I felt like this was encouraging, but can move it if it’s a better fit elsewhere.
I just learned the gender neutral term for nieces and nephews: niblings.
Like siblings, but with an n.
I love it! It’s so much nicer than saying, “my sister’s child,” or some such, which always felt so cold to me, when introducing a nibling.
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Hope in action.
These young Syrians cohabited with death night and day. Most of them had already lost everything – their homes, their friends, their parents. Amid the chaos, they clung to books as if to life, hoping for a better tomorrow, for a better political system. Driven by their thirst for culture, they were quietly developing an idea of what democracy should be. An idea that challenged the regime’s tyranny and Islamic State’s book burners. Muaddamani and his friends were true soldiers for peace.
But rural to urban development projects only work if they are created by and include the communities they are working to serve, says Yasin.
“Okere City is being intentionally developed with the community in mind,” she says. “Whereas what we often see in cities across the world that do something similar is individuals who are kind of running away from larger cities and settling in smaller communities that they aren’t from.”
Yasin says this leads to these cities becoming exclusionary, like Auroville, India’s experimental utopian township.
“What does it look like when these utopian cities become gated cities?” Yasin asks. “Not gated communities any more, not gated neighbourhoods, but gated cities surrounded by smaller local, poorer, indigenous villages.”
ETA:
oh and…
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We can celebrate this guy doing the right thing and immeasurably helping the locals in that neighborhood, while pointing out that the society should be set up so that you don’t need a philantropist to do this.
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Reminds me of this:
https://www.amazon.com/Librarian-Basra-True-Story-Iraq/dp/0152054456
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In the long run, far more dangerous to the regime than the White Helmets, and probably harshly suppressed if the regime figures that out.
eta: Libraries contain books, and books contain ideas, and nothing is more dangerous that the idea that “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
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The District Court of Sapporo in Hokkaido has ruled that the ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional! The case will no doubt go to the Supreme Court of Japan, but this is nevertheless a huge step in the right direction!
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Maybe
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No, not the death, but the story of this dad and son. Tears of joy are still tears, but what an inspiration.
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Not the vision of large scale land engineering I was raised on… this work in the report is way better than the 1960’s vision…
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I love the way it can lay perfectly painted lines on hot, steaming asphalt.
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