a2zmom

In these turbulent times, I think it is vital to subscribe to one or more news sources. I have a subscription to the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic and give to NPR. I find WaPo's reporting especially insightful. Here are two articles from today.

The first is how photographs taken by women are vastly underrepresented in news articles and how this subtlety informs our thinking. When all you see is pictures of women as victims, care takers or brides, it's hard to imagine women as having agency.

what pictures really show

The other article is a profile of Joe Davidson. You may remember him as the man who was pilloried for laughing as Trump made fun of. After readiung thew article I don't think Davidson thinks rape is funny or that he's a racist. I think he's something worse, willfully ignorant. He doesn't want to hear anything that disturbs his view that everyone in the country is being treated fairly. He understands that he's led a privileged life, what he fails to understand is how many people are actively prevented from leading that kind of life.

Joe Davidson

We were originally predicted to get 11 inches of snow yesterday. Instead we got maybe 4 and a severe ice storm.

Which caused one of my trees to come down. Luckily, it missed the house but it did hit my deck. My contractor will be here in a couple of days (he's without power currently) to assess the damage. Oh joy.

I saw this last night and I really liked it. However, if you don't like your movies weird and you don't have a dark sense of humor, you may not enjoy it. (Let me put it this way - I thought the novel "Gone Girl" was the funniest thing I had read in a long time)

The three female leads were fantastic. I don't want to give too much away but the movie is about power, the lengths people will go to get it and specifically how women who want power have to negotiate that in a man's world.

If you saw it, let me know what you thought.

In what I can only call irony of ironies, as Brexit is unleashing a wave of Antisemitism, descendants of Jews who fled Germany due to rise of Nazism, are now looking to return. Germany is seen by many as currently the most non discriminatory country in Europe.

here is the full article

Many of you have been reading this journal for many years and as a result, have basically seen my sons grow up. And since Carly so sweetly asked, here's an update on the evil duo.

Aaron is still with his girlfriend. It's now 8 years? 9 years? He;s turning 29 in June and NC will ne 30 this summer so maybe they'll finally take the marriage plunge. (They do plan to at some point). They still love to travle and ;ast year went to the Rhine country in Germany where they drank wine, saw castles, visited a spa where Aaron almost passed out from the intense heat and got driven around a former racetrack by a professional driver. They also took a trip to Madrid, Morocco and Gibraltar, three very different cultures in the space of a week. They've already booked a flight to Budapest for this year.

Zachary has had a very exciting year. He left DC and moved to NYC on Halloween. In a really insane turn of events he became art director at Baron's Financial Magazine, which was crazy because he was 24. A few months ago, he left there and is now associate art director at Elysium Health, which in addition to being a pharma start up also runs a general interest online science magazine. Zachary is in charge of the magazine and you can find it here: Endpoints. His gf Chelsea is just as talented (she's an illustrator). She just finished final drawings for a children's book coming out in the fall. The book is geared to 8-12 year olds and is about women mathematicians. Since it's being published by Disney, we hope it will get some notice. He and Chelsea celebrated their 4th anniversary on New Year Eve. He told me they have to wait to get married until all their freinds have good jobs so they can buy them expensive wedding presents. Then he grinned and said yes, I am the worst.

Have a picture. This was just taken a few days ago.



And because I can't resist, here is a "glamour" shot of Zachary taken at his last job by the head of photography. While he is very good looking, he knows he will never look this perfect again.

It's been forever since I posted but I'm going to try to be around more in the new year!

How is everyone? My life has been good but busy aside from being scared about the direction the country is headed in due to the orange idiot.

There are a host of reasons why this supremely unqualified woman should not be Secretary of Education, but all you really need to know is that in Michigan where she has reshaped education since 1993, reading and math scores have plummeted.

Michigan has gone from a middle-of-the-pack state to the bottom tier in just 12 years. The state's NAEP ranking on fourth grade reading has dropped from 28th in 2003 to 41st in 2015, the latest results. The fourth grade math ranking has dropped from 27th in 2003 to 42nd,

Is this what we want for our country?

Her confirmation is tomorrow. We need to flip one more republican and she will not be confirmed. Here is what you need to do today:

Call your senators. If you are in a blue state, call them to make sure they don't flip. If you are in a red state, call them and if you have friends that feel the same way, have them call also. Senators DO RESPOND if they get a flood of phone calls - they do not want to piss off their constituents.

this link will take you to your senators' phone numbers:

https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Directories_vrd.htm

Also call Senator Susan Collins (R) of Maine (202) 224-2523 and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) of Alaska 202) 224-6665 to thank them for pledging to vote no regarding Devos' confirmation.

Feel free to repost this so as to get the word out.

Our children's future is at stake.

I'm trying to see a bunch of the Oscar noms before the big day, so I saw this a few days ago.

I don't want to gave anything away, as part of the power of the film is not knowing what's to come. However, this is a quiet movie that deals pretty realistically about what would happen if alien spaceships suddenly arrived on Earth and the aliens didn't do anything.

This is a film about language and memory and time and it made some important points about language. If you only use one term to describe a concept, it's hard to see it in any other terms. That's an important point for our current world situation, when some people were perfectly fine with a 5 year old being handcuffed at an airport because he's a potential terrorist instead of simply seeing a scared, confused child.

Anyway, I highly recommend the film.

I'll be posting about political stuff that people need to be aware of in some other posts, but first -

We need to fight back. Without concrete action, this country will end. I believe that.

So what can you do? Your elected officials care about getting reelected. So number 1. Make noise.

Celeste Pewter on twitter has what's happening on a daily basis. What upcoming votes you need to be concerned about. What stuff you can ignore. Read it. If you are not informed, you are part of the problem.

http://itstimetofight.weebly.com/ - this site lists what is happening each week and what you can do about it.

In order - most effective - go to your senator's office and MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. Your senator's a democrat? It's still important to go there and let him/her know that they cannot roll over!!! Your senator's a republican? Even more important. Every Tuesday, there are nationwide organized protests scheduled at your Senator's office. Can't make it then? NO matter. Any time is a good time to make your displeasure known.

Can't get to an office? A phone call is almost as good. Time to Fight list's phone numbers and scripts. There is NO EXCUSE not to make a phone call. You can even do it after hours, these offices have answering machines.

I'll be posting long term strategies later.

For now, call tomorrow to register your feelings about Betsy Devos, Trump's nominee for secretary of education. She is completely unqualified. It's Time to Fight lists phone numbers, if you have a problem finding them, let me know. Also leave messages about the ACA, Trump's immigration ban and a host of other issues.

Please comment that you will be making a call tomorrow. And then reblog this on your own page and ask that people make a commitment to spread the word and make a phone call. If all we are going to do is moan about how terrible Trump is, nothing will change. FIGHT BACK.

Yesterday, press secretary Sean Spicer had this to say to the press: (I am copying this from The Atlantic)

Yesterday, at a time when our nation and the world was watching the peaceful transition of power and, as the president said, the transition and the balance of power from Washington to the citizens of the United States, some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting,” he charged.

He then went on at length, attacking reporters, particularly one from The New York Times, for tweeting photographs comparing the size of the crowd at Friday’s inauguration unfavorably with Barack Obama’s first inauguration. (That image was retweeted from the National Park Service’s account, prompting a brief Twitter freeze at the Interior Department.)

“Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted,” Spicer continued, because the NPS did not count. He incorrectly characterized ridership statistics provided by WMATA, D.C.’s transit authority.

Then came the big whopper: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period—both in person and around the globe.”

Spicer’s statement required dismissing all available evidence: ridership count, eyewitness testimony, independent crowd-counts, and Nielsen television ratings.

And then Kellyanne Conway appeared on Meet the Press today, speaking to Chuck Todd:

“The presidency is about choices. I’m curious why President Trump chose yesterday to send out his press secretary to essentially litigate a provable falsehood when it comes to a small and petty thing like inaugural crowd size,” Todd asked. Conway first tried to deflect, saying, “I don’t think presidents are judged by crowd sizes, they’re judged by accomplishments.” Fair enough, Todd said—so why lie?

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts,” Conway responded.

Todd was flabbergasted by the Orwellian turn of phrase: “Alternative fact are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”

This is how dictatorships operate. It doesn't matter what your eyes and ears tell you. It doesn't matter what experts say. It doesn't matter what mainstream media reports. All that matters is the "truth" as Trump sees it. And if anyone doesn't find this terrifying, I really want to know why.