The fight is far from over….

They’re talking about brilliant female scientists on the radio. It reminds me of an experience I had in approximately 1971 when I was planning to enroll daughter Susan (age 6/7) into a summer program at our local community center.

Identified as a highly gifted child, Susan was totally into science. She loved learning about insects, snakes, lizards, shells, rocks and dinosaurs — you name it.

Susan (front) about that time

Reading the available programs, I saw a cooking class for girls and a science class for boys. I recognize that cooking is a science, but it wasn’t Susan’s thing and I knew it. I was  upset. Would I accept that? Of course not!

Would I accept that?

I threatened to march outside their doors

I visited the center, had a discussion with the program director and threatened that if they didn’t allow my daughter into the science class, I’d march outside their doors with signs complaining about their old-fashioned thinking. Yes, I WAS really angry.

The female program director caved. Susan was allowed into the class, however, I hadn’t foreseen what followed. When she turned up for the class, the surprised boys loudly complained. “Yuck! A girl!’ ‘You’re not allowed in this class.’ ‘You don’t belong here!’

You don’t belong here!

The poor kid. I’d placed Susan in a position where she was not welcome. The boys bullied. They pulled her hair. They saw her as an intruder. I didn’t argue when Susan very soon didn’t want to go anymore.

They pulled her hair.

I also still wonder what that terrible experience did to her. Would she have followed a different career path if it hadn’t occurred? What did I accomplish after all?

What I do know I accomplished was I did convince the community center to change their policy. I told them they were unfair and outdated. They changed their future description of classes for children and no longer classified them according to sex.

I’d like to think things improved later for girls

I’d like to think that later perhaps one or two girls, luckier than Susan, had the opportunity to become excited about science in a class — and who knows? Maybe one or two of them has or will win a Nobel Prize after all. (However, the fight is far from over.)

P.S. Susan has found her own way of using her scientific interests and ability in her life’s work in any case.

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What really matters — a rant.

Watching the news these days is painful. For a while, we in Canada could feel a little smug, what with the political goings-on in the U.S., but we’re in the midst of a federal election right now and I’m in despair.

                       Justin Trudeau, present Prime Minister, Liberal Party

Andrew Scheer, Conservative Party

 

The ‘debates’ (a term used loosely) held on TV with the leaders of the various parties vying for power were so discouraging, I turned my TV off with frustration as I cried: ‘A pox on all your houses!’

 

I hope no one living anywhere else bothered to watch. It was too embarrassing and nothing like what I was taught when I participated on debating teams at school.

Jagmeet Singh, New Democratic Party

 

It wasn’t only my poor hearing that made it impossible to understand what they were saying, they talked over each other, interrupting and arguing and wasted time referring to errors made years ago instead of discussing the very important issues now facing our country and the world and their plans to improve things.

Elizabeth May, Green Party

What kind of example did they set for our younger citizens? Is such rudeness acceptable???

 

Where were their heads anyway? I don’t care about what someone thought years ago. We all make mistakes and learn from them and hopefully grow. I’ve certainly changed my own ideas and if I hadn’t, I’d be stuck in the thinking of the 1950s. I imagine and hope they have grown too.

Yves-Francois Blanchet, Bloc Quebecois

 

C’mon. Let’s stick to the issues. I wanna know what you’re planning to change. I worry about the future: the climate and environment; much needed childcare; making education more accessible for the young; the homeless in our streets; the orcas in our waters, etc., etc. etc.

Let’s concentrate on what really matters.

Maxime Bernier, People’s Party

I am grateful to be living in Canada — it IS a wonderful democracy.  I want it to stay this way long after I am gone.

P.S. To be fair, I’ve tried to make all these photos the same size. I’m not too good at it….

A song for Elise???

Hans Muller was a talented, classically-trained musician who studied at the Conservatory of Music in Vienna. Brilliant and playful, his most wonderful trait was his irreverent sense of humor. To him, even the great Beethoven was fair game.

Going through stuff to throw out, I found these words he wrote to the master’s ‘Fer Elise’. You can sing it to the music….

 

 

Beethoven: Certainly gifted but I wouldn’t have wanted to marry him either

Ludwig named this ditty for Elise

but no one seems to know who she’s
Was she from Bonn or was she Viennese?
What was her amorous expertise?
Was Elise his lover or his maid
And, either way, was she well paid?
Did she become his broad, his concubine
When he asked her ‘Your place or mine?’
Was she his chick, his moll, his fox
Or did she only darn his socks?

Therese Malfalli Could she have been Ludwig’s Elise? He may have asked her to marry him, but she refused.

 

Did she spend nights of passion with Beethoven?
Limbs entwined and interwoven?

Was Elise a flirt, was she a tease?
Did she undress, smile and say cheese?
Did Ludwig kiss Elise beneath a tree
And touch her way above the knee?
Or did he give her one strategic squeeze
And hand her his apartment keys?

 

 

What did he do when he met her
Did he right away embrace and pet her
Or did he sit down at the keyboard
And compose one of his immortal tunes?
Perhaps the most romantic though a bit pedantic
Opus twenty-seven, number two, in C sharp minor
Known as moonlight, a sonata soon quite popular
All over Vienna and in Bonn
The biggest hit by Ludwig Van.

Hans Muller: All this from a man for whom English was only one of six languages he spoke and read with ease…

One stormy night in bed he said to her
As winter gales howled from the North,
I have decided that I’ll do my Fifth
As soon as I have done the Fourth,
A Fourth, a Fifth, said she, but Lou
You cannot even manage two.

Did she listen to what he composed?
Sometimes she did, sometimes she dozed.
One day he wrote a Missa called Solemnis,
She said: Ludwig, I condemn this
Latest opus
Must it go thus
To and fro — it bores me so!
Was she a connoisseur, was she well-read
Or was she only good in bed?
Of all of music history’s mysteries
The greatest puzzle is E l i s e.