Created this infographic based on my years of protest with CodePink Women for Peace in DC and my years as a security manager at a major museum.
Save the image or click for PDF .
March Prompts
Matrona’lia and More
What a great way to start off Women’s History Month! We will be celebrating the stories of regular women all month long. Be sure to stop back often to check out features about shared with us from around the globe about women who inspired us and changed the world one person at a time.
March 1st was celebrated as Matrona’lia by the Romans as a day of honor to women and peace due to the Sabine women’s role in creating peace between Romans and Sabines.
This ancient history bumps up against other March events such as a significant march for women’s suffrage and human rights that took place in 1913. A 10 year old girl had not inkling at that time that she would move from illegitimacy and poverty to the world of power brokerage via politics and print.
Clare Boothe Luce, March 10, 1903 – October 9, 1987, was an American author, politician, and a US Ambassador. Lauded as a conservative, she did become virulently anti-communist in her later years, but this vivid biographic article in Vanity Fair from 2014 depicts mid-20th Century Republicanism, quite distinct from 21st Right-wing ideology, seated in a talented, multi-faceted woman who seemed to define the concept of complexity.
Associations, Anniversaries & Easter
Daffodils that survive the March winds which either greet or send out the month are flowers of the month. Aquamarine is March’s birthstone, but green is the color of the day on March 12th which celebrates Juliette Gordon Low’s founding of the Girl Scouts on March 12, 1912. Girls can scout and though the States decided they are not equal when enough did not ratify the Equal Rights Amendment that was passed by the Senate on March 22 in 1972.
Worldwide celebration of International Women’s Day takes place on March 8th.
The Vernal Equinox that takes place Sunday, March 20, 2016 at 04:30 UTC designates the mid-point between the Winter and Summer Solstices – that translates to March 19th at 9:30 p.m. where I live. When is Spring where you live? But no matter where you live, an egg may or may not balance on its end at that time irrespective of the seasonal markers. Snopes.com does a wonderful debunking of egg and broom balancing ability at the moment of the equinox supposedly because of something related to the length of day and night being equal.
Not so Good March Memories
are also drawn from events that happened this month in history.
Mid 20th Century
On March 23, 1933 the German Enabling Act was passed by the Reichstag, the German Parliament, which effectively sanctioned dictatorial power for Adolf Hitler. This is a heartbreaking reminder that extremist views can bring down a democracy.
100 Years Ago
Maude Wright was kidnapped in New Mexico raid by Pancho Villa’s Villistas. The border is not a new “issue.”
Colonial America
Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba are brought before local magistrates in Salem Village, Massachusetts, beginning what would become known as the Salem witch trials. (1. March 1692)
40 Years Ago in the Top 40
On a brighter note, March 1976 music shows the range of rock and roll that splintered the myth that there was one type of rock in the mid-1970s:
- 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER – Paul Simon
- LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY – Donna Summer
- GOLDEN YEARS – David Bowie
- BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO – Neil Sedaka
- DREAM ON – Aerosmith
- BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY – Queen
- 3 DECEMBER, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) – The Four Seasons
- TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT – The Eagles
- SLOW RIDE – Foghat
- SILLY LOVE SONGS – Wings
For those of you who are counting, I put in at least 35 different prompts in this piece.
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†P. Liverani, G. Spinola, & P. Zander, eds. (2010). Le Necropoli Vaticane: La Città dei Morti di Roma. Musei Vaticani: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Juggling Prompts, Themes & Challenges
Last week was significant for me as it was back to work after a break to hang out with my daughter while she was back in the old home town finding a wedding venue.
It took a week before last week to re-engage in writing, blogging group planning and events, a new take on local networking via social media, and…
You get the idea.
That was when I was struck with idea to encourage story-telling via February prompts, Women’s History Month, and an upcoming annual blog challenge whose incarnation last year kick-started posting on this site.
February Prompts
30 to 40 prompts to encourage readers to write on seasonal topics are being crafted. This will be the second installation of prompts that can help you in your creative efforts. Before the halfway mark between Winter and Spring, a time called Imbolc in old Celtic culture, falls at the beginning of February. It is a time when Spring begins tugging at us as we say good-bye and sometimes good riddance, to Winter. I will a post prompts focused on February on the WLP blog, it will also display on the front page of this site.
March is Women’s History Month
I will take this opportunity to say that women’s history should be celebrated every day, not corralled into 1/12 of the year. All history is women’s, and men’s, history if fairly recounted. There. I feel better.
During February I will be beating the drum to prepare to celebrate March as Women’s History Month by sharing your stories of women who shaped your life course. Check out the details of the Tell Her Story event and honor a woman who helped to shape your life.
Join us!
April’s Blogging A to Z Challenge
I created the first original content for this site by creating 26 articles in 30 days. You can read more and sign up for the Blogging A to Z. Challenge here. April has this wonderful structure that allows creation of a thing, in this case a blog post, every Monday through Saturday during the month using the Alphabet as a template. The first non-Sunday day of April equates with the letter A, the second non-Sunday day of April equates to the letter B, and this pattern repeats all through the month through the last non-Sunday day of the month which would be dedicated to the letter Z.
This annual exercise gives me a way to focus on a subject and develop that subject through writing. 26 articles is usually more than enough to cover a subject rather fully. Matching the topics with A to Z words is challenging, but creative use of words turns this into a fun puzzle. Last year I created the A to Z of Women’s Legacy. This year I will be focusing on a more narrow aspect of Legacy – The A to Z How-to Guide to Women’s Legacy.
This exercise can be adapted to any topic. It is short, only a month, gives you one day off a week, and practical in that it give you structure. Why not give it a go with your own project? The A to Z could be a bucket list for living out your dreams. Live your legacy now. Or you might do an A to Z of your family, or community group.
download: A to Z April 2016 blogging planner template.pdf
We have a busy Spring ahead of us. There is much to acknowledge and celebrate as new life reveals itself all around us.
Planning makes challenges easier, more useful, and more productive than free-wheeling it. I hope you will join me in planning our upcoming Spring.
Free Thinking on Freedom for Easter Free Writing
A to Z bloggers get Sunday off, and weekends are for free writing in the NaBloPoMo challenge – so I’ve rolled quite a few topics around on my tongue today, just to see how they tasted. No one thing popped up as a hearty meal, so I am serving up some thought tapas today.
First things first. Happy Easter! This is the first year I did not really do much for the holiday. When Zilla was a little girl we would go up on the mountain and have an Easter Egg Hunt in high mountain meadows during a camping trip. This year both b and s daughters received boxes packed with goodies. Or at least I hope they did. I know the one box arrived in the North Country. Hope to hear that the East bound package also made it.
Hubby and I had a quiet day. He is preparing for a business trip to Madison, WI later this week. I am attempting to outmaneuver every sort of Spring pollen known to human kind. Seems that every flowering plant of the world has made its way to Tucson and the spring bloomers, along with the grasses and trees, are doing their reproductive thing. Actually I know some have ended the Spring bloom such as the oranges, and Tombstone Rose bushes which are also known as the Lady Victoria Banks rose were in full bloom a couple of weeks ago. Tucson is a gorgeous place, but native species have a lot of competition.
So I didn’t do much today, but I read and mulled over the comments to my Friday article on Feminism and my life. I am truly surprised that so many of the comments referred to my strength and wished me well or thanked me for telling my story. I am honored that women read the peace and were moved by it. I don’t think I am strong. Tenacious perhaps, but strength, well, thank you for seeing that in me. Everything is perception. If you see me as strong, maybe I am.
The unfortunate thing is that my story is not uncommon. No one knows exactly how many women have been victimized by the culture of hate against women in this country. Sexual abuse and assault impacts at least 20% of all women in the U.S. and the number is probably closer to one in four rather than one in five. Then when we look at our increasing rate of infant and maternal mortality, the lower wages, and the general wearing of heals while dancing backward and up and down steps as the iconic Ginger Rogers example illustrates, well, anyone with any sense can see that there is a war on women.
I believe it is time, this is the century where the knowledge and wisdom of women will be more necessary than ever if we are to survive the changes that are beginning to show themselves through climate change. But before that, we need to elect candidates who will actively maintain the rights we already have and work to expand the legal infrastructure for the equality for all men and women.
It is critical that we move forward in a positive way that shows our might and our refusal to be intimidated and controlled. I hope you will all consider gathering this April 28th in your local towns and state capitals to show that the war on women will not be tolerated.
This is the graphic for the march I will attend but the image is linked to a Facebook page that is supposed to have links to events going on all over the country on April 28th.
Gathering together with other women is powerful. I hope you will participate, or create something if you cannot find a local event.
Talk to the women you meet on April 28th to find out about who might be interested in coming to D.C. to join together in a national action of women uniting in support of ourselves, affirming our control of our own bodies and sending a very clear message that women’s lives, health and control over our own bodies and lives is not for others to attempt to control or legislate control over.
A million or two women showing up to march on our Capitol just might scare the shit out of the few people who are attempting to exert control over women in a way that never existed so that they can go back to a time that never existed in the first place. These power-hungry control freaks are not brave nor strong. Women are brave and strong and we will not go back.
I am not strong by myself, but together we are incredibly strong.
Day 1 of Being a CODEPINKer at One Nation Working Together
October 1 Logistics
12:30 – 3 a.m.
Worked on orienting myself, getting internet installed and working, figuring out my schedules and getting my materials together for the next few days. Finally crashed around 3 a.m. I’m still very much on west coast time.
Mundane details, but good to know information (especially for women activists of a certain age:
9 a.m. – 2 p.m.Woke up later than I should have — 6 a.m. AZ time. 9 a.m. here. Very glad I gave myself a day to orient and do a bit of lobbying. I transcribed the letter to my Representative and Senators onto my computer — wrote it by hand on the plane here. Loaded it onto a flash drive and printed it at the business center in my hotel. Grabbed a good breakfast. Got a metro/city map. Figured out the locations for shuttlebetween hotel to metro. Got a metro card. By the time I emerged from the metro at Capital SW stop I was sweating like mad. We south-westerners forget how much we sweat in the heat because it evaporates instantaneously. Here when I encounter the humidity that is always present in Washington, D.C. my body tries to cool itself, sweats, it doesn’t evaporate as it usually does when I’m in Tucson and thus my body thinks it isn’t cooling off, so it bumps up the process and cranks out even more sweat. I look like hell and I don’t stay sweet smelling very long in this condition either.
I’m glad I’ve had a day to adjust to everything.
As I said above, I have letters for all the Rep/Senator types from my part of AZ. I did manage to deliver my letter to Representative Giffords today around 3. I wasn’t impressed with her staff.
Boy Staffer mumbles some sort of a greeting.
Me: Hi. I’ve come to drop off a letter.
Boy Staffer: Good.
That was it. I gave it to him. No “Oh, where are you from?” or “Why are you here?” or “Welcome to D.C. ” Nada. Zilch. Pretty good mirroring of the way Gabby treats her constituents by her staff.
I know D.C. is old hat to them, but here I am, a constituent who has come across the country to support working together for progressive reasons, and takes the time to write and drop off a letter, and I’m pretty much ignored. I was hot & tired and on my way out I told the guy what I thought about how I was treated and even though I vote for Gabby only as the lesser of two evils, I do not feel she represents any of my interests, hears what I tell her in letters, petitions, and the like, nor cares. Giffords is basically a pro-choice Republican from what I can tell.
Then I went to a room in the Capitol Visitor’s Center to a room Rep. Raul Grijalva had reserved for use by the PDA. On Sunday I will go into detail on what John Conyers said when he spoke to maybe 50 or so people from the PDA and associated groups.
Will also report on the great dinner and orientation session I attended at the CODEPINK Convergence Center this evening.
But for now I have to sleep, and tomorrow I’m on the ground all day and at Poets and Busboys in the evening. I will be posting images here, on Flickr, and on Facebook and Twitter until I can write up things later this weekend.
BRING OUR WAR $$$ HOME!!!
Gonna March, Gonna Dance!
The think I like about women’s activism is that it is like a bouncy session on a trampoline. I visualize it as women standing on a web or net that overlays a map of the country or globe. As a woman here or there becomes less active and sinks to a less active level, other raise up, and some are just bouncing like mad up to sky in near manic activity.
Women’s networks are amazing!
I’m going back to D.C. for a few days, the first time in almost three years, to catch up with all things PINK at the national level and to represent my family and friends in the OneNation March in D.C. on October 2nd.
We all do what we can, and I have to tell the current admin that we are demanding the change for which we voted and worked. Drones are criminal. War is not the answer to anything. Education and jobs and taking care of people are what we need — NOT corporate and mega-wealthy tax breaks and propping up the military industrial complex. Jobs from war funding are tainted jobs.
In a way it is sort of sad as I will be missing a great Pink & Green event here in Tucson, more on that later, but I will be reporting back often from D.C. with tweets, posts, pics and more.
I will also be dancing the night away at Poets & Busboys with Alice Walker and CODEPINK supporters.
I’m staying in a hotel and if there are any snorers who don’t mind bunking in a double with another snorer (major!) then contact me about rooming. I get dibs on soaking my feet after a day of marching and dancing though!