Paying Attention to Climate Change Before It’s Too Late

Posted on May 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

Once more the pictures say it all: Oil-covered wildlife struggle to survive. Sludge doesn’t just clog the waterways, now it slinks like a threatening snake down suburban streets. People wonder if they will recover and worry that their homes may not be livable.

The potential for disaster should a pipeline be allowed to run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico was made clear by the recent oil spill in Arkansas. It also, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said, “raises the broader question of “whether we continue to be a carbon-based economy or whether we finally recognize that if we don’t get a handle on greenhouse gas emissions that this planet is going to be facing some disastrous problems in years to come.”

Sen. Sanders told an MSNBC audience last month that according to scientists who have testified at Energy and Environment Committees, the damage coming from global warming is worse than previously thought. “What they’re now saying is if we don’t get our act together and start cutting in a very significant way greenhouse gas emissions, we’re talking about this planet heating up by eight degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That is calamitous for this planet.”

Mr. Sanders isn’t the only source of alarm. Climatepath, an organization comprised of environmental and climate scientists, lists several facts on its website that should worry us. Based on their report “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis: Contribution of Working Group I to the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC),” a group of scientists has concluded that “we have not yet seen the more dramatic changes resulting from warming, which has led many to complacency. Like a tsunami, we may not recognize the threat until it is on top of us. The truth is out there.”

Among the conclusions in the report submitted to the IPCC, the leading body for assessment of climate change established by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, are these: Fossil fuel and agriculture have drastically increased greenhouse gases, the radiant forces of increasing these gases is warming the planet, the warming will continue and accelerate if no action is taken, and it will have severe consequences.

“The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years,” the report says.

Evidence for rapid climate change is compelling. For example, global sea levels rose about 6.7 inches over the past century. The rate in the last decade is nearly double that. Global temperatures are also rising. The twenty warmest years have occurred since 1981 and all ten of the warmest years have occurred in the past twelve years.

According to an article published in The New York Times in January this year, 2012 – a year in which we saw a March heat wave, severe drought in the Corn Belt, and a huge storm that brought utter devastation to the Middle Atlantic States – was the hottest year ever recorded in the contiguous U.S.

More than 34,000 daily high records were set at weather stations across the country last year with only 6,664 record lows recorded. That ratio is seriously “out of whack,” one scientist said. “The heat was remarkable, according to another scientist with the National Climatic Data Center. “It was prolonged [and the fact] that we beat the record by [a full) degree is quite a big deal.” It certainly was a big deal for a third of the nation’s population which suffered through ten or more days of summer temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.

Last year was not only the country’s warmest year. It was also the second-worst on the Climate Extremes Index, which measures climate-linked disasters. At least eleven disasters including several severe tornadoes, Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy, and fast-moving thunder storms that killed over twenty people occurred in 2012. The estimated damage surpasses $1 billion.

The consensus seems to be that last year is a taste of things to come. The government simply must see climate change for what it is – a looming disaster requiring immediate, serious, sufficiently funded attention. Given the disbelievers on the far right, and the inability of Congress to get anything done these days, the words of famous nature photographer Ansel Adams are sobering: “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”

Horrifying,yes. But never more urgent for all of us.

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Posted in Environment & Climate Change, People, Social Issues

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This Memorial Day, Let’s Remember Women in War

Posted on May 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

Now that qualified women can enter combat officially, it’s a good time to remember the many roles women have played during wartime, whether military or civilian.

Writer Frank Moore dubbed classical women during the Civil War “Angels of Mercy” as they rolled bandages and patriotically waited for their men to come home. But he also understood that “the story of war will never be fully or fairly written if the achievements of women in it are untold.@ He knew that there were women soldiers in the Civil War, honored in DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook’s book They Fought Like Demons. The stories of hundreds of women who assumed male aliases, wore men=s uniforms, and charged into battle as both Union and Confederate soldiers are compelling. Mary Ann Pittman and Loretta Valesques, for example, both raised a company of soldiers and later became spies.

More than a hundred years later, Marge Piercy=s 1980s epic novel Gone to Soldiers offered an important portrait of women=s experiences during WWII. Writing about women who ferried airplanes for the Air Force, served as intelligence officers in Europe, worked in factories to produce war goods and more, she put a female face on the reality of war.

Later, when Vietnam nurses lobbied for recognition, a new realization of women=s contributions and trials on the front lines emerged.

Still, many a wartime heroine has gone unnoticed or been forgotten. Claire Chevrillon was one of them. An English teacher in Paris in 1942, she served in the French Resistance for three years. In 1943 she was arrested and imprisoned. AWhat I remember about arriving,@ she recalled, Awere the dark, subterranean, endless corridors through which I walked followed by a guard, as if in a nightmare.” Chevrillon survived and wrote a 1985 memoir. AThe instinct of one nation or race to dominate another doesn=t die,” she said. “It grows insidiously, feeding on private and public concern, until suddenly it=s too late to prevent disaster.@

Minnie Vautrin was an American missionary in China during the 1937 ARape of Nanking.@ Called the Goddess of Mercy for trying to save as many girls and women as possible, she repeatedly faced down threats and bayonets to provide asylum for refugees at the college she headed. A 1938 diary entry reveals her despair: AHow long will this terrible situation last? How can we bear it?@ In the end, Vautrin could not bear it. After helping women locate their husbands and sons at war’s end and teaching destitute widows how to survive, she returned to the U.S., committing suicide in 1941.

Ninety-nine Army and Navy nurses later known as the Angels of Bataan and Corregidor were captured in the Pacific by the Japanese during WWII. The first to be sent into the middle of battle, they became the only group of American women captured and imprisoned by an enemy. Before their incarceration, they helped build and staff hospitals in the middle of a malaria-infested jungle, pioneering triage nursing. Among them were women like Eleanor Garen, whose diary entry on a bad day read: AGaren, This is to yourself. Remember, life is not a bed of roses.@

An estimated eight to twelve thousand women served in the Vietnam War. Most of them were nurses; all had volunteered. Few were recognized as true veterans when they came home. One of them, Lily Jean Adams, was twenty-two years old when she worked as an intensive care nurse. She remembered what it was like comforting a dying soldier. ASometimes they would say >don=t leave me!= And I wouldn=t. I had an inner sense that this was just as important as taking care of the living.@

Women war journalists have been equally brave. Traditionally a male arena, war reporting obscured the trauma experienced by women and other civilians living in attacked areas. These noncombatants survive by fleeing to the hell of refugee camps, where sexual assault and other trauma is common. Today approximately a third of frontline journalists are female and they have a measurable influence on the content of war coverage. They follow models like Anna Benjamin, the first female photojournalist who covered the Spanish-American War, Mary Boyle O=Reilly, who was at the front in World War I, and Peggy Hull, who covered both World Wars and was the first accredited female American war correspondent.

Today women make up approximately 16% of American military forces and about 6% of veterans. Although women were not officially recognized as members of the Armed Forces until 1901, and then only as nurses, women have served in every major war in U.S. history. In WWI women who weren’t nurses could finally join the military; over 30,000 of them enlisted. During WWII women=s roles expanded and over 400 women of the 400,000 who served lost their lives. Desert Storm marked the largest deployment of women to a combat theater in U.S. history until the second Iraq war, with more than 40,000 women serving. Today women are graduating in ever larger numbers from U.S. military academies, often at the top of their class.

Frank Moore was right. The story of war will never be fully written or understood if the achievements and contributions of women are unrecognized. From soldiers to spies, nurses to Navy personnel, journalists to junior officers, veterans to wounded warrior wives, the stories of women in wartime must be told. The women at the center of those stories need to be honored, for they are women of courage, strength and resilience, not only now but as they have always been during wartime.

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A Shout Out to the Bad Girls

Posted on March 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

It seems that bad girls are back. Not only that, they’re big. For starters there’s Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the bane of Wall Street bankers, Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who has been known to wear T-shirts claiming “Lucky for me he’s an ass man!” after losing both legs in combat, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the fist openly gay woman to serve in Congress.

Tammy Duckworth

A few years ago several books celebrated bad girls, including Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Bad Girl and Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave edited by Ellen Sussman. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Ulrich was a run-away best-seller. Her title even gave rise to a now iconic slogan.

Some of my favorite novels are about bad girls. There was Madame Bovary, of course, and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening in which the protagonist, Edna, gives up her secure middle class life because, like Bovary, she can no longer survive a loveless marriage, the ennui of noblesse oblige, or an existence in which nothing meaningful ever happens. There’s Nora in Ibsen’s classic The Doll’s House who breaks out of her child-wife existence. What about Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice? She refuses to conform to social expectations for an 18th century young woman of marriageable age because she doesn’t believe in the conventions of her day. And dare I forget to mention my favorite bad girl and literary muse, Hester Prynne of Scarlet Letter fame? Imagine having an out-of-wedlock child in Puritan New England, fathered by none other than the local clergy!

Hester and Baby Pearl

Then there are the bad girls who write bad thoughts or foster bad ideas or whose female characters are bad, at least by patriarchal standards. Think of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her pals who wrote furious, articulate, reasoned treatises in favor of bad women who wanted to vote. Or Virginia Woolf,

Bad Girl Virginia Woolf

whose essays, letters and diary entries focused on gender-based injustices or on the daily lives of women. There’s Collette, Marguerite Dumas and Erica Jong, who all wrote about steamy sex. And those diarists and memoirists like Maya Angelou and May Sarton who did what poet Muriel Rukeyser challenged all women to do: tell the truth about their lives. Speaking of poets, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Sharon Olds are among the bad girls. They aired their dirty laundry in public and opened a floodgate of 20th century truth-telling along with Adrienne Rich, Tillie Olsen and Grace Paley. Oh, Lord, so many splendid bad girls! A veritable feast of Blah Blah Sisterhood!

So what drives the image and the actions of the bad girl? From a traditionally patriarchal perspective it’s not hard to figure out. Bad girls are unafraid to exercise their power and that’s scary. Joyfully claiming their sexuality, they negotiate sex and sometimes “just say no.” They speak up and speak out. They don’t always do what they’re told, or what’s expected. They shake up the status quo. (Think of it – voting women who could make a difference!) Educated women are sure to be uppity, and unite, especially if they are economically independent.

The same holds true for why bad girls behave as they do. They may be wicked, ambitious, funny, admirable or brave; they may be from different generations, cultures or races, but they have this in common: They refuse to let society inhibit their imaginations, opportunities, or goals. They will not be controlled, in body or spirit. They may suffer but they never yield to forces trying to contain them. They deny dependency, suffocation, boredom, smallness. As Emma Bovary realized before her revolt, “A man is free, at least. Free to range,…to surmount obstacles, to taste the rarest of pleasures. Whereas a woman is continually thwarted.” What bad girls seek is the freedom to be, to act, to create, to go forth and experience the world. Who among us doesn’t share that longing?

Bad girls refuse to be thwarted or diminished. Their appetite for life is large and they are not ashamed to feed the hunger. Their answer to Freud’s question – “What do women want?” – is simple. They want it all and they are willing to take risks to get as much of it as they can. So they can sometimes be outrageous, but they are also admirable and often enviable. Their essential nature is writ large upon the tablet of history and literature and whether we like it or not, they have taught us all a thing or two.

So do yourself a favor: Find a bad girl to hang out with occasionally. You never know what you might learn and you could be surprised at how much fun it is being that risqué. As one of the world’s best bad girls, Mae West, said, just “keep cool and collect.”

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The Heart of Birthing: Doulas and the Support They Offer

Posted on March 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

With the second annual World Doula Week having just ended, I’ve been reflecting once more on why I became a volunteer doula and what the work means to me.

I’m a baby freak, plain and simple. As a young candy-striper I routinely snuck into the pediatrics ward so I could rock sick kids. While my high school friends dated, I babysat. If I hadn’t been a product of the fifties, I might have considered becoming a obstetrician or a midwife. Instead I followed the path that most girls my age did: I went to college for a liberal arts degree and then became a secretary — a medical secretary.

My real career began when I became program director in 1979 for the National Women’s Health Network, a Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization dedicated to humane, holistic, evidence-based, feminist approaches to women’s health care. In 1985 I went to Nairobi for the final international conference of the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985). Inspired by that amazing event and armed with a master’s degree in health communication, I began working internationally on behalf of women and children, always trying to bring a gender lens to the table.

In the midst of all this, I gave birth twice. My children were born in the seventies as the women’s health movement, and individual women, were beginning to advocate for natural childbirth and to resist the traumas of overly-medicalized birth experiences. We took Lamaze classes, learned about nursing, expected dads to be active in our deliveries. I was lucky: not only were my labors quick and unremarkable, but the small community hospital where I delivered was sympathetic to the changes taking place in birthing. There were no monitors, no drugs “to take the edge off” if you didn’t want them, no enemas, no shaving, and no macho-docs (although I couldn’t talk my doctor out of the episiotomy). I labored with my nurse and my husband and when the time came to push, I watched my babies come into this world in total awe of what had just happened and what I had done.

Several years ago, I learned that my local hospital had a volunteer doula program. Signing up was a no-brainer and I’ve now had the honor of supporting dozens of women and their partners as they’ve done the hard work of delivering a baby. Not one of them has failed to say afterwards, “I couldn’t have done it without you!” (They could, but I’m glad to have eased their experience.)

One of the early births I attended stands out in my mind. It was a first pregnancy and the mom labored stoically for thirty-six hours, pushing for five, before her son was born. As the hours passed, I held her hand, wet her lips, wiped strands of matted hair from her eyes, rubbed her back. “You can do this,” I whispered in her ear when she grew doubtful. “You’re doing a magnificent job! Soon your baby will be born.” As the baby finally crowned, wet, dark hair pressing urgently against her, I held the mother’s leg in my arm, her hand clenching my free wrist as she cried out with that guttural groan of a woman pushing her child to life outside the womb. And suddenly, there he was, head emerging, wet and pinking up even as his perfect little body swam into being. Later, swaddled and suckling at his mother’s breast, his father, eyes wet, whispered across the bed to me, “Women’s bodies are so miraculous!”

“Yes,” I said, my own eyes filling, “Miraculous.” Always miraculous, no matter how many times you give witness, or weep yourself to see a woman giving birth.

Doula supported childbirth has been proven to reduce the incidence of c-sections, shorten the length of labor, reduce the number of medicated births, increase breastfeeding and provide higher satisfaction for mothers regarding their birth experience. As one pediatrician put it, we are “the descendants of those millions of women who gathered at bedsides around the world” to help women through labor and delivery. “Some day we may again reach a point where women rely on the traditional circle of birth-experienced [women] to ease them through childbirth. … Until then, skilled, compassionate doulas will ably stand in for them.”

That is why I feel privileged to do this voluntary work. It is simply an honor to give witness to birth, and to offer as many women as possible the opportunity to have a birth that is supported, memorable, and full of joy.

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Posted in Health, Lifestyles & Trends, Social Issues, Uncategorized, Women

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Putting an End to ‘The Woman Question’

Posted on March 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

Recently Sigmund Freud’s irritating, macho-man question – “What do women want?” – has been making a comeback. Several television programs have addressed the question in interviews and soft news stories while exploring topics ranging from work/home issues to the role of activist nuns under a new papacy. A forthcoming book on “the science of female desire” (written by a man, of course) is actually titled “What Do Women Want?” Sigmund Freud

In an attempt to lay to rest once and for all the interminable query that causes men to continue scratching their heads, here are some basic answers.

First, we want the question itself to disappear. The fact that it keeps popping up as if females were a bizarre sub-species beyond human comprehension suggests that, despite growing numbers of women in governance, board rooms, military action, and more, we remain an enigma just for wanting to be part of life in all its sectors and social spheres.

We certainly want to be free from sexual and domestic violence no matter what we wear, where we go, and whether we have a few drinks with friends. Even after horrendous reports of gang rapes in India, including that of a Swiss tourist, and the Steubenville, OH rape of a 16-year old whose hideous assault went viral we continue to find ourselves counseled to behave defensively while perpetrators of rape and other violent crimes are shielded by their churches, universities, and workplaces. Why, we ask, are males not taught boundaries, respect for women, and behavioral norms that when violated accrue serious criminal consequences? And while we’re on the topic, we want the U.S. to join other civilized nations in ratifying the U.N. Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW and to pass an Equal Rights Amendment.

We want our reproductive health and rights – our bodies – to remain in our own control, not that of opinionated, ill-informed, misogynistic men who blather on like Victorian pooh-bahs rather than 21st century humanists or civil rights advocates. That means men in Vatican Versace – think red shoes with matching chapeau – don’t get to keep us from accessing reliable contraception, or abortion if that is the agonizing, private decision we come to. Nor do Neanderthal politicians or bad boy bosses get to keep birth control pills out of reach. We are not forced to undergo medical rape or to die for the sake of a fetus as a woman in Ireland did recently. In short, as a group of brave women in Boston declared decades ago, “Our Bodies, Ourselves”!

April 9th being Equal Pay Day, we underscore that we want to earn wages equal to men. Despite some gains in workplace legislation (e.g., The Lily Ledbetter Act) we continue to be paid 77 percent, on average, of what men make even though equal pay for women is legally codified. That means a typical woman working full-time for the course of her career stands to have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in income by the age of 65. No wonder “the feminization of poverty” continues to be a pressing issue for feminist analysts and economists.

Finding ways to balance work and home demands remains a challenge in all western societies but it would be nice if we could join the list of countries striving for gender equality in this realm. In Sweden, for example, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), men spend 177 minutes a day cooking, cleaning or caring for children, although women there still spend 259 minutes a day on domestic work. In Australia, both men and women devote approximately 14 hours per day to personal care and leisure. And in France, parents of two or more children can leave employment or reduce working time after childbirth and receive a flat-rate childcare benefit for up to three years. Is it really asking too much for American women to want safe, affordable day care so that they can earn a decent living without fearing for their children?

Finally, we want a seat at the tables of decision and policy-making and a place in discussions involving post-conflict resolution. Anyone watching Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)

Kirstin Gillibrand

during recent hearings on sexual assault in the military could see the impact of having women legislators. In the business sector, even given recent gains for women as CEOs of major companies like Yahoo!, only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies had women CEOs or presidents as of 2009. And as writer Damilola Agbajobi has noted, “paying special attention to the different experiences of women and men is critical in designing successful conflict management and peacebuilding programmes.”

So, what do women want? It’s simple: Peace, personal security, a fair paycheck, the ability to parent well, and the right to rule our own bodies. Anyone who still has a problem understanding that ought to ask themselves what they want. If the answer is a win-win world, there should be no reason to resurrect Freud’s silly question, now or ever.

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Posted in People, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Uncategorized, Women

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The End of Privacy

Posted on February 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

I have long argued that the women’s health and feminist movements mounted a weak strategy when they called for “pro-choice” perspectives in the discourse over abortion. In my view, we would have greater success winning the hearts and minds of Americans during the debates that swirl around reproductive rights and abortion if we focused on everyone’s right to privacy. Think about it: medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds constitute a violation of privacy. And don’t politicians who argue in favor of such invasions of women wish to keep their sexual peccadilloes private? Who can be against privacy?

Yet, now come invasions of personal privacy on such a massive scale that the mind boggles. When the world learned about the hacking scandals carried out by Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers it was a wake-up call of sorts, but since then other hacking stories have sent chills up our spines, not the least of which was learning that the Chinese had hacked into The New York Times and other news media.

No wonder this sort of thing, not to mention the real possibility of large-scale cyber-attacks, have become the newest worry among intelligence and military communities. Indeed, computer hacking is now so pervasive that a search of the Internet will take you to sites where you can learn to hack yourself. We are all at risk of being hacked all the time.

Or of having our credit card numbers used, our social security numbers stolen, our buying proclivities shared, our screens flooded with targeted advertising based on recent online searches, our whereabouts known, and so much more. As a journalist who often conducts research via the Internet, I shudder to think how many message minders believe I’m into child porn, sexual slavery, domestic violence and now, learning how to hack computers.

Invasions of privacy are also taking place routinely at many workplaces. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, “new technologies make it possible for employers to monitor many aspects of their employees’ jobs, especially on telephones, computer terminals, through electronic and voice mail, and when employees are using the Internet. Such monitoring is virtually unregulated. Therefore, unless company policy specifically states otherwise (and even this is not assured), your employer may listen, watch and read most of your workplace communications.”

The same source reveals that medical privacy is fragile at best. Although the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 2003, known as HIPAA, set a national standard for privacy of health information, it only applies to medical records “maintained by health care providers, health plans, and health clearinghouses – and only if the facility conducts certain transactions electronically.” But a lot of health-related information exists outside of health care facilities and health plans, so it is beyond the reach of HIPAA. How much privacy you really have with respect to your medical information can depend upon where the records are located. And “confidentiality is likely to be lost in return for insurance coverage, an employment opportunity, your application for a government benefit, or an investigation of health and safety at your work site.”
Video surveillance is another way to intrude upon people as they navigate their daily lives. One BBC report written in 2006 revealed that Britain, dubbed “the most surveilled country in the world,” had at that time 4.2 million cameras poised to photograph its citizens and visitors all over the country. That’s one camera for every 14 British people. By 2016, the Surveillance Studies Network of Great Britain has predicted, “shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk.”

New York City is not far behind. Last year a new Domain Awareness System was installed that so far has 3,000 cameras in place. Developed with Microsoft, the mayor’s office touts it as “an innovative tool that has the potential to revolutionize law enforcement, intelligence and public safety operations.” Unlike simpler camera surveillance networks, the new system “instantly gives officers massive amounts of information about what they are monitoring.”

There is, of course, an argument to be made for such spying in a time of terrorism and urban crime. But there is also the legitimate worry that Big Brother has, indeed, arrived.
Whatever your point of view is on increased surveillance whether by bosses, doctors or drones, we would all be wise to watch out for hackers, identify thieves, and marketers. Given the increasingly complex and intrusive world we live in, personal privacy is a civil rights issues that bears watching. Protecting it is a choice we should all be in favor of.

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Upcoming Workshops!!!

Posted on February 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

From Harriet Tubman to Harry Potter: Exploring Our Archetypal Journeys

Thurs. April 4 and April 11, 7:00 pm to 8.30 pm
Main Street Arts, Saxtons River, Vt. (www.mainstreetarts.org)

What do King Arthur, Luke Skywalker, Harriet Tubman and Harry Potter have in common? They all have a great story to tell. But it’s more than an exciting narrative: Each of them has been on an archetypal journey – a heroic exploration, full of adventure, fraught with risk, and ultimately rich with reward. As they seek to find meaning in a complex world, each of these characters is changed forever by their experience, an experience peopled with mentors, villains, jesters, and other archetypes. This workshop will help us explore our own archetypal journeys as we reach for the “Golden Fleece” in our lives. Minimum enrollment: 6.

Main Street Arts for fee information; Register, eclift@vermontel.net or 802-869-2686.

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Identity and Culture on the Page; A Writing Workshop About Our Roots

Sat. June 8, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
The Writer’s Center, White River Junction, Vt. (www.thewriterscenterwrj.com)
$40

“By having roots, you can see the direction in which you want to go.”
Joenia Wapixana, Brazilian

Culture and tradition play a large part in shaping our individual and group identities. This workshop, which draws upon cultural traditions, rituals and experience, provides an opportunity to write about who we are and where we come from – geographically, historically, and emotionally. Whether whimsical or wise, join in crafting written explorations that takes us back to our roots.

To register or for more information: eclift@vermontel.net or 802-869-2686
(Min. 5, Max 8 participants)

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Finding the Golden Fleece — Writing Our Archetypal Journeys

Sept. 7 – 15

Rancho La Puerta, Tecate, Mexico (www.rancholapuerta.com)

Check out the Ranch, voted best destination spa in the world 2011 & 2012! Week includes 4 writing workshops and an evening talk “From Doctors to Doulas: The Art and Heart of Women’s Healing” – and that’s just from me! Lots of other offerings in this very special place. Registration not required but reservations are.

What do heroic literary figures like King Arthur and Harry Potter, or real-life people like Harriet Tubman and Harriet Beecher Stowe have in common? They all have a great story to tell. But it’s more than an exciting narrative: Each of them has been on an archetypal journey – a heroic exploration, full of adventure, fraught with risk, and ultimately rich with reward. As they seek to find meaning in a complex world, these characters or people are changed forever by experiences peopled with mentors, villains, jesters, and other archetypes. We’ll explore our own archetypal journeys as we reach for the “Golden Fleece” in our lives. Come prepared to write, share and have fun!

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Breaking Silence: Writing Our Way to the Truth of Our Lives

Oct. 18 – 20
The Strong House Inn, Vergennes, Vt. (www.stronghouseinn.com)
$325

“What would happen if just one woman told the truth about her life?” That simple question, posed by poet Muriel Rukeyser, became iconic in the 1970s, when women writers of the “Second Wave” first began telling their stories openly and honestly. Rukeyser’s answer to her own question was “The world would split apart.”

Beginning with an evening talk about the history and meaning of women’s diaries, journals and memoirs, we will explore the enforced silence of “good girls and fine ladies” that kept women marginalized and invisible for centuries — until a few brave souls among them put pen to paper, which they have done (often surreptitiously) throughout history. What will these women inspire in us as we break our own silence in order to tell some truths about our lives (without going down any dark rabbit holes)? Come prepared to be surprised by what you remember, reflect upon, write, laugh about, and share.

All inclusive Retreat Package: 2 nights lodging, 2 breakfasts, 1 lunch, 1 afternoon tea, 2 light dinners and teacher fee – $325 per person, double occupancy or $400 single.

Space is limited. Register at 802-877-3337

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The Drone Dilemma

Posted on February 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

I had to see the controversial film “Zero Dark Thirty” for myself in order to decide if, as charged, it advanced the case for “enhanced interrogation methods,” military-speak for torture. It did not, in my view. What it did was affirm the hideous and inhumane nature of torture no matter where it is carried out, and by whom. It should never be used by any country that positions itself as a moral leader.

Now I need to see the documentary “Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield.” It is likely to confirm my growing antipathy toward the ever-increasing use of drones, especially following the recently leaked memo that has alarmed so many in public and private quarters.

Reading a piece by George Monbiot in the Guardian in December made me think about drones. The essay, called “Bug Splats,” was written shortly after the Newtown massacre. Why, Mr. Monbiot, wondered, were the murders of children by a deranged man in Connecticut any more worthy of the world’s grief than the children killed in countries like Pakistan as a matter of American policy? If the victims of drone strikes are mentioned at all, he wrote, “they are discussed in terms which suggest they are less than human.” An article in Rolling Stone Magazine, he said, alleged that “people who operate drones describe their casualties as ‘bug splats’ since seeing bodies through a green video image gives them the sense of an insect being crushed.”

This is harsh and emotional stuff. So I went in search of fact and further opinion. Facts were hard to come by since much of what happens with drones is classified. But here are some things I learned. The Pentagon has about 7,000 drones. A decade ago it had 50 of them. In the 2012 budget the Obama administration asked Congress for almost $5 billion for more drones, now seen as crucial for fighting terrorism. A reported 1,900 insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal regions have been killed by American drones since 2006 and in 2011 a drone killed Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.

Here’s the problem: the United States is not at war with Pakistan or Yemen and that makes their use in these countries officially illegal. For the first time in history a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out military missions – killing people – in countries where the U.S. is not officially at war.

Proponents of drone use argue that so long as they are grounded in sound intelligence information, they enable the U.S. to attack terrorists with a fair degree of precision without risking American lives. Mistakes happen in war, they say, but not as much “collateral damage” – killing of innocents – occurs as would if bombs or troops were being used. If we didn’t use drones, they argue, what action could the U.S. take to stop Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations?

But concerns are beginning to surface as drones become more ubiquitous and more deadly. A United Nations panel led by Ben Emmerson, special investigator for the UN Human Rights Council, has begun to look at “drone strikes and other forms of remotely targeted killing.” Of particular concern are 25 selected drone strikes that have been conducted in recent years in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and the Palestinian territories. Noting that it is not only the U.S. coming under scrutiny – 50 other states have the technology to develop “active drone arsenals” – Emmerson says “it is completely unacceptable to allow the world to drift blindly toward the precipice without any agreement between states as to the circumstances in which drone strike targeted killings are lawful, and on the safeguards necessary to protect civilians.”

Such safeguards will not come soon enough for the 64 children killed during the first three years of Mr. Obama’s administration. (Drone attacks began during the Bush administration. One of them killed 69 children.) During those three years, a report by the Stanford and New York university law schools suggests, there were 259 drone strikes. They killed an estimated 569 civilians. Some say that is a conservative estimate.

It is worrying, then, that Mr. Obama’s choice to head the CIA is John O. Brennan, deputy national security advisor, a man who calls drone targets “cancerous tumors.” No wonder kids in places like Yemen are afraid to go to school and people think twice before attending weddings or funerals that might be mistaken for a gang of plotters.

Writing in the Guardian in January, Simon Jenkins sounded this alarm: “The greatest threat to world peace…is from drones and their certain proliferation. … Drones are now sweeping the global arms market [with] some 10,000 said to be in service…some reports say they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9-11.”

The threat of serious backlash looms. A Yemeni writer told The New York Times that al Qaeda recruiters “wave pictures of drone-butchered women and children.” National membership of Al Qaeda in Yemen is now three times larger than it was in 2009.

If that doesn’t worry you consider this: last February President Obama signed a law compelling the FAA to allow drone use for commercial endeavors in this country. These uses range from selling real estate to dusting crops and monitoring wildlife. Hollywood may even use drones to film and local police will be freer to deploy flying robots. While drone manufacturers drool, safety concerns increase.

I understand that drones, used with an abundance of caution for selective anti-terrorism operations, backed by stringent legislation, may be a necessary part of our arsenal. But
I can’t get the picture of those innocent children out of my mind. And no one should have to fear going to school, attending a wedding or mourning at a funeral, especially when the one being buried is a child.

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Fifty Years of Milestones for Minorities

Posted on January 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

The symbolism in President Obama’s use of bibles owned by slaves, by Abraham Lincoln and by Martin Luther King during his inauguration ceremonies offered clear and compelling testimony to a remarkable achievement over the past fifty years. We Americans can be proud. The fact that a black man was elected not once, but twice, only a generation after the civil rights movement took hold in this country is an amazing statement about what we are capable of. Watching Mr. Obama take the oath of office amidst throngs representative of America’s diversity was a moment that will long be remembered by historians and long be cherished by those of us who served as witnesses to our time.

The changing face of America is present as we consider other milestones representing progress over the last fifty years. Not the least of these momentous events relate to women’s struggle for equality. Fifty years ago, for example, a report issued by the President’s Commission on the Status of Women – a body established by John F. Kennedy two years earlier – documented substantial discrimination against women in the workplace and made specific recommendations for improvement. These included fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave, and affordable child care – extraordinary ideas in their time. Congress passed the Equal Pay Act making it illegal for employers to pay a woman less than a man for the same job. We may not be there yet on all of these measures, but we are well on our way.

Diversity,

The year1963 also saw publication of Betty Friedan’s iconic book The Feminine Mystique, an examination of women’s lives after WWII that ignited the women’s movement known as second wave feminism. Friedan, a journalist who had researched what became of women in her graduating class from Smith College, set off a firestorm of feminist angst when she wrote about “the problem that has no name.” She was referring to the depression and sense of isolation college-educated women trapped in post-war American suburbs were experiencing. Friedan went on to co-found the National Organization for Women (NOW) which led to the formation of other feminist organizations that continue to fight for women’s equality and human rights.

In the prologue to her book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution Susan Brownmiller wrote about the birth of the women’s movement. Her words now seem prescient within a wider context: “Although I can speak with confidence of a beginning, of certain documented rebellions sparked by a handful of visionaries with stubborn courage, there were antecedents to those rebellions … This is how things happen in movements for social change, in revolutions. They start small and curiously …a barely observable ripple that heralds a return to the unfinished business of prior generations [emerges]. If conditions are right, if the anger of enough people has reached the boiling point, the exploding passion can ignite a social transformation.”

The second inauguration of President Obama, it seems to me, is a beginning, a start to something as new and fragile as a newborn baby, but a baby that will thrive and grow so long as it is nourished, well cared for, loved, and guided toward healthy development as it matures into own identity. There was something in the air that sunny January day, something quietly powerful that began to take hold. It wasn’t the wild enthusiasm wrapped in impossible expectations we saw four years ago. Rather, it was an almost somber knowing that something positive and full of potential was afoot. We sensed ourselves on the verge of a finer America in the words Mr. Obama spoke. We saw the real possibility of the kind of change that is within our grasp.

In part that is because of rapidly changing demographics, a new sense of urgency about the earth we live on and the world we inhabit, a newly emerging set of priorities, and a Republican party that has become the architect of its own demise. But beyond that, I believe there is something we are poised to become, something that calls forth our better natures, something that the Mayans might have meant when they said the end of 2012 would bring forth a new era.

I know how hard it will be to achieve the kind of future I’m suggesting might be on the horizon. But I think there are visionaries with enough courage who can serve as the successors to previous rebellions that changed the course of history.

We can start small and begin that ripple “that heralds a return to the unfinished business of prior generations.” We don’t even have to reach the boiling point. Our “exploding passion” can carry us forward. The best part is we can all be counted among the visionaries. All we need is enough courage to ignite the social transformation that seems to have already begun.

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Can Chuck Hagel Bring Some Sanity to the Middle East?

Posted on January 26, 2013 | Leave a comment

The brouhaha surrounding the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense seems, finally, to have abated following key endorsements from two Jewish senators, Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). He is likely now to be confirmed.

Oops! Should I have said two “pro-Israel senators?”

At the risk of being deluged with hate mail from friends, relatives and strangers, de-friended on Facebook, and Twitter-chastised, I confess that I have yet to grasp entirely why Mr. Hagel’s use of the term “Jewish lobby” set off quite the firestorm it did. (Calling that particular group “intimidating” wasn’t entirely off the mark either, although I’d counsel caution on that one.) After all, he didn’t say “Jew lobby.”

I understand, of course, that the pro-Israel lobby is comprised of both Jewish and non-Jewish folks and suggests a more politically palatable term. But c’mon – Chuck Hagel is no anti-Semite. He is a man of considerable judgment who speaks his mind, and apologizes when the words he uses could have been better chosen. In short, he is smart, seasoned, and sensitive to a number of issues about which some pro-Israel activists might rather put their heads in the sand. In my (Jewish) book, he is a mensch.

Sadly, I cannot claim the same sentiment when it comes to Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Anyone in political leadership who acts in such a way that six key western nations summon Israel’s ambassadors to explain their country’s actions is behaving badly. He is also raising serious questions about his motives and leadership skills.

The ambassadors were called to account in December when Netanyahu threw a temper tantrum because the United Nations upgraded the status of the Palestinians within its august chambers. Netanyahu reacted by immediately announcing plans for increased settlement construction in a contested area called E1, thereby fueling growing frustration internationally with Israeli policies that put at huge risk any hope of a two-state solution for peace in the Middle East.

Building 3,000 more housing units in E1, which is comprised of parts of East Jerusalem and land around the West Bank, would partially separate the northern and southern West Bank, thus harming prospects for a Palestinian state in that territory. Right-wingers in the Likud Party immediately defended the action while an Israeli watchdog group sounded an alarm.
In an AP story appearing in the Washington Post last month, the group Peace Now said, “a review of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement policies shows a clear intent to prevent the creation of a viable Palestinian state by stepping up construction in strategic areas.” According to the report, the Israeli government has advanced plans for thousands of housing units to be built, which aerial photos, field visits and official reports seem to confirm.
These actions may have won Mr. Netanyahu the recent election, but his defiance and stubborn disregard for human rights and peace efforts have put Israel in an increasingly isolated position.

That will make the job of any Secretary of Defense (and Secretary of State) far more challenging in coming months. That’s one reason it’s important to have people in those positions who can operate from broad-based experience, who exercise both intelligence and compassion, and who can take a prospective approach to reconciliation rather than an ideologically-driven one grounded in fear, retribution, and hyperbolic alarms.

For that reason, I’m with J-Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace organization, in standing behind Chuck Hagel. I, too, see him as a “thoughtful voice in Washington for two decades on questions of American Mideast policy,” and as being someone committed to the State of Israel and its security while at the same time working toward a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ok, Facebook, phone lines, and Twitter, I’ve said it, so let the moaning and messaging begin – this Jewish lobby of one is ready.

So, I’m sure, is Chuck Hagel.

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