How a missed trash can led to Formation Tortue, but learning languages may help…

This is a slightly edited re-posting, to finish the theme of how childhood trauma informs and affects our adult lives, that has been going this past few weeks of Some Tours being Worth Marching, and then Some Beatings being Worth Taking, after Floating on the ceiling as Punishment for hitting your elders in the Jaw, and learning that I Shouldn’t Exist?

—

Why did that paper ball flying over my head make me dive for the floor?

Shortly after I turned 51 years of age, a young coworker launched a simple balled up bit of paper at the trash can in front of me. It missed. What I saw was not a mere bit of paper becoming litter, however. Out of the corner of my eye, something came flying at me from behind. I reacted instinctively: by ducking. Since this was not the normally appropriate behavior for a 51 year old woman in an office environment, you can well imagine my embarrassment. My coworker apologized profusely: the poor thing had simply missed a trash can with a tiny bit of paper. What he saw was a reaction out of a Roman Turtle formation . I also apologized profusely, but the damage was already done. For the rest of the day, coworkers eyed me suspiciously and slowly walked over to place their trash in the bin. The awkwardness was palpable, and I was grateful when some of my Mexican coworkers began talking and joking in Spanish, drawing attention away from the incident.

As I sat on my afternoon break with a cup of hot water, I suddenly recalled a time I haven’t thought of in over 40 years. Another object was flying over my head from behind me, but it was not a simple bit of paper.

It was a belt buckle.

Pandemonium had broken loose as an old man bellowed his wrath, and swung his belt. I was the only person in the room not running away. For some reason, I could see the old man, the belt, and the other kids in the room. All looked either furious or frightened. But it all seemed to be happening somewhere else, with me simply frozen in place. The sounds were there, but muted as if in an old fashioned film.

It suddenly hit me that this event was from a time that I had worked very hard to forget. I’d been 9 years old, in the house overnight of a babysitter who was rather negligent. I told my mother, yet she did nothing. So, I forgot. But I never knew why objects flying over my head made me panic; until today.

Spanish, in particular Mexican Spanish, has always been my favorite language to switch into when I need to move my thoughts out of English. As a child, I’d always wished that I had magical powers to allow me to fight, or that I had a fairy sister to defend me, but the reality was that I was thrown back upon my own resources, so hiding or being ready to run usually seemed to be my best option. Hiding from my own thoughts was fairly easily accomplished, even in my dreams at times, by singing or thinking in Spanish.

It turned out that I could not hide from myself indefinitely. Things we’d rather not remember have a way of springing up, in the end. As I began to get therapy for events from my childhood it turned out that hiding and forgetting was not an effective way of dealing with those events. I had to relive them, again. This was probably more frustrating for my therapists than it even was for me, as I was told again and again that pushing away the memories would only make my #C-PTSD worse. But the focus on just being functional made it easy to ignore, once I was back in a job where I could pour my time and attention into something complex. (This 13-26 week cap that Medicaid puts on the number of sessions is yet another reason that we need full #UniversalHealthCare for everyone. Complex cases of many illnesses require long-term therapy that, when covered, will make for a healthier work force and population, not just the functional-to-panic-back-to-functionality roller coaster that kills so much time and so many people, in the end…)

The final straw arrived when the regional economy took a dive, sending myself and the vast majority of people I knew out of work. Some went to California, and I went overseas for work. In a new country and environment, stress flared up, and so did my panic anxiety. But this time I had to talk to a therapist in a language I was only just beginning to learn. As it turned out, I was finally able to access a good bit of the emotional content, while remaining present and able to stem the tide of anxiety during each session. As we began to unpack more of the childhood memories I’d been avoiding, being forced to express myself in a language I was still learning appeared to keep me emotionally distanced enough to prevent being pulled completely into the pain of the original event. When I came back to the USA, I found in California that having a Mexican therapist allowed us to switch from my native English, which was required to access the full emotion of the memory, into Spanish. So when she needed to lower the intensity level of the session, but keep me in the memory, she would switch into Spanish, distancing me just enough from the experience to process it. Who would have thought that #learning a #language could help in this case? But, it did.

So, what would Astérix do? He’d ask the Druid Panoramix, who would say: Il faut #ArreterdeFumer tout de suite !!

originally posted in  April, 12020 HE

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this story may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those 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 at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

We can  Do Better: to create a kinder future

Peace

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

( 5 month GED lesson 21 of 67 plans…),

and Ranger M.’s Babylon 5 review posts, because story inspires learning, and historical stories inspire tool-building, right?  “Of course right!”

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: 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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira

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

Minbari Mondays, Confessions and Lamentations, and, “Faith Manages”

      This this week, there is no report from Ranger Mayann.  The Great Machine on Epsilon 3 still has a problem, Houston…

    So, my again short review  this week is that similarity is NOT “required for the exercise of compassion.” 

 

      Thanks to Delenn for that point.

       This episode frighteningly points up the importance of Universal Health Care.

      Neatnik and  The Junkyard give more traditional plot and character perspectives of this episode.

 

Last week’s review was of the season 2, episode In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum,

Next week’s review will be Divided Loyalties …

-Shira Destinie Jones

Shira

 

Nih sakh sh’lekk, sleem wa.

I come in peace, I am your friend.

 

There are earlier episodes, as part of a letter on the history of the Babylon Project.  

Action Prompts:

1.)  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.

2.) Write a book, 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 (and Beta Readers might help us all, with a Plan…)?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for COVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

        by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

                                      help build a kinder future: Do Better: a Vision of a Better World

( 5 month GED lesson 17 of 67 plans),

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective:

story inspires learning  and also even courage, when slaves escape…

Nih sakh sh’lekk, sleem wa.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: 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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

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

Day 18/67, Five Month GED, radicals, and health

Would universal health care be radical an idea, like exponents, which are indeed, quite radical?  In the inverse, that is.

Day 18 Lesson plan

Capitalizing (Use CHROME browser for this site)

Exponents, part 2

The Radical Square Root!!

Day 18 ExitSlips

( Day 17 … Day 19)

Action Prompts:

1.)  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.

2.) Write a book, 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

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

help build a kinder future: Do Better: a Vision of a Better World

( 5 month GED lesson 16 of 67 plans),

and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective, :and

how a historical fiction short series can inspire learning…

Nih sakh sh’lekk, sleem wa.

Peace.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: 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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

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

Wondering Wednesdays, Do Better, Chapter 6 on steps to get to Phase III

This post is the rough draft of  Chapter 6, section III, for my non-fiction WiP, Do Better, formerly titled Baby Acres/Floors.  

Putting a floor on poverty so that every baby born can have a safe childhood.

Once again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equity and justice, and why in 4 phases.  This chapter is part of showing what Phases I-IV could look like as potential roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind. 

Chapter 6 section III:

( Chapter 6, section II was last week…)

 

III. :  (1103/1k wds) An overview of Getting to Phase III of this project from Phase II:

 

III. A (292/250 wds).

Phase III’s milestones and time limits could arguably be adjusted, and quite well will need to be, depending on the situation over the next 30 years.  Phases I and II will have likely taken at least 15 years, or even 20 years each, and thus between 30 and 40 years will have now passed, since the start of this project.  While it could be argued that this phase is merely a running start for Phase IV, some more detailed reasons for separating these two phases will be addressed in chapter 9.  Can the length of each phase be adjusted?  Certainly so, but if and only if that adjustment does not happen again, and again, resulting in that phase becoming a never ending reality, terminating the project before fully secure freedom for all of us is achieved in the actually existing world.  Therefore, limits need to be placed on how far any particular phase of this project can be extended, with five years appearing, at the very inception of this project in 2021 (aka the year 12021 HE), to be a reasonable number of extension years to place that limit.  The goals and their attendant milestones must encompass universal health care, a ubi, universal free education, and the adaptation of tools with which many of us are already familiar into newer versions of those tools more suitable for our current circumstances.  These milestones, requiring enough flexibility for each community to adapt them to local needs, yet also enough solidity to meet the standards of reasonable populations across many regions, will need to be set with a maximum of transparency, accountability to those managing the process, and responsibility for making a visible difference in the lives of both participants and observers of this process.

III. B(252/250).

The milestone actions, in addition to meeting the standards for good governance, must also be part of a set of tasks that can scale up from ordinary every day individual level activities to tasks in which all members of entire communities and regions can participate regularly and meaningfully.  These milestone accomplishment activities must also be universally useful and accessible even to currently homeless people, both in the early stages and as we reach the end goals.  The question of whether these tasks should be broken down into separate stages, one stage for each of our Three Universals, Plus, objectives of Phase III,  or started with all three plus and once is a bit of a What If? exercise that can be better addressed in chapter 9.  Some examples include anything from providers giving free seminars, to community health clinics expanding free access.  Likewise, community colleges, and then universities allowing free auditing of classes, to full test out for credit access to all residents.  In like manner, the basic income, like that of Stockton, CA, and be expanded to more people, more and more often, while we all expand our healthful lifestyle changes like cycling, walking, even at peak rush hour if less than a 35 minute walk.  These changes will all result in healthier population as education, both formal and informal, progresses, and those changes will show up in visible measurable ways as we all pitch in to help scale up each set of activities leading to milestones and larger goals, together.

 

III. C (267/250wds).

The objectives of this phase, in particular, are likely to generate many objections and accusations of naivety regarding the need for a Single Payer System of universal healthcare, fully free education, and in particular, a UBI, given the culture here in the US.  Some quick responses, as most will be discussed further in chapter 9, are that as with trains for pollution, among other things, and early childhood education, an ounce of equitable prevention is worth a pound of health care cure.  And as to the quite probable accusation of being naive, aside from the fact that many studies back up the suggested policy changes that this project is working toward, the reader is requested to consider the following, as if living in the skin of a person experiencing homelessness right now.  Just as living with an abusive person can bring out the worst in US, living in a situation where our needs for safety, food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare, and transportation are met, such as a system laid out in this project’s Vision, can also help to bring out the better angels of human nature. While we act as individual agents to consciously direct ourselves, simultaneously, it can be to the betterment of both the structures and of our society by helping one another.  Better to take the risk of some percentage of people choosing to rest at home and do nothing, while the naive majority contribute, then the risk of a landless and increasingly desperate majority responding with violence to the rising levels of inequality and homelessness, food, and energy precarity, and fear of “the other”.

 

III.  D (257/250wd).

Metrics for phase III will come, in part, from a long time ago, in an example far, far away, and draw lessons from that thesis, reviewed by Dittmer in the IJCCR book review of SMG by Jones, 2010.  To answer the question of how do we know where we are in the milestone and goal timeline, and what sort of a difference we may have made in the process, we will need four sets of metrics for each stage, earlier and later, of this third phase of our overall project.  Such metrics, especially in this phase of the project, will need to be decided upon with a maximum of community input.  Chapter 4 showed a vision of what Phase III could look like in the early and in the later years of this phase, taking each item of the “Three Universals, Plus” one at a time.  By successively increasing levels of volunteer workshops, staffing in clinics and doctors’ offices, libraries, etc, we can have concrete ways of measuring the alignment of this vision with change in actually existing reality.  Existing public health metrics can also give us a start on showing how the project is making a difference, with examples like fewer respiratory hospitalizations as smoking and vaping decreases, to name just one category.  Both expanded education and a ubi will impact levels of hunger, teen pregnancy, voter engagement, etc, giving more potential ways to measure the impact of this project as we hit our milestones, reaching toward the last stage of our overall vision, in Phase IV.

— (Next Wednesday: Chapter 6, section IV of to how to get there…  )

I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more  fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.

 

And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps:  Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964).  I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.

 

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how Universal Free Education (through PhD or Master Craftsman/Tradesmith) may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Share a book, story, post or tweet that uses those 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 at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

            by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

                        We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

Peace     ! שָׁלוֹם

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

(5 month GED lesson 15 of 67 plans…),

       and Ranger M.’s Babylon 5 review posts, because story inspires learning…

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: 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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira 

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

Stories, TV, and mental health

   Can a story make a difference to our outlook, or even to our lives?   

Certainly for me, sometimes even a mere television show can make a difference, as in moment 2:20 of this 7th episode of the first season of Spanish Public Television’s “El Ministerio del Tiempo.”

In the very first scene of this episode, a major character is shown, years before the present date, about to take an action that would prevent her from ever contributing again.  She is standing on a ledge, about to leap to her death.  But the person who will become her mentor, leading her into an alternative that few people know even exists, recruits her to the new job by telling her that if she jumps, those who wanted her to fail will be over joyed.  Then he says:

“No los des ese gusto.”

“Don’t give them that pleasure.”

 

And so begins the meteoric rise to heights at that point never attained by a woman, let alone a lesbian.  If such a story can move even one person to keep going, is it not valuable for the mental health of us all?

 

Action Items:

1.) What, if you wish to share, was a TV show or film that made a difference in your life?

2.) How would seeing a character on a TV show decide not to commit suicide influence someone else’s decision?

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 -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via  GoodReads,

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plans offline)

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

the year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: 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.

 

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

Wondering Wednesdays, Baby Floors, Chapter 4: Section II, the later years of phase III

This post starts the rough draft of  Chapter 4, the last section, for my non-fiction WiP, Baby Floors.  

This section of chapter 4  has  about 1000 words, (hopefully currently practicable words).  Below, I will also include the outlines that I missed last week for Chapter 4.

And  once again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases.  This chapter will show what Phases III could look like as part of a possible roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind. 

Chapter Four:

( Chapter 4’s   section I  was last week…)

 Chapter 4,  section II

II. (1915/1250 wds):  Later years of Phase III -What it could look like:

II. A (359/250 wds).

In the middle to last years of this “Three Universals, Plus” stage of our project, nearly 45 years since the beginning of Phase I, at this point, the task of advocating for and helping to implement a Single Payer System of universal health care across the entire United States.  Due to the work of building up the public health service, and improving access to information and education of the earlier phases of this project, there should now be less and less smoking and drug usage, coupled with more and more recognition of the fact that “your health = our health” and accordingly, there will be less and less public expenditure on preventable health maladies.  This all results in an easier task of implementing universal health care.  Dedicated volunteers will continue to show the public how free condoms and birth control increase public health statistics in several areas, with the Single Payer System of universal health care as a driver for ever improving public and individual health outcomes across the board.  As continuously updated public health and financial law workshops remind us all how pandemics have been driven by all residents and visitors in an area, the natural conclusion will become continuously clearer.  That conclusion is that all people need free access to health care in order to protect the public, and that protection works more effectively when all people have access to basic preventative health care upon arrival in a community.  Studies, and volunteers opening up access to those studies, will continue to show how a Single Payer System lowers the costs of prescription medications over the long term, and improves quality of life for all members of society.  By the end of this Phase, 45 years after the start of Phase I and the efforts to build up the public health service, every single person in this country should be able to walk into any clinic, hospital, doctor’s office, or store, and update his or her medical history, make a cost free appointment for medically necessary procedures, and get information and advising on needed medical concerns, all in a safe and comfortable environment via safe, clean, comfortable and efficient public transportation.

II. B(330/250).

By the end stages of Phase III, the work of advocacy and educating should have led to the implementation of a truly universal basic income for every citizen in the United States, if not also for every resident of the country.  The work of Andrew Yang to popularize the concept of a UBI for every American adult must, by this point, have come to be understood as the possibility of hope for all of society.  It must also have been updated to include access to that rightful income by children able to care for themselves, in cases where parents, guardians, or caretakers are not taking sufficient steps to ensure the care and protection of said children.  The results of the 2020 Basic Income pilot in Stockton, CA will also have had time to be understood and updated, by this time, so that every person in our society understands how we all benefit from putting a floor on poverty, want, and fear, through the issuance of a UBI, and why it must be all three things: Universal, Basic, and an Income.  Many other documents explain the details of a UBI, but suffice it to say here that such an income must go directly to every individual resident in the form of federal money accessible to that individual without an unwanted intermediary.  It should provide enough money to be able to buy all of the basics needed to live simply, including basic nutritious foods like beans or lentils, rice, organic greens (and we hope that by this time, all food will be grown without toxic chemicals), basic essential clothing, and basic safe individual shelter.  That it is an individual income means that it must go directly to every man, woman, and child, with that child being able to have full and exclusive spending and saving control over his or her own money after, perhaps, passing a simple basic budgeting test to show ability to safely manage that money independently for basic daily needs.  The details of how we could get to a place in which we can safely make this happen for us all we be discussed in chapter 9.

 

II. C (425/250wds).

Returning to the importance of education across each phase of this project, the last years of Phase III should see the solidifying of a movement across the country in favor of free preschool through PhD or vocational technical education for every member of society.  By the end of this phase, marking 45 years of work on the overall project, all child care should already be of high quality educational time, whether designated as childcare or day care, as preschool willl be, but more so.  The public education system, starting with the public library system, will have been shored up to be able to reach the highest standards of quality, as is already the case in many OECD countries.  Free vocational technical, trade school, arts training, and apprenticeships with on the job training should all be freely available to all residents, by this point in the project, with the support and understanding of the importance of such availability of all of society.  Clearly, there must also be free preparation and tutoring, provided one on one by individuals, or also provided by organizations working in the public interest rather than for profit, to ensure that each and every person willing to work hard enough and dedicate the required persistence has the opportunity, like the wealthy, to obtain the best preparation for any educational entrance exam.  In this way, society can ensure that time will not be wasted by those merely seeking to use the time in college as a diversion, and can also be assured that only those qualified to complete the training offered by society actually embark upon such educational opportunities, and do not waste them.  The benefit of making free university training up through and including research degrees, such as the PhD, should be obvious, when viewed in the light of the number of missed opportunities each person who does not pursue such research represents as a loss to society, in knowledge and in new tools build for later use.  Often, research and development in a variety of disciplines does not show its practical utility until later on, when the engineering science has finally caught up with the theory developed years earlier, as in theoretical mathematics.  For this reason, and more, all education must be free of cost, but full of work, with discipline and a sense of commitment to the good of society.  In the last years of this phase, new educational courses to provide free training for Citizen Jury and government service should also be developed and offered, in preparation for Phase IV.

 

II.  D (335/250wd).

By the end of this third phase of our project, most of the country could be using old tools which have been updated to become modern tools, some with a US twist, in keeping with the needs of each particular community and region in this large and diverse nation.  For a local means of complementing the federal money supply, communities may choose to add a community issued currency to the supply of money in circulation, thus adding options for spending on and incubating local businesses, and providing another way of rewarding local customer loyalty.  Local currencies have also been shown to improve levels of trust and empowerment within communities (citeGreenMoneyCommunityEmpowermentPaper2010).  In combination with other old friends, like Ranked Choice Voting, aka IRV, which should also at this point be in use in cities, counties, and states for elections across the nation, such tools meet the needs of today, adding resources and options in local communities.  Participatory Budgeting is another tool already well known places like Porto Alegro and Paris, where they have been used before, but perhaps less known here in the US, but by the end of Phase III, understood and used across the country.  Likewise, citizens’ juries could be in use in many parts of the country to help develop local and regional policy, based on the work done in earlier years by dedicated volunteers to educate the public regarding the benefits of using such juries in answering a variety of policy development questions in other countries.  Finally, youth courts, also known as teen or peer courts, already known in much of the US, should certainly have greatly expanded use, nation wide, and greater funding and support from a now far more well-informed and thoughtful citizenry.  Thus, at then end of Phase III, as old tools have been adapted for modern use, the stage will also have been set for the building and sharing of newer tools, by a new generation, to solve the unique, multiple, and extremely challenging problems that face this new generation.

 

II. E (403/250wds).

Finally, at the end of Phase III, we finish advocating for and building some new tools in preparation for new policy crafting, and a new paradigm, coming forward in the next and final phase of this project.  By this point, 45 years into our 60 year project, the DoE may be able to begin doing on a nation-wide level what many states may have been doing for some years, already: rotating teachers all around the US, as new teachers are rotated in many European countries already.  The World Youth Parliament, like the Belgian Youth Parliament before it, could have, by this time, paved the way for experienced veterans of such bodies to take part in transforming the United Nations into a sort of world parliament, modeled, perhaps, on the European Parliament, with nation-states looking to the EU as one possible model for world wide cooperation.  Here at home, the movement for a Constitutional Convention could suggest several updates for the needs of the coming centuries based on an educated population that did not exist in 1787, including the use of proportional representation as Denmark has, at least in the House of Representatives, and removing the Electoral College as no longer in keeping with an educated and engaged citizenry, and making health, education, housing, and basic food a human right, as several European constitutions also do.   Provisions could also be added for frequent referrenda, as is done in Switzerland, as the start of a move toward greater levels of direct democracy, now that we have the technology to permit this process to work.  Building on the work of the Adulthood Challenge rite of passage, this would be the time to begin working actively for all Adults to be placed into a jury pool for a variety of difficult responsibilities, including national policing and defense services, somewhat like that of the Swiss model.  This pool of Adults could also be used to build the lottery for Sortition into the House of Representatives, once proper training in good governance and policy craft is assured (although much of that work, in reality, is done by Congressional staffers, rather than the elected lawmakers themselves).  By the close of the final year of Phase III, the infrastructure, cultural, and policy tool preparation for a paradigm shift should now be in place, allowing the work of looking forward to the next and final stage of this project, Phase IV, to begin.

 

— (Next Wednesday: Chapter 5, Introductory section…  )

I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more  fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.

 

And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps:  Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964).  I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.

As for genre, I’m still wondering:  clearly part of  Non-fiction.

  Many thanks to Dr. Garland for suggesting Philosophy! 

Maybe also: System Change, Causes, maybe even Inspirational, but I doubt it.

Action Items:

1.) Consider some ideas you may have on how our society can solve homelessness, starting right now,

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

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your 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 at LEAST for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write,

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plans Offline),

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

(Day 1  Lesson plan…)

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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page, and please do let us know here that you’ve reviewed it there!  🙂

Chapter 4

outlines.

 

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

Wondering Wednesdays, Baby Floors, Chapter 4: Section I, the early years of phase III

This post starts the rough draft of  Chapter 4, the first section, for my non-fiction WiP, Baby Floors.  

This section of chapter 4  has  about 1000 words, (hopefully currently practicable words).  Below, I will also include the outlines that I missed last week for chapters 2 and 3.  Chapter 4’s outlines will come in next week’s posts.

And  once again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases.  This chapter will transition to a chapter (2-5) for each phase, showing what Phases I-IV could look like as part of a possible roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind. 

Chapter Four:

( Chapter 4’s  introductory section  was last week…)

 Chapter 4,  section I

I. (1250 wds) :  What Phase III could look like in the early years:

 

I. A (340/250 wds).

 

The starting year of Phase III will be 31 years into the full project.  These prior thirty years will have been spent building up both physical public infrastructure and cultural infrastructure, so that by this point, libraries will be hosting regular public health workshops, perhaps given by doctors and nurses sent from local neighborhood health clinics on a rotating basis.  The new cadre ofAdults who began building their cohort 15 years prior will also now be available to give free workshops telling of their own personal emotional and financial self-defense learning, which ties in directly to the emotional health of the entire community, as they give referral information to local health clinics even while sharing tools, like Tai Chi in the libraries or parks.  As local health clinics provide and push for the ability to provide more and longer preventative and mental health care tools, like nutrition classes, or podiatry services, or various types of therapy, they can also continue to offer updating education classes regularly in library conference rooms.  Each of these sets of workshops can be opportunities to show the benefits of a dignified and fully accessible system of essential basic health services fully available to all residents, and how such a system, properly funded and prepared, can act to prevent the spread of public health emergencies, such as Hepatitis A, or Covid-19 outbreaks.  Multi-media, arts, pamphlets and other forms of popular communication can be used, during this period, to start a “doing your part to keep yourself healthy helps us all” campaign, similar to and connected with the American Lung Association’s stop smoking campaigns, with links to the connection between individual responsibility and action, and better outcomes for all of society’s public health situationsNeedBetterWordHere.  As we start to move into the later stages of this third phase, a strong public education and media campaign should be well under way to end the demand for all smoked products, whether tobacco or other particulate-producing items, and to show alternatives to and the benefits for moving away from all mood-altering chemicals, prescription or otherwise.    .

 

 

I. B(400/250).

The same time period, 30 years after the initial opening of this project, should see the opening introductions and arguments on a wider level in favor of a universal basic income, as we educate ourselves on the benefits of seeing that the basic needs of every resident are met so that each of us can contribute fully to society.  Building on earlier campaigns by those like A. Yang, and others, a fuller examination of what it means to provide a universal benefit to all members of society, without means testing or questioning, and how this saves much time and effort on the part of every level of government, individuals, and communities, can begin.  That such provided benefit would be basic is already clear, given the propensity that we all have, as Americans, toward austerity.  Any universal benefit would be given at a level which is basic enough to be minimal, and allow subsistence, but not so much as to be a burden upon society’s resources.  For comparison, studies should be cited which have determined minimum levels of expenditures necessary to maintain a basic living arrangement, such as a studio apartment, with enough funds to purchase an adequate level of nutritious food, and to pay for basic clothing and public transportation, which, by this point, will have had 30 years of development into a system used by all classes of society, including the middle and upper classes, on a daily basis.  That this is an income means that it is neither a tax credit, nor a loan, nor a grant, nor a benefit, but an income given to each individual as a human right.  Additional income aside, those who do not need this income should, upon their honor, choose to use that surplus to help others attain their worthy goals, in the service of humanity.  Examples of a limited experiment in basic income, such as that of Stockton, CA in 2020, and others which have been conducted around the world, like Finland and other places, can be used as a starting point for developing this concept, and making it work in the context of all 50 states.  As we move from the early stages into the later stages of Phase III, the universal basic income will become known, discussed, and decided upon within each community, nationwide.  Specific ways in which this can happen will be discussed in further detail in chapter 9.

 

 

 

I. C (350/250wds).

The third Universal, universal free education, builds on the existing public education system already in place.  In 2021, President Biden began to build support for his proposal for free education from preschool through Community College, or at least the Associate’s Degree, for all Americans.  This start will be added to, in Phase III, by advocating and educating for a fully free public education system, from preschool through and including the PhD level for research education, and vocational or trade school education for the manual or craft trades and arts.  Finland and other countries offer entirely free education to their citizens as a Human Right, according to Diane Ravitch, and if they can, so ought the United States be able to do for American society.  Starting from an ‘Each One Teach One’ level of one on one tutoring and tool sharing, every person can help every other person find and triage information, going back through the third, second, and first hand sources to verify information and judge data and statistical conclusions based on that data.  From these vital citizenship skills, individuals can decide whether a college preparatory path, or a vocational technical trade, or even an apprenticeship in a trade or art is most apt for that person, which also helps society.  Likewise, the newAdults recognized in Phase II can now help to find, build, and share  new tools based in the VAK mode, widening out to sharing tools based on all of the multiple learning styles.  Other tools like Project Gutenberg, LibriVox.org, The Archive, and more new tools will certainly be developed to help propagate access to free information in the public domain.  As we move into the later stages of Phase III, this movement for independent and shared learning can expand, showing us how all students can get help with their preparation for SAT, or GRE, or LSAT and other entrance exams via free test preparation tools, the Open Textbook movement, and people willing to share their time and expertise to help each individual realize the human potential that also helps all of society to successfully move forward.

 

 

 

I.  D (330/250wd).

One of the most important tasks in the beginning years of this phase of our project will be to tell of old tools, and show their importance in solving the problems for which they were developed, as well as their utility, once updated, for solving the problems confronted by the current generation.  During the Great Depression, as many will still remember from their studies, FDR formed the CCC, often known as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” which served a variety of functions, including job training, travel, and infrastructure cleaning.  What many may not have heard of from that same era are local or community currencies, like the 1930‘s Stamp Scrip described by Loren Gatch (citeGreenMoneyTalkGrtrWashExchange29june2010).  The many such locally issued currencies, thriving especially during the March 1933dlbChkYr Bank Holiday, were based heavily on community trust, and hence, partly also on empathy.  A modern form of these local currencies, like Ithaca Hours, is an example of such an update to an old tool, just as a modern version of Roosevelt’s CCC will be shown to be a potentially valuable tool.  Some other existing tools, like IRV or RCV, as adopted in Maine via the November 2020 general election, are already in use around the country and around the world, but will need further elucidation.  More tools, like Participatory Budgeting, used in places as different as Puerto Alegro and Paris, should be discussed and updated to enhance citizen voice in local decision-making, while Citizen Juries, also used around the world, should be explained all across the United States, particularly by the cohort of newAdults recognized during Phase II, and now ready to take the lead in educating the public on these tools.  Similarly, Youth Courts,like the DC Youth Court started by Edgar Cahn, also known as Teen or Peer Courts, are another tool used in parts of the US that have proven to be effective, when supported by local judicial and funding processes.  They should also be given much more exposure, and adapted, where necessary, for current needs in each locality.

 

 

I. E (475/250wds).

By the beginning of Phase III, 30 years, half of the sixty years of this project, will have passed.  Both the infrastructure improvements of Phase I, and the cultural innovations of Phase II, by this point, will have had time to make a good start in introducing and educating in favor of a paradigm shift: from that of blaming to that of solving, and from that of crushing critiques to that of creating tools.  This new paradigm, over the next 15 years, could introduce some tools that seem new for the US, such as rotating teachers, first for example, within each state, as countries like Greece and France do, but are standard practice in many EU member states.  Other tools, like a World Youth Parliament, already in use in places like Belgium, where the Belgian Youth Parliament issues serious resolutions, are quite familiar to many Americans in the form of a model UN.  But such a new body could be designed to hold some level of actual responsibility and increasing authority in part or all of many communities, depending on the preparation and decisions of the entire community, from area to area.  Such experience can also build education and generate new ideas for a proposed Constitutional Convention, allowing for the invitation of all citizens to submit proposals and vote, as other republics like France and Spain have done, on an updating of our primary national document to frame a system of laws, as in 1787, which can be more faithful to our ideals of the security and freedom of life, liberty, and equitable chance at the pursuit of happiness for all members of an equal US society.  Such a set of proposals might include more processes involving Direct Democracy, including old tools like polling, and newer tools like instant minute referenda at the library, or pop-up votes in the park, to give more breadth to the random samples used by pollsters, and more say to all citizens.  As this third phase moves into the middle and later years, from 30 toward 45 years of the project’s overall life span, education for direct democratic tools can also lead into a start for educating about the possibility of using, at least in lower chambers of state and even the Federal House of Representatives, a system of sortition, aka demarchy, first written of in the democracy of ancient Athens.  To get there will require a fully equitable education system, excellent public transportation, a culture of active sharing of problem solving tools, and a tradition, which begins to be built right here, of civic engagement as a responsibility of honorable elevation of all members of society together.  Such a cultural paradigm can progress through the work of the later stages of Phase III, the “Three Universals, Plus” phase of our vision for a kinder, safer, and fully equitable world for all.

— (Next Wednesday: Chapter 4, section II, on the later stages.  )

I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more  fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.

 

And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps:  Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964).  I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.

As for genre, I’m still wondering:  clearly part of  Non-fiction.

  Many thanks to Dr. Garland for suggesting Philosophy! 

Maybe also: System Change, Causes, maybe even Inspirational, but I doubt it.

Last week’s installment of this series…

 

Action Items:

1.) Consider some ideas you may have on how our society can solve homelessness, starting right now,

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

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your 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 at LEAST for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write -add Stayed on Freedom’s Call on GoodReads via this GR button: ,

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plans Offline),

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

(Day 1 … Day 5)

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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page, and please do let us know here that you’ve reviewed it there!  🙂

Chapter 2 outlines, chapter 3 outlines, but chapter 4 outlines will be with next week’s post.

 

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

Wondering Wednesdays, Baby Acres, Chapter 4 introduction

This post shows the introduction of the rough draft of  Chapter 4, of my non-fiction WiP, Baby Acres.  

Since this is a rough draft, and I am very keen to hear suggestions if they improve the ideas presented here, as they are still in flux, please do share your thoughts per the Action Items at the bottom of this post.

And  once again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases.  This chapter will transition to a chapter (2-5) for each phase, showing what Phases I-IV could look like as part of a possible roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind. 

Chapter Four:

Chapter 4: (abt 3000 wds) What Phase III could look like, sooner, and later

Chpter 4 Introduction:  Phase III earlier, and then later stages

A (330/250).

In the early stages of the “Three Universals, Plus” phase, 30 years or so will have passed, from the start of Phase I, through the end of Phase II, marking the beginning of this phase, Phase III.  After thirty years of working on this project, many of those involved in the earliest years will have handed off their roles to those now beginning to lead the charge forward in to this third stage of this vision.  Perhaps the most urgent need, in the United States, is for fully accessible health care by all of those who find themselves within our borders.  Thus, this is the time when the arguments and the education on behalf of a Single Payer System for universal health care should take on full vitality.  At the same time, continuing and extending the introduction to and argument for a universal basic income will need to start with educating everyone around the concepts of the Citizen’s Income, which Dr. King first called for in 1968, and how that differs from a UBI or a Federal Jobs Guarantee which may also be needed alongside a UBI.  Similarly, in these early years, some idea of why free pre-school to PhD or trade and vocational school education must also be made, undoubtedly pointing to the examples of nations who already implement that policy.  The task, at the same time, of re-introducing old friends such as the CCC, aka Roosevelt’s Tree Army, and other tools which served our country and allies well during the difficult days of the Great Depression and Second World War, falls to those brave souls who will be working to show everyone what those tools did for us in past times, and how they must be updated for current needs.  Finally, this core group of courageous volunteers will also have the challenge of introducing and educating all of us for the new ideas and paradigm shift by teaching via known quantities and examples, and extending those examples into new processes and systems.

B (254/250 wds).

In the later stages of this “Three Universals, Plus” phase, the core group of dedicated volunteers should have managed to educate enough of the public that a critical mass has built a consensus in favor of implementing a fully accessible Single Payer System of universal health care nationwide.  Likewise, such a consensus should then be close, if not already accomplished, in favor of a UBI, or at the very least, a Citizen’s Income, possibly also in conjunction with a Federal Jobs Guarantee should that be deemed necessary by the majority of citizens, at that time.  From this point, given the number of countries which already have this, advocating for the completion of adopting a nationwide universal free pre-school to phd or vo-tech and trade school education should be essentially fully accomplished and in the end stages of implementation.  The task of updating old friends and explaining the utility and implementation of counterpart tools for the current generation should likewise be nearing its completion, as the levels of education at both individual and community and society-wide levels continue to be augmented.  This should have allowed, by the end of Phase III, enough time for the development and implementation of new tools for new kinds of governance, with more equitable access, and demonstrably better outcomes for all residents.  The details of those first years of Phase III and the new policy and governance tools that those years will enable via, as always, education and empathy, will be discussed in part one of this chapter, coming next.

—

I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more  fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.

And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps:  Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964).  I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.

As for genre, I’m still wondering:  Non-fiction,   System Change, Causes, maybe even Inspirational, but I doubt it.

Last week’s installment of this series…

Action Items:

1.) Consider some ideas you may have on whether our society could use certain universals,

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

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your 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 at LEAST 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  GoodReads,

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plans offline)

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

(Lesson plans:  Day 1 … Day 5)

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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

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

But By the Grace Of…

So, this was how it felt.

Normal.

Really?

It had taken long enough.

This year, when the doctor had asked those simple questions, it had been less easy to bluff.  This one had actually been watching.  That ready answer, flat and so used to snow balling these people, had actually been caught, called out, and paid attention to.  For once.  The doctor had ignored his answer, asked if he had a plan.  Silly question.  Of course he had a plan.  Since when had he not had one, was the real question.  Enduring the pain was a normal part of life for him.  Ignoring it until it became the annoying wet streaks on his face, shaking his body and tying his guts more tightly than his useless shoe laces.  This didn’t happen too much, anymore.  Mostly going past those tent towns they called encampments these days, feeling the despair of those human beings now denominated by a noun which, a decade ago, had still been an adjective.

Homeless.

No longer called homeless people, now, they were just called homeless.  Not people, merely things.  Things to be avoided, things that had wanted this fate.  Things that were “in their comfort zones.”

Right.

The doctor had been a sharp one, this time.  She had insisted.  As if she’d really wanted to know.  What was his plan, and did he have the tools at hand, ready to carry it out?  He’d been ‘there’ enough to know that this time, he’d better answer with ‘sincerity’ if he wanted to stay out of a pewter cage.  He couldn’t afford a gilded one.  He’d pretended to perk up, injecting some notes into the song he gave her about merely thinking about it, once in a while.  He admitted to the sadness, but who wouldn’t be sad in a world like this?  Happiness was a pill he couldn’t afford.

She’d put him on the pill, alright.  That bit of paper, to keep away the other bit of paper that would ensure his useful longevity.  Useful to those who liked working in funny farms, that is.  But by the grace of God and Mr. Spock, there go I.   So he took her paper, and he even filled the Rx.  Now, weeks later, the happy pills had begun to do the job she and her brother medics in the ‘healing’ professions had intended.

He no longer felt sad.

And now, he could even walk past the homeless people without crying, just like everyone else.

But it didn’t make the pain go away.

–

Stay safe,

and I hope we all find love, and good Health Care. -Shira Destinie

Action Items:

1.)  Share your thoughts on the importance of empathy, and how we Human Beings might start to build a more fully inclusive society for all of us, and how we can start to give a damn about each other.  2.) 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 -we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call, by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plan List) in the present, to help build a kinder future:  Project Do Better…

Peace     ! שָׁלוֹם

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS Shira the year, 2022 CE = year 12022 HE (5 month GED lesson 22 of 67 plans…), and Babylon 5 review posts, and my historical fiction serial Ann&Anna posts show how story inspires learning… Stayed on Freedom’s Call (free: 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.

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

Day 66/67 of GED in Five Months, Pandas, and healthy populations

The common good, or the general welfare, requires every Adult to understand the basics of statistics, as part of on-going self education (aka Adulting Education), to help our society become more fully inclusive for all of us.

My personal good may also be enhanced if someone could please explain to me why so many people find pandas to be so cute.  The resident pandas at the National Zoo, in DC, were always so popular that they drew crowds, if I recall correctly.

 

To apply the concepts of mean, median and mode, as a review topic while those readers who may be using this series of posts begin final preparations for taking the 5 subject exams (or those subject exams which they have not yet taken, since the HiSET allows each of the subject tests to be taken at different times, which was most recommended when I taught Adult Education), we look at a fun topic: Pandas!

Since averages and populations always run toward health statistics, please take a spare moment, when you have time, to look up some health statistics in your area, if you will.

 

Today’s reading discusses populations, median vs. mean (aka average), and Pandas…

“ Let’s look at the population. To calculate the mean we should add all countries’ population values to each other and then divide this sum by the number of countries in our dataset. Fortunately, Pandas can do it for us. …”

 Week 18/18

Day 66 lesson plan

Grammar: run on sentences

Math: Averages (Mean, Median and Mode)

Science: see the reading above and the Action Item questions below, please…

Please see the Lesson plan for Day 66’s Exit Tickets

(Day 65  … Day 67)

Action Items:  

1.) Who was this article written by, and for what audience, and how do we know that the author’s facts are correct?

2.) Please tell us where the information for today’s reading comes from, how you know that the sources are reliable, and who funded the initial (or first-hand source) data,

3.)  Feel free to answer the exit ticket questions in the comments, or pose any other questions you may have about the lesson, if you wish.

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  &  for heavens sake: please #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19 (or even for good!)!:
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 GoodReads button: , 

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plans offline)

and

my Babylon 5 review posts, if you like Science Fiction,

and

a proposed Vision on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…

   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2021 CE =  12021 HE

(Lesson plans:  Day 1 … Day 5)

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.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

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