I have a post coming up related to the long-time discrimination against women in the U.S., which I, growing up in the Marshall household, was completely unaware of into the first part of my adult life. July 6th is one of many significant dates in the long struggle of women to gain equal rights and equal treatment with men, as well as proper respect in the culture. On this date in 1957, it was a woman, Althea Gibson, who became the first African-American to win a championship at Wimbledon, when she won the women’s singles tennis title, and in 1976, women were admitted into U.S. Naval Academy for the first time.

Discriminating against women just never occurred to me. I had a younger sister who could do anything I could, but often better. My mother was talented, funny, and self-evidently an equal foil for my lawyer father, who always treated her as an equal in every way. He had been raised during the Depression by a fiercely independent single mother, and while I never knew Lullabelle (what a great name!), my amazing maternal grandmother, Sophia, whom I knew very well, was a family legend, coming to America from Sparta at 15, working to bring the rest of her family over to the States as well, raising eight children, and never, ever taking any crap from anyone.

Early on I read the correspondence between John Adams and his brilliant wife and partner in all things Abigail; the whole concept of regarding women as less capable or deserving of opportunities to do and be whatever they chose never dawned on me for a ridiculously long time, and the extent of American discrimination against half the population is still surprising me even now.

As is often the case, the vehicle of my current enlightenment is baseball. A fellow fan and friend gifted me with a membership in SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. The Spring issue of its journal is substantially focused on the travails of women who played baseball or wanted to, and the stories are horrifying, all the way into the 1970s.

I’ll have more on this topic coming up.

1. Okay, the commentariate has insisted that Kamala Harris does not deserve Julie Principle treatment on Ethics Alarms, so I feel obligated to report that while speaking about the recent mass shooting in Illinois, the Vice-President—the first woman Vice-President!—said this:

“We have to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously.”

[Notice of Correction: Another, exaggerated version of this quote has been circulating, and I originally fell for it. Thanks to Neil Dorr for spotting the mistake]

I think this is serious: there is something the matter with her. She does this kind of stuck-needle thing frequently; I don’t understand it. She can’t possibly be as dim as these episodes suggest. She did get through law school, after all. It is demeaning to women that the mainstream media lets this stuff pass, when Dan Quayle was regularly skewered for garbling his words in public statements. The low standards most of the media holds the Veep to is a form of condescension, and the benign neglect probably keeps her from addressing the problem, whatever it is. Continue reading →

It’s embarrassing, but amazingly few of those responsible seem to be embarrassed.

Robert E. Crimo III, 21, the “alleged” shooter in the homicidal attack in Highland Park, was as unstable as its possible to be without being locked up. But that’s the problem: he was never arrested, despite officers seizing 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from his home in 2019. Crimo also posted music videos online that seemed to refer to mass shootings, some including cartoon images of victims spurting blood. In one video, a gunman lies in a pool of blood near police cars. But are the gun-phobics going to assert that social media posts, songs and videos are sufficient to justify psychiatric observation and the elimination of Constitutional rights? Hip-hop artists who rap about rape and cop-killing will be easy targets for that movement.

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I’m pretty sure that’s a setting rather than a rising sun, but as you recall, Ben Franklin mused that where the U.S. was involved, the two were nearly indistinguishable.

Here’s part of the apocalyptic rant of a writer on Medium last week:

I don’t get the acceptance of what is happening to our nation and how so many people can be so utterly clueless. Right now, though, I am not writing about the fascists on the right — and that is what they are, folks. I am writing about people who will for the most part agree with this article and yet do nothing to prevent the end of our great experiment. Many have no idea that these few weeks in June launched the end…

Let’s do a quick run through the past five years: A stolen Supreme Court seat; Trump’s presidency; COVID is just the common cold/anti-vaxxers; the Big lie/January 6th; two impeachments; Republican silence in the face of Trump’s crimes; Republican continued obstructionism; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine thanks to Trump presidency; SCOTUS June coup; and, let’s add for good measure another five years lost in the battle to slow the effects of climate change…. Embedded in all of the points above is the right-wing hatred of everyone not aligned with Trump and his racist views. Embedded also is the hatred and fear the right expresses about queer and transgender America. Embedded is how Colin Kaepernick was declared an America-hating terrorist by the right for his peaceful protests…

[T]oo many of our fellow citizens now believe that America can only be great if it is aligned with Jesus, “their savior.” .These “other Americans,” the ones I tell you probably failed American history in high school, also believe that corporations have the same rights, if not more, than humans. They believe that a zygote has more rights than a child living in abject poverty. They believe that it’s okay kids get slaughtered in schools by armed teens…

This hard-wired ideologue actually has the gall (or lack of self-awareness) to write in his or her profile, “Be curious, not judgmental at least until you have all the facts.”

Such people are almost certainly beyond help, reasoning, persuasion, education and reality. And the relentless, barely-countered propaganda from mainstream media is producing more of them every day.

I know, I know, I could write a 10,000 word debunking of just that section (who called Colin Kaepernick a “terrorist”?), and so could you, I suspect. But Sock Drawers Matter….

1. Here’s a fun game: find the bias in the New Yorker cover!

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There is actually a lot to celebrate and remember on July 4th. It was on this date in 1776, of course, that the delegates began signing the final version of Mr. Jefferson’s document. Also, perhaps the two most crucial Founders, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died on July 4, 1826, the 50^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.  Both men were desperately ill, and clearly held on with the intention of passing on the day that means to much to them. The fifth President, James Monroe, also died on the Fourth, in 1831.

On July 4,1827, New York officially banned slavery. The same day Monroe died, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” was first performed at an Independence Day celebration in Boston. In my elementary school (Parmenter School, in Arlington, Mass.) that was the patriotic song we learned first and sang most often. I was shocked to learn, years later, that it was really “God Save the Queen” with different lyrics.

In 1863 on the Fourth, the Siege of Vicksburg ended with a Confederate surrender. Combined with the Union victory at Gettysburg the day before, the news of Grant’s triumph rescued the North from despair, and probably saved Lincoln’s presidency.

1919’s Independence Day saw Congress approve the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote. The amendment was sent to the states for ratification, and ratify it they did.

All in all, a good day.

1. And yet we have come to this…

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Less than two weeks ago, President Biden made a speech in which he commanded oil companies to lower their gas prices.

“To the companies running gas stations and setting those prices at the pump, this is a time of war, global peril, Ukraine. These are not normal times. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump. Do it now,” he said.

Then, on Fourth of July weekend, he repeated the order.

Observations: Continue reading →