Wednesday, March 10, 2010

My International Womens Day tweets, collected #IWD

(On March 8th, International Womens Day, at about 10 minutes to midnight I realized that although I had tweeted all day about womens' rights issues, I hadn't said anything personal about women. So I ran off these 15 tweets, and have collected them here so they'll be in one place.)

Well it's still International Womens Day, I should say a few words about women.
http://is.gd/a7Q6u

I don't understand women, & I wouldn't want to be one.
http://is.gd/a7Quu

But they are the central force in the human race.
http://is.gd/a7QxK

They are what keeps it together, they are the primary teachers.
http://is.gd/a7QBw

They are transmitters of values, for good or for evil.
http://is.gd/a7QEf

They are magical people, and they represent the life force.
http://is.gd/a7QIU

Any man who would lay hands on a woman is not a man.
http://is.gd/a7QNu

Women need to stick up for other women, and for kids, and for their menfolk too.
http://is.gd/a7QS7

I don't get them... but I sure like them... especially those that stick up for something.
http://is.gd/a7QWz

And don't let go.
http://is.gd/a7QZx

Women like Eleanor Roosevelt, and Barbara Jordan, and Shirley Chisholm.
http://is.gd/a7R2f

Women like Sojourner Truth, and Bella Abzug, and our @joancbaez
http://is.gd/a7R6a

So my hat's off to women, especially to those who refuse to sit in the back of the bus.
http://is.gd/a7RcV

On International Womens Day I just want to say...
http://is.gd/a7RgV

thank you ladies for all you do and all you will do to make the world a better place
http://is.gd/a7Rl0










Monday, March 1, 2010

My home-cooked dinner in New Mexico



Once, on a one-week vacation to New Mexico, we were privileged to be invited into the home of a Native American family on a feast day at a reservation.

The ladies who prepared our wonderful bounty reminded me so much of my grandmother, an Eastern European Jewish immigrant, living in a walkup apartment in a crowded building in the Bronx.

These were Native American women whose forebears had probably arrived here on foot 10,000 years ago.

But certain things are universal.

These ladies are the nurturers. The givers, the preservers, the protectors of lives.

You take a little old lady anywhere, give her some water, a flame, and something edible -- and through the magic of her love -- she turns it into a bounteous feast, which warms your stomach, warms your soul, gives nutrition, comforts us, keeps families alive, keep families together, steels us against the adversity and challenge the outside world heaps upon us.

And they are in every society that exists or has existed since mankind made its appearance.

No matter where you are -- in what country, what century, what religion -- no matter what your skin tone is, or your language -- we are basically all the same.

We need to think of the victims and potential victims of the bad things we do as our mother, our grandmother, our child. Because they are. We are one family.