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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.
Ferida Wolff's Backyard: A Colorful Spring and Delicious Herbs
Ferida Wolff writes: "I tend to talk to my herbs as I water them. I compliment them on how big they’re getting and nuzzle them so that I get whiffs of their delicious scents. It reminds me of the time my friend tried an experiment with two of the same plants. One plant she spoke to daily and smiled at as she passed it during the day. The other she merely watered but didn’t try to connect with. The spoken to plant thrived while its twin barely survived. I think all living things interact through energy. When we offer positive energy, whether to plants or people, we encourage connection. And that stimulates growth and our relationship to all around us. It opens a door to the broader sense of life and helps us to feel how important our input is in our world." more »
Jill Norgren Reviews Women’s Liberation!: Feminist Writings That Inspired a Revolution & Still Can
Jill Norgren Reviews: "In their newly published compendium, Women’s Liberation! Feminist Writings That Inspired a Revolution & Still Can editors Alix Kates Shulman and Honor Moore have selected ninety important texts written from 1963 through 1991 that educate us on the range of feminist thinking in the 20th century – what it meant to be a woman in the United States and the changes that these authors wanted, often demanded. And like the Seneca Falls Declaration, once read these writings provide a similar opportunity to explore which feminist goals have been achieved and where the movement is still reaching." more »
Joan L. Cannon Wrote: Pets, Pleasures, a Black and White Great Dane and a Kleenex Cat
Editor's Note: We found ourselves considering a copy of Knit Your Own Dog that we had acquired some years ago but hadn't followed through on that order. Beyond that our grandchildren may be of the age that this might no longer have an appeal in their dorm rooms. But for Joan Cannon the subject held appeal: "My son-in-law is allergic to cats. I don't know about his sons, who are polite to our dogs. No one in that group seems ever to have wished for a pet. It makes me nervous about their children, should they ever have any ... "Reams have been written about how animals — pets, in most cases — contribute to the comfort of human lives. Most of us have wept over Flag in The Yearling, Black Beauty, Old Yeller, and many more." more »
Diane Girard Writes: Rereading Books for Pleasure and Solace
Diane Girard Writes: I return to some of my favorite books these days for fun and for comfort. And, as the pandemic has shown me, reading printed books gives me a break from peering at words and images online. For contrast and with no obvious morals tucked into the story, I sometimes reread H.E. Bates’, A Little of What You Fancy. The Larkins are, as the cover of my 1979 edition notes, ‘thirsty, hungry, lusty, happy, irrepressible — immortal’. Bates wrote several books about the Larkins and there was a TV series called ‘The Darling Buds of May.’ The stories are set in the English countryside and Pop Larkin’s motto is the more the merrier, which also applies to his amorous activities. If income tax evasion, opposition to the tunnel under the English Channel, a lot of tippling, and women expressing healthy sexual appetites distress you, I suggest you don’t read the book. more »
