I Wish I Had Been There

When my eight-year-old grandson came running into the room telling me that Patrick Stewart played the character Poop in the Emoji movie, I went “What?! Captain Picard?”

Yep, he did it.

My grandson said, “I fear for his acting career.”  

I laughed. Not to worry Grandson, I believe Sir Stewart the British/American/Shakespearean, actor is clearly established. That just shows he is not taking himself too seriously.

When my grandson said, "Look it up,"  I did.  

Do you do this—rummage around the Internet, get involved? Some people say it is wasting time, but then I hope you aren’t wasting time by reading this.

We want to know about people—celebrities especially, thinking they are golden people. Yet they came from backgrounds similar or worse than ours.

What happens behind closed doors is sometimes shocking and shameful.

From The Guardian:

"I witnessed terrible things," said Patrick Stewart about his childhood, “which I knew were wrong, but there was nowhere to go for help. Worse, there were those who condoned the abuse. I heard police or ambulance men, standing in our house, say,’She must have provoked him,’ or, ‘Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.’ They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes, and he alone is responsible for it.”

  

“This violence is not a private matter. Behind closed doors, it is shielded and hidden, and it only intensifies. It is protected by silence – everyone's silence. 

““Most people find the idea of violence against women – and sometimes, though rarely, against men - abhorrent, but do nothing to challenge it. More women and children, just like my mother and me, will continue to experience domestic violence unless we all speak out against it.”

 In 2007, Stewart became a patron of Refuge, the national domestic violence charity.

Why-why-why? I don’t understand it.  Patrick Stewart’s father was a war hero—but then,  no one escapes war unscathed. Violence is built in sometimes, trauma always.

You who read my blog know that I want to take the high ground. I want to spread sweetness and light, but once in a while a shaft pierces my golden ceiling and strikes me right in the solar plexus.

I follow Instagram and am impressed. There are really nice people here. I see wonderful quotes, daily affirmations  about living the good life, on raising chickens, loving animals, being successful, on taking one’s power back, on standing one’s ground, making a difference, being happy, trotting the globe. These are the things I want to focus on. 

If I hadn’t popped into Facebook I wouldn’t have known the woman’s march on Washington happened.

Why oh why oh?

 

Sunday shows barely mentioned the 2018 Women’s March

The longest mention was a meager 20 seconds on NBC’s Meet The Press. Other shows were worse.

Blog ››› January 21, 2018, 3:00 PM EST ››› NINA MAST

I wish I had been there.

I feel as though I am sitting here with my head in the sand.

From Media Matters: The day after the start of the second annual series of Women’s Marches all over the world, the major Sunday political talk shows were nearly silent on the historic protests, only briefly mentioning the topic across all five shows.

On January 20 and 21, one year after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, hundreds of thousandsof protesters turned out in hundreds of marches and other events in the U.S. and worldwide to unite to support women’s rights.

 And here we are in 2018.

 

 

 

Here's to the Dreamers

More than 50 years ago, in a little Unitarian Church in Riverside California, most of us listening to Martin Luther King’s Taped speeches from the Birmingham Jail, would never have believed that in our lifetimes we would see a black man elected as President of the United States.

Last night I watched and listened to an exquisite interview of former President Barack Obama by a very bearded David Letterman on Netflix.  (The first episode of the show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman. I was in awe. And it reminded me of the many non-violent marches that went on in the 60’s. One notable one was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama in 1965.

In a speech at the base of the bridge President Obama said this:

Now, I have to imagine that when a younger John Lewis woke up that morning 50 years ago and made his way to Brown Chapel, heroics were not on his mind.

A day like this was not on his mind. Young folks with bedrolls and backpacks were milling about. Veterans of the movement trained newcomers in the tactics of non-violence; the right way to protect yourself when attacked. A doctor described what tear gas does to the body, while marchers scribbled down instructions for contacting their loved ones.

The air was thick with doubt, anticipation and fear. And they comforted themselves with the final verse of the final hymn they sung…

Then, his knapsack stocked with an apple, a toothbrush, a book on government – all you need for a night behind bars – John Lewis led them out of the church on a mission to change America.

As John noted, there are places and moments in America where this nation's destiny has been decided. Many are sites of war...

Selma is such a place. In one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our turbulent history -- the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham; and the dream of a Baptist preacher -- all that history met on this bridge.

Obama and Lewis

--In honor of “Bloody Sunday,” when State Troopers attacked about 600 peaceful marchers with Billy clubs and tear gas when they attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery to lobby for voter’s rights.

John Lewis was 25 when beaten severely about the head during the bridge crossing, but when on to become a representative in the Government.

Obama goes on to say;

It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the meaning of America.

And because of men and women like John Lewis…Dr. King, and so many more, the idea of a just America, a fair America, an inclusive America, a generous America – that idea ultimately triumphed.

On the third march, March 21, 1965, about 3,200 marchers set out from Selma to Montgomery, 50 miles. They walked 12 miles a day and slept in the fields at night. By the time they reached the capital of Montgomery on March 25, they were 25,000 strong.

In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed voting rights into law, banning discrimination literacy tests.

And we, the people, lived to see Martin Author King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech spill out covering America.