a little red hen

"American Winter" Kickstarted to theater near you...

Were you with us when HBO announced the new film "American Winter"?  At the website there's more about it's producers, Joe and Harry Gantz, and their focus on social justice films. Maybe living in Portland, Oregon, where it was filmed gave it a certain immediacy for us.  Also that it was about real middle class families who have fallen into poverty since--what do you call it now--the economic disaster  of the last decade.

Seven of them white, one black, all doing okay and then...  When there is so much focus on the funny and forthy "Portlandia" picture of the city, it's crucial that more people see the reality of everyday life here for so many.  

 

At Lettboxd, reviewer Steve Pulaski comments:  

The staggering amount of people on unemployment begs a documentarian analysis, and American Winter provides the best one I've seen yet. High on reality, low on statistics, and often emotional, this is 2013's best documentary thus far. It is the third I've seen detailing the poor's struggle in an increasingly complex world, next to Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare and this year's limited/VOD release A Place at the Table. Needless to say that American Winter sores past the goodness of both films into gratifying greatness.

He brings up a secondary problem frustrating many of us.  Access to documentaries.  If you do not have cable, and HBO, you were dependent on the kindness of interested friends to see "American Winter."

That's why I was pleased to join their Kickstarter campaign (check out the site for a model of hands-on change at their Portland premiere) to raise funds to expand outreach for

"...a series of events around the film...bring together speakers, comics, and social theater to draw attention to critical needs of working poor and disappearing middle class...."Cirque Du Soleil" meets "Les Miserables" that will bring people together in an invigorating movement to create change."

Thrilled to learn yesterday we were among the 217 Kickstarters who made it happen!

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Writing this post, I discovered Mom Bloggers for Social Good--another to watch along with the quickly growing Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, seen here in the past week's "Stroller Jam" happening at various congressional offices around the country.  

Worthy followers of Gray Panters, Grandmothers against the War (see blogroll).  Personally satisfying for this grandma to hook onto the local Moms Demand group at demonstrations and on Facebook; my futile resistance to FB ended last summer. 

 

Life in Gun Control Lane: Rally @ Oregon Legislature

April 4, 2013 in Salem, Oregon.  Anniversary of MLK assassination 45 years ago.  

April 4, 1968  Oberlin, Ohio.  Due date for first child, we were devastated. Uncomforable with response by small college town to angry black community.* 

Everything about being part of the day at the Salem Rally was inspirational.  Heard moving remarks by  family members of those killed by guns at Clackamas Town Center and other places.  Bravely they have joined the fight for gun control.

Six of us women of age made the trip to visit with our legislators who all are working hard to move bills through the Oregon State legislature.  In the morning we were in the offices of  Represenative Jennifer Williamson first.  Then on to Senator Ginny Burdick, a woman of great personal courage who speaks in a matter-of-fact way about the death threats she has received for her longstanding support of improved public safety through gun control laws.  Ginny wears the two stickers her office handed out about those bills--background checks and K-12 safety in schools. 

Not a surprise that we were almost almost entirely women.  I heard someone say recently that we'd know progress had been made toward our goal when a large number of men turned out for these events.  Those I heard were gun owners eager to make a case for their representing the "sensible" gun owners.

When they form a new organization, separate from the NRA, it will be easier for me to hear them.  Even though the majority of the state's population is in Portland and its metro area, laws or lack of them, favor those in rural areas.  Only the mayors of Eugene, where the University of Oregon is located, and Portland are participants in Bloomberg's "Mayors Demand an End to Illegal Guns" coalition.  And here I was in Salem, the state capitol, third largest city in the state (pop. 154,637), and a mayor who has not signed on. 

Since moving here, I've been amazed that government buildings have little concern about security.  Back in New York City I was always ready to hold open my purse for checking not only at City Hall but museums too.  Attending court hearings in 2006 for Grandmothers Against the War, I even had to give up my knitting needles.  Here, one simply walks right in with a smile.

The State House was built in 1936, the third one after fire destroyed two.  I liked the feeling of being part of the democratic process as I walked its halls.  The Impressive rotunda, the carpeting with images of chinook salmon and wheat representing fishing and agriculture central to Oregon's economy and identity. Sorry I was moving too fast to get a photo of the carpet to show grandkids.

At noon we gathered for the Rally.  There were 150 of us, an accurate count by the media, and 50 of the very loud, anti-control NRA guys.  Of course some of them carried weapons so we would not miss seeing what they feared losing if stricter gun controls were enacted.  

Under a tent the coalition that had organized the Rally erected a Memorial Wall. Children's shoes were lined up across the bottom.  Any of us could post photos, thoughts. My two contributions were a cartoon--teacher thanks a student, "Why Bobby how thoughtful.  A holster for my glock!"  And a "Sensible Firearms Resolution" a neighbor of mine had written.  

The Oregon Alliance for Gun Control is three groups--two that have been around for a while, Oregon Ceasefire and the Brady Campaign.  The third is new:  Moms Demand A Plan.  I hope this coalition approach continues; we have so much more strength, can pool our resources more effectively.  And we are all working toward the same goal.

No surprise that it was raining off and on.  Though most longtime Oregonians are loath to use umbrellas, many popped up in the crowd.  Toward the end of the Rally, I found myself standing behind our friends Carl and Olivia.  They were in Clackamas Town Center when the shooting began and Carl (at left in photo) spoke of the need to keep close to young adolescent boys and they struggle with their values.

Olivia brought one of her beautiful paintings inspired by her pain when she learned of the massacre at Newtown.  My neighbor, who gave me a ride and helps me understand this Northwest Territory, took our picture. 

On Facebook, I've both connected with the local group and learned what women are doing nationally through Moms Demand Action.   Representing the Moms in Portland,  Jenny, here with Sen. Burdick, collected speakers (legislators and community people) who kept our attention.  For a change there was no foolishness from the antis.

Though it was exhausting for me and my senior lady friends, we're ready to go forward in this difficult struggle.

*Now, 45 years later, my grown child has young children who need protection from gun violence.  

A mid-20th century romance began, endures...

 

THE LONG-TERM MARRIAGE

At last she’s happy, reigning with her creams,

rubbing his scalp’s roof until it gleams.

As the squamous-cell carcinomas sprout,

the local dermatologist cuts them out

 

or frosts the lunar surface with liquid nitrogen.

The creams come from West Fourteenth Street, Manhattan,

FedExed from their adopted son’s boyfriend’s home,

a relationship that remains, to them, unknown.

 

Their Oriental rugs are steeped in piss

from the bulldog barking like an activist.

Bickering over misplaced books, the tchotchkes

lost, and how she re-remembers her stories,

 

they wait with an unfinished, finished look,

and note how honeysuckle crowns Old Saybrook

and thistles overrun their last garden.

The dash between their dates is nearly done.

                                                                -Spencer Reece

Published in The New Yorker,  April 13, 2009;  on my bulletin board since then.

On a spring day in Portland, Oregon, I celebrate  meeting my spouse in Manhattan.  March 1966,  a large, airless room at a counseling conference in the Commodore Hotel. He was presenting; I was in the audience determined to get my question answered.  He took me for an ice cream soda at a nearby Schrafft's on 42nd Street..  It was a lovely day; we walked twenty blocks south.

We lived four blocks apart--Ron in a  classic 8-story 1930s building--one-bedroom, rent-controlled  ($110) on East 24th. Mine was a smaller studio ($160), in a new 21-story high-rise.    We married in his apartment October 29, 1966--the same year NOW began.  The word "femnism" was not in my vocabulary at the time.  We disagreed on the war in Vietnam.  We moved quickly toward working on equality between women and men--and being very opposed to the "American war," as it's known in Vietnam.

Two children, four grandchilddren, several moves--Oberlin, Ohio then Baltimore, Maryland, then back to New York City before landing in Portland.

The Commodore, built in 1919, was renovated inside and out in 1980.  Unrecognizable to us in its current state. Schrafft's is gone.  We are still New Yorkers in spirit, almost 50 years later, in Portland, Oregon.  

Ruth Bader Ginsburg defines "skim milk" marriage

Last night we watched Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she questioned whether those opposing the legitimacy of gay marriage were inventing new:  skim milk marriage as different from "full milk marriage."  Enjoyed every repeat on Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell shows.  

How much further ahead social justice in the U.S. would be if women had been allowed to enter law school earlier.  Then we might have had an appropriate representation of our gender in the number of Supreme Court justices.  

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video that solves EVERYTHING

 

Many thanks to Pied Type who posted this CURE.  For what, you ask.  Listen and discover!  

New York Times discovers Oregon gun "issues"

Many false starts for this blog is about my horror with the gun culture in Portland, in Oregon.  I  attended a gun control rally last month.  Horror?

Yes.  I had never been in a public place and seen men with rifles.

Walking among us--women, children, old people. Neighbors of mine have gathered since the gun murders in our own city at Clackamas Town Center, followed by the elementary school in New Town, Connecticut.  We were at a rally to support gun control.  City Hall in downtown Portland.

An hour earlier friends and I had listened to a plea from Penny Okamoto of Ceasefire Oregon to mobilize ourselves to move along legislation under review in the state house. She is the hardworking, unpaid staff person.  There is no paid staff for the group.

At the rally I'd met, talked with state senator Ginny Burdick, who represents this area.  Another hardworking woman who has spent years trying to get more human-centered gun control legislation passed.  Another hardworking woman.

I cannot get used to the idea often voiced that we should speak of  "gun safety" because that is less infuriating to our opponents than "gun control."

Then the opposition, supported by the head of the state Republican Party went to Burdick's home and videotaped her daily life--like taking out trash.  We were prepared to attend a meeting she called on upcoming legislation.  She cancelled the meeting.

Next, Steve Duin, among the few readable columnists in the sad daily, had a Sunday piece with this headline  "Intimidation tactics may silence Salem..." [Salem is the state capitol not the one with the witchhunt history in Massachusetts].  

Now we learn that Mitch Greenlick, another member of the state legislature, has been subject to pro-gun ire that speaks to precisely who these people are, the racist anti-Obama men and women we've heard about nationally, the Tea Party enthusiasts:

"But even Greenlick has been surprised by the abusive, obscene and anti-Semitic tenor of the reaction to his support for gun-control legislation after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre."

The next day there was an Op-ed column by Joe Nocera in the New York Times.  "Politics by Intimidation"  tells the Oregon gun story.  Must come as a surprise to all those convinced that Portland, the City of Roses, was like the light-hearted view from "Portlandia," great restaurants, craft beer overflowing.  But guns?

Living in Baltimore, in Harlem, I never felt as edgy about being on the streets as I do now. Day or night who knows if I may be sitting in a restaurant next to someone with a concealed weapon.  And he has a disagreement with his wife? 

Women, we are the ones...we must seize the moment

Needed right now:  more women like Rosa Parks.  The Detroit News on the centennial of her [The link is to a new biography that begins with her activist life before her famous bus ride.]  The Detroit News on the centennial of her birth (1913) marked by a new Forever postage stamp and Obama unvieling of her statue in the Capitol.

Charming and satisfying for us old ladies from the Second Wave to travel down memory lane as our moment in 20th century feminist history rolled by on"Makers:  Women Who Make America." Surprised that public television would offer something with the "F word so prominent.

Most satisfying for me was that two younger women I suggested it to--one in college, the other in her forties--watched and responded with enthusiasm.  In another time we would all have been in the same room, the same movement, working on gun control, violence against women.  So many issues, so little time.  That was the theme in early meetings of the Women's Political Causcus in 1972 in my Baltimore living room.

Needed right now:  women to move gun control into the direction that only women have the courage to do, i.e., take on the biggest challenges.  Think Elizabeth Warren and banking.  Now Robin Kelly, Illinois legislator now running for Jesse Jackson's Congressional seat with a total focus on gun control.  While looking for a photo of her, I encountered a vicious site, "Legal Insurrection," a window into her crazed Republican opposition.  [photo: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP] 

 The Griot, an NBC blog, reported on her win and her commitment to "fight to ban assault weapons. To close the gun show loophole.  And to ban high capacity magazine clips...We will do whatever it takes to end this epidemic of gun violence, once and for all."

Women's History Month was marked on March 1, at  Folkways Notebook with a post on  Women and Inequality.  Barbara linked to the L.A. Times on the reauthorization of VAWA, the Violence against Women Act.  The Times used a group photo of Native American Women at a meeting on the Tulalip Reservation (Washington state).  They have gathered to promote passage of the Act which has special meaning for them.

Needed right now:  women of all colors to move voting rights into the center of public discourse.  The League of Women Voters' blog  keeps its eye on what the Supreme Court is up to in Shelby County v. Holder.  That's how I found the February 27 rally outside the court on February 27.  Speaking on the Voting Rights Act to is Francine Lawrence, president of the American Federation of Teachers. 

 

Often I miss being back East.  And then I found in the Oregonian, our conservative, clueless local newspaper, a photo [Bilal Hussein/AP] from Beirut.  "The Uprising of Women in the Arab World"  commenorating March 8, International Women's Day. 

Translation:  I want society to see me as a woman first before they see me as a mother, wife or daughter.  

Women's, the people's action, continues in many places.  

Related articles

My political life requires a placeholder...

Too much going on to be a frequent poster here...or infrequent.  Yet I want to stay with blogging as a practice even while I need more thought on its structure for the future. 

My neighbor Joella demonstrates a perfect solution for all those buttons we collected in second wave activity in last century--coast to coast.  Hers in Oregon, mine mostly Baltimore and New York.  Gun control is a shared focus through Ceasefire Oregon.

Marian Wright Edelman on Inauguration Day 2013 in conversation with Melissa Harris-Perry wears image of Sojourner Truth.  Takes our feminism back to the 19th century struggle for African-American equality.  Read Ta-Nehisi Coates in the March Atlantic on why the re-election of Obama matters even more than the first. 

Speaking of blogging, the life in bread has not had enough attention here. It has not had as much attention as I would wish.  Here's a whole wheat sourdough made in October 2011.

My personal challenge is should I emulate one of my favorite, 19th century feminists, Frances E. Willard of the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union).

"Do Everything" was her motto. Is it mine?   Her unusual book,  "A Wheel with in Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle" used that newly-introduced contrivance as a metaphor for women's lives.  An excerpt HERE  with comments by a contemporary blogger.

And so you have it: Black History month (a young friend recently pointed out is the shortest month of the year) and the upcoming Women's History Month.  Both of which call out for celebration more often.  I hope to do my part one day soon but till then...  

One Billion Rising: a more loving Valentine to all of us

 

  

 

Rise wherever you are with me, with our sisters around the world.

Gabby Giffords demands your effort on gun control NOW

 

Has each of us done enough?

Mayors against Illegal Guns posted this today.  You could copy it to your blog too.