America Showed Up, Dying Well, Adaptation, Journalism, Pride
photo credit LeeAnne Watkins
So This is Helping . . .
Some thoughts on adaptation.
So This is Helping . . .
Thinking about those trusted voices. Bill Moyers died this week, may he rest in peace and rise in glory. Bill McGibbon wrote this really nice piece about him. When these giants of civility, public service, and simple decency and good manners die we should all pause and tip our hats. And think, who are those voices left now? The public ones? And the local ones, in your life? Those people who can be trusted to be a calm voice in a storm, for wisdom, non-reactive, non-binary, good-of-the-whole thinking and doing. What makes them that way, for you? Have you told them lately? Are you one? How do you stay that way?
So This is Helping. . .
America Showed Up. The No Kings weekend.
Scott Galloway’s Newsletter No Mercy No Malice had this summary of the No Kings marches which I thought did a really good job. You can listen or read. He cites the work of Erica Chenoweth a lot, about protest movements, which I found good to hear. Also, if you haven’t heard this stat yet, it bears repeating: A widely-cited analysis from data journalist G. Elliott Morris estimates that 4 million to 6 million people participated in the protests. That represents 1.2% to 1.8% of the U.S. population and makes it one of the largest single-day protests in American history, probably even bigger than the 2017 Women’s March, when more than 4 million people showed up at demonstrations around the country.
Here’s another helpful bit of research he cites: signs of hope. Research shows that over the past three decades about 70% of the countries that descended into autocracy managed to mount a democratic turnaround. In many cases, those fights to reverse the damage led to restored, or even stronger, levels of democracy.
It’s got me rethinking what I said a few months ago about being ‘done’ with the marches and such.
So This is Helping . .
I’m recommending this to all the people I work with, and why not you as well? It’s an interview with BJ Miller and Bridget Sumser, called “What the Dying Can Teach Us about Living Well: Lessons on Life and Reflections on Mortality”. It’s the best summary I’ve heard yet about living well, dying well, hospice, palliative care, end of life choice making, and meaning making. Worth a listen.
So This is Helping . . .
Long form journalism. This article in the Washington Post really got me. (Here are 10 free reads to the first 10 of you to click today.) It’s about a farmer named JJ who signed up for a federal grant to hire a guy named Otto from Guatemala to help him work his farm. It was a last ditch effort to save a small farmer because he can’t get anyone local to take the job he’s offering.. JJ is a good guy, with a small family, pays his bills, no health insurance, a small daughter with diabetes, who voted for Trump. Otto is a good man, trying to support a family, desperate for this opportunity. This is the story of what it’s like to be a farmer under this administration.
For this story, John Woodrow Cox interviewed more than 40 farmers across the country. He and photographer Matt McClain reported from Colorado while Sarah Blaskey talked to more than two dozen employees at the U.S. Agriculture Department and reviewed hundreds of documents and records that revealed the extent of the cuts and freezes.
So when Trump’s press secretary says farmers are “behind Trump” and Trump says “farmers love me” and our gut says he’s not telling the truth, it’s independent journalism like this that confirms that he’s lying.
So what’s helping? Really good, professional journalists. Let’s keep training them, paying them, defending them.
So This is Helping . . .
Did you hear about the Budapest Pride March that wasn’t and yet was? Google it. Best news ever. The populist government under Orban tried to ban Pride. The people decided, ok, they technically named it something else and it turned into the biggest Pride festival in Hungary’s history. You go, people.
So, in spite of all the bad news this week - too much to list here - there is a lot of things that are helping. Hang on to those this week, dear people, as we pray that the bill doesn’t pass the Senate. Egads.