Melissa Sawyer Grair

full-stack freelance programmer | neurodivergent | queer genderqueer | former HS ELA teacher | former coding teacher | auntie extraordinaire | they/she

[With You Matchmaking @withyoumatch]

@stripe is closing my payment processor next week on August 8th, despite the fact that I am not a “new user” and I am a community matchmaker, NOT a high end matchmaking service.

[Melissa Sawyer Grair @MelSaw013]

@heymrsbond I left due to health concerns around Covid in 2020, but I had been thinking of leaving for a while because of the high-stakes testing. I was mandated to give benchmark tests throughout the year to prep for the big test, and then required to plan based on that bogus data.

[Dr Eleanor Janega @GoingMedieval]

If you are feeling sad and hopeless that is completely understandable, but it's also a luxury we can't afford right now. Here's a list of some great organisations helping on the ground, just as a handy guide:

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

Sometimes Israel’s crimes are so horrific that at first you don’t even understand what you’re looking at. You just stare at it trying to make sense of what you’re seeing for a bit, like you would if you suddenly saw a space alien or a leprechaun or something.

It happened to me yesterday when I was watching a Sky News report about a teenage boy who was shot by Israeli forces in Jerusalem for celebrating the release of Palestinian prisoners in the hostage negotiations with Hamas. I was watching it thinking to myself, I must be misunderstanding what I’m looking at. I know that Israel does gross things, but surely the story here isn’t that they shot a kid for being happy about something.

Then, as has happened so many times over the last two months, I kept watching and learned that yes, that is indeed what happened. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum is seen defending the shooting by saying “part of the deal is that there would be no celebrations for the release of attempted murderers” (this was actually not a part of the deal, it was just a decree issued by Israel’s national security minister) and claiming dishonestly that “we’re talking about the release of attempted murderers” (the vast majority have not been convicted of any crime and have been denied any due process for the accusations against them).

The band Eve6 nicely summed up what it felt like watching the clip of the deputy mayor’s comments, tweeting, “The remarkable thing about this clip is her self assurance. Like she’s supremely confident that ‘we shot the teenager because he was celebrating’ is a thing that people will find reasonable.”

I had the same experience reading about the five premature babies who were left to die after the IDF raided al-Nasr Pediatric Hospital in Gaza earlier this month, their decomposing bodies only discovered when the temporary ceasefire allowed access to the hospital. It’s just too insane to believe — they attacked a pediatric hospital? And then they left the babies there to die? What??

The only reason we’re learning about this now is because the pause in fighting allowed journalists to get cameras into the building and show the dead infants to the world. This calls to mind the Politico report immediately prior to the ceasefire which said that the White House was worried “an unintended consequence of the pause” would be “that it would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel.”

Indeed, since the pause in fighting began the world has been receiving drone footage from mainstream platforms like Reuters and The Washington Post revealing vast expanses of urban terrain completely destroyed by a blanket of Israeli military explosives spanning from city block to city block. Looking at the blatantly indiscriminate devastation that’s been caused by Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7 makes it clear that the IDF are not targeting Hamas but Gaza itself.

I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve been sleeping since the ceasefire started; that’s why I haven’t been writing as much. I guess spending weeks staring at unbelievable horrors unfolding on your screen can be pretty hard on your system if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, so my body’s been resting up as much as it can while there’s an opportunity.

And I’m just here watching this all unfold safely from my home in Melbourne. I cannot imagine what it’s like to be living in the midst of this horror for the last two months, trying to figure out the best way to survive while also grieving the family, friends and neighbors you’re losing along the way. These people have all been deeply traumatized in ways that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, if they survive the violence, disease and deprivation that’s to come.

This thing is so astonishingly ugly, and it could get a whole lot uglier after the ceasefire ends. If there’s anything positive to be found in this living nightmare, it’s that it’s so earth-shakingly ugly that it just might shake the world awake.

[Defend the Atlanta Forest/Stop Cop City @defendATLforest]

The most important story of the #BlockCopCity action is not the police aggression, which was expected.

It is the methods and tactics used by protesters to keep one another safe, effectively preventing any arrests or injuries. Let's take a closer look. 🧵

[Hala Hanina @HalaHanina]

This thread is from a doctor from Gaza working at hospital in north of Gaza:
I am Dr. Taysir Hasan, working at the Indonesian Hospital in the north.
Board eligible - general surgery
The situation in the Indonesian [hospital] is catastrophic, beyond comprehension.

#GazaCeasefire

[missfalasteenia @missfalsteenia]

I’m shocked they actually aired this on CNN

[Melissa Sawyer Grair @MelSaw013]

@ibramxk @AntiracismCtr It’s still an outrage and a shame that you laid off every staff member just to turn around and start something new without them. How much research was halted and how many community relationships have been negatively impacted by this closure? You couldn’t just try to fix things?

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

The ten dumbest things we're being asked to believe about Gaza:

1. That Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to prior to October 7, but ever since October 7 has known about every hospital, mosque, school, refugee camp and water tower that Hamas is hiding in.

2. That the blame for all of the deaths caused by Israeli weapons launched by Israel rests solely on Hamas.

3. That Hamas is using “human shields” — meaning Hamas bases are hidden amidst civilian populations — yet Israel is managing to kill thousands of civilians without doing any meaningful damage to Hamas.

4. That it would be perfectly fine to murder children by the thousands even if they were being used as “human shields” — as though resolving a hostage situation by mowing down thousands of child hostages would be regarded as reasonable and acceptable by the public if it happened in our own country.

5. That is is only by pure coincidence that Israel bombing “Hamas targets” in civilian infrastructure and residential buildings just so happens to look exactly the same as what you’d expect to see if Israel was simply bombing civilian infrastructure and residential buildings and lying about its reasons for doing so.

6. That satellite images of entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble in Gaza have been caused by “precision strikes” directed solely at Hamas and have been carried out with the greatest of care for human life, despite Israeli officials openly saying that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” in this assault and that “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents; there will be no buildings.”

7. That this bombing campaign has anything to do with freeing Israeli hostages — as though the bombing campaign itself has not killed dozens of hostages, and as though anyone believes Israel would stop bombing Gaza after the hostages are returned.

8. That the only reason anyone could possibly oppose the detonation of thousands of bombs on an open air prison full of children would be if they had very strong and hateful opinions toward the members of the religion of Judaism.

9. That Hamas attacked Israel entirely out of the blue and completely unprovoked, solely because they are evil and hate Jews.

10. That Washington is powerless to stop this genocide that it is directly funding and supplying.

[The Spectator Index @spectatorindex]

BREAKING: Israeli Minister of Heritage Amihai Eliyahu says that dropping an atomic weapon on Gaza is 'one of the possible options'

[ayan. @artan_ayan]

The Director of the UN's New York office just resigned after thirty years at the organisation over the UN's handling of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

The entirety of his resignation letter is a necessary read but this first page blew me away.

[Lauren R. Welch @MsLaurenRWelch]

As always, this is your daily reminder to vote YES on Issues 1, 2, 5, and 38. 🖤

Spread the word, Cleveland.

[᭪༊ @kissedthearth]

oh my goddd https://t.co/Oet3lIMTQ3

[Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz]

In case you missed it there's an overwhelming amount of evidence that many of the horrific acts Hamas is accused of committing on October 7 (burning people alive, burning babies, mowing down concertgoers, etc) were actually the result of indiscriminate fire by Israeli forces.

[Melissa Sawyer Grair @MelSaw013]

@bluehostsupport Or you could just fix the problem, because it’s bigger than my account. I’ve seen so many tweets today indicating this has happened to a lot of people. Charging people for a service they’ve cancelled is fraud.

[Melissa Sawyer Grair @MelSaw013]

@RachelDissell It was 93 in Boston on Thursday! Wild weather!