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5 Twitter Feeds for a Daily Dose of Humanity

It’s surprisingly hard for Americans to be aware of what’s happening in the rest of the world. Europeans love to deride us for this, and rightfully so, but there’s more to our situation than is easily comprehended from the outside.

For example… From my Texas hometown, I can drive ten hours and not leave the state. While for many cities of the western world, a ten hour drive will get you two countries over. If I drove ten hours from where I sit writing this, I could get to Yemen or Saudi Arabia. (Hypothetically, of course.) But ten hours from Texas? I might be still in Texas. Everywhere is just soooo far away!

But that’s only the first hurdle. News outlets in the US cover mainly what will keep Americans attached to their TVs  (those damned liberals/conservatives, something *new* to fear, that sort of thing), and material online is little better, being both lengthy and hard to find. Many Twitter feeds only complicate things, squeezing into 140-characters a mash-up of world terms, abbreviations, hashtag location, hashtag organization, leaving you confounded and bleary-eyed to boot.

Still, Twitter may be the easiest way to start expanding our awareness beyond our borders.

Here are 5 Twitter feed suggestions to get you started:

1. The Culture-ist

The Culture-ist is my favorite feed on this list. They cover food, travel, the arts, and much else besides. They post too often for my taste, but I like it enough to stick around.

2. Peregrine Magazine

Like the Culture-ist, but with a travel bend. I’m relatively new to Peregrine Mag, but I like what I see so far. And they don’t overrun my feed. Just today they shared this gem. You know I love that.

3. The United Nations

I shouldn’t be surprised that the UN has a Twitter account, but then, I was surprised to learn the UN has a Twitter account. Their account veers slightly into “world terms, abbreviations, hashtag location, hashtag organization” territory, but on the whole is straightforward with a variety of news and issues. And they don’t clutter your feed.

4. Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an organization focusing on human rights. Their feed is full of related stories and ways to get involved, released at an extremely tolerable rate.

5. Oxfam

Oxfam is an Internation Coalition of 17 organizations working in 90 countries, focusing on poverty and injustice. I’m learning a ton from this feed.

These are some of my favorites; what are yours?

 

This post is part of this month’s humanity series.

What Is a Humanitarian Crisis?

Ambon Refugees, 1999 

Lately I’ve been wondering a good bit – from far away, of course – about what stateside Americans think of the whole Syria thing.

I don’t mean, “do they think America should get involved,” because that’s a different matter altogether. I just wonder what, in general, people think of 100,000 people who will never see their parents, or siblings, or children again, the government’s bombing of schools, or the siege on entire cities that are causing people to die of starvation. I can’t help but wonder if it’s all internalized like a movie. Like everyone will get up and walk off set at the end. (Spoiler: they don’t.)

But then I realize I’m attuned to the Syria thing because I live around Syrians (who have lost family members and have no home to return to) and am considering moving to Lebanon (which is currently hosting some 1 million Syrian refugees). So I easily recognize Syrians as real, hurting people.

As I’ve read about the Syrian humanitarian crisis, though, other crises have crossed my path that I (shamefully) knew nothing about, like the 5 million people who’ve died in the Congo crisis of the last fifteen years (a death toll averaging 330,000 people a year) and the 2.5 million people who, according to Oxfam, currently need “immediate aid” there. Nor did I know about Mali or Myanmar and others.

In the end, I’m guessing this issue of not knowing is a big piece of things. I know and care because I’m closer and am more aware. There are things – a lot of other things – that I’m farther away from and either don’t know about or have decided I’m not spending my “caring energy” in that direction.

But coming around to the point…

What is a Humanitarian Crisis?

As I was turning this over in my head, I realized I wasn’t sure what, technically speaking, made something a “humanitarian crisis”. What’s the difference between a natural disaster, or a civil war, or a famine and a humanitarian crisis?

So I consulted the “BOI” (the dude calls the web-via-computer – the “Box Of Information”), and found the most straightforward explanation from the Humanitarian Coalition of Canada. They explain:

A humanitarian crisis is an event or series of events which represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people, usually over a wide area. Armed conflicts, epidemics, famine, natural disasters and other major emergencies may all involve or lead to a humanitarian crisis that extends beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency.

In short, a humanitarian crisis is when a difficult situation for a large number of people over a wide area grows or compounds to the extent that one particular branch of help (like food aid only, or medical aid only) is not enough.

This sounds much tidier, though, than the realities of people displaced, lacking shelter and food, who are at high risk for other problems like illness or being caught in an armed conflict.

Can you imagine walking away from your home today with a backpack and never seeing it again? Oh, and maybe getting herded by militia on your way out of town? Oh, and maybe watching your child die next month because you were no longer able to feed him? That’s more the face of humanitarian crises.

In tidy language it is the compounding of events beyond simple solutions. To real people, it’s trading in your whole entire life for an unknown that you may not live to see.

Quick side note: don’t go Googling this unless you’re in the mood to get real shaken up. Just saying.

Did you already know what comprised a humanitarian crisis? Do you have anything to add or clarify? I’m (obviously) learning, so please share your information or experience!

 

This post is part of this month’s humanity series.

What Means This, “Humanity”?

In Omani Arabic, if you want to know what a word means, you say something like, “shoo ya-nee hatha, unknown-word?”. When this is directly translated, it comes out as “What means this, unknown-word?”

So around here, if people wanted to know what I meant by the word “humanity,” they might ask “What means this, ‘humanity'”?

Fair enough, because it is a word with a wide-ish range of meaning and I’m using it here with particular ideas in mind. So I might as well spell it out.

By my dictionary, “humanity” has three main threads:

  • the human race; human beings collectively
  • the fact or condition of being human; human nature, and
  • humaneness; benevolence

When I use “humanity” to describe this blog series, I’m including all of these, and then moving somewhat beyond them. I still chose the word “humanity” because I don’t know of a better English word that encompasses our shared human-ness and the infinite intersections of who we are and what we experience from beginning to end.

Have you ever seen a piece of art – a painting, a statue, a film, a dance, a vista – that hung in your mind long after you encountered it? Something was communicated from its creator to you, and that communication, for me, is rife with humanity.

No other species creates this way, or experiences created things this way. Only us. Only humans.

Have you ever turned your head and caught a scene that overwhelmed you with emotion? I mean the sort of emotion whose description is just beyond your grasp. You weren’t happy, exactly. Or delighted. Or sad. Just… overtaken with the experience of the emotion itself.

There it is again, humanity. Something of our human experience dawning wordlessly when encountering another human experience. This goes beyond “human beings collectively” or “the fact or condition of being human,” but whatever is more about it I haven’t a word for, and anything less about it will hardly do.

Whenever I see a handicapped person making their way in the world, I have that human-dawning-beyond-words experience. Like a blind man crossing the street, or a legless man working a consistent job, or a young child with half their body covered in burns. I don’t feel sad or angry exactly. It’s more like somewhere in the deepest of place of my existence I know that they are the greatest of my kind. What they will fight for in this life will make it so. And yet my kind will be the worst to them.

And at times, I will be one of them.

Humanity.

The best and worst is in each of us. It’s lovely and grotesque and simple and tricky and altogether haunting. For my part, I’m never more human than when I’m taking it all in.

And this month, I get to do that with you, dear reader. And I’m pretty excited.

Want the full scoop? Visit the 31 Days of Humanity Page here.

Oh Dear, I’m taking the 31-Day Plunge.

I’m not one for challenges.

I mean, if you bet me I won’t eat the last cookie, I’ll probably take the dare. But big things at which I’m likely to fail? Not so much. Because I’m not much of a follow-through-er. So I make my own challenges that work with my life and they spur me on and all’s well that ends well, right?

So until this morning, I hadn’t even considered the October 31-day blog challenge (courtesy of the Nester) that so many bloggers participate in each year. I’d heard about it years past, and even contemplated participating once or twice, but I have both a focusing problem and a finishing problem and FP + FP does not equal 31 days straight of blogging.

Also, you can’t blog every day in October if you didn’t start on the first day of the month. Just saying.

But this year I hadn’t yet considered it because besides being relatively away from the blogosphere lately (my apologies to those of you whose blogs I love) and also because I didn’t even realize it was October. It’s still summer here, and ne’er a leaf shall turn, so August = September = October = November…

Then this morning I fired up Voxer to hear a few reading-group messages and one of the girls mentioned it (she’s not a blogger, btw, so that was odd), and then I came upon several “first day” posts, and then I got to thinking.

I also got scared.

This is not the month to be taking on a writing challenge. (Did I mention I don’t like challenges?) I’m going to be travelling, I’m stretching to make major strides with our business… and did I mention I have a focus problem and a finishing problem?

But there it is, this challenge, scurrying around in my mind. The main question being, “should I fail by trying or by not trying?”

I hate that question.

But there they were, topics demanding to be considered, uninvited guests of a well-over-fire-code brain party. I dismissed several feeling they weren’t really worth the sacrifice, not-so-secretly hoping nothing worthwhile would present itself so I could have an excuse to pass. But then emerged the one. The one that wouldn’t leave. The one I knew I needed to fail-by-trying at:

31 Days of Humanity

For all my far-reaching interests, I’ve discovered humanity is the common thread. Every iteration of my thinking about this blog (and the one before it) has had “humanity” in its description. I love history and languages and culture and travel and artifacts and people-watching and reading widely and staring out the window contemplating it all.

The things we share as humans,  our triumphs and tragedies, our desire for more and better and to be known, all of it… excite me, overcome me, ruin me. I’ll take 300 over Legally Blonde any day because the strength of human community and vision, enculturated and fed, the desire for glory and immortality, the temptation of comfort, and doubting it all is human through and through.

High heels and toy dogs? Not so much.

The problem with this theme, humanity, is that I’m not up to the task. What I want to shape with words about the universe and our pinhead piece of it is far, far beyond by ability. In so many ways.

Ira Glass discusses this problem in a now-famous bit he offers to storytellers but which applies to creative wannabees of all types. And his advice, the thing he implores of his hearers, is to create a volume of work. On a deadline. And another deadline. And another deadline.

So with oceans of trepidation I’m diving in. I have a few ideas, but many things will be taking shape as I explore and experience them. I’m travelling this month, after all; perhaps I’ll have a few stories to tell.

Here’s to failing by trying!

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A Simple Rule for Saying the Right Thing in Tough Times

Have you ever heard someone say something shockingly inappropriate to someone who was going through a difficult time?

Just the other day someone relayed to me that a newly-widowed friend of hers has frequently been required to console other people as they mourned the loss of the person’s spouse.

Uhhhhhh…

 

There’s a good chance we’ve all said the wrong thing at one time or another, which is why I absolutely loved this article shared by my friend Jenny recently.

In this op-ed from the LA Times, Susan Silk and Barry Goldman offer a tangible filter we can use to make certain our comments are caring and not self-serving.

In any time of hardship, think of the people involved as a set of concentric rings, like a bulls-eye. The person who is most affected is at the bulls-eye, and people furthest from the situation are in the outermost ring.

Then assess what circle you are in, and determine if the person you’re speaking to is closer to the center ring than you or further out.

  • If they are closer to the bulls-eye than you, you offer a listening ear and comfort. ONLY listening and comfort.
  • If they are further away from the bulls-eye than you, you can share your own grief and hardship.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say a girl from your book club finds out her child has an incurable disease. For our purposes, she is the “Most Afflicted”.

Now figure out what “ring” you are in. Who are you to her, really? 

Are you her parent or BFF? Then you are in the closest ring. You can bemoan the injustices of the universe to whomever you please. To anyone, that is, except the Most Afflicted.

But chances are you’re neither of those. So… are you one of her closest friends? Think top 5 here. Would she say you’re one of her top 5 closest friends? If so, you can share your grief with someone further away from the bulls-eye. Just don’t do it to the Most Afflicted or her sister or her BFF.

And so forth and so on down through the nosy nosertons who have no business talking about it anyway.

Never dump inward. Silk and Goldman state it best:

“Comfort IN, dump OUT.”

What do you think of this “Ring Theory”? …Have you ever been the victim of inward dumping?

 

Fun fact from this post: [Read more…]

What Are Your Favorite Christmas Traditions and Activities?

Funny Christmas Card Outtake

I have something to confess.

It’s December 21st and I have not put up the Christmas Tree. Nor have I done anything else holiday-esque besides thrice lighting a few spiced candles.

And while this is the first year I’ve been so tardy with the tree, this is the fourth year running that Christmas has completely snuck up on me.

Because they don’t celebrate Christmas here, there are no external cues that the holidays are upon us. And it never gets cold, which doesn’t help. About the time we start hitting (what I consider to be) daytime pre-Autumn temperatures (like 80 degrees during the day), it’s nearly Christmas. Except my mind is totally sure it’s still September.

We’ve never had as many Christmas Traditions as I’d like, but we used to at least have an annual dinner with our closest friends and send out a goofy Christmas card (that pic is an outtake from our very first one). And now, well, I can’t even seem to get the tree up.

So to pre-empt a fifth recurrence, I’m marking my calendar and to do list this week for next Christmas. I’m going to put a reminder on my calendar to get the tree up, and would also like to add some additional things to help it feel more like Christmas, help prepare a more joyful season, and be more intentional in our Advent observance.

…So I’m looking for ideas…

What are your Christmas traditions that mean the most to you or bring the most joy and beauty to your holiday?