I know, this is late. I almost didn't send it at all because I've been swamped, but I decided to make it a priority this afternoon.
America has a violence fetish. More specifically, many of the 2A worshippers have a violence fetish. They're just waiting, praying that someone will show up at their door some day that they can shoot. Chances are good that will never happen. Chances are even better they'll use the gun to unalive their own self because that kind of mentality can only be held by a deeply unhappy and troubled soul.
There are others with violence fetishes, and they tend to overlap with religion (ironically... or not).
Religion is the justification for so much violence and suffering in the world. The Salem Witch trials, the Crusades, the Holocaust, probably the murders of Native Americans, and definitely the enslavement of Black people in America. It's also being used to justify the annihilation of Palestinian people in Gaza. Although I think that's too simplistic. It's mainly about money and power. And, in some ways, it's about replaying collective lived trauma.
Mayim Bialik, someone I respected, also often talks about trauma. And despite being a very well-educated person, she insists on conflating Israel and Judaism. She's not the only one, but it's incredibly harmful to do that. Many Jewish people don't want others to do that, but when it comes to being an apologist for Netanyahu, that's where some go. Aligning yourself with Netanyahu right now would be like aligning yourself with the Catholic church during the Crusades. Or the Puritans during the Salem Witch trials.
People who are critical of Israel and Netanyahu and supportive of the plight of the Palestinian people are not anti-Semitic. In fact, Palestinians are also Semites. Many Jewish people are protesting what Netanyahu is doing. Does that make them anti-Semitic?
The name-calling tells me people are upset but don't have confidence in their arguments. I've been called anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, and pro-terrorist. It does not bother me because I know I'm not. But they are taking the true meaning out of these terms and making them meaningless. Everyone who disagrees with Israel does not hate Jews. In fact, most don't.
The Difference
I abhor violence. I don't approve of it in any situation. To stop violence, we must look at its cause. Why would Palestinians want to attack Israel? For the same reason prisoners riot. When prisoners riot, do we blow up the prison? No. We look at the condition of the prison and the way prisoners are treated and try to make improvements. Just like when plants don't thrive, we look at the conditions they're being grown in. We don't blame the plant.
Despite the fact that people love to make Israel the victim in the fight against Hamas, here is the reality:
While Hamas is a small group of rebel terrorists, Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world
While the survivors of October 7th were rescued, comforted, and whisked away to hotels to process their grief, Palestinians have been bombed for 6 weeks straight and have had to leave their loved ones in mass graves or still buried under the rubble because they’re still fighting to survive
While families being voluntarily displaced along the border in Israel have been given all expense paid hotel rooms to stay in indefinitely, displaced Palestinians have been sleeping outdoors or 10 to a mattress in tents or doorways
While Palestinians have been continually pushed off their land for 75 years, Israel has been paying people to come take their place (and arming the settlers to make sure Palestinians don't come back for their home)
This is most certainly a David and Goliath story, but Israel is Goliath, not David.
I used to think Israel was a religious country, but then a friend who is a converted Jew told me that hardly anyone there is religious. I was floored because I thought the whole Zionist movement was based on the Bible, which you wouldn’t believe in if you weren’t religious. This doesn’t seem very Godly either:
Israel is the 10th biggest arms dealer on the planet and sells its technology and weapons to an estimated 130 nations, including military dictatorships in Asia and Latin America. (The Chris Hedges Report)
It’s how I know America is not a religious nation either, as many would have us believe. Neither Jesus nor God would condone manufacturing and selling weapons of war that are designed and used to kill humans, whom He made in His image.
👀 Life Observations
How You Treat People Matters
I've been following a group on Facebook called St. Pete Girl Boss. I lurked for quite a while before becoming more active on their posts.
I noticed one member several times appeal to other web designers who might have extra work. So, I reached out to her to see if she wanted to have coffee.
The most surprising thing I noticed when I saw her at the coffee shop was that she had red hair. I'd expected a brunette because her photo on Facebook was in black and white.
I soon found out she's trans. I couldn't tell that for sure when I met her, and I hate to make assumptions about people. That never ends well.
We met up again at my first official St. Pete Girl Boss event, and she talked to the group about how accepted she felt as a trans person. (It was also Trans Awareness Week last week in case you didn't know.)
When she said that, it immediately took me back to the women's networking business I owned in Sarasota.
Many of you never knew that version of me, but me and that business were big fucking deals. It was a crazy glamorous, successful time for me. My monthly mixers routinely had 120 incredible, creative female entrepreneurs in attendance.
And one of them was often Sabrina. This was 15 years ago, and I'd only ever met one other trans person in my life and that was in college when I barely knew what that meant.
I never batted an eyelash when I saw Sabrina at my mixers. If you showed up as a woman at my mixer, you were welcomed inside. Sabrina was hot shit in her own right. A tennis player with better legs and a better ass than me, I wouldn't dare have questioned her feminine credentials.
My other members, with few exceptions, loved and accepted her. She was always in a crowd.
Only later did I learn that Sabrina didn't always feel comfortable being Sabrina, but she did at my mixers.
I remember at one mixer a drunk member came up to me later in the night and attempted to tell me that someone at the mixer was a man. “Here we go,” I thought. Turns out, she was talking about one of the CIS women members. I was relieved and encouraged the woman to find a safe ride home.
I never knew Sabrina outside my mixers, but I knew through a mutual acquaintance that she struggled. It was with great sadness that I learned about a year into her attendance that she had taken her own life.
I was incredibly torn up, and I made a special announcement about her at the next mixer. I applauded my members for making her feel welcome and made it clear that those who identify as women were always welcome at my events.
It is just another reminder that you never know what someone is going through. Many people have a great amount of support in their life but others feel very alone.
You can be that person who's kind to someone and who makes them feel welcome. You can look back knowing that you created a bit of light in their life that they didn't find elsewhere.
📑 Project Updates
The Property Purchase
I'm still in a holding pattern with this, and now we've found liens on the property totaling $4200. The seller will have to agree to have those paid at closing or there won't be a closing. Please continue to send good energy my way!
I'm trying to keep in mind that things can still go wrong while also being excited about the possibilities this property holds for me.
The Book
I've got about 50% of How To Find Joy in a Capitalist Hellscape written. I won't win NaNoWriMo this year, however, because of my last Cornell class that is requiring me to write a TED talk. (You know, just an ordinary thing people do in a 2-week time period along with other assignments and working a job.)
My goal is to have the first draft of the book done while I'm 50, and I'd love to get that done next month. But I'm giving myself January for leeway because… I need to start writing out 100 holiday cards soon.
The Hugmobile
I'm working on this month's Joy Mail to my paying subscribers! I haven't had much time to sit at my art desk lately, so I was excited to spend some time there today.
Now is a great time to become a paying subscriber and get fun goodies in the mail every month.
The Hug Ambassador Certification course is coming along great, and I hope to make more progress next month. I'd love to have it ready for January and start promoting it.
Rebranding
I changed the logo a smidge for my re-named web development business and am almost done with the new website.
One snag I ran into is that my online bookkeeping service won't let me take invoice payments because there's no money in my new bank account. Except how will I put any money there if I can't let people pay for invoices?
It's dumb, and I hope I can get them to come around.
Collage
I finished a collage piece I started over a month ago.
Instant Terrorist: Just Add Guns
It’s a commentary on angry young white American males, who represent the demographic who commit, almost without exception, all the school shootings in this country. I hope that we are moving toward a place where these young men with so much potential can get better messages from society about their human potential and better access to mental healthcare and encouragement from adults to seek it out. And, of course, in the meantime, I’d like neither them nor anyone else to have access to guns meant to kill humans as efficiently as possible.
🌻 One Positive Thing
There is a tree in my neighborhood (I believe a silk floss) that is covered in huge spikes like something out of an enchanted forest. Every year when it blossoms, the bees flock to it. There are no leaves on the tree when it blossoms. The entire tree is covered in flowers all along every branch. So many bees are on the tree at once that you can hear the tree buzzing. I walked by the other day with a friend and got to introduce him to the phenomena. It makes me happy to see/hear so many happy bees.
⏰️ Currently
🤹♀️ Trying to do too many things at once!
🥧 Appreciating that, as Thanksgiving approaches, I am so incredibly thankful for my simple, meaningful life.
🔥 Feeling a bit sore from standing for 5 hours last night while acting as the humble assistant for a friend who was bartending a drink that she lights on fire.