Are we better than the crimes we condemn?

By JoAnne Young                                                                    

It’s been a spine-chilling two weeks for those of us who oppose the death penalty ... maybe even for those who support or have mixed feelings about state-sponsored killing. 

 

A lot of people are talking about the Christa Pike failed execution attempt and the announcement about a plan to live stream a federal execution in December. People I have talked to say they are stunned, horrified, disturbed, and in disbelief. 

 

Martha Elliott, a journalist and author who lives in Maine, witnessed an execution 21 years ago and said she still has flashbacks of what she saw. It was unconscionable and barbaric, the worst thing she has ever seen, she said in an interview on WBAL-TV. 

 

We are a divided country on our feelings about the death penalty. A slight majority (52%) of respondents to Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll said that they still consider the death penalty morally acceptable, down from a previous 54% record low in 2020. In 2016, 60% of Nebraska voters said they wanted to keep the death penalty in state law. 

 

While the death penalty isn’t high on the list of things most people think about on any given day, right now it can’t be avoided. 

 

On September 30, Tennessee botched the killing of Pike, and she survived two rounds of lethal doses of pentobarbital, meant to stop her breathing. Then on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the Pentagon’s announcement that the firing squad execution of a man who killed 13 people in 2009 at Fort Hood in Texas would be live-streamed. People need to see the consequences of murder, he said. 

 

In the days leading up to Pike’s Tennessee execution, she said she feared complications from the lethal injection method Tennessee planned to use to kill her for a murder she committed 32 years ago when she was 18. She was aware she didn’t have good veins, and that could be a problem.

 

“I run through this execution every day in my mind, especially with the day coming closer,” Pike said in an interview with the New York Times. 

 

Her concerns were justified. The people who administered the drug didn’t get it right in two attempts. They stopped the procedure and Pike ended up in a hospital for ten days in critical condition and this weekend was back in prison, walking with assistance and struggling with memory and concentration and recovering. 

 

This is the worst example of something that has been building and building, and finally broke through to people who don’t spend their time wondering why states use the death penalty and why they do it with such a problematic way, said New York Times reporter Pam Colloff on The Daily podcast. 

 

Pike has spent three decades in prison, mostly in isolation, according to the Times. A written background of Pike’s case by Cornell Law School said that at trial, the “jury never heard about her mental illness, brain damage, and history of rape and abuse, even though all the evidence was available at the time of her trial. The jury likewise never learned about her bipolar disorder or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and how it affected her behavior at the time of the crime. Her attorneys never even argued that she should be spared due to her youth.” 

 

The two other people involved in the death of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, Pike's victim, did not get the death penalty. One was 17 at the time of the crime, slightly younger than Pike, and the other turned state’s evidence.  

 

The now former corrections commissioner in Tennessee Frank Strata has overseen two botched executions. When he served as deputy director in Arizona there were three, caused by the inability of those administrating injections to find a viable vein, the reliance on unqualified volunteers to administer the drugs, and reliance on compounders or unverified suppliers of pentobarbital. 

 

States are having to purchase execution drugs from some pretty sketchy sources, as political commentator John Oliver has said, and when drugs are tainted, or not formulated at the proper dosages, executions become a protracted nightmare of suffering that is unconstitutional. 

 

The Constitution doesn’t say, no cruel and unusual punishment ... unless they really deserve it, Oliver said. 

 

But let’s talk about Nebraska, which last executed an inmate, Carey Dean Moore, in 2018. The earth shifted a bit on that day in August as the state resumed executions after a 21-year de facto moratorium. Moore had been scheduled for execution eight times, and for at least the last 10 years of his life, he had decided not to fight it, tired of sitting on Death Row for 38 years after killing two Omaha cab drivers in 1979. 

 

I was covering the state’s prisons for the Journal Star that year, and had offered myself up to be a witness in the press pool for Moore’s execution. The state chose, instead, three white men. I appealed the decision, saying that a female reporter should be included to see things, maybe, from a different perspective. I lost the appeal, but was still at the prison that day and wrote multiple stories on what happened. I don’t know if I dodged a psychological bullet, but I still feel it’s important for prisons to have people with diverse backgrounds reporting on such important issues. 

 

Lisa Knopp, a death penalty opponent, had corresponded with Moore for 23 years, and after his death wrote a book about their friendship through 320 letters from him she had saved. “From Your Friend, Carey Dean Letters from Nebraska’s Death Row,” was published in 2022.

 

His execution used a first-time cocktail of drugs that included a high dose of fentanyl. One of the drugs, potassium chloride, had been challenged as having the potential to cause serious pain for an inmate.  Two drug companies had objected in federal court to any use of their drugs in Nebraska as part of the lethal injection protocol, but they lost those challenges. 

 

The state’s handling of Moore’s death on the day was also not without controversy, with the curtains closing to witnesses for 14 unaccounted-for minutes. 

 

Nebraska’s Legislature had abandoned the death penalty in 2015, first passing the bill and then overriding Gov. Pete Ricketts veto. The next year Ricketts supported a ballot referendum to negate the Legislature’s decision. A lawsuit filed by the Nebraska ACLU said Ricketts  "proposed, initiated, funded, organized, operated, and controlled" the petition drive for the referendum, lent government staff to the campaign, and, along with his parents Joe and Marlene Ricketts, provided 29 percent of the campaign's funds. The lawsuit was unsuccessful.

 

I talked to Lisa this week. She told me she wasn’t surprised about what happened to Christa Pike. There are more botched executions than people know. 

 

How do death penalty opponents reconcile their feelings about families of murder victims, like the mother of Pike’s victim? Many have said they would want to personally kill anyone who killed one of their loved ones. “But that should not be public policy,” Lisa said. “The government should not be in the business of revenge for people who have been hurt.” 

 

Also, it’s expensive, she said. How much money and grief would Tennessee have saved if they had put Pike in the general prison population with no possibility of parole and just left her there? 

 

This year is an important anniversary in Nebraska because it is the tenth year since Nebraskans voted to keep the death penalty, she noted. Twelve men are on Nebraska’s Death Row. As of June of this year, the state reported 677 inmates were serving time for homicide, all but those 12 with life sentences or less. Most prosecutors opt against seeking the death penalty, even for those crimes that qualify. 

 

I saw an interesting discussion responding to community comments of people who wanted to see Pike mutilated and tortured as her victim was, a sort of blood lust. But opposing the torture of a prisoner isn’t about protecting a murderer, it’s about protecting us, said Vinnie Politan, a legal journalist and former prosecutor. Our laws exist so that the state does not mirror the actions of the criminals it seeks to punish. Doing so would turn our justice system into a criminal enterprise. 

 

“We have to be better than the crimes we condemn,” he said. 

Brave Enough to Use Your Voice

 By Marilyn Moore

Two sisters were honored at the Inspire celebration recently as the Young Leaders of the Year.  They have advocated at the legislature for a bill to require that insurance companies cover treatment for persons who suffer from a rare disorder, Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome, or PANS.  Violet and Belle, ages 11 and 9, are effective lobbyists; the bill passed convincingly.  In their acceptance speech at the awards ceremony, Violet said, “Sometimes, you just have to be brave enough to use your voice.”

Powerful words, there, and a powerful insight. It’s not easy to be brave, to use your voice, especially when you know that some who hear will not agree, will not understand, and will discount what you say.  And sometimes there is real danger, both physical and emotional, in using your voice.  

We’ve seen three examples of this in the news in the past two weeks.  Brave women, who experienced horrifying domestic violence and sexual assault, speaking out.  And hard as their stories of abuse are to hear, harder still is the additional line in the plot, that the institutions that are supposed to keep us safe, that is, police departments, sheriff’s offices, county and district attorneys, state governing boards, did not listen to the story, did not listen to their voice.

Maureen Brase, ex-wife of the deputy sheriff in Lancaster County, reported domestic abuse and violence committed by her ex-husband.  She reported it at the time it happened, a few years ago, and she made it public again as the election approaches; her ex-husband is running for Lancaster County Sheriff.  He denies all allegations.  The story was fully reported in the Lincoln Journal Star on September 27; check it out if you’ve missed it.

Earlier this week, Jody Snogren told her story of being threatened at knife point, tied to the bed, and brutally raped by her estranged husband; her children were at home, and heard it all .  He was charged, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to prison for 15 to 30 years.  He told her to watch her back.  He was released after 14 years; he applied for a pardon a few years later.  The Pardon Board in Nebraska is made up of three constitutional officers: the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Governor.  On a 2-1 vote, the pardon was granted.  Then-Governor Ricketts, now Senator Ricketts, voted in favor of the pardon.  Jody’s assailant is now able to carry a firearm and has been removed from the sex offender list.  She told this story three years ago as the legislature considered a bill that would require the Pardon Board to listen to input from the victims when considering a pardon. She tells it again, now, as Senator Ricketts is running for reelection.

And in a story that has capture the attention of and horrified the nation, a former student at Cornell, Jane Doe, has filed a lawsuit, seeking to recover damages from night in which she was drugged and sexually assaulted by several men, repeatedly, and over a period of several hours.  She reported the assault to the University Police.  The Cornell administration took some action against the assaulters, though it’s not clear as to what those actions were.  The District Attorney declined to file charges.  She is seeking financial compensation from the assaulter and from the University and various organizations at the university.

As always happens when a woman reports an assault or abuse, her credibility is challenged. Questions are asked about her behavior, what she was doing, what she was wearing, why it took so long (however long “so long” is) to report the assault, why didn’t she just leave.  This has happened to Maureen, to Jody, and to Jane Doe.  It takes a lot of bravery to use your voice, and all three of them are very brave.

What is maddening to me beyond the assaults, and the assaults are outrageous, is that in each story, their voices were not heard. Sheriff Wagner can’t remember if members of his department interviewed Maureen.  He sure hopes they did…. When he labels her “just a woman scorned,” it’s hard to believe her voice would have been taken seriously.  

Jody was not notified that her rapist was being considered for a pardon; she was not given an opportunity to use her voice.  She found out about the pardon from a news story, that the man who had raped her and warned her to watch her back, had been pardoned…and she had had no opportunity to speak.  Senator Ricketts, then Governor, said that he made the best decision he could make at the time based on the information that he had.  Clearly, he did not see value in the voice of the woman who had been raped by the man seeking a pardon for that rape.  

The full account of Jane Doe’s report of the night of unending assaults was not reviewed by the District Attorney.  His office received a six-page summary of the university police department investigation. That investigation was extensive, including reports from many interviews.  It also included the clear statement from Jane, “I am 100% certain that I was raped.”  That sentence was not in the summary the DA received, and no one in his office talked to the woman who had been drugged and raped, for hours, by many men.  Her voice was not sought.  Her lawsuit makes certain her voice will be heard.  

There are other voices that are conspicuously silent in these stories.  Those are the voices of proponents, including Senator Ricketts and Governor Pillen, of the proposed Fairness for Girls constitutional amendment; it, too, will be on the Nebraska ballot in November.  This amendment seeks to protect girls on sports teams from trans girls who also want to play sports.  A hot-button issue, I get it.  And in Nebraska, it’s handled by state law, and the Nebraska School Activities Association.  But that’s not enough for the supporters of the amendment; they want constitutional language about it.  

These same supporters, however, have said nothing about fairness for victims of domestic violence whose abuser is a law enforcement officer running for a law enforcement office.  They have said nothing about fairness for the survivor of a brutal rape knowing that her rapist is seeking a pardon and having an opportunity to speak to that decision.  They have said nothing about fairness for a survivor of a most god-awful night of forced drugs and sexual assault not being asked by the district attorney to tell what happened to her, in her own words, in person.  Evidently that fairness is not as important as keeping trans-girls off sports teams.  

Violet and Belle are so right. Women can make a difference if they are brave enough to use their voice.  Maureen and Jody and Jane are brave, very brave.  And with that comes vulnerability, and most likely danger.  Their voices will make a difference, either in the next few weeks, or over the course of time yet to come, as women’s voices persist, gaining power and strength, each voice supported by and joined by dozens or hundreds or thousands of voices, speaking truth, bravely.  

There is, of course, one event where women’s voices are heard without discrimination. And that’s the voting booth.  Despite some recent proposals that would combine individual votes into a “family” vote, with the husband casting the vote for all, women have had the right to vote in this country for just over a hundred years. And we vote; since the 1980’s, women have voted at a higher percentage than men.  In that voting booth, women’s stories are important, and powerful, and cannot be ignored or uncounted.  Our voices through the ballot can shape elections, can shape futures, can take a stance on the importance of hearing women’s voices in all aspects of community life, especially in those circumstances where women are threatened, unsafe, and unheard.  When I vote, I’ll be thinking of Maureen, and Jody, and Jane. 

Find us on Facebook and Substack @5 Women Mayhem.

I figure it’s not a bad thing to believe in butterflies

 By Mary Kay Roth

Languorous in their lofty flights on this late September morning, they delicately sail with the breezes, tumbling and gently quivering overhead.

I am stretched out on an autumn bed of damp grass, looking skyward, gazing up at 10, maybe 15 monarchs, flaming gold against the cloudless blue sky. Their wings seem to flow with bright orange lava, the edges and veins etched in black coal. 

Butterflies have bewitched me since I was a little girl.

Monarchs are the rock stars.

I remember spying on them and skipping after them, lured by their telltale burnished coloring – and those inexplicable white spots. As I child, I thought those spots were eyes and I wondered if they closed them at night. I wondered if butterflies dreamed.

Back then, I didn’t even know some of the best stuff: That the monarch migration is a wonder of the natural world. Their annual trek represents one of the longest cycles of movement undertaken by any creature on Earth, a journey they have embarked upon since the last Ice Age. 

But kids don’t care much about mundane stuff like that. They are simply enchanted with the flash and flutter of a monarch’s wing.

When I was a mere toddler, I watched my mother tutor my older sister in the fine art of capturing these gorgeous creatures – “euthanizing” them (adding ethyl acetate to a jar) – then stabbing them with stainless steel pins for mounting.

My sis was quite proud of her colorful butterfly collections.

Years later it was my turn.  So, one summer afternoon I reluctantly captured a lone monarch and placed it in a jar where my mom had added the dreaded, poisoned cotton ball.  

The tiny creature fluttered to the bottom of the jar, quiet, still.

And suddenly I sprang up, tore off the jar’s lid and ran outside to free the hapless creature. 

First and last time I ever captured a monarch.

“But Mary, they don’t live very long,” my mom attempted to explain.

Strange that even in those tender years I already knew what my soul was telling me: 

Monarch butterflies are a gift to grace our heart and how dare we shorten their lives by even a flicker in time.

I believe author Annie Dillard would surely have agreed, as I read her description of the monarch migration in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: “It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave … It was as if the season’s colors were draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding ... And when the monarch butterflies had passed and were gone, the skies were vacant, the air poised.”

Right now, of course, they’re preparing to leave us.

These amazingly resilient characters will soon take a multi-generational migration south to reach the deep forests of Mexico – traveling unimaginable distances of 2,000 to 3,000 miles – careening through thunderstorms and headwinds – dodging birds, windmills and cars. 

Their delicateness belies a life cycle that more resembles a long-haul trucker, one scientist wrote, than anything you might read in a sweet children’s book.

Indeed, a monarch’s migration not only takes them up to heights of 10,000 feet – covering up to 100 miles a day – their rigorous journey takes them through a cycle of four generations. The generations that travel for miles, live for months. Those that dance in Nebraska over the months of spring and summer, only survive for weeks.

Perhaps that's why, when they’re here in the Midwest I feel responsible for them, planting seeds of bee balm, asters, coneflowers – and, of course, milkweed, the only place their caterpillars will lay eggs.

Of course, butterfly gardens are not nearly enough.

The swift uncertain nature of climate change, habitat loss, rise of temperatures, herbicides, loss of milkweed – have left the future of their migration in precarious balance. In the last two to three decades, the monarch population has declined by 80 to 95 percent.

And yet, a glimmer of hope flickers. 

For a recent story in Atlantic magazine, senior editor Vann R. Newkirk traveled to Mexico to witness the annual arrival of millions of monarchs and reported numbers had increased 64 percent from previous years. After decades of decline, he said, monarch populations are showing tentative signs of recovery, stabilization likely linked to conservation work in Mexico, the United States and Canada. 

Monarchs possess an incredible biological "dynamo of survival," Newkirk reported. “They may yet surprise us. For all their seeming fragility, monarchs will be extraordinary, capable partners in our efforts to save them.”

In fact, I could use a little hope right now, something to hang onto.  And I figure it’s not a bad thing to believe in monarch butterflies.

Ancient cultures across the globe saw them as departed souls, giving us faith for renewal. Spotting a monarch was good luck, symbolizing transformation, spiritual connection.

So, as I watch these gorgeous creatures on this mild September day, I realize I have learned much since I was young.

* That you call a flock of butterflies a kaleidoscope – how cool is that.

* That the white dots on their wings are not eyes. 

* That they don’t have eyelids, but they do sleep – under leaves, in the bark of trees, beneath deep grasses – in a  state called quiescence.

And I know for certain – I knew even as a child – these brilliant black-and-orange pilots are a gift we should not squander, because the natural world has much more to teach us. 

The monarch’s tenacity lives as a testament to endurance and survival. Their beauty, a reminder of the fragile lightness of letting go.

And if they dream, and I hope they do, perhaps that contented slumber is filled with visions of wildflowers, milkweed and children who still hold them dear.  

*** Gratitude to my friend, Tom White, for sharing his extraordinary photographs.

Hey Funny Girl, you’re on in 5

By Karla Lester

This one’s for all the funny girls. The sound system is crummy, but the mic is turned on. The stage lights that feel like heat lamps have been switched to blazing. The crowd of hecklers is trickling in. Seats are being filled in the basement bar and watery drinks are being poured. It smells musty in here. Time to dust off your jokes and get your set ready. Go ahead and use your memopad notes so you remember your punchlines. You are needed now more than ever. This is no time to be nervous. 

You’re on in 5,4,3,2,1…..

Funny is the most powerful currency. Laugh or cry. At least that’s what I learned as a kid without money or control over anything in my life. I learned early, maybe before age 3 to get funny or cry all the time. That laughing or making other people laugh, especially my mom , Barb, could change my little world. Funny is survival currency against a stack of ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences). 

Rich Little could do a mean Jimmy Stewart impression, but could he pull off a spot on impression of my piano teacher’s husband? Impersonating my piano teacher’s old husband who walked funny and rubbed his hands together and said, “Well, I’ve been planting my apple trees,” was comedy gold at my house. Your Dad leaves you. Jokes stay. Watch Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers. Listen to Carol Burnett answer the audience’s questions. You’ll start to get some material. 

I miss my funny Mom, Barb. She died seven years ago and was funny in a real and down to earth way. Without intention. Without trying. There was never a moment of my life with Barb when I couldn’t fully be myself. There was no walking on eggshells. No way. A soft place to land to be myself. Barb let me discover my funny. 

Barb hated shopping so much she made me try on bras over my shirt in the middle of the department store. Barb never let my sisters and I quit anything. Other than dance, that is. On the way to a recital at John Knox Village, a retirement home, my Mom was getting lost, driving us in our broken down car and we were fighting as usual. Barb accidentally got hit in the head with a tap shoe and she had it. “That’s it. You’re quitting dance.” I’m sure my sisters and I cheered. 

Barb ironically went on to work at John Knox Village in the payroll department with a woman named Rowena who used to really enjoy her lunch. A little too much. She hummed with every bite. A daily report from Barb on Rowena’s lunch and how much she enjoyed it was always something to look forward to. 

When I was a little kid, I didn’t cut my teeth on Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers. It was Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence. Of course, I loved Lucille Ball but it was the stand up comedians for me. Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller made fun of their appearance and women’s issues. They got ahead of it in true feminist comedian fashion. 

Phyllis Diller probably wrote 1,000 jokes for her 1977 stand up routine. I watched it recently and can say that a lot of it went over my head when I was a kid. She touched on some touchy subjects. She got ahead of the jokes about her looks. Beauty was currency for women, but funny was her currency. “I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my Mother.” “The only man interested in my legs is Colonel Sanders.” Joking about Jimmy Carter, “I have bad news about Jimmy Carter. Three of his front teeth died from exposure.” “Inflation has hit everything but my chest.” Her made up husband, Fang, was a character who she said she pigeon-holed along with other characters. 

Joan Rivers made fun of herself as an overweight child. She said her sensitive father called her Lump and took her for a drive in the UHaul It behind their car when she was sad. She told a joke on Ed Sullivan, “When I was having my baby, I screamed and screamed. And that was just during conception.” Ed Sullivan got letters from across the country, but he said, “She’s a funny girl.”  Her jokes about her husband, Edgar, were really self-deprecating. The dark humor helped her deal with grief after his death.  

When I learned that you shouldn’t ask a woman her age, I ran next door to ask Frannie, our neighbor, rang the doorbell and asked Frannie to come to the door. “Frannie, how old are you?” Frannie wasn’t the nicest. I took the answer she gave me, went home and told Barb how old Frannie is. Barb said, “Karla, you’re not supposed to do that? How old did she say she is?” And then, “That’s not true. She’s older than that.” Then, “Where are you going?” “I’m going back over there to tell her she lied about how old she is. If I’m not supposed to ask, Frannie’s not supposed to lie.”

I took my jokes on the road. I’ve always been good with the stinger. In High School, on the school bus coming home from the Science Olympiad, one of my fellow athletes, yelled that I didn’t have any points, which wasn’t true. I yelled back, “Shut up, Twelve Year Old Body Boy.” The nerds chanted all the way back, “TYOBB!” 

Elayne Boosler, a stand up comedian in the 80’s, bankrolled her HBO special Party of One because she had to. I watched her special and she had whole bits about how to date and have safe sex in the 80’s as a single woman. To test your blind date for HIV, when he comes to the door, you can be sewing on a button and then accidentally prick his finger and run it back to your home lab for testing. She had whole bits on condoms that were so funny.

My favorite stand up comedian these days is Wanda Sykes. No one holds a candle to her. I loved Rosie O’Donnell on Jimmy Kimmel. She slayed. Watch for a new SNL castmember, Grace Reiter. I’ve been a fan of hers on TikTok for years. She’s absolutely hilarious. 

I grew up to have funny kids. My girls are funny. Instead of calling me fat, Katherine said, “Let’s just say having three kids has been pretty hard on your stomach.”

Audrey talked around her thumb and asked me as a toddler, with her glasses all dusty and smudged and off kilter, “Can you count higher than a google?” 

I’m not sure.

“Are you stupid?” 

Thestaceyshow is making me laugh on TikTok. You have to check her out. She’s about my age and does videos in her car with the AC blowing her blonde hair, the radio blasting out a funky song, “Good morning and *%$* Donald Trump. Ain't nobody getting $5,000.” Then, sing along with “Ain’t nobody love me better.” 

Funny is not born of boredom. It’s from having someone in your life who lets you be you and listens and laughs and doesn’t criticize your observations of the world around you. You can’t be fake and be funny. You can’t care what other people think of you and be funny. 

Humor is resilience. Some things aren’t funny and never will be. Humor will help filter out the junk, the distractions, to have the reserve, the courage to speak up for what matters. I don’t take myself seriously. I take what I do very seriously. Humor is serious funny business. 

There’s nothing funny about the POTUS telling people to “cheat like hell” to win. There’s nothing funny about McConnell, out sick for two months, voted against medical leave 23 times since 1985. There’s nothing funny about the war in Iran, Gaza and ICE Detention centers. 

When Barb was in her 80’s and had COPD and was on oxygen and had CHF from AS (aortic stenosis), I took her to the cardiologist who proceeded to go through his whole spiel on what he would recommend, a procedure called a TAVR or valve replacement and what that would entail. Glasses were resting on her nose as she let him go through his sell job until she interrupted him, “Excuse me. Do you have any idea how old I am? Oh, to heck with all that. I’m not doing any of that.” I knew that one was coming. 

Oops, It’s time for me to go on….

I’m trying out some new material. I’m working on the transitions. Don’t steal my jokes. 

A woman’s body is a victim of gravity. But, as you age, stuff starts falling out. Literally. The only thing keeping my organs in now is my zipper.  If this zipper pops, all hell will break loose. 

There are two forces keeping women down. Gravity and the patriarchy. In America, these days, it’s easier for a woman to escape gravity than to escape patriarchy. Katy Perry and Gayle King did it. All it took was a billion dollar ride on a Jeff Bezos rocket. 

You know who we owe a massive apology to? I know. There’s a huge list. You know the people who’ve been saying the government is spying on them? Or, the ones who believe they are being watched through their TV? The ones we’ve been calling crazy, psychotic or having delusions of grandeur believing they’re God. Well, they’ve been right along. With flock cameras and even LG TV’s, our personal data is being tracked everywhere we go. They haven’t been out of their minds. They’ve been right all along. America even has a President who believes he’s Jesus. 

That joke is a good one, but needs some tweaking. 

You know Mitch McConnell is no longer with us, because he’s holding up a peace sign and smiling, the two things he’s never done in his entire political career. Poor Mitch McConnell. Let me hear you now. How poor is he? Mitch McConnell is so poor he’s getting pushed around, propped up just so Trump can make him look good. The economy is so bad under Trump and the Republicans, they have to keep Mitch McConnell on life support so they can steal his social security check. 

Did you see Trump at the 911 ceremony? He was asleep again. This guy falls asleep everywhere. We’ll take a Sleepy Joe and give you a Comatose Mitch and a Delusional Donald. It’s a 2 for 1 deal. 

In medicine we use the Glasgow coma scale to determine the level of consciousness a patient has. Did you hear that is being changed to the Mitch McConnell coma scale?

• Freezes when he speaks 
• Gravely sounds come out of his mouth, but no actual words
• Doesn’t know his name
• Doesn’t respond to well, anything
• Barely has a thready pulse
• Holds up a peace sign on handler’s command to show proof of life
• Votes with Democrats unless corrected by handlers

Speaking of parenting, parents are not really parenting these days. It’s gotten so bad, they’ve gone from gentle parenting to permissive parenting and now have you heard of the latest kind of parenting? It’s called Parenting by AI or Parenting by ChatGPT. Just plug any problem you have in and AI will have a list of ready answers for you. Little Johnny won’t eat his vegetables. No worries. Read the list of AI suggestions and Little Johnny will still likely have scurvy, but AI parenting still counts. You’re not phoning it in. You’re typing it in. AI is parenting your kid and it shows. 

Speaking of AI, the Republicans have come up with a plan to solve the childcare crisis. It’s really helpful for parents. Just drop your baby or toddler off at your local AI data center and ChatGPT will watch them while you go to your job that AI took away. 

Speaking of RFK Jr. Have you heard of the new invasive species taking over the country?  It survives on beef tallow, tylenol, measles, and sniffs cocaine off toilet seats.

I’ll be here all week.

A ‘mother hen’ shares tales about her flock of goofy characters

 By Anna Swartzlander

Three Easter’s ago, I decided to get chicks. I had wanted chickens for a while – not only for the eggs, but also because I have a wild Border Collie mix (Max – short for Maxi Pad Twinkle Toes Swartzlander) that needed a "job." After years of contemplating chicken-hood, I was gifted with a chicken coop for my birthday, so I decided it was time. 

I had no idea what I was in for. 

I started by going online to research hatcheries. Living within city limits, I knew I could not have roosters, so I had to make sure that I only adopted hens. After finding a hatchery that was reputable, I asked my two daughters to pick out a chicken breed. 

Who would have thought that picking out chickens is like online dating – there are a million different types, and you can filter them by characteristics. For instance, there are “meat” chickens and “good egg layers.” There are chickens that are considered “friendly” and those that are more likely to be aggressive or broody (sit on eggs). 

There are blue-egg-layers, green-egg-layers and brown-egg-layers. Some chickens are heartier in cold weather, some in hot weather, and then there are those that are simply “weather resilient.” There are rare chickens that are so sought after, you must reserve them months in advance. There are extremely cheap chickens ($3) and there are chickens that cost over $1,000. There are Polish chickens (ones with top feathers that you can put up in a ponytail to help them see), silkies (birds with silkie feathers that aren’t great in cold conditions because their feathers will freeze) and bantams (smaller chickens) and even chickens considered “funky.”

It was a whole new world. 

After agonizing over which chicken breeds would be best – we selected friendly, good-egg-laying and weather hearty – both of my girls picked out a chick to purchase. However, when I went to reserve our chickens, I found out that they weren’t going hatch at the same time – one lineage wouldn’t be ready for another month. Research shows that purchasing chicks/chickens at the same time is important to prevent the larger chickens from bullying the smaller chicks. 

But my daughters were set on their favorite types. 

So, we ended up purchasing chicks from two different hatcheries – each with a minimum of three chicks per order, so they would keep each other warm during UPS transport. Then, we decided we also needed some Polish chickens – because at this point, why not? In total, we ordered nine chickens. (I figured some would perish during transport, or soon after, so we might as well purchase a few extra.)

Then, there was the waiting. It was a mild March – up until the day that the chicks were to be transported – and then, of course, it turned into blizzard-like conditions and extremely low temperatures. I was like a nervous nine-month-pregnant mother during the day of their arrival. I must have spoken to the post office half a dozen times before they actually arrived. (As if the post office doesn’t know what it’s doing – it’s been transporting chickens via mail since 1918!) They arrived in small ventilated cardboard boxes, similar to McDonald’s happy meal boxes, three day-old chicks per container. 

I rushed them home, where I had a children’s playpen waiting for them to live in until they were “feathered” and ready to go outside, complete with a hanging heat lamp above to keep them warm. As I opened the boxes, one by one, I found all the chicks to be healthy. One hatchery even sent an extra “neighborhood” chicken, so we ended up with 10 instead of nine. All were alive. All were healthy. All would make it through their first year of life. 

They were adorable as chicks. My daughters named them all, we held them daily and watched them grow, month by month. It was outright entertainment. There is no need for electronics when you have 10 chicks to watch. We spent hours just gazing at them. We made them “chick houses” out of carboard boxes. We watched them nod off, at the drop of a dime, like little old men. We watched their chick fur turn into soft, beautiful feathers. We watched them learn to use those feathers, until one day, they could fly up to the top of the playset – ready for escape.

By early summer, they were feathered and gangly and defiant and ready to move to the outside coop. I had ordered a 6 x 10 dog run and had used hard-ware cloth to wrap the entire run – including the bottom – to keep out predators. I had purchased an additional (larger) coop, since the one I was gifted was technically supposed to house only three or four chickens. However, they all piled into the smaller coop – and to this day, they only use the smaller coop, sometimes perching on top if space is limited within. 

Then, we introduced them to our dog, Max. At first, Max was overly curious, so we kept him on the leash, slowly and carefully getting him closer and closer to the teenage chicks. At first, he snarled a bit, but pretty quickly he became calmer around them, until he could lay outside – with the chickens all around him - in reach of his paw or mouth – and simply ignore them. 

Today, Max and chickens co-exist (mostly) happily, like family. And the chickens seemed to calm down our dog, as he no longer has been eating holes in his forearm as he did prior to the chickens. 

However, there have been problems. Chickens are mostly low-key pets, just needing water, chicken feed and space to rove. My chicken’s roam free (free range) all day long and stumble to their coop at night. 

However, there are the escape artists – one chicken can flap herself up to the roof of our house and routinely perches herself on top of the dog run to sleep. 

There are medical concerns, such as bumblefoot (a foot infection one chicken suffered from), and two other awful maladies we’ve thus far avoided: lash eggs (a staph infection) and scaly leg mites. 

They love “dirt baths” and will rip up patches of lawn to roll around in fresh dirt. 

They invaded my raspberry patch, and they poop EVERYWHERE. 

And sadly, we have lost two to predators, one about a year ago, and one just earlier this summer. Each time, I cry and ask myself why in the heck I got 10. 

But they are hilarious to watch. They each have their own personality:

• There is Buckeye, the red hen, who acts tough and comes charging anytime you open the back door. 
• There is Mrs. B, who likes to get her beak into whatever you are doing, and waddles around because she is quite robust, with very short yellow legs. 
• There is Dusky, who perched on the ledge outside the bathroom window for weeks after there was a murder in the coop. 
• There was Dawn – who was Dusky’s twin, but sweeter – who had extremely bad luck, coming down with Bumblefoot and subsequently being eaten by a predator. 
• There is Snappers, a beautiful grey hen, who thinks she is a queen and who loves to sit on eggs and be petted. 
• There is Skye, a small, dove-like white hen who is stand-offish and does not take any sass from the larger birds. 
• There is Campbell, an aloof, gold-laced Polish hen (this is the one who can flap her way to the roof and sleeps on top of the coop, like Snoopy). 
• There is Progresso – my absolute favorite – who is a black and white Polish hen, never quite seems to know what’s going on and has been found laying on eggs under the raspberry.  
• There is Jigwin, who is a beautiful black and white speckled bird, who walks around with an attitude of royalty and is nearly impossible to catch.
• Finally, there was Alfredo, a little frizzle hen who went by multiple names, including Frizzy and Ms. Frizzle, unfortunately beheaded by what I assume was a raccoon earlier this year. 

Beyond loving this flock of goofy characters, we also get fresh eggs by the dozens every week, many of which we share with neighbors for putting up with our shenanigans. 

Truth is, I guess I’ve always been drawn to farming and find it fascinating. I have investigated getting a miniature milking cow as well, but apparently, despite their name, they are still 500+ pounds and eat 50 pounds of hay daily. I have also played around with getting a pig, but my daughters have told me “No.”

Ultimately, I love farming chickens in my urban abode. However, I can’t say that I will be replacing them when they are gone. Nurturing 10 chickens has been enough experience for this mother hen. 

I am not resigned ...

 

By JoAnne Young

 

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

 

This Gloria Steinem quote was taped to my desk at work for thirty-six years. It reminded me every morning of what I had to do that day as a reporter at the Journal Star. Seek the truth as a woman. Seek out women’s issues to report on. Seek out female leaders and sources to add to my  stories, because women frequently view things differently.

 

Gloria Steinem came on the scene when I was in high school and she solidified her position in my consciousness beginning in my college years. She helped to change my life and those of many in my generation. Because of her and others like her, I knew I could have a career, that I could fight to be a visible member of my community, state and country. I knew that women’s rights were within our grasp. That I should not fail, ever, to vote. 

 

In a fairly recent interview Gloria Steinman talked about how many of us who grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s had mothers who could not be fully be their own talented, autonomous independent selves. In some ways, she said, many of us are living out the unfulfilled lives of our mothers. 

 

My mother had been a registered nurse, like her mother, until she married and gave up her career to be a military wife and mother to two daughters. I’m sure I got my love of science and all things medical from her. As a little girl, I would sit on her bedroom floor and drag her American Journal of Nursing magazines from under the bed, flipping page by page. As I became a journalist, my interests turned to politics, medicine, hospitals, health and human services, prisons for the paper. I watched every medical show I could find, from Dr. Kildare to St. Elsewhere to Grey’s Anatomy to The Pitt, and now volunteer at Bryan West’s emergency triage area. 

 

As Steinem said, the sorrow is that our mothers should have been able to complete their own lives and continue with what they loved. Many just didn’t.

 

Steinem came to Lincoln several times to speak and lobby and rally women. In 1991 she spoke to 2,300 women and men at the Lied Center, telling them it was clear they had the makings of a revolution right here in Nebraska. 

 

It was true. Somewhere in that decade I remember going to Misle Chevrolet, a couple of children in tow, to look for a new used car big enough for two adults and three kids. We walked onto the lot and a young man greeted us. I told him what I was looking for. His first question to me was: Does your husband know you are here to buy a car? I looked at him for a few seconds, trying to gather my composure, turned, and I and the children got back in our car and left, never to return. 

 

Yes, things are better now. A woman is mayor of Lincoln, women’s sports are taking the country by storm, a woman sold me my new Subaru last year and another woman handled my one-year service check. 

 

Still, there are men in power today, and some women supporting them, who would drag us backward, out of the workplace and into the role of trad wives. You women must, they tell us, have more babies. Many babies. They want to take money out of funds for subsidized child care for working mothers and give it to stay-at-home moms. 

 

So this is no time, Gloria Steinem, for you to be taking leave of us. But I know you have fought the good fight and now it’s time for others to take up our cause. The problem is, there are a lot of good, important women we need who have also left us. That’s the way this works. Our bodies can take so much. They start looking for an exit, before we are ready, while we are still needed. 

 

These women leave a legacy, but is that enough for our granddaughters who never saw them in action. They can read their words, watch interviews, but they don’t have that comfort and encouragement knowing Gloria Steinem, Jane Goodall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dolly Parton, Toni Morrison, Leola Bullock are in this world and we can ponder, what will they be up to next? 

 

There are those they may never remember, like physician and researcher Marthe Gautier,   because a male colleague took credit for her work in identifying the extra chromosome cause of Down syndrome. She had cultured the cells, prepared the slides, looked at them through the microscope, counted the chromosomes and shouted “Yes!” on her discovery. Dr. Jérôme Lejeuneautier offered to get pictures made of her slides, and then he proceeded to offer the findings at scientific meetings and journals as his own. 

 

“The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.” 

 

Keep these women in your thoughts, and in your words to your daughters and granddaughters. 

 

I offer these words, this Dirge Without Music, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a brilliant poet and feminist, who left us before I could ever feel her presence. 

 

“I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.  Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

 

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

 

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled

Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know.  But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

 

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know.  But I do not approve.  And I am not resigned.”

Holy Ground

 

By Marilyn Moore

It’s late afternoon on the last Sunday in August.  There’s a quality to the late afternoon light…it’s more golden, softer in some way, than the late afternoon light in mid-summer. It’s still summer weather, with temperatures above 90, but the sun knows, the light knows, that summer is nearing its end, and autumn is approaching.  

It’s been a frantic week, with a near-declaration of economic war with our closest neighbor and most significant trading partner, Canada.  Court cases regarding executive orders on voting procedures leave me uncertain as to what the rules are, and who makes them…more on that in an upcoming blog, when/if I get it sorted out.  Cherry trees, a gift from Japan from decades ago, have been cut down to renovate a golf course.  The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, China is supplying Iran with essentials, Russia is bombing Ukraine, people are dying in Gaza, diplomatic efforts are nowhere to be seen.  The US seems to have claimed Venezuela’s oil, though the details are sketchy, and questions of legality abound.  A climate-change glacial collapse caused a flood unlike any we’ve seen, racing down the valleys of the Himalayas, on the border between Nepal and China; the death toll will not be known for days, likely months.  The videos are simply horrifying.

Fall is a busy time in Nebraska.  School starts, and I marvel again, as I do every year, how quickly teachers and students and parents and the community pick up the habits and patterns of going to school.  So many cute first-day photos…then on to the serious business of learning and building community and fall sports and choirs and orchestras and school plays and newspapers.  It’s an election year, and I’m already tired of the political ads, especially those that demonize the opponent.  (“Keep boys out of girls sports” must be this year’s must-use phrase…candidates for offices that should be far removed from deciding who plays on sports teams can’t seem to leave it alone. And that phrase, of course, is yet another stone thrown at our most vulnerable student group, teens and young adults who are trans, who just want to live their lives.)  There are many excellent candidates for public office this year; I’ve been to several campaign meetings, campaign rallies, campaign fundraisers, and I’ll go to more. I’m grateful for wise, compassionate, smart people who step forward in public service.  The amount of money required to do so, and the abuse heaped upon them, is daunting; they are brave, and I am grateful.  

And in the midst of all of that, Dolly Parton’s death gave the world a blessed one-day pause, focusing on her goodness and kindness and stellar talent, setting aside the greed and avarice and horrors of the week’s events. That day, that blessed day when the headlines were about a truly good human being, and today’s late afternoon light, a harbinger of autumn, call me to set aside, for just a moment, the frenzy of the past week, and breathe.  

A political writer who I read daily wrote this past week about the upcoming commemorative service at the site of the Twin Towers in New York, a service that is focused on the people who died, the people who tried to save them, the first responders, the families of the victims.  She likened that space to the cemeteries at Normandy, calling it holy ground.  I believe there is a human need to seek, and find, holy ground…spaces that remind us of what is deeply important, what it means to be deeply human, what it means to be in connection with one another, and with all of Creation.  

I breathe, and I think of some holy ground moments in the past couple of weeks.  Two eclipses…how can one person be so lucky.  The partial solar eclipse, viewed from the Douro River in Portugal, and the nearly-total lunar eclipse, viewed from our front lawn in Lincoln, Nebraska.  No photos of either; my phone camera doesn’t have the filter to safely photograph the sun, nor does it capture the disappearing moon.  The afterglow of the solar eclipse is beautiful, and calming…a moment of stillness.  The lunar eclipse played out in our skies for several hours, from a bright, full moon at shortly after 8:00 to a mere pinpoint of light, more like a smudge, three hours later, and then re-emergence of the full moon over the next three hours.  Holy ground…or holy skies….connections with Creation, with a universe that is vastly bigger than the planet we call home.

From the skies to the earth, Nebraska’s prairies are holy ground.  Willa Cather says, “As I looked about me, I felt the grass was the country, as the water is the sea…And there was motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running.”  Time on the prairie is time on holy ground.  Much has been said recently about the importance of “touching grass,” as a means of maintaining presence, of connecting with what is real rather than what’s on screen, of stepping away from the chaos of the moment.   Walking at Spring Creek Prairie or Nine Mile Prairie is a holy ground moment, a breathing space.   

From grasses to the earth’s water….  A little more than 70% of the earth’s surface is covered with water, creeks, rivers, lakes, seas, oceans.  Essential for life, fearsome and awesome in its power, the site of miracles and rituals and ceremonies in many of the world’s religions, and the setting for stories of exploration, danger, adventure, starting anew, and finding home.  I’ve always been intrigued by the mouths of rivers, that space where the river empties into a larger river, or an ocean, and becomes a part of something larger than itself.  Whether in reality or as a metaphor, that space is holy ground. Looking ahead at the point where the Douro River would empty into the Atlantic Ocean was a holy ground moment, a breathing space.  And at the same time, I thought of all the persons whose hearts and souls have compelled them, across countless centuries, to leave the river that they know and set out on the ocean that they don’t, in search of something bigger, some place better, perhaps, to call home. 

Those stories are holy ground, too.  The stories in There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak, one of this year’s finalists for One Book One Lincoln, are holy ground moments for me.  Three characters, spanning two centuries, two continents, and set on the Tigris River and the Thames River.  Their stories intertwine, as do the drops of rain and snow that fall on them and find their way to the rivers.  The Yazidi grandmother, telling the family and cultural stories to her granddaughter, wisely knows that stories are holy, that they must be kept and preserved and told again and again and again, because the life of the community depends on its story.

In a day or two, I’ll reengage with all the reality of the world…I cannot leave the anguish and the conflict and the very real dangers alone for long, nor can I ignore the courage and bravery of those who step forward to be the helpers and the leaders.  But for this evening, in its golden light, I pause, I breathe, I give thanks for holy ground.