a little red hen

Chris Hayes: what was that on your table?

Having moved his desk at MSNBC from his weekend UP show to the daily ALL IN, Chris Hayes appears to have settled in quickly.  And told his audience that working weekday evenings is preferable to 8 a.m. (ESTt) on Saturdays and Sundays.  

My concern was that his excellent format of three to four guest would change to one more like Rachel Maddow's show.  Now I am a fan of Rachel also; the link is to her blog.

What Chris does in a very special way for me personally is fill a space for intelligent conversation among informed people--often with a person who is not of the progressive persuasion.  The "space" is one my spouse and I often discuss: most of our social interactions are pretty light.

Happily, Chris  has successfully retained his design from one many of his viewers appreciated and I think contributed to his success.  So what was it on his table on the UP show, the view of which both surprised me and grossed me out? 

Yes, those platefuls of sugary breakfast "treats."  On one of his last UP shows, the subject was improving school lunches--not one of his finest.  And I recall a remark, maybe from the visiting chef about the lackluster offerings on his table.  Maybe at 8 a.m. (the actual time the show began in New York) some assistant producer thought guests and Chris needed this kind of fuel in addition to the coffee.  Some fruit, nut bread loaves might have been too p.c. for this very politically correct show.

The set is entirely different at ALL IN--  slick glass desk and foodless.  I'm with that.

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.  

Greatest thing since sliced bread?

Saved this page from New York Times Sunday magazine.  What was it about a slice of bread that was so compelling?  That the shrinking, obsessively up-scale newspaper paid attention to an object from everyday life?  Just a slice of  a pre-sliced white, the kind my father described as "punk bread."  He was good an naming things he disdained, ideas and objects favored by people different from him.  It's a trait passed along that I must be cautious about in my judgementalism.

The article is part of a "Who Made That?" series in the Times.  It is filled one page of odd facts that tie together many aspects of the influence of the industrialization of America in the early 20th century.  Last year a social history, White Bread, by Aaron Bobrow-Strain (oh, people, why did you do this to your offspring; the hyphenated name is sure to create relationship problems) was published.  [There it is-- the too judmenta...sigh]

"The sliced loaf becomes a kind of small, edible promise of a better world."

Much more interesting to me than recent explorations about  cod or salt, I now intend to purchase it from Alibris for hardly any money (as the almost-free economy moves on).  In a New York Times review of the book, titled  "Against the Grain," there was further exploration of how problems of unsanitary public bakeries led to the business solution:  industrialized bread. What would another review deliver?

Libby Copeland wrote a longer essay a harsher title, "White Bread Kills".  Subtitled-- "a history of a national paranoia," she addresses the present-day "...backlash against white bread" and the growing interest in gluten-free products and increase in people receiving a diagnosis of celiac disase which afflicts one in 133.  She points out that little is known about how gluten sensitivity may effect the majority of us.

In turn, there was another book also published last year, emeritus Canadian historian Harvey Levenstein's Fear of Food: Why we worry about what we eat.  This one, as one food writer explains its message, 

"...from the ‘germophobia’ of the 19th century to concerns about cholesterol and chemical residues in the 21st. Read this book and you’ll understand why warnings about the safety of your food should always be taken with a pinch of salt. (Just a pinch, though — too much could be bad for you.).”

Even though my results are not always edible--like this one (left) which looked much like the one in the book (middle), and filled with many good pumpkin seeds, I'm working on getting comfortable with major mishaps.  The successful ones are always better than packaged and pre-sliced American white bread.  In Mexico, similar product is Bimbo!

ADDENDUM  Every now and then, not often enough, bread-making is enhanced by doing it with Zoe, our seven year old granddaughter.  I have a sense that she is learning something that will be long gone by the time she has her own household.

Something grander than Google will speak to her about what the ancients once did in kitchens.

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

 

  

 

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

Life before Hurricane Sandy

We were at grandson's cross country meet a couple of weeks ago.  My daughter turned to me, because elections local and national are  on our minds, and announced, "There's a movement to write-in Eileen Brady for Mayor." Wonderful to dream of possibilities for the candidate-who-should-have-been rather than the two losers we're left with.   Became slightly more engaged on Facebook so could add my "like" to the page someone started there.  Made a simple card to hand out.

Zach did very well in his race.  I was impressed by the number of  girls and boys, Portland public and private schools, 4th and 5th graders, who were eager participants. Let's hear it for Title IX!  They had to climb a hill twice and jump over a hay bale to make their way.  

Rachel, Zach, and little Eliana (no slouch herself in climbing monkey bars with ease), left to pick up Zoe for her soccer game.  Before we left another mother from Zach's school, described her life before Portland.  Pretty similar In Brooklyn as she shuttled three children from one activity to another and tried to keep focused as she worked from home. Not much time for politics for these working mothers.

Afterwards Ron and I went to eat always-delicious Vietnamese food at JADE Teahouse in Sellwood--eggplant and pork plus a very rich macaroonish dessert. Sort of a reward  for hours and hours--primarily his time-- on the phone with prescription plan, Medicare Part D. Very patient Medicare and insurance company people worked to sort out a mistake from last year.

Why are we putting up with all this shuffling of our lives by providers? And we are the fortunate ones who have good healthcare coverage.  

************Election Day, November 6, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. (PST)*****************

All of the above was written in October before Sandy, before Halloween.  Not posted because I'd thought to write how the U.S. needs something like the Citizens Advice Bureau in the United Kingdom. Begun in 1924, this non-profit "charity" (their word) helps people "resolve their legal, money and other problems by providing free, independent and confidential advice, and by influencing policymakers."  First heard about it when I was in social work school in the 1970s as a way the British had developed for people to  sort out which government agency could handle their issues.

Now I'm avoiding looking at today's election returns.  So much more to think about since the Hurricane but election anxiety gets in the way.  More creative avoidance by going tonight to "Seven Guitars" by the late, lamented August Wilson.  This is the sixth of his ten plays that explore African-American life in the 20th century. We will travel back to 1948 in Pittsburgh.  Beats angsting about whether Obama will be re-elected and New York City's massive recovery problems.

My son and his family are okay in Tarrytown, New York, above the flooded areas.  After last summer's Irene storm their co-op decided to install a back-up generator so they have had lights, heat.  Roxie even went back to kindergarten on the school bus at the end of last week.

How will the City re-locate thousands of public housing residents in Brooklyn's Red Hook?  Thinking my causes need to become entirely environmental--climate change especially.  

Putting all negative eggs in one pre-election basket

Dropping a class

Such promise in the title, "Radical Home Economics."  Last spring I met the enthusiastic young man who'd teach it.  Bummer.  "What did you expect with a man teaching?"  Reply, "More feminism, less ego and political rant."  My mistake. I'd expected thoughtfulness on updating for the 21st century an idea once revolutionary in the late 19th. 

Gun Control gets more personal

Up to now, I'd looked forward to the Portland State student paper.  Comes out on Tuesday and Thursdays.  Then last week read about a place I walk by often--though not at night--on their Crime Blotter:

Firearm theft: Oct. 7

Parking Structure 1
Officer JS was flagged down around 11:49 p.m. by a student who said his car had been broken into. His car was parked in Parking Structure 1 when two pistols, an assault rifle and 1800 rounds of ammunition were removed from the vehicle. Officer S referred the situation to the Portland Police Bureau.  

...and Gun Stores open here/there, everywhere... 

Hattie's Web links to news report from Hawaii:  record number increase in gun permits --15 percent over two years. 

New York Times refers to undecided women voters as "crucial subset" when they are simply clueless

 Thanks to Time Goes By for her own rant plus this terrific video for me and you.  Don't you wonder how women who think about what is important have become chopped liver, marginalized alongside this "crucial subset."  Who are they, I often wonder, and why have they given up ownership of themselves?

 

Gloria Steinem gets nod from sexist Portland paper

"Mom, did you see today's Willy Week...Gloria Steinem is on the cover!"  

Both of us running too hard, hers with family and work--a presentation on exactly that topic.  Ron and I had been phone-banking for the school bond in a group put together by Eileen Brady (our favorite Mayoral candidate who was beat out by two guys most of us do not want to vote for).

Agreed we  should have been at that Planned Parenthood fundraiser where Gloria spoke.  Last went to one in June 2011 and heard Anita Hill.  That was empowering!

Willamette Week's article, written by a woman, was a surprise all around.  Rarely attention paid to women's issues in its pages unless they're running for office or have a musically racy link.

Gun-Ready for Presidential Debates Tonight?

Yes, that is a provocative headline but I am disappointed in MY candidate, Barack Obama.  Sure, he has my vote.  He has achieved changes in his short time in office that are remarkable.  The Affordable Care Act alone would be significant.

But gun control has not been on his list.  Last week I began another term at Portland State University.  It has been a roller coaster year around this issue at public campuses in Oregon as policy changes have gone in both directions at the state level about whether people can legally carry concealed weapons on campus.  The confusion is reflected in a March 2012 article in The Vanguard, the student paper.  

Administration at Portland State affirmed their position, the position of the state board of higher education, that banned carrying concealed weapons by anyone on campus property.  This was in response to the state legislature passing a bill in March that would let non-Oregonians who hold concealed handgun licenses from other states carry their hidden guns in Oregon.  I am not comfortable.

Today's New York Times  noted this video:   

"Stephen Barton who was supposed to spend the fall teaching English in Russia on a Fulbright fellowship. But shortly after midnight on July 20, a gunman in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., derailed those plans."

 

Mayors against Illegal Guns has produced the ad, will run it during the debates in some parts of the country.  Please join me--demand a plan from Obama-- for a safer and saner future in America.  Thanks so much.  

"It's the little things..."

When the that phrase runs through my head, the song from the musical, "Company" comes to mind. It is, however,  a less positive take on the words.  A youngish Elaine Stritch (in white hat) sings rehearsing for  the original 1970 cast recording...    

In my old lady life, the good small stuff is an email with picture plus short note from daughter about our 7 year old grandchild, "Zoe learns to tie her own shoelaces."  To avoid turning it into not-so-good stuff, I gave into iPhoto's refusual to rotate the image.

Or, the two women, encountered in recent months. Both resonated to the message of the 17% button, pleased to take and wear one. At left, a much decorated checker at a local Whole Foods store; right, a dedicated Planned Parenthood petitioner at Powell's Books.

                       

Happy find while searching for Stritch performances.  Isotop Films is raising money for "Elaine Stritch:  So Shoot Me," a  documentary of this funny, bawdy, show-biz survivor, now 87 years old.  Clip has song bits from her one-woman show, "At Liberty"  in 2002. Living in NYC then, saw her at youthful 77!  [Click on red letters for video] 

 

"I've got money, I've got fame...if I could drive, I'd really be a menace!"