What to do, as a non-american, post-election

Ok. Non-Americans. Let's talk about the election.

Despite the polls showing Hillary Clinton in a clear lead, Trump is now President, and thinking of appointing conservatives like Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani to key positions of his cabinet. This is reason, as a liberal, to feel like retreating from the world for a bit.

But maybe you don't want to do this. Although you can't vote, and don't live in the country, you still feel the urge to help. Well, sit up: I've got a list of organizations in America that you can donate to.

1. The Southern Poverty Law Center. 

This is an organization that monitors hate groups throughout the US, and expose their activities to the public, the media and law enforcement agencies. They focus on a variety of issues including LGBT rights, immigrant justice, hate and extremism.

Why should you donate? Because in the wake of Brexit, the incidence of racially based hate crimes in the UK went up, emboldened perhaps by the racist rhetoric of some of the leave campaign. This may be something to expect in America (I am crossing my fingers that I am wrong, ) and we need someone to monitor this.
Donate here

2. The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU

This organization doesn't just monitor the state of civil liberties in America, but take action too. If you go to their website right now, you'll see that they intend to sue President Trump if he tries to enact any of his racist policies. If you're looking to prevent the erosion of individual rights, especially for minorities, women, people living with disabilities, this may be the place to donate.

3. Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has been in conservative crosshairs for a while, and there's no reason to suspect that the next four years will be any different. To copypasta from the website: "Planned Parenthood delivers vital reproductive health care, sex education, and information to millions of women, men, and young people worldwide." This includes information on where to get safe abortions, which is something the social conservatives have been trying to discourage. Donate here.

4. Lambda Legal

This is a non-profit that works for the advancement of the civil rights of LGBT people and those living with HIV. They've been active since the 70s, protecting the rights of gay and lesbian couples, transgender rights, through a mix of lawsuits, education and advocacy. The Republicans are terrible on LGBT issues, and now they control the presidency and house, and about to get a conservative majority on the supreme court. I think this is one organization that will become more and more important in the next 4 years. Donate!

5. NAACP

The President Elect has said some awful things on the subject of race: his presidential run started with a speech where he called all Mexicans rapists. Things did not improve after that, where he said terribly problematic things about Muslims and was endorsed by the KKK (although to be fair he rejected that endorsement.) I'm going to understate this: this presidency might not be an enlightened one as far as race is concerned. So donate to the NAACP. Their mission is to eliminate race prejudice, fight against discriminatory laws, remove barriers to racial equality and educate the public. These four years could not be a better time to donate!

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Please do your own research and donate to causes you find worthy. And please let me know if you find any organizations that I've missed that absolutely should go on this post.

And to my American friends: go take care of yourselves! Binge watch cartoons. Marathon trashy TV. Start assembling a model. Write your book for NaNoWriMo. And please mourn this. But we need you to get back to fighting on Monday.

Rob Ford, Belgium

A lot has happened in the last three years with me, but suffice to say that I now live in Japan. And it is wonderful, but this time difference kills me in terms of staying in the loop. I go to sleep and when I wake up I find out that A. there’s a huge terrorist attack in Belgium, and B. Former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford died. 

30 dead people in an airport is too terrible for words, so I'm not going to try. It's an awful coincidence that after arresting one of the ringleaders of the November attacks in Paris, Belgium has an attack of its own. And the reaction back in North America is pretty terrible, with Cruz calling for patrols of Muslim neighbourhoods to prevent radicalization, and Trump being well, Trump.

A similar attack happened three days ago in Turkey in Istanbul and and Ankara, of course getting much less coverage. What's interesting--maybe this is a poor choice of words--is that the Brussels attacks were carried out by ISIS, and the Turkish attacks were allegedly carried out by Kurdish groups, who are fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. 

It’s really sad about Rob Ford dying, especially since he was such a loud, train-wreck of a man. Some voices have wondered if he was treated unfairly while in office, especially over the crack scandal. Others are much less sympathetic. I think people are afraid of speaking ill of the dead, which I think is a nice thought, but surely you can respect someone's death without completely fictionalizing their life. I hold to this principle: if you do horrible things in public view, people get to judge you for it. And if you run for public office, and fail to show up for work on time, embarrass yourself while exercising the functions of that office, and purposefully antagonize the local media, well, then people have a lot of material to judge you on.

Short version: his death was sad, but he was still a terrible, terrible public figure.