Why Women Must Vote

See the pictures that Dianne has to go with her story at http://www.hihidi.blogspot.com/ that graphically displays what women went through to earn the right for us to vote.

See this site for more information about our need to vote in this election.

http://www.fwhc.org/why-women-vote.htm

This is why we vote: Because we can!

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic." They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on November 15, 1917 (a mere 87 years ago), when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food -- all of it colorless slop -- was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was -- with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use -- or don't use -- my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."

HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum.We are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.

-Connie Schultz, The Plain Dealer, 1801 Superior Ave.,Cleveland, OH 44114, Cschultz@plaind.com, August 2004

And You Thought History Was Boring!

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor, hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all, the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, don't throw the baby out with the bath
water.

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all of the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, it's raining cats and dogs. There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor.

The wealthy had slate floors that wouldget slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all startslipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing leadpoisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for thenext 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake. England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a -- dead ringer!And that's the truth...

Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Historic Black Diamond, Washington

In the early 1880's, The Black Diamond Coal Company (BDCC) of Nortonville, CA was facing a monumental task.











As the coal supply they
were mining was beginning
to deplete, they faced moving
their entire operation -- miners,
their families, equipment and
all -- 1,000 miles north to a
remote area in Washington
Territory where a rich and
plentiful seam of high grade
coal promised to keep miners
busy for the next hundred years.
The area also provide all the timber
they needed to brace mine tunnels and build a town.

By 1885, the Company had completely
settled in the new town they named "Black Diamond."

The pictures here show the train station, which also housed a doctor's office, one of the old cars, the city jail and the what served as the fire department -- a great length of hose, wound on onto a wheeled cart that could be easily drug to the location of a fire.

The Black Diamond Bakery is not shown here, it was just down the street and has been operating since the late 1890s -- and food is delicious, great list of choices, each one more than you can eat in one meal.

It was a fun trip back in history in a hilly, heavily forested, beautiful area. I've been so fortunate to be able to take these free day trips sponsored by the Greenwood Senior Center. One member, when she died, left a substantial fund to provide free trips to members of the Center and they are great!

Next month I'll be going to Snoqualmie Falls and a Halloween train trip! I'm sure to get some good pictures there.

So, there are some advantages to growing old and these trips are certainly one of those.

Dawn in Monument Valley Arizona

The Monument valley trading post belonged to a man named "Goulding". He went to Hollywood in the early twenties and sold some movie makers on the idea of filming westerns on location in Monument Valley and when the production companies came out, they stayed at the tourist cabins that he had by his Indian trading post (this was in pre-motel days). In some of the John Wayne movies buildings from Goulding's lodge and dining hall complex were used as props. The building that you see in the photo was the trading post (on the first floor). The Gouldings lived on the second floor. This building served as post headquarters at the fort in "Fort Apache".

Here's a site that tells you more about Harry Goulding and his wife "Mike". http://www.silverstage.net/gouldings.htm

She was helping to restore the trading post to what it had once been years ago. Peace, tranquility and vastness best describes Monument Valley. I think we could all use a little peace these days.
Thanks to Dale for sharing all his good stuff so that I can share it with you.

The Day We Won't Forget

I guess we are all looking back at this day seven years ago when the unthinkable happened. The little things that hang on that memory. I had just returned from Mexico where I had lived for a year after retiring. I was staying with a friend until I could find an apartment. As I came out of my room, she was standing in the hall, just staring back into her room. Without looking at me she said, "you'd better turn your TV on". I did and I watched as all the unbelievable horror unfolded. I don't even know where to begin as I look back at that morning and feel the same sense of horror and grief and disbelief as I did then.

Considering the biblical twist that the current campaign has taken, I thought an Op Ed piece by Roger Cohen, another Op-Ed Columnist for the New York Times was particularly appropriate.

September 11, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
By Roger Cohen

In the Seventh Year

And in the seventh year after the fall, the dust and debris of the towers cleared. And it became plain at last what had been wrought. For the wreckage begat greed; and it came to pass that while America’s young men and women fought, other Americans enriched themselves. Beguiling the innocent, they did backdate options, and they did package toxic mortgage securities and they did reprice risk on the basis that it no more existed than famine in a fertile land.

Thereby did the masters of the universe prosper, with gold, with silver shekels, with land rich in cattle and fowl, with illegal manservants and maids, with jewels and silk, and with Gulfstream V business jets; yet the whole land did not prosper with them. And it came to pass, when the housing bubble burst, that Main Street had to pay for the Wall Street party.

For Bush ruled over the whole nation and so sure was he of his righteousness that he did neglect husbandry.

And he took his nation into desert wars and mountain wars, but, lo, he thought not to impose taxation, not one heifer nor sheep nor ox did Bush demand of the rich. And it came to pass that the nation fell into debt as boundless as the wickedness of Sodom. For everyone, Lehman not least, was maxed out.

So heavy was the burden of war, and of bailing out Fannie and Freddie, and of financing debt with China, that not one silver shekel remained to build bridges, nor airports, nor high-speed trains, nor even to take care of wounded vets; and the warriors returning unto their homes from distant combat thought a blight had fallen on the land.

So it was in the seventh year after the fall of the towers. And still Bush did raise his hands to the Lord and proclaim: “I will be proved right in the end!”

And around the whole earth, which had stood with America, there arose a great trouble, for it seemed to peoples abroad that a great nation, rich in flocks and herds and land and water, had been cast among thorns and Philistines; its promise betrayed, its light dimmed, its armies stretched, its budget broken, its principles compromised, its dollar diminished.

And it came to pass that this profligate nation, drinking oil with insatiable thirst, could not cure itself of this addiction, and so its wealth was transferred to other nations that did not always wish it well.

Wherefore the balance of power in the world was altered in grievous ways, and new centers of authority arose, and they were no more persuaded by democracy than was the Pharaoh.

For Bush ruled over the whole nation, and so sure was he of his righteousness that he did neglect the costs of wanton consumption. And he believed that if the Lord created fossil fuel, fossil fuel must flow without end, as surely as the grape will yield wine.

Therefore, in the seventh year after the fall, with 1,126 of the slain still unidentified, their very beings rendered unto dust, their souls inhabiting the air of New York, it seemed that one nation had become two; and loss, far from unifying the people, had sundered the nation.

For the rich, granted tax breaks more generous than any blessing, grew richer, and incomes in the middle ceased to rise, and workers saw jobs leaving the land for that region called Asia. And some fought wars while others shopped; and some got foreclosed while others got clothes. And still Bush spake but few listened.

Behold, so it was in the seventh year, and it seemed that America was doubly smitten, from without and within.

And, lo, a strange thing did come to pass. For as surely as the seasons do alternate, so the ruler and party that have brought woe to a nation must give way to others who can lead their people to plenty. How can the weary, flogged ass bear honey and balm and almonds and myrrh?

Yet many Americans believed the exhausted beast could still provide bounty. They did hold that a people called the French was to blame. They did accuse a creation called the United Nations. They did curse the ungodly sophisticates of Gotham and Hollywood and sinful Chicago; and, lo, they proclaimed God was on their side, and carried a gun, and Darwin was bunk, and truth resided in Alaska.

For Bush ruled over the whole nation and so sure was he of his righteousness that he did foster division until it raged like a plague. Each tribe sent pestilence on the other.

And in the seventh year after the fall, the dust and debris of the towers cleared. And it became plain at last what had been wrought — but not how the damage would be undone.

And all I can say to that is thank you Roger Cohen and AMEN!

The Requirements of Liberty

I am a great admirer of several of the New York Times Op-Ed Columnists and not the least of these is Bob Herbert. I find great wisdom in what he has to say and today was no exception.

Democrats everywhere are really busy mouthing about Sarah Palin and much of it is justified, but as Herbert said today, “Palin is the latest GOP distraction. She’s meant to shift attention away from the real issue of this campaign – the awful state of the nation after eight years of Republican rule. The Republicans are brilliant at distractions. Willie Horton was a distraction. The chatter about gays, guns and God has been a long-running distraction. And we all remember the Swift-boat campaign.”

There are much bigger issues that the Republicans don’t want you dwelling on these days, issues such as schools having to cut costs, and this as 50 million children are getting ready to return to classes all across our country. The crippling increases in the price of food and fuel, not to mention the economic downturn.

These are the things that Democrats should be focusing on and not, to quote, Herbert, the “bash Ms. Palin bandwagon”. And Obama and Biden have kept their comments about her quite mild and that’s fine. “But the great issues of this campaign loom like giant redwoods over the pathetic weeds of politics as usual and the myriad distractions that have turned one presidential election after another into a national embarrassment.”

Seventy- two years ago, in his renomination speech at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose above the boiler-plate rhetoric of political speeches and spoke of his generation’s “rendezvous with destiny>”

He warned of the perils to the nation of economic inequality, “Liberty,” he said, “requires the opportunity to make a living, a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.”

Those words certainly resonate today with the very meaning of America, a meaning that is so much deeper than what our politics have become, “We are fighting,” he told his audience, “to save a great and precious form of government, for ourselves and for the world.”

Let us hope that we all can remember those words as this election moves ahead. Let us move beyond the petty and disgusting efforts that the Republicans have become so adept at in attempting to destroy their opponents by whatever means. Hopefully by so doing we can move ahead in securing the dream that Roosevelt laid out for this country seventy-two years ago.

It Is Indeed, A New Day

I knew I couldn’t totally drop politics; they’ve become too much a part of my life these days as I suspect they have for many others, black and white. It is so exciting being on the brink of a brand new day in our country and I have to write about it, to acknowledge, to celebrate, the huge step forward that we have finally taken. I have been so moved by the comments I have read in numerous articles regarding the feelings of black Americans about Barack Obama, his candidacy and the new hope for their future – the future for all of us really because this is a change that has finally come after well over a hundred years; even longer if you go back to the beginning of slavery in this country. And it is a change for the rest of us as well, a change we, too, can be proud of, excited about because we, too, have had a part in making this happen. I’m ready to celebrate that fact!

Bob Herbert of the New York Times spoke to a number of black people in Detroit, Michigan and as he says, it was finally time to pop the cork of that bottle of champagne that has been on ice for so long. It’s hard for many of them to talk about it without tears, an emotional rush. He says that again and again he heard from people the sense of joy and triumph that has helped to redeem at least some of the disappointments and grief of so many years of racial humiliation and oppression. The horrors of lynching and the fear blacks have felt with good cause for so many, many years. And what relief there has to be for those who are old enough to remember all too vividly the horror of those times. As one elderly woman told Mr. Herbert when he mentioned that the weather had cleared up, she told him, “God wouldn’t let it rain on a moment like this.”

These are the people that are beginning, at last, to talk about what this really means to those who for so long, couldn’t eat in the same restaurants as whites, work at the same jobs, had separate restrooms, sat at the back of the bus, were abused mentally, emotionally, physically; those who have memories of friends and families who were lynched or tortured for no other reason that the color of their skin.

These things affect me deeply because, as most of you who have read my posts recently know, I married a black man – not because I was trying to make a statement about anything, but because I loved him and I couldn’t then or now even imagine color as a reason to see anyone as different from myself. I will remember as long as I live the day a little boy on the playground whose father had pointed to my daughter as her Dad walked her to school one day and told him she was a “nigger”. Later that day he approached her on the playground and he asked if she knew that she was a “nigger”. She told me about it later, patting my hand and assuring me that, “It’s okay, he’s just ignorant, Mom”. She was seven years old.

I do have to say that was one of the very few such incidents, most people never thought about what color my kids were, primarily because we raised them in Montana – it was okay to be Black in Montana, just not Native American. Prejudice can happen to people anywhere and for many different reasons – all of which are invalid because we are first and foremost and only, human beings regardless of color, gender, nationality. We walk on two legs and put our pants on the same way.

Maybe, just maybe Obama’s being elected in this country is one giant step for all of us in recognizing, accepting, rejoicing and celebrating our differences instead of pointing to them as something undesirable or to be feared. I do so hope that is the message Obama’s success is sending to the people of this country and around the world.