Meaningful ways to fill your hours during a pandemic

How are you? I hope someone in your life is asking you that, sincerely. If not - tell me. 

Things are rough for so many people. People haven't paid rent in months because they don't have work. Small businesses are going out of business. Nonprofit art groups are folding. So many, many are struggling. 

Little Miss Privilege here has a home and someone paying her way, since she's under-employed. 

I wish I could help you financially. I can help you if you are feeling useless and bored:

I hope you have made it a point to amplify science-based info, and if you haven't, I hope you will do so. Your voice online is important! You have a role to play right now: countering misinformation online. 

I regularly repost things from my county's health department. I comment positively on those posts as well, to counter all of the negative comments they get - and am pleased that my comments get far more likes than the conspiracy theorists trying to convince people that masks are oppressive and un-American. I also retweet @nursekelsey a lot: she's a trauma ICU nurse and provides regularly updates both about her work experences with COVID-19 patients and how she handles her home life - it's inspirational and the reality check I need. 

I also have been looking up services in my local community that help people with rent, with food or with mental health services, and sharing them on social media. Has it helped anyone? I don't know. But I know that info is needed - and I notice it gets reshared every time I do it. 

I also spend my days writing postcards and emails to elected officials, telling them to GIVE PEOPLE MONEY. And amplifying information about how to volunteer with food banks and Meals on Wheels, nonprofits that are desperate for volunteers. And trying not to get the 'Rona myself. 

I hope you got to see Jupiter and Saturn in one telescope shot, something we've never been able to do before and, if you are my age, won't be able to do again in our lifetime. If you didn't, look around for some other upcoming thing-to-see-in-the-skies. I live in a town where street lights abound and, yet, I still get some pretty good views of astronomical events, if it's not raining. Just throw something down on the ground, lay down and look up at the night sky for a while. Even just 30 minutes. It's amazing what you'll see. 

If you want to take a break from doom scrolling, I highly recommend transcribing some historical documents so you make them more searchable and accessible to everyone, particularly researchers. Some examples of efforts you can join: 

• Climate Cardinals. An international nonprofit working to translate climate change research and information, making the climate movement more accessible to those who don’t speak English. Here's the description of what volunteers do. 
   
• Colored Conventions, hosted at the University of Delaware. From 1830 until the 1890s, already free and once enslaved Black Americans came together in state and national political meetings in the USA called "Colored Conventions." Before the Civil War, they strategized about how to achieve educational, labor and legal justice at a moment when Black rights were constricting nationally and locally. After the Civil War, their numbers swelled as they continued to mobilize to ensure that Black citizenship rights and safety, Black labor rights and land, Black education and institutions would be protected under the law. Online volunteers transcribe newspaper accounts of these meetings,  to allow this historical records to be more easily accessible and searchable for students and scholars across disciplines and for community researchers interested in the history of activist church, civil rights, educational and entrepreneurial engagement. 
   
• DIY History is an online volunteering project from the University of Iowa’s Digital Library. Online volunteers transcribe digitized artifacts related to Iowa history so that they become searchable, allowing researchers to quickly seek out specific information, and general users to browse and enjoy the materials more easily. Scanned documents that need to be transcribed and tagged include diaries, letters and newspaper articles from war time and manuscripts related to early Iowa lives, social justice, fanzines, recipes and cookbooks. 
   
• FamilySearch. Transcribe scanned family records (census records, property deeds, marriage records, etc.). Tags: history, historical. 
   
• Old Weather project: online volunteers transcribe hand-written weather observations made by Royal Navy ships around the time of World War I; using old weather observations can help predict our climate's future. Tags: history, historical, climate, science. 
   
• Smithsonian Digital Volunteer program. The Smithsonian seeks to engage the public in making its collections more accessible. "We're working hand-in-hand with digital volunteers to transcribe historic documents and collection records to facilitate research and excite the learning in everyone." Transcription turns handwritten and typed documents into searchable and machine-readable resources, creating an incredibly valuable asset for art, history, literary and scientific researchers across the globe. From high school to graduate studies, transcription allows students to engage with primary source materials – a key part of the learning experience. Transcription preserves these historic documents for future generations. 
   
• The Freedom on the Move (FOTM) public database project at Cornell University is a major digital database effort to make the search of North American fugitive slave advertisements in newspapers from regional, state, and other collections from the 1700s and 1800s easy to search and the data easy to evaluate. Online volunteers add data tags to the screened entries and transcribe the ads. Here is an excellent article on about the database, from which Dr. Mitchell's quote is taken. 
   
• Indiana World War I Service Record Cards is a project by the Indiana Archives that engages online volunteers in transcribing service record cards that detail the military service of Indiana men and women who served in the armed forces at the time of World War I. It also goes by the name of Indiana Archives and Records Administration Virtual Volunteer Program. 
   
• Library of Congress By the People (crowd.loc.gov). Launched in the autumn of 2018 at the LOC's very first transcribe-a-thon and on the 155th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Online volunteers can transcribe, review and tag digitized images of manuscripts and typed materials from the Library’s collections. These transcriptions improve search, readability and access to handwritten and typed documents for those who are not fully sighted or cannot read the handwriting of the original documents. The site also offers a free guide (PDF) on How to host a transcribe-a-thon (PDF). Note: I wrote the LOC folks on Twitter about all you students wanting letters to confirm you are doing this service. They responded: That's awesome! We have a few spots on our "About" page explaining how to obtain service documentation. e-mailing us at crowd@loc.gov is the best way to get specifics. We provide verification for students all the time! 
   
• New York Public Library's collection of historic restaurant menus. If menus have been transcribed by other volunteers, then online volunteers can review transcriptions for errors, or can geotag the location of restaurants on a global map. 
   
• 1947 Partition Archive is "a grassroots, non-political, 100% volunteer run effort to document and preserve eye witness accounts from the partition of British India into present day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1947." Online volunteers can help with transcription of interviews (many interviews are in English), translation of interviews and other materials from/into Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Sindhi, and English, video editing, online outreach or legal advice. Tags: history, historic. 
   
• New York Public Library building inspector transcriptions. Online volunteers are helping to annotate digitized insurance atlases that map the history of the city's buildings and streets. Online volunteers can help to draw and check borders of property lines and buildings, enter addresses written on the maps, classify colors, and find place names. "Imagine if maps had a magic switch that let you explore the geography of the past. The Library wants to do this for New York City, turning historical atlases into time machines. To do it we need to harvest all the fantastic detail from the original maps: building footprints, addresses, place names, construction materials etc. — clues that will help unlock a million stories. With this information organized and searchable, you can ask new kinds of questions about history. Peel back the layers of the city and replay its growth. 'Check in' to vanished establishments and meet their ghostly proprietors. Or discover related historical documents (newspapers, photographs, business directories…) linked by place and time." Tags: history, historic. 
   
• Royal British Columbia Museum Transcribe project (Canada). Online volunteers transcribe various collections from the museum, including diaries, government papers, and more. "The transcriptions you create will become searchable data, facilitating learning and research around the world. Whether you choose to transcribe one page, one hundred pages, or just browse our collections, you’re helping us share the stories that matter."  

If you are looking for something inspiring: watch Cosmos. If you have never seen the Cosmos reboot, you should. The second season is showing on Fox now, but if you've missed it, look online for the DVDs of the first season for sale. There are some affordable used ones out there, if money is an issue. I've cried watching almost every episode - it just gives me a feeling of hope and a feeling of being a part of EVERYTHING, in a good way. I hope you find it comforting as well. 

Take care of yourself. You can do this. All the best in 2021. 

Kindness and community make sense

Atheists have their genesis in different places: some atheists are brought up in a family that is entirely secular, with no religious belief at all, and that lack of belief in a magical invisible friend, or group of friends, sticks for life. Others are brought up within a religious family, either marginally or deeply religious, and either reject that religious belief at some point or it just never takes hold.

Either way, whatever their origins, many atheists contemplate and create - and continually re-visit - a moral structure through which they can ponder life’s ethical and philosophical questions and human behavior. It's not true of all atheists, but many of us are on a continual journey of questions and exploration and considerations.

As I've said in many blogs, one of the things that lead me away from the religion I was brought up in, Christianity, was the lack of emphasis on good works being fundamental to the practice of Christianity, and the lack of emphasis on being happy in this life here on Earth.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:

it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9

According to the Bible, to be close to God - which is the only thing we should be focused on - and to gain happiness after death - as gaining in this life is not important - is possible only through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, rather than by human effort or good works. Baptism, church membership or church attendance, sacraments, or even being kind - I was taught, as a Baptist, that none of these were fundamentally important - they are nice, but not at all, ultimately, necessary. And your soul, your salvation, is more important than feeding the hungry, helping the sick, or being a positive force in your community.

What always got downplayed in the church sermons and Sunday school and Vacation Bible School classes I attended was

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 

Matthew 22:37-39

It just never felt right to me to downplay the importance of kindness to others as a fundamental part of a righteous life. By contrast, empathy and compassion has always felt right to me. The story that stood out to me most in the Bible as a child and teen, that always resonated with me, was the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). 

And make no mistake: while compassion and kindness and justice all feel so right to me as moral guides, they are not always easy. In fact, most of the time, they don't feel easy. I don't always benefit when I show empathy and compassion or when I engage in acts that I believe are a part of pursuing a just society. In fact, I've been burned quite a few times as a result of being kind or considerate or pursuing justice, by putting myself out there to help someone or a cause, and as I grow older, I hesitate more and more before I decide my help is needed. Yet, I keep doing it, because I just cannot get away from an overwhelming compulsion to do so.

As I said in an earlier blog, I believe morality comes from our human capacity for empathy and from reality. My morality is rooted in a sense of compassion that most humans are born with (the exception being sociopaths). It's also rooted in my logic: kindness makes sense. Justice makes sense. Equity makes sense. The benefits of kindness, justice and equity, in the long run, are worth the work. I get a personal benefit from a healthy community that I contribute to which, in a way, makes thinking communally a selfish interest. 

And all this is my very long-winded way of saying: wear a fucking mask. 😷

And #BlackLivesMatter.

Also see:

God hates your feelings. And your reason.

Atheist Morality.

Trying not to throw things at the TV when Franklin Graham comes on

I loathe Franklin Graham. He's president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and of a nonprofit Samaritan's Purse. He sews hate. Some of the hateful statements he's made:

• In March 2011, Graham said the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan "maybe" the second coming and Armageddon - talk that was meant to get more converts (and donors) to his ministry. BTW - we're still here.
   
• Graham refers to homosexuality as "an abomination" and compared "conversion therapy" to Conversion to Christianity. If you don't know, conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific and horrific practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual. There is no reliable evidence that sexual orientation can be changed and medical institutions warn that conversion therapy practices are ineffective and potentially harmful.
   
• Graham supported North Carolina Amendment 1 prohibiting same-sex marriage and all domestic partnerships.
   
• Graham defended Russian President Vladimir Putin's "gay propaganda" law and has praised his leadership for "protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda.
   
• He's made horrific anti-Islamic remarks, criticizing Islam for many of the same beliefs that are stated in the Bible.
   
• He repeatedly tried to assert that President Barack Obama, a Christian, was, in fact, a Muslim and supported terrorism.
   
• In November 2016, Graham told The Washington Post that God had played a role in Donald Trump's election as U.S. president, saying: "I could sense going across the country that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up." Since the election, Graham has "become known, above all, as the most vociferous evangelical ally" of Trump. 

Now Franklin Graham is on TV a lot, via a commercial, telling people that all they have to do is invite Jesus into their lives and they won't be afraid anymore of COVID19. You see, Graham isn't allowed to hold his big money-making rallies anymore, because people would DIE of this virus as a result, so he's got to find a new way to get followers and their money. That's why he's doing these commercials, and his message doesn't stop at just the prayer he thinks you should say: he also says you should, of course, call HIS prayer line and pray with one of HIS employees. And they will, of course, get your name and address and phone number, and then you can start being asked for financial donations to sustain his "ministry."

If these TV commercials weren't really all about Franklin Graham and him getting your money, he'd stop with that encouragement for you to pray - end commercial! But he wants to make certain you call that number, so he can get your info.

But even if he had stopped at just the prayer, I would have written a blog of anger, because all I can think of is all those many, many people who are going to pray that prayer, yet again, and think, okay, this time, maybe THIS time, Jesus is finally going to reveal himself to me and I'm going to experience all these things these preachers and believers keep assuring me is going to happen. I've just got to have FAITH! Maybe this time, my desperation and anxiety, at the very least will be addressed - and maybe THIS time, it will mean my husband or parents or whoever will stop abusing me, or my child will not have this chronic condition that is bankrupting our finances and draining me in every way, and on and on.

And they are going to pray that prayer, yet again, and it's not going to work, it's not going to help, and they are going to feel, yet again, like Jesus doesn't like them, that there's something wrong with them that they don't feel this think that Franklin Graham says he feels and you will too.

I am here to tell you that there is nothing wrong with you. It is exhausting to keep waiting for Jesus to show up and do what Franklin Graham promises - but you can stop that exhaustion and desperation by quitting your wait for a magical, invisible, and mythical being to help you. Instead, reboot with these two thoughts:

• other people have survived what you are struggling with, and that means you can too.
   
• no one person can fix this for you, but you will need help, and there IS help.
   
• this is a marathon, not a sprint, and your problems won't be addressed in a day, or a week, or a month, or even several weeks, and not be doing one simple thing, BUT there are absolutely things you can do, there are absolutely things you can control, and exercising that control, even in little things, but on an ongoing basis, will make things at least more survivable, and maybe even better. 

Those three points have helped me more than Jesus ever has.

Identify exactly what it is you need to make things in your life at least survivable, if not tolerable, and then pursue what you need to do to get exactly what you need. It could be:

• Accepting that you cannot change this quickly, and accepting that you will need to change your strategies at least a few times.
   
• Leaving the abusive home you are in - a domestic violence shelter can help you (but you will probably be put into a hotel).
   
• Selling whatever you can to get cash.
   
• Looking into whatever you can possibly do for cash that is safe and ethical: dog walking (a lot of home-bound people are desperate for this service right now, and there are ways to do it safely even in this age of COVID19), grocery shopping for someone else, simple yard work, etc.
   
• Scanning and posting images/screen captures of your medical and house/apartment bills on Flickr, with your address, social security number and account number edited out, and then contacting every elected official that serves you, as well as local press, and saying, "How am I supposed to pay all this now?" Be respectful but relentless in your communications.
   
• Exploring bankruptcy.
   
• Finding online and print resources that relate to what you are going through - postpartum depression, abuse by a married partner, abuse by an unmarried partner, elder abuse, child abuse, bankruptcy, a chronic health condition - and read them, don't just scan them. Be careful of pseudoscience sites or any sites trying to sell you something.
   
• Getting therapy - and if your insurance doesn't cover it, call your county health department and ask them where you should get it.
   
• Making a list of every nonprofit in your area that might be able to help somehow and contacting them.  

If you have time to watch TV or be on Facebook, then you have time to exercise. No matter how ridiculous you think it makes you look and no matter how useless it may feel, exercise every day, even if it's just walking back and forth on your block, or doing situps in your bedroom. If you have a condition that doesn't let you do situps, then work on your arms - cans of soup can be good for arm workouts. What exercise does is cause you to breathe more deeply, which helps reduce anxiety.

Set a timer for being on social media and turn it OFF when your timer is up, until tomorrow. Things to do instead of social media:

• Watch a movie or documentary, without using your phone in any way at the same time. Watch it the way you should in a theater, with a darkened room and quiet.
   
• Read a book. Any book. Take as many days or weeks you need to finish it. Then start another.
   
• While you clean your living space, listen to music or an audiobook or podcast.
   
• Teach yourself solitaire and play with real cards, not online cards. Play it while you listen to music or a podcast.
   
• Write. It can be a journal. It can be fanfiction. It can be a business plan for the business or nonprofit you would love to start. It could be what your speech would be if you were being inaugurated as President. 

The less time you spend on social media and, instead, engage in these simple activities, the better you will feel. And these activities not only help you get through dark thoughts, they also might prompt you to come up with an action plan that could help you in the long term.

And keep looking for hope.