For Molly
Molly Ivins passed away at home today after a long battle with breast cancer. Her knife-sharp wit and dry humor that made “the ridiculous look ridiculous” will be terribly missed.
From Farewell, Rummy – 11/16/06:
There’s been so much in print about how Daddy 41’s people are back in the saddle, I was terrified when I saw a photo of Dan Quayle among the pack. If they’ve called back Dan Quayle to lend intellectual heft, we’re all dead ducks.
From Populists! Who’da Thunk It? – 11/23/06:
The word populist was misused, abused and co-opted by right-wingers for years, ever since we were all forced to read Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Bad history can do a powerful amount of damage. . . .
If you read back to the beginning of the populist movement, however, you will find Andy Jackson and the West set against all those dreary Eastern snobs. When Andy opened up the White House and let in the people, the snobs had the fantods.
OK, it’s not the 19th century anymore, but it is always the right time to point out that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. Honest. There stands George W. Bush, buck nekkid. We want to help him out of this fix because he’s dragging the whole Army, the country and the world down with him. But don’t ask us to call those clothes.
From Iraq Exit is Up to Us – 1/8/07:
The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck — so it’s up to us. You and me, Bubba.
I don’t know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it’s time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW.
This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it’s doubly wrong for him to send 20,0000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week.
What happened to the nation that never tortured? The nation that wasn’t supposed to start wars of choice? The nation that respected human rights and life? A nation that from the beginning was against tyranny? Where have we gone? How did we let these people take us there? How did we let them fool us?
It’s a monstrous idea to put people in prison and keep them there. Since 1215, civil authorities have been obligated to tell people with what they are charged if they’re arrested. This administration has done away with rights first enshrined in the Magna Carta nearly 800 years ago, and we’ve let them do it.
From her last column, Stand Up Against the Surge – 1/11/07:
The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue. . . .
A surge is not acceptable to the people in this country — we have voted overwhelmingly against this war in polls (about 80 percent of the public is against escalation, and a recent Military Times poll shows only 38 percent of active military want more troops sent) and at the polls. We know this is wrong. The people understand, the people have the right to make this decision, and the people have the obligation to make sure our will is implemented. . . .
We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”
Requiem in pace, Molly. The world is a little dimmer tonight, but, of a certainty, heaven is quite a bit brighter.
We’ll miss you, and we’ll continue to fight and march and annoy the powerful and the power-mad, and we will end the Shrub’s war.
Molly Ivins
1944 – 2007
Happy Birthday Ben Franklin!
Picture from Famous Philadelphians at About.com
Today is the 301st anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth.
He didn’t become a supporter of the cause for independence until 1765 and the Thomas Hutchinson Affair – the governor of Massachusetts pretended to be a supporter of the American people, but instead still worked for the King. Franklin sent home copies of letters written by Hutchinson, wherein “Hutchinson called for, ‘an abridgment of what are called English Liberties.'”
One of Franklin’s quotes is much repeated today: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
From ushistory.org:
Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on January 17, 1706. He was the tenth son of soap maker, Josiah Franklin. Benjamin’s mother was Abiah Folger, the second wife of Josiah. In all, Josiah would father 17 children.
[snip]
When Benjamin was 15 his brother started The New England Courant the first “newspaper” in Boston. Though there were two papers in the city before James’s Courant, they only reprinted news from abroad. James’s paper carried articles, opinion pieces written by James’s friends, advertisements, and news of ship schedules.
Benjamin wanted to write for the paper too, but he knew that James would never let him. After all, Benjamin was just a lowly apprentice. So Ben began writing letters at night and signing them with the name of a fictional widow, Silence Dogood. Dogood was filled with advice and very critical of the world around her, particularly concerning the issue of how women were treated. Ben would sneak the letters under the print shop door at night so no one knew who was writing the pieces. They were a smash hit, and everyone wanted to know who was the real “Silence Dogood.”
[snip]
Franklin continued his civic contributions during the 1730s and 1740s. He helped launch projects to pave, clean and light Philadelphia’s streets. He started agitating for environmental clean up. Among the chief accomplishments of Franklin in this era was helping to launch the Library Company in 1731. During this time books were scarce and expensive. Franklin recognized that by pooling together resources, members could afford to buy books from England. Thus was born the nation’s first subscription library. In 1743, he helped to launch the American Philosophical Society, the first learned society in America. Recognizing that the city needed better help in treating the sick, Franklin brought together a group who formed the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751. The Library Company, Philosophical Society, and Pennsylvania Hospital are all in existence today.
Fires were very dangerous threat to Philadelphians, so Franklin set about trying to remedy the situation. In 1736, he organized Philadelphia’s Union Fire Company, the first in the city. His famous saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” was actually fire-fighting advice.
[snip]
He started working actively for Independence. He naturally thought his son William, now the Royal governor of New Jersey, would agree with his views. William did not. William remained a Loyal Englishman. This caused a rift between father and son which was never healed.
Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress and worked on a committee of five that helped to draft the Declaration of Independence. Though much of the writing is Thomas Jefferson’s, much of the contribution is Franklin’s. In 1776 Franklin signed the Declaration, and afterward sailed to France as an ambassador to the Court of Louis XVI.
[snip]
Now a man in his late seventies, Franklin returned to America. He became President of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania. He served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and signed the Constitution. One of his last public acts was writing an anti-slavery treatise in 1789.
Franklin died on April 17, 1790 at the age of 84. 20,000 people attended the funeral of the man who was called, “the harmonious human multitude.”
Picture from The Price of Liberty is Vigilance
From whence we came – July 4, 1776
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Friday Anti-War Song
Matt mentioned this in the comments last week, and I decided it would be a great one to post, especially when one considers the number of men waiting for their 'girls' to come home from war.
At the end of the lyrics are photos of just a few of the servicewomen killed in Iraq. Go here to learn more – about them and Iraq's other female casualties, and about how women have served and continuing serving their country, in war and in peace.
*
Girl in the War — Josh Ritter
Peter said to Paul you know all those words we wrote
Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go
But now talking to God is Laurel begging Hardy for a gun
I got a girl in the war man I wonder what it is we done
Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder
Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire
But I got a girl in the war Paul the only thing I know to do
Is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through
Because the keys to the Kingdom got lost inside the Kingdom
And the angels fly around in there but we can't see them
I got a girl in the war Paul I know that they can here me yell
If they can't find a way to help her they can go to Hell
If they can't find a way to help her they can go to Hell
Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder
Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire
But I got a girl in the war Paul her eyes are like champagne
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain
*
Eileen Collins leaving NASA
Yesterday, it was announced that Eileen Collins would be leaving NASA after 16 years, in order to spend more time with family.
From the Associated Press:
Having flown in space four times, Collins said, “We have many astronauts in this office who haven’t even flown one flight. It’s time for me to step aside and give the young guys a chance to fly.”
The 49-year-old astronaut said Monday that she will leave the U.S. space agency in the next week or two and plans to devote several months to her family.
[snip]
Collins had considered leaving the space agency last year after she fearlessly led NASA’s harrowing first flight in space since the Columbia disaster in 2003. But the death of her mother last December, followed by her father’s sudden death in a traffic accident earlier this year, forced her to push back her departure date so she could finish tying up loose ends from last summer’s mission.
“I had been gone from my family and I sort of want to make it up to them this summer and spend a good summer with my family,” said Collins, the mother of a 10-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. Her husband is former Air Force pilot Pat Youngs, who flies for Delta Air Lines.
Col. Eileen Collins (USAF-Ret.) is a major source of inspiration for girls and young women throughout the US, and a huge source of hometown pride in Elmira NY – just 20 miles west of me.
Her celebrity as the first female shuttle pilot in 1995 (on Discovery) followed by becoming the first female shuttle commander in 1999 (Columbia) sparked many young girls’ interest in science and mathematics. And in other fields they might never have considered because ‘girls can’t do that.’
That sentence is one of those I absolutely detest. It’s right up there with ‘We need to talk.” and “Mom, don’t get mad.”
In 1976, when I was in first grade, I remember telling a teacher I wanted to be a race-car driver when I grew up. Her words are still imprinted on my soul: “Girls can’t do that! Wouldn’t you rather have a fun job, like secretary and then get married?”
I was crushed, completely heartbroken. I didn’t want to be no dumb secretary (no offense!) I wanted to drive fast like the guys my dad watched on TV! Six years old, and my dreams were shattered.
Even though, the very next year, Janet Guthrie became the first woman to race in the Daytona 500, that experience stayed with me, and when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, I felt like screaming with joy.
Women have done many incredible things in the 30 years since I was told I couldn’t be a race-car driver. Many of them previously thought to be ‘man-only’ territory. From the first woman astronaut to the first female commander of the space shuttle to the first female National Security Advisor. From the first female racer in the Daytona 500 to the formation of the Association of Women Industrial Designers. And much, much more! Politics, industry, film – women are everywhere!
Women are still under-represented in many areas, such as racing and space, but they are there. The female pioneers in every field fought against tremendous odds and worked – not two – but three and four times harder than any man to achieve the same goals, fighting discrimination and harassment every step of the way to gain the same respect.
I’ve raised my children, and especially my daughter, to believe that anything they dream is possible if they are willing to work hard enough for it. Dreams don’t care if you’re male or female, black or white or brown, rich or poor. What matters is the effort you put into it.
You Have Spoken
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“I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.”
– Molly Ivins, 1944-2007
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The Lady Speaks 