#they wrote an article about our confusion/irritation/exhaustion

[nicojoe]

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[paulbenedictblog]

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News Freed of briefing duty, wounded Trump airs full collection of grievances on Twitter, retweeting claim of ‘coup attempts’ - The Washington Post

News

President Trump’s first tweet Sunday came strangely unhurried, popping up a fast time after midday — hours in the succor of agenda for a president who's typically unsleeping and tweeting as the sun rises.

“Completely pleased Birthday to Melania, our gigantic First Girl!” Trump tweeted at 12: 06 p.m.

The celebratory tweet kicked off a prolonged day of tweeting and retweeting that in actuality ramped up at around 2 p.m. when Trump seen, in accordance to a most unusual Unusual York Times article, that these who know him regard him as “the hardest working President in history.”

Over the next seven hours or so, Trump took purpose at the entire lot and any individual he could presumably maybe, unleashing a barrage of better than two dozen tweets and retweets that centered media shops, high-profile commentators and hosts, and Democrats.

He also returned but one more time to the Russia probe and impeachment, promoting a tweet that accused his political adversaries of “three failed coup attempts.” The tweet went on to recommend without a evidence that the president’s opponents could presumably maybe “are attempting to steal the election” by making the contemporary coronavirus’s affect on human lives seem worse than it in actuality is.

At one point, the president talked about reporters who lined him must restful return their “Noble Prizes,” acting to confuse the Nobel Prizes with the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism. In verbalize of upright himself, Trump deleted the “Noble” tweets, but then talked about he meant to exhaust the discover “Noble,” as a design of “sarcasm.” Trump went on to retweet commentary ridiculing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden for his syntax.

The notable uptick in Twitter process came on the 2d consecutive day that Trump had not participated in a day-to-day White Home coronavirus briefing, occasions meant to relate the final public which contain as an alternative been largely taken over by the president and transformed into “de facto political rallies,” as The Washington Publish’s Philip Bump and Ashley Parker reported.

Trump’s decision to skip briefings this weekend comes after he weathered intense backlash for asking closing Thursday if highly poisonous disinfectants will be injected into the human body to fight coronavirus. He changed into once also broadly rebuked for floating unproven therapies corresponding to light remedy on the a connected briefing.

In a commentary emailed to The Publish on Monday, White Home spokesman Judd Deere talked about Trump’s “exhaust of technology to focus on straight away with the American folk must restful be praised, not criticized.”

“In wish to obsessing over how constantly the President has tweeted, the media could presumably maybe quilt his out of the ordinary actions to offer protection to the health and security of the Nation and his brave management that has placed us on a guilty, files-pushed route to opening up America again,” Deere talked about.

Sunday’s one-man Twitter spectacle kicked off with Trump boasting that he's “a laborious worker and contain doubtless gotten more finished in the principle 3 1/2 years than any President in history,” in conjunction with, “The Inaccurate Knowledge hates it!”

The folks that know me and know the history of our Nation relate that I am the hardest working President in history. I don’t learn about that, but I am a laborious worker and contain doubtless gotten more finished in the principle 3 1/2 years than any President in history. The Inaccurate Knowledge hates it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2020

Minutes later, he supplied a look for into what he talked about changed into once his day-to-day routine.

“I work from early in the morning unless unhurried at evening,” Trump tweeted, “haven’t left the White Home in many months (other than to originate Sanatorium Ship Comfort) in expose to preserve Change Offers, Militia Rebuilding and heaps others.”

Trump famed that his are attempting to obvious up any false influence about his work ethic changed into once sparked by “a phony story” he objective currently read in the Times. The president changed into once doubtless relating to a Thursday article by Times reporters Katie Rogers and Annie Karni that bears the headline, “Home On my own on the White Home: A Bitter President, With TV His Constant Accomplice.”

....agenda and moving habits, written by a third price reporter who knows nothing about me. I will typically be in the Oval Location of enterprise unhurried into the evening & read & gaze that I am angrily moving a hamburger & Weight loss blueprint Coke in my bedroom. Folk with me are constantly skittish. One thing else to demean!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2020

But even with this sort of busy agenda and Sunday being his companion’s 50th birthday, Trump managed to accumulate time to preserve tweeting.

Once he changed into once accomplished slamming the Times, Trump pivoted to a broader attack against journalists. Handiest this time, he wasn’t interested by their protection of the country’s pandemic response.

“When will the entire ‘reporters’ who contain received Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to were proven entirely inappropriate (and, if truth be told, it changed into once the completely different side who dedicated the crimes), be turning succor their cherished ‘Nobles’ in train that they'll additionally objective additionally be given to the REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS who received it right,” Trump tweeted, referencing allegations that his 2016 presidential marketing campaign colluded with Russia, one of his most attention-grabbing sources of irritation.

Trump concluded his tirade, which spanned three separate tweets, threatening, “Lawsuits must restful be introduced against all, in conjunction with the Inaccurate Knowledge Organizations, to rectify this dreadful injustice.” In a single other thread, Trump also took swipes at Fox Knowledge, a community that is dwelling to some of his most vocal supporters.

It didn’t choose prolonged for “Noble Prize,” “Nobel” and “Pulitzer Prize” to initiate trending on Twitter as Trump’s detractors rushed to mock the president over what both a spelling error and a misunderstanding of what awards are given to journalists. After deleting the tweets, Trump argued that “Noble Prize” changed into once alleged to be “sarcasm,” falling succor on the a connected defense he ragged to disguise his controversial comments about injecting disinfectants into coronavirus patients.

“Does any individual procure the which methodology of what a so-known as Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially because it pertains to Journalists and Journalists?” Trump tweeted. “Noble is defined as, ‘having or showing elegant personal qualities or high factual rules and ideals.’ Does sarcasm ever work?”

Critics, nonetheless, didn’t steal Trump’s explanation.

Peaceful, Trump continued his tweetstorm undeterred. For roughly an hour and a half of Sunday evening, Trump went on a retweeting spree, sharing a slew tweets that largely consisted of conservatives disparaging Democrats and more broadsides against the media, in conjunction with The Publish. Trump took a fast damage from politics to promote a video of a young woman singing a duet of “You Elevate Me Up,” writing, “Valuable!”

Amongst Democratic leaders, Trump gave the influence in particular interested by focusing on Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Biden. As well to retweeting criticisms of Pelosi’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, Trump highlighted unflattering movies of Biden. One clip confirmed the Democratic presidential candidate stumbling over his phrases on CNN, while one other featured a doctored GIF of Biden making silly faces.

Then, Trump rounded out the evening by quoting himself:

“So right!” Trump wrote, retweeting his contain submit from Saturday that talked about, “Remember, the Treatment can’t be worse than the stutter itself. Watch out, be salvage, exhaust overall sense!”

[shannon-jeanna]

So let’s talk about one of the big contributors to Asian Americans’ cultural stress: Microaggressions.

What are some microaggressions that we Asian Americans face that might cause us to experience mental (as well as spiritual, and physical) health challenges?

I’ve compiled a list of microaggressions that make us feel more “othered” and aware of our distance from cultural belonging.

These slights can drive us to experience bi- or multi-cultural stress or what is often referred to by Asian Americans writing or speaking about their experiences as identity crises (search “Asian American identity crisis” into your search bar and check out the number of results. It’s wild).

1. Non-Asians acting as if they are more familiar with our “native” culture(s) than we are as Asian Americans.

I am frequently asked questions like, “do you know how to make curry? Can you teach me?” and “are you familiar with the origins of yoga practice?”

I’m clearly “brown,” and people read me as Indian. And so, of course, I also always get that mildly irritating (depending on who’s asking it) question of “where are you really from?”

People have diverse responses to expectations that they are an automatic authority on some culture that others associate with them, often based just on their physical appearance.

These questions don’t necessarily bother me in the sense that they assume that I’m un-American. Asian Americans are, after all, immigrants to a colonized land, and so should be more reflective of how our claims to belonging and American-ness can normalize colonization and invisibilize Native displacement.

But they bother me because they heighten my sense of cultural dysphoria, or, feeling like I don’t belong to any culture because I represent an ugly, rejected mixture of both.

2. Being told that we’re not really Asian because we grew up in or were born in the U.S.

We don’t only experience cultural rejection from white people, but from other Asians as well.

Often, Asian Americans speak about going back to our “native” land(s) — usually meaning one or multiple countries or regions in which our ancestors lived and had descendants — and feeling like total outsiders. This might be because we can’t culturally relate, or we have trouble speaking the native language.

Because many of us are also considered outsiders in the U.S., we may expect to automatically feel accepted in [insert country or region here] when we travel or meet people from there. The sense of: finally — my people!

But, turns out, we might even be outsiders to who we think are “our people.”

We can be told in many ways that we’re not properly Asian. In my culture (I find it humorous to say this because I have none), people like me are called ABCDs (“American Born Confused Desis”) and coconuts (brown on the outside, white on the inside).

All of these labels, while admittedly sometimes funny, emphasize our outsider status, and thus our distance from genuine cultural belonging.

As a result, we can grow more, as I name it in an earlier article, culturally dysphoric. Indian scholar, Homi Bhabha, refers to this experience as being “unhomed.”

Basically, we get mad stressed and unsure about where we fit into different cultures because the reality is that we’ve grown up with multiple — we’re complex!

3. Experiencing rejection or exoticization from non-Asian people

I was reading through an old Skype chat that I had with my white girlfriend when I was 15 years old. At first, I was really moved by the amount of care we were expressing to one another. But then I came upon a list of “100 things I love about you” she wrote about me.

Sounds cute, right? Not so much. One of the one hundred things was, “you’re my Princess Jasmine,” and another one was “you’re a hot Indian.” YIKES. She was definitely exoticizing meas a lot of my white partners have in the past.

Anyway, many people of color have a complicated relationship with feeling desired, for a number of reasons. Whether it’s our labor, our citizenship, or our attractiveness, the way that we are desired often feels fleeting and sometimes even exploitative.

An example of this for (especially femme) people who are Asian American is the perception that we are exotic, fetish objects — basically, that we are attractive based on eroticized racial or cultural stereotypes projected onto us.

Exoticization isn’t genuine attraction. It means we’re deemed both attractive, and disposable.

We’re again cast as outsiders — or, “other” — rather than being accepted into a mutually respectful space that doesn’t slap racial and cultural assumptions onto us before considering the many other aspects of our personhood.

While it’s important to talk about the anxieties that can arise from feeling distant from our “native” culture(s), we also need to keep in mind that we can’t responsibly claim to be insiders to a place where we have not lived or spent much time.

If we do, as Janani writes in “I’m the ‘Safe Kind of Brown,” we could perpetuate stereotypes about life in our “native” regions, because those stereotypes may actually be what we’re most familiar with as people in the diaspora.

Instead, we need to have more conversations about what it looks like for us to be embracing our hybrid identities — straddling the borders between multiple cultures and regions.

But, embracing this reality is hard work. And, unfortunately, the vast majority of Asian Americans who write and speak about this issue overlook that it’s even more difficult for people with multiple marginalized identities (like, being trans or queer) to do this. Because we’re often rejected from multiple cultures on the basis of our queer and trans identities.

And, contrary to what this video discussing Asian identity crises suggests, we can’t simply “forget” about what people think about us in order to accept ourselves.

That sort of practice of just forgetting about it seems like it requires us to suppress our emotions, and neglect our health. It reads as a privilege that isn’t as simple as it’s depicted — especially for people who are multiply marginalized, and who are anti-racists resisting assimilation into whiteness.

There is an urgency for greater attention to mental health care for Asian Americans based on these and other social factors. They cause us to not only develop identity crises, but also further feelings of alienation, confusion, and loneliness.

Mental health care doesn’t have to just look like therapy sessions.

It can be strong digital communities for people across Asian diasporas, or physical spaces for community healing. It can also look like increased media representation that depicts conflicts like ours.

Many Asian Americans hold privilege, but we also deserve to heal from our pain as marginalized people. I don’t think these two things need to exist apart from one another.

There is an abundance of healing potential in recognizing our potential harms done as privileged people, and unlearning the destructive mentalities that we have accepted for ourselves out of a need for survival.

Mirza puts this well. They say that our sadness holds the legacies of our trauma. And, if it goes unexplored, because we “become so wrapped up” in sorrow resulting from our oppression, we can neglect to be critical of our privileges and the ways we can do harm.

So, let’s talk about our sadness, and legitimize our trauma from the microaggressions that have worn on us over time. For diasporic, bi- and multi-cultural people, let’s try to embrace our hybrid identities in whatever ways we can, because always striving to fit is really exhausting.

[notdonner]

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. Michael Jordan

Looking back on the last two weeks,  there were more obstacles in my path than sure footing.   I work a very technically-challenging job, and often I am given a piece of chewing gum,  a piece of Scotch Tape, and blindfolded, asked to assemble a functional warp drive, with two-year old memories and  Post-It notes for instructions.

(Alright, that’s a little too much hyperbole)  Instructions I needed were fairly similar to another project.  I just needed a little instruction from a peer to make some adjustments.  Suffice it to say I had to reconfigure the engineering-use computers, and confirm I had a workable test bench prior to preparing the 3 deliveries I was tasked to provide.  The project engineer with the most expertise has been reassigned since I was “familiar” with the process.  Our subcontracted assembly house had supposedly worked the “bugs” out of their assembly process finally.   Articles were being shipped to our manufacturing department for final processing.  However, the new “rework” support team had perhaps 3 weeks training –   but no real problem -solving expertise.  Therefore,  I was tasked to build and prepare test systems for our engineers’ next contract.  Simple.

I had a moment of clarity twice, and of course, it happened after the last shred of human dignity had dissipated.   Yesterday evening about 5:30PM,  I realized that my last confusing symptom – a problem moved between different assemblies when it “shouldn’t have”.  And then I realized the power-transfer component board was THE source of the symptoms.  Substitution of another board solved the issue bugging me for that last 2 hours.

The second moment of clarity occurred this morning while I was walking Dexter and Comet.   I was feeling crushed by the experience of the last week – I wrote about it yesterday – leaving me mentally exhausted.  I am only just feeling normal again, helped by spending time with extended family last night and a good night’s rest.

In the early morning today, as I was watching first Dexter disappear into the brambles up in the hills behind my home,  and then Comet following him,  my first thought was “how am I to retrieve them in a timely manner (to get onto my commute)?”   They soon reappeared in the catch-basin down the hill (which is surrounded on all sides by a steel fence.

I was seeing the narrow bars as the obstacle, and my inability to get over the fence to retrieve the dogs made me feel irritated.   I had a moment of “DANG IT!!!!”  but walked down the hill to the opposite end of the basin as the exit leading back to my home was that way.   Needing no engineering training,  both dogs found a concrete drainage ditch that lead out of the basin and back to the path where I was standing.

You see,  when you do not see the world as full of impossible obstacles but instead enjoy the adventure while going around or under what blocks you,  obstacles and even small defeats only help to sharpen your clarity of purpose and approach.

Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon Bonaparte

Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com

Obstacle course Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up.

[bintaeran]

The Relationship Between Anger and Fear

The Relationship Between Anger and Fear Nina Zolotow by Beth

Fire at Night by Francisco Goya

In my last post Understanding and Dealing with Anger I wrote about anger as one of our core human emotions and offered some yoga techniques for understanding and managing our anger states. In this post, I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the relationship of anger to another core human emotion: fear. Fear is an uncomfortable feeling that results from something we recognize or perceive as a danger or a threat. If, for example, the fear results from being mugged, physically assaulted, or getting lost in a storm on Mt. Everest, the danger and threat are recognized as very real. If the danger is not real, it’s perceived. Anodea Judith, in her book on the chakras Creating on Purpose describes perceived fear as a False Event Appearing Real.  Anger and fear can exist in us at the same time as a result of the same experience. One way to get a sense of how this can work is to take a look at the flight-or-fight stress response. In Joseph and Lilian LePage’s yoga therapist training handout "Yoga and the Emotions" they break down the fight-or-flight response to show how anger can relate to “fight” and fear to “flight”:   Fight/Anger                           Flight/Fear Irritated/Annoyed                   Confused/Insecure Frustrated                              Anxious Angry                                     Frightened Hateful                                   Panicky Rageful                                  Petrified  For example, in a short-term stress experience like having your car suddenly break down on the highway, the reaction, at least for me was clear and direct. First came frustration, irritation, and annoyance as in, “Oh, (fill in your favorite swear word). Why now! I don’t need this headache. This (fill in your next favorite one or two swear words) car!” Close on the heels of this reaction, came insecurity, anxiety, and fear as in, “No one will help me. I’m alone. How am I going to get out of this? It’s probably going to cost a lot of money (fill in your favorite string of swear words).” Of course, it all worked out. I walked off the next exit, found a gas station, had my car towed and a broken fan belt replaced. Once everything was taken care of, I quickly returned to a calm and balanced state. This was a stress “event” that got fixed.  The reaction can be vastly different if the stress experience is a False Event Appearing Real, based on a long-term, deeper fear pattern that is compounded and masked by anger. For example, I’ve inherited a strong belief from the women in my family that independence and personal financial responsibility are important and if you are going to be in relationship with others, adhering to agreed upon commitments, especially around money, is non-negotiable. So, of course, I’ve been tested on that many times and in many ways. One of the most memorable was in my second marriage. We’d agreed on how our finances would be handled but my husband frequently and consistently broke the rules. This led to discussions, which led to arguments, which led to a final angry outburst, in which I suddenly connected my anger to a deep-seated fear of financial failure which would end with me being broke, helpless and dependent, a False Event that Appeared all too Real. Only after recognizing that my anger was masking that fear was I able to set financial boundaries for myself, which eased my anger and my fear of not being in control of my own well-being. This was one of those never-ending, stress-pattern stories that had repeated itself over and over until I finally faced it, traced it, and replaced it with self-awareness and a healthy behavioral response.  Many who work in the mental health field recognize the concept of emotional masking in which one emotion can cover, or “mask” another. Dr. Deborah Khoshaba, who holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in the area of Health Psychology and is the author of the article “Masks of Anger: The Fears That Your Anger May Be Hiding,”writes:  “The more comfortable you get with your fears, the less apt you will be to express them through anger. Many people respond to fear with anger, because human beings don’t like being exposed or open to being harmed and shamed.”  It’s natural to want to stop stirring our stress/anger/fear stew when we feel it, but the feelings are, in reality, a natural emotional reaction to what the mind and imagination are doing. So instead of isolation, denial, or re-acting out, we can turn to our yoga practice for healthy ways to respond. For one way, see Baxter and Nina’s post Coming into Balance: How Stress and Relaxation Work Together).  Another helpful technique is working the Witness (vijnanamayakosha), one of the five levels (or bodies) of being human (Working with the Witness 2/24/16). The importance of using yoga to balance and integrate the koshas is implicit in Iyengar’s words from Light on Life:  “It is essential for the follower of the yoga journey to understand the need for integration and balance in the kosa. For example, the mental and intellectual bodies (manomaya and vijnanamaya kosa) must function effectively in order for us to observe, analyze and reflect what is happening in the physical and energetic bodies (anamaya and pranamaya kosa) and make adjustments.”  This can be done in the middle of a stress event or a never-ending stress-pattern story. All it takes is awareness that the anger/fear stew is beginning to boil and that you have the ability to move the Witness through body, breath, and mind to lower the boil to a simmer. It can be easiest to start with the physical body but this exercise can be done in any order. For example:  Physical Body: What is my body feeling? Are my muscles tight? Is my gut wrenched? Are my shoulders hunched? Are my fists clenched? Is my heart beating faster?  Breath-Energy Body: How am I breathing? Fast? Slow? Is my breath stuck? Am I feeling heavy, leaden or suddenly drained and exhausted?  Mental-Emotional Body: Am I angry? Fearful? A bit of each? What are the thoughts racing through my mind at this moment? Are they boiling or tumbling? Is this an event that can be fixed or a never-ending story based on a deeper mental-emotional issue?  Maybe it’s age and maybe it’s my yoga practice but I know that a lot of my anger/fear-based reactions are slower to rise and easier to resolve. I’m much more able to recognize the anger/fear stew in its early stages. Using the Witness to turn anger/fear experiences into an opportunity for self-awareness is a strong yoga practice. Through it we can learn to tell the difference between an anger/fear stress event that can be fixed and forgotten and a never-ending stress pattern story that needs to be faced, traced, and replaced. Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect The Relationship Between Anger and Fear http://ift.tt/2qgrgeM themostdangerous1 http://ift.tt/2qSOOsf via IFTTT