Tag: politics

Bonus Post!

On this last day of Black History Month, I wanted to share two of my related Instagram posts. I was lucky enough to find a couple of dolls on one of my rare ventures into the world of retail. Both are from Mattel’s Inspiring Women Series (I think the only other doll I’ve acquired from this series is Eleanor Roosevelt).


The first is the Maya Angelou doll. What a talent and presence Ms. Angelou had. I really like that the doll is holding a copy of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

I did this coloring page with a quote from her.


The second doll celebrates one of my lifelong heroes, Rosa Parks. What a difference Ms. Parks made to the civil rights movement.

Here’s the coloring page I did with a quote from her.

Both of the coloring pages were taken from this book.

Getting a read on things

On my Goodreads account, I have two books on my “currently reading” shelf. Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham has been there since 2010, when I put it down and have yet to pick it back up. Volume II of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past has been there since I began reading it in 2017.

The last time I counted, I had more than 60 books in my TBR pile, including print copies of books and many eBooks. I’ve added I don’t know how many to the pile since then. It’s a LOT of unread books, and many of them are by some of my favorite writers, so it’s not THEM, it’s me. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and I believe I was through 2019. In late 2019, I got this book:

Written by an educator and encompassing perspectives on racial justice, sociology, psychology, politics, and education, this was right up my alley and in early 2020, I began a slow read so I could take it all in.

Then the world went batshit crazy on so many levels, and suddenly I found myself unable to read. I’m not sure what I read in all of 2020. It seems like I just stopped. Then came 2021, and I managed to read five memoirs, one biography, and two romance eBooks, so things weren’t quite as bleak. (Unless three of those memoirs and the biography were in 2020. Those two all run together as one long year.)

I also began this book in late 2021:

It was a bit of a struggle getting through all the science up front, but I’m really glad I finally finished it THIS MONTH! It has enabled me to take some small steps toward feeling healthier mentally, physically, and emotionally. I also finished Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? THIS MONTH!

And yay, me, I didn’t stop at those two. In January, I’ve also read these:

So unless I read something else over the next couple of days, I am at finishing two nonfiction books in January 2022 and reading five novels.

In February, maybe I’ll finish a memoir and a biography I began in 2021, and then read more fiction from the TBR pile. Hopefully, I am getting my reading equilibrium back. (Making no promises about the Cunningham and Proust books, though.)

Science!

The Barbie You Can Be Anything Science Teacher comes with accessories including a globe, laptop, books, clipboard, beakers, safety glasses, and a microscope. Why a globe? Maybe she’s teaching students the science of tracking pandemics. The science of climate change. The areas of the world where science is the best effort humans can make to eradicate poverty, disease, and hunger.

Yesterday, I read the comment of a doctor who suggested to a patient that his symptoms warranted a Covid test. The patient pulled off his mask and coughed on her. She said she had over $98,000 invested in her education and career, and she is finished. I can’t blame her. When your patients are willing to take horse dewormer and other unproven “cures” and “treatments,” inject, inhale, drink, and lather on Clorox and other harmful substances, and drink their own urine–or camel urine–to prove they’ve “done my own research” and “will not be forced” to take a vaccination that is demonstrably saving lives even for those who get a breakthrough case of a virus… Well, they’d rather spread one lie after another, take their chances on breathing their last breaths in pain hooked up to medical equipment developed by the science and medicine they don’t trust, leave behind their children and grandchildren and parents and sisters and brothers and the hobbies they love and the jobs they do well and their churches than believe that science can save them, and they are indifferent to infecting anyone else, including the people trying to keep them from getting sick or losing their lives.

No science in the world can cure willful ignorance. But that science can still inspire research and solutions and students and explorers who want to effect a positive difference in the world–to me, that seems infinitely greater and nobler than blind faith in the architects of lies and the charlatans touting false fixes.

Revisiting a tasty memory

Back in the age when my friend Steve R was alive, he had a favorite Tex-Mex restaurant on Kirby in the River Oaks area called Jalapeños. Here’s an old review that describes it better than I could:

A visit to this bright Upper Kirby cantina decked out in eye-popping colors and playful artwork on the walls is always a fiesta. It hops at happy hour, which features more than 40 tequilas and most every Mexican beer. We like the innovative menu items like crawfish quesadillas, quail frito or outstanding spinach enchiladas—a dish that’s creamy and garlicky, with just the right amount of bite from poblano peppers. They’re evenly matched on a combo plate with corn enchiladas that are sweet yet spiked with onions. Seafood fans go for the extensive fresh fare from the Gulf, including snapper and shrimp Cancun, baked in a banana leaf. Traditional fajitas are even done right here: charred and tender with rosy centers and sizzling onions and peppers on the side.

One of the things not mentioned is that you might spot President George HW Bush and wife Barbara dining there (not a selling point for us, particularly at the height of the AIDS epidemic).

Back in those days, I didn’t eat Mexican food, or Tex-Mex, but I’d go with Steve and get something basic like nachos. One day, he persuaded me to try a bit of his spinach enchiladas, and I was hooked. It was the cilantro white sauce–not overly spicy like the red sauce usually on entrees, and I liked it so much.

Tom and I were sad when Jalapeños closed in 2005, because it became a favorite place to go with friends and for him to take his father when he visited Houston. I don’t know if it was last year or this year that I had reason to research it and discovered that one of the former chefs, Seco, had his own Mexican-Latin fusion restaurant in the Rice Village area called Seco’s, where it’s possible to get spinach enchiladas based on the old Jalapeños’s recipe.

We were in the area on Tuesday and picked up carryout that included the enchiladas, rice, and beans (I got the refried black beans; Tom had the charro beans). The spinach enchiladas don’t taste exactly as I remembered them, but they’re better than those I’ve gotten at any other restaurant, so I was full and happy.

It’s not near us, so I don’t know how often we’ll get food from there, but if you’re in Houston, it’s neatly tucked behind the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream shop on Kirby. Give it a try!

World AIDS Day 2021

I get a news feed in my email each day, and though I haven’t read all of today’s email yet, the title of the lead article is “Africa: Far Behind,” about the Covid pandemic and the vaccination rate, and when I saw it on this date in particular, it was with the sinking feeling of the more things change, the more they stay the same. Often in Africa, where there are vaccinations in place, they aren’t being used because of distrust and skepticism, which is rooted at least partially in the continent’s historical experience with HIV and AIDS.

There are better-informed sources on that than I am, so I’ll leave it there. Instead, I’ll talk about HIV/AIDS and Covid in a more personal way.

In 1992, when I marched with a group of activists in Houston at the Republican National Convention, one of our chants was: 350,000 dead, NO MORE AIDS. About ten years before–1981–the first five cases of what would become the AIDS virus had been identified, and anyone involved in those early noisy protests was begging to be heard. For someone to act. For medicine, science, and government not to move faster, but to move at all. Those protestors and activists remain my heroes, because without them, HIV wouldn’t be a manageable disease in 2021. Because of science and medicine, and yes, governments, progress was made that saved not only millions of lives but taught us many of the lessons that help people survive pandemics today.

350,000 dead, NO MORE AIDS. Worldwide to this date, approximately 36.3 million people have died of AIDS, while 37.7 million people are LIVING with HIV/AIDS globally. HIV is a different kind of virus from Covid 19, transmitted through sexual contact, blood, needles, or from mother to infant–a mask won’t stop it, though a condom can.

It’s estimated that there have been 5.2+ million deaths from Covid 19 globally already. Covid 19 is spread in three main ways:

  • Breathing in air when close to an infected person who is exhaling small droplets and particles that contain the virus.
  • Having these small droplets and particles that contain virus land on the eyes, nose, or mouth, especially through splashes and sprays like a cough or sneeze.
  • Touching eyes, nose, or mouth with hands that have the virus on them.

Covid has an easier transmission route than HIV, and while vaccination may not prevent a person from being infected, it can mean the difference between staying home feeling lousy for a few days versus landing in a hospital or morgue. And wearing a mask or avoiding places and people who won’t wear masks to prevent the spread of Covid is, I guess, something like wearing a condom or not sharing needles to prevent the spread of HIV. Tragically, many people refuse(d) those safety measures, too.

It’s bizarre to me that now there are actually people who scream against vaccinations that save lives. Who refuse to wear a little piece of cloth that protects themselves and others because it infringes on their freedom. Our friends lost to AIDS: Steve, Jeff, John, Tim R, and Pete, could only dream of a lifesaving vaccination or something as simple as wearing a mask. They would rather have lived longer, and I sure wish they had.

I made promises to them that I’d never forget them. That I wouldn’t let other people forget those times. That I’d keep striving to be a writer and tell stories, not necessarily about AIDS, but about friendships and the families we create as we make our lives on this planet. Their memory impels me to stay alive and to write as inspired not only by them, but by the friends who remain.

Thank you for being part of the journey.

What a week

This week was a little crazy. I’m not even sure why. I did have to get a new phone after I launched my previous one on the river to ruin, and that was the same day I also had my car in for its regular maintenance.

Let’s see. We voted. We went over to RubinSmo Manor for an hour or so for a photo shoot and got to meet Honey the foster kitty, see Pepper, and hug Lindsey and Rhonda for the first time in SO LONG–especially Lindsey, because we have been able to see Rhonda two or three times since we last saw Lindsey.

ETA: I forgot the tornado warnings and the power outage. That sucked up some of the time I’d normally be productive.

I’ve been out of the house running errands more frequently than usual this week. But none of this seems like a lot, and I don’t watch TV unless Tom and I watch something while we eat dinner. So other than cooking, housecleaning, and spending time outside (the weather is so nice) with dogs, I guess most of my time has gone to this art project I’ve embarked on and writing. I sure don’t get more than six hours of sleep a night, so who knows where all the hours go.

Today while I was working on stuff I had an overwhelming urge to listen to Peter Gabriel’s album Us. There used to be a record store next to the bookstore where I was an assistant manager, and I was in there browsing one day when they played a song. It sounded so much like Dennis Wilson or a song he’d have written or sung that I remember walking to the cash wrap in a daze and asking, “WHAT OR WHO IS THAT YOU’RE PLAYING?” It was Peter Gabriel, and the song was “Washing of the Water,” which I’ll include below. A moving song, and I can understand why it caught my attention and still gets to me.

Another noteworthy thing about the album is the song “Fourteen Black Paintings,” which he wrote about Mark Rothko’s paintings installed in Houston’s Rothko Chapel. They are among my favorite works of art, and Mark Rothko is one of my favorite painters in the world. Just some Becky trivia there. =)

Photo Friday, No. 777

Current Photo Friday theme: Force of Nature

I’ve used this photo on here before, taken in August after the powerful tornado that swept through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in April 2011. Here’s the text I included with the photo back then:

A woman with her five-month-old was in this house owned by her parents. She took the baby to the basement during the tornado. When they emerged–safe–later, she found all that was left of her home: a baby crib, a kitchen wall with a refrigerator, and her parents’ piano.

I wish people believed climate change is real and needs to be addressed quickly. I wish they’d vote out of office those who are controlled by lobbyists who care only about profit and nothing about the planet. These kinds of events will only get worse. We are destroying the only home we have with greed, indifference, and denial.

Button Sunday

Yesterday, supporters of reproductive rights marched and demonstrated across the country. As I was reading some of my social media accounts, it interested me to see photos of people wearing a button identical to this one from my collection, acquired in the early 1980s (though the button was produced in the 1970s).

The Equal Rights Amendment has a fascinating history in this country which I advise people to research. It had broad bipartisan support across the nation and in government, from men and women, from different races, and eventually from different factions of labor. It needed thirty-eight states to be ratified. At the time of another of my buttons, it was three states short.

That was when a campaign of disinformation cranked up in an effort to stop those three states from ratifying the amendment. The lies and fear-mongering were so successful that some of the ratifying states rescinded, and some of the rescinding states had that vetoed (opening a legislative can of worms). Even though the deadline was extended by presidential order (another legislative issue that remains unsettled), the amendment failed to pass. In the time since, it has gotten the thirty-eight states necessary for ratification if all the ratifying states are counted, but since the date passsed and the rescinding states present an issue that would have to be dealt with, reasoned counsel has suggested the ERA should start from scratch.

Don’t worry if you don’t believe women deserve equal rights and fear the rebirth of the amendment. As Covid has taught us, misinformation and disinformation (aka, lies and fear-mongering) are still quite effective at making people act against their own best interests. Even death is a risk they’ll take rather than temporarily wear a mask or get a vaccination (as most have done their entire lives without drama).

Here are another couple of my buttons from that time.


If I’m not mistaken, the “10” was from a set of stickers given with a blank green button to allow a countdown to the months left to ratify the amendment by its deadline.

The 59¢ button was how much a woman made at that time for each dollar a man made. Forty years later, that amount has stalled at 82¢. Progress? Let’s consider that.

More women now receive higher education and more training than they did forty years ago. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2020, women outnumbered men in the workforce. Over the decades, women more frequently became either the only wage-earners in their homes or single adult heads of households.

Can we call any gender gap in pay “progress?”

I don’t. I suspect Covid has also disproportionately deceased the number of working women and increased the pay gap, and this will have a negative impact socially, culturally, and economically.

I hope those who are stripping women of their agency, autonomy, and privacy regarding their healthcare and well-being are simultaneously coming up with lots of solutions to address those negative impacts.

(Narrator: “They’re not.”)

They are not about solutions. They are about control and punishment.