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.
Ferida Wolff's Backyard Series: Pumpkins In the Patch, Halloween and After
Neighbors had left a pumpkin outside to feed the rabbits that happened by. The seeds that weren’t eaten planted themselves and now were happily growing. The plot the pumpkins were growing in wasn’t ideal for the length of the vines but they were thriving nonetheless, a symbol of life’s determination to express itself. After Halloween, if you have a pumpkin you might want to use in a different way, one that nourishes and delights without the scary element to it, read on for more suggestions.
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Culture Watch Book Reviews: The Smartest Kids in the World & Shut Up, You're Welcome
Amanda Ripley gives us a detailed, separate report on the experiences of each American child she followed who had studied abroad, including each one’s "take" on what made school in those countries so successful. The youngster’s comparisons are forthright and fascinating. So are Ms. Ripley’s conclusions and descriptions in The Smartest Kids in the World. Annie Choi’s wit is pointed but not savage. She uses humor in Shut Up You’re Welcome to underscore the essential, sustained importance of family, the collective umbilical cord that binds. more »
Shingles Belong on the Roof, Not on My Skin
Roberta McReynolds writes: Since aging tends to go hand-in-hand with a gradually fading resistance to illness, it makes sense that the likelihood of getting shingles tends to strike people age 60 and over. In a cruel twist of fate, I developed the first symptoms of shingles just 23 days after my 60th birthday; merely weeks after I became old enough to obtain the shingles vaccine. Did my warranty just expire? Each day that passed the complex pain became more brutal and impossible to ignore; the ‘electric shock treatments’ intensified.
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Another Reason to Visit New York City: Wedding Bed Covers, Tapestries, Quilts and Period Clothing
Jill Norgren writes: Interwoven Globe is a large exhibition begging hours of a visitor's attention. Walk through it first without reading the explanatory signs. Once familiar visually with all that the exhibition has to offer, begin again, studying the signs and considering the objects as expressions of the global artistic exchanges made possible by the golden age of European maritime navigation. more »
