Fareed Zakaria on Trump

The education of President Trump (and us)

Washington Post April 27 By Fareed Zakaria

There are so many unusual, unprecedented aspects of President Trump’s first 100 days in office that it’s hard to know where to begin. By his own yardstick, the number of promises unfulfilled is staggering. During the campaign, Trump said he would ask for a bill repealing Obamacare “my first day in office.” He said he would deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, starting with 2 million “criminal aliens” within his “first hour in office.” The liberal blog ThinkProgress counted 36 policies that Trump promised to roll out “on Day One.” He did just two on his first day.

But more striking than the policies unfulfilled — some of which might still be proposed or implemented — have been those reversed entirely. Never in the annals of the presidency have there been so many flip-flops so quickly, and with so little explanation. Trump had called NAFTA “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.” He promised to label China — “the greatest abuser in the history of this country” — a currency manipulator on, yes, “Day One.” He described NATO as “obsolete,” suggested that he might eliminate the Export-Import Bank and implied that he might support Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Within days of becoming president, Trump’s flip-flops began. He said that he had discovered, perhaps through secret intelligence briefings, that China was not actually manipulating its currency, that NATO was engaged in lots of crucial operations, that the Ex-Im Bank helped lots of small U.S. businesses and that Assad had been committing war crimes. He announced these reversals cavalierly, as if he surely could not have been expected to know these facts previously, when he was running for president. As he said in February, “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated.”

I suspect that his next education will be in tax policy. Trump’s proposals, outlined this week, are breathtakingly irresponsible. They would add trillions of dollars to the debt and are not even designed for maximum stimulative impact. (Abolishing the estate tax, which is paid by 0.002 percent of Americans each year, would not cause a rush to the stores, but would cost $20 billion a year.) Tax negotiations will be an interesting test for Republicans. A party that claims it has deep concerns over the national debt is considering enacting what might be the biggest expansion of debt in U.S. history (in absolute dollars).

The larger education of Trump and, one would hope, his supporters, is surely that government isn’t easy. His appeal for so many was that he was an outsider, a businessman who would bring his commercial skills and management acumen to the White House and get things done. Washington’s corrupt politicians and feckless bureaucrats would see how a successful man from “the real world” cuts through the fog.

Instead, we have watched the sheer incompetence of Trump’s first 100 days — orders that can’t get through courts, bills that collapse in Congress, agencies that remain understaffed, ceaseless infighting within the White House and the constant flip-flops. It turns out that running a family-owned real estate franchising operation is not really the same as presiding over the executive branch of the U.S. government. It turns out that government is hard, “complicated” stuff.

While there are plenty of problems with Washington, the real reason so little gets done there is that the American people have wildly contradictory desires. They want unlimited amounts of health care, don’t want to be denied such care because they are sick (have “preexisting conditions”) and yet expect that costs should plummet. They want government out of their lives but revolt at the prospect of any slight cuts to its largest programs (Medicare, Social Security) or the removal of tax benefits for health care and home mortgages.

This condition has been building for years. In a 1995 book, Michael Kinsley explained what he saw as the roots of the then-raging populist anger at Washington that Newt Gingrich had exploited with his “Contract with America.” Kinsley wrote, “[American voters] make flagrantly incompatible demands — cut my taxes, preserve my benefits, balance the budget — then explode in self-righteous outrage when the politicians fail to deliver.”
He titled the book “Big Babies” in honor of the American people, and he opened it by quoting Alexis de Tocqueville: “The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers. . . . The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.” Let’s hope that the greatest education of the Trump presidency will be that Americans come to realize that Washington is dysfunctional not because of the venality of the politicians but rather because of the appetites of the people they represent.

21st Century Greatest Scientists

Andre Konstantin Geim, born 21 October 1958 with Dutch, Russian, and British heritage. A physicist working at the University of Manchester, Geim was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics together with Konstantin Novoselov for his work on graphene in 2010.

Graphene is a super-conductive form of carbon, made from single-atom-thick sheets. Graphene consists of one-atom-thick layers of carbon atoms arranged in a two-dimensional hexagon. It is the thinnest material in the world, as well as one of the strongest and hardest and is considered a superior alternative to silicon. And has many other uses.

He also researched diamagnetic levitation and in a famous 1997 experiment, he managed to levitate a frog. He has also done research on mesoscopic physics and superconductivity. About his broad range of science that he studies, Geim says, "Many people chose a subject for their PhD and then continue the same subject until they retire. I despise this approach. I have changed my subject five times before I got my first tenured position and that helped me to learn different subjects."

Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov, born 23 August 1974. He is a Russian=British physicist at the University of Manchester as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. He is known for working together with Andree Geim in discovering and studying graphene. Because of their work, they won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.Novoselov is also a recipient of an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council.

Dr. Novoselov's record includes 49 papers mostly in Physics and Materials Science and has also been cited 3,536 times in a span of twenty years. Dr. Novoselov is a Royal Society Research Fellow in School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Manchester as well as the Langworthy Professor and director of the Manchester Centre for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology also at the University of Manchester.

He received a Diploma from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and undertook his Ph.D. studies at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands before moving to the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom with his doctoral advisor Andre Geim in 2001. According to the ISI Essential Science Indicator, his two papers in Science 2004 and Nature 2005 are the most cited papers on graphene and “have opened up a fast moving front”. The paper in Science 2004 is also acknowledged as “one of the most cited recent papers in the field of Physics”.

John Craig Venter was born onborn 14 October 14 1946. He is an American biologist famous for being one of the first to sequence the human genome. He also created the first cell with a synthetic genome last 2010. He now works for the J. Craig Venter Institute which he founded. His current work is focused on creating synthetic biological organisms and also documenting the genetic diversity in the world's oceans. He is listed on Time magazine's 2007 and 2008 issue as part of the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.

The Global Ocean Sampling Expedition (GOS) is an ocean exploration genome project that will assess the genetic diversity in marine microbial life. It is to understand how the diversity contributes to nature's basic processes. The GOS circumnavigated the globe which started in 2004 and ended 2006.

In May 2010, Venter and his team successfully created what they called "synthetic life". They synthesized a very long DNA molecule containing an entire bacterium genome, and introduced this into another cell. This could lead to producing bacteria that can be engineered to perform specific purpose such as create fuel, manufacture medicine, and correct environmental problems like global warming.
 

Stephen William Hawking was born 8 January 1942. He is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist. His scientific books (specially his runaway bestseller, Brief History of Time) and public appearances have made him a popular pop-icon and academic celebrity. In 2009, Hawking was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

He is known for his research and contributions to the science of cosmology and quantum gravity. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His contributions to science still keep coming in. Together with Roger Penrose, he provided theorems regarding gravitational singularities within the framework of general relativity. He also gave theoretical predictions about black holes emits radiation. This type of radiation is known as the Hawking radiation or the Bekenstein-Hawking radiation.

Currently, he is the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge as well as a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_hawking_asks_big_questions_about_the_universe

 (press link above for video access)

Neil deGrasse Tyson was born on 5 October 1958. He is an American astrophysicist. As stated in his website, He " was born and raised in New York City where he was educated in the public schools clear through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Tyson went on to earn his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia.".

He is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, and also a Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He is part of this list because of his contribution bringing astrophysics and astronomy to the public. He has hosted the educational science television show NOVA scienceNOW on PBS and has been a guest on several TV shows such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Jeopardy!. It was announced that Tyson will be hosting a new sequel to Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage TV series. He has made astronomy an interesting subject to people worldwide.

Michio Kaku was born on 24 January 1947. He is an American theoretical physicist. A Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York, he is also the co-founder of string field theory. Another science communicator like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku has written several books about physics and related topics. He has also made guest appearances on radio, television, and film.

Kaku achieved popularity because of his knowledge and easy approach to explaining complicated science subjects such as time travel and singularities. Although a theoretical physicist, he covers a wide range of subjects such as wormholes and time travel. He considered the theory that the universe was created from nothing as discussed in the TV show, "What Happened Before the Big Bang".

There are more scientists out there who have contributed to our society. These are just a few of them. We're still at the dawn of this new century. But our science has moved leaps and strides faster than the previous one.

http://www.quantumday.com/2011/11/famous-and-popular-21st-century.html

Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web by being the first to successfully implement the transfer protocols on which the Web depends.

Noam Chomsky, who, though a linguist and philosopher, has fundamentally reshaped the field of psychology, not least by dethroning behaviorism through his ideas about the innateness of language.

Richard Dawkins, whose use of evolutionary biology has shaped the way we understand ourselves at the most fundamental levels.

Persi Diaconis, who in merging the mathematical theory of groups with statistics has radically reconfigured our understanding of randomness.

Jane Goodall, whose work on primates has led the way and given us focus in understanding our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.

Alan Guth, whose idea of inflationary cosmology has revolutionized our understanding of the Big Bang and the large scale structure of the universe.

Donald Knuth, whose work on the theory of the algorithm has transformed the field of computer science.

Lynn Margulis, whose ideas about symbiogenesis have vastly enriched conventional ways of understanding biological evolution.

Gordon Moore, who as founder of Intel merged business and science in bringing about the information technology revolution (“Moore’s Law” is named after him).

Roger Penrose, who has broken new ground not only in fundamental physics but also on its connections to human consciousness.

Allan Sandage, who continued the work of the legendary Edwin Hubble to become the world’s greatest living observational astronomer.

Frederick Sanger, whose research first revealed the structure of proteins, work for which he received the first of two Nobel Prizes in chemistry.

Charles Townes, who invented the laser, which is now ubiquitous in technology and ordinary life.

Craig Venter, whose completion of the Human Genome Project and continued work on synthetic genomes and artificially constructed cells is fundamentally challenging our understanding of life.

James Watson, whose co-discovery with Francis Crick of the structure of DNA has revolutionized all of biology and is a landmark of the 20th century.

Steven Weinberg, whose work on unifying the forces of physics and whose exceptionally well-written popular books on science have made him a key public intellectual for interpreting science to the wider culture.

Andrew Wiles, who in resolving the 300-year old Fermat Conjecture of mathematics decisively demonstrated how seemingly irresolvable problems may eventually yield to solution through creative insight.

Edward O. Wilson, whose work on sociobiology has propelled evolutionary thinking into ethics and psychology.

Edward Witten, whose work on the mathematical underpinnings of string theory has made it the theory of everything to beat.

http://superscholar.org/features/20-most-influential-scientists-alive-today/

Women’s Suffrage

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http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/elizabeth-cady-stanton/videos/sound-smart-the-19th-amendment

Prominent 19th century suffragist and civil rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) became involved in the abolitionist movement after a progressive upbringing. She helped organize the world’s first women’s rights convention in 1848, and formed the National Women’s Loyal League with Susan B. Anthony in 1863. Seven years later, they established the National Woman Suffrage Association. With her advocacy of liberal divorce laws and reproductive self-determination, Cady Stanton became an increasingly marginalized voice among women reformers late in life. However, her efforts helped bring about the eventual passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave all citizens the right to vote.

Born in Johnstown, New York, Elizabeth Cady received the best female education available at the time, at Emma Willard’s Academy, but regretted not having a full-fledged college education. She spent her postacademy years like other young women of leisure, in visiting and social activities, primarily at the home of her cousin, the abolitionist Gerrit Smith. There she fell in love with another abolitionist, Henry B. Stanton. An older, romantic figure, Henry was part of the exciting world of reform and politics to which she was drawn. Despite her father’s opposition, they married in 1840 and for their honeymoon went to London to attend the World’s Antislavery Convention. There Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott, the leading American female abolitionist, and began to study the Anglo-American traditions of women’s rights.

In 1847, the Stantons moved to rural Seneca Falls, New York, where Elizabeth bore the last three of their seven children and grew resentful of her domestic confinement. In 1848, with the help of Mott, she organized the world’s first women’s rights convention. Despite Mott’s reluctance, she insisted on including the right to woman suffrage in its resolutions. In 1851, Cady Stanton met Susan B. Anthony, with whom she formed a lifelong partnership based on their common dedication to women’s emancipation. Three years later, she addressed the New York legislature on an omnibus women’s rights bill. In 1860, most of the legal reforms she sought in women’s status, with the notable exception of enfranchisement, were secured.

Cady Stanton threw herself into the political drama of the Civil War and with Anthony formed the National Women’s Loyal League on behalf of the constitutional abolition of slavery. After the war, the two created deep conflicts among reformers by attempting to link woman suffrage to black suffrage and, when their efforts failed, by criticizing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments for ignoring woman suffrage. Determined to use the Constitution to enfranchise women, they established in 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association, forerunner of the organization that eventually secured the Nineteenth Amendment.

Cady Stanton’s interests extended far beyond the vote. She had always advocated divorce law liberalization, and in 1860 she precipitated a heated debate among women’s rights advocates by urging women to leave unhappy marriages. In the late 1860s, she began to advocate what she called the ‘right to self-sovereignty’-women should take deliberate measures to avoid becoming pregnant. These beliefs led her in the early 1870s into association with the notorious ‘free lover,’ Victoria Woodhull. Because of Cady Stanton’s advocacy of liberalized divorce laws, reproductive self-determination, and greater sexual freedom for women, hers became an increasingly marginalized voice among women reformers in the 1880s.

Cady Stanton also diverged from the mainstream women’s movement over religion. Her deep dislike of organized religion grew out of a traumatic youthful conversion experience. In the 1880s, she visited England, where she was influenced by freethinkers and biblical critics. Back in the United States, she learned that Christian political activists were attempting to close public institutions on the Sabbath, undo divorce law liberalization, and even establish Christianity as the state religion. Determined to oppose them, she found herself on a collision course with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, a new generation of suffrage leaders, and even Anthony. In 1898 she published The Woman’s Bible, a scholarly but irreverent feminist commentary, for which the National American Woman Suffrage Association censured her. Although embittered, she continued her independent course on behalf of women’s emancipation until her death in 1902.

The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/lucretia-mott/videos/aint-i-a-woman

Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was one of the leading voices of the abolitionist and feminist movements of her time. Raised in a Quaker community, she became a member of the society’s ministry and adopted its anti-slavery views. Mott helped form the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and later was among the founders of the American women’s rights movement. Mott’s feminist philosophy was outlined in her Discourse on Women (1850), in which she argued for equal economic opportunity and voting rights. After helping to establish Swarthmore College in 1864, she served as head of the American Equal Rights Association.

Born the daughter of a Nantucket sea captain, Mott was reared in a Quaker community that provided strong role models for the young girl. She attended a Quaker boarding academy in the Hudson Valley, New York, where she soon became a teacher. After her family moved to Philadelphia, a fellow instructor at the academy, James Mott, followed her there, and in 1811 the two were married. They had six children, five of whom survived infancy. The death of her first son deepened her spirituality, and in 1818, she became a member of the Quaker ministry.
Mott, like many Quakers, advocated antislavery and boycotted all products of slave labor. She helped found the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and served as its president. She also became prominent in the national organization after it admitted women. This sort of activity in reform groups was a radical departure for women of her era.

When denied a seat in 1840 at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London on account of her sex, Mott preached her doctrine of female equality outside the conference hall. During her London visit, she befriended Elizabeth Cady Stanton, wife of abolitionist delegate Henry Stanton. During the summer of 1848 she and Stanton organized the meeting at Seneca Falls, New York, where the American women’s rights movement was launched. Mott was elected president of the group in 1852.

Mott’s feminist philosophy was outlined in her Discourse on Women (1850). She believed women’s roles within society reflected limited education rather than innate inferiority. She advocated equal economic opportunity and supported women’s equal political status, including suffrage.

After the Civil War, Mott, unlike many abolitionists who believed their work was done, threw herself into the cause of black suffrage and aid for freedpeople. She also helped establish a coeducational Quaker institution, Swarthmore College, in 1864. Two years later, despite increasing ill health, she was elected head of the American Equal Rights Association. Unfortunately the group broke into factions, the National Woman Suffrage Association (headed by Stanton and Susan B. Anthony) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (led by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and others).

Although viewed as a peacemaker by both abolitionists and feminists, Mott did not thrive on her role as referee, suffering increasingly from severe stomach disorders. Nevertheless she pursued her own path as a champion of the unempowered-the poor, blacks, and women. Using her gift for oratory, Mott delivered hundreds of speeches and sermons, reached thousands of listeners, and was a strong force in effecting the reforms of her day.

The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Sojourner Truth Biography.com

http://www.biography.com/people/sojourner-truth-9511284

Activist, Civil Rights Activist, Women's Rights Activist(c. 1797–1883)

Sojourner Truth is best known for her extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?" delivered at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.

 “Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.”

—Sojourner Truth

Synopsis

Born in upstate New York circa 1797, Sojourner Truth was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. She devoted her life to the abolitionist cause and helped recruiting black troops for the Union Army. Her best-known speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?" was delivered extemporaneously in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.

Born Into Slavery

Born Isabella Baumfree circa 1797, Sojourner Truth was one of as many as 12 children born to James and Elizabeth Baumfree in the town of Swartekill, in Ulster County, New York. Truth's date of birth was not recorded, as was typical of children born into slavery, but historians estimate that she was likely born around 1797. Her father, James Baumfree, was a slave captured in modern-day Ghana; Elizabeth Baumfree, also known as Mau-Mau Bet, was the daughter of slaves from Guinea. The Baumfree family was owned by Colonel Hardenbergh, and lived at the colonel's estate in Esopus, New York, 95 miles north of New York City. The area had once been under Dutch control, and both the Baumfrees and the Hardenbaughs spoke Dutch in their daily lives.

After the colonel's death, ownership of the Baumfrees passed to his son, Charles. The Baumfrees were separated after the death of Charles Hardenbergh in 1806. The 9-year-old Truth, known as "Belle" at the time, was sold at an auction with a flock of sheep for $100. Her new owner was a man named John Neely, whom Truth remembered as harsh and violent. She would be sold twice more over the following two years, finally coming to reside on the property of John Dumont at West Park, New York. It was during these years that Truth learned to speak English for the first time.

Becoming a Wife and Mother

Around 1815, Truth fell in love with a slave named Robert from a neighboring farm. The two had a daughter, Diana. Robert's owner forbade the relationship, since Diana and any subsequent children produced by the union would be the property of John Dumont rather than himself. Robert and Sojourner Truth never saw each other again. In 1817, Dumont compelled Truth to marry an older slave named Thomas. Their marriage produced a son, Peter, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia.

Early Years of Freedom

The state of New York, which had begun to negotiate the abolition of slavery in 1799, emancipated all slaves on July 4, 1827. The shift did not come soon enough for Truth. After John Dumont reneged on a promise to emancipate Truth in late 1826, she escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. Her other daughter and son stayed behind. Shortly after her escape, Truth learned that her son Peter, then 5 years old, had been illegally sold to a man in Alabama. She took the issue to court and eventually secured Peter's return from the South. The case was one of the first in which a black woman successfully challenged a white man in a United States court.

Sojourner Truth's early years of freedom were marked by several strange hardships. Having converted to Christianity, Truth moved with her son Peter to New York City in 1829, where she worked as a housekeeper for Christian evangelist Elijah Pierson. She then moved on to the home of Robert Matthews, also known as Prophet Matthias, for whom she also worked as a domestic. Matthews had a growing reputation as a con man and a cult leader. Shortly after Truth changed households, Elijah Pierson died. Robert Matthews was accused of poisoning Pierson in order to benefit from his personal fortune, and the Folgers, a couple who were members of his cult, attempted to implicate Truth in the crime. In the absence of adequate evidence, Matthews was acquitted. Having become a favorite subject of the penny press, he subsequently moved west. In 1835 Truth brought a slander suit against the Folgers and won.

After Truth's successful rescue of her son, Peter, from slavery in Alabama, the boy stayed with his mother until 1839. At that time, Peter took a job on a whaling ship called the Zone of Nantucket. Truth received three letters from her son between 1840 and 1841. When the ship returned to port in 1842, however, Peter was not on board. Truth never heard from him again.

Fighting for Abolition and Women's Rights

On June 1, 1843, Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth, devoting her life to Methodism and the abolition of slavery. In 1844, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Northampton, Massachusetts. Founded by abolitionists, the organization supported a broad reform agenda including women's rights and pacifism. Members lived together on 500 acres as a self-sufficient community. Truth met a number of leading abolitionists at Northampton, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles.
Although the Northampton community disbanded in 1846, Sojourner Truth's career as an activist and reformer was just beginning. In 1850 her memoirs were published under the title The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. Truth dictated her recollections to a friend, Olive Gilbert, since she could not read or write, and William Lloyd Garrison wrote the book's preface. That same year, Truth spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. She soon began touring regularly with abolitionist George Thompson, speaking to large crowds on the subjects of slavery and human rights. She was one of several escaped slaves, along with Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, to rise to prominence as an abolitionist leader and a testament to the humanity of enslaved people.

In May of 1851, Truth delivered a speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron. The extemporaneous speech, recorded by several observers, would come to be known as "Ain't I a Woman?" The first version of the speech, published a month later by Marius Robinson, editor of Ohio newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle, did not include the question "Ain't I a woman?" even once. Robinson had attended the convention and recorded Truth's words himself. The famous phrase would appear in print 12 years later, as the refrain of a Southern-tinged version of the speech. It is unlikely that Sojourner Truth, a native of New York whose first language was Dutch, would have spoken in this Southern idiom.

Truth continued to tour Ohio from 1851 to 1853, working closely with Robinson to publicize the antislavery movement in the state. As Truth's reputation grew and the abolition movement gained momentum, she drew increasingly larger and more hospitable audiences. Even in abolitionist circles, some of Truth's opinions were considered radical. She sought political equality for all women, and chastised the abolitionist community for failing to seek civil rights for black women as well as men. She openly expressed concern that the movement would fizzle after achieving victories for black men, leaving both white and black women without suffrage and other key political rights.

Advocacy During the Civil War

Sojourner Truth put her reputation to work during the Civil War, helping to recruit black troops for the Union Army. She encouraged her grandson, James Caldwell, to enlist in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. In 1864, Truth was called to Washington, D.C., to contribute to the National Freedman's Relief Association. On at least one occasion, Truth met and spoke with President Abraham Lincoln about her beliefs and her experience.

True to her broad reform ideals, Truth continued to agitate for change even after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. In 1865, Truth attempted to force the desegregation of streetcars in Washington by riding in cars designated for whites. A major project of her later life was the movement to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves. She argued that ownership of private property, and particularly land, would give African Americans self-sufficiency and free them from a kind of indentured servitude to wealthy landowners. Although Truth pursued this goal forcefully for many years, she was unable to sway Congress.

Death and Legacy

Sojourner Truth died at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan, on November 26, 1883. She is buried alongside her family at Battle Creek's Oak Hill Cemetery. Until old age intervened, Truth continued to speak passionately on the subjects of women's rights, universal suffrage and prison reform. She was also an outspoken opponent of capital punishment, testifying before the Michigan state legislature against the practice. She also championed prison reform in Michigan and across the country. While always controversial, Truth was embraced by a community of reformers including Amy Post, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony—friends with whom she collaborated until the end of her life.

Truth is remembered as one of the foremost leaders of the abolition movement and an early advocate of women's rights. Although she began her career as an abolitionist, the reform causes she sponsored were broad and varied, including prison reform, property rights and universal suffrage. Abolition was one of the few causes that Truth was able to see realized in her lifetime. Her fear that abolitionism would falter before achieving equality for women proved prophetic.

The Constitutional Amendment barring suffrage discrimination based on sex was not ratified until 1920, nearly four decades after Sojourner Truth's death.

http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/susan-b-anthony

Born on Feb. 15, 1820, in Adams, Mass., Susan B. Anthony was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States and president (1892-1900) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her work helped pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

Born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts, Anthony grew up in a politically active family. They worked to end slavery in what was called the abolitionist movement. They were also part of the temperance movement, which wanted the production and sale of alcohol limited or stopped completely. Anthony was inspired to fight for women’s rights while campaigning against alcohol. She denied a chance to speak at a temperance convention because she was a woman. Anthony later realized that no one would take women in politics seriously unless they had the right to vote.
Along with activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Around this time, the two created and produced The Revolution, a weekly publication that lobbied for women’s rights. Later the pair edited three volumes of History of Woman Suffrage together.

Anthony was tireless in her efforts, giving speeches around the country to convince others to support a woman’s right to vote. She even took matters into her own hands in 1872 when she voted in the presidential election illegally. Anthony was arrested and tried unsuccessfully to fight the charges. She ended up being fined $100 – a fine she never paid.

When Anthony died on March 13, 1906, women still did not have the right to vote. It wasn’t until 1920, 14 years after her death, that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving all adult women the right to vote, was passed. In recognition of her dedication and hard work, the U.S. Treasury Department put Anthony’s portrait on one dollar coins in 1979, making her the first woman to be so honored.

Biography courtesy of BIO.com

Women's Suffrage

When and where did women earn the right to vote?

Learn the year in which women's suffrage was granted, organized by year. New Zealand was the first country to allow women to vote (in 1893), while the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia granted women the right to vote in 2011. The United States finally began allowing women to vote in 1920, after the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

• 1893 New Zealand
• 1902 Australia¹
• 1906 Finland
• 1913 Norway
• 1915 Denmark
• 1917 Canada²
• 1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia
• 1919 Netherlands
• 1920 United States
• 1921 Sweden
• 1928 Britain, Ireland
• 1931 Spain
• 1934 Turkey
• 1944 France
• 1945 Italy
• 1947 Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan
• 1949 China
• 1950 India
• 1954 Colombia
• 1957 Malaysia, Zimbabwe
• 1962 Algeria
• 1963 Iran, Morocco
• 1964 Libya
• 1967 Ecuador
• 1971 Switzerland
• 1972 Bangladesh
• 1974 Jordan
• 1976 Portugal
• 1989 Namibia
• 1990 Western Samoa
• 1993 Kazakhstan, Moldova
• 1994 South Africa
• 2005 Kuwait
• 2006 United Arab Emirates
• 2011 Saudi Arabia³

NOTE: One country does not allow their people, male or female, to vote: Brunei.

1. Australian women, with the exception of aboriginal women, won the vote in 1902. Aborigines, male and female, did not have the right to vote until 1962.

2. Canadian women, with the exception of Canadian Indian women, won the vote in 1917. Canadian Indians, male and female, did not win the vote until 1960. Source: The New York Times, May 22, 2005.

3. King Abdullah issued a decree in 2011 ordering that women be allowed to stand as candidates and vote in municipal elections, but their first opportunity did not come until Dec. 2015, almost a year after the king's death in January.

https://www.infoplease.com/us/gender-sexuality/womens-suffrage

May 2017 poem of the month

A Bat Invades our Summer Bungalow

In late August when deer feel it is safe

to wander across Sullivan Road

and black bears sniff out

the last ripe berries

before September’s chill

my mother airs out the bungalow

of stifling heat and wilted roses

first planted many summers ago.

She leaves open a window

and puts us to sleep

to the aroma of cold pine bark

and moss dripping wet in the moonlight

when it enters like a sudden awakening

to a nightmare and tumbles deep into itself;

a silhouette collecting darkness

as a wound discolors skin

to blanket the room with its wings.

Its madness drives my mother mad

with her one hand on top of her hair

in a bun while the other holds a broom

as the moon eavesdrops

against the wooden walls

and the sky thins into a faded blue

but this flying leech does not fly

and that’s the thing that scares her most

as she watches it spread out its body

like a lost continent on a map

of white and yellow plastered walls

with its tiny eyes bulging and gritty teeth

fangs whiter than the kitchen lamp light

beaming light house signals

to sea creatures on the horizon.

She turns on all of the lights

and locks us in the bedroom

while she chases this sticky chunk of flesh,

its heart beating against one wall   

then leaping to another turning my mother

into a housewife Don Quixote with a broom

muttering words like a lost tongue

only she and it would understand.

They danced this way in the cold summer air,

she afraid it would nest in her hair

and it afraid the stars would not show the way

to the endless darkness it longed for.

Steven Pelcman

Schuylkill Valley Journal USA spring 2014

May pictures of the month

Ego, Trump and lifestyle

Regardless of who the person is if that person has an ego, has a need to show off that ego either through oral interaction or by written means or by acts that reveal they are driven by ego, then that person has an agenda. In truth, every person that has a belief system, sees the world with their particular sense of vision, processes their values through a vision as to how they see the world and their place in it will have a philosophy that guides them and their oral interaction and their overall actions will follow that philosophy. When ego has been lived out and supported by life experiences it is hard to see the world and oneself any differently. These are the boxes every human being puts themselves in.

When a person has attained a certain lifestyle that incorporates luxury, as an example, then they see the world a certain way. Few are able to remain humble and their association with the world is determined by what they think, “good “is and this is often played out in the restaurants they eat at or where and how they travel and so on. That is the track of life they are on in the same manner that if a person who has lived life with very little money then their tastes in clothes as an example will be on a certain level because they are used to spending money on that level and their tastes begin to be associated with that level.

None of that is about good or bad or right versus wrong; it is simply that we tend to become how we see the world and who we are in it and our actions and lifestyle follow suit. So someone who does not read may have certain levels of how they see life and a person that never travels and interacts with other cultures may see those cultures from a certain perspective and so on.

We are generally guided by the life experiences we have and we define ourselves through those experiences and that becomes our philosophy and therein lays the agendas that are developed emanating from the lives we have lived.

When you live a life heavily guided by your ego and as an example, you lie because your job may require that approach you get used to lying and you then define lying differently because your vision of yourself, because of your ego, cannot see the differences and the consequences of the lies. This is often how a criminal processes. This is how a criminal often sees the world. A criminal, as an example, robbing a bank might kill someone because that person is in the way of robbing the bank and it does not come down to right or wrong, it simply comes down to an act that was necessary to achieve the crime and ego, world vision, personal philosophy, a sense of self all plays a role in the final act of a crime in this case.

If you follow the train of thought you better understand how Trump can lie and not see it as a lie. If you understand this you see how Trump can incite people to violence and not see himself as having done that. When a car salesman as an example says certain things that some may believe to be underhanded, dishonest to a degree they do not see themselves as engaged in any sense of immoral act. To them, it is just a matter of fact, a means to interact, and a philosophy that is geared at the bottom-line and achieving a sale.

People will say, you do what you have to do. And we all forgive that and understand it.

Many Americans forgive Trump because they generally process life on their levels in the same manner. When a whistle blower acts and mostly because they believe they are doing something positive and socially responsible, they are often outcaste, attacked and we focus as a society on their behavior rather than the issue that caused the whistleblower to act to begin with. We often act as a society from a perspective of disbelief and even though the law says, innocent until proven guilty, we actually live by the unspoken law of guilty until proven innocent.

Trump has managed to make the media the focus and not policies or the agendas that opposing political factions have which are often driven by the need to attain power and not because their interests are those of the American people. This is not to say that there aren’t good people wanting to do good things, there are but they are often not the driving force and they are also vulnerable to the “vote”.

Few are people who will jump on the grenade to save others. There are few selfless acts.

The media has agendas like all people, all governments, all businesses everywhere BUT the media is NOT the enemy.

You must all know: the enemy is always within.

Trump has always been his own enemy and his lifestyle, acts, behavior, oral interaction throughout the years have always proven that. Those that follow him or anyone blindly and look for blame, scapegoats, reasons to misdirect or redirect are overlooking the very obvious, Trump is who and what he has always been and awaiting change is a foolish endeavor. He has proven his entire life, he need not change. The consequences of his actions, processes, beliefs, values will always affect others but never ever affect Donald Trump.

SP

Hays City USA and a German connection

On the edge of the American prairie of the 1800s vast herds of buffalo roamed, American Indians lived, raided and fought wars, cattle trails traversed by herds to market from Texas, small towns wild and free, with law, without law were founded, bad men and legendary men, folk heroes of the West such as Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody passed through, stayed and left myths and stories behind. Dodge City, Wichita, Abilene, Ellsworth and Hays City have become a part of the American spirit etched into history books. SP


Hays City, its history and its German connection


Prior to American settlement of the area, the site of Hays was located near where the territories of the Arapaho, Kiowa, and Pawnee met.^[10] Claimed first by France as part of Louisiana and later acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, it lay within the area organized by the U.S. as Kansas Territory in 1854.^[11][12] Kansas became a state in 1861, and the state government delineated the surrounding area as Ellis County in 1867.^[11][13]

In 1865, the U.S. Army established Fort Fletcher southeast of present-day Hays to protect stagecoaches traveling the Smoky Hill Trail. A year later, the Army renamed the post Fort Hays in honor of the late Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays.^[14] In late 1866, anticipating the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway as far west as Fort Hays, a party from St. Louis, Missouri led by William Webb selected three sections of land for colonization near the fort.^[15] In June 1867, to better serve the railroad, the Army relocated Fort Hays 15 miles northwest to a site near where the railroad was to cross Big Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River. Seeing a business opportunity, Buffalo Bill Cody and railroad contractor William Rose founded the settlement of Rome, Kansas near the fort's new location. Within a month, the population of Rome grew to over 2,000. Webb, meanwhile, established the Big Creek Land Company and then surveyed and platted a town site, which he named Hays City after the fort, roughly one mile east of Rome. The railroad reached Hays City soon thereafter and constructed a depot there. The railroad's arrival, combined with a cholera epidemic that hit Rome in the late summer of 1867, drove Rome businesses and residents to relocate to Hays City. Within a year, Rome was completely abandoned.^[16][17] As the western terminus of the railway, Hays City grew rapidly, serving as the supply point for territories to the west and southwest.^[15][18]
As a frontier town, Hays City experienced the kind of violence which later fueled the American myth of the Old West, including the 1869 murder of Union Pacific watchman James Hayes and subsequent vigilante hanging of three soldiers from the fort ^[19] among 30 homicides which occurred during the six years up to 1873.^[20] By 1885, the year Hays City was incorporated,^[21] a cemetery north of town held the bodies of some 79 outlaws and had become known as “Boot Hill.”^[22] Several notable figures of the Old West lived in the Hays City of this era, including George Armstrong Custer, his wife Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Wild Bill Hickok who served a brief term as sheriff in 1869.^[20][23]


Hays City became the county seat of Ellis County in 1870. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, rougher elements of the populace began to leave, many following the Kansas Pacific railroad construction west to Logan County^[24] or moving to Dodge City to the south.^[25] Hays City became more civilized, especially as Volga Germans entered Ellis County in 1876, finding its land suitable for their lifestyle and the types of crops they had grown in Russia.^[20][23] They brought with them Turkey Red Wheat, a type of winter wheat whose cultivation contributed to the agricultural transformation of the region.^[23] Bukovina Germans began settling in the area in 1886.^{[citation needed]} These groups had a significant impact on the local way of life, establishing Hays as a regional center of ethnic German culture. In 1895, the town was renamed simply as Hays.^[26]


Fort Hays closed in 1889. In 1900, the Kansas delegation to the U.S. Congress secured the fort's land and facilities for educational purposes. The following year, the Kansas Legislature established the Fort Hays Experiment Station, part of Kansas State Agricultural College, on the Fort Hays reservation and set aside land for the Western Branch of Kansas State Normal School, which opened in 1902 and eventually became Fort Hays State University. Fort Hays opened as a historical park in 1929 and was later acquired by the Kansas Historical Society. In 1967, it became the Fort Hays State Historic Site.^[16]


Several disasters have struck Hays over the course of its history. In 1895, fire destroyed 60 buildings downtown. Severe floods occurred in 1907 and 1951. In 1919, three Standard Oil gasoline tanks exploded, killing eight and injuring approximately 150 people. In 1935, the city experienced violent dust storms as part of the Dust Bowl.^[16][27]


Hays began to modernize in the early 1900s with a power plant, waterworks, telephone exchange, and sewer system complete by 1911.^[16] Over the following decades, the city evolved into a regional economic hub. Development of oil fields in the surrounding area began in 1936 with Hays serving as a trading center and shipping point.^[7] Hays Regional Airport opened in 1961.^[27] Interstate 70 reached Hays in 1966.^[20] Today, Hays is a commercial and educational center for western Kansas.^[16]


Hays is a regional center of German American culture due to the number of German immigrants who settled the area in the 1870s and 1880s.^[20] As of 2010, 56.5% of the city population claimed German ancestry.^[4] The city hosts several events throughout the year which celebrate this heritage including two Oktoberfests. The Midwest Deutsche Oktoberfest takes place the third week of September. Fort Hays State University and The Volga German Society hold an Oktoberfest celebration on the first or second Friday in October. In addition, Polka Fest occurs in March, and the Ellis County Historical Museum hosts German Heritage Days in April.^[20]


To celebrate Independence Day and to mark its early history as an Old West frontier town, the city hosts the annual Wild West Festival during the first week of July. The festival includes country and rock music concerts, a carnival, a parade, a fishing tournament, baseball games, and a fireworks display. On the first weekend in December, the Kansas Historical Society holds Christmas Past at Historic Fort Hays, showcasing history programs and tours of the fort with it decorated for Christmas as it was in the late 1800s.^[81]


There are several museums and sites in Hays dedicated to aspects of area history. FHSU’s Sternberg Museum of Natural History features extensive collections and exhibits of fossil specimens, including an interactive diorama of life in the region during the Cretaceous period. Affiliated with the university’s Departments of Geosciences and Biology, the museum also hosts educational programs on fossil preparation and ongoing scientific research.^[82][83] The Ellis County Historical Society Museum, located downtown, maintains exhibits of artifacts from the area’s Old West period through its settlement by Volga and Bukovina Germans. Included in the museum complex are the Volga German Haus, a reproduction of an early Volga German settler home, and a stone chapel constructed in 1879. Southwest of Hays, the Kansas Historical Society maintains the Fort Hays State Historic Site. It consists of four of the fort’s original structures and a visitor’s center. Other sites related to the area’s frontier period include Boot Hill, the city’s earliest cemetery, and a historical marker at the site of the ill-fated town of Rome.^[81]


To capitalize on the community's Old West heritage, the local chamber of commerce promotes downtown Hays as the historic Chestnut Street District. Local businesses offer dining, shopping, and entertainment, and visitors can tour designated historical sites in the district via a self-guided walking tour.<sup>[81]

Wikipedia</sup>

One journalist's point of view

Are we willing to let Trump evolve?

By Matt Bai

We’ve heard a lot from President Trump, in the past week or so, about securing our borders — the southern one from migrant Mexicans, the northern from stealthy Canadian dairy farmers — and about all the taxes he wants to lower. There’s a reason for this.

The TV-obsessed president knows that he will be endlessly judged by a report-card-obsessed media for his performance during these first 100 days. And as it happens, trade, taxes and immigration are the notable areas where Trump can claim to have demonstrated some ideological consistency, if not a ton of movement.
In most other aspects, the nascent Trump presidency is very much a work in progress, or perhaps a work in regress from the rhetoric of his campaign.

The candidate who skewered China as a currency manipulator is now the president who declared that China is not a currency manipulator. The candidate critical of intervention in Syria and of suspicion toward Russia has now launched missiles into Syria and blamed the Russians for it.

He no longer thinks that NATO or the Export-Import Bank is unnecessary. He no longer cares whether President Obama’s health care law is entirely or even mostly repealed, as long as he can pass something that doesn’t send the whole system cratering.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, this is the actual story of these first 100 days — the story of a showman stunned by his own victory and trying to figure out whom he should listen to and how he wants to govern.

Which leads me to what I think are some uncomfortable questions for Trump’s critics, particularly in my own industry. If Trump turns out to be serious about growing into the job, do we have the capacity to let him? Or, as I’ve heard from a lot of angry readers over the past few months, are we already invested in watching him fail?
To be clear, whatever presuppositions Trump now faces among most of the reporters who cover him — and among the solid majority of voters who disapprove of his job performance — are of his own making. It’s hard to suddenly start granting the benefit of the doubt to someone who so brazenly lies about things both mundane and consequential.

Trump’s also shown himself to be unserious about public policy. So when he breezily declares that “no one knew” how complicated this whole health care thing really was, it’s hard to conclude that he’s really coming to terms with what he doesn’t know, or that he’s suddenly more sober about governing than he was before.

That being said, though, Trump now finds himself in a box that’s entrapped a lot of more experienced politicians before him. On one hand, if he ignores sound advice and clings tenaciously to some of the theoretical positions he tossed out during the campaign, when he didn’t expect to win and was just sort of winging it half the time, his administration will become an experiment in reckless extremism.

If Trump were to start a trade war with China, and start deporting thousands of undocumented children who’ve been here since birth, and tear up the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, the results would make the Carter years look like a time of quiet stability.

You don’t want Trump to honor every one of his ill-considered promises out of some misguided sense of obligation, or because he’s afraid Steve Bannon might smuggle a cobra into his briefcase if he doesn’t.

But as soon as Trump plants a toe near sensible ground on any of these issues, he is immediately branded with that most overused epithet in American politics: flip-flopper. Invariably, when he arrives at a more nuanced position on something like Chinese currency or averting a government shutdown, the deluge of stories that follow have little to say about the policy itself and a lot to say about how Trump is either swerving erratically from his past positions or acknowledging political defeat.

In general, I’ve never been a fan of the “flip-flop” obsession in political journalism (and not only because it triggers my lethal allergy to clichés). If there’s one thing that ought to be true about both politicians and reporters, it’s that we should adjust our conclusions as the evidence changes. Ideological consistency at the expense of reason and experience isn’t a marker of integrity; it’s proof that you’ve stopped listening.Sometimes politicians baldly sell out their convictions for political survival. (Hillary Clinton on the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes to mind.) But in a lot of other instances, it seems to me we ought to grant political leaders the same right to evolve that we celebrate in pop stars or celebrity chefs.

In Trump’s case, though, the question of how to handle this evolution is more complicated. It gets to the heart of the issue with the media and a lot of his critics, I think, which is whether we’re actually willing to let him learn on the job — assuming, of course, that he can.

You’ll frequently hear Trump’s detractors in both parties qualify their remarks by saying that of course they’d love to see him transform into a capable, successful president. That’s the right thing to say, and there are good reasons for all of us to actually mean it.

When the president succeeds, America is safer and economically sound. It’s far better for your kids and co-workers if the president you disdained as a candidate turns out to be better at the job than you might have imagined. The only thing that comes from being right is hardship.

But if I’m being honest with myself about it, I’m conflicted in Trump’s case, and I’m certain I’m not alone. That’s because Trump’s success would also validate a lot of values I find repugnant and anti-American, starting with xenophobia, misogyny and a basic contempt for accumulated wisdom or expertise of any kind.
If Trump were to become an accomplished, popular president, it would send an even more resounding message to my kids — as the election itself did — that lying and bullying carry no cost, that politics is entertainment by another name. It would mean the death, or at least the grave injury, of objective truth.

It would vindicate the dangerous idea that America is strongest not as a global leader, but as a symbol of ethnic retrenchment.

Here’s where I come down. I don’t think the chances are high that Trump can somehow evolve into a wise president who unifies the country and understands the world. I’ve been trying to play baseball a lot of my life, and I’ll never hit a 90-mile-per-hour fastball. We are who we are.

But I also don’t think we can preclude the possibility. And if, in the 100 days to come and the 100 after that, Trump’s inclined to reinvent himself as a more thoughtful statesman, we shouldn’t jump up and down screaming “flip-flopper” like a bunch of fools with severely limited vocabularies. We have to give him room to grow.
Because if we don’t, we’re only proving his point about the media — that we report only what we can stand to report, rather than the truth, and that we’re never going to give him credit for anything. And Trump will get some things right. The law of averages compels it.

Critics on the left will call this “normalizing” Trump. I call it acknowledging reality, which is that he is the president, and we don’t get to decide for people what’s normal and what isn’t.

Trump could yet find a way to be bigger than he seems. We shouldn’t ask any less of ourselves.