Hello and welcome to Scrimmage Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is the 23rd of November and Lego League teams across Wannaska will be gathered in Warroad for a day of friendly competition. I'll be judging "Innovative Project."
On this day, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected as President of Liberia. A big deal as she was the first woman elected as head of state in an African country. She served as the president until 2018. Her efforts to be a "promoter of peace, justice and democratic rule" (Source) were acknowledged with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civil award in October 2007, the 2010 Glamour Award The Chosen Ones, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the Indira Ghandi prize in 2012, and the 2017 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also penned her own memoir, This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President. She has four sons and is 81 years old. How does a woman raise four children and be the head of state to a nation? Quick math tells me she was elected into office at age 67. (Which means, I have time.)
Coincidentally, I'm reading Dream Country, a YA novel which happens to be about the immigrant experience of a Liberian teenager in Minnesota. I'm listening to the audiobook and, so far, I'm very impressed with the dialogue and the very vivid setting the author has established. So that's my book recommendation of the week.
As I listened to the testimonies unfurling during the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings this past week, I found myself thinking a lot about the stuff the former Liberian president advocated for: peace, justice, and democracy.
A part of me wishes I could stick my head in this lovely Wannaska snow and busy my mind instead with lighter things like Thanksgiving turkeys followed by the holiday rush of Christmas concerts, cards, and cookies. But, it's been a notable week in the nation's capitol, and a pretty intense one. And if sex, religion, and politics are taboo topics as families prepare to gather across Wannaska around their dining tables for festive feasts followed by naps and football, when can we talk about such things?
When I showed the Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence a draft of this post, he said, "Yeah, I see politics and then I think snooze."
Yeah, I hear you, buddy. But when author William Meikle, who describes himself as a "wee sweary Scotsman, full-time writer, living in rural Newfoundland since 2007," tweeted this week, "Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. Possibly even more relevant now than when it was written. Its depiction of a dumbed down, anti-intellectual society addicted to flashy images and meaningless noise is chilling," I thought, it might be uncomfortable and make our Minnesota Nice muscles groan, but by golly, we've got to wake up and wipe the sleepy crud from our eyes, limber up our wary Wannaska bones, get the heart pumping a bit, and talk about this.
Do we have peace?
While there is no shooting in my own backyard (except for the deer hunters) and no checkpoints to cross like those before the fall of the Iron Curtain thirty years ago, there is division among my Wannaskan neighbors. While there's always going to be differing opinions, there's also been a collective harmony in agreeing to disagree. We're still neighbors, right? I'm still going to bring a plate of cookies to your house at Christmas and I sure appreciate when you pull our "jalopia" Jetta out of the snowy banks with your Ford pickup. I think the culprit of this parting of ways - the splitting of community seams - is the 2016 election. Today, three years later, we are watching impeachment hearings in real time. I do not know a single adult who is not invested, decidedly on one side or the other, in their opinions and views about the hearings and the impending outcome.
In my Poynter ACES Certificate in Editing course, offered by the The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, I learned a new term, the "backfire effect," which means when a person's deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, one's beliefs get stronger. That is to say, people react instead of reason - even in the face of facts - hunkering deeper into viewpoints incubated with fortified emotion. If this resistance is indeed inherent to human nature, I don't see how I am immune to this effect anymore than the next gal.
Do we have justice?
It's a sad thing to shrug in the face of such a question. What is the purpose of justice? To seek truth or to defend? The definition on Wiktionary states, "Justice is the morally fair and right state of everything. To have justice as a person's character trait means that they are just and treat everyone the same, or how they would like to be treated."
The absence of justice means the endearing kaffeeklatsches that dot our communities with good cheer and company are at risk of ceasing to be safe spaces of intellectual discourse and debate bonded with a mutual regard for one another and an affinity for sweets. Instead they become insular islands of ideology, hoarding the pot of coffee and plate of danish, suspicious of the uninitiated and unversed in the rhetoric of the club.
This week's impeachment hearings are an example of how truth and defense are more mutually exclusive than collaborative. Advocates for one version of story vs. advocates for another narrative. The outcome will have winners and losers. In a court room I can understand the taking of sides. But in our government? That is supposed to represent The People? Justice should be the singular goal. For the "morally fair and right state of everything" - for all of us.
Do we have democracy?
I've been thinking a lot about oaths and swearing of truths lately. (No doubt influenced by the three seasons of Game of Thrones I've recently digested.) In order for democracy to work, there has to be an agreement to participate in the spirit of certain values around democracy - things like truth, equality, liberty, and respect for our fellow Wannaskans. But how will society function when we allow the antitheses of truth, equality, liberty, and respect to swirl like curdled cream in the coffee of our decision making? How can democracy withstand and uphold the integrity it's intended to fulfill?
I'm no great scholar, just a writer living in our beautiful Wannaska region. But I will tell you, I feel the isolation. I feel the invisible fences separating neighbors and family. And if what I learned in my online journalism class is true, then there is no dialogue to be had, lest the fences get taller, longer, and spikier. If we cannot agree to be a community, to care for neighbor, how can there be peace, justice, or democracy? Without these essential ingredients, acts of service such as feeding the poor or sheltering the homeless become merely self-serving checks on a to-do list in hopes of making it to heaven.
So, no, I don't feel peace, I worry about justice, and I fret for democracy.
I don't want to form separate alliances; to choose sides. I want to attend my neighborhood barbecue and embrace my friends in kaffeeklatsch. I want to roll up my sleeves and serve in my community. I want truth, equality, liberty, and respect to be the standard operating procedure, not the exception. I want to make the world a better place.
Do you?
If we share this desire, let's meet for coffee. I'll bring the danish.
2009 - Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines
Considered to be the worst attack on journalists in recorded history, the massacre occurred in the southern Philippines, when 57 citizens and journalists en route to register voters in Esmael Mangudadatu for the upcoming gubernatorial elections, were killed by gunmen and buried. 34 journalists were killed on the day.
2005 - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected as President of Liberia
The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner is also the first woman to be elected as head of state in an African country.
1976 - First person to dive 100 meters in the sea without breathing equipment
Frenchman Jacques Mayol, who is also sometimes known as Dolphin Man, was 49 years old at the time. He broke his own record 7 years later by diving 105 meters.
1963 - Doctor Who debuts on TV
The longest running science fiction TV show first aired with an episode called An Earthly Child on the British Broadcasting Channel. The show that has had 11 different actors play the lead role, follows the time-traveling adventures of Doctor Who, who uses the Time and Relative Dimension in Space or TARDIS to jump around in time and space.
1910 - Last person to be executed in Sweden
Johan Alfred Ander was convicted of murdering Victoria Hellsten during a robbery of a currency exchange. He was the only person in Swedish history to be executed using a guillotine. Capital punishment in the country was abolished for all peacetime crimes in 1921 and for all crimes in 1973.
1992 - Miley Cyrus, American singer-songwriter, actress
1982 - Asafa Powell, Jamaican sprinter
1950 - Chuck Schumer, American politician
1859 - Billy the Kid, American criminal
912 - Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor
On this day, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected as President of Liberia. A big deal as she was the first woman elected as head of state in an African country. She served as the president until 2018. Her efforts to be a "promoter of peace, justice and democratic rule" (Source) were acknowledged with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civil award in October 2007, the 2010 Glamour Award The Chosen Ones, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the Indira Ghandi prize in 2012, and the 2017 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also penned her own memoir, This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President. She has four sons and is 81 years old. How does a woman raise four children and be the head of state to a nation? Quick math tells me she was elected into office at age 67. (Which means, I have time.)
Coincidentally, I'm reading Dream Country, a YA novel which happens to be about the immigrant experience of a Liberian teenager in Minnesota. I'm listening to the audiobook and, so far, I'm very impressed with the dialogue and the very vivid setting the author has established. So that's my book recommendation of the week.
As I listened to the testimonies unfurling during the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings this past week, I found myself thinking a lot about the stuff the former Liberian president advocated for: peace, justice, and democracy.
A part of me wishes I could stick my head in this lovely Wannaska snow and busy my mind instead with lighter things like Thanksgiving turkeys followed by the holiday rush of Christmas concerts, cards, and cookies. But, it's been a notable week in the nation's capitol, and a pretty intense one. And if sex, religion, and politics are taboo topics as families prepare to gather across Wannaska around their dining tables for festive feasts followed by naps and football, when can we talk about such things?
When I showed the Wannaskan Almanac Kid Writer-in-Residence a draft of this post, he said, "Yeah, I see politics and then I think snooze."
Yeah, I hear you, buddy. But when author William Meikle, who describes himself as a "wee sweary Scotsman, full-time writer, living in rural Newfoundland since 2007," tweeted this week, "Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. Possibly even more relevant now than when it was written. Its depiction of a dumbed down, anti-intellectual society addicted to flashy images and meaningless noise is chilling," I thought, it might be uncomfortable and make our Minnesota Nice muscles groan, but by golly, we've got to wake up and wipe the sleepy crud from our eyes, limber up our wary Wannaska bones, get the heart pumping a bit, and talk about this.
Do we have peace?
While there is no shooting in my own backyard (except for the deer hunters) and no checkpoints to cross like those before the fall of the Iron Curtain thirty years ago, there is division among my Wannaskan neighbors. While there's always going to be differing opinions, there's also been a collective harmony in agreeing to disagree. We're still neighbors, right? I'm still going to bring a plate of cookies to your house at Christmas and I sure appreciate when you pull our "jalopia" Jetta out of the snowy banks with your Ford pickup. I think the culprit of this parting of ways - the splitting of community seams - is the 2016 election. Today, three years later, we are watching impeachment hearings in real time. I do not know a single adult who is not invested, decidedly on one side or the other, in their opinions and views about the hearings and the impending outcome.
In my Poynter ACES Certificate in Editing course, offered by the The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, I learned a new term, the "backfire effect," which means when a person's deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, one's beliefs get stronger. That is to say, people react instead of reason - even in the face of facts - hunkering deeper into viewpoints incubated with fortified emotion. If this resistance is indeed inherent to human nature, I don't see how I am immune to this effect anymore than the next gal.
Do we have justice?
It's a sad thing to shrug in the face of such a question. What is the purpose of justice? To seek truth or to defend? The definition on Wiktionary states, "Justice is the morally fair and right state of everything. To have justice as a person's character trait means that they are just and treat everyone the same, or how they would like to be treated."
The absence of justice means the endearing kaffeeklatsches that dot our communities with good cheer and company are at risk of ceasing to be safe spaces of intellectual discourse and debate bonded with a mutual regard for one another and an affinity for sweets. Instead they become insular islands of ideology, hoarding the pot of coffee and plate of danish, suspicious of the uninitiated and unversed in the rhetoric of the club.
This week's impeachment hearings are an example of how truth and defense are more mutually exclusive than collaborative. Advocates for one version of story vs. advocates for another narrative. The outcome will have winners and losers. In a court room I can understand the taking of sides. But in our government? That is supposed to represent The People? Justice should be the singular goal. For the "morally fair and right state of everything" - for all of us.
Do we have democracy?
I've been thinking a lot about oaths and swearing of truths lately. (No doubt influenced by the three seasons of Game of Thrones I've recently digested.) In order for democracy to work, there has to be an agreement to participate in the spirit of certain values around democracy - things like truth, equality, liberty, and respect for our fellow Wannaskans. But how will society function when we allow the antitheses of truth, equality, liberty, and respect to swirl like curdled cream in the coffee of our decision making? How can democracy withstand and uphold the integrity it's intended to fulfill?
I'm no great scholar, just a writer living in our beautiful Wannaska region. But I will tell you, I feel the isolation. I feel the invisible fences separating neighbors and family. And if what I learned in my online journalism class is true, then there is no dialogue to be had, lest the fences get taller, longer, and spikier. If we cannot agree to be a community, to care for neighbor, how can there be peace, justice, or democracy? Without these essential ingredients, acts of service such as feeding the poor or sheltering the homeless become merely self-serving checks on a to-do list in hopes of making it to heaven.
So, no, I don't feel peace, I worry about justice, and I fret for democracy.
I don't want to form separate alliances; to choose sides. I want to attend my neighborhood barbecue and embrace my friends in kaffeeklatsch. I want to roll up my sleeves and serve in my community. I want truth, equality, liberty, and respect to be the standard operating procedure, not the exception. I want to make the world a better place.
Do you?
If we share this desire, let's meet for coffee. I'll bring the danish.
On This Day
Historic Highlights (credits)
2009 - Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines
Considered to be the worst attack on journalists in recorded history, the massacre occurred in the southern Philippines, when 57 citizens and journalists en route to register voters in Esmael Mangudadatu for the upcoming gubernatorial elections, were killed by gunmen and buried. 34 journalists were killed on the day.
2005 - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected as President of Liberia
The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner is also the first woman to be elected as head of state in an African country.
1976 - First person to dive 100 meters in the sea without breathing equipment
Frenchman Jacques Mayol, who is also sometimes known as Dolphin Man, was 49 years old at the time. He broke his own record 7 years later by diving 105 meters.
1963 - Doctor Who debuts on TV
The longest running science fiction TV show first aired with an episode called An Earthly Child on the British Broadcasting Channel. The show that has had 11 different actors play the lead role, follows the time-traveling adventures of Doctor Who, who uses the Time and Relative Dimension in Space or TARDIS to jump around in time and space.
1910 - Last person to be executed in Sweden
Johan Alfred Ander was convicted of murdering Victoria Hellsten during a robbery of a currency exchange. He was the only person in Swedish history to be executed using a guillotine. Capital punishment in the country was abolished for all peacetime crimes in 1921 and for all crimes in 1973.
Happy Birthday to You!🎶
1982 - Asafa Powell, Jamaican sprinter
1950 - Chuck Schumer, American politician
1859 - Billy the Kid, American criminal
912 - Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor
Remembering You
2014 - Marion Barry, American politician, 2nd Mayor of the District of Columbia
2006 - Alexander Litvinenko, Russian spy
2006 - Willie Pep, American boxer
1990 - Roald Dahl, English pilot, author, screenwriter
1923 - Urmuz, Romanian judge, author
Have some great conversation (even if they make you feel a little uncomfortable) and make it a great Saturday!
Kim
2006 - Alexander Litvinenko, Russian spy
2006 - Willie Pep, American boxer
1990 - Roald Dahl, English pilot, author, screenwriter
1923 - Urmuz, Romanian judge, author
Have some great conversation (even if they make you feel a little uncomfortable) and make it a great Saturday!
Kim
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