History is something that binds us all together, and that includes an unlikely pairing of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the affirmative action movement in the United States. To understand the motives of why Putin feels so possessively towards Ukraine and why affirmative action is central to the advancement of minorities, we must draw upon the history of both.

To comprehend why Putin is so interested in protecting his interests in Ukraine, it’s necessary to consider how since the time of Napoleon, more than two hundred years ago, Russia has repeatedly been attacked from its west. There have been three major incursions into Russia from other European countries. First was Napoleon from France in 1812. Second was Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm in 1914 and third was Germany again, this time under Adolf Hitler in 1941.

When the Soviet Union was formed in 1922, there was Russia and sixteen other states nearby republics. One of those sixteen was Ukraine, which was one of the founding republics in the U.S.S.R. Other republics that came to form a barrier of protection around Russia were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Byelorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kirghizstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (there were four others that came later).

What early leaders of the Soviet Union, including Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, did was to form a protective shell around Russia. In some ways, it is similar to the United States asserting that it has control of the Americas (North, Central and South) through the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. The U.S. has engaged European countries twice to “protect the independence of Cuba.” First was in 1898 with the Spanish-American War and then in 1962 in staring down Russia in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The key point is that both Russia and the United States have acted in ways to protect themselves from invasion. Each has formed geographic barriers around its borders. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, it left Russia in many ways unprotected.

For many years post-1989, the Ukraine had a government friendly to Russia. However, in recent years, Ukraine has become more independent and interested in developing closer relations with western Europe. Economic trade between western Europe and Ukraine has increased and Ukraine has also asked to become part of the western defense alliance, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

For Vladimir Putin and many others in Russia, this is scary. This is also not the way it should be according to the Russian playbook. Russia’s field of reference is the Soviet Union of old, in which Ukraine and other republics on its western flank protected it from western incursion, or western even influence.

In this light, it makes sense that Putin would want to take control of the Ukrainian government. In his mind, doing so would include the possibility of using military force to do so.

I am not asserting that NATO countries, including the United States, should just stand by and let Russia invade Ukraine without consequences. But it is important to understand that Russia has valid reasons to want to control Ukraine. That is something that is very different from when they placed offensive missiles in Cuba in 1962, a country thousands of miles outside of their “sphere of interest.”

So, drawing upon history, it is important to understand from where Russia comes and why it is important for NATO countries to negotiate with Putin. One component of an agreement might be to include a declaration agreeing not to include Ukraine in NATO now, but to have a sunset provision whereby the issue could be reconsidered in twenty years.

In many ways, looking at Russia’s current desires is not that different from the ways in which many white people in the United States look at minorities. In 2019, the New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to the history of African-Americans, beginning with the estimated first day that slaves from Africa arrived on the American shore of the colony of Virginia.

Lead author of the 1619 Project, Nicole Hannah-Jones, does a remarkable job of connecting the elements of slavery to current problems that African-Americans face. She is joined by a number of other outstanding writers who provide more detail on subjects such as how urban interstate highways have been intentionally designed to divide black neighborhoods, how the work of slaves on southern plantations provided need for investment and eventually the establishment of the New York Stock Exchange. The work of the Times is greatly supplemented by lessons from the Pulitzer Center.

Many white people are now getting upset about Critical Race Theory, which is simply a recognition of how contemporary conditions (good and bad) for African-Americans is a result of the history of blacks in America.

It is because of the discrimination that black people have endured in America, now for more than 400 years, that programs such as Affirmative Action have been needed, and still are. Affirmative Action is a policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.

Affirmative Action is not something that is limited to race. It is used for those who are economically disadvantaged, or for people with disabilities, or for women. It is necessary to balance the playing field.

White people need to understand the history of minorities, just as NATO countries need to understand the history of Russia. To be fair, the reverse is true in each case. On a global level, if we are going to live peacefully and with justice, it is important to understand one another’s history.

The post What Putin and Affirmative Action have in common appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What are we living? Drama, comedy, soap opera, reality show, tragedy, nightmare?

With hindsight, history will tell us clearly. History will frame this decade as the moment when the United States embraced bigotry and division, or the moment when we as Americans were able to withstand and overcome a direct attack on our basic democratic values. History will record whether a wall at our southern border was ever built or not. History will tell us whether Trump was a temporary blip on our collective democratic tradition of beckoning to immigrants and the displaced (Trump’s antecedents included), or whether we were returning to the police state politics of government that defined the McCarthy era in our not-so recent history.

We, however, don’t have any such perspective. We are patching it together as we go, as best we can on the fly from various news sites, social media contacts, friends, trusted network and print reporters and journalists and whatever we can cull together from wherever we are, on our phones, computers, tablets or TV’s.

How are we doing? What are we to make of our lives since the Tweeter-in-Chief became President?

We’re trying to figure it out tweet by tweet, Supreme Court Justice nomination by Supreme Court Justice nomination, each child separated from her parents by each child separated from her parents at the border of the United States of America, each divisive racist comment by the President of the country by each divisive racist comment by the President of the country, each new week by each new week, each moment by moment.

Our self-questioning is boundless, continuous and relentless. And our questioning of the state of our present governance is daily subject to reevaluation.

So yeah there’s drama. There is drama daily. Will Trump finish his term? Will he be impeached? Will there be a second-term to the Trump presidency?

We can’t speed history up. We can’t know the answers to these questions in real time.

We can only get out there and make our vision for a better America known, support our candidates who embrace inclusion and diversity, and deny the Tweeter-in-Chief the imposition of his view of America.

The post What do we do about the tweeter-in-chief? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

One of the most contentious and emotionally charged issues in American politics today is the issue of abortion and a woman’s right to choose. Forgotten in the increasingly divisive crusade to deny women the right to make decisions over the autonomy of their own bodies and their right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term is the fact that abortion is as old as pregnancy itself.

Contemporary discussions about abortion often seem to begin and end with 1973 – the year of the ruling in Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court handed down one of the most life-altering decisions for women in the court’s history. That decision has rippled through American culture – and, indeed, across the world – in multiple ways that continue to profoundly impact women, their life choices, their financial well-being, and their expectations of fulfilling the promise of their lives.

As the debate rages on, and as countless numbers of women’s lives and the lives of their families are impacted by the narrowing of abortion access in states across the country, it’s important to remember that the undeniable fact of women seeking to control the destinies of their bodies predates by centuries that decision in 1973. It’s also important to remember that the history of abortion cannot be recalled without acknowledging the fears and sheer desperation that led our female forebears to tolerate the dangers, the pain, and the risk of remedies and procedures they hoped would end an unwanted pregnancy but often led instead to permanent bodily harm or death.

Abortion in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries

Let’s acknowledge as well that, contrary to popular belief, abortion restrictions and the outright denial of abortion access is a relatively new development in America’s history. In her definitive history of abortion in America, “When Abortion Was a Crime,” historian Leslie Reagan recounts how abortion used to be a part of everyday American life. In the eighteenth century until the late nineteenth century, abortions were commonly performed and were permitted under common law until “quickening” – a term that describes the stage when fetal movement in the womb may be felt by the mother. Prior to 1880, even the Catholic Church tolerated the reality of abortion. As Reagan explains, “the Catholic Church implicitly accepted early abortions prior to ensoulment. Not until 1869, at about the same time that abortion became politicized in this country, did the church condemn abortion; in 1895 it condemned therapeutic abortion [procedures performed to save the life of the mother].”

In 1857, the newly constituted American Medical Association undertook what could be considered one of the first large-scale lobbying efforts to criminalize abortion. Due to concerns about poisonings, but also reflecting a growing backlash to women’s emerging role in American public life and the desire of member physicians to professionalize the practice of medicine and limit the competition of midwives and homeopaths, the AMA pushed for state laws restricting abortion. In 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Law, banning abortion drugs. By 1880, the AMA’s efforts lobbying for state laws restricting abortion bore their bitter fruit.

Abortions in ancient times

Even earlier historic accounts provide a glimpse into the common practice of women seeking to abort unwanted pregnancies. These accounts not only comment on procedures but also recount a long list of recipes for pastes, pessaries, ingestions, salves, suppositories, and ingested herbal toxins. Folk cultures across the world and across time abound with an almost limitless variety of abortifacients and methods for their use passed on from one generation to the next. The acknowledgment of abortion as a fact of women’s reproductive lives was not limited to folk culture and the ministrations of shamans, herbalists, and midwives. The most influential philosophers, scientists, and physicians of ancient times wrote about and often provided advice about the most effective abortion techniques.

In the Kahun Gynecological Papyrus, one of the earliest known medical texts from ancient Egypt, the use of crocodile dung made into a pessary to be inserted into the vagina was the recommended method to induce abortion.

In ancient Greece, the musings of Aristotle in his work “Politics” foreshadow some of the thorniest terms of the debate raging through to our own time.

Aristotle wrote:

 “. . . when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation.”

The Greek physician Hippocrates, although mostly opposed to abortion, counseled that a woman seeking to end a pregnancy could “jump up and down, touching her buttocks with her heels at each leap” – causing the embryo to come “loose” and fall out. This was a technique that later became known as the Lacedaemonian Leap. Other Greek physicians recommended the ingestion of myrrh, rue, and juniper.

In the days of the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder’s “Natural History” provided evidence that women of his time sought to limit the number of pregnancies. His practical–-if ineffective—advice confirmed that “if a pregnant woman steps over a viper, she will be sure to miscarry.”

An eighth-century Sanskrit manuscript recommended sitting over a pot of boiling water or steamed onions –a questionable pregnancy-ending technique used by Jewish women on New York’s Lower East Side well into the twentieth century.

Here are some of the methods women have used, throughout history, to try to induce abortions

• Ingesting a meal of toxic lupines with ox bile and absinthium
• Smearing the mouth of the uterus with olive oil, honey, cedar resin, and the juice of the balsam tree
• Myrtle oil gums
• Sitting in a bath of linseed, fenugreek, mallow, marshmallow, and wormwood
• Creating a paste of ants, foam from camel’s mouths, and tail hairs of black-tail deer dissolved in bear fat
• Ingesting pennyroyal or drinking of pennyroyal tea (5 grams of which is toxic and may lead to death)
• Fumigating the womb with various poisons
• Opium ingested with mandrake root, Queen Anne’s lace, gum resin, and various types of peppers (in 2011 it was reported that women in Pakistan are still using opium bombs in the uterus to end unwanted pregnancies)
• Inducing abortion by riding horses or carrying heavy objects
• Inserting a uterine suppository of mouse dung, honey, Egyptian salt, wild colocynth, and resin

Today in America, one in four women will have an abortion by the age of forty-five. Tellingly, 59 percent of women seeking abortions are mothers. Many of us believed that the Roe v. Wade decision was settled law and that the decision would forever protect a woman’s right to choose. We also believed that access to safe, legal abortions would relegate to the ash heap of history the home-induced abortions using toxic, poisonous chemicals or the back-alley horrors of knitting needles and coat hangers. Will we be proven wrong? And will women be returned once again to the uncertainties and dangers that women who came before us were forced to face?

The post Abortion: as old as pregnancy itself appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Awakened recently at four and then six in the morning by the clanking and booming of salt trucks and snow plows lumbering outside my windows,  my restless mind wondered how previous generations in the Northeast, where I now live, coped with keeping their lives on track and the roads and byways open during the snowy, bone-chilling days of winters past.

Life was different then—slower and shorter. But not so different that we wouldn’t recognize the same daily challenges of winter, like stocking up on fuel to heat homes, traveling to work, putting food on the table, getting the kids off to school.

Those early-morning, cold-weather musings led me to consider the history of some of the inventions and innovations we often ignore and take for granted, like snow plows and snow clearing.

From historic accounts we know that early settlers of the New World encountered winters that were far more extreme than the winters they’d left behind. Many didn’t survive, but those that did adapted and, ultimately, thrived. The story of coping with snow and its effects on daily living—and even on survival—is the story of the recognition of interdependence, cooperative effort, planning, adaptation, and slow but steady technical innovation.

Adaptation and innovation

In late February and early March in the second decade of the eighteenth century, the New England snowstorm that became known as the Great Snow of 1717 dumped four to six feet of snow, with drifts reaching twenty-five feet high. Historic accounts document how townspeople labored collectively to dig tunnels between their homes—tunnels that ultimately lasted until spring melt. Mail delivery, the lifeblood of communities at the time, was nearly halted but resumed when young boys, sloshing over the snow on snowshoes, doggedly made their way through the snow-covered landscape. Life and commerce continued through grit and determination. Shovels, manual labor, and the strength and endurance of sturdy bodies working together were the engines that conquered the snow.

In the era of horse-drawn vehicles and the acceleration of town and city dwelling, snow cover became an asset rather than an obstacle, as horse-drawn wagons and carriages were fitted with ski-like runners. Like today’s annual ritual of the changing of regular tires to snow tires, in those days it was off with the wheels and on with the runners. This clever adaptation led to one of the first major mechanical innovations—the horse-drawn snow roller, which flattened the snow to enable the runners to glide more smoothly over the surface.

The 1840s saw the first snow-plow patents for horse-drawn plows, the first of which was deployed In Milwaukee in 1862. In larger cities, like New York and Chicago, city planners were slow to understand the effects of snow removal on daily living and commerce. They failed to realize that as snow was plowed and removed from major thoroughfares, the smaller streets and shops were blocked by the resulting mountains of snow. It was only when lawsuits were brought by disgruntled business owners and residents that city planners were forced to deploy horse-drawn carts and hire legions of workers to hand shovel the mounds into the carts for removal.

The blizzard of 1888 encouraged the development of more comprehensive snow-removal plans, foreshadowing the nearly military-like strategic planning and deployment of equipment and personnel of modern times. It was around that time that it finally dawned on officials in towns and cities that plowing couldn’t be delayed until the storms had passed but needed to start as the storms began.

The twentieth century saw accelerated experimentation and greater strides in snow removal—experiments such as the failed attempts to attach plows to electric trolleys.

More successful strategies, however, were on the way. In 1913, New York City developed the first motorized dump truck. In the 1920s, Chicago introduced a snow loader that was equipped with a giant scoop and conveyor belt.

In the second half of the twentieth century, with the innovations of space travel snow removal was transformed with the advent of satellites that allowed for more accurate forecasting that encouraged better and earlier planning.

Today, the next generation of innovation is already here with driverless, remotely operated snow plows for clearing airport runways, and under-pavement electric, hydraulic, and solar-powered systems for melting snow and ice on driveways, bridges, walkways, parking garages, loading ramps and stairways.

The post Conquering snow, old-style appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We aren’t supposed to forget the past, and it’s so easy to see the differences between “Germany then” and “the U.S. now” that we don’t discuss the most important similarities (for fear of lowering the level of discourse). But I, for one, can’t ignore the similarities. Here are just a few examples:

God is my witness

Hitler said, “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty.”  He also said, “As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.”  Trump says there is “an assault on Christianity here and abroad,“ and he will be “the greatest representative of the Christians they’ve had in a long time.”

Manifest destiny

The Nazis believed Germany was superior to all other countries. Their goal was to make Germany so mighty that it could lead the world as it saw fit. The 2016 GOP platform “embraces American exceptionalism.” It wants to modernize our military so we have “vast superiority over any other nation or group of nations.” The GOP platform says our government will “consult” with other nations, but it must “lead from the front” and “does not require permission to act.”

Manipulation of the press

Hitler held many staged, theatrical mass rallies to get free media attention and attract like-minded followers. Trump has campaigned using the same tactic. The Nazi platform called for banning newspapers “violating the public interest.” Trump has banned critical newspapers from covering his campaign and has demeaned, bullied, and threatened journalists who have questioned his ideas.

Slandering and banning minorities

The Nazis used unemployment as an excuse to deport thousands of long-term immigrants who had come to Germany a result of prior wars and displacements. Throughout the Third Reich, the Nazis portrayed Jews (less than 1% of the population) as sub-human, forced them out of Germany, persecuted them, and ultimately murdered most of those who remained. Trump has played into American workers’ dissatisfactions and fears by blaming immigrants and disparaging minorities. He has said most Mexican immigrants are “criminals” to be walled out. He has said we should have a “total and complete ban” of all Muslims, and we should deport Syrian immigrants. The 2016 GOP platform requires “special scrutiny” of potential immigrants from “regions associated with terrorism.” (the whole world?)

Curbing reproductive rights

The Nazis criminalized unapproved abortions for German women and harshly punished violators, although they made some medical exceptions. (The year before Hitler took power, there were almost 35,000 legal abortions in Germany; between 1935 and 1940, there were 10,000.) The 2016 GOP platform says “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.” No exceptions.

Promotion of violence

Hitler said, “The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”  Trump has told followers to “knock the crap out of” protesters and has repeatedly praised followers for violent behavior.

Pretty Woman

Hitler said a woman’s purpose was to look beautiful (Nordic) and bear children. He was linked with three young females: Eva Braun (23 years younger) and two others (19 and 21 years younger). Trump has had three beautiful young wives. They have borne him a total of five children. He has often been linked with beauty contests and their contestants. He has remarked on his daughter’s body, saying if she had been unrelated, he would have dated her. Trump said, “it really doesn`t matter what (the media) write as long as you`ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

The post An inconvenient comparison: Germany then and the U.S. now appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As my mother approaches her 101st birthday, her mind is on fire with long-ago memories. Today, she told me the story of her grandmother, Sarah Plotkin Weintraub, who, in the early 20th century, was the medicine woman and exorcist in the Jewish ghetto of Chernosk, in Ukraine, before she packed up and landed in Cleveland, Ohio.

At least I think it was in Chernosk. Mom says that a cousin of hers, who came later, said that they were from “Chernoska,” although that cousin didn’t speak any English, so we’re not sure what she was referring to. Today, a google search yields “Chernovcy,” and “Chernivtsi,” neither of which I know how to pronounce, but both of which appear to refer to the same place. Further evidence that we’re talking about the same place is the Wikipedia mention that the town [however it’s pronounced] was once known as “Jerusalem upon the Prut” [a river, part of which    forms Romania’s border with Moldova and Ukraine].

In Chernosk, great-grandma Weintraub was the go-to person for medicinal remedies. I don’t know precisely what cures she served up to the folks in the ghetto and in surrounding shtetls. But back then, presumably, herbs and rubs and teas were the miracle drugs of the day.

But great grandma Sarah’s powers went beyond herbal cures. She was also the neighborhood ghost-buster.

How does my mother know that great grandma Sarah was an exorcist? Because, as a toddler, my mother was the target of one of Sarah’s exorcism rituals.

It all started with my mother’s Uncle Willie. He never married and had no children, but he adored all of his nieces and nephews. He adored them so much that, whenever he saw them, he smothered them with hugs and kisses and heaped them with compliments—wild, exaggerated compliments about how beautiful they were, how smart they were, how all-over wonderful, special and unique they were.

But, according to Jewish superstition, saying nice things about kids was bad. Uncle Willie’s family, like many of the times, believed that there was a thing called the “Evil Eye.” In Yiddish, it’s still referred to as the “Nehora” or “Eyin Ha Rah,” or pronunciations sort of like that. The prevailing superstition was that, if your child was seen to be too perfect, too lovable, too special, the Evil Eye would strike with some form of punishment. When your child received a compliment, you had to do something to protect her: One precaution was to spit and to utter a Yiddish phrase designed to keep the Evil Eye away.

Uncle Willie, in his good intentions, was considered guilty of tempting the Evil Eye. And one day, during a family gathering, he apparently went too far in praising my mother [who was, a look at ancient family photos reveals, clearly an adorable child].

That’s when great grandma Sarah leapt into action, with the anti-Evil Eye nuclear option of the era.

My mother still remembers it, almost a century later—that’s how traumatic it must have been. Sarah plopped Mom into her high chair. Then she started chanting, or singing. [It must have all been in Yiddish. Sarah never learned to speak English]. Then she grabbed a live chicken, held it by a wing–or maybe a leg–and began swinging it over her head as she circled the high chair, again and again. It must have been a very scary event—for the chicken, too–but that was part of the deal: It was supposed to be so scary that it would frighten away the Evil Eye.

To be fair to great grandma Sarah, this behavior was not a sign of mental illness. There was a certain contemporaneous, religion-based logic to what she was doing. She didn’t just arbitrarily grab a chicken, when there might have been other options, such as a lamb chop or a brisket or a hunk of gefilte fish. In Jewish superstition, chicken was the prescribed choice for exorcising demons: It was part of a ritual known in Yiddish as “shloch capores,” [variously spelled], in which the chicken was the scape-poultry that, as it was being flung, absorbed the evil vibes.

And, lest you smirk at such antiquated silliness, be advised that, in the 21st century, some observant and tradition-minded Jews still perform this ritual. Not as an official “exorcism,” but as a pre-High Holidays tradition, to cleanse themselves of their pre-atonement sins. Many years ago, before I quit religion, I attended a shloch capores ceremony at a Jewish retreat, where a rabbi twirled a chicken and then flung it into the lake, where it presumably died and took our collective wrongdoings with it. Of course, like other rituals, it has its variations: Back in my great grandmother’s day, I’m told, most people slaughtered the chicken post-kapores and then cooked it and ate it.  [I didn’t know it at the time, but the persistence of these kinds of beliefs, rituals and traditions contributed to my later decision to fling myself away from religion.]

Anyway, Mom’s exorcism must have worked. She’s lived a long and happy life, with no evidence of any punishment by the Evil Eye, even though she has been complimented through the years for her talents and has herself tempted the Evil Eye many times by her kindness and praise toward us, her three daughters.

The post My great grandmother was a Jewish exorcist appeared first on Occasional Planet.

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Heck yeah. As of August 26th, 2014 it will have been 94 years since that beautiful sentence helped us further the feminist cause for women’s rights.

The Women’s Rights Movement started (officially) in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott joining forces with Susan B. Anthony to petition for women’s suffrage. It wasn’t until 1920, though, that the amendment received the 2/3 majority ratification by the states to become a national amendment. It took, however, another 64 years for the other 12 states (Mississippi being the last) to adopt the amendment.
In honor of this glorious feminist anniversary, here’s a compilation of some of the best things I’ve seen about women, feminism, misogyny, and how to spark your feminism.

First things first: A Beginner’s Guide to Contemporary Feminist Language Sometimes it’s hard to admit- especially to an intimidatingly hard-core feminist- that you don’t quite understand what intersectionality, transmisogyny, or SWERF is. This article can help.

We’re privileged. Somehow, we are privileged. So, sometimes it’s hard to notice that maybe we aren’t oppressed and don’t face systemic discrimination, but it’s a very real aspect of our society in certain instances. So here’s Why We Need Feminism. and Why Men Need Feminism, too.
Having a role-model for your beliefs can help you accept your own wishes. These 17 Famous Women on What Feminism Means to Them can help.

History is definitely an ally when beginning your adventure into feminism; these little-known 100 Inspiring Women Who Made History can help you out (and another one for good measure).

A big part of feminism today is unity–gaining solidarity with people of all walks of life. Here are some tips on How to Work with Muslim Women; the intersection of Race and Feminism, Women of Color, and how Feminism and LGBTQIA are One and the Same, and What You Can Do To Help.

Embrace your femininity with these 21 Inspiring Quotes Every Woman Needs in Her Life (featuring the intelligence and sparkling wit of Margaret Thatcher, Emma Stone, Charlotte Bronte, Malala Yousafzai, and Beyonce among others)
If you’re looking for something a little more long-term to help inspire you, these 15 books can help you Spark Your Feminist Awakening

We all know humor is the best way to convey seriousness about problems (think Saturday Night Live and the Colbert Report), so here are 19 Tumblr Posts on Misogyny and 31 Tumblr Posts on Being a Woman Today
Maybe you’ve heard of the new movement by some feminists to ban the word “bossy when referring to women. Well, here are 20 more Words That Are Only Ever Used to Describe Women (warning: there are some ladies showing off their middle finger in the GIFs). I mean have you ever described a dude as “bubbly” or “ditzy” or “high-maintenance”? Didn’t think so.

As with the last, irritation at a cultural norm can have a unifying effect. Lot’s of women are tired of hearing these 23 things. Are you?

The post Women’s rights: 94 years and still counting appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Please take a moment to remember that 42 years ago today [June 17], a security guard named Frank Wills called the police when he found tape over a door lock. What unraveled after that was surely the most incredible series of events in American governmental history.

“Interviewed by The Washington Star-News on the day Nixon resigned, Mr. Wills said, ‘We treat the president like a king, when he should be a man for all the people.’

“He complained that in Nixon’s resignation speech the night before, the president failed to describe his role in the cover-up. ‘I think he should have been a little more specific,’ Mr. Wills said.”

Mr. Wills, who played himself in the movie, “All the President’s Men,” died broke and largely forgotten, of a brain tumor at the age of 52 in South Carolina, where he had moved to take care of his mother. They lived off of her social security, and he couldn’t afford to bury his mother when she died. At the time he passed away, his house had no electricity because he couldn’t afford the bill.

Said the New York Times, “Representative James Mann of South Carolina, a Democrat casting a difficult vote for impeachment on the House Judiciary Committee, said on July 29, 1974: ”If there is no accountability, another president will feel free to do as he chooses. But the next time there may be no watchman in the night.’ ”

The post Frank Wills: Watergate watchman appeared first on Occasional Planet.

November 19, 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address delivered by Abraham Lincoln. It’s an amazing piece of writing–both for its powerful message and for its succinctness. It’s worth revisiting, especially in a climate in which the notion of the greater good–and even the union of our country itself–has been eroded by extremist, nihilist politicians who are not interested in improving people’s lives, or in governing at all.

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns recently invited presidents, Congressional representatives, entertainers, news pundits and others to read the Gettysburg Address. Then, he mashed them all up into a single reading. I have a little trouble even listening to a few words from some of them, but the words they speak are important. [Some of these readers should listen more carefully to the Address, because I doubt that they embody its values. You know who you are.]

The mashup is part of an effort to commemorate the 150th anniversary by getting Americans to learn its words–and to value its message of unity and belief in the common good. The project’s organizers encourage everyday people to record their own readings of the Gettysburg Address on video, and to share them on their site, Learn the Address.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yzi79zpqQA&feature=player_embedded

The post The Gettysburg Address mashup appeared first on Occasional Planet.

After years, no, decades, of wondering why all American voters don’t think and act the same way I do, I finally found something approaching an answer. We are NOT all alike. Imagine that. I’ve understood for a long time the whole “diversity” theme and how we are all different flowers in the bouquet or vegetables in the stew, etc. But the analysis by Colin Woodard in a new book called American Nations is really enlightening.

I am definitely a Yankee, by birth and by temperament and worldview. But there are many more Americans who are NOT. Thus my never ending frustration with political points of view on everything from the value of public education to protection of the planet to peaceful solutions to problems, and the dignity of every human being. In fact, the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism read just like the description by Woodard of the Yankee mindset. That’s partly because Unitarians were instrumental in molding the political views of many in the Northeast. That’s where women’s suffrage was born as well as the anti-slavery movement.

From what I understand, William Greenleaf Eliot and his family moved to the St. Louis area in the decades before the American Civil War hoping to bring Yankee enlightenment and problem solving to the Midwest. They created some cornerstone institutions which continue today such as Washington University, but they were not able to avert a Civil War.   I think I understand better now why many in southern parts of the U.S. still value their Confederate traditions. Our priorities and values go all the way back to the culture that created us. Missouri was divided during the Civil War, and Woodard divides it between “Midlands” and “Greater Appalachia” on his map.  

I look forward to reading the entire book soon. I’m not sure if knowing all this about our past cultures and value systems will motivate me even more to help change public views and elect progressives, or if it will give me the reason to finally quit politics altogether.

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