The Protest Marches Begin...

[Guinevere]

Well done for your granddaughter Meade! And what Econo said. Honestly, in my day in Boston I saw not a single sign using any alternative spelling for "women". Nor in any of the posts and photos from all my friends who marched --- in DC, Boston, Chicago, LA, Portland, Montpelier, Minneapolis, New York, Raleigh, Austin, Pittsfield, Clemson, Paris, or London.

[Bicycle Bill]

I can speak from personal experience when I say that an alternate spelling for "women" is nothing new.  When I worked at the state university prior to 2001 it was already a fairly common practice for some of the more — outspoken?  militant? — feminists on campus to spell women with a 'y' ('womyn') — to avoid any connection with 'men', even phonetically (they also referred to "womyn's herstory" for the same reason; eliminating any reference to males and 'his' story).

Spelling it with an 'x', however, seems to be something fairly new to me.

Frankly, whether you spell it 'women', 'womyn', 'womxn', or some as-yet-unseen combination of letters, it's just a word.  Yes, I know words have power, but it is only if someone allows the words to have power over them that it begins to become a bad thing.

-"BB"-

[Sue U]

I have to say, the humor in the Women's March signs was excellent. I think this is the best trend ever in American politics.

It's hard to pick a favorite, but currently I'm still chortling over "Free Melania!"

[Long Run]

Pay attention class:

Womxn’s March on Seattle organizers told KIRO 7 News their estimates are based on its Facebook page and Eventbrite responses. They expect Seattle to host the third-largest march in the country; there will be more than 600 marches internationally.

The local group also opted to spell “women” with an “x” to acknowledge the impact of discrimination based not only on gender but also race, sexual orientation, nationality, faith, class and disability — and how those different forms of discrimination often intersect, overlap and reinforce each other.

[RayThom]

Some of the funniest signs:
http://www.unilad.co.uk/politics/these- ... ens-march/

[rubato]

Pay attention class:

Womxn’s March on Seattle organizers told KIRO 7 News their estimates are based on its Facebook page and Eventbrite responses. They expect Seattle to host the third-largest march in the country; there will be more than 600 marches internationally.

The local group also opted to spell “women” with an “x” to acknowledge the impact of discrimination based not only on gender but also race, sexual orientation, nationality, faith, class and disability — and how those different forms of discrimination often intersect, overlap and reinforce each other.

So a tiny number of women chose the alternate spelling. So what?



yrs,
rubato

[Long Run]

Sew buttons.

[MajGenl.Meade]

discrimination based not only on gender but also race, sexual orientation, nationality, faith, class and disability — and how those different forms of discrimination often intersect, overlap and reinforce each other.

That sentence would make my g-daughter proud. Chock full of trendy lefty collegiate buzzwords and (when you put it into normal human speech), it means humans discriminate against humans based on their humanness.

There's not much that isn't the basis of discrimination somewhere or other (they left out gingers and lawyers tho')

Rocket science!

[Guinevere]

Wrong-o, mister. Not "trendy," not "lefty" and not "buzzwords." Perhaps you'd like to review your citizenship test study materials again.

Let's start with Clause 1 of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

If that wasn't clear enough we have the 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Of course, that wasn't clear enough, so we have the Civil Rghts Act of 1964, which outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

And legion of case law on the subject as well.

Any questions? Would you like to rephrase?

[liberty]

What was it Bob Dylan wrote?  "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"?
Trump had better install a weathervane on the White House, and maybe a good storm cellar while he's at it.

-"BB"-

How long before the bombings start? Should lefties be prohibited from buying large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Wrong-o, mister. Not "trendy," not "lefty" and not "buzzwords." Perhaps you'd like to review your citizenship test study materials again.

No, not really. I respect all the laws and consteechewshunal bits you mention.

The buzzwords remain; what's trendy is shoving them into long sentences using words such as "forms", "intersect", "overlap" and "reinforce". It is simply corporate-speak rendered by college-age persons of a certain disposition. (That is, to use lots of words, some of them quite big, and hope they mean something useful). A random word generator does as well.

You missed my point, which obviously I did not make clear. Still I thought it was obvious when I stated that humans discriminate based on the human qualities of some other human. I'm saying that the quoted sentence doesn't say much beyond that.

Listing things runs the risk of leaving other things out. Everyone gets discriminated against, one way or another, every day. Some more than others. Some with deadly effect.

[MajGenl.Meade]

And this:

[Bicycle Bill]

Meade, you're quibbling over some litter?  Five will get you ten that if there had been dumpsters or recycle bins to toss those signs into that's where most of them would have ended up.

I also read that in some instances the signs were left so others who wanted could take them as souvenirs.

-"BB"-

[wesw]

when I go fishing or crabbing I pick up all the litter that I can manage to carry out with me. i fill bags and my buckets with it and take every ones litter home with me

i i also ipick up every cigarette butt that i see.

i m not taking them for souveniers , i m picking up after irresponsible people who disrespect what they seem to enjoy.

i understand that the Tea Party folks always left a clean area after their little shindigs....

so yeah, the litter is significant to many folks.

[Econoline]

Ahh, but when you go fishing or crabbing you probably don't have to get packed like a sardine into an overcrowded Metro train--and then into a filled-to-capacity bus, train, or airplane--in order to get home. And FWIW I think the signs in that photo were the ones deliberately left just outside the Trump International Washington hotel as part of the protest. (Oh, and in the absence of sufficient trash bins in which to dump the garbage it's probably easier to clean up the mess if most of it is left piled in one location.)

[wesw]

if they got em there I don t see why that they couldn t get em out......

I m just saying.....

when I m picking up other peoples nasty cig butt, and nasty raw chicken packaging, and their other detritus....

....I am not thinking positively about them, and I am not whispering sweet nothings as I mutter about them under my breathe....

"our trash is a form of protest"

well... ok...., if you say so....

[Guinevere]

Ore ways to try and minimize or diminish Saturday's March. Lovely.

The real facts:

1. Signs were left at the Trump Hotel as messages for the Trumpanzee. Yes, that is a form of protest.

2. NPS says marchers were neat and orderly: http://wtop.com/local/2017/01/nps-clean ... ens-march/

3. Boston parks dept thanked the courteous marchers:

[MajGenl.Meade]

I don't count leaving trash on the public sidewalk as "protest" but as simple bad manners. People can differ about that.

And no one (at least, not me) has said anything (AFAIK) about demonstrators being anything other than neat and orderly.

[Guinevere]

I've seen the same photo you posted in multiple places of the interwebs submitted (by mostly white males) as proof that the "womyn" protestors are all messy pigs and should get back into the kitchen and service their menfolk.

[Big RR]

I can't ever recall being "serviced" in the kitchen.