This weekend, I met remotely with three Americans I've stayed in touch with since they moved back to the US.
Our discussion turned, of course, to current events.
I mentioned how one "easy" way to resist/protest is through the wearing of masks (because the US is no longer involving itself in public health, because of surveillance, because of mask bans, because it's a way to help protect and support the vulnerable, because it's a show of solidarity).
I was met with a beat of silence and then a swift change in topic.
[#]CovidIsNotOver #MaskUp
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Have seen a couple of posts recently about Charlie Chaplin. Just a reminder for those who do not know that he was not a good guy -- he married teenage girls and then discarded them/cheated on them one by one. His first to-be wife was 12 when they first met, and to avoid charges of statutory rape, married her in Mexico after she became pregnant.
https://archive.ph/qWWQX
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In seeing all the actions people are taking to help themselves and others, I wondered what action I could take.
So I’m offering a reading group on Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.
The book is short, and it can be accessed for free through the Internet Archive.
Due to its structure, I am proposing once-a-week meetings for 6 weeks for approximately 1.5 hours.
Week 1: Introductions, setting the agreement about how we will conduct ourselves in the group, and discussion of Lessons 1 and 2.
Week 2: Lessons 3, 4, 5, 6
Week 3: Lessons 7, 8, 9, 10
Week 4: Lessons 11, 12, 13, 14
Week 5: Lessons 15, 16, 17, 18
Week 6: Lessons 19, 20 and conclusions/takeaways
I am in the Eastern Europe time zone, and I suggest meeting Fridays at 7pm EET/6pm CET/5pm UK/12pm EST or Saturdays at 5pm EET/4pm CET/3pm UK/10am EST. I will create a poll for those who sign up to determine the day. Start date the second week of February (Feb 7 or 8).
All who want to join in good faith to contribute to a respectful and connective environment are welcome.
I’m using Signal as a platform to manage further communication. Please DM me your Signal username and the reason you would like to join by February 3.
I’m sorry, but I will only be able to add people whose Mastodon profile has been filled out and who have a post history.
I’ll be reposting this message until interested people reach out (or I determine nobody is interested), so if that clutters your feed and you’re not interested, you may want to mute me for a bit.
https://ia804705.us.archive.org/10/items/on-tyranny-twenty-lessons-from-the-twentieth-century-by-timothy-snyder-z-lib.org/On%20Tyranny%20Twenty%20Lessons%20from%20the%20Twentieth%20Century%20by%20Timothy%20Snyder%20%28z-lib.org%29.pdf
[#]CovidSafe #CovidSafeEvent #Books #Discussion #Hope #Community
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I’ve been here a while, but I’m just now posting an #Introduction. Why? I’ve been a bit shy to, and as an observer by nature, I wanted to understand what this space can offer and what I can offer in return.
I believe in kindness, curiosity, and the types of communication that can arise when people hold those two values close.
I’m looking to connect with people who want to have these types of conversations and prefer going below the surface, sharing personal experience, and practicing empathy.
I also appreciate those discussions, ideas, and facts in my feed that scratch my intellectual itch as well as the beautiful moments that people share. I moderately boost.
I’m interested in topics such as better communication, belonging and connection, art history, sociology, culture, and the preservation of our collective and individual humanity.
I have many causes that I care deeply about, such as women’s issues and intersectional feminism, human rights, and information about covid/public health, and media literacy. Books and Eastern Europe are also high on my list.
While I believe in staying aware, I rarely post about straight politics.
I’ve already connected with some thoughtful, insightful, caring, curious people – would love to meet more.
[#]Introduction #Empathy #Kindness #Communication #ArtHistory #Books #Sociology #Connection #CovidInformed #Curiosity #Belonging
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This morning I took and passed the level 1 coaching exam for my credential. It mainly focused on ethics, which I appreciated.
It's taken me many months of education and practice to get to this point. And still I'm facing the negative stereotype of coaches or the lack of understanding about what coaching is from others.
The coaching I have learned and am practicing is client led, compassionate, open-hearted, and consent based. I see coaching as a tool for self-development and forward movement in a nonjudgmental environment.
I like that it's a whole-human approach and its results can be backed up by neuroscience.
I also want to offer what I see the world needs more of: active listening, presence, and connection.
I want to do this in a way true to myself and my values and respectful to others.
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"The Belarus regime has turned elections into a farce—a mask to hide its crimes and cling to power against the people’s will.
"No election in Belarus has been deemed free or fair by international observers since 1994, and it’s highly unlikely that a presidential vote set to be held on January 26 will break the mould.
"Dictator Alexander Lukashenko will be re-elected for a seventh term in office with a huge majority—indeed, the only element of uncertainty is the size of the majority. In 2020, Lukashenko was declared the winner with an implausible 81 per cent of the vote, although another candidate, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, was widely believed to have won.
"Tikhanovskaya was subsequently forced into exile, in Lithuania. Her husband, Serghei Tikhanovsky, remains in prison in Belarus, along with around 1,300 other political prisoners, many arrested during widespread demonstrations that followed the 2020 election. "
https://emerging-europe.com/policy-note/in-belarus-a-presidential-election-in-name-only/
[#]Belarus #Lithuania #Elections #Dictatorship #Europe
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"I’ve been following the attempt to create a Europe-wide apparatus that could lead to mass surveillance. The idea is for every digital platform – from Facebook to Signal, Snapchat and WhatsApp, to cloud and online gaming websites – to scan users’ communications.
"This involves the use of technology that will essentially render the idea of encryption meaningless. The stated reason is to detect and report the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on digital platforms and in their users’ private chats. But the implications for our privacy and security are staggering."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/24/eu-digital-surveillance-child-protection
[#]Privacy #Surveillance #Encryption #EU #Europe #EuropeanUnion #Security #Facebook #Signal #WhatsApp
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[Cackles in book nerd] Over the weekend, two people took my book recommendation seriously enough to pick up the book online while we were talking.
[#]Books #Reading #Nerd
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This article is from Harris's videographer's perspective and the behind-the-scenes example of empowerment that we can all follow.
"Vice President Harris never called a little girl cute or commented on her outfit; instead, she’d say, 'You look like the smartest person in your class.' The vice president would say, 'Let me hear you say, "I am a leader,"' and even the youngest girls would say it back. I filmed hundreds of clips of Kamala Harris telling young people to believe in themselves because they can achieve anything. And I noticed myself changing my conversations with my nieces, stopping myself from commenting on their outfits and asking instead about the thoughts in their heads."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/01/trump-inauguration-kamala-harris.html
[#]KamalaHarris #Women #Feminism #Patriarchy
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A fellow hyphenated American and I were pushing back today on the Eeyorish tendency to point out that "it could always be worse" when you complain about something basic or suggest how an improvement could be made, which is common here in Eastern Europe (and elsewhere, too, but perhaps with a different flavor).
We don't have to be rotting away in a gulag to want something better for ourselves, our loved ones, and the world.
We're allowed to want and hope for better.
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As someone who doesn't want to get Covid or any of the other viruses floating around, I mask indoors.
But I have to disagree with the people who say "masking is easy" as a way to try to convince (or judge) others.
Setting aside the social aspects of it, masking is not easy, physically, for everyone. And if you have any sensitivity issues (HSP/highly sensitive person here🙋♀️ ), it might be somewhere on the spectrum of tolerable from most to least.
I've tried different masks, but no matter which ones, the straps cut into my ears, even the over-the-head ones. At the end of a long journey, I'm in some sort of pain or discomfort.
They're terrible for dealing with a runny nose. And my nose runs when I come inside from the cold even when I am not sick. You either have to break the seal around your mask to use a tissue, or you have to hope that you can keep your runny nose contained. Not a great choice either way.
They also tend to contribute to dry eye. Then, if you wear glasses, use earplugs/noise-cancelling headphones, or need anything else around your face/head, the combination starts to feel oppressive.
If masking is easy for you, that's great. I don't think it's easy for many people, and some people may not even be aware of or be able to express why masking is difficult for them in a society where we are often supposed to ignore or at least stay quiet about physical discomfort -- this might be true even if the majority were still masking.
So, two things can be true. Masking is important in various situations and according to various factors, but it's not necessarily easy. For me, the risk and discomfort of disease outweighs the physical discomfort of the mask, but it isn't like while I'm wearing it that I'm not longing to rip it off at the soonest safe opportunity.
[#]MaskUp #CovidIsNotOver #HSP #Neurodivergent
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I meet virtually with my small reading group next Saturday. We met when we were all living in the same city abroad, but we have since dispersed (they are now in the US). It'll be something like 10 years.
However, it was my turn to choose a book, and because a couple of the other members were interested in my mention of Invisible Women, I chose that book.
Friends, this was before the election. I would have chosen something else had I known it was going to go the way it did. We have all had trouble finishing it with the impending-ness in the air.
And I also realized, rereading, that much of what the author says has become more common knowledge (at least to those who are paying attention) and the information, at least for me, no longer feels as revelatory as it did upon my first reading.
Furthermore, I am afraid of what topics we will have to talk about that become relevant between now and then. I am afraid of what will be revealed, what new harms will be unleashed.
[#]Books #Reading #Women #Feminism #Politics #Friendship #CurrentEvents #Patriarchy
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I'm coming to the end of Braiding Sweetgrass, and I wanted to share two final quotes from the book.
"What we contemplate here is more than ecological restoration; it is the restoration of relationship between plants and people. Scientists have made a dent in understanding how to put ecosystems back together, but our experiments focus on soil pH and hydrology—matter, to the exclusion of spirit. We might look to the Thanksgiving Address for guidance on weaving the two. We are dreaming of a time when the land might give thanks for the people."
"The fear for me is far greater than just acknowledging the Windigo within. The fear for me is that the world has been turned inside out, the dark side made to seem light. Indulgent self-interest that our people once held to be monstrous is now celebrated as success. We are asked to admire what our people viewed as unforgivable. The consumption-driven mind-set masquerades as 'quality of life' but eats us from within. It is as if we’ve been invited to a feast, but the table is laid with food that nourishes only emptiness, the black hole of the stomach that never fills. We have unleashed a monster."
[#]Environment #Ecology #Reading #Books
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We can hear the warning note in this interview with the outgoing U.S. ambassador to Hungary.
Archived NYT link.
"When I walk away from this experience, one of the things that is most alarming to me is just how easy it is to actually control people. It doesn’t take secret police. It doesn’t take guns. It doesn’t take gulags. The reality is that if you have the ability to overwhelm the media ecosystem with lies, you make the cost of engaging in public debate so high that it becomes an existential one."
https://archive.ph/1lHU8
[#]Hungary #Diplomacy #Democracy #Media #Control #EU #EuropeanUnion #Europe #US
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I can't find the thread to link to it, but a cognitive shift happened for me after @vlrny shared the metaphor about skiing that exhorts us to steer towards the openings rather than the trees when faced with adversity.
I brought this to my coaching course today, and the my coursemates helped expand the metaphor in our practice sessions.
Now, in addition to looking for the openings and steering towards them, I am collecting openings in the trees -- "realistic" or no.
As one colleague said, "What you look at expands." More openings reveal themselves as we progress.
It's hard not to look at the "trees" -- those things that slow us down, get in the way, slap us in the face with their branches. It's hard not to feel like we're looking at nothing but trees. I struggle with this.
So now trying to rewire some neural pathways to think about possibility rather than obstacle.
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Interesting read on the depth and breadth of the British Museum's collections as well as how it's slow museum-time lurch might not enable it to keep up with real-world time.
"It is a sprawling, chaotic reflection of Britain’s psyche over 300 years: its voracious curiosity and cultural relativism; its pugnacious superiority complex; its restless seafaring and trading; its cruel imperial enrichment; its brilliant scholarship, its brutality, its idealism, its postcolonial anxiety. All of this is expressed through the amassing of objects: a demented accumulation, a mania for hoarding that, in any human, would be regarded as a kind of illness."
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jan/16/the-ghosts-are-everywhere-can-the-british-museum-survive-its-omni-crisis
[#]Museum #BritishMuseum #Archives #ArtHistory #Collection #UK
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A look at moral resilience in health care, but some of the concepts can be applied more widely. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
". . . moral suffering was a particular type of suffering. Moral suffering is broadly understood as the anguish we experience when we witness, participate in, or cause unfortunate or troublesome negative moral outcomes that imperil our integrity. We began to see that moral suffering, whether described as moral distress or moral injury, is experienced in response to a threat or violation of our core values, commitments and intentions. It involves situations where we know what we ought to do but are unable to translate our moral commitments into action."
"The concept of moral resilience presumes that humans are already resilient, that they strive toward integrity, and that there are ways to repair our moral fabric when it is torn or fractured. It begins with the understanding that we can do hard things. We’ve made difficult decisions in the past and likely will be called to do so in the future. Knowing that, we can walk toward moral adversity with compassion, understanding and self-respect. Later, we can engage in the process of moral repair, rather than despair and depletion. These inherent capacities are enabled by a practice environment that supports integrity and ethical practices."
https://aeon.co/essays/how-moral-resilience-helps-nurses-work-through-ethical-strife
[#]Morals #Ethics #Resilience #HealthCare #Integrity
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"Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are due to disconnect from the Russian electricity system BRELL on February 9. As the day approaches, the Baltic countries must prepare for possible incidents and sabotage, experts and politicians warn.
"Lithuania is strengthening the protection of its key energy facilities, which will now be guarded by the Public Security Service instead of private companies. NATO ships are also starting a mission in the Baltic Sea, patrolling ships that could damage power and communications cables.
"The LitPol Link power interconnection with Poland, through which the Baltic grids will synchronise with the Continental European network, will also be protected by the Public Security Service."
https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2460042/politicians-warn-of-sabotage-as-lithuania-s-exit-from-russian-power-system-nears
[#]Baltics #Latvia #Estonia #Lithuania #Poland #Electricity #Grid #Energy #NATO
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Did my heart good to read about this initiative.
"Solar Mamas empower our people by giving them electricity": the women lighting up Zanzibar
"The Barefoot College programme, which trains women who have little to no formal education to become solar technicians, is working to simultaneously promote clean energy adoption and foster socioeconomic development.
"For the Solar Mamas, the programme has become a pathway to emancipation. To qualify for participation they should be aged 35 or over, have leadership qualities, and not be too advanced in their education."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/15/solar-mamas-empower-our-people-by-giving-them-electricity-the-women-lighting-up-zanzibar
[#]Women #Education #Solar #Electricity #Empowerment #CleanEnergy #GoodNews
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I've been working with some writers about how to responsibly and accurately write about LLMs, and they admitted to not understanding how it works.
But most of the resources I know are highly critical of it in a way that isn't helpful to these writers, who just need to know the mechanics.
I went searching for a neutral explanation and found this one. Posting it here in case it's helpful to someone else.
https://srinstitute.utoronto.ca/news/gen-ai-llms-explainer
[#]LLM #AI
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