ANS -- 9 Meaningful Ways You Can Help Ukraine

Here is an article about what you can do to help Ukrainians in this time of crisis.  

Find it here:  https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/ways-to-help-ukraine-conflict/?fbclid=IwAR3Ebnxzoc-_VbXsX6I5omwtkNc0vMiDZyWeVzu_sXCx5vdS0PcJVqSwGYw 

--Kim

NEWSDEMAND EQUITY

9 Meaningful Ways You Can Help Ukraine

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine threatens more lives, here are some meaningful ways you can help.

A woman holds her baby as she gets on a bus leaving Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022. | Emilio Morenatti/AP

By Khanyi Mlaba and Tess Lowery

February 24, 2022

The world was brought to a standstill as news broke that Russia had invaded Ukraine on Thursday. Global Citizen released a statement condemning Russia's attack on Ukraine and is calling on all military action to cease immediately, as well as for humanitarian aid to be supported as the conflict unfolds.

Here's what we know and who is most affected by the situation, and how Global Citizens can help. 

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What's Happened So Far?

Russia has been threatening to invade Ukraine since November 2021, and on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022, troops from Russia crossed the border and launched an attack on Ukraine's North, South, and East regions. According to the Guardian, the attack came after Russian President Vladimir Putin made a televised address announcing a "specialized military operation" aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine. Following the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed martial law on the country and called on citizens to defend their nation. 

According to the UNHCR, Ukrainian citizens have actively been fleeing the country, seeking asylum in neighboring nations. The invasion and conflict have resulted in a death toll of at least 40 people within an estimated seven hours of the war erupting. 

The situation is quickly unfolding, with attacks on Ukraine having taken place continuously throughout the day on Feb. 24, and threatening the safety of millions of people in the country. 

In response, citizens around the world have shown their solidarity with Ukraine in various ways, with Russian citizens taking to the streets in their own country to protest the violence caused by their leaders. Russian protesters in several cities were reportedly met with heavy police presence, with authorities aiming to stop demonstrators from gathering and disperse those already on the streets. 

Who's the Most Impacted?

A woman and child peer out of the window of a bus as they leave Sievierodonetsk, the Luhansk region, eastern Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022.
Image: Vadim Ghirda/AP

According to UN data, in 2021 the crisis in Ukraine affected 1.5 million people — half a million of whom are children and minors. As with any crisis, women, children, and the poor will be those most affected. Ukrainian parents are already taking heartbreaking measures to protect their children including sending them into school wearing stickers identifying their blood types in case of bombings. 

Related Stories

Shock and Solidarity: How Europeans Are Reacting to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

How Can I Help?

While many of us might feel helpless when confronted with geopolitical machinations of this scale, we've rounded up a few ways you can help the people of Ukraine right now. 

DONATE

Ukrainians have put together a list of organizations where you can donate to help people affected by the crisis. Those organizations include:

1. Medical Supplies and Humanitarian Aid

• Nova Ukraine, a Ukraine-based nonprofit, provides citizens with everything from baby food and hygiene products, to clothes and household supplies. Donate here.
• People in Need is providing humanitarian aid to over 200,000 people on the ground. For those most in need, they provide food packages, emergency shelter, safe access to drinking water, hygiene items, and coal for heating. Donate here. 
• The Ukrainian Red Cross does loads of humanitarian work, from aiding refugees to training doctors. Donate here.
• International Medical Corps is on the front lines and prepared to help citizens with emergency health care services, as well as mental health and psychosocial support. The agency is also keeping the pandemic top of mind throughout the crisis by priotitizing COVID-19 awareness and prevention services, to help keep displaced citizens safe from the pandemic. Donate here. 
• CARE International is responding to the crisis by providing Ukrainians in need with food, hygeine kits, psychosocial support services, access to water, and access to cash. Donate here. 

Local residents wait to buy water at a store during a water outage in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022.
Image: Emilio Morenatti/AP

2. Helping Children Affected by War

• UNICEF Ukraine is repairing schools damaged by the bombings and providing an emergency response to children affected by the conflict. Donate here.

3. Supporting Journalism

• The Kyiv Independentdescribes itself as "created by journalists who were fired from the Kyiv Post for defending editorial independence." You can help keep the curtains up for the independent Ukrainian English-language media outlet by donating to its Patreon or GoFundMe fundraiser. 
• Ukraine World is an independent English-language multimedia project that emerged from a volunteer initiative helping international journalists during the 2014 "Revolution of Dignity." Support it by donating to its Patreon. 

4. Supporting Refugees

Of course, for many Ukrainians, the threat of full-scale war is driving them to seek safety in neighboring countries.

In a statement, Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said: "We have already seen reports of casualties and people starting to flee their homes to seek safety."

Accordingly, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has stepped up its operations and is working with governments in neighboring countries "calling on them to keep borders open to those seeking safety and protection." Germany has already offered Poland help with refugees.

You can help support refugees by donating here. 

5. Supporting the LGBTQ+ Community in Ukraine

In times like these, LGBTQ+ members are often even more marginalised and exposed to vulnerability than usual. OutRight Action International is stepping up to make sure that they are not left behind and that they are protected in this time of crisis. The organization will be helping to support LGBTQ+ groups and organizations on the ground who are setting up shelters and providing safety for citizens. All donations made to OutRight will go directly to the cause. 

You can donate here. 

If you are unable to donate, or would like to do more to support LGBTQ+ citizens, the you can also sign up to OutRight's newsletter here to stay up to date on the crisis and how it is affecting LGBTQ+ Ukrainians. 

STAY INFORMED

A woman reacts as she waits for a train trying to leave Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022.
Image: Emilio Morenatti/AP

If the last few weeks leading up to this moment have taught us anything, it's that the situation is changing rapidly, and in times like these, it is crucial that the right information is being shared and consumed. One of the best ways to help the most vulnerable in Ukraine is by staying on top of what is happening on the ground, and learning more about how citizens are being affected by the conflict. We've rounded up a few trustworthy sources you can refer to: 

6. Follow the News Regarding the Ongoing Situation With Trustworthy Sources: 

• The Kyiv Independent 

The Kyiv Independent has been a leading voice on the front lines, covering a timeline of ongoing events since the beginning and highlighting those who have been most affected by the violent attack. The English-language outlet is continuously reporting on how the invasion and conflict are impacting citizens, the economy, as well as Ukrainian foreign politics. Keep up to date on its website here, or on the Twitter page here. 

• The New Voice of Ukraine

Covering news in three different languages — English, Ukrainian, and Russian — the New Voice of Ukraine has not only covered breaking news, but has released informative analyses on the situation that detail how the situation led to this point, and is continuously publishing op-eds by Ukranian scholars and experts that help to give a view of tone of the situation. Read more on its website here.

• Ukraine World

While Ukraine World is not posting breaking news and timeline updates on its website, it is very active on its social media accounts. Its independent journalists on the front lines have gathered first-hand footage, and it is using its account to share other informative sources that its followers can refer to in order to keep up to date. Follow Ukraine World here. 

• Kyiv Post

The Kyiv Post is the only non-independent media outlet on this list, and it is important that those following state-funded outlets are aware that they are affiliated with the state. Having said that, the outlet has been at the forefront of delivering breaking news directly from government and national offices, releasing statements from ministry officials, military leads, and other dignitaries. You can read more on its website here, or follow it on Twitter here. 

7. Follow Informational Accounts on Social Media:

If your first source for receiving and consuming news is social media, then follow these accounts and turn on your notifications to stay enlightened on breaking stories as well as ways you can help citizens. 

• Stand With Ukraine

Uploading concise, yet well-informed Instagram posts and stories, Stand With Ukraine is a community page that has been dedicated to sharing knowledge wrap-ups based on the ongoing situation, as well as ways that followers can support citizens from wherever they are. You can follow it here. 

• Svidomi 

Get updates on the ongoing conflict as they happen from this Instagram account — the English version of a Ukrainian social media-based media outlet — which is sharing brief, yet frequent posts about exactly what is happening on the front lines, and who is being most impacted. Stay informed by following the account here. 

• Ukranians in Solidarity

This is an Instagram account that has posted digestible information on how followers can support Ukrainian citizens, and has used the platform to upload messages of solidarity for citizens in the country. Previously the account has been used to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and taught Ukrainian citizens how to be an ally to people of color. Give it a follow here. 

8. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE SITUATION

If this is the first you're hearing about the crisis in Ukraine and you want to learn more about the background to the situation read this Kyiv Post article, "10 popular misconceptions about Ukraine debunked"; watch Netflix's documentary Winter On Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom; and listen to this podcast by Ukraine World on how Russia uses disinformation as an instrument of war.

Demonstrators march with a banner that reads: "Ukraine - Peace, Russia - Freedom", in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 24, 2022. Hundreds of people gathered in the center of Moscow on Thursday, protesting against Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Image: Dmitry Serebryakov/AP

9. JOIN A PEACE PROTEST

If you're following and keeping up to date with the ongoing situation on the ground, but you're still wanting to do more and/or you don't have the financial means to donate, consider joining demonstrators around the world  — from London to Tokyo — who have taken to the streets to protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Find your nearest demonstration here. 

Ukraine Global Response
People including Ukrainians, take part in a demonstration in support of Ukraine, in the center of Tbilisi, Georgia, Feb. 24, 2022.
Shakh Aivazov/AP

Ukraine Global Response
People protest against Russia and Russian President Putin after Russian troops have launched their anticipated attack on Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 24, 2022.
Markus Schreiber/AP

Ukraine Global Response
Demonstrators gather in support of the Ukrainian people, in Paris, Feb. 24, 2022.
Thibault Camus/AP

Ukraine Global Response
Pro-Ukraine demonstrators unfurl a large Ukraine flag in New York's Times Square, Feb. 24, 2022.
Seth Wenig/AP

Ukraine Global Response
A group supporters hold posters to protest against the invasion of Russia in solidarity with the Ukrainian people in front of the Representative Office of the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission in Taipei, Taiwan, Feb. 25, 2022.
Chiang Ying-ying/AP

Ukraine Global Response
People including Ukrainians, take part in a demonstration in support of Ukraine, in the center of Tbilisi, Georgia, Feb. 24, 2022.
Shakh Aivazov/AP

Ukraine Global Response
People protest against Russia and Russian President Putin after Russian troops have launched their anticipated attack on Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 24, 2022.
Markus Schreiber/AP

Ukraine Global Response
Demonstrators gather in support of the Ukrainian people, in Paris, Feb. 24, 2022.
Thibault Camus/AP

Ukraine Global Response
Pro-Ukraine demonstrators unfurl a large Ukraine flag in New York's Times Square, Feb. 24, 2022.
Seth Wenig/AP

Fwd: Articles I thought u might find interesting...

Hello ANS group --- This was sent to me by one of our readers and I thought you might be interested.  He summarizes what the articles are below.  

--Kim

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: 
Date: Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 5:41 PM
Subject: Articles I thought u might find interesting...
To: Kim Cooper <kimc0240@gmail.com>

...
Here's an article about an amazing lady who just happened to have a wooden leg.
And another article about sterilizations, on women, done in CA not all
that long ago. I was surprised that I had never heard of this!
B

ANS -- Guns, Germs, Bitcoin and the Antisocial Right

Here is a short article.  I found it on FaceBook, posted by Sara Robinson, but it's from the New York Times, by Paul Krugman.  Read it.  

Find it here:  Opinion | Guns, Germs, Bitcoin and the Antisocial Right  

Opinion | Guns, Germs, Bitcoin and the Antisocial Right The push to make Americans' lives nasty, brutish and short.

--Kim

Guns, Germs, Bitcoin and the Antisocial Right

Jan. 31, 2022

In February 2021 a deep freeze caused widespread power outages in Texas, leaving about 10 million Texans without electricity, in many cases for days. Hundreds died.

The biggest proximate cause of the crisis was disrupted production of natural gas, the state's most important power source. After a 2011 freeze, federal regulators had urged Texas to require winterization of gas and electricity facilities. But it didn't.

And for the most part it still hasn't: So far, no winterization requirements have been placed on the politically powerful gas sector. Instead, Gov. Greg Abbott is hoping to secure the power grid by encouraging … Bitcoin mining. This would supposedly reduce the risk of outages because Bitcoin's huge electricity consumption would eventually expand the state's generation capacity.

Yes, that's as crazy as it sounds. But it fits a pattern. When confronted with problems that could easily be alleviated through cooperative action, the radical right-wingers who have taken over the Republican Party often turn instead to bizarre nonsolutions that appeal to their antisocial ideology. I'll explain why I use that word in a minute.

First, let's talk about the most obvious current example: Covid policy. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has tried to block just about every measure intended to limit the spread of the coronavirus; he and his officials have stopped just short of being explicitly anti-vaccine, but they have catered to the anti-vax fringe, with DeSantis even refusing to say whether he has received a booster shot.

They have, however, gone all in on antibody treatments that are far more expensive than vaccines, with DeSantis demanding that the Food and Drug Administration allow use of antibodies that, the F.D.A. has found, don't work against Omicron.

Why support expensive, ineffective treatments while opposing measures that would help prevent severe illness in the first place? Well, consider a parallel that may not be immediately obvious but is actually quite close: school shootings.

Among major advanced nations, such shootings are an almost uniquely U.S. phenomenon. And while there may be multiple reasons America leads the world in massacres of schoolkids, we could surely mitigate the horror with common-sense measures like restrictions on gun sales, required background checks and a ban on privately owned assault weapons.

But no. Republicans want to expand access to guns and, in many states, protect students by arming schoolteachers.

What do these examples have in common? As Thomas Hobbes could have told you, human beings can only flourish, can only avoid a state of nature in which lives are "nasty, brutish and short," if they participate in a "commonwealth" — a society in which government takes on much of the responsibility for making life secure. Thus, we have law enforcement precisely so individuals don't have to go around armed to protect themselves against other people's violence.

Public health policy, if you think about it, reflects the same principle. Individuals can and should take responsibility for their own health, when they can; but the nature of infectious disease means that there is an essential role for collective action, whether it is public investment in clean water supplies or, yes, mask and vaccine mandates during a pandemic.

And you don't have to be a socialist to recognize the need for regulation to maintain the reliability of essential aspects of the economy like electricity supply and the monetary system.

Which is why I'm calling the modern American right antisocial — because its members reject any policy that relies on social cooperation, and they want us to return instead to Hobbes's dystopian state of nature. We won't try to keep guns out of the hands of potential mass murderers; instead, we'll rely on teacher-vigilantes to gun them down once the shooting has already started. We won't try to limit the spread of infectious diseases; instead, we'll tell people to take drugs that are expensive, ineffective or both after they've already gotten sick.

What about Bitcoin? I don't think it's even worth trying to make sense of Abbott's tortured logic, why he imagines that promoting an environmentally destructive, energy-hogging industry will somehow make his state's electricity supply more reliable. (An energy grid overloaded by crypto mining helped set off the recent crisis in Kazakhstan.)

A better question is why Republicans have become fanatics about cryptocurrency, to the extent that one Senate candidate has defined his position as being "pro-God, pro-family, pro-Bitcoin." The answer, I'd argue, is that Bitcoin plays into a fantasy of self-sufficient individualism, of protecting your family with your personal AR-15, treating your Covid with an anti-parasite drug or urine and managing your financial affairs with privately created money, untainted by institutions like governments or banks.

In the end, none of this will work. Government exists for a reason. But the right's constant attacks on essential government functions will take a toll, making all of our lives nastier, more brutish and shorter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then Sara posted: 

"There is no such thing as society -- just individuals and families and their interests." -- Margaret Thatcher.

This is a nihilistic, anti-civilization creed.

ANS -- Our Ancient Ancestors Made Flutes

This is a short piece about our distant ancestors making flutes.  Apparently, flutes were one of the very earliest inventions.  

--Kim

Rebecca Solnit

7h  · 

Now I've heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you dont really care for music, do you?

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth

The minor falls, the major lifts

The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Jim Collier

0SAuggust 10poa3o4i, 202rd083

Facebook - Log In or Sign Up Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

  · 

'Roughly forty-three thousand years ago a young cave bear died in the rolling hills on the northwest border of modern-day Slovenia. A thousand miles away and a thousand years later, a mammoth died in the forests above the river Blau near the southern edge of modern-day Germany. Within a few years of the mammoth's demise, a griffon vulture also perished in the same vicinity. Five thousand years after that a swan and another mammoth died nearby.

We know almost nothing about how these animals met their deaths. They may have been hunted by Neanderthals or modern humans. They may have died of natural causes or been killed by other predators. Like almost every creature from the Paleolithic era the stories behind their lives and deaths are a mystery to us, lost to the un-reconstructible past.

But these different creatures, lost across time and space, did share one remarkable posthumous fate. After their flesh had been consumed by carnivores or bacteria, a bone from each of their skeletons was meticulously crafted by human hands into a flute.

Bone flutes are among the oldest known artifacts of human technological ingenuity. The Slovenian and German flutes date back to the very origins of art. The caves where some of them were found also featured drawings of animals and human forms on their walls, suggesting the tantalizing possibility that our ancestors gathered in the fire lit caverns to watch images flicker on the stone walls, accompanied by music.

But musical technology is likely far older than the Paleolithic. The Slovenian and German flutes survived because they were made of bone but many of the indigenous tribes in modern times construct flutes and drums out of reeds and animal skins, materials unlikely to survive tens of thousands of years.

Many archaeologists believe that our ancestors have been building drums for at least a hundred thousand years, making musical technology almost as old as technology designed for hunting or temperature regulation. This chronology is one of the great puzzles of early human history.

It seems to be jumping more than a few levels in the hierarchy of needs to go directly from spearheads and clothing to the invention of wind instruments. Eons before early humans started to imagine writing or agriculture they were crafting tools for making music. This seems particularly puzzling because music is the most abstract of the arts. Paintings represent the inhabitants of the world that our eyes actually perceive: animals, plants, landscapes and other people.

Architecture gives us shelter. Stories follow the arc of events that make up a human life. But music has no obvious referent beyond a vague association with the chirps and trills of birdsong. No one likes a hit record because it sounds like the natural world. We like music because it sounds *different* from the unstructured noise of the natural world. And what sounds like music is much closer to the abstracted symmetries of math than any experience a hunter-gatherer would have had a hundred thousand years ago.

A brief lesson in the physics of sound should help underscore the strangeness of the archaeological record here. Some of the bone flutes recovered from Paleolithic cave sites are intact enough that they can be played, and in many cases researchers have found that the finger holes carved into the bones are spaced in such a way that they can produce musical intervals that we now call perfect fourths and fifths.

In the terms of Western music, these would be F and G in the key of C. Fourths and fifths not only make up the harmonic backbone of almost every popular song in the modern canon, they are also some of the most ubiquitous intervals in the world's many musical systems. Though some ancient tonal systems, like Balinese gamelan music, evolved without fourths and fifths, only the octave is more common. Musicologists now understand the physics behind these intervals and why they seem to trigger such an interesting response in the human ear.

An octave, two notes exactly twelve steps apart from each other on a piano keyboard, exhibits a precise 2:1 ratio in the wave forms it produces. If you play a high C on a guitar, the string will vibrate exactly two times for every single vibration the low C string generates. That synchronization, which also occurs with the harmonics or overtones that give an instrument its timbre, creates a vivid impression of consonance in the ear, the sound of those two wave forms snapping into alignment every other cycle.

The perfect fourth and fifth have comparably even ratios: a fourth is 4:3, while a fifth is 3:2. If you play a C and G note together, the higher G string will vibrate three times for every two vibrations of the C. By contrast, a C and F# played together create the most dissonant interval in the Western scale: the notorious tri-tone or 'devil's interval, with a ratio of 43:32.

The existence of these ratios has been known since the days of ancient Greece. The tuning system that features them is often called Pythagorean tuning after the Greek mathematician who, legend has it, first identified them. Today the average seventh grader knows Pythagoras for his triangles, but his ratios are the cornerstone of every pop song on Spotify.

The study of musical ratios marked one of the very first moments in the history of knowledge where mathematical descriptions productively explained natural phenomenon. In fact, the success of these mathematical explanations of music triggered a two-thousand year pursuit of similar cosmological ratios in the movements of the sun and planets in the sky; the famous 'music of the spheres' that inspired Kepler and so many others.

Wave forms, integer ratios, overtones …

None of these concepts were available to our ancestors in the Upper Paleolithic. And yet, for some bizarre reason they went to great lengths to build tools that could conjure these mathematical patterns out of the simple act of exhaling. Put yourself in that Slovenian cave forty thousand years ago. You have mastered fire, built simple tools for hunting, learned how to craft garments from animal skins to keep yourself warm in the winter.

An entire universe of further innovation lies in front of you. What would you choose to invent next? It seems preposterous that you would turn to crafting a tool that created vibrations in air molecules that synchronized at a perfect 3:2 ratio when played together. Yet that is exactly what our ancestors did.'

Wonderland: How Play Shaped the Modern World ~ Steven Johnson