A mixed bag

All posts in the A mixed bag category

I Don’t Want to Be a “Bystander”

Published May 17, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Who Were the “Bystanders”?

….“Bystanders” as used to refer to German and European populations close to the actual events are often defined by what they were not. They were not the “perpetrators” or the “victims.” Nor were they among the tiny minority of “rescuers” of the “victims.” “Bystanders” as a group have often been characterized as “passive” or “indifferent.” They included those, for example, who did not speak out when they witnessed the persecution of individuals targeted simply because they were Jewish, or during the phase of mass murder, did not offer shelter to Jews seeking hiding places.

The two words “passive” and “indifferent” themselves have distinct connotations. “Passive” implies “inaction.” Passivity could derive from a range of quite different feelings: from a sense of powerlessness, fear for one’s physical safety, social pressures within one’s group or community, or tolerance or support for the perpetrators’ actions.

“Indifferent” is defined as “having a lack of interest in or concern about something: apathetic.” The “indifference” of “bystanders” to the plight of Jews is often attributed to people’s daily preoccupations, from surmounting the hardships of the economic depression of the 1930s to focusing on the survival of their families in the face of wartime deprivations and suffering.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008207

Photo NY Times

There is an ongoing brutal war on immigrants and their children that amounts to ethnic cleansing. Just this week, the administration was revealed to be floating plans to create internment camps for detained migrant children. Internment camps for kids, and this is happening before our very eyes.  “No matter how the Trump administration attempts to spin its actions,” the ACLU continues, “the suffering it is causing is intentional and illegal, and the administration must be held accountable.”

Daily Kos, Gabe Oritz


 

The Rise of Racist Rants Sign of the New Cruelty

Published May 17, 2018 by Nan Mykel

You said it all, and well! I’m reblogging.

CalicoJack's avatarThe Psy of Life

There are two news stories today that I think are more than intimately connected. First is a racist rant at a restaurant by some fragile whitey who was triggered by hearing Spanish being spoken. And, by the way, we are seeing entirely too much of this stuff, aren’t we? Can I get an Amen?

These aren’t people, these are animals

— The Ol’ Pussy Grabber on undocumented immigrants

And second, the Ol’ Pussy Grabber invited the media in to watch some cherry picked California elected Repubes bitch and moan about the sanctuary city laws in California and managed to rant about the animals coming into our country. He warn’t talking about no Mexican brown bears coming up to browse Big Bend National Park, neither. He was calling real live people animalsin front of god and the press and everybody.

My contention is that these two events…

View original post 1,743 more words

Not So Long Ago, Not So Far Away

Published May 16, 2018 by Nan Mykel

NOT SO LONG AGO, NOT SO FAR AWAY

Irate, Henry punished his  deaf and dumb boy by shooting his dog.  “Teach him a lesson,” he muttered.

Speechless, the dumb child ran away kicking stones,  absorbing the lesson.  Despite all the kicking the boots held up–zippers still worked, unrusted by rageful tears. And finally the lesson sank in.

Waiting til nightfall when all were asleep, the youth kicked over the lit candle and fled.

For Friday Fictioneers  PHOTO PROMPT submitted by Courtney Wright. © Photographer prefers to remain anonymous.

 

You’re Fine

Published May 15, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Perfect. That helps. New resolve! I’m reblogging.

Nancy's avatarnotquiteold

Last year I wrote about Being Kind – To That Special Someone.

Meaning YOU.

I think in this difficult time – and in good times too, all time, really – we need to be a lot nicer to ourselves.

Use the good china. Buy yourself flowers. Take a walk and look at the trees instead of your phone.

And please, please, please –

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

I don’t understand where all the self-criticism comes from.

Why, I like myself more than I like just about everyone else. And although I can readily admit my mistakes… (well, maybe not ‘readily’, but ‘eventually’)… I am also extremely forgiving of my mistakes and shortcomings.

After all, I have to be with myself one hundred percent of the time. It’s so much easier if we don’t fight.

I see and hear people fighting with themselves all the time. Self-criticism. Discouragement. You need to get over your disappointment in just how much you let yourself down. Forgive yourself a little. I forgive myself for so much I am constantly surprised by my generosity.

“Don’t worry, you’re fine,” I reassure myself.

“Oh…

View original post 772 more words

Disguise

Published May 15, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Exquisite insight…I’m reblogging

dianadomino's avatarDrift of Bubbles

If you’ve ever been a victim of trauma, or have done something you wish you hadn’t. Made a grievous mistake, or chosen a relationship poorly, you know what it is to wince at something from your past.  This is for us, the mistake makers.
The prompt for Day 2 is “Disguise.”

DisguiseDisguise

The deepest heart is secret, sometimes even to oneself
Horrors reside there, often concealed on a private shelf.
Behind lovely afternoons, indulgent lazy mornings,
precious private moments, lie alarm bells and dire warnings:
No trespass! No Entry! Go no further! Access denied!
And yet, heart racing, pushing forward, bewildered, untried,
our curious minds must see, and when revealed, revulsion
results, dread that, yes, this truth was real. Bitter compulsion
forces us to face that dire truth, but makes us disguise
it again, to hide it before our very self should capsize.

.

View original post

A Guide to the Corporations Defunding Public Schools and Opposing Striking Teachers

Published May 15, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Glad Ohio isn’t listed.

dianeravitch's avatarDiane Ravitch's blog

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ARTICLE YOU WILL READ TODAY. SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS, YOUR SCHOOL BOARD, YOUR LOCAL MEDIA, YOUR ELECTEDS. TWEET IT. POST IT ON FACEBOOK.

In the states where teachers have engaged in walkouts and strikes, public education has been systematically starved of funding. Typically, corporate taxes have been cut so that funding for education has also been cut. The corporations benefit while the children and their teachers are put on a starvation diet.

Who are the corporations and individuals behind the efforts to shrink funding for public schools and promote privatization?

This article makes it clear.

It begins like this, then details a state-by-state list of corporations and billionaires backing the cycle of austerity and school privatization.

“The ongoing wave of teacher strikes across the US is changing the conversation about public education in this country. From West Virginia to Arizona, Kentucky to Oklahoma, Colorado…

View original post 453 more words

Non-Binary — a poem

Published May 14, 2018 by Nan Mykel

NON BINARY

What is your status quo?

This or that, yes or no?

Cisgender’s binary,

But on the contrary

how would it seem

if you fell in between,

not male or female;

but beyond  the pale?

An archetype, that’s what.

Half man half woman but

how to think of yourself

dressed in power and pelf

like a queen or a king?

But yet… but yet… which?

Be the son or the bitch?

And really be neither,

a free-to-believer!

Now shut both of your eyes,

try to visualize

YOU! Choose neither one!

And not just for fun!

So don’t ask what I be

I be me! And free!

And non binary!

Skewed Liberty (This Country for Sale) – A re-blog

Published May 14, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Telling it like it is….

lifelessons's avatarlifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

DSC00967

Skewed Liberty

Everything is tilted. Slightly unaligned.
The constitution set askew. Liberty maligned.
Some of the well-heeled citizens think that this is fine.
They cannot see that everything is slightly out of line.
All the pretty Philistines queue up at their tees
while their flunky lawyers determine what to seize.
Contracts with the Russians. Schemes to sell off national land.
Cronies helping cronies. Off-shore drilling by demand.

Rivers being sullied and oceans compromised
while insuring rights to bear arms are exercised.
Certain pious preachers line up behind the svelte,
proclaiming to the masses that they know what Jesus felt.
Indeed, the smallest sparrow  no longer matters much
so long as all the mighty increase their greedy clutch––
all the moneychangers, corrupt to the core,
filling all their pockets with the money of the poor.

Surely it is clear that at ruling they’re inept,
and if he was watching, surely Jesus…

View original post 71 more words

The Good Times

Published May 13, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Discovering there was one word for the day after today and another for the day before today

When my mother ran across the tomato patch in high heels in response to my screams due to getting my foot trapped  in a lumber stack at my grandfather’s lumber yard.

Realizing that my experience can never join  with someone else’s

Sleeping with my grandmother on the farm in North Carolina, listening to the coal settle in the grate of the woodstove and watching the lights of passing cars reflected all across the walls, silently.

Connecting with the red clay under the clothesline on the farm.

Taking naps on the farm in the attic with the rain tapping the metal roof over my head.

Watching an  ant parade on the farm and believing that they had left me a metal belt buckle, beside the parade route.

Winning a dictionary for my home room in a sixth grade poster contest with my friend Janet Rich.

Miss Arveson giving me two A+’s on my written Western Civilization assignment in the ninth grade.

Going to bed at night and holding my arm straight up until I felt it move as though by God, in Chevy Chase.

Finding my first flint spear point on top of the ground and under a big tree in North Carolina, and feeling a connection over time with when it came to be there.

Getting out of the tub in Gainesville, Florida, and receiving a revelation that in our dreams we’re all together, united.

My first taste of a Milky Way Bar after World War Two.

The first sight of my beautiful first born daughter.

On the way home, holding her up in my arms to see the world.

In Miami, my eleventh grade teacher mis-counting by one an answer on the semester test so that I didn’t have to repeat the entire semester after moving from South Carolina.

After telling my grandfather in Chevy Chase that Bob Swilling asked me out on a date, his response was not negative but “Do you want to go?”  (I didn’t).

My sister bursting into tears when I told her my last born was mongoloid.

My therapist telling me I had good protoplasm.

Graduate school, where everyone was on the same wavelength.

My son calling to say Happy Mother’s Day  today.

Scottie's Playtime

Come see what I share

Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

Welcome to the Anglo Swiss World

ChatterLei

EXPRESSIONS

Anthony’s Crazy Love and Life Lessons in Empathy

Loves, lamentation, and life through prose, stories, passions, and essays.

The Life-long Education Blog

Let's Explore The Great Mystery Together!

Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

Second Look Behind the Headlines - News you can use...

Evolution of Medical profession-Extinction of good doctors

choosing medical career; problem faced by doctors; drawbacks of medical profession;patient tutorials

Petchary's Blog

Cries from Jamaica

Memoirs of Madness

A place where I post unscripted, unedited, soulless rants of a insomniac madman

Life Matters

CHOOSE LOVE

Mybookworld24

My Life And Everything Within It

Mitch Reynolds

Just Here Secretly Figuring Out My Gender

Frank J. Peter

A Watering Hole for Freelance Human Beings Who Still Give a Damn

Passionate about making a difference

"The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible." - Joel Brown

Yip Abides

we're all cyborgs now

annieasksyou...

Seeking Dialogue to Inform, Enlighten, and/or Amuse You and Me