Women – Politics Plus

Yesterday, the Club Q shooter pled guilty to all changres, and was handed five life senrences, to run consecutively. Parole was not mentioned, and I don’t know whether Colorado sentencing law even includes the phrase “without possibility of parole.” If he ever does come up for it, there will be a whole lot of people watching – and protesting. But I’d rather not dwell on him. So I picked a couple of articles about remarkable women to share instead.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Colorado Public Radio – Miss Cummins goes to Washington: A Colorado teen’s journey into DC lobbying
Quote – When she was two years old, Maddy was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, a neurological disorder. She now gets around in a wheelchair and is non-verbal. She communicates with the help of an iPad-like device she operates with her eyes. In between meetings, Maddy practiced. As her eyes flicked across the boxes on the screen, the device recited, “Hi, I’m Maddy Cummins and I am representing Children’s Hospital Colorado.” Around her neck was a nametag, with a green ribbon underneath with the words “I’m fearless” on it.
Click through for story. This story pushes a lot of buttons – but you can’t help but admire Maddy.

ProPublica – How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S.
Quote – “The silence of the archives is deafening on this,” [Bernard Powers, the city’s premier Black history expert] said. “What does that silence tell you? It reinforces how routine this was.”… When Davila emailed him, she also copied Margaret Seidler, a white woman whose discovery of slave traders among her own ancestors led her to work with the college’s Center for the Study of Slavery to financially and otherwise support Davila’s research. The next day, the three met on Zoom, stunned by her discovery.
Click through for details. I can’t even begin to imagine how much more there is to uncover by someone who has the patience and determination to go through old newspapers (let’s hope DeSaster doesn’t take a match to the ones in his state.) It wasn’t even the sheer number which impressed me so much as the family connections uncovered by her research. Femily connections beyond what even the family knew (and the family had looked. Hard. Not every family does.).

Food For Thought

Yesterday, Colorado Public Radio News published thefirst photo of the first bud (at leasst in eighty years) on the Camp Amache rose. It is pink. I cropped the photo so it would fit here. I was deeply touched. I’m looking forward to seeing it after it opens.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

CPR News – Why two CPR News journalists are in Europe with Colorado’s National Guard
Quote – Colorado’s Army and Air National Guard units are just some of the 1,200 Guard members from six states — Maryland, which has a state partnership with Estonia, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia — taking part in this exercise. In total, more than 3,400 U.S. military and 5,100 allied service members are spending this month participating in Defender and various other exercises, with names like Swift Response, Iron Wolf, Flaming Thunder and Summer Shield, across Eastern Europe…. Now, the U.S. military will be the first to tell you that Defender is unrelated to what’s happening in Ukraine (and the former Foreign Service officer in me would agree with that). American troops rotate, train and exercise regularly across the region as part of the nation’s relationship with Europe…. Yet, this annual exercise has taken on added significance — to reporters like me, and readers like you, and possibly the people of Estonia too — because of what’s happening in Ukraine.
Click through for story. It’s a good day to be a Coloradan Despite Lauren Boebert (and Doug Lamborn), we have reasons to take pride in our state. (And it has some gorgeous phptps pf Tallinn.)

The Conversation – He’s Australia’s 31st prime minister. So who is Anthony Albanese?
Quote – To continue the slow burn theme, if Albanese is to be believed, his ambition for leadership formed late. Those who reach leadership positions are typically consumed with an aspiration for the top job from early in their parliamentary careers — if not before. They are fuelled by a sense of their own prime-ministerial destiny. Albanese is different. On his telling, it was only in 2013, on the defeat of Rudd’s second government, that he first entertained thoughts of becoming leader. Until then he had contented himself with the role of “counsellor and kingmaker”.
CLick through for background. I won’t promise that this will be my last article on the Australian election – I hadn’t planned having another one, but I think this has merit. I am convinced that the so-called “fire in the belly” which so many pundits say leaders need is actually a bad thing if one wants the best possible leadership.

NM Political Report – In light of drought, NM congresswomen introduce bills focused on water and science
Quote – “We know that our farmers and our communities are struggling to meet their water needs,” U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat representing the state’s 1st Congressional District, said during a press conference on Thursday. “And the pieces of legislation that we introduced this week will be game changers to help address those needs, put resources into the hands of our communities, and to address the long term water security of our communities.”
Click through for details of the proposals. Of course we all knew that getting the right women into the right offices would be beneficial to everyone.

Food For Thought

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