The Pleasures of Off-season Travel; No Crowds, No Traffic Jams: The Portugal Diaries, Part Three (Sintra, Mafra, Alcobaca, Batalha)

Praca da Republica, Sintra

During our trips to Mexico and South America we never rented a car. My husband’s general rule of thumb: don’t rent a car in a country where you don’t trust the legal system. This was our first car rental outside the U.S. since a 2002 trip to Holland. The expressways were sometimes practically empty—-no doubt a consequence of the recession as well as the season. When we used to travel to Europe in the summer there were always traffic jams and it seemed as if all Europe was on vacation and every European family on the road.

I love the freedom a car brings, but I worry about an accident in a foreign country. It happened to us once in Sicily when a crazy driver careening down a hill at break neck speed ran into us and almost knocked us off a very steep cliff. It took awhile to get over that near brush with death.

We go about our daily lives repressing thoughts of all the horrible things which could happen to us. But when a scary accident occurs all those potential vulnerabilities rise to the surface and it takes awhile to get back to normal.

So despite my worries (Rick unlike me is no worrywart), I was eager to rent a car—-the only way to see some of the magical small towns of Portugal. There are some towns which can easily be seen by bus/ train as day trips from Lisbon—e.g. Sintra and the Palacio National da Pena The castles at Sintra and Pena are examples of those wild amalgams of styles the Portuguese specialize in—-usually referred to as Manueline style after that manic builder King Manuel I. We spent many hours taking in the delights of Sintra.

The downside of our “slow tour” style is that we arrived at the Palacio National da Pena a half hour before closing time and barely had time to take in the astonishing views from the terraces. Trade-offs. Trade-offs.
Palacio National da Pena

Although Sintra and the Palacio National da Pena can be easily reached by bus/train, for most of the magical small towns of Portugal you need a car. We left Lisbon with a plan to stop at must-see Mafra, Olbidos, and then Alcobaca. Unfortunately, we forgot to check the possibility of a mid day closing at Mafra. (always a must do in Southern Europe,) and we arrived right at mid-day closing time. So we hung out in cafe for awhile and began our very slow tour of the amazing palace and monastery of Mafra.

The towers of Mafra

Again we paid the price of our slow tour and had less than hour for the beautiful walled town of Olbidos. And then the fun began. We had planned to get to Alcobaca before dark. It’s not so easy to find a hotel in European old towns with their maze of narrow, winding (and often unmarked) streets.

Rick had refused to rent a GPS. He prides himself on his seriously good sense of direction and views reliance on a GPS as something for the spatially impaired. Unfortunately, finding our charming little B&B in Alcobaca proved to be a challenge even Rick was not up to. I bought a 25.99 data plan for Portugal and I tried using my iphone GPS. I learned that using a phone as a GPS uses up many megabytes and I went way over my plan, ending up with a colossal phone bill.

The iphone GPS didn’t do the job, so in desperation, we drove into a police station to ask for help. Incredibly the police officers offered us a police escort to our hotel. The Portuguese kept living up to their reputation for being among the nicest people in Europe.

The hotel in Alcobaca, Challet da Fonte Nova, was delightful and we had one of our best--and least expensive--meals at Restaurante Antonio Padiero, a small restaurant near the gorgeous town square. Alcobaca is definitely worth an overnight stay to see the the 12th century monastery and square illuminated at night.


The Monastery at Alcobaca

Rick and I share a passion for the architecture of medieval /Renaissance Europe and can spend hours wandering around a complex like the Monastery at Alcobaca. I especially love cloisters and the ones at Alcobaca and nearby Batalha are two of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

One of the great advantages of off-season travel is that we had the cloisters pretty much to ourselves without the high season crush of people and cacophony of tour guides marring the tranquility of the cloisters.


The Cloisters at the Monastery at Batalha

Next installment: Coimbra, Tomar Evora

Falling in love with Lisbon:The Portugal Diaries, Part Two

My husband had been in Lisbon before (almost 40 years ago), but it was my first time and I sure hope not my last. I was astonished by how much of old Lisbon has been preserved; it’s an open air architectural museum—the upside of Lisbon’s relative poverty. If Lisbon had become an economic powerhouse, much of this would probably have fallen victim to urban renewal.

True, some parts of Old Lisbon are kind of down at heel, but the beauty remains. Just about every building in Old Lisbon is covered with gorgeous tiles and since we had the good fortune to have perfect weather—-temperatures in the mid 60’s, bright blue skies--we saw the tiles glistening in sunlight.

We had expected a break from the ice and snow of Philly but didn’t expect almost 2 weeks of sunshine and springtime temperatures and we certainly didn’t expect so many flowers in February. I thought we would see some early Spring flowers –camellia, bergenia, magnolia and plum trees-- but I sure didn’t expect to see flowers which bloom for us in May blooming in Portugal in early February.
Iris blooming in Lisbon in early February

The Portuguese lived up to their reputation as friendly, hospitable people and the food was wonderful. Some restaurant recommendations for anyone planning a trip to Lisbon: A Travessa, a beautiful restaurant located in a former monastery with amazing food--expensive but worth every penny; Tasca da Esquina, an incredible bargain with seriously good food at affordable prices.

We also recommend our hotel, the York House, for anyone in good physical shape. It is perched on a hill and you have to walk up 4 flights of outdoor stairs to get to the hotel, located in a former Carmelite convent. It was a challenge but we (more or less)got used to the steps and most days we could sit outside and have a drink in the lovely hotel courtyard. The hotel staff were very helpful and the breakfast fantastic. We’d like to go back but as we get older, given all those steps, it just may not be an option.

We decided that no trip to Portugal would be complete without at least one night of listening to the melancholy strands of Fado music. Most of the Fado cafes charge for dinner and music, so if you want to hear fado, you’re stuck with combining it with a not so good and very expensive dinner.

We searched for a Fado cafe that had a reputation for reasonably priced food and that was frequented by locals. We had stumbled upon a tango place like that in Buenos Aires—Omeros cafe. We were the only tourists in the place. Most of the people appeared to know each other and were real tango aficionados. We felt like we had crashed a private party.

We wanted to reproduce that experience in Lisbon and we came close with Sr. Vinho. I don’t think I'll become a Fado aficionado but I really enjoyed that evening, and the best way to hear Fado is with an audience that is clearly in love with the music.

Apparently Fado had fallen into disrepute because of its association with Salazar’s dictatorial regime, but four decades later that connection has been forgotten and Fado is once again hugely popular.

There was something about Fado that reminded me of the music of Chilean folksinger Violetta Parra. Links to her music can be found at my post on our trip to Chile, Be careful what places you revisit; sometimes it’s best to keep the memories intact.

Since Parra lived in Europe for some time it’s likely she encountered Fado and there could be some influence. Rick, who is real Edith Piaf fan, said he heard echoes of Fado in Piaf. Again, it’s highly likely that Piaf would have heard Fado, and the possibility of influence is at least plausible. Maybe at some point I’ll try to do some research about both the Parra and the Piaf Fado connection, but my musical knowledge is probably not up to the task.

Bottom line: a trip to Lisbon has got to include an opportunity to hear Fado. (The TimeOut Guide to Lisbon has an excellent section on Fado and is by far the best English language guide to Lisbon.)

Lisbon is very much a "be there" city; there aren’t that many "must see" monuments. The joy of Lisbon is mainly hanging out in a really beautiful place, taking in the vibrant street scene. No need to rush about ticking off 50 major tourist sights. Lisbon street near our hotel

The "must sees" are the Monastery of San Jeronimo in Belem (a Lisbon suburb) and two amazing museums. Don’t miss the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian , containing the astonishing collection of an Armenian immigrant to Portugal who donated his entire collection to the Portuguese government.

Another must see is Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga. The Portuguese definition of “ancient art” includes masterpieces up to the early 19th century, including some astonishing Portuguese painters, such as Nuno Gonçalves whom we had never heard of. If you go to the museum on a sunny day, make sure you make time for the outdoor cafe with its wonderful view of the Tagus River opening out into the Atlantic. In our usual slow tourist (and getting slower) style we spent a couple of hours hanging out at the cafe, sampling some first rate Portuguese wine and enjoying the spectacular views.

Lisbon is definitely on our long list places we want to revisit. Unfortunately, at this stage in life hard choices have to be made.

Back to the Pleasures of Individual Travel: The Portugal Diaries, Part One

Church in Alfama District Lisbon

My husband and I just returned from Portugal—one of our best trips ever. When I was younger, back in the halcyon pre-9/11 days, I was so eager to jump on a plane. Unfortunately, I’ve found gearing up for a trip gets harder each year.

Now, I usually have that "I think I would rather just stay home" feeling before a trip. It's a good thing there are such things as non-refundable tickets or I would probably have tried to convince my husband to cancel the trip—those long lines at security, delayed flights, always some snafu. This time it was getting home from Newark airport: the trip from Philly to Newark took almost as long as getting from Lisbon to Philly, thanks to the limousine company from hell.

When we actually got to Lisbon, I was so happy to be there. Our enjoyment was largely due to once again traveling as individual travelers. Our one experience of group travel-- last year's trip to Peru-- convinced us that tour groups are not for us. After the regimentation of group travel, we reveled in the freedom of doing what we wanted, when we wanted, rather than rushing through museums at break neck speed desperately trying to pack in the maximum number of attractions per day.

Our first half day in Lisbon we spent the entire afternoon at one place, the Monastery of San Jeronimo. We could really look at the amazing architectural detail, savor the serenity and beauty of the cloisters. No group tour would ever allot that much time to one site. And we decided when and where we would stop for a drink and how much time to linger at a cafe.

The pleasures of individual travel were especially sweet, not only because were we doing it at our own slow pace, but because we were so happy to be back in Europe. For many years, we went to Europe twice a year. The dollar was strong and we were very good at finding small charming inexpensive hotels and restaurants. For some reason, we never got around to Portugal.

Thanks to the rise of the Euro, we started traveling to Latin America. Our last trip to Europe was to St. Petersburg in 2003. The plunging dollar had its upside--an opportunity to discover Mexico and South America. (After all those trips to Latin America, my Spanish should be a whole lot better.)

It was especially sweet to be back in Southern Europe. I love the churches, the medieval old towns of European cities, especially of Latin Europe with its piazzas, café culture, wonderful food and wine. It’s no accident that our phrases for enjoying life—joie de vivre, dolce far niente—come from Latin Europe.

Our last trip to Southern Europe was to Seville over the Christmas holidays in 2001. There were so many travel bargains then thanks to 9/11. My husband convinced me the chances were small that we would die in a terrorist attack. As a former Math professor, he really does understand the laws of probability. We continued going to Europe in the early 2000’s. The terrorists didn’t stop us, but the strong Euro did.

We’ve decided we’re too old to forego travel to the places we really want to see. There are places I feel we should see and wish I had traveled to when I was younger, but at this stage I’m really getting beyond those “should do’s". (Rick never had this problem.)

More later on the delights of Portugal.

A RETIREMENT PROJECT FINALLY UNDERWAY: ORGANIZING BOOKS by Fran Waksler

A newly organized bookcase (note my silver baby cup and teething ring).

In our exchange of emails, Karen sometimes suggests that I expand on one of my ideas for a post to her blog. Here is one such post.

I retired in 2008 and am just now getting around to one of the many projects that have been languishing at the top of my to-do list: making room for my books. Mark Twain was once asked why there were so many books piled on his floor. He replied that it was easier to borrow books than to borrow bookcases. My problem is not borrowed books; rather it is that I have no more room for bookcases⎯even if I could borrow some!

Now that my project is underway, it is clear that room is being taken up by books that I seem to saving for no apparent reason other than my hating to get rid of any book. Steeling myself, I have been undertaking the painful job of culling. Some books will be donated, but others belong in the trash. Do I really need textbooks written in 1985, especially those that I never used, didn’t like in the first place, and came unsolicited from publishers? I want to keep Broom and Selznick’s Sociology, 2nd edition, since it was used in the first sociology course I ever took, but I don’t think I need all the future editions. And do I really need TWO copies of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Wives and Daughters? Since the books I’ve read are alphabetized, I will no longer feel that I can only read books whose authors’ names are in the part of the alphabet where there is still room on a shelf.

I have to admit that I am enjoying the project (except for working on the top shelves, which requires that I stand on the highest step of the ladder. I do wish I were taller!) One bookcase is for unread books and, in culling some books and reorganizing those that have survived the cut, I have discovered some very interesting ones that I had forgotten about and will read soon: an assortment of sociology (Peter Berger’s The Sacred Canopy, Stanford Lyman’ The Seven Deadly Sins), anthropology (Gregory Bateson’s Mind and Nature), philosophy (Michel Foucault’s The Archeology of Knowledge), biographies (Barbara Goldsmith’s of Marie Curie, Marina Warner’s of Joan of Arc), and the occasional novel (Sarah Grand, The Beth Book).

I know if I only had e-books then I wouldn’t have this project to undertake. How much I would miss! I love remembering the books I’ve read, holding them in my hands, leafing through them, at times even calling up when I read them: this one on our vacation by the lake, this one that helped me through the flu, these that were presents. Scrolling through a Kindle doesn’t have the same appeal at all.

Reflections on retirement and aging from Mary Kay Burke

Although retirement is a distant concept for me despite my recent leap into my sixties, I have been immersed in retirement and aging for most of my career. My profession, healthcare with as specialty in aging and aging services, has revealed challenges to me largely unknown when I started in this field—and most of them weigh most heavily on women. As we ourselves look to retire or have already done so, we are faced with the task of going again where few generations of women have gone.

My current position as the CEO at a retirement community has opened my eyes. Though we are all living longer (and women outpace men again here) thanks to advances in medicine and the ability to manage some of the multiple chronicities of aging, the social issues remain. As we live longer, but not necessarily better, it is not unusual to witness four and sometimes five generations of families still alive.

Many women in their mid- to late seventies, retired themselves, sometimes have full caretaking responsibilities for a parent and sometimes two. Although there are some support services emerging for in-home care, none are flawless; they can be prohibitively expensive, sometimes unreliable and access is problematic, especially in areas not clustered around cities. While I have experienced that there are many sons and grandsons out there who dutifully and lovingly care for their aging parents, it is overwhelmingly the women who are the primary caretakers. Even daughters-in-law are more apt to step up when the care of an in-law is necessary.

Once again, as women, we are experiencing the same kinds of infrastructure issues that faced so many of us a generation ago with quality childcare. The pace of aging and its associated needs has galloped far ahead of the infrastructure available to meet the challenges.

I believe that change will be incremental—not great news for us boomers. However, each of us has a responsibility to be vigilant about the care of the elderly, not the least because that will be (or is) us. Get involved, read, lobby, learn, ask questions about your own care, and make sure your wishes are communicated to your daughter, son, spouse, partner, friend, lawyer and physician. Don’t sit still for threatened changes in Medicare and Social Security. Do they need a good hard look and maybe some re-tooling? Of course, but the needs of the elderly will only grow, not diminish.

Many years ago, Bertrand Russell commented that “old age is always ten years older than I am.” There will come a point where old age is now; we need to be ready

The Plagiarism Epidemic

A group of teachers-- some still working, some retired--were venting at my New Year’s party about the plagiarism epidemic. They mentioned a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “The Shadow Scholar: The man who writes your students' papers tells his story” an article which got a lot of attention and wound up on the agenda of a few department meetings.

When I started teaching at Community College of Philadelphia, I loved the job, but as the years wore on it became more and more emotionally draining. So many of my students were victims of an educational system that had failed them miserably. There was no way I could make up for years of miseducation.

I know all old teachers are constantly complaining about the younger generation of students—but there really is something different. And the plagiarism epidemic which some of my colleagues say gets worse each year was driving me crazy. I didn’t go into teaching to be a cop.

When I retired, I let my subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education lapse, so I had missed this latest brouhaha. A friend sent me the link and if I had ever had any reservations about retiring, this would have put an end to them.

Anyone who is teaching or contemplating a career in teaching should read this article and take in the hair-raising details. The editors of the Chronicle preface the article with a statement indicating they had investigated the author’s claims. From Ed Dante( pseudonym):

I've written toward a master's degree in cognitive psychology, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a handful of postgraduate credits in international diplomacy. I've worked on bachelor's degrees in hospitality, business administration, and accounting. I've written for courses in history, cinema, labor relations, pharmacology. ...I've attended three dozen online universities. I've completed 12 graduate theses of 50 pages or more. All for someone else.

You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists.

I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students.

Of course students have been cheating since time immemorial, but the internet has made it so much easier. Granted, online courses have brought access to college programs for students who might otherwise be shut out of higher education, but they have also been a major contributor to the plagiarism epidemic. From one of the numerous comments (and the comments are definitely worth a read) complaining about cheating in online courses :

Why doesn't anyone blame the administrators who don't back the professors when the professor says "I'm pretty sure the guy getting the A in my online class is the husband of the woman who's actually signed up for the class. When I called her up to discuss her midterm, she PUT HER HUSBAND ON THE PHONE."

I thought I had some insulation form the cheating/ plagiarism epidemic because I never taught online courses. I had some sense of my students’ verbal ability—a huge disparity between verbal communication and the written word would be a red flag. And then I had the option of the in-class assignment, so again a great disparity between in-class and out-of class work would be a tipoff.

But as many of the commenters on this article noted, administrators are often loathe to back a professor’s charge of plagiarism absent proof beyond the shadow of a doubt—not so easy to come by.

For so many teachers the real problem is that we didn’t go into teaching to be cops. Most of us do not get any pleasure out of catching plagiarists and bringing them to academic justice, but then if we don’t confront the cheaters we’re undermining the academic enterprise.

And it’s not just essays bought from paper mills that are making a mockery of a college education. It’s also the dreadful cut and paste jobs that students are cobbling together. Many of my students thought it was really okay to lift something from the internet without attribution or, if they were aware it was unacceptable, viewed it as a minor peccadillo.

One of the teachers at my New Year’s party had an interesting take on this. She said that in schools like hers (an elite secondary school) which emphasizes collaborative learning and focuses on the achievement of the group rather than the insights of a particular individual, students began to develop a more fluid notion of what counts as intellectual property.

I’m just too old-fashioned for this redefinition of intellectual property. How hard is it to cite the authors who have influenced us and if we are using their exact words to put those words in quotation marks?

For Community College teachers, this issue is particularly painful. Many of my students were poorly served by the Philadelphia public schools and often struggle to juggle college courses with job and family responsibilities. I wanted to be as supportive as possible, but the harsh reality was that although the College was paying me to teach and mentor, it was also paying me to evaluate and uphold something remotely resembling academic standards. It was becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile these two roles, and I was so happy I could retire.

This problem has been many years in the making and pre-dates the explosion of internet resources. When I began teaching, I thought of education as a process of reading, discussing, and writing about books. I’m not sure when I realized that most of my students were not reading and that the discussion questions I intended as an entrée into the text were functioning as a kind of Cliff’s notes.

I resisted one solution to this—-showing films. Many literature classes are apparently beginning to morph into film classes. Sandy Hingston in Is It Just Us, Or Are Kids Getting Really Stupid? asks her son what he is reading in AP English:

“The Great Gatsby,” he said.
“Do you … like it?” I asked delicately, thrilled to be having what was almost a conversation with my teenage son.
“I don’t really like the actor who plays Gatsby,” he said. “He’s got these weird bumps on his face that keep distracting me.”
“The actor?”
“We’re not actually reading the book,” Jake informed me. “We haven’t read a book all semester. We watch the movies instead.”
......for his senior year, Jake proposed taking an English course at the local community college. ... where they never once read a book. They watched movies instead.
Jake got an A- in the course.

Hingston’s thoughtful article is not just a lament for what has been lost. Searching for some insight into her son and his age cohort, she interviews several professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education:

ELLIOT WEINBAUM, a professor at Penn’s Graduate School of Education, thinks I’m worrying unnecessarily...And as far as [Weinbaum and his colleagues are] concerned, the kids are all right. They acknowledge that there are differences in how kids learn these days, but … well, let professor Janine Remillard explain. “Take literacy,” she says. “There’s not really less reading. Kids are just reading in smaller chunks. They’re not digging deeply into texts, but they’re reading from a lot of different sources.”

But does this count as “reading” in any meaningful sense? Most of my students were not reading—unless you count skimming headlines as reading. Writing a decent academic paper requires both extensive and in-depth reading. The reluctance or inability to read certainly drives the business Ed Dante describes.

My pedagogical philosophy has always been: teachers need to understand their students’ world, start with their students’ own experience, and build from there. I still believe this but it’s a struggle I no longer want to wage. And I sure don’t want to be a member of the plagiarism police corps.

I know all old folks complain that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, but the skills decline is real. I believe passionately in the mission of community colleges and I had some wonderful students. But I couldn’t deal with flunking 50% of my students, which I would have had to do if I were maintaining anything approaching reasonable standards. My standards got lower and lower with each passing year. I started to wonder how low can I go? I decided I didn’t want to find out.

The snow is really beautiful but each year it gets harder and harder to deal with

My back yard in the snow


My front yard in the snow


The snow is really beautiful but each year it gets harder and harder to deal with. Last year I wrote:

I don’t think I could live without the drama of summer, fall, winter, spring. I’m sure that I would never burst into tears of joy at the sight of the first species crocus (usually in late February) if it weren’t for several months of ice and cold. Now maybe that sounds a little crazy—wanting the pain of winter to fully experience the joy of spring, but that’s how it works for me. And then Philly winters aren’t all that bad; it’s not like I’m living in Maine.

Well, Philly winters are getting a lot more like New England winters and I think I could do with a lot less winter drama. This winter (and last winter) has had a lot more ice and snow than I as a senior citizen can easily handle. So I’m trying to focus on the beauty, but it’s becoming more of a challenge.

At least I don’t have to worry about getting to work! One of the best things about retirement: Not having to go out on cold snowy days

It’s the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and we are still fighting for abortion rights.

In 1973 after the Roe decision, I thought the battle had been won. How wrong I was.

When I went to a pro-choice demonstration in DC in the early 90’s, I couldn’t quite believe that we were still fighting this battle. But I was heartened to see so many young women there and thought that soon this would be settled and we wouldn't be wasting our energy fighting for this basic right. Wrong again.

When I dragged myself to DC for the 2004 March for Women’s Lives I began to worry that I might be fighting this battle until my dying day. Bush was president and had the power to shape the Supreme Court for years to come.

And now with a Democratic president and (before the November election) Democratic congress, we got a health care bill which fails to safeguard abortion rights.

There’s much in the health care bill which is a real advance: the expansion of Medicaid which will make a tremendous difference in the lives of the working poor; the end of life time caps on insurance policies which will mean that a major illness will not bankrupt families; the end of denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions; parity for mental health in all policies offered on the new insurance exchanges; young people allowed to remain on their parents polices until age 26. But all these very real advances came at the price of a devil’s bargain with anti- choice politicians.

So prochoice activists are now gearing up for major battle in state legislatures as states develop the framework for the insurance exchanges mandated by the new health care law. Here we go again.

And if that weren’t bad enough, Philadelphians are facing the tragic consequences of the failure to treat abortion rights as a women’s health issue.

Please, please read Back-Alley Abortions in 2011: How Anti-Choice Zealots Force Women to Go to Dangerous Clinics Like Dr. Kermit Gosnell's.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been charged with murdering one woman and seven newborn babies at his West Philadelphia clinic, known as the Women’s Medical Society:

“Because of the Medicaid ban on abortion funding and state restrictions, poor women in the state and in Philadelphia really face horrific choices about what to do if they have an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy that poses significant health problems,” says Rose Corrigan, a professor of politics and law at Drexel University. “So what I’ve seen is that women often shop around for abortion services. Women are so poor that a few dollars really make a difference.”

Corrigan is also a volunteer at the Women’s Medical Fund, a Philadelphia organization that offers financial assistance to poor women seeking abortions. She says that her organization has been advising women against visiting the Women’s Medical Society since the mid-1990s.“When women would call us we’d say, ‘There’s a reason it's cheap. Don’t go there.’”

“I think it’s also that abortion has become so stigmatized and that abortion care has become so ghettoized from mainstream medical care,” says Susan Schewel, executive director of the Women's Medical Fund. “It means that people aren’t talking about where’s a good place to go and where’s a safe place to go. And when women are harmed they’re afraid to go the authorities. We’ve talked with people here who have been mistreated at this clinic. And we’ve asked them to report it to proper state government authorities, and they said, ‘No way would we do that.’”

Women in my age cohort probably will not see the final victory over those who would deny women the right to control their own bodies. And to add to my dismay at having to gear up for this battle once again, we now have women opposed to abortion rights (like Sarah Palin and her Mama Grizzlies) who claim to be feminists! I get really depressed when women who are themselves pro-choice start buying into this saying things like: “Who are we to police the boundaries of feminism? Let’s be open to all women who want to identify as feminists.” Groups like Feminists for Life have been making these arguments for years but hearing this from members of the pro-choice community is something new.

There is some good news. Fortunately, there is a generation of young feminists out there ready to fight for reproductive rights. I don’t think young women are going to meekly stand by and accept the loss of hard fought rights. But women in my generation thought at one time that we had spared them the necessity of that fight.

I didn’t think that I had any personal connection to the tragedy in Tucson until I checked into one of my favorite sites, Blogher.com

I didn’t think that I had any personal connection to the tragedy in Tucson until I checked into one of my favorite sites, Blogher.com and was astonished to read “BlogHer Ashleigh Burroughs One of 19 Shot Alongside Rep. Gabrielle Giffords”

One of my favorite bloggers was among the seriously wounded. Although I have never met Ashleigh in person, I feel like I know her from her wonderful blog posts and the thoughtful comments she makes on my blog. Ashleigh blogs at The Burrow

To get a sense of Ashleigh and her writing, read her wonderful post
Does It Have to Be Reciprocated to Be Love? syndicated on Blogher.com

If you go to Ashleigh’s site you will read an update from her daughter:

As most of you probably know by now, my mom attended the Congress on your Corner event yesterday at her local Safeway. Just as she reached the front of the line to shake Ms. Gifford's hand a gunman appeared and began shooting with an automatic weapon. My mom was shot three times.

That's a sentence I never thought I'd have to type.

Right this very minute my mom is in the ICU with her leg in a traction. She suffered a wound to her left chest, one to her abdomen, and a third to her right hip. She is incredibly lucky that none of her organs were hit, even though one of the bullet's entry wounds was in her abdomen. She has been taken care of by some fantastic and proficient doctors and nurses, and a wonderful social work team.

My mom is the toughest broad I've ever met. She is awake and talking and cracking wise and we can all rest assured that the woman we love is still here, kicking major ass.

To all of you who have reached out already: I love you. Your thoughts have honestly been felt even if they were from many states away. The amount of love we are receiving is staggering, and we are incredibly thankful for all of you. Please continue to send out your best "healing vibes" (as we like to call them) and "special strength vibes" for the moments when we will be reaching in to our reserve tanks.

Today I received the following message from the editors at Blogher.com:

And, finally, we’d like to ask for your help with something we feel is incredibly important. The shootings in Arizona profoundly affected us, to an even greater degree when we learned that one of our community members was shot . We’ve been considering the way we act and how we choose our words and what messages we may be unintentionally sending. We’re wondering if you are doing the same, so we’ve set up a survey that we hope you’ll take .

We’d really like to hear from you (the survey is anonymous, of course) and your readers, if you feel like this is an appropriate thing to ask of them. Please note that the survey does specifically address the political angle and aspect of this incident, and if you are directing your readers there, you might want to let them know that. Next week we will host a second survey about some other aspects of the shootings. We will share the results on BlogHer.com, and would greatly welcome your participation in these discussions as we try to find some sort of understanding and peace.

Here is the direct link to the survey

The editors at Blogher.com have been trying very hard to encourage a civil debate. Please support them by participating in this short survey.

Thanks so much,
Karen

Feminists must remember our founding members and that includes the not-so-famous ones

November 14, 1973: Philadelphia NOW President Jan Welch presenting Barefoot and Pregnant Award for Sexism To the Union League and honoring Philadelphia women, Judge Merna Marshall and Attorney Lynn Abraham, for their courage in standing up to sexism in public life.

Most of the published material documenting the history of second wave feminism focuses on a few major urban centers—e.g., New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The national narratives tend to rely on the same sources and recycle the same anecdotes. Until regional and local histories are incorporated into the national narrative, a comprehensive history of the feminist movement cannot be written. Sadly, much archival material about second wave feminism is gathering dust in the closets and basements of feminists now in their late sixties, seventies and eighties.

I’m determined to make my small contribution to make sure this story is not forgotten and to encourage others around the country to do likewise. Just one example of a history that must be documented and remembered:

On December 15, I received an email from Lillian Ciarrochi, one of the women who contributed so much to the bringing the feminist movement to Philadelphia. She was responding to a Philadelphia Inquirer article on the election of the first women President of Philadelphia’s Union League, historically the home of the city’s white male business elite. From Lillian:

Did it warm your heart to see the front page of today's Inquirer - "A Barrier Falls at the Union League". Joan Carter was elected president--the first in Union League history. Couldn't help recall the good 'ol days of the 70's when Philadelphia NOW gave the "Barefoot & Pregnant" award on Sadie Hawkins day to the Union League amid much publicity.

How this came about: Judge Lisa Richette came running after me on Sansom St near 17th. She had just left the Union League after giving a speech to a large group of National and International business men; she was the keynoter. When she went up the front stairs to enter, she was told that women were not allowed to enter by the front door; she would have to go around back and through the kitchen to enter. She was outraged ; she said she gave the attendees holy hell about this indignity and many of their long foreheads (bald) turned beet red.

She said Phila NOW had to do something to stop this humiliating practice. I brought it back to the chapter and we voted to present our (then) annual "Barefoot &Pregnant" award on Sady Hawkins day to the Union League. About 4 or 5 of us went to the front of the Union League around 4 in the morning and placed a huge pink bow on their front door along with our proclamation. Next morning, a color photo was on the front page of the Inquirer.

It caused quite a stir and several male colleagues who were members told me it started a huge and heated debate among the membership. One debate after another caused them to reconsider and some of the younger members were able to change the policy... I believe this was a big accomplishment for Phila NOW... We did a lot of good and remarkable things in those days, and we should enjoy our victories. In many cases, no one knows about them but us, but that is enough.

Well, I don’t think it is enough. We need to remember and honor the women who changed our world.

There were two accounts of the election of Joan Carter in the Philadelphia Inquirer--one by Mike Armstrong and the other by Melissa Dribben Neither mentioned the pressure from local feminists.

Only in Jenice Armstrong’s article in the Philadelphia Daily News was there any sense that the Union League’s change of heart was a response to pressure from feminists. Armstrong credits "a slew of negative newspaper editorials, political pressure and arm-twisting from the National Organization of Women."

But acknowledging NOW isn’t enough. We should acknowledge the individual women who first applied the pressure that a decade later would result in barriers falling--women like Lisa Richette and Lillian Ciarrochi and other feminists who were part of a small minority challenging gender injustice.

Would the Union League have changed without the pressure from Lisa Richette and Philadelphia NOW? No doubt eventually. Fundamental social change doesn’t happen overnight. First, you need the visionaries like Richette and Ciarrochi to plant the seed. It is hard to believe that integrating the Union League was a really radical idea in 1973. These women raised the issue with the public and started a process of self-examination within the Union League.

From the NOW press release, November 14, 1973 documenting the first skirmish in what would turn out to be a protracted war:

NOW To Award Barefoot and Pregnant Awards for Sexism To observe Sadie Hawkins Day, November 17, the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) is out to get its man ....
The Union League, which maintains the outmoded policy of refusing to admit women in the public areas of its building and in the main dining room even though the women are invited guests
NOW will also honor three Philadelphia women for their courage in standing up to male chauvinism in public life; for their challenges to female role stereotyping and for providing women with a positive career image. The women are Judges Lisa Richette and Merna Marshall and Lynn Abraham, Esquire.

It took a while for the Union League to get the message, but the process of internal debate had begun. From an interview with Lillian:

I worked with a fellow at what was then Provident National Bank in the corporate accounting department. He was very friendly; he came from a blue blood family and was a member or the Union League. He was telling me about the meetings and all of the fights that were going on over there. He said none of the old guys want women and the younger guys were saying well we’re having financial problems, our membership is down...

At any rate, so I would bring the information back to the [Phila NOW] chapter, never giving his name...The Union League finally took a vote because they were fighting all of the time about this. The publicity kept up, we kept it up, we picketed them, all kinds of things. They voted to allow women members by about ten votes, because the younger men saw the handwriting on the wall, saw that it was wrong and they wanted to change it.. It was so exciting to be able to break down these barriers but you had to hit the streets. You couldn’t just be lady-like and say well we think women should whatever, you had to embarrass them to do whatever you could to raise their consciousness to do the right thing.

Despite living in Philly in 1973, I don’t remember anything about this event. At that time I was involved with a little rag-tag band of leftists who wanted to overthrow capitalism rather than fight to ensure women and minorities a seat at the table. Fortunately, there were feminists who had a better handle on what was possible than I had and who were determined to change the distribution of power.

Lillian and others worked tirelessly to expand opportunities for women. Sadly only one newspaper account acknowledged the feminists who first pushed to end gender discrimination at the Union League—-and that account did not mention their names.

I intend to do what I can to make sure we don’t forget the individual women who devoted their lives to the struggle for gender justice.

New Year’s resolutions: Why bother?

New Year’s resolutions have their usefulness. Maybe it’s a silly gimmick, but as a retiree, I need help keeping track of my time. One of the great rewards of retirement—all that unstructured time-- is also one of the great dangers.

I just took a look at last year’s resolutions to take stock of how I did. As I wrote this time last year:

It's easy to let the days slip by without doing much of anything. The Italians have a phrase for this-—dolce far niente, sweet doing nothing.

Yes, it is pleasant to just relax and hang out, but I really want to finish Feminism in Philly: The Glory Years within the next few years. So I have to make sure dolce far niente doesn’t take over my life.

So how did I do in 2010? Not great, but if I hadn’t been keeping track, I’m sure it would have been much worse. Last year I made four resolutions:

1)I resolved spend at least 2 hours a day on my history of second wave feminism in Philadelphia while I have (I think) full possession of my faculties. I’m sitting on a treasure trove of archival material that a graduate student in history would die for. I’ve promised those who gave me this material that I would tell their story.

2)I resolved to spend 30 minutes reading books/articles in Spanish.

3)I resolved to swim or walk briskly for 30 minutes at least 3 times a week.

4)I resolved to spend at least 20 minutes a day on the kind of housework which is not done as part of my weekly routine: cleaning kitchen cabinets and junk-filled drawers, tackling a filthy basement and cluttered attic.

I failed miserably at aerobic exercise and house–cleaning; it was so bad I just stopped keeping track.

I didn’t do much better with Spanish and when our Spanish group dissolved (people on different levels, no group leader) I stopped keeping track. However, I think I may now be on a roll with Spanish. Thanks to my friend Fran, my husband and I have joined a really serious Spanish group. There is a professor and the group pays her; if you want to learn something, sometimes you just have to pay for instruction. I’m at the very bottom of the class, so it’s not great for the ego. But I’m really stretching, and as a consequence actually learning.

I had the most success with the book project--no doubt because it meant the most. I averaged about an hour a day over 2010 (not counting vacation time). If I hadn’t been keeping track in a very public way, I’m sure I would have made far less progress.

I am making the exact same resolutions this year. Since I have invested so much already in the book, it should be easier to step up production. Also, with my new Spanish group, I have the motivation to try to improve. I will no doubt stay at the bottom of the class, but maybe I can narrow the gap.

My husband and I plan to rejoin our swim club on Jan. 2. We stopped in September as the expiration of our membership coincided with the yearly pool cleaning which usually drags on for a month. We thought: Why not save a month’s membership and renew in October?

Well, October came and there were so many garden chores. We thought: Why not get our exercise doing garden work? We got seriously behind in garden chores, so decided we would work on leaf raking and bulb planting in November. December came and I decided I could get my exercise cleaning our 3 story house and getting it in shape for the holidays. Always an excuse. Well, no more excuses and we’ll be at the pool on Jan.2.

We still haven’t gotten all the leaves raked. They’ve been covered with snow the past week, but now just in time for our New Year’s Day party the snow is melting and we have an ugly mess of melting snow and sodden leaves. As our guests walk by this ugliness, they’ll probably wonder why two retired people couldn’t manage to rake their leaves.

So here I go again making my resolutions in a very public way. This has its advantages. Many of my friends and family members read my blog and sometimes will ask: How’s the book project going? Have you learned Spanish yet? (Nobody’s ever asked me if I’ve cleaned out my basement—-why should anyone care?)

Any body else out here going through this year-end ritual? If anyone has any suggestions for sticking to one’s New Year’s resolutions, please share.

The Holidays are so much more relaxing now that I’m retired.

One benefit of retirement is that the holidays are so much more relaxing. When I was teaching I spent the week before the holidays grading papers and making agonizing decisions about final grades.

I usually got my grades in at the last minute so I had the maximum possible time for dithering. I envied my husband Rick who taught Math because he did not have to deal with the inevitable element of subjectivity. It was not so easy in Women’s Studies, the Humanities, English Composition to decide who deserved an A, a B or a C. [The F’s were usually clear-cut.]

And then what to do with good students who disappeared without a word of explanation and missed the final exam. Should I assume some horrible tragedy occurred and give them an incomplete? For my husband, the answer was clear. They got an F. Although that was my official policy, I could never stick to it. But that led to debilitating self-doubt-- could I really justify the incomplete to student X and the failing grade to student Y?

After about a week of this, I was in a state of absolute and total exhaustion. Then there was the job of getting the house in shape for holiday parties. Rick and I have a division of household labor which works very well for us. He does all the cooking and food shopping; I do all the cleaning. (I’m a terrible cook and would so much rather clean a bathroom than make a casserole.)

So after total collapse for a few days after submitting my grades, I then had to tackle house cleaning. As I tended to do less and less cleaning as the semester wore on, by late December the house was a wreck and getting it in shape was a major undertaking. I was sometimes finishing the vacuuming seconds before the guests arrived. I frequently didn’t make it to holiday parties because I was just too tired.

Now there’s no late December collapse, no desperate attempt to get the house in shape hours before a party, and I have the energy accept all the invitations which come our way. And best of all no nagging little thought in the back of my mind: Will I be able to get all my course outlines done in time for resumption of the treadmill in January.

When I was young I loved teaching. As the years wore on, it became so same old, same old and so exhausting. As my friend Alison, a committed teacher in her 50’s said, “teaching is a young person’s game.” This may not be true for university professors teaching one course a semester, but for those of us in the trenches, I think Alison is onto something. (Yes, I know there are exceptions—-the teacher in her 70’s who’s as engaged as she was in her 20’s. But it was clear I wasn’t going to be one of them.)

Anyway for me freedom from that burden has made for a much more relaxing rewarding holiday season!

An Obama supporter struggles with despair over the tax cut compromise

This has been really hard. As an early Obama supporter,Obama’s election was the high point of my political life and I had unrealistically high expectations. I’ve come down to earth.

Up until the tax cut compromise, I did not share the disillusionment of some liberal/progressives with Obama. He has an impressive record: the stimulus package which kept us from falling into an economic abyss; health care; financial regulations; the rescue of the auto industry and much more for which the President has not gotten anywhere near the credit he deserves. For a list of the President’s impressive list of a accomplishments see WHAT THE FUCK HAS OBAMA DONE SO FAR?

But I thought that letting the Bush tax cuts on high earners expire was an iron-clad promise. Okay, I understand that if nothing was done, the expiration of unemployment benefits and the expiration of tax cuts for the working poor would result in real hardship for struggling families. For those in the lowest tax bracket, income taxes would increase from 10 to 15%. The President could not let that happen.

Considering the cards he was holding, the deal was a lot better than most of us expected. I’ve never bought the argument that the President is a poor negotiator. (Read Jonathan Alters’ The Promise on the tough negotiating stand the President took during the bailout of the auto industry.)

Ironically there are more folks on the right who understand what President Obama managed to accomplish than on the left. From Charles Krauthammer:

President Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did.

In the deal struck last week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years - $630 billion of it above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts.

No mean achievement.

Krauthammer may be on to something. In a sense we have a second stimulus bill-–not the most efficient way to stimulate the economy but a stimulus bill nonetheless.

If I had had a vote in congress, I would have tried to improve the deal, but I would have voted for it in the end rather than let those unemployment benefits expire.

But why were we in this predicament? Why did the Democrats wait until after the disastrous mid-terms to tackle this? The White House claims it tried to deal with tax issue before the mid-terms. From The Hill:

The White House said Wednesday that Capitol Hill Democrats are partly to blame for the tax-cut deal they have criticized the president for negotiating....
... White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said President Obama wanted Congress to extend the tax cuts, but there was no consensus on how to do so in the Democratic caucus.
"He and the White House, frankly, urged the House and Senate to hold votes on this before the election," Pfeiffer said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. "But they didn't do that, in part because there's not unanimity in the Democratic Caucus on this."

The President put pressure on legislators to take tough votes on health care, financial regulation, and the stimulus. The capacity for tough votes seem to have been exhausted. Reid and Pelosi were both apparently dead set against taking measures they thought would jeopardize their re-election. I blame the congressional Democrats more than the President for not acting before the mid-terms when they had the votes. Robert Reich puts it best:

That Democrats have allowed themselves to get into this fix is a testament to either their timidity, obtuseness, or dependence on the campaign contributions of those at the top.

I am also really uneasy about the cut in the payroll tax and the long term implications for the solvency of social security. From Robert Reich again:

The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure. .
It is nothing short of Ronald Reagan's (and David Stockman's) notorious "starve the beast" strategy.

So am I upset about the tax cuts for the rich? Yes.
Am I worried about the threat to social security? Yes.
Am I angry with the Democrats for failing to deal with this issue when they had the votes? Yes.
Am I angry with all those Democratic voters who did not bother to vote in November? Yes.

Am I ready to pull the Obama /Biden sticker off our car? Not yet.

The Contributions of Others to My Garden

This is a sad time of the year for gardeners. The soil is frozen and my perennials are an ugly brown mess. What keeps us gardeners going during the winter months are the seed catalogues and great garden writing. I received the following post from my friend Fran Waksler which reminded me of the rewards of gardening:

The Contributions of Others to My Garden

I have certainly purchased my share of plants, but I particularly treasure those that, in a variety of ways, came from others. Each tree or plant repeatedly reminds me of them.

When I was a teenager, my mother discovered the yew tree (pictured above) behind her garage. It was about a foot tall and with two short branches--not particularly impressive--but my mother fell in love with it. I moved it to a patch in front of her dining room window where it thrived and grew to about 4 feet.

When my husband and I bought a two-family house with my mother, I dug up her tree to bring with us. It was quite an adventure. The taproot went down forever and I only managed to get most of it out with a friendly workman in the adjoining schoolyard (who, unfortunately, got in trouble with his boss). Because of a snag, passing papers on our house was delayed for three months so the tree languished in burlap through the autumn into the winter. I finally planted it in December and was not optimistic but, as can be seen, it thrived.

As I walk through my garden, I have many fond reminders of others. The forsythia are from my mother’s yard; they were always her favorite. The crabapple tree (Alex and Frances) and rugosa rose (Peter and Susie) were housewarming gifts. The clump birch was a silver anniversary present from Jerry, Hannah, and Jim; it was supposed to be a silver birch, but the clump birch seemed a better choice for us. The dogwood is from Marjie. The kerria in the front garden is a gift from Denise; it came along with a bit of periwinkle that now covers the patch around the kerria. The asters are an indirect gift from Denise: she gave some to Assim who, when they spread too wildly, passed some on to me. The coral bells and sweet woodruff came from Peg. I had purple violets, Mary Ellen had white: now we each have both.

My two-story high white rose (pictured above) as well as my red rose come from my friend at the garden center, who gave them to me one spring because, as he said, “They look too bad to sell, but I’m sure they’ll grow for you.” And they did. (After I planted the white rose, and it was established and 5 feet tall, I realized that it was growing outward instead of inward against the porch where I wanted it. It what at the time I thought of as a bit of madness, I dug it up and turned it around. Despite my fears, it thrived.) And, of course, the purple phlox (and a stray white one) come from Karen, who always comments on how well they like my yard.

Walking through my garden is a visit with all those who have contributed to my garden.

When a feminist activist retires: From recent retiree, Jocelyn Morris

I’ve long been convinced that there’s a link between happiness and political engagement and recent research supports this. Like my friend Jocelyn Morris, one of my reasons for retiring was to have more time for feminist activism. As the baby boom generation retires, my hope is there will be more and more women like the incredibly talented and amazingly energetic Jocelyn Morris: From Jocelyn:

THIS MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT!

I retired from the US Army Civilian Corps after 23 years and having been working since I was 14 years old after school for my family doctor. I have been working off and on for 50 years!

I went to Rutgers Law School in Camden, NJ, full time, at age 42 after completing my BA at Antioch Univ. My favorite Professor at Antioch was the President of the Philadelphia, PA, ACLU chapter. He took me to the Philadelphia City prison to interview, Mumia Abau Jamal, who was in prison for allegedly killing a Phila. Police Officer. He had me work on a Jailhouse Law Project where I assisted prisoners with their legal research. He encouraged me to go to law school.

At 42, I was older than all of my professors and students. The professors were so sexist I dropped out after the first semester and with my Active Duty spouse, moved to Sacramento, CA, where I completed my Paralegal Certification which taught me legal research skills which I use to this day.

I joined Philadelphia NOW in the 1970's, then convened the Germantown NOW Chapter in the local YWCA on Germantown Avenue in the 80's prior to moving to California.

Retirement: I decided I wanted to work on Women's Issues full time so after being appointed to Co-Chair the NOW Combating Racism Committee and running for the Prairie States NOW Board of Directors seat, I decided it was time to let my day job go.

Money was not a real problem because I had saved 15% of my Army salary (GS-12 when I retired) since 1990 when I joined the Army FERS retirement savings program. Also my spouse has his Air Force Retirement and is currently a full time employee for the US Army.

If my internet system was better I would probably spend 6 to 8 hours on line doing research. I do outreach to organizations and people (Quite a few I find on the major news stations); books I read and contact the authors for more in-depth information and papers/reports shared by other NOW Board Members. Do not believe the HughesNet commercials you see on TV. On average I can only stay on line, at most 2 hours before my computer connection times out and when the weather is bad, I can't get connected at all!

Our Committee worked on the Anti-Shackling of pregnant prison inmates which was passed at the NOW National Conference in 2008. Two women (WORTH organization) who had been shackled in prison did a workshop at the conference which I attended. I helped them make contacts with NOW people who could help them draft and present their resolution on the conference floor. NOW has had staff and interns published a NOW Anti-Shackling Tool Kit in November 2010.

There are so many problems and limited time and resources (Computer access) that I find I need to limit myself to one issue at a time.

While I was in Springfield, MO, I found this book at Barnes & Noble, which focused me on my current issue which is the Mass incarceration of Blacks and Minorities under the Government "War on Drugs" program which was started by President Reagan in the 1980s. 80% of the young Black men living in Chicago, IL, has either been arrested, in prison, or out on parole because of the police focusing on minority neighborhoods in the big cities. Our Federal, State and local Government officials has decided to replace "Slavery and the plantation systems with the mass incarceration of minorities to provide a permanent underclass using the prison industry.

The book is:

ALEXANDER, MICHELLE; “THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF

COLORBLINDNESS”; © 2010, THE NEW PRESS, NY


Some other books which have helped focus my work are:

KAOLIN.; “TALKING ABOUT RACE: A WORKBOOK ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE FOSTERING

RACIAL EQUALITY IN THEIR LIVES”; (C) 2010, CRANDLE, DOSTIE & DOUGLAS

BOOKS, INC., NJ

KRISTOP, NICHOLAS D. AND SHERYL WUDUNN; ”HALF THE SKY: TURNING OPPRESSION

INTO OPPORTUNITY FOR WOMEN WORLDWIDE”; (C) 2009, RANDOM HOUSE, NY

MCCALL, CATHERINE; “WHEN THE PIANO STOPS: A MEMOIR OF HEALING FROM SEXUAL

ABUSE”; (C) 2009, PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP, BERKLEY, CALIF.

GALLAGHER, ANNE T., “THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING”, (C) 2010,

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, NY

GAYLOR, ANNIE L., “WOMEN WITHOUT SUPERSTITION: NO GODS – NO MASTERS”, (C)

1997, FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION, MADISON , WI

MOGHADAM, VALENTINE M.; “GLOBALIZING WOMEN: TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST

NETWORKS”; (C) 2005, JOHN HOPKINS UNIV. PRESS, MARYLAND

Just before I retired I read the book above and joined www.globalsister.org which has over 45 different discussion groups and over 1,100 people from around the world. One of my goals is to establish a global network of women's organizations and include women outside the US on NOW's membership rolls. Women are discriminated against in every country so we should all be working together to make this planet a better place for females.

I realized that one person can make a difference and I am giving it my best shot!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it, Smiles!!