I noticed a pundit recently refer to California as “a very blue state” – and that is true, as Democrats hold virtually all of its top offices. In 1992, California became the first state to elect women to both of its US Senate seats, and Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are Democrats. Boxer retired at the last election and was replaced by Kamala Harris, a Democratic woman and an African American. When I published Women in American Politics in 2012, all of the congressional districts around Los Angeles and San Francisco were represented by Democrats, most of them women.  Read More 

From the Tampa Bay Times. October 22, 2017. (Click on image to view larger version.)

Special congratulations to Gloria Jean Royster, a relative newcomer to Tampa, who restored some of our city’s heritage with the renaming last week of a bridge over the Hillsborough River. It was primarily Fred Hearns who, over the years, has been talking about this slight to African-American history, but then Fred (like me) has so many irons in historical fires that our suggestions tend to be dismissed as another nag. Gloria Jean, who moved from Up North to a downtown condo near Fortune Street, grabbed this tiger by its tail, walked over to City Hall, and talked to people until it happened.  Read More 

People have asked, including a reporter. What surprises me most is that anyone finds it new: Men have been harassing women since time eternal. Indeed, I think there is no woman in the world – no matter how lacking in beauty or brains or other assets she may be – who has not experienced this kind of intimidation. It should happen less often as we grow older, but I’m over the hill now and still sometimes get hit on. The guys invariably are the age of Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, and others who grew up in a culture where sexual misbehavior not only was acceptable, but even lauded. And yes, their wives tolerated it, whether or not he was successful in his quest. It was part of the bargain of marriage that she look the other way.  Read More 

I get regular e-mails from Vote Vets, a growing organization headed by retired generals and colonels. A recent one urged Twitter to cancel Donald Trump’s account because he is using that platform to send bellicose messages re North Korea that endanger lives. I didn’t sign the petition because I want the orange-hair-on-fire guy to continue his bizarre behavior until more of those who voted for him acknowledge their mistake. Until then, I trust that General Kelly and others with keys to the Oval Office will keep his hands off the nuclear button. The probability is, I think, that feds who are smarter than their ostensible boss already have disconnected the red phone.  Read More 

October is one of the few months when I wish I were Up North. I loved the patchwork of colored trees against my Ozark Mountains, as well as the hayrides and wiener roasts of teenage years. Graduate years in Massachusetts didn’t feature spectacular mountains, but people there enthusiastically decorated their lawns. Hubby and I had bought a house by then, just a block away from the Atlantic Ocean, and our drives to school took us past piles of orange pumpkins and rows of bright yellow chrysanthemums, as well as the occasional white ghost hanging from a fiery-leafed tree.  Read More