Articles
Jo Freeman: 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.
During Poetry Month, A Joan Cannon Poem and Math and Metaphor: Flashes of Inspiration Require for Universes to be Disclosed
Joan L. Cannon wrote:
Archetypes, mysteries, simple clues
that only fingers and toes, sticks and stones
and flashes of inspiration require
for universes to be disclosed ...
symbols for functions and formulae
for proof; logic so easy for some —
why am I innumerate? more »
So Many Who Need to Escape Danger: The Central American Minors Parole Program Will Resume Processing Children and Reuniting With Parents
S.A., Individual Plaintiff: “I am so happy at the news that the government will allow eligible children to come to the US to fulfill their dreams of a better life without danger and fear, where they can study and try to have a better future. My heart jumps and cries for joy because there are so many who need to escape danger. I have faith that I will be together with my daughter and grandson soon.” more »
Ferida Wolff's Backyard: Flowering Plum and Vincent Van Gogh
Ferida Wolff writes: "So much is happening in the world today that a simple gift of nature like this is much appreciated. The delicate pink flowers remind me of how life flutters on, how it shifts from beautiful to decimated and hopefully back again to a space that offers us a chance to take a deep breath, to experience joy and to share our awareness of life's flowering with those around us." more »
Individual Placement and Support (IPS) “holds promise ... for people with opioid use disorders” & The Changing Perceptions Through Art and Storytelling ’Opioid Project
Researchers suggest programs that help people find and keep jobs might help boost employment among people with substance use disorder. One such model is Individual Placement and Support (IPS), which was designed for people with serious mental illnesses. A 2017 pilot study of IPS among 45 people enrolled in an opioid treatment program found that 50 percent of those who were assisted in finding work through IPS attained competitive employment within six months, compared with 5 percent of the participants who were waitlisted for IPS. “The Opioid Project” exhibition demonstrates: “Behind every person who has lived with the complicated and fraught life of drug addiction and its many cofactors, there is a human being with lots of hopes and dreams.”
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