In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course...In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger...And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for … Continue reading RESPONSIBILITIES OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP
"This week marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment. And we celebrate the women who fought for that right. Yet so many of the black women who helped secure that victory were still prohibited from voting, long after its ratification...We're not often taught their stories. But as Americans, we all stand … Continue reading THE 19TH AMENDMENT AND WOMEN OF COLOR
` “Women are held to a higher standard. Otherwise we could play a game called ‘Name Your Favorite Woman President,’ which we can’t do because it has all been men.” ~ Senator Amy Klobuchar “Bernie and I agree on a lot of things, but I think I would make a better president than Bernie. … Continue reading A CENTURY AFTER GETTING THE VOTE, WOMEN WANT THE VOTES
Carl Van Vechten / Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons “None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.” ~ Marian Anderson I would like to mark Black History Month by honoring the late and beyond great … Continue reading MARIAN ANDERSON – THE VOICE OF AMERICA
"In diversity there is beauty and there is strength." ~ Maya Angelou "Remember that you are capable of giving this time of year new meaning and new memories." ~ Kovie Biakolo “Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.”— Author Unknown For years we have heard from some quarters … Continue reading Holiday Diversity
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." ~ Abraham Lincoln With the voices of women echoing from the ranks of the entertainment industry and the chambers of Congress about the evils of sexual harassment, the jaw-dropping numbers of powerful men toppling from their pedestals and promises of severe consequences to perpetrators … Continue reading Will Corporate America Please Stand Up?
Some people find it impossible to accept
That all people are deserving of respect
Fairness and decorum they will reject
And scorn it as politically correct.
Two Decembers ago Fox News' Megyn Kelly declared on her show that, "...by the way for all you kids watching at home Santa just is white…” That statement caused quite a stir, but as the persona of Santa/Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas/Kris Kringle has progressed through several centuries and many countries, it's quite possible that this jolly man might have at some time been darker complexioned than the current version. There is even some historical indication that women might have taken turns during the progression of the Santa concept (although some children in the U.K. who were recently asked if Santa could be a woman had some interesting answers that proved we still have a way to go on the gender bias thing - hmmm).
“…you can prove that you’re a Christian.
You can’t prove it, then, you know, you err on the side of caution.”
“…calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States…”
“…I don’t think orphans under five…should be admitted into the United States at this point.”
The news is not good these days for those of us who teach etiquette to students and professionals. You can't pick up a newspaper, watch the news on TV or go online without reading or hearing the maelstrom of incivility aimed at certain ethnic and religious groups.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Symbols Are or Represent (Left to Right)
First Row: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism
Second Row: Islam, Cross Pattée, Taoism and Confucianism
Third Row: Khanda, Ayyavazhi (Hindu denomination), Neopaganism
Silent night
Festival of light
Winter Solstice
In shades of white.
Queen Guinevere by dashinvaine
umbandaimagens.blogspot.com
Bing Images
"I lament that women are systematically degraded
by receiving the trivial attentions
which men think it manly to pay to the sex,
when, in fact, men are insultingly supporting their own superiority.
~ Mary Wollstonecraft,
from her 1792 book,
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Those are strong words from British author and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, who launched feminism in the 19th Century. Back then she and other women were bristling over the practice of on the one hand men bowing to women, picking up their dropped handkerchiefs and opening doors for them while on the other hand denying them independence, education, careers and even the right to own their own property or control their own finances. Women did not even have legal custody of their own children and were considered property of their fathers and later their husbands. While the former treatment of women was viewed by some as "chivalry," the latter was considered by many to be a denial of rights.
