tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49929663716085288302024-03-14T01:09:15.026-07:00MARY ANN SORRENTINO'S ITALY & THE WORLD BEYOND MARY ANN SORRENTINO'S 2 Cents WORTH:
LIVING, TRAVEL And,
SOMETIMES, POLITICS
MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-46988570511139551832019-11-28T07:06:00.000-08:002019-11-28T07:06:02.704-08:00Rhode Island-- homebound and likely to stay that way<!--[if !mso]>
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<b><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #767676; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: .55pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in; text-transform: uppercase;">OPINION | MARY ANN SORRENTINO</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 34.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Rhode
Island — homebound and likely to stay that way</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By Mary Ann Sorrentino</span></b><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,September 4, 2019, 10:26 a.m.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/09/04/rhode-island-homebound-and-likely-stay-that-way/G3J8kr96t2Yku1X8GjjVXP/story.html#bgmp-comments"><b><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">16</span></b></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-no-proof: yes;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, R.I. <span style="text-transform: uppercase;">RHODE ISLAND AIRPORT CORPORATION</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The recent decision
by </span><a href="https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190813/tf-green-airport-will-have-no-transatlantic-connection-following-norwegians-departure" target="_self"><span style="color: #005dc7; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; letter-spacing: .4pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Norwegian Airlines to pull its direct
service to international destinations from Rhode Island’s T.F. Green Airport</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> leaves
the Ocean State more tightly bound by its geographic and imaginary borders.
Once Norwegian leaves in September, the only flights to international cities
from Green will be the regular Air Canada service from Providence to Toronto.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To a majority of Rhode
Islanders — many of whom still consider a drive north from Pawtucket to
Norwood, Mass., or southwest to Stonington, Conn., a “day trip”— the news that
the nearest gateways to Europe and other faraway places are again Boston’s
Logan Airport or Bradley Airport near Hartford, Norwegian’s exit causes little
concern. </span><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We Rhode Islanders can be a
“stay put” bunch. It is still common to hear locals say, with full amazement,
it’s “such a long ride to” whatever border towns surround the state. In
reality, the capital city of Providence is less than 45 minutes to an hour from
Boston’s South Shore or the Connecticut line.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This cement-foot mindset
is, of course, more prevalent in older residents than among our young people
who, thankfully, have managed for the most part to give reality a chance. They
know that bright lights and big cities like Boston, New Haven, and even New
York are reachable by car in less time than it often takes to renew one’s
license or get new number plates at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In fairness, I also
observe, as the years go by, that, thankfully, more Rhode Islanders will will
venture to the four corners of the world to expand their horizons. They will be
especially and uniquely sad to see Norwegian leave. T.F. Green Airport is,
frankly, a heck of a lot easier to get to and use than Logan. Parking is
plentiful, and the airport by national standards is relatively new and as
comfortable as one could hope for. Bradley, though adequate and despite recent marketing
campaigns, always seems like a more taxing journey. This may be because the
routes to the Hartford area from Rhode Island are older, less direct, and
tedious.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As a frequent overseas
traveler, and someone who lives minutes from T.F. Green, my perfect world would
include regular flights from Providence to Rome, Paris, Dublin, Madrid, Lisbon,
and, of course, London. (From any of those capitals I could connect to the Far
East if I didn’t abhor the idea of a full day squished in a plane.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But I am a native Rhode
Islander: I understand that a state losing population and one where my
neighbors still feel that New Bedford or Stonington are “day trip” destinations
probably doesn’t have the will to make flights to “foreign countries”
profitable for any airline.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That being the case, many
Rhode Islanders will continue to feel that renting a house at Scarborough Beach
for a couple of weeks during the summer, an occasional jaunt to Newport, the
Cape, or Block Island, or a bus trip to Boston or New York City for the really
adventurous, are more than they need to get away from it all for a while. Those
who can will drive or fly to Florida for a winter respite. As long as Southwest
and Jet Blue keep their desks open at Green Airport, Rhode Island will feel
well-served.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Real travelers, sadly, will
still face the extra time, cost, and traffic challenges that lead to Logan or
Bradley when they are headed for any place that requires a passport. In the
end, that is a small price to pay for those of us blessed with wanderlust.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mary Ann Sorrentino’s column appears regularly on the First Wednesday in the Globe.
Follow her on Twitter at </span><a href="http://twitter.com/Thatmaryann" target="_self"><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; letter-spacing: .4pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">@Thatmaryann</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> or email her at thatmaryann@yahoo.com</span></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-31750421279116271642019-11-28T07:03:00.003-08:002019-11-28T07:03:41.990-08:00Family, Friends, Lovers, and Politicians<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Family, Friends, Lovers, and Politicians<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By Mary Ann Sorrentino<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pub. Date: Nov. 6, 2019 </div>
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<br /></div>
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Real friends are precious: people we grew up with, those
there for us when we need them, and family members we cherish. That’s why, when
today’s “Great Divide--”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>red vs. blue,
white vs. people of color, Wall Street vs. Main Street, Christians vs. non-Christian
– spills into our conversations, something destructive seems to be happening.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s tough to defend differing political views; it’s tougher
still to lose the comfort and joy of those who love us (and whom we love) over whether
Hunter is more corrupt than Ivanka.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If America is being made “Great Again” Americans, once
admired and envied around the globe, seem to have forgotten how to “crown her
good with brotherhood...”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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How many of you have felt a growing discomfort when speaking
with people you have known and cherished for decades? Some act as if your views
are ridiculous and even destructive. Conversely, are you ashamed to admit your outrage
about the opposing views of intimates? </div>
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<br /></div>
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A child of immigrants, I sympathize with those risking all
to come to America to escape lives of fear, danger, and starvation in their
native lands, as many of our forebears did. I am unwilling to trade a strong
investment portfolio for my abandonment of the belief that America’s greatness
stems as much from her tolerance and charity as from her wealth and might.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Conversations I looked forward to now often disintegrate
into arguments punctuated by horrified or condescending looks, sighs of
disbelief, and even put-downs from both sides of the argument of the moment.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I sometimes miss the days when people kept their political and
religious views out of social conversations. Today, if we don’t vehemently defend
our beliefs we feel strongly that we are conceding ground. Too many conversations
begin with both sides crouched in the “…mark, set, go!” position waiting for
the gunshot to start a race to nowhere.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The “…Let’s not talk about that…” diversion eventually brings
so many elephants into the room that neither side can ignore the noise they
make or the stench they throw off. Eventually and predictably, the first salvo
is heard and the battle begins—again. In the end, what was supposed to be (and once
was) discourse between people who care about each other ends in hurried
departures, insincere </div>
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pledges to “get together soon” and a sense of loss as
each side watches the other walk into the sunset.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Couples talk about the bitterness of today’s political
stalemate taking its toll on once-loving relationships. Parents avoid talks
with adult children—and vice-versa. After work drinks—once collegial -- become
a test of restraint that often fails: once-sedate book clubs move to combat.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Something has broken down in America and everyone seems to notice
but Americans. When Washington’s actions decimate the friendly way citizens who
have cared about each other for years or generations interact, we need to take
a good look at what is happening. As many of our world neighbors would tell us,
politics affect institutions in an obvious way, but when too many profiteers on
both sides of the aisle worry more about themselves than about those they have
sworn to protect and defend, the battles waged in the halls of government can turn
the kitchen, the clubhouse, the dining room, and even the pews into bunkers. It
is one thing for the stock market, manufacturing, agriculture, and labor groups
to experience ups and downs because of national policy, but it is quite another
when taxpayers become so polarized that they can no longer tolerate good
friends and relatives with different political views. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We can’t allow great friendships to turn to disrespect and
even hatred without using thoughtful discourse to salvage camaraderie before
it’s too late. This is not an easy assignment. I don’t expect David Duke to
become Barack Obama’s pal, but I am trying to approach my friends on the far-Right
with enough logic wrapped in sincerity and humor to allow the decades of caring
that bind us to outweigh the few years of political estrangement threatening
us. I also know, sadly, that some relationships will not survive this polarization.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the end, we shall always need the respect and genuine
caring we get from those closest to us—and they will always expect that from us
in return. Hopefully, Americans will learn what older cultures<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>learned throughout history: politics are fleeting;
the healing and nurturing of close friendships and familial bonds—in the end—spare
us through life from the isolation that unbridled political opposition can
create. Shrill arguments or, worse, angry silences, fracture friendships.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The task before us, then, is to remember who really cares
and who—in the end—is important in our lives. (Hint: Friends and family probably
outrank politicians every time.) Meanwhile, in rough patches such as we are
experiencing, it’s wise to hone our skills for more respectful discourse and
set an example of tolerance even when faced with loud and inflexible opposition.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whichever 24-hour cable channel we watch for all the answers,
true friends and loving family will always make us feel better than tomorrow’s Tweets
or breaking headlines.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 4;"> </span>_____________END____________</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif;">Mary
Ann Sorrentino’s column appears regularly on the First Wednesday in the Globe. Follow her on Twitter
at </span><a href="http://twitter.com/Thatmaryann" target="_self"><span style="color: #005dc7; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; letter-spacing: .4pt;">@Thatmaryann</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif;"> or email </span><a href="mailto:thatmaryann@yahoo.com" target="_self"><span style="color: #005dc7; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif; letter-spacing: .4pt;">thatmaryann@yahoo.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica",sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-39754712572705971382019-11-28T07:00:00.000-08:002019-11-28T07:00:17.960-08:00First Do No Harm<!--[if !mso]>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
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<span class="overline"><b><span style="border: none 1.0pt; color: #767676; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.55pt; padding: 0in; text-transform: uppercase;">OPINION | MARY ANN SORRENTINO<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Boston Globe</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 39.0pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 34.5pt;">First, do no harm</span></h1>
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<span class="label"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">By</span></b></span><span class="bold"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;"> Mary Ann Sorrentino</span></b></span><span class="hidden--mobile"><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">,</span></span><span class="Date3"><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">Updated October 2, 2019, </span></span><span class="time"><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">5:00 a.m.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Like many health care workers and
administrators from these parts, I cut my teeth as a health professional in
Boston at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, on the same site where today’s
revered Brigham and Women’s continues a great medical tradition.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">When I returned to my native Rhode
Island, I had an opportunity to grow in that state’s first Health Maintenance
Organization, proud to be part of a brave and committed team out to prove that
good health depends on health maintenance, early detection, and routine
preventive care. It wasn’t an easy message to deliver then, but with
persistence, HMOs earned respect and standing.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">During all those years and until my
retirement from the health field, I had hired, fired, and worked with
physicians — from cocky Harvard and Brown interns who sometimes had to be shown
their boundaries to overly eager surgical residents embracing the “surgeon’s
personality” (code for a surgeon’s assumed right to yell at attending staff,
throw instruments across the operating room, and generally behave immaturely).</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">As a health administrator and as a
patient who has been poked, prodded, and stitched up by the best and worst of
them, I think I know a great doctor when I see one. That is why the recent
death of a respected surgeon I was privileged to know as my doctor and as the
genius whose amazing surgical skills gave my husband a new life has underscored
my recognition of what a precious and rare gift a truly exceptional healer is.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Rejecting the typically stern surgical
bearing that often sets surgeons apart, even from their medical peers, Dr. M
was usually smiling, always thoughtful, and uniquely modest. He was always
there for those in his care. He soon became the rudder keeping patients and
those closest to them safely on course as he eventually guided them into a safe
harbor.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">As far from the stereotypical
“surgical personality” model as one could get, he was a quiet man who looked
you in the eye when he spoke and never had to raise his voice to make his
point. I often described him as “elegant,” not only for the exquisitely
tasteful wardrobe he wore with impeccable style, but also for the seamless way
he turned a grave diagnosis into a brilliant treatment plan, then to a surgical
miracle, and finally to a recovery full of reassurance and caring from the very
surgeon who made that all possible. You could be discharged from the hospital
by him, but you never, ever, stopped being one of his patients, someone he
cared about.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">He was determined to leave us all
quietly, with privacy and without the commotion his exit from this life would
surely have caused among colleagues, patients, students, and admirers had they
all been aware of his year-plus battle against cancer. Eventually he wrapped
himself in the comfort of the familial intimacy he cherished and deserved and —
before we could even dare to imagine a world without him — he quietly moved on.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I saw grown men cry on hearing the news
— even some of those instrument-throwing “surgical personality” types. Most of
us wept openly and later recalled favorite moments in this man’s orbit, certain
we might never know anyone who would reach his standard again. Many of us
cursed the injustice of all that genius, grace, and magic packed into such a
brief life, cut short, mercilessly, at 57 years.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">My hope is that his quiet, capable,
and determined ways will be imitated by other doctors. May that calm, sure, and
steady manner become contagious. Many he treated or worked with have already
come to emulate the resounding example of his quiet, steady, and healing style.
He knew exactly what his final message would be.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">He was giving us lessons in healing
wrapped in elegance, dignity, and compassion right to the end. If there is a
heaven, he is surely in a place where angels ask him how to fly more
gracefully. (And he will make that happen!)</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
<div class="paragraph" style="margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt;">
<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">His eventual greatness sprang from the
pledge that he had made and kept since day one, “First, do no harm.” Privately
and professionally, he kept that promise, and therein lives his legacy.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The rest is up to us.</span></span></div>
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<span class="html-render"><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mary Ann Sorrentino’s column appears regularly on the First Wednesday in the Globe.
Follow her on Twitter at </span><a href="http://twitter.com/Thatmaryann" target="_self"><span style="color: #767676; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">@Thatmaryann</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> or email </span><a href="mailto:thatmaryann@yahoo.com" target="_self"><span style="color: #005dc7; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;">thatmaryann@yahoo.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-49790427552444660392019-11-28T06:57:00.000-08:002019-11-28T06:57:11.437-08:00TRUTH: Still the Sentinel and Liberator in ALL its forms<div class="MsoNormal">
TRUTH, the sentinal and liberator in all its forms by Mary Ann Sorrentino Reprinted 11-17-1019</div>
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The late former Providence mayor-- convicted felon, spaghetti sauce salesman, and radio talk host Vincent A.“Buddy” Cianci-- fathered the trend of referring to the daily Providence Journal (Rhode Island’s newspaper of record) as “the Providence Pamphlet”) as it shrank to what is, a 12-page summary of local news. (Full disclosure: Buddy and I knew each other from when we were both toddlers appearing on WJAR Providence radio’s “Kiddie’s Review”)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Above the fold on a recent August day in 2019 the front page is an article about and a 1954 wedding photograph of a Rhode Island couple originally married on what was then “Victory over Japan Day”<br />
(now Victory Day, celebrated only in Rhode Island of all the 50 states.) That story and photo take up three times as much space as the Epstein suicide coverage, one of only a few references to a world presence beyond the Ocean State’s borders. A boating accident in Newport, a resurgence of Blackstone Valley braggadocio regarding its role in World War II, the assorted goings on in towns like Tiverton, the tragic deaths of 5 children in a Pennsylvania day care center, and homage to the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Woodstock round out the paltry main section of the paper. Such “news” also includes a page of obituaries, publisher’s notes on “How to subscribe,” and the now-reduced-to-one-page Opinion section-- these days shrill with usually male, often out-of-state voices. Then there are, of course, the necessary advertisements.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The second section, all eight pages of it, is ablaze with sports news, TV and movie listings, and-- for much-needed comic relief-- the funnies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When you call the Providence Journal, the automated answering system first offers connection options for subscription and delivery issues, then the newsroom, advertising, and other departments. Pressing the “statewide news” extension number brings one to another set of connection choices, leading with “non-news” but income-generating options like sports, paid obituaries, and wedding announcements.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There’s a sad message in all this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is painful to watch so many newspapers around the world dying a slow death. In a close-knit society such as Rhode Islanders cherish, it can be especially sad. These are the changes the new technology has created, and, slowly, the majority of readers are finally moving to forego the smell of the ink on pulp and those black smears on their fingertips from holding a real paper in their hands to the less expensive if less intimate documents on computer and cell phone screens.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We who write for papers must follow the industry leaders if and when we can: thus the grand migration of many Rhode Island readers (and writers) to the nationally venerated Boston Globe. Papers like the Globe-- keenly aware of the newsprint vs digital edition reality-- are working hard to create subsections in their organizational charts and in their print editions specifically to provide readers far from the paper’s metropolitan core with the local news subscribers rightfully yearn to read.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Somewhere in this major shift which is in play across the nation and globally, journalism must adapt not only to the economic challenge the digital market may represent but also to the business advantage it can provide as we all move into the 21<sup>st</sup> century together.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Readers (and some newspaper folks as well) must embrace the new technology, which is as epic and similar to moving from messages on cave walls to papyrus scrolls, then to small-press newspapers, and finally to two-inch thick Sunday paper editions. Electronic news has the advantage being permanent and shareable and gives readers a more direct chance to comment if/when they like. The elderly, economically struggling, and technologically challenged who fail to master digital news risk isolation and even the dangers of not receiving public information on important health and safety matters as well as other public service alerts and advice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We haven’t abandoned newspapers: newspapers, as defined for centuries, have abandoned us, in a way—but only the hold-in-your-hands variety. News and those who provide it are still there in the digital format, and there is more of it than ever!<o:p></o:p></div>
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More importantly, readers as well as writers understand that, far from being the “enemy of the people,” the press is their voice and the sentinel at the gate of national and international chaos.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Please continue to “hear” that voice whether it is calling at your home door every morning, or staring at you from a computer screen. For folksier local information, we have our city’s or town’s weekly papers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all its forms, the truth it waiting to be read and embraced. So boot up that screen and let it set you free.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>_____________End______________<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Mary Ann Sorrentinno writes for the Boston Globe digital edition every month on the <span style="color: red;"><b>FIRST WEDNESDAY.</b></span> Access her commentaries by googling </i><br />
<i><b>MARY ANN SORRENTINO BOSTON GLOBE </b></i><i>and think about subscribing to the VERY affordable digital edition, or look for her columns here on this blog. Mary Ann can be reached on Twitter @Thatmaryann or email her at thatmaryann@yahoo.com</i>MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-9771379720636693072018-11-14T06:16:00.000-08:002018-11-14T06:32:11.103-08:00Stop defining women by who they sleep with<div class="glass fresh-toolbar " id="toolbar" role="presentation" style="background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-right: 0px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top: 0px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, "Lucida Grande", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; height: 36px; left: 0px; line-height: 36px; position: absolute; right: 0px; text-shadow: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease 0s; z-index: 2;">
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<li aria-label="Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 8:52 AM" class="msg-date" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin-right: 1px; position: relative; top: 2px;" title-off="" title="Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 8:52 AM">11-14-2018 at 8:52 <span class="ampm" style="font-size: 0.9em;">AM</span></li>
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Message body</h3>
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<i style="font-family: "bookman old style", "new york", times, serif; font-size: 16px;">(This letter has been s</i><span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , "new york" , "times" , serif;"><i>ubmitted to NY Times and is awaiting publication)</i></span><br />
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Dear Editor:</div>
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I<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6717" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt;">n the Wednesday Nov. 14, 2018 edition of the NYT, an article (Conservative lawyers say Trump undermines the rule of law) lists Federalist Society attorney members airing concerns about Trump's disregard for the law, including this paragraph:</span></div>
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6722" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">"The new group also includes </span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6724" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"><a href="https://www.ridgeglobal.com/tom-ridge/" id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6725" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title=""><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6726" style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px; padding: 0in;">Tom Ridge</span></a></span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6727" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">, a former governor of Pennsylvania and secretary of homeland security in the Bush administration; </span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6729" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"><a href="https://www.sidley.com/en/people/k/keisler-peter-d" id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6730" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title=""><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6731" style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px; padding: 0in;">Peter D. Kreisler</span></a></span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6732" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">, a former acting attorney general in the Bush administration; two prominent conservative law professors, </span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6734" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"><a href="https://law.case.edu/Our-School/Faculty-Staff/Meet-Our-Faculty/Faculty-Detail/id/83" id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6735" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title=""><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6736" style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px; padding: 0in;">Jonathan H. Adler</span></a></span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6737" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;"> and </span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6739" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"><a href="https://gould.usc.edu/faculty/?id=73523" id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6740" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title=""><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6741" style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px; padding: 0in;">Orin S. Kerr</span></a></span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6742" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">; and Lori S. Meyer, a lawyer who is married to </span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6744" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"><a href="https://fedsoc.org/staff/eugene-meyer" id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6745" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title=""><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6746" style="border: 1pt none; color: #326891; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px; padding: 0in;">Eugene B. Meyer</span></a></span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6747" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">, the president of the Federalist Society..."</span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6749" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"></span><br />
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6755" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">What's wrong with this picture? </span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6757" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"></span><br />
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6763" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;">Ms. Meyer, listed last (and the only one listed without a bold type link to her bio) is an accomplished attorney, firm founder and partner, and has a degree in accounting as well as law which allows her to prevail in complicated financial question cases according to this online bio.</span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6765" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"></span></div>
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6768" style="color: #333333; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 23px;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-k-meyer-14361214" id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6769" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #196ad4; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;" target="_blank"><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6770">Lori K. Meyer</span></a></span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6771" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"></span></div>
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6824" style="font-size: 12.5pt;">Lori K. Meyer</span></h2>
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6827" style="color: #999999; font-size: 8.5pt;">View Lori K. Meyer’s profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. Lori has 5 jobs listed...</span></div>
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6834" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;">Instead, the Times buries her - and her alone-- on its roster of Federalist Society attorneys by defining her "qualification" simply as the fact that she is the wife of the Federalist Society president (whose linked bio follows his wife's listing.)</span></div>
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6841" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;">If last Tuesday's election results don't teach you anything else, they should tell the NYT--and everyone-- that American women (and women worldwide) no longer should be,-- nor do they wish to be-- evaluated and described simply in terms on who they sleep with! (Atty. George T. Conway, also on the list, is linked to his own multi-page bio, not simply assumed to be worthy of mentioning because he sleeps with Trump top aide Kellyanne Conway (mentioned, but not bio-linked to her husband's name.)</span><br />
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6848" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;">A correction in merited here, as much as it would be if you misspelled Atty. Lori K. Meyer's name, since you misrepresent her standing and (unlisted) personal qualifications. She can stand alone on a list of her peers whoever her husband may be.</span><span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6849" style="font-family: "old serif"; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;"></span><br />
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<span id="yiv0429610607yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1542200468602_6855" style="color: #333333; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 19.1667px;">Mary Ann Sorrentino, Cranston, RI </span></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-27383565433005387602018-11-05T05:56:00.002-08:002018-11-14T06:03:27.951-08:00Final 11-5 Women Angry for 11-11-2018<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Strong Women: may we know
them, may we be them, may we raise them<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;">By
Mary Ann Sorrentino<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for
11-11-2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-size: 14pt;">_____________________________________________________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><br />
Mid-term election results document American women are angrier than ever and are
a powerful political force. Women of both parties voted, were elected at
federal and state levels, and turned ballots into lethal weapons.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Depending where
and how often people ask, “Why are women angry?” responses may include—but are
not limited to—disgusted looks, screams, phone hang-ups, swearing, flying
dishes, and threats of divorce.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">I am limited to
635 words here, to address 75 years of battling those determined to degrade,
insult, and control women. That’s 8.5 words per year--far fewer per insult.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">In 1966 my
husband went to law school: I applied at Boston’s iconic department store,
Jordan Marsh. The interviewer kept me waiting 45 minutes-- feet on his desk--
rhapsodizing on the phone about a party. Finally addressing me, he suggested my
husband—once graduated—might leave Boston.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">I agreed that was
a possibility.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Then he suggested
that, as a new bride, I might get pregnant.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> I responded
that so might unmarried women working at Jordan Marsh.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Several more
idiotic (now-illegal) questions made me wryly declare, “I can’t swear never to
get pregnant or never to leave Boston.”</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Later, as a young
mother in Rhode Island, I founded non-profit organization providing public
education and screening for Thalassemia-- a genetic disease targeting people
with roots in Southern Europe and North Africa. My Board included physicians,
attorneys, educators and relevant community leaders. One—Attorney X—was a
fraternal organization guru.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">A physician
called one day about a meeting I knew nothing about. Realizing I-- as
President-- had been shunned, the caller said Attorney X had scheduled the
meeting. I phoned Attorney X for an explanation. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">“I thought you
might be uncomfortable at the [then exclusively male] Aurora Club,” he
fumbled. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">I responded my
father was a founding Aurora Club member: I had been dining there since
childhood. I reminded Attorney X that if my “comfort” genuinely concerned him,
he could have chosen another venue. He hadn’t. His reply: “As long as your husband
says okay.” (I showed up with a note on my husband’s lawyer letterhead
documenting his “permission” and my determination.)</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">In 1977 I headed
Planned Parenthood, overseeing Rhode Island’s first outpatient abortion clinic.
The greatest professional challenge I struggled with was having confidentiality
laws silence me when male lawmakers— falsely claiming “pro-life” status
—blocked women’s legal abortion access. Feigning morality through political,
pretenses, they knew that I knew of abortions for women close to them. Imagine
the rage such hypocrisy generates!</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Male Catholic
physicians performed abortions in 1985 (as they do now) without the pubic
excommunication I endured. I also asked, “Father, I provide legal health
services women seek. Are you, therefore, forbidding me from taking communion
from the hands of men who sexually abuse children? Is that what you’re saying?”
(Scores of pedophilia cases were filed and settled in RI, and the scandals
continue today: this pushes comparatively saintly Catholic laywomen and others
beyond anger.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Women of every
political stripe still experience similar discrimination and rage—
professionals, factory workers, service-providers, mothers, wives, women who
were and still are told, “Ask your husband first…” or, “…no woman has ever…”
or, “It’s not time yet.” Public, powerful Washington
hypocrites—often themselves genuinely incompetent-- still try to limit women to
second class status.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;">Mid-terms,
#MeToo, and more are just the beginning. Our gender’s powerful majority can
paralyze those still wishing to shackle us. Tell your stories to your daughters,
sons, and to everyone reading this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Say—and finally mean-- “Never again!”</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "Arial Black","sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>__________________________________END___________________________________</div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mary Ann Sorrentino (</i><a href="mailto:thatmaryann@yahoo.com"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">thatmaryann@yahoo.com</span></i></a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">) a monthly contributor writes from
Cranston, Hillsboro Beach, Fla, and, in summer, from Italy<o:p></o:p></i></div>
MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-68076009314362006402018-10-11T05:17:00.002-07:002018-10-11T05:17:55.912-07:00SpeakUP SpeakOUT PLEASE JOIN US Oct. 21st<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Join us Sunday October 21st </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Let's Make our guest speaker from Ireland feel welcome!</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/kGOFpmb_nUQOEMXGEWgCAcLuB2NyfkqbQCEwYBhgL/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="138" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/kGOFpmb_nUQOEMXGEWgCAcLuB2NyfkqbQCEwYBhgL/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/kGOFpmb_nUQOEMXGEWgCAcLuB2NyfkqbQCEwYBhgL/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="138" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/kGOFpmb_nUQOEMXGEWgCAcLuB2NyfkqbQCEwYBhgL/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/kGOFpmb_nUQOEMXGEWgCAcLuB2NyfkqbQCEwYBhgL/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="138" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/kGOFpmb_nUQOEMXGEWgCAcLuB2NyfkqbQCEwYBhgL/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DnWEbPkTlyw/W789UQG5jNI/AAAAAAAAaow/AxMZO9qVa6gzPvpL1eno8HYe8A1cn3eWwCLcBGAs/s1600/speakout%2Bhandout.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="403" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DnWEbPkTlyw/W789UQG5jNI/AAAAAAAAaow/AxMZO9qVa6gzPvpL1eno8HYe8A1cn3eWwCLcBGAs/s640/speakout%2Bhandout.JPG" width="488" /></a></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: 22pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></span></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Meet Laura Harmon ACTIVIST from IRELAND <o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">HEAR<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>RI<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Women’s PRE-ROE<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stories –Share Yours<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt;">Sunday, Oct. 21 -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CAN<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overcome</span></b><span style="font-size: 22pt;"> !<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/2Z2eixJAbRcOihoftHh3EG-JbKQr7X9dACLcBGAs/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">SEND A MESSAGE<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to TRUMP,KAVANAUGH, & RI LAWMAKERS <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>JOIN US / Sun. Oct. 21<sup>st</sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2 pm – 1<sup>st</sup> Unitarian Church –Prov.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/2Z2eixJAbRcOihoftHh3EG-JbKQr7X9dACLcBGAs/s1600/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="118" data-original-width="138" height="170" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5prT2sJU93A/W789k93XkdI/AAAAAAAAao4/2Z2eixJAbRcOihoftHh3EG-JbKQr7X9dACLcBGAs/s200/shamrock%2Bchain.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">for more info see:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.thewomanproject.org/"><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: small;">www.thewomanproject.org</span></span></a><span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-49019218649016568512018-10-07T03:28:00.001-07:002018-10-07T03:39:13.178-07:00Kavanaugh: (FALSE) Trial and (GRAVE) Error<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xfcNQrYX-K8/W7nfkXYv-oI/AAAAAAAAan4/REbDxT7R4tkA0RwL1MjM0YHAFluy6dZdACLcBGAs/s1600/angry%2Bfaces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="299" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xfcNQrYX-K8/W7nfkXYv-oI/AAAAAAAAan4/REbDxT7R4tkA0RwL1MjM0YHAFluy6dZdACLcBGAs/s1600/angry%2Bfaces.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"> Is this what unbiased judicial temperament looks like?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">October 6, 2018<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I watched the speech delivered
live by Sen. Collins on Friday; then I reread it several times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Of course Kavanaugh--like
all of us--has the precious right to be "presumed innocent until proven
guilty." This is the standard in a criminal trial. But Kavanaugh wasn't on
trial for criminal behavior: he was applying for a lifetime job on the highest
court in our country. So Collins can depend on platitudes that do not apply in
this case, only if she agrees to put into play ALL the aspects of a criminal
trial. That means evidence would be allowed to be gathered and presented
against the accused, and both sides would operate under the same rules of
fairness-- which didn't happen here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">These hearings were
controlled by the Republican Judiciary Committee. Only 24/7/365 press coverage
of their shenanigans prevented a totally paralyzed FBI
"investigation."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end,
"victorious" Republicans claim, "NO CORROBORATION," when
the White House-- dictating the limits of the FBI probe-- prevented the
interviewing of dozens of potential witnesses trying desperately to be heard
and present their experiences/observations with Kavanaugh to the FBI who were
denied access.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Notice that Collins--
despite her lengthy "presumption of innocence" theme-- ignored
Kvanaugh’s lack of judicial temperament, exhibited before millions last week in
blazing color and deafening volume. He threatened-- clearly and for all to
understand -- that "what goes around comes around." He specifically
named Democrats and the Clintons as his enemy, attacked sitting (Democrat)
senators face-to-face, and behaved like the "ugly drunk" college
student he is repeatedly described as being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">And that is another thing
Collins ignored: Kavanaugh's potential and oft-alluded-to alcoholism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Kavanaugh couldn't say
enough about how much he liked - and still likes- "Beer." My guess is
that by now he has graduated to drinks stronger than "beer," though drinking
beer exclusively does not preclude being an alcoholic. In any event, studies
show excessive drinking and sexually inappropriate behavior often go
hand-in-hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Men like Kavanaugh, are,
when young, and continue to be, as men, sloppy, clumsy, aggressive, and often
impotent sexual beasts. Now Kavanaugh has every possibility to be a drunk,
sloppy, clumsy, unreasonable, aggressive, and vengeful justice on the SCOTUS bench
as his anger and alcohol-tinged tirades demonstrate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">I, for one, don't want
someone with a "wet brain" as it is called in the alcohol treatment
field, making Supreme Court decisions. (I worked from 1970-75 with Dr.
Alan Willoughby - author of The Alcohol Troubled Person- Known and Unknown. I
wrote the first RI grant for what are now widespread alcohol treatment programs
in the workplace to identify and treat "troubled employees." That grant
was for $375K in 1970 – or more like $2.4 million today.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Finally-- and this is the
tragic un-ringable bell-- Republicans often cite as a sympathy issue for
Kavanaugh the damage done to him, his wife and children by the debate about his
fitness for the bench. Reasonable people share that concern.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Kavanaugh will rise above
the pain with alcohol and a relish for the job he wanted all his life - deserving
or not. What no one cites is the residual damage to a wife and two young girls
who will-- for the rest of their lives-- experience daily scorn and bullying
from millions in this country who feel that their husband/father, through his
history, has no right to make life-altering decisions about average citizens'
lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Every news story about
every Kavanaugh vote/opinion from now on will be up for debate and will be a
reminder that these three young women are related to a lying, impaired,
intemperate monster. I predict that a few years from now that innocent wife and
those two young innocent girls-- God help them-- will be showing visible signs
of what their victimization and sacrifice at the altar of Kavanaugh's unbridled
ambition will have wrought. I want to be wrong, but mark those words!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">One last thought on
Collins who originally ran for the Senate from Maine on a clear platform and
pledge of term limits. She said many times she would serve two terms then
leave, and that every senator ought to do that. By that pledge she should have
retired more than a decade ago. So much for her credibility<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Collins, like too many
politicians, has become a political whore. She tries to kiss the GOP
leadership's collective butt while articulating a "presumption of
innocence" reminder that doesn't even apply in this non-criminal-trial
setting. If it did, and if he were on trial, then We the People (represented by
Dr. Ford as the chief and highly credible accuser) would also be entitled to a
fair trial, the ability to present witnesses, equal access to those delivering
the verdict, and a "fair and impartial" jury of peers - none of which
existed in this case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Women especially are
angrier than I have ever seen them and with "hell hath no fury"
force, are about to slap the face of an entire nation-- and beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>_________________________END_______________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Mary Ann Sorrentino, (</span><a href="mailto:thatmaryann@yahoo.com"><span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">thatmaryann@yahoo.com</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif"; font-size: 11pt;">),
writes from Cranston, RI and Hillsboro Beach, Fla, is a monthly contributor to
The Providence Journal and appears as a freelance writer in The Keene Sentinel
and other publications. From 1977-1987 she was the CEO of Planned Parenthood of
Rhode Island overseeing that state’s first abortion clinic in the most Catholic
state in America. She was publicly declared excommunicated for that work
in 1985.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-43402950808012696982018-07-23T03:07:00.003-07:002018-07-23T03:07:35.327-07:00Lessons from Rehab<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #232323; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin-bottom: 1em;">
I’m lucky: aside from some minor elective procedures and one C-section delivery, I’ve entered hospitals as a visitor or volunteer, not as an inpatient.</div>
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A hip replacement — common, but invasive — recently changed that. I write this one month post-op, looking back on physical healing and life lessons learned. My appreciation for the good health I enjoy, the family I depend on, and the professionals who restore us to wellness is reinforced.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #232323; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
Since my early career as hospital manager at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham (now Brigham and Women’s) to a pioneer post in Rhode Island’s first HMO (RIGHA), and eventually commandeering the state’s largest reproductive health surgi-center, my respect for those who heal has become boundless. Social services, maintenance and dietary staffs work in quiet chorus and respectful concern as the overburdened but omnipresent nursing staff — the sentinels of healing — monitor the unimaginable magic performed by the blessed medical and surgical teams.</div>
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Personal miracles wait to be recognized all along the healing curve. I celebrate daily tasks long taken for granted, until they were temporarily lost in my post–surgery inability. Suddenly I can latch my shoe buckle, or get into or out of bed on my own. I am rediscovering — slowly — the miracle of walking without assistance. I am now bonded with millions who have never been able to tie their shoes, walk alone, feed themselves, or generally navigate their world independently.</div>
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My mother valued independence as part of her obsession with avoiding debt in all its forms. She raised me on mantras of self-sufficiency: “Never be subject to anyone” and, my favorite, “Never owe anyone: it’s always better if people owe you!” Such mandates may build strength of character, but they make it difficult to ask for a bedpan, a wheelchair, or pain medication without worrying about creating a debt.</div>
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Once home (48 hours after surgery), visiting nurses and physical therapists help me heal and thrive again. Still, the image of others who were not so lucky lingers — people struggling daily with life’s demands that require a mobility they do not have, perhaps have never had, and may never hope to enjoy. Some will never cross the finish line that I am approaching daily.</div>
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Every person — and writers in particular — should appreciate life’s precious lessons. Human emotions and challenges we may all confront eventually are windows to understanding the common human condition.</div>
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Once healed, I shall return to Italy, as I do each summer. People ask if I have visited this or that church where some miracle is alleged to have occurred. I reply that I volunteer in a food bank for Italy’s homeless, or visit a shelter in Rome where abused women were being kept safe long before Hollywood invented #MeToo.</div>
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In these places, where I can give back, I put my gratitude to work helping others overcome physical and emotional challenges. My brief flirtation with disability helps me appreciate their lot. To be truly whole again, I must settle the debt I have to them, as my mother mandates.</div>
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_______________________________________</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mary Ann Sorrentino <a href="mailto:(thatmaryann@yahoo.com)" style="background-size: 5px 1em; box-shadow: white 0px -0.175em inset, rgba(97, 139, 178, 0.8) 0px -0.2em inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: #698096; display: inline; font-family: "Roboto Condensed", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-kerning: normal; font-size: 18.662px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-shadow: white -0.05em -0.05em, white -0.05em 0.05em, white 0.05em -0.05em, white 0.05em 0.05em; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">(thatmaryann@yahoo.com)</a>, a monthly contributor to the Providence Journal, writes from RI and Fla., and, in summer, from Italy. </em></div>
MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-18674614185728207262018-07-23T03:04:00.003-07:002018-07-23T03:04:40.561-07:00Feminist Finish Line In View<div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #232323; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin-bottom: 1em;">
Senior “feminists” long ago became immune to derision and disrespect. However articulate or polite our arguments for women’s equal treatment, we saw more winks and elbowing than sympathy from too many men. Stepford Wives opposed to feminism accused us of evil instincts, and worse.</div>
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I went to a private Catholic girls grammar school (Convent of the Sacred Heart) run by nuns in full nun gear — long black gowns, tight starched white linen helmets covering their heads, from which floor-length veils flowed. A crucifix the size of a fist hung mid-chest, like a hood ornament warning of the fury behind it.</div>
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We endured white-glove ceremonies, Mrs. Hadley’s diction classes, “courtesy” seminars on “manners,” and endless lectures on how (female) “children of the Sacred Heart” behaved.</div>
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Still, I doubted Jesus was a misogynist.</div>
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I transferred to Classical High — a public school my former Reverend Mother called the “Protestant school [I] chose of [my] own free will” (in cahoots with the Holy Spirit).</div>
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There I breathed the air of equity, as students, whatever their gender, competed on the level academic playing field. With the will to hone one’s intellectual ability, everyone could excel!</div>
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At Elmira College in New York, I was hostage to President J. Ralph Murray, who treated the all-women students like children. Emerging as a full-blown crazed conservative by senior year, he stuffed students’ mailboxes with paperback copies of “None Dare Call it Treason,” by John Stormer. A cover note explained that if the book generated pro-Goldwater support in the 1964 presidential elections, “the donor” would be happy. I organized my first book burning. The New York Times covered it.</div>
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I became a welfare social worker. My supervisor yelled at my clients for “wasting money” buying frozen broccoli vs. fresh. My caseload included more than 100 women getting government Aid for Dependent Children. Still he screamed, “Catholic taxpayers aren’t paying your salary to have you teach clients birth control!”</div>
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By 1985, my public excommunication by a Catholic bishop (of questionable purity) targeted me as director of Rhode Island’s Planned Parenthood, a contraceptive clinic providing physical exams, pap smears, sex education, and also abortions. Of particular bad judgment was the Diocese’s attempt (unsuccessful) to bar our teenaged daughter from her confirmation.</div>
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I cut my feminist teeth on Catholic oppression of girls by nuns, and I touched the stars of my feminism when the (male) Canon Law Society of America exonerated me, saying the banished bishop should know better.</div>
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Yet, only <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">now</em>, with millions of women taking to the streets, naming oppressors and abusers openly, and millions more wielding power as senators, generals, working moms, Supreme Court justices, surgeons, engineers and astronauts, do I weep with joy — the finish line in view.</div>
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I shall die fighting for women’s rights, as I have lived fighting for them. We still have t’s to cross and i’s to dot, but, finally, we “old guard” here — and sisters watching from that ultimate rally in the sky — cheer our daughters and granddaughters taking their rightful, deserved place, thinking, “Well done!”</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Mary Ann Sorrentino <a href="mailto:(thatmaryann@yahoo.com)" style="background-size: 5px 1em; box-shadow: white 0px -0.175em inset, rgba(97, 139, 178, 0.8) 0px -0.2em inset; box-sizing: border-box; color: #698096; display: inline; font-family: "Roboto Condensed", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-kerning: normal; font-size: 18.662px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-shadow: white -0.05em -0.05em, white -0.05em 0.05em, white 0.05em -0.05em, white 0.05em 0.05em; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">(thatmaryann@yahoo.com)</a>, a monthly contributor, writes from R.I. and Florida, and, in summer, from Italy.</em></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-81467189284243468502018-05-27T16:34:00.001-07:002018-05-27T16:34:22.728-07:00In solidarity with Irish women and the men who love themSent to the Irish Times – Dublin Ireland May 27, 2018<br />
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By Mary Ann Sorrentino<br />
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The impressive show of strength by Irish voters on the abortion prohibition referendum speaks once more to the determination of reasonable people to recognize and empower every woman to make ultimately personal decisions regarding her childbearing in ultimate privacy. <br />
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The landslide vote to strike down that longstanding ban, though being touted as a slap in the face of the Roman Catholic Church, is more importantly testimony to the global recognition of the rights of women – finally! Of course in a country where Magdalene Laundries abused and held sexually active young girls in indentured servitude, there is sure to be more than the usual justified anger directed at Rome and her enforcers. But recent history shows that the successful politicizing of female rage against the curia has been operational for some time.<br />
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In 1978 in the shadow of the Vatican, Italians also turned out in large numbers to legalize abortion in Italy, my dual-citizenship home. They returned – 68% of voters strong—in 1981 when a referendum to re-criminalize abortion was rejected by 88.4% of those voting. So women have stopped allowing the Pope to control their most basic ability to survive and thrive.<br />
What we see today is the global celebration of freedom this week in Ireland-- a front page story around the world, and overwhelmingly a congratulatory one. Doomsayers on the far Right will have to get used to women’s ultimate liberation, empowered by control of their own fertility.<br />
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Poignantly, for us in the United States-- a nation once revered for its love of individual liberty and separation of Church and State now struggling not to fall into total fascist mode, the victory in Ireland underscores what we Americans must never relinquish. Like yours, too many of our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, lovers and other women we loved, paid with their lives for illegal abortions. Many -- unable to afford a wanted termination beyond their local borders—had a child they often could not care for nor afford to raise. Still others had a child and gave it for adoption; a wonderful choice for those able to freely take that difficult step without suffering a lifetime of wondering, questioning, and painful self-accusing.<br />
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So today, from across the Atlantic, we take strength in Ireland’s example. You make us remember how important it is—and how necessary—to stand up to the (still mostly) male establishment signing laws that hurt and devalue women. We salute our brothers and sisters in Erin and we set out now holding your example close to our hearts for the challenges we may face in the near future. Mostly, we thank Ireland for the wonderful spiritual lift and inspiration your tenacity, energy and eventual victory give us and, from “across the pond” we embrace you and feel that great energy of your commitment to all of us. <br />
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Mary Ann Sorrentino is a monthly writer for the Providence Journal (Rhode Island, USA) and other papers. From 1977-1987 she was President of Planned Parenthood of RI which opened the first free-standing abortion clinic in that state. In 1984 she was publicly excommunicated from the Catholic Church after her parish tried, unsuccessfully, to deny confirmation to her then 14 year-old-daughter. Sorrentino remains a strong advocate for women’s right to choose – everywhere.<br />
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-25038859809948660082018-03-20T04:52:00.003-07:002018-03-20T04:52:57.263-07:00Exchanging Love Letters with Harry<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">On January 22, 1973, Roe
v Wade nationalized the abortion rights many states had already legalized. In
1983, the NY Times published a 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary interview with
Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, Roe’s author. In that interview
Blackmun’s emotional candor underscored the rarity of a Justice speaking
directly to us. He recalled hate mail received after Roe – calling him the “Butcher
of Dachau.” He dreamed of retirement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then CEO of Planned
Parenthood of RI, I realized we likely had never thanked him. I reached for my letterhead
and penned a note. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I wrote that he was a
savior to women who—for centuries—had suffered under legislated forced
pregnancy. I begged him to, “never retire until the current [Reagan]
administration fades into political oblivion.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Days later I was stunned
by his response. Justice Blackmun thanked me as “someone on the cutting edge of
this issue.” He wrote, “I am in your debt.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">His letter still hangs
on my bedroom wall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Forty-five years since
Roe breathed life into gender equity for women, we remember the quiet man who
codified privacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Son of modest parents
from America’s heartland, Blackmun brought to the Supreme Court a brilliant
legal mind and the unique healthcare knowhow decades as legal counsel to the
Mayo Clinic provided. Devoted husband and father, he was best man to Chief
Justice Burger who lobbied for Blackmun’s eventual high court appointment. (Lifelong
friendship, notwithstanding, Blackmun avoided Burger’s arch-conservatism.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">One of Blackmun’s three
daughters faced an unintended college pregnancy, and married the father of her
child. That marriage ended in divorce. Blackmun treated with dignity every
human being he met, friend and foe. Younger, uber-conservative William
Rehnquist-- eventual Chief -- was a fan. Rare among Justices, Blackmun drove
his blue VW Beatle to daily breakfasts with his clerks.</span> <span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">(In his 1999 funeral procession, a blue Beatle
rode proudly.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Blackmun took his
responsibility to the law seriously knowing how personally important and
stressful unintended pregnancy decisions are. He researched tirelessly the
historic right to privacy which, though implied in the Bill of Rights, came
into its own in the Griswold decision on contraception argued from the 1940’s
and finally decided in 1965.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This hugely important
validation of the intimate rights of women and the people who love them were
Blackmun’s gift. 45 years later, too many of us still remember pre-Roe women
hemorrhaging and delirious, from fevers and infections after illegal abortions
which sometimes included pre-surgery sexual favors demanded by “doctors” as
partial “payment.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We recall beloved women
looking 75 at age 35, their health and spirit decimated by raising more
children than they ever wanted or could care for adequately. Attempts to self-abort
involved coat hangers. One metropolitan ER’s more graphic case cited a vacuum
cleaner hose as the cause of death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Such was the despair of
women before Roe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eliminating access to
services women need and want will never suffocate their determination to free
themselves from enslavement by forced pregnancies. We are resolute!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">My successor, Planned Parenthood
of Southern New England President and CEO, Amanda Skinner, reminds us, “Opponents
bet we are too tired and demoralized to keep fighting: we continue to prove
them wrong. We will never stop fighting for a woman’s right to access vital
reproductive health services, including safe and legal abortion. Our vision is
a world of equity, where reproductive rights are basic human rights whoever you
are or wherever you live. Together, fighting side-by-side, we shall prevail.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Justice Blackmun would expect
us to remind today’s Supreme Court-- and all of you-- to stand our hard-fought
ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> _______END______</span></div>
<span id="goog_236983142"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_236983143"></span>MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-30572086273015690042017-08-30T10:48:00.000-07:002017-08-30T10:48:11.423-07:00Getting to know our Prati neighborhood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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August 29, 2017<br />
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Ciao tutti,<br />
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By now we know our way around the Prati neighborhood where our apartment is located. It is a bustling area with lovely old buidings, lots of boutiques, a wonderful upscale Coin department store as well as dozens of daily markets that move from place to place and sell everything from shoes, to kitchen supplies, to underwear or costume jewelry! There is a great 24 hour supermarket 2 blocks from us and they deliver to our fourth floor (with elevator) apartment free - and wthin an hour of my leaving the store!<br />
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Here are a few buildings within a block of ours:<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0yKKPKGJnNs/Wab1rvSEGTI/AAAAAAAATC8/irAkhdPoCDgScGANcBQtsMyMf9ef0UDmACLcBGAs/s1600/Piazza%2BCavour%2B2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0yKKPKGJnNs/Wab1rvSEGTI/AAAAAAAATC8/irAkhdPoCDgScGANcBQtsMyMf9ef0UDmACLcBGAs/s640/Piazza%2BCavour%2B2017.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Piazza Cavour and the Supreme Court Building on the left<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6PWNiz6gBt4/Wab2j5E6W9I/AAAAAAAATDE/qkKCCYgNQ9gZsRiWr_TO1UprsMntNgvzQCKgBGAs/s1600/20170821_154053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1201" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6PWNiz6gBt4/Wab2j5E6W9I/AAAAAAAATDE/qkKCCYgNQ9gZsRiWr_TO1UprsMntNgvzQCKgBGAs/s400/20170821_154053.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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House across the street and detal from the exterior wall here below<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LcYS4XgofSs/Wab25s-zjjI/AAAAAAAATDM/Xv3Wlnu4CYgihzjUL62xLkpGZr9TjzMSgCKgBGAs/s1600/20170821_154231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LcYS4XgofSs/Wab25s-zjjI/AAAAAAAATDM/Xv3Wlnu4CYgihzjUL62xLkpGZr9TjzMSgCKgBGAs/s320/20170821_154231.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Since last I wrote you, Al and I went to see a wonderful exhibit on Spartacus at the Ara Pacis Museum.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3yIx6-qbfAc/Wab3QqcI1OI/AAAAAAAATDQ/BdUNw85C0EwSL6VtPyqPvbMIvKQbiEcywCKgBGAs/s1600/20170819_132010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3yIx6-qbfAc/Wab3QqcI1OI/AAAAAAAATDQ/BdUNw85C0EwSL6VtPyqPvbMIvKQbiEcywCKgBGAs/s320/20170819_132010.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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We take buses everywhere with our monthly pass and we think it's a hoot. Here are a couple of Rome bus scenes</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uJsm4wF9qY4/Wab3oTccEUI/AAAAAAAATDU/YaAk22Z8QbsJcUWWtsEhJeay8B_dc7vwgCKgBGAs/s1600/20170826_124024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="909" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uJsm4wF9qY4/Wab3oTccEUI/AAAAAAAATDU/YaAk22Z8QbsJcUWWtsEhJeay8B_dc7vwgCKgBGAs/s640/20170826_124024.jpg" width="362" /></a></div>
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and one of my favorites</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aoW82SRRw6M/Wab31mXWb2I/AAAAAAAATDY/2Udv9AfiX1Q3ziUNHO-K4-gu5XaaoSslgCKgBGAs/s1600/20170829_111324.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1071" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aoW82SRRw6M/Wab31mXWb2I/AAAAAAAATDY/2Udv9AfiX1Q3ziUNHO-K4-gu5XaaoSslgCKgBGAs/s640/20170829_111324.jpg" width="428" /></a></div>
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This week we were in Florence for three nights visiting friends there. It was our 52nd anniversary and one of our friends, Enrico, had a dinner party for us at his wonderful villa near the Certosa in the hills above Florence.</div>
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We are having a great time and looking forward to going to Naples and Ischia next week with friends from RI....We return home 9/17.</div>
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Look for my Italy Commentary in the Providence Journal next Sunday, September 10, 2017.</div>
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For now BIG HUGS (Abbraccioni)</div>
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from </div>
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US xx</div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-79671181918096422462016-11-10T17:58:00.001-08:002017-08-30T05:41:17.293-07:00Mary Ann and Al's Italy Adventure 6-11-14 thru 8-6-14Mary Ann and Al's Italy Adventure 6-11-14 thru 8-6-14MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-56947925037619372362016-06-29T12:05:00.001-07:002018-10-07T05:43:20.389-07:00How Many Husbands Would Be Too Many?<div class="MsoNormal">
( Originally published on Open Salon 5/12/2010)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://ia800303.us.archive.org/22/items/TammyWynette-StandByYourMan/TammyWynette-StandByYourMan.mp3"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PGJ3XW6k-6A/V3QVowAjLDI/AAAAAAAAPck/Xr9PkXoReLwYuOq3sR4blCYfLsCqDwtgACLcB/s640/polyandry%2Bfamily.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<h2>
By Mary Ann Sorrentino</h2>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> "ONE
MAN, 5 WIVES, 46 CHILDREN" screamed the cover of the <em>National
Geographic</em> magazine in the waiting room holding me captive. I hadn't read
a <em>National Geographic</em> since puberty, when teens would fumble through
copies in their parents' libraries, hoping for a glimpse of naked people around
the globe. With less than that youthful enthusiasm (and with only <em>Sports
Illustrated</em> or <em>Family Circle</em> as reading options) I read the
polygamy article.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It
described the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS)
which split from the Mormons in 1935 after rejecting the mother church's
ultimatum to renounce polygamy. Today the FLDS has more than 38,000 members
mostly on the Utah-Arizona border and in other parts of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>'s West.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
guy on the cover with the 5 wives and 46 kids is Joe Jessop, a church elder
aged 88.Jessop also has 239 grandchildren. (I'm thinking Joe and the wives
ought to be sitting in 6 bathtubs watching a sunset behind the mountains in
their own Cialis ad.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There's
probably not much passion in places like the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">El Paso</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Texas</st1:state></st1:place>.
The scriptural basis for the sect's clinging to polygamy--"Go forth and
multiply--" doesn't conjure images of sex toys, black lingerie, saxophones
in the background or a lovers talking "dirty." It's a slam, bam,
thank you m'am and call me after you deliver this one type of ethic. Plus, if a
guy has a half dozen wives to service, 50 kids and a couple hundred grandkids,
you might as well take-a-number like you do in the deli and just wait your
turn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">FLDS
women admit they sometimes feel hurt, rejection and jealousy about competing with
other women (sometimes their biological sisters.) This happens in monogamy too,
so get over it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
article made me wonder if there were societies where women take multiple
husbands. My immediate response was that women are smarter than to do anything
that dumb. By observation, if not experience, women understand that most
husbands demand so much attention no one would want more than one. And 46
children! The thought alone would send most women-- usually the primary
caregivers-- scrambling for a tubal ligation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In fact, there are virtually no polyandrous
societies on this planet (<em>polyandry</em> being the term describing women with
multiple husbands.) <em>Polygyny</em> is the accurate term for men with
multiple wives. The more commonly used <em>polygamy </em>is actually a
non-specific term describing those of either gender with multiple spouses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Another issue of <em>National Geographic</em> described the only remaining
society where women may have several husbands-- all brothers--in a remote area
in the <st1:place w:st="on">Himalayas</st1:place>. Acquiring fraternal
husbands, however, is different from men picking their own wives. In the <st1:place w:st="on">Himalayas</st1:place> it's, "marry one get 2 or 3 more
free."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> The brothers may (but are not compelled to)
take the same wife. They live together, with common children. The men help with
the housework (or hut-work) so it's not all bad. Not surprisingly<em>,
Psychology Today's </em>examination of polyandry attributed to it more sexual
motives. The shrink journal also had an accusatory subtext warning men in
monogamous situations not to be fooled by wives likely to sleep around. So <em>Psychology
Today</em> basically concludes women are naturally sluts and it shouldn't
matter if they service multiple husbands. (No professional in-depth scientific
analysis, though, of the roving eyes, hands and other body parts of
"monogamous" husbands like Tiger Woods, David Duchovny, or Bill
Clinton.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
see the fact that women do not choose multiple husbands as one of the few
gender-based advantages females can claim. Women should just continue to play
"dumb like a fox" in societies where they are not allowed to have
more than one husband, for whatever reason. It is a gift to be spared several
more mates to pick up after. Just think about all the nagging time women save
by having only one guy to remind to take out the trash, pick the kids up after
Little League, call his mother on her birthday, keep the doctor's appointment
on Friday, feed the dog, put those in the hamper, or look in the second
drawer-- where they have ALWAYS been.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; page-break-after: avoid;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> So the absence of
polyandry in the world may not be an accident at all, but testimony to the
superior wisdom, practicality and self-preservation instinct of the females of
our species. An old feminist adage cautions
that, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." (now click on this last sentence)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span id="goog_1435596131"></span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h22-wHytFF0" target="_blank">So a fish that doesn't need Lance Armstrong can probably do without the whole Tour de France. </a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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____________________________________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">To learn more, click link below for video</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h22-wHytFF0" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h22-wHytFF0</a></div>
MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-32364785727907361842016-06-26T08:00:00.000-07:002018-07-23T03:08:25.748-07:00<br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%;">Bats and Balls</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By Mary Ann
Sorrentino (orig. pub. In the Keene
Sentinel)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">An article in the British magazine The Economist
tells us about a scientific study done at Syracuse University in New York by
Professor Scott Pitnick. Interestingly, researcher Pitnick was studying bats
and the biological relationship between their testicles and their brains. (
Some readers are now asking, “Why?”)<br />
<br />
Since many women have maintained for generations that men actually think with
their, uhhh, testicles, the article had my attention. The premise of the
research team is that a bat’s testicles would be larger in species where the
females of that group were more promiscuous, and smaller when the females
tended to limit their couplings.<br />
<br />
The article went on to mention casually, as if we all knew a lot about such
things, that:<br />
“Greater promiscuity does, indeed, lead to bigger testes presumably because a
male needs to make more sperm to have a fighting chance of fathering offspring,
if those sperm are competing with a lot of other males.” This is fascinating
since women are so often accused of ripping off those particular body parts, or
“busting” them, as they say. Now we find out there is a legitimate scientific
study that shows that we actually give men those things they love! More
interesting, the naughtier we are, the bigger theirs get! It is only if we are
prudish that they “shrink” to embarrassing miniatures.<br />
<br />
Again from the article:<br />
“Gorillas which discourage dalliances between other males and the females of
their harems, have small testes. Chimpanzees, among whom females mate widely,
have large ones.”<br />
<br />
Then the addenda our curiosity has been waiting for:<br />
“Human testes lie between these two extremes.”<br />
<br />
This conjures a spectrum with King Kong on one end, J. Fred Muggs on the other,
and your husband or boyfriend(s) -or both- somewhere in the middle.<br />
<br />
The smallest bat testes were found among those whose females were monogamous.<br />
<br />
Finally, the kicker:<br />
“Brain size, by contrast…varied in the opposite direction.”<br />
<br />
This means the bigger the testes, the smaller the brains. (Many women reading
this column are now resting their case.)<br />
<br />
This study is not likely to be nominated for a Nobel Prize, but it does give us
something to ponder. The conclusion of the article said much more than anything
I might add in summarizing the results of all this research referred to in the
title as, “Bats and Balls”.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As
the article ended, simply:<br />
“…it is better to be virile and dim, than impotent and smart.”<br />
<br />
But then again, a lot of us already knew that. Sleep tight King Kong: we now
know you are much smarter than you look in those frontal nudity shots.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"> _______________End__________</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: bookman old style, new york, times, serif;"> </span></span>MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-74010629862371363472014-07-07T10:41:00.001-07:002016-02-05T16:46:40.349-08:00Tuscany Discovered - July 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tvEycN9xn_E/U7rfDHT00sI/AAAAAAAAEW0/j2_MtHEjW00/s1600/AH%252C+Tuscany.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tvEycN9xn_E/U7rfDHT00sI/AAAAAAAAEW0/j2_MtHEjW00/s1600/AH%252C+Tuscany.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Like many of you, I had been to Florence many times. I even lived here for a year during my college days' Junior Year Abroad. During some of those visits, I had visited Fiesole, the mystical village high in the hills above Florence with its Roman amphitheater and breathtaking views.<br />
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I have seen Pisa with its leaning tower a half dozen times, and I have driven with my husband from Florence to Perugia in nearby Umbria, so we had been awed by what is in fact Tuscany, and Florence as its capital.<br />
<br />
But the Tuscany countryside many of you know from films and books of recent years is an area we had not explored in detail -- until now.<br />
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Here are a few of the panoramas we would like to share with you.<br />
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First, San Gimignano with its many towers dating back to the first millennium. Buildings along its medieval streets were constructed anywhere from 1000 to 1400 and beyond.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--FDS1Ql2J98/U7rQCE89k_I/AAAAAAAAEUo/GHsoIIFdR5I/s1600/San+G+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--FDS1Ql2J98/U7rQCE89k_I/AAAAAAAAEUo/GHsoIIFdR5I/s1600/San+G+1.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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The main square</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fkwfUi-wDYs/U7rQvi5eEpI/AAAAAAAAEUw/iwFx4i5Uoic/s1600/San+G+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fkwfUi-wDYs/U7rQvi5eEpI/AAAAAAAAEUw/iwFx4i5Uoic/s1600/San+G+2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
the beautiful residences beyond the square<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bv-BPL9PDnk/U7rRFSdWLbI/AAAAAAAAEU4/M_ABMHB8OKk/s1600/San+G+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bv-BPL9PDnk/U7rRFSdWLbI/AAAAAAAAEU4/M_ABMHB8OKk/s1600/San+G+3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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An ancient castle still standing guard, with vines of caper plants pouring down its walls</div>
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After walking the whole town and soaking up its wonderful vibe, we stopped for a cold drink in the main square, listened to the medieval clock chime noon, then moved on to Siena, about 90 minutes away.</div>
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Siena is the home of the most authentic Italian language in all of Italy. It is also famous for its yearly Paglio - a horse race in its main conch-shaped square. The various neighborhood "Quarters" surround the square and each has its own flag and its own horse entered into this historic race. The men of Siena participate heartily (women have no role in the Paglio since Middle Age rules excluded them and that has never been changed.) The men still wear ancient costumes (or replicas of those) in the colors of their "Quarter." The winning horse is allowed into the cathedral as a demonstration of the honor paid to that animal for winning the race. Never doubt that this isn't a VERY serious matter -- even today -- among the Sienesi. If a woman marries a man from another Quarter, on the day of the actual race she goes to her parents' home in her native Quarter not to participate in any way with her husband's rival territory!</div>
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Here are some images of lovely Siena:</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s3qm3k3M0ak/U7rT7LXXC2I/AAAAAAAAEVU/HK0XS9nZVrI/s1600/Siena+Main+Square.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s3qm3k3M0ak/U7rT7LXXC2I/AAAAAAAAEVU/HK0XS9nZVrI/s1600/Siena+Main+Square.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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Siena's Main Square where the Paglio is held</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EtbIpigQjYM/U7rTFrUsJXI/AAAAAAAAEVE/ni_e_e6mcHM/s1600/Paglio+parade+Siena+July+2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EtbIpigQjYM/U7rTFrUsJXI/AAAAAAAAEVE/ni_e_e6mcHM/s1600/Paglio+parade+Siena+July+2014.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
The Medieval Costumes and Flags of one Quarter<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yI8XxPWHg8Y/U7rTcxyagwI/AAAAAAAAEVM/Pj8SU09hMWw/s1600/Paglio+Parade+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yI8XxPWHg8Y/U7rTcxyagwI/AAAAAAAAEVM/Pj8SU09hMWw/s1600/Paglio+Parade+2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
This is a SERIOUS matter!!<br />
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We had a lovely lunch in Siena at a restaurant called "Le Sorelline" (The Little Sisters) which we HIGHLY recommend. All the pastas as well as the desserts are made fresh DAILY....the main courses were superb and the prices reasonable (party of 4, 90 Euros or about $120. total or $30. per person!)<br />
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Around 4 PM se said good-bye to Siena and headed through the breathtaking Tuscan countryside toward our last stop, Piensa...but I'll just let these images speak for themselves.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YeTMErqCHrs/U7rWmhV2iwI/AAAAAAAAEVo/SKBiN2_P0iA/s1600/view+from+San+G.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YeTMErqCHrs/U7rWmhV2iwI/AAAAAAAAEVo/SKBiN2_P0iA/s1600/view+from+San+G.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cw0sNGyMs8s/U7rWswryQpI/AAAAAAAAEVw/dXRiJKRn_gg/s1600/Tuscany+from+Pienza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cw0sNGyMs8s/U7rWswryQpI/AAAAAAAAEVw/dXRiJKRn_gg/s1600/Tuscany+from+Pienza.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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Looks like a post card, right??<br />
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Finally, the fairytale town of Pienza, one of the most well-kept, meticulously manicures towns I have ever visited.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5NOBNQIxXgg/U7rYDVvj9GI/AAAAAAAAEV8/h0r82rYMX5I/s1600/ancient+gate+in+Pienza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5NOBNQIxXgg/U7rYDVvj9GI/AAAAAAAAEV8/h0r82rYMX5I/s1600/ancient+gate+in+Pienza.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
Pienza's ancient gate with beautiful fresco scene in the arch<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tYsj-p0s0aI/U7rcjT5hjII/AAAAAAAAEWQ/9AD9cISSCf0/s1600/Pienza+flower+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tYsj-p0s0aI/U7rcjT5hjII/AAAAAAAAEWQ/9AD9cISSCf0/s1600/Pienza+flower+box.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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Typical Pienza side street</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hYZlxv5Iccs/U7rc3xbiHrI/AAAAAAAAEWY/FF1l1dUH8W4/s1600/Pienza+balcony+with+flowers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hYZlxv5Iccs/U7rc3xbiHrI/AAAAAAAAEWY/FF1l1dUH8W4/s1600/Pienza+balcony+with+flowers.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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So we said farewell to breathtaking, Pienza hoping that</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-55RjXx5QVzk/U7rYneTiqMI/AAAAAAAAEWE/6QHdYY5SIAE/s1600/lovers+in+Pienza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-55RjXx5QVzk/U7rYneTiqMI/AAAAAAAAEWE/6QHdYY5SIAE/s1600/lovers+in+Pienza.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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THESE two (on the side of Pienza's duomo) will last as long as<br />
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uh..duhh..uh..duhh...That's All Folks! (for now anyway)</div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-75398079384784195632014-06-26T05:54:00.001-07:002016-10-22T14:04:39.220-07:00The Homeless of Florence-- In Their Humbling Refinement<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">6/26/2014 Florence - St. James Episcopal Church, Via dei Rucellai</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">We have been in Italy for two weeks and only now are we experiencing a few welcome showers to cool off a torrid Florence (know as Italy’s “frying pan.”) This is also the day I started my volunteer work at St. James Episcopal Church, one of only three such churches in Italy (the others are in Rome and Bologna.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have had a little experience working with the homeless through my past association with Travelers Aid (now Crossroads Rhode Island.) I have never forgetter former Director Marion Avarista’s reminder that we are all only one paycheck away from homelessness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The church itself is magnificent - a classic gothic house of worship today decorated for a bride expected later in the day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The clothing bank at St. James is held every Thursday morning starting at 10. Small bags of food are also distributed (today a can of cannellini beans, cheese, saltines, juice and a piece of fresh fruit will barely take the edge off the hunger of the homeless in a country known for its gourmet food. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">But the dignity and even the surprising elegance of the homeless here is amazing to see. Yes, some need a bath and a haircut, but, in general, they manage to carry that great Italian grace </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">in their bones and in their rags. The African women especially-- still </span>preferring<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> their native costumes-- are amazingly beautiful and even regal. They are polite and handle the used clothing delicately. Finding nothing that will culturally accommodate their chosen dress, they thank us and leave with only a small bag of food. We agree to look for each other next Thursday when hopefully some items like long scarves or shawls will be on the table ready to be turned into wraparounds or turbans these women can use.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Carla, the main overseer of the clothing table, knows many of these people by name (and shoe or waist size.) </span></span><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">She saves items she knows certain men and women have been looking for and— to their delight— runs to her stash to bring out a saved pair or sneakers one woman has been looking for for weeks, in almost her perfect size. Later she tells me she finally gave a new radio from her own home to a man here today who had no TV or radio to listen to all day and night. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">Carla is driven by the contagious realization that what we see in these people at the table could easily be us or people we love. I can already sense she will be my friend here, and the person who will personify the St. James experience in my memory for years to come. I am proud to call myself her colleague.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span>I think my Dad would have been proud of my work here today, in the country he never stopped loving.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> ____________________END_________________</span></div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-65404925072851105622011-05-17T23:09:00.000-07:002017-08-30T05:48:37.081-07:00Check out Mary Ann's latest TRAVEL Writings<div>
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MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-85595568303030460332009-05-04T16:37:00.000-07:002013-09-21T09:19:37.572-07:00A DRY WEEK IN KENYA"We have looked at all issues which can bring people to talk and we have seen that sex is the answer," says Rukia Subow, chair of the Women’s Development Organization, Kenya's oldest women's group. And with that, 11 feminist organizations in Kenya banded together to withhold sex from their men for one week in an effort to stop the political squabbling threatening that nation’s fragile coalition government. The women are paying prostitutes to temporarily go celibate, and the wives of Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have also been asked to participate.<br />
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Men in Kenya are polygamous by law, and AIDS rates are high, so there may be increased sexual activity with multiple partners. If this is true, organized sexual inactivity could influence male politicians. More likely, not all women will comply and men will have their way by intimidation if necessary. Also, seven days isn’t enough time.<br />
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Such a plan would be even less likely to work here at home. <br />
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Internet statistics about frequency of sexual activity among Americans--particularly married people-- indicate that abstaining from sex for a week would be fairly normal. This isn’t a nation of sexually hyper-active folks, especially in the over-forty ranks from which political leaders usually come.<br />
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Michelle Obama doesn’t seem like the type of woman who needs to join in such a strike. She could probably just talk Barack into submission.<br />
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Lacking a prime minister, we’d have to look to Hillary Clinton our Secretary of State as the other possibility. Hillary probably adopted the withholding-sex-from-Bill strategy long ago (not that he’s since “gone without.”)<br />
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Leaders like (use any first name here) Kennedy and Chris Dodd have always demonstrated that they could have as many women as they wanted, wherever, whenever. Across the aisle, Republicans like John McCain give the impression that their interest in sex is but a memory. In the case of conservatives such as Orrin Hatch, one wonders if they ever have had a sexual temperature beyond 98.6.<br />
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Then there is the Barney Frank contingent (exact numbers still hiding in the great congressional closet) to whom threats of sex-withholding by people of the opposite gender mean nothing.<br />
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The Trojan idea of women strapping on chastity belts toward political ends will probably fail to resurrect democracy in Kenya. It does, however, remind us that empires and political careers have historically been kicked to the curb in exchange for a moment or two of lust. (Eliott Spitzer, Gary Hart and others can, have and will write books on the subject. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s wife also went public again this week on her husband’s zipper problem.)<br />
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Power remains a great aphrodisiac and one likely to allow the endless supply of available men and women determined to sample just one more dose, whenever they can, to find each other.<br />
_________________END________________MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-49344796093202432652009-04-18T04:35:00.000-07:002009-04-18T04:41:38.511-07:00NOTRE DAME DE "MIXED MESSAGE"Richard V. Allen, Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor, recently wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times strongly defending Reagan’s honorary degree from Notre Dame University on the basis of the former president’s alleged “pro-life” politics. Allen, a Notre Dame alumnus, just as strongly argued against a similar honor planned for President Obama in May.<br /><br />Apparently Mr. Allen was so busy working for Reagan that he never noticed the president’s actual history on abortion rights. As one “pro-life” writer points out on www.issues2000.org <br /><blockquote></blockquote>“Reagan was not as obsessive about anti-abortion legislation as he often seemed. Early in his California governorship he had signed a permissive abortion bill that has resulted in more than a million abortions. Afterward, he inaccurately blamed this outcome on doctors, saying that they had deliberately misinterpreted the law. When Reagan ran for president, he won backing from pro-life forces by advocating a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother. Reagan’s stand was partly a product of political calculation, as was his tactic after he was elected of addressing the annual pro-life rally held in Washington by telephone so that he would not be seen with the leaders of the movement on the evening news…”<br />(Source: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon, p. 812 Jul 2, 1991) <br /><br />Notre Dame has given honorary degrees in the past to publicly pro-choice people like Obama including U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, President John F. Kennedy, and actress Cicily Tyson, a Planned Parenthood advocate, to name just a few. (Notre Dame also gave an honorary degree to Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the president, a Catholic and an alleged bootlegger, public philanderer and long-time paramour of actress Gloria Swanson.)<br /><br />In 2005, another Catholic college, Loyola University, gave former seminarian Rudy Giuliani an honorary degree, seemingly unconcerned that the former Republican mayor and presidential candidate was pro-choice, had a series of marriages, divorces and public infidelities, abandoned his wife and children, and supported homosexuals, all in defiance of Catholic teachings.<br /><br />President Obama is at least as worthy in the “Catholic context” as many others on Notre Dame’s past lists of commencement speakers and honorees: so-called “good Catholics” who don’t think so need to stop changing the rules whenever it’s convenient.<br /><br />Obama, not a Catholic, worked as an attorney helping the underprivileged, shunning higher paying jobs to do this good “Catholic” work.<br /><br />His record as a politician, as far as we know, is unblemished by the usual shady behaviors and tendency to overlook (if not participate in) graft and corruption. <br /><br />Obama’s respect and love for his elders, wife and daughters, as well as for those less fortunate than himself, shows that he understands and embraces the greatest commandment to “Love thy Neighbor.” Regarding “basic family values” he excels where Reagan (divorced, remarried, estranged from his children, and no friend to the poor) failed miserably.<br /><br />If the Catholic Church-- losing membership, wanting in new priests, and steeped in scandals which are bankrupting dioceses left and right-- can’t get its values in order, at least its defenders should try to get their facts straight.<br /> _______________END______________MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-18841242658655813942009-04-09T07:30:00.000-07:002009-04-09T07:32:58.595-07:00ITALY EARTHQUAKE UNITES US<span style="color:#ff0000;">The letterhead of an itinerary planning firm I used to own, asked, “Have you ever known anyone who went to Italy and never wanted to return?”<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">Probably not.<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">Italy enchants. It fascinates with its reverence for ancient ruins and it tantalizes with its innate elegance, visible on the streets of Milan, Florence and Rome as well as on its volcanic islands and in its remote villages.<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">If disclaimers are necessary, I am proud of my 100% Italian roots. My father was an immigrant from a small town outside Pompeii, and his parents as well as those of my mother were born on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. I make no apologies: I love Italy.<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">In that affection, I am joined by millions around the globe. Italy has been Europe’s top tourism destination and it remains a country which citizens of the world adore.<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">Now, as it struggles to rise once again from yet one more assault by nature in the earthquake-ravaged Abruzzi, sympathetic admirers from around the globe rush to send whatever relief they can. Here at home, the millions of Americans with roots in the boot, interrupt their Easter plans to raise monies, gather supplies, contact friends and family who may have been displaced and establish bridges of hope between the leveled towns of Italy’s Southwest and the struggling cities of the USA, those latter leveled economically by the current and deep recession.<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">Even Italians outside the stricken region are raging and mourning the unnecessary death toll because government funds provided years ago—after similar quakes—were apparently skimmed by politicians instead of being used to build the earthquake-proof buildings that might have saved so many lives. Americans share that disillusionment as they look around at the plundered financial landscape around them as well.<br /> </span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">We can only do what brothers and sisters do in tough times like these. So we share what bread and water we have between us and send what pennies we can spare along with clothing, blankets and medical supplies. Those of us who pray should do so. <br /></span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">All of us, meanwhile, should think positive thoughts and work for justice, for in Italy’s current moment of tragedy we join her in the allegory of the greed of the powerful bringing down ruin on the serenity of the struggling.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">In that sense, we are all family.<br /> ___________________END___________________<br />Aid to earthquake victims in Italy can be given by calling 1-800-REDCROSS<br /><br /></span><span style="color:#ff0000;"></span>MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-73078113013903564912009-04-05T18:53:00.001-07:002016-04-29T13:32:04.098-07:00IS GOD GOING GLOBAL??A national Study-- the American Religious Identification Survey-- reported this month that 1 million fewer New Englanders claim to be Roman Catholic today than did in 1990. Nationally, 29 states showed a decline in the number of Catholics, while gains in supporters of Rome turned up in Texas (up 9%.,) California (up 8 %,), and Florida (up 4 %.)<br />
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Overall, these results agree with another study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. The trend seems to be a shift of Catholic population in the U.S. from the Northeast to the Southwest. Florida qualifies with its tremendous influx of traditionally Catholic immigrants from Cuba, South and Central America and the Caribbean. Texas and California, as border states, share a similar demographic experience with large numbers of Catholic Mexicans arriving daily.<br />
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Mainstream Protestant sects also showed national losses. Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and United Church of Christ members declined from 18.7 to 12.9 %. Among non-Christian groups, Jews and Muslims slipped from a combined total of 3% of American believers in those religions to only 2%.<br />
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Where is god going?<br />
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While we may not be becoming a godless nation, we may be altering the way we understand god and the way we worship. “Blind faith,” which for centuries held Catholic believers together, no longer cuts the mustard with American congregations weary of taking orders from a hierarchy unable or unwilling to acknowledge its own scandals, sins and mistakes.<br />
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Diocese after Catholic diocese has either approached or fallen into bankruptcy brought on by settlements for sexual abuse scandals involving priests. Additionally, Rome’s continued rigidity regarding female ordination and its refusal to heed the 21st century concerns of its faithful regarding celibacy, birth control, abortion and sexual orientation have only widened the breach of lay distrust and dismay.<br />
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What is seldom discussed, on the other hand, is the appeal that Catholic dogma has for evangelical extremists and just-plain-rednecks who love to wallow in inflexibility. For some, what actually attracts is the lack of “gray” areas and the rejection of free will, a basic tenet of Catholic theology despite Rome’s disregard for it.<br />
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In New England, cities like Worcester, Manchester, or Woonsocket—once Catholic strongholds— seem unlikely to rise again to strengthen the numbers of what they once called the “one true church.” Boarded up factories, foreclosed homes and a Catholic ministry ill-equipped and disinclined to nurture a decimated flock do not bode well for “blind faith” or “glorious mysteries.”<br />
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The real as well as spiritual “loaves and fishes” exhausted bodies and souls seek and require seem nowhere to be found there.<br />
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But even as places like Texas and Florida-- where men are men, women are disposable and authority figures like cops, judges and bishops never have to say they’re sorry-- have become the new hotspots for organized religions, it is important to remember that god (as opposed to “churches”) can exist anywhere.<br />
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Perhaps the new shift in faith-based demographics tell us less about America going godless than they tell us about god going global.<br />
_______________END_________________MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-68981544330383338222009-02-07T04:49:00.000-08:002019-08-13T09:10:20.186-07:00A Sucker Born Every MInute!<span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#009900;"> </span></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="color:#009900;"> </span><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">22-year-old Natalie Dylan (not her real name) is auctioning off her virginity allegedly to pay for graduate school for herself and her sister. If her web photograph is authentic, she is a beautiful California woman, complete with tan and bikini figure, so it is no wonder some sex-starved rich guy has offered to deflower her for what is said to be a $3.7 million profit to the coed. At that rate, she and her sister can both become brain surgeons!<br /></span></em></span><em><span style="color:#6600cc;"> </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">Many around the world view this story with amazement and wonder how such advertised prostitution—illegal in most of the U.S.—can go unchallenged by authorities. The answer lies in Natalie’s use of the loophole provided by Nevada’s sanction of prostitution as a lawful activity.<br /> </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">For her part, the student called Natalie says we live in a capitalist society and she sees no reason not to capitalize on what the bordello where her deflowering is scheduled to occur (the Moonlite Bunny Ranch) calls a “priceless and rare commodity.”<br /> </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">At $3.5 million, the definition “priceless” may apply. In today’s America, despite Bush’s failed push for abstinence, most marriages occur between the sexually initiated, not virgins, so a beautiful 22-year-old virgin woman may, indeed, be rare as well.<br /> </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">The ones most likely to feel cheated, however, are those legions of mothers and grandmothers from past generations wherein the idea of a single woman losing her virginity and being paid for it was unthinkable! In their day, a single woman who had intercourse was someone to scorn, treat with shame, punish, not reward. These women did not guard their virginity because they didn’t have the same horny feelings as the women who followed them in the “free love” tradition, but because a women who married and who did not have her virginity to offer on the wedding night risked ruining her marriage and her life.<br /> </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">Now these same women wake up to a world where what they saved so guardedly and gave away so selflessly is actually worth millions of dollars in some quarters. Hell, if they had known that, they might have tried to hawk their maidenheads too!<br /> </span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;">Natalie Dylan brings new meaning to the old adage from Britain's Thomas Tusser that, “ A fool and his money are soon parted.” Mostly, however, Dylan’s story underscores the accurate observation—often attributed to P.T. Barnum-- that there is a sucker born every minute.</span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#6600cc;"> _______END_______</span></em>MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4992966371608528830.post-52895334355098966682008-12-22T16:47:00.000-08:002019-08-13T09:10:20.160-07:00NOT-SO-SWEET CAROLINE<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Caroline Kennedy is someone many have rightfully admired. She is an accomplished attorney and author, has raised three children with an amazing discretion rare among public figures, and has always behaved in a way that brought honor and dignity to the historic name she carries.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Kennedy has also stayed far from the eye of most political storms, limiting her involvements-- until this presidential year-- to occasional public appearances to help candidates such as her cousin, RI Congressman Patrick Kennedy.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Then Barack Obama came on the scene with his alleged, “Change We Can Believe In.” In a flash, Caroline was on the stage, on the road and-- after the nomination had been secured-- on Obama’s Vice President Selection Committee.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Caroline, along with clan head Uncle Ted and lesser-known kin with varying degrees of political involvement, piled onto the Obama bandwagon and savored victory on election night as only Kennedy’s can—by figuring out what their candidate could now do for them.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Apparently one of the things the president-elect could do was to save Caroline from empty-nest boredom by freeing up the U.S. Senate seat that coincidentally represents her Park Avenue address. (Will she then go on to a challenge for the presidency down the road?)<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Within days of Hillary Clinton’s nomination as Secretary of State, global media was reporting the former First Daughter’s interest in running for her senate seat. Shortly after that Caroline Kennedy was frantically lobbying political powers to convince NY governor David Paterson to appoint her to finish the Clinton term.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Like Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Kennedy has dodged the press, avoiding interviews and speaking only through spokespeople. Kennedy, however, does this with impunity while Palin was excoriated for her initial silence. Palin may have been aware of her limitations, thus avoiding the scrutiny that eventually came anyway. Kennedy may also fear being exposed for what many hesitate to say she is—less experienced, though more polished, than Palin.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">Rhode Islanders more than most Americans are familiar with the syndrome of electing unqualified people named Kennedy: they keep re-electing Patrick Kennedy to represent them in Congress. They are also familiar with such people buying power and keeping it by outspending all challengers.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo tops a list of 12 more qualified aspirants to the vacated Clinton senate seat. Caroline’s dashing of Cuomo’s hopes must be especially satisfying. He is the ex-husband of her cousin and Kennedy’s always get mad, and always get even.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">The Caroline senate seat hunt will tell if the Kennedy name alone is still enough. In a political world where “What can you do for me yesterday?” is all, patriarch Ted Kennedy’s terminal illness changes the chessboard significantly. His last remaining chits may either have been called in (for Obama), or their expiration dates are racing against his metastases.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;">The perpetuation of political legacies is something America thought it had left behind with the choosing of Obama and the farewell to Bush. If Caroline Kennedy ever was sincere about “Change We Can Believe In” she ought to let such change occur, and continue her apolitical career while she still has the nation’s undying respect and affection.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;color:#000099;"> ___END___</span>MAShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564525285497224794noreply@blogger.com0