The Boring Side of Having the Plague

Posted on July 31, 2020July 31, 2020 by vlaw759

Coverage of the pandemic is all over the media. Every day we get the latest tallies. Local and national news feature the tragedies that are all too common. A family of 6 all of whom have tested positive, and only two survive. Sometimes someone being discharged from the hospital after weeks on a ventilator. So why this blog? Because people suffer the virus in ways that never catch the attention of the media. Writers need to be aware of these variations.

Many of you are familiar with the name of Kathleen Corcoran, my friend and colleague and occasional guest blogger. She has graciously agreed to share her experience with us all.

It started with a headache, a pretty bad one, like something was sitting on my head. Or maybe it was the insomnia first. Or maybe the headache was caused by the insomnia. Or maybe I couldn’t sleep because my head was hurting. Or maybe I was just doomed to be caught in this chicken and egg loop of which came first for all eternity or at least until the sun came up.

But I didn’t think anything was wrong. I’ve had trouble sleeping since I was a kid. My posture is terrible, which causes headaches sometimes. I took a couple of painkillers and eventually was lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter.*

(Neither Vivian Lawry nor I are affiliated with or Stephen Fry or with J. K. Rowling. But if anyone knows how to get in touch with Stephen Fry, let me know, and I’ll do my darndest to become affiliated!)

In the morning, my husband went off to work, I drank about ten cups of tea, and everything was normal. Perfectly normal.

I was pretty tired, but that was to be expected after being up all night.

Joints aching? Must be a storm coming. Stupid arthritis.

Skin hurts like I’m wrapped in sandpaper? Probably just didn’t rinse all the soap out of my clothes last time I washed them.

Too hot and too cold and too hot and too cold again? Eh, it’s July. The air conditioner is weird.

Can’t stop coughing? Gee, I must need to sweep under the bed. It’s obviously really dusty down there.

Sore throat? Well, duh. That’s what happens when you cough a lot.

Difficulty concentra-SQUIRREL!

Eventually, the combined efforts of my husband, my sister, and my mother convinced me that I was probably sick, it might be the COVID-19, and I definitely needed to do something about it. The first thing I did about it was to consult Our Lord and Master, The Great Google. My husband left work early, and we tried to find a testing site.

*I think I poked the stick too far. I may have swabbed the back of my eyeball.*

And that’s when things got really… boring. Following the instructions laid out by The Great Google, I didn’t bother going to a doctor. I answered a bunch of questions online to determine if I was worthy of receiving testing and then to determine if I was worthy of receiving fast testing. The pharmacy told me I could stop by the drive-thru the following afternoon to poke a stick up my nose, and that was it.

Labs are really backed up, so I could expect my test results in about two weeks. Maybe longer. Probably longer. In the meantime, I should assume I had The ‘Rona (as my brother insists on calling it) and behave accordingly. Oh, and don’t bother going to a doctor or a hospital unless I turn blue or have a seizure. And it better be a pretty big seizure.

Contact tracing was easy. Two phone calls. I warned my parents that I was (allegedly) highly contagious with (allegedly) an infection of (allegedly) COVID-19 and thus I may have (allegedly) contaminated my mother and she may have (allegedly) passed on the deadly (allegedly) infection to my father. Allegedly.

*Ready! (Disclaimer: this is a picture I found online. I did not put a mask on my dog. She would eat it.)*

Thus, I am now in quarantine. I can’t leave the bedroom except for bathroom breaks. My husband can’t leave the house, just in case I’ve contaminated him. He has to sleep on the sofa, keeping an eye on the turtle. We both have to wear masks anytime I open the bedroom door, but my husband covers his face just about any time time he’s not sleeping. Pippin the Wonder Dog has gone to stay with my parents until we’re all allowed out of the house again. Fourteen days of staring at the bedroom walls, unless I’m still sick or my test results come back negative.

My husband put food and tea next to the bed for the first few days, carefully not touching anything and showering immediately after leaving the room. When I could get out of bed, he left the food and tea on the floor outside the door and picked up empty dishes with gloves. For about a week, I couldn’t keep anything down except tea. It’s a good thing I like tea.

*Apparently, stealing a towel from a hospital doesn’t mean I get to go to one. Actually, I think it might make them **less** likely to treat me.*

But then I started feeling better. I could sit up, the cough subsided, and I managed to stay awake for more than two hours at a time. My fever hung around for a bit, but it eventually went down. At one point, the thermometer informed me that I had a temperature of 107.3F. As I was staring at the read-out, wondering why all my internal organs hadn’t shut down yet, my husband reminded me to wait until after I drank the hot tea before sticking the thermometer in my mouth. Smart man.

*Maybe I can entertain myself by licking the sofa…*

Now, I wait. There’s not a whole lot to do in here. I can video chat with the guy on the other side of the door. My goddaughter sometimes reads me stories or demonstrates her spectacular spinning skills over the phone. I spend way more time than I will ever admit on sites like BoredPanda and BuzzFeed. Occasionally, I try to get up and walk around, but it’s only a step and a half from the bed to the door and only half a step from the bed to the wall. Not very conducive to calisthenics.

*Billy across the street just turned on his sprinkler. Now I get at least twenty minutes of watching the water spin!*

The neighbors lead fascinating lives, as I have discovered by not being creepy at all. I spend a lot of time staring out the window, and I’ve gotten to know everyone’s habits. If the dog next door isn’t out for his morning yard time by 7:30, I worry. Where’s Roscoe? Is he stuck inside? Is he still asleep? When the kids down the street start their evening basketball skirmishes, I keep score. Darren cheats, but Michael is taller and older… I haven’t decided if that evens things out, but Keisha always wins anyway. Yesterday, the recycling truck came by. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like Rear Window, but without the murder!

In the meantime, my husband has missed two weeks of work and pay. His boss isn’t sure about letting him back in the shop until all his colleagues are comfortable that he isn’t poisonous. My parents have had to isolate in their house, missing my father’s birthday dinner. All the careful planning my sister did to set up a safe birthday celebration for my father is down the drain (along with all the ingredients I’d just bought to make Beef Wellington for them). My other sister has been stuck watching five kids by herself because I can’t help out. And I had to reschedule an appointment with the DMV. Their next opening isn’t until September.

*Was I stupid or cautious? Or perhaps both?*

Don’t get me wrong: I am thrilled beyond belief not to be in the ICU, hooked to a ventilator in a medically-induced coma. But I don’t even know if I have COVID-19. Barring some catastrophic development, I will be free to leave quarantine and resume my normal activities tomorrow. If I did have it, I’m no longer carrying anything that could infect people. If I didn’t, I just put a bunch of people through a bunch of disruption and financial hassle for a sniffle.

Oh hey! An email just popped up with my test results….

Opening…

Logging in…

Finding the right message…

If I tested positive, does that mean I passed or failed? Also, is this going to be on the final exam?

Thanks to Kathleen for sharing her experience. Writers take note: She is living, breathing (thank goodness) proof that the worst case scenario isn’t necessary for one’s life to be turned upside-down.

**Freedom!** (Keep wearing your mask, unless you are a dog.)

A LONG TIME COMING

Posted on June 30, 2020July 2, 2020 by vlaw759

During the framing of the Constitution, Abigail Adams famously urged her husband to “remember the ladies.” But it wasn’t until the 20th century that women were granted the right to vote. As you may be aware, 2020 is the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

In 1756, in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, Lydia Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America.

Voting rights did not come easily, nor did they come all at once. With the exception of internal tribal voting on a few Native American reservations, voting was limited to white women until the 1950s, Unmarried white women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 until 1807. Women were casting ballots as early as 1838 in Kentucky, where widows with school age children were allowed to vote on school issues. In 1869, Wyoming granted women full voting rights in territorial and local elections. In 1893, Colorado became the first state to pass women’s suffrage into law. Idaho and Utah gave women the right to vote at the end of the 19th century. By 1914, eleven states and one territory allowed women to vote.

Partial Suffrage

During the years of partial suffrage, voting was a complicated business. One solution to the problem of separate ballots came in 1899, when Lenna R. Winslow of Columbus, Ohio—my home state—applied for a patent for a “Voting-Machine.” There were many versions of voting machines already patented, going back to 1875. But Winslow’s creation was unique. It was a single booth with two doors, one marked “Gents” and the other, “Ladies.” When one entered, the door essentially flipped a switch that brought up either the full ballot or the restricted one. Thus this voting machine was an analogue computer.

*Iroquois women inspired early feminists*

Voting around the world has been restricted in various ways for both women and men, but I’ll focus on women in North America. Several Native American nations gave women decision making power equal to men, more in some areas. For example, starting sometime before 1654, Iroquois women had a deciding vote in the councils. Women elders voted on the male chiefs and could depose them.

Through the end of the 19th Century, there was a gradual shift away from what many historians called the “Cult of True Womanhood”—the idea that the only “true” woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother whose only area of concern were home and family. Many religions encouraged this idealized gender separation.

Seeking Suffrage

The U.S. is typical of modern democracies in that men had the vote before women. One exception was Hawaii. In 1840, the Kingdom of Hawaii had universal suffrage—but it was rescinded for women in 1852.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were active in the suffrage movement and invited abolitionists to meet in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, to discuss women’s rights. The delegates produced a Declaration of Sentiments that began in the words of the Constitution but declared “that all men and women are created equal…”

*Ida B. Wells-Barnett, early advocate for freedom and equality, campaigned tirelessly to bring racial justice to suffragist organizations*

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, the campaign for women’s suffrage was very active. Perhaps this was because in the 1820s and 1830s most states had extended the vote to all white men, regardless of wealth or property ownership.

The women’s movement lost momentum during the war, but as the 14th and 15th Amendments were passed, the old questions of citizenship and suffrage emerged again. At that point, all males were citizens, and black men were guaranteed the right to vote.

*Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1912*

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), established in the U.S. in 1873 campaigned for women’s suffrage as well as ameliorating the condition of prostitutes. It was one of several organizations who were actively supporting various social causes in addition to women’s suffrage—e.g., anti-alcohol, religious movements, moral-reform societies, and anti-slavery movements.

*Freedom Summer for voter registration, 1964*

Black suffragists started aggressively asserting their right to vote in the 1890s. Even after the passage of the 19th Amendment, all women didn’t have equal access: many women of color were disenfranchised through various loopholes and thus had to continue to fight for their voting rights. When poll taxes, literacy or comprehension tests, and onerous residency requirements did not keep people away from the polls, racist enforcers resorted to misinformation or outright intimidation campaigns to prevent Black citizens from voting.

Starting in 1910, some states in the West began extending the vote to women. The Southern and Eastern states were most reluctant. In 1916 Carrie Chapman Catt initiated a campaign to mobilize state and local suffrage groups all across the country to lobby for voting rights state by state.

Several leaders of more aggressive suffragist groups began more confrontational actions than marches and petition drives. Alice Paul used radical, militant tactics—such as hunger strikes and White House pickets—to generate publicity and support for the cause. While picketing outside the White House, 33 members of the National Women’s Party were arrested and sentenced to months in the Occoquan Workhouse. On the night of November 14, 1917, prison guards at the Workhouse restrained, beat, knocked unconscious, and threatened to rape many of the suffragists, including Dora Lewis, Dorothy Day, Minnie Prior, and Lucy Burns. Alice Cosu suffered a heart attack because of the abuse.

*Imprisoned suffragists on hunger strikes were often force-fed by jailers. This forced feeding was sometimes fatal.*

*Ladies born before the 19th Amendment was ratified*

The momentum lagged again during World War I, but women’s work on behalf of the war effort turned the tide after the war, leading to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920—at least 100 years after the start of the movement.

Time Marches On

In 1923, the National Women’s Party proposed a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. This Equal Rights Amendment has never been ratified.

*Lines of people waiting to vote in Philadelphia, 2020*

*Suffrajitsu was a form a self-defense taught to suffragettes to be used when they were almost inevitability attacked at marches and demonstrations.*

Bottom line for writers: Besides the rich background for historical writing, consider a future in which the Equal Rights Act is revoked. Consider what would happen if individual states decided to go back to partial suffrage for some groups.

P.S. Women’s voting rights varied around the world, but with the granting of suffrage in Saudi Arabia in 2013, women can vote in almost every country that holds elections. In the Vatican City, only Cardinals are allowed to vote, and only men can be Cardinals.

WRITING PROTESTS, DEMONSTRATIONS, AND PUBLIC OUTCRIES: THINK BEYOND TODAY’S NEWS

Posted on June 24, 2020June 27, 2020 by vlaw759

Scribe Amennakhte wrote the Turin Strike Papyrus (c.1157 BCE), believed to be the first written record of workers’ strikes and sit-ins. Tomb artisans in Deir el Medina sat down on the job and refused to work until Pharaoh Ramesses III agreed to pay their food wages.

Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Saul Alinsky

Marching against injustice or striking for improved work conditions, pressing for suffrage or civil rights, playing music or writing books to increase public awareness—throughout history, all sorts of causes have moved people to seek change. The definition of a protest is both vague and nebulous, depending on the speaker. For the purpose of this blog, I’m going to limit my definition to a conscious attempt by people in a society to change some part of the status quo.

*Part of the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the Battle of Hastings*

The Battle of Hastings in 1066 was not a protest by William the Conqueror against the policies of King Harold of England. A toddler throwing mashed peas on the floor is not protesting in an attempt to change the household policies on vegetable consumption.

A protest is an expression of objections, disapproval, or dissent regarding an idea or action, typically a political one. The intention is to publicize opinions in an attempt to influence public opinion and/or government policy or to alter conditions so that the change results directly. The categories listed below can have a great deal of overlap: a rally may include protest music; a hunger strike may be accompanied by a vigil; a march may end with delivering a petition, etc. Nearly any type of protest can end in violence, either on the part of the protesters or from opponents trying to stop the protest. Today’s blog will be limited to protests intended to be peaceful.

Rally: People in the affected group gather together, often with other allies from the community, to improve solidarity, boost morale, and demonstrate the size of the affected community.
- Rallies often include speeches, speakers, singing, preaching, and other attempts to raise awareness in the general community and encourage people to continue to campaign.
- Crowds of people rallied together are more likely to attract media attention, providing a platform for the message to be spread further.

*Russians protest 2019 election results in Moscow*

Roman plebians were occasionally allowed to gather in a few public spaces to make their grievances against behaviors and unmet expectations of the princeps heard, primarily outside theaters, bathhouses, and the circus.

Students rallied at Tiananmen Square in 1989 to call for more freedom and government transparency.

Turkish women rally to protest violence against women and police apathy

Georgians rally in Tbilisi to legalize marijuana

The M’ikmaq people of the Elsipogtog First Nation took a stand against fracking in 2013 in New Brunswick.

March: Affected people and supporters move from point A to point B, often beginning or ending with a rally. Marches often include prayer walks, chants, and singing, as well as signs and banners detailing demands.
- Though most protests are relatively short, a few miles or circling around and around the same area, some are extremely long.

*Soweto student march against South African Apartheid in 1976*

In 195 BCE, Roman women came from all over the country to march on Forum in protest of the Senate refusing to repeal the lex Oppia, a law funding the Punic Wars by forbidding women wearing jewelry.

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones led the March of the Mill Children from Philadelphia to New York in 1903 to protest working conditions, especially child labor conditions.

Marches for racial justice and equality have taken place around the world in the past few weeks

Opal Lee, who is 93, is walking from Ft Worth, Texas to D.C. to protest for racial justice and deliver a petition to Donald Trump.

Vigil: Banners, placards, candles, and/or leaflets are displayed quietly so passersby know what the vigil stands for even if those standing vigil say nothing.
- Many vigils are accompanied by music and symbolic lighting or extinguishing of candles or lights to symbolize lost lives or spreading hope, among other statements.
- A vigil can also be held to raise morale for someone who is unable to be there, to let someone confined in hospital or prison know that others in the community are aware of their plight, or to bring awareness to authorities or the community at large.

UCI nurses held a candlelight vigil protest the lack of personal protective equipment for health care workers treating COVID-19 patients and to honor health care workers who have contracted COVID-19. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Vigils have been held outside prisons to ask authorities too release at-risk, nonviolent prisoners so they won’t die of COVID-19.

A candlelit vigil is held every year to mark the anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square.

Jenny Holzer staged a lightshow vigil to remember victims of gun violence and to spark conversation on how to prevent it in the future.

Art – Creativity of every kind is put to use in support of various causes.

*Sections of the Berlin Wall left standing have become canvasses for murals calling for peace and freedom.*

Songs – Strange Fruit became one of the most well-known anthems of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Music -The Brothers of Brass play Louisiana-style jazz at racial justice protests in Denver.

Dance – Young ballerinas in Richmond, VA dance to protest monuments to Confederate generals in 2020.

Grafitti – Tahrir Square in Iraq has been surrounded by murals painted in support of equality.

Theater – “The Other Shore” was written by Gao Xingjian in 1986 to protest government censorship and lack of individuality. It has never been performed in mainland China.

Poetry – Sextus Propertius the poet wrote several poems highly critical of Caesar Augustus’ warlike nature, generally decrying militarism as a policy.

Petition: Having a written record of multitudes who support a cause is an effective way of getting the attention of authorities.

*Activists deliver 400,000 signatures on a petition against changes to the NHS in England.*

King John was petitioned by his barons to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede in England in 1215, reducing the power of the monarchy.

Human Rights Campaign gathering signatures to present to legislature in support of a bill supporting equal right

Satire: Rather than attack an authority directly, undermining credibility or gravity by mocking is sometimes a more effective method of advancing a cause.

*Protesters shed their clothes to protest the clothing industry’s reliance on sweatshop labor*

Vikings historically have been portrayed as uncivilized barbarians without culture or intelligence by the people who left written records of them – literate monks whose monasteries had been burned.

Lysistrata is a comedic play by Aristophanes about women trying to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex until their husbands agree to stop fighting.

Environmental protesters in London protesting corporate interests putting profit over humanity.

Across the street from Westboro Baptist Church, a notoriously anti-gay religious sect, the home owners have painted their houses in the colors of Gay Pride and Transgender Pride.

PETA activists often demonstrate in public by dressing ridiculously to illustrate absurdities in the meat and fur industries.

Ester Hernandez created this illustration to express anger at the human and environmental costs of commercially grown agriculture.

Information distribution: tabling votes, gathering petition signatures, lobbying letter-writing campaign, teach-ins.
- “Doxxing” (or doxing) is a destructive variation of this type of protest, more common since the spread of the internet. Protesters widely publish contact details and sensitive information about people with whom they disagree in an effort to endanger their careers, social lives, families, and personal safety.

*Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis shows names of Black people killed by police*

Lewis Hine’s photographs of child laborers showed the terrible conditions in which they worked, creating a public outcry

White Rose Society students in Germany protested Nazis by secretly printing anti-Nazi pamphlets and leaflets with information about prison camps and SS atrocities.

Incorrect doxxing nearly ruined the life of Kyle Quinn after he was mistakenly identified online as having taken part in a neo-Nazi rally. He was not involved in any way and was not even in the same time zone.

Lawsuit: A social movement or group can sometimes use the legal system to advance their aims.

*A recent US Supreme Court ruling allows immigrants brought to the country as children to stay.*

The Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu, one of the oldest recorded legal systems, provides methods for women to sue for divorce, for slaves to be set free or re-enslaved, for everyone to be punished, and for property disputes to be resolved.

Elizabeth Freeman was the first woman to win her freedom in court in America, having successfully sued for her freedom from her former owner in 1781.

Richard and Mildred Loving took their case all the way to the US Supreme Court in 1958 to defend their right to marry, opening the way for all other interracial marriages.

Symbols: Pictures are worth a thousand words, and actions speak louder than words… The same is true when protesting. There are many ways to call attention symbolically to a cause

*A die-in for eight minutes and 46 seconds in memory of George Floyd, to call for police reform*

Shoes left empty to stand in place of people being killed by climate change

Indian students bandaged their eyes to echo the injuries inflicted on a fellow student and to protest safety for Jamia students

Indian farmers stood in chest-deep water for days to call attention to rising floods ruining their farmlands

Puerto Rican protesters erected a guillotine against government corruption

South African women taped their mouths shut to protest community silence about rape

Chinese students against government propoganda education

Colin Kaepernick knelt during the playing of the National Anthem before football games to protest police murder of Black people

Activists in Pamplona, Spain painted themselves red and staged a die-in to protest the Running of the Bulls

A Syrian migrant sewed his mouth shut in protest of the lack of safety or empathy in the world for refugees

Tommie Smith and John Carlos bowed their heads and raised a Black Power salute during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics, in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Peter Norman, the Australian sprinter who won the Silver Medal, had his award stripped as punishment for his support of his fellow athletes.

Protesters put plastic bags on their heads to demand clean air and action against climate change

Bicyclists dumped yellow paint on the roadways around the Arc d’Triomphe, causing motorists to spread the paint into the shape of the sun, raising awareness for solar energy

Toni Smith turned her black on the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance to protest racial inequality.

Taiwan workers blocked a highway with a die-in, bodies spell out “raise our salaries”

Clothing, or lack thereof, can send a strong yet silent message. People can call attention to their message by wearing clothing considered socially unacceptable, wearing acceptable clothing in an uncommon way, or wearing clothing that is strongly linked with a particular cause.
- Because women have traditionally been excluded from the sphere of public discourse, many women brought attention to their causes through fashion.
- Writing on clothing allows a protester to make their voice heard without actually speaking.
- Refusing to wear a particular garment or any garments at all can also send a message.

A model for Gucci made a surprise statement on the runway to protest the designer’s use of glamorized straight jackets in a fashion show. “Mental Illness is not fashion” is written on her palms.

Amelia Bloomer popularized the garment allowing women more comfort and freedom

Women dressed in antique costumes to highlight old-fashioned, sexist laws

London protesters showed their almost-everything to protest the unsafe and unrealistic body standards used by Victoria’s Secret

Girls from Lincoln High wore trousers to school in 1942 to call for an end to the double standards of the dress code

Boys from Clovis High School wore dresses to protest continuing, sexist, double standards in student dress codes

Congressional Black Caucus members wear Kente cloth to display pride in their African heritage.

Saudi Arabian women wore their abayas and niqabs inside out to protest laws requiring women to be fully covered in public

During a protest against sexual assault, this woman wore clothes documenting all the ways men have touched her inappropriately against her will.

IRA political prisoners on Block H refused to wear prison uniforms and wrapped themselves in blankets to protest the British government revoking their status of political prisoners in 1978.

Burkinis on French beaches have become a contentious issue, with the French government banning them and women demanding to wear them.

Jadon Sancho took off his jersey after scoring a goal to reveal a shirt calling for Justice for George Floyd.

Andrew Hawkins wore a shirt emblazoned with the names of men killed by police

LA Lakers players wore shirts echoing George Floyd’s last words in support of Black Lives Matter

US Women Soccer players wore inside out jerseys to protest pay gap

Women dressed like Handmaid’s Tale to protest anti-abortion laws

Indigenous dress to protest racist team names like Redskins

The 2016 Women’s March on Washington featured thousands of women wearing pink hats in protest of Donald Trump.

Slutwalk to protest victim blaming

French men protest gay marriage by being… naked

Philipino naked protestors against Ferdinand Marcosa buried in hero cemetary

Strike, slow down, sick-outs to protest work issues: often follows a failure of negotiations.

*Chilean workers on strike in support of popular protests for government change*

Pullman car operators on strike in 1894 clashed with union-busters

Factory workers in St. Petersburg, Russia went on strike in 1905, but the Nicholas II sent in the military to break it up.

Shipyard workers in 1942 staged a sit-down protest to call for wage increases

Workers at the Oracle Korea plant on strike

Employees at Woolworth staged a sit-down strike for a regular 40-hour workweek.

Inmates in US prisons went on a hunger strike and refused to work in 2016 and 2018 to call for better conditions and voting rights.

AIIMS- doctors protest racism being treated like terrorists by going on strike for one day

Boycott: Organized refusal to buy or use a product or service in protest of the owners, the vendors, the production, or another aspect that is in need of changing.

*Customers and employees call for a boycott of WalMart to push for higher wages and better HR policies.*

Employees at a stocking factory opposing a boycott of Japanese goods, including silk

American consumers were told to fight Nazis with their wallets during World War II

After Rosa Parks’s arrest in 1955, the Montgopmery Bus Boycott led to thousands of people walking and bicycling to work in protest of bus segregation.

Picket: hold signs, placards, or banners and walking around circles, with or without singing, chanting etc., point is to impede access to a place or to address the people going into that place, there are legal lengths now to how long a picketer is allowed to physically impede someone trying to cross the line

Women working in clothing factories went on strike for safer working conditions and better wages following the deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

Sanitation workers on strike picketing to protest segregation during the Civil Rights Movement.

Verizon employees on strike form a picket line.

Civil Disobedience: Deliberately breaking laws (often seen as unjust) is a way to protest their enforcement. The laws broken are typically not violent ones (such as those against murder or driving drunk) and are usually broken with the deliberate intention of being arrested, possibly causing a scene and raising attention while being arrested.

Leshia Evans stood to be arrested in defiance of police orders trying to break up protest after the deaths of Philando Castile and Tamir Rice.

Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes going to support the Mexican American War.

Students sat at the lunch counters in defiance of segregated Whites-Only rules.

Civil Rights protesters deliberately entered spaces marked for segregation, such as the Azalea Room.

Flower arranging without a license in front of Louisiana courthouse

Protesters kissing outside the DUMA in Moscow to push back against new laws against public shows of affection in same-sex couples

Kristen Stewart was disgusted by a dress code requiring women to wear high heels at Cannes Film Festival, so she took off her shoes and went barefoot.

Irish protesters kissing outside DAIL in support of gay marriage

Lebanese protesters for government reforms used multiple means to block roads, including burning tires, practicing yoga in intersections, and setting up living space in the middle of highways.

The Kiss of Love Campaign in India is a protest against moral policing forbidding public affection.

Protesters blocked traffic to the courthouse in Kansas during a Black Lives Matter rally.

Graffiti artists are illegal in most areas, but protesters like this woman send messages of solidarity with suffering and demanding government action.

Sabotage, property destruction, assasination, riot, mob

Bottom Line for Writers: Someone will always want change, and almost any method they choose to create it has some example in history.

FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS

Posted on June 19, 2020June 19, 2020 by vlaw759

*“It Was Beautiful” by American painter Doug Blanchard*

Note: Many older sources reference LGBT. I’ve taken the liberty of adding Q.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled 6/3 that LGBTQ people are covered by Title VII and cannot be discriminated against in the workplace. This ruling coincides with the 50th anniversary of the organization of Gay Pride events in the U.S.

A Brief History of LGBTQ Rights in America

The 1960s was a time of civil protest in general (you heard it here first!), including protests and demonstrations seeking civil rights for lesbians and gays. In 1965, homophile organizations started Annual Reminders pickets, reminding Americans that LGBTQ people did not have basic civil protections.

At the time, both gay and lesbian people were classified as mentally ill in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) used throughout the mental health system. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM!

Compton Cafeteria Riots

Veteran activist Scott Hix provides context for the beginning of the national push for equality. “Stonewall was not the beginning of gay rights. It was just the tipping point of our continued pushback because of the exposure from the New York Times.”

For years before the raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York, Hix worked to get respect for the LGBTQ community on the West Coast, including the Compton Cafeteria Riots in San Francisco. “Scott worked in bars as a drag queen at the time and he vividly remembers the times when the cops would raid the bars, throw everyone in jail for a night, and destroy drag queens’ wigs by setting them on fire or flushing them down a toilet, then they would make the queens wash their faces with dirty mop water.”

Stonewall Riots

The seminal event for LGBTQs occurred in June, 1969. Police raided a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn in New York City, triggering spontaneous riots by LGBTQ people there. An organized march on June 28, 1970 marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. This is now seen as the first Gay Pride march in U.S. history.

At the time of the Stonewall Riots, it is estimated that there were 50-60 gay groups in the country. By 1972, that number had grown to 2500, and marches took place in Atlanta, Brighton, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, London, Paris, Philadelphia, West Berlin, Stockholm, and Washington, D.C.

By now, the entire month of June is celebrated as LGBTQ Pride Month. It has been recognized by three U.S. presidents: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama via official proclamations, and Donald Trump in via Twitter. Events range from marches to festivals, nationally and internationally.

Stonewall Inn and the Christopher Street Park were declared a National Monument by President Obama in 2016.

More detail can be found on Wikipedia (of course) and by accessing the Library of Congress and Smithsonian portals. Irene Monroe has provided a first-hand account of the events at Stonewall in The Advocate.

Why Bother?

Because any realistic group of characters that are even remotely representative of the population as a whole is likely to include LGBTQ characters. Because far too many authors write gay characters who have no personality except being gay. Because, even when LGBTQ characters are included, they are often killed off quickly as nothing more than a plot device.

Because (even if you don’t know it) you almost certainly have friends, colleagues, and family members who identify somewhere along the LGBTQ spectrum. Because people who identify as LGBTQ are still more likely to face harassment and discrimination, even in the US, even in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling. Because LGBTQ children and teens are far more likely to deal with bullying, discrimination, homelessness, and suicide from a lifetime of being told by media that they are not normal and a source of shame.

*Stonewall Monument after the massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando*

Because LGBTQ People are All Around

Though accurate numbers are difficult to estimate, a significant portion of the U.S. population is LGBTQ; 4.5% overall, 5.1% of women and 3.9% men. The number who identify as transgender is estimated at 0.6%. In addition, be aware that these percentages are not evenly distributed across states, cities, or countries.

The five “gayest” cities, in rank order by % of population are:

San Francisco, 15.4
Seattle, 12.9
Atlanta, 12.8
Minneapolis, 12.5
Boston, 12.3

Because Others Can’t Be Proud Without Fear

Major advances in equality in have been made recently in Europe, Canada, the US, and India, among other countries. However, in many countries, LGBTQ people face significant danger of jail or even death if their orientation becomes known. Still, people turn out for Pride celebrations despite the danger.

Because Pride Is the Perfect Time to Propose

Because Pride Has All the Best Fashions

There is more LGBTQ literature available than you might think. Wikipedia has a 44-page list. Here are some examples of well-known authors you may not have known are or were LGBTQ.

Edward Albee
W.H. Auden
Sir Francis Bacon
James Baldwin
Honré de Balzac
Rita Mae Brown
William S. Burroughs
Lord Byron

Truman Capote
Sue-Ellen Case
Willa Cather
John Cheever
Colette
Noel Coward
Hart Crane
Emily Dickinson
John Donne

*The LegoLand Pride Parade is the smallest in the world!*

Daphne du Maurier
T.S. Eliot
E.M. Forester
Allen Ginsberg
Gerard Manley Hopkins
A.E. Housman
Sara Orne Jewett
Jack Kerouac
D.H. Lawrence

Thomas Mann
Daphne Marlatt
W. Somerset Maughm
Carson McCullers
Val McDermid
Edna St. Vincent Millay
John Milton

Anais Nin
Mary Renault
Adrienne Rich
George Santayana
May Sarton
David Sedaris
Edith Sitwell
Susan Sontag
Gertrude Stein

Valerie Taylor
Gore Vidal
Alice Walker
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Thornton Wilder
Tennessee Williams
Virginia Woolf

Bottom line: This month you can support LGBTQ colleagues by marching, celebrating, or (amid COVID-19) by reading LGBTQ literature.

THE UPSIDE OF NOT WHITE AND STRAIGHT

Posted on June 16, 2020June 16, 2020 by vlaw759

Everyone reading this blog knows that reading is a good thing (I hope), but just how good is it? Let us count the ways.

I’m not saying that getting her college degree first helped Anissa Pierce become the superhero Thunder (one of the first Black lesbian comic book heroes), but I’m fairly sure all that reading didn’t hurt.

1) Activates existing neural pathways in the brain. Complex poetry, in particular, keeps the brain active and elastic. For example, reading 30 pages of a book the night before having an MRI resulted in heightened connectivity in the left temporal cortex, associated with language and intelligence.

2) Maintains and improves brain function. Frequently exercising the brain by reading decreases mental decline in the elderly by 32%. Elderly patients who regularly read or play mentally challenging games are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Memory is improved at every age.

3) Reading is good for mental health. Depressed patients who read—or have stories read aloud to them—report feeling better and more positive about things. Research has indicated that reading can reduce stress by around 68%. Making a habit of reading a physical book before bed can improve sleep. (Reading on e-readers or tablets can actually keep people awake longer.)

4) Reading is highly beneficial for children. A children’s book exposes the child to 50% more words than watching a TV show. Children who are exposed to reading before preschool are more likely to do well at all levels and in all facets of formal education. Children who read are better able to grasp abstract concepts, apply logic, recognize cause and effect, and use good judgment.

5) Identifying with characters in books creates an empathic experience for the reader much like real-life. In fact, people who read do exhibit more empathy in real life.

That last bit is the primary point of this blog. As recent events have made abundantly clear, people born straight with white privilege experience the world differently from “others.” And I’m not the only one to make that point.

Writing in The Washington Post (4/24/15) Sunili Govinnage wrote, “I read books by only minority authors for a year. It showed me just how white our reading world is.” Finding books by nonwhite authors wasn’t easy. “Research shows . . . a systemic problem in the literary and publishing world.” (See also my blog from Friday, When You and/or Your Characters Are Not White.)

Campaigns such as We Need Diverse Books, launched in 2014, are making a difference. Annual lists of POC/BAME lists are published by The Guardian, The Telegraph, Bustle, and others. But making something available isn’t enough.

I recently heard a sound bite from a protestor who objected to white protestors being called “allies” because everyone should be just people protesting a common problem. But whatever the label, straight white people who want to work against prejudice (the attitude) and discrimination (the practices) that have unfairly and harmfully impacted minority and LGBTQ people need to understand at a gut level what it’s like to be “other.” They need empathy.

And that’s where reading comes in. Individuals still must make the effort to diversify—one might say “normalize”—their own experience through conscious reading choices. Author Gail Carriger credits Mercedes Lackey’s Heralds of Valdemar books with validating her experiences as child and influencing queer representation in her own books. On her blog, Carriger writes, “Her books were/are important because in them queer wasn’t a big deal. It just was.”

Sadie Trombetta at Bustle Magazine recommended 23 LGBTQ books with a person of color as the protagonist. She writes, “We need to share, read, and talk about diverse stories now more than ever. There is an entire population of the country continually underrepresented or misrepresented, misunderstood, and straight up discriminated against, and we need to hear their voices.”

As recently noted by Marsha Mercer in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (6/12/20), people are grappling with these issue: 5 of the top 15 books on The New York Times list of nonfiction bestsellers (6/14/20) deal with “white privilege, how to be antiracist, how to talk about race, the new Jim Crow era, and white supremacy.”

More time at home during COVID-19 presents a great opportunity to read some of that nonfiction. Maybe start with Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. This is a book I can personally recommend. James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son is an excellent collection of essays.

A number of websites have more suggestions for expanding your understanding and supporting diversity. “Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian” posted a list recently of 12 (Mostly) Canadian Books about Racism, Anti-Blackness, and Anti-Racism, Plus Places to Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. Anna Borges at Self.com put together a list of 31 Resources That Will Help You Become a Better White Ally, including suggested reading, ways to support equality, community resources, and helpful organizations. TimeOut.com has compiled suggestions from multiple contributors: These Black Women are Sharing Anti-Racism Reading Lists on Instagram as well as Black-owned bookstores where you can find these books.

*The Harlem Renaissance included expressions of queer identities as well as Black culture.*

And it is tough. During the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, in an exchange with a friend from college—i.e., a friend of decades—I said that he (my friend) had the benefits of white male privilege. He claimed I’d insulted him. Even though I elaborated—said that I was not saying he hadn’t worked hard, hadn’t deserved what he earned, etc., only that he hadn’t had to overcome his gender or his skin color to be successful—he hasn’t spoken to me since.

Although nonfiction is a great source of information, facts, and talking point ammunition, there’s still a huge need for fiction’s contribution to our awareness and empathy. Reading suggestions can be found online in their multitudes. Queer Books for Teens has a list of books with Black main characters. Weird Zeal offers a list that includes books for multiple age ranges. Study Break has a list of books supporting Black and queer authors, as well as links to resources supporting both. On August 2nd of last year, Bitch Media published 7 Books by Queer Black Writers to Read in Honor of James Baldwin’s Birthday. See also book lists in Friday’s blog.

Cristina Henriquez: The Book of Unknown Americans
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man
Toni Morrison: Beloved and The Bluest Eye
James Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room, Another Country and Go Tell It on the Mountain
Jaqueline Koyanagi: Ascension
Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents
Hannah Moskowitz: Not Otherwise Specified

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Zora Neale Hurston: Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance and Their Eyes Were Watching God
Camonghne Felix: Build Yourself a Boat
Rivers Solomon: An Unkindness of Ghosts
Junauda Petrus-Nasah: The Stars and The Blackness Between Them

And while we’re at it, let’s go international. The U.S. doesn’t have a lock on racism, discrimination, and oppression. Several times a year, The New Yorker publishes short stories by international authors. Casey the Canadian Lesbrarian posts suggested reading lists of Canadian Black and First nations authors several times a year. These themes can be explored around the world, as shown by the rallies in cities around the world.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah
Saladin Ahmad: Throne of the Crescent Moon
Maxine Beneba Clarke: Foreign Soil
Teju Cole: Open City
Su Dharmapala: Saree
Anita Heiss: Tiddas, Manhattan Dreaming, and Paris Dreaming
Chinua Achebe: Arrow of God
Wole Soyinka: Death and the King’s Horseman
Kiran Desai: The Inheritance of Loss
Sam Selvon: The Lonely Londoners
Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea
Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance
Kamila Shamsie: Homefire
Saleem Haddad: Guapa
Jamaica Kincaid: Annie John and Lucy
Nawal El Saadawi: Woman at Point Zero
Madeleine Thien: Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Chinelo Okperanta: Under the Udala Trees

Bottom line: in the words of Sunili Govinnage, “People of all cultures and backgrounds have valuable experiences and universal ideas to share, and we all stand to gain when those voices are heard.”

*I’d say the next generation is off to a pretty good start!*

WHEN YOU AND/OR YOUR CHARACTERS ARE NOT WHITE: INFO FOR WRITERS

Posted on June 12, 2020June 12, 2020 by vlaw759

As everyone should know by now, given recent events and news coverage, who you are and how you look makes a difference across the spectrum of American life. Writing (and publishing your writing) is no exception. I want to thank Kathleen Corcoran—friend, colleague, and occasional guest blogger—for suggesting this topic. In case you missed the photos on the header of my blog, I should clarify that I am a white woman and thus am relying on outside resources.

Surprise, surprise! (Hear the sarcasm dripping.)

Black Authors Get Fewer and Smaller Advances Than Their White Counterparts

Take a look at the author photos on the shelves of just about any bookstore, and you’re likely to be confronted by an overwhelmingly pale gallery. The science fiction and fantasy shelves tend to be even more monochromatic.

The disparity in pay is one reason Black authors are less likely to be full-time authors. Through the magic of Twitter, people were shown just how wide that disparity is. Here are a few instances from #publishingpaidme, started by Black fantasy author LL McKinney.

White American sci-fi author John Scalzi wrote that to the best of his recollection: he received $6,500 for his first two books in 2005 and 2006, then several five-and six-figure advances before a $3.4m deal for 13 books in 2015.

*N. K. Jemisin accepting the Hugo Award*

In comparison, Hugo-winning Black sci-fi novelist NK Jemisin said that she received $40,000 for each book of the Inheritance trilogy, $25,000 for each book of the Dreamblood duology, and $25,000 for each book of the Broken Earth trilogy, each of which won a Hugo award.

Black American literary novelist Jesmyn Ward said that she wrote her second novel, Salvage the Bones, before securing an advance. “Even after it won the [National Book Award], my publishing company did not want to give me 100K for my next novel.”

Black American author Roxane Gay’s opinion: “The discrepancy along racial lines is very real. Keep your day job.”

Possible explanation: according to a survey earlier this year by Lee & Low Books (publishers of children’s books), 76% of workers in U.S. publishing identified as white.

Romance writer Jasmine Guillory said, “Publishing is still a business owned by white men,” and “And, you know, the people at the top are all white men.” She made these comments in a Washington Post podcast titled Black Women on Race and Genre, in which Martine Powers talked with N.K. Jemisin, Jasmine Guillory, and Lauren Wilkinson about these issues.

In that podcast Wilkinson noted that in spy novels, from James Bond and John le Carré on, the super spies look very male and very white. So she wrote American Spy featuring a Black woman, Marie Mitchell.

Japanese American author and literary critic David Mura has written extensively about the race, gender, and identity the world of publishing. In his article about changes in the traditional path to publication, Mura identifies another challenge facing Black science fiction and fantasy authors.

The divide between the way whites and people of color see the social reality around them is always there in our society….
Creative writing involves the very description of that reality, and so the gulf between the vision of whites and people of color is very present right there on the page. And so, conflict ensues.
David Mura
“The Student of Color in the Typical MFA Program”
Gulf Coast

Science Fiction Definitely Has Problems of Inequality

As far back as 1980, Octavia Butler (afrofuturist writer, “The Grand Dame of Science Fiction”) was asking why science fiction is so white. Transmission Magazine published her essay, “The Lost Races of Science Fiction.” It has been reprinted in GARAGE Magazine, Issue 15, September 4, 2018.

Traditional wisdom held that making a main character a person of color will change the focus of the story. The advice was to substitute some sort of alien for the minority human. These things were actually taught in creative writing classes! Butler maintained that if a writer can see minorities for all their humanity—faults, skills, problems, aspirations—writing minority protagonists won’t derail the plot. Butler’s essay still seems spot-on to me, and I recommend reading it!

[R]emember when men represented all of humanity? Women didn’t care much for it. Still don’t. No great mental leap is required to understand why blacks, why any minority, might not care much for it either. And apart from all that, of course, it doesn’t work.
“The Lost Races of Science Fiction”
© 1980 Octavia E. Butler

An Evolution May Be in Progress

The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind was published in March, 2015. Edited by Claudia Rankine, Beth Loffreda, and Max King Cap. I just came across this title and haven’t read it, but it seems to be on point.

*Ramón Saldívar received a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2011*

Ramón Saldívar is a professor of English and comparative literature at Stanford University whose scholarly work is with ethnic literature. Stanford News, January 17, 2017 profiled Saldívar prior to the publication of his book The Racial Imaginary: Speculative Realism and Historical Fantasy in Contemporary Ethnic Fiction.

Nichelle Nichols – Lieutenant Uhura
Not a well-known writer, but she broke many science fiction barriers

He studied works by African, Asian, Mexican, Dominican, and Native Americans. All were born after the civil rights movement of the 1960s. His overall conclusion is that these writers find new ways to imagine and talk about race through fiction. “They are combining representations of race and racial identity with the wildest literary experimentations one could imagine.” And this is across all genres.

If you want to read what he’s talking about, here are examples of authors he studied, including several prize winners.

African Americans: Colson Whitehead, Perciival Everett, Touré Neblett, Darieck Scott
Asian Americans: Sesshu Foster, Karen Tei Yamashita
Native Americans: Sherman Alexie
Latinos/Latinas: Marta Acosta, Michele Serros, Yxta Maya Murray, Salvador Plascencia
Dominican American: Junot Diaz

April 17, 2018 The New York Times Match Book replied to the following query: “I’m hoping you can save me from the literary doldrums. I’m looking for black authors who can both get me excited about reading again and inspire my own writing.” The writer then gave examples of writing she likes, following with, “I need to know that there is an audience out there for mystery, suspense and science fiction written about black characters by black authors, so I don’t feel like I’m writing in vain.” Here are The New York Times recommendations. If you want descriptions of each, check out the post online.

N.K. Jemisin: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Nnedi Okorafor: Who Fears Death
Jeffery Renard Allen: Song of the Shank
Victor LaValle: The Changeling
Tananarive Due: The Good House
Attica Locke: Bluebird, Bluebird

*Far Sector – a new Green Lantern Comic by N. K. Jemisin’s and Jamal Campbell*

Bottom Line for Writers: the time is long overdue to break the molds and end systemic bias in publishing.

Why Do So Few Blacks Study Creative Writing?

Always the same, sweet hurt,
The understanding that settles in the eyes
Sooner or later, at the end of class,
In the silence cooling in the room.
Sooner or later it comes to this,
…
And she has to know, if all music
Begins equal, why this poem of hers
Needed a passport, a glossary…

Cornelius Eady
The Gathering of My Name (CMU press, 1991)

WHEN LIVING IT ISN’T ENOUGH—OR IT’S TOO MUCH

Posted on June 5, 2020June 9, 2020 by vlaw759

As writers, we are told to write what we know, but it isn’t possible for anyone to have firsthand knowledge of everything. We turn to secondary sources for an idea of what our characters might have lived through, what they could have seen and felt in situations outside our own experience. Here are some particularly interesting sources relevant to today’s headlines.

Here is a Partial List of Books About Social Protests, Recommended by Goodreads:

Demons, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1872)
It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis (1935)
The Warriors, Sol Yurick (1965)
The Gunslinger, Stephen King (1982)
Smoky Night, Eve Bunting (1994)
Strange Future: Pessimism and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, Min Young Song (2005)
Pages Stained with Blood, Indira Goswani (2002)

The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America, Barnet Schecter (2005)
Riot, Walter Dean Myers (2009)
Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America, Cameron McWhirter (2011)
The Black Box, Michael Connelly (2012)
Bachelor Buttons, Kathleen L. Maher (2013)
Jordan’s Stormy Banks, Jefferson Bass (2013)

The Harlem Hellfighters, Max Brooks (2014)
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, Sunil Yapa (2016)
A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, Claire Hartfield (2017)
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas (2017)
In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne (2018)
I’m Not Dying With you Tonight, Kimberly Jones (2019)
Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots, Margarita Engle (2019)

This is a handy guide for safe and legal protesting.

The 20 Best Books About Pandemics, According to Vulture.com:

A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe (1722)
Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter (1939)
The Plague, Albert Camus (1947)
The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton (1969)
The Stand, Stephen King (1978)
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Márquez (1985)
Journals of the Plague Years, Norman Spinard (1988)

The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman (1989)
Ammonite, Nicola Griffith (1992)
Beauty Salon, Mario Bellatín (1994)
Blindness, José Saramago (1995)
The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson (2002)
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood (2003)
The Children’s Hospital, Chris Adrian (2006)

The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera (translated by Lisa Dillman) (2013)
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
Find Me, Laura Van Den Berg (2015)
Severance, Ling Ma (2018)
The Book of M, Peng Shepherd (2018)
The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell (2019)

The CDC has provided information about staying healthy during the COVID19 pandemic.

How to protest safely while staying healthy during a global pandemic.

Note to writers: Everything old is new again! Inspiration and resources can be found in the unlikeliest places.

W.H.O. Let the Dogs Out?

Posted on April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 by vlaw759

*These dogs are better at social distancing than most humans I know.*

Today’s blog entry was written by Kathleen Corcoran, a local harpist, teacher, writer, editor, favorite auntie, turtle lover, and dutiful servant of a fluffy tyrant masquerading as a dog.

By this point, most of us have seen something in our lives change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we understand (at least a bit) why things have changed. Our animal companions just see that the humans’ behaviors are suddenly different.

*“Humans are staying in these circles, so I guess I’ll stay in a circle. Do I get treats now?”*

Despite various quarantine and lockdown orders around the world, animals dependent on humans still need care. Many zoos and animal parks house animals that cannot be released into the wild because they were born in captivity, they are still recovering from injuries, their homes have been destroyed, or other circumstances that prevent them being able to thrive. Animal shelters, zoos, rescue and rehabilitation centers, and emergency veterinarians have adjusted to provide food, socialization, attention, playtime, and everything else to keep their charges happy.

*The Atlanta Humane Society has teamed up with the Georgia Aquarium to provide socialization for rescued dogs and cats and entertainment for aquarium residents.*

Zoos have closed to the public, but zookeepers are still reporting for work. Some keepers have temporarily moved into the zoos themselves to be closer to their charges and to avoid any chance of carrying any infections into the zoo or home to their families. They’re camping in the cafeterias and staying in veterinary isolation huts.

In Cornwall, England, four keepers at Paradise Park have moved into the original house of the family that owned the property. Other keepers rotate in and out to assist, maintaining a strict schedule so that they are not in the zoo at the same time.

Without visitors around all the time, zookeepers have more freedom to take animals to visit their friends in other areas of the parks.

*Zookepeers periodically take animals to visit each other during off hours, but they don’t usually post the videos online.*

Because most zoos are making do with skeleton crews, keepers don’t have as much time as they’d like to play with the animals in their care. Many animals have been taking their own tours around zoos to see each other and keep each other entertained. (That doesn’t mean that bunnies have been jumping into the lion pens to say hello.)

The tamer animals have been allowed to wander the parks freely while there are no visitors. Territorial animals like geese have taken over bridges and tried to block keepers from crossing to feed other animals. Many zookeepers report that the more social animals still follow them around during rounds, without any leads or harness.

Some animals have left the zoo altogether and gone to explore the world. Peacocks from the Bronx Zoo took a stroll through Prospect Park.

*Police in a closed park in Houston helped a gaggle of ducklings find their way back to their mother.*

This cockatoo learned how to sing “Row row row your boat” and loves to sing along with kids who come by her enclosure. Without her backup singers, she has started humming to herself in the quiet. Zookeepers report that they can sometimes hear her start the song by herself but trail off sadly when no one joins in.

Without visitors to interact with, many animals are behaving differently. Keepers try to give each animal extra attention during feeding and rounds, but it’s hard to replace a steady stream of admirers. Some animals miss the interaction and get very excited to see anyone. Other animals feel more comfortable without an audience and venture out of hiding spaces more regularly.

Zookeepers come up with activities to keep animals entertained and socialized. Gorillas who regularly mirror gestures and pose for selfies with visitors are shown videos of people talking to them. Leopards at Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY have to “hunt” for food in cardboard tubes to keep teeth and jaws strong.

Polar bear cubs at Ouwehands Zoo Rhenen in Holland didn’t have to worry about public crowds when they left the maternity den for the first time.

Snakes, alligators, stingrays, etc. haven’t shown any sign that they’ve even noticed a change. However, one zookeeper noticed that some types of fish have become very attention-seeking.

Veterinarians at the Dubai Camel Hospital in Abu Dhabi have kept their enclosures open to treat their patients. After surgery, the very large patients need plenty of space and lots of help to get over that first hump in their recovery. (Ha! I crack myself up!)

Q: Where does the 800 lb gorilla sit for surgery?
A: Wherever the anesthesiologist wants.

Most veterinarians are only open for emergency cases to lessen the chances of spreading COVID-19. The CDC has confirmed that two pet cats have tested positive for COVID-19, but both showed mild symptoms and are expected to make a full recovery. Updated guidelines for interacting with cats and dogs have been posted on the CDC website. Although pets cannot become infected, there is a chance that they could spread virus surviving in droplets on their fur or paws.

*There have been no reports of tortoises catching or spreading the virus, which makes them the perfect quarantine buddies!*

One of the positive side effects of this awful pandemic has been the emptying of animal shelters. All over the world, people are adopting or fostering quarantine buddies. Shelter managers warn that permanent adoption may not be the best choice for families who will not have the time and resources to continue to care for pets when lockdown restrictions are lifted.

*Some pets are **not** excited about constant supervision.*

Some shelters are offering to cover food or vet bills for adopted or fostered pets as an incentive. While we’re all stuck inside, what could be better than spending extra quality time with our favorite furry buddies? They must be loving it, too. People home all day!

Mental health experts recommend furry, feathery, or scaly companions to mitigate the feelings of loneliness and depression some people are bound to develop while self-isolating. Pets can also be a huge help to parents trying to keep children entertained while they are out of school and have no place to run off all that energy.

Depending on the intelligence and motivation of the pet you adopt or foster, they may be able to help you complete some of your work at home.

Therapy dogs who can no longer visit patients in hospitals and nursing homes are sharing their affection and calm over video.

*Some therapy dogs are so calm, they sleep through their own swearing-in ceremonies. This is Brody, the newest and sleepiest member of the Bristol, RI police force.*

Several localities are under extremely strict lockdown measures that residents are only allowed outside for specific errands, such as walking the dog. If walking the dog is the only opportunity you have for going outside, you might as well do it in style.

*Don’t put a facemask on your dog. It doesn’t help anything, and it annoys the dog.*

While the zoos and aquariums are closed and everyone is staying home, take a virtual trip. Many parks and zoos have installed virtual tours and live-feeds of animals. These are a few of my favorites.

Chattanooga Zoo
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Pittsburgh Zoo
Saint Louis Zoo
- The live penguin cam is especially popular.
St. Louis Aquarium
Smithsonian National Zoological Park
Tennessee Aquarium
Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle)
You can even go on a virtual safari in the South African Bushveld.

The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract COVID-19. All dogs previously held in quarantine will now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out!

HAIR IN THE TIME OF COVID-19

Posted on April 21, 2020 by vlaw759

A while back, I posted a blog on hair and what it says about a character—or at least what impression it makes on others. So what can we glean from how a person (or character) deals with hair now that beauticians and barbers are deemed “nonessential”?

As best I can tell, there is a big divide in hair care priority between those who are deemed essential in jobs that require working onsite and those who are staying home. The former are under more pressure to keep up appearances. But both groups include essentially three subgroups: those who are happy to let it all flow, those who try to recreate professional techniques on their own, and those who create entirely new styles to fit the situation.

Go With the Flow

Theses people are doing nothing beyond washing and brushing their hair. The result may be tri-color—for example, dark chestnut coming in, the remnants of highlights, and gray in front or at the temples. Such people may resort to caps or scarves. Over time, ponytails, braids, barrettes, bands, and ties come in handy. And think wigs! They can be ordered online.

Some would claim this choice is tougher for a man to carry off, to the extent that many men are simply shaving their heads. Women are less likely to choose this option.

Choosing to do nothing is sometimes characterized as “giving my hair a break” from chemical treatments and elaborate coiffures.

DIY

Technically, shaving one’s head might be a form of DIY for people who hadn’t already adopted that look. A close alternative is men who have their spouses or partner’s cut their hair, even if they have never cut hair before. Some women opt for this option as well

Some women are cutting their own hair—definitely easier with some styles than others.

But not all households have the basic equipment—hair scissors, clippers, a mirror that allows a steady view of the back of the head. In such situations, what are the alternatives? Think kitchen shears, pinking shears, nail scissors, and safety razors.

Those who color their hair have denuded the shelves of supermarkets and drug stores of home dye. Professionals strongly recommend against DIY color, saying one may severely damage one’s hair. But, hey, it’s only hair. It’ll grow back, right?

A friend suggested to me that I could color the tips of my hair with red food coloring. She said that my hair is so short, it would be cut off soon. It reminds me that when I was in seventh grade a redheaded friend and I experimented with food coloring. She chose green and I chose blue. We (erroneously) thought it would wash right out. So, no red tips. But blue to match my eyes? Maybe.

And that reminds me: so-called temporary hair color is permanent if you have previously had your hair lightened.

DIY may be exceptionally difficult for Black women. The importance of hair care has resulted in a massive industry, worth $2.5 billion at least, including chemical relaxers, braiding services, hair pieces, and so forth. Women may feel uncomfortable wearing “natural” hair, and many more are unable to create their customary look from home.

Rebels

These are the people who have decided hair care is essential and therefore defy the stay at home/social distancing injunctions. Either the client goes to the home of her/his hairdresser or the practitioner comes to the home of the client. Both greatly increase the risk of spreading the virus, of course.

Getting Help

I’m not a YouTube fan, but there are a gazillion (by actual count!) options for videos of home hair care. Recently, salon experts have been posting and advising their clients to take a look. Some salons are delivering professional supplies and equipment to their clients’ homes in sanitized packaging. And some practitioners are setting up video chats with clients to talk them through coloring or braiding their own hair.

Bottom line for writers: How a character responds to the hair care crisis is a clear reflection of personality. Use it!

WHAT’S THE TOILET PAPER PANIC COME TO?

Posted on April 17, 2020April 17, 2020 by vlaw759

Surely everyone out there is aware of the (apparent) worldwide toilet paper shortage. Although people who claim to know say there is plenty of TP to go around, what shoppers actually see are miles of empty shelves. And there’s no denying that the TP panic has led to weirdness. Lots of weirdness.

Writers note: if anything in this blog is useful for your writing, it’s purely incidental to what I hope is the smile factor. (I won’t be able to reference every individual incident. They’re all over the internet. You can look it up!)

Ingenuity or Desperation

A thief in Eugene, Oregon smashed the entire back window of an SUV to steal two 30-roll cases of TP, along with any miscellaneous valuables within reach. That turns out to be small potatoes. Police in Guilford County recovered a stolen 18-wheeler loaded with over 18,000 pounds of TP.

In Hong Kong thieves held up a supermarket delivery driver and made off with hundreds of rolls. Authorities estimated that the value of the TP was $218 (HK$1700) but could be sold for much more on the black market.

A man in the UK crammed his van so full of scarce paper products that he was over the legal weight limit for his vehicle and had to pay a fine worth more than $370 (GPB 300).

Hoarders and others with a supply have offered TP and other scarce items online at sites like eBay and Facebook Marketplace for extreme prices to such an extent that efforts to curb price-gouging have been put in place. Several customers have had their accounts suspended.

One man jumped ahead of the curve, going to small towns in his area and buying out the TP and hand sanitizer from the shelves of mom-and-pop stores, Dollar Stores, etc., and then offering them online at such excessive prices that he’s been barred and is stuck with a garage full of supplies he cannot sell.

A similar scalper in Australia had his hoard seized by police and donated to local shelters.

Brick and mortar stores have started imposing limits on how many of each item individual shoppers can buy. Once stores moved to control bulk buying—such as limiting the number of packages customers can buy in one day—desperate people took desperate measures. For example, each member of the family going into the store separately to buy the maximum. When Wegman’s limited people to two packages of TP per day, someone bought the TP and then came back ten minutes later wearing a hat and sunglasses and tried to buy more.

Some people are not happy with the limiting of purchases. Near Richmond, VA, a man arrived at the supermarket check-out with a cart full of paper napkins. When told he could buy only two, he yelled, “F**k you!” then upended the cart and walked out.

The situation has gotten so crazy in some parts of Australia that police are having to guard pallets of toilet paper in stores, handing packages to customers one at a time.

Recently, my endodontist’s receptionist told me that they had locked up their supplies of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and other items that had begun to disappear. Public restrooms in gas stations, fast food restaurants, and convenience stores have done the same.

Perhaps they should follow the lead of a convenience store worker in Japan. She hung signs with images of eyes and kanji characters in front of the TP to curse the rolls. The symbols imply that anyone pilfering the TP will be hunted down and eaten by a hungry monster. And the pilfering stopped! Never underestimate the power of superstition.

*Security cameras were also watching this TP thief at a hotel.*

An Internet cafe in Florida posted the following hand-written note in the bathroom: “Stealing toilet paper at this point in time is not funny. I pray that you do not get the virus— But if you do . . . God was watching!” There was no report of the note’s effectiveness.

Once shelves were denuded of TP, people started stocking up on tissues, paper towels, wipes, and napkins. But flushing such things is likely to screw up the plumbing, septic systems, and sewers. City officials in Ankeny, Iowa tweeted the plea to flush only human waste and TP. The city of West Des Moines posted similar pleas not to flush wipes, paper towels, napkins, diapers, feminine hygiene products, socks, dryer sheets, or facial tissue. Johnston, IA, added toothbrushes and toys to the list!

Iowa isn’t the only place where such warnings are needed. A Tacoma, Washington plumbing company reported an instance of people flushing pieces of T-shirts down the toilet. They routinely give a roll of TP to people who have called them in.

An Arkansas florist turned his pre-COVID-19 stash of TP into “floral bathroom tributes” just $75 (for about 9 rolls). And TP is becoming a welcome wedding gift.

TP has become such a valuable commodity that retailers are rewarding customers with rolls of it. A pizza restaurant in Milwaukee, offered a roll of TP for every large pizza bought. Other large restaurants from coast to coast have started similar TP giveaways. And some establishments accept toilet paper in lieu of money!

An Australian newspaper, NT News, included eight blank pages in the middle of the printed pages to be used as TP, complete with cut lines so customers could get the maximum number of squares.

An LA jewelry store decided to use toilet paper as a marketing ploy, as advertised here.

Arcade owners in the UK and Hong Kong have replaced the usual plush toys in claw game machines with rolls of TP. Other similar vending machines offer hand sanitizer and other personal hygiene products to the prize pool.

No doubt, somewhere out there, someone is standing in the median of a roadway holding a sign that says, “Will Work for Toilet Paper.”

On the Flip Side: Acts of Generosity

In Coral Gables, FL, Church by the Glades announced a day and time for people to pick up free toilet paper.

In Summerville, SC, police issued rolls of TP to drivers in lieu of tickets.

NT News, an Australian newspaper, has begun including extra sheets of blank paper in the centerfold, specifically for use as toilet paper.

Traveling/Keller (an Atlanta-based marketing firm) is one of many companies that are temporarily closed. Having enough TP on hand for 1,000 employees, they decided to give it away. Employees threw rolls of TP through the open windows of cars driving by in their “Toilet Paper Tosses” initiative.

On a smaller scale, many people have been offering a roll or two to friends or family in need, going to the store for those who can’t make it out, or donating hygiene products to local homeless and women’s shelters.

The New Currency

Venezualans have experience using toilet paper and diapers as currency, after skyrocketing inflation. It seems the rest of the world may be catching on.

Alternative Methods of… You Know

*There is a fatberg under London that is the size of a bus!*

There are plenty of other materials with which to maintain your personal hygiene when you don’t feel up to facing the hordes at the stores. Be aware, though: many of these alternatives cannot be flushed. Sewage systems around the world are becoming clogged by “fatbergs” of flushable wipes (that aren’t flushable), paper towels, diaper, sanitary napkins, and all the other alternatives people experimented with.

Stop. Think.

Do you really need to buy TP right now? Most standard 2-ply, 1000 sheet rolls should last about a week. But for a number tailored to your household, there’s an online calculator for that.

P.S. Police departments around the country are reminding people: Don’t Call 911 If You Run Out Of Toilet Paper. It is not a life-threatening emergency.

What to Do When You Realize You Can’t Return It

Some people have already realized the folly of buying pallets of squished-up trees in preparation for a respiratory illness, but most stores have policies in place refusing returns. Here are some other ideas! (These photos were taken before February 2020.)