Olympians and Other Heroes

Now that the London Olympics have concluded and school is back in session, I find myself basking in the afterglow of the empowering bonding experience that the Games provided for me and my daughter. I also have time to ponder the significance of the increased participation of women.

For two weeks, my daughter and I made a daily habit of selecting a few events to watch from the hours and hours of Olympic programming we’d recorded. “What shall we watch today?” I asked one day, to which she responded, “I like watching the events with women in them.”  I smiled inwardly, thinking that I felt the very same way. My husband jokingly accused us of watching swimming events to ogle the scantily clad male swimmers but those events were really not the main attraction. It was much more interesting to watch women who had pursued their dreams and reached the height of excellence in their chosen sport. It was inspiring. 

I am not by any stretch of the imagination athletic but I know how to swim, I’ve played volleyball before and I can (or maybe could) do a pretty good cartwheel. Suddenly, I could imagine myself on the U.S volleyball team, or swimming a lap in a relay or doing cartwheels while twirling a ribbon around. I know my daughter had the same experience because on the days when rhythmic gymnastics were on TV,  I had to take a circuitous route through the den to avoid bumping into her as she worked her way across the room, hula-hooping, or throwing and catching a small ball in imitation of the gymnasts.

It was exciting to learn that this was the first year in which every country participating had sent females athletes to compete; we felt like we were witnessing history in the making and in fact, we were. We watched Sarah Attar of Saudi Arabia wear traditional Muslim head covering during her race.  She proudly represented her country; her presence there not only helped to dispel myths about women and Muslims, it also prompted the TV commentator to point out that Saudi Arabia is a country which still denies women the right to drive. Like many people who followed  #Women2Drive on Twitter, I was already aware of their struggle but for millions of TV watchers this was new information. Perhaps the dissemination of that information will gain Saudi women additional supporters and expedite their inevitable triumph. Maybe that’s why it took so long for Saudi Arabia to send female athletes. Perhaps it was this very thing they feared:  the Olympic spotlight can bring glory to a country but it can also attract scrutiny.

At the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government did not escape the scrutiny of human rights advocates. Although the IOC asks host countries to remedy human rights violations,  it is the public who must ultimately monitor and exert political and economic pressure on those who do not comply. I wonder how Russia will fare under that type of scrutiny as they prepare to welcome the world to Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics? I wonder if Putin has given any thought to how his country and his administration will be perceived by the world if they choose to suppress dissenting views with trials that make the Russian judicial system the laughing stock of the rational world - why else would the judge in the Pussy Riot trial feel compelled to prohibit laughing? It would be funny if it weren’t so sad because these young women are being tried by what might as well be called the Russian Inquisition. 

Get ready for your close up, Mr. Putin.

Filed under Olympics Athletes Role models Feminism Pussy riot Russia

The More Things Change

From an interview I did in October 2004. This question and answer has particular relevance to me because I see the same things happening in this country that I saw happening in the 1980’s, only now the mass media in this country is almost completely controlled by people with a ve$ted intere$t in maintaining the status quo. Even if you don’t agree with me, you should still seek out some news sources from outside of our country so that you can gain a different perspective on what’s happening here and abroad.

Q: You also went to Nicaragua in the early eighties to gain some new experiences, would you tell us something about that time and if it changed your views on certain things and how do you see the political situation in the U.S. in the moment…?

A: My trip to Nicaragua changed me forever. It made me realize how few material possessions a person needs to be happy and it put me back in touch with the values that living in a consumer society can deaden in you, basic human values like caring about your neighbor. I realized that the U.S. government has been bought by corporate entities that have little regard for Americans and even less regard for the rest of the world. Their sole concern lies in expanding their control over the economic systems of the world. Countries are either to be exploited for their natural resources or else they are markets for goods that are produced elsewhere and controlled by the corporations. These corporate entities only have one natural enemy and that is a well-informed citizenry focused on self-determination. As an American taxpayer and a corporate consumer, I am complicit in my own government’s efforts to block other people’s movement towards self-determination. That’s what my experience in Nicaragua taught me. I think we Americans need to get serious about taking back our country and making it responsive to our needs and goals. What’s happening in America right now could happen anywhere when people get too complacent.

The Future of Food

One of the participatory aspects of the online group that I belong to, Destroyers of Mass Production, is that any member can throw down a challenge to the other members. Some of the past challenges have included sewing blankets for the homeless and surreptitiously posting anti-war messages in public. A current challenge is to grow your own food.


I saw a very disturbing film last night that left me tossing and turning and that seems to relate to this topic if only because it has to do with growing your own food. It's called The Future of Food. It talks about the origins of genetically engineered food and what GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are doing to our food supply. Not only do these foods contain harmful chemicals, bacteria, and antibiotics but because they are corporate hybrids they can be patented. If the wind or a bird drops a seed that has been patented onto a farmer's field and it cross pollinates with that farmer's crops, the resulting strain of corn, for example, may contain the marker gene that is patented. That farmer can then be held liable for violating patent law. Incredible as it sounds, many farmers have been sued for this very reason. Farmers, our food suppliers, are being put in a position where they must buy these genetically engineered patented seeds each time they plant for fear of being sued. This affects us because it reduces the variety and quality of produce that is available to us. Seeds are being patented all the time, so eventually even small organic farmers may be affected.


After a year of being vegetarian, I was feeling pretty happy every time I went to the grocery store and thought about how I wasn't eating meat that had chemicals and antibiotics. I went out of my way to look for cheese and dairy products that contain no rBST and I'm a label reader so my processed foods have to meet certain criteria. But where are the labels on our produce? Why shouldn't we know how our fruits and vegetables are being farmed? If I'm eating genetically modified food I want to know it. If my corn on the cob is classified as a pesticide because any insect that eats it dies, (yes, this is true) I want to know!

Here is a summary of what crops, foods and food ingredients have been genetically modified as of July, 2007:

Currently Commercialized GM Crops in the U.S.:
(Number in parentheses represents the estimated percent that is genetically modified.)

Soy (89%)
Cotton (83%)
Canola (75%)
Corn (61%)
Hawaiian papaya (more than 50%)
Alfalfa, zucchini and yellow squash (small amount)
Tobacco (Quest® brand)

(source: Seedsofdeception.com)

I know I'm ranting like a lunatic, but I'm angry. What kind of world am I leaving to my kids? We are allowing corporate greed to ruin our lives. That's what it all boils down to - this stupid war, global warming, genetically engineered food, it's unchecked corporate greed. So let's plant our gardens and let's press to make corporations accountable not only to their shareholders but to the rest of the world!