TFOB - Part 4 (the last one, I promise!)

There were some pretty fabulous stories at the Female Agents of Change panel.  Moderated by the former editor of the Arizona Daily Star, these women

Bobbie Jo Buel, Dahlia Lithwick, Sheri Brenden, Jemele Hill

covered topics from abortion to Title IX, stopping off at racism, sexism and Donald Trump along the way.  

Sheri Brenden's big sister was a junior in high school when she filed suit in Minnesota because her school did not have a girls' tennis team.   It wasn't a class action suit; that would have taken too much time.  She wanted to play in her senior year, not spend it in a courtroom.  She and her co-plaintiff won their suit, and the result was Title IX.   

Her proud little sister wrote the story all these years later. She's still beaming.

Dahlia Lithwick (Big Cuter: OH! From SLATE!!) had us laughing from the start.  The Supreme Court was inching closer to equality.... we could see it from our porch was her rueful description of Trump's court packing.  It is his ignorance, though, which seemed to bother her the most.  Lock her up isn't rhetoric.  The crowd couldn't have agreed more.

She said she was pushed to reveal her own #MeToo moment from years ago when younger colleagues spoke out about a judge's harassment in 2020.  Her description of the internal dialogue which took place was remarkably revelatory in a setting where she didn't know a soul.  She came to two conclusions.  You can be a Bystander or an Upstander.  There is complicity in silence.

Jemele Hill disappeared from ESPN shortly after calling out Donald Trump's racism.  A white male colleague reassured her that she'd have no trouble finding a job.  After all, they're looking for YOU.  Out of the 405 female sports writers at the event, she was the only woman of color.  I'm good, but I'm not that good was her tart response.

What made me happiest, though, was her comment at the end of the conversation about power.  I didn't know when I was young how to wield the hammer......now, I'm Thor!

*****

Alex Prud'homme, Julia Child's great-nephew, was there, too, promoting Dinner With the President and sharing stories about Presidential food and state dinners.  Here are some of my favorite bits of information, in no particular order, and with no effort made to turn them into connected paragraphs.

• Lincoln lived on apples and cornbread and coffee.
• Jackie Kennedy modeled her State Dinners on the grand parties of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
• Eisenhower like to cook.  He was good at the grill.
• The White House kitchen which prepares the State Dinners is small - 27.5' long and 22' wide.

*****

That's it for the TFOB.  It's my favorite weekend of the year for many reasons, not the least of which is that it makes for great fodder for The Burrow.