AIFF2024: The Stranger's Case Was Powerful - Thursday Schedule [Video Added]

 It was a full house at the E Street Theater Wednesday night for The Strangers' Case.  The film is packaged with five chapters:  The Doctor; The Soldier; The Smuggler; The Poet; and The Captain.  They all converge in this story that starts out (after an opening scene in a Chicago hospital) in a hospital in Aleppo, Syria.  The doctor goes home to a birthday party and a bomb blast.  The soldier is upset when ordered to shoot a group of men accused of being terrorists, because it include a boy who wrote graffiti.  The smuggler sells spots on a boat from Turkey to Greece, cash only, no guarantees.  The poet is a refugee who is trying to get his family to Greece.  The captain is in the Greek Coast Guard who goes out everyday to look for and rescue boat people.  You can see the trailer in the previous post.

The only actor I knew was Omar Sy, the great French actor who's played in television series and many movies.  It was particularly poignant given that Assad's regime in Syria was overthrown just this week.  A film you should look out for.  

At the film was Ash Avildsen, whose own film, Queens of the Ring, plays tomorrow night.  I asked him for a quick intro to his film at after the showing of The Strangers' Case.  It's below.  At the end you can see his demonstration of appreciation for The Strangers' Case.

[I'll add the video tomorrow morning.  It's still uploading to Youtube and I need some sleep.DONE!]

I've seen so many really good films.  The documentaries are particularly strong this year, though The Strangers' Case is a narrative feature.  I'm hoping that having Omar Sy in the film will help it get wide distribution.  

Thursday's Schedule

9:00 AM: Sonic Storytelling: Music Licensing and Artist Collaboration in Film  Alaska Experience Theater

Moving to the E Street Theater now

10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Coffee Talk/Panel

12:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Doc Shorts #2

• The Collector – 15:00
• Tentsítewahkwe – 17:21
• Designed by Disaster – 19:52
• Broken Flight – 18:00
• Signal Fire: Towards Reconciliation – 30:00

And now to the Museum

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Female Filmmaker Showcase Shorts 

A decade after high school, three old classmates reconnect and reevaluate their lives while hiking a mountain in Alaska.

• Vessel – 17:44
• Derive – 18:38
• Yazidi Women: From Victims To Survivors – 7:06
• The Icefield: An Expedition Memoir – 26:46
• Sunflower Girl – 13:08
• Julian – 6:53

4:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Alaska Teen Media Institute Presents After-School Special – Event Tickets

7:00 PM – 9:00 PM: Alaskan Feature: Uphill 

There's not a lot out there about this film.  It seems pretty new.  TMDB has the bare minimum - but it includes the image I'm using, the actors, and a budget ($15,000).

The DuckDuckGo search engine offers this under Plex.

"Uphill (2024) release date is Thursday, December 12 starring Adam D Boyer, Victoria Summer Felix, Matthew Rush and directed by Adam D Boyer. A decade after high school, three old classmates reconnect and reevaluate their lives while hiking a mountain in Alaska."

It doesn't actually say that if you go to the Plex link.  But if it's true, this is the world premier in Anchorage this evening.  

All this was still at the Museum.  

Now we move over to the Bear Tooth.

5:30pm  Diving Into Darkness

Screenshot from Press Page Photo

If you've gone to any of the AIFF films, you've seen Jill Heinerth swimming underwater in dark caves, and telling us it's the closest thing she can think of to being on another planet.  Wikipedia tells us:

"Jill Heinerth (born 1965) is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer and film-maker.[4] She has made TV series for PBS, National Geographic Channel and the BBC, consulted on movies for directors including James Cameron, written several books and produced documentaries including We Are Water[5] and Ben's Vortex, about the disappearance of Ben McDaniel. . .

In 1998, Heinerth was part of the team that made the first 3D map of an underwater cave.[8]
Heinerth became the first person to dive the ice caves of Antarctica, penetrating further into an underwater cave system than any woman ever[5][dead link] In 2001, she was part of a team that explored ice caves of icebergs[9] where she and her then husband Paul Heinerth "discovered wondrous life and magical vistas" and experienced the calving of an iceberg, documented in the film Ice Island.[10]"

The AIFF2024 program tells us that the 2024 Explorer's Achievement Award goes to Diving into the Darkness.   This is a new award, but I heard tonight that Jill Heinerth is in Anchorage and will be at the screening to receive the award.  

I'm conflicted over whether I should post the trailer here, just because it's been played before every single film/program I've been to at this festival.  Instead, here's a link to the film's website and you can go watch it yourself.  If you haven't seen the trailer, you should.  

Here's from the director's statement:

As our friendship deepened, I discovered that Jill's story was profoundly deep, both literally and figuratively, and how the personal side of her story was immensely captivating. Yet, this remarkable story had largely remained confined to short video formats. Given my unique position at the intersection of the filmmaking and diving realms, I found the call to tell her story irresistible. What followed was a year of intense collaboration, a creative partnership that would prove invaluable as we tackled the herculean challenges of principal photography.

I had no intention of being a passive observer while my colleagues risked their lives to capture the story on film, especially when it came to the underwater sequences. So I undertook the gruelling journey of

becoming a certified cave diver on a rebreather, something which had never been done before amongst

film directors. I descended alongside the cast and crew into the depths of the caves, well beyond the reach of recreational divers. It was an arduous yet exhilarating experience to dive, work, and learn alongside some of the world's most renowned cave divers. Despite the monumental difficulties and inherent risks in directing a crew of cave divers, I would embark on this adventure again without hesitation.

8:00 pm (still at the Bear Tooth)  Queen of the Ring 

From Collider:

"From writer/director Ash Avildsen and based on the book by Jeff Leen, Queen of the Ring tells the incredible true story of Mildred Burke (Emily Bett Rickards), a single mother from a small town who went on to become the first million-dollar female athlete in world history. Mildred was a woman determined to make a name for herself as a female wrestler at a time when it was illegal across most of the United States, becoming a three-time women’s world champion from the 1930s through the 1950s despite all the challenges. At the same time, her personal life was not without its challenges, especially once she meets promoter Billy Wolfe (Josh Lucas), with whom she falls in love, gets married, becomes aware that he’s cheating on her with several of the other female wrestlers on his roster, and decides to stay married as a business arrangement, so that she doesn’t get screwed out of her own money. Through everything, she perseveres, becoming a pioneer in the sport that she loved. . .

"How did this project come your way? Was this just an audition that came up?

RICKARDS: I received the script in my inbox. There was no audition, just a talk with (writer/director) Ash [Avildsen] and questions about whether I had wrestled. The answer was no. And how comfortable I was with physicality, which was very comfortable. I felt very capable of this woman. I’m really grateful that Ash sent me and gave me this opportunity because I wouldn’t have known who this woman was. And I had never gotten to go under such a physical transformation for a character before, one that was not only energetic, but had to have the body structure to find the energy. It has really opened up my eyes, in terms of my process and acting. It just makes me hungry for more. It’s a cycle."

 Grammar note:  I wasn't sure where the apostrophe should go in The Strangers' Case.  Before or after the final s?  I checked the program and put it before the final s.  But that makes it singular, which, after seeing the movie didn't make sense.  There were a lot of 'strangers.'  And I see now that the trailer spells it Strangers'.  So I've fixed it.

The program also misled me on this last film.  The title in the program is Queen of the Ring.  But the title on the trailer is Queens of the Ring.  Colider also has it singular. So I've changed it where I can find it, but it takes too long for me to upload video to YouTube to change it on the video tonight. 

[Update: Dec. 12, 2024, 11:52pm:  I saw Queen of the Ring tonight, and the title on the film was QUEEN, no S.  So I've changed what I could. Editing the video and uploading it again will take a bit more time.  Also, I left an 'l' out of Ash Avildsen's name.  But I've fixed that too.]

 [ACS has been promising fiber optic for two years now, but until then I'm stuck with painfully slow internet.]

AIFF2023: Saturday Dec. 2: Lots of Shorts, Trip to Argentina

 SATURDAY - December 2, 2023  - Anchorage International Film Festival

BEAR TOOTH  - NOON

4  Shorts - Made in Alaska - view list here.

BEAR TOOTH - 3pm

Documentary Narrative:  Citizen Sleuth

SlashFilm says:

"'Citizen Sleuth' is a darkly funny, engaging, and thrilling documentary about a true crime podcast that has all the fascinating twists and turns of true crime, while flipping the script and focusing on the voice behind the podcast. The documentary chronicles not a tragic death, but the rise and fall of a podcast dedicated to it, and the complicated ways its host became trapped in her own narrative."

This is 82 minutes, so there should be plenty of time to get to the Museum for the rest of the films starting at 5pm.

ANCHORAGE MUSEUM - 5pm

7 Shorts - "Love Me" Program   See the list here.

ANCHORAGE MUSEUM - 7pm  *This program has a warning:  18 and over only.

6 Shorts - "Do We Still Need Feminism" Program  See the list here.

ANCHORAGE MUSEUM - 9pm  

Feature Narrative - Ariel Back To Buenos Aires 

From the film's website: 

"ARIEL BACK TO BUENOS AIRES follows the tumultuous siblings Davie and Diana Vega as they return to Argentina, country of their birth and learn to dance tango. They uncover secrets about their family history that call into question everything they hold to be true, but that free Davie from his existential misery. A story of how the past holds us in its embrace – only by engaging with it can we find freedom. A lacerating love letter to the city of Buenos Aires."

The website says it is also streaming on Apple TV.  It's won a number of awards at film festivals this year.  

 

Anchorage Rallies In Protest of Supreme Court Election Decision

This afternoon, people gathered at the Parkstrip and marched to the Anchorage Town Square to protest Friday's Supreme Court decision on abortion.  My rough estimate of the crowd is 400-600.  

Observations:  The crowd was younger than the demonstration on May 8, 2022 when the decision was leaked.  The organizers also talked a lot about voting this time, which was missing at the previous demonstration.  Including voting no on whether Alaska should have a constitutional convention.  (The constitution requires such a vote every ten years.)  Conservatives want such a convention to do (at least) two things:

1. Remove the right to privacy in the constitution 
2. Change how judges are selected in Alaska (by a non-partisan commission which evaluates people applying for judgeships by reviewing surveys of judges, attorneys, juries, court employees, and court watchers.  Top candidates are passed on to the Governor to choose from.

During the 1960's the protesting against the Vietnam war was invigorated by the fact that all 18 year old men had to register for the draft and stood a decent chance of being sent to Vietnam to fight.  All their friends and family had a very personal interest in the war ending.  

Today's young folks have been give an equally important stake in fighting Dobbs v. Jackson's Women's Health Organization.  This time it's all women of child bearing age who are on the line, but since women don't need an abortion unless a man has been involved, men too have a vital stake.  And if the Vietnam War protests are any predictor, the people fighting to make abortions legal again aren't going away. 

Here are some photos from today's protest.

1927 Buck v. Bell

Facts of the case

Carrie Buck was a "feeble minded woman" who was committed to a state mental institution. Her condition had been present in her family for the last three generations. A Virginia law allowed for the sexual sterilization of inmates of institutions to promote the "health of the patient and the welfare of society." Before the procedure could be performed, however, a hearing was required to determine whether or not the operation was a wise thing to do.

Question

Did the Virginia statute which authorized sterilization deny Buck the right to due process of the law and the equal protection of the laws as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment?

Conclusion

The Court found that the statute did not violate the Constitution. Justice Holmes made clear that Buck's challenge was not upon the medical procedure involved but on the process of the substantive law. Since sterilization could not occur until a proper hearing had occurred (at which the patient and a guardian could be present) and after the Circuit Court of the County and the Supreme Court of Appeals had reviewed the case, if so requested by the patient. Only after "months of observation" could the operation take place. That was enough to satisfy the Court that there was no Constitutional violation. Citing the best interests of the state, Justice Holmes affirmed the value of a law like Virginia's in order to prevent the nation from "being swamped with incompetence . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)

Argued March 29-30, 1965

Decided June 7, 1965

Syllabus

Appellants, the Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut, and its medical director, a licensed physician, were convicted as accessories for giving married persons information and medical advice on how to prevent conception and, following examination, prescribing a contraceptive device or material for the wife's use. A Connecticut statute makes it a crime for any person to use any drug or article to prevent conception. Appellants claimed that the accessory statute, as applied, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. An intermediate appellate court and the State's highest court affirmed the judgment.

Held:

1. Appellants have standing to assert the constitutional rights of the married people. Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44, distinguished. P. 381 U. S. 481.

2. The Connecticut statute forbidding use of contraceptives violates the right of marital privacy which is within the penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights. Pp. 381 U. S. 481-486.

Eisenstadt v. Baird

DECIDED  Mar 22, 1972

Facts of the case

William Baird gave away Emko Vaginal Foam to a woman following his Boston University lecture on birth control and over-population. Massachusetts charged Baird with a felony, to distribute contraceptives to unmarried men or women. Under the law, only married couples could obtain contraceptives; only registered doctors or pharmacists could provide them. Baird was not an authorized distributor of contraceptives.

Question

Did the Massachusetts law violate the right to privacy acknowledged in Griswold v. Connecticut and protected from state intrusion by the Fourteenth Amendment?

Conclusion

6–1 DECISION 

MAJORITY OPINION BY WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR.

In a 6-to-1 decision, the Court struck down the Massachusetts law but not on privacy grounds. The Court held that the law's distinction between single and married individuals failed to satisfy the "rational basis test" of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Married couples were entitled to contraception under the Court's Griswold decision. Withholding that right to single persons without a rational basis proved the fatal flaw. Thus, the Court did not have to rely on Griswold to invalidate the Massachusetts statute. "If the right of privacy means anything, wrote Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. for the majority, "it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child."

Pro Roe Rally In Anchorage

 Some photos of the Anchorage rally this afternoon.  If there were any candidates there, they weren't on stage and I didn't see/recognize them in the crowd.   There were lots of expressions of anger, but I didn't hear any of the speakers urging the crowd to vote for candidates who support women's rights, letting people know that the people who have given up voting are the people who can make a difference in the next election.  You want to keep the Court from getting even more misogynists?  Vote.  And get others who don't normally vote to vote.  More people didn't vote in the mayoral election last year than did.  10% more people voting for the right candidates would make all the difference.  

AIFF 2021: Captive and Tall Tales [Updated]

My Favorite Doc and Most Powerful Film So Far:

The film Captive is why I like film festivals.  This is not an easy film.  The journalist/film maker, Melissa Fung, is in Nigeria interviewing young girls who have been kidnapped and forced to marry Boko Haram soldiers.  She looks in on them over a couple of years as she reveals to the audience that she too has been captured and raped.  The screenshot gives a sense of the rapport that Fung has with her subject, which is part of why this is such a powerful film.  Given the stories we hear everyday about the US, we have many similar survivors.  And, given the Texas legislature, the rape statistics in the US in general, and the naked power lust of January 6,  we have many men in the U who have no empathy or understanding of women or other human beings.  And while these young women live in comparative poverty, their clothing and beauty are exquisite.  

[UPDATE Dec. 7, 2021 4:13 pm

I couldn't resist this link which showed up today.  The abduction of women is a global and local problem.]

My Favorite Feature So Far                 

Tall Tales.  Hungarian film maker Attila Szasz has had the best film at the Anchorage International Film Festival twice already.  He makes beautiful, tight, thought provoking films. This one takes place at the end of WWII.  Men have been scattered all over the war zone and wives and parents are desperate for word about their husbands and sons who haven't returned.  The main character reads the classified ads seeking information and goes to visit the desperate families and tells them what they want to hear.  But things get complicated.  He's not the only one telling Tall Tales.  The credits and the noirish color add to the that post war period feel.  

Texas Abortion Law Part II: What To Do Next

Part I was a look at parts of the law itself and the Supreme Court dissents.   

I was hoping here to start a list of things to do in response to the Texas abortion law ("The Texas Heartbeat Act"), but I still had questions that reading the law itself doesn't clarify. Articles and comments offer conflicting interpretations. So let me list some of my original questions:

1. What's a fetal heartbeat? 
2. What's the difference between a fetus and an unborn child?
3. Who may be sued?
4. Who may sue/prosecute someone for performing an illegal abortion?
5.  Can people be sued for helping Texas women get abortions outside of Texas?
6. What are the penalties for performing or aiding and abetting an illegal abortion?

Question #1 Since the law makes hearing a fetal heartbeat the point when abortion may not be performed,  medical opinions (which differ from what the law makers apparently intended) on when the fetal heartbeat can be heard may well be significant.  

#2 probably does not have significant legal consequences, though people will argue about this endlessly.

#3  The answer appears to be people who help people get abortions and doctors who perform them, but not the women who get abortions.  Though 'help' is pretty vague.

#s 4 and 5 are key issues.  #4 because the law was designed to avoid being blocked by courts because governmental entities can't prosecute.  #4 because the law doesn't seem clear on this.  

#6 I'm still having trouble figuring out.

Finally, I suspect that they threw all kinds of crap into this law to:

• See what would stick
• Jam up the courts
• Scare people out of seeking and offering abortions
• Because they could

What's a fetal heartbeat?

This piece From NPR says sonogram 'heartbeats' are really noises generated by the machine and aren't real heartbeats.

"The Texas abortion law that went into effect this week reads: "A physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child."

"When I use a stethoscope to listen to an [adult] patient's heart, the sound that I'm hearing is caused by the opening and closing of the cardiac valves," says Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN who specializes in abortion care and works at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The sound generated by an ultrasound in very early pregnancy is quite different, she says.

"At six weeks of gestation, those valves don't exist," she explains. "The flickering that we're seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you 'hear' is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine."  [emphasis added]

So, will the time frame be challenged to when an actual heart beat and not a synthetic sonogram machine heart beat is heard?

 

What's the difference between a fetus and an unborn child?

The Texas law definitions include:

"(7)AA"Unborn child" means a human fetus or embryo in any stage of gestation from fertilization until birth."

But (again from NPR):

"In fact, "fetus" isn't technically accurate at six weeks of gestation either, says Kerns, since "embryo" is the scientific term for that stage of development. Obstetricians don't usually start using the term "fetus" until at least eight weeks into the pregnancy."

But, I guess legislatures can create legal definitions that differ from scientific definitions.  All you need is a majority.  

Who may be sued?

It's clear from the law that the physician performing the abortion and anyone aiding or abetting someone getting an abortion, including paying for the abortion may be sued.  But some people think the woman herself can't be prosecuted.  The law says:

("b)AA This subchapter may not be construed to:

(1)AA authorize the initiation of a cause of action against or the prosecution of a woman on whom an abortion is performed or induced or attempted to be performed or induced in violation of this subchapter;"

But is that only for that subsection of the law?   This AP article agrees that abortion patients can't be sued:

"It allows any private citizen to sue Texas abortion providers who violate the law, as well as anyone who “aids or abets” a woman getting the procedure. Abortion patients themselves, however, cannot be sued."

The following passage from a Texas Planned Parenthood site also suggests the woman herself is exempt:

"This provision lets anyone sue an abortion provider and anyone else who helps a patient access abortion care that is prohibited by SB 8. Anyone who successfully sues an abortion provider will be entitled to at least $10,000 and a court order preventing them from providing abortions in the future."

But what exactly does 'aid and abet' or 'help' mean?  If I tell someone where they can get an abortion, is that against the law?  Presumably not because the law states:

"(g)AA This section may not be construed to impose liability on any speech or conduct protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, as made applicable to the states through the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, or by Section 8 Article I,TexasConstitution."

Using the logic of Citizens United, people could argue that giving a woman money or an airplane ticket is a form of free speech.  (Of course you can argue anything.  But it has to persuade the judges.)

There are also some issues that arise because an abortion before the heartbeat is still legal in Texas.  What if aid is given earlier but the eventual abortion is later?

Who can sue someone for performing an illegal abortion?

[An attorney friend pointed out, when I used the word 'prosecute' that citizens can sue, but not prosecute.  Only governmental units can do that.  And probably, but I'm not sure, agencies like Departments of Justice or Legal Departments.] 

I think this is relatively clear.  No governmental entities can prosecute.  Only private individuals anywhere can sue.  From Planned Parenthood again:

"That means anyone, anywhere in the country — from anti-abortion protesters to out-of-state lobbyists — can sue an abortion provider, abortion funds, or anyone who “aids and abets” someone seeking an abortion that is prohibited by SB 8, regardless of whether they are directly involved or even know the patient."

Here's the law:

"shall be enforced exclusively through the private civil actions described in Section 171.208. No enforcement of this subchapter, and no enforcement of Chapters 19 and 22, Penal Code, in response to violations of this subchapter, may be taken or threatened by this state, a political subdivision, a district or county attorney, or an executive or administrative officer or employee of this state or a political subdivision against any person, except as provided in Section171.208. 

Preventing the state or state subdivisions from prosecuting was done to avoid the law from being blocked by the courts.

However, although they can't prosecute:

(h)AANotwithstanding any other law, this state, a state official, or a district or county attorney may not intervene in an action brought under this section. This subsection does not prohibit a person described by this subsection from filing an amicus curiae brief in the action.

  I don't completely understand this, but my understanding is a court could block a government entity from taking action.  But it can't block all potential people who might sue, before the fact.  That's the logic argued by the five member majority of the Supreme Court.  

Can people be sued for helping Texas women get abortions outside of Texas?

My assumption has been 'no.'  How could they forbid Texans to do something that's legal in another state?  That would be like saying gambling and smoking marijuana are illegal in Texas and Texans can't do those things in states where they are legal. I've searched the new law for the word "Texas" and it shows up 16 times - mainly before Constitution and various Codes.  Since women having abortions can't be sued by this statute.  They could do this.  And since the doctors and clinics aren't in Texas, it doesn't seem likely Texas would have jurisdiction over them.  That leaves people who might help pregnant women get out of Texas for an abortion.  I'm guessing they just left it vague and are leaving it up to their vigilantes to test this in court.  I haven't been able to find this exact question addressed online.  

If an attorney or two can clarify this that would be helpful.

What are the penalties for performing or aiding and abetting a women to get an abortion? 

There's a minimum $10,000 per abortion performed by doctors for the doctors.  And for people who aided and abetted.

(2) statutory damages in an amount of not less than $10,000 for each abortion that the defendant performed or induced in violation of this chapter, and for each abortion performed or induced in violation of this chapter that the defendant aided or abetted; 

It gets even stickier:

(2) knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of an abortion through insurance or otherwise, if the abortion is performed or induced in violation of this chapter, regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation of this chapter;

So, first we get "knowingly engages in conduct" but at the end we get "regardless of whether the person knew."   Perhaps they mean if you knew you were taking someone to get an abortion, but even if you didn't know it would be an illegal one.  So, if you take someone to get a legal abortion, but it turns out there's a fetal heartbeat and the abortion is performed anyway, you would be liable.  There is language that says it's "an affirmative defense" if the defendant can prove they conducted research that led them to believe that the doctor would comply with the law.  But the proof "with a preponderance of evidence" of that the research is on the defendant.  

That can only be intended to stop people from getting legal abortions as well as illegal abortions.    

Defendants who win their cases cannot be awarded legal fees.

(i)  Notwithstanding any other law, a court may not award costs or attorney’s fees under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure or any other rule adopted by the supreme court under Section 22.004, Government Code, to a defendant in an action brought under this section.

So if you're wrongfully accused, you still have to pay all your attorney fees.  I don't think, though, that if an organization provides free attorneys, they could be sued for 'aiding and abetting.'  But maybe only because the legislators didn't think of it.  

Conclusions 

• The intent of this law was to make it as difficult as possible for women to get abortions in Texas by making it illegal
• to perform an abortion after a fetal heart beat can detected
• to assist anyone trying to get an abortion
• The law was written so that Governmental entities couldn't prosecutors and allowing ordinary citizens to sue.  This was done to avoid having the law blocked by a court. (It worked with the Supreme Court's initial ruling.)
• The penalties $10,000 per abortion are high enough to discourage most doctors from performing proscribed abortions and to scare most people from helping women to get an abortion
• Unclear to me is whether the legislators think this will also prevent Texas women from getting abortions outside of Texas
• They probably don't have jurisdiction, but since ordinary citizens will file the lawsuits, there's a good chance that many will even for abortions outside of Texas
• We can only start imagining some of the consequences:
• I've already seen one Tweet where a guy was going to get women pregnant and then claim the $10,000 award for turning them in.  (He didn't realize you can't sue the women.) 
• This adds to the encouragement of vigilantes that Trump began and we can see predators pursue pregnant women and the people around them
• There will be a surge of revenge law suits filed against people whether they've been involved in a legal abortion, illegal abortion, or no abortion at all
• Planned Parenthood's income will rise steeply
• Rape and incest are not excepted in this legislation.  Any man who wants to father as many children as possible will be tempted.  
• Relations between sexual partners will change
• perhaps birth control use will go up for women and some men
• men could sue or threaten to sue anyone they think might help their pregnant girl friend or spouse get an abortion, including her parents
• Underground abortions will increase and more women will die from them
• There will be a market for bogus, but profitable, abortion potions/techniques that 
• probably won't work
• could harm the mother and/or fetus
• There will be political consequences because a fairly large majority of US citizens approve of abortion.  They will become more active running for office and voting

That's just a couple minutes of conjuring up ideas.  I'm sure you can think of many I've missed.  The next step is determine the most effective ways to fight this law and to help Texas women who need an abortion to get one.  

[NOTE:  I'm not an attorney.  I'm trying to glean from the law itself and from what reputable reporters have to say about the law.  I understand that statues are complicated and may seem clear in one section, but there may be another section that voids it.   Don't base any medical or legal action on this blog post.  It's just my way of sorting out some of the issues.]

Two Netflix Series - Borgen and Away - Feature Mothers In Critically Important Jobs. Plus Rached

I'll try to keep this short.  Trying to write on something a little lighter than the elections. Think of it as notes to readers about Netflix offerings they might want to watch or avoid.  

BORGEN and AWAY

The ten year old Danish series BORGEN features a woman propelled into the position of prime minister of Denmark.  The new Netflix series AWAY features a woman as the commander of a mission to Mars.  

Both have to deal with sexism in the job (though not all that much) along with the work demands that make  it hard to pay adequate attention to their children - each has a teenage daughter, the Danish prime minister also has a younger son.  

Birgitte Nyborg's constant task is keeping together a coalition of parties with different priorities.  Emma Green, Captain of the Atlas, has an astronaut from India, China (the other woman and mother), England/Ghana, and Russia to keep together.  But there's also her former astronaut husband who has a stroke after liftoff and anxious daughter back on earth to distract her.  

I was struck by how we were watching these two series at the same time and how each treated the difficulties of a married woman in a traditionally male position.   BORGEN flows quickly from crisis to crisis fairly organically while with AWAY the crises - both technical and interpersonal - seem more contrived, and like Indiana Jones, Emma always seems to narrowly escape disaster.   

BORGEN has three seasons and we're near the end of season two.  I thought in the trip to negotiate between the northern Islamic area and the Christian south of a fictional African country, Brigitta's preparation for such a difficult diplomatic trip seemed woefully inadequate.  We only saw the first part of this adventure and if the upcoming summit in Copenhagen falls apart, I won't be surprised.  But the show has a way of giving Brigitta lots of narrow victories.

I think BORGAN is well worth watching.  AWAY is certainly not must see tv, but not a total waste of time.  

RATCHED  

This Netflix series is like the most exquisite and decadent dessert in the bakery display case.  The colors are rich, the costumes and sets delicious, the actors arch,  and the camera makes love to it all.    It's noir in technicolor with the appropriate campy creepy music.  There's very little nutrition in this evil concoction. And there's lots of gratuitous gore.  But it's visually pretty spectacular.

It's the back story of Nurse Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which Netflix is also pushing right now.)  

That Cuckoo's Nest connection is probably what made me watch the first episode.  I read Cuckoo's Nest at the end of my Peace Corps time in Thailand and was possessed with the question "Who wrote this?  Why?  How did he know all this stuff?"  And soon after I was working at a Peace Corps training program in Hilo when a new trainee had the book Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  I read the blurb on the back that said it was about the author of Cuckoo's Nest.  It's not cool to use your position to get favors, but I was so obsessed I asked the trainee if I could borrow the book right then.  I consumed it that night and gave the book back the next day with my curiosity satisfied.  

RACHED really has nothing to do with Cuckoo's Nest.  It's just a gimmick to play off the name recognition of Nurse Rached to produce a highly stylized and visually beautiful, but empty, confection of a series.  It's a wicked distraction from today's COVID and Trump nightmare.

“This was a time when the phrase gender bias didn’t exist, except gender bias existed,” - Stories of RGB's Law School Classmates

 An article in Slate, The Other Women In RGB's Harvard Law Class  from July of this year looks at the lives of the nine other women in Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Harvard class.  I started pulling out quotes to be teasers for people to read the article.  But what should I be highlighting - the discrimination they faced as women at Harvard Law and getting jobs?  Or should I focus on their accomplishments?  A little of both made sense, but then could I leave any out so I wasn't quoting so much?  Especially after yesterday's post that took a lot from Rosling's book?  

I've gone through and edited out most of what I'd highlighted.  You really should read the original article.  Or, down at the bottom of the article you can listen to it while you're doing something else.

All in all it's compelling reading.  Echoing some themes from the Rosling post, 

• Things change so slowly that we don't really see the progress.  But an article like this helps make it clear.
• Things can be both better and still bad.  The conditions for women are much better today, but there is still much room for improvement.

Carol Brosnahan, born 1934

She was accepted into Wellesley, where she studied economics. Then she took a job on Wall Street, researching investments for wealthy clients. “I wasn’t allowed to meet the clients, because women weren’t supposed to be managing their money,” she recalled.

She stayed at the job for a year, during which she got engaged. “My fiancé said it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to work, but I could go to school,” she said, which is how she began an application to Harvard Law School. 

But while she got along well with many of her male classmates, her professors often singled her out in humiliating ways. She recalled the night when Dean Erwin Griswold asked the women why they were there in law school, taking the place of a man. 

By the fall of 1960, Carol had stopped working altogether. She had three children in under four years. Between the second and third pregnancies, the family moved to the Bay Area for Jim’s job with the U.S. attorney’s office there. When her youngest daughter was still an infant, Carol took the California bar exam—her second certification, after Arizona—as she began to feel she was “going crazy” staying at home. So she took a job with the Continuing Education of the Bar, which provides training and publishes books for practicing lawyers. She began editing and writing books on the law, focused on poverty, bankruptcy, and tenant law. Jim was supportive, but “my husband didn’t change diapers,” she said. “He was a great dad, but the household and the children were my responsibility. It was a lot of juggling and not very much sleep.”

Even as she moved up in the agency, she found that her career growth was limited. “This was a time when the phrase gender bias didn’t exist, except gender bias existed,” she said. Though she had been at CEB more than a decade, she said the director refused to give her the same title as her male colleagues. “And that’s what got me to put my name in for a judge—gender bias.” Eventually, she got a call from a man in Gov. Jerry Brown’s office to inform her she would be appointed to the Berkeley municipal court. “And tell Jim you got this one on your own,” the man said.

Rhoda Solin Isselbacher, 1932–2015 

Her family thinks Rhoda entered Harvard Law as the school’s first-ever pregnant student. She once told an entire lecture hall that she couldn’t be expected to walk to another building to use the women’s restroom (the only one in the entire law school), and instead proposed that she could use the lecture hall’s men’s room, as long as she put a sign on the door. The men agreed. 

Rhoda had child rearing help—from nannies. In 1993, when Ginsburg was named to the bench, Jill Abramson wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal about how the careers of the other women in the class of 1959 were shaping up. Rhoda told Abramson the story of being pulled away from a client meeting to take one of her children to the hospital for a dog bite. “My husband’s a doctor, why isn’t he on his way to the children’s hospital?” she remembered thinking. “But fathers didn’t do that back then.”

In the mid-’70s, Rhoda became in-house counsel at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, then known as the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute. (Rhoda negotiated the deal that led to the name change.) She had recently undergone two years of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and the job felt personal. At the time, biotech was giving rise to knotty legal and ethical questions about patient rights, clinical trials, and intellectual property. “It was a new area of law she spearheaded,” her son Eric remembered. She set up one of the very first patient advocacy programs in any hospital in the country.

After 10 years, Rhoda was forced to resign when Kurt became the founding director of the competing Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. To avoid any conflict of interest, she returned full time to the small law firm where she’d spent most of her career, Epstein, Salloway, and Kaplan—which later became Epstein, King, and Isselbacher.

Virginia Davis Nordin, 1934–2018

After graduating, Virginia found that potential employers were unwilling to take her seriously. She told the Journal in 1993 that in those early interviews, she was often asked if she had plans to get married or have children. “You’d end up discussing your theories on birth control and nothing about your credentials,” she said. She landed a job clerking for a federal judge in San Francisco and went on to work as in-house counsel to a New York shipping company—a job she loved but ended up quitting because, as she told the Journal, her boss sexually harassed her.

Wiltrud F. Richter, born 1935

There were warning signs from the start. During the application process, she was interviewed by a man who cautioned her not to get married and drop out. “Harvard thought it was doing a groundbreaking thing by accepting us. That was made very clear,” she said.

When classes started, she found that no men would even greet her, except for a few fellow Swarthmore graduates and one professor. “Nobody else, literally,” she said. “It was like living on an island by yourself. … They didn’t want women.” Trudy doesn’t remember ever interacting with her fellow female students. She lived alone, sharing a hallway and bathroom with an architecture student. “We exchanged a few words every day,” she recalled. “And that exchange was very important to me because otherwise nobody was talking to me.” Even her professors ignored her, she felt.

Her first job as a lawyer was with a legal services firm, working on its family law cases. She later opened her own practice for low-income clients—handling everything from family law matters to misdemeanor defense. She also represented minors needing approval for abortions, pro bono, and helped women fleeing domestic violence obtain court orders. But she wasn’t able to make enough to even cover malpractice insurance and had to close after a year.

She spent the next decade working for the Disability Rights Center of New Hampshire. While there, she filed an amicus brief with the New Hampshire Supreme Court in defense of a man who was convicted of a crime for having sex with a mentally disabled person under what she believed to be a discriminatory statute. The court agreed with Trudy and ruled that a person with a disability who is genuinely able to consent to sex can do so. Another time, she resolved a case involving two deaf parents and helped spare them from losing custody of their children. “I don’t think anyone would account for my life in terms of major legal successes because of the kinds of clients I had, and the kinds of issues we had,” she said. But she took pride in her “good legal imagination.” 

Her list of championed causes grew long over the decades. She campaigned to end the death penalty in New Hampshire, pushed to have her Unitarian Universalist church convert to solar power, and lobbied for legislative relief to undocumented immigrants. For five years, she supported a family from Bhutan as they transitioned to American life and used her legal training to draft a manual for other volunteers to do the same. The manual remains the one relied on by the church for its refugee program today. In 2018, at age 83, Trudy was arrested for participating in a die-in with the Poor People’s Campaign in New Hampshire. “Overall, it seems to me that the things I’ve done that I’m proudest of have not necessarily always been part of my work as a lawyer,” she said.

Marilyn G. Rose, 1934–2011

 “She had a real passion for serving the underprivileged,” her stepson Tim Childers said. “It was so much a part of her nature.” As a lawyer, she successfully argued a case that redefined how low-income people and people of color across the country could access health care, and its logic undergirds the entire health care law reform movement.

Marilyn never complained to her husband or stepchildren about her experience at Harvard. If anything, Tim and Teresa recall, she seemed to have thrived there. But it was also one of the first places she started advocating for systemic change—in her second year, she was denied membership in Harvard’s all-male public defenders program because women could not be sent to jails to interview male defendants. So she and fellow classmate Eleanor Voss publicly lobbied to have women allowed into the program, arguing that even without access to jails, they could still do plenty of work. Marilyn didn’t end up benefiting from her crusade, but the program opened up to women the year she graduated.

According to her husband, Bobby, Marilyn graduated with honors and then watched male classmates with worse grades land jobs at firms that had rejected her. Some companies openly admitted that they didn’t hire women. So she “had to go work for the government, the only place that offered her a job,” Bobby said. After a stint at the National Labor Relations Board, she transitioned to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the United States Department of Health and Human Services). She found a comfortable fit in the Office for Civil Rights, where she helped desegregate hospitals and mental institutions.

Flora Schnall

After graduating, Flora remembers a frustrating string of interviews. “The only thing that kept me looking was that I knew that Ruth hadn’t gotten a job,” she said. “I felt if Ruth, who was first or second at law school, couldn’t get hired, I just had to keep looking.” Through connections, she landed a job as assistant counsel to Nelson A. Rockefeller when he was governor of New York. “It was just sheer luck,” she said. “I was the only woman in the office, and they wanted a woman in the office.” The job thrilled her. 

Betty Jean Shea, born 1934

Betty Jean was confident she would excel at Harvard, but since she had a friend who had been among an even earlier group of women there, she knew it wouldn’t be easy. “She said it was challenging, but she also said it’s sometimes fun to be the only girl there.” The experience could be fun, Betty Jean said, but for the most part she felt she was ignored by the professors, with the notable exception of Barton Leach and his “ladies’ day,” which left her feeling under attack. Her fellow students were no better, often asking her what she was doing there. “Young men would blithely ask that question to you directly,” she said. “I’d just say, ‘I’m interested in the law, and I couldn’t figure out a better place to go.’ ” She found solidarity with her roommates Flora Schnall and Carol Simon. “We could tell stories and laugh about a great many things that wouldn’t be so easy to laugh at if you didn’t have them with you,” she said. “It made it easier to take it less personally.”

 

Betty Jean’s first major job after graduation was as an attorney for the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, where she rubbed shoulders with influential New Yorkers. It was the best job she ever had, she said, but even there she faced discrimination: She said that she was hired by a man who felt “uncomfortable” hiring women and did so only to please his more progressive boss. She recalled that once, when attending a luncheon at the all-male New York Stock Exchange, she had to arrive through a freight elevator to a separate entrance, because the regular elevator was “for business, it was for men”—even though she was there to give a speech on a new regulation she had helped draft. Afterward, she called up the president of the New York Federal Reserve, whom she didn’t personally know, to complain. He promised not to send any more speakers to the exchange until they changed the policy. They did,

 

Alice Vogel Stroh, 1935–2007

Despite having excellent grades, Alice was rebuffed by almost all the firms she applied to. She eventually found an opportunity at the agrochemical company Monsanto, which at the time was looking to hire women. She landed a job in their legal department—one of just a few women at the time doing corporate litigation. She stayed for eight years.

She left the job after she got pregnant, but it’s unclear whether she quit or was simply taking her maternity leave. Her daughter was stillborn. A grieving Alice wrote to Monsanto, telling them she would “not have the joy of being a mother” and asking to return to her job. Monsanto had already filled the position with a man. “She was almost pleading for them to reconsider taking her back,” Elizabeth said. “She had worked so hard to get to where she was, but as soon as she stepped aside to have babies, then that door closed very quickly for her.” She adopted her first of two daughters that same year and left the legal profession to become a full-time mother.

Eleanor Voss, 1936–1958

On Nov. 13, 1958, Voss was riding as a passenger on a motorized scooter when it collided with a taxi cab in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, intersection, killing her. After her death, her friends and classmates from Goucher created a fund, the Eleanor Voss ’56 Fellowship, to send one graduating senior to law school each year. It continues today.

So many good reasons to volunteer or give money or both before November 3.   

"the onliest thing I can do is let 'em see they ain't broke me." AOC Pulls An Ollie Grimes On The Floor Of Congress

I just read the section in Leonard Pitt's novel The Last Thing You Surrender, where Oliver is beaten up by five white men led by Earl Ray, a poor white man.  It's World War II.  They are all working in a ship building factory near Mobile, Alabama.  No ambulance was willing to take Ollive and the factory supervisors allowed a couple of black workers to take him to

"a white hospital that maintained a small ward for Negroes in its basement. . ."

Thelma, who carpools to the factory with Ollie and four other black women goes to see him in the hospital that night.  She finds him sitting up, dressed, bandaged up and he tells her he has a fractured skull.

Thelma gasped.  "Well then, why you sitting up in bed?  Why ain't you lying down?"
He smiled  "'Cause I'm going home," he said.  "In fact, your timing couldn't be better.  I was wonderin' how I was gon' get there."
Thelma was scandalized, "Home?  I ain't takin' you home.  You need to stop bein' such a stubborn jackass and stay here so the doctors can fix you up."
Some indefinable sorrow crept into his eyes then.  "Honey, I aint the one sayin' I got to go home," he explained in a patient voice. "They is."
. . . Doctors done already give me my discharge papers and my prescription.  You gon' stand there all night, or you gon' help a man up?"

She gets him home and he tells her he'll be waiting for her to pick him up tomorrow.  She argues he can't go to work in his condition.  He says if she doesn't pick him up, he'll have to take the bus.

"Ollie looked at her. "That crazy bastard like to kill me."  he said.  "Ain't nobody gon' arrest him, 'cause they was all wearin' masks, so I can't swear in court it was him - and that's if they'd let a nigger testify in the first place, which they won't.  But it was him. . .
A fierce light danced in his one good eye.  "So the onliest thing I can do is let 'em see they ain't broke me.  That's the onliest revenge I get against 'em, to walk through that gate on my own two legs when the bell ring tomorrow mornin' and let 'em see - let 'em all see -even after what they done, Ollie Grimes still standin'." (emphasis added)

[Auto-correct hates this dialect.  I hope I fixed all its corrections and reconnections.]

This is what I immediately thought of when I watched the video below of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking on the floor of the US House of Representatives addressing the fact that Rep. Yoho of Florida had called her names and degraded her on the Capitol steps, and then the next day gave a non-apology apology.  Listen to her speak in her own words.  It doesn't matter what you think of her politics.  The Republicans have abandoned all decorum and decency.  There was a time when members of Congress, despite their differences, treated each other with, at least, outward courtesy.

Rep @AOC: "I do not need Rep. Yoho to apologize to me. Clearly he does not want to. Clearly when given the opportunity he will not & I will not stay up late at night waiting for an apology from a man who has no remorse over calling women & using abusive language towards women." pic.twitter.com/XKymFh3Oyf

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 23, 2020

AOC has a little more power to confront her tormentor than Ollie had. But it's the same situation. A white man beating on a woman (this time) of color because he's got some sort of chip on his shoulder and thinks he can insult her with impunity. When are these guys going to learn?

I'd note that Wikipedia says Rep. Yoho, a veterinarian, is NOT running for reelection in November.

The Knees Of Candidates

Really?  Women are still expected to bare their knees and walk on stilts while men are allowed to walk on more solid shoes and cover their whole legs?  They should have to compete equally.  Since we call these political 'races' why don't we require all male racers to compete in the same racing uniform as the women?

I put this up because we are so accustomed to seeing women and men dressed like this that we don't even see the disparity any more.  I'm hoping readers will really see this sort of thing in the future.  Women are expected to dress 'like women.'   They are allowed to dress dress like men to the extent they may wear pants.  Male candidates would never show up a debate dressed like the female candidate in this picture.  That alone tells us about male/female equality and power.

I think candidates in a debate like this should be asked about what they are wearing and how it reflects the power of men and women in our society.

And I suspect everyone responds, viscerally, a little differently.  Do the bare legs enhance the woman's appeal to voters?  Distract from what she says?  How would the man wearing shorts affect voters?  There's a lot more to unpack from this picture.

[The picture is from the LA Times and is of Jackie Lacey and George Gascón  both running for Los Angeles County District Attorney.  Photo by Irfan Khan]

"Women in power are targets of abuse"

That's an LA Times headline today.

The article goes on to say that mayors are subject to abuse at greater levels than the average person and

"A recent study published in the academic journal State and Local Government Review found that mayors — women and men — face greater levels of physical violence and psychological abuse than those in the general U.S. workforce, with social media being the most common channel for that abuse.
Female mayors were not only much more likely to face some form of violence or abuse, but they were also more likely to experience abuse of a sexualized nature.
“Women are facing more of this kind of abuse and violence, and more types of it,” Sue Thomas, a research scientist and co-author of the study, told me."

More specifically:

"If you are a woman who is so bold as to inhabit a vaguely public stage, chances are high that you will be called a lot of things that can’t be printed in a family newspaper. And then some.
It’s a truism that unfortunately appears to transcend industry or geography. Exist in public, and eventually an online mob will nitpick your looks, rate your sexual desirability in relation to your ability to do your job, and probably make threats vague and specific — regardless of whether you’re a female journalist, the founder of an indie game studio or trying to run a small city in the Central Coast region of California."

I would argue that one reason Trump's base doesn't shrink any further is that a sizable section of it includes men who are very much like Trump:  they're insecure about themselves, need constant adulation, are abusive to people with less power than themselves, particularly women. Trump is a role model who helps vindicate their own terrible behavior.  Of course they love him and vote for him.

I've long believed that the way to improve people's social interactions is to work to improve parenting.  How we are raised affects how we feel about ourselves and how we deal with conflict.  As much as I dote on my grandchildren, it's also true that babies can be very annoying and exhausting tor parents who aren't prepared for that responsibility. Even for parents who do everything right.   And for parents whose own parents were poor models, learning how to be a nurturing yet firm parent is difficult.

A study published by the National Institute of Justice, for example, states:

"Using carefully developed methods for eliciting retrospective reports of childhood abuse and neglect, a new study of inmates in a New York prison found that 68 percent of the sample reported some form of childhood victimization and 23 percent reported experiencing multiple forms of abuse and neglect, including physical and sexual abuse. These findings provide support for the belief that the majority of incarcerated offenders have likely experienced some type of childhood abuse or neglect."

The National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse posts:

"Based on the reports we have, it's conservatively believed that in today's society 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys WILL BE sexually molested before they are 18 years old -- which means 1 in 5 of America's youth, or fully 20% to 25% of the population !!
In addition, as we mentioned we're concerned here at NAASCA with helping stop ALL kinds of child abuse, including sexual abuse, violence, emotional trauma and neglect, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) believes that close to 50% of our youth will experience at least one of these.
In it's most recent study, a few years ago, the CDC estimated the lifetime cost to society for dealing with all issues related to the child abuse of just one year's worth of traumatized kids is $585 billion, an astonishing figure that obviously repeats each year !!!" (emphasis added)

I would argue that having loving parents is the best inheritance any child could have.  These are the truly privileged people in our society.  Furthermore it's clear that many people manage to survive and thrive despite forms of childhood mistreatment.  Just assume  kids raised in poverty manage to get financially secure. But they are the exception now.

All of us are guilty of neglecting these kids to some degree.  The Democrats, who championed all sorts of 'outsiders' saw whites - particularly white males - as a generalized privileged group.  They didn't recognize the pressures on males, they didn't distinguish those white males who had been physically or emotionally abused.  And in part that helped build a base for a candidate like Trump.

But the Republican steadfast focus on abortion is also at fault.  Even if the figure cited above of 50% of American youth experiencing some form of abuse is high (and remember, it could also be low), that's huge!   But the pro-life crowd focused mostly on abortion, not on healthy parenting for kids, not on sex education and the prevention of unwanted kids.  

There are a lot of hurting people in the US.  Online anonymity along with an abuser in the White House has increased their opportunities to vent their own self-anger on to others.  

This is not an issue that will be resolved by just cracking down on apprehended offenders.  It needs a much larger societal approach to raising kids and developing a population of individuals who feel good about who they are.