#also its a huge privilege to live nearby and be able to help her at all

[yourcalamity]

still have really complicated feelings towards family right now but im proud of myself for still supporting my mom and maintaining this positive relationship with her i just need to talk about things at some point but in a productive way that helps both of us

[aubsforthewin]

small miracles i witnessed/experienced today:

1. my car window got fixed—this one is not so much a miracle because i paid someone $450 to fix it BUT it is a huge load off my mind so i am counting it.

2. while i was waiting on my car, i took a long walk down to the river park and that alone was miraculous—i needed to move and be in the sun and breathe fresh(ish) air so desperately and i did not even realize it until i was doing it. i have been struggling with my mental state the last couple of weeks so i am not sure it would have happened if not for some of the moving parts behind my car door panel succumbing to a moment of autocannibalism.

3. furthermore—being out in the world; walking around; passively observing and experiencing my surroundings; no car; just me and a tiny backpack packed with the essentials and nothing to do on a wednesday afternoon, is a scenario in which i have not found myself for a long, long time and it woke up a part of me that i had forgotten existed.

4. for the first time in 16 months i walked into a cute bookstore/coffee shop, bought myself a paperback (@neil-gaiman’s Neverwhere which i have not read before; i love it so far and i adore that man but i digress), and sat and drank a pot of earl grey and read to my heart’s content. nowhere to be, no plan, no agenda, just existing. it had been so long that reading a physical novel was like coming home after a lifetime away, so alien and so familiar.

5. walking around the riverfront i watched an osprey try for a few seconds to catch an air pocket, succeed, soar a few serene circles over the water, dive down into the river, emerge with a fish in its talon, and do a few more laps over my head for good measure before disappearing behind or into a nearby copse of trees, presumably to eat its lunch. i just happened to be walking by at that moment to see it happen, and i go to the riverfront somewhat regularly and have never seen an osprey there before. it was spectacular. there were more people on the bridge with me but i swear it seemed like somehow no one else saw it.

6. similarly bird-related—for a while i sat on some stone steps that led down to the water and there were a number of canada geese lounging about at the bottom. they were obviously very accustomed to humans and being fed thereby because a few of them came right up to me. one bold goose in particular was very interested in what i may have had in my hands, bag, and pockets. i didn’t have any snacks for them though (plus i’m not sure what the best practices are, if any, for feeding waterfowl in that situation) so it just nosed around me nipping lightly at my fingers and shoes, mildly annoyed, and eventually waddled away making disappointed little honks. i was a little nervous at first and ready to gently but firmly fling it away with my foot and run if it got any funny ideas because i know they can be jerks, but i had the better positioning if it came to an altercation, and anyway it was quite docile and probably would have let me pet it if i had wanted to roll the dice on giving myself some kind of parasite (i abstained). at one point two male-presenting people sat down several yards from me and a goose (probably the same one) did the same routine with them and we strangers shared a silent smile over it.

7. not only did i get to sit at an Establishment and enjoy a meal which feels like a dream come true after 16 months of being in my apartment, but i actually found a place that makes a halfway decent street taco in spokane! i was walking by and it looked like my kind of place and i have not had a good taco since i left san diego so i took a chance. i sat outside in the shade, had a couple pints, ate tacos and tots until i was uncomfortably full, and it was perfect.

7a. about 9 months ago or so, maybe longer, i suddenly developed aversions to foods i previously quite liked—including onions, garlic, certain berries, most apples, red wine, and coffee. basically overnight, i could no longer stand to taste or smell any of them and am still not sure why. i did not think about the fact that the aforementioned tacos would have onions before i ordered them so when they arrived onion-laden i thought, oh well, and ate them anyway and they tasted good! i do not know what the everloving hell is going on with that, but now i am excited to repeat the experiment with the other foods and more onions to see if this was a fluke or if i can tolerate them again.

8. when i left my house this morning my phone was at 40% battery. i had not actually planned on being out all day; i figured i would walk around a while and then get the bus or a rideshare home to wait since i dropped the car off at nine a.m. and the mechanic did not expect to have it ready until four or five. but i was having such a lovely time that i did not end up going home (and the car ended up being ready by two anyway) so there was no opportunity to charge my phone. and yet somehow despite that, and despite throughout the day listening to music, checking the map to see where i was going, taking photos, and who knows what else, my phone was still alive and on 1% battery when i got home at three-thirty. if that is not fucking miracle i do not know what is.

when my car window got stuck the other day, i melted down pretty hard. i knew it was going to cost money that i technically have but that had been earmarked for other things—namely my basic expenses since i am living partially off savings after resigning my full time job last month. also that day i had forced myself to leave the house and was en route to the grocery store because i badly need food and have barely been able to function the last two weeks. so when the window got stuck and would not roll up, and i realized i could not leave my car exposed while i grocery shopped and had to go home empty handed after all the effort it took to get myself there, i felt absolutely dejected and somehow betrayed. i cried and yelled and hit things and called my car a piece of garbage and got angry at the universe for fucking me over, and just generally reacted badly.

needless to say none of this did anything for my mental state but after today i am feeling much better. i imagine my grapple with the depressive episode is not over and there seems to be little to no middle ground between euphoria and despair for me right now so who knows what will happen in five minutes, but i feel more grounded and the sun and exercise helped if nothing else.

i apologized to my car because she is absolutely not garbage and i am so privileged and grateful to have her and she is more reliable to me than i deserve sometimes honestly. shelling out that money hurt, but i need her and she is worth it. i also apologized to the universe and to myself for doubting the fact that i am protected and capable and loved and cared for. my trauma responses kick in and take over my better judgement when i do not have control over a situation, but there is no shame in that and i am working on it. i am only a human after all.

thank you to whomever and whatever are owed thanks for today. it was somehow exactly what i needed.

[baeluz]

Backstory Tingz

★TW: content about binge eating, restriction, sexual abuse, depression, alcohol abuse, and dysfunctional families★

Hello, hello, and welcome to my shit show of a life. Honestly, I don’t expect anyone to read this, but I feel like just posting this stuff will give me more accountability. Plus its easier to type than write, so lets gooo online journal. 

Since the pandemic started, I believe all of us have been going through rough times. From the poor to the people up at the top, we all have our own struggles. I’ve been blessed with a life of privilege to be born in a first world country (US), and in a middle class family, and I’m incredibly grateful for it. But some days I feel like such an asshole, because I feel like being able to binge is such a privilege.

Now I’m not saying that someone who’s poor can’t suffer from binge eating, but I personally feel so guilty when I do binge, not only because of my body looks right after, but also because of all the money, time and food wasted. While there are people out in the world starving, I’m here, unable to control myself from binging. What made this guilt worse was me living in India most my life, since that’s where my parents are from. I grew up seeing people on the streets, begging for food and money. 

As a child I used to be really fussy, and I would cry and scream until I got what I wanted. That mixed with a dysfunctional family, and sexual assault experiences from when I was a child gave me anxiety and depression from a really young age. And the only way I knew how to cope with that was drowning myself in music, isolating myself in my room and eating. It was weird, because I seemed like a happy kid that just likes being alone, but on the inside I was dying. I didn’t want anyone to see me, and I felt disgusted with myself all the time. I have a naturally curvy body, and since I was verging on obese as a kid, that part of me was very prominent. And you know the men in India, they stare at you like they ain’t ever seen a woman. It doesn’t matter if you’re a kid or a grown up, you got a vagina, they want it. Anyways, this made me wear jackets in scorching heat, made me not wanna look good because I thought maybe if I looked ugly they would stop looking, and made me want to binge more because of how disgusted I was with myself. 

I’m older now, and I know I can’t do anything about my body shape, and its not my fault I look this way. I’ve even lost all the weight, and started going to the gym when I was about 15 years old. But through those years, I used to starve myself so much, because I didn’t know anything about how to healthily lose weight. And that made skinny fat, so my thighs were still huge as fuck and I was so triggered by it. It didn’t help that I moved to Japan by myself, and everyone around me was such a smaller frame, while I was looking huge as hell taking up so much space. 

Everyone in Japan looked so skinny, and I wanted to wear the type of clothes they were, but I couldn’t do that. That made go through a cycle where I would restrict and walk like 30k steps a day, and then binge on the weekends. Once I discovered alcohol, shit went through the roof. I would buy 3 large cans of vodka soda, skip school and just drink and binge on food. It was so scary, I didn’t even realize what I was doing. Luckily that phase only lasted like 4 months and now I don’t drink alcohol at all, not only because of the binging but because of the type of person it made me. Once I even stole food from my roommate, but I quickly went to the grocery store and bought back another bag so she wouldn’t notice that I did. 

Once I graduated from high school I came back to the US and decided to really turn my life around. I took a gap year because I thought I really needed to work on my mental health, and also because I didn’t know what I wanted to do in university and didn’t want to waste my parents money. This is probably one of my biggest regrets in life lol. Please don’t take a gap year if you don’t have a strict plan or idea about what you’ll do. I was so lonely, because I don’t have any friends here since I didn’t grow up here. I couldn’t go anywhere because my parents both worked all day, so I had no car, and since we lived in the suburbs, nothing was nearby. It was so depressing being all alone with nobody to talk to since most my friends were busy with university. Plus all the arguing with my mom, and just us not getting along really made me want to kms. I think if I didn’t have my dog, I probably would’ve gone crazy. 

On the plus side, I started going to the gym and weightlifting. I started being more mindful of how I ate, and I was able to reflect on my emotions, and why I was acting the way I was. What was making me binge, what was making me feel so empty inside, and why was I finding it so hard to just “be normal”. I still don’t have the answers to all these questions, but at least I feel a bit more in control of myself than before. 

Since the pandemic started though, I’ve just been so depressed. The gyms were closed, financial situations got tight, my mom and I were fighting a lot more, and I started binging again. Throughout 2020, I was behaving the same way I was in Japan. I’d go on 3-4 hour walks, and then restrict, which would ultimately lead me to binge. Its evident that even when you feel like you’ve recovered and moved on from your disordered eating habits, its always in the back of your mind. Almost like an addiction. Its to the point that food is the only thing in my mind. After eating a meal, I’ll keep thinking about what I’m eating next, when I’m eating next, and to finish eating before my parents come home, because I hate eating in front of people. 

I’ve lost motivation to do everything I’ve loved, like writing songs, learning the guitar, doing yoga, singing, gaming, etc. Its just food, food, food, and its so scary. People don’t understand because its an internal thing. Those who’ve never been through it wouldn’t know. Like my mom, shes obese, but at least she doesn’t look at food like an enemy. She just likes to eat, she’s not ashamed of her body, and she’s also able to control how much she eats at a time. I wanna be able to look at food that way. 

Anywhoooo, now that all of that is off my chest, I’m dedicating this “blog” to 90 days of getting back on track, and healthily reaching my fitness goals once again. This is really just for me, but maybe if somebody who’s been through the same things I have reads this, they might find comfort in finding that they’re not alone, and maybe they’ll be motivated to join me. I’m going to get back into weight lifting, along with eating a healthy diet with just a bit of a deficit, because your bish has gained hella weight lol. I also want to get back into yoga and aim to be able to do the splits. My timeline goal is 12 weeks, but of course I wont be bummed if I don’t reach it because its not like I have anyone to show at the end lol, but I believe I can do it if I really stick to it. Fingers crossed I don’t binge. 

Thank you for reading if anybody has really made it this far <3

-Luz

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “From Above”

She fell from the sky. Literally. The Joker has no idea who Y/N is, but one thing's for sure: after the encounter his life will never be the same.

The loud splashing sound makes The Joker open his eyes only to see the pool water flooding the terrace, almost reaching the lounge chair he dozed off on.

“What the hell?...” he gets on his elbow, confused after being abruptly woken up.

The waves are starting to calm down a bit and J finally gets up from his spot, curious and intrigued about the shape he’s discerning on the bottom of the pool: there’s actually someone curled up in a ball, most likely a woman.

The protective, translucent barrier surrounding your body is already disintegrated by the time The Joker dives under the water to get you out. In a few seconds you are placed on the same chair he rested earlier, The King of Gotham increasingly pissed that the security downstairs didn’t do their job properly.

“Hey, hey!” he taps your shoulder, puzzled by the white, skin tight outfit you’re dressed with: every time he touches it there are small electrical charges following the complicated pattern of your outfit.

You faintly moan, slowly coming to your senses.

“Hey, wake up!” J insists while wondering if you’re one of the “fliers”, a term used for people thrown from planes: either they know too much or have to disappear for good. Mobsters would frequently use aircrafts in order to get rid of unwanted cargo; a little push at high altitude and the corpse would be found splattered all over the ground and often unidentifiable. Did that happened to you? Were you maybe lucky enough to have escape death by landing in his pool?...

The Joker grabs his cell from the tiny table by his deckchair, instantly yelling as soon as Frost picks up:

“Are you guys napping??? What am I paying you for, huh?? How did she sneak in?!!”

“Who sir?” the henchman replies, totally alert now that the boss seems in a very bad mood.

“The woman in the white outfit! How did she pass by unnoticed?! Or did you just let her in The Penthouse to see if I’m amused by your stunt?”

“Sir,” the goon defends himself and the team. “We patrolled the perimeter and I can tell without a doubt that we didn’t see a soul. We would contact you before sending someone to The Penthouse; we know the rules.”

“Do ya’???!!” J yells so loud you open your eyes. “Never mind!” he shrieks seeing the woman’s reaction. “I’ll take care of it!” he hangs up and throws the phone back on the table.

“You!” he pokes your waist, annoyed. “How did you get in here, hm? Who sent you?” the interrogation continues. “Where did you come from?”

He watches you direct your arm towards the night sky, your index finger pointing at the stars.

“Were you thrown from a jet?” he slams you against the cushions when you try to lift your head. “Answer me!” The Joker violently yanks at your hand.

You just glare at him, analyzing the strange man shouting things you don’t care about and it makes you happy.

“Oh!” you exclaim and he doesn’t have time to dodge when your arms go around his neck; the embrace is so unexpected it takes moments to recollect.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” J snaps out of it and shoves you away. “Don’t touch me!”

You frown and pout, upset he didn’t recognize you: how could he anyway? It’s been so many years and it appears life hasn’t been kind to him to begin with. The logic realization makes you smile and The Clown lets you touch his face simply because he plans to break your fingers for the transgression. You keep caressing his face and your fingers are still intact, but he’s going to snap them soon. Probably…

“Who are you?” The Joker growls, mad at himself for showing weakness: he didn’t hurt you yet and he sure feels the urge to shred you to pieces.

“Who’s that Mister J?!” Kira sulks and walks outside on the patio, jealous the man she spent the evening with has somebody else over. She heard the commotion from the master bedroom and since her partner wasn’t in bed she went searching for him. Only to find The Joker with another girl, apparently engaged in some kind of foreplay. Or at least that’s what she believes.

“I have no clue,” he snarls while distancing himself from the weird creature that landed in his life out of nowhere.

“Don’t lie Mister J,” Kira speculates on The Clown’s capability of twisting the truth all the time. “Is she your new toy?” the envious woman inquires.

“No,” and the simple reply is not even taken into consideration.

“It’s fine, I can work with that…You could have us both in the same time…” she seductively bites her lip since this is the only solution separating her from being chased out of the premises. “Just let me stay…yes?”

“Stop talking and go to sleep!!!” he lashes out because he’s fed up with the blabbermouth: J has more important matters to attend than a resentful, casual escapade.

“Is she a dominatrix or something? I could get a latex suit for you also if you’re into that,” she continues to gamble on his patience when in fact he definitely had enough.

“GET. YOUR.ASS. inside,” he mutters through his clenched jaw, “or I’ll make you!”

He is definitely angry and Kira halts her tirade, aware she’s walking on pins and needles.

“Hey, where are you going?!” The King of Gotham inquires when you suddenly jump of the seat before he can pin you down. You run by Kira and barge in, your wet hair dripping all over the expensive rugs in the Penthouse.

“What is she doing?” the lady asks a worked up Joker rushing after you.  

You keep on running around the huge living room, touching and marveling at all the extravagant decorations scattered around the place.

“Oh!!!” you keep on exclaiming and the odd behavior makes The Joker forget his temper and watch the scene with a painful grimace.

Out of the blue, a deafening noise shakes the Penthouse; a few windows crack and car alarms start blaring on the streets nearby.

Already? you think and stomp towards The Joker, grab his hand and drag him outdoors again.

“Let go!” he slaps your arm when your white outfit glows with such intensity he has to squint his eyes: your free hand reaches for the sky and he instinctively looks up; there’s something enormous shining above Gotham with lights rhythmically pulsating each time you take another step.

“Mister J, w-what is that?” Kira gestures at the eerie apparition and shrugs in fear when the pool water is ascending towards the invisible force acting like a magnet for the strong beam of incandescence illuminating the atmosphere.

Although it’s not necessary, you cling to the man you came for because he must be paralyzed by now: the flash always has this effect on first timers.

“Don’t be scared!” you reassure J, “I’m here to save you!” it’s the last sentence he discerns as both bodies float in the air towards the ship meant to get you out of there before it’s too late. “Don’t faint!” you try to keep him conscious but The Joker blacks out immediately, not used to the advanced technology he is privileged to experience.

**************

He groans in his dream, continuing to gaze at the transparent panels depicting stars and darkness steadily moving in the vast space. Maybe if he closes his eyes really tight and reopens them, he’ll be able to wake up from the bizarre hallucination.

Nope, it didn’t work.

“I’m in a padded cell at Arkham…I’m in a padded cell at Arkham…” he deeply inhales, repeating the words meant to aid him recover from the sluggish state he’s in. J manages to bring his fingers close to his face, not even noticing the tattoos on his hand are gone: the shimmering white attire he’s dressed with sticks out, adding to his astonishment. “Shit,” The Joker reprises his words, believing his brain is playing tricks on him: “I’m in a padded cell at Arkham…”

“You’re not in a padded cell at Arkham,” the woman’s firm yet calming tone informs and he turns his head instead of just looking up at the translucent ceiling: the sluggish state he’s in is starting to diminish, panic taking over.

“Where am I?” J mutters, his erratic breathing escalating the more he remembers about what occurred yesterday, unaware it was six days ago.

“Please calm down,” you smile and he attempts to stand up without success. “I know how it feels, I’ve been there before. Just take deep breaths and exhale, OK? You were in The Inc.Ubator for days but the process finally ended.”

“The…the what?” The Joker pants and you have to distract him otherwise he will hyperventilate shortly and it won’t help the situation.

“The Inc.Ubator fixes everything that’s wrong with someone at molecular level,” you press on his chest to assess his irregular heartbeat. “Do you sense a certain clarity in your thoughts? Like, they are not scrambled and distorted?”

J has no idea about the involved circumstances that lead to his redemption, but he’s about to find out.  

“I’m not sure,” he justly concludes. “I think I completely lost my mind and I’m delirious.”

You chuckle at his affirmation since that’s what you thought also when you were saved by THEM 23 years ago.

“You didn’t lose your mind, I can assure you of the opposite: it’s fixed now. I’m sorry about the tattoos, teeth and hair though.The Inc.Ubator reads them as anomalies that shouldn’t be there: it follows biological imprints stored in its memory for each species, removing and repairing stuff that shouldn’t be there. Wanna see?” you offer to help him up and once on his feet you guide the dumbfounded Joker to one of the panels that reflects back as a mirror as soon as you draw a circle on its surface.

“Oh my God!” he covers his mouth in disbelief at the unusual sight: he has no more green hair, pale skin or tattoos; he looks exactly how he is supposed to look like without the Ace Chemicals incident. NORMAL.

“What did you do to me?” he fakely grins only to see white teeth instead of his silver ones.

“Not me, The Inc.Ubator; it’s an honor to be chosen as survivor of a dying world,” you draw the circle and the screen transforms back into the clear panel granting the two humans a visual of what is going outside the interstellar vessel.

“That’s Earth,” you point at a humongous cloud of debris in the distance. “What’s left of it…” Y/N’s voice dims at the visual. “The core had a surge in temperature and the globe imploded right before I took you. No warning for the people, nothing to stop it.  But THEY saved us from that…”

The Joker has a hard time comprehending the insane concepts thrown at him, yet he finds the strength to utter:

“Who’s THEY?”

“Enhanced beings traveling around the Universe and collecting mementos of extinct planets. THEY can’t intervene, their laws forbid it,” you pause to sniffle. “THEY predict when catastrophe will strike and  rescue a few samples before annihilation.”

J nervously digs his nails in your suit, unsettled by the news:

“So you’re one of them?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I’m from Earth, part of the First Wave they saved several years ago.”

“Why was I selected?” the former Clown Prince of Crime demands an explanation and he’s enlightened with the answer.

“Now that your mind was gifted back to you, do you recall the orphanage?”

His sudden silence confirms he does.

“Do you remember the mute little girl you used to play with?”

His eyes get big and you continue:

“You never made fun of me and my disability like so many other kids did,” you sadly recollect. “You always shared the sweets you stole from the kitchen and protected me from the boys that used to tease me. You didn’t know sign language but we understood each other, didn’t we?” your eyes get teary at the emotional past.

“… … Y/N?... “ J articulates the name he didn’t say since he was a child.

You nod a yes and provide more details to the stunned man standing next to you:

“I’m sure you also remember I disappeared. I didn’t. I was simply taken by THEM and brought here where The Inc.Ubator mended my handicap: that’s why I can talk. When THEY decided to save a few more before the disaster, I was urged to pick someone: the young boy that was so kind to me was the only one that stood out from my old existence. Thanks to their technology I was able to track you down and come get you,” you start sobbing and intertwine his fingers with yours. “I’m glad I had the chance to return the favor my dear friend,” you bury your face in his shoulder, incapable of letting go.

And the changed Joker squeezes you closer to him, shocked at the craziness that followed the first encounter with the lost and forgotten childhood friend. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but one thing’s for sure: his life will never be the same.

Also read: Masterlist

diyunho(.)tumblr(.)com/post/153664676321/joker-x-reader-masterlist

You can also follow me on Wattpad and AO3 under the same blog name: DiYunho

[easyfoodnetwork]

Mutual Aid Groups Reckon With the Future: ‘We Don’t Want This to Just Be a Fad’

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Mutual aid networks swelled during the pandemic. How will they continue to grow and serve once it’s over?

In the early days of the pandemic, storied community activists and those newly unemployed, or working from home for the first time, came together to join or form mutual aid networks across the country. These groups have spent months building volunteer rolls, creating community connections, and perfecting the use of Slack as a virtual dispatcher. And with states opening back up despite the pandemic wearing on, some are trying to shift the resources and energy to fight a mounting challenge: food insecurity, which will outlast the pandemic.

Some projects aim to rewrite entire lanes of our food system: seeds and gardening advice distributed to hubs around the country, a quickly growing network of free fridges to store fresh food, and fleets of cyclist couriers ready to fill in the gaps. The new movement is also centered around food dignity: letting people eat according to their preferences, rather than subsist on whatever donations are available at a food bank that week.

“Distribution is the number-one reason why food injustice happens,” says Sasha Verma, a member of the operations team of Corona Courier, a mutual aid group that serves most of New York City. “We are helping all these people who can’t leave their homes. Who was helping them before? I don’t fucking know.”

After months managing dozens of daily dispatches across the city, in June, the group decided to pivot to a longer-term strategy it hopes will establish a groundwork for food security, without relying so much on central dispatching or coordination. It set up “pods” of about 50 families and buildings across the city, matching them with couriers who could address their needs more directly, which helps form community bonds. Basically, the plan is a slightly formalized way of matching folks in need of food with neighbors who can help them get it.

The pandemic, and its wave of unemployment, attracted tons of first-timers to mutual aid groups; folks who had the privilege of never experiencing food insecurity saw first-hand how hard it is just to get groceries to hungry people. Verma says she joined her group, a citywide grocery and supply delivery effort that attracted more than 500 volunteers, because she had a hunch no government or charity agency was up for the challenge ahead. That sunk in when she found out the state unemployment office was sending people to the newly formed Corona Courier instead of a more established service.

“I’m not surprised, because they can’t even do something as simple as what we were doing, which is just buying someone else groceries,” she says.

Corona Courier groceries are usually paid for through donations from Abolition Action Grocery Fund (which you can donate to here), an offshoot of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America’s COVID-19 Relief Fund. It’s raised nearly $80,000 so far, mostly from donations of about $25. That kind of small fundraising is key to the future of the efforts, organizers say. Mutual aid groups often have a distaste for some of the traditional nonprofits, which they say are bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape, and that they believe exclude people who don’t fit their specific requirements for aid. One of the guiding missions of this new era of support is to trust in people to take what they need.

“When we think about institutionalized food aid — for instance, CalFresh or food stamps or other means of distributing food to people — there’s a lot of means testing,” Gabriela Alemán of the Mission Meals Coalition, a San Francisco mutual aid organization that started in March, told the Extra Spicy podcast recently. “There’s a lot of questioning of, ‘Do these people deserve it? By what parameters do they deserve it? And how do we give it to them by however much we decide that they need?’”

Mission Meals Collective, she said, wants to instill trust in its members so there are no roadblocks to people seeking food through its resources, and eliminate the “savior complex” of other institutions that think they know best what a community needs. The group has set up a Patreon membership program to keep donations flowing every month.

“We’re not here to police people in what they do or don’t need,” she told the podcast. “I think also people fundamentally don’t understand that under-resourced communities, just because one family or one household might be under-resourced, that doesn’t mean that they completely forget their own sense of humanity for their neighbor.”

Liz Baldwin, the founder of Corona Courier, says her group hopes to expand its pod system to more families in the future (they’re still accepting volunteers, too), but keeping the agility of a loosely organized mutual aid group is crucial.

“I worked for [a nonprofit], and I just see how bureaucracy can really scramble missions,” she says. “There’s no part of me that’s like, ‘I should take this project and form it into a nonprofit.’ I think you lose the ability to really interact with individuals and try to help them in a way that makes sense for them. A lot of times what happens in nonprofits is that money gets kind of weird.”

Food insecurity is not just a pandemic problem: About 11 percent of Americans, or or 35 million people, were food insecure in 2018, meaning they didn’t have enough food to meet the nutritional needs of all members of their households due to money or access, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Advocates have little hope the federal government will help, while state and local governments are strapped for cash and food pantries are being strained. About 40 percent of people visiting food banks during the pandemic are first-time visitors, according to NBC News.

Mutual aid as a concept is not new, but it’s never been activated on this scale before, with the entire country on lockdown and so many able-bodied people out of work with nothing to do but help. It doesn’t hurt that this is the first crisis of the digital workflow era, when Slack, Zoom, and Airtable make complex coordination easy. Picking up an aid request can fit between gossip with coworkers on another Slack channel.

“We don’t want this to just be a fad. We want this to be a movement where we can be sustainable over the winter,” says Ash Godfrey, one of the people behind Chicago’s Love Fridge project. “This is something that 10 years from now could be a thing. We want people to do it right.”

The group was recently contacted by a city alderman to talk about adding a fridge outside of his office. Godfrey wasn’t expecting help from the government, but this connection fits its plans for serving the community for years to come.

“We believe that this relationship will give us more credibility as a movement,” Godfrey says. “While we are a community and people’s movement first and foremost, the more support we can get from those with resources and power, the stronger we will be. We are here to stay and having the alderman’s support is affirmation.”

The Love Fridge is now working to solve a major roadblock to its longevity: surviving brutal Chicago winters. The group is setting up a volunteer management program (which you can get involved with here) to make sure the fridges are maintained daily, working on blueprints for shelters around the machines, and talking with a community fridge group in Canada about how to survive a bitter January and February.

“If there’s a fridge everywhere, can you imagine the lives that would change?” Godfrey says.

Free fridges are not a panacea to food insecurity, says Sam Pawliger, who is heading up a community fridge project out of the Clinton Hill Fort Greene Mutual Aid group in Brooklyn. But they do help break down a barrier: Even a person who might feel embarrassed to call a mutual aid group for help could walk down the street to grab a sandwich from a fridge.

The fridge has been adding some elements to fill the gaps where food pantries fall short: When organizers found out residents of a nearby shelter were not allowed to bring food inside, they attached a can opener to the fridge and added disposable cutlery to an attached shelf.

“I saw this as something that we could stand up quickly to help build solidarity with our neighbors,” Pawliger says, “and as a resource to both combat food waste and food insecurity, both of which are major issues in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in terms of food security.”

Of course, being able to produce your own food with consistency is the most secure thing. This is what Nate Kleinman hopes to inspire with the Cooperative Gardens Commission, which he helped start in March to collect and send seeds to hubs across the country. Kleinman learned the potential of mutual aid when working with Occupy Sandy in New Jersey in 2012, which was key to helping dig out homes and provide supplies to people deeply affected by the hurricane.

“In a lot of ways, Occupy Sandy changed the way that the official powers that be in disaster relief do their work,” he says, citing a 2013 report from the Department of Homeland Security that praised the work of the all-volunteer group and its non-hierarchical structure. “There’s a much bigger recognition and importance of mutual aid organizations in disaster relief.”

In the start of the pandemic, Kleinman saw a seed shortage coming: Many commercial companies were dealing with a huge surge in demand; others were shutting down entirely. The commission is providing donated seeds and advice for folks with home plots, community farms, and tribal gardens. The project started at the outset of the pandemic, but its goals are targeted at getting people to rethink how they eat.

“Seeds are at the root of all food security. This is a ‘teach a person to fish’ kind of issue,” he says. “If we’re giving people what they need to actually grow food themselves, that’s going to be much more sustainable in the long term at addressing food security.”

The group is working with local partners across the country to get seeds to disadvantaged or marginalized communities, places that were dealing with food insecurity before the coronavirus hit. Unlike other mutual aid groups, which tend to be located in population centers, the seeds can reach people in rural areas, with hubs in Mississippi, Texas, western North Carolina, and more. So far, they’ve set up 217 hubs across the country and reached an estimated 10,000 gardens, Kleinman says. And they’re accepting more resource donations on their website.

Donated seeds are sent in bulk to the group’s Philadelphia base, where they are then repackaged and distributed to the hubs. Some are sent to people through the mail, others have set up distribution hubs in neighborhood libraries and other public areas. Now, the group is focusing on fall seeds: cabbage, leafy greens, root vegetables, radishes, and cover crops, to keep the soil healthy for years to come.

“People have taken for granted that there will always be farm workers and farms producing food, and with the clamp down that also happened before the pandemic at the border, the challenges for migrant workers are very real,” Kleinman says. “I think it would be surprising if there weren’t more food shortages in the immediate future.”

The idea of exorcising capitalism from food access is an ambitious one. But organizers say the pandemic has shown that community-based mutual aid may be the only way forward.

“When I sparked this up, I never thought about, ‘What’s the government going to do for me?’” says Ramon Norwood, the founder of the Love Fridge. “That’s what we’re learning with the pandemic. It’s not enough. It shouldn’t just be the bare minimum.”

Tim Donnelly is a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter.

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Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Mutual aid networks swelled during the pandemic. How will they continue to grow and serve once it’s over?

In the early days of the pandemic, storied community activists and those newly unemployed, or working from home for the first time, came together to join or form mutual aid networks across the country. These groups have spent months building volunteer rolls, creating community connections, and perfecting the use of Slack as a virtual dispatcher. And with states opening back up despite the pandemic wearing on, some are trying to shift the resources and energy to fight a mounting challenge: food insecurity, which will outlast the pandemic.

Some projects aim to rewrite entire lanes of our food system: seeds and gardening advice distributed to hubs around the country, a quickly growing network of free fridges to store fresh food, and fleets of cyclist couriers ready to fill in the gaps. The new movement is also centered around food dignity: letting people eat according to their preferences, rather than subsist on whatever donations are available at a food bank that week.

“Distribution is the number-one reason why food injustice happens,” says Sasha Verma, a member of the operations team of Corona Courier, a mutual aid group that serves most of New York City. “We are helping all these people who can’t leave their homes. Who was helping them before? I don’t fucking know.”

After months managing dozens of daily dispatches across the city, in June, the group decided to pivot to a longer-term strategy it hopes will establish a groundwork for food security, without relying so much on central dispatching or coordination. It set up “pods” of about 50 families and buildings across the city, matching them with couriers who could address their needs more directly, which helps form community bonds. Basically, the plan is a slightly formalized way of matching folks in need of food with neighbors who can help them get it.

The pandemic, and its wave of unemployment, attracted tons of first-timers to mutual aid groups; folks who had the privilege of never experiencing food insecurity saw first-hand how hard it is just to get groceries to hungry people. Verma says she joined her group, a citywide grocery and supply delivery effort that attracted more than 500 volunteers, because she had a hunch no government or charity agency was up for the challenge ahead. That sunk in when she found out the state unemployment office was sending people to the newly formed Corona Courier instead of a more established service.

“I’m not surprised, because they can’t even do something as simple as what we were doing, which is just buying someone else groceries,” she says.

Corona Courier groceries are usually paid for through donations from Abolition Action Grocery Fund (which you can donate to here), an offshoot of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America’s COVID-19 Relief Fund. It’s raised nearly $80,000 so far, mostly from donations of about $25. That kind of small fundraising is key to the future of the efforts, organizers say. Mutual aid groups often have a distaste for some of the traditional nonprofits, which they say are bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape, and that they believe exclude people who don’t fit their specific requirements for aid. One of the guiding missions of this new era of support is to trust in people to take what they need.

“When we think about institutionalized food aid — for instance, CalFresh or food stamps or other means of distributing food to people — there’s a lot of means testing,” Gabriela Alemán of the Mission Meals Coalition, a San Francisco mutual aid organization that started in March, told the Extra Spicy podcast recently. “There’s a lot of questioning of, ‘Do these people deserve it? By what parameters do they deserve it? And how do we give it to them by however much we decide that they need?’”

Mission Meals Collective, she said, wants to instill trust in its members so there are no roadblocks to people seeking food through its resources, and eliminate the “savior complex” of other institutions that think they know best what a community needs. The group has set up a Patreon membership program to keep donations flowing every month.

“We’re not here to police people in what they do or don’t need,” she told the podcast. “I think also people fundamentally don’t understand that under-resourced communities, just because one family or one household might be under-resourced, that doesn’t mean that they completely forget their own sense of humanity for their neighbor.”

Liz Baldwin, the founder of Corona Courier, says her group hopes to expand its pod system to more families in the future (they’re still accepting volunteers, too), but keeping the agility of a loosely organized mutual aid group is crucial.

“I worked for [a nonprofit], and I just see how bureaucracy can really scramble missions,” she says. “There’s no part of me that’s like, ‘I should take this project and form it into a nonprofit.’ I think you lose the ability to really interact with individuals and try to help them in a way that makes sense for them. A lot of times what happens in nonprofits is that money gets kind of weird.”

Food insecurity is not just a pandemic problem: About 11 percent of Americans, or or 35 million people, were food insecure in 2018, meaning they didn’t have enough food to meet the nutritional needs of all members of their households due to money or access, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Advocates have little hope the federal government will help, while state and local governments are strapped for cash and food pantries are being strained. About 40 percent of people visiting food banks during the pandemic are first-time visitors, according to NBC News.

Mutual aid as a concept is not new, but it’s never been activated on this scale before, with the entire country on lockdown and so many able-bodied people out of work with nothing to do but help. It doesn’t hurt that this is the first crisis of the digital workflow era, when Slack, Zoom, and Airtable make complex coordination easy. Picking up an aid request can fit between gossip with coworkers on another Slack channel.

“We don’t want this to just be a fad. We want this to be a movement where we can be sustainable over the winter,” says Ash Godfrey, one of the people behind Chicago’s Love Fridge project. “This is something that 10 years from now could be a thing. We want people to do it right.”

The group was recently contacted by a city alderman to talk about adding a fridge outside of his office. Godfrey wasn’t expecting help from the government, but this connection fits its plans for serving the community for years to come.

“We believe that this relationship will give us more credibility as a movement,” Godfrey says. “While we are a community and people’s movement first and foremost, the more support we can get from those with resources and power, the stronger we will be. We are here to stay and having the alderman’s support is affirmation.”

The Love Fridge is now working to solve a major roadblock to its longevity: surviving brutal Chicago winters. The group is setting up a volunteer management program (which you can get involved with here) to make sure the fridges are maintained daily, working on blueprints for shelters around the machines, and talking with a community fridge group in Canada about how to survive a bitter January and February.

“If there’s a fridge everywhere, can you imagine the lives that would change?” Godfrey says.

Free fridges are not a panacea to food insecurity, says Sam Pawliger, who is heading up a community fridge project out of the Clinton Hill Fort Greene Mutual Aid group in Brooklyn. But they do help break down a barrier: Even a person who might feel embarrassed to call a mutual aid group for help could walk down the street to grab a sandwich from a fridge.

The fridge has been adding some elements to fill the gaps where food pantries fall short: When organizers found out residents of a nearby shelter were not allowed to bring food inside, they attached a can opener to the fridge and added disposable cutlery to an attached shelf.

“I saw this as something that we could stand up quickly to help build solidarity with our neighbors,” Pawliger says, “and as a resource to both combat food waste and food insecurity, both of which are major issues in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in terms of food security.”

Of course, being able to produce your own food with consistency is the most secure thing. This is what Nate Kleinman hopes to inspire with the Cooperative Gardens Commission, which he helped start in March to collect and send seeds to hubs across the country. Kleinman learned the potential of mutual aid when working with Occupy Sandy in New Jersey in 2012, which was key to helping dig out homes and provide supplies to people deeply affected by the hurricane.

“In a lot of ways, Occupy Sandy changed the way that the official powers that be in disaster relief do their work,” he says, citing a 2013 report from the Department of Homeland Security that praised the work of the all-volunteer group and its non-hierarchical structure. “There’s a much bigger recognition and importance of mutual aid organizations in disaster relief.”

In the start of the pandemic, Kleinman saw a seed shortage coming: Many commercial companies were dealing with a huge surge in demand; others were shutting down entirely. The commission is providing donated seeds and advice for folks with home plots, community farms, and tribal gardens. The project started at the outset of the pandemic, but its goals are targeted at getting people to rethink how they eat.

“Seeds are at the root of all food security. This is a ‘teach a person to fish’ kind of issue,” he says. “If we’re giving people what they need to actually grow food themselves, that’s going to be much more sustainable in the long term at addressing food security.”

The group is working with local partners across the country to get seeds to disadvantaged or marginalized communities, places that were dealing with food insecurity before the coronavirus hit. Unlike other mutual aid groups, which tend to be located in population centers, the seeds can reach people in rural areas, with hubs in Mississippi, Texas, western North Carolina, and more. So far, they’ve set up 217 hubs across the country and reached an estimated 10,000 gardens, Kleinman says. And they’re accepting more resource donations on their website.

Donated seeds are sent in bulk to the group’s Philadelphia base, where they are then repackaged and distributed to the hubs. Some are sent to people through the mail, others have set up distribution hubs in neighborhood libraries and other public areas. Now, the group is focusing on fall seeds: cabbage, leafy greens, root vegetables, radishes, and cover crops, to keep the soil healthy for years to come.

“People have taken for granted that there will always be farm workers and farms producing food, and with the clamp down that also happened before the pandemic at the border, the challenges for migrant workers are very real,” Kleinman says. “I think it would be surprising if there weren’t more food shortages in the immediate future.”

The idea of exorcising capitalism from food access is an ambitious one. But organizers say the pandemic has shown that community-based mutual aid may be the only way forward.

“When I sparked this up, I never thought about, ‘What’s the government going to do for me?’” says Ramon Norwood, the founder of the Love Fridge. “That’s what we’re learning with the pandemic. It’s not enough. It shouldn’t just be the bare minimum.”

Tim Donnelly is a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter.

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Your Guide to Responsible Travel to Thailand

There’s more to Thailand than full moon parties and delicious food. We are given the privilege of travel, so why not give something back? By volunteering in Thailand you’ll immerse yourself in the country’s culture and really get to know the wonderful people of Thailand. Whether working with animals is your thing or you’ve always wanted to teach English, here are some fantastic ways to immerse yourself in Thailand…

Thailand Coastal Conservation Expedition

There’s not many things more rewarding than giving up your time to the conservation of some of the world’s most delicate and endangered species and their habitats. Away from the hustle and bustle of busy Bangkok life, you can spend your days on the Thailand Coastal Conservation Expedition, saving the planet and making tons of international friends who just happen to share your passion of giving back on their travels!

Located in Phang Nga, you’ll get to choose between the turtle conservation projects, use your expertise at preventing the continuous plastic waste that is ever-more quickly polluting our planet or get involved in educating local communities on how to be more environmentally-friendly. There’s so much that you can get involved in that will help to change the world; just one little bit at a time.

Photo courtesy of GVI

Plastic Pollution and Conservation in Thailand

One of the biggest threats to our environment is plastic pollution, with many companies across the globe now trying to reduce their plastic production and waste and in turn, consumers opting for more plastic-friendly options such as reusable water bottles. However, the problem is far greater than this and you can see first-hard the effects of plastic pollution with this conservation project in the Phang Nga Province. From beach cleans to marine debris, conducting and analysing local survey results on coastal debris to promoting better plastic usage in local communities, you’ll get to be involved in something far bigger than you anticipated your Thailand trip to be!

Photo courtesy of GVI

Volunteering with elephants

Big shout out to our wise traveller Emma Moreton for telling us about her personal experience at the Elephant Nature Park… she was the one scooping the poop!

Where should I volunteer with elephants in Thailand?

The Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai is a fantastic place to start. It’s a sanctuary for ill and injured elephants. The park is situated in a lush jungle a short drive outside of Chiang Mai and is run by a lady called Lek. She is a woman on a mission to rescue every mistreated elephant from the tourist and illegal logging trades. She’s trying to promote tourists to visit conservation projects and rehabilitation parks rather than go on elephant treks. The Elephant Nature Park allows you to interact with and admire the beautiful elephants without any cruelty or mistreatment. It is a safe space for elephants to roam freely and peacefully. They are able to walk around their natural habitat, with their herd, eating whatever they please without a hook or chain in sight.

What does a normal day at the park involve?

Emma fill us in…

There are daily tasks performed on rotation, you’ll start the day by prepping tasty meals for the elephants, this involves washing and chopping fruit as well as preparing the very popular banana balls! Later, you’ll head out to a nearby field to cut corn to feed the ellies – it makes for a fun trip in the back of an open top truck, even funnier when the truck is full to the brim with corn and you have to sit on a corn mountain to get home!

Throughout the day you’ll help in general maintenance of the park, replacing fences and an obvious favourite… waste management! Everyday you’ll have to help clear the poo out of the enclosures and take it to the surrounding mountains to fertilise the land. Some elephants don’t stray far from there enclosures so like to come in and lend a hand with shovelling poop! In the afternoon the elephants will head down to the river for bath time, watch them splash about with each other in the water – SERIOUSLY adorable.

There’s loads of free time in evenings, relax after a hard day with a Thai massage and cold beer. The park also puts on lots of activities each night such as tea ceremonies, rubber tubes to go tubing down the river or visits to local schools to practice your Thai!

All of the elephants at the park have been rescued from a life of entertaining tourists or from the illegal logging trade, many are blind, injured or limp. There is a huge emphasis on the elephant’s care and freedom. It’s a wonderful place that fills you with hope for the survival of Asian elephants and is a truly eye-opening experience. Oh and there’s a dog sanctuary on site, full of the cutest puppies.

Teaching children in Thailand

Where should I teach children in Thailand?

Well what’s more ideal than teaching children at the beach? Koh Samui is a picturesque island on the east coast of Thailand, off the port of Surrathani. The island is a mix of buzz and pure relaxation, from the lively Chaweng Beach to timeless Bophut’s Fisherman Village. But there’s more to Koh Samui than its beautiful beaches, there are several large schools on the island. Between them they employ about 25-30 foreign teachers, so there’s plenty of opportunity to teach and it really doesn’t get much better than teaching on paradise island.

What does a normal day teaching involve?

You’ll work from Monday to Friday supporting children aged 5 to 12 years old with their English language skills. You’ll probably work about a 15 hour week, which may not sound like much but you’ll need lots of spare time to plan lessons and take part in after school activities, such as sports, arts & crafts and drama.

Typically you will teach between 9.00am and 3.00pm, working with a Thai teacher, assisting their lessons and improving their own English language skills. Your knowledge of British culture will be valuable as it gives students an idea of what life is like in the UK. Make the most of your lunch breaks, obviously because you’ll need a break but also because it’s the perfect opportunity to get to know the other teachers at the school. Take the opportunity to brush up on your Thai vocabulary!

But again there is plenty of free time at the weekends and after school. Take time to relax, nothing beats a hard day’s teaching more than chilling out on Chaweng Beach or kite surfing on Mae Nam Beach and it’s well worth getting a boat to Ko Taen for some of the world’s best snorkelling.

Also check out the neighboring islands from the Elephant Gate, definitely visit the Buddha’s Magic Garden and take a peek at the mummified monk at Wat Khunaram. You can eat out so cheaply in Thailand, a delicious seafood dinner would be about $5! Plus there are LOADS of markets to grab cheap souvenirs and clothes for your mates back home.

Teaching is one of the most rewarding things you can do while traveling a country. You’ll get a full immersive experience of Thailand’s diverse culture. There’s nothing like the challenge of volunteering and living in a different in country, you’ll push yourself completely out of your comfort zone and it will be an experience that you’ll never forget.

Photo courtesy of GVI

We hope this has given you a little bit of an insight into volunteering and teaching in Thailand. Take a look at some of our volunteering trips and give something back to the awesome world we live in.

The post Your Guide to Responsible Travel to Thailand appeared first on Tripstations.

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New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/latest-olympic-opening-ceremonies-begin-pyeongchang/83402/

The Latest: Olympic opening ceremonies begin in Pyeongchang

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea/February 9, 2018 (AP)(STL.News) —  The Latest on the Pyeongchang Olympics (all times local):

8 p.m.

The opening ceremonies for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang have begun with a round of sparkling fireworks exploding just above a seemingly delighted North Korean cheering delegation.

With taekwondo demonstrations from both Koreas, South Korea is putting on a frigid show for the world that’s meant to display a newfound desire to cooperate with the North along with Seoul’s stunning rise from poverty and war to Asian powerhouse.

A huge crowd gathered in the freezing Olympics Stadium in this isolated, mountainous corner of South Korea.

There will be plenty of sporting drama for both die-hard snow and ice junkies and the once-every-four-years enthusiast.

But the athletic aspect of these games has been overshadowed by the stunning cooperation of the rival Korea, who were flirting with war just weeks ago.

___

7:45 p.m.

As expected, it will be very cold and breezy for the opening ceremonies at the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Pyeongchang is situated in the mountains in the northeastern part of South Korea, about 50 miles from the border with North Korea.

It’s known for brutal cold and harsh winds during the winter. Fans and athletes will be left largely exposed to the elements, though organizers are giving the 35,000 fans heated seat cushions, hand warmers and other gear to help ease the chilly conditions.

The good news is that the weather could have been worse.

It was about 32 degrees (0 Celsius) in Pyeongchang on Friday night, which is tolerable compared to temperatures that have dropped to near zero (-18 Celsius) in recent days.

___

7:30 p.m.

Fans are beginning to file into frigid Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremony on Friday night.

It’s one of the first — and last — times the stadium will be used.

The five-sided 35,000-seat stadium cost about $100 million to build, but its primary use is for only four events: The opening and closing ceremonies for both the Olympics and Paralympics. Then it will be torn down and the site will be rebuilt with a museum and leisure facilities.

Members of the North Korean delegation are sitting in seats in the upper deck, cheering for the North Korean taekwondo team performing in the center of the stadium.

The entire Pyeongchang Olympics could cost South Korea up to 14 trillion won ($12.9 billion). South Korea is hosting the games for the first time since 1988, when Seoul was the home of the summer games.

___

7:25 p.m.

Erin Hamlin is ready to lead Team USA into the opening ceremony.

Hamlin, a luger, is the U.S. flagbearer for Friday’s formal beginning of the Pyeongchang Olympics. Her selection was followed by some controversy, when a tweet posted to speedskater Shani Davis’ account said the process used to pick Hamlin wasn’t fair.

Hamlin and Davis were the two finalists and received a tie number of votes. A coin toss was the tiebreaker. Hamlin won.

In a tweet, Hamlin wrote that she’s “beyond grateful to be a part of this team and incredibly proud to have the privilege of leading every amazing TeamUSA athlete into that stadium tonight.”

Davis is not expected to participate in Friday’s opening ceremony.

___

6:45 p.m.

Olympic halfpipe champion Iouri Podladtchikov won’t defend his title because of injuries he suffered last month at the Winter X Games.

The 2014 gold medalist, known as the I-Pod, practiced on the Olympic halfpipe Friday but afterward said it would be “totally unreasonable” for him to compete.

The Russia native who competes for Switzerland took a nasty fall on his final jump at the X Games on Jan. 28, banging his face against the bottom of the pipe. He lay motionless for more than 10 minutes while medics stabilized his neck and strapped him to a stretcher.

He was diagnosed with a broken nose and released from the hospital the next day. He traveled to South Korea with the hopes of competing next Tuesday, but realized quickly it wouldn’t be possible.

___

6:35 p.m.

The law firm representing 45 Russian athletes excluded from the Pyeongchang Games says their Olympic dreams have been shattered.

Swiss firm Schellenberg Wittmer says, “Our clients consider — rightly so — that the decisions are unfair and harmful.”

The law firm says the Russian athletes were not told why they haven’t been invited by the International Olympic Committee. It adds they “are currently analyzing the reasoned decisions and examining the different legal options at their disposal.”

Last week, the firm helped reverse the disqualification of 28 Russians from the Sochi Olympics, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Friday the IOC had the right to choose which Russians to invite to its games.

___

6:20 p.m.

Canadian figure skater Meagan Duhamel already has one life-changing souvenir from South Korea, and it’s not a medal.

The Olympic pairs skater rescued a puppy from the Korean dog meat trade while competing in Pyeongchang last year and she’s helping organize more adoptions while skating there at this year’s games.

Duhamel and her husband brought home Moo-tae last February. His big ears and affable personality have made him a favorite at the local dog park.

Buddhists in the southern part of the country helped rescue Moo-tae from a farm as a puppy, and Park found him living on a monastery.

___

5:55 p.m.

High winds in the weather forecast could move the marquee men’s downhill from its scheduled Sunday slot.

Race director Markus Waldner says a Monday lunchtime start is the favored backup plan.

Strong wind gusts forced a shortened practice run Friday to begin 564 feet (175 meters) lower down the Jeongseon race hill. The downhill start is at 4,495 feet (1,370 meters) altitude.

Racers risk being blown off a safe line in strong winds, which can shut down the only gondola carrying teams and officials up the mountain.

On Monday, the women’s giant slalom is scheduled at nearby Yongpyong with runs starting at 10:15 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.

Waldner says the men’s downhill could start between those times.

___

5:30 p.m.

Lindsey Vonn will enter three races at what she says will be her final Olympics.

The U.S. skiing star, who missed the 2014 Sochi Games after surgery on her right knee, says she will compete in the downhill, the super-G and the combined. But she decided to sit out the giant slalom, saying that her knee “is just not really in a place to do that.”

The 33-year-old American said she wouldn’t be able to contend for a medal in the GS, “so there’s really no point.”

This is Vonn’s fourth Olympics. She won a gold in the downhill and a bronze in the super-G at Vancouver in 2010.

Her first race in South Korea is the super-G, scheduled for Feb. 17.

___

5:25 p.m.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he hopes the Olympic Games can give a small boost to relations between North and South Korea.

Guterres met Friday in Pyeongchang with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach. Guterres says “obviously in the present context there is a lot of attention to the message of peace in relation to the Korean Peninsula.”

He says he wants to make clear that “the Olympic message of peace is not local. It’s universal.”

He says, “It is valid everywhere where we struggle to try to address the very many conflicts we are facing.”

Bach lauded Guterres’ presence at the games. He says, “We are enjoying an excellent cooperation together in many areas.”

___

5:05 p.m.

A Russian member of the International Olympic Committee concedes the Court of Arbitration for Sport was legally correct in excluding 45 Russian athletes, but he disagrees with the spirit of the ruling.

Shamil Tarpishchev says that since the Russian team was formally banned, the court was correct that the IOC had the right to choose which Russians to invite to the games.

He says the IOC could have simply not invited anyone at all.

Tarpishchev was the tennis coach of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. He sees Russian athletes as unjustly targeted over doping cases and says, “We are fighting for the truth.”

He declined to comment when asked if Russia planned to take the cases to civil courts.

___

3:55 p.m.

Team USA says 19-year-old American ski jumper Casey Larson has become the 100,000th man to compete at the Olympics.

Historian Bill Mallon calculated that Larson reached the milestone by being the 16th starter in Thursday’s qualifying at the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Larson called the milestone “pretty cool.” He says he can add it to his Olympic checklist.

Larson was one of four athletes from the United States to qualify for Saturday’s normal hill final. Kevin Bickner, Michael Glasder and Will Rhoads also qualified.

Mallon conducted extensive research into who would become the 100,000th male athlete to compete since the modern games began in Athens in 1896.

___

3 p.m.

The sister of the North Korean leader has arrived in South Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Kim Yo Jong is the first member of her family to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. She’s part of a high-level delegation attending the opening ceremony.

She smiled brightly as she was greeted by South Korean officials led by Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon at a meeting room at Incheon International Airport.

She was joined by other members of North Korea’s delegation, including Kim Yong Nam, the country’s 90-year-old nominal head of state; Choe Hwi, chairman of the country’s National Sports Guidance Committee; and Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North’s agency that deals with inter-Korean affairs.

Analysts say the North’s decision to send Kim Yo Jong to the Olympics shows an ambition to break out from diplomatic isolation and pressure by improving relations with the South, which it could use as a bridge for approaching the United States.

___

2:05 p.m.

Despite holding a lead heading into the final round of curling’s mixed doubles match, the U.S. lost to reigning world champion Switzerland after the Swiss managed something exceedingly unusual: a perfect score known as a six-ender.

How rare is a six-ender?

Think of it as a perfect game in baseball.

Although Switzerland was behind by one point entering the final round, Jenny Perret and Martin Rios had an advantage: the right to throw the final stone of the game. They managed to get their first five stones into the house. They then promptly knocked the Americans’ lone rock out of the house.

According to the World Curling Federation, no curling team has ever managed a perfect score at the Olympics.

___

1:45 p.m.

Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford made up for teammate Patrick Chan’s shaky short program to give Team Canada the lead after the opening day of figure skating’s team competition.

The U.S. team was second, followed closely by Japan and the Olympic Athletes of Russia.

Duhamel and Radford scored 76.57 points in their program to finish behind Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, whose season-best 80.92 points dazzled a crowd full of Russian fans. But not even that big number could make up for teammate Mikhail Kolyada’s poor short program.

Nathan Chen was wobbly for the Americans, but the pairs team of Alexa Scimeca Knierim and Chris Knierim bailed him out with a dazzling performance set to music from “Moulin Rouge!”

The team competition resumes Sunday with the ice dance and ladies short programs.

___

1:40 p.m.

Russian athletes at the Pyeongchang Olympics must wear neutral uniforms and compete under the Olympic flag, but their fans are making no secret of what country they’re from.

A large contingent is holding up signs saying “Russia In My Heart” in Russian during the figure skating team event. The same message is spelled out in their shirts in English.

Russian skater Mikhail Kolyada struggled in the men’s team short program, falling twice on quad jumps as he finished eighth.

The International Olympic Committee invited 168 athletes to compete, but they’re being called “Olympic Athletes from Russia.” If they win events, the Olympic flag will fly and the Olympic anthem will be played.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that another 45 athletes and two coaches excluded over doping concerns can’t compete.

___

11:30 a.m.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled that 45 Russian athletes who were excluded from the Pyeongchang Olympics over doping concerns can’t compete.

They and two coaches wanted the court to overturn the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to invite them to the games, which open Friday.

The games will still include 168 Russians who have been invited as “Olympic Athletes from Russia,” competing in neutral uniforms under the Olympic flag.

___

By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (A.S)

__

[theboxreviewers]

The Bookworm Box Review – March 2017 http://ift.tt/2qEc2AD

Good deeds, great reads.

GET A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION BOX WITH 2 AUTOGRAPHED BOOKS, A BOOKWORM ITEM, PLUS FUN BOOK SWAG!

The Bookworm Box was created by Colleen Hoover, a published author.  She is also the CEO of the box!  Colleen Hoover created The Bookworm Box to give back to society after she became an author.

Plans:

$39.99/month + shipping*

*Shipping is calculated

I received the March 2017 Bookworm Box to review, and I couldn't wait to try it!  I love how The Bookworm Box gives all of their funding to charity.

The Bookworm Box comes in an adorable purple box with the logo on the top!  I love the worm in the logo.

Upon opening the box, you are greeted with a card that announces how much money was donated in February.  I love how Colleen Hoover – the owner of the box – keeps the subscriber up to date on her charitable giving!

In my box, I received a note telling me that my box has been selected to receive a third book!  I can never have enough books, so I was super excited about this.  This was me when I saw this note:

Thank you, The Bookworm Box!

The box also came with a magnet with The Bookworm Box's logo on it, as well as a bookmark and postcard advertising different authors and their books.

Another postcard featuring an author was featured.  There is also a postcard advertising a movement to debunk the negative attitude about girls who read romance novels.  As someone who is a huge fan of romance, I love this effort!  No one should be ashamed of reading romance, and I like how The Bookworm Box promotes “Smart Girls Read Romance”!

The first bonus item included in the box is this pen with The Bookworm Box's logo on it!  I can always use a new pen, so this is a win for me.

These earplugs were also included.  They are purple to match The Bookworm Box's theme, and the box has the company's name on it.

The first book I pulled out of the box is Off Sides by Sawyer Bennett!  This is a sporty romance, and I love the cover.

Here is the synopsis:

“I'm not sure what possessed me to do it. Maybe it was the impossible expectations I faced, maybe it was my own self-loathing. But I just knew I needed something different to happen. I needed someone…something…to derail me from my current path. Otherwise, I would become lost…a hollowed out shell of a man. So I did it. I approached her, then I pursued her, then I made her mine. And my life was saved…”

Ryan Burnham is the privileged son of a U.S. Congressman and captain of his university’s hockey team. While he is on the verge of fulfilling his dreams to play in the NHL, his parents want him on a different course. One he is expected to accept for the sake of his family’s public image.

Forced to abandon her music career after the heart-breaking death of her parents, Danny Cross exists on the opposite side of the tracks from Ryan. She is struggling to make her own way, working two jobs, attending college part time and volunteering in a homeless shelter. She is on a mission to build her own success.

With a chance meeting, their vastly different worlds collide, causing each to evaluate whether they are truly on the correct path to self-fulfillment and happiness. Can their relationship survive? Particularly when others are against them every step of the way. A lot can happen in just ten short days…

**Note From Sawyer Bennett: This book is part of the Off Series but it can be read as a stand alone book. Nothing in the prior or subsequent books will diminish your understanding of this novel. This is a New Adult, Contemporary Romance.

This book is also signed, like every book in The Bookworm Box!  I love signed books, so that is a big perk to this box.

The next book is Weightless by Kandi Steiner!  This book is also signed, and it is an inspirational romance.  The reviews for this book are very good, and I can't wait to read it!

Here is the synopsis:

I remember the lights.

I remember I wanted to photograph them, the way the red and blue splashed across his cold, emotionless face. But I knew even if my feet could move from the place where they had cemented themselves to the ground and I could run for my camera, I wouldn’t be able to capture that moment.

I had trusted him, I had loved him, and even though my body had changed that summer, he’d made sure to help me hold on to who I was inside, regardless of how the exterior altered.

But then everything changed.

He stole my innocence. He scarred my heart. He took everything I thought I knew about my life and fast-pitched it out the window, shattering the glass that held my world together in the process.

I remember the lights.

The passionate, desperate, hot strikes of red. The harsh, cruel, icy bolts of blue.

They symbolized everything I endured that summer.

And everything I would never face again.

The last book is Burying Water by K.A. Tucker!  This book is a suspenseful romance, and it is the bonus book that was included in my box.

Here is the synopsis:

The highly anticipated start of a new romantic suspense series from the beloved, USA Today bestselling author of Ten Tiny Breaths.

Left for dead in the fields of rural Oregon, a young woman defies all odds and survives—but she awakens with no idea who she is, or what happened to her. Refusing to answer to “Jane Doe” for another day, the woman renames herself “Water” for the tiny, hidden marking on her body—the only clue to her past. Taken in by old Ginny Fitzgerald, a crotchety but kind lady living on a nearby horse farm, Water slowly begins building a new life. But as she attempts to piece together the fleeting slivers of her memory, more questions emerge: Who is the next-door neighbor, quietly toiling under the hood of his Barracuda? Why won’t Ginny let him step foot on her property? And why does Water feel she recognizes him?

Twenty-four-year-old Jesse Welles doesn’t know how long it will be before Water gets her memory back. For her sake, Jesse hopes the answer is never. He knows that she’ll stay so much safer—and happier—that way. And that’s why, as hard as it is, he needs to keep his distance. Because getting too close could flood her with realities better left buried.

The trouble is, water always seems to find its way to the surface.

Final Thought: I adore The Bookworm Box!  I love how they give to charity and stand by the “Smart Girls Read Romance” movement.  The books that I received are all quality romances, and you can't beat autographed books.  I wish that the bonus items wouldn't all have the box's logo on them, but I understand that The Bookworm Box is trying to gain awareness.  If you are a fan of quality romance, signed books, and charitable giving, then The Bookworm Box is the perfect choice!

*NOTE: The Box Reviewers received this box to review.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Mutual aid networks swelled during the pandemic. How will they continue to grow and serve once it’s over? In the early days of the pandemic, storied community activists and those newly unemployed, or working from home for the first time, came together to join or form mutual aid networks across the country. These groups have spent months building volunteer rolls, creating community connections, and perfecting the use of Slack as a virtual dispatcher. And with states opening back up despite the pandemic wearing on, some are trying to shift the resources and energy to fight a mounting challenge: food insecurity, which will outlast the pandemic. Some projects aim to rewrite entire lanes of our food system: seeds and gardening advice distributed to hubs around the country, a quickly growing network of free fridges to store fresh food, and fleets of cyclist couriers ready to fill in the gaps. The new movement is also centered around food dignity: letting people eat according to their preferences, rather than subsist on whatever donations are available at a food bank that week. “Distribution is the number-one reason why food injustice happens,” says Sasha Verma, a member of the operations team of Corona Courier, a mutual aid group that serves most of New York City. “We are helping all these people who can’t leave their homes. Who was helping them before? I don’t fucking know.” After months managing dozens of daily dispatches across the city, in June, the group decided to pivot to a longer-term strategy it hopes will establish a groundwork for food security, without relying so much on central dispatching or coordination. It set up “pods” of about 50 families and buildings across the city, matching them with couriers who could address their needs more directly, which helps form community bonds. Basically, the plan is a slightly formalized way of matching folks in need of food with neighbors who can help them get it. The pandemic, and its wave of unemployment, attracted tons of first-timers to mutual aid groups; folks who had the privilege of never experiencing food insecurity saw first-hand how hard it is just to get groceries to hungry people. Verma says she joined her group, a citywide grocery and supply delivery effort that attracted more than 500 volunteers, because she had a hunch no government or charity agency was up for the challenge ahead. That sunk in when she found out the state unemployment office was sending people to the newly formed Corona Courier instead of a more established service. “I’m not surprised, because they can’t even do something as simple as what we were doing, which is just buying someone else groceries,” she says. Corona Courier groceries are usually paid for through donations from Abolition Action Grocery Fund (which you can donate to here), an offshoot of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America’s COVID-19 Relief Fund. It’s raised nearly $80,000 so far, mostly from donations of about $25. That kind of small fundraising is key to the future of the efforts, organizers say. Mutual aid groups often have a distaste for some of the traditional nonprofits, which they say are bogged down by bureaucracy and red tape, and that they believe exclude people who don’t fit their specific requirements for aid. One of the guiding missions of this new era of support is to trust in people to take what they need. “When we think about institutionalized food aid — for instance, CalFresh or food stamps or other means of distributing food to people — there’s a lot of means testing,” Gabriela Alemán of the Mission Meals Coalition, a San Francisco mutual aid organization that started in March, told the Extra Spicy podcast recently. “There’s a lot of questioning of, ‘Do these people deserve it? By what parameters do they deserve it? And how do we give it to them by however much we decide that they need?’” Mission Meals Collective, she said, wants to instill trust in its members so there are no roadblocks to people seeking food through its resources, and eliminate the “savior complex” of other institutions that think they know best what a community needs. The group has set up a Patreon membership program to keep donations flowing every month. “We’re not here to police people in what they do or don’t need,” she told the podcast. “I think also people fundamentally don’t understand that under-resourced communities, just because one family or one household might be under-resourced, that doesn’t mean that they completely forget their own sense of humanity for their neighbor.” Liz Baldwin, the founder of Corona Courier, says her group hopes to expand its pod system to more families in the future (they’re still accepting volunteers, too), but keeping the agility of a loosely organized mutual aid group is crucial. “I worked for [a nonprofit], and I just see how bureaucracy can really scramble missions,” she says. “There’s no part of me that’s like, ‘I should take this project and form it into a nonprofit.’ I think you lose the ability to really interact with individuals and try to help them in a way that makes sense for them. A lot of times what happens in nonprofits is that money gets kind of weird.” Food insecurity is not just a pandemic problem: About 11 percent of Americans, or or 35 million people, were food insecure in 2018, meaning they didn’t have enough food to meet the nutritional needs of all members of their households due to money or access, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Advocates have little hope the federal government will help, while state and local governments are strapped for cash and food pantries are being strained. About 40 percent of people visiting food banks during the pandemic are first-time visitors, according to NBC News. Mutual aid as a concept is not new, but it’s never been activated on this scale before, with the entire country on lockdown and so many able-bodied people out of work with nothing to do but help. It doesn’t hurt that this is the first crisis of the digital workflow era, when Slack, Zoom, and Airtable make complex coordination easy. Picking up an aid request can fit between gossip with coworkers on another Slack channel. “We don’t want this to just be a fad. We want this to be a movement where we can be sustainable over the winter,” says Ash Godfrey, one of the people behind Chicago’s Love Fridge project. “This is something that 10 years from now could be a thing. We want people to do it right.” The group was recently contacted by a city alderman to talk about adding a fridge outside of his office. Godfrey wasn’t expecting help from the government, but this connection fits its plans for serving the community for years to come. “We believe that this relationship will give us more credibility as a movement,” Godfrey says. “While we are a community and people’s movement first and foremost, the more support we can get from those with resources and power, the stronger we will be. We are here to stay and having the alderman’s support is affirmation.” The Love Fridge is now working to solve a major roadblock to its longevity: surviving brutal Chicago winters. The group is setting up a volunteer management program (which you can get involved with here) to make sure the fridges are maintained daily, working on blueprints for shelters around the machines, and talking with a community fridge group in Canada about how to survive a bitter January and February. “If there’s a fridge everywhere, can you imagine the lives that would change?” Godfrey says. Free fridges are not a panacea to food insecurity, says Sam Pawliger, who is heading up a community fridge project out of the Clinton Hill Fort Greene Mutual Aid group in Brooklyn. But they do help break down a barrier: Even a person who might feel embarrassed to call a mutual aid group for help could walk down the street to grab a sandwich from a fridge. The fridge has been adding some elements to fill the gaps where food pantries fall short: When organizers found out residents of a nearby shelter were not allowed to bring food inside, they attached a can opener to the fridge and added disposable cutlery to an attached shelf. “I saw this as something that we could stand up quickly to help build solidarity with our neighbors,” Pawliger says, “and as a resource to both combat food waste and food insecurity, both of which are major issues in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill in terms of food security.” Of course, being able to produce your own food with consistency is the most secure thing. This is what Nate Kleinman hopes to inspire with the Cooperative Gardens Commission, which he helped start in March to collect and send seeds to hubs across the country. Kleinman learned the potential of mutual aid when working with Occupy Sandy in New Jersey in 2012, which was key to helping dig out homes and provide supplies to people deeply affected by the hurricane. “In a lot of ways, Occupy Sandy changed the way that the official powers that be in disaster relief do their work,” he says, citing a 2013 report from the Department of Homeland Security that praised the work of the all-volunteer group and its non-hierarchical structure. “There’s a much bigger recognition and importance of mutual aid organizations in disaster relief.” In the start of the pandemic, Kleinman saw a seed shortage coming: Many commercial companies were dealing with a huge surge in demand; others were shutting down entirely. The commission is providing donated seeds and advice for folks with home plots, community farms, and tribal gardens. The project started at the outset of the pandemic, but its goals are targeted at getting people to rethink how they eat. “Seeds are at the root of all food security. This is a ‘teach a person to fish’ kind of issue,” he says. “If we’re giving people what they need to actually grow food themselves, that’s going to be much more sustainable in the long term at addressing food security.” The group is working with local partners across the country to get seeds to disadvantaged or marginalized communities, places that were dealing with food insecurity before the coronavirus hit. Unlike other mutual aid groups, which tend to be located in population centers, the seeds can reach people in rural areas, with hubs in Mississippi, Texas, western North Carolina, and more. So far, they’ve set up 217 hubs across the country and reached an estimated 10,000 gardens, Kleinman says. And they’re accepting more resource donations on their website. Donated seeds are sent in bulk to the group’s Philadelphia base, where they are then repackaged and distributed to the hubs. Some are sent to people through the mail, others have set up distribution hubs in neighborhood libraries and other public areas. Now, the group is focusing on fall seeds: cabbage, leafy greens, root vegetables, radishes, and cover crops, to keep the soil healthy for years to come. “People have taken for granted that there will always be farm workers and farms producing food, and with the clamp down that also happened before the pandemic at the border, the challenges for migrant workers are very real,” Kleinman says. “I think it would be surprising if there weren’t more food shortages in the immediate future.” The idea of exorcising capitalism from food access is an ambitious one. But organizers say the pandemic has shown that community-based mutual aid may be the only way forward. “When I sparked this up, I never thought about, ‘What’s the government going to do for me?’” says Ramon Norwood, the founder of the Love Fridge. “That’s what we’re learning with the pandemic. It’s not enough. It shouldn’t just be the bare minimum.” Tim Donnelly is a Brooklyn-based freelance reporter and editor. Follow him on Twitter. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/31RetWc

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/09/mutual-aid-groups-reckon-with-future-we.html

[umusicians]

UM Track By Track : : Scott Collins -‘Let's Start Here’

Scott Collins has had the privilege of gracing the most famous stages in the “live music capital of the world”. The Austin based singer-songwriter brings a blend of indie-folk and Americana to the stage. He displays an authentic and emotive element that draws on personal inspiration, and is reflected in his performances, both live and in the studio. Last week, Scott Collins released his EP ‘Let's Start Here’  which he was kind enough to write a track by track exclusively for UMusicians. Read the track by track below!

The "Let's Start Here" EP is essentially my first release in about three years after a band split-up and working again with producer Chris "Frenchie" Smith for my 2014 EP "SLEEPER". The songs on this next installment are six favorites that I have been playing in live sets with bandmate, and violin player, Lexi Cardenas. We wanted to record an honest and transparent interpretation of our live shows. I play a lot of shows solo as well and my old records are very rock and roll. I felt it was time for the live show to match what people could take home with them. Recently I opened a studio in South Austin, TX designed by Academy and Grammy winning engineer Chet Himes and Lexi and I recorded "Let's Start Here" there. It was a very natural and fun experience. We just faced each other all mic'ed up and with no headphones, played. We really enjoy playing off each others energy. This is how we perform and we brought that into the recording sessions. There isn't really a definitive theme to the EP other than the songs presented and chosen oddly all turned out to be some of my "10-minute" songs. Meaning, songs I purge in about ten minutes. Melody, lyrics, structure and all. I write in many different ways but this is one of my favorite more "cosmic" styles. I'm happy to release "Let's Start Here" because it's been a wonderful experience performing with Lexi and we are looking forward to sharing this with you.

For Now This started as two separate songs that I basically laid on top of each other and came out with a final product. There was some minor tweaking of course. The original version with the original lyrics had a very upbeat kinda "Texas country" and "honky tonk" feel to it. But I also had a brand new song I was working out the full structure on my acoustic guitar that had a feeling more like driving with the windows down. I really enjoyed the new song and some of the lyrics, primarily just the phrase, "I got it all figured out...for now" from the upbeat song, fit into the more relaxed version. After writing out the rest of the lyrics, letting the words flow freely, I formed it together and out came the final tune. You can still catch me playing the original version at some longer solo sets. The Upside Back when I was in my last band we had a rehearsal space with full and around the clock access. One morning on a weekend I had stayed up all night in the space writing and towards 11 a.m. ended up grabbing an acoustic guitar and the beginnings of "The Upside" formed. I started right in on the intro and melody and hit play on my phones voice recorder. My drummer showed up right when I finished because we were going to book our first South East tour. I stopped him in the hall and said, "You gotta hear this new song first!". I've been playing it ever since and when I was recently in the studio recording for "Let's Start Here" Chet mentioned that it's so catchy of a song, love it or hate it, people will remember it. So he asked how I felt about changing the lyrics a bit to flow more into a story. Overnight I re-wrote the lyrics and we recorded it. Luckily we kept in a female solo vocal bridge I wrote that tied into the theme of the song having two characters communicating to each other. Plus, Lexi is an amazing singer and sounds beautiful on the part.  I couldn't have been happier with the re-write. I love performing this song and telling its story with Lexi. Bones Are Buried A lot of times I'll write songs where I don't exactly know what the lyrics mean in the moment. Sometimes it takes years for songs, verses and lines to reveal themselves. It'll even happen live on stage which is a very fun experience. For "Bones Are Buried" it all began with taking a break from rehearsing to sit on a drum kit in the studio. As I sat and started to kick on the bass drum and hi-hat I picked up a guitar near by and started playing the intro to the song. I loved how it sounded with the beat and I immediately remembered a riff to a song I never finished and it fit perfectly as a verse. I then jumped off the drum kit where I was playing guitar and singing nonsense sounds at the same time. Sitting down with the song I put in a solid 30 minutes and flowed out the lyrics. I then sat back on the drum kit, played and sang and disappeared into the song. Lexi just came into a rehearsal and rocked out her part. She made it all make sense. My Old Home (Chicago) I was born in Illinois and raised in Austin. It took all of my 24 years here in Texas to finally write a song about Chicago. And it came out of nowhere. I absolutely attribute this song to writing with the rock and roll "spirits". Maybe it's Hank Williams' cousins' friend haunting me but I'll take it. I was rehearsing many hours to a click track one night and getting pretty burnt out. When I couldn't go anymore I leaned back in my chair and started finger picking the intro to the song. I immediately felt the "burn" of inspiration and hit play on my cell phone voice recorder. In one take the entire song was recorded. I don't know what took over me but my story poured out into a fully structured song. It's my homage to Chicago and I was able to tour there a few months ago for the first time and play this song for my entire family and friends from childhood. It was an incredibly memorable experience. Let's Start Here For this song, after writing a finger picking version of the melody on guitar, I decided to write the lyrics with intention which is rare for me. I wanted to tell a specific love story about two high school kids and how they meet. One in love and unbeknownst to the other. I remembered a story from my own school where cops raided a house party and a kid accidentally ran off a small cliff into the nearby lake. He was okay but I thought that was a great and hilarious visual and it really inspired me. I pumped out the lyrics with the rest of the song and the story flowed out. For the recording I switched the finger picking style to a strumming pattern. I was also honored to have this song be the first to start a writing partnership with Debby Throckmorton, daughter of legendary country singer-songwriter Sonny Throckmorton. It also began my journey to and growing relationship with Nashville. Debby and I met at a songwriting conference in Austin and she loved the song so she helped me clean up the lyrics to the story and brought me out to Nashville to write with her. It's a wonderful song to play with Lexi on violin and harmonies as well.   Holding On The last song on the EP actually came from a loop pedal beat gone wrong. Lexi and I love to perform a version of Head and the Hearts' song, "Another Story".  One day I was messing around with my loop pedal where I'll create mouth beats and vocal harmonies. I'll then play to those rhythms. I was trying to make one for the cover song and it was going nowhere. I loved the beat I had created though. I wouldn't say it was out of frustration but after focusing on it for so long I decided to just jam. And like before a "10 minute" song was born.  Right away I started playing a riff I fell in love with and was writing lyrics to simultaneously as I played it. I wrote two verses and after going back through a third time I decided to just play freely. And what came out was the instrumental break down in the song and it fit great. I loved how it would just take me away. I emailed the song to Lexi then she showed up at our next rehearsal and blew me away with what she wrote. I started out writing music to, and inspired by, movies. Film is my second love and a huge inspiration to my writing. So, when Lexi showed up to rehearse and played her part I was amazed because she had transformed the song into a film. Like it sounded as if it were a soundtrack of a miniature film itself. At that moment I knew I had found the perfect band mate who really understood my writing. I couldn't be happier.

www.scottcollinsproject.com https://soundcloud.com/scottcollinsproject

[johanbrook]

The only living boy in New York

I'm in the airplane, listening to the Simon & Garfunkel song in the post title. I like it, but I love "Bleecker Street" and "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." even more. Taking off from Fort Lauderdale. Away from its humid heat, huge villas, unused yachts, and tacky tourist strips. It was a city built for cars, and I seldom get along with those cities. I'm sitting in a window seat with my music and the book I'm reading. It's "The Mountain Shadow" by Gregory David Roberts: sequel to "Shantaram". I admire Roberts' writing: his command in painting sentences, rhythm, dialogue, and most of all the poetry he sneaks into the story. I'd love to be able to write like that one day.

Flying can become an everyday activity after a while, when you're used to the whole dance. But if you add music – a soundtrack – to every moment in the dance, it becomes magical again. One track for take-off, another for when you ascend through the grey clouds, another for when you see our sun light up the white clouds from above. I played Bowie's "Space Oddity" when we took off, and "Rust" when we ascended through the clouds. I listened to "Ingen kommer sörja när du dör" when the white cotton clouds became golden in the sunlight.

We land at Newark airport. I've never been here before, but I envision it being a major hassle of getting to Brooklyn through Manhattan from here. I turned down a more pricier flight going to JFK airport, since I really don't want to be that person who decides solely from how comfortable an alternative is. I had forgotten my American SIM card back home as well, so no chance of 4G to check stuff along the way. To my surprise, everything went quite fine: the air train took me from the airport to the Newark Train Station, from where another train went into Manhattan's NYC Penn Station. Well there, I switched to the regular subway, and missed a stop. Of course. I was being sloppy, probably just losing myself in thought, watching the ads on the subway train's interior. Poems and taglines. God I love New York and its public transit system.

I was hit by the kindness of New Yorkers last time I was here. People seem more compassionate in everyday life that anywhere else. On the train to Manhattan, a thin man with a yet confident voice went up and down the aisle, asking for a few dollars for another train ticket to Long Island. I handed him some spare coins I had, and other people also pitched in. He had been to a hospital nearby and been treated for asthma and high blood pressure. He had the appearance of a homeless person, which very well might be true. On the subway, a girl in her early twenties asked for a couple of more dollars to afford a youth hostel, since she had nowhere to sleep. She was homeless, but no different than anyone else on the subway train.

In Sweden, the differences are more stark. There's a sharp line between People Who Have Their Shit in Order (PWHTSO) and Others. The former instantly judge the Others for being lazy, alcoholics, junkies, and generally for making bad decisions in the past. There is, from my view, very little incentive for PWHTSOs to offer help to Others in the streets of Swedish cities. We talk about the issues, but nobody do anything other than stroll by without looking the Others in the eye.

In New York, PWHTSO pitch in. I can hear in the voice of people asking for money or food here that it's for real. I think Americans know what their economic system is capable of doing to people, so there's no shame or judgement in being young and homeless, since the government can fuck you over if you happen to lose your job in a recession or something like that.

They praise Sweden for being one of the most equal countries in the world, but why is the rift between PWHTSOs and Others so apparent?

In the café in Williamsburg I visited every morning last Fall, the barista recognises me. He makes the best take away cappuccinos I've had, and I'm glad nothing's changed in the café. They're as happy as always, and I still feel at home in the quirky interior. In a world that's constantly changing, I appreciate some things that just stay as they were.

When getting up from Canal Street's subway stop, Nas is rapping my headphones. How suitable, I think, and enjoy the cliche of listening to "N.Y. State of Mind" while the traffic is coming down as a slow, roaring snake, and the skyscrapers are guarding from above. The sun is finally finding its way through lower Manhattan's streams of streets. Everything is so calm. I see so much people – beautiful people – move in different rhythms across the tight street spaces. People hang out outside their doors on the porch, like everybody's going everywhere and nowhere.

My memory of the streets are slowly coming back to me - even though I'm still dependent on Google Maps for getting to specific places, I feel I've got my bearings on the rough directions. But in reality, I really don't care too much. I usually walk and walk, trying to find a café that speaks to me, or until I get tired enough to just backtrack and pick one I had passed on.

Recently I've grown more and more comfortable in the state of being on the road, soon two years now. I've gone through moments of loneliness, isolation, no sense of belonging, and lack of energy to actually connect deeply with new people. I guess it was after the first honeymoon months were over those feelings struck me. Now I question a settled life in a single city, with apartment and furniture I own myself. What is a life that's always on repeat, not having the power to move one's state of mind to another country for a couple of weeks?

I thought everything would work itself out by getting back to Gothenburg and be with my close friends. And it did, on a social level. We need social contexts, and I am, as most others, happier and stimulated with people around. But what about change? What to do if you'd like change of environments but don't want to move away from your close friendships?

I'm privileged by having the possibility to work remotely from anywhere I want (technically, Asia is a bit frowned upon due to timezones that are tedious as hell). I realise the luxury of switching geographical locations as I see fit, like one switches cafés between mornings and afternoons. I finally see how my life's "Definition of Awesome" would play out ("Definition of Awesome" was one of Spotify's strategies for doing certain things: you'd define a definition of an "awesome" state, and then backtrack from that in order to get to it).

My definition would include

a mix of climates: I enjoy change of seasons, but would of course take the sun and warmth any day of the week most of the year.

living in a place where things are simple. Simple food, simple drinks. Things I enjoy should be somewhat cheap. No "treating myself with luxuries", since the luxuries should be everyday things.

having people I care about around me. I will never travel or live alone again.

a place that stimulates without being off-putting. A place of beauty, simplicity, and home.

the ocean.

an environment that helps with routines, instead of having the sense of always being on the road.

not having to pick between the things above. Nothing says you have to stay in one location all the time. Splitting my time between two places would be ideal.

I've got no plans for this weekend. I'm pretty used to that by now, and I both welcome and hate the feeling. I'll see if I can line up something with some strangers somehow.

I'm excited for the summer. I've got a mix of plans and no plans. Happy things, like weddings and concerts. I'm happy, living in the now and a little bit in the future. I'm overall happy, and I treasure that. Feed your head, find outlets, and you'll figure out most things on the way.