Let’s March

Posted December 10, 2015

Filed under Life

As we come upon the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, I find it unfathomable that America is still in a stalled response. In my most right-wing-NRA-toting nightmare I would never have believed that December 14, 2012 would not have been enough for Americans to demand the changes needed to halt our present school shooting epidemic.

As of 2013 there have been approximately 162 school shootings in America. School shootings. Yes, I am only discussing shootings in schools. The place where children go to learn about rivers and stars and algebra and Huck Finn. Where they and their friends eat mac and cheese in a noisy cafeteria, and still stick gum under their desks while being asked to imagine making the world a better place. Where they are encouraged to dream and explore and fail. Yes, dream and explore and even fail because it takes all three to learn sometimes. But as of late, schools are also a place where we are, “frightening our young people by planning for intentional acts of harm,” (Schlozman). A place where we practice lock-downs. Schools are now targets.

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Reclaiming the F Word

Posted December 3, 2015

Filed under Life

When did it all start, this pronouncement of this 8 letter word as a 4 letter one? When did feminism become profanity? Perhaps as far back as the publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman? Penned by the 18th-century British writer, Mary Wollstonecraft, this text puts forth a seemingly basic concern: equal education and opportunity, and access to reproductive rights, for all. Interestingly, the tenants of feminism have remained virtually the same ever since. While the French were fighting their own countrymen for “liberty, equality, fraternity,” Wollstonecraft declared, “It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.” Ah, if only the French had considered women on their political platform! For when we acknowledge the steady march of Kardashians across our senseless screens, we could mourn that nothing much has changed in two hundred years. The charm of nothingness abounds in our current culture.

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Mother Talks: #2

Posted August 13, 2015

Filed under Family

Memories abound where my mother is concerned, but I do have a favorite. Although it is a singular experience, when we attended Alexander McQueen’s retrospective, “Savage Beauty,” that summer day in 2011 exemplifies noteworthy traits that my mother had in droves. Although the Metropolitan Museum of Art allowed its members to skip the monster line or attend on Mondays, their “closed” day, just to be part of the fun, my mother (who was a member) and I, stood on the 2 hour line with the masses. This curated event of a hundred ensembles and seventy accessories was unprecedented and there was no way my mother would not be part of the crowded excitement; “By the time the exhibit closed, over 650,000 people had seen it, making it one of the most popular exhibits in the museum’s history, and its most popular fashion exhibit ever” (Savage Beauty Exhibition). #1: My mother loved a well-dressed party.