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

Betty_friedan_bw_2
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. 

Jenlemennew
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.

Odette_and_jens_daughter

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!

WEAR IT TO A WEDDING; CARHOPS AT THE DRIVE IN; BLOGGING BOOMERS CARNIVAL #65

Lifetwo The Amazing Riveting Blogging Boomers Carnival hits #65 this week at LifeTwo with pieces on everything from Fifties Drive-Ins to looking great at a wedding this summer to conversion to Orthodox Judaism (that’s mine.)  The Carnival is free; bring your own cotton candy.

NEW FRIENDS ON MY OLD TURF: MOMMY BLOGGERS VISIT KATIE AT CBS NEWS

Katie_shakes_hands
What are the odds?  I spent what would have been my prime mommy-blogging years, before the Interweb was anyone’s darling, working at CBS News at 524 West 57th St.  Now, some of my sweet, funny mommy blogging friends went through the same door I used every day for 7 years to meet with Katie Couric.  Here’s what happened:

Pretty cool, huh?  My 9 years at TODAY never crossed with Katie and clearly my CBS years were the "Place to Be" years, well before hers but it sure was fun to see the girlfriends sashay on in and charm her to pieces.  But then, that’s what they do.

Blogger roll call for The Visit – drawn from original host SV(Silicon Valley) Moms:

FOLLOWING OUR MOTHER RUTH: THE STORY OF A CONVERSION

Mikvah
We had a party Saturday.  Ice cream cake, fruit, songs and verses.  It wasn’t exactly a birthday party, but kind of.  It’s very tough to convert to Orthodox Judaism. Rabbis ask you over and over if you’re serious.  You have to study.  You have to read out loud in Hebrew.  You have to answer questions to a board of 3 (male) rabbis.  Then, you have to immerse yourself in a Mikvah. It’s the culmination of several years of study and soul-searching.

So we had a party today.  To celebrate a young woman who had navigated the process and, just this past week, emerged from the waters  – Jewish.  As she spoke to the assembled women she told us not just about her own journey, but, in a way, about our own.  Unable to begin without tears, she decided first to read the passage that seemed to her to describe where she’d been – and where she’s landed.  (Another convert friend of mine told me she’s clung to the same verses   — they have particular meaning to those who choose to become Jewish and "go where we go.")  Standing at one end of a table covered with ice cream cake and fruit
and surrounded by many of the women of our congregation gathered in her
honor, she began to read.

Mother-in-law Naomi is
trying to convince her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth to go back to her own
nation and not suffer with her.

But
Ruth answered, “Don’t ask me to leave you!  Let me go with you.  Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live,
I will live.  Your people will be my
people, and your God will be my God.  Wherever you die, I will die, and that is
where I will be buried.  May the LORD’s
worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death separate me from you!”

The story represents much of what she feels about her new life.  Her choice: to meet the very demanding requirements of conversion and join the tribe that I was born into and, for much of my life, lived within – accepting my identity as a Jew but very little else. 

In many ways, I have made the same choices she did.  Compared to the way I live now, the Judaism I knew then was an  identity easily moved aside when inconvenient.  Now, after four years of increasingly observant life, my identity is so tangled with my Judaism that there’s no way to pretend it isn’t there, isn’t affecting all I see and every choice I make.  They call it "the yoke of heaven" — acceptance of the rules handed down so long ago.  It looks so weird from the outside, so whether you’re my young friend choosing to become a Jew, or me, choosing to actually live like one, you’re somewhat set apart by your decisions.  Keep kosher – you can’t eat in most restaurants or even at your old friends’ homes.  Observe the Sabbath, you can’t go see Great Big Sea or Bruce Springsteen or a good friend’s 40th birthday party because they’re on Friday night.  Honor the holidays and you may antagonize clients and risk losing business.  And sometimes, friends, and even family, look askance, withdraw or just shake their heads.

Even so, what my friend has chosen — what my husband and I have chosen — what the community of friends we love has chosen – is a life rife with meaning and commitment, with tangible goals to be better, more honorable, more committed beings with an informing value system and sense of purpose. After a lifetime that was pretty successful and often seemed glamorous and highly visible, this is a choice of which I am very proud.  Different from before, but at least as demanding intellectually, ethicially and emotionally as any other stop on my life’s journey.  In many ways, it has allowed me to rediscover the person I used to think I was, and liked – as a writer, a thinker, a wife and mother and friend.    I am grateful that I have found it, and so very glad that this generous and articulate young woman reminded me, through the moving and exquisite reflections on her own choice, just why I made mine.

 

OUR SOLDIERS, OURSELVES: RAPE IN THE U.S. MILITARY

Women_army_2_gunsRemember Private Benjamin?  Goldie Hawn goes from princess to private and grows up.  That 1980 film was a combination of feminism, coming-of-age and just plain funny.  But that’s not how the U.S. military treats its women.  Maybe not then, but certainly not now.  In fact, we’re allowing our soldier sisters to suffer at unthinkable rates.  It’s beyond shameful.  Representative Jane Harman details the horror (no, I am not exaggerating – this is every woman’s version of a horror movie) in this LA Times op ed republished on Alternet.  This is from Harman’s piece:

The scope of the problem
was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA
Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw
dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic
say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report
being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued
terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives
have since taken.

Numbers reported by the
Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults
were reported — 73% more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this
month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from
calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data
from previous years much more difficult.

What level of misogyny, anger, or malignant neglect allows this to be the way we treat 20% of our military?  It’s an insult to their service and to every American woman and yet another shameful chapter in our relationship with those who would protect us.  Does it seem to anyone else that Abu Ghraib and our other abuses of Iraqi prisoners and the abuse of women in our own military both demonstrate a terrible loss of humanity among at least some of our soliders?   

I remember reading a book called ABSOLUTELY AMERICAN, about the meritocracy that is West Point.  There was a time, recently, when the Army, at least, had moved very far from its less attractive traits and was struggling, by training leaders well, to guarantee that abuses did not happen in the future.  I wish I knew what has happened; whether they never got below the surface,  whether it’s the fact that so many of our soldiers are National Guard and just not as well-trained, or simply that there’s a surfeit of anger in our military (and out here, too.)

Beyond the acts themselves, there’s not even much punishment. Here’s more of Harman’s piece:

At the heart of this crisis is
an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks.
According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for
sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to
courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military.
Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge,
and 201 subjects were disciplined through "nonjudicial punishment,"
which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or
received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated,
the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was
because of "insufficient evidence."

Anyone who pays any attention to this issue, or even who’s ever watched LAW AND ORDER knows that rape is a crime of dominance and hate, not a sexual crime.  That means that every one of those rapes is an act of rage against a woman — and a fellow soldier.  And that in all the years that women have been part of active military duty, we haven’t dealt with that rage.  And that if it’s that prevalent in the military, it’s probably still floating around out here in the rest of the world at a hefty rate too.  And apparently, however far we’ve come as women in and out of the military, just below the surface is something big, angry and very scary indeed.

.

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

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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.

THE STORY ELANA (3 years old) TOLD ME AT THE BEACH

Goldilocks
The three bears went for a walk and there was a little girl and her name was Goldilocks from all the dolls and they went for walk and they walked and walked (dancing walk demonstrated here) and then she sit on one of the chairs and it was too hard.  And then she tried the medium one and it was too slowwww and then she found the baby one and she rocked and rocked and rocked and she fell down and the chair broke.  And her tushie got hurt so she needed to go in bed     And she walked and walked up the stairs and then they did something and then she ate her porridge and then she "this bed was too hard" and then "that bed was medium" and "this bed was just right." And the three bears went home and said "who has been eating my porridge?"  And the Poppa said (very loud deep voice, with facial expressions to match) "WHO’S BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE?"  Then Poppa Bear said "WHO’S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?" and then Baby Bear said "THERE SHE IS NOW!!!"  and  she left her shoes and ran away.  And she also…..

Dad can I go outside???

(NOTE:  Elana woke up early Sunday and she and I were visiting and looking out at the ocean while I worked on my computer.  As Elana was leaning over my laptop in great interest her father came upstairs and suggested she "tell Cindy a story and maybe she’ll put it on her blog."  So she did.  And I did.)

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

Iraq_anti_war_march
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. 

Vietnam_march
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.