ONE IN A MILLION – EVEN IN THIS GREAT NEW GENERATION: JEN LEMEN GOES TO RWANDA

Stick with me on this — there’s a something of an introduction required.

I’ve met many remarkable women in my life. Many. I participated in and then covered the Women’s Movement of the 70’s and 80’s, known at least a little bit Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, members of the Our Bodies, Ourselves co-op, women in the House and Senate and Civil Rights Movement and peace movement and McCarthy campaign. Early pioneers in broadcast journalism, the women who sued the New York Times for equal pay and work, the women who led Choice activities for decades, presidents of NOW and NARAL; heroines of Ms Magazine and the Women’s Media Center — and once, Patti Smith. You get the idea. Somehow, for many my age, those are THE leaders of women’s empowerment. That’s all she wrote.

Nope.

There’s an entire new tribe now, and they are remarkable. Of course, the women of BlogHer lead the pack – their (our?) mutual respect, gifted voices and astonishing growth are a very exciting part of the 21st Century — and one member of this tribe is about to embark on a remarkable journey.

Her name is Jen Lemen. She’s going to Rwanda. I can’t begin to describe the project; read it here. But since I’m going to ask you to take part, you should know about Jen. If I can figure out how to tell you. The first time I heard her name, at last year’s BlogHer, it was being evoked from the stage by one of the founders of BlogHers Act, Cooper Munroe, in a closing discussion of the new effort to support women’s health. Jen had, in thanks and encouragement for Cooper’s (and her partner Emily’s) vision, presented her with a bracelet that said "Isn’t it amazing what one woman and her friends can do…" It’s so typical of Jen that she would find the one gift to move this human dynamo so deeply. And now, the words on that bracelet are true of Jen herself.

An artist, a doula, a poet and a gifted parent and friend, she helps people. For her it’s like breathing. And that’s why she’s going to Rwanda. One of her friends, who lived through more than any of us will even think about much less experience, comes from Rwanda. She kept telling Jen she wished she could see it. But it’s expensive to do that. Then, suddenly, from another friend, an invitation fell almost literally out of the sky. Jen and her family decided she had to accept. Since we’re talking about Jen Lemen and her equally determined friend Odette, the trip included a mission beyond tolerating an endless flight across most of the planet. And what a mission it is! A wonderful book, written by Odette and illustrated by Jen — a graphic way to help girls learn to read and believe in what we know they can do. She’s also working with HopeRevo to deliver messages of hope along with the books.

I know, I know. Messages of hope? Sounds too pre-modern for this post-post modern world. But with Jen, you have to see it to believe it and once you do, you’re hooked. By the way, that’s Odette with Jen’s daughter Madeline giving us a Girl Power salute — and if you look carefully in the background you will see the proud mommy and friend taking the photo.

If this sounds too corny for you – just take a deep breath and believe me. Jen is going to see Odette’s kids. She is going to deliver these books to help young girls learn to read. She is going to spread messages of hope. She is also probably going to do so much more than that that it defies even speculation here.

Now, since she’s raised enough money and is definitely going, think of this: with more money they can print more books. It’s a pretty painless way to help the young girls of Africa who are so often neglected. OH and every year of education of a girl in Africa raises the family standard of living exponentially; when we help Jen help the girls, we’re also helping their families. So — become a publisher – help underwrite the book and the trip and all that Jen will bring on behalf of and in honor of her friend Odette and her daughters and the girls who surround them. It will just take a second. Start right here!

BLOGGING BOOMERS CARNIVAL, WEEK 63: CBS News, Alzheimers and

OK – this is a great tradition. Every week another person in the Boomer Carnival hosts a set of posts — we all submit one from the week just past and together they make a carnival. Take a look here.

THE PLACE TO BE: ROGER MUDD’S NEW BOOK AND SO MANY MEMORIES

In 1968, when I was working in the McCarthy Campaign against the Vietnam War, one of the producers traveling with the campaign asked me to come work with her at the CBS News Washington Bureau when the campaign ended. I was thrilled. I had, however, no idea how thrilled I really should be. Imagine a 21-year-old, just out of college and the trauma of the riots in Chicago and McCarthy’s loss of the Democratic nomination (yes, we knew it would happen, but not in our hearts), walking through the door of 2020 M St. NW – the august CBS News Washington Bureau — (Walter Cronkite‘s Washington Bureau!) because I had a job there.

Working there when I showed up: Bruce Morton, Bob Schieffer, George Herman, Daniel Schorr, Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather, Marvin Kalb and his brother Bernie... and my mentor and friend Roger Mudd. They were, really, giants (yes, I know they were all men. Marya McLaughlin died a long time ago; Leslie Stahl arrived a couple of years later). CBS News ruled the Hill and the White House and everywhere else inside the beltway. And we did it with enormous scruples; I was trained to be a journalist by these guys, as well as Bureau Chief Bill Small and Face the Nation Producer Sylvia Westerman. And have been grateful the rest of my life for the privilege.

Roger wrote a book about those years — it’s called The Place to Be because, really, that’s what the bureau was in those days. And last night, on publication day, there was a party. It was better than a class reunion. Everyone from the teen-aged desk assistant (now I think in his 40s) to the Washington director to the octogenarian make-up lady, to those guys we’ve all heard of, were there. All having a blast remembering those remarkable years.

I’ve been out of the daily news business for some time, and in a way the party reminded me why. The classy, funny, unpretentious, smart, great people who taught me how to listen and pay attention, ask questions and check my sources, feed the crew first and never leave a person without getting their phone number… I hate to sound like an old fogey but there really aren’t so many like that any more. For me, Roger is the dean of all of them, not only because I know him best but also because of his deep sense of honor and love of history, humor, curiosity and devotion to his family, and his unfailing kindness and generosity to me. It was wonderful to hear everyone so happy and proud for him, glad he’d finally written down some of the historic understanding and institutional memory we all treasure.

I suppose it’s the same when anyone we love finds special success – a promotion, a graduation, a painting or a no-hitter, for that matter. But because of what’s become of the news business, because it’s now so much more business than news, because of the great joy and pride we felt and how hard we worked to earn the right to feel it, I felt a special warmth and longing last night: grateful for the opportunity I had to share what is universally regarded as a golden moment in journalism – those years in the Washington Bureau — and so very sorry that it’s so hard to find that gold – any gold — anymore.

FIVE YEARS IN IRAQ – A BIRTHDAY – AND MEMORIES OF VIETNAM

The amazing Queen of Spain, Erin Kotckei Vest, wrote yesterday about her son’s 5th birthday and the war in Iraq, realizing that our country has been at war for his entire life. It’s a moving and troubling meditation on the length and malignancy of this war. Take a look.

It was strange to read — someplace between echo and deja vu. My older son was born the night Cambodia fell; I went back to work at CBS News the night Saigon fell (foreign desk – overnight) and his younger brother was born 2 days after the Iran hostages were taken. We always knew how many days old he was because Walter Cronkite ended every newscast with "that’s the way it is, the xyz day American hostages have been held in Iran."

I remember nursing Josh during the horrible last days of the Vietnam war, when they were trying to get orphans out of the country. One evening at the very beginning of the effort, 78 kids died when their plane crashed. To this day I remember sitting in a chair, feeding this weeks-old child, watching the broken bodies of some else’s children flung around the crash site, and just dissolving.

I don’t know if it helps or hurts that this is not the first time; although in so many ways it is the worst. As horrible as the country was during Vietnam, we had our collective rage. As this picture shows, we also had the innocence that placed carnations
in the barrels of National Guard guns as they kept us at bay. And we had each other; the opposition to the war, while fractious and divided, essentially understood its unity and its shared issues. Because we’d had teach-ins and gone home and argued with our parents and had to face down counter-demonstrators at marches we had become somewhat tribal – which was bad in some ways but held us together.

The current administration, in my mind, has made it so much more painful to try to bring change; the worst part being that they should have learned enough from Vietnam not to do it this way!!! Not original but as I read Erin’s heartfelt post, about her son and about all those in her family serving or having served in Iraq I got angry all over again. Last time it was arrogance on the part of people like Robert McNamara, but they did not have a Vietnam to look back on and strive to avoid. They had the model of World War II, the post-war failures that led to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe for so long, the Marshall Plan and all the other "good wars" and American generosity that informed the very bad decisions they made. These guys today have had all Vietnam to instruct them and still did this to us.

That’s why this election is so important. If we had had decent leadership five years ago we might be funding decent learning disabilities programs and well-baby clinics and alternative energy research and, if necessary, wars we DO need to fight instead of burdened by a debt that could very well still be with us when Erin’s birthday boy is in college.

PETE SEEGER, JOE HILL, MUSIC, VALUES , PAST AND FUTURE

I once had the opportunity to interview BB King. In preparation, I brought his latest album home and played it for my sons. The older, then around 5, asked me "Why is this man named King mommy. Pete Seeger is the king of music, right?*" Well, how do you answer that? Our boys grew up on the Weavers, the Almanac Singers, Pete and Arlo at Carnegie Hall… all rich with wonderful songs (with pretty wonderful values) for children. I asked my husband, no folkie, why he didn’t complain about the "noise" – and in fact joined us every Thanksgiving at Carnegie Hall to hear Pete and later Pete and Arlo. He said (I’m paraphrasing here) "It’s offering them something whole to believe in. Even if they don’t always believe it – they’ll understand the feeling of believing – and always seek it." As far as I can tell, that worked.

Rerack a few years though — to the Vietnam war, when songs like this informed some of my earliest political ideas.

In fact, Pete has been a hero of mine for more than 40 years (How is that possible?) As I sit watching the AMERICAN MASTERS documentary on his life, I can’t stop thinking about all the hope, idealism and dreams tied up in his music – at least in my life — and, for a time, the lives of my sons. Seeger always has believed that music has infinite power; his own music made us believe that we could bring about the world we dreamed of. I’m embarassed by how much I long for those feelings; it’s probably one reason Barack Obama and his young supporters interest me so much – they remind me of…. ME. Pretty feeble, isn’t it? To still be whining about long-lost days and dreams. Most of all, to feel such rage and sadness at what we weren’t able to do for our children; we leave them a world, in many ways, so much tougher than the one we inherited.

Pete, though, would hate such talk. I once met him, around the time that there were civil rights battles raging in the old Chicago Back of the Yards neighborhoods that Saul Alinsky helped to organize. I asked him if it didn’t bother him that the residents there revealed attitudes so contrary to what had been fought for — for them — just a generation ago. His response "No. When people are empowered they have the right to want what they want. If we believe in empowerment we have to accept that too." NOT a usual man, Mr. Seeger.

The music was more than a transmission of values though — from "A Hole in My Bucket" to Union Maid. It was our family soundtrack. One of my kids was watching WOODSTOCK while he was in college, and was astonished to hear Joan Baez singing Joe Hill – and to recognize it from when he was little (this is a bad YOUTUBE version; the proportions are off, but just listen..

In our house, that old labor song had been a lullaby. I’d learned it from Pete’s concerts. Recently, so many years from those lullabies, another family favorite presented us with a great, rolicking tribute to this remarkable man. I wanted to end with a more of this (way too) sentimental tribute to Pete, but the joy of watching another generation up out of their seats in song is probably a better way to end. Right?

*He went on to become an enormous BB King (and Albert, for that matter) fan, for the record.

TIME PASSES: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A LONG-TIME FRIEND

Saturday night we went to an 80th birthday party. It was for someone whose 43rd we’d also attended — a long time to know someone. He’s a wonderful man with a wonderful family, and you would know his name if I wrote it here – but it was his party not mine and somehow it feels intrusive to tell you who he is.

When I was first in the news business, he taught me a great deal. Ever courtly and generous, excellent at what he did, he shared so much of what he knew and felt about news, politics, government and life. With humor. And a gentle sense of irony. I wish I could communicate how thrilling it was to wander through the tunnels under the Senate, past the secret offices where senators met for gumbo and whiskey, around the corner called "coffin corner" because when the dead lay in state, the coffin had to be tipped vertically to get around the corner on its way to the Rotunda that was its destination — with this gifted man as my guide.

All his kids were at the party of course, along with their spouses and a ton of grandchildren. All four kids were younger than these grandkids when they attended our wedding. There were (very short and funny) speeches, lots of teasing, and not an ounce of pretense or artifice. Of course, the fact that all of them were so happy to see me after our long sojourn in California and year on separate paths, made me feel great. Even so, the great gift of this evening was that I didn’t even think of that until later. When you share so much of life, and work, affection and high regard with someone, you have the luxury of honoring them without obsessing about what it all means to you. That should tell you more about him than anything.

SAD MUSIC, GREAT BIG SEA, STONE PONIES, BEATLES – RIDING THE WAYBACK MACHINE

Have you ever heard a song that caught you up short and brought you almost to tears? Boston to St. John — sung by Great Big Sea, does that to me, no matter how many times I hear it. In fact, when we pass over St. John on the way to Europe and it shows up on the map on the little TV, I get weepy just hearing it in my head. What is it about this romantic, acoustic song accompanied by a pipe and a guitar? Just listen (this one has lyrics posted) – it’s a nice thing to end the week with.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the wonder of what music has come to mean to me, again. Of course I was a typical teen fan, and then in my college years obsessed with Bob Dylan, the Beatles, The Doors, Cream, anything by Ellie Greenwich, anything from Motown, Linda Ronstadt (especially the Stone Ponies phase) – listen to this primo girl song:

I also loved the great folkies like Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Joan Baez ( oh – and Peter, Paul and Mary (need I go on?) and Simon and Garfunkel — among others. Then I went into semi-retirement. I made mix tapes for my kids – Good Day Sunshine, Hippy Hippy Shake, Here Comes the Sun, the Garden Song, Carolina… you name it. And we sang a lot. But the deep, gut-wrenching feeling you get when the music drills right to the center of your soul — that all came back more recently. And differently. Once, my Deadhead son asked me why I had never gone to one of their concerts. The answer was peculiar, I guess. I heard all my music for free at marches. And peace rallies. Who needed to buy tickets?

The music was, literally, the soundtrack to my life. Every song I hear pulls a movie into my head — me on a bus to Manhattan for a march, in a boat on Paradise Pond with my boyfriend, dancing like crazy someplace or other. Now, though, the music seems to bring the mood to me, rather than meeting it half way. I can be moved from zero to 60 – solid to weepy – in about one chorus. Maybe it’s the passage of time. Maybe it’s that I hear far more of it alone. Maybe it’s just that much of what I listen to evokes other times in my life. Today, driving home, I had my iPod plugged into the car radio, on random shuffle, and Pete Seeger singing All My Life’s a Circle did it. Again.

Of course, anything from the Juno soundtrack just makes me laugh. And lots of Bruce just makes me want to dance. It’s not all sad stuff. I guess I should try to figure it out, but I’d rather just think I’m newly available, or RE-newly available, to those feelings. And be grateful for the music that brings them.

OBAMA, CLINTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE AND PRIMARIES – 1968 AND 2008

In the 1968 New Hampshire primary, 40 years ago, Senator Eugene McCarthy got 42% of the vote running against Lyndon Johnson .

That was enough to be viewed as a win, since no one thought he’d get anywhere close to those numbers. That victory by the only national politician with the guts to run against the Vietnam War sent a shock through the Democratic Party.

McCarthy’s effort, often called “The Children’s Crusade,” was comprised largely of college students (including me) who abandoned their studies to come to New Hampshire and work to help to stop the war. Now, as I watch Barack Obama, and see the the numbers of young people propelling his success, I know just how they feel — and what awaits them if they fail.

Then too, win or lose, things will be tough for Senator Clinton. Obama, seen not only as a change agent but also as someone who offers the hope and optimism of a JFK, has captured the imaginations not only of young people but also of many journalists, most notorious of whom is the conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. That means that anyone who wrests the nomination away from him will be perceived as the breaker of young hearts, standing in the way of idealism and the candidate who brought young people fully in to the system.*

That’s exactly what happened in 1968. The New Hampshire victory brought Robert Kennedy into the race – establishing, until his tragic death, a three-way battle – two dissidents against the juggernaut of the Democratic establishment. Then later, Hubert Humphrey , candidate of that establishment and for years, as Vice President, public and energetic supporter of Johnson’s war, won the nomination.

To all of us, he had stolen the nomination. Many (not me) were so bitter that they refused to vote for him. Remember, for most of us, as for many of Obama’s young supporters, this was our first presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, should she prevail further down the line, will face the same broken-hearted campaigners. Once the anti-establishment, anti-war student and Watergate hearing staffer, in the eyes of these young people she’ll be cast as the villain.

For evidence of how long that bitterness lasts, take a look at this quote from the American Journalism Review, from the 1968 Chicago Convention, riot and Hum prey coronation recollections of veteran Washington Post columnist David Broder. It’s about me – but it’s also about any young American who takes a stand and loses .

He recalls coming into the hotel lobby from the park where demonstrations were underway and spotting a woman he had first met during the Eugene McCarthy campaign in New Hampshire. “Her name was Cindy Samuels,” Broder still remembers. “She was seated on a bench crying. She had been gassed. I went over and I put my arm around her and I said: ‘Cindy. What can I do for you?’ She looked up at me with tears on her face and said: ‘Change things.’

NOTE: As I searched for links for this post I found a David Corn piece saying much the same thing. I want to take note of it since the ideas came to me independently but I didn’t want it to seem that I drew from his.

REDS, WARREN BEATTY, REVOLUTIONS AND HISTORY

Yesterday I promised to write regularly about that infamous year, 1968, from the perspective of the forty years that have passed. I was there for so much of it and have wanted to re-think it for some time but could never seem to face it in its entirety. Among other things, it’s the year I graduated from college. And worked in the McCarthy campaign. And was present at the Chicago "police riot" at the Democratic Convention. I’m going to do it – I promise.

But last night’s insomnia led to the two of us watching Reds, Warren Beatty’s remarkable film about John Reed, Louise Bryant, Greenwich Village radicals, Eugene O’Neill, Emma Goldman and left wing intellectual life before and during World War I.
At the end of what was, in the theaters, the first act, there’s a wonderful montage. John Reed (Warren Beatty) gives an impassioned speech, revolutionaries begin to sing the "Internationale" and the film cuts between scenes of political passions and those of the passions, both physical and intellectual, between Reed and Louise Bryant. To me, it’s the perfect metaphor for our lives in 1968 — shared political passions even with the most intense of lovers – inextricably combined with personal passions intensified by the sadness, rage and sense of mission brought on by events – in their case the attempt to build a "workers paradise" in Russia, on ours, the war in Vietnam. The YouTube clip of this beautiful five minutes won’t post outside YouTube – it’s been blocked, but you can see it here. In the meantime, watch the trailer and think about what it’s like when life, love and politics intersect with such precision.

Reds – Reds

Posted Apr 30, 2002

Warren Beatty’s award winning epic mixes drama and interviews with major social radicals of the period. "Reds" tells the story of the love affair between activists Louise Bryant and John Reed. Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous start of the twentieth century, the two journalists’ on-again off-again romance is punctuated by the outbreak of WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution. Louise’s assignment in France at the outbreak of the war puts an end to their affair. John Reed’s subsequent trip to Russia

1968 WAS FORTY YEARS AGO — SO MANY STORIES — AND A PROMISE

That’s me in 1968. As everybody knows, it was a remarkable, scary, thrilling, transforming year to alive and young; even more, to be part of the struggle to end the war in Vietnam and, generally, change the world. The outcomes are known, and the journey endlessly chronicled, but I think I’m going to spend this year – right here – as anniversaries pass, writing about what I felt and meant to be, what I hoped for, what I remember. Just as we did in Nablopomo, I’m announcing it here… just to be sure I do it….

Happy New Year.