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LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN NEWSLETTER #75 MAY 17, 2020
Today, I'm breaking my No-Newsletters-on-Weekends rule in order to wish a big, boffo,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR MAGNIFICENT TWIN DAUGHTERS
* Abigail Pogrebin & Robin Pogrebin (womb-mates born one minute apart),
shown below hiking in CT last week.
QUICK WORD ABOUT DEMOCRACY
* Reminder to NYers sheltering elsewhere: If you're registered to vote, click here for an absentee ballot and be sure to vote in the primary election on June 23rd. .
THIS IS WHY WE LOVE NEW YORK
* Floral designer Lewis Miller should be knighted by the mayor for decorating our suffering city with his "Flower Flash" pop-ups all over town, reminders that beauty can survive adversity & heal troubled minds.
* Bagel, lox and cream cheese won the top spot on this list of Jewish culinary specialties ranked first to worst. Since the lockdown, I've had 25 of the 40 items and gained 5 lbs. (My faves: #1 & 3. Yours?)
SURREALISM IN EVERYDAY LIFE
* Watch these Long Island demonstrators whom Trump tweet calls, "Great people," scream at journalists. Harassment of the media chills my blood. Worse yet, their children are watching.
Careful the things you say, Children will listen
Careful the things you do, Children will see and learn
Children may not obey, but children will listen
Children will look to you for which way to turn.
-- Stephen Sondheim,
* And in Michigan, some "great people" displayed swastikas, nooses, and Confederate flags to express their objection to the "tyranny" of their Governor, the lockdown and protective mask orders.
* Church (below) gets it right. Can't say the same about other places of worship whose posturing macho clergymen ridicule masks & expose parishioners to Covid-19. ( Some Trump-loving pastors & their flocks also denigrate overworked underpaid health care workers for daring to demand a fair wage.)
GREAT VIDEOS
* Watch this adorable toddler talk to her dad about her "yip-stick" and you'll want to have a baby.
* Samuel L. Jackson reads Americans a bedtime story: "Stay the F**K at Home" Love the purple togs!
* Jason Robert Brown's new song, "Sanctuary" is a heart-tug.
* Anyone over 40, will recognize the problem "Four Bitchin' Babes" sing about here.
* Swans for Relief. 32 ballet "swans" from all over the world dance in their homes to raise money for each dancer’s company’s COVID-19 relief fund
* Last time I was in China (for the UN's 1995 International Women's Decade Conference), cities outside Beijing were backward & down-at-the heels. That's how I pictured Wuhan until a friend sent me this!
HUMOR ROUND-UP
* TV anchors break up over the Covid-19 song performed by a Canadian music teacher
* The French never give up hope:
[
[Translation "That's one small step for man, one giant step for mankind." ]
Down you go, Donald. (If only....)
* New Yorker cartoonist, Mort Gerberg contributes his drawings to this issue. Thanks, Mort.
WHAT TO READ
* Sad, smart, funny, loving NYT oped by Eitan Levine who attended his 92-year-old Bubby's fill-in-the-blanks Jewish funeral and buried her with his own shovel.
* The Paris Review piece by Sabrina Orah Mark, "Fuck the Bread.The Bread is Over" attracted my interest because I haven't been able to get bread flour for six weeks, online or anywhere else. I figured the writer was similarly frustrated and might offer a secret source. But she offers much more.
* Now in paperback, Joyce Antler's JEWISH RADICAL FEMINISM: Voices From The Women's Liberation Movement. Her groundbreaking book provides a new understanding of the struggles, themes, accomplishments, and failures of my generation. It's a remarkable synthesis of landmark moments in late-20th Century Jewish feminism and an important contribution to the history of women. (And I'm proud to be in it.)
* In his new book, THE CONFLICT OVER THE CONFLICT: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, Kenneth Stern addresses free speech and academic freedom. "Some pro-Palestinian students call supporters of Israel's right to exist racist, and disrupt their events. Some pro-Israel students label pro-Palestinian students terrorists, and the Jews among them traitors. Lawsuits are filed. Legislation is proposed. Faculty members are blacklisted and receive death threats." Stern shows how we got here and what can be done.
joined the British Special Operations Executive and trained in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance.
* Just before the virus forced us into isolation, I and my former co-editors at Ms. magazine, Joanne Edgar (center) and Ellen Sweet (right), had a conversation, ironically, about community at the JCC of Manhattan.
VIRTUAL EVENTS NOT TO BE MISSED
. [Sister co-founders of MFW: Gloria Steinem, me, Marlo Thomas, Pat Carbine]
* Join the Ms. Foundation for Women's "Feminist Block Party" this Wed, May 20 at 7 PM. The Ms. Foundation is producing Roar for Women, an online, unticketed celebration and dance party. Connect with community, get inspired, and dance from the comfort of your own home because being isolated doesn't mean being alone; we are in this together.The Feminist Block Party will raise critical funds needed right now by nonprofits community organizations run by women of color in the nation’s most impacted communities.
* The Great Jewish Food Fest. Sign up and get in on the fun, main events, also happy hours, shabbats, and anytime content, like films, activity kits, and virtual tours. A cornucopia of delights! Here's the festival event schedule at a glance.
* Also on Wed, May 20th, at 7 PM EDT Jewish Currents will host a livestream discussion moderated by Peter Beinart, on how the pandemic is affecting Hasidic communities in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Register here.
DEPARTMENT OF TERRIBLE NEWS
Despite my pledge to keep you laughing during the pandemic, the following is deadly serious.
* Black light experiment shows how fast and far the virus can spread in a restaurant. Watch & worry.
* Trump's COVID policy is "close to genocide by default," says Yale epidemiologist and 2018 MacArthur Fellow, Gregg Gonsalves.
* Black men want to stay alive like the rest of us but fear that wearing anti-Covic masks could get them killed. "As the coronavirus continues to spread, infecting and killing African-Americans at disproportionately high rates, black men find themselves facing two concerns: the virus and those who see their covered faces as threatening." (NYT)* Ramp up Corona testing or die, says ten preeminent U.S. scientists
In his Atlantic article, Dr. Harold Varmus -- Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Professor at Weill Cornell, former Director of the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute -- describes the conclusion that he and nine other top scientists (David Baltimore, Mike Brown, Don Ganem, Peggy Hamburg, Richard Lifton, Marc Lipsitch, Dan Littman, Shirley Tilghman, and Bruce Walker), reached in their recent virtual meetings. Bottom line: if humanity ever hopes to reverse the growing death toll from COVID-19, governments around the world must commit immediately, urgently, and cooperatively, to full scale testing. Read the article, then make three quick calls, one to your Senator, one to your Congress member -- both at 202-224-3121-- and one to VP Mike Pence at 202-456-1414. And tell them to follow doctors' orders!
STAY SAFE. STAY STRONG. STAY HOME. -- LETTY
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