UnCUT/VOICES Press

30/10/2024

With (l to r) Mame Toucouleur MBaye, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Senegal in Los Angeles; Dr. Tobe Levin von Gleichen; Dr. Leyle Hussein OBE; Alimatu Dimonekene MBE, Comfort Momoh MBE; Nejma Sayeh; Ani Zonneveld

29/10/2024

"How can the US government work better to support NGO's aiming to end FGM?" With this question Senior Trial Attorney Susan Masling, Human Rights and Special Prosecutions section of the U.S. Department of Justice, opened the first part of a two-day meeting that drew scores of activists, scholars, writers, cineastes, journalists, and, most important, survivors of FGM to George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, DC, on 28 - 29 October 2024. The principal take-away from Day 1: the ablation of girls' genitalia remains, despite some gains, a (literally) burning issue.

27/10/2024

Once again sipping my strong coontinental black coffee in Frankfurt's Lufthansa Lounge, on route to the "Global Collaboration to End FGM Conference" at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. Opportunities to join others in ending FGM have been ample in recent days. Following a meeting of the Alumnae Network of Harvard Women in Geneva, focusing on outreach in Africa, I visited London and Oxford, consulting in the British capital with author Hilary Burrage and then honing plans inOxford for our December 9th colloquium at Lady Margaret Hall with Dr. Maria Jaschok and Saarrah Ray, pictured below. Anyone interested in attending, please note the entry before this one or simply email me, [email protected]

25/10/2024

Don't miss Bruce Springhsteen and Tyler Perry -- magnificent! -- assuring you that a vote for Harris and Walz will soothe your conscience.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/24/bruce-springsteen-trump-american-tyrant-harris-georgia-rally?utm_term=671b1b451ed98c28d592afb40bcf8c8c&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

18/10/2024

As the countdown continues, I'm increasingly concerned that US voters choose wisely, and my friends know what that means. To reinforce the wisdom of choosing BLUE, here's Heather Cox Richardson again with impeccable observations.

"When he took office in January 2021, with democracy under siege from autocratic governments abroad and an authoritarian movement at home, President Joe Biden set out to prove that democracy could deliver for the ordinary people who had lost faith in it. The click-to-cancel rule is an illustration of an obvious and long-overdue protection, but it is only one of many ways—$35 insulin, new bridges, loan forgiveness, higher wages, good jobs—in which policies designed to benefit ordinary people have demonstrated that a democratic government can improve lives.

When Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, she noted that the administration “has driven a historic economic recovery” with strong growth, very low unemployment rates, and inflation returning to normal. Now it is focused on lowering costs for families and expanding the economy while reducing inequality. That strong economy at home is helping to power the global economy, Yellen noted, and the U.S. has been working to strengthen that economy by reinforcing global policies, investments, and institutions that reinforce economic stability.

'Over the past four years, the world has been through a lot', Yellen said, 'from a once-in-a-century pandemic, to the largest land war in Europe since World War II, to increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters. This has only underlined that we are all in it together. America’s economic well-being depends on the world’s, and America’s economic leadership is key to global prosperity and security'. She warned against isolationism that would undermine such prosperity both at home and abroad."

I'm in Geneva to celebrate the extension to Africa of the Alumnae Network of Harvard Women that took place yesterday at World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters. Discussing the theme "Unity without U niformity," we enjoyed a presentation plus Q & A by the Director General, Dr. Ngozi Okongo-Iweala, former Finance Minister of Nigeria. Here she is duly honored ...

16/10/2024

Good friends have suggested that to increase the likelihood of Kamala's win, focusing on the negativity associated with the 'other' side is less helpful than emphasizing policy benefits she promises. But in today's contribution by Heather Cox Richardson, one dire paragraph warns with urgency that we heed the threats. She wrote:

"Like Roberts, Vance wants to dismantle the secular state. He wants to replace that state with a Christian nationalism that enforces what he considers traditional values: an end to immigration—hence the lies about the legal Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio—and an end to LGBTQ+ rights. He supports abortion bans and the establishment of a patriarchy in which women function as wives and mothers even if it means staying in abusive marriages. Vance insists this social structure will be more fulfilling for women than becoming 'childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made'.“

15/10/2024

If ballots may be sent electronically, it's not too late to VOTE for Kamala and Walz. A blue vote translates to intelligent, honest, well-planned humanitarian policies that transcend the (potentially lethal) chaos otherwise sure to follow. ... And as far as economic well-being is concerned, just look at the numbers: inflation down, jobs up, stock market hitting record highs, immigration management improving. (And for the nonce, as our English teacher Mr. Lawyer used to say, NOBODY supports 'open borders', nor do a certain candidate's accusations against a successful PROSECUTOR -- for heaven's sake -- hold water. Lenient she is NOT. And please fact check this: the bi-partisan border bill that would have satisfied both sides was quashed by a phone call from #45 to the Speaker of the House, dictating no action so that the wound could fester and serve, despite the human suffering, as an electoral campaign 'talking point'! I'm sure most of you reading this are as outraged as I am, one difference being that, unlike me, you aren't daily confronted by bomb scars, that is, those traces of war that confront pedestrians at every turn in most major German cities. When we shout our warnings against voting for an idolator of fascists, we know where that hostility, insincerity, and greed can lead...

11/10/2024

The highly respected magazine _The Atlantic_ endoreses Harris!

With my gratitue once againt to Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, I quote:

"Campaign staffer Victor Shi noted that, based on averages, Harris’s appearance on Call Her Daddy reached 5 million people, The View, 2.45 million; Howard Stern, 10 million; and Stephen Colbert, 3.2 million—in all, 25 million or more people that traditional media do not reach. (Shi also called attention to the fact that on October 9, the campaign live streamed an Arizona rally by Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz on the World of Warcraft Twitch stream.)

The Atlantic nodded to the free thought on which the magazine was founded in 1857 when it came out strongly for Harris today. It is endorsing Harris, it said, because she “respects the law and the Constitution. She believes in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all Americans. She’s untainted by corruption, let alone a felony record or a history of sexual assault. She doesn’t embarrass her compatriots with her language and behavior, or pit them against one another. She doesn’t curry favor with dictators. She won’t abuse the power of the highest office in order to keep it. She believes in democracy. These, and not any specific policy positions, are the reasons The Atlantic is endorsing her.”

11/10/2024

A friend, Professor PIer Gabrielle Foreman who appeared at a Nashville conference with me more than twenty years ago, and a brilliant writer, offers this moving and hopefully convincing rationale for favoring Harris/Walz at the polls ... Please read and vote BLUE.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/palins-extra-chromosome-c_b_125286?fbclid=IwY2xjawF1xWZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHS7Bh9DBgUbgfhAnvszTEMhRo0EZdZFQ8YMl_xZaU2TR8KGSHbwzogCC0Q_aem_cNBLNPWOdF-COwoS12UKAg

I couldn't think or pray away the fact that no compromise, no mother's plea, no divine or medical intervention would make our baby live. In the end, the right to choose helped. I respect Sarah Palin's choice, but neither it, nor her circumstances, were mine.

08/10/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSI_XbF-Yvs

In a video released to social media, musical legend Bruce Springsteen endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for President.Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain...

08/10/2024

Our nephew Tassilo, the bow-tied gentleman in the middle, married Ching (originally from Taiwan, and now, like her husband, a banker in Frankfurt). They actually tied the knot in Denmark in 2023 on my anniversary, December 17, so the couple is especially dear. The raincheck for a wedding party was made good on October 5, delighting us with a Michelin-starred dinner. The nephew to my left, Taddeo, who flew in from the USA, resides in the swing state of Pennsylvania. How gratifying that he and his wife -- whom work prevented from joining us -- support Kamala, as I urge you to do, too. A colleague and friend of mine, Dr. Pier Gabrielle Foreman, just posted an early essay she'd published about the urgency of guaranteeing reproductive rights, i.e., given the abhorrent, sexist views of the current Republican ticket, women's suffering will be amplified, should the Red win ... So choose kindness, please, and vote BLUE.

06/10/2024

I'm harvesting words of wisdom whenever they float by ...

05/10/2024

Because good friends may base their votes primarily on economics, let me be reassuring. Here I quote Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, who said in an interview (access at https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/04/economy/us-jobs-report-september-final/index.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email )

“'The labor market is strong. ... When we compare it to four years ago, during the pandemic, it’s clearly much stronger; but even when you compare it to 2019, before the pandemic began. Real wage growth is up, a lot of jobs have been added'.

"Average hourly earnings grew 0.4% for the month, bringing the annual rate up to 4% from 3.9% seen in August, according to Friday’s report.

"Through September, the US has added an average of 199,000 jobs per month, which is below the 251,083 jobs added on average last year but still outpaces pre-pandemic gains, BLS data shows. The US also remains in a period of historic employment expansion: With September’s gains, the economy has seen positive job growth for 45 months, matching the fourth-longest streak on record.

"While people, by and large, are more likely to have a job and more likely to have higher wages, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still pain in the labor market or within household finances, Gould said. But the trajectory has been one of improvement, she noted."

And you, too, please take note and vote BLUE.

“Nominal wages have been rising faster than inflation for at least 16 months in a row now,” she said. “When you compare back before that inflation spike, back to 2019, real wages are up and their purchasing power is up, so living standards are increasing.”

US job growth surged in September, blowing past expectations and providing solid reassurance for the ongoing stability of the labor market.

03/10/2024

"Now go out and get everybody to the polls," said Heather Cox RIchardson, concluding her appearance on Cap Times Idea Fest 2024. EXCELLENT ADVICE (provided of course that you save our democracy by voting BLUE).

Heather Cox Richardson is a Boston College history professor whose daily digital essays (“Letters from an American”) that place current political events into...

02/10/2024

Grateful to Taylor Swift for encouraging her well-deserved cohorts of Swifties to cast their blue votes for Kamala!

30/07/2023

Yesterday with Dr. Pierrette Herzberger-Fofana, Member of the European Parliament, and Dr. Shula Reinharz, founder of the Hadassah Brandeis Institute for Women’s Studies in Erlangen to discuss Pierrette’s forthcoming book on FGM in Germany and on route to Gunzenhausen where Shula’s father was born, forced to flee, and survived hiding in Holland. The descendants of the exiled and persecuted were invited back to celebrate the town’s 1200th anniversary. Not a typo.

11/06/2023

“This is my great-grandma, Christina Levant Platt at age 100, weeding her garden. She was born into slavery. Her “owner” was a wife that taught my great grandma to read and write secretly, which was illegal and quite dangerous at that time for both of them. She learned to read the Bible.

She had 11 children, she lost two, one son was one of the first black attorneys in US. She sent the 4 boys to college in Boston. Exceptional in those days.

She passed 5yrs before I was born but I love her as if I knew her. Family tells me she would say “ I put prayers on my children’s children’s heads”.

This apparently worked💜

Around April 12, 1861, Christina was at the 1st battle of the CIVIL WAR, in Fort Sumter at Charleston Bay, South Carolina, working in the cotton fields.

She said “the sky was black as night” from cannonball fire. She saw a man decapitated by a cannonball.

She was the water girl for the other slaves as a young girl and “ the lookout” for the slaves in the fields for the approaching overseer on horseback as they secretly knelt and prayed for their freedom.

She would watch for the switching tail of the approaching horse and would alert the slaves to rise up and return to picking cotton before he saw them.

She eventually married a Native American from the Santee Tribe. John C, Platt.

After freedom, Christina insisted upon taking her children north as she knew they would not get a good education in the south, and that’s all she cared about. She died at age 101 in 1944, where she and her husband had built a home in Medfield, Massachusetts, the first black family to move there.

With great respect, I honor my great grandmother.
So much more I could say about this miraculous woman. She gave me much strength in my hard times.

Whenever I thought I was having a hard day, I would think of her and shrug it off.

Thank you for reading one story of millions. 💜💜''

-Brenda Russell