Good morning, Newdists.
It’s another Caturday, in the Age of Trump.
Diary Bird — Greater Roadrunner — Geococcyx californianus
The most famous bird in the southwest, featured in folklore and cartoons, known by its long tail and expressive crest. The Roadrunner walks and runs on the ground, flying only when necessary. It can run 15 miles per hour, probably with much faster spurts when chasing a fast-running lizard or other prey. Its prowess as a rattlesnake fighter has been much exaggerated, but it does eat a remarkable variety of smaller creatures. LINK
Greater Roadrunners are monogamous, maintain a long-term pair bond, and mutually defend a large, multipurpose territory. Each spring and summer, they renew their pair bond through a series of elaborate courtship displays in which the male bows and prances, wags his tail, and offers nesting material and food items to his attending mate. Both male and female incubate the eggs and feed and protect the young through a breeding season that lasts several months. Historically, the Greater Roadrunner has been persecuted by ranchers and hunters who believe that it consumes the young and eggs of popular game bird species. Despite the persistence of illegal hunting, the Greater Roadrunner faces no serious declines in population numbers and continues to expand its range northward and eastward into new habitats. LINK
A big Caturday welcome to all Newdists!
Grab a cup of coffee or tea, something to eat, and please join us.
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Vitals Check
The above tweet is where I’ve been for the past few months.
For a while now it has felt like we are all living on a board game of global domination.
This has been a week packed in with more national news related strangeness than the other weeks in last the two plus years. And those nearly three years boasted some bizarre news related weeks. I can’t say that this week was, in any way, anomalous; still, it had more than a peculiar whiff than the norm, in this Age of Trump.
Nevertheless, I feel a compulsion to ask how everyone is at this point in our history.
How are you feeling? What’s your anger and fear level like?
Honestly, I have not felt the country at this level of fragility since I watched the second plane fly into the Twin Towers. Perhaps I am reading too much social media and watching too much teevee? Yeah, except that I’m not. To put it plainly, obvious to most of our fellow nationals, the Occupant wants to tear us apart; cause as much harm as he can; profit as much as he can and remain in office as long as he can. He thrives on division and separation. He loves it. He eats up all the attention as if it’s a great big bowl of fried chicken.
I don’t know where you were all of this week, but mine began somewhat like this, after all the weekend Occupant related bullpucky —
Listening to the news, or reading any news would deposit me into the roiling boil of this —
The entire betrayal of the Kurdish population in northern Syria was more than simply enraging. Although horrifying, to my mind, it was not really surprising that the Occupant would do exactly what he did. While I was not surprised, I cannot deny that it hurt to see it.
Even so, in the last few years, I’ve felt an urge to resist closing off or shutting down to the world around me. Things feel more fragile to me than ever before and I see it all the time in the way people behave. In some places there’s a sly and overt expression of hostility to anyone deemed different. And in other places there’s an expressed desire for openness, acceptance and camaraderie. I’ve pushed myself out to join groups — political and social so that I too can maintain an openness to the world. I’ve looked for hope and have held on to it even as the occupant continues on hawking fear, a narrow and exclusive certainty and nostalgia. I’ve found it in groups like Indivisible and local weekly political events. I’ve also looked to my friends. And I’ve found hope here too, on this site.
All the same, most weekends I feel like this —
Seriously though, without friends and family, this nightmare would have been torturous and intolerable. Recently, in the evenings I have been spewing, on email, at my friends about northern Syria and the current and past Kurdish and Yazidi experience, and a friend sent me this —
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New Day Cafe Open Thread.
What do you want to talk about?
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A-WA - "Bayti Fi Rasi"
My Home Is In My Head
What is a home? You tell me
I found it neither in the city; nor in the village
Neither in Ibb nor in Sanaa’
I am a woman,
I am a man,
I am a journey
My home is in my head
A refuge for my heart
Wherever I go, it is with me
What is family? You tell me
At times I am a man, at times a woman
A mother and father to my little girl
My home is in my head
A refuge for my heart
Wherever I go, it is with me