Put a woman in charge

Many years ago, on the recommendation of my friend and graduate advisor Randy, I bought an album of blues music by a fellow named Keb Mo. I cannot seem to put my hands on it now but it was probably either his debut album, “Keb Mo,” released in 1994 or his second album, “Just Like You,” which was released in 1996 and won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album the following year. I have a faint recollection of going to see Keb Mo perform at The Bottom Line in lower Manhattan, and I found a picture of him on line from a performance there in September of 1996. I must admit I had lost track of him but it seems he has released at least 16 albums over the past 25 years or so, including three more that won Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 1998, 2004, and 2017.

Keb Mo came back to my attention because I just saw that he and Roseanne Cash have released a new song, “Put a Woman in Charge,” an appropriate message in light of the significant numbers of women who have run successful political campaigns this year.

	House	Senate	Governors
Total Members	435	100	50
Women Before election	84	23	6
Women After election	96-100+	24	9+

      +numbers not final       

[Verse 1: Keb' Mo’]
Way back when
In the beginning of time
Man made the fire then the wheel
Went from a horse to an automobile

He said, “the world is mine”
He took the oceans and the sky
He set the borders - built the walls
He won't stop till he owns it all

And here we are
Standing on the brink of disaster
Enough is enough is enough is enough
I know the answer

[Chorus: Keb' Mo’ and Backing Vocalists]
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

[Verse 2: Keb' Mo']
The time has come
We've got to turn this world around
Call the mothers
Call the daughters
We need the sisters of mercy now

She'll be a hero
Not a fool
She's got the power
To change the rules
She's got something
That men don't have
She is kind and she understands

[Bridge 1: Keb’ Mo’ and Rosanne Cash]
So let the ladies
Do what they were born to do
Raise the vibration
And make a better place for me and you

[Chorus: Keb' Mo’ and Rosanne Cash]
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

[Bridge 2: Keb' Mo' and Rosanne Cash]
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
We're gonna feel the magic
When the girls take over
It’s gonna be fantastic

[Chorus: Keb' Mo' and Rosanne Cash]
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge

Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put a woman in charge
Put the women in charge
Put the women in charge

Love,

Rebecca

Last chance - message from Google

Today, instead of this







Open Google and see this

Just one word

Smallfoot

Despite the horrific events of last weekend, we somehow managed to carry on with our plans. We were in Sharon, where we had a lovely Shabbat day with Simmie and family. Saturday night we all gathered at Dina’s house for pizza and baseball, although we left to get some sleep long before the 18-inning game ended in win #3 for the Boston Red Sox.

We had planned to spend Sunday with Eliana and Maya and settled on going to see the animated movie “Smallfoot.” It is essentially a take-off on stories of Bigfoot but rather than being told from the point of view of a human it is told through the point of view of a young Yeti. Like so many animated films these days, there is plenty of humor geared towards the adults. In some ways it was the perfect choice for a break from all the depressing news out of Pittsburgh, and for that reason I think I enjoyed it more than I might have otherwise. 

We saw the movie at the Superlux Theater in Chestnut Hill. The girls really love that place and I think they would be happy to see pretty much any movie there.

Joshua and Ella joined us on Sunday evening to watch game #5 of the series. Since Monday was a school day, they had to go home and off to bed a little before the game ended but Barry and Joshua were on the phone the minute the Dodgers’ third out in the bottom of the 9^th inning, giving the Red Sox the 2018 World Series championship. It might have been nice for the Boston fans had the Red Sox lost that game so that they would have gone back home to finish the series, but at the end of the day I suspect that having to settle for watching the win on television was a small price for them to pay.

The drive home on Monday started in the rain but we drove out of the storm about an hour after leaving Sharon. The trip took us through the beauty of the fall foliage, and I managed to get this picture through the car window.

Love,

Rebecca

Rise We Will

Listening to the horrible news out of Pittsburgh these past two days brought me back to “Rise We Will,” a song David Roth wrote and recorded in the aftermath of the bombings of the World Trade Center and released on his 2004 “Think Twice” album. The details differ but the sentiment remains the same.

David Roth Rise We Will

(Click on this link. Then click on the downward arrow in the top right hand corner and the song will then appear as a file. Double click on that file to open it and it should play.)

Revive, restore, renew, rebuild

Peace and Love,

Rebecca

One dozen treatments

My career choice, statistics, should never have been a surprise. I have always kept track of and tried to learn from details. While the pembrolizumab infusion was completing this morning, the nurse asked how many additional treatments are planned. We explained that there is no really good long-term data on pembrolizumab in bladder cancer, but we are hoping that updated data from the pivotal trial that led to the drug’s approval in this indication will be presented at the upcoming American Society for Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco in mid-February. This led the nurse to suggest that we might just continue until the drug stops working. I do not think she really meant for that to come out as badly as it sounded, but I quickly pointed out that I certainly hope we will not get to that point.

I found myself coming home from treatment and wondering just how many pembrolizumab infusions I have had so far. I was able to easily reconstruct this from my Google calendar and confirm with my on-line medical record from MSKCC, and the answer is 12 – one dozen treatments.

Dose #	Day	Date
1	Friday	23 February
2	Friday	16 March
3	Thursday	05 April
4	Friday	27 April
5	Tuesday	22 May
6	Monday	11 June
7	Friday	06 July
8	Friday	27 July
9	Friday	17 August
10	Friday	07 September
11	Friday	28 September
12	Wednesday	24 October

No one knows just how many treatments are “enough.” We did not see Dr. Iyer (oncologist) today but I believe this topic is one he intends to discuss with us over the next few months.

Meanwhile, I need to get some rest now. The treatment does leave me tired, but that is a relatively small price to pay as long as it works!

Love,

Rebecca

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

A.O. Scott begins his NY Times review of the new film “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” by saying “Lee Israel may be the single most interesting movie character you will encounter this year." I certainly have not seen as many films as Mr. Scott has but I strongly suspect he has this one right.

Melissa McCarthy, whose most recent memorable gig was her hilarious, if almost painful, portrayal of former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on a number of episodes of Saturday Night Live in early 2017, takes on a very different role based on the memoir of Lee Israel, an American author who became best known for the literary forgery she conducted over a number of years in the 1990's. I probably should remember this incident but have to admit I do not, which made the story all that much more interesting.

Ms. Israel’s activity began almost innocently enough as a way for a struggling writer to earn a living. While her early work had achieved some notoriety, she was increasingly unable to interest publishers in her projects and had descended into alcoholism and poverty in an old, drug-infested apartment for which she was unable to even pay the rent. While researching a biography she was writing on the late vaudevillian Fannie Brice, she stumbled on a note Ms. Brice had written. When she discovered that collectors might be interested in such memorabilia, and in particular that they would pay more for personal tidbits, she began creating her own versions of letters from various well-known writers like Noël Coward, Lilliam Hellman, and Dorothy Parker. This activity apparently went on for a number of years before her fraud was discovered.

Her guilty verdict only resulted in probation (as well as a promise to stop drinking, which she apparently did not keep). This seemed a bit surprising to me at first, but thinking about it more, it is really hard to believe that all those agents who were paying for her forgeries and then selling them to collectors at vastly higher prices certainly contributed to her criminal activity, and this may be why the judge did not see fit to punish her more harshly. Ms. Israel died in late 2014.

The movie is worth seeing for Melissa McCarthy’s performance alone. Hopefully more good parts will come her way.

Love,

Rebecca