MountainMornings

“Women’s rights are human rights.” Do you know who has made this the mantra of her life’s work? Well today, I looked out my windows at extremely dense fog, just barely glimpsing the evergreens that stand guard against the mountains. And as I walked upstairs to the aviary office, I began formulating today’s post in my mind about Cville’s glorious Festival of the Book; it began yesterday and the plan is to meet cousin Anita in town for an author’s program. Instead, Anita sent me an email with this link:

http://www.care2.com/causes/meryl-streep-on-hillary-clinton-video.html

We all know Meryl can act, but she’s also a darn good public speaker. Sometimes it’s hard for an actor to play themselves. Witness Mitt doing laundry, trying to seem like everyman. But seeing the genuine love and admiration for our Secretary of State, hearing the praise and accolades of the women Hillary Clinton has touched, had a calming effect. Being totally ADD, I changed course from books to being real…and then back again. In the children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, the Skin Horse who was always truthful, explained to the Rabbit what Real really is: “Sometimes, when you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

Real means getting a country to care about fertility rates, and women’s reproductive health, while her own country is slowly and deliberately cutting away women’s rights state by state. Real means having the media focus on what you are wearing, or how your hairdo differs from last month, instead of her speech at the US Afghan Women’s Council where she stated: “Any peace that is attempted to be made by excluding more than half the population is no peace at all. It is a figment that will not last.” The room burst into strong applause. Clinton admonished the Taliban for walking away from peace negotiations saying, “What the Taliban do is up to them.” She said it is their choice, in very much the same way our mothers might have said “I’m disappointed in your poor choice.”

On some days, the world gets foggy. On those days it’s good to know we have “The Real Deal” speaking for our great nation. Now, should Anita and I attend a reading by Award-winning foreign correspondent Kimberly Dozier from her memoir “Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Survive, and Get Back to the Fight?” Or a discussion with author Charles Flood on his book “Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year?” How to survive a war, or how to win one? Of course I’d love to go to one about how not to start a war in the first place. It’s our decision.
http://www.vabook.org/index.html/