Diversity

This is posted in the entryway to my kids' elementary school in #Brookline, MA. Diversity is a value that has to be cultivated. As we age we become conservative and seek to protect our own inner circle. This is natural. However, it is conflict with reality. That is what education does. It builds on human culture. It allows us to retain our openness, evolve, accept reality as it changes in our lifetimes. #Budapest #Hungarian #Diversity

My Revolution Lives In This Body

#eveensler
#OBR
#riseinsolidarity

Men say Thank You

Men saying hank tou to the midwife who gave birth to fathers.

This short video was made in solidarity with Agnes Gereb, the imprisoned Hungarian midwife. She advocated for the presence of fathers at births in hospitals.

Please share.

https://youtu.be/qiuvKlXkyQM

The fathers are saying, “köszönöm” (thank you).

Kisfilm az apák méltóságáról, a férfiak szüléshez való viszonyáról. Hálamondás az apás szülés lehetőségéért.

#FreeGerebAgnes #budapest #riseinsolidarity#OBR #midwife #fathers

by John Loomis

At the Lake House

Wind and the sound of wind—
across the bay a chainsaw revs
and stalls. I've come here to write,

but instead I've been thinking
about my father, who, in his last year,
after his surgery, told my mother

he wasn't sorry—that he'd cried
when the other woman left him,
that his time with her

had made him happier than anything
he'd ever done. And my mother,
who'd cooked and cleaned for him

all those years, cared for him
after his heart attack, could not
understand why he liked the other

woman more than her,
but he did. And she told me
that after he died she never went

to visit his grave—not once.
You think you know them,
these creatures robed

in your parents' skins. Well,
you don't. Any more than you know
what the pines want from the wind,

if the lake's content with this pale
smear of sunset, if the loon calls
for its mate, or for another.
 

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/columns/detail/659

Agnes Gereb Action

Ina May Gaskin. Her equal in Hungary is Agnes Gereb. Agnes will be imprisoned for her work. (English version of her bio & story posted on Facebook event description).

You can join this action by posting a picture of a flower with the hashtag #halaviragok to show solidarity with Agnes Gereb on January 20th. (English description on Facebook event).

https://www.facebook.com/events/1788302658138728/

#orban #womensrights #budapest #OBR

Agnes Gereb

Hungarian is the language of love. Not French. You will fall in love with a person speaking French. You learn Hungarian after you fall in love with a person when you discover their Hungarian origin. I did. And the language and the country and the man I fell in love with still leave me speechless at times. 

Today I am using my voice in solidarity with a Hungarian woman, Agnes Gereb, who was sentenced to two years in jail for charges relating to her practice as a midwife. Hungary, led by the nationalist, Viktor Orban, has passed public policy that encourages birth. For a country that knows its population (and power) are decreasing, there are seemingly only two responses: women have to give birth and refugees have to be turned away. In this country that seeks to create a culture that values family, at least procreation, it seems the ultimate irony that they simultaneously persecute a midwife. 

Yet it is far from ironic. It is cynical. It rings true for the famously pessimistic, long-suffering Hungarians. It is worse than cynical, however. It is tyrannical. It is the establishment (patriarchy, government, medicine) exercising power. It is rape. We should not limit rape to the invasion of a body. It does not do justice to the systematic abuse of power that seeks its own existence rather than serving the people. It is illiberal. Which is exactly what Orban has articulated. He seeks to create an illiberal democracy that controls its population rather than defends its citizens. 

Times up, Orban. My Hungarian friends in Budapest, where I lived with my two children for five years, see themselves as citizens first. They are outraged at Agnes’ incarceration. Their message is clear: We see Orban’s duplicity. We stand with Agnes Gereb and demand justice for her, for all of us. Hungarians need to act with their hearts, speaking the language of love, to defeat the cynicism that defines and limits them.

#midwife #Hungary #womensrights #birth #illiberal #Orban #OBR

Bitching

Hello,

I attended the Sunday 1:00 pm performance of the Wizard of Oz at the Opera House.I bought four tickets and attended with my daughter, a friend, and her daughter. The tickets were $119 and we were seated in the orchestra, row u, seats 105,106,107,108. We experienced two problems:

Handicapped seats were placed on both ends of our row. Both patrons were unable to stand once seated. This forced us to awkwardly crawl over an elderly lady to enter our seats and at intermission, even at the end of the show. Surely there must be a better solution?

Also, at intermission we went directly from our seats to the women's restroom. Nevertheless, my daughter and friend (who needed the facilities) were unable to do so in time. They missed two major musical scenes because of the long lines or lack of suitable women's restrooms. This is infuriating. After spending nearly $500 on tickets, I feel this is an unacceptable way to treat a patron. Especially a nine-year-old girl.

Many thanks for your attention,

Janet Kelley

brown girl dreaming

lessons

by Jaqueline Woodson

My mother says:

When Mama tried to teach me

To make collards and potato salad

I didn't want to learn.

She opens the box of pancake mix, adds milk

And eggs, stirs. I watch

Grateful for the food we have now--syrup waiting

In the cabinet, bananas to slice on top.

It’s Saturday morning.

Five days a week, she leaves us

To work at an office back in Brownsville.

Saturday we have her to ourselves, all day long.

Me and Kay didn't want to be inside cooking.

She stirs the lumps from the batter, pours it

Into the buttered, hissing pan.

Wanted to be with our friends

running wild through Greenville.

There was a man with a peach tree down the road.

One day Robert climbed over that fence, filled a bucket

With peaches. Wouldn't share them with any of us but

Told us where the peach tree was. And that's where we

wanted to be

sneaking peaches from that man’s tree, throwing

the rotten ones

at your uncle!

Mama wanted us to learn to cook.

Ask the boys, we said. And Mama knew that wasn't fair

Girls inside and boys going off to steal peaches!

So she let us all of us

Stay outside until suppertime.

And by then, she says, putting our breakfast on the table,

it was too late.  

Women Who Work

This woman is raising her four kids by carrying her own body weight in goods. Every. single. day. pic.twitter.com/nrUBzqJsIv

— AJ+ (@ajplus) January 4, 2018

RUSSIA i see you

I just had 141 visits to my blog yesterday. All from Russia. #yikes