Turkish Tuesdays, and Being an American when it hurts

(Originally posted in 2020, updated for the current pain:)

The Turkish book I’m currently reading is mentioned below the short incident on Judging on the Side of Merit.

—

 

I was thinking of an episode of a show, Magnificent Century, from Turkey that has been quite popular in many Spanish-speaking countries, and how much I love an early episode showing the entry of the young Sultan Suleyman (The Lawgiver, to the Turks, but known in the west as:) The Magnificent.  His new subjects shout as he rides by: “Remember that you are not greater than God!”  and the young ruler takes his duty seriously, alleviating several glowering injustices on his first day as Sultan.  Yet, I had some experiences when I lived in Turkey that show how defensive any ordinary person can be, seeing another person who seems to represent some injustice. 

I wonder how I would react now, to this same situation:

–

 

I was just reading the comments of the founder of NVC on reactions in a refugee camp.  It struck me that those reactions were the same as the reactions to me in Izmir.  When I lived in Izmir (in 2005, from March to November), teaching English, one day one of my neighbors saw me walking up the stairs toward our building, and she took my arm (as women often do in Turkey) to walk with me and talk.  But her talk was more of a harangue.  She let loose on me about how my government was blaming them for a genocide which they insist did not happen, and that it was all very hypocritical, particularly when the US operates Guantanamo.  I was thunderstruck that she would hold me, a person who had left my country of origin to find a job elsewhere, and to whom she could direct this rant only because I was one of the rare expatriats to spend the time and effort to learn Turkish, responsible for the Apology request.  So, unfortunately, I responded defensively, pointing out that I personally had nothing to do with my government policies, did not agree with much of those policies, and had not voted for the administration then in power!  None of those defensive arguments changed her speech.  Now I see that, like the man in the camp, she needed to vent.  I wonder if, had I allowed her to vent, simply listening and validating what she needed to say to any random American, would that incident and relationship have ended more positively?
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
 from: 20 March, 12016 HE

–

So, it turns out that people all around the world can be both kind yet also defensive, sometimes at the same time. There is a Jewish concept called Dan LeChaf Zechut: Judge on the Side of Merit, or as we’d say, Give the Benefit of the Doubt.  I shall try harder to do that these days.

Oh, and I’ve just started a kids story called Küçük Kara Balık by Samad Behrangi in Turkish: page 1, and I’ve already got 5 words to look up!

–

September 29, 2020 –page 1

1.67% “So far, I get that an old fish tells his 12 kids & grandkids a story.
derinliklerinde
Irmakta (hmm: https://elon.io/learn-turkish/lexicon… … ırmak…)

kayadan, … kaya
vadinin… vadi
akmak: https://context.reverso.net/translati…“

–

More on my continuing striving with Turkish next week.

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

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

1.) Search and share  two different resources to translate the word “Justice” into Turkish.

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

4.) Write a story, blog post or tweet that uses a Turkish word.

Share your thoughts on how language learning may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

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

***************** 

Click here to read, if you like:

Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows, Lupin, or $…

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, strategies, and Adulting

Like WikiMedia, our society needs a long-term plan, if we want to move coherently from here to a better place.  Looking back at this set of suggestions from four years ago, now I think I can safely say that I would suggest the more inclusive project of The Four Freedoms movement, but here’s how I got there, if you think these more modest goals make more sense:

–

We are all working to continue to recover from the shock of this past week.  Still, certain strategies that many of us began putting into place some time ago continue to have value.  One strategy is working to build inclusive cultural structures that can re-frame our ways of thinking as a culture (clearly long term work), such as using the Holocene Calendar.

Adapting to the needs of the moment, however, are also clearly important, and more viscerally compelling as well.  To that end, many of us are standing, like the Sargents from Herland, together with the most vulnerable, ready to calmly, even grimly, but non-violently, face down those who would threaten or do harm.  Like those Sargents, we stand with the discipline that Dr. King and Gandhi taught, of non-violent resistance.  Those who wear a #SafetyPin are pledging to stand with all of our fellow human beings under threat.

But we need intermediate strategies, between the short-term reaction of the #SafetyPin movement, and the long-term, evolving toward inclusive cultural change.  I would suggest that one mid-range strategy to work for is Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), also known as Ranked Choice Voting, such as the state of Maine recently adopted.

A second mid-term to long-term strategy is to study and share Non-Violent Communication (NVC) while working toward better jobs (especially via worker’s cooperatives and unions/labor activism) for ALL races and classes.

So, short, medium and long-term: Stand together using NVC to work for IRV, and eventually changing our year designation from Anno Domini/Common Era to Holocene/Human Era (HE).

Finally, my personal Dream-term (very long-term) goal is to see both single payer health care and a Universal Basic Income, such as Dr. King called for over 40 years ago.  These would allow every person, of any creed, color, class, etc, to reach his or her full potential as a human being.  That is, after all, the real American Dream, isn’t it?

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
November 13th, 12016 HE

–

Action Items:

1.) Imagine something you’d like to see happen for our society 40 years from now.

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

3.) Share your thoughts on how we could get there from where we are now,

4.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses those thoughts, 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:

 

 

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

ShiraDest

December, 2020 CE = December 12020 HE

(The previous lesson 2/67 published since this post, and the most recent lesson 3/67…)

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

Mindful Mondays, Einstein, and NVC via libraries

Libraries are a vital part of any democracy, and of Phase I of the Four Freedoms movement.  I got a book, which I did not write down more than my thoughts, unfortunately, in France I think, from a library, and noted on teaching that:

–

Interesting, that Einstein grew up around clock parts and railway renewal, in Bern. So he drew from his personal context, clocks and trains, to illustrate his theories. Almost a form of NVC, putting mathematical or scientific concepts into a form that your students can readily imagine in their own lives, thus can use, from their own perspectives Cool!

–

Action Items in support of NVC :

1.) Share your thoughts on NVC, please.

2.) Write a book, blog post or tweet that uses NVC concepts, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, if a book, 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:

, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

 

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

ShiraDest

December, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

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

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

Teaching via NVC and Emotional Health Care Education

Health Care is part of Phase I of Project Do Better (fka the Four Freedoms movement). Emotional health care and communication as part of that are vital ingredients in any class room.  I wish I had understood that twenty years ago:

–

Let’s start with how Not to teach non-violently:

“If you don’t learn math, you won’t get a job!”  -This was my reply to a student in one of my high school classes in 2001 who asked “Why do we have to learn this stuff?”  Predictably, my reply did not go over well.  At the time (15 years ago, Really??) I (think) I felt fed up with the kids lack of motivation, and they felt it.  They even told me so.  Problem is, that turned into a vicious cycle of me against most of my kids, rather than us cooperating as that community of learners I had imagined.

If I had known that my (un-intentional) seeking of validation from my work of teaching, and that essentially blaming my students for their learning difficulties was the source of my difficulty in teaching them, I might have been able to help them more, using Non-Violent Communication techniques, and SuperNanny classroom management, which I didn’t learn about until some years later.

Hope this helps others,
Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest 
15 March, 12016 HE

–

Action Items in support of literacy and non-violence that you can take right now:

1.) Ponder ways to teach mathematics that you would enjoy.

2.)  Share your thoughts on how you would handle conflicts in the classroom, such as math-resistant young people,

4.) Write a book, story, blog post or tweet that uses those thoughts, tells a good story, and makes a difference.  Once published, please consider donating to your local public library.

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

Click here to read, if you like:

Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows,  Lupin, or Money Heist

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction

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.

 

Great Greek Wednesdays and more connecting for self-Health Care

And Universal Health Care would help with self-health care, but I digress (only a little):

Some years ago I was stuck in my habit of “over-complying,” as one person put it, and trying to meet the needs of everyone else rather than my own.  Against the background of increasing world lack of connection, it seemed then, and still seems, perhaps more so now, that connection and working to understand one another is crucial to individual and world-wide health? 

–

This post comes from A. Michelle’s interesting post .
…after the attacks a few hundred miles away. It seems Paris is all anyone can talk about today, and the radicalization of kids here. But no one wants to talk about the injustices and social problems that the manipulators who manage to brain-wash kids used to do so.

…

It is that feeling of disconnectedness … I keep rolling up my sleeves one more time, and once again into the breech, dear friends, …
Love, Peace and Soul = Community,
ShiraD.
14 Nov. 12015 HE (the Holocene Calendar)

–

 

So, it turns out that NVC does help at least a bit.  De-escalation, listening, trying to understand all points of view.  How does connection, or the lack thereof, play into our choices and our actions, examined and un-examined? 

(Did I mention that comprehensive health care for all would help?)

Yassas,   γεια σας!    

Action Items in support of connection that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different resources for connecting with people you do not know.

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

3.) Share your thoughts about connecting with people you do (already) know, and whether that is easier or more difficult than connecting with new people,

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that uses those thoughts, 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

NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

November, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

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

– WE can do MORE… Nosotras podemos hacer màs…

Click here for English…

“¿Una mujer con un alto cargo? ”

                                                                                                               EMdT

No es una cooperativa de trabajo, pero casi se parece. Empresarias trabajando juntas, ayudando y convirtiendose en amigas. Project Concern International (PCI) patroniza la tienda de WE: Mujeres Empoderadas, que es un espacio para mujeres aprendiendo trabajar en equipo para que los negocios de todas tengan exito. Se juntan cada semana para discutir y resolver asuntos en la tienda. Cada mujer tiene su propia empresa, y ha pasado el curso de entranamiento de ahorros y como encabezar un negocio. La tienda es un incubador de negocios, con apoyo de SCORE y grupos de ahorros del Self-Help Federal Credit Union. Pero el trabajo diario està hecho por esas emprendedoras, ayudando a las demàs para tener exito juntas.

“Women Empowered can do Multicultural Opportunities Reaching Excellence.”

“A woman with a high position?”

PCI sponsors the WE Boutique, a business incubator where women learn to work together to help each other build their businesses. Visit them and learn more!

Let’s #EndPoverty & #EndMoneyBail 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 for ALL!!!!, Walk !

#PublicDomainInfrastructure
ShiraDest

March, 12019 HE

– The Bright side of PTSD: become a Body Guard?

Smells, noises or lights can suddenly awaken some of us, and refuse to let us sleep until identified. Long-lasting childhood traumas can leave your Inner Child reluctant to come out from under the coffee table. Some ideas, illustrated by examples from historical and fictional sages, may help your Inner Parent to teach safety and trust to that Frightened Inner Child so that your Inner Adult, your competent and ambitious self who’d rather ignore both Child and Parent, can get on with succeeding in life.

First, one possible intrepretation of Hillel’s famous pair of questions:
A. אם אין אני לי, מי לי (Im ein ani li, mi li: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me,”) is that each of us must parent and protect his or her own inner child, and

B. ? וכשאני לעצמי, מה אני ; (Vekesh’ani le’atzmi, mah ani ? “And if I am only for myself, what am I?”), also stand with others who have been wounded.

Second, if, like Harry Potter, you’ve sustained significant losses in your life, even very early on, is there someone you can recall, or as Harry uses to conjure his first #Patronus, even some imaginary memory, showing love or kindness, even if from or to a stranger just for a moment? Your Inner Parent can use that image to show your Inner Child that there is hope for this world, and that is worth holding on to and fighting for, to motivate your ambitious Inner Adult to keep going. This is being for yourself in the most crucial way: parenting yourself through the panic and soothing those constantly jangled nerves until you learn to trust life. Then your ambitious and centered Inner Adult can take it from there to build the life you want to live.

Third, if, like Amelia, you see that it would be safer to give up than to fight, perhaps your Inner Adult can take the lead, having learned by watching your Inner Parent defend your own Inner Child, that sometimes an adult must sacrifice to create a better world for all Human Children. And like Feruze Hatun, healing all those around you may come at a high personal cost, but honesty and love, even shown to our enemies, as Gandhi and Dr. King proved, can indeed defeat hate, and bring you greater self-confidence and feelings of security.

So, warrior like Amelia or Intergenerational Community Parent to all, like Feruze Hatun, or just competent, capable, and knitting lots of hats for House Elves like Hermione, parenting yourself can lead to parenting others , for the good of All Humankind. Or you could still become a Body Guard.

Some more of my thoughts on how local government Policy such as accepting part of local taxes in local currencies/Time Dollars can help stimulate local community employment and inclusion for PTSD survivors are found in my related paper on Building Community and the crucial role of Intergenerational Participation in Community : Shavuot (Pentacost) as one of four Biblical pillars of building community.

Read, Write, Dream, Walk !
ShiraDest
My books on Economic and Social Policy: Shared Monetary Governance, and Stayed on Freedom’s Call…

September 10th, 12017 HE
Community4BiblicalPillarsShavuot

Wonder Woman: The Ugly, The Cool and The Hopeful

Wonder Woman remains an excellent example of intelligent female characters becoming strong leaders.  One fellow viewer described this film as being rather Harry Potter-like, but to me, this film is just a bit more subversive than that: it describes the Human Potential of love, as a driving reason to see hope for and invest energy in the Human Race.

The Ugly:        I personally found it amazing for several reasons to see women and children in the trenches of World War I, something I’d never heard had happened.

The Cool:        I suspect that this was part of the theme of innocence, and the idea of the human race as a whole not necessarily having earned a chance at existence, but deserving at least the opportunity to continue becoming better than we are.  Also, this film has better characterization than many novels I have read!

The Hopeful:  For that reason, this film went far beyond the simple idea of good vs. evil, in that it contrasts human weakness with the human capacity for self-sacrifice.

Updated the 22nd of August, 12017 HE

Having lost my first review of Wonder Woman, this was the short version: An independent-minded girl learns to trust herself and becomes a hero willing to sacrifice herself if necessary, but smart and strong enough to make the right impression on her team-mates that gets the difficult work done! Like Amelia, Hermione, Ivanova, Eda and Nazlı, all strong young women who had to grow into their own, and inspire us to do likewise. ShiraDestinie

(Ok, the reblog feature seems to have kept my comment, but replaced my earlier post with a related video clip!  Here is the post I meant to reblog: from June 3rd, 2016…)

I’m still emotionally buzzing from the end of episode 21 of El Ministerio del Tiempo and Amelia’s incredible courage, and character arc !!

More than just one protagonist, though, she stands in a line of female main characters (not always lead or protag, actually) who start off as just intelligent, and develop into both intelligent and strong female characters, a bit like Hermione Granger from the HP series:  these ladies began with some kind of growing to do, and did that growing through painful events, but grew, emotionally and personally (courage, committment, etc) to become much stronger than they started off the books or series, like:

Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5, or  Eda from Sihirli Annem,  or Nazli from Yabanci Damat all began as less than fully confident, but all very promising, intelligent, and self-directed young ladies, who had to learn to be more assertive, culminating in either marrying the person whom they chose (rather than their families chose), or by snatching victory from the jaws of death, or in the case of Amelia, deliberately walking into the possibility of the worst death known (an Auto-da-Fe) in history, for the purpose of making her point.  (ok, yes, you could argue that Delenn does this in B5’s Circle of Fire, but watch the Ministerio del Tiempo episode, and you will see that it is rather different, and also Delenn arrived on B5 as a mature leader, where Amelia began as a novice leader).

These are the examples of critical thinking, emotional growth, and self-confidence that young girls need to see as early and as often as possible to grow into leaders able and willing to stand alongside men and make this world a more just and humane place for all.

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !    ShiraDest,    3rd of June, 2016

(9th of June edit: these ladies all learned to use cooperation with their allies, and even understanding and forms of NonViolent Communication with their enemies, to accomplish seemingly impossible goals: worth learning in various languages to share with others as I aspire to  become an excellent teacher, like all of these role models!) -Shira, 9 June, 2016

update: Wonder Woman post-edit: July 7th, 12017 HE (2017, Gregorian)   Read, Write, Dream, Walk !

Context, Critical Thinking, Continuous Learning: Project Do Better

I’m still emotionally buzzing from the end of episode 21 of El Ministerio del Tiempo and Amelia’s incredible courage, and character arc !!

More than just one protagonist, though, she stands in a line of female main characters (not always lead or protag, actually) who start off as just intelligent, and develop into both intelligent and strong female characters, a bit like Hermione Granger from the HP series:  these ladies began with some kind of growing to do, and did that growing through painful events, but grew, emotionally and personally (courage, committment, etc) to become much stronger than they started off the books or series, like:

Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5, or  Eda from Sihirli Annem,  or Nazli from Yabanci Damat all began as less than fully confident, but all very promising, intelligent, and self-directed young ladies, who had to learn to be more assertive, culminating in either…

View original post 232 more words

– Black and Jewish Americans fight together for human dignity… in Spain…

As we discussed my all time favorite show, El Ministerio del Tiempo (sorry B5!!), a friend recently told me that one of her relatives had fought in the Spanish Civil War as part of the Lincoln Brigade which turned out to have been known officially as the Lincoln Batallion.

Looking into the history of the Lincoln Batallion, I found, among others, Oliver Law, a Black man who had to leave the USA to become the first African-American in US history to command a military unit (not counting NCOs during the US Civil War like Robert A. Pinn, who picked up the standard and command after the deaths of all of his officers), during the Spanish Civil War.

In total, one Black woman and 54 Black men volunteered from the United States, where they were treated with disdain, to fight racism and oppression on the other side of the Atlantic. They hoped to change things back home in the US, and they were following the calling of their consciences, to fight racism and oppression where they could: in Europe.  For Tom Page, it was the first time he was treated with human dignity, and for Salaria Kea, the only Black woman to volunteer, it was a dashing of hopes upon returning home.  But for all, it was honorable service to humanity.

Like Delmer Berg, the last surviving American to travel to Spain, 1/3 of the volunteers were Jewish. This was in keeping with a long but little-known tradition of cooperation between the Black and Jewish communities well before the 1960s.  In that sacred tradition, led by Dr. King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Gandhi and many others, we must continue the cooperation between individuals, families, communities and states that so desperately needs to continue, to move us all forward as a united human race.

May all of their memories be a blessing to us all, and a reminder of Human Cooperation
Zichronam LiVrachah,
Shira Destinie Jones

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !
ShiraDest
March 16th, 12017 HE

– SafetyPin, IRV, NVC and HE: Suggestions for Immediate/short-term, mid-term, long-term, and Dream-term strategies

We are all working to continue to recover from the shock of this past week.  Still, certain strategies that many of us began putting into place some time ago continue to have value.  One strategy is working to build inclusive cultural structures that can reframe our ways of thinking as a culture (clearly long term work), such as using the Holocene Calendar.

Adapting to the needs of the moment, however, are also clearly important, and more vicerally compelling as well.  To that end, many of us are standing, like the Sargents from Herland, together with the most vulnerable, ready to calmly, even grimly, but non-violently, face down those who would threaten or do harm.  Like those Sargents, we stand with the discipline that Dr. King and Gandhi taught, of non-violent resistance.  Those who wear a #SafetyPin are pledging to stand with all of our fellow human beings under threat.

But we need intermediate strategies, between the short-term reaction of the #SafetyPin movement, and the long-term, evolving toward inclusive cultural change.  I would suggest that one mid-range strategy to work for is Instant Run-off Voting (IRV), also known as Ranked Choice Voting, such as the state of Maine recently adopted.

A second mid-term to long-term strategy is to study and share Non-Violent Communication (NVC) while working toward better jobs (especially via worker’s cooperatives and unions/labor activism) for ALL races and classes.

So, short, medium and long-term: Stand together using NVC to work for IRV, and eventually changing our year designation from Anno Domini/Common Era to Holocene/Human Era (HE).

Finally, my personal Dream-term (very long-term) goal is to see both single payer health care and a Universal Basic Income, such as Dr. King called for over 40 years ago.  These would allow every person, of any creed, color, class, etc, to reach his or her full potential as a human being.  That is, after all, the real American Dream, isn’t it?

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !

ShiraDest
November 13th, 12016 HE