Syria needs the White Helmets; the White Helmets need Us!

What's going on in Syria is beyond words. The White Helmets, the Syrian Civil Defense, is just about the only organization left to help.

Here's what they do:

When the bombs rain down, the Syrian Civil Defence rushes in. In a place where public services no longer function these unarmed volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need - regardless of their religion or politics. Known as the White Helmets these volunteer rescue workers operate in the most dangerous place on earth.
As the conflict in Syria worsens, ordinary people are paying the highest price. More than 50 bombs and mortars a day land on some neighbourhoods in Syria. Many are rusty barrels filled with nails and explosives, rolled out the back of government helicopters -- bakeries and markets are the most commonly hit targets. When this happens the White Helmets rush in to search for life in the rubble - fully aware that more bombs may fall on the same site. These volunteers have saved 73,530 lives - and this number is growing daily.

Here's what you can do. Donate.

The Blue Hour

It's been a really long time since I've lived somewhere it snowed. I've lived in Europe and states up and down the East Coast, and all of them got their share of snow. (In New Jersey it would sometimes drift over my head.) The whole time I lived in California, it only snowed once in a place where I was living, an inch in Northridge, just before the big quake. It barely coated the ground and yet people were calling in "snow days." Hah. Amateurs.

One of the things that fascinates me about living in the Pacific Northwest is that the light is different here. We'll have days where the sun is almost bronze in a gray sky. My bedroom faces southwest and the sunsets are sometimes apocalyptic looking. And this is what it looked like yesterday at midmorning when the snow was coming down thickly. The light went all blue. It was really pretty.

A book for the Wish List

I love cook books. I've edited them. I've written them. I've belonged to cookbook clubs and bought them at yard sales. When I moved away from Los Angeles I gave almost all of them away. That was partly out of self-defense. As a diabetic, my cooking these days is pretty simple and confined to dishes I like and that work for me managing my disease. I did not need forty-seven books on chocolate or baked goods or Sothern cooking. (I make amazing biscuits but seriously, my biscuit-making days are over.)

Every so often, though, a book grabs my attention. I love spicy food and I love learning bout the herbs and spices that combine to make those meals. This book is on my radar.

Random Reindeer Cat

For the record, I don't approve of dressing animals up in costumes. Except maybe on Halloweeen when their dignity won't be ruffled. But my sister used to have those silly reindeer antlers for her dog Lucy, and I have to say, Lucy was pretty cute. So maybe there can be Christmas exceptions as well. Or not. Seriously. It's one thing to dress up a dog--they'll do anything to make people smile because they're dogs. But cats...that's not how they roll. And yet, random reindeer cat!!! You can find all your animal's holiday costume needs here.

Books to Prisoners

Books to Prisoners is a Seattle-based group that provides books for prisoners. You can donate books--they're always looking for dictionaries, books on auto repair, on legal self-help, on Spanish and American Sign Language instruction, and African-American fiction and non-fiction, as well as westerns and horror--but because their warehouses are full, they prefer money. One of the most requested books is Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and they also have an ongoing need for true crime books.

This is an organization where a modest gift can do a LOT. Just twenty-five dollars sends a package of books to seven prisoners. One hundred dollars covers the postage for an entire day's worth of requests. (This year, Books to Prisoners received 13,000 requests for books.) Check this organization out and consider donating.

The Goblin Crown by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, a review

Like Guy Gavriel Kay’s FIONAVAR TAPESTRY and Suzanne Collins’ wonderful UNDERLAND CHRONICLES or C.S. Lewis’ CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s THE GOBLIN CROWN, is a story of ordinary people suddenly thrust into an extraordinary, magical world. We know up front that this world is a dangerous place and that the stakes—whatever they are—will be real and that actions will have consequences for Billy, Lexi, and Kurt, as well as all they meet.

Billy, our hero, is an outsider, a kid who has NEVER felt he fit in anywhere and who certainly doesn’t expect that his high school experience is going to be any different. Billy is, a familiar enough character, but Wolfe nails him, bringing him to vivid life on the page. But pretty Filipina Lexi—who really isn’t very good at minding her own business—and bullying jock Kurt are also three-dimensional and believable people. These characters are grounded—no, rooted—in reality and we believe they act in a way that has context. (There’s a lovely, magical moment when Billy meets all the freckle-faced, redheaded men who came before him and takes courage from the encounter.

Weapons of Math Destruction

One of the most stunning books I read in a college political science class was Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by Michael Wheeler. Published in 1976--forty years ago!!!--it is about the manipulation of public opinion in America. It was scary stuff then and now, it feels eerily prescient.
The end-of-the-year "Best Books" lists are starting to come out and one that I'm seeing a lot is Cathy O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatans Democracy.

Here's the sales pitch:

A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life — and threaten to rip apart our social fabric

We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives—where we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insurance—are being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated.