Keep Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Hopes Alive

“We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, and so disciplined they can be free.” Kavita Ramdas

"When the Supreme Court hears arguments on the Texas and Mississippi abortion bans, remember that these cases didn’t spring up on their own. Right-wing donor interests spent decades and massive amounts of dark money to make it happen." Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, October 26, 2021

Ruth Bader Ginsburg will always be a role model and inspiration for women all over the world.  Her struggles are our struggles, her triumphs our triumphs. We must continue to keep her hopes and dreams alive.

Ginsburg struggled to become a lawyer when she was a young wife and mother. At Harvard she tackled the challenges of motherhood and a male-dominated school where she was one of nine women in a class of 500. Still, she became the first female member of the Harvard Law Review. 

She faced gender-based discrimination when she graduated from Columbia, having moved to New York City when her husband took on a job there. She graduated first in her Law School class at Columbia, but had a hard time getting a job because of her sex.

I don't even have to imagine it, because like many women I shared her experiences. Even her exceptional academic record did not shield her from the discrimination women faced in universities and the workplace in the 1960s and 1970s.  Ginsburg had trouble finding a job until one of her Law professors refused to recommend any other graduates before U.S. District Judge Edmund J. Palmiri, who then  hired Ginsburg as a clerk.  I know that experience well.  

And so Ruth Bader Ginsburg took flight, soared like an eagle, followed a self-made career path that eventually took her to the Supreme Court. She committed herself to ensuring equality, equity and justice for all people. She dedicated her life to defying and dismantling institutionalized gender discrimination, both on her own behalf and ours.  

We stand on her shoulders. That's why we are committed to continue the struggle for which she fought until her dying breath, when she told her loved ones that her "fervent wish" was that a new president choose her successor. 

That did not happen.  Mitch McConnell, the gravedigger of democracy, made sure of it. He, Leonard Leo's Federalist Society, the Koch dark money networks danced on her grave with glee that they could steal another Supreme Court seat. 

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is, thankfully, fully aware of the extent of the damage, and how it happened. We now have  a Court so devalued, a  Judiciary branch so corrupted by Mitch McConnell and his Republicans, that the majority of Americans in this pluralistic nation have lost trust in its impartiality and integrity.  Changes have to happen. Mitch McConnell's tactics and dark money funders should be investigated. The whole Judiciary branch needs to be cleaned up.

It's hard not to get discouraged. It's hard to keep fighting the same battles that Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton began in the early 19th century, and that the Grimke sisters, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, and hundreds of other pioneers, silent warriors, took up along with their wish to end slavery. It's hard to carry RBG's mantel into the future for our grandchildren and their children. But what choice do we have? We have to fight for the things we care about. We have to keep hope alive.

When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile. . . .
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly, irregularly.....
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.


Some sources
* Wikipedia for RBG biography; NYT and Washington Post obituaries.
* http://www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg
* https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/03/senate-judiciary-holds-hearing-on-dark-money-and-supreme-court/

Here's an option under consideration. I think it's time. 

Our National Parks, Our Sacred Treasures

Dismantling our democracy means dismantling everything we hold dear. That includes our environment and natural resources. Under the last criminal administration, nothing was sacred, including our National Parks and Monuments. Fortunately, a new administration is working to overturn the brutal attacks on our environment, values and way of life.

Our national parks,  our national treasures. 

Our National Parks and monuments encompass the glorious natural beauty of our country, from sea to shining sea. Ken Burns in his documentary calls them "America's Best Idea." Pioneer naturalist John Muir called them "our national cathedrals," counterpoints to the built environment and monuments of old Europe.

There are 63 National Parks. Here are a dozen of them.
 (NPS under the Dept.of the Interior)

America's rich, diverse and awesome natural environment is part of our shared history and cultural heritage. It unites us. Destroying our National parks and monuments means erasing some of the most significant chapters of the American story. Fortunately, Deb Haaland, the new Secretary of the Department of Interior, appointed by President Biden, is returning priority to saving and preserving them for future generations. She is the first Native American to serve in this post, and it seems more than appropriate, and incredibly overdue. 

Zion National Park, which I visited with
my brother Loren. Incredible beauty.

Before Haaland there was Zinke, enemy of our national parks and federal lands. Lots of voices rose up in fear and loathing to defend them. Among them were the Jarvis brothers, Jonathan, former director of the National Parks Service (NPS), and Destry, a long-time Parks advocate for various nonprofits, They were concerned with the efforts of TFG and his billionaire minions to open the parks up to corporate drilling and exploitation. (Jarvis and Jarvis, "Our National Parks are being Dismantled," The Guardian, January 10, 2020.)  The parks were on a slippery slope, like our democracy itself. 

Chief Seattle now has a voice in the Biden Cabinet.  

  The election of Biden in 2020 reversed this course. For one thing, his Cabinet includes Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI), and he  recently restored the previous cuts to the parks. The Jarvis brothers noted that  "professional management of our national parks has been respected under both Democratic and Republican administrations for over 100 years." Sure, they've had different priorities, "the Democrats often expanding the system and the Republicans historically focused on building facilities in the parks for expanding visitation." But the career public servants of the National Park Service (NPS), charged with stewarding America’s most important places, were left to do their jobs. They protected the parks and our natural heritage. Under Secretary Deb Haaland, they will continue to do so. 

At the Grand Canyon, cold but awestruck
by its vastness, ancient geology, layered beauty.

Some sources:
1. Jonathan B. Jarvis and Destry Jarvis, The Guardian, January 10,2020, https://news.yahoo.com/great-dismantling-americas-national-parks-110036985.html.

2. http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/, Ken Burns, "Our National Parks: America's Best Idea.

3. https://www.doi.gov/secretary-deb-haaland, Secretary Deb Haaland made history when she became the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. She is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and a 35th generation New Mexican. 35th generation! Haaland will work on reversing the damage of the former president and the criminal Zinke, who allowed drilling and logging on federal lands, worked to destroy national parks and monuments, showed total disregard for America's heritage and values. 

4. https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/administration-leaders-applaud-president-bidens-restoration-national-monuments


The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument boasts stunning features such as the Escalante Canyons, seen here in an undated photo. Together with Bears Ears, the Trump administration approved big changes for the monuments (Jerry Sintz/AP). Thank goodness the Biden administration is reversing the damage done. 

5. https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/08/politics/joe-biden-national-monuments-expansion/index.html

6.  https://www.doi.gov/blog/10-public-lands-powerful-native-american-connections  

7. https://www.francurrocaryblog.blogspot.com/2020/02/our-national-parks-in-danger.html

8. https://edsitement.neh.gov/closer-readings/national-parks-and-history?

Jimmy Carter Shines as America's Most Compassionate President

 https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/10-fascinating-facts-about-former-president-jimmy-carter 

I copied this article here, because I want to remember.  Jimmy Carter is my favorite president, a caring and compassionate activist for peace and justice in the world.  Also, I want to highlight the work of the Constitution Center. It has outstanding programs and courses about the history and evolution of the US Constitution and Rule of Law, needed now more than ever.  I wish every social studies and civics teacher would use their resources. I think the National Constitution Center would be a great partner with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), too, which could reach every state and territory through the  state programs. 

Today we celebrate the birthday of former President Jimmy Carter. The Plains, Georgia native is certainly unique in comparison with other Presidents.

"Carter, the only United States Naval Academy graduate to be elected to the White House, endured a roller-coaster four years in office. But much of his public career began after leaving Washington, D.C. in 1981.

Here’s a quick look at some fascinating facts about the 39th President:

1. Born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, young James Earl Carter Jr. was the first person on his father’s side of his family to graduate from high school.

2.  Carter entered Annapolis during World War II. The future President graduated in the top 10 percent of his class in 1946, and he and his new wife, Rosalynn, moved frequently as his Navy assignments changed.

3. Carter gave up his military career to save the family peanut farm. And as a parent, Carter became involved in local politics when he served on an education board.

4. He supported civil rights, which hurt his early political career in Georgia. After a poor showing the 1966 governor’s race, Carter adopted a more centrist image, and he won the election in 1970. He became known as a budget cutter while in office.

5. Carter was a “dark horse” presidential candidate in 1976. The future President was tied for 12th in early polling, well behind former Alabama Governor George Wallace and former nominee Hubert Humphrey. He used his image as a Washington outsider to defeat Gerald Ford in the general election.

6.  The Carter presidency was a study in contradictions. President Carter played a key role in the Camp David peace accords, but he also struggled with Congress and the media. The Iranian Hostage crisis proved to be a significant factor in his 1980 loss to Ronald Reagan.

7. Carter’s legacy grew after the 1980 loss. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote there are no second acts in American lives, but Carter’s public career after the White House is an exception.

8. In 1982, he founded the Carter Center, which has played an active role in human rights and disease prevention issues globally. The Carters helped publicize Habitat for Humanity, also.

9. Carter received his Nobel Prize in 2002. He received the award "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

10. Harry Truman was Carter’s favorite President. Carter told The Guardian in 2011 that he admired Truman for not trying to profit off his presidency."

I think about Jimmy Carter a lot, because I'm so aware he won't be with us for much longer. Why not celebrate his life and achievements while he's still alive!