Good News anyone?

I don't know about you, dear friends and readers? But I'm feeling kind of depressed and a little surreal...it's sunny outside, a pinkish haze to the clouds, crisp and in the upper fifties, although with the breeze feels like the forties outside. Earlier it felt like the sixties. Crocuses are in bloom here and there, and violets sprouting in little clusters almost hidden from view. The weeping willows have threads of green - and there are buds on the trees. The air smells like spring, with just the right buzz in the air. Yet, the national and world news is grim, and getting grimmer, with the ever encroaching creep of totalitarian fascism on the horizon, coming closer and closer as we speak.

I also feel frozen. Unable to move. Stuck in place. Yet, I am doing things. I donated to a lot of places in the fall. And my work is of course furthering diversity, inclusion, equality, accessibility, and equal transportation for a low cost. As does my art. So, there's that at least.
My family and friends are furthering the cause as well in their own ways.
Or to the extent that they can.

It's overwhelming, all of it. I'm overwhelmed with reading material. I have stacks of books, magazines, and digital forms of reading everywhere it seems. That said, if you want a comforting and uplifting read - that is also inspiring, and meditative, Rick Rubin's The Creative Act: A Way of Being is worth a look. Here's a little excerpt:
( Read more... )

Anywho...I've subscribed to some newsletters that provide "good news" because I feel overwhelmed with the negative and it makes the muscles tight, and leads to eating the wrong things (like, ahem, too much chocolate).

News from the American Resistance and it's Global Allies

1. Resistance is alive and well in the US - in a new report from Erica Chenoweth, Jeremy Pressman, and Sohoa Hamman, shows that protests are actually more numerous and greater in number than in 2017.
( Read more... )

The article points out that it isn't just street protests, and sit in's but also legal actions, and economic non-cooperation that gains results. If you think about the Civil Rights Movement - it was the combination of the three that resulted in desegegaration, the Civil Rights Act, and Voting Rights Act. A protest accomplishes nothing by itself. What is shutting down Telsa is the fact that people are selling their stocks and not investing in it, not just the protests.

2. Serbia's Government Resigned after it saw the largest public protests in decades

Serbia’s government, led by Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, resigned Wednesday, with President Aleksandar Vučić saying he may call fresh elections in early June.

Although Vučević announced his intention to resign in late January, the Belgrade parliament confirmed the resignation only weeks later, shortly after the country saw its largest protests in decades.

Vučić said Sunday that if a new government is not formed within 30 days of Vučević’s resignation, he will call early elections, likely to be held on June 8 — just a year and a half after Serbia’s last general election.

3. Thousands protest in Turkey despite a ban on street gatherings over what they called the undemocratic detention of Istanbul's mayor

4. Judge Rules that the National Park Service Must Reinstate All Fired Employees

"A federal judge in San Francisco has ordered the National Park Service and five other federal agencies to immediately reinstate probationary employees who were fired en masse last month, ruling that the Office of Personnel Management had no legal authority to mandate their terminations."

5. Federal Court Ruling that Over 25,000 illegally fired Federal Workers must be Rehired

"US President Donald Trump's administration is working to bring back nearly 25,000 fired federal workers after judges ruled their terminations were illegal, court documents show.

Officials at 18 departments and agencies have submitted documents to a federal court detailing their efforts to rehire the laid off probationary workers to comply with the court orders.

Last week, two federal judges said the mass layoffs of the recently hired workers was illegal and ordered them to be reinstated pending further litigation. "

( the rest of this weeks actions via the Resistance )

Whew. Some good news, at least? I mean I feel like something is happening?

Oh Wales did a "die-in" protest - basically they did performance art as part of a protest, where they acted as if loss of Medicaid was killing them. Because it will kill people.