Relationships and Going Places
Jo Freeman: Fourth Dispatch from the RNC -- Largely on Things To Do At The Convention
There’s Plenty To Do at the RNC – If You Have the Right Credentials
by Jo Freeman
Every national nominating convention has plenty of auxiliary events, some authorized, some not. Getting space can be a challenge; getting the word out even more so. But they do it nonetheless. Press were given a RNC 2024 Master Event Calendar, which was updated a few days later. Events began on Sunday and ended on Thursday. The actual convention sessions were just one item on the list. The calendar said if an event was Open or Closed to press, and also whom to contact to register. I’m going to describe some of the events, including a couple I went to, and a couple I was turned away from.
Since my focus is on women, I obviously wanted to go to those events – if I could.
The National Federation of Republican Women is the largest grassroots Republican women's organization in the country with hundreds of clubs. Founded in 1938, its members made the phone calls and knocked on the doors that elected Republican candidates for decades. It’s Tuesday luncheon featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders. The Master Calendar said it was SOLD OUT and they wouldn’t let me in. I was able to get into their lounge at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday evening, where I was repeatedly asked if I was a member, and if not, would I join. “I’m press,” I said. “I can’t join anything partisan.” I then said: “What brings you here?” On hearing that, finding anyone willing to chat with me was like pulling teeth.
Moms for Liberty met in a concert hall that afternoon. I had pre-registered, and I got in. From high in a balcony seat I listened to several people talk about the evils of transgenderism. It’s webpage says WE BELIEVE Power Belongs to the People. Sound Familiar? With a focus is on parental rights, it wants to “STOP WOKE indoctrination.”
Tuesday I went to “The New Mavericks” reception co-hosted by the Black Republican Mayors Association and the Georgia Republican Party. They honored Sen. Tim Scott, four Congressmen and two Georgia delegates – all male. There was only one mayor on stage, from Aurora, IL. The chair of the Georgia Republican Party was the one white man on the stage. At that event, women served; they didn’t speak. The RNC reported that 55 delegates to the 2024 convention are Black, up from 18 in 2016.
I missed the Independent Women’s Forum toast to “Women Who Make Our Country Great” because I went to Convention Fest: The Official Delegate Experience, which was held in the streets outside the Fiserve Forum and Baird Hall as well as some space inside Baird. To get to that one you not only needed a credential of some sort, but a USSS pass (which I have).
Concerned Women for America parked its pink bus across from the Baird Center the week before the RNC. No one was home. When Convention Fest opened on Tuesday afternoon, they set up a pink tent, from which its leaders preached to whomever passed by. It calls itself “the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization” but its focus is evangelical Christian. The slogan on the side of its pink bus captures this emphasis: “She Prays, She Votes.” A prayer precedes each sermon.
How I Joined the Revolution in New Body Parts
Sonya Zalubowski writes: First, it was just a hitch in my step, then my legs began to feel sore and weirdly hollow during my daily walk with my dog, especially if I lollygagged along the way and spent time standing and chatting with friends we met. By the time I’d get home, down a steep hill, my right hip outright throbbed with the aching. I was young, my early 70s, and had had only one operation in my whole life. Some 30 years before. I had miles to go, no room for a hip replacement. more »
The US Targeted Breastfeeding Abroad. Here at Home It’s Another Story
This year in the United States, Idaho became the last to protect mothers who are nursing in public against fines for public indecency. Utah enacted a similar law a few days before, so all 50 states now allow public breastfeeding. New Jersey expanded its civil rights law to protect nursing mothers from discrimination at work, joining 28 states that offer workplace protections. New York will begin requiring breastfeeding rooms in all state buildings open to the public by next year. The choices made by mothers in the United States and those abroad may seem unrelated, but in fact are closely intertwined. more »
A Wild Rotation; “Between animal and human medicine, there is no dividing line — nor should there be"
From Dr. Gilad D. Evrony: "I would never have predicted that I would spend my final month of medical school performing fetal ultra-sounds on a pregnant gorilla, phlebotomizing a 500-pound tapir with hemochromatosis, caring for a meerkat in heart failure, and investigating medical mysteries across the animal kingdom. Yet spending the final month of my MD-PhD program working at the veterinary hospital of a zoo was one of the more remarkable and humbling experiences I had during medical school — a unique capstone to my education as a physician-scientist;" - And a Peaceable Primate Sanctuary created to fill an unmet need and to provide a sanctuary for baboons retired from use in biomedical research, as pets or entertainers more »
Scout Report ... Pride and Prejudice On Open Bookshelf, Biological Macromolecules, Iranica, Volcanism, Phantom Islands, English Playbooks, Chemistry of Life, Logic Problems and Brain Teasers
On June 21, 2018, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) introduced Open Bookshelf, a one-stop shop for hundreds of e-books that are freely available online. This collection, which currently features over 1,000 books, includes titles that are in the public domain along with titles that are Creative Commons licensed. These titles are selected by the Curation Corps, a team of librarians from across the country that includes public, school, and academic librarians. The books available on Open Bookshelf reflect the diversity of the Curation Corps: the collection features classical literature (including Pride and Prejudice and Little Women), textbooks, academic titles, and children's books. more »