Thanksgiving 2016 is here, and I think most of us are having a hard time finding things in which we can find enough peace, joy, humor, or light to be thankful for. But it's Thanksgiving, and that's what it should be for. So here goes, in completely random order.
Terry Tempest William's words (and if you live in the West or love the West and aren't reading High Country News, well fix that):
From the corner of my eye, a flash of wings: A burrowing owl has just landed on a barbed wire fence post. We stop. Its yellow eyes could burn grasses with its stare; we blink before it does. These small diurnal predators with their long spindly legs are ground-dwelling tricksters. Once inside their mounds, their calls register as rattlesnakes, mimicking the dry shaking of their tails: A warning, “Do not enter.” A second owl, hidden in the sage, flies out and meets the first on top of their mound. To me, these are the signature species of the Great Basin.
I am home.
The totally unexpected and joyful.
Fighting Democrats like Rep. Ruben Gallego, from Arizona:
I have a duty to tell the truth about Donald Trump. We cannot treat him like any other politician, or even like any other Republican, because he is not. He represents something much more dangerous. And while none of us want this to be the case, we have a duty to treat him like the threat he is – a threat to our values, a threat to our people, and a threat to our national identity.
Crazy ideas for making the world better:
How do you get people to discuss diarrhea? Ask them to write poetry about it.
That's the idea behind Poo Haiku, a competition created by Defeat DD, a campaign dedicated to the eradication of diarrheal disease. […]
Silence is a problem because diarrheal disease is a problem. It's the second-leading cause of death for children under the age of five. And it disproportionately affects kids in the developing world, where it's tougher to access safe water and medical care.
The ACLU:
It's the random things that are bringing solace these days, along with the regular, everyday things: family, friends and loved ones. This Thanksgiving, these are the things to hold particularly near. This Thanksgiving, these are the things to expand. Family is going to have become a much larger concept if we're all going to make it through the Trump years together—whether in a sisterhood of woman kind of way, or more directly by opening your home to someone needing your protection.
We will make it through these years. We lived through Bush/Cheney and should think of that as our training ground for Trump/Pence—we will hone our survival skills and we will save ourselves and our country. Because we will have to. What I'm probably most thankful for this year is that this community exists, that I am part of it, and that we will lead the resistance. Take this time reflect and to recharge and come back ready to fight.