Olivia
Online
marcella
@thingameedoozy
creative, small biz, mum, feminist, limited spoons. every day I learn more here about how to live with ME/CFS than I ever have in a doctor’s office.
Canberra
Joined February 2021
409 Following
48 Followers
982 Posts
Does Australia stand with the ICC? Time for Albanese and Wong to stop talking out both sides of their mouths. I don’t want to hear anymore concerned, deeply concerned, gravely concerned. I want a definitive Yes! #auspol, do your job.
Trump came to power partly by a spineless, toe licking media that sane-washed his every utterance and treated him like a normal person - now look at him
Australia - we're in deep trouble
This is Australia's legacy media today, right down to the ABC
Sane washing a maniac
.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says there’s no reason for Australia to have a Royal Commission into the Killing of Women and Girls because it is a waste of money.
When two men massacred Jewish people at Bondi Beach last year, Albanese did not say ‘There’s calls for a Royal Commission into everything’.
He said quite the opposite, saying he listened to Jewish leaders and families and supported their calls.
“There’s calls for a Royal Commission into everything,” he told @christiehayes_ this morning on Hit 1009 Hobart.
“What does a royal commission do besides fund lawyers?
My petition for a Royal Commission into Femicide has more than 91,000 signatures. Many of those are from families who have lost a girl or woman to violence. Many are from frontline violence support workers. Many are from community members impacted by male violence.
This is not about ‘wasting money on lawyers’ as the PM claimed. It’s about having a national truth-telling into the one thing that impacts almost every woman and girl in Australia - MALE VIOLENCE.
We make up 51% of the population. We’ve been murdered, raped, abused, stalked, harassed and demeaned for as long as we have existed.
Women deserve to have a national light shone on the violence we endure. We deserve to examine the failures before and after the deaths of the 10s of thousands of women and girls killed in this country.
Families deserve to tell their stories. Professionals deserve to explain how the safety nets are failing women.
We just want the same care and compassion afforded us as other Australians have had afforded them.
WOMEN MATTER!
You can help me get a Royal Commission into the Killing of Women and Girls by signing the petition using the link in my bio or by visiting https://t.co/Cxq1KK37O6
❤️SUPPORT MY WORK❤️
Please support The RED HEART Movement and Australian Femicide Watch by grabbing a RED HEART tee or providing a crowd-funded donation! 100% of money raised funds support for families of femicide, an apartment for domestic violence survivors and my work documenting the killing of Australian women and children. Links in bio or visit https://t.co/1TEEVN73X3
I am a diplomatic aide in the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
My job is logistics. When two countries that cannot speak to each other need to speak to each other, I book the rooms. I prepare the briefing materials. I make sure the water glasses are the right distance apart. You would be surprised how much of diplomacy is water glasses. Too close and it feels informal. Too far and it feels like a tribunal. I have a chart.
We had a very good month.
Since January, Oman has been mediating indirect talks between the United States and Iran on Iran's nuclear program. The talks were held in Muscat and in Geneva. The Americans would sit in one room. The Iranians would sit in another room. I would walk between them. My Fitbit says I averaged fourteen thousand steps on negotiation days. The hallway between the two rooms at the Royal Opera House conference center is forty-seven meters. I walked it two hundred and twelve times in February. This is good for my cardiovascular health. It was less good for my knees. Both are in the service of peace.
By mid-February, we had something.
Iran agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium. Not reduced stockpiling. Zero. They agreed to down-blend existing stockpiles to the lowest possible level. They agreed to convert them into irreversible fuel. They agreed to full IAEA verification with potential US inspector access. They agreed, in the Foreign Minister's phrase, to "never, ever" possess nuclear material for a bomb. I have worked in diplomacy for seven years. I have never seen a country agree to this many things this quickly. I made a spreadsheet of the concessions. It had fourteen rows. I color-coded it. Green for confirmed. Yellow for pending. By February 21 the spreadsheet was entirely green. I printed it. It is on my desk in Muscat. It is still green.
That phrase took eleven days. "Never, ever." The Iranians initially offered "not seek to." The Americans wanted "will not under any circumstances." We landed on "never, ever" at 2:14 AM on a Tuesday in Muscat. I typed the final version myself. I used Times New Roman because Geneva prefers it. The document was fourteen pages. I was proud of every comma.
Here is what they said, in the order they said it.
February 24: "We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity." — The Foreign Minister, private briefing to Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors. I prepared the slide deck. Slide 14 was the implementation timeline. Slide 15 was the signing ceremony logistics. I had reserved the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Room XX. It seats four hundred. We discussed pen brands for the signing. The Iranians preferred Montblanc. The Americans had no preference. I ordered twelve Montblanc Meisterstucks at six hundred and thirty dollars each. They arrive on Tuesday.
February 27, 8:30 AM EST: "The deal is within our reach." — The Foreign Minister, CBS Face the Nation. He sat across from Margaret Brennan. He said broad political terms could be agreed "tomorrow" with ninety days for technical implementation in Vienna. He said, and I wrote this line for the briefing card he carried in his breast pocket: "If we just allow diplomacy the space it needs." He praised the American envoys by name. Steve Witkoff. Jared Kushner. He said both had been constructive.
I watched from the Four Seasons Georgetown. The minibar had cashews. I ate the cashews. They were nineteen dollars. The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten. But it was a good morning and we were within our reach.
February 27, 2:00 PM EST: Meeting with Vice President Vance, Washington. The Foreign Minister presented our progress. Zero stockpiling. Full verification. Irreversible conversion. "Never, ever." The Vice President used the word "encouraging." His aide took notes on an iPad. The aide did not make eye contact for the last nine minutes of the meeting. I noticed this. Noticing things is the only part of my job that is not water glasses.
February 27, 4:00 PM EST: "Not happy with the pace." — President Trump, to reporters.
Not happy with the pace.
We had achieved zero stockpiling. Full IAEA verification. Irreversible fuel conversion. Inspector access. And the phrase "never, ever," which took eleven days and cost me two hundred and twelve trips down a forty-seven-meter hallway.
Every American president since Carter has failed to get Iran to agree to this. Forty-five years.
Not happy with the pace.
February 27, 9:47 PM EST: The Foreign Minister's flight departs Dulles for Muscat. I am in the seat behind him. He is reviewing Slide 14 on his laptop. The implementation timeline. Vienna technical sessions. The signing ceremony. The pens.
I fall asleep over the Atlantic. I dream about water glasses.
February 28, 6:00 AM GST: I wake up to push notifications.
February 28: "The United States has begun major combat operations in Iran." — President Trump.
Operation Epic Fury. Coordinated airstrikes. The United States and Israel. Tehran. Isfahan. Qom. Karaj. Kermanshah. Nuclear facilities. IRGC bases. Sites near the Supreme Leader's office. Israel called their half Operation Roaring Lion. Someone in both governments spent time choosing these names. Epic Fury. Roaring Lion. I spent eleven days on "never, ever." They spent it on branding. The President said Iran had "rejected American calls to halt its nuclear weapons production."
Rejected.
Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling. Iran had agreed to full verification. Iran had agreed to "never, ever." Iran had agreed to everything in a fourteen-page document that I typed in Times New Roman.
The President said they rejected it.
I do not know which document the President was reading. I know which one I typed.
February 28, 18:45 UTC: Iran internet connectivity: four percent. — NetBlocks, confirmed by Cloudflare. Ninety-six percent of a country went dark. You cannot negotiate with a country at four percent connectivity. You cannot negotiate with a country that is being struck. You cannot negotiate. This is not a political opinion. This is a logistics assessment.
February 28: The governor of Minab reported forty girls killed at an elementary school.
I do not have logistics for that. There is no slide for that. The water glass chart does not cover that.
February 28: Lockheed Martin: up. Northrop Grumman: up. RTX: up. Dow futures: down six hundred and twenty-two points. Gold: five thousand two hundred and ninety-six dollars. An analyst at AInvest published a note titled "Iran Strikes: Tactical Plays." The note recommended positions in oil, defense stocks, and gold.
The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten was nineteen dollars. The most expensive pen I have ever ordered was six hundred and thirty dollars. The math suggests I have been working in the wrong industry. Defense stocks do not require water glasses. Defense stocks do not require eleven days. Defense stocks require one morning.
February 28: Israel closed its airspace and its schools. Iran launched retaliatory missiles toward US bases in the Gulf. The Supreme Leader promised a "crushing response." Israel's defense minister declared a permanent state of emergency. Everyone is using words I recognize in an order I do not. I recognize "permanent." I recognize "emergency." I do not recognize them next to each other. In diplomacy, nothing is permanent and everything is an emergency. In war it is the reverse.
February 28: The Foreign Minister has not made a public statement.
The briefing card is still in his breast pocket. It still says "within our reach."
Some facts:
- It is not “preemptive”
- It is not “preventive”
- It is Illegal
If journalists are not reporting it that way, they are not doing journalism. They are doing propaganda.
I don’t know when Labor governments stop trying to please conservatives and learn that even by adopting their talking points and agreeing they’ll still get slammed - SO WHY NOT STAND FOR THE ACTUAL TRUTH AND WHAT’S RIGHT but it’s not today. This goes for appointments too
My 93 year old father says it perfectly in today’s @smh
Our hearts are shattered – and some have broken them further https://t.co/vRbopFJQND
BREAKING: Gaza authorities say the Israeli army has committed 47 violations of the ceasefire, killing 38 people and wounding another 143
🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/W8S1tVkA8c
They call it peace, but for the Palestinians, it risks to be Apartheid at its worst.
All eyes must remain on Palestine. People of the world, do not look away now. As the legacy of Nelson Mandela reminds us, no one is free until everyone is free.
@eyesfull0fstars It has to be… CANCELLED!
There are nights in the history of mankind when the stars themselves seem to recoil, when the firmament closes its eyes, unwilling to behold what man does to man. Gaza is such a night.
The assault has begun. Do not call it battle, for there is no battle here. There is no clash of equals. What unfolds upon Gaza is a burial conducted by machines, a demolition of stone and flesh, a deliberate erasure of a city whose crime is to exist.
They speak to the world of “safe zones,” of “infrastructure,” of tents dispatched across oceans. They conjure the illusion of humanity with bureaucratic phrases. But these are not shelters; they are spectres. These are not promises; they are lies embalmed in official seals. Gaza has already tasted their poison. Driven from Rafah, its people found nothing awaiting them but the scorpion and the snake, the desert and the blazing orb of the sun. Children fainted upon the sand while the world counted tents that never were.
And now the command returns: depart again! Abandon your houses, your wells, your cradles, your graves. Depart into the void! But this is no Exodus, for there is no Moses. The sea does not part; it devours. No pillar of fire lights the sky, only fire from above that consumes. God is silent, and man has made himself deaf with the roar of artillery.
Look into the streets. There walk the condemned, yet they wear no chains. They are shadows broken from their bodies. They no longer greet one another; they have forgotten the grammar of human fellowship. They wander as if bearing invisible coffins, and from their lips drip questions as salt from a wound: Where shall we go? How shall we endure? What remains of us?
And still the ransom is demanded: a thousand coins for a carriage that does not exist, fuel dearer than gold, a tent that is but a rag in the dust. This is the tax of despair. And while the poor are flayed of their last coin, the lords of faction, the priests of power, the crowned withered men who proclaim themselves leaders, command them: Die bravely, that we may live ignobly. They prefer their titles to their children, their factions to their people, their own breath to the breath of Gaza.
Thus Gaza is abandoned.
But this abandonment is ancient. It was written by the prophet Zephaniah, six hundred years before Christ: “For Gaza shall be forsaken.” And lo, the word endures. The prophecy is not history; it is recurrence. From Babylon to Persia, from Alexander to Caesar, from caliphs to crusaders, Gaza has been crushed beneath every empire’s heel. Yet through every ruin, one fact has defied oblivion: her name remained. Gaza, written in Hebrew as Azzah, spoken by Greeks as Gaza, whispered in Arabic as Ghazza, has never been erased. The city that endures conquest after conquest now faces a new desolation, more relentless than the old, for it seeks not merely the conquest of her streets but the annihilation of her memory.
Gaza! Thou ancient sentinel of the sea, thou doorway of Canaan, thou stronghold older than Rome! For three thousand years thy lamp has burned, sometimes dimmed, never extinguished. And now, in this century of steel, electricity, and law, thou art consigned once again to the abyss. Thy children are scattered like sparks before the storm. Thy walls fall like the teeth of an old man torn from his jaw. Yet thy cry rises still, more enduring than stone, a cry that indicts the centuries and arraigns the nations.
Hear this, O world: the crime is not Gaza’s alone to bear. To forsake Gaza is to forsake justice, to betray mercy, to shatter the covenant of humanity itself. If Gaza falls and the world is silent, it is not Gaza that is condemned, but mankind. For in Gaza’s ruins lie the ruins of our conscience, and in Gaza’s silence resounds the silence of the world.
#GazaGenocide
The absolute incapacity of Western leaders to enforce intl law when it comes to Israel is EPIC.
Ministers, Prime Ministers, Presidents of Republic:
Doing NOTHING, diverting attention, sanctioning individual ministers IS NOT enforcing the intl law that was developed after the Holocaust and WWII to prevent another Holocaust and WWII.
At this critical point,
Your states have a CLEAR obligation to:
1. Sanction Israel
2. Impose a total arms embargo (no buy, no sell, no transfer, direct or indirect)
3. Break the siege (send navies instead of dropping food on the head of starving genocide survivors)
4. Suspend all trade agreements with Israel till the end of the genocide, occupation and apartheid.
5. Investigate and prosecute individuals and orgs that have committed crimes in the oPt.
Together we can, and we will.
Following all of the world’s major human rights organisations, several Israeli organisations have authenticated genocide in Gaza: deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of a people, in whole or in part.
The international court warned of this 18 months ago. It called on all of us to recognise the strong likelihood of genocide, and to take action to avoid it.
This is why the genocide convention was created in 1948. To prevent, not to wait until after hundreds of thousands suffer.
We did not respond.
The ICJ called on Israel not to impede humanitarian aid and life saving necessities at scale, given the restrictions and attacks on hospitals evident 18 months ago. Today, the health system is obliterated. We had already seen incubators turned off and babies killed, the denial of anaesthetic for people needing surgery, children losing arms and legs, the most child amputees in the world, even baby formula.
Doctors, including Australians, have raised the alarm constantly, pleading publicly, and yet nothing.
The ICJ called on all states, including Australia, to apply sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and sever economic and military support to Israel, including all ties to illegally occupied territories that has been ruled to constitute an apartheid regime, in a later advisory opinion.
We did not live up to our obligations.
Now, children are dying of starvation, and lack not only the food, but the medical facilities to recover and survive. That means that many more will die, whatever decisions are taken.
Australia is a part of this. And the shame is also ours.
We were called. And we failed.
All we need to do is apply international law to all parties, to save innocent lives.
Those who were moved, outraged more than a year ago, were right. They were demonised, attacked, silenced, but it is never wrong to want innocent people to be protected, babies to live, children to grow up.
All children, no exceptions.
These rules must never be broken. And we must never lose our humanity, no matter the pressure.
We must act.
There is no internet.
No signal. No sound. No world beyond this cage.
I walked thirty minutes through ruins and dust. Not in search of escape, but for a fragment of signal, just enough to whisper, “We are still alive.”
Not because anyone is listening,
but because to die unheard is the final death.
Gaza is silent now.
Not with peace, but with obliteration.
Not a silence of stillness, but of smothering.
They severed the last cable.
No messages leave. No images enter.
Even grief has been forbidden.
I passed the corpses of buildings, of homes, of men, some breathing, some not.
All of them erased by the same hand that erased our voices.
This is not a siege of bombs alone.
It is a siege of memory: a war against our ability to say, “We were here.”
The bombing never stopped, especially in Jabalia.
They shell the streets where children beg for food.
They shell the lines where mothers wait for flour.
They shell hunger itself.
No food. No water. No exit.
And those who try, those who reach for aid, are struck down.
People die here, and no one knows.
Not because the killing paused, but because the killing of connection succeeded.
The internet was our final breath.
It was not a luxury; it was the last evidence of our humanity.
Now it is gone.
And in the dark, they massacre without consequence.
I found this faint eSIM signal as a dying man finds a flicker of flame.
I stood beneath a broken sky, risking death, not for rescue, but to send this.
A single message.
A last resistance.
If you are reading this, remember:
we walked through fire to say it.
We were not silent.
We were silenced.
And when the cables are restored,
the truth will bleed through the wires,
and the world will know what it chose not to see.
“It’s taking off pretty quickly,” said Prof Bennett, warning that “if you’re exposed, you’re more likely to catch it”
She added, “We might be in for a bigger winter wave,” and COVID deaths were 5x higher than flu—"So COVID is still to be taken seriously"
https://t.co/qeoBcRx8V6
My aunt, the doctor,
told me a new joke.
She asked:
How bad
is the new Covid variant?
I replied:
I don’t know, how bad is it?
And she answered:
The new Covid variant
is so bad
that the media
is having to report on it.
And then neither of us laughed.
Hey doctors?
If you’re reading this, I genuinely would like to know something.
Why are so many of you so quick to dismiss us?
Nobody wants to be sick. Nobody wants to spend their free time in waiting rooms, seeking referrals, or begging to be taken seriously.
Yet, that’s what so many of us are forced to do, especially women.
Listen, if a patient takes time out of their day to come to your office, it’s not because they’re bored or lonely. It’s because something is wrong and they need help.
Patients are waiting 6-8 months just to see a specialist. That’s after countless hours, even days, searching Reddit, Facebook groups, Twitter threads, trying to figure out what their symptoms mean and which doctors will take them seriously.
We miss work, birthdays, holidays, life itself, because our bodies are malfunctioning and no one will help.
We’re not doing this “for attention.”
We’re doing this because we’re sick. And we know our bodies.
It makes zero sense for someone to go through all of this just for fun.
Yet somehow, it makes sense to some doctors to call us dramatic, anxious, or fakers.
If you don’t know what’s wrong, just say that.
Don’t gaslight us. Dont write us off.
Research for us, refer us out or consult with someone.
Patients are doing so much just to be believed. Meet us halfway!
Fatigue with chronic illness is nothing like ordinary tiredness, but healthy people often aren’t able to grasp that concept. It’s something that needs to be experienced in order to understand it.
However, many doctors have weighed in on what that fatigue often feels like. Here is exactly what the experts have to say.
1.Dr. Michael Goldstein:
“Fatigue is the most disabling symptom of many chronic illnesses, yet it is the least understood and often the most dismissed.”
2. Dr. Paul Cheney:
“The fatigue of chronic illness is not tiredness. It’s a profound lack of energy that affects every cell in the body and every thought in the mind.”
3. Dr. Nancy Klimas:
“If I had to choose between the cognitive loss and the fatigue in these patients, I would say the fatigue is more disabling , it’s like their batteries never charge.”
4. Dr. Lucinda Bateman:
“Chronic illness fatigue is not relieved by rest, sleep, or time off. It is relentless, unpredictable, and can strip away the ability to perform even basic tasks.”
5. Dr. Donnica Moore:
“Fatigue in chronic illness isn’t about being tired — it’s about being completely depleted. And that difference matters.”
6. Dr. Rajapaksa:
“You feel it in your bones and muscles. It’s not like you just didn’t get enough sleep last night.”
Fatigue isn’t something you can see, but it destroys us.
For the first time, I wish I had Sky.
Trends for you
Most Popular Users
Elon Musk 
@elonmusk
241.5M followers
Barack Obama
@barackobama
118.8M followers
Cristiano Ronaldo
@cristiano
114.5M followers
Donald J. Trump
@realdonaldtrump
111.9M followers
Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
107.1M followers
Rihanna
@rihanna
98.7M followers
NASA
@nasa
92.3M followers
Justin Bieber
@justinbieber
91.8M followers
KATY PERRY
@katyperry
90M followers
Taylor Swift
@taylorswift13
84M followers
Lady Gaga
@ladygaga
75.5M followers
Virat Kohli
@imvkohli
73.4M followers
Kim Kardashian
@kimkardashian
70.8M followers
YouTube
@youtube
68.8M followers
Neymar Jr
@neymarjr
66.5M followers
Bill Gates
@billgates
65.2M followers
Selena Gomez
@selenagomez
63.1M followers
The Ellen Show
@theellenshow
62.2M followers
CNN
@cnn
61.7M followers
X
@x
60.7M followers
✨
⭐
💫