newcatwords

[newcatwords]

mauna loa is erupting

this morning i woke up to news that mauna loa is erupting. can you believe it?!

now that it's night, i can see the glow from the eruption in the distance...from my kitchen!

i haven't seen lava glow in the distance since 2018 - when kilauea was erupting. but this is much brighter! it takes up more of the sky.

what a gift to be able to see it - to witness it. not everyone gets to see the glow from a volcanic eruption in the distance!

it's very magical. in one corner of the sky: the moon and all the beautiful stars... in another corner: a red glow from the earth. you see it all together - new land coming into existence (lava), the moon orbiting overhead, the stars showing light from millions of years ago (but you can see it now!). the past, the present, and the future (new land) are all visible at once. it's a powerful, powerful reminder that we're all coming-into-being together: the land, the sky, the stars, and you!

it's not every day that a new phenomenon appears in the night sky...and such a dramatic one as well! red, glowing, billowing...

in 2018, we couldn't see the glow every night, and not always from our house. when it finally went away, it felt like something went missing... i had gotten used to the red glow in the distance, reminding me that lava was flowing RIGHT THERE. maybe you can't hear it (although sometimes we did!) and maybe you can't see the lava directly, but that glow tells you it's there.

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now the clouds have come in and the glow is no longer visible. that's the power of the clouds!

i bet that tonight pele (goddess of lava and lava itself) and poli'ahu (goddess of snow and snow itself) are gonna brawl.

snow fell on mauna kea last night, so poli'ahu is there in her usual abode.

and across the huge valley, at almost equal height as mauna kea, flows pele, on mauna loa.

down here, the coquis sing & the plants are calm. but up there? at 10,000 feet? are pele & poli'ahu already going to head to head? are the winds whipping and the lava spurting? i bet there are all kinds of interesting phenmona that happen when two such powerful forces come head to head…

if snow really is falling up there, it's a big battle indeed…

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[newcatwords]

Did this for school assignment.

[newcatwords]

i touched a nerve

it was raw and horrible

whose nerve did i touch?

yours or mine?

our nerves touched each other and recoiled.

was your nerve as raw & tender as mine?

did you also cry?

did you forget about it already?

how do i forget about it too?

[newcatwords]

where i'm from (part 2)

this is a follow-up post to "where i'm from (part 1)".

when i was little and we were already a few years into living in the US, i remember asking my dad something like this: "dad, i don't get it. we're from the soviet union but that country doesn't exist anymore. so the part of soviet union that we're from is now a country called ukraine. but we don't speak ukrainian, we speak russian. and the food we eat is russian. so which one are we, ukrainian or russian?" and my dad confidently responded "neither. we're JEWISH." which broke my tiny little brain because here i had been thinking that "jewish" was a religion, not an ethnicity.

but alas, in the complicated logic of the place that i'm from, his answer made sense. you see, the former soviet union (and contemporary russia) was a large multi-ethnic empire filled with azerbaijanis, georgians, kazakhs, uzbekhs, turkmen, lithuanians, latvians, russians, ukrainians, and yes, jews. "jewish" was one of the ethnicities and it was listed on one's state ID.

yes, i was born in a place that was so racist it divided white people into a bunch of categories. here's a chart showing the "differences" between ethnicities of the soviet union. from the top left to bottom right: russian, ukrainian, tatar, jew, romani, kyrgyz, belarussian, lithuanian, georgian, armenian, kazakh, uzbek, latvian, estonian, azerbaijani, moldovan, tajik, & turkmen.

but how can i really be "from" a place that we left when i was 4 years old? aren't i much more "from" a place that i've lived for most of my life? and i've still encountered people who say "no, tell them where you're *really* from" and i have to roll my eyes and say "ukraine" and everyone goes "ohhhh".

before the war in ukraine, many americans were pretty unfamiliar with ukraine, and if i said i was FROM ukraine, they'd say "oh so you're ukrainian" and then i'd have to start a whole long story... so i often just said that my family was russian (it would make it easier when people heard me speaking russian to my mom on the phone).

the war in ukraine has complicated the situation because now ukrainians are epic victims, but also "heroes." there's no faster way to bring down the mood of a party than to talk about ukraine, so if it does come up, i try to keep the topic matter moving. it's just all sad stories.

here's another story from childhood: my mom sometimes sang to me at bedtime and she'd sing songs in russian. about 99% of them were super sad and i remember asking her "mama, why are all the songs you sing so sad?" and she said "well, life is hard." and that was that. let's just say that the pit in my stomach from hearing that has maybe never gone away.

in many ways, "well, life is hard" is the story of being where i'm from. things were awful during tsarist times. then they were awful during the revolution & civil war. then there was stalinist repression (family members sent to the gulag) and famine. then WWII! kharkiv was occupied by nazis *multiple* times. there are whole sections of my family who just disappeared when odessa was occupied, and still, no one knows what happened to them.

things stabilized a bit after WWII, but life was always still hard. and when we came to the US? well, it wasn't easy. in the 30 years since we came to america, my family has been able to accomplish the american dream, in many ways. my parents have a nice house in the chicago suburbs. 2 cars. kids went to college & are all now living their own lives, with their own families. my niece and nephews get to have grandparents and aunts and uncles, something i never had. and now we can write a new story about where we're from. not omitting the fact that life is hard, but maybe providing a little bit more support to go along with that reality: "life is hard, but we're here with you. we'll get through this together."

[newcatwords]

for girls who have trouble dreaming big because they've been swatted down so many times.

for girls who are good at making do because they're grateful for what they have (and what they've escaped, or survived...).

for girls whose wants aren't that strong. they've had their fun, after all.

for girls who are more used to thinking of themselves as part of a unit, who like to do things together. but there's no unit anymore..

for girls who are good at languishing. who can lie under the waves, looking up, feeling impossibly far away from the air they need to breathe.

for girls who've been surviving one day at a time for so long...

for girls who only remember failures.

for girls who don't even know how to win anymore.

for girls who've reframed "being stuck" as "at least i'm not Back There."

for girls who haven't had a win in a long time.

for girls who can't compete.

for girls who forgot that a lot of people love them.

i can imagine an "ideal life", "the life i want to live", but i don't see a path to get there.

i can imagine being with people i love and doing fun things together, but it feels like a distant dream.

here in the "real world", i've got no money and a hostile relationship with the world of work (hisssssss).

what do i tell this girl? that another world is possible? she scoffs. "sure, maybe for you, but not for me."

i tell her "are you getting comfy in your deathbed at the ripe old age of 38?" and she just gets more cozy under the heavy blankets of security.

i want her to dream. i want her to want something enough to go out and get it. but she's been tempered by failure. she's given up. she can't even see a way out.

[newcatwords]

for the non-religious activist who feels awkward around spirituality in grassroots movements

i still remember it clearly: showing up to a teach-in about mycoremediation at a beautifully muraled building in west oakland.. the teach-in, run by members of oakland's black community, started out with a gratitude prayer and sage burning. i felt so awkward. i didn't know what to do with myself. so i just stood on the sidelines, looked at the floor, and tried to be stoic. later i felt ashamed that i couldn't just be chill in the situation. i'm sure the people there could feel the cringe dripping off me. i was not acting in a respectful manner. my discomfort with their spirituality was not respectful.

these days, i like to think that i'm much more comfortable around spiritual and religious people, but it took a long time for me to get there, and i didn't have any guidance. i write this for past-me and for anyone else who wants to be a better neighbor, activist, friend, and co-conspirator. many of the people that one might want to work with in grassroots movements (or even just your neighbors) are going to have some religious or spiritual beliefs. feeling comfortable with those beliefs will help you be a better and more respectful friend and collaborator.

to give you some background about me, i'm an american who is originally from the former soviet union. (for a more detailed version you can check out my blog post "where i'm from (part 1)".) i grew up basically without religion. my dad said "we're jewish," but we were also pretty athiest (if you're a jew, you very much CAN be an athiest. what a woild!). i grew up being reminded that religion is the opiate of the masses. i saw how crazy american right-wing evangelicals were, how many people their actions harmed. i saw that people did crazy things because of religion, and i knew many people (including my predecessors back in soviet union) who were persecuted because they weren't the "right" religion. heck, my family was jewish - that's like the definition of being the "wrong" religion. so not only did i grow up in a non-religious household, i grew up in a household that was actively hostile to religion. growing up in chicago, i didn't know many people who were religious, or if they were, they kept it to themselves. i didn't grow up going to anyone's church functions or religious festivals. my dad didn't even let us put up our new year's tree until after christmas "so people wouldn't think we were christian."

maybe i had a pretty extreme non-religious upbringing, but many people i know over the years (especially fellow white people) are also not religious. i guess us non-religious types seem to find each other.

but when i got older and became active in various grassroots movements, i found myself collaborating with and working alongside religious people and spiritual people. i always had the awkwardness. i didn't know what i was supposed to do. i didn't even know what to do with my hands when someone said a prayer. i just closed my eyes or looked down and hoped for the best.

my discomfort in these kinds of situations definitely led me (unconsciously) to collaborating less with religious organizations/groups (some of which are extremely radical, active, and effective!) and coalitions that included religious groups. but i now recognize that as having been a mistake.

first of all, a lot of the people you will probably want to work with to advance whatever it is you're trying to do are probably going to be spiritual/religious. if you're working with unhoused people, there will almost certainly be church groups involved. if you're working on climate change, you may find yourself working alongside indigenous people, many of whom have spiritual beliefs that drive their climate work. if you work around issues relating to palestine, you may be dealing with muslim organizations. many black radical grassroots groups have strong spiritual/religious backbones. plus, there are infinite hippies who are part of various movements, and their spiritual beliefs are as varied as they are. if you want to be in solidarity, you really ought to be respectful and comfortable around expressions of religion/spirituality.

so how to do it? the main thing is to be chill about whatever is happening. if you center respect, it's hard to go wrong. something that helped me was to go into meetings/events expecting there to be a prayer or ceremony at the beginning. there are also often closing prayers/ceremonies. it helps me to think "i am a guest here and these folks are giving me the gift of sharing their spirituality with me and the other people present. what a gift!"

of course, you shouldn't do anything you don't feel comfortable with. i've been at a hare krishna event where there was 20 minutes of "hare hare" singing and i very much stayed out of it. also, if things start to get creepy: targeting groups of people in a hateful way, or asking a spiritual entity for something you don't agree with, you are allowed to discreetly leave. this is the kind of situation where you may want to sit/stand in the back, or at the outer edge of a circular gathering.

also, continued exposure helped me overcome my awkwardness. as i got older and interacted with more people from more and more varied backgrounds, i became more comfortable around religious/spiritual expression. i'm still not about to go to someone's church gathering, but i no longer feel awkward if the mechanic says "praise jesus, the car started". in fact, that happened to me recently, and i said to him "you know, i'm not christian, but even i can get behind that." he said "amen." and that was that - it doesn't have to get more complicated than that.

and if there's a "let us pray" situation that you find yourself in, i believe it is acceptable to close your eyes and look down. you don't have to think of anything, or you can think "thank you to the powers that be that are allowing us to have this gathering, and may it go well."

finally, you may discover that there are elements of spirituality that resonate with you. for example, if i have any spirituality at all, it is possible to describe it as land-centered. i wrote about it recently in this blogpost: "on finding divinity in nature, hawai'i, and powerful natural forces". i developed that perspective because i started to take seriously what many indigenous land and water defenders are constantly saying: that spiritual poverty is at the center of the global crisis (climate change, global biodeath, extractionism, etc.). it used to be very hard for me to understand because i never had any spiritual experiences, but seriously thinking about divinity and nature helped me get there (again, i describe that thought process here). now, even if i don't believe in God or goddesses or spirits, even if i'm not worshipping or doing ceremonies or praying, i can at least say to myself that when someone talks about a higher power, in my mind i think of the land (broadly speaking. "the land" includes the lands, the oceans, the air, etc.) and how i feel accountable to the land and to life. knowing that i have that grounding helps me relate to all the people who have some kind of religion/spirituality, which ultimately helps me be a better neighbor and collaborator, and be in better solidarity with others who i might work with.

post script: dealing with woo.

i live in a part of the world that is not very dense with people, but of the people who are here, a high percentage of them have some kind of woo beliefs. whether it's crystals or spirits or covid denial, we've got all kinds here.

here are some ways to respond when a fellow human starts to share with you some woo stuff:

go gray rock: don't really engage, respond with few words, look away, etc. body language can often communicate a lot here and many people will pick up that you're not interested.

say that you're not really into that kind of stuff.

change the subject.

make an excuse to go talk to someone else.

advanced level: i once told a hitchhiker "listen, i want to believe in magic and signs as much as the next guy, but i just never get definitive proof. i can always come up with some other reason for the observed phenomenon. i just want to be sure that i'm basing my decisions on real things, and so far i've never gotten definitive proof.

you can be polite, but if someone is really pressing you hard (trying to get you to come to their retreat or whatever), it's important to be able to escape. you don't want to be trapped in a conversation because you're too polite to exit. it's ok to make an excuse to leave.

some people enjoy arguing or having a more adversarial engagement with a woo person, but i've never found that to get anywhere. a person who believes in woo wants to believe. that being said, i have perfectly acceptable neighborly relations with people who are into all kinds of stuff. we just stick to discussions about neighborly stuff and keep it at that.

[newcatwords]

"be with life": indigenous life-based ethic

"there is one key metaphor that integrates indigenous thinking wherever you find it in the world. indigenous education operates from the principle of "life-sustaining", "for life's sake." you can go anywhere in the world among indigenous people and ask them "what's the essence of what you do and why you do it, as a process?" and invariably, in some metaporic or direct way, they'll say "it's for life's sake."

that single idea is what they call the menome, the virus, that has allowed us to survive as a human species..because our societies were created around the metaphor of life. and perpetuating life became the real ethic. so if we have to find anything that is going to guide us in the future, we have to begin to take a look very deeply at that ethic of "for life's sake." so in my language we say "biwo a niinii" [sorry i don't know the spelling!!!], which means "be with life." be with life!" - dr. gregory cajete, from the tewa people

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__b5joSe-o

[newcatwords]

on finding divinity in nature, hawai'i, and powerful natural forces

as part of my climate change learning, i've read works by many indigenous scholars and activists. one thing that i always struggled with in these texts was the discussion of "spiritual poverty" that many indigenous scholars talk about. i never saw or experienced magic or spirits in the natural world, so i was like "well that's great for you guys, but i see no evidence of it."

it wasn't until i started to live here in hawai'i & learn about the powerful natural forces here that i started to sort of get where they were coming from.

here, we have extremely powerful natural forces. we have a volcano, we have the ocean, we have powerful winds and rains, we have the force of life, we have the sun, etc.

all of these entities are much larger than people and can do things that people can't do. the volcano creates new land. the ocean erodes land and creates weather. the sun warms the land and allows plants to grow. additionally, humans can't stop these forces. they are bigger than us. there is nothing that people can do in the face of oncoming lava. there is nothing that people can do to stop the ocean from doing what it does, etc.

these powerful natural forces have names: they are called pele, kane, kanaloa, hi'iaka, lono, etc. they are honored ancestors and akua (often translated as "gods", but i don't think it's quite the same as the judeo-christian god). i could understand respecting these powerful forces, but i couldn't understand why they would be considered *divine*.

i had to break down for myself "well what IS divinity? how would i know if something was divine or not?" and eventually i decided that if there's a force that can do things that people can't do, if it's a force that people can't stop, and if it's much larger & more powerful than people, well those seem like pretty good indicators of divinity (at least as good as any other lol). to me, divinity implies a certain kind of relationship that you'd want to have with the force in question - primarily for your own wellbeing! you certainly don't want to get in a god's way, or even worse: make it angry by doing the wrong thing.

in addition to having names, people here know these entities' powers and characteristics. people know how pele (aka vulcanism) acts, how it works. and because of all this knowledge, people know the right way to act in the face of these forces. and it's very straightforward…stuff like "don't build your house on fresh lava. it is still very much active." or "don't turn your back on the ocean." mostly it's about respect: respect these forces, know them, know their powers and ways, and you will be able to have your life and not get covered in lava or have your house flooded by the ocean.

pele and kanaloa are some of the powerful entities/forces that exist in our area, but every area has its own forces with their own names (whether or not the people who currently live there know those names). from this perspective, knowing the names of these powerful entities is the first step to knowing how they behave and then knowing what people should do to not get caught in their way (or even worse: to make them mad, as we appear to have done).

so if you want to stay on the right side of the powerful natural forces in your area, the first step would be to start learning their names. the people indigenous to that area are typically the keepers of those names. due to a long history of exploitation, those people may not want to share those names, and if you're not a member of that group, you should absolutely respect that. but, in some areas it's much easier for people who aren't indigenous to that area to learn the old names and stories that have helped indigenous people live for thousands of years WITH these powerful forces, not against them.

and, if you can't learn some of those old names, you can use the current words ("sun", "ocean", "life") or come up with new names. you can learn how these forces behave and what you should do to stay on their good side. from my experience, the first step is always respect.

in the words of waorani climate activist nemonte nenquimo:

This forest has taught us how to walk lightly, and because we have listened, learned and defended her, she has given us everything: water, clean air, nourishment, shelter, medicines, happiness, meaning. [...] the Earth does not expect you to save her, she expects you to respect her. [source]

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indigenous knowledge from chad

"“In the west, people check their weather app to find out if it’s going to rain,” Ibrahim says. “Our best app is our grandmothers because they can just observe the cloud positions, the bird migration, the wind directions, or the little insects, and say, ‘Oh, it’s going to rain in two hours!’”"

“But when I see the communities who are every day standing up to protect nature, it gives me more hope and energy.”

quotes from Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim in the article "‘Grandmothers are our weather app’: new maps and local knowledge power Chad’s climate fightback" in the Guardian, 2022-08-25.

[newcatwords]

my magic powers

surf the trash continuum

cooking

calm (human) beast

communication

cooperation

befriend cat & dog

befriend plant

befriend water

of course i have to level up in all these. and i didn't include the magic powers that i DON'T currently possess:

charm computer

calm mind

necromancy

agility

endurance

strength

speed

speak plant language

speak animal language

speak ocean, mountain, rain, wind language

making someone care

[newcatwords]

i gotta stop watching the news

the news is really warping me. i recently """quit twitter""" but i seem to have just replaced it with reading the news. i'm getting a bad case of news brain: feeling like i've learned something, when it's not clear whether i've learned anything at all. also, everything on the news is always urgent urgent urgent. breaking breaking breaking. it's always a crisis and i have enough anxiety already.

luckily i don't have a tv or cable news or anything, so my exposure is limited, but i still feel myself getting sucked in to the world of the news. it's time to cut back. and now to check on what's happening in ukraine.... 😆😆😆

[newcatwords]

climate change solutions traps

if you're like me, you like to learn about different climate change solutions. everyone's got an idea! solar panels, electric cars, algae, geogengineering, forced depopulation (who do they think will be ordering and carrying out this forced depopulation?), primitivism, socialist revolution, anarchism, prepperism, voting in the candidates you want, smashing stores, wind farms, carbon capture, fusion, nuclear, mass transit, bioswales, conservation (national parks, etc.), spiritual awakening, values change, moving to space, planting trees, rewilding, bike lanes, permaculture, increased indigenous stewardship of land, increased urbanization, de-growth, de-industrialization, anti-extractivism, veganism, changing consumption patterns, helping pass laws, investor activism, suing fossil fuel companies, divestment, and more. i do not list these to mock them! in an ideal world, i'd want a lot of those! but i am just a small connection-less individual in a quite rural part of the world...i feel so powerless... but at least i can keep learning about climate change solutions in case i come across one i believe in and also can do!

so that's how it happened. that's how i ended up spending time thinking about "how to solve climate change." it's a very strange intellectual exercise. it's a question at the global scale (climate change is a planetary problem), yet most people do not have power at a global scale. not even close! it also doesn't have an actor - who is going to do the solution in question? policymakers? the plan is to vote in policymakers who will then do the right thing? ...in today's dystopia?

the reader might ask, "so what's YOUR plan then?" to which i reply: i'm not a global actor. in fact i don't think there are any global actors. all these perfect policy solutions? i don't think there exists a force in the world that can pull the levers that some people want pulled (the prime example here is "forced depopulation"...who exactly do they think is going to do this and how would it go?). i wish that we were on the cusp of global revolution, but comrades, i don't think we are! it's kind of like the war in ukraine: for nearly all people on earth, there is nothing they can do to help stop that war. admitting that is not admitting defeat, it's just dealing with the world as it is. (apologies if you're in a position to help end the war in ukraine! strength to you! i wish for safe skies for everyone and an end to this awful war!!)

so even though i still love learning about climate change solutions, it's more of an addiction than anything else. maybe the next one i read about will be THE ONE! then i can support that policy and know exactly what to push for (i guess?). i call it playing fantasy policymaker. and i am trying to stop doing it! XD

[newcatwords]

i wish someone had told me how much of art and gardening would be just looking at it and thinking about it.

[newcatwords]

how collapse looks in kharkiv, ukraine

my family is from kharkiv (pop. 1.5mn, 2nd biggest city in ukraine). we emigrated when i was little, so i've been (sadly) watching this war unfold on youtube.

kharkiv has experienced collapse. i'd like to share with you some of what's been going on so you can better prepare for collapse situations.

* from the first days of the war, busses and trams stopped running. people are staying in the subway stations, so the subway doesn't run either. gasoline was a huge problem early on. massive lines of hundreds of cars to get gas that might or might not even be there by the time you got to the front. gasoline supply seems a bit better now, but the lines are still long.

* basically all shops, factories, and businesses closed as soon as the war started.

* vast numbers of people have left the city, up to half. out of the people who remain, there are many elderly people, people with limited mobility (including people with disabilities, people recovering from surgery or illness) and people who care for people with limited mobility, people with no transit, and people with no money.

* conditions vary by neighborhood. some neighborhoods have no power, some have no water, some have no heat. some have a combination of problems. but things are constantly changing since bombing happens every night.

* city workers have been working extremely hard to bring back power, water, & heat, building by building. many videos include extreme gratitude to these workers for helping their fellow residents have services -- and in the middle of a war! garbage also has been getting picked up. i also know someone who had their window blown out (a big problem in winter!!!) and people came out the next day and replaced it, which is very impressive! anyway, i don't know how much of that we'd see in the US, but that's how it's happening there.

this video from mar. 18 has heroic music and shows city workers removing dead russian military vehicles from a road.

here's a video from feb. 28th where the youtuber says that when the war first started, trash wasn't picked up for 5 days, but that they had finally started up again.

* despite city workers' dedication, many things remain undone. roads aren't really plowed. and here's a broken water main that was just pouring water down a street. many buildings remain without services, or maybe they have one service but not the others. there are people sitting in the dark, in the cold, hearing bombs dropping all night, without a way to have even a cup of hot tea or coffee in the morning (if you have no gas/electric for your stove).

* huge mutual aid now exists. i saw a video where someone said "now everyone in the city is a volunteer." i started writing about it, but there was so much that i turned it into a separate post!: mutual aid in war-time kharkiv, ukraine. i encourage you to read it because mutual aid is the key to life in a collapse situation. THE KEY.

* many nights (maybe all nights?) there's a curfew. it's called "commander's hour". non-military residents should not be out at this time because warfare might be going on. in this video from feb. 28th, the person filming says that they had an unusually early beginning of commander's hour: 3PM because there was a lot of warfare happpening all around. militaries were shooting, so residents should try to not get caught in crossfire.

* some people have been charging phones with their car battery, leading to the battery going down. do not do this! i know of a person that was going to a bombed-out building next door to charge her phone while her place didn't have power. but i think they got power back the next day.

* mobile service has been variable.

* for a long time banks & post offices were closed, so there was no way to get cash, even if someone mailed some to you. in this mar. 23 video, a volunteer says that many pensioners get their payments via ukrposhta (ukraine's national postal service), but all the locations are closed now. even for pensioners who have a card that gets loaded with money, the markets and small shops now only accept cash. larger supermarkets might take cards, but they're more expensive.

* traffic lights are mostly out and with so few cars on the road, people drive very fast and don't obey the rules very much. as a result, there are many car accidents. with so many services not working, you can't really get a tow or mechanic, so there are now many abandoned, messed-up cars on the sides of the road.

* people are trying to keep looting under control and the standard punishment for a caught "marauder" (as they are called) is to be tied to a pole! (here's a video from mar. 19.) i've seen this in videos from other parts of ukraine too, so i think it's common. the places most likely to be looted are kiosks which are usually owned by an everyday person. i think the worry is about groups of lads stealing cigarettes & booze from kiosks and tearing apart even more of the city than is already torn apart.

* humantarian aid points with volunteers giving away food have been set up throughout the city. but the lines are very long and what you get varies greatly. you might stand in line for half a day and get a bag of pasta, some canned fish, and chocolates. or you might get a large bag of potatoes, rice, and fruit. it varies.

here is a video from feb. 28 showing a long line for food, a second long line for the pharmacy... i think the lines are better now, if only because so many more people have left the city.

* mask-wearing seems to be low. i'd be wearing a mask.

* many grocery stores were closed and had no food in stock in the first part of the war, but now, almost a month into the war, more grocery stores are open and they have more stock. unfortunately prices are about double what they used to be. people post videos showing what's in stock and how much things cost at various stores. you can also charge phones at grocery stores.

* water is a problem. even if water is on in your building, it might be hard to trust that it's drinkable given how many city services are disrupted. and if you have no gas/electric, you can't boil water to make sure it's safe. many people have no water in their building and buy water. people also gather snow and melt it, but that's harder if you also don't have gas (for gas stoves) or electricity (for electric stoves). if you don't have water in your building, you can't drink water, but you also can't cook many things, can't clean your dishes, and can't flush the toilet. as the war drags into spring, there will be less and less snow.

* pharmacy: at first, many pharmacies were closed, or only open a few hours a day, or running out of supplies. there were very long lines at pharmacies. i think it might be a little better now, but i'm sure conditions vary by neighborhood.

* animals: many animals remained in the city. if you have a pet, keep a very good supply of their food! in this video from mar. 7, a volunteer introduces the cats they're now taking care of. they are taking care of a total of 6 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 bird. every cat has at least a little folded up blanket that's "their spot". the volunteers are also feeding some outdoor animals whose caretakers left the city. they also mention that they have to figure out how to get an abandoned cat out of a locked apartment (the neighbor who was watching the cat evacuated overnight and now there's no key and a locked-in cat).

in this video from feb. 28, a volunteer stands in line at a pet store. when the war first started, the store was closed for some time. so when it finally re-opened, many people came to get supplies. then the pet store announced that they wouldn't have enough cat food for everyone there.

* nerves are running extremely high and arguments break out easily. people are on their very last straws - past their last straws. so everyone has to work harder than ever to stay calm and stay personable. making sure everyone has what they need is the best way to avoid additional fighting and heartache. adults also have a responsibility to help the children, elderly, animals, etc., from being too freaked out by a horrible situation with an unknown end. so adults, help keep spirits up if you can. even a cold house can have a warm mood.

* kharkivchyani (as "kharkivites" are called) seem to mostly love their city and are pained by the destruction. they don't have a lot to begin with, they worked to build a lot of the infrastructure that exists, they are proud of what they've been able to accomplish (ukraine was in very bad shape in the 90s! and before that too - it's never been easy there.) and now they're going to have to do it all over again. kharkiv is an educational and industrial center. there are many huge factories, some of them still running after nearly 100 years. everything that gets damaged, they plan to bring back, because people need apartments, and people love their parks. the videos showing pre-war kharkiv are already being uploaded...

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mutual aid in war-time kharkiv, ukraine

my family is from kharkiv (pop. 1.5mn, 2nd biggest city in ukraine). we emigrated when i was little, so i've been (sadly) watching this war unfold on youtube.

since the war started, kharkiv has experienced a collapse in everyday services. half the population has left. many vulnerable people are still in the city: elders, people with limited mobility (including people who are sick or are in recovery from surgery/sickness + their caretakers), and people with very little money. now many kharkivchyani (kharkiv residents) are engaging in a very large mutual aid effort, often referred to as "humanitarian aid"/"volunteerism".

i'd like to share with you some of what's going on:

there are many groups of volunteers, many people who maybe already knew each other as neighbors or friends. they mostly support elderly people and others who can't easily go stand in line for 3+ hours at a grocery store or humanitarian aid distribution point.

there's a large telegram group called buddopomkh where people can request aid and/or volunteer. a lot of local coordination happens on telegram.

in this video from mar. 1, you can see how many people lined up for one van of humanitarian aid in the "solnichnaya" ("sunny") neighborhood.

in this video from mar. 2, a volunteer drops off a lot of food at an old folks home. the workers there were still coming to work to take care of the 40 elderly folks who live there. everyone is extremely grateful.

sometimes the humanitarian aid comes out of the back of a car.

sometimes humanitarian aid means helping elderly wheelchair users who are on their own and trying to evacuate.

nikolai maslov is a kharkiv youtuber. in this mar. 17 video where he introduces his volunteerism, he says "to all my older people in stariy saltovka (neighborhood): nobody has abandoned you. maybe someone left, but we're here." at least part of the money is being provided by local athlete igor vovchanchyn.

in this mar. 17 video, he shows some of how their group puts together all the packs of food+essentials that they bring to people in their homes. it looks like there are many people from the local athletics scene, including kids. he introduces a bunch of the volunteers as they work. toward the end of the video you can hear shooting and a huge black smoke cloud billows in the distance. at the end he says "we deliver everything to people in their apartments. imagine we gather 300 grandmas here and a bomb flies in. that would be a huge tragedy. so we encourage everyone who's doing humanitarian aid: bring it to people's apartments. don't gather people up in big groups."

doctor, cosmetologist, and youtuber valeria profatylo is also very active in volunteerism. in this mar. 7 video, she goes with another volunteer to the pharmacy and picks up many medicines. they carry it back to their distribution spot (someone's apartment building) and show all the medicines they have on hand. the next step was to put together packs for specific people and make the dropoffs. this group makes dropoffs directly to people's apartments.

later in the video, she introduces the cats they're now taking care of. they are now taking care of a total of 6 cats, 2 dogs, and 1 bird. every cat has at least a fold blanket as their "own spot". they are also feeding some outdoor animals whose caretakers left the city. they also mention that they have to figure out how to get an abandoned cat out of a locked apartment (the neighbor who was watching the cat evacuated overnight and now there's no key and a locked-in cat).

in this mar. 14 video, she says that now, if they are making a food delivery for 3 people, they bring along extra food packs, say for 2 more people, because whenever they drop food off, the person receiving it says "oh who do i call about 2 elderly people in the building who could also use some help?" with spare food packs, the volunteer can give food right then and there, because some people have nothing in the fridge. in this video, the volunteer filming says that they just gave away their spare food kits that will go to two elderly neighbors who have so little food that they turned off their fridge because there was nothing in it. so those people were able to get a food pack without having to call someone and wait for a delivery.

in this mar. 16 video, she says that on that date, they'd been without power since midnight and they heard many bombs, all night. their group was planning to deliver the food packages shown, but they have an electric vehicle & if they drive it, they have no way to charge it back up. the higher priority was to help 2 families evacuate, so the car would be used for that. the volunteer says that they have an unexpected break (since they were planning on distributing food), but it's very cold (i don't think they have heat) so it's better to keep moving and get stuff done.

later in the same video, she talks about how they go to multiple stores every day to get everything needed. here are some of the things they bought that day for their food packs: buckwheat groats (common for hot cereal in the morning), oats, milk, vegetable oil, canned meat, sugar, flour, eggs, macaroni, bread, chickens, potatoes, carrots, onions. everyone doesn't get the same thing in their food packs, they ask about specifics. while they were parked at a dropoff point, other people in the area came up to ask whether they had certain medicines. there's a big problem with medicines now. an older gentleman who was walking past with some groceries asked about medicines. she got his contact info, saw what he had bought, and gave him some more stuff: buckwheat groats, vegetable oil, sugar, cheese. their group calls up the elderly people on their list (i think once a week) and asks if they need something. sometimes people say they don't need anything. some people do try to take advantage of the aid. she says that they got a call for a dropoff for 2 children. when they got there, the 2 children turned out to be 2 young guys. but it seems to not be very common. she also notes that they don't buy pet food with donation money. people give them money and they get the food for them. here's the volunteer's car with a red cross in the window to indicate that it's a humanitarian drop-off car:

as you can see, there's a lot going on and many various efforts.

sometimes humanitarian aid is given out of the back of a van, but other groups have lists of people they regularly make deliveries to. the list maybe started with elderly people in the same building and neighborhood, and expands out from there as people learn of other people (and animals!) who need help.

in addition to food, volunteers also pick up and deliver medicines, help people evacuate, and more. in this mar. 23 video, profatylo talks about preparing a large package for a young woman who is very pregnant at the prenatal center. the package included diapers, cleaning materials, baby medicines, and supplemental baby food in case she had trouble with milk. elsewhere in the video she asks if any viewers can help bring a certain medicine donated by a viewer from italy to at least poland. so there are international networks here!

one volunteer model is to have a phone # (a volunteer's mobile phone) that people can call and "place orders". they say how many people they have (eg: "2 elders and a child who has the flu"), and what they need (eg: "food for 3 people, diapers, medicine, cat food"). then volunteers try to source what those people need while also considering the needs of everyone else on their list. later volunteers will batch up deliveries per neighborhood and drop things off at apartments. they try to supply people for one week and give a good mix of necessities.

volunteers buy basic things (grains, bread, baby food, cooking oil, etc.) either direct from the store or in bulk. they also coordinate donations and even source medicines internationally.

both nikolai maslov and valeria profatylo have donation info in the description for every video.

i know that i'm learning a lot about how to do mutual aid (and in a war zone!!!) from these volunteers. to the volunteers: i support all of you and i hope for an end to this awful war!

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notes from "Island dreaming: the contemplation of Polynesian paradise" by John Connell

[ full text (pdf): https://www.academia.edu/36646929/Island_dreaming_the_contemplation_of_Polynesian_paradise ]

"in cold lands under grey skies a harsh repressive urban and industrial landscape was being created, whilst on hot islands in warm blue seas, nature appeared bounteous to local people"

"on the other side of the world was only dystopia–the dark difficult days of regimented underpaid labour. Indeed the mutiny contributed to the notion of an idyllic space, its name forever associated with ``male adventure and freedom"

In early accounts of the Pacific, "Tahiti stood for Polynesia and more broadly for the Pacific (most of which was still relatively unknown to outsiders)"

In the 19th century: "For outsiders the Pacific remained remote, inaccessible and still little known, an inviting space for creative artists to exploit. Foremost amongst these were Robert Louis Stevenson and Paul Gauguin but many others, writers especially, provided vivid accounts of the islands and their people."

"the Pacific became a dominant setting for the boys' adventure story"

"Typee personified the already familiar situation of beachcombers seeking to cross the beaches, change cultures and live on the `other side', a challenge that few could surmount."

"in both France and Britain (and to a much lesser extent elsewhere) something of a generic `island story' emerged, emphasising a tight range of themes: the `flight from civilisation'; confrontation with luxuriant tropical nature; beach wrecks and treasure troves; the respective merits of reason and nature and challenges to masculinity, especially in the face of unusual other island occupants and visitors, which meant there was also something of a generic island."

"Jack London attributed his determination to visit the South Seas on the strength of reading Herman Melville's 'Typee' and having ``many long hours . . . dreamed over its pages''"

"Utopian dreams were inscribed above all on Tahiti."

National Geographic: "In Polynesia there was repeated invocation of the refrains of paradise and Eden; Tahiti in a 1962 article was `every man's vision of delight'–a world of plenty, sensuality and orderly change. Much the same was true in Micronesia where there was emphasis on the `toplessness' of women, the exoticism of dancers and the romance of its navigators"

Thomas Cook travel brochure: "There's always been a unique air of romance and attraction attached to the South Pacific Islands. . . . The South Pacific Islands have always represented an escape from the daily pressures of the modern world. Relaxation, Friendliness, Simplicity and beauty. They always have and they still do today."

"brochures have labelled Tahiti as ``beautiful, sensual, exotic and exciting''; where ``the Tahitians themselves think of Tahiti in the feminine sense''."

Albert Wendt on western writing about the pacific: "hang-ups, dreams and nightmares, prejudices and ways of viewing our crippled cosmos [rather] than [views] of our actual islands . . ."

"Western dreaming situates islands as distant places, places of escape and otherness–utopian spaces that are the opposite of lived experience–whilst island dreaming places islands at the centre"

``the developed world loves the stable Pacific it has created through its own mythology. . . . Brilliant blue lagoons, white beaches, palm trees and smiling gaily dressed people twanging sugary music on imported guitars''[164] Timeless places and cultures offered respite from the discontents of modernity: nostalgia for the worlds we have `lost' became centred in the places most remote from the northern hemisphere. Islands were ``tiny, away from it all, peripheral and carnivalesque''.[165] Island settings were conflated with femininity, sensuality and sexuality. Ironically such ``idealised representations speak past Tahitians in a language of visual imagery that means little to the local population . . . Tahiti as paradise is not a benign image [but] a political and economic tool to serve colonial agendas''.[166]

[164] H. C. Brookfield, Global change and the Pacific: problems for the coming half-century, The Contemporary Pacific 1 (1989) 14. [165] O'Carroll, The island after Plato, 276.

[166] M. Kahn, Tahiti intertwined: ancestral land, tourist postcard, and nuclear test site, American Anthropologist 102 (2000) 12.

note from https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/tiki-hangover/

"On an intellectual level, we realize that island cultures have many complex problems and are not the paradises we make them out to be, but there is still this emotional need for a paradise on earth."

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pre-war content of ukrainian youtubers i follow

kyiv, family, friends, village life, vlogs

kharkiv walks, travelogs, life in kharkiv, fishing

antiques and flea markets

kharkiv public life: city walks, dancing in parks, public gatherings

diy & repair: "I will help you do a lot with your own hands"

fishing and cats

video production studio channel

healthy beauty and cosmetics

farm and village life, farm animals, recipes

car projects and auto racing

camping, fishing, and roadtrips

esoterica, oddities, theories

stamps & stamp collecting

industrial machine tools repair

"dacha, ditches, rabbits, and building"

clickbait

boxing

design & construction company channel

family and construction

autocrane operator adventures

cooking and kharkiv life

car repair & modification

"healthy tasty simple"

english language learning materials

online perfume vendor channel

gameplay: total war & world of warships

coin collecting

videos of the moon & planets through a telescope, animals

fishing

agricultural technology (tractor parts, repair, etc.)

audio/video/electronics installation and repair

"turbine planet"

kharkiv: "Architecture, streets, parks, people, events..."

cars, family, dog

mushroom hunting, kharkiv city, travel

baking and desserts

village life, diy, cake decoration

"astrology in every home"

self-improvement with a spiritual element

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this channel had no pre-war content. it started when the war started.

this one too.