Qi GONG TO STAY STRONG

Peter Deadman is a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and acupuncturist living in the UK. He is a founder of the Journal of Chinese Medicine, co-author of a famous Manual of Acupuncture, and author of the book Live well, live long, about the Chinese nourishment of life tradition (yangsheng).

Last year during lockdown he shared the video of a simple routine to nurture life forces, activate circulation in the body and specifically the lungs, all the while cultivating calmness of the heart and mind. Under a soft, easy, humble (humbling) guise, Qigong can bring significant improvements on one’s well-being when practiced regularly.

He now shares a 20 min sequence of seated Qigong for long covid sufferers to help build up strength, improve breath, and reduce anxiety and fear. It should also be good for people who are not long covid sufferers but who live with chronic disorders or are otherwise weakened, who will be glad there is stuff out there that isn’t only destined to the young able bodies.

Maybe this/these sequences practiced regularly can help some of us. In any case, Peter Deadman’s tranquil, grounded, low-key delivery is in itself rather soothing, a welcome contrast to all the frantic care-consumerism that has been going on since the pandemic hit us.

HALTE AU HEALTH DATA HUB

Dans une analyse du 17 mars 2021, La Quadrature du Net expose les soubassements idéologiques du projet français de centralisation des données de santé, le Health Data Hub, entouré des fantasmes d’I.A et de compétitivité. Elle alerte sur ses dangers, depuis les atteintes à la vie privée jusqu’à l’accélération vers un système de santé déshumanisé, et demande :

  • L’arrêt du développement du HDH, dans l’attente d’une remise à plat de ses objectifs et son fonctionnement ;
  • L’arrêt du contrat d’hébergement conclu avec Microsoft
  • Un changement de paradigme faisant de l’accès aux données de santé de la population française par le secteur privé l’exception plutôt que la norme.

“Projet central du « Plan national pour l’intelligence artificielle » (surnommé « AI for humanity« ), le « Health Data Hub » (HDH) est un projet visant à centraliser l’ensemble des données de santé de la population française. Il est prévu que le HDH regroupe, entre autres, les données de la médecine de ville, des pharmacies, du système hospitalier, des laboratoires de biologie médicale, du dossier médical partagé, de la médecine du travail, des EHPAD ou encore les données des programmes de séquençage de l’ADN [1].

Le HDH se substitue à une structure existante, le Système National de Données de Santé, avec deux principales modifications : un large élargissement des données collectées et un accès facilité, en particulier pour le secteur privé (GAFAM, « medtechs », startup, assureurs…), à ces dernières. A noter que les décrets officialisant les critères de sélection des projets ayant accès aux données ne sont toujours pas parus. Son objectif est donc, via leur centralisation, de faciliter l’utilisation de nos données de santé par le plus grand nombre d’acteurs de manière à, selon ses promoteurs-rices, « faire de la France un pays leader de l’intelligence artificielle » [2].

Ce projet, mené sans réelle concertation publique, est au centre de nombreuses controverses. Le choix du gouvernement de confier son hébergement à Microsoft, dans l’opacité la plus totale et malgré un avis particulièrement sévère de la CNIL, a soulevé de nombreuses protestations. Alors même que les critiques s’intensifiaient, le gouvernement a profité de l’état d’urgence sanitaire pour accélérer son développement, décision qui fut attaquée en justice par le collectif Interhop. Edward Snowden lui-même a pris position contre ce projet en dénonçant une capitulation du gouvernement devant « le cartel du Cloud ».

CONTINUER À LIRE >> Health Data Hub: du fantasme de l’intelligence artificielle à la privatisation de nos données de santé, par La Quadrature du Net

NO US EXTRADITION! FREE ASSANGE NOW !

What a start of the year.

After weeks and two rounds of hearing extradition, on monday 4th 2020, district judge Vanessa Baraister rendered the verdict that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the USA… while setting a disastrous precedent endangering press freedom worldwide!

The reason invoked not to extradite Assange is that it would be unjust and oppressive to extradite him by reason of his medical condition, especially his mental condition, with a high risk of suicide should he be sent to the hell of US detention system and their Special Administrative Measures aka SAM…

Theses reasons are similar to the ones invoked in Lauri Love‘s case, which saved him from being extradited to the USA and probably saved his life too. In the case of USA vs Assange, the medical reasons were among other reasons to reject the requested extradition advanced by his defence team. Indeed, there are other very valid reasons not to extradite Assange, such as the political offence exception, blatant abuses of process in his case… as one will recall reading the defence closing submissions.

Yet Vanessa Baraister shockingly chose to dismiss them all, thus basically endorsing all of US Government toxic narratives, their preposterous and dangerous accusations against Julian Assange, his work as a journalist and WikiLeaks. This verdict is a bit as if she were saying: “I would have extradited Mr Assange to the USA so he could be prosecuted there for espionage – an unprecedented attack on journalism but hey, no problem – but unfortunately he is too weak and your prisons are actually way worse than ours, so he stays here, sorry”

Does this mean that any other journalist revealing US war crimes now or in the future, in the UK, who is healthy, not completely destroyed by years of arbitrary detention and torture, would be a good candidate for extradition and prosecution in the USA? Is that what this means? UK, you must resist harder.

So whilst we celebrate this important first step towards freedom for Assange because it is a move in the right direction, one that can save his life, we insist that he has yet to be freed, from jail, and hope that bail will be granted wednesday, and from then on freed from all prosecution. The USA must drop the charges! Sadly for now, the US prosecution intends to appeal… so, much remains to be done.

Indeed we see that this verdict has yet to transform into a victory for the freedom of the press, because at present the door is still wide open to the utter destruction of our rights to know, to speak, to choose a future. The precedent about censoring press freedom, and further disclosure of confidential information of public interest seems set already… Come on people, come on UK, put an end to this abomination!

Last but not least, we are immensely grateful to all who have been working relentlessly for years for justice, for our rights, for Assange’s life and his freedom. Every step, every stand, every shout counted. This is not over so let’s keep on keeping on, although to eat, drink and be merry is certainly a bit in order now too so we all refill our hopes and courage 🙂

To UN rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer, to the witnesses who gave their statements in court, to Sondra Crosby and all doctors who have been caring for Assange, who documented the abuse, who consistently rang the alarm and helped build the last barrier that may very well save his life, to all supporters worldwide: THANK YOU <3

Julian Assange is not the only one in jail, persecuted or killed for telling truth to power, today in the so called west and across the world.

This fight is a fight for all.

May 2021 be the year where justice prevails and persecuted, threatened, imprisoned truth-tellers, whistleblowers, journalists, activists, political prisoners, are freed.

For more information visit

>> Julian Assange extradition hearing: Disctrict Court Ruling, by Don’t Extradite Assange

>> https://challengepower.info/

>> https://defend.wikileaks.org/2021/01/05/judge-blocks-julian-assanges-extradition-on-medical-grounds/

VOIX GUÉRISSEUSES – HEALING VOICES mixtape

L’émission VOIX ÉTRANGES sur Radio Vassivière et Emily de Hacking with Care ont composé une mixtape explorant le thème des “voix guérisseuses” – des sons, des voix, qui nous touchent et nous transforment. Bonne écoute!

Project VOIX ÉTRANGES on Radio Vassivière and Emily from Hacking with Care have composed a mixtape exploring the theme of “healing voices” – sounds, voices, that touch and transform us. Enjoy!

AVEC / FEATURING:

The 12th Goshir Gyaltsap Rinpoche, Beastie Boys, Thimoty Leary, Aisha Devi, Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton, Gilbert Cohen & Ariel Kalma,Annea Lockwood, Stella Chiweshe, African Head Charge, Lafawndah, The Haxan Cloak, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani,  Alice & John Coltrane

RADIO FREE ASSANGE !

Radio Free Assange is a 24/7 radio program dedicated to ending the political persecution of Julian Assange.

Radio Free Assange is an algorithmically curated collage of sound bits found online: songs and remixes, podcasts, documentaries, speeches, protests, interviews…

It bursts with surprising soundscapes, spanning from joy to anger, in defense of uncompromising journalistic activities worldwide.

Radio Free Assange invites all people, musicians, artists, to give a voice, a song or some noise, shedding light on Assange’s situation, and contribute to ongoing efforts aiming towards his liberation.

send suggestions (including links) to this email radiofreeassange[@]protonmail.com

Tune in and take action!

[ PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT WAR CRIMES ]

Freedom for Julian Assange !

Journalism is not a crime !

Also on Soundcloud Radio Free Assange!

RIOT MEDICINE

Hakan Geijer released the first edition of Riot Medicine “a public domain book to help street medics in the struggle for liberation, autonomy, and dignity for all”

Download for free here: https://riotmedicine.net

From the introduction:

“Riot medicine is the practice of medicine in an adversarial environment.It exists outside of formal and State sanctioned medical services. Practitioners of riot medicine go by many names (riot medics, street medics,demonstration medics, action medical), but at the end of the day, their goals are the same. They take to the streets as part of the diverse system of mutual aid that allows individuals to engage in protest. The duties of a riot medic may include handing out water during a peaceful demonstration, providing late-night jail support for arrested comrades,caring for injured protesters and bystanders during a riot, or extracting and providing lifesaving interventions for combatants during an armed uprising. The lens of riot medicine rather than street medicine was chose to help you focus more on how to provide medical care during demonstrations and physical engagements rather than to inform you on how to run a volunteer clinic or provide care for injuries sustained outside of short lived confrontations. The aim is to provide enough medical and tactical knowledge to enable riot medics to support short mobilizations on the scale of several hours to several days.”

TAKE CARE & free ASSANGE

Hacking with Care Bootsequence

Six years ago in 2014 we created a self-care routine video we called the Bootsequence. It shows a sequence of soft simple movements to wake up, warm up, unlock, stretch, strengthen the body from head to toes. It is recommended in the morning, before physical activity (including long hours of computer work), or as an interlude, to restore some flow in the body after prolonged stillness.

We dedicated this self-care routine video to Julian Assange, journalist founder of WikiLeaks, in a gesture of care and to raise awareness about his situation, and that of other imprisoned journalists, hacktivists and whistleblowers. Indeed at the time of shooting the video, Julian Assange was a political refugee inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, living in a situation similar to arbitrary detention (as ruled by UN working group on arbitrary detention). That abuse kept intensifying over the years, seriously damaging Assange’s physical and psychological health, as assessed and documented by doctors and by UN rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer. It culminated with Assange’s arrest by UK authorities in April 2019, his imprisonment at Belmarsh, and the US charging him with espionage act offenses and requesting his extradition. In the US, Julian Assange risks more torture and 175 years in prison – for doing great journalism.

Amid the new coronavirus epidemic and with Assange still not free, we thought we’d share this self-care video again. To stay balanced and fit through the epidemic, and, with some people confined, to remember to keep moving and find structure in a routine. All the while remembering to keep fighting for Julian Assange’s freedom and safety, because his life is more than ever at risk.

Julian Assange at risk of coronavirus infection in Belmarsh prison

Still not free, weakened by a multipartite political persecution which doesn’t seem to ever end, Julian Assange is detained at Belmarsh prison in London, awaiting the second part of the extradition trial, set in May.

Meanwhile the new coronavirus infection epidemic progresses everywhere, overwhelming healthcare systems, costing lives, disrupting activities, revealing social divides, showing the damages done by human greed gone global. Many people across countries now practice social distancing and live confined to their homes to try and contain the epidemic – necessary vital precautions of course, and also, it could be argued, a compensation for their governments lack of preparedness, cynical neglect, years of dismantling of the welfare state, and self-interest of big private capital. Many people are toiling hard still, insufficiently protected.

Concerns are growing about the health and safety of the most vulnerable people including prisoners, often living in overcrowded unsanitary conditions, in the UK too.

Julian Assange is not imprisoned for any crime. His health is poorly and he even developed a chronic lung condition over the past years of his arbitrary detention. Doctors have documented this, they have warned, over and over again, that his situation is most unfair and that his life is at risk in Belmarsh prison. More than ever now that he is at risk of contracting a coronavirus infection inside these walls and die from it. Like all prisoners who pose no risk to the public he should be RELEASED NOW

Yet Judge Vanessa Baraister has refused to grant bail to Julian Assange. We join other fellow campaigners in denouncing this as an appalling, dangerous, cruel if not criminal decision.

FREE ASSANGE !

Take care and keep fighting

<3

More info + What one can do to help :

Defend WikiLeaks

Don’t extradite Assange

Challengepower.info

Sign the petition to release Assange from Belmarsh before covid-19 spreads

WikiLeaks & Assange films & videos

The UK Don’t Extradite Assange campaign has put together a list of films on WikiLeaks, Whistleblowing, Free speech + all episodes of Julian Assange Show The World Tomorrow + a selection of Julian Assange talks, categorized by topics like Media / Power / Hope.

Instructive and valuable then, instructive and valuable now.

<3

“The WikiLeaks official Don’t Extradite Assange campaign announces an online film festival – The WikiLeaks Lockdown List. Our contribution to those who are following medical advice and self-isolating due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The WikiLeaks Lockdown List contains free films and talks you can watch to learn more about WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, whistleblowing, activism and seeking justice. Share this list and support our campaign to free Julian Assange. Please take care of yourself and those around you during this time.”

> WikiLeaks lockdown list

+

NO one should die in prison, not during an epidemic, not ever

Current circumstances are very worrying

> Sign petition to release Julian Assange from Belmarsh before Covid-19 spreads

qXZtSxOUqNaOmei-800x450-noPad

Surviving the virus: An anarchist guide (Crimethinc)

siurvivingvirusCrimethinc

by Crimethinc

“The pandemic is not going to pass in the next few weeks. Even if strict confinement measures succeed in cutting the number of infections down to what it was a month ago, the virus could resume spreading exponentially again as soon as the measures are suspended. The current situation is likely to continue for months—sudden curfews, inconsistent quarantines, increasingly desperate conditions—though it will almost certainly shift form at some point when the tensions within it boil over. To prepare for that moment, let’s protect ourselves and each other from the threat posed by the virus, think through the questions about risk and safety that the pandemic poses, and confront the disastrous consequences of a social order that was never designed to preserve our well-being in the first place.”

Surviving the virus: An anarchist guide

Sopravvivere al virus: una guida anarchica

Survivre au virus: Une méthode anarchiste

Sobreviviendo al virus : Una guia anarquista

 

 

 

MONSTERS SUMMER SCHOOL II (Pt)

Monsters_CSS_web

17 a 21 de maio de 2020, Centre for Social Studies | University of Coimbra (Portugal) >> Deadline for applications: 20 january 2020 – Extended Deadline

“The Monsters Summer School II embraces monstrosity in what it offers regarding the undoing of binaries and the celebration of embodied differences in times when the advancement of extreme-right and populism threatens our existence. We aim to explore who are the contemporary monsters, what are the dichotomies they challenge and how narratives on monsters contribute to definitions of human. We want to explore monsters as a possible theoretical figuration to escape mainstream celebrations of humanity and to embrace the vivid possibilities offered by interdisciplinary, boundary-crossing contributions from different fields of knowledge. We aim at creating spaces to discuss contributions and experiences that often fall out of the map even within critical studies. Also, we interrogate the possibilities of creating knowledge from places of estrangement regarding mainstream sources of knowledge production in the academic fields of LGBTQI+ and critical studies.

Drawing on timely, interdisciplinary theoretical contributions and intersectional empirical work on queers, crips and other misfits, the Monsters’ Summer School will consolidate academic knowledge in the fields of sexual and gender dissidence, disability and other forms of embodied misfit.

STOP THE ABUSE. PROTECTION & CARE FOR ASSANGE

 Many facts about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were distorted, omitted, made up, or amounted to smearing, during the organization’s numerous releases campaigns, and in the legal cases their founder was involved in over the years. 
Recently, various outlets published private photographic and video materials from inside the embassy, sneaky peaks at Assange’s life inside which ought to be denounced as cruel voyeurism, not news.         
        
Indeed, M.D. Sondra S. Crosby, the doctor who examined Assange several times during his political asylum in the embassy stated, in a letter to  the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, that «the synergestic and cumulative severity of the pain and suffering inflicted on Mr. Assange—both physical and psychological—is in violation of the 1984 Convention Against Torture, Article 1 and Article 16. ». She believes « the psychological, physical, and social sequelae will be long lasting and severe ». Doctor Sean Love, who also examined Assange, concurs. He wrote last year that « Assange’s detention continues to cause a precipitous deterioration in his overall condition and amounts to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment». The First in-depth assessments of the psychological and physical effects that the severely restrictive conditions of confinement within the Embassy have had on Assange date back from 2015. So yes, watching pale prisoner Assange skateboard after hours, trying to stay fit inside the walls of his arbitrary detention is cruel voyeurism, it is not newsworthy at all. Worse even, it comes in the context of a criminal extortion scheme, where possessors of the materials tried to extort millions from Assange. This was revealed in a press conference by WikiLeaks and is the subject of a police investigation in Spain.         
        
Not only did Julian Assange suffer greatly from confinement and intense stress during his political asylum, his privacy inside the embassy was not respected. His alone time, as well as visits and interviews with friends, family, and even lawyers and doctors, were spied upon and recorded.         
        
This privacy breach – and following that breach, the publication of private materials by media – appears to be the continuation by other means of the abuse of an already vulnerable and weakened person, a political refugee what’s more, and a serious matter. Not only a matter of privacy, also a matter of « attorney-client confidentiality, a matter of journalistic freedom and protection of sources », as noted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy, who is investigating the case and visited Assange in Belmarsh prison.
        
As for the « arbitrary detention » of Julian Assange, it is also a matter that was investigated by the UN, may we recall once more, it is not a figure of speech. It is the opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that Julian Assange’s years inside the embassy were indeed years of arbitrary detention, as they carefully deliberated in 2015-16 : 
        
«The Working Group considered that Mr. Assange has been subjected to different forms of deprivation of liberty: initial detention in Wandsworth prison which was followed by house arrest and his confinement at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Having concluded that there was a continuous deprivation of liberty, the Working Group also found that the detention was arbitrary because he was held in isolation during the first stage of detention and because of the lack of diligence by the Swedish Prosecutor in its investigations, which resulted in the lengthy detention of Mr. Assange. The Working Group found that this detention is in violation of Articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 7, 9(1), 9(3), 9(4), 10 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and falls within category III as defined in its Methods of Work. »7
        
In passing, we note that the observed «Lack of diligence by the Swedish Prosecutor in its investigations, which resulted in the lengthy detention of Mr. Assange» has not been much reported on since Julian Assange exerted his right to political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy. One could argue such “lack of diligence” did not serve well any of the parties involved, neither the women nor Assange, but the states involved, who cared more about neutralizing Assange than they did about justice. For clarification and reflection about the alleged rape and molestation case involving Assange and two women in Sweden in 2010, there are good reads, such as the works of Stefania Maurizi, John Pilger, and more recently Jim Kavanagh
        
Now Julian Assange’s fear of a sealed indictment in the USA and of an extradition request from the US has been confirmed, in the hours after he was handed over by Lenin Moreno’s Ecuador to the UK Metropolitan Police that gloomy morning of April 2019. He faces years in a maximum security jail, unfair trial, further cruel treatments, or death. 
It is urgent to fight for his rights, his life, and with him and WikiLeaks for the freedom of the press. Ultimately, for the rights of everyone to live in a hospitable world, where compassion, altruism, courage are key, knowledge circulates in the hands of the people, powers are held in check, and history is no more a story written only by the “winners”.
Because that is what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks stand for, what their work has done, enabled, inspired, what we should be grateful for and fight to protect.
UK and everyone must resist !
NO US EXTRADITION FOR ASSANGE, EVER, FROM ANYWHERE
JULIAN ASSANGE MUST BE PROTECTED AND GET THE CARE HE NEEDS         
    
Much strength and continued courage to Julian Assange
Stay strong !
We are standing with you
freeAnoUSxtrad

“The most important thing” Free Ola Bini

oladrawing

On the same day Julian Assange was handed over by Ecuador and arrested by UK Police at the embassy, April 11th, the Police in Ecuador arrested Ola Bini, a Swedish free software developer and  privacy advocate who had been living there for the last years. His arrest and detention since have in many ways been unlawful. There are no solid grounds for Ola’s ongoing detention other than what looks like Orwellian Thoughtcrime (they found books !),  ignorance and misunderstanding around Ola Bini’s field of research, or guilt by association (Ola Bini visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London).

Activists, intellectuals, software developers, wrote a letter to Swedish PM expressing their concerns and asking Sweden to step up.

From his detention, Ola Bini wrote a letter, The Most Important Thing, where, quoting Aaron Swartz, he shares his thoughts on the most important thing he could devote his life to – and invites us to ask ourselves again : What is the most important thing you could do? Are you doing that? If not, why not?

Stay informed, spread the word, support  FREE OLA BINI <3

 

 

La Poignée de main : Manuel de massage !

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D’abord rédigé en anglais en 2015 (THE HANDSHAKE), puis traduit en portugais (MAÕZADA) et en espagnol (EL APRÉTON DE MANOS), notre manuel de massage des mains pour toutes et tous est aujourd’hui disponible en français :

LA POIGNÉE DE MAIN – Manuel de massage des mains pour tout le monde

Vous le trouverez sur le wiki au format fanzine en pdf prêt à télécharger, imprimer, plier et partager !

Pensez à consulter er respecter les précautions et contre-indications d’usage en massage bien-être, ainsi que une conduite éthique (voir dans le manuel)

BONS MASSAGES !

Amitiés à nos ami.e.s et aux inconnu.e.s qui ne le sont pas encore mais le deviendront peut-être après une belle poignée de main !

Nos mains

Nos mains sont des outils ; elles transforment nos pensées en actions, elles modèlent notre réalité, et nous connectent au monde et aux êtres qui le compose.

Extension de nos cœurs, elles nous rapprochent des personnes que nous aimons, et gardent à distance celles dont nous nous méfions.

Leur anatomie sophistiquée permet à la fois la force brute et les gestes les plus délicats.

Elles nous nourrissent, nous défendent, mais elles se chargent aussi de stress.

Comme l’écorce de l’arbre, la peau de nos mains garde les traces des histoires nombreuses qui font nos vies.

Toutes les parties de notre corps sont le reflet d’un ensemble plus grand : un massage de la main pourra avoir un effet positif sur l’état général de la personne.

Vous trouverez ici des suggestions et des conseils pour faire de bons massages des mains… Le massage le plus facile à faire « sur le pouce » !

 

PROTECT ASSANGE !

JULIAN

Julian Assange was arrested today by UK police inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he had a been a political refugee since 2012.

He did not “walk out”. In fact, he was carried out by Police.

Ecuador terminated his asylum right in violation of international law.

Let’s fight for Julian Assange’s rights, his life, and with him and Wikileaks for the freedom of the press, and ultimately, for the rights of everyone to live in a hospitable world, where compassion, altruism, courage are key, knowledge circulates in the hands of the people, powers are held in check, and history is no more a story written only by the “winners”.

Because that is what Julian Assange and Wikileaks stand for, what their work has done/enabled/inspired, what we should be grateful for and fight to protect.

UK and everyone must resist !

NO US EXTRADITION FOR ASSANGE, a political refugee, journalist primed with dozens of awards, nominated for the Nobel prize every year since 2010.

https://defend.wikileaks.org/

PS to everyone who has until then showed reserve in supporting Julian Assange an Wikileaks :

Do not fall and do not let anyone around you fall anymore for the vicious lies and smears that have been going on for years now, looking to delegitimize Assange and WL, and to divert attention from the numerous engineered failures of Justice/ lack of due process in the multiple cases (or absence of thereof) he has been entangled in. Do not get confused: There is the discussion you might want to have about Assange and Wikileaks (the vision, the “motives”, the politics, the style of journalism etc.) and there is the ACTUAL POSSIBILITY of you and others everywhere around the globe even HAVING these conversations, that is, a world where we can be informed, think, have divergent views, write and publish etc. Also, for those of you who do feel concerned about the world but can’t quite get what that “white dude Assange is about”,  bear in mind that social justice fights are not mutually exclusive, that WL even has what could be understood as a meta approach to social justice, empowering many, and that for the causes and people which you do fight for and whom you do care about there is probably a way somehow somewhere WL helped or inspired (have a look here https://wikileaks.org/10years/)

FREE CHELSEA and DROP IT ALREADY

h7-manning

chelseaagain

USA  2019 : Chelsea Manning was jailed again after refusing to testify over her 2010 disclosures to a secret grand jury investigating Wikileaks. She is to remain in jail until she agrees to testify—or until the grand jury wraps up its work… How about they DROP IT already ?! USA 2019, where  a whistleblower / alleged source is being coerced to testify against journalists, who are being criminalized for speaking truth to power. Disgusting yes, and dangerous.

Chelsea has a strong spine but she will need support, we can contribute to her legal funds to help her resist this secret grand jury abomination. And may her courage, and her type of Contempt, be contagious.

THANK YOU CHELSEA

LOVE & SUPPORT

<3  <3  <3  <3  <3  <3  <3  <3  <3

Fight For the Future call for immediate release

Chelsea Manning Twitter (run by friends and volunteers until Chelsea is released from jail)

About how and where to write to Chelsea in jail, see this thread

Background on + Support for, Wikileaks : https://defend.wikileaks.org/

Traducmed Accueil Migrants

traducmed

Un nouvel outil de traduction spécifique aux entretiens avec des personnes migrantes et réfugiées allophones est disponible gratuitement.

Cet outil a été développé grâce à la mobilisation des groupes de La Cimade et de RESF de Montpellier et de traductrices et traducteurs bénévoles. Il s’est fait en collaboration avec le créateur du site Traducmed, le docteur Charles Vanbelle qui a construit, depuis 2005, un outil d’aide à l’accueil de patient·e·s allophones, puis une application smartphone Traducmed permettant d’énoncer oralement dans la langue du patient des phrases prédéterminées aidant à l’établissement d’un diagnostic. Ces services sont libres d’accès et ne collectent aucune information sur leurs utilisateurs.

TRADUCMED ACCUEIL MIGRANTS

Gendersec Curricula public release

The Gendersec Curricula is a resource that introduces a holistic, feminist perspective to privacy and digital security trainings. Informed by years of working with women and trans activists around the world, this free resource covers over 20 topics such as Hacking Hate Speech, Strategies of Resistance, Creative Uses of Social Media,Technological Sovereignty, Handling Anxiety, Releasing Physical Stress, Information Mapping and Identifying Risks. Trainers can access the workshops and adapt them to their communities to help Women, activists and Human Rights Defenders to protect themselves from online and offline threats.

Atelier Pudeur et Chiffrement

Magritte-LesAmants
Magritte, Les Amants

Samedi 19/05 à Paris, de 14hà 17h Emily et Yoann animeront un atelier de sensibilisation à la protection des intimités, organiques et numériques.

PRÉSENTATION DE L’ATELIER :

La possibilité pour chacun·e d’avoir un espace à soi, dans son for intérieur comme dans son cadre de vie, est indispensable à l’équilibre vital personnel, ainsi qu’à l’harmonie dans les relations et la vie collective. Cette possibilité d’espace en soi/à soi est soutenue par la pudeur, une réserve toute personnelle empreinte de culture qui agit comme une interface entre soi, les autres, le contexte / le monde…

Dans nos recoins secrets à l’abri des regards, des jugements, nous faisons pousser nos désirs, nous testons des idées, nous oublions ceci mais pas cela, nous inventons des choses, nous «patchons» des vulnérabilités… Nous modulons qui et quand quelqu’un peut entrer dans notre monde, accéder à nos matériaux intimes, ou même nous partager les siens. Nous nous laissons aussi tranquilles les un·e·s les autres, détournons parfois notre attention. Ainsi nous devenons – et nous nous maintenons – des sujets en société, capables de nous déterminer seul·e·s comme ensemble, et non pas des objets contrôlables à l’envie, dépendant·e·s du vouloir d’autres (perçu·e·s comme) tout·e puissant·e·s. Ces espaces n’échappent pas à la numérisation continue du monde, posant d’importantes questions dont il importe de nous saisir.À travers cet atelier, Emily et Yoann vous proposent de réfléchir ensemble à la pudeur et à la nécessaire protection de nos intimités, notamment lors de l’usage d’outils numériques (ordinateurs, téléphones, télévisions, consoles, objets connectés…).

Les vertus de la pudeur comme fonction psycho-corporelle bonne et nécessaire seront mises en perspectives avec les enjeux associés à la collecte numérique des données intimes et leur destin, à l’injonction à la transparence de nos faits et gestes dans un climat de chantage commercial et sécuritaire.

Emily et Yoann ont en effet l’intuition que parler de pudeur pourrait être une manière de nous sensibiliser à des questions de société importantes, et de mettre un peu de souplesse, de nuances d’intimité, dans le débat sur la protection des données personnelles, parfois caricaturé entre le «tout» ou le «rien à cacher».

L’atelier consistera en un partage de réflexions théoriques, organisés autour d’explorations sensibles: Emily et Yoann guideront tour à tour des petits exercices ou des mises en situations, à faire seul·e ou à plusieurs, permettant de sentir, pour soi-même, les questions abordées. Des temps de parole permettront la mise en commun des vécus d’expérience et l’ouverture de cette conversation dans le temps.

Informations pratiques et inscriptions

  • Samedi 19 mai, de 14h à 17h
  • Sur donation libre
  • Places limitées: inscription demandée par mail au plus tard le 18 au matin à yoann@laboussole.coop
  • Paris, République (adresse exacte et autres informations pratiques sur inscription)
  • Aucun pré-requis n’est nécessaire

Emily King est praticienne et facilitatrice en massages bien-être, en individuel et en groupes. Sa pratique intègre les massages du monde d’Orient et d’Occident, les thérapies psycho-corporelles contemporaines adaptées au bien-être, la médecine et la métaphysique classique Chinoise, les arts et l’activisme. Elle est, avec Jérémie Zimmermann et d’autres ami·e·s, à l’origine d’initiatives mêlant bien-être et activisme sous le nom Hacking with Care. C’est d’ailleurs en prêtant main douce à La Quadrature du Net qu’Emily fait la connaissance de Yoann.

Yoann est chercheur et formateur au sein de la coopérative La Boussole. Il prépare actuellement une thèse à l’Université Paris 8, consacrée à la politisation des enjeux techniques à l’ère numérique. Son expérience professionnelle et militante, notamment au sein de l’organisation de défense des droits et libertés La Quadrature du Net, l’a amené à approfondir de nombreux domaines des enjeux numériques contemporains – notamment liés à la surveillance, à la liberté d’expression ou au partage en ligne.

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Handholding analgesia

“Our findings indicate that hand-holding during pain administration increases brain-to-brain coupling in a network that mainly involves the central regions of the pain target and the right hemisphere of the pain observer. Moreover, brain-to-brain coupling in this network was found to correlate with analgesia magnitude and observer’s empathic accuracy. These findings indicate that brain-to-brain coupling may be involved in touch-related analgesia.”

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” Nos résultats indiquent que tenir la main pendant la douleur augmente le couplage cerveau-cerveau qui est lui-même corrélé à l’amplitude de l’analgésie et à l’empathie du partenaire, assurent les auteurs. Ces résultats apportent une contribution unique à notre compréhension des mécanismes physiologiques de l’analgésie liée au toucher.”

> Main dans la main, nos cerveaux se synchronisent, Elena Sender, Sciences et Avenir, 12/03/2018

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Picture from Hacking with Care hands massage manual , The HANDSHAKE

Think twice : UN’s biometric identity management system

Biometric identity management systems raise many very important questions and some very scary ones as well.

Even more so when they are big multinational programs, like the UN Refugee Agency biometric identity management system, and collect and store biometric data of millions of the most vulnerable people on the Planet…  The sick, injured, persecuted people, refugees, asylum seekers, ethnic, religious or other minorities who ended up in a humanitarian camp because another group with more power somewhere simply wants them wiped out…  Question: Should the biometric data of individuals who are the target of a genocide even be collected in the first place ?? How is this data protected, how are these people protected, short and long term ? Not to mention the great asymmetry of power between the “helper” and the “helped”, and the questionable validity of informed consent (if it is brought up at all) in situations where it’s primarily about survival.

The following article gives an overview of these questions through the example of the Rohingya.

Tagged, tracked and in danger : How the Rohingya got caught in the UN’s risky biometric database. / Elise Thomas, Wired

Racism squared

Racism x Racism =

“Face recognition software is especially bad at recognizing African Americans. A 2012 study [.pdf] co-authored by the FBI showed that accuracy rates for African Americans were lower than for other demographics. Face recognition software also misidentifies other ethnic minorities, young people, and women at higher rates. Criminal databases include a disproportionate number of African Americans, Latinos, and immigrants, due in part to racially biased police practices. Therefore the use of face recognition technology has a disparate impact on people of color.”

>> Electronic Frontier Foundation, Street Level Surveillance, Face Recognition

Black Hearts Attacked

The fallout of police violence is killing black women like Erica Garner

By Christen A. Smith – The Conversation

“The sting of the premature death of 27-year-old Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, is still fresh.

On Christmas Eve, Erica Garner suffered a massive heart attack which caused extensive brain damage. She died on Dec. 30. This latest loss emphasizes something we have known: Black women are dying from the trauma of police violence and this issue must be grappled with before more die.

When I heard the news of Erica Garner’s heart attack, a wave of familiar shock and pain ran through me. I immediately recognized the correlation between her heart attack and her father’s death because I had seen it before.

As an anthropologist who studies the impact of police violence on black communities in Brazil and the United States, I was familiar with many stories like Erica’s. My research examines the ways that police violence kills black women slowly through trauma, pain and loss.

Some may find this idea startling. Let me explain.

Trauma, pain and loss

In the wake of the deaths of black people at the hands of the state – from the police to the prison system – the living are often weighted with a sadness that is too heavy to bear, and in the weeks and months following the initial death of a loved one, they become sick and many die prematurely.

(…)

Je veux que chaque matin soit pour moi une année nouvelle

“Chaque matin, à me réveiller encore sous la voûte céleste, je sens que c’est pour moi la nouvelle année. C’est pourquoi je hais ces nouvel an à échéance fixe qui font de la vie et de l’esprit humain une entreprise commerciale avec ses entrées et sorties en bonne et due forme, son bilan et son budget pour l’exercice à venir. Ils font perdre le sens de la continuité de la vie et de l’esprit. On finit par croire sérieusement que d’une année à l’autre existe une solution de continuité et que commence une nouvelle histoire, on fait des résolutions et l’on regrette ses erreurs etc. etc. C’est un travers des dates en général”…

….continuer de lire Je hais le nouvel an, par Antonio Gramsi, sur Révolution Permanente.

Poussy Plaisir Protocole

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Cadeau de fin d’année qui répond à un cadeau, voici le POUSSY PLAISIR PROTOCOLE <3

Un protocole-photo de massage plaisir du torse, abdomen et poitrine, dédicacé à Poussy Draama, a.k.a DocteurE Duchesne, pour réaliser avec son huile ou d’autres huiles délicieuses faites maison.

Poussy Draama / DocteurE Duchesne propose des conseils et réconfort autour du bien-être sexuel/ gynécologique. Elle écoute, réponds et partage autour de plein de questions (contraception, violences sexuelles et médicales, médecines douces..) d’un point de vue queer et féministe. Elle facilite régulièrement des ateliers et propose des séances d’écoute et de conseils à prix libre (possible online). Chaque année, Poussy propose aussi une petite livraison de produits de bien-être naturels concoctés par ses bons soins, en édition limitée. En 2017 sous la sapine, je recevais l’Huile Délicieuse pour le corps, une macération de roses et fleurs d’oranger dans des huiles de sésame, coco, et olive. C’est cette huile qui a inspiré le massage crayonné ci dessous. Merci Poussy <3
Pour la contacter : poussydraama@riseup.net

Le massage : Ecris P-O-U-S-S-Y !

Veillez à toujours bien respecter les précautions et contre indications en massage ainsi que des régles de conduites et une éthique bienveillante.

Chauffez vos mains, prenez un peu d’huile, placez vous à la tête de votre ami.e … et écrivez simplement P-O-U-S-S-Y en suivant les lignes et points d’appuis du corps, comme indiqué sur le dessin ! Vous pouvez aussi pratiquer ce protocole en auto-massage !!

Ce sont des manoeuvres simples, mains pleines, paumes à plat, qui épousent et confortent la peau (mais libre à vous de faire entrer des variations). N’hésitez pas à répéter plusieurs fois chaque geste.  Le rythme est plutot lent (ou langoureux disons), car on ne peut pas aller trop vite si on veut bien “épouser” le corps, mais introduisez tout de meme des variations, ralentissez, voire marquez des pauses – laissez bien la place à la respiration (la votre et celle de votre ami.e) et laissez vous guider.

D’un point de vue des bienfaits, outre la détente et le plaisir, ce massage informé par la Médecine Classique Chinoise soutient la circulation sur le méridien Conception a.k.a Ren Mai (avec le P et le Y), le transit intestinal (avec le P et le O) , renforce la force vitale du centre (O), soutient l’ascension de la rate (U) et le méridien du foie qu’il désengorge (avec le U et le Y, les S), et soulage / relax le coeur et péricarde (les S). Un massage qui peut donc être bien indiqué en cas de contrariétés pré-moonstruelles (avec par exemple tensions dans les seins, problèmes digestifs, irritabilité, tristesse..)

Vous souhaitant bien du plaisir, chaleur au coeur et au corps, harmonies amoureuses et infinies amitiés

Emily  <3

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Emily King / Poussy Draama

Gimme skin

SKIN is our greatest superficial organ and it needs consensual touch and comfort a little bit like the leaves on the tree need SUNSHINE.  A heartfelt hug, a massage, a good back rub, a dance or a long embrace, some tickles, strokes on the forehead, to hold hands, to sit back to back, a “skin bath” in bed with a loved one… An intimacy, which doesn’t have to be sexual – in fact the “hunger for skin”, is not primarily sexual, although sex is a frequently chosen way to satiate a need for contact.

And so SKIN is a place where we meet, it holds the sense of TOGETHERNESS, it is solid ground for relationships. It is an interface between the inner and outer worlds, SKIN contains us, mediates us, supports our PSYCHE. So we don’t crumble !

It is not just about healing this or that condition through touch (although touch does help heal, notably depression): To touch and be touched is to be HUMAN.  No-touch is torture (and solitary confinement is to be abolished, do read Chelsea’s statement).

The article shared below proposes to reflect about the vital sense of touch and the detrimental effects of a lack of thereof on our bodies and minds,  a “condition” psychologists call “skin hunger”.

>> > The life of the skin-hungry : Can you go crazy from lack of touch ?

Self-holding hacks

Below is a guidelines for a simple yet powerful exercise, if you give it a chance. The simultaneous placing of hands on – and thus connecting of- important centers (brain, heart, stomach..) can have an effect on the nervous system and help balance emotions on a daily basis. Importantly, it can open a “path back home” to a calm composed state in case of a crisis/panic. Like all exercises designed to help in times of emergency, it is best to practice in relatively more peaceful times, so as to be familiar with it.

Note you can also use these placing of hands to help soothe a friend, if they are OK with your touch in that moment.

>>>> Printable 2 steps self-holding exercises

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source: The Art of Healing Trauma, Heidi Hanson, citing Peter Levine.

GLU Handshake workshop

Earlier in September, Emily joined the Girls Like Us team in Brussels for the launch of issue #10 of their magazine, FUTURE, which features a photographic version of Hacking with Care’s hands massage manual, the Handshake. Emily facilitated a workshop for the occasion, where she shared tips, talked about ethical conduct in care, and showed a selection of simple and effective hands massage moves.  A formidable ice-breaker, a powerful portable massage, a connection you can’t really cheat, the Handshake proved again a great tool for making friends, fortifying ourselves, and building solidarities.

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Below, Emily is showing the move  counting money on the phalanges , in which you want to contact the bone structure of the hand. There is something odd in the phalanges count… If you apply yourself patiently to it, you will find out what 🙂

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A warm thank you to all the participants, and to Girls Like Us for the beautiful photographic version of the handshake and for creating good conditions for sharing and caring in a workshop. Wishing you all nice massages !

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The issue #10 of Girls Like Us magazine is available online or in some stores . The T-shirt is for sale also on the online shop of GLU

THE HANDSHAKE

Photos Katja Mater cc-by-nc-sa

Girls Like Us Handshake, Brussels

THE HANDSHAKE

Girls Like Us made a pretty photographic version of our Handshake massage manual, which features in the latest issue of their magazine, themed FUTURE. A Future “that is fair, fun, furry, fabulous, fierce, free and not fucked up. A future that embraces weakness, where we come together, where we can lean on each other and stand strong”.

Emily will be in Brussels Saturday 02/09 for the launch of the magazine, to give a workshop to accompany the publication, and chill out 🙂

If you wish to join the festivities, attend the workshop (limited capacity !) or find out how to get a copy of the magazine, write to contact@girlslikeusmagazine. com

The original Hacking with Care Handshake can be found here on our wiki, also available in zine format ready for printing, in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

<3

Photography Katja Mater /Girls Like Us CC-NC-BY-SA

Après demain la médecine ? Entretien

“Pour le professeur Didier Sicard, ancien chef de service en médecine interne à l’hôpital Cochin et ancien président du Comité consultatif national d’éthique (CCNE), cette manière de voir les choses constitue un leurre pour au moins deux raisons. D’un côté, il n’existe guère aujourd’hui, contrairement à hier, de révolutions médicales d’ampleur, mais plutôt une tendance à la stagnation dans la découverte de nouveaux médicaments et d’avancées majeures dans le traitement des corps souffrants. De l’autre, l’économie et la technologie paraissent prendre le pas sur les considérations éthiques, politiques et sociales qui constituent pourtant le socle de la médecine « d’après-demain ».

Pour le professeur Sicard, la France est dans une situation paradoxale, puisqu’elle dispose de nombreux atouts pour être le laboratoire de la médecine de l’avenir, mais ses logiques et structures actuelles risquent fort de la laisser sur le bord de la route. Pour celui qui a présidé le comité d’experts des données de santé, le big data en matière médicale en est l’incarnation. La France est en effet, du fait de la centralisation de l’assurance maladie, le pays qui possède de loin le plus de données, mais aussi celui qui s’en sert le moins, en raison des réticences des médecins et des inquiétudes du politique : une réalité qui n’est pas sans lien avec le fait que la France est aussi l’un des pays qui ont accumulé le plus de scandales sanitaires sur la longueur, à l’instar du Mediator.

À partir du constat d’une relation médecin/malade transformée par la technologie au point d’en oublier, de plus en plus souvent, le savoir du corps, Didier Sicard réfléchit aux transformations liées à l’individualisation du soin, au vieillissement de la population, à la captation marchande d’une médecine dont on attend de plus en plus, et qu’on maîtrise de moins en moins.”

source: Mediapart, Les Mirages de la médecine moderne, entretien avec le professeur Sicard, dans le cadre d’une série de rencontres intitulée “Penser le monde d’après demain” à Avignon, été 2017

 

Woman On Waves in Mexico 21-23/04

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En colaboración con organizaciones locales y nacionales, el barco de Women on Waves (Mujeres sobre las olas) llegó a México. Hoy inició su campaña y ya navega en aguas internacionales donde atiende a mujeres con hasta nueve semanas de embarazo que desean realizarse un aborto.
Quienes ahora estén cursando un embarazo no deseado pueden solicitar apoyo al 755980 0548.

El viernes 21 de abril a las 10:00 horas habrá una conferencia de prensa en el hotel Sunscape Dorado Pacífico Ixtapa, ubicado en Paseo de Ixtapa, Ixtapa.
Para más información de prensa, comunicarse al 55 4042 8376 y 55 4551 0791 con Women on Waves o (52) 1 55 4010 6752 para hablar con las organizaciones nacionales y locales.

El barco de Women on Waves cuenta con todos los permisos requeridos en México y estará atendiendo a las mujeres hasta el próximo domingo 23 de abril. Los servicios que se brindan a bordo se rigen por los más altos estándares médicos internacionales y las recomendaciones de la OMS.

In collaboration with national and local Mexican organisations, the Women on Waves ship arrived in Mexico. The campaign started today and the boat has already sailed out with women to international waters where women can get free legal medical abortions till 9 weeks of pregnancy. Women with unwanted pregnancies in need of help can call 7559800548

On Friday April 24th at 10am there will be a press conference at the hotel Sunscape Dorado Pacifico Ixtapa, address Paseo de Ixtapa, Ixtapa. For more press information, please contact: (52) 55 40428376 and (52) 55 4551 0791 for Women on Waves or (52) 1 55 4010 6752 for the national and local organizations.

The ship has all required permits to sail out and will be receiving women until Sunday, April, 23rd. The services on board the ship are provided according to high European medical standards.

Info on the campaign + Sexuality and Birth Control Resources >> WOMEN ON WAVES / MUJERES SOBRE LAS OLAS

 

#TransHealthFails

“Would a licensed medical doctor with years of training really be unsure of what to do with a broken arm just because it was attached to a transgender person?

That’s the simple question at the heart of a complex issue dubbed “Trans Broken Arm Syndrome.” The term was coined by Naith Payton at British LGBT site Pink News on July 9 to describe when “healthcare providers assume that all medical issues are a result of a person being trans. Everything – from mental health problems to, yes, broken arms.”

This phenomenon is just one of many difficulties transgender people face when seeking healthcare. Even for something as common as a cold, trans people frequently don’t receive appropriate medical care due to a combination of under-educated physicians, insurance coverage denials, and fear of discrimination.”

Continue reading : ‘Trans Broken Arm Syndrome’ and the way our healthcare system fails trans people, by Mary Emily O’Hara, August 6, 2015

Massage tip for thumb

Here is a nice massage tip to alleviate or prevent fatigue pain caused by over-exertion of the  thumb and wrist (from giving many massages for example!). It is also the opportunity to discover a muscle in the forearm, the Flexor pollicis longus muscle, that flexes the phalanges of the thumb. And, we get the anatomical reason why a good massage of the hands is a massage that includes the forearm as well as the fingers ! As shown in our Handshake massage manual !

Chest Binding and Health

“Study highlights health problems related to chest binding”

“The practice of chest binding to create a more masculine appearance is well know within the queer community, but medical professionals and the general pubic are less informed – which leads to a lack of information about what is the best practice. Many people are forced to search online for information and guidance and YouTube videos have become on of the most common places for people seeking knowledge. Now a research team have published the findings of a large survey they conducted. Published in Culture, Health and Sexuality: an International Journal for Research, Intervention and Care, the study is based on anonymous interviews with 1800 people who had experiences in binding their chests.”

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“Overwhelmingly people said chest binding had a positive effect on their mental health with decreases in suicidality, anxiety and dysphoria and increased self-esteem, confidence and ability to go out safely in public.

but

“97.2% of participants reported at least one negative outcome they attributed to binding. The most commonly reported outcomes were back pain (53.8%), overheating (53.5%), chest pain (48.8%), shortness of breath (46.6%), itching (44.9%), bad posture (40.3%) and shoulder pain (38.9%).”

and

“Sports bras, layering sports bras and neoprene or athletic compression wear were the binding methods least commonly associated with negative outcomes, and therefore may be the safest options for binding.”

Fitness Povero

Instant crush on the works and words of artist/”personal trainer” Nina Cristante ! She develops a low key, intuitive, diy, fluid, elusive (as opposed to marketable), critical/common sense approach to well-being, diet, exercise… Part of her “frugal” Fitness Povero program (a take on the italian Arte Povera) is her “homeworks” collection of physical exercises videos, which she made in her bedroom and to which she also composed the music.

FITNESS POVERO Homeworks videos

Interview for Dis Magazine

Interview with Fiona Duncan

Interview with Amuse

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

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Following up on so many discussions about justice and healing is this painful and violent world, in relation with two workshops on consent in hacker culture (THF 2016, Montreal), this article is a deep proposition to care for emotions , nurture ourself and each other and develop emotional  intelligence in order to heal from rape culture. Lacking skills about consent is something that touch all of us, but even more those who were educated in a culture where emotions are not welcome, not valued or not understood. Emotional intelligence can be developed, along with communication skills and we all need it, so much. Nora Samaran wrote this text about a year ago, and I keep looking at it, as a way forward, as a healing path.

The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture

 

HWC Datengarten CCC Session, Berlin 10/01

Jérémie Zimmermann presents Hacking with Care, discusses tactical ethical care for all @Datengarten CCC Session in Berlin, January 10th. Get cozy and catch up with the video !

“We see everyday members of our communities -especially ones under high pressure- go burn-out, depressed, or worse. Caring about ourselves and others is a cultural and strategic blind spot for those, like us, who were born “in” a computer… At the other end of the spectrum, caregivers lack the understanding of technological realities that would be necessary to meaningfully reach and get in contact with us (OpSec and crypto among others). Hacking with Care aims at bridging this gap, by hacking care and well-being as a primary strategic objective of our movements, as well as a joyful tactics that can be shared around. Likewise, HwC aims at sharing hacker ethics and tools with caregivers, to enable them to better fulfill their missions.
Hacking with Care is a loose collective, growing literally by contact and affinity, comprised of hackers, activists, massage, Chinese medicine practitioners, psycho- and motion-therapists, etc. Join us for a hands-on discussion about hacking collectively some of our most precious -yet sometimes unexplored-, complex and beautiful resources of all: our bodies and our minds!”

HWC Sessions, 03/04 Sept. Berlin: Schedule updates !!

Updated Friday 02/09 :

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Dear Friends,

We are now one week to our first Hacking with Care sessions at c-base, Berlin !! Two days of massages, workshops, teas, talks, digital security care, working groups to hack burnout, live Ask Me Anything with caregivers.. and more !  Here below is the updated schedule and descriptions of the latest additions and changes on the original schedule + the other activities as described before.

Remember, the HWC sessions are open to all People who Care and who are eager to joyfully, carefully put in common, look after each other, and learn some more -not only tech savvy friends or experimented caregivers : Share the invitation, Bring your friends ! ! If you specifically wish to ask about/ improve your digital security, bring your devices !

We envision these sessions as yet one more means to thrive and to grow in our capacities for care as individuals and collectives, drawing on a variety of (s)elected tools and skills, creating alliances.. Let’s make it happen !

Do you want to let us know you will attend (this can help us with logistics/being prepared) ? Do you have any questions ? Do you wish to lend  a helping hand (or two) or contribute something ? You can contact us at event@hackingwithcare.in.

See you soon !!

<3

The Hacking with Care team

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LATEST ADDITIONS to schedule :

“I am a psychotherapist, Ask Me Anything !” (Saturday 12h). Psychotherapist Manon answers your questions, live at the Tea house.  Like for other AMA, questions will be written on pieces of paper and dropped in a hat from which Manon will pick, so as to protect anonymity, help put people at ease around possibly sensitive subjects. PLEASE NOTE: The AMAs (psychotherapy, physiotherapy) are not to be mistaken for individual therapy sessions/consultations, which they are not. The AMAs primary aims is to break ice on important subjects such as physical and mental health, help people get some orientation in the field so as to facilitate one’s pathway/access to care, help identify individual and collective needs in terms of care, meet with caregivers and understand better what they do, further everyone’s knowledge, ignite curiosity… 🙂 

Mate Making workshops with Meta Mate (Sunday between 11h and 15h) – Sharing a mate is more than sipping a tea and Meta Mate wishes to invite us to tune in, connect, and infuse the weekend with theobromine, antioxidents and caffeine from the wild forests produced in an autonomous way. Discover the customs / rituals when drinking mate the traditional way, and the preparation of and drinking of a few different types of mates.

Healthy Hacking & caffeine, a conversation with Fabricio/Meta Mate (Sunday 14h-15h) Fabricio from Meta Mate proposes to discuss meditation, rituals, sugar and caffeine intake to help healthy hacking !

MODIFICATIONS/UPDATES of previous schedule :

We Make Massage ! (Saturday 11h, Sunday 15h) Massage workshops with Emily, previously announced as the Handshake on the Saturday or the Monkey Mind Massage on the Sunday, are now We Make Massage : Workshops dedicated to the basics of well-being massage, where Emily will share tips as well as essential guidance for most of your massages, answer questions, give demos..  The idea is to facilitate care-giving between ourselves throughout the weekend and after, and make participants happy and confident enough to use the massage gear that will be at everyone’s disposal on the event. Depending on the wishes of the participants in the moment, focus can be made on specific body regions, like the hands (as in the Handshake) or the head (as in The Monkey Mind).. Copies of the Handshake hands massage manual will be available on the event, and there will be opportunities to ask for guidance with gestures in this particular protocol. Please all participants interested in giving or receiving care Read and Observe our Precautions and contra-indications list as well as our Ethical Guidelines in massage and care <3

The workshop with Mostro previously announced as Deskstop Self-care Kit (Sunday 4th at 12h), will be given in SPANISH, possibly with simultaneous English translation depending on who’s there (if you speak both languages, your help might be greatly appreciated !!). Here is the description:

Kit para el autocuidado (o el de tu amigx) – Trabajando frente a un ordenador, Auch!! Mis hombros,mi cuello, mi cabeza y mi espalda! con Mostro. Este es un taller de masaje teórico-práctico que te servirá para cuidar y prevenir dificultades relacionadas con el trabajo frente a un ordenador por largos periodos de tiempo. El taller tendrá 3 fases, la primera es la presentación de las principales problemáticas que se tiene en relación con este tipo de trabajo de “escritorio”. Después habrá una parte practica, donde se compartirá un tipo de masaje y movimientos que te ayudaran a relajar tus hombros, cuello, cabeza y espalda. Por último se darán recomendaciones preventivas que puedes usar mientras laboras o estas en tus ratos libres, y así poder disminuir afectos que tiene tu trabajo sobre ti.

Por favor considera las precauciones y contraindicaciones, así como la ética de conducta durante un masaje, que se muestra en la siguientes paginas de Hacking With Care.

The time for the working group on Digital and Operational Security for caregivers was moved to Sunday at 16h (instead of 15h)

AND STILL :

ACTIVITIES

Tea Must Flow ! Saturday and Sunday at the opening. Jérémie Zimmermann introduces us to the Tea House, the different varieties of tea, how to prepare them, how to maintain a nice  flow of tea throughout the day, and most importantly, to the magic of convivialiTEA.

About Hacking with Care. Saturday 14h-15h. Co-founders and Hacking with Care facilitators Jérémie Zimmermann and Emily present Hacking with Care, genesis, line of thought and actions, future. The following conversations will focus on identifying our needs, our capacities, as individuals and groups, what we wish for with this project/collective, and how we could do it.

Boneshaker ! Saturday 12h30 and Sunday 17h. Preventing physical stress from programming and sitting all day, is a lesson hosted by physiotherapist Sarah Hiltner.

“I am a physiotherapist, Ask Me Anything” (Live). Saturday 15h-16h. With Sarah Hiltner.

Hack Anxiety. Sunday 11h30-13h. Emily shares basic knowledge of the Autonomic Nervous System so as to better understand what goes on in stress, anxiety and panic. She then guides you though breathing exercises that can help operate a switch from the Flee or Fight response to the Rest and Digest response. Number of participants limited to 10 or less. WARNING: Breathing exercises can trigger emotional release (and we will be here for you and do our best to help you through it, just be aware that this can sometimes happen to you, or others)

Never make any promise. Sunday 14h-15h. Loic Dachary shares his insights on Overcommitment and Stress. “When hacking on a volunteer basis, overcommitment is a great source of stress. It feels so good when the promise is made, either by assigning a bug to yourself or by carelessly writing on IRC: “Sure, I’ll do it”. Most of the time it turns into a burden (except for the rare aliens who are born without the procrastination gene). But there is no need for this self-inflicted punishment: it is enough to do things and talk about what was done in the past instead of promising to do things in the feature. A seemingly simple replacement that changes everything.”

Working Group on Burnout. Sunday 15h-17h. Join Jérémie Zimmermann to hack burnout.

Working Group on Digital and Operational Security for caregivers and friends. Sunday 16h-18h. Caregivers and Hackers-activists get together to brainstorm on security, identify the needs and specificities, towards creating resources (possibly a guide) for caregivers in action.

Digital Security and Care Bar. Sunday afternoon. Offer, share, swap your care-full skills with peers, whether these be hands massage, or help with setting up OTR.. If you wish to get help on your computer, don’t forget to bring it 😉

CARE CORNER(S)

Care corners will be set up with professional massage tables, massage chair and yoga massage futon for working on the floor.  Caregivers will propose individual massage/ bodywork sessions (by booking on site, old school pen and paper).  The care corners will also be open, available  for everyone to use during the two days, provided you respect the Ethical Guidelines we have drafted. The individual sessions will be free or on donations or with trades of care/skills (See Digital Security and Care bar).

Hacking with Care sessions, 3/4 Sept. Berlin : A schedule !

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PLEASE NOTE : Additions and modifications to the schedule originally published here were made on August 28th, please see this post for up to date schedule !!

Dear Friends,

We are happy to share with you a schedule of activities for the two-days Hacking with Care Sessions that will take place on the weekend of the 3rd and 4th of September at c-base, in Berlin.

Note this schedule is open to organic changes, so a as to best accommodate the people and possibilities in real time. We will keep you posted on these via twitter @hackingwithcare. At the bottom of this post you will find detailed description of the activities.

HWCSat

HWCSun

We like a schedule that is not too packed, to balance more active moments, leave room for spontaneity and chill out, and simply enjoy being together. That said, there could still be room for a thing or two, so if you wish to contribute, you can still do send your proposal at event@hackingwithcare.in. Likewise if you wish to simply help around, setting things up and down, seeing that everything goes smoothly, that will be appreciated!

As you will see, some workshop (Hack Anxiety) can only accommodate a limited number of participants. We would appreciate if you would write us to say if you wish to attend. Generally, and although it is not necessary to do so, it can be nice of you to let us know whether you will be coming or not and to what, because that could help us with organization and logistics.

Looking forward to seeing you there <3

The Hacking with Care team !

contact: event@hackingwithcare.in

ACTIVITIES

Tea Must Flow ! Saturday and Sunday at the opening. Jérémie Zimmermann introduces us to the Tea House, the different varieties of tea, how to prepare them, how to maintain a nice  flow of tea throughout the day, and most importantly, to the magic of convivialiTEA.

Handshake ! Saturday 3, 11h-12h30. Emily shares some tips and guides you through a simple hands massage protocol, that will help you take care of each other’s hands… and fortify friendships !

About Hacking with Care. Saturday 14h-15h. Co-founders and Hacking with Care facilitators Jérémie Zimmermann and Emily present Hacking with Care, genesis, line of thought and actions, future. The following conversations will focus on identifying our needs, our capacities, as individuals and groups, what we wish for with this project/collective, and how we could do it.

Boneshaker ! Saturday 12h30 and Sunday 17h. Preventing physical stress from programming and sitting all day, is a lesson hosted by physiotherapist Sarah Hiltner.

“I am a physiotherapist, Ask Me Anything” (Live). Saturday 15h-16h. With Sarah Hiltner.

Hack Anxiety. Sunday 11h30-13h. Emily shares basic knowledge of the Autonomic Nervous System so as to better understand what goes on in stress, anxiety and panic. She then guides you though breathing exercises that can help operate a switch from the Flee or Fight response to the Rest and Digest response. Number of participants limited to 10 or less. WARNING: Breathing exercises can trigger emotional release (and we will be here for you and do our best to help you through it, just be aware that this can sometimes happen to you, or others)

Desktop Self-Care Kit and Massage. Sunday 12h-13h. Mostro shares her theoretical and practical knowledge of the side effects of working at a computer all day, from prolonged stillness to the way we consume food and drinks, and shows a massage routine to relax, prevent and reduce the strains.

Never make any promise. Sunday 14h-15h. Loic Dachary shares his insights on Overcommitment and Stress. “When hacking on a volunteer basis, overcommitment is a great source of stress. It feels so good when the promise is made, either by assigning a bug to yourself or by carelessly writing on IRC: “Sure, I’ll do it”. Most of the time it turns into a burden (except for the rare aliens who are born without the procrastination gene). But there is no need for this self-inflicted punishment: it is enough to do things and talk about what was done in the past instead of promising to do things in the feature. A seemingly simple replacement that changes everything.”

Working Group on Burnout. Sunday 15h-17h. Join Jérémie Zimmermann to hack burnout.

Working Group on Digital and Operational Security for caregivers and friends. Sunday 15h-17h. Caregivers and Hackers-activists get together to brainstorm on security, identify the needs and specificities, towards creating resources (possibly a guide) for caregivers in action.

Monkey Mind.  Sunday 18h -19h30. Emily shares massage tips and guides you through a simple head and face massage to help calm restless / hyperactive minds, and maybe fall asleep.

Crypto and Care Bar. Sunday 17h-19h. Offer, share, swap your care-full skills with peers, whether these be hands massage, or help with setting up OTR.. If you wish to get help on your computer, don’t forget to bring it 😉

CARE CORNER(S)

Care corners will be set up with professional massage tables, massage chair and yoga massage futon for working on the floor.  Caregivers will propose individual massage/ bodywork sessions (by booking on site, old school pen and paper).  The care corners will also be open, available  for everyone to use during the two days, provided you respect the Ethical Guidelines we have drafted. The individual sessions will be free or on donations or with trades of care/skills (See Crypto and Care bar).

Holistic Security: Well-being indicators as Security Indicators

explore_detail_06

Below is an excerpt of the chapter on Security Indicators in the Holistic Security Strategy Manual for Human Rights Defenders, by Tactical Tech (a recommended resource/read). It describes indicators of health and well-being as security indicators. A security indicator being defined as  “anything out of the ordinary that we notice which may have an impact on our security”.

Indicators in our health and well-being :

“It can be easy to overlook our health and well-being, but changes in our health can indicate a reaction to an external problem such as increased stress, which in turn impacts our security situation. As activists we sometimes continue to push ourselves, but in doing so we risk causing lasting damage to our health over time, or hindering our ability to analyse our security situation. We may not be used to monitoring our own health and changes can occur gradually, so adopting a methodological approach to our physical, emotional and psychological selves is a good start. One way of doing this is by making a stress table, like in the exercise below.”

These considerations are followed by an exercise in the form of a stress table, to “help you to identify your limits concerning different kinds of stress, how to recognise these limits and measures to counter stress.”

 

Hacking with Care @THF!2016, Montréal 18-22/08

THF16

Don’t forget this week in Montreal is the TransHackFeminist meet-up !

Decolonizing Technologies, Autonomous Infrastructures, Queer and Feminist Pedagogies and Hacking with Care !

Check out the program !

Among the other empowering careful activities organically proposed at THF!2016, it will be the occasion to take part to one of the cherished Hacking with Care body-mind-machine awareness workshop with Goldjian Attent!ion Som(t)a(c)tic, and for the first time to the get into the excitement and ex-plo-rations of the Cryptodance !!!!

<3

SAVE THE DATE! Hacking with Care Sessions – 3-4 Sept.2016 – c-base, Berlin

SAVE THE DATE! Hacking with Care Sessions – 3-4 Sept.2016 – c-base, Berlin
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We are happy to announce our first “Hacking with Care Sessions”, on the week-end of the 3rd and the 4th of September at the c-base, rungestrasse 20, 10179 Berlin

Join us for two wholehearted days of meeting, sharing and caring for hackers-activists, caregivers and friends !

The schedule – to be announced – will be split between workshops, presentations/discussions on related topics, individual care sessions, and will leave time and space to chill-out in a cozy version of our world-famous Tea House.

We hope you are as excited by this event as we are, and are hoping for participation and contributions of various kinds. If you feel like actively contributing something, check the more detailed Call for contributions below 🙂

Please write to event@hackingwithcare.in if you intend to attend and/or contribute!

For next updates on this event and our activities, you can check the twitter feed @hackingwithcare, and you can also subscribe to the Hacking with Care mailing list. 

We are sure these two days will be a wonderful occasion to take care of each other, learn and share useful  knowledge and skills, and are confident that with everyone’s contribution it will happen in a cozy and joyful manner!

Lots of love and a good summer <3

HWC September sessions Call for contributions:

  • You can contribute to this event with a workshop and/or by offering individual or small group sessions, of  Care for hackers/activists and/or Hackers ethics and tools for caregivers.

Indeed we are looking to offer care to hackers-activists (massages, yoga, tea etc.) as well as specific care/techniques to caregivers (for example introduction to or help with digital security, OpSec, Libre software, etc..), knowing of course that these categories are not set in stone and there can be much fluidity between all.

Also, remember you don’t have to be a “pro” to offer your lovely care and kindness, and that you can share/put into practice something you will have learned in a workshop the day or morning before.

  • You can also contribute with a short presentation/discussion on a related topic of interest, at the intersection of care and hacking-activism.
  • You can offer a live “Ask Me Anything” session at some table, like, “I am a physiotherapist, ask me anything” or “I am a digital security expert, ask me anything” etc.
  • You can offer to host a tea table and look after the flow of tea, during the event, welcome and guide guests..
  • You can help with the general organization and smooth running of the event.
  • You can also contribute with educational and care resources, zines, stickers, etc.
  • You can lend equipment (massage table, cushions…)
  • You can contribute on the Food, Snacks and Drinks front (teas !!)…

Please write to event@hackingwithcare.in 

Looking forward to sharing and caring with you <3

Digital Colonialism and the hacking coyotes #rp10

“We need to have this conversation”: Renata Avila, Joana Varon, Nanjira Sambula and Alan Mills , discuss Digital Colonialism at Re:publicaTEN, weaving in poetic/historic reflections on the Coyote, hacker-trickster resisting assimilation and annihilation.  In many ways, the subject (sadly as old as the new “free” world) is very relevant to care – access to care, what care, productions of knowledge in care..-  in so far as bodies-minds, are (being made into) territories.

The history of colonization is a history of nature being seized, of exploitation and enslavement of her people, a history of social and medical experimentation on the conquered (typically considered “less human/evolved” than the conqueror : people of color, non christian, women, criminals..), a history of burning witches and shamans, of annihilation and replacement of systems of knowledge and practices… And, of absence of laws, as well as of laws drafted along to make it all look good and straight. Let’s picture this, as it goes on, in times of high connectivity,  hi tech heartless trade, authoritarian regimes equipped with mass surveillance, where markets and governments are so hungry for everyone’s data, and so eager to sell (in Renata Avila’s words) the “utopia that an app can solve serious inequalities” and the very “basic things that need fixing”.  Like for example, connected medical devices will make up for the destruction of community and lack of concern for villages (where there is no doctor) and poor remote people, or competing proprietary devices will empower the sick and disabled when they in fact increase embedded dependencies and vulnerabilities, or like massive medical data collection/analysis will improve the administration of medicine so there will be money saved for social security (and it’s insurance companies making millions and governments spending savings on national security). AS IF.  In a time “when companies mostly from the US have more users than some countries”, as Joana Varon notes, and “the colonized are not only the developing countries anymore”. What we have is an extension of the domain of colonization, ever more apt to penetrate and submit the bodies and minds, everywhere, anytime, all the time.

At one point, Renata Avila notes that paradoxically, some of the best coyotes she knows are disconnected. Can’t help but think very fondly and also, with worry, of the great hackers-coyotes healers out there in the wild. The witches, the shamans, the DIY-DIT doulas, the unlicensed acupuncturists, the herbalist whose shop they close because, you know, not in line with regulations…  How to protect and keep this diverse knowledge and patient care alive still through the years in spite of all the active aggression, passive/aggressive standardization, rampant consent ? What of them if/when they are captured ? In what web ?

hackingcoyotes

Twitter account for the talk : @hackingcoyotes + Digital Colonialism pad https://pad.riseup.net/p/colonialcyber

And now, for our spirits, a much loved coyote poem, by Peter Blue Cloud

Coyote, Coyote, Please Tell Me

–  What is a shaman?

A shaman I don’t know

anything about.

I’m a doctor, myself.

When I use medicine,

it’s between me,

my patient,

and the Creation.

*

Coyote, Coyote, please tell me – what is power?

It is said that power

is the ability to start

your chainsaw

with one pull.

*

Coyote, Coyote, please tell me – what is magic?

Magic is the first taste

of ripe strawberries, and

magic is a child dancing

in a summer’s rain.

*

Coyote, Coyote, please tell me – why is Creation?

Creation is because I

went to sleep last night

with a full stomach,

and when I woke up

this morning,

everything was here.

*

Coyote, Coyote, please tell me who you belong to?

According to the latest

survey, there are certain

persons who, in poetic

or scholarly guise,

have claimed me like

a conqueror’s prize.

Let me just say

once and for all,

just to be done:

Coyote, he belongs to none.

https://zocalopoets.com/2012/05/15/peter-blue-cloud-tales-and-poems-of-coyote/

 

HWC @ Re:publica10

This spring at Re:publicaTEN, Emily King and Jérémie Zimmermann,  two co founders of Hacking with Care, presented the visions of the collective, and the actions of the last 3 years and to come… Catch up with the talk, and discover one of their favorite care tip.. a rather tasty bonus song <3

And join !

contact@hackingwithcare.in ID: 8E5DA96A D47A 6871 ED10 2138 86B3 15C7 E4D6 B1AD 8E5D A96A

Discussion mailing list https://lists.laquadrature.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hackingwithcare

Twitter: @hackingwithcare

Espace Santé Trans (Paris IDF)

Actuellement en phase pilote, l’association Espace Santé Trans propose des consultations psychothérapeutiques à prix libre avec des psychopraticien-n-es formé-e-s bénévoles, sur Paris.  Pour Trans et personnes en questionnement qui cherche un accueil bienveillant et trans friendly et qui pour toutes sortes de raisons inclus matérielles ne peuvent pas consulter en “libéral”.

>> https://espacesantetrans.fr/

Tips to sit like winners at the Tea House

sitting

Written for yoga practitioners, the article below actually gives a good tip for all for sitting down with your legs crossed without slumping your back and collapsing your chest (and a little bio-mechanics as a bonus). Indeed, although slumping might feel more comfortable (and easier at first), at the end of the day it is more tiring for your muscles, as well as your mind, for it associates more with a “defeated state”.  Not like us at all 🙂

>> Sitting up straight and expanding the chest forward in Sukhasana , by Daily Bandha

Another tip for adopting a fluid posture while sitting down legs crossed is to place a cushion under your bottom and only sit at its edge, so your bottom will be higher than your knees and it will be easier to keep the natural curves in your back (also known as “zafu sitting”). You can read more about this in our hands massage manual here : https://hackingwithcare.in/wiki/doku.php/maozada#good_posture

zafusitting

 

Monkey Mind Massage (preview)

HWCMonkeyMindCover3

Follow our link to a few images which illustrate simple yummy massage moves to calm the restlessss minds : https://hackingwithcare.in/wiki/doku.php/monkey_mind_massage

A peek at our next massage manual..?! More moves, detailed instructions, and workshops (like the one we did during last CCC camp in the summer ) to come.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this (and the Chimp On Gimp style !) Share, care, and feel free to give us feedback and scratchback (or even to propose your help on this next project) via the HWC discussion mailing list

<3