My situation is not exactly the same as yours but it is a story of how to get along with friends and family who are on the total opposite side of the aisle, so perhaps you can find something to help you in my strategies.

My parents are extremely right wing - in India. It is mortifying and horrifying enough that they are this way but to make things worse my mother is also deep into conspiracy theories on a similar scale and off-the-charts-insane like QAnon in the US. At the same time I am also still engaged in a decade-long effort to build a decent relationship with my parents. So even though this is a self-imposed form of hell, the fact remains I am trying to actively love (as in verb-love) these people whose political opinions horrify me and who ruined their relationship with me in the past by throwing me out of their home as a teenager, abusing me as a child, etc.

Step 0 in accomplishing this task is to actually be clear, honest, and fully committed with yourself that you do want to keep and build these relationships.

For many years I was on the fence about it and I made no effort at all to build a relationship with my parents. That was fine! If you are here, you are not doing anything wrong! And neither will you be doing anything wrong if you do choose to walk away properly from people who trigger you too much. Many years after not working and fence-sitting, I intellectually realized I wanted to fix things but emotionally I remained uncommitted, angry, resentful, and blisteringly mad about how unfair it was that *I* was the one doing this fixing and building. This was also a valid stage to go through, and I suspect you're somewhere around here, feeling angry and hurt and torn within yourself that these are your fucking choices: to learn how to get along with assholes or else to lose all your family and friends. The unfairness REALLY RANKLES. This is extremely valid and extremely real, and there is no way out of this stage but through it. But sadly, no forward movement will happen FOR YOU EMOTIONALLY in this phase, as far as making your peace with your situation goes. (Also no forward movement will happen in fixing the relationship but that is not necessarily a bad thing, if you're in this stage.)

Accomplishing Step 0 - becoming fully and truly committed to building and maintaining these relationships - is a hue, huge task in itself. I would strongly encourage you to work with a psychodynamic therapist or some other modality that pays attention to childhood issues, in order to get to Step 0. You will know you have reached Step 0 when you can "radically accept" that your friends and family voted against your life, your rights, and your wellbeing. That is who they are, this is what you are dealing with, and you no longer have any wish to wrestle with this reality (try to convince them, try to lead by example, try to explain yourself, try to talk to them, try to get them to acknowledge your pain or at least be forced to see it, etc) because you. just. fully. accept their political position is their political position - you accept their total separateness from you and you accept their right to be separate from you - and even though you may be angry, even though you may be hurt, even though you still hate their politics, you want to just get on with building the relationship. If you're there, then you can move on to

Stratagem 1: find things you enjoy about this person, and trying to do things you mutually enjoy with them. Even the smallest movement towards identifying and then amplifying the good (by having small good interactions) will help. Repeated good interactions are what finally defeated my insecurity about "giving my parents an inch" - it felt so threatening to me to have anything nice with these people against whom I was nursing so much anger, and I TREASURED my anger, I didn't want to lose it! Having repeated nice experiences made me feel like, okay, I still haven't lost my right to anger or my anger even though I am having fun with them. Both my anger and my love can coexist. This has been a HUGE relief.

Stratagem 2: stop talking politics with them entirely. These are not your politics buddies. FIND OTHER POLITICS BUDDIES YOU CAN RELIABLY GET SUPPORT FROM for the political side of you. This type of compartmentalization is a healthy practice because nobody can be everything to us. Nobody in our personal life can check all the boxes and be everything we need from the world. People's failings are sometimes located near the very things we consider "basic shit". They are human, and this is okay, and we can find others to fill this basic need for us.

Stratagem 3: This may seem like the opposite of Stratagem 2 but it is not - don't stay silent when your friends and family say horrible political things to you or around you. You don't bring up politics but you don't stay quiet when unacceptable things are spoken in your vicinity. You MUST say something, you MUST speak your mind. Make it short but make it honest. Otherwise you build up an incredible amount of resentment and anger that will poison the relationship and run counter to your Step 0 goals.

Stratagem 4: After you say it, move on without belaboring your point or trying to get them to agree with you. Say it, and then completely let it go. Saying it is the point. The goal is NOT to change them, move them, make them think like you, make them acknowledge you, make them apologize, etc. The goal is unburdening yourself by speaking your truth, protecting the relationship by not allowing thoughts to fester in secret. If what they have said is horrible, say, "Wow, that's pretty horrible," and then move on immediately - warmly, affectionately, taking the sting out of it with your manner, without holding a grudge. You get your satisfaction by speaking up, not by making them bend. This strikes a great balance between being authentic and yet sidestepping useless conflict.

Stratagem 5: If they want to argue with you, you have to learn how to bow out smoothly without engaging in that. Say things like, "Oh, dad, that's fine, we can let it go. Tell me about Auntie's health..." Again it is important to remain non-retaliatory, don't punish them for wanting to hash this out by being angry. Be calm and warm and affectionate, but do not be moved into engaging in the political discussion. Walk out and take a short break if you need to. But come back on your own as soon as possible, and be loving. These are your people. You have boundaries with them, not walls.

I'm usually allergic to a lot of the way "find the bright side" kind of things are framed, but this extended quotation from Great Tide Rising by Kathleen Dean Moore came across my Mastodon feed and really resonated with me.

Over the years, college students have often come to my office distraught, unable to think of what they might be able to do to stop the terrible losses caused by an industrial growth economy run amok. So much dying, so much destruction. I tell them about Mount Saint Helens, the volcano that blasted a hole in the Earth in 1980, only a decade before they were born.

Those scientists were so wrong back in 1980, I tell my students. When they first climbed from the helicopters, holding handkerchiefs over their faces to filter ash from the Mount Saint Helens eruption, they did not think they would live long enough to see life restored to the blast zone. Every tree was stripped gray, every ridgeline buried in cinders, every stream clogged with toppled trees and ash. If anything would grow here again, they thought, its spore and seed would have to drift in from the edges of the devastation, long dry miles across a plain of cinders and ash. The scientists could imagine that– spiders on silk parachutes drifting over rubble and plain, a single samara spinning into the shade of a pumice stone. It was harder to imagine the time required for flourishing to return to the mountains – all the dusty centuries.

But here they are today: On the mountain, only thirty-five years later, these same scientists are on their knees, running their hands over beds of moss below lupine in lavish purple bloom. Tracks of mice and fox wander along a stream, and here, beside a ten-foot silver fir, a coyote's twisted scat grows mushrooms. What the scientists know now, but didn't understand then, is that when the mountain blasted ash and rock across the landscape, the devastation passed over some small places hidden in the lee of rocks and trees. Here, a bed of moss and deer fern under a rotting log. There under a boulder, a patch of pearly everlasting and the tunnel to a vole's musty nest. Between stones in a buried stream, a slick of algae and clustered dragonfly larvae. Refugia, they call them: places of safety where life endures. From the refugia, mice and toads emerged blinking onto the blasted plain. Grasses spread, strawberries sent out runners. From a thousand, ten thousand, maybe countless small places of enduring life, forests and meadows returned to the mountain.

I have seen this happen. I have wandered the edge of Mount Saint Helens vernal pools with ecologists brought to unscientific tears by the song of meadowlarks in this place.

My students have been taught, as they deserve to be, that the fossil-fueled industrial growth culture has brought the world to the edge of catastrophe. They don't have to "believe in" climate change to accept this claim. They understand the decimation of plant and animal species, the poisons, the growing deserts and spreading famine, the rising oceans and melting ice. If it's true that we can't destroy our habitats without destroying our lives, as Rachel Carson said, and if it's true that we are in the process of laying waste to the planet, then our ways of living will come to an end – some way or another, sooner or later, gradually or catastrophically – and some new way of life will begin. What are we supposed to do? What is there to hope for at the end of this time? Why brother trying to patch up the world while so many others seem intent on wrecking it?

These are terrifying questions for an old professor; thank god for the volcano's lesson. I tell them about the rotted stump that sheltered spider eggs, about a cupped cliff that saved a fern, about all the other refugia that brought life back so quickly to the mountain. If destructive forces are building under our lives, then our work in this time and place, I tell them, is to create refugia of the imagination. Refugia, places where ideas are sheltered and encouraged to grow.

Even now, we can create small pockets of flourishing, and we can make ourselves into overhanging rock ledges to protect life so that the full measure of possibility can spread and reseed the world. Doesn't matter what it is, I tell my students; if it's generous to life, imagine it into existence. Create a bicycle cooperative, a seed-sharing community, a wildlife sanctuary on the hill below the church. Raise butterflies with children. Sing duets to the dying. Tear out the irrigation system and plant native grass. Imagine water pumps. Imagine a community garden in the Kmart parking lot. Study ancient corn. Teach someone to sew. Learn to cook with the full power of the sun at noon.

We don't have to start from scratch. We can restore pockets of flourishing life ways that have been damaged over time. Breach a dam. Plant a riverbank. Vote for schools. Introduce the neighbors to one another's children. Celebrate the solstice. Slow a river course with a fallen log. Tell stories of how indigenous people live on the land. Clear the grocery carts out of the stream.

Maybe most effective of all, we can protect refugia that already exist. They are all around us. Protect the marshy ditch behind the mall. Work to ban poisons from the edges of the road. Save the hedges in your neighborhood. Boycott what you don't believe in. Refuse to participate in what is wrong. There is hope in this: An attention that notices and celebrates thriving where it occurs; a conscience that refuses to destroy it.

From these sheltered pockets of moral imagining, and from the protected pockets of flourishing, new ways of living will spread across the land, across the salt plains and beetle killed forests. Here is how life will start anew. Not from the edges over centuries of invasion; rather from small pockets of good work, shaped by an understanding that all life is interdependent, and driven by the one gift humans have that belongs to no other: practical imagination – the ability to imagine that things can be different from what they are now.

I actually got paid to do this.

For three years (from 1996 to 1999) I worked as a Public Information and Consultation Advisor for the Federal Treaty Negotiation Office in British Columbia. It was essentially my job to talk to angry and racist non-native people about the land claims settlements we, the federal government, were negotiating with First Nations.

One thing that helped me do this job was a story I heard Utah Phillips tell at the 1997 Vancouver Folk Music Festival. Seems one day he was told of an old cowboy in New Mexico who was dying. This old cowboy had ridden on some of the last cattle drives on the Great Plains in the 1800s and had scores of songs in his head about that time. Utah made an effort to go visit him on his death bed way out in the desert. When he got to the cowboy's cabin, a nurse answered the door, said he was expected and asked him to wait in the sitting room while she got the cowboy ready for the visitor.

The cowboy was an avid reader and had many hundreds of books. As he was waiting Utah scanned the shelves and saw what was what. He was surprised and shocked to see tract after tract from the John Birch Society, a virulent right wing political movement that clashed deeply with Utah's own hard left politics. Utah reflected on the predicament he was in. Here was this cowboy full of all of these songs, and there was this irresolvable political gap between them.

But thinking on it more, Utah realized that the REASON the cowboy had so many political books is that he didn't actually KNOW much about politics. In fact if he were to ask the old man about politics, he knew the old man would only give him lies, stuff that he didn't believe but that was recited out of the books. Utah Phillips noted that there was not one book on cowboys or cowboy music on the book shelves, and that's what Utah was there for. He entered the bedroom of the dying cowboy and passed a lovely day trading songs and stories of the cattle drives of the 19th century.

In conclusion Utah said "You know, if you talk to people about what they know, they will always tell you the truth."

That line stayed with me as I ventured in cowboy country shortly afterwards. I was meeting with a group of loggers and ranchers in Williams Lake, in the interior of British Columbia and they were a hard crew. Every month we met and every month they told me that they didn't want any land claims settlements with the "goddamn Indians" in their area. One guy, a man I'll call Bob used to go on and on about "you can't make deals with Indians, they can't be trusted, they're no good with their word..." That sort of thing.

Now I am Aboriginal myself, and this rankled after a while. But keeping Utah's words in mind I challenged Bob one day and said, "Bob, you know, I'm Indian and I'm trustworthy and you can make deals with me. I know for a fact that what you're saying is bullshit. It's lies. So I'm not going to ask you about Indians anymore. Instead I'm going to talk to you about something you do know about, and that is logging. Why don't you take me out to see your operation?"

Bob agreed and the next day I met him at 5:00am with a thermos of coffee and a box of Tim Hortons and we climbed into his F350 and headed out into the Cariboo Mountains. We drove for two hours and the whole time we talked about logging and what it's like being in the business, what kind of markest he was trying to develop, and how much he loved his new machinery He talked about his new feller-buncher like he was a dad with a newborn. Gone was the intransigent racist and here beside me was an interesting man, telling me the truth about what he loved.

When we got out to the cut block where his crew was working, he radioed them in and they came down to get coffee and donuts. Of the 12 guys he had working for him, six were First Nations. I laughed when I met them and asked them if they knew Bob's opinions on the trustworthiness of Indians. "Oh yeah," One of them laughed. "He's an old blowhard!"

But Bob countered by saying that THESE guys were great, that they had been with him for coming on 20 years. THEY were different.

We laughed. Really hard. We talked for a while about what THESE guys felt about land claims and they all had different opinions. Respect arose in the space of nuance and reflection.

So many people parrot opinions. In fact opinions are so often just a front for something else, the yawning abyss of ignorance. Very few people hold fixed opinions about things that matter deeply to them. Instead the hold nuanced and thoughtful interests. That's not to say that I wouldn't claw your eyes out if you hurt my child, but that's different from having an opinion on Tiger Woods or abortion or whether or not Obama is doing a good job. Most of us aren't Tiger, a pregnant woman facing a choice or the President. Most opinions are shallow, and the holder of them guards their superficiality with outrage and emotion to prevent you from getting close and discovering nuance. People hold opinons out of fear or loyalty. But when it comes to something you really care about, it's less about an opinion and more about the nuanced, many layered, complex fabric of knowledge, practical, theoretical, aspirational and emotional

From that day on, I never again talked to Bob about First Nations people, but he became a very involved person in our advisory committee because he had a piece of his heart staked in the process. I came to respect him very much, even though he continued to blow hard against my rookie colleagues and say stupid racist things that somewhere he must have believed. He did it just to put them off guard, to protect his own vulnerabilities and mask his fear. I came to respect what lay beneath the opinion, which was a real fear that land claims would ruin his logging operation. I dismissed the racism but respected Bob and what was really at stake for him. And I think he came to respect me too.

It was the best job I ever had.

In a place where an act as simple as reading the Quran can be an act of defiance, the Taliban has banned women from hearing other women's voices in its latest attempt to impose their version of Islamic law on Afghanistan, including mandating that women refrain from performing Takbir—an Islamic expression of faith—and from reciting the Quran aloud, even in the presence of other women.

The UN and Amnesty have stated that the oppression of Afghan women, made prisoners in their homes, unable to speak, has erased women from all spheres of life. Girls born in the 20 years free of Taliban rule went to school and learned of their mothers' experience of repression, only to lose the ability to attend school with the Taliban's return in 2021. Women lost their ability to work, learn, travel alone, or receive healthcare and became "faceless, voiceless shadows" in a brutal apartheid against women.

What makes the Taliban's ideology so uniquely repressive of women?

"What sets the Taliban apart from other Islamic groups," Moheq added, "are the tribal codes of Afghanistan also embedded in the Taliban's ideology." A fundamental part of the tribal codes is defining a narrow place for women: They exists as the property of men and for the honor of men. For example, Moheq explained, "the rape of a woman is not seen as wrong because she was raped, but because she represents the honor of a man," and that is what was violated.

The Taliban's ideology was strong enough to draw manpower from the country's tribal areas for long enough to outlast the United States and the Western-backed government in Kabul. In return, as the primary manpower of the Taliban comes from tribal areas of the country, they further reinforce the Taliban's conservative culture, including the continued exclusion of women.

Among more than 7,500 Afghans living in the country with access to mobile and internet services, the survey found, 66% said they agreed or strongly agreed that human rights for women were a top priority for the future of Afghanistan. Nearly half, or 45% of those, strongly supported the Taliban's control of the country.

I'm eager and willing to share my nearly 20 years of industry experience to help other Artist,Producers, and Writers Grow. I will offer truthful feedback and advice on how you might make your project better. I will listen to everything you send me and respond immediately. If your material is what I'm looking for I'll be swift to put my experience to work for you.

Brian Keith is a Artist/Writer/Producer/Musician with 17 years of Industry Experience. He's worked with some of the biggest names in the business as both a producer and music director. He is the C.E.O of 2039 music Group based in Cincinnati, OH.

I can help you understand the essential elements required for a" Hit Song". I will bring my considerable experience to bear on assessing the strengths and weaknesses in your music submissions and guide you towards that elusive Hit. I can help you become a better song writer as I enhance and redefine your creative song writing abilities.

Successful / "Hit" songwriting... is the very foundation of the music industry. It is all about "The Song...You Cannot Polish A Turd'. The difference between a great song ...and "a hit song" can be in fact be tiny. The trick is knowing how to build on the core idea...and find true clarity in its content.

Discover the perfect balance between the key elements needed for success which is a top quality melody and lyric combined with solid structure and arrangement.

NB Positive critique is my watch word and no musician will be harmed in the honing process :-)

- KILLERSONGS

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Washtenaw County put three ballot issues before voters in Tuesday's primary elections. All three touch on components of our environment. All three passed by a wide margin. WEMU's David Fair discusses the results and future impacts with Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi.

South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conference and festival in Austin, Texas. It brings together global innovators in media, entertainment, music and film for a week of concerts and conversations. The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce’s marketing arm ChooseATL is bringing a number of musicians, entrepreneurs and local companies to Austin this weekend.

https://youtu.be/iTw4VJBx5BU Above is a lyric video we put together last week. This is a song from an album I recorded this summer that was supposed to be a solo project but then turned into a band.

Since the coronavirus pandemic battered China's economy, tens of millions of urban and factory jobs have evaporated. Some workers and business owners have banded together to pressure companies or local governments for subsidies and payouts. But many of the newly unemployed have instead returned to their rural villages. China's vast countryside now serves as an unemployment sponge, soaking up floating migrant workers in temporary agricultural work on small family plots. "Say a factory used to hire 1,000 temporary workers; now, without new orders, these business owners can't afford to hire this many people," Yan Xiyun, a labor intermediary, told NPR. "The factory I usually go to in previous years could easily hire 2,000 people. Now there is scarcely anyone [on the factory floor]." Ten years ago, Yan left her own village near the small city of Zhumadian in Henan province for the first time and joined the migrant workforce. Now, she's a headhunter working on commission, placing thousands

Today, London Breed’s reelection bid for San Francisco Mayor may be vulnerable to an upset. Then, the joy of transforming into iconic characters. And we revisit one of our local haunts.

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John was overwhelmed by shame. He couldn’t shake his addictions and felt alone and helpless. Your gifts lead the broken into the healing arms of our loving heavenly Father. Thank you for sharing!

This interview was originally conducted for inclusion in our “Sound Art” theme. Jeff Jacoby is a Sound Designer and Sound Artist with over 40 years of experience. With an Emmy to his name plus two other Emmy nominations, 2 Cine´ Golden Eagles, 2 Crystal Radios, 2 Benjamin Franklins, and 5 BEA Best of Competition awards, […]

Jack and I couldn’t shift the site into archive/hibernation mode without putting together one last post. When we announced the decision, we heard from so many in the community about what the site has meant to you over the years. We hope you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence as we look back on what the site […]

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What does the Bible say about how to take care of our bodies so that we could have a longer, stronger, more abundant life? - Part 2

http://www.musicxray.com/xrays/2672421 TOMMYWORKS - SHE'S SAYING GOODBYE

Our young people are being kidnapped by culture, and many are quitting church. But you can reach youth like Ethan by supporting the many Amazing Facts resources and events designed to help them find freedom in Christ. Will you support faith-building conferences and materials that lead others to God’s kingdom? Thank you!

John was overwhelmed by shame. He couldn’t shake his addictions and felt alone and helpless. But through your gifts, he heard God calling to his heart. Watching Amazing Facts on TV, John was drawn back to God and church, where he found the courage and strength to finally break free of sinful habits. You can call to more despairing hearts when you support God’s work through Amazing Facts evangelistic media. Your gifts lead the broken into the healing arms of our loving heavenly Father. Thank you for sharing!

The Final Pam screenshot

Rhaomi posts about one of the funniest goddamn things ever published on the internet – McElroy brothers' Monster Factory vids, with beloved faves ... and new episodes!

What does the Bible say about how to take care of our bodies so that we could have a longer, stronger, more abundant life? - Part 1

What does the Bible say about how to take care of our bodies so that we could have a longer, stronger, more abundant life? - Part 2

El cantante puertorriqueño habló sobre su vida, sus canciones y su carrera musical, así como de Richie Ray.

I have just moved and wish to update my address with Equifax. The other credit agencies allowed me to do this online, but Equifax say I have to mail them a photocopy of my driver's license and SS card. I have never updated my address with them in the past, but they already have all my previous addresses, so do I need to mail them my details too - or will they just get updated automagically?

A quick Google says you can change your address in the myEquifax Dispute Center, but if I do that and choose to dispute my current address (my previous one), I'm given the following options for "Why are you disputing your current address" - "I have never lived at this address", "This address belongs to another person with a similar name", "I believe I am a victim of fraud or identity theft and this address is not mine" - none of which fit my pretty common "I have moved".
It seems that I'm missing something here - that the only way to update my address with a major credit agency is by mail? - and if I do so, I'm also not quite sure if I'll receive confirmation when/ if it is done. Am/ will I?

En 6AM Hoy por Hoy Iván Cancino propone llevar el caso de Marelbys Meza a la Justicia Penal Militar y solicitará medidas a la Fiscalía para los policías implicados.

En 6AM de Caracol Radio estuvo el abogado Iván Cancino, quien defiende a Marelbys Meza, para hablar sobre la condena de diez años de prisión a dos policías implicados en las chuzadas a la exniñera de Laura Sarabia.

The first two pieces of jazz vinyl I bought (in 1980's!): 1) “Charlie Parker with Miles Davis” and 2) Miles Davis “Water Babies.”
The biggest impression I had from both...

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Fifty-seven percent of Floridian voters wanted to protect abortion rights going up to about the 24th week of pregnancy. But a 60 percent majority is required there, so the abortion amendment failed.

How do family members keep hope alive of one day reuniting with their loved ones? NPR's Michel Martin talks Yarden Gonen, whose sister Romi was taken hostage during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Samantha Harvey talks about her new Booker Prize-winning novel Orbital. It follows a day in the life of astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

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A childhood full of Christmasses in Wales has left IDEAS producer Tom Howell pining for a certain kind of nostalgic poem this winter. So he turns to poets to put into words a strange feeling of homesickness, nostalgia, and yearning in his documentary, Fireside and Icicles.

Marlboro, 7-Up, DDT. These companies, and more, once included images of infants in their print ads. We've come a long way, baby.

[Written by Stephen Wright] Boxer Saundre “Dash” Simmons won his third straight fight after stopping Marcell Sams Jr in the first round in Charlotte, North Carolina, yesterday [March 2]. It appeared to be a glancing left hook that dropped Sams [1-10], who rose to his feet but showed little interest in continuing, with the referee […]

Hockey Canada's CEO and board resigned this week after a secret fund to deal with sexual assault allegations came to light. The news came as political and corporate pressure ramped up over the organization's handling of the situation.

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As retailers accelerate into the ‘golden quarter’ new YouGov research finds nearly half of consumers (48%) that buy Christmas gifts say they are not influenced by Black Friday, Cyber Monday or any other last-minute deals.