Sightings
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.
Sexual Assault: DOD and Coast Guard Should Ensure Laws Are Implemented to Improve Oversight of Key Prevention and Response Efforts
Sexual assaults in the military continue to increase, although Congress, the Department of Defense, and the Coast Guard have taken actions to prevent and address them. Congress passed 249 statutory requirements between 2004 and 2019 to improve how the military: helps sexual assault victims; prevents sexual assaults; manages and oversees prevention efforts; investigates cases and conducts judicial proceedings. DOD and the Coast Guard have met most of these requirements but not all of them. Also, they don't have enough oversight to know whether some of their efforts are effective. Our 23 recommendations address these and other issues. more »
CDC’s First Nationally Representative Survey of High School Students During the Pandemic Can Inform Effective Programs
Findings highlight that a sense of being cared for, supported, and belonging at school — called “school connectedness” — had an important effect on students during a time of severe disruption. Youth who felt connected to adults and peers at school were significantly less likely than those who did not to report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness (35% vs. 53%); that they seriously considered attempting suicide (14% vs. 26%); or attempted suicide (6% vs. 12%). However, fewer than half (47%) of youth reported feeling close to people at school during the pandemic. “School connectedness is a key to addressing youth adversities at all times – especially during times of severe disruptions,” said Kathleen A. Ethier, PhD, Director of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health.
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Shhhhhh by Ferida Wolff
Ferida Wolff wrote: “Goodnight,” I crooned. I gently patted his back until he settled down. When I heard his breathing get deeper, I thought it was safe to tiptoe out of the room as I had done so many years ago with my tiny toddlers. I didn’t reckon on my joints. My toes cracked with my first step. How could anything so little sound so loud? It was loud enough to wake him. So I patted and shhhed until, once again, he was asleep. I wiggled my toes before starting my retreat to warm them. Then I moved very slowly, keeping each step balanced and light. I almost made it to the door when my knee exploded. Crack. There was no way my grandson would sleep through that! Sure enough, I heard him call me. more »
Chicago History Museum, Pullman Women at Work: From Gilded Age to Atomic Age
"The goal was to offer women work that would be in line with a domestic role and 'not interfere with their primary maternal duties." Pullman centralized the laundry operations and built a new facility on Florence Boulevard (now 111th Street), where in 1892, more than 100 women washed “soiled bed linens, tablecloths and napkins.” In 1899, a Chicago Tribune article marveled at the laundry’s machines that could wash and iron “30,000 pieces in a day” and the “young women” who fed pieces through the tumbler and the mangler, folded them, and tied them in bundles. The encyclopedic 1893 book, The Town of Pullman, described the laundry facility in even more gushing terms: a structure “supplied with every modern convenience for the comfort of employes [sic],” rooms buzzing with “busy girls, all wearing white caps and white aprons while attending to their multifarious duties” and spotlessly clean linens that 'when handled by the girls, [were] sweet and clean.'" more »
