Tues. March 8... a Big Day

This is an OLD essay, written March 8, 2011, that sat around as a draft.

Today is a big day for at least two reasons. First, it is the one-hundredth anniversary of a day Jessie, my mother, the old Suffragette, loved: International Women's Day. We discussed it at our poetry group last week, and everyone is writing a poem for the day, to be read next week. In the meantime, the great intellectual in the group, David, read us a story about a Russian woman who worked and fought in Paris for women's rights. David of course, as usual, knows more about Women's Day and the whole history of the fight for women's rights than any of the women in the group. But then, he undoubtedly knows more about anything that might come up than anyone, male or female in the group. So Jessie, be reassured... the day is becoming better known and better celebrated now, and women are slowly and surely, at least in the industrial world, becoming not only better educated and healthier, but also slowly moving up the pay scale toward men. Not equal yet in my lifetime, nor in Whitney's, but perhaps in my grandchildren's lifetime. Callie could make it... after all, in fourth grade she tested in the top two percentile of children in the country. You go, Callie and make us all proud!! Jess would love you.

Charlie Rose, as one would expect, has a program with three women discussing what is happening by and with women of the world. Tina Brown, who is now editor of Newsweek is one, the woman who formed Women 4 Women, Zaineb Salbi, another is Dina Powell, who does women's start-ups around the world, for Goldman Sachs. All of them talk about the fact that women MUST be allowed a place at the table to not only help a country build itself up well, but also in all war and peace negotiations. i.e. EQUALITY... or perhaps let us show YOU how to do it, as we can do it better.

Secondly, today is Mardi Gras down in New Orleans... and as Whitney is wont to tell me, in all of Louisiana, including her little town, where their third house is located. I hope they had better weather than they expected... well, at least no reports of hurricanes and the news photos showed millions of people celebrating in the streets of New Orleans. I was sure happy to see that. God knows they need the visitors. They are rather like us in S.F... they need the tourists to stay alive. We haven't had much 'tourist weather' lately and I hope our summer is better this year then it was last year. Spring has at least given us gorgeous flowering fruit trees and some very nice blossoms. Hope it bodes well for Summer and Fall. Actually, it matters to me little, as long as the sun shines on my lovely San Francisco. So now we have Lent. Does anyone observe Lent anymore? Ah, school days, when it was fish, fish, fish.