#Institute of Fundraising - Institute of Fundraising Blog

[useless-catalanfacts]

Now it's been a week since the floods, but we must remember that the damage is not nearly over. It will take months and years for the affected families to recover. And that's not counting that 215 people have died and 78 are still missing. Many homes, streets, fields, schools, etc are destroyed. I'm glad for all the solidarity we've seen this first week, but they are going to be needing help for a long time to recover.

All the local organizations are thankful but for some days have been asking for people to stop sending them objects (tools, clothes, food, etc) because the collection points have so many that they can't manage them and they don't even need so many of some things being sent, for this reason there are storehouses full of materials that they don't need but people keep sending and some volunteers are having to stay there to coordinate the stuff that arrives instead of being where they're needed. So, please, don't send any more things unless you are coordinated directly with a local association there that asked for a specific thing. They say that the most useful donations now are money and not any more food nor second-hand objects. (Again, thank you very much because this overwhelming response speaks of the goodness and solidarity of everyone who immediately reacted by sending things! but let's do it in a coordinated way with the affected people to make sure it's useful).

Also, recently some well-meaning people have been sharing fundraisers to help the victims, but some of these posts seem to be made by outsiders compiling what they found on Twitter, which ended up spreading fundraisers that belong to far right-wing groups, the Catholic Church, and to associations that aren't well known in the area.

If you can make an economical donation to help these people who have lost everything in a day, these are some trustworthy associations:

Fundraiser by Fundació Horta Sud. This is a foundation created by many local associations of the Horta Sud area, one of the areas that has been the most impacted by the catastrophe. It's a well-known foundation that brings together many local associations. This and the next one are the fundraising that is most recommended by people on the ground working on immediate needs.

Casals i Ateneus dels Països Catalans (federation of social centres of the Catalan Countries) has many social centres in the affected areas and is coordinated with trade unions to provide immediate needs. The bank number for donations is ES74 3025 0002 4614 3344 7057.

Fundraiser to help small family-owned farmers (farmers are one of the poorest segments of population in our country, families own a small plot of land and they're very threatened by big corporations, they're at the forefront of fighting for climate and the rural communities' traditional way of living with nature). The fundraiser is created by the International Centre of Rural and Agriculture Studies (Centro de Estudios Rurales y de Agricultura Internacional). This is the fundraiser shared by trustworthy Valencian associations that work in favour of rural communities and traditional cuisine, such as Tasta'l d'ací.

Fundraiser for the grass-roots cultural associations and cultural heritage guardians, organized by the Federation of Local Studies Institutes of the Valencian Country, the Coordinator of Local Studies Centres of the Catalan-Speaking Countries, the Federation of "Ateneus" of Catalonia, and the Ramon Muntaner Institute. Many local archives, centres of local studies, "ateneus" (social and cultural centres with an important task as a library for the community and as historians of the area, among other cultural activities) and other cultural associations headquarters have been destroyed. They are very important for the memory, history and culture of small areas. To write articles about the history and legends for this blog, I very often use work published by these local study groups, because most of the time they are the only ones working in detail on the historical and cultural heritage of their hometown. Here is the information on how to donate, as shared by the organizers:

Translation: Let's help the Valencian cultural and heritage associations affected by the 2024 floods. You can send your donations to [the bank number] ES98 3159 0066 91 3048828523 Or the BIZUM code 10586 (starting on 7th November 2024). You can send the receipt of your donation to: solidaritatcultura@fedinespv.org.

You can find more associations that are collecting donations in this document by Suport Mutu DANA València.

Thank you very much for caring.

[breegadey]

Hey, chat. Sorry to be a bother, but this is kind of urgent: The south of Brazil is going through the worst and most catastrophic climatic disaster it has ever seen.

The whole state - an entire small country - is flooded. And there is still MORE rain to come.

I've gathered these sources with possible ways to donate to those who are currently stranded (all the airports are closes AND flooded) for my international pals. Those are all legit Institutions. Taken from William Shibuya's blog post:

First, fundraising efforts from GoFundMe:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-flood-victims-in-brazil-rio-grande-do-sul-rebuild

Second, PayPal to doacoespaypal@cufa.org.br

That email is to donate to an organization of Preto Zeze called CUFA - Central Única das Favelas (something like Unified Center of the Slums)

Any small amount helps, and if you cannot donate, please help spreading this around!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The conservative movement is cracking up

I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

Politics always requires coalitions. In parliamentary democracies, the coalitions are visible, when they come together to form the government. In a dictatorship, the coalitions are hidden to everyone except infighting princelings and courtiers (until a general or minister is executed, exiled or thrown in prison.)

In a two-party system, the coalitions are inside the parties – not quite as explicit as the coalition governments in a multiparty parliament, but not so opaque as the factions in a dictatorship. Sometimes, there are even explicit structures to formalize the coalition, like the Biden Administration's Unity Task Force, which parceled out key appointments among two important blocs within the party (the finance wing and the Sanders/Warren wing).

Conservative politics are also a coalition, of course. As an outsider, I confess that I am much less conversant with the internal power-struggles in the GOP and the conservative movement, though I'm trying to remedy that. Books like Nathan J Robinson's Responding to the Right present a great overview of various conservative belief-systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo

And the Know Your Enemy podcast does an amazing job of diving deep into right-wing beliefs, especially when it comes to identifying fracture lines in the conservative establishment. A recent episode on the roots of contemporary right-wing antisemitism in the paleocon/neocon split was hugely informative and fascinating:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-in-search-of-anti-semitism-with-john-ganz/

Political parties are weak institutions, liable to capture and hospitable to corruption. General elections aren't foolproof or impervious to fraud, but they're miles more robust than parties, whose own leadership selection processes and other key decisions can be made in the shadows, according to rules that can be changed on a whim:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Which means that parties are brittle, weak vessels that we rely on to contain the volatile mixture of factions who might actually hate each other, sometimes even more than they hate the other party. Remember the defenestration of GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy? That:

https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555

Even outsiders like me know that there's a deep fracture in the Republican Party, with Trumpists on one side and the "establishment" on the other side. Reading accounts of the 2016 GOP leadership race, I get the distinct impression that Trump's win was even more shocking to party insiders than it was to the rest of us.

Which makes sense. They thought they had the party under control, knew where its levers were and how to pull them. For us, Trump's win was a terrible mystery. For GOP power-brokers, it was a different kind of a nightmare, the kind where you discover that controls to the the car you're driving in high-speed traffic aren't connected to anything and you're not really the driver.

But as Trump's backers – another coalition – fall out among each other, it's becoming easier for the rest of us to understand what happened. Take FBI informant Peter Thiel's defection from the Trump camp:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/12/silicon-valley-billionaire-donors-presidential-candidates/

Thiel was the judas goat who led tech's reactionary billionaires into Trump's tent, blazing a trail and raising a fortune on the way. Thiel's support for Trump was superficially surprising. After all, Thiel is gay, and Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, openly swore war on queers of all kinds. Today, Thiel has rebuffed Trump's fundraising efforts and is reportedly on Trump's shit-list.

But as a Washington Post report – drawing heavily on gossiping anonymous insiders – explains. Thiel has never let homophobia blind him to the money and power he stands to gain by backing bigots:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/12/silicon-valley-billionaire-donors-presidential-candidates/

Thiel bankrolled Blake Masterson's Senate race, despite Masterson's promise to roll back marriage equality – and despite the fact that Masterton attended Thiel's wedding to another man.

According to the post, the Thiel faction's abandonment of Trump wasn't driven by culture war issues. Rather, they were fed up with Trump's chaotic, undisciplined governance strategy, which scuttled many opportunities to increase the wealth and power of America's oligarchs. Thiel insiders complained that Trump's "character traits sabotaged the policy changes" and decried Trump's habit of causing "turmoil and chaos…that would interfere with his agenda" rather than "executing relentlessly."

For Trump's base, the cruelty might be the point. But for his backers, the cruelty was the tactic, and the point was money, and the power it brings. When Trump seemed like he might use cruel tactics to achieve power, his backers went along for the ride. But when Trump made it clear that he would trade opportunities for power solely to indulge his cruelty, they bailed.

That's an important fracture line in the modern American conservative coalition, but it's not the only one.

Writing in the BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller and Lee Hepner describes the emerging conservative split over antitrust and monopoly:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/is-there-an-establishment-plan-to

Antitrust has been the centerpiece of the Biden Administration's most progressive political project. For the left wing of the Dems, blunting corporate power is seen as the necessary condition for rolling back the entire conservative program, which depends on oligarch-provided cash infusions, media campaigns, and thinktank respectability.

But elements of the right have also latched onto antitrust, for reasons of their own. Take the Catholic traditionalists who see weakening corporate power as a path to restoring a "traditional" household where a single breadwinner can support a family:

https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/when-capitalism-becomes-tyranny-with-sohrab-ahmari

There's another reason to support antitrust, of course – it's popular. There are large, bipartisan majorities opposed to monopoly and in favor of antitrust action:

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Antitrust_Policy_poll_results.pdf

Two-thirds of Americans support anti-monopoly laws. 70% of Americans say monopolies are bad for the economy. The Biden administration is doing more on antitrust than any presidency since the Carter years, but 52% of Americans haven't heard about it:

https://www.ft.com/content/c17c35a3-e030-4e3b-9f49-c6bdf7d3da7f

There's a big opportunity latent in the facts of antitrust's popularity, and the Biden antitrust agenda's obscurity. So far, the Biden administration hasn't figured out how to seize that opportunity, but some Dems are trying to grab it. Take Montana Senator John Tester, a Democrat in a Trump-voting state, whose campaign has taken aim at the meat-packing monopolies that are screwing the state's ranchers.

The right wants in on this. At a Federalist Society black-tie event last week during the National Lawyer's Convention, Biden's top antitrust enforcers got a warm welcome. Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ's top antitrust cop, was praised onstage by Todd Zywicki, whom Stoller and Hepner call "a highly influential law professors," from George Mason Univeristy, a fortress of pro-corporate law and economics. Zywicki praised the DoJ and FTC's new antitrust guidelines – which have been endlessly damned in the WSJ and other conservative outlets – as a reasonable and necessary compromise:

https://fedsoc.org/events/national-press-club-event

Even Lina Khan – the bogeywoman of the WSJ editorial page – got a warm reception at her fireside chat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FwdAxOSznE

And the convention's hot Saturday ticket was "a debate between two conservatives over whether social media platforms had sufficient monopoly power that the state could regulate them as common carriers":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwoO7bZajXk

This is pretty amazing. And yet…lawmakers haven't gotten the memo. During markup for last week's appropriations bill, lawmakers inserted a flurry of anti-antitrust amendments into the must-pass legislation:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/fsgg-approps-bill-must-support-enforcers-not-kneecap-them/#

These amendments were just wild. Rep Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) introduced an amendment that would give companies carte blanche to stick you with unlimited junk fees, and allow corporations to take away their workers' rights to change jobs through noncompetes:

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/118th-congress/house-report/269

Another amendment would block the FTC from enforcing against "unfair methods of competition." Translation: the FTC couldn't punish companies like Amazon for using algorithms to hike prices, or for conspiring to raise insulin prices, or its predatory pricing aimed at killing small- and medium-sized grocers.

An amendment from Rep Kat Cammack (R-FL) would kill the FTC's "click to cancel" rule, which will force companies to let you cancel your subscriptions the same way you sign up for them – instead of making you wait on hold to beg a customer service rep to let you cancel.

Another one: "a provision to let auto dealers cheat customers with undisclosed added fees":

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr4664rh/pdf/BILLS-118hr4664rh.pdf

Dems got in on the action, too. A bipartisan pair, Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep Lou Correa (D-FL), unsuccessfully attempted to strip the Department of Transport of its powers to block mergers, which were most recently used to block the merger of Jetblue and Spirit:

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/118th-congress/house-amendment/640

And 206 Republicans voted to block the DoT from investigating airline price-gouging. As Stoller and Hepner point out, these reps serve constituents from low-population states that are especially vulnerable to this kind of extraction.

This morning, Jim Jordan hosted a Judiciary Committee meeting where he raked DOJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter over the coals, condemning the same merger guidelines that Zywicki praised to the Federalist Society:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7jxc8dp8erhe1q3wpndre/GOP-oversight-hearing-memo-11.13.23.pdf?rlkey=d54ur91ry3mc69bta5vhgg13z&dl=0

Jordan's prep memo reveals his plan to accuse Kanter of being an incompetent who keeps failing in his expensive bids to hold corporate power to account, and being an all-powerful government goon who's got a boot on the chest of American industry. Stoller and Hepner invoke the old Yiddish joke: "The food at this restaurant is terrible, and the portions are too small!"

Stoller and Hepner close by wondering what to make of this factional split in the American right. Is it that these members of the GOP Congressional caucus just haven't gotten the memo? Or is this a peek at what corporate lobbyists home to accomplish after the 2024 elections?

They suggest that both Democrats and Republican primary contesters in that race could do well by embracing antitrust, "Establishment Republicans want you to pay more for groceries, healthcare, and travel, and are perfectly fine letting monopoly corporations make decisions about your daily life."

I don't know if Republicans will take them up on it. The party's most important donors are pathologically loss-averse and unwilling to budge on even the smallest compromise. Even a faint whiff of state action against unlimited corporate power can provoke a blitz of frenzied scare-ads. In New York state, a proposal to ban noncompetes has triggered a seven-figure ad-buy from the state's Business Council:

https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/noncompete-campaign-raises-state-lobbying-18442769.php

It's hard to overstate how unhinged these ads are. Writing for The American Prospect, Terri Gerstein describes one: "a hammer smashes first an alarm clock, then a light bulb, with shards of glass flying everywhere. An ominous voice predicts imminent doom. Then, for good measure, a second alarm clock is shattered":

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-10-business-groups-reflexive-anti-worker-demagogy/

Banning noncompetes is good for workers, but it's also unambiguously good for business and the economy. They "reduce new firm entry, innovation by startups, and the ability of new firms to grow." 44% of small business owners report having been blocked from starting a new company because of a noncompete; 35% have been blocked from hiring the right person for a vacancy due to a noncompete. :

https://eig.org/noncompetes-research-brief/

As Gerstein writes, it's not unusual for the business lobby to lobby against things that are good for business – and lobby hard. The Chamber of Commerce has gone Hulk-mode on simple proposals to adapt workplaces for rising temperatures, acting as though permitting "rest, shade, water, and gradual acclimatization" on the jobsite will bring business to a halt. But actual businesses who've implemented these measures describe them as an easy lift that increases productivity.

The Chamber lobbies against things its members support – like paid sick days. The Chamber complains endlessly about the "patchwork" of state sick leave rules – but scuttles any attempt to harmonize these rules nationally, even though members who've implemented them call them "no big deal":

https://cepr.net/report/no-big-deal-the-impact-of-new-york-city-s-paid-sick-days-law-on-employers/

The Chamber's fight against American businesses is another one of those fracture lines in the conservative coalition. Working with far right dark money groups, they've worked in statehouses nationwide to roll back child labor laws:

https://www.epi.org/blog/florida-legislature-proposes-dangerous-roll-back-of-child-labor-protections-at-least-16-states-have-introduced-bills-putting-children-at-risk/

They also fight tooth-and-nail against minimum wage rises, despite 80% of their members supporting them:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/leaked-documents-show-strong-business-support-for-raising-the-minimum-wage/

The spectacle of Republicans in disarray is fascinating to watch and even a little exciting, giving me hope for real progressive gains. Of course, it would help if the Democratic coalition wasn't such a mess.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/14/when-youve-lost-the-fedsoc/#anti-buster-buster

Image: Jason Auch, modified https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctic_mountains,_pack_ice_and_ice_floes.jpg

CC BY 2.0

[themeasureofasim]

Daily reminder that Palestinian people still need all the help they can get. Here's a list of 5 that have reached out to me. Please, consider helping them survive and evacuate if you can!

Ahmed Al-Habil / @ahmedomar3: Family of 6, with four children (3 to 10 years old). Ahmed used to work as a fisherman, but now is unable to provide for his family. They have been displaced several times. This campaign is vetted by association. €3,855/€50,000.

Hazem Shawish / @hazemsuhail: Family of 8. They used to own a supermarket, which was destroyed during the war. Hazem's brother suffers from bipolar disorder. This campaign is vetted by association. €9,417/€50,000.

Ahmed Halas / @ahmedhelllis @ahmedhell-blog: Family of 20, most of them young children. Ahmed's father suffer from chronic conditions (diabetes and heart disease). This campaign has been vetted by @/90-ghost. €18,097/€80,000.

Karam Al-Madhoun / @karamalmadhoun0 @emanalmadhoun1. Family of 5; Karam is a 19-year old student, Eman is 28. This campaign is #109 in the vetted fundraisers list by @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi. €17,332/€20,000.

Fadi Ayyad / @mayadayyad81 @aymanayyad82: Family of 8; Fadi is 18 years old. His father, Ayman, used to work as an English teacher. Their house and the institute he worked in were destroyed during the war. This campaing is vetted by @/nabulsi. $40,008/$50,000.

I'd like to share Fadi's words with you:

Months of hard and tough living conditions have left all families of Gaza hopeless and incapable of leading their life. All this has explicitly happened as a result of the damned unfair war over the innocent civilians of Gaza. Houses, possessions, belongings and businesses have vanished and been swept away. No more livelihood sources exist. Consequently the life of sufferings and hardship have begun since then. Food, medicine, clean drinking water, health care, and other necessities of a normal life no longer exist in the way that we can get them. Life is still sad and dire and this gets us desperate and pessimistic over the unclear future. Despite the tragedy and sorrow that we have been undergong for all these incredibly harsh days, some people come to attack and criticize us as criminals and scammers. Are we scammers because we are seeking peace and safety for our families after we had been forcibly displaced and therefore we lost everthing we used to have over the past years? How can we convince you that we are leading the worst and harshest days a person can experience! The people of Gaza are well educated and were brought up well but the unfair war has forced them to ask others' help and support. The incredibly and unbelievably harsh conditions have created new characters of us. I am asking you, my friend, to keep spreading our true words to the free world, telling them that we deserve life under any sort of circumstances. You are our voice and our last hope as we vehemently need you in our dire time. Long live Palestine 🤍🇵🇸

If you don't know who to donate to, GazaFunds is your friend.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Who is represented by Megsy Markle and Price Harry? by u/EleFacCafele

Who is represented by Megsy Markle and Price Harry? When the King, the Queen Consort, the Prince and Princess of Wales or other Senior Royals visit a place, an institution, hospital, charity, trust etc. they represent either the Crown or as Patrons of the charities, institutions, trusts, etc. they work with. In each of their visit, members of the public know exactly what the connection between the place visited and the Royal.The question nobody seem to ask is whom or what is represented by the sussexes. Apart of Ingriftus Invictus and a couple of charities (including their own Archwhatever) they do not represent the Royal Family, the UK, USA or anything else. They are nobodies in terms of representation. Yet both, especially Megsy parrot royal visits, as if they still were working royals. But they are NOT. And nobody seems to say: Stop these imposters, royal pretenders, charlatans; they do not represent the BRF or royalty or anything else. Megsy's visit at the LA Hospital was a fraud: she is not a patron, or involved in charity work, fundraising or anything else with the hospital. Why she was received as some important representative, when is not the case? Why the media is so keen to promote these fake royal visits? Why nobody tries to stop this parroting royalty sham? post link: https://ift.tt/IDTKdHQ author: EleFacCafele submitted: April 04, 2024 at 01:50PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[sumeria]

as someone who knows fuck all about the met gala or the fashion world genuinely what is happening

so the met gala is a massive charity gala that happens annually as a fundraiser for the metropolitan museum of arts fashion institute. it is themed and each theme relates to the primary exhibit that will be held at the met costume institute for the year. the theme is not dress code, but the people who attend often dress in acordance or relation to the theme; a good met gala to look up some of the fashion for is the 2018 met gala 'heavenly bodies: fashion and the catholic imagination'

the tickets to the gala are $$$ as it is a charity for a high profile museum in new york city and usually who shows up to it tends to be celebrities of all sorts, influencers recently, some titans of industry, and some politicians

this year, the theme is in honor of karl lagerfeld. karl lagerfeld is a piece of shit. i hope he burns. he was head of chanel and considered critical to the revival of the brand and was heavily involved with it from the 80s to his death in 2019- the iconic chanel tweed suit is his doing. karl lagerfeld was openly misogynistic, against gay marriage (the whole interviews a fucking nightmare), and islamophobic (note the subtle antisemitism involved in his islamophobia too). he dismissed sexual assault frequently and defended his stylist who was accused of it. his parents were active members of the nazi party and that is how he got his financial start.

this information has all been available for decades. everyone knew lagerfeld has been a massive piece of shit since the early 2010s bare minimum and his only meaningful contributions to fashion were the revival of chanel and a few basic fucking pieces he essentially kept remaking. he was honestly quite good with runway staging concepts & sets but a lot of the time especially in his later years it was recycled material in the fashion lines he worked on. chanel was masturbatory self-referrentialism by the time of his death and still is, just more shapeless now. the only reason this is happening is because anna wintour (another rotted bitch) is on the met gala board and was besties with lagerfeld so shes probably behind this whole to-do

fashion blogs arent excited because its fucking lagerfeld, whats everyone gonna do. wear a chanel tweed suit and a bad white wig? & anyone into fashion with a sense of ethics is cringing because hes a piece of shit. in general its a stupid theme and its going to suck. plus vogue which does primary coverage of the met gala has switched to a subscription only model which means viewership and coverage of the met gala will be significantly reduced on top of all this lol. terrible year for annoying people who love fashion (me)

[handsomegentlebutch]

also relating to people calling palestinian gfms scams... the "trusting third parties with no authority" thing from that person and people like them really gets me. bc that person on their first blog claims to be anti-fash and anti-cop. and yet... need to see some authority from people vetting fundraisers. like. yes please, tell me, white western tumblr user that claims to be a leftist, what ARE your ideas about authority? and whose authority do you deem valid, my fellow whitey? is it, perhaps, that you only view white, western "authority" as valid? that only white, western institutions have "authority"? why is this "authority" so important to you, so-called anti-fascist and anti-cop white leftist? is it, perhaps, that your ideas about what gives a person or entity "authority" is steeped in racism and western ideas of what "authority" is?

[copperbadge]

you might have answered this somewhere before, but what's the story behind calling it radio free monday?

Oh, the question comes up every few years but if I can't find the old answers to it on tumblr I don't expect anyone else to :D

Radio Free Monday was created in response to a very old wank about fandom fundraisers; prior to roughly 2005, it wasn't the acceptable and common occurrence it is today. I was asked to publicize some fundraisers and I did so, but (as happens with popular blogs) that started a spiral where every time I posted one, I got requests to post three more. It wasn't just that I could reach a largeish audience within fandom, but also that my posting fundraisers gave them a kind of weight, legitimizing both the need and the ask. The dilemma became how to share all these fundraising posts while not becoming a fundraising-post blog, which would lower my readership and thus get those donation requests to fewer people. So I decided to do a once-weekly links roundup.

I decided since I was going to be posting on Mondays I would call it Radio Free Monday; I used the Radio Free title mostly on a whim, because I thought it sounded cool. "Radio Free" is actually primarily a term for a propaganda tool; the CIA began setting up "Radio Free [country]" all over the world so that they would have a broadcast presence in countries of "special interest" to the US intelligence apparatus. You can get an idea of the history at the Radio Free Europe article here.

It's had some evolutions since then; until I introduced the form, people would just comment on a post or email me, and I had to keep all the requests together and make sure I had all the data. The form allows me to weed out fakers (they generally won't bother filling out a form, even a very simple one that doesn't capture any information involuntarily), make sure I always get the pronouns right, and ensure that I never have to go chasing down a URL. I still code it all by hand, but because I have a spreadsheet, the coding has gone down from "roughly two hours on Sunday night" to "roughly forty minutes on Monday morning".

(Funny story: since instituting the form in 2014, the fact that I ask for pronouns and include they/them as an option has led to two nonbinary awakenings and one trans coming-out that I'm aware of.)

So yeah -- mostly "it sounded cool" combined with "seemed kinda apt" :D

[cringycorruption]

Hello everyone and welcome to my second day of blogging about Palestine

today i wanted to highlight some charities and foundations that you can financially support instead of big companies who are going to fund your money into guns and supplies for the Israel troops

1. Press - House Palestine

Press-house Palestine is a non-for-profit organisation which supports the journalists documenting the lives of people within Gaza. This organisation grants journalists with legal protection so that their experiences and freedom of speech can be presented online. ( they also have a instagram by the name @press_house_palestine ) This link provides articles about ongoing events within the country

2. Doctors Without Borders

i’m sure that there a high chance that you have heard about this one before, but ill mention it anyways since its a good charity. Doctors Without Borders is a organisation dedicated to supplying medical aid to places without proper access to it. what i have linked below is a donation link for their specific Gaza cause, which both implores for a ceasefire and provides Palestinians with medical equipment. you have the option to donate monthly or just one time

3. Islamic Relief Australia

this organisation is one that is located within Australia, but strives to provide food and water to the people. So far they have already given 16000+ people water and over 1 million ready-to-eat meals. They also have other donation links within the site that incudes to help rebuild infrastructure within Gaza and to help rehome palestinians to Australia. NOTE: There are other varients of this organisation within other countries such as the UK

4. Olive Kids

Olive kids is a foundation focused on supporting the children of Gaza. this includes education, medicine and food. This is another Australian-based foundation but that is because i live in australia. if you want to find region specific causes for your location then please google it yourself. Australian causes can be donated to by anyone anyways so you might aswell use this info anyways

5. Action Aid UK

this foundation focuses on providing Palestinians with the services that they do not have anymore, such as power and electricity. They do 90% immediately going towards the people of Gaza and 10% for future emergencies

I also want to stress two things. 1, if you arent in the right financial position to donate then dont, spreading the word does help aswell and 2, im not the excuse for you not to research yourself. all of these groups i found by myself via google, and as long as you have some media literacy, you too can find information. and you should find more than 5 and spread it around, i just wanted to highlight 1 from 5 different sections since i hadnt even heard about most of these until now.

more organisation/fundraisers here:

[drakonfire12]

How to help the Ukrainian Book Industry

As per usual, I forget to post on Tumblr now a days. Let's talk Faktor Druk.

What happened?

Russia launched 15 missiles at Kharkiv. Faktor Druk, a printing house was hit twice (in total 3 strikes in the general area). Last I heard, 7 are dead. 22 are wounded. (During the strike, 50 employees were in the building.)

Why it matters? Most Ukrainian publishers had books printed there. Every 3rd Ukrainian book was printed there [Source]. You may think "it's only 50 000 fiction books", but no, it includes textbooks. As in, kids might not get any textbooks, because who else will print them when most books are printed in Kharkiv?

"The printing house Faktor-Druk is part of the Faktor company group, which also includes the renowned Ukrainian publishing house and bookstore Vivat. Faktor-Druk has the capacity to produce approximately 50 million hardcover and paperback books, 100 million magazines, and 300 million newspapers annually. The facility employs 400 people and encompasses 15,822 square meters of production space. According to Forbes Ukraine, Faktor-Druk is one of only two factories in Ukraine that can print products for Disney and Marvel, having successfully passed a rigorous multi-level audit." [Source]

Now how to help? Countries are trying to help with rebuilding, but here are some things you can do.

Vivat posted about a fundraiser for Faktor Druk. Originally posted here by CEO Yuliya Orlova. Reposted to Vivat website here.

Based on my own experience, I believe it is crucial to channel our grief and anger into action. How can you do that?

Ways to support: Donate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they are our heroes! Keep buying Ukrainian books! Factor-Druk is one of the largest printing houses in Ukraine, where not only Vivat books are printed, but also many books from other publishers, as well as newspapers, magazines, calendars, school notebooks for your children and grandchildren.⠀ How to help: The Factor company has initiated a fundraiser. All donations will be used to support those affected and to restore the printing industry. Details can be found at the following link: https://vivat.com.ua/blog/udar-po-drukarni-faktor-druk-yak-dopomohty/ [Source]

Vally_v on Instagram is doing a fundraiser raffle below for the chance to win this edition of Ivan Franko's “Manipuliantka”.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Val Voshchevska 🇺🇦 (@vally_v)

You can support the publishers by buying Ukrainian books and ebooks (most print their books through Faktor).

On the whole, this destruction is part of the larger war where Russians have been destroying Ukraine.

Some more background

The first year of the full-scale invasion led to a 50% decrease in demand [Source]. Shelling in Kharkiv has led to a backlog due to limited electricity and a shortage of qualified personnel [Source].

In terms of operations, within 2022:

From the start of the full scale invasion to April 25th of 2024, the Russians have damaged 1062 cultural heritage sites [Source]:

Specifically, architectural and urban planning sites comprise 316 objects, architecture – 307, historical– 226, architecture and urban planning, historical – 61, archaeology – 56, architecture, historical – 39, monumental art – 21, urban planning and monumental-decorative art – 19, architecture, monumental art – 7, urban planning – 5, science and technology, architecture – 2, architecture and monumental art – 1, architecture, garden and park art – 1; architecture and garden and park art – 1.

From that same period of time, Russians damaged 1987 cultural institutions (324 destroyed) [Source].

"In total, the following have been affected: – Creative hubs: 958 – Libraries: 708 – Art education institutions: 153 – Museums and galleries: 114 – Theaters, cinemas, and philharmonic halls: 36 – Parks, zoos, reserves: 15 – Circuses: 3"

There is also this interactive map of the book ecosystem in Ukraine:

Links:

Oleksiy Hrushevsky. Ukrain's printing companies suffer 40% capacity cuts after Russian attack on Kharkiv printing house. Online.ua.

Russian army attacks printing house in Kharkiv causing injury and death – UPDATED. Chytomo.

Porter Anderson. Russian Attack Hits Ukraine’s Factor-Druk Printing House. Publishing Perspective.

Porter Anderson. Europe’s Publishers: Anger, Solidarity After Kharkiv Attack. Publishing Perspective.

Олеся Дерзська. Як ракетний удар по «Фактор-Друк» вдарить по книгоіндустрії? Speka.

Factor Group of companies on Facebook.

Yuliya Orlova on Facebook. [Vivat CEO]

Vivat on Facebook. Книгарка Vivat on Telegram.

Sergey Polituchiy on Facebook.

Over 50,000 books destroyed and three publishers affected in Russian strike on Kharkiv printing house. Ukrains'ka Pravda.

Тетяна Леонова. «Українці — не варвари, ми не палимо книжки»: Олена Рибка, шеф-редакторка видавництва Vivat автор. Nakypilo.

Анна М’ясникова. Харківська друкарня після обстрілу. Фотор��портаж. Nakypilo.

On the Ukrainian publishing industry:

[Dec. 2022] The State of the Ukrainian Book Publishing Sector During Wartime. Ukraine World.

[23.12.2022] Anastasia Zagorui & Oksana Khmeliovska. 9 months of invasion: how Ukrainian publishers work in times of war. Chytomo.

[12.08.2022] Anastasia Zagorui. How Ukrainian publishers work during the war. Chytomo.

[12.02.2024] Iryna Baturevych. The Ukrainian Publishing Market 2023: “Competition has reached unprecedented levels”. Chytomo. (old poll, but gives some perspective).

[06.05.2024] Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Due to russian aggression in Ukraine, 1062 cultural heritage sites have been affected.

[02.05.2024] Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. 1987 cultural infrastructure objects have been damaged or destroyed due to russian aggression.

[April 2023] A Brief Overview of the Ukrainian Publishing Sector : Supporting Ukrainian Publishing Resilience and Recovery (SUPRR).

[Oct 2023] Ukraine’s book business during war: Ukrainians want to read their own, but Russia may enter the market again. Rubryka.

[April 2024] Against all odds: How Ukrainian book publishing navigates challenges of war. Rubryka.

[04.04.2024] The constant shelling of Kharkiv leads to major backlog for Ukrainian books-in-print. Chytomo.

Interactive map:

Interactive map of the Ukrainian book ecosystem. Ukrainian Book Institute.

Thanks for reading, this turned out to be a super long post.

[wikipedia-service-station]

How to clean up a Wikipedia article (advanced edition)

Another editor went through a bunch of Romanian synagogue articles and updated the religious affiliation to "Neolog Judaism" which is a denomination that's mainly found only in Hungary. I can't prove that it's wrong, but I also can't prove that it's true, and I air on the side of caution. In the process of correcting these edits, I am now giving a thorough once-over to the articles. And here we come to the Gherla Synagogue.

Problems

The before

Small: spelling mistakes like 'fund raising' -> fundraising, missing punctuation, lack of Wikilinks to pertinent topics like Yad VaShem, WIZO, mikvah, etc., no caption on the picture (it's the synagogue AND the neighbouring Holocaust memorial!)

Medium: organizationally, this is a clusterfuck. It's not an article about the Gherla synagogue itself so much as a jumble of facts about the Jewish community of Gherla in loose chronological order. The founding of Gherla by Armenians in the 1700s is not pertinent to the synagogue and this should be either removed or include a 'main article' template to the town of Gherla itself.

Large: this text is taken, largely verbatim, from the reference 'About Us The Jewish Community of Gherla, A Short History'; while it's great to have a reference like this, this is a) an unverified blog and b) one very large copyright violation. There's a disproportionate text:references ratio that is made worse by so much of the text coming whole-cloth from this Weebly blog.

Solutions

The after

Small: copy edit for small mistakes like the ones listed above, linkage to pertinent topics. This actually added an enormous amount of time to the work because I went through and checked out some of these like WIZO and that article was a mess + led me to articles like Julia Batino, which was (get this) also a mess.

Medium: reorganize the entire article. Add a 'main article' template that directs to the town of Gherla, which needs work itself. Dig up 9 new references for the Jewish community of Gherla; unfortunately relatively little is specific to the synagogue, i.e. who designed it!

Large: oh wow. A lot of this info can't be verified by independent sources and, strictly speaking, should be deleted. I also found a lot of information that contradicted what had been copy-pasted from the blog, i.e. that there were no Jews in Gherla prior to the 1830s (the town council expelled all Jews from at least one neighbourhood in Gherla in 1811 so...someone had to be there to be expelled; this inaccuracy has been repeated A LOT on Instagram, unfortunately). The Hungarian name for the town, Szamosújvár, is also used frequently in both the scholarly and religious literature, i.e. the Rebbe of Szamosújvár. A lot of this literature is also, no surprise, in Hungarian/Romanian/Yiddish, so that's largely inaccessible to me beyond what Google Translate can manage.

Methods

This shit is hard sometimes! There a lot of bullshit to wade through. I have institutional library access through my work so going through search terms like Gherla/Szamosújvár synagogue (and then repeating that in Hungarian) on Google Scholar and Google Books was productive. There were a few articles from Holocaust memorial publications/encyclopedias that had pertinent background information of the Jewish community in Gherla, but many individual topics, i.e. the name of the president of the congregation (which one!) can't be confirmed anywhere that I could find. Something that also makes it difficult is spelling/transliteration across languages. For example, Jakov Dov Feldmann could easily be Yaakov Dov Feldman, Avraham Shlomo Elias romanized as Avrohom, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef ha-Kohen ha-Kohen as Rabbi HaKohen, Kohen, Cohen, Coen, etc.

Summary

This took a while but was really interesting so that's fine. I didn't want to remove the information about the Gherla/Szamosújvár community but I didn't want to leave it at just what was from a blog so I added to it which ended up getting...messy (the president of the ghetto's Judenrat [Jewish council] was the father-in-law of Rezső Kasztner who made a deal with the SS to get Jews out of Hungary and was assassinated in 1957 for this, among other reasons). It also opened up a lot of questions about some of the related articles, i.e. the newspaper Uj Kelet so that might be my next project. All told, while editing this article, I went through and edited 8 other articles while working on this one.

[rainbow--skies]

Help 14 Year Old Gavi Out Of “Wilderness Therapy”

14-year old Gavi Blum was taken in the middle of the night from his bed by two staff members at the Blue Fire wilderness therapy program in Idaho, one of many programs with connections to the Troubled Teen Industry, known for institutions that market themselves as helpful therapeutic programs for teenagers while actually being abusive, poorly regulated, for profit companies that often withholding essentials such as food, causing harm to the young people in their “care” and even being linked to deaths. He was already in an abusive situation at his father and stepmother’s house, having experiences like being locked in his room, witnessing arguing and abusive language between his father, stepmother, and four stepbrothers, and his sister being attacked by their father when she attempted to bring him food. Gavi was also not sent to school during the 2023-2024 school year. Neither adult in the house made any attempt to stop him from being taken to this program.

This fundraiser is verifiable- there are also videos of Gavi being taken from his home and Reddit threads he posted discussing his abuse that were found by his sister, which were included at the end of the fundraiser, where all of the information I paraphrased above is also stated. Additionally, the creator of the fundraiser and her brother are both siblings of one of @lucat13’s friends, I have known her online for years and have multiple reasons to believe she’s who she says she is, and we both have been blogging on here for a couple years now. A quick glance at either of our blogs will prove we are members of the Tumblr community and not the mostly-empty money grab accounts that have been popping up on here the past few years.

I know the goal is high and a lot of my followers are minors with little to no money, but if you can donate even a small amount or reblog just to spread the fundraiser’s reach, it would be very appreciated. Gavi’s mother and siblings are very worried and raising money so they can attempt to legally remove him from this program and bring him to safety.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Evan Urquhart at Assigned Media:

Dr. Eithan Haim has portrayed himself as a victim of politically motivated prosecution after he leaked information about trans kids treated at Texas Children’s Hospital to a notorious culture war activist. The FBI will bring felony charges against a doctor accused of leaking the private health data of transgender youth to conservative activist Chris Rufo. Dr. Eithan Haim has admitted to leaking partially redacted medical records to Rufo, records he accessed while working as a resident at Texas Children’s Hospital. 

Rufo is best known for his efforts to push the Republican party to pursue culture war flashpoints such as critical race theory and the idea that LGBTQ+ acceptance in schools amounts to “grooming” kids.  The records, which included multiple pieces of information relating to individual patients at Texas Children’s, were published on Rufo’s blog on May 16, 2023. At the same time, the write-ups of the leaks were also published in City Journal, the public policy magazine of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Stories by Rufo published to City Journal later revealed Haim’s identity and broke the news that he was under investigation by the FBI for misuse of patient data, Most recently, Rufo also broke the news on City Journal that the investigation has resulted in four felony charges for Haim. An update on Haim’s fundraiser on GiveSendGo, published on June 8, described how Haim was notified of the charges, in his own words.

The FBI indicts anti-trans Dr. Eithan Haim for leaking the medical info of trans kids to right-wing agitator Christopher Rufo.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Dr. Haim faces federal HIPAA charges for leaking trans kids’ medical records to rightwing activists

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hello! Thank you for running this blog and everything u do! Do you have any good resources for ways to support the people in Gaza/Palestinians as a Canadian (like places to donate, where to keep updated with local protests, etc.)?

Answer by @el-shab-hussein:

Here's a spot for donation https://www.pcrf.net/ It's unsure whether it will reach Ghazzans, as electricity and Internet has been cut out, and any aid is threatened with bombing by the occupation. However I got this link from an Instagrammer who has a lot of direct contact with the people on the ground in Ghazzah and this was the fundraiser she put on in her livestream. It will most likely be used to help treat kids who survive this ordeal. Donating at the https://unwra.org/ to rebuild the bombed schools is very important also. If you want to stay updated with local protests you're probably gonna wanna get in touch with or partake in the activities of local pro-Palestinian University collectives, like SPHR or Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). Pro-Palestinian activism tends to concentrate in Universities because those academic institutions tend to be really huge targets of Israeli lobbying promoting censorship of Palestinian students and historical revisionism, and so it's a way to fight back. If you type in SPHR and the first few letters of a Uni near you you'll probably find an Instagram account that they use to let people know what they're doing next. Like running a film or documentary screening or volunteer work, etc...

[saintmeghanmarkle]

I cant believe Im not getting paid for this. by u/Mickleborough

Meghan’s alleged to have said this on their Australia / Fiji / New Zealand / Tonga tour in 2018 when she was expected to do walkabouts, shake hands, and show a civil face. (She couldn’t do even that in Fiji: Sun archived / unarchived.)

To give an idea of what a proper working royal does, the Telegraph spent a week with Princess Anne.

Twice a year, her office invites the 300-plus organisations with which she’s affiliated to submit requests for her time. She gets 1,200 - 2,000 requests a year; sorts them out; and creates a schedule, to which she adheres.

In this typical week, the Princess Royal:

travelled about 818 miles / 1,316

shook over 677 hands

spent many hours in conversation

Her activities ranged from visiting a local National Coastwatch Institution to an equitation centre to celebrate 25 years of the Pony Club Centre Membership Scheme; attending a party to support unpaid carers (spending ‘a few extra moments talking to the building’s cleaner, loudly declaring her “very important”’) to carrying out an investiture; going to a City fundraiser lunch for military veterans to hosting a black tie dinner to celebrate The Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Study Conferences.

At all of these many and varied visits, she showed a depth of knowledge of their work.

Telegraph archived / unarchived

Admittedly the Princess Royal’s one of the hardest working members of the Royal Family - and this is a normal working week for her.

Meghan didn’t stay long enough to have a typical working week with all 4 of her patronages. She did a few royal tours, which involved far less in-depth work. Sample itinerary from her Australia tour:

16 October 2018:

Meet the Governor-General, his wife, and Invictus Games representatives.

Trip to the zoo (seriously).

Sydney Opera House to watch a performance by the Bangarra Dance Company

17 October:

Flight to Dubbo where the Sussexes met local farmers and hosted a picnic.

18 October:

Flight to Melbourne to meet politicians and the public at Government House.

Visit an organisation offering training to indigenous youth.

etc etc etc. Basically shaking hands and ‘doing the pretty’ (to quote a Georgette Heyer novel). And yet she couldn’t hack it:

Express archived / unarchived

This explains why she can’t put together a simple podcast (still can’t) - mainly because she’s a ‘f**king grifter’. Why American Rubbish Upchuck won’t get off the ground. No work ethic.

When life follows art: the worldwide privacy tour. How will she treat the crowds in Nigeria? Will she demand to be paid? Or will she tell them that they’re stupid?

post link

author: Mickleborough

submitted: May 09, 2024 at 08:41PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[buttercuparry]

Hello ! Thanks for bearing with me , I am a Palestinian educator from Gaza whose life is dire and gruesome. Nothing has left for my family except the hope you can support and help us. After 9 months of war we became exhausted, hopeless , desperate , and displaced. Houses and livelihood sources have been lost and gone with the wind. Things are driving us insane and made. The least level of life can't be attained. Healthy water and food have become a dream we need to realize. What worsens our life more is the constant bombings and killings. That is why I am asking in this post to help us survive this unbearable circumstances , moving from hell to safety and peace. Your support can help us be safe and alive so friends you can support us either by directly donating whatever you can or by sharing my campaign links so that generous people can know about our tragedy and pain. Remember your small contribution can make a big difference for the lives of many children whose heath gets worse and worse everyday. Let their life change and let them feel happy through your kind contribution.

https://gofund.me/9b764ae7 🖤❤️💚🤍

Hello sir. I will try to boost your fundraiser.

Guys you must remember that I talked of Fadi's fundraiser on my blog before. He is just eighteen years old and a high school student, whose future has been jeopardized by the genocide.

His siblings Lana and Hamood are losing their childhood to this inhumane assault as well.

Their father is a well established English educator and I think has sent this ask. He has lost his life's work which was the institute. The only hope the family has now is to begin anew after evacuation. This is a legit fundraiser vetted by nabulsi. They are very close to having go to halfway of their goal. Please boost and donate and keep sharing their posts. Every little bit counts. At $15810 of $35000, we need just a little bit more effort.

Donation link: