"An Army of Amazons"

Note: Sorry I forgot to post this Thursday. It was almost ready, too. I simply forgot. My bad.

The Women's March that took place worldwide (even in Antarctica) on Saturday was a true testament to its strength. The size of the crowds was enormous. It dwarfed the inauguration crowd and made President Trump angry. I probably had three dozen or more Facebook friends take place in a march, either in their home city or in Washington. That's the most I've seen for any political event. I want to tackle three criticisms of the Women's March real quick — two I don't buy and one I do — before making a historical comparison.

Criticism 1) I don't even know what it was about -- it didn't seem like any one thing! 

This one bugs me the most. I had about a half-dozen conservative female friends decide that because they personally didn't understand the Women's March, that it was pointless. If they didn't know what it was about, the causes are pretty easy to find. These complainers are right that it wasn't one cohesive, single issue. But it didn't have to be. There are numerous women's issues that need to be addressed, and leaving any one of them in the dust would have limited the scope and depth of the march. Issues included women's health treated the same as men's health, equal pay for equal work, the underrepresentation of women in Washington (though this has gotten incrementally better), pro-choice issues, the lack of justice for sexual assault victims, the fact a man who brags about sexual assault is sitting in the White House, and so on. It wasn't merely Trump-bashing, but there was some of that, too. It's a big tent. This is ignorant.

Criticism 2) They went too far! They don't speak for me!

First, as I understand these people, protests must be super polite, not obstruct traffic, not trample grass, must not have any one member do/say anything stupid, and not include idiots. That simply cannot be the case for marches consisting of 3 million people worldwide. However, as protests go, this was remarkably calm. Not a single arrest in Washington — remarkable. But I saw videos of celebrities delivering speeches passed around as "Can you believe the women's march stands for this?" Madonna and Ashley Judd come to mind. But characterizing a march this large about the actions of two celebrities is asinine. The thousands of marchers in Kansas City didn't hear Ashley Judd speak when they marched. Neither did almost all of the marchers elsewhere. And even if those celebrities or those marchers don't speak for you, they spoke for themselves. It was obvious that they didn't speak for you, since you weren't there. This is dismissive.

Criticism 3) This is an example of the partisan divide. Most of the rallies were in democratic-leaning cities and not in the Midwest; this is why Trump won. 

I wondered if this were true on Saturday, but the numbers bear it out. There were roughly 400-500K marchers in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. There were 400K marchers in NYC. Boston, Chicago and Seattle each had more than 110K people. St. Paul, MN, had nearly 100K people. Every one of those cities and states voted blue in November. The first state that voted red with a large march population was Madison, Wisc., which had about 87,500 marchers and was a narrow win for Trump. After that, it's Atlanta at 60,000 and then Austin, Texas, at 45,000. FiveThirtyEight pointed out that 80 percent of the marchers came in cities that voted for Clinton. Nothing about these marches seems to indicate that the electoral college would be any different. This is... true to an extent.

The historical comparison that came to mind first was one from my old Pittsburg days and a fascinating piece of history. On Dec. 11, 1921, 500 women, including mothers, grandmothers, daughters and sisters, crowded into the Franklin Miners Hall. Many of their male family members were miners, as the area produced nearly 1/3 of the country's coal at one point. They were upset over unfair labor practices, including unsafe working conditions, poor pay, long hours and discrimination. (Their men were already on strike.) They would organize a march of 3,000-6,000 women on the mines the next three mornings, armed with the American flag in front and no weapons (though they did carry red pepper to throw in the face of those undercutting the union). The marches gained national attention, with the New York Times calling the "An Army of Amazons." My old paper, right in the thick of it, called them "Militant Women," but noted there was little violence. (Note: The East Coast was very mad about the protests, and the Pittsburg area was among the most socialist in the country. Times have changed.) The governor sent in the state militia, who supposedly shot at the women's feet. They'd arrest 49 women and hold them on a four-times-higher-than-normal $750 bond for unlawful assembly, disturbing the peace and assault. The protesters wanted eight-hour work days (!), child labor laws, etc. Most of those things didn't happen immediately. It wasn't until 1938 that the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, enshrining most of the worker protections we know now (40-hour work week, minimum wage, ending child labor, and overtime rules). So although the Amazon Army didn't see a ton of immediate change, they were one of the first national sparks that led to a fire of reform a decade or so later.

The last surviving member of the marches, Eva Gartner, who had been carried as a baby by her mother near the front of the march, died roughly two years ago at age 93. She took part in a recreation of the march two years before her death. One other historical note: The leader of the Amazon Army was Slovenian-born Mary Skubitz, who spoke five languages (very important for the melting pot of immigrants involved). Her son, Joe Skubitz, who was 14 when the marches took place and learned to make bread the mornings she marched, would go on to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives for 16 years. He played a big part in passing most of our Black Lung laws and Mine Safety legislation. He died in 2000.

So what does this all teach me? First, protests are rarely celebrated in their own time. The term "Amazon Army" was not meant kindly. Second, even if nothing happens immediately, organizing is the first step to making change. Third, change takes time — years, if not decades. Saturday's Women's March is a good start, but it would be a shame if nothing comes of it. Fourth, 3 million people is nothing to sneeze at, but it seems there's a disconnect between the left-leaning bastions and their more rural sisters. That'll need to be addressed before national change becomes impossible to stop.

Humana/Aetna

This is probably the biggest story you haven't heard of, and I really want to give it proper space and time. I heard a bit of it on NPR and tried to find it on NBC News — no story, not even in the health section. I looked on CNN and couldn't find anything, not even in their health section. It's not on Fox News. It's on the New York Times and Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times — yet another reason to subscribe to a newspaper, since broadcast news isn't covering it..

Here's the recap: Health insurance company Aetna wanted to buy fellow health insurance company Humana. The Obama administration, already dealing with another, larger health insurance merger between Cigna and Anthem, made moves to block the Aetna-Humana merger on antitrust grounds. This is where it gets bad: Aetna made it clear to the Obama administration that they would pull out of the Obamacare exchanges if the deal were not approved — not because of costs. When the administration said no, they pulled out anyway, claiming the costs were too much in this story just five months ago. Aetna pulling out of Obamacare's exchanges has been a major Republican talking point ever since. However, they pulled out of many profitable states and counties just to thumb their nose at the Obama Administration.

Even shorter: Aetna pulled out of the Obamacare exchanges because of spite — not cost — because the Obama administration fought them on a huge merger. Or, as U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said: "Aetna tried to leverage its participation in the exchanges for favorable treatment from DOJ regarding the proposed merger." He also found that Aetna tried to hide this decision-making process by using phone calls (no paper records of what was said) instead of emails, and abusing attorney-client privilege (not public) bordering on "malfeasance."

Judge Bates has blocked the $37 billion acquisition of Humana by Aetna on antitrust grounds, but the Obamacare blackmail was a key part in his decision making. Truly despicable actions by Aetna.

Alternative Facts

Much has been said already about the start of the Trump Administration, but it's off to a rocky start with the press. First, Trump's Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that "That was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period." It was demonstrably false by anyone who covers these things, including my former OU colleague (now Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the LA Times) Hailey Branson-Potts here here here and here. It's been mocked all over, including Saturday Night Live, who noted that when you have to add "period" to the end of a sentence, it usually means you're lying (Example: "I'm a doctor, period."). On Monday, he'd add: "Our intention is never to lie to you."

Perhaps the audacity of that claim and its easy-to-disprove nature left Trump Advisor Kellyanne Conway on the defensive, but she doubled down on the claim on Sunday morning in an interview with Chuck Todd, claiming that Spicer was presenting "Alternative facts." To his credit, Chuck Todd immediately called her on that, saying "Alternative facts aren't facts; they're falsehoods." It was a powerful moment of journalism, I thought, of a journalist refusing to just go along with the answers. The "alternative facts" has found its way into the last few days of pop culture. Several sports teams have started presenting outrageous "alternative facts" about their teams as a joke. NBA TV even did an "alternative stats" of the Lakers-Mavericks game showing the Lakers winning with a team of their all-time all-stars instead of the real stats of losing by a record margin.

But what's not had the same amount of attention was the rest of Conway's response. Later in the interview, Todd returned to the question of why Spicer felt he had to lie about crowd size. Conway's answer spoke volumes about this administration's squelching of journalism: "Your job is not to call things ridiculous that are said by our press secretary and our president. That's not your job." After further being pressed by Todd, she said to "...think about what you just said to your viewers. That's why we felt compelled to go out and clear the air and put alternative facts out there." Conway is trying to get Todd to just go along with what the president/press secretary say. To her, journalism's job is to be the administration's mouthpiece/puppets.

Summary Judgments

The federal government just paid $24 million to 100 black Secret Service agents as a settlement. Why? They were routinely passed over for promotion in favor of less-qualified white Secret Service agents. While a settlement usually includes no admission of guilt, it also is a "I don't want to take this to the courts to prove I'm innocent." It's the purest example of "make this story go away please."  •  •  •  I have seen as many of my liberal friends upset over comments by an NBC writer about Barron Trump as conservative friends. It's not a one-sided issue, even though my conservative friends seem to think so. Kids are off limits, unless they bring attention to themselves. Barron did no such thing. But all this hoopla over it? It was dealt with quickly and properly on the next business day and everyone was equally upset. Where's the fire?  •  •  •  Scary stuff from Minnesota, where the governor collapsed while delivering the State of the State. He's OK and this has happened before, but scary nonetheless. One thing I found interesting about the journalism in that linked story: There's no mention of his party affiliation. That's because party affiliation isn't important when it comes to health.  •  •  •  An oral history of an Internet cartoon I spent a lot of time watching when I was younger? Yes, please. More about Homestar Runner and Strong Bad. More Teen Girl Squad (which matches up surprisingly well with the Bennet daughters in Pride and Prejudice).  •  •  •  I ran three times last week before taking a few days off for having a cold/it being cold reasons. I at least have a head light now, so I won't fall anymore. I'm still sore!  •  •  •  We've been playing a lot of hide and seek lately, which amounts to me hiding and the kids counting to 10 (educational!) before going to look for me. When they find me, Evie usually says "I scared you," which is usually right if you reverse the pronouns. But it always amuses us when Evie wants to hide. She always picks the same spot (by the front door) and giggles when we get to 10. One time, we said "Let's go look for Evie!" And she responded, "That's me!" giving away her location. It's adorable and I love it.