Holiday cards!
EDIT 12/3/2009: I’ve turned off blanket moderating, so if you would like a holiday card, please email me at pizzadiavola at gmail rather than leaving your address in the comments here.
It’s that time of year again! If you would like a holiday card, please leave your name and address in the comments. I’m turning on comment moderation, so your info will be kept private. Also feel free to link to your wishlist, if you’ve got one online.
Wishlist
Holiday wishlist meme, via Tarigwaemir.
STEP ONE
1. Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered…whatever you’re comfortable with) to your blog. The post should contain your list of 10 unlimited holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related (“I’d love a Naruto icon that’s just for me”) to medium (“I wish for _____ on DVD”) to really big (“All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.”) The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.
2. If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it’s your address or just your email address where Santa (or an elf) can get in touch with you.
3. Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it’ll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.
STEP TWO
1. Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here’s the important part:
2. If you see a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make someone’s wish come true. Sometimes someone’s trash is another’s treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you won’t use–or even know where you could get someone’s dream purebred Basset Hound for free–do it.
3. You needn’t spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn’t to put people out, it’s to provide everyone a chance to be someone else’s holiday elf–to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not–it’s your call.
4. There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just…wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you’ll have the joy of knowing you made someone’s holiday special.
My wishlist:
1. More or less the same as Tarigwaemir’s: donation to charity. I’m not all that interested in material goods for myself, and things that I want or need, I can buy. What I want is donations to charity: something that helps other people and makes life better all around. Causes that mean a lot to me: international humanitarian issues, human rights (including women’s and queer rights), literacy, the arts, the environment, and health care. Donations don’t have to be large; what matters is that you care and that you do what you can.
Some of the organizations I support: Women for Women International, CARE, Heifer International, local Planned Parenthood affiliate, RAINN, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, SF Women Against Rape, St. James Infirmary, Partners In Health, and SF Symphony’s music education & outreach programs.
2. Donations in kind: volunteer at a non-profit. Donate blood. Donate hair. Make a commitment to volunteer once a week, once a month, at the local Planned Parenthood, youth mentoring program, homeless shelter, soup kitchen, animal shelter, etc. Sign up to volunteer at a rape crisis hotline.
3. Reservations at the French Laundry. MWAHAHA I HAVE THEM!!!! WHEE!!!
4. Reservations at Per Se and airfare from SF to New York.
5. Time to visit friends.
6. A trip to Rome, Istanbul, and then somewhere new.
‘Tis the Season
I’ve seen a few links recently for people, organizations, and causes asking for donations and I’ve also seen the annual holiday wishlist meme circulating, so here’s my wishlist for 2007 (well, part 1. I’m sure I’ll come up with more stuff later.):
Find a non-profit, cause, organization, charity, people in need, etc., and donate. Give what you can, whether it’s time, money, donations of food and clothing, attention (political causes? Write letters to your local newspapers, write to your public officials, blog, call your public officials), or your spare change. Find something that matters to you and give something now.
For starters (if there’s something that interests you, leave it in the comments and I’ll add it):
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Ruggerdavey is a middle school teacher in Louisville, Kentucky. Every year, her school raises money to take their neediest students shopping for winter clothes they otherwise can’t get. 80% of the students in the school qualify for free and reduced lunch; one of her students has no electricity at home because they can’t pay for utilities; some students’ families can’t afford groceries. As Ruggerdavey says,
With so many worries about how to survive, clothing is often not a top priority. The students shiver in class because their parents can’t get them sweatshirts. They come to school in the rain without anything to keep them dry and in the winter without hats and gloves or even winter coats. Some come in wearing the same clothes every day no matter how dirty they are, because they have nothing else to wear.
Because of this, every year before winter break, we sponsor a shopping spree for our neediest kids. If you can spare even a dollar, send the money to my kids. Cash or a check; American dollars, Canadian dollars, pounds, euros, whatever – we can use your money.
See her posts here and here for more information about donating, the students, and the school.
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The Pretty Bird Woman House is a women’s shelter on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota. It provides emergency shelter, advocacy support, and educational programs for women on the Standing Rock reservation who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. Due to frequent vandalism of its facilities (and then torching, once the shelter moved out of the vandalized building), the Pretty Bird Woman House was forced to move and is now raising funds to buy a permanent facility. For more on sexual violence against Native American women, the work that the Pretty Bird Woman House does, and links to further information, see my previous post. (I was going to put that all in this post, but it got too long. Go read!)
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Street Sheet is the local homeless newspaper in San Francisco. It is written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people and “provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match.” Additionally, “[i]t provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales.”
I’ve seen a lot of Street Sheet vendors in my neighborhood and in Civic Center, an area I pass through frequently, and I find the paper an interesting, thought-provoking read. The articles definitely address issues that I wouldn’t have paid attention to otherwise (e.g. gentrification of Fillmore and now Bayview and the effects on the predominantly black communities there); challenge the depiction of homeless people in the media, particularly the SF Chronicle; and provide homeless people a space for their voices. Furthermore, as a friend of mine wrote to me, “i think that putting written word in the hands of someone hopping into public transportation can do a lot to remind the public homeless people are people and that the suspension of some presupposed notions is probably in order.” Right on, D.
You can support Street Sheet by mailing donations to
Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco
468 Turk Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
or by purchasing Street Sheet the next time you see a vendor. The International Homeless and Homelessness Directory lists homeless street newspapers around the world and Real Change News provides a comprehensive list of U.S. homeless newspapers. See if your city is on the list and buy a paper.
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The San Francisco Opera is a world-class opera company in its 87th year. Their mission is
* To present opera performances of the highest international quality available to the widest possible audiences.
* To perpetuate and enrich the operatic art form.
* To be creative and innovative in all aspects of opera.
* To take a leadership role in training, arts education and audience development.
SFOp stages fantastic productions and makes opera accessible to the general public: tickets are affordable ($20-$25 for the balcony; $10 standing room tickets); they have student, sr. citizen, and military rush tickets; they put on free telecasts in AT&T Park and free Opera in the Park productions in the summer. They premiere new works (Philip Glass’ Appomattox in 2007), have fellowship programs for young singers, invite international stars (Angela Gheorghiu!), and help keep the art form alive and vibrant. However, the productions are expensive and ticket sales only cover 39% of the company’s expenses; donations are what fund SF Opera. Information about donating, volunteering, and other ways of supporting the opera are here.
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Perennial personal favorites:
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Donate blood! Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood. At the same time, only 5% of the eligible U.S. population donates blood. The Red Cross says it better than I can:
Blood is needed for emergencies and for people who have cancer, blood disorders, sickle cell, anemia and other illnesses. Some people need regular blood transfusions to live.
Imagine if giving blood was part of everyone’s life. Something you did on a regular basis, like eating at your favorite restaurant. What kind of difference would that make? For nearly 5 million people who receive blood transfusions every year, your donation can make the difference between life and death.
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Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) “is the nation’s leading women’s health care provider, educator, and advocate, serving women, men, teens, and families. For more than 90 years, we’ve done more than any other organization in the United States to improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies, and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed and responsible choices.” Get involved.
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That’s all for now.
Pretty Bird Woman House
The Pretty Bird Woman House is a women’s shelter on the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota. It provides emergency shelter, advocacy support, and educational programs for women on the Standing Rock reservation who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. Due to frequent vandalism of its facilities (and then torching, once the shelter moved out of the vandalized building), the Pretty Bird Woman House was forced to move and is now raising funds to buy a permanent facility.
In April 2007, Amnesty International reported in “The Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA” that
Crime rates on the Reservation often exceed those of its surrounding areas. According to FBI figures, in 2005 South Dakota had the fourth highest rate of “forcible rapes” of women of any US state.
And yet, those figures don’t tell the whole story because
Shocking though these statistics are, it is widely believed that they do not accurately portray the extent of sexual violence against Native American and Alaska Native women.[10]
“Most women who are beaten or raped don’t report to the police. They just shower and go to the clinic [for treatment].”
Native American survivor of sexual violence (identity withheld), February 2006Amnesty International’s interviews with survivors, activists and support workers across the USA suggest that available statistics greatly underestimate the severity of the problem. In the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, for example, many of the women who agreed to be interviewed could not think of any Native women within their community who had not been subjected to sexual violence.
The situation is exacerbated by the legal difficulties that both tribal authorities and federal authorities face in charging rapists and other criminals for crimes committed in or around reservation land. Cases sent for review by federal enforcement often aren’t prosecuted; “in Spokane, an assistant U.S. attorney … simply declined to prosecute, something that crime data show they do in 65 percent of all reservation cases.” (emphases mine) Amnesty’s report suggests, “It appears that Indigenous women in the USA may be targeted for acts of violence and denied access to justice on the basis of their gender and Indigenous identity.” Furthermore, Native American rape and assault victims are likely to be discriminated against based on the assumption that they in some way deserved what happened:
Of particular concern are reports of discriminatory treatment of survivors who are suspected of drinking alcohol before they were attacked. This is particularly worrying because of the prevalent negative stereotypes which link Indigenous women with excessive drinking. A number of the cases brought to Amnesty International’s attention indicated that police often automatically assume that Indigenous women had been drinking when they were targeted for sexual violence. One Alaska Native survivor of rape told Amnesty International that if a woman is suspected of drinking and reports that she has been the victim of sexual violence, “the police will not respond unless she is either hospitalized or dead.”
- Amnesty International (for more information about the discrimination aspect, search for “Discrimination in federal and state prosecutions” within the Amnesty report)
In short, there’s a cycle going where Native American women are targeted for rape and sexual violence; they’re dismissed as drunks when they report what’s happened to them; their cases aren’t prosecuted; and thus people continue to attack them with impunity, because it’s extremely unlikely that they’ll ever be prosecuted and sentenced.
In light of this situation, the Pretty Bird Woman House provides vital services for women. This year, the three shelter staff have
* Served a total of 614 individuals with education and services.
* Answered 397 crisis calls
* Provided emergency shelter to 188 women and 132 children.
* Helped 23 women obtain restraining orders, 10 get divorces, and 16 get medical assistance
* Provided court advocacy support for 28 women, and
* Conducted community education programs for 360 women.
For more information:
Pretty Bird Woman House on blogger
U.S. Senate Hearing on the prevalence of violence against Indian women
NPR Article “Rape Cases on Indian Lands Go Uninvestigated”
NPR Article on the Amnesty Report
Standing Rock Reservation
Via Feministe.
[10] For example, the authors of the US Department of Justice study Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Rape Victimization, note that it “under-estimates the true number of rapes committed each year, because [it] excludes rapes of children and adolescents, as well as… anyone living in… households without telephones.”
