Simon & Garfunkel parody. Kate Millett. Lillian Ross. Sexism rising. T-shirts. Unusual 16-day journey. 3 Apples.
LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN NEWSLETTER #52 SEPT 20, 2017
This Newsletter will be short because it's a short week, sweetened, one hopes, by the spirit of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, with its reminder of the possibility of radical transformation and personal renewal. Meanwhile, life seems to be composed of 10 percent hope, 20 percent yearning, 30 percent frustration, and 40 percent sheer insanity.
TRUMP WATCH
* Don't let POTUS's Tweets and outbursts distract you from the real damage he and his minions are wreaking under the radar and beyond the headlines.
VIDEOS
* What's next after the golf club? An AK 47? A drone attack on HRC? By now you've surely seen Trump's doctored video showing him slamming a golf ball into Hillary's back and knocking her down. If this isn't a meme to incite his base to violence, what is it? See WashPost story and video: "Trump Can't Stop Talking About Hillary Clinton."
*Confounds the Science." Video show Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" reimagined, rewritten and performed by The Parody Projects in response to Trump's right wing war on science.
* "Journey to Peace" in Israel starts Sunday Sept 24 and runs through Oct 10th. I hope this 2-minute video will inspire you to support them.
Organized by Women Wage Peace, but involving virtually all constituencies, the Journey's purpose is not to advance a specific solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but simply to break the current log-jam and "pressure decision makers to work toward reaching a viable peace agreement." You can help make this ambitious 16-day peace demonstration a rousing success by making a tax-deductible donatation - as little as $25 or $50 will be appreciated -- on the Middle East Peace Dialogue and enter "Women Wage Peace" In the box marked "Designated Recipient." If you can participate in any portion of the march, here are the meeting points for each day, the Journey's exact route, and information about meals, clothes, special meetings & events along the way.
*Sonia Warshawsk, 91-year-old Nazi Holocaust survivor of 3 major death camps, moves incarcerated women to tears. A message to remember, especially now, in the face of rising, rampant hate. See video.
CIVIL LIBERTIES
* Free Speech under threat. According to a Brookings Institution survey, a majority of U.S. college students would accept the silencing of a speaker on campus.
[Photo: Millennium Development Goals Poster Project:, Northridge Intl School Cambodia}
Sample question in the survey:
A student group opposed to the speaker disrupts the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience cannot hear the speaker. Do you agree or disagree that the student group’s actions are acceptable?
Results: 51% of all students agreed that it was okay to shout down the speaker; 49 percent disagreed. Of those who agreed, 62 percent identified as Democrats, 39 percent as Republicans.
WOMEN
* Message on T-shirt worn by a breast cancer survivor after her reconstructive surgery.
* RIP Kate Millett (1934-2017)
*The Book That Made Us Feminists. Carol Adams writes on the significance of Sexual Politics, the landmark work by Kate Millett who died on Sept 6th.
Lillian Ross. Photo by Patrick McMulla/PMc
* Lillian Ross (1918-2017) pathbreaking journalist, died today, Sept 20, at age 99. Rebecca Mead writes an appreciation of Ross in The New Yorker.
* 3 bad news bulletins about persistent sexism: 1) decline in number of women in the American workplace. 2) Gender Gap in the Broadway Theater. 3) sex stereotyping in kids' departments in British retail stores. (i.e. slogan on T-shirt for boys, "Future Scientist;" for girls, "Hey Cutie!"
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Ruchama Marton
* Interview in +972 Magazine with remarkable doctor/activist. "On the occasion of her 80th birthday, Dr. Ruchama Marton, the founder of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, talks about the atrocities she witnessed as a soldier, the enduring power of feminism, and why only outside help has a chance of ending Israel’s military rule over the Palestinians." A brave voice, a courageous human rights activist-doctor.
* Abused women in Israel's ultraOrthodox community find a way out. Bat Melech has been called, "the only safe place for battered Orthodox Jewish women in Israel."
* Mind-boggling. Nazi Jews? Netanyahu's son, Yair, (right) shocks Jews by promulgating antiSemitic meme. Last year, he campaigned for the controversial bill banning mosques from using loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer. What's that saying about acorns?
the way.
NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS
Three apples changed the world: Eve's. Newton's. Steve Jobs' Even one small apple can bring about great change. So this year, dip your apple in honey and create the change you want to see.
(inspired buy a message from, Women Wage Peace)
To my Jewish subscribers: May your New Year be sweeter and saner than the last one.