At noon yesterday, Rebecca Solnit convened a live online event entitled “The Way We Get Through This Is Together: Celebrating Community.” It was much more uplifting than watching the inauguration. You can view it here.
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/21/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-21st-2025/
on gun violence and public health
(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)
Today, the United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis. His advisory gives an overview of gun violence, contributing factors, and impacts on communities, children, adolescents, and families. It concludes with a section on taking a public health approach to reducing risk and preventing gun violence.
I’m grateful that Dr. Murthy has called out the scourge of firearm violence in the United States and framed it in the context of public health. While mass shootings are surely horrific and generate the most press coverage, most gun deaths and injuries in the US are either self-inflicted or among families/communities. The trauma they cause lasts for years. It is very much in the interests of public health to work to avert as many instances of gun violence as possible.
One of the criteria I use in evaluating candidates is their views and record on gun safety and violence reduction. Two years ago today, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which has increased prosecution for gun trafficking, made more firearm sales subject to background checks, and funded community safety programs and red flag law initiatives. President Biden favors further tightening of background checks and a ban on civilian ownership of military-style assault weapons. By contrast, Donald Trump spoke at the National Rifle Association convention in May and promised to roll back any of the Biden administration initiatives on guns.
It is also important to look at the views about guns expressed by candidates for Congress, given that national legislation is the clearest way to protect people and communities. The Supreme Court has overturned executive orders and state level laws that were meant to promote gun safety but national law is likely to be more durable.
In a first for a presidential candidate, due to his 34-count felony conviction in New York, Trump’s firearms license has been revoked. This would stay in effect during any appeals process. Of course, as a former president, the Secret Service protects him at all times. Still, I find it sobering that he is legally barred from owning a gun. If he is not trustworthy enough to own a gun, how could he be trustworthy enough to decide important matters about public safety – or anything else?
Another (small) milestone!
I just noticed that I have 1,900 followers for Top of JC’s Mind. Yay!
I suppose that is a small number for a blog of ten years but I am notoriously averse to checking stats, doing publicity, blogging on a schedule, etc. so I’m taking it as a win.
Of course, I realize that some of my followers have read exactly one post, hit the follow button, and never returned – which is fine because there are thousands upon thousands of blogs and very limited time for browsing and reading – but I especially cherish those of you who visit on a regular basis, like posts, write comments, or just send good vibes in my direction.
Life is complicated and I appreciate being (a tiny) part of the blogging community. I also like that I am able to write about whatever is on my mind. Well, at least, some fraction of what is on my mind because my mind is a busy place without an off switch. It helps to get thoughts organized and onto the screen.
And, if you are reading this post and would like to be follower 1,901 or 1,902 or whatever, welcome and thank you!
For the tenth time, Linda G. Hill of Life in Progress is hosting Just Jot It January! She invites all bloggers to participate in the challenge to post every day in January and link back to her blog so we can easily find participants’ posts. The rules, though, are flexible, so you may join in whenever you like with whatever you like (although there are some extra precautions to take if your post is not G-rated). Linda will be posting prompts but their use is optional. I tend to do my own thing, unless a certain prompt really strikes me. Others (the vast majority) faithfully use the prompts for their posts.
Thanks, Linda, for the opportunity to welcome the new year with daily posts! Come, All, and join the fun!
It’s important to me to create.
These days, I create poems. I create posts here at Top of JC’s Mind.
I also express myself creatively in less obvious ways. Through cooking. Through taking photos (on occasion. I’m not one to be constantly photographing.) In conversation. While singing. In correspondence. In my own thoughts as I’m puzzling through a complex situation and trying to find options.
I love my role in creating my family.
I also love being part of creating community, whether that is on a small, local level or something much broader, like the global community working on climate change. Even though I am a very, very tiny part of such a large community, I realize that my creativity and energy are adding to the effort.
An aspect of creativity that was very important to me as a young adult was writing music. That part of my creative life was lost to me in 2005 when we went through a crisis at my Catholic parish that fractured my relationship with it and my music ministry. Because I wrote music for them, my impetus to use my creativity to write music also broke. I think that rupture may be part of the reason I turned to poetry as a means of creative expression. That artistic energy needed somewhere to go.
Will I eventually return to writing music? At this point, I don’t anticipate that happening.
But creativity is often surprising and unpredictable and wondrous and glorious, so…
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “create.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-11-2023/
Over the weekend, my alma mater, Smith College, inaugurated Sarah Willie-LeBreton as their twelfth president in a joy-filled celebration.
For those of you who may not be familiar, Smith was established in 1871 in Northampton, Massachusetts as a women’s college that would provide an education for women equal to that which had long been available to men. It has continued that mission through the years and has in recent decades worked diligently to make a Smith education possible to promising students in underserved communities, such as those who are the first generation in their family to seek higher education. For example, it has eliminated student loans from its financial aid packages and gives grants to students in need to help them obtain essential items like computers.
I was a Smith student during the tenure of the first woman to be Smith president, Jill Kerr Conway (1975-85). We affectionately referred to her as “Jill” although we would always have addressed her as President Conway in person. It felt right to me to hear an alumna during the inauguration refer to Dr. Willie-LeBreton as “President Sarah” so that is how I am thinking of her now.
President Sarah is a sociologist, a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), a Black woman, and an experienced educator and administrator. She exudes joy and elicits it in others. Her official inauguration, coming several months into her tenure as president, was a joyous celebration of the history and heritage of President Sarah and of Smith College and how they are entwined as a community for the present and the future. I loved the greetings and involvement of other college presidents, who were so welcoming of President Sarah in their remarks. I especially appreciated the video appearance of Ruth Simmons, who was Smith’s first Black president – until she was stolen recruited by Brown University to become the first Black president of an Ivy League institution.
President Sarah’s inaugural address was impressive. I appreciated her strong support for liberal arts education. She emphasized how our knowledge must be in conjunction with our values. She says:
We are at our peril when we teach rote memorization without collaborative problem-solving and when we encourage the fusion of identity with grades, rather than with what challenges students and brings them joy. We are at our peril when we nurture cleverness without providing the opportunities to consult our moral compass, without providing opportunities to do for and with others. The liberal arts education we provide is the perfect antidote to the division, threats to democracy, diminishing of rights and freedoms, violence, and natural catastrophes to which we wake up on a daily basis.
(The inauguration ceremony is available online here; President Sarah’s remarks begin at the 1:12 mark.)
I would have loved to attend in person, but, like many alumnae, could only watch virtually. Smith did a good job of including us, even though we couldn’t be there physically. One way that they did this was to invite us to send a photo and caption of where we find joy. The photos were assembled into an interactive mosaic. The mosaic is searchable by name, class year, or key word to find specific photos in the mosaic. I sent a photo of my granddaughters, ABC and JG, heading out on their new school year. I’m honored to have them represented as we all share and, in so doing, multiply our joy.
Congratulations, President Sarah! I look forward to years of connection, love, commitment, and joy as a continuing, if geographically distant, part of the Smith family.
(Photo is of my first and most enduring Smith friend, my roommate Mary, and me, on tour with the Smith Alumnae Chorus in Slovenia in 2019.)
For the first time since 1912, IBM (International Business Machines) does not have a physical footprint in Endicott, New York.
Broome County is the birthplace of IBM, which formed in Endicott as the Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company in 1911. It changed its name to International Business Machines in 1924.
For many decades, under the leadership of legendary CEOs Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Jr., Endicott maintained a special place within the international corporation, employing thousands of people with several blocks of buildings downtown. They were a huge presence in the community, donating to charitable organizations, organizing volunteer activities, and providing recreation and education for their employees and their families. There were generations of people who worked for the company, which had an ethos of respect and care for their employees and the greater community. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s, IBM did not lay off workers. The loyalty IBM showed to its workers was returned and there were many families who had multiple members across generations who were IBM employees. Even when IBM headquarters moved elsewhere, Endicott was honored as the birthplace of the company. There was even a company museum on site.
When my spouse B joined IBM in 1989, many of the IBM traditions were still in place but that was about to change. IBM had for decades chosen CEOs from within the company but in 1993 hired Louis Gerstner who massively changed the corporate culture, with layoffs and the attitude that employees were expenses to be cut rather than the expertise that allowed IBM to have products to sell. In 2002, IBM sold the Endicott campus, renting back some space from the new owners, which eventually was whittled down to one, nondescript building.
In March 2020, due to the COVID pandemic, IBM closed access to the building and many months of working from home began. This relaxed somewhat over time and this January, employees began working three days/week in the office and the other two from home. B and his team all came in on the same three days to facilitate collaboration. They also enjoyed lunches together, often taking walks afterward, as they had pre-pandemic.
This spring, though, IBM announced their decision not to renew the lease on the building and not to seek another physical site, ending 112 years in Endicott. The employees remaining, many of whom have over thirty years of experience, will go back to working from home until they retire.
Yesterday, August 31, 2023, was the last day.
B and his team were there working, left their now-empty offices, and turned in their keys.
It’s sad for us and for the community to lose what had been such an integral part of life here, although it has been a long, slow, painful bleed. Some of the old IBM buildings have been renovated and are in use but a number of them are now condemned and awaiting demolition. The good news is that Endicott is being re-cast as a renewable technology/battery hub. There are plans for a gigafactory to make batteries for EVs and such as part of the Triple Cities Innovation Corridor, for which Endicott is the advanced manufacturing hub.
The irony is, of course, that IBM was doing advanced manufacturing on the site for decades and now won’t be onsite for this new era.
One of the buildings that I hope will remain as a monument is the North Street Clocktower building, which is emblazoned on the cake at the beginning of this post. It contains the motto THINK carved into the stone.
A good reminder anytime.
As one of the original members of the Boiler House Poets Collective, I’m thrilled to share an interview that Devon Ellington did with some of our members for The Rumpus. (I realize I threw an inordinate amount of links in that sentence; the “interview” link will open the article in a new tab.)
When Devon contacted us with interview questions, it was a pleasant and energizing surprise. Email messages and reminiscences flew among us. It was fun for those of us who are “originals” to fill in some of the history for people who have joined more recently.
It also highlighted the strength of being a collective in that we can retain our core identity while incorporating new members. At this fall’s residency, for the first time, “originals” will be in the minority. I admit to anticipatory sadness at missing seeing so many of my BHPC poet-friends, but I’m excited to add to our ranks as we continue to grow as artists and as community.
I hope you enjoy the article and want to explore more about BHPC. You can check out our inaugural reading in the Boiler House at MASS MoCA and more under the Collaborative Projects tab.
Joy shared, twice the gain; sorrow shared, half the pain.
Swedish proverb (most likely)
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/02/22/one-liner-wednesday-icy-nature/
This is a sobering weekend here in the United States.
The country is reeling from at least 49 mass shootings this month, as recorded by the Gun Violence Archive. I have to say “at least” because it could be more by the time I hit publish. This is in addition to all the shooting incidents with less than four victims and all the self-inflicted shootings, sometimes accidental but, sadly, most often deliberate. In the US, suicides have, for many years, constituted the majority of gun deaths. (If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or any other mental health crisis, please reach out for help. In the US, you can call or text 988 or visit this website: https://988lifeline.org/ any day/any time.)
As I’ve written about before, the United States needs to deal with gun safety issues, especially when it comes to military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, gun trafficking, poor licensing and training requirements in some states, and lack of comprehensive universal background checks. We need to vastly improve access to mental health care, on both humanitarian and violence-prevention grounds.
One of the stories that illustrates this need is the shooting of a first-grade teacher in Newport News, Virginia by one of her six-year-old students. She was seriously wounded but has survived. The boy was known to have been diagnosed with what has been termed by his family as an “acute disability” and is now being treated in a hospital. While this is a particularly stark example, many shootings, including mass shootings and suicides, are linked to mental health problems.
While guns are highly visible as a means of violence, videos released to the media on Friday illustrate that other means can be just as severe in causing injury, trauma, and death.
Security camera and police body camera footage showed the October 2022 break-in at the California home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the subsequent attack on her husband, Paul, with a hammer. He was severely injured and is continuing his recovery. Besides being personal, this was also an act of political violence.
The country is also reacting to the shocking video of the police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, which led to his death in the hospital three days later. Five officers were fired soon after the beating and have just been charged with several counts, including second degree murder. Two additional officers have been suspended while the investigation continues. Yesterday, the Memphis Police Department announced that the Scorpion Unit that had included the officers who carried out the attack has been permanently disbanded. The public gatherings in the wake of this horror have been almost exclusively non-violent, as Tyre’s family has urged.
Sadly, there are a vocal few who use their power in the media to sow confusion – or even show support for those who perpetrate violence. Even with the release of the video, there were some still insinuating that Paul Pelosi knew his attacker and invited him into his home. Mind you, there is video of the attacker repeatedly bashing a glass door with a hammer in the middle of the night but these conspiracy-theory followers don’t let facts get in the way of their twisted beliefs. In so doing, they multiply the violence and harm.
What can we do?
Some of the things I try to do are live a non-violent life, seek out facts and relay them accurately, respectfully enter into dialogue, and advocate for public policy to reduce violence. Even though I am only one person, I know there are millions of others doing the same.
My hope is that more people will realize that both victims and perpetrators of violence could be their own family member, friend, or neighbor.
Each one deserving of care and concern.
The only way we can stop the violence is together.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/29/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-28th-2023/.
Joanne Corey 