The following is from the Associated Press, February 24, 2020, by BEN FINLEY
“Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. She was 101.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter that she died Monday morning. No cause was given.
Bridenstine tweeted that the NASA family “will never forget Katherine Johnson’s courage and the milestones we could not have reached without her. Her story and her grace continue to inspire the world.”
The following was reprinted from library pages found at Berea College, KY
Mary E. Britton
“Mary E. Britton (1855-1925) was a student at Berea College from c1870-1874. A public school teacher and activist, Britton later earned a medical degree and became the first African-American female doctor in the state of Kentucky, practicing in Lexington.
Mary was born in Kentucky, on Mills Street in what is now Lexington’s Grazt Park Historic District. Her parents, Laura Marshall and Henry Harrison Britton were both free African Americans living in the slave state of Kentucky. Her mother, Laura Marshall, was a freed slave of a biracial ancestry whose father was the well-known Kentucky public official Thomas F. Marshall. Laura Marshall was a well-educated, intelligent woman and a talented singer and musician. Laura encouraged and instilled a love for education, music and public service in both of her daughters. In short, her family was well respected, honored and trustworthy within the circle of prominent and affluent Kentucky families.
According to the Wall Street Journal, there are now over 234,000 women truck drivers in America and the number is growing. While women few than 10 percent of truckers are women there doesn’t seem to exist any disparity of pay between men and women drivers.
It might be noted, however, that the trucking industry is currently witnessing a growing number of layoffs. Long ago the industry became a prime indicator of economic health. Full employment in the trucking industry indicates that people are spending their money, factories are operating at capacity, and the cash registers at retail shops are ka-chinging!
My wife and I were watching Rachel Maddow last evening and most of the segments had to do with the ever growing list of potential legal problems for Trump. At some point in the program I had to hit the pause button and let off some steam.
One of the major news is Trump’s affair with, and attempt to cover up, Stormy Daniels. He’s admitted paying her to keep quiet and we know he paid another woman $150,000 to keep quiet about their long-term affair. Stormy’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, says he is now vetting two more women who claim to have had affairs with the Donald. Trump is well-known for his adulterous affairs and maybe better known for admitting he felt empowered to grab women’s pussies. Throughout his life Trump has appeared to have been obsessed with women and sex. He once told Howard Stern that avoiding acquiring a sexually transmitted disease was his equivalent of serving in Vietnam.
On Wednesday after the presidential election I ran into a former US Government student at the dentist office. We didn’t discuss politics but she did recall my telling her after the 1992 Clinton victory that regardless of how much you disagreed with the president-elect, the people had spoken and the office demanded your respect and support.
When I said that I meant it. But never did I imagine anyone like Donald Trump being elected to the White House. Trump’s choice challenges so much of what I’ve held true about American democracy, American politics, the two-party system, and the basic intellect of the American people.
I’m no rookie when it comes to losing elections. My good friend and fellow Democrat, John Baal, and I many times commiserated with a six-pack over getting our political butts kicked. Being a liberal Democrat is a lonely life in Southern Ohio.
I’ve written lots of words, and read even more, about the ongoing Trail of Tears controversy. I’m going to try to make this the last blog I write on the subject and the topic is how to move it forward, how to help make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Based on what I’ve read in the local newspapers the school’s path forward is to take a couple of class periods and teach the story of the forceful removal of Indians during the early 1800s. This was ordered by president Andrew Jackson, in defiance of a Supreme Court order, and resulted in the tragic deaths of thousands of Eastern Native-Americans.
Additionally the cheerleaders involved met with Hillsboro’s cheerleaders where an apology was offered.
TRUMP TO COURT: I wonder how many Trump supporters realize their man has two upcoming court dates. One regarding the fraudulent behavior of Trump University and the other, charges of raping a thirteen year old girl in the 1990s.
HISTORY: I’ve scrolled back through my mental record of presidential elections and cannot recall any previous example of a presidential candidate making his intent to file slander suits against eleven women who charged him with sexual aggression, a part of a major policy address.
MISOGYNIST PRICK: Conservative GOP senator, Jeff Sessions, says that what Donald Trump said on Billy Bush’s bus was not sexual assault. I don’t think Sessions or any man has the right to decide that. Like blacks have the right to say what is racist, sexual assault is whatever women say it is.
BULLSHIT: Trump remembers anti-feminist conservative Phyllis Schlafly as a “champion for women.” But for Schlafly American women would be enjoying real equality with American men.
When American was experiencing its first sexual revolution following the advent of the birth control pill came about I must have been out of the country because I missed it.
This is interesting to reflect on. How much of this change have you witnessed? Are we better off? How much do you think will have gone away 100 years from now? What comparison had the greatest impact on you?
Saturday, March 8, 2014 is International Women’s Day. Mark it, celebrate it, honor it, recognize it in any way you believe fit. But do take a few moments to reflect on what women all over the world and throughout all time have endured. With that in mind there is reason to celebrate as described in a Forbes Magazine article titled, 10 Reasons for Optimism.
For many decades it was thought that former slave, Abby Fisher, had written the first cookbook by an African-American, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, was published in 1881. In 2001 it was learned that a free black woman named Malinda Russell had published Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen in 1866.
Much of the food America loves has its roots in the poverty enslaved blacks endured for centuries in the American South. Known today as soul food it made use of those food stuffs the white slave masters saw little value in. Protein came from beans and legumes and the occasional lesser cuts of pork and poultry. If you could still find a small traditional grocery serving a mostly black population in today’s South you’d likely see coolers stacked with ox tail, pig knuckles, tails, ears and feet, salted fat back, chicken feet, necks and rooster combs. Add to that large bags of rice, red beans, and corn meal you’d have the basis for countless recipes that still keep people moving and enjoying comfort today.
LBJ announced the Great Society at Ohio University in 1964.
2014 marks the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. I’ve noticed the media and politicians are arguing about the worth and success of the Great Society and accompanying War on Poverty. To me the answer is simple, certainly it’s been worth it and just as certainly it has not perfectly met the two major goals set forth.
The Great Society was to begin the elimination of poverty in America as well as create a society of equal opportunity, free of the historical biases and barriers of race, creed, gender, age, ethnicity, and skin color. Its critics look at the last 50 years and flatly declare it a failure. But note, America has always been a work in progress and altering centuries of accepted social and economic normality can’t happen with the flip of a switch. The switch of change is not on/off, it is linear like the dimmer on a lamp or the volume control of a radio. It can advance by lesser or greater degrees but it can also be turned backward. So, as one president or congress comes into the room the lights may brighten while another may seek the dark.
Mary was born in Kentucky, on Mills Street in what is now Lexington’s Grazt Park Historic District. Her parents, Laura Marshall and Henry Harrison Britton were both free African Americans living in the slave state of Kentucky. Her mother, Laura Marshall, was a freed slave of a biracial ancestry whose father was the well-known Kentucky public official Thomas F. Marshall. Laura Marshall was a well-educated, intelligent woman and a talented singer and musician. Laura encouraged and instilled a love for education, music and public service in both of her daughters. In short, her family was well respected, honored and trustworthy within the circle of prominent and affluent Kentucky families.
