In 1968 Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress; she served in the House of Representatives from 1969 – 1983. In 1972 she became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States, the first Black candidate for a major party nomination.
Shirley Chisholm had spunk. Unlike Lou Grant (who told Mary Richards in one classic scene from the Mary Tyler Moore Show: Mary, you’ve got spunk – I hate spunk) I admire spunk so Rep. Chisholm is on my list of most admired people. I hear her voice with its crystal clarion calling out of truth to power echoing through the halls of the US Capitol today as surely as her footsteps walked those halls more than a half century ago:
“It is incomprehensible to me, the fear that can affect men in political offices. It is shocking the way they submit to forces they know are wrong and fail to stand up for what they believe. Can their jobs be so important to them, their prestige, their power, their privileges so important that they will cooperate in the degradation of our society just to hang on to those jobs?”
Yep. Sure sounds like it, Shirley.
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Every vote matters – don’t sit this one out. Vote Tuesday, November 08th!
Oh well, gosh, golly. Now that you mention it – nothing, unless you count the one vote thing in the upcoming elections on November 8th. Each one of these American singers has one vote in the election which is now fewer than three weeks away.
Sorry, everyone. In a democracy we all get one vote. No matter how talented we are, how sophisticated or erudite or ignorant – we each get one vote. Our votes are our voices. Use them, people. No excuses, no regrets.
inflation, gas prices, gun crimes, too
bring us the headlines we all must view
but one thing’s for sure in 2022
the supremes took away our right to choose
Your vote, your opportunity to vote for a party that will respect a woman’s right to control her own body. Restore Roe.
A 22 year old woman named Mahsa Amini died on September 16th. in a hospital in Tehran, Iran while in the custody of the Guidance Patrol a/k/a the morality police who arrested her three days before for a violation involving “bad hijab,” the headscarf required by law for Iranian women. Amini was on holiday visiting relatives with her brother when she was arrested and, according to eyewitnesses, severely beaten. Police took her to a hospital where she was reported to be in a coma before her death.
The official statement from the police was that she died of a heart attack as a result of an underlying condition (remember George Floyd?), but her family said she had been in good health prior to the incident. They also said her head and body were covered in bruises, according to an article in The Guardian by Kamin Mohamaddi on October 8th.
Regardless, the death of Mahsa Amini has ignited a firestorm of protests by primarily women and children against not only the hijab law but also the ongoing repression of women’s rights under a hardline clerical regime. The slogan Zan, Zendegi, Azadi which translates to “Women, Life, and Freedom” has become the rallying cry for women’s rights that has now bubbled over to include other economic and social justice issues plaguing Iran. The Indian EXPRESS Journalism of Courage posted this AP photo with an explanation of the slogan on October 15th. The woman’s image on the banner is Mahsa Amini.
The connection between women (Zan), life (Zendegi), and freedom (Azadi) is not coincidental. Women are the creators of life and life itself cannot be free unless women are. (AP)
I hesitate to write about people, places, or events that have the potential to (1) display my ignorance of the world outside my life with Pretty or (2) unintentionally do more harm than good to the universe or (3) some combination. But the story of an Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Imini is one I can’t ignore because it tears at all my senses; I feel for her family and for the thousands of women, men, girls and boys who today protest her death, who ask for a better country – who are dying in the streets by the beatings and bullets aimed to stop the uprising.
The BBC News says Iranian Human Rights Activists estimated this week that 222 people including at least 23 children have been killed by Iranian security forces in the uprisings. From the youngest identified as a 12 year old schoolboy to the oldest known death, a 62 year old woman, tracking the identities of the victims is made more difficult due to the closing of internet access by the Iranian government.
With the Dobbs decision by the Supremes this summer which takes away a woman’s right in the USA to control her own body’s health, I see parallels in the struggles for the rights of women in Iran. Author Kamin Mohamaddi’s article in The Guardian on October 8th. makes the argument that what is happening today in Iran is really the frontlines for feminism in the 21st century:
“There is a power and energy to these protests. The sight of young girls with flowing locks taking down pictures of the two elderly ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, the current supreme leader, that brings tears to my eyes and makes even my cynical heart burn with hope. It is as if the Furies have been unleashed in Iran and these extraordinarily brave young women, who are prepared to walk into bullets for the sake of the right to choose how to live, have lost all the fear that has kept previous generations repressed.
I say cynical heart because, as a member of Iran’s huge diaspora, as a proud British-Iranian, I have spent a large part of my adult and working life trying to introduce my countries to each other, and it has seemed to no avail…
It seems that the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini has not captured the world’s imagination in the same way as the death of George Floyd did, and the subsequent global protests in solidarity with the Iranian uprising have had few column inches, in spite of mobilising some 500,000 people around the world in one day alone (1 October).
But now, as I watch the unity in Iran and the cry of this generation which carries within it the stifled cries of all the generations gone before, for the first time in many years I am allowing myself to dream that one day I too can enter Iran without fear gripping my heart and accompanying every step I take there…
I am quietly resurrecting the long-buried wish to one day walk down Vali Asr Boulevard in Tehran (the longest street in the Middle East) with my hair loose under the Iranian sun and to lean in to kiss my man without fear of being arrested or shouted at or slapped on the street, or taken to be beaten to death in the back of a morality police van. This is a fragile hope that I keep tucked in my back pocket.
Meanwhile, I hope that the world wakes up to understand that what is happening in Iran is the frontline of feminism right now: the simple expression of desire for equality, for dignity, for life without fear. And as such, it touches us all. Say it with me: Woman Life Freedom.”
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Women Life Freedom. Say it with me, and stay tuned.
Once upon a time somewhere along the supply chain for my bupropion med which I have taken for years to treat free-floating anxiety (that turned into specific anxiety during the Agent Orange previous administration in the USA), well, this med was exchanged for a kind of wellbutrin commonly prescribed to assist tobacco addicts in their war against nicotine. Fun fact: I have never used tobacco in any form with the exception of a few puffs of marijuana here and there. More there than here actually plus I rarely inhaled.
Last week when Pretty dropped by the pharmacy to pick up a couple of meds for me, the pharmacist in charge said she couldn’t release one of them until she spoke with me via the phone. This of course irritated Pretty who had vowed several times to never darken the door of this particular establishment because of obstacles to what should be a simple action. I prepaid online and was notified the meds were ready for pickup so I assured Pretty when she got out of the grannymobile this would be quick, simple, fast, easy. Said with a smile and thumbs up gesture.
Not so fast, my friend. Pretty returned to our car without the meds. Her facial expression when she opened the driver’s side door told me who sat between our two granddaughters that were in their car seats in the middle row of seats that Pretty was not happy. She proceeded to let us all know just how unhappy she was with the pharmacy; this was absolutely the last time she would be trying to deal with my meds. Why couldn’t I answer my cell phone when the pharmacist called me just a few minutes before? Because my cell phone was on the floorboard of the passenger side of the front seats and I was sitting in the second row between our two granddaughters to make sure they weren’t kidnapped while she went to the store for me. Not good enough. Pretty continued her rage, rage against the dying of the light or the ridiculous rules of the pharmacy. Take your pick.
At this point our recently turned three year old Ella joined in Pretty’s harangue to say in her most authoritative voice, “Teresa, we must never come to this store again. I am never getting anything in there. Let’s leave now and go to the playground.”
Pretty and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. LOL, as the current saying goes. Pretty was Nana to Ella in the everyday vicissitudes of life, but lately when she really wanted to have an impact on the conversation, Ella addressed her as Teresa – which was fine with us since that was her name.
What did we do then? What could we do? Pretty drove out of the parking lot and took us to the playground. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, and the perfect weather continued for Ella’s birthday party this past weekend.
Lost in thought, overwhelmed by Birthday PartyNumber Three –
(Thankfully pharmacy incident two days before forgotten)
Pony rides, hay ride, balloons –
everyonewas here to celebrate with me
Wow!
Turning Three is HUGE – thank goodness for friends!
Nana holding baby sister Molly –
Gigi points toanother birthday in January
I have no words to express the happiness these little girls have brought to Pretty and me these last three years. The old adage time flies when you’re having fun must have been spoken first by a grandmother who suddenly realized her grandchild was three years old having a party with her friends and family, having conversations on her own, occasionally eating a Cheeto which her mother had thoughtfully provided for everyone since it was Ella’s favorite food group.
Bless these precious girls, bless all the little children of the world, bless the parents who love and care for them, bless everyone in their lives who offer encouragement and hope for their future happiness.
Slava Ukraini. For the children.
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P.S. I did call the pharmacist who asked me how my anxiety was doing these days since I’d been taking the wrong meds for the past six months. My anxiety is in direct proportion to my worry about my country’s mid-term elections in November, the state of our democracy, the war in Ukraine and a recurrence of Covid. Other than that, I have none. I still don’t smoke, I added. I picked up my meds the next day.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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