WWADWWAD Newsletter - April 13th, 2022 Edition
Spring is in the air! Come for the newsletter stay for the tweets!
April 13th, 2022 - Anchorage, AK - Issue 10
I recently had an experience that really leveled my potentially mildly inflated sense that I can at all begin to figure out some reasons for why we are doing what we are doing. And lest any politically impotent dems and repubs out there are construing this as confirmation that I should give up and go home, (and of their suspicion that doing nothing to try to figure things out is the correct answer) I very much mean to qualify that as of now, I have absolutely no confusion about action being the necessary alternative to inaction .
All this and then I am met with this terrific void that is not very socially acceptable to publicly present. In my view it is maybe best described as a void of sufficiency. The widely web-based venue of life with an advertiser-curated paradigm doesn’t allow for that. This void is an insufficiency where a safe platform for talking about fears, failures, and shortcomings (widely unavailable to a lot of people) is concerned.
You see social media preying on this unexpectedly strong longing for true acceptance and belonging all the time when it algorithmically bids us say our riskiest takes and show maximum ass for optimal engagement. (I myself am essentially in internet jail at all points in time for making people cringe- and thus apparently scroll faster- so I wouldn’t really know, so please correct me if I’m wrong here)
This is the latest version of me: deflated, lacking, and preyed-upon. With that in mind, does anyone else at all crave something exactly the opposite of this hostile internet environment?
Something like this maybe? (May require a little zoom, this door was too nice to crop)
Okay sorry for being like this here’s the crop:
All this to say, I’m actually going to do this!
(Okay, I’m probably not going to put up the sign)
I’m thinking of calling it Community Action Night and accompanying it with food and drink and music. For the details on this please see Upcoming Events below, but before you get there I’m going to talk your eyes off about aspirational thoughts I’m having about this because I think it befits the mood.
If you, like me, sense there to be a necessity to set up some local community organizational efforts (thus decreasing the need to rely on failing public systems and allowing us the autonomy to set our community up to where everyone has just enough support to be able to live), not just charity efforts but also to develop resources for human connection and co survival and community improvement that span the whole community, every member, and to improve our community’s collective treatment of the environment it currently pollutes due to its dangerously disconnected state of existence…
YOU. NEED. TO. COME. TO C.A.N! I’m hosting! (Again, details in Upcoming Events)
I’ve had two instances now where despite having significant qualms about the cops, I’ve not seen an alternative as now a witness of an instance of both r*pe and an apparent overd*se. Now don’t get me wrong because I have no illusions about how hard it would be in this place given the state of things to well address even the most trivial of issues ( as in potholes, hi Anchorage friends what are we going to do about this? ) ! So too, I also am under no such impression that we can whip up an alternative to the carceral system real fast.
But I want to know where I can go to discuss the potential for and plan the operation of many small efforts to make our community a more livable place (for the time being for me this means Anchorage). I also want to discuss movements and efforts that already do exist, so I can do a better job of connecting people with them. Obviously I need to pointedly say that for anything outside straightforwardly low-risk-of-harm action (which cannot be easily vetted for benefitting the community) a substantial body of research and discourse needs to take place before action. But if there are existing efforts to develop alternatives and research them I want to know about them.
Peace and expansion,
-Bailey
Tweets of the month:
Quotes of the month:
“The three biggest currencies for this century are trust, relationships, and community.”
-Ayelet Baron
~~~
“The essential features of human nature involve a kind of creative urge, a need to control one’s own productive, [for] creative labor, to be free from authoritarian intrusions, a kind of instinct for liberty and creativity, a real human need to be able to work productively under conditions of one’s own choosing and determination in voluntary association with others’. (105) If such a view of human nature and the requirement for freedom is deemed plausible then ‘there should be an unending struggle to discover, understand, and overcome all structures of authority, domination, subordination, and restriction of the freedom to become and live as a full human being, who can fulfill the need for creative self-expression in solidarity with others.”
- Edgley, Alison. The Social and Political Thought of Noam Chomsky (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought) (p. 41). Chomsky, N. in Otero, C. P. (ed.) (1988) op. cit., p. 594. Chomsky, N. in Otero, C. P. (ed.) (1988) op. cit., p. 386.
~~~
“The government is like a big fucked up HOA”
-My love
~~~
“People need to know how their brains work, and really how the world works, in order to be fully in control, I think, as citizens”
- Lisa Feldman Barrett
~~~
[These are the things] “it wouldn’t do to say”
-Paraphrased Noam Chomsky paraphrasing George Orwell
~ ~ ~
A sidenote:
Shoutout to my sole paid subscriber, Laura! I didn’t mean to leave that function on, I’m turning it off now! I can’t figure out how to change it from five dollars to free but I’m “pausing payments” and will try to figure out how to revert it to being completely free ASAP!
-Bailey
~ ~ ~
Upcoming Events
(both National/Worldwide
and Local Anchorage) :
National/Worldwide/Online:
-Etsy Strike, April 11th-18th - etsystrike.org
-ANCSA @50 Statewide Conversation- Online event, April 14th, 2022 6-8pm AKST, Join here: https://zoom.us/j/91939038774
-Traditional Ecological Knowledge National Virtual Summit- May 10th-12th, 2022, “To create a space for Indigenous peoples, Tribal governments, academics, and allies to share and discuss Traditional Ecological Knowledge-related topics in respectful and non-extractive ways that honor Indigenous data sovereignty.” For more info: tekatosu.wordpress.com
-Bird Camp! A Summer Season on Aiktak Island- Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges Monthly Meet-Up - April 19th, 2022 at 5pm AKST- Online event, link to be posted here: https://alaskarefugefriends.org/bird-camp-a-summer.../
Local, AKST Time:
-Nicholas Showers-Glover exhibition “From Remorse to Reform”- at Akela Space, (comes highly suggested by Bailey) - Gallery hours as follows: 4/15 5-8pm, 4/16 12-8pm (with game & movie night, featuring a game created by the artist and the movie “The Photograph”, beginning at 5:00pm), 4/20 5-8pm, 4/23 12-8pm, 4/24 12-6pm (with a community conversation hosted by the ACLU of Alaska beginning at 3:00pm), 4/27 5-8pm (with a Pop-Up Library hosted by the Anchorage Public Library from 4:00pm - 8:00pm and a community conversation hosted by the ACLU of Alaska beginning at 7:00pm), 4/29 5-10pm (with screening of “Judas and the Black Messiah” beginning at 7:30pm), 4/30 12-8pm
-SHE Record Release show, with upcoming record “Shame Is the Most Effective Tool In the Human Arsenal”, April 23rd 7pm at Cafecito Bonito, tickets $10 available there, featuring Samemoon & Snarley Brown, to be hosted by Golden Delicious!!! Record release date: April 15th
-Bethlehem Shalom opening for MAGIC GIANT- at Williwaw April 29th, 2022 at 7pm, More info & tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/magic-giant-live-at-williwaw-social-tickets-290064289097
-(First Ever!!) Community Action Night - May 12th, 2022 at 5pm, Anchorage - Meet people, talk about upcoming events, and generally gather with likeminded people interested in demonstrating and organizing for all causes abolition, harm reduction and intersectional justice-minded. ~Food and both alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks to be provided~ DM or text for address: Twitter: @baileywwadwwad, Instagram: @bailey2395333223, Phone: (907) 841-3767
Recommended Articles:
Some Stowe Boyd for the soul:
https://thinkgrowth.org/how-to-make-progress-when-no-one-agrees-c4081818e924
This Twitter thread:
Beautiful article from Slow Factory!!! I also love the Nap Ministry that they link at the bottom (though as a white bitch I recognize my responsibility to take a few more awake shifts)
https://slowfactory.earth/readings/seeking-joy-in-a-tumultuous-climate-dot-dot-dot-is-it-possible/