awards, activism and all that

The Just PostsThe Just Posts are up today, the monthly roundtable of posts about issues of social justice and activism rounded up from around the blogosphere. Mad, Jen and Su have put together a wonderful list, as always. Please go have a look at their posts, and some of the great links they have served up.

Sadly, they have also announced that they are unable to continue to host the Just Posts in the future, for various personal reasons. This is their last Just Post host hurrah.

However, the Just Posts will go on. I am honored that Jen and Mad are willing to pass the torch to me along with partner in crime activism Holly of Cold Spaghetti. Starting in February, we will be hosting the Just Post at our blogs.

In other news, Holly very flatteringly nominated this blog for a Weblog Award (“The 2009 Bloggies”), in the categories of “best-kept secret” and “most humorous.”

I have gone and repaid her the compliment by nominating her as well. And while I was at it, I may have gone and nominated a few other blogs that are near and dear to me. (By the way, the nominations close today/Monday at 10 p.m., so if you also want to nominate someone, you’d better run!)

2009bloggies

Anyhow, without further ado, here are my nominees.

best-kept secret weblog “The best underrepresented weblogs” (I wish I could have nominated 20 or more for this category!)

lifetime achievement “Webloggers who have been blogging since at least January 1, 2004.” Here, I’m happy to be able to nominate two bloggers who have been very influential in my own blogging:

weblog of the year “The category for the best weblog overall.”

best canadian weblog

most humorous weblog

best writing of a weblog

best new weblog “Weblogs that began during the year 2008.”

best australian or new zealand weblog

best asian weblog

best european weblog (Okay, so I picked some US and Canadian expats living in Eruope.)

best photography of a weblog

best art, craft, or design weblog

best weblog about music

  • wreke havoc (for her “guilty pleasures monday” series)

best entertainment weblog “Weblogs about movies, television, and/or theater.”

best weblog about politics

best computer or technology weblog

  • Disparate (because of his writings on social networking media)

best topical weblog “Weblogs with a distinct topic other than the ones in the categories above.” (Okay, so I sneaked a few personal blogs in the back door with this one, but they are ones with somewhat more focused topics.)

best group weblog “Weblogs written by an exclusive group.”

best community weblog: “Weblogs where everyone is invited to post.”

best web application for weblogs

That’s quite a bundle, but I actually feel bad for leaving so many great blogs off. I don’t like the categories for these awards. Most of the blogs I read don’t fit in easily. I managed to squeeze in a few by region and other criteria, but I had to leave out quite a few of my favorite blogs, which for the most part are personal blogs by Americans or Canadians. Guys, I owe you!

(I wish I had time to write more, but quite honestly, it’s taken me over 24 hours to get the nominations and the draft of this post together. Theo has been sick with a cold, feverish, and possibly also teething, and I have barely found more than 10 minutes in a row to type with both hands. )

aftermath (Photo Hunt)

Phoebe shovels the driveway in the aftermath of the snowstorm.
Phoebe shovels the driveway in the aftermath of the snowstorm.

The PhotoHunt theme this week is “aftermath.” For more interpretations of the theme, go check out tnchick’s post.

(I admit that, once again, I struggled with this theme. I almost went with “afterbath” instead.)
afterbath2afterbath2
(Be thankful I didn’t go with “afterbirth.”)

better for me than a scone and decaf soymilk latte

After a glorious two years of partnership, Jen and Mad have announced that they are retiring from their work putting together and hosting the Just Posts. Their final Just Post hurrah will be on Monday, and for those asking what sort of retirement gift they’d like, they’ve put in a special request: to make a financial contribution to a charitable organization of our choosing, and to write about it. (If you haven’t seen their posts on this, in which they lay bare some of their behind-the-scenes discussion and debate, go have a look.)

I confess that I have never been great with donations. I’m inconsistent. I have a few organizations that I support, typically once a year. When they ask. And not even a great amount. If friends publicize a cause, or request sponsorship for a charity-based activity, I gladly contribute. But I haven’t made giving a regular part of my life.

So, I have taken a plunge that I haven’t taken before: I have signed up to give a regular monthly gift to the International Rescue Committee, which will be billed to my credit card.

The IRC just celebrated its 75th year of humanitarian relief and assistance to refugees.

Founded in 1933, the IRC is a global leader in emergency relief, rehabilitation, protection of human rights, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression.

This is the same group I volunteered with back in 2001, when I was an ESL tutor working with refugees who recently resettled in the US. The office out of which I worked closed, sadly, due to post-September-11th reductions in refugees admitted to the US, but they organization is still active resettling refugees in many other cities around the country. They are also active around the world giving humanitarian relief, and campaigning to protect populations that are at risk due to war and other political upheaval in countries including the Sudan, Congo and Iraq. They are among the organizations working to get humanitarian relief to civilians in Gaza, where the crisis has been much on my mind these past couple weeks.

The monthly amount I’ve chosen is not huge for me, especially if I think of it in terms of a weekly amount. I’ve easily spent more than that on an afternoon snack and beverage. In those terms, I feel downright stingy. But it’s a solid start. And it makes me feel a bit warmer, knowing that I am contributing to an organization whose work I find so important, and in a way that will make it easier for them to do that work.

the state of Israel mocks humanitarianism

Tonight I saw a photo that may haunt me for the rest of my life.

I was sitting on the couch, holding my nearly sleeping 4-month-old baby, while my husband was upstairs putting our 2-year-old daughter to bed. And jen directed me to a post at No Caption Needed. It featured an image, under which the first line of the following paragraph reads:

A child’s arm protrudes from the rubble of a building destroyed by an air strike.

The hand is tiny. A toddler’s hand. There is no hope that the child in the photo is alive.

My stomach turned. I found myself crying onto my baby’s footie pajamas, scooping him up and squeezing him tight. I found myself glad that it was not my daughter sitting on my lap, because she would have seen the photo. She would have seen my tears. She is not yet 3 years old, and I cannot yet explain these things to her.

I cannot explain these things to myself.

The International Rescue Committee, an organization that provides aid to refugees, describes the current crisis:

News reports today indicate that more than 570 Palestinians, many of them women and children, have been killed in the violence that began on December 27 following the breakdown of a six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Thousands have fled to safety, but most of the 1.5 million people in Gaza have nowhere to go as both Israel and Egypt continue to restrict access to their territories.

The United Nations says the humanitarian crisis is growing as food supplies dwindle, access to clean water diminishes and hospitals fill up with the wounded and dead. More than a million people are said to be without electricity.

Let it not be said that Israel is completely oblivious to this growing humanitarian crisis. According to the New York Times:

Israel suspended its military operations in Gaza for three hours on Wednesday to allow humanitarian aid and fuel for power generation to reach Gazans, who used the afternoon break to shop.

You know what’s more humanitarian than allowing humanitarian aid?

Not bombing people.

the soundtrack of my life

This wrinkle in time, I cant give it no credit
I thought about my space and I really got me down

                                “Headache,” Frank Black

I have a headache I haven’t quite been able to shake for the last couple of days. I’m also generally feeling pretty run down. I think sleep deprivation has been catching up with me.

So why aren’t you going to bed, then, Alejna?

Well, I’ll be off to bed soon. But first I wanted to post this assignment I saw over at I’m Just Sayin:

Here’s how it works:
1. Open your music library on iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, or whatever
1. Shuffle it
3. For every ‘scene’ below, type the title and the artist in the order the songs come up

OR

1. If you’re old and don’t have your tunes online, close your eyes and pull out 16 CDs, albums, cassettes, 8-tracks or 78s.¹
2. Actually shuffle them. Be careful, though — they’re antiques.
3. Type in the first title and artist for each scene below
4. Whichever way you do it, no cheating!

So, here’s my soundtrack:

Waking up: You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby, The Smiths
Falling in Love: Perfect Kiss, New Order
Fight Song: No No Raja, Moxy Fruvous
Breaking Up: Post Script, Catatonia
Prom: Martha Avenue Love Song, Innocence Mission
Life: More Than This, Charlie Hunter featuring…
Mental Breakdown: Pretty Pathetic, Smoking Popes
Driving: Shake the Disease, Depeche Mode
Flash Back: Oh Do Not Fly Away, Innocence Mission
Getting Back Together: Pretty Good Year, Tori Amos
Wedding: Ode to My Family, The Cranberries
Birth of a Child: I Ain’t Gone Under Yet, Neneh Cherry
Final Battle: Fire on Babylon, Sinead O’Connor
Death Scene: Punk to Funk, Fatboy Slim
Funeral Song: Photographic, Depeche Mode
End Credits: Paid to Smile, Lemonheads

I think that works.² It’s just missing Frank Black’s “Headache” for the montage of the last couple of days.

——

¹ I’ve seen variations of this floating around before, but I enjoyed Becky’s suggestion of shuffling the stack of 8-tracks.

² I will confess to having cheated slightly. The first shuffle I got was a load of stuff I either don’t like, and would skip over instead of listening to, or don’t even know. Which suggests to me that I need to clean out my iPod. But the list above is a real and genuine second shuffle.

right from the start

I have given in to the urge to put together a sort of 2008 blog recap. Following in the footsteps of Mad, Magpie, Bea and Holly, I present to you the opening sentence of each first post of the month. (Or in some cases, a sentence fragment. Because I like sentence fragments.) (And I’ve also put the post title.)(In parentheses.)(Because I like parentheses.)

What this excercise has demonstrated to me is that my posts tend to lack interesting beginnings. I’d like to say that I’ll work on getting more interesting “hooks” for my posts. However, if I were to agonize about the beginnings of my posts, I would likely collapse in a heap of debilitating self-awareness.

On the other hand, I could try starting with the right opening sentences, and then work my way from there. What my openers above clearly lack, aside from elements that might intrigue a reader, is pants.

I offer to you an alternate universe list of post openers:


    January: The moment I walked in the room, I realized that I had worn entirely the wrong pair of pants.

    February: Hell hath no fury like a woman pantsed.

    March: You would not believe the number of people who have been trying to get into my pants this week.

    April: Today I invented a novel way of wearing pants.

    May: You can tell a lot about people from their body language, or from going through the contents of their pants pockets.

    June: I can’t remember where I left my pants last night.

    July: Shakespeare knew a thing or two about writing, but from what I’ve heard, he was a bit lacking in the pants department.

    August: My love of pants may finally have gotten me in trouble with the law.

    September: Last night I found a mysterious message, a poetic missive written in an elegant hand, stuck to the seat of my pants.

    October: On beautiful Fall days like this, I sometimes gaze out the window at the leaves falling gracefully from the trees and the pants falling clumsily from the waistlines of the passersby.

    November: I’ve signed on for NaPaWriMo (National Pants Writing Month) this year, which means that every day for this whole month, I’ll be joining the ranks of those who can’t help but write about pants.

    December: Today turned out to be an unfortunate day to go outside without my pants.

hope (PhotoHunt)

Waiting for the train.
Waiting for the train.

There is a certain magic for me about the beginning of a journey. Once I can leave behind the stress of packing and the anxiety that I may forget something crucial (Do I have the tickets? Wallet? Passport? Did I leave the stove on?), the excitement about the travel ahead is allowed free reign. I look forward to the new and varied experiences. Seeing new sights, or revisiting old sights with eyes that have changed. Hearing the sounds, smelling the smells, tasting the foods. I love the process of travel itself, that physical sense of forward motion.

The anticipation that I’m going to get somewhere feels a lot like hope.

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
–Robert Louis Stevenson

Having come across this quote while poking around for inspiration for this week’s Photo Hunt theme of “hope,” I thought to offer up a photo that suggests the hopefulness of a journey’s beginning.

The train station photo above is another one that I took on our 2007 trip to Europe. Shown is our luggage on the platform of the train station in Saarbrücken, Germany, as we waited for the train to Paris.

back in the swing of things

We’re back home now, after the post-Christmas trip to the in-laws. It’s good to be back home, but we’re pretty beat. We got home at about 2 in the morning. John even had to drive through an unexpected snow storm.

Theo had is 4 month checkup this morning, so we had to get up and out of the house around 9:00.

And then I went into Boston (well, Cambridge, actually) for my first in-person work meeting since Theo was born. I’ve been having conference calls roughly once a week, and while it’s been nice not having the hellacious commute, it was really great to be at the meeting in person. Phoebe didn’t have daycare, which I’d forgotten about when I said I could be at the meeting, but John was able to stay home with her. I did bring Theo, though. Which was…interesting. (He’ll probably be starting daycare in February, which is the soonest they can take him. I am looking forward to having more time to focus on my work, but at the same time wanting to hold on to this time.)

Anyhow, today ended up being pretty hectic, what with the appointment, the driving, the parking, the meeting, the feeding the meter, the feeding the baby, the changing the diapers, and the changing the parking spaces to avoid getting a ticket. I barely had time to get myself food.

Now I’m sitting here, redenting my preferred sofa cushion at home, and catching up a bit on my web surfing. John is upstairs working. Phoebe is in bed. And Theo is swinging in his swing. I have to say that I missed the swing while we were away at the in-laws. It’s not that Theo spends all his time there, but it does keep him happy (and/or asleep) nearby while my hands are otherwise engaged. Doing things like eating. Or typing.