Ministry Mondays: El Ministerio del Tiempo (S2e4) “The Monastery of Time” & Women’s Influence vs. Abuse?

Last time, which was a while ago, sorry for the delay, we reviewed capitulo 11: Time of Hidalgos , (Tiempo de Hidalgos / Time of Lower Nobility) , and now in chapter 12, El Monasterio del Tiempo, we meet and even spend a little time with the Corsican who greatly influenced the history, or the laws perhaps, at least, of Europe: Napoleon.

So, before getting into the details of this episode, I should mention that I was puzzled for a while over why it was set up in the way that it is. A recurring character is made to take a key role here, saving the day for everyone. While it does give more characterization to a character that we see every week, the bigger question in my mind was why tackle this subject in this way? This monastery featured, and perhaps even redeemed just a little bit, in a bizarre sort of way, in this week’s episode, is that famous monastery of

Tordesillas, which is known in Spain perhaps best of all for having been the home of the mistreated ‘Juana La Loca‘ (daughter of Isabel and Ferdinand, aka The Catholic Monarchs…) for much of her incarceration after she was driven mad by her abusive husband (shown in great detail in the series we mentioned back in the crossover episode from season #1,

Isabel

la Catolica

…).

So why have Angustias be the one to deal with this, in substance? Why not our young leader, Amelia, or our experienced older leader, Irene? And something I did not notice back when I was watching these episodes a few years ago, is that there are other new features that raised questions: hashtags in these episodes, now, starting with this episode, which is hash tagged for Napoleon, although a quick search seems to turn up nothing for it, now, unfortunately. So, this was a chapter that really forced one to think about a lot of different things. Obviously, this episode revolves around Napoleon, and not the poor Juana La Loca, but I think that she is the one who merits being featured in today’s image, pictured as she might have looked during her imprisonment in this famous monastery after being abused into insanity by her husband, Archduke Felipe of Austria, may his name forever be cursed along with those of all other abusive men.

#NapoléonMdT

Acostumbrando a la vida moderna / Getting used to modern life (a fascinating reference to the previous episode…),

So, Angustias (I love that name!!), the secretary, is pressed in to service in the field in order to save the grandfather of a key figure in the current Spanish Reublic. She must replace the Abbess of this monastary, and convince Napoleon to free his Spanish prisoners, whom he sees as spies. / Mientras Amelia, Pacino y Angustias, por que Alonso está en sus dos días libres de mudanza a su nuevo época, a Tordesillas, 1808, para salvar al abuelo de Adolfo Suárez.  Y por que necesitan que se reemplaza a la abadesa para hablar con Napoléon Bonaparte y convencerlo de liberar a los presos españoles.

On Christmas Eve / Un día antes de la navidad. 

Our poor belabored secretary, Angustias, is a woman of a certain age, who was recruited to the Ministry after she discovered her husband, a field agent for the Ministry, had wives in two other time periods, in addition to herself. She was thus brought in and allowed to live in the modern time period, as head secretary in the Ultimo Y Principal Minsterio/The Last and Head Ministry, rather than working for the ministry of her own time period. So, she stands in stark and fascinating contrast to the abused life of Juana La Loca, a princess, daughter of Isabel La Catolica, who was abused into insanity and silenced. Angustias, pulled up from her own cheating husband, is pushed into a position of being able to give voice at the right time and in the right place, to apply her influence upon a historical figure in a way that protects the future of the Spanish Republic. Nice, corrective, Sr. Olivares!! / Nuestra pobre jefa de la administrativa sobre-cargado con trabajo, Angustias, es una mujer de mas o menos media edad, reclutado al Ministerio despues de haber dado cuenta de que su marido, un agente del Ministerio, la estaba enganando con des otras esposas en otros epochas, ademas de ella. Asi que la trayeron al Ministerio y la dejaron vivir en nuestro epocha como secretaria del jefe en el Ultimo y Principal Ministerio, el de nuestro epoca, en vez de lo de su epoca (que creo que era el de la Gripe Espanola, si me acuerdo correctamente…). Asi que ella se queda en contraste a la vida de la pobre Juana La Loca, nacido una princesa, hija de Isabel la Catolica, pero a pesar de ese privilegio, abusada hasta la locura y despues silenciado con crueldad. Angustias, al contrario, rescatado de su mujeriyego de marido, queda placado en un lugar de responsabilidad donde puede dar voz en en el tiempo y lugar justo donde debia estar, aplicando su influencia para salvar a la historia de la Republica . !!Muy buena correctiva, Sr. Olivares!!

Y Salvador ha estado hablando con… Julián!! / spoiler hint left untranslated…

¿Para qué está preparado Ernesto Alonso? / What’s Ernesto doing?

¡No puede ser ! 

 ¡No es posible que alguien canta tan mal como a Angustias! / No on can possibly sing that badly, Angustias!!

Y otra vez un hombre está tratando de Amelia como ingenua. Es Pacino el reemplazo de Julián. / And yet another man telling Amelia that she needs to be less naive. This is Pacino replacing Julian…

Alonso:

” La buena suerte no existe, solo existe la mala suerte.  

Procuraré esquivarla.”

Not translated: spoiler…

Y como convencer a hombres que han escapado ya, de volver a su cárcel.  Alonso

Y después del éxito de la misión, Salvador recibe visita de la zorra y niega irse en coche oficial.

Pobre patrulla y Angustias.  No más regresan de la misión y vean a Susana Torres como nueva subsecretario del ministerio :  eso no pinta nada bien.

All of the episodes are freely available via the Spanish public television web site, RTVe. The next episode, capitulo 13: , will be reviewed next week…

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Click on the ShiraDest site menu, above this review, to read more, if you like:

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

           or 

Nonfiction History or Planning  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing.

Thoughtful Readers, especially those located in or citizens of the United States, please consider reading, pondering, and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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Repost of Standing in the Gap, aka Brolly Lady, as the Empathy-Building Part of Project Do Better

    This narrative short, which I neglected to mention is nonfiction, at first, will be part of an autobiographical short short anthology I am releasing later this year.   I was stunned at the reception this one got, and even more surprised to find, a few months ago, that it has been republished (yes, my name is credited, but it is incorrectly labeled as fiction) by an online magazine, entirely without my knowledge.  I hope that this short short inspires others to stand together, to protect one another, and to help build more empathy in this world.  Empathy building is the ongoing part of Project Do Better that runs concurrently with all four phases of this project.  Please share widely. 

   …  Memories of a “Brolly Lady” …

—

   ”  There it was again.  I knew that sound.

…”

 

—

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.)  Share your own story of standing in that gap to help a fellow human being

2.)  Tell us how you feel that your actions may have helped our world.

 

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Click here for:

Babylon 5 reviews from another point of view, and other language show and TV Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers who want to help build community, please consider reading about    #ProjectDoBetter.

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.

Turkish Tuesday (Türkçesi salı günü): Sihirli Annem (s1e9) #LanguageLearning for Changing Domestic Violence to Empathy?

  Last week, we saw Çilek arrived!! (ep8 ), and asked about  Turkish Tuesday (Türkçesi salı günü): Sihirli Annem (s1e8)  and  #LanguageLearning for Orphans?  .

This week, we see bölüm/episode 9:  

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

:

Sadik comes home beaten up. He interfered with a neighbour hitting and punching his wife. The neighbour then hit Sadik and told him not to meddle with his private affairs.

“I looked up from the ground as this guy was stomping me!”

The whole family is horrified about the way the man treated his wife and their father.  Betüş wants to go to the neighbour and give him a piece of her mind, even the children roll up their sleeves and want to join her. But Sadik tells them that the police came and took him with them.

Dudu, who watches this scene through her magic mirror gets the idea to turn Sadik from gentle lamb into a brutal macho, which should Betüş want to divorce him.

“If I turn Sadik into a jealous, heartless macho…”

Eda brings a letter from Betüs’s friend over and scoffs at hers and Sadik’s loving behaviour, as she knows about her mother’s latest spell. She is jealous of the good relationship her sister has. She also thinks that their father prefers Betüş and is sad and jealous about that too.

“Just wait until tomorrow and see how your thoughtful wonderful husband is!”

Dudu’s spell is successful, and Sadik is starting to behave very badly towards his whole family the next morning. He even hits his boss, when he calls him incapable.

Dudu watches how badly Sadik treats Betüş now and is happy that they will soon be divorced. Taci, her dog/husband cannot understand how a mother can do that to her own daughter.

“How can you so heartlessly hurt your own child like this?”

Taci got out of the castle in the meantime and went to Perihan to tell her everything about Dudu’s nasty spell.

When Sadik nearly hits her, Betüş takes Cilek the little fairy girl and goes to her mother’s castle. There they find Taci gone. When Cilek sees how much Betüş loves and misses her father, he regrets having been so disrespectful to him when they first met.

Eda comes back from a date crying because her boyfriend (Eminem) dumped her. But when she hears that her father is missing, she forgets all about her own trouble and tells everybody to look for him. They cannot find him, and when they get back to the castle, Perihan is there. She tells Betüş about the spell that her mother has put on her husband. Eda seems to be ashamed, while Dudu still claims that she did it for her daughter’s sake who would be better off without her silly husband.

“But if you feel nothing for Sadik, didn’t you at least think of me and the kids?”

Perihan forces Dudu to revoke her spell and punishes them to go to Iraq and eliminate the war damages.

–

     Many, many thanks to Birgit, of the Stella, oh, Stella blog, for all of the of the English and image content, today.

…

So my question, Thinking Readers, is this:  at moment 5:22 (5 minutes into the episode, so easy to find it…) in the episode, Taci says to his wife Dudu:

“Yasamadin tabii, bilemezsen.”  /  “You haven’t experienced it, so of course, you wouldn’t know or understand it.”

But, must one actually live through an experience in order to understand it, really?  There are studies which show that both foreign language exposure and also reading novels help to build the ability to see from another person’s perspective, so are there not, clearly, then other ways of being able to understand the pain of another person without directly experiencing it oneself?   He (Taci, her former husband now unjustly forced to live as a dog) explains to the disdainful Dudu that women like Firuze are often trapped by economic or other circumstances in abusive relationships which they have no power to get out of without some kind of outside assistance, especially financial as well as emotional.

…

Notice that Betüş also has no understanding of the neighbor lady’s reasons for not divorcing her abusive husband.  Having a protective (at least from all but herself, Dudu, that is) family makes a tremendous difference.  Having grown up protected until she decided to oppose her mother’s will, even Betüş Fairy cannot understand tolerating such an abusive relationship.  The rich, either in money or in family love, cannot understand being alone in a hostile world, at least not without looking into it carefully.

Right, Thinking Readers?

–

For instance, from moment 14:32 to 14:44, the kids (rich in comparison to her) tell Firuze about free resources to get computer tech. learning for her kids, which will in turn help all of them over time.

–

        Hopefully, the empathy that studying languages builds, and a little more good example via story, will help all of us learn to be more open to the needs, feelings, and happiness of others.

Next week will be blm/ep. 10: Turkish Tuesday (Türkçesi salı günü): Sihirli Annem (s1e10) #LanguageLearning To Change Jealousy to Empathy??

…

Hoşça kalın!

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/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

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

Parashat VaYishlach 5783, Women’s Mental Health, and Generational Trauma

This parashah looks at how dysfunctional family systems might even heal, given the right circumstances.  It also looks at the pain caused when women are treated as mere property to be possessed by one group, and property to be recaptured and avenged, by another group. This portion again, as last week points up the need for long term carefully trained specialists in all types of trauma, but most especially childhood trauma, and full access to that mental health care for everyone.

Last year, we looked at VaYishlach, and Favorites among children causing problems over and over again, …

while

the previous year, 5781, we looked at what happened to poor Dinah, in this, the 8th Torah portion:

Etz Chaim

Empathy cries out to be heard in this parashah, the 8th in the Torah.   What do you think, Thoughtful Readers?

While there are many ways to help increasing empathy,  Language Learning as a Fourth Tool for Empathy Building is both fascinating and practical.

Empathy building is a crucial task, particularly in our contentious society today.  The task is tiring, and cannot be done all at once, but with careful planning, education, and greater cooperation between the generations, it can be done.

Let’s Do Better.

–

Last week was  Parashat Vayetzei 5783, With Mental Health Care For Childhood Traumas?…

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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/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or My Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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

Update: Invisible Children vulnerable to invisible debts: Action Items to help

Update from Project Do Better (Phase I, Financial Self-defense…): 

1.   Identity theft precautions, 
2.  Validation of a debt to ensure that it was actually contracted by the person being pursued by the collector

(many people receive bills for debts they don’t owe, ignore them, and then end up wrongfully sued and even hit with default judgments because they didn’t reply to the court summons, or demand that the collector validate the debt).

Orphans like Çilek deserve protection, especially if they cannot do magic to protect themselves!

(from free book Invisible Children, KARA:)

“In your Child Protection System is there a volunteer program from a local law school that assigns a volunteer attorney to an abused child? I’ve met some well- meaning and bright attorneys who genuinely care for their clients this way. If not, are there adequate public legal representation for abandoned children?”

Kids who grow up ‘invisible,’ especially those without stable and functional families who protect and give them middle class cultural capital, like dinner table discussion of financial laws and mutual funds, are especially vulnerable to predatory lenders and debt collectors.

Until there are enough pro bono lawyers giving free legal and financial clinics, the rest of us can help in these ways:

1.)  ask local community colleges to offer free legal and financial clinics on your state’s statutes of limitations, contract and debt related laws, and consumer protection laws.

2.)  ask your law-makers to prohibit law suits on expired (aka Time Barred) debts.

3.)   ask your law-makers to lower the Statutes of Limitations on verbal and written contracts, which are often how kids unknowingly get into debt and end up in collections.

4.)  Write your own story (or novel) showing a world where kids get the protection they need, in multiple ways…

Please share your ideas for increasing Legal and Financial Literacy and opportunity for ALL of us!

This post is dedicated to my Great Great grandparents Wayne Anthony, murdered for succeeding, and his wife Maude Eleanor West Manzilla, who never gave up her legal suit to clear his name of the suicide charge by the life insurance company, and worked valiantly to keep her family together. Their descendants continue their work.

Quotes for a related post came from a recent ProPublica article co-published with The New Yorker.

Let’s #EndPoverty, and #EndHomelessness,  starting by improving these four parts of our good #PublicDomainInfrastructure 4:
1. #libraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!!!, Walk !

#PublicDomainInfrastructure #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19
ShiraDest

originally posted in September, 12020 HE

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,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.

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.

Ann and Anna, (serial short story, Part 11): Punishment?

      …  Part 10 (Warmth)   posted on last Sunday…

—

     Bacon!

     Anna helped me sit up, and then pushed the bandages a bit higher on my forehead.  The doctor had left my eyes mostly uncovered when he renewed my head dressing, but the bandages still covered my eyes a bit.  It was as if he’d wanted to cover them again, but opted to allow me enough vision to feel safer in my new surroundings.  I was glad of it, for I was quite curious to see who was coming through the door, now.

“Here you are, dears.”  

     The woman serving us was white, and seemed as pleased to be bringing us our breakfast as if we had been, too.  My eyes finally allowed me to confirm what my nose and stomach had already told me.

     There was indeed bacon.  On both our plates!

All my life I had been denied the pleasure of eating bacon.  That torturous smell haunted me, for I was never allowed to eat any.  The Senator, displeased with my refusal to feign happiness with him, had ordered the kitchen staff to cook bacon for breakfast every day, but never to allow me to have any.  Thus, I was always treated to the sight of others enjoying this luxury, but never indulged, myself.  Today, it seemed, that was to change.

—

 

       This is the continuation scene in my new historical fiction series  Ann&Anna.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

    Part 12 will be next Sunday.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this story may help us find ways to end abuse of all kinds, encourage empathy-building cooperation, and help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

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

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness, & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport  

                     We can  Do Better: to create a kinder future

 

Peace    

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

 

 

 

 

 

Shira 

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

Narrative Nonfiction: Some Beatings are Worth Taking, Brolly Lady, aka Standing in the Gap…

      …  Memories of a “Brolly Lady” …

—

     There it was again.  I knew that sound.

“Oy, they’re having a fight down there!”

     That was what Mona thought.  I knew better.  That was an old sound, from a lifetime ago.  One I thought I’d finally escaped.   I should have known better.

     I looked out the window, counting five men holding smart phones up toward the screams.  Then my feet moved of their own accord.  It was only from hearing a muffled shout as the door slammed behind me that I knew I’d left the flat.  The rain had just ended, and the pavement was still wet.  My feet pulled me to the source of that sound.  Not the shouting, not the screaming, but the one I remembered so deeply that it still hid under the table with my inner child.  The sound of a head hitting a wall.

     There it was again, but this time, I could see them.  Both of them.  The woman’s head sounded like a watermelon when she slammed against the wall, sliding down those slimy bricks to finish crumpled on the filthy paving stones.  Her eyes were open wide, looking stunned and frightened, as a giant advanced on her from the ten or fifteen feet from where he’d launched her.  My stomach churned as the pain of that impact coursed through my own body, as if I had been the one tossed like a sack of rice into that wall.

     Looking at the giant, I wanted to flee, abandon this woman to her fate.  But my feet had a will of their own, carrying me right into the one spot where I didn’t want to be:  about 5 steps between each of them.

     I realized that I’d carried an old umbrella with me out the door.  At least those Kung Fu lessons had had one result: they kept me from rushing in where angels feared to tread entirely unarmed.  Then again, my next thought was that this flimsy brolly was more like a liability against that big drunk guy.  I took a second of comfort in hoping that as a foreign PhD student, at least the NHS would cover my hospital stay if I didn’t manage to duck fast enough.

“Move!”

     I flinched as the sound wave from the giant’s lips struck me.  It felt just like the impact of furniture breaking against the wall that night.  When the giant stepped closer to me, my feet moved me back the same step, but my body refused to budge.  That brolly, I now realized, was balanced in my left hand behind me, just like a short staff.  My stomach had turned into a solid ball, no longer churning.  As I saw him look at me, the giant’s eyes suddenly grew wider.  If he hits me, it is going to hurt.  But then why did he seem to be afraid of me?

“Move!”

“No.”

     Who said that?  Oh, wait, that was my voice.  So why did the giant look confused?

“Thank you.”

     I risked a glance backward.  That sobbing voice had come from behind me, as the woman I was foolishly blocking wept, her tears mingling with the rain on the wall as she’d stared up at me.

Focusing on the giant as I’d learned to do in so many sparring classes, I drew a deep breath, preparing.  But the giant stood frozen himself, staring at me with some odd drunken mixture of contempt and fear.  Both were clearly written in his face, as well as the frustration of being denied another chance to strike the woman on the ground behind me.  What was he waiting for?

“You prick.”

     He was treating me like a man?  He really must be drunk.   Then I realized that I’d dropped into an automatic fighting stance.  He wasn’t that drunk, then.

“Ok, but you should be ashamed of yourself.”

     As those words tore themselves from my throat, I began to tremble so violently that I thought I’d begin crying like the woman at my back.  The giant looked so confused that I could practically see the gears turning in his drink-addled mind.  Then, a tall woman stepped between us, her back to me, placing a hand flat upon the center of the giant’s chest.   I found myself letting out the breath I’d not known I was holding, and heard movement behind me.

     I turned to see the two young bar girls helping the woman, finally, up off of the pavement, and taking her inside the pub.  As I looked back at the giant, he had backed away, the tall woman’s arm guiding him to the curb.

     I stood straight, now in tears myself from the relief, and from the shock.  I was still four years old, still hiding under the table, while furniture still shattered, as my mother screamed in the other room.  But this time, I had not stayed hidden under the table.

     This time, I had come out to help.

     Lost in these thoughts, I turned down the bar girl’s offer of a drink.  As Mona came over, saying something I couldn’t hear, I wondered where she had been during all of this.  Recalling her nights of coming home drunk, I realized that she had been standing there, 20 feet away, the entire time.  Now I could see her in my mind’s eye, standing off to the side, just watching.  As the five men and two bar girls had stood by and just watched.  

   All standing idly by while…   And all but the young bar girls were bigger than me.  Including my lover, who had let me stand alone.

     Then, I resolved to get her out of my life.  

Because some lovers aren’t worth keeping.

—

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this anecdote may encourage finding ways to prevent domestic violence, how to deal with or prevent C-PTSD, and how to build inclusive thinking.

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

3.)  This was the third time in my life that I felt I was given the same respect, ironically, as a man usually gets.  The first time was at the USNA

after refusing to bilge out voluntarily, and the second time was when I worked in Izmir, during Pesach/Passover at the home of a Sephardic family who (after seeing in shul that I knew everything about the service, as people commented around me in Ladino) treated me as a man 

 during the Seder.   Links to both of these narratives are available here.

Fellow Thinkers, have you got ideas on learning, especially multiple LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to EndPoverty, EndHomelessness, & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

 

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

Click on the ShiraDest site menu above this narrative, please, to read more if you like learning via:

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or 

 Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about Project 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.

Minbari Mondays, Soulmates, and, Things Are Not Always as They Seem…

This week, Ranger Mayann did not send a report, so this 8th episode (in original, not viewing, order) of season 2, will again be from my point of view, rather than from the Minbari point of view:

   I love the way this episode highlights the fact (much like many of the Harry Potter books, too) that things really are not always as they appear to be:

1.)   more institutional abuse,   and yes, Neatnik, “be afraid, be very afraid” of the Corps,

and

2.)  also be a little afraid of Londo Mollari, or very afraid, when he starts wearing blue…

  In this episode, we see a rather humiliated Ambassador Delenn.  A bad hair day is not ok for the Minbari.

 

      May we all learn to look past appearances, and keep those who tell us the truth in our lives.

 

Neatnik’s review of this episode has more plot and character details.  Note that this, the original order, has this episode after Race through dark Places, due to filming issues at the time, and in this, the original rather than viewing order, it shows Talia Winters having been shorn of her trust in the Corps before now being willing to admit that the Corps scares the hell out of her, instead of being “Mother and Father” to her.  

Ouch, how we have to learn…

ps:  Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, here, but do the Minbari religious caste seem a bit hung up on their dignity?   🙂

Still stymied Shira

-Shira Destinie Jones

Shira

 

Nih sakh sh’lekk, sleem wa.

I come in peace, I am your friend.

 

Last week, and next week are part of Ranger Mayann’s letter on the history of the Babylon Project.  

Action Items:

1.)  Share your thoughts on the importance of institutional ethics, please.

2.) Share your thoughts on how we Human Beings might start to build a more fully inclusive society for all of us, and how this episode of Babylon 5 could help that process.

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

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

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for COVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Vote, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans offline) 

Nih sakh sh’lekk, sleem wa.

My Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction, and

a proposed Vision for a kinder world on Wondering Wednesdays…    

Shira Destinie A. Jones, BsC, MAT, MPhil

our year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

(GED lesson plans: Day 1)

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free copies at: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

You may read Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free.  Please leave a review, if you can make a bit of time, on the GoodReads page.

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

His Jaw

 

 

What had I just done?  It was as if I was awakening from a bad dream, but the bad dream was still there, looking at me in what seemed to be stunned silence.  I was still more stunned.

 

-I guess you really were mad.

 

As the look on his face began to change, the full implications of what I’d just done began to dawn on me.  My stomach churned with the knowledge that there would be hell to pay for that punch, even if he had been teaching me to throw them, just like that.  Telling me how soft I was, how I needed to learn to fight, not let the kids at school walk all over me.

 

He’d taught me to block, and to throw a punch, demanding that I learn to be harsh, not to care if I knocked someone down, not to care how that person might get hurt.

 

Then, after a phone call from a boy, he’d demanded to know who it was, what the boy had wanted.  When I told him that I’d had to push off the boy’s attempt to kiss me, he’d asked me something, moving closer.  My grandmother was out of the house, out shopping.  I felt that warning pain in my gut, and I had tried to move away.  This man, my step grandfather, was my guardian, but not my kin, not safe.  I wasn’t fast enough.

 

He put out a hand, then the other, pulled me toward him, pressing his lips against mine.  I had twisted and blocked, just like he’d taught me, then backed away, shaking in my disgust, and he had laughed, saying I couldn’t be angry.  Just like my mother had laughed, after she’d told me not to tell, so long ago.  Then, it came out of no where.

 

He had been teaching me, and taunting me.

 

-Hit harder, don’t be such a sissy.

 

Teaching me to throw a decent punch, then a block, and then another punch.  He’d taught me how to throw a good punch, for a girl.  A hard punch, alright.

 

 

But at his shoulder, not his jaw.

 

 

 

–

 

Action Prompts:  

1.) How can we protect kids from adults, especially those in their own families?

2.)  Do you think that Project Do Better’s Phase IV (described in chapters 5 and 10 of the book) might help?

 

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

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

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, La Casa De Papel/Money Heist, & Lupin & Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector Reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Plans, & Historical Fiction Serial Stories

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

Shira

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

 

Thoughtful Thursdays, Fruit trees, and libraries for kids

Today is January 28th, but starting last night on the 27th, the Birthday of the trees, aka Tu BiShvat began, on the Hebrew calendar.  This day celebrates all fruit-bearing trees, inclusively, just as our society must become more fully inclusive for all of us.  Especially public libraries: they need to be safer places, where kids can study quietly, sit in safety, and find the help they need, not just for homework, but for life, in peace and acceptance.

Children, especially abused children, need to be included even more intentionally, as so many fruits are included in the celebration of today’s Jewish holiday, for are we not all trees? 

(or, in the words of a certain film: “… we are all fruits.”)

–

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: my review

Upon reading again, I see that she uses the omniscient story-tellers voice more than I thought, in the first book, to excellent effect.

I find it amazing that Rowling managed to include child neglect, child abuse or bullying, ptsd and drugs all in one book, without coming off as preachy, and even giving it a happy ending. Then, managing to get kids to read it!

I only hope that my WIP can accomplish half as much, one day.

–

So, it turns out that the sort of fruit that we bear may well depend on the sort of soil in which we were planted, and the kind of water we received when young, yet each year, we can bear new fruit, even be transplanted into new soil…

Action Items:

1.) Search for two different sources related to library funding and whether social workers are also stationed in public library branches in your area.

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

3.) Share your thoughts on how a calendar based on the Holocene Epoch might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking,

4.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses an alternate calendar, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. If you write a book, once published, please consider donating to your local public library.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, 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 -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via this GR button:

, Vote (pref. using RankedChoiceVoting), Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

 

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

ShiraDest

December, 2020 CE = December 12020 HE

(The previous lesson 52/67 published since this post, and the most recent lesson 53/67…)

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