Why I March

It's well known by now that "Did Not Vote" won the last presidential election by a landslide. Women voters outnumbered men both as a proportion of eligible voters and in absolute numbers. The Democratic candidate, a woman, received about 29% of the popular vote. The Republican man who daily disgraces the office of President got there by attracting just over 27% of voters. Over 54% of women who voted voted for Clinton; only 42% did for you-know-who. Assuming that about half of the 44% of eligible voters who didn't vote are women, we can reasonably infer that women comprise around half of the party of "Did Not Vote." The League of Women Voters of Central Yavapai County has just announced that it will soon celebrate the 19th Amendment, which prohibited state and federal officers from denying women the right to vote. With Women's March on Prescott and other co-sponsors, the League is planning a 4 p.m. march and rally on the Prescott Plaza on Sunday Augus...

The success of the 2018 Women's March on Prescott (1200+ marchers) and March for Our Lives (1500+) right here in little ol' Prescott, AZ puts our elected officials on notice: We are not taking our democracy for granted anymore. We're done being treated as a flock of sheep under armed guard. Call us any name you like. We aren't reducible to a party label, and we're not going anywhere except to the streets and the voting booth to return the balance of power to the people of Arizona beginning this year. March for Science Flagstaff, April 2017 On Saturday, April 14, hundreds of Arizonans will be on the streets of Flagstaff for the March for Science. The purpose of the 2 nd March for Science, a nationwide event, is to show our support for the wellspring of our democracy—coordinated, ego-inhibiting, prejudice-busting rationalism. The current political regime at state and federal levels advocates extreme prejudice over evidence-based thinking; revelation (usu...

I march because voting is not enough in the post-Citizen's United era. Because caring and wrapping myself in family, Nature, and time-tested liberal ideals is not enough when bigotry in all its hideous forms is respectable among the men and women who govern us. Because reduce, reuse, recycle is not enough to safeguard the health and beauty of the planet and all its beings when science as the path to compassionate understanding is under radical attack. Because if I don't stand to say “Enough!” to those who kill, incarcerate, and oppress people like me because we don't look or act like them, what kind of country will I leave for my children and yours? Because bickering with the Left, Right, or Center in our political culture distracts us from the orderly pursuit of a just and equitable society for all, wing nuts included. Because we need a national dialogue on 'personhood' that isn't immediately shut down by enraged ideologues. Because w...