Just in case no one told you, we are in the midst of Hispanic Heritage Month. It will end October 15, a few days after we celebrate the Columbus fleet’s first sighting of the Western Hemisphere, which probably was Watling Island in the Bahamas, on October 12, 1492. Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15 because on that day in 1821, Spain granted independence to five Central American nations: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. On September 16, 1810, precedents for independence were set by Chile and Mexico.  Read More 

I’m not sure exactly what I was busy with in 1982, but something. By great good fortune, I had an agent for my first book, but she was busy, too, and months would go by without a letter from her in the mail. (Yes, children, we waited for postal delivery back then.) I probably was on the board of the Mango Elementary School PTA in 1982 and active in Women’s Political Caucus, a bi-partisan organization that disappeared after Republicans disavowed the Equal Rights Amendment.  Read More 

I promised Jean Yglesias of the League of Women Voters that I would publicize an event the league is sponsoring on Tuesday, September 27. Titled “What’s Going On? Voter Behavior in the 2016 Election,” it will feature Dr. Edwin Benton of USF’s political science department. Among the more intriguing questions to be addressed:  Read More 

My sister in Arkansas called late on Wednesday and asked about my plans for the weekend. She and an Oklahoma friend had found a cheap flight on Allegiant, which specializes in smaller cities, and were thinking about flying between Tulsa and Sanford late on Friday. She has lots of hotel honors points from her work in the food vending business, and they would spend Friday night in Sanford and come here on Saturday.  Read More 

But nobody does anything about it.” That old saying is about to be relegated to the dustbin of history, though, as we can do more and more about anticipated weather. At least, we know much more about it, and that in itself is hugely important. When my parents were young in Minnesota, no one knew if a blizzard was coming or how severe it might be. I grew up hearing about people who went out on a pleasant morning and froze to death in the afternoon.  Read More 

While we celebrate Labor Day this weekend, let us remember that includes women: from the very beginning of American industrialization, women joined men in positive action for workers. It also includes children, as no group worked harder to end child labor than unions. From their beginning, unions have been dedicated to public education and to encouraging children to be children. For far too long – until the Great Depression of the 1930s – kids of ten or twelve commonly toiled for the pittance that their families desperately needed.  Read More 

La Gaceta comes out on Fridays, and this Friday’s edition will be on August 26. Ring a bell for you? It should. Let’s ring bells and raise a toast to August 26, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution that granted full voting rights to women in every state. This was in 1920, and some women’s organizations already are gearing up for the 100th coming soon. I hope to be at the White House, where I’m sure the first female president will be.  Read More 

If you are worn down by the media’s endless focus on the election and dreading the almost three months until it’s over, let me suggest that you turn the TV channel or radio station to BBC, the British Broadcasting Company (or if you can find it, CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Our PBS (Public Broadcasting System) is fairly good about taking a wider view, but other English-speaking networks are even better.  Read More 

One of the major newspapers – the New York Times, I think – wasted trees on a report that detailed the potential cost of building Donald Trump’s wall against Mexico. As I recall, it was reprinted by our local Times with a headline on the first page and an inside continuation, so it was long enough that this wasn’t just a passing notion. The reporters also examined the practicality of Trump’s promise to make Mexico pay for this wall.  Read More 

This one’s for you, my La Gaceta friend (and city council candidate) Gene Siudut. Gene wrote last week in his column, “Chairman of the Bored,” that he was finding it hard to write, especially anything funny. “I fear I’ll have to fire myself and get some real help,” he said. “My struggle…is the craziness of this world. I’ve forgotten how many weeks in a row a mass shooting has invaded in our news feed...” He very empathetically goes on to lament the latest.  Read More