Not a great start to the year

 The Genocide in Gaza... and the West Bank and Jerusalem continues. It's really hard to follow the news, its so painful and nothing is being done by any Government really. South Africa did bring a case to the ICJ which agreed what's happening looks very genocidy. But Israel continues...indeed increases what it's doing and no one condemns them... so hard to watch. The news is barely on mainstream media at all so for those who'd rather ignore it all it's easy enough for them to look the other way. Social media is a life line for those of us you are bearing witness... seeing a genocide happening in real time is heart breaking and utterly depressing for a number of reasons- 

• watching the destruction of people, men, women and children...even babies, is horrific
• the utter destruction Israel is inflicting on every part of Gaza is unbelievable, it's total destruction...even more than WWII. The third oldest church in the world was totally destroyed...as well as hospitals, mosques, schools, houses, water treatment facilities...everything. The Palestinian Christian community is being totally eradicated. 
• Israel is also testing new weapons...the joys of capitalism I guess
• the death of any hope I had in the basic goodness of people...while there are lots of people all over the world working for a ceasefire there are more people who don't care or who actively want all the Palestinians in Gaza and the rest of Israel to die.
• Once you see the white settler colonialist, white supremacist, apartheid nature of Israel its not possible to unsee it. BLM taught us a lot about the nature of racism but this has torn all pretence about the toxic nature of colonialism, capitalism and racism and colonialism away. There are a lot of truly bad people in the world.
•  the environmental damage all this is doing is dreadful too...as if the world wasn't already experiencing all the problems of global warming and extreme weather!

When all this started in October my DF did agree that what was happening was dreadful...has never mentioned it since. For reasons known only to him DP has decided Israel is good and anyone resisting is bad... to be fair he is on facebook a lot and is getting shades of red pill. He is so far down the red pill rabbit hole that he will huff and leave the room if DS2 mentions Gaza. DS2 may have very limited understanding but is aware killing babies is bad and supports the people in Gaza... hard not to be able to clear that particular bar! Does not say good things about DP that he can't clear it.

In addition to all the stress because of the terrible news coming out of Gaza and the new ways I now need to see the world and all the problems we face as humans, DD is also having an especially bad start to the year. They always struggle in winter...the combination of dark, cold and poor weather making it hard to get out which leaves them trapped in their room very bored. But this year they are also flaring... badly flaring to the extent they have needed the commode in their room and are settling down to sleep by 5pm. In addition to that they have piled on weight in January...about 2 stone. Last January they were unhappy with how much weight they were putting on after Xmas...2lb a day. So we started counting what they ate and they lost a fairly steady half a stone a month and were just over 17stone at the beginning of June.  That didn't last but they ended up in the 18stone area until winter...which they could live with. They are now heading for 21 stone and likely to go back up to 24 stone which was their heaviest and head off beyond it. They are at the stage where they'd welcome a stomach flair, but that's not going to happen.

DS1 is also struggling with winter... the lack of any light and the fact that pretty much all he does is work and come home and sleep isn't making him happy. He did pass his Theory Test at his first attempt which was very impressive. Now he just needs to book a driving course and actually pass his test and start driving. I think that will help, fingers crossed. Basically he needs a nice partner who gets him and they can work together to get a house and work out their lives. Really don't see him being massively happy on his own but its not my problem to solve that's for sure.

Hopefully the year will brighten up...not got a lot of hope but good stuff can happen....okay maybe not. My cynicism runs deep for valid reasons.