How can you describe a week that began with another accusation against Brett Kavanaugh and ended with seeing the movie Downton Abbey?
Well, it’s a week that demonstrates my own troubled relationship with class, and privilege. On the one hand, I was certainly furious during the Kavanaugh hearings, and again this week, at the sense of privilege and entitlement that Kavanaugh showed during the hearings, and the way the Republican men of the Senate Judiciary Committee circled the wagons oozing rage at those who dared question Kavanaugh’s right to sit on the Supreme Court, as they attempted to destroy anyone who stood in his way. Among all their other privileges, rich white men claimed their right to victimhood.
At the time, I was heartened by the effect Christine Blasey Ford’s heartrending testimony had on women all over the country, who began to speak of their own experiences openly and the men who listened to them. But she ended up with threats against her life and he ended up on the Supreme Court. Democrats, including several running for the presidential nomination, have called for his impeachment. Personally, I thought he should have been impeached as soon as he was sworn in, and eventually he will have to be impeached, only with him there would have to be supermajorities in both houses, since impeachment would have to result in his removal from the Court.
But I ordered Downton Abbey tickets as soon as they were available, having been addicted to the series, and enjoyed the movie yesterday very much. There is a part of me that always longed for rank and privilege, for rich and beautiful things around me, for culture — hell, even for a British accent. I’m from the lower end of the working class, and even now realize sometimes how much basic cultural knowledge my classmates had which I lacked. You can’t get much further from the south Bronx than Highclere Castle. The movie centers around a royal visit, and curiously my favorite story line was the servants’ rebellion when the royal servants came to take over during the visit. Of course, the movie has a modern lens, largely feminine, and even Thomas has the promise of a happy ending.
In any case, that was the week that was.
Now for some news. As always, thanks to my sisters in crime, who this week included Besame, elenacarlena, mettle fatigue, officebss, SandraLLAP, Tara TASW, karij, and noweasels.
Here are some other stories that stood out for me, in no particular order.
Like other forms of right-wing violence, violence against abortion clinics has increased during Trump’s time as president.
About 6,500 National Nurses United members walked out at 12 Tenet facilities after working without a contract for two years in Arizona and under expired contracts for months in California and Florida, the union said. They plan to resume working Saturday.
Tamika Mallory, Linda Sarsour, and Bob Bland ended their terms on the board of the National Women’s March. These members and Carmen Perez, who remains on the board, were at the center of a divisive controversy last year, where they were accused of antisemitism because Mallory had years earlier attended a NOI rally where Louis Farrakhan gave an antisemitic rant, and refused to denounce him. This was perhaps the first of a number of times women (and some men) of color have been accused of antisemitism, generally because they support Palestinian rights and oppose Israel and the occupation of the West Bank. (Others include Angela Davis, Marc Lamont Hill, Ilhan Omar, Rashide Tlaib.) The current board is wonderfully diverse with members who are active for different marginalized groups, and also includes a Palestinian-American activist.
I will say what I have often said before — like many other Jews, I don’t like being used as a wedge to divide the resistance. We have to be careful about all these accusations. Jews and other minorities have a common enemy, and we must not forget that.
Veteran journalist Cokie Roberts, who joined an upstart NPR in 1978 and left an indelible imprint on the growing network with her coverage of Washington politics before later going to ABC News, has died. She was 75.
Guess what? Having more women in politics can lead to stronger climate policies. Why am I not surprised?
Swimming four lengths does not sound like a particularly impressive achievement. But when those lengths add up to nearly 134 miles (215km) in the open sea, and when they have been completed by a breast cancer survivor a year after treatment, they look more like an extraordinary world first.
. . .
Over 54 gruelling hours from midnight on Sunday until dawn on Tuesday, the American ultra long-distance swimmer Sarah Thomas, 37, became the first person to swim the Channel four times without stopping.
Netflix has made a mini-series out of a horrible case where an 18-year-old woman just beginning her life after foster care was raped, and then talked into saying she had made a false accusation. Then years later a woman detective got a rape case that she felt sure was committed by a serial rapist, who turned out to be the man who had raped the 18-year-old. This article about the series has a link to the original Pro-Publica story — do go back to it. It’s harrowing. I remember reading it in 2015. It loses nothing of its poignancy and horror on a second reading.