance of Money
Economic Benefit of Money
By increasing overall levels of available money, theyprovide more opportunities for community participationin economic decision-making and project development.
By increasing overall levels of available money, theyprovide more resources for donation, loans to theunemployed, the vulnerable, local businesses, etc.
By keeping more resources in local communities, theyallow greater (practical) economic priority-settingparticipation by more members of those communities.
By keeping more resources in local communities, theystop the draining of local resources to distant areas (sothe wealth is no longer accessible to the community).
By providing a stake in local institutions, localcurrencies provide incentives to ensure transparencyand accountability in local community institutions.
By providing a stake in local institutions, localcurrencies provide incentives to invest in long-termlocal production and to upgrade local infrastructure.
Local Currencies in Washington, DC:
Anacostia Hours, issued and accepted in Mt. Rainier, MD and accepted by some DC businesses
http://www.anacostiahours.org
Potomacs, exchanged and accepted at local businesses in Petworth, DC
TakomaTime, a Time Bank3 issuing Time Dollars in Takoma Park and Adams Morgan, DC
The Catalyst Bank, a Time Bank issuing Time Dollars in DC and VA
http://community.timebanks.org/group.php?mode=curr&sid=f0f0291be3a33d7b7729da4e03f57948
Currencies which are issued by community based institutions are generally easier to obtain,particularly for vulnerable members of the community who have difficulty accessing market-based (jobs or credit) means of obtaining more scare Federal money.
Local currencies also tend to allow greater levels of inclusion to members of the localcommunity in the decision-making processes of those currencies, while General PurposeMoney, such as the US Dollar, tends to have far more closed (non-inclusive) and lesstransparent and less publicly accountable decision-making processes. This lack of inclusionshuts out most of the direct stakeholders from governance, preventing most money usersfrom having a voice in money, which so vitally affects all of our lives.
Community-based currencies expand the number of Direct Currency Stakeholders who canexcercise participatory decision-making power over money. Thus more people can create,keep, and grow their own resources, to the benefit of the entire community, by building,using and investing in local community institutions.
3With thanks to Deborah Hittleman Flank for information on both Time Banks listed here…
Shira D. Jones, destinie_jones@yahoo.com, DC Beit Midrash, “Green Money, Tikkun Olam”

DC Beit Midrash Sources for 16 August class:
Mishnah Gittin 4:2
“Annulment of Marriage”, Judith Hauptman, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/annul.html
Jill Jacobs, The History of “Tikkun Olam”, http://www.zeek.net/706tohu/index.php?page=2
http://www.anacostiahours.org
http://community.timebanks.org/group.php?mode=curr&sid=f0f0291be3a33d7b7729da4e03f57948
Shira Destinie A. Jones, Mphil dissertation, 2010, University of Bath, http://opus.bath.ac.uk/18960/
Bio Blurb:
Shira Destinie Jones is a native Washingtonian, teacher of mathematics, Hebrew, and Greekfolk dance, and singing enthusiast with 12 years of Unix expertise. She holds a Master ofArts in Teaching Secondary Mathematics, a Masters of Philosophy in economic social policy,and is a published poet and author working to help restore the balance of justice in our damaged world.
(Now I am grateful to be working to build a Kinder world…)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
29 February, 12016 HE

–

 

So, it turns out that …  More on my continuing striving with stuff next week, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different resources to translate the word “Hello” into your favorite language.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

3.) Share your thoughts on how you like each of the resources you found,  perhaps as an update on your GoodReads reading,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that uses your favorite word, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

September, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Mass transit with Grandma on a Saturday, 54 years ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Actually, it was on the East Coast, which sometimes feels like another galaxy even after almost 3 years here in California. Especially given the better mass transit systems back East. We took the bus, since the Metro didn’t yet exist, but the subway in DC has always been too expensive for most normal people. I’ve always been shocked at the level of segregation in the metro, as the prices got higher relative to bus fares, and you began to see a big difference in ridership between train and bus lines, between 2004 and 2017. Grandma Marie always took me on the bus everywhere, even to her church, Mt. Zion UMC, all the way over in Georgetown (which by the mid-1970’s was already gentrifying) from Regency House aka The Old Folks Home, on Connecticut Ave & Nebraska Ave, NW.

It’s also the end of Sukkot 5781, which again feels like another planet, growing up going to church, but now looking in from the periphery of a chosen religion, although honored to be asked to chant in public, still not always feeling at home, and feeling a bit guilty for missing the vibrancy of church music, once in a while. But I feel no guilt for missing my adoptive great grandmother, my idea of a Saint in the nation’s capital:

a Grandmother not of my blood, but certainly of my heart and soul…

Here is a snipett of thought that has since been corrected, as apparently My 2xs gr grandfather on that side was not quite the “crazy drunk Cherokee” that I recall hearing about:

-2008-06-20 14:05:00
Happy Past Experiences
Alot of my past is best left forgotten, but I am grateful to have had a Great Grandmother who adopted us (my mom’s mother died when grandma Laverne was 8) and looked after me when I was very small. 
That was Grandma Marie. She always saved me The Mini Pages from the Washington Post and seeing her was always a peaceful and interesting time. She told me the story of my great great grandfather the crazy Cherokee Hayes Wheeler Mayo who went missing for three days when the Maine blew up. The Navy apparently thought he was dead until he turned up drunk with some interesting and apparently inplausible excuse that Grandma Marie seemed to think was characteristically colorful and odd. She also mentioned my taking somewhat after him, being a ‘rambunctious child’ and never staying still. She always had a smile when she told me about him, and frequently looked at me with that same slightly mischievious and ever so slightly almost shocked look. It’s hard to explain, but I always felt that she stood somewhat in awe of him, whilst looking just a tiny bit askance at the same time, and wondered just how closely I took after him. Whatever the case, I nearly felt like he was a hero as she told funny stories about him which I’ve forgotten details to, but remember the love with which she told all of his descendents about him. Grandma Marie, to my knowledge, never had children of her own, but my grandmother, mom, and I were like her own descendents, and I am proud of that. She taught me how to sew on an old black Singer treadle sewing machine, stitching the words I Love You onto the cloth, explaining how she had been a seamstress and her husband, Adolphus Johonson, a very kind man, had been a tailor. She once told me to make sure to carry at least $50 at all times because one day years ago Grandpa Johnson had been arrested for Jay Walking and he didn’t have the money to make bail. She laughed as she told me how she had to go down to the jail and get grandpa out, lecturing him on the way home, as she was known to do. She was such a strong personality, and so loving and bright. 
And a wonderful Great Grandma. 
 Marie Nash Johnson. 
Bright Blessings,
shir. 
 Read, Write, Dream, Teach !
 ShiraDest 
22 February, 12016 HE

–

Interesting how, just a year or two ago, I recall feeling guilty for being angry with the US Navy for burying this particular gr. gr. grandfather with honors, while my other gr. gr. grandfather was accused of suicide and his family chased off of their land in OK.  Guilty for having to believe that this man who was honored by the military did not deserve what the other grandfather did deserve, but never received.  And yet neither family prospered: the two families met and members married and died during the Gr. Depression of TB.

Yes, we can do better than this.

  More on my continuing striving with family of choice next time, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different reasons to study your thoughts.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, if you feel safe enough.

3.) Share your thoughts a book from your GoodReads reading list on self-reflection,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that explores, tells a good story, or otherwise makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

September, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)

Study Saturdays, gullible or not, and what’s belief got to do with change and health, anyway?

Remember how inspiring the slogan “Yes, We Can,” became? It had to do with belief: if you do not believe a thing to be possible, for most people, you will not attempt it (and even those of us who throw ourselves into the breach still do so in the hope that our disbelief is wrong…): belief and hope are intertwined with mental health and healing, are they not?

Here is a gathering of thoughts from my study of my earlier journal entries, to see if I’d changed:

–

A classmate at Annapolis told me that they’d taken out the definition of ‘gullible’ in the dictionary and replaced it with my photo one day. I was furious, because shipmates aren’t supposed to bilge each other, and that to me was bilging.

But I want to believe that a better world is possible, a kinder world:
Perhaps the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be a good ‘summation’ of what I want to see in the world?

[An aside: what I personally want may be quite different from what others want, of course. I would personally like to see a world where every person is free to travel anywhere, and where every person has a key to a very small flat -consisting of one room, well insulated, with a small kitchen, a bathroom with a shower, and a bed. For free, with absolute lifelong rights. Also free would be brown rice (or similar equivalent grain), green leafy vegetables, and dried beans. That is the bare minimum that a person needs to live, and that (along with free Public Library borrowing rights and Health Care) should be totally free without question to every person at all times. Whether they work or not, deserving or not. No paperwork, no hassles. But for anything else a person may want, above this (deliberately quite Spartan and barebones) minimum, a person must contribute to society -i.e. work.  That is what I would like to see eventually, not going into political views…]

I look back 20 years on, now I see that I’ve always been accused of being gullible and naive, yet to be gullible, I think, is not from foolishness or stupidity, but from a stubborn refusal to believe that anyone could be dishonest.

Read, Write, Run, Teach !   ShiraDest,   16 February, 12016 HE

(update Edit from 2008 LJ entry: Yet every time I’m taken in by those who talk of dedication to ideals, and every time, I have wanted to believe. I went to Cambridge, as I came back to Bath, expecting nothing, yet finding other dedicated souls in places I had not looked before. Perhaps it is the expectations, desire to believe, desperation for drive, which brings the disappointment. Perhaps it is not only drive, not even a little rest, but mostly detachment that helps one fulfill full potential, live up to that long grey line. To be able to report with pride to those who have gone before us that we lived up to our calling.
No, work and determination must play the largest part, along with reflection.

(maybe this is why my fellow JROTC cadet Mahlon called me “overmotivated” all those years ago… I wonder if that’s why Monica and the other kids assumed I was dating my Tanzanian running partner at the DC Army National Guard youth camp, and Dawn thought I was dating my friend Shedrick from the NAI flight camp; wonder if their perceptions have changed over the years, despite little contact;)
Yes, hearing what you want to hear and believing it…
(But it’s hard to say ‘No, you are not being entirely truthful’…)
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
22 February, 12016 HE

–

 

  More on my continuing striving with self- study next Saturday, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different reasons to study your thoughts.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, if you feel safe enough.

3.) Share your thoughts a book from your GoodReads reading list on self-reflection,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that explores, tells a good story, or otherwise makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

September, 12020 HE

(The previous lesson plan since this post, and the most recent lesson plan…)