My eldest son recently met an older woman who shocked him by saying “Our Prime Minister should be hit by a car and run over.” She was deadly serious. Her information sources had led her to believe that Justin Trudeau was such a threat that he needed to be eliminated. My response was first shock, […]
I remember some of the names of my high school classmates. Sylvia Coulson, Jane Cripps, Janice Butler, Valerie Russell, Penny Lewis, Peter Blackwell, and many more. My memory gets worse every day, but today I remembered one person who changed my perceptions. Her name was Penny Haag and she joined my class when I was […]
Recently, I went to my second rally in less than two months. I’m becoming a latter-day rebel. For most of my life I have kept my rebellion limited to my choices of reading and the occasional friendly disagreement. Now I have the time and opportunity to take time out mid-week to show my support for […]
Listen up, media people. We want more women in our entertainment. Young women, old women, middle-aged women, gay, straight, and transgender women. We want to see people like ourselves. We want to see our mothers and grandmothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, cousins, and nieces. We want them beautiful, plain, or wrinkled. Firm and flabby, fit and frail, […]
There are a lot of older women who could afford to lose a few pounds, but you’d never know it to look at the exercise equipment at the gym. All the images on the machines there are of young white men in very good physical shape. In fact, if you are looking at the pictures […]
I have just finished reading the very moving and beautifully written Letter to My Son by Ta-Nihisi Coates in The Atlantic. (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/). It is a raging love letter, and a complex acceptance of disquieting truths about racism in America. I won’t try to paraphrase it because I would not do it justice, but I do […]
Snowbird of Paradise 