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Author: SeniorWomenWeb
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From the CDC: When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated You Can ……..For the 30,000,000 Who Have Been Vaccinated
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Jo Freeman Reviews The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage and Justice
The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage and Justice
By Gayle Tzemach LemmonNew York: Penguin Press, 2021, xviii + 254 pages
Hardcover $27.00To purchase Directly: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/591561/the-daughters-of-kobani-by-gayle-tzemach-lemmon/Reviewed by Jo FreemanEvery feminist should read this book. So should those in the military, particularly those who think, or used to think, that women don’t belong on the front lines of war. The protagonists in this book are women fighters and commanders in a Kurdish militia.To understand it you do have to know something about Kurds and Kurdistan, of which most of us are only vaguely aware. Spread out over four countries in western Asia, the Kurds, at different times, have tried to become a separate state, or to just be allowed to govern their own people, speak their own language and practice their own culture within existing states.Written as narrative non-fiction, this book reads like a novel, but is based on factual reportage. The author is an American descendant of a Kurdish immigrant who has written about this region for years. Her main subjects are four women in the YPJ – a Kurdish acronym for Women’s Protection Units. They are organized separately from the male YPG, though they carry the same weapons, get the same training and do the same jobs.Their ideological leader is Abdullah Ocalan, one of the founders of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), whose writings blend ideas from Marxism-Leninism, Kurdish nationalism and women’s liberation. He insists that a society can’t be free unless women are free.These ideas are totally opposed by the enemy in this book, which is the Islamic State, aka ISIS, ISIL and Daesh. A fundamentalist Islamic group trying to form a worldwide caliphate and return to the golden age of the Seventh Century, it’s been designated a terrorist organization by the UN and many others.One theme throughout is ISIS’ treatment of women as slaves. There are multiple stories of women inside ISIS lines being bought and sold, kept in cages and harshly punished for showing the slightest bit of skin. Some join the YPJ once they are liberated.The US wants to extinguish ISIS, but can’t put troops on the ground to do so. It provides air support – supplies, ammunition and bombs – to the Kurds because it has the necessary troops and commitment. Several Americans are figures in this book, acting as advisors and calling in planes.Lurking in the background is Turkish hostility toward the Kurds, especially the PKK, which it sees as a terrorist group threatening Turkey’s territorial integrity. The YPG insists that it is not part of the PKK, but Turkey doesn’t believe it. Ocalan was a founder of both and both pay homage to his ideas.The action takes place roughly between 2011 and 2019, though there are plenty of detours into history. It’s sparked by the Syrian civil war, which grew out of the Arab spring. This is not a two-sided conflict like ours was but one of multiple and shifting sides. The Kurdish campaign added a heavy dose of pepper to a political and military stew. Indeed, the Kurds don’t care who rules Syria, as long as they can rule themselves.Kobani was a city of 45,000 in the Kurdish region of Syria right on the Turkish border. It is the scene of a major battle, but not the hometown of any of the protagonists. There are other major battles, the last of which is the taking of Raqqa – the capitol of ISIS.The book ends with victory on the battlefield. The Kurdish militias, supported by American bombing raids, drive ISIS troops out of northern Syria. Victory quickly turns sour. Turkey invades. It captures a long ribbon of Syria right over the border, and systematically cleanses the territory of Kurds.The true victors are the women. When the author visited in 2018 and 2019 she saw women everywhere doing most everything. They inspired other young women, not just Kurds, to reach beyond traditional roles for women and pushed their families to let women out into the world. The women’s councils were still intact. Women still co-chaired important civic bodies. The daughters of Kobani had opened doors and women and girls were pushing through.
©2021 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.com -
Stateline Nevada State Senator Pat Spearman and Birth Control Prescriptions: Women Gain Record Power in State Legislatures
Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman has led legislation to passage as the party’s chief majority whip. A record number of women have taken leadership roles in state legislatures, meaning they can not only add to the conversation, but in many cases control which conversation is being had. J. Scott Applewhite The Associated Press
This story has been updated to correct the title of Kelly Dittmar and to accurately reflect the number of states with female house speakers.
Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman, a Democrat and chief majority whip, successfully shepherded legislation in 2020 requiring pharmacists to honor 12-month doctors’ prescriptions for birth control pills, over the objections of some male lawmakers.
“We had men on a committee making statements like, ‘if you give them a whole year’s supply, they are going to sell them,’” Spearman recalled in a phone interview. “People don’t get them to sell them, they get them to use them.”
Women in the Nevada legislature, the only one with a female majority, brought focus to the issue, Spearman said.
“There’s no doubt that it would not have gotten done [in 2020] had women not held power,” she said.
That bill and others addressing the disproportionate number of Black women who die in childbirth and designating areas for nursing mothers, for example, “sailed through because we had women on the committees who understood what they were talking about,” Spearman said.
A similar birth control bill was sponsored in Virginia in 2017 by state Rep. Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat. Over the next few years, Filler-Corn also took on other women’s issues. She successfully put into law a requirement that campus police investigating sexual assault crimes undergo sensitivity training, and stopped internal ultrasound requirements as a prerequisite to abortions.
Filler-Corn is now the speaker. She presided over the House of Delegates when Virginia became the 38th and final state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 2020.
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Baseball’s Peerless Semipros: The Brooklyn Bushwicks of Dexter Park, Journal of Sport History and My Experience at That Park
Editor’s (Tam Martinides Gray) note: Last night I watched — on television — the San Francisco Giants play their rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, winners of the 2020 National League Championship title. They played in Arizona, where the Giants hold their spring training and the game ended in a tie. But it was another location I thought about in Brooklyn, and a game that featured guest Hank Greenberg, a well-known player that my father admired. At that time, Greenberg was retired, I believe, but the fans at the Dexter Park, crowded the stands to see him. Last year, I wrote a brief article, A Baseball Story You Might Not Have Heard About an American Catcher and Spy for the OSS and thought this year I might follow it up with an lengthy excerpt from a review of a book about the Brooklyn Bushwicks.
Dexter Field was illuminated in 1930, former horse race track and stock car track, famous for hosting the Brooklyn Bushwicks; CaptJayRuffins
Cooley, Will. (2010). Baseball’s Peerless Semipros: The Brooklyn Bushwicks of Dexter Park (review). Journal of Sport History. 37. 289-290. 10.1353/sph.2010.0042. In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt of the content:
“In Baseball’s Peerless Semipros: “The Brooklyn Bushwicks of Dexter Park, independent historian Thomas Barthel documents the history of one of the biggest spectator draws in New York City during the first half of the twentieth century. The semipro Brooklyn Bushwicks rarely left their home of Dexter Park near the Queens/Brooklyn border, and for good reason. The Bushwicks seldom played in an organized league, and in their best attendance years they averaged 15,000 paying customers for Sunday doubleheaders.
“Even as minor league and semipro baseball declined in the 1940s, the Bushwicks still outdrew the big league Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Braves in 1945.
“Max Rosner, the team’s innovative owner, was a Jewish immigrant from Austria-Hungary. He kept the turnstiles spinning by advertising “Big League Baseball at Workingman’s Rates” (p. 18). In the team’s early days Rosner subverted the city’s Sabbath Statute by offering free admission and charging for a scorecard, which conveniently cost the same as regular admission. The circumvention did not always work, and Rosner reportedly spent many afternoons in jail waiting for his friends to bail him out.
“He also pioneered night baseball in the city in 1930 (five years before the Cincinnati Reds held Major League Baseball’s first nocturnal contest), allowing even more working people to attend games. Rosner understood that if he put a quality product on the field many area fans were willing to buy the cheaper ticket at nearby Dexter Park.
“The Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium were seventy-five minute trips for Bushwick residents, and even a Dodgers game required taking four different subway trains. Bushwick fans were pleased with what they saw from Rosner’s nine, even though a group of hardcore fans know as the “tenants” cheered lustily against the home team. The roster usually included a mix of three to five men with major league experience, locals who chose to stay near home rather than endure the grind of the minor leagues, up-and-coming prospects, and semi-pro regulars. The Bushwicks were paid well for these “second jobs”; in 1929 position players earned $30-$50 per Sunday, or the equivalent of the weekly pay of a factory worker. Rosner scheduled the best semipro squads, black teams, and barnstormers, yet the Bushwicks typically took three-quarters of these contests.
“Barthel’s account is basically a year-by-year overview of Bushwick baseball and does not engage with existing historiographies. Yet historians of sport and race may find some useful nuggets here. In contrast to the lily-white, all-male confines of Major League Baseball, Dexter Park featured players from many different backgrounds. Though the Bushwicks did not employ any African-American players, Buck Lai, a Hawaiian-Chinese infielder was a longtime stalwart. Large crowds attended games against the University of Japan and Meiji University. In 1937 the Hawaiian All-Stars came to Dexter Park with pitcher Jackie Mitchell, the “girl wonder from Chattanooga” whom Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned from professional baseball in 1931 (p. 138). In addition, frequent contests with Negro League teams provided the stiffest competition for the Brooklyn club.
“Newspaper accounts showed the race-making/unmaking that occurred in Dexter Park. One writer connoted racial difference by referring to the Cuban Stars as the “mezzo-tinted athletes from the oasis of the Atlantic” (p. 71). However, many journalists were impressed by the Stars’ play. “Call it the great national pastime if you must,” a local columnist stated, “but all afternoon these Havana bred baseballers kept giving lessons to their American rivals” (p. 113). Games against black teams prompted writers to trade in stereotypes over the supposed comedic aspects of black baseball and how “colored teams” were able to withstand the heat better than whites but also brought out appreciation for Negro League skills. A sports editor noted that “without the sepia-tinged opposition” the Bushwicks would have no decent competition because they beat “the average Nordic combination in the same manner as a cat eliminates a mouse” (pp. 63, 75-76).”
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Medicare Covers FDA-approved COVID-19 Vaccines; You Pay Nothing For the COVID-19 Vaccine
Editor’s Note: Don’t forget to carry the card confirming you received the vaccine, whether it came in two doses or just one; request it.
Medicare covers FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines.
Your costs in Original Medicare
You pay nothing for the COVID-19 vaccine. You won’t pay a deductible or copayment, and your provider can’t charge you an administration fee to give you the shot.What it is
A COVID-19 vaccine helps reduce the risk of illness from COVID-19 by working with the body’s natural defenses to safely develop protection (immunity) to the virus.
Things to know
- Be sure to bring your red, white, and blue Medicare card so your health care provider or pharmacy can bill Medicare. You’ll need your Medicare card even if you’re enrolled in a Medicare Advantage Plan.
- If you fill out a form to get the vaccine, you may be asked for your insurer’s group number. If you have Part B, leave this field blank or write “N/A.” If you have trouble with the form, talk with your vaccine provider.
- Medicare also covers COVID-19 tests, COVID-19 antibody tests, and COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatments.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are distributing the vaccine to federally and state-approved locations to start the vaccination of priority groups. Each state has its own plan for deciding who they’ll vaccinate first and how residents can get vaccines. Contact your local health department for more information on COVID-19 vaccines in your area. Learn more about COVID-19 vaccine progress.
Be alert for scammers trying to steal your Medicare Number. Medicare covers the vaccine at no cost to you, so if anyone asks you for your Medicare Number to get early access to the vaccine, you can bet it’s a scam.
Here’s what to know:
- You can’t pay to put your name on a list to get the vaccine.
- You can’t pay to get early access to a vaccine.
- Don’t share your personal or financial information if someone calls, texts, or emails you promising access to the vaccine for a fee.
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Jo Freeman Reviews Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells
REVIEW
Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. WellsMichelle Duster and Hannah GiorgisNew York: One Signal Publishers, 2021, 168 pagesBy Jo FreemanThis is a pretty book. It has lots of colorful paintings, photographs and colored printing inside the book as well as on the cover. While it is written as a book for adults, its look and feel is more oriented toward children.For those who don’t know, Ida B. Wells was an important writer and activist. She was born in 1862 in Mississippi and died in 1931 in Chicago. She lost her parents in the 1878 yellow fever epidemic. Wanting to keep her siblings together, Ida got a job as a teacher at age 16 to earn the money to support them. She later took some of them to Memphis where she shifted from being a teacher to a writer. She is primarily known for her tracts against lynching, which led to her being run out of town in 1892.Pieces of Ida’s story are in this book, but not as a cohesive biography. Written by Ida B. Wells’ great granddaughter, it tells a story, but not history, let alone herstory. It’s more of a collection. There are excerpts from Wells’ diary and her autobiography (which may be the same document), references to her own extensive articles and publications, paragraphs from her FBI file (apparently started before there actually was an FBI) and many digressions.You find bits and pieces from the author’s personal history; descriptions of various race atrocities including many that happened long after Wells died (e.g. the Central Park Five); black heroes ranging from Frederick Douglass to Colin Kaepernick; important black women (e.g. Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris). There is a long section on memorials: *streets and buildings named after Ida as well as various acknowledgments of her importance.There are some gaps. Very little is said about her frequent work for woman suffrage beyond a few swipes at white suffragists and sixties feminists. There is nothing about her extensive work for the Republican Party, such as being the official Hoover campaign Organizer of Negro Women for Illinois in 1928. There is a little bit on her husband (Ferdinand Barnett) who was the first black assistant state’s attorney in Illinois, but not much on the four children they raised in an elegant home they owned on Chicago’s South Side. Ida B. hyphenated her last name after her 1895 marriage (Wells-Barnett), but in this book she is Wells.The only thing that is chronological is a ten-page section in the middle of the book on “400 Years of Progress” with bullets from 1619 to 2020. These have special emphasis on Ida B. – i.e. 2011 “Ida inducted into Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.” Not in this section is the year a poem was written describing Ida as the “Queen of our race” which gave birth to the subtitle.There are too many factual inaccuracies scattered throughout the book to read it as history. Other statements beg for explanation. Some facts are twisted to conform with the author’s point of view. This book reads more like a very long Opinion column, though multiple columns with the same theme would be more accurate. Indeed, one comes away with a deep sense of the anger and bitterness that black women, especially the author, feel toward whites today, let alone during the time of Ida B. As an emotional history, it doesn’t sound like much has changed, despite the 400 years of progress.Fortunately, this book has an index, which are becoming scarce today.©2021 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomen.comGuide to the Ida B. Wells Paper 1884-1976, © 2009 University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center, 1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, Ida B. Wells, (1862-1931) teacher, journalist and anti-lynching activist. Paper contain correspondence, manuscript of Crusade for Justice: the Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, diaries, copies of articles and speeches by Wells, articles and accounts about Wells, newspapers clippings, and photographs. Also contains Alfreda M. Duster’s (Wells’ daughter) working copies of the autobiography which Duster edited. Correspondents include Frederick Douglass and Albion Tourgee. Includes photocopies of correspondence of Wells’ husband Ferdinand Barnett and a scrapbook of newspapers articles written by him. -
Jill Norgren Reviews The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again … An intriguing book about change and turning points
The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can DO It Again
By Robert D. Putnam with Shaylyn Romney Garrett
Published by Simon & Schuster, 2020, 463 pgs.
Reviewed By Jill Norgren
Writing from a peninsula in Maine history professor Heather Cox Richardson gathered a readership of “paralyzing” numbers, posting essays on Substack about the present day seen through the lens of American history and values. Richardson, fifty-eight, told The New York Times, “I’m an older woman and I’m speaking to other women about being empowered.” In this year of pandemic, using the Internet, she has created a sizeable community.
From San Francisco Steve Huffman, the head of Reddit, the social news discussion website, also builds community. In an interview Huffman said that his company believes in and supports hundreds of thousands of virtual communities — communities “that provide a sense of belonging and connection as real as the ones we make offline.”
Community. What is it, how is it formed and sustained? From the perspective of politics, how do the organized ways that people participate in a society’s civic life sustain or diminish democratic institutions? Is the notion of common cause just political rhetoric? How does a society build and reinforce “the character of its members through the community’s moral voice” if society speaks with several — not one — authentic moral voices? Hillary Clinton asserts that it takes a village to raise a child, but what happens when the parents support gun control and village members all belong to the NRA?
In 2000, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam sobered readers of his book Bowling Alone with a deft analysis of 20th century social change. The United States, he wrote, had become a society of citizens disconnected from one another as well as important social structures such as the PTA, church, unions, and political parties. We were, as in the title of his now classic book, bowling alone. Putnam’s pronouncement set off a firestorm of argument. Many Americans believed he had identified a real and terrifying turn of events, an undeniable implosion of community and national well-being.
The book has readers of every political stripe. Its conclusions resonated: Only recently former President Barack Obama told The New York Times that “the normative glue that holds us together … has frayed … atomization and loneliness and the loss of community have made our democracy vulnerable.” Yet others have insisted that the bonds of civic culture are strong, consisting both of new ones including multi-faceted environmental and social justice movements and traditional connections of our everyday life [Key Club, Nextdoor, book groups, cycling clubs rather than bowling leagues, kids’ soccer, school boards, consciousness raising, local food and drink hangouts, gyms, Change.org, voter registration drives … a list without end].
Months before the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol, Putnam published a new, provocative study of the state of U.S. civic life. Written with Shaylyn Romney Garret, The Upswing: How American Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, uses data from a long sweep of American history to demonstrate how we have gone from “an individualistic ‘I’ society to a more communitarian ‘we’ society and then back again.” We are presently in an “I” era but they argue that the lessons of history, specifically the Progressive era of the early twentieth century, suggest the United States could regain its “we” identity and become a more egalitarian, more cooperative, and more generous society.
Putnam and Garrett’s first “I” moment is the nineteenth century Gilded Age: ambition, excess, the building of American capitalist institutions created a culture and moral stance that glorified the individual. Over several decades in the late nineteenth and twentieth century, however, reform groups, union people, and third parties insisted that economic inequalities, lack of rights for women and children, and racial injustice need not define the United States. The Progressive era of the early twentieth century gave the United States a foundation of laws (tax and other), community activism (including racial and gender), church attendance, and union membership upon which was built, the authors argue, a more egalitarian, cooperative, and inclusive “we” society.
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Update: Examining the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Part II Joint Full Committee Hearing, Part II, March 3rd
Tear Gas outside United States Capitol, Flickr, Tyler Merbler; January 6, 2020
https://www.c-span.org/video/?509061-1/joint-oversight-hearing-security-failures-attack-us-capitol
FEBRUARY 23, 2021
Joint Oversight Hearing on Security Failures During Attack on U.S. Capitol
The Senate Rules and Administration Committee and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hold a joint oversight hearing on security failures during the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
FEBRUARY 23, 2021Watch from beginning
Editor’s Note: If you regularly tune into or record news stations/channels such as C-Span, CNN, MSNBC, Fox and other sources you may have recorded these hearings which we highly recommend.
The New York Times, February 23, 2021: “Three former top Capitol security officials and the chief of the Washington police blamed federal law enforcement and the Defense Department on Tuesday for intelligence failures ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and for slow authorization of the National Guard as the violence escalated. ” ‘None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occurred,’ former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund told senators who are investigating security failures related to the attack. He called the riot ‘the worst attack on law enforcement and our democracy that I have seen’ and said he witnessed insurrectionists assaulting officers not only with their fists but also with pipes, sticks, bats, metal barricades and flagpoles. ‘These criminals came prepared for war,’ Chief Sund said.”
Examining the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Part II
Joint Full Committee Hearing
March 03, 2021 10:00 AMLocation: SD-G50 Dirksen Senate Building
Witnesses
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Melissa SmislovaSenior Official Performing the Duties of the Under SecretaryOffice of Intelligence and AnalysisU.S. Department of Homeland Security
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Jill SanbornAssistant Director, Counterterrorism DivisionFederal Bureau of InvestigationU.S. Department of Justice
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Robert G. SalessesSenior Official Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense and Global SecurityU.S. Department of Defense
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Major General William J. Walker, USACommanding GeneralDistrict of Columbia National Guard
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IGS* Poll: The Troubling Political Dimension of the Coronavirus in California
Republicans in California are about evenly divided on whether or not to get the COVID-19 vaccination, while Democrats and voters with no party affiliation are much more likely to seek it, says a new Berkeley IGS poll. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
As California struggles to bring the deadly COVID-19 pandemic under control, the state’s Republican voters are far less likely to seek a vaccine and express less support for small businesses, health care workers and other at-risk workers, according to a new poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS).
Only 58% of Republican voters surveyed say they are very or somewhat likely to seek the vaccine, compared to 88% among Democrats and 72% among those with no party affiliation. More than one-third of Republicans — 37% in all — say they are somewhat or very unlikely to seek the vaccine, compared to 8% of Democrats and 22% of those with no party .
The poll described the Californians’ attitudes on the pandemic as “highly politicized,” and found that Republicans are more likely to see vaccinations as a matter of personal choice, rather than as a shared responsibility to protect the health of all Californians.
“COVID has brought to the forefront a tension between values about the individual and the community,” said IGS co-Director Cristina Mora. But underlying that longstanding partisan disagreement, she said, are racial tensions and even a disagreement about whether the threat of the pandemic is real.
[Read the full Berkeley IGS poll, “The troubling political dimension of the coronavirus in California”]
An IGS poll last May found similar partisan divisions: Supporters of then-President Donald Trump were less concerned that they might infect others and more worried about the economy. Voters generally agreed on the importance of washing their hands, but were polarized about other core strategies to slow the spread of the virus, including shelter-in-place orders and the economic lockdown.
Since the early days of the pandemic, the virus has exacted a deadly toll: Nearly a half-million Americans have died, 47,000 of them in California.
The new poll, conducted from Jan. 23-29, suggests that the sharp partisan divisions have persisted, reflecting not just a split in perceptions of COVID-related risk, but a divergence in values about the role of individuals in their communities.
- Financial relief for small businesses: Overall, 52% of California voters favor government aid to small businesses so that they can shut down and protect the owners and employees, while 42% say government should allow businesses to remain open. Among Democrats, 73% favor financial aid. Only 16% of Republicans agree, while eight out of 10 prefer that government allow small businesses to remain open.
- Hazard pay for at-risk workers: Among Republican voters, 48% support “hazard pay” for grocery store employees, teachers and other front-line workers; 42% are opposed. Such measures win support from 92% of Democrats and 78% of those with no party preference.
- Risks faced by health care workers: 94% of Democrats and 81% of those with no party preference are very or somewhat worried that medical workers will become exhausted and reach their breaking point. Among Republicans, 69% share that concern, while 28% say they’re not worried.
- Wearing face masks: Only four in 10 Republicans express worry about people not wearing face masks, compared to 86% of Democrats and 69% of those with no party identification. Among Republicans, 58% say they are not worried about those who don’t wear masks. Overall, 70% of voters say they are very or somewhat worried about those who don’t wear masks.
- Personal choice vs. community responsibility: Among Democrats, 78% say it is “everyone’s responsibility” to get vaccinated to help protect the health of other people, followed by 57% of those with no party preference. Among Republicans, 28% agree, but 69% call it a matter of personal choice.
The medical impacts of COVID-19 have fallen disproportionately on people of color, Mora said, and underlying racial tensions also have a bearing in the survey findings.
“Those who say they’re Democrats are much more racially diverse than those who say they’re Republicans,” she explained. “And if you look at the world, those who are grocery store clerks and those who are teachers — they are much more diverse.”
Those underlying tensions, compounded by the pressure of the pandemic, has had the power to creating surprising shifts in party values. For example, she said, “we think of Republicans as pro-business and pro-small business, and Democrats being less so” — but that’s reversed in the new poll.
When Republicans argue that they prefer to support small business by allowing them to remain open, or when they do not support hazard pay for high-risk workers, that may seem a familiar ideological position. But in effect, she said, that goes beyond ideology into a more troubling realm.
“The only way you can have that stance,” she said, “is if you don’t think this virus is very real.”
The latest Berkeley IGS Poll was conducted in English and Spanish from Jan. 23-29 among a random sample of 10,358 registered voters across California. The UC Berkeley Othering and Belonging Institute teamed with IGS to carry out the research.
*Institute of Governmental Studies; University of California, Berkeley
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Magazines and the American Experience: Highlights from the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D
Can’t make it to the physical exhibition? There is a digital version available at https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exh…/show/american-magazines. Reservations are free of charge but must be made at least 48 hours in advance via https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com.
The Grolier Club: We are pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition in our first floor gallery: “Magazines and the American Experience: Highlights from the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D.” The exhibition will run through April 24, 2021.
Reflecting the broad spectrum of American culture, printed magazines from the 18th through 21st centuries have both driven and documented the American experience. The Grolier Club’s winter exhibition, “Magazines and the American Experience,” lays out a chronological history of periodical print media in the United States, highlighting specific genres, topics and events using approximately 200 rare and unique magazine issues.
In the colonial era, magazines were the clarions of American thought and identity; the first successful magazine from the eighteenth century proudly proclaimed itself as The American Magazine in 1744, and the first printed statement of American independence appeared in The Pennsylvania Magazine in June 1776. As magazine publication expanded in both number and scope, they fostered the development of distinct communities of Americans by creating extensive networks of communication between people who otherwise would not have been in contact with one another. In studying magazines’ development, we learn the histories of American farmers and tradesmen; women and children; poets, humorists and artisans; reformers and religious groups of every denomination and ethnicity.
Periodicals remain today a valuable and irreplaceable source of information about the American experience. Co-curated by Grolier member and collector Steven Lomazow, M.D., and fellow Grolierite and freelance cataloguer and librarian Julie Carlsen, the exhibition is arranged in two sections. The first presents a chronological history of American culture in magazines from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The second celebrates the broad spectrum of American culture, including cases devoted to great American artists and humorists, the progress of Black culture and equality, a salute to our national game of baseball, and the development of radio, television and motion pictures.
The accompanying exhibit catalogue is an important source of publishing history and a tribute to this great American art form. It includes a series of essays on the history of American magazines, as well as studies of specific genres, written by leading experts in their field. The book is illustrated with more than 400 color images of the first issues and highlights of the most important periodicals in American history. It is available for purchase at https://www.oakknoll.com/pages/books/135333/steven-lomazow/magazines-and-the-american-experience-highlights-from-the-collection-of-steven-lomazow-m-d.
Dr. Lomazow has been collecting American periodicals since 1972, with his holdings now recognized as the finest magazine collection in private hands; and he has authored books, blogs, and catalogues on the subject.
Editor’s Note. My mother, Catherine Meendsen Martinides who rose from secretary to Comptroller, was one of the first four employees of Parents’ Magazine. I was an employee of Time Magazine and retired as a Senior Reporter.
