I feel like the guy described here is a british bulldog
The last time we were on a long flight, my wife and I invented a game we call "Little Guy."
You start a game of Little Guy by saying, "I'm gonna hand you a little guy." The little guy is some kind of baby animal you are imagining. "Oh," she might say in response, "Okay," and hold out her hands for it. I will then mime handing her the animal. This provides some clues as to the little guy's size, weight, and general ungainliness.
She then gets to ask questions about what kind of little guy this is, BUT NO QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS ACTUAL APPEARANCE OR SPECIES ARE ALLOWED. Qualitative questions, or questions about his behavior, are the only ones permitted. She can ask "Is he soft?" or "Does he seem nervous about being held?" or "If I put him in the bathtub, does he seem okay with that?" or "Would he like a lil grape?" or "Is he the sort of little fellow who would wear a vest in a children's book?" but not "Does he have fur," "Is he a reptile," "Is he from Asia," etc. Some questions are in a grey area so you have to follow your heart, but the point is not to identify the animal as fast as possible: the point is to guess the animal purely based on vibes + how he would act if he were in your living room right now.
And I'm not limited to yes or no answers! If she asks, "Would it feel appropriate to see this little guy in a propeller hat?" I can reply, "Oh no, he has a gravity to him. A bowler hat would be a more appropriate hat." Or if she asks, "Does this little guy have protagonist energy?" I can say something like, "he probably wouldn't be the main character in a children's cartoon. He'd probably be the main character's ditzy best friend who's always eating sandwiches, or something."
We're big Twenty Questions to kill time in a waiting room people, but Little Guy is more about the journey than the destination. It's got a different kind of sauce that's nice if "killing time" and "lowering anxiety" need to happen hand in hand.
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Not that I think doing this for people is transactional but I'm so fed up.
All my life I was basically put in a position where I was responsible for other's physical and mental well being, even as a child.
I had to take care of my father and basically parent him even though I was a child. Even my mother told me I was responsible for him and had to take care of him when he was making my mental health abbohorent.
Then I had to take care of my uncle, and my step father, and my mothers. Under the guise of the fact that family helps each other.
But whenever I needed something and wanted or needed help, people's reactions to it just left me with trauma. Things that felt more like threats and dismissal of my problems.
So much time when I needed help I was given what other people thought was help and not what I said I needed or wanted. I literally had plans to get myself independant sabotaged because I wanted to work a job (where my mother also worked and I'd worked at before), get my own place, and get more of an education and EVENTUALLY much farther down the road, leave that job for whatever I studied for.
It wasn't the only instance of something like this either.
It didn't matter if I was uncomfortable or what I wanted to do at all. Grown adults and people much older than me would throw tantrums to get their way and my entire existence was basically and after thought, I don't feel like I've ever been treated like a real, full human being.
And now because I had a flare up with my back problems, mostly due to stress I'm sure since my step father just up out of the blue decided he was done, asked about how I'd feel about him dating again on week and then a week and a day later he's moving out and getting married and making it impossible for the people living here to stay. It's suddenly "We don't know what we're gonna do with you" after being told by my uncle we'd find a place to live together since it'd be easier. Because "I don't think we'd be able to take care of your back". Without asking how bad my back actually is after all the testing, without asking what treatment is available and how effective it is.
Even implying I wouldn't be able to transition now as if it was some casual thing and not just compounding how horrible shit is right now.
Meanwhile this man never cleans up after himself, can't properly do the most miniscule household chore. Can't/won't make meals if they take more than 2 ingrediants. I'm the one that does all that. He doesn't even clean his place after eating dinner and is a typical mama's boy that acts like everything needs to be done for him and the world revolves around him.
I wish I hadn't been such a fool to think care would be reciprocated. I wish I had never given any trust to any of these people.
I'm so indescribably exhausted. My life has been a waste and with my family's typical life span, it's more than half over. I don't know if there's a point to going on anymore, even though I gave myself til 40.
It's pathetic and doesn't feel worth it for me to try to pick up the pieces.
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The Big Damn List Of Stuff They Said You Didn't Know
Thousands and thousands of years back in three minutes:
But closer to the issue...
Five free eBooks on the colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine
Pluto Books Free Palestine Reading List 30-50% off
LGBT Activist Scott Long's Google Drive of Palestine Freedom Struggle Resources
(includes some of the reading material recced below)
The Cambridge UCU and Pal Society Resources List
List of Academic and Literary Books Compiled by Dr. Kiran Grewal
Academic Books (many available in Goldsmiths library)
Rosemary Sayigh (2007) The Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Bloomsbury
Ilan Pappé (2002)(ed) The Israel/Palestine Question, Routledge
(2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, OneWorld Publications
(2011) The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel, Yale University Press
(2015) The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge, Verso Books
(2017) The Biggest Prison on earth: A history of the Occupied territories, OneWorld Publications
(2022) A History of Modern Palestine, Cambridge University Press
Rashid Khalidi (2020) The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017, MacMillan
Andrew Ross (2019) Stone Men: the Palestinians who Built Israel, Verso Books
Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir (2012) The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine, Stanford University Press.
Ariella Azoulay (2011) From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947-1950, Pluto Press
Jeff Halper (2010) An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel, Pluto Press
(2015) War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification
(2021) Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State, Pluto Press
Anthony Loewenstein (2023) The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the Technology of Occupation around the World (CURRENTLY FREE TO DOWNLOAD ON VERSO)
Noura Erakat (2019) Justice for some: law and the question of Palestine, Stanford University Press
Neve Gordon (2008) Israel’s Occupation, University of California Press
Joseph Massad (2006) The persistence of the Palestinian question: essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, Routledge Edward Said (1979) The Question of Palestine, Random House
Memoirs, Novels & Poetry:
Voices from Gaza - Insaniyyat (The Society of Palestinian Anthropologists)
Letters From Gaza • Protean Magazine
Raja Shehadeh (2008) Palestinian Walks: forays into a Vanishing Landscape, Profile Books
Ghada Karmi (2009) In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, Verso Books
Fatma Kassem (2011) Palestinian Women: Narratives, histories and gendered memory, Bloombsbury
Mourid Barghouti (2005) I saw Ramallah, Bloomsbury
Izzeldin Abuelaish (2011) I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, Bloomsbury
Cate Malek and Mateo Hoke (eds)(2015) Palestine Speaks: Narrative of Life under Occupation, Verso Books
The Works of Mahmoud Darwish
Human Rights Reports & Documents
Information on current International Court of Justice case on ‘Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’
UN Commission of Inquiry Report 2022
UN Special Rapporteur Report on Apartheid 2022
Amnesty International Report on Apartheid 2022
Human Rights Watch Report on Apartheid 2021
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ 2009 (‘The Goldstone Report’)
Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, International Court of Justice, 9 July 2004
Films
Lemon Tree (2008)
Where Should The Birds Fly (2013)
Naila and the Uprising (2017)
Waltz with Bashir (2008)
Omar (2013)
Paradise Now (2005)
5 Broken Cameras (2011)
The Gatekeepers (2012)
Foxtrot (2017)
Gaza Mon Amour (2020)
The Viewing Booth (2020)
Innocence (2022) - Innocence (2022) | IDFA Archive
The Village Under the Forest (2013)
Palestine Film Institute's films on Gaza
Abby Martin - Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019) | Full Documentary | Directed by Abby Martin
Dan Cohen - Gaza Fights Back | MintPress News Original Documentary
‘The Promise’, directed by Peter Kosminsky (2010) (4 part miniseries on the creation of Israel)
Sources:
https://www.972mag.com/
https://jewishcurrents.org/
Jadaliyya ‘Gaza in Context’ Series
Jadaliyya “War on Palestine” podcast - The War on Palestine Podcast: Episode 1
Border Chronicle, Interview with Israeli anthropologist Jeff Halper
NGOs
B’Tselem
Breaking the Silence
Al Haq
Palestinian Feminist Collective
Yesh Din
DAWN
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Gisha
Forensic Architecture
Instagram Accounts
gazangirl
mohammedelkurd
khaledbeydoun
motaz_azaiza
wizard_bisan1
etafrum
sara_mardini963
Twitter(X) Accounts
@PalStudies - Institute for Palestine Studies
@medicalaidpal
@middleeastmatters
@KenRoth - former executive director of Human Rights Watch
@YairWallach - Reader in Israel Studies at SOAS
@ PhilipProudfoot - researcher on development, humanitarianism and Arab states
@btselem - Israeli human rights documentation centre
@MairavZ - Senior Israel-Palestine Analyst at Crisis Group
@rohantalbot - Director of Advocacy and Campaigns at MedicalAidPal
@sarahleah1 - Executive Director of DAWN (democracy and human rights in MENA)
@alhaq_org - Palestinian human rights organisation
@FranceskAlbs - UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Territories
@Yesh_Din - Israeli human rights organisation
@sfardm - Michael Sfard, Israeli Human Rights Lawyer
@EphstainItay - Israeli international humanitarian lawyer
@saribashi - Program director for Human Rights Watch (Israeli living in Palestine)
@Gisha_Access - Israeli NGO
@_ZachFoster - Historian
Share widely!
(if any links are broken let me know. Or pull up the current post to check whether it's fixed.)
From River To The Sea Palestine Will Be Free 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸
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