Deirdraâ€@birdofparadox #YesAllWomen does not mean Yes, All Men. Thank you to the men who get that, and are standing in witness to women’s experiences. I’ve been cooking down my feelings, and plain and simple, it goes like this. When confronted with unspeakable violence toward women (and a subsequent outpouring of women’s similar experiences), I wish our […]
I am sharing with you the message I presented at the UU Church’s Earth Day celebration. Dear Mississippi, how should I begin? Water: In heavy rain, cats yowling, the lightning in the sky giving me a glimpse of the Chunky River’s churning. A sudden doom fell upon my shoulders: I was moving somewhere they would name a […]
Often, I hear older people complain that today’s youth and young adults are unwilling to work within established organizations, that they’re forcing donors to choose who they fund by creating new organizations… There’s a young person who’s created a model for cleaning the plastic from our oceans. A fourteen year old Taylor Wilson built a […]
People defaced the state of civil rights hero James Meredith last week. Many people had a whole bunch of valid things to say about it, but it’s often the same old song and dance. Someone inevitably starts sounding like FuckTheSouth.com. I am a blue heart in a red state, and this only pisses us off. […]
I eavesdrop. I listen to people’s restaurant conversations. I strain to hear my coworkers converse. It’s a wretched habit, mostly. When I was a kid, my dad’s parents would marvel over their nerdy granddaughter like a strange bug. They’d tell my mother how smart I was, like she was too blonde to know. They’d tell […]
1 in 4 women will experience abuse in her lifetime. That’s really where this post could end, but allow me to continue. Every 15 seconds, a woman is beaten. 4.8 million intimate partner-related acts of violence annually, and less than 20% of them receive medical care post-assault. A recent social experiment showed that many people […]
This is my third year volunteering with the Chick Ball. I have a lot of reasons why I volunteer, but the most important reason is because I have seen too many wonderful people beaten and emotionally decimated by loved ones. I’ve heard too many excuses from strong, brilliant people about why their parent, sibling or […]