February 1, 1960 Greensboro first day: Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond leave the Woolworth store after the first sit-in on February 1, 1960.
Four black college students sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and were refused service because of their race. To protest the segregation of the eating facilities, they remained and sat-in at the lunch counter until the store closed. Four students returned the next day, and the same thing happened. Similar protests subsequently took place all over the South and in some northern communities. By September 1961, more than 70,000 students, both white and black, had participated, with many arrested, during sit-ins. On the second day of the Greensboro sit-in, Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain are joined by William Smith and Clarence Henderson at the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“Segregation makes me feel that I’m unwanted,” Joseph McNeil, one of the four, said later in an interview, “I don’t want my children exposed to it.”
February 1, 1961 On the first anniversary of the Greensboro sit-in, there were demonstrations all across the south, including a Nashville movie theater desegregation campaign (which sparked similar tactics in 10 other cities). Nine students were arrested at a lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and chose to take 30 days hard labor on a road gang. The next week, four other students repeated the sit-in, also chose jail.
February 1, 1968 General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Nguyen Van Lem a NLF officer.
Saigon police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executed Nguyen Van Lem, suspected leader of a National Liberation Front (NLF aka Viet Cong) assassination platoon, with a pistol shot to the head on the street. AP photojournalist Eddie Adams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of the incident became one of the most famous, ubiquitous and lasting images of the war in Vietnam, affecting international and American public opinion regarding the war.
Cal Arts stories can wait a while. This is importance. Read on Substack
It’s hard to believe how much the world has changed since 2020.
I started drawing panel cartoons and comic strips in March, 2020 as the COVID 19 pandemic changed daily life. We were in lockdown starting in March. No one thought it would be for long.
There were jokes about toilet paper shortages though I never noticed any. Guess where most of the toilet paper is made?
This was my first cartoon, drawn to cheer up the neighbors on March 18, 2020.
I continued drawing the cartoons until January, 2022. (sometimes with large gaps between depending on what was going on outside, and my level of depression). The first Corona Diary cartoon appeared on April 18, when the ‘four week lockdown’ was supposed to end. It didn’t.
Thee first Corona Diary cartoon. April 18, 2020.
I never intended to draw more than one of these cartoons, just like I never intended to draw a comic strip. As the lockdowns got longer and longer, I kept on drawing them and sending them on social media and emails to a lot of very scared people.
They were intended to cheer people up and let them know what was happening here. The Canadian experience was very different from the American. Toronto became one big community. People wore masks and considered other people’s health along with their own. Prime Minister Trudeau had daily press conferences where he spoke of what was going on and what the health ministers thought could help.
People paid more attention to hygiene. I may never shake anyone’s hands again.
We would stand on the apartment roof and bang pots and ring bells to thank the nurses and first responders who still had to go to work.
and generally stayed out of crowds.
How different from today. Some people think that if it doesn’t immediately affect them, it isn’t happening. Back then: we knew that we were all connected.
There were ‘anti maskers’ before there were ‘vaccine deniers’. I caricatured the worst of them and decided that I didn’t want their ugly faces in my files, or future book. This cartoon is a replacement showing how we improvised masks in 2020, when there were no N95S available for anyone other than essential healthcare workers.
I discovered that ‘non woven material’ could be found in the cheap shopping bags in the market. The bags could be cut up and used as filters in cloth masks. Other people matched their masks to their outfits.
Replacement cartoon for one that I won’t publish and didn’t keep.
Why am I publishing this today? Because we are in danger of another pandemic, the first one is by no means over, and there are people who deny that any vaccine, anywhere, ever worked.
I’m willing to bet that most of us would not be alive today if it weren’t for childhood immunizations. You have only to walk through an old cemetery (pre 1950) to see many small gravestones commemorating children. These become less frequent after 1950 because of polio, measles, and mump immunizations.
I don’t want to live in the mid 19th century, and certainly not in the Dark Ages. (snip)
Since 1997, five Swedish-based scientists were involved in an interesting practice that went on for 17 years, the parameters of which were revealed in 2014. The goal? See who can use as many Bob Dylan songs in their research paper titles before retirement.
John Jundberg and Eddie Weitzburg started the trend. Two professors at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, they titled a research paper “Nitric Oxide and inflammation: The answer is blowing in the wind” (Predictably, it was about flatulence). However, in a 2014 story with Swedish outlet The Local, Weitzburg cleared up some things about the wager. (Snip-More; just click the article title)
January 31, 1865 The U.S. House of Representatives passed (119-56) the 13th constitutional amendment which abolished slavery, and sent it to the states for ratification (three-quarters of the states would do so by the end of the year). The Kentucky legislature didn’t vote to ratify until 1976. Mississippi’s legislature finally ratified it in 1995 but failed to submit the paperwork to the federal government until 2013. Text of the amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” More about the 13th Amendment
January 31, 1876 Sitting Bull: One of several chiefs who refused to comply. The U.S. government ordered that all Native Americans had to move to reservations by this date or be declared hostile. Most Sioux did not even hear of the ultimatum until after the deadline.
January 31, 1945 Eddie Slovik Private Eddie Slovik became the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion, and the only one who suffered such a fate during World War II.Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Slovik’s execution be carried out, he said, to avoid further desertions in the late stages of the war. Eisenhower
January 31, 1950 U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announced his decision to support the development of the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic (fission) bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.
January 31, 1971 The Winter Soldier Hearings began in a Howard Johnson’s motel in Detroit. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the three days of hearings were an attempt by soldiers who had served in Vietnam to inform the public of the realities of U.S. conduct in the war. The veterans testified that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident, and that some American troops had committed atrocities. Among those who spoke about aspects of their service in Vietnam was John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant and future senator and presidential candidate. More than 100 veterans testified to sometimes brutal acts. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield later entered the transcript of the Winter Soldier hearings into the Congressional Record but, otherwise, the proceedings captured little attention. The term “winter soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776. He spoke of the “sunshine patriot and summertime soldiers” who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. Winter Soldier film watchthetrailer (appox 4 minutes) watchthe entire movie (1:35) VVAW/Winter Soldier Organization
January 31, 1993 300,000 Berliners rallied to protest attacks on immigrants, and against racism and renewed support for Nazism on the 60th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. During the previous year there had been 2,285 racially motivated attacks, including 77 against Jewish sites, and the death of two young Turkish girls in an arson attack.
The edits to the webpage offer a glimpse into how far the Trump administration will go in refusing to acknowledge today’s inequalities as it purges federal initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
Vera Rubin was an astronomer who earned the National Medal of Science for her research on dark matter, an invisible substance that makes up much of the universe. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Rubin Collection
During his first presidential term, Donald Trump signed a congressional act naming a federally funded observatory after the late astronomer Vera Rubin. The act celebrated her landmark research on dark matter — the invisible, mysterious substance that makes up much of the universe — and noted that she was an outspoken advocate for the equal treatment and representation of women in science.
“Vera herself offers an excellent example of what can happen when more minds participate in science,” the observatory’s website said of Rubin — up until recently.
By Monday morning, a section of her online biography titled, “She advocated for women in science,” was gone. It reappeared in a stripped-down form later that day amid a chaotic federal government response to Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
While there are far more seismic changes afoot in America than the revision of three paragraphs on a website, the page’s edit trail provides an opportunity to peer into how institutions and agencies are navigating the new administration’s intolerance of anything perceived as “woke” and illuminates a calculation officials must make in answering a wide-open question:
How far is too far when it comes to acknowledging inequality and advocating against it?
“Vera Rubin, whose career began in the 1960s, faced a lot of barriers simply because she was a woman,” the altered section of the bio began. “She persisted in studying science when her male advisors told her she shouldn’t,” and she balanced her career with raising children, a rarity at the time. “Her strength in overcoming these challenges is admirable on its own, but Vera worked even harder to help other women navigate what was, during her career, a very male-dominated field.”
That first paragraph disappeared temporarily, then reappeared, untouched, midday Monday.
That was not the case for the paragraph that followed: “Science is still a male-dominated field, but Rubin Observatory is working to increase participation from women and other people who have historically been excluded from science. Rubin Observatory welcomes everyone who wants to contribute to science, and takes steps to lower or eliminate barriers that exclude those with less privilege.”
That paragraph was gone as of Thursday afternoon, as was the assertion that Rubin shows what can happen when “more minds” participate in science. The word “more” was replaced with “many,” shifting the meaning.
“I’m sure Vera would be absolutely furious,” said Jacqueline Mitton, an astronomer and author who co-wrote a biography of Rubin’s life. Mitton said the phrase “more minds” implies that “you want minds from people from every different background,” an idea that follows naturally from the now-deleted text on systemic barriers.
She said Rubin, who died in 2016, would want the observatory named after her to continue her work advocating for women and other groups who have long been underrepresented in science.
It’s unclear who ordered the specific alterations of Rubin’s biography. The White House, the observatory and the federal agencies that fund it, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, did not respond to questions from ProPublica.
The observatory’s page on diversity, equity and inclusion was also missing Thursday afternoon. An archived version from Dec. 19 shows that it described the institution’s efforts “to ensure fair and unbiased execution” of the hiring process, including training hiring committee members “on unconscious bias.” The DEI program also included educational and public outreach efforts, such as “meeting web accessibility standards” and plans to build partnerships with “organizations serving audiences traditionally under-represented” in science and technology.
Similar revisions are taking shape across the country as companies have reversed their DEI policies and the Trump administration has placed employees working on DEI initiatives on leave.
If the changes to Rubin’s biography are any indication of what remains acceptable under Trump’s vision for the federal government, then certain facts about historical disparities are safe for now. But any recognition that these biases persist appears to be in the crosshairs.
The U.S. Air Force even pulled training videos about Black airmen and civilian women pilots who served in World War II. (The Air Force later said it would continue to show the videos in training, but certain material related to diversity would be suspended for review.)
One of Rubin’s favorite sayings was, “Half of all brains are in women,” Mitton said. Her book recounts how Rubin challenged sexist language in science publications, advocated for women to take leadership roles in professional organizations and declined to speak at an event in 1972 held at a club where women were only allowed to enter through a back door.
Jacqueline Hewitt, who was a graduate student when she met Rubin at conferences, said she was inspired by Rubin’s research and how she never hid the fact that she had kids. “It was really important to see someone who could succeed,” said Hewitt, the Julius A. Stratton professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It felt like you could succeed also.”
Rubin was awarded the National Medal of Science by then-President Bill Clinton in 1993. The observatory, located in a part of Chile where conditions are ideal for observational astronomy, was named after her in 2019 and includes a powerful telescope; it will “soon witness the explosions of millions of dying stars” and “capture the cosmos in exquisite detail,” according to its website.
Mitton said the observatory is a memorial that continues Rubin’s mission to include not just many people in astronomy, but more of those who haven’t historically gotten a chance to make their mark.
“It’s very sad that’s being undermined,” she said, “because the job isn’t done.” (Snip)
Amanda Nguyen is an activist. And a bestselling author. She’s also a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, founder of a nonprofit, and she happens to love makeup. (Oh, and one more thing: She is the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.) A quick scroll on her Instagram feed reveals snippets of her incredible career, which has spanned her groundbreaking aerospace achievements, critically-acclaimed memoir Saving Five, appearances as TIME’s Woman of the Year, and her work with Rise, a non-governmental organization she created to protect sexual assault survivors. (In 2016, the United States Congress passed the Sexual Assault Survivor Bill of Rights after she publicly testified, which guaranteed, for the first time, statutory rights in federal code for survivors of sexual assault and rape.) Point is, she’s already a veritable force for change — but wasn’t too busy to add one more line to her already-impressive CV: Star of e.l.f. Cosmetics’ Show Your(s)e.l.f. campaign.
The editor-beloved makeup brand is known for its accessible, high-quality products, but it is a shared mission of inclusivity and joy of beauty that made this partnership a natural fit for Nguyen. “e.l.f. is all about democratizing beauty,” she tells Refinery29. “And for me what that means is seeing myself reflected in the ways people consume beauty, either through content, film, or advertisements — and I actually do use e.l.f. every day.”
In addition to the campaign film, Nguyen is preparing to literally take flight as she embarks on an upcoming space expedition with Blue Origin, making her the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.
In our latest Power Diaries, the trailblazer candidly speaks about how she stays inspired and empowered, and shares more about her new role as an e.l.f. ambassador.
I feel most powerful when…
I show up as my authentic self.
Power to me means…
The freedom to make my own choices.
What do you do when you feel powerless?
I remember that no one is powerless when we come together and no one is invisible when we demand to be seen.
What’s your power anthem?
Our voice. It’s the most powerful tool we have, so use it.
Who is your power icon?
My power icon is Sally Ride. She trailblazed so that I could fly.
What do you wear when you want to feel powerful?
I wear red lipstick.
Keep reading for the rest of our Q&A with Nguyen.
(snip-More on the page; not all about makeup. Click the article title above)
I receive Economic Policy Institute’s newsletter for general info about which I contact my congresscritters. EPI have opened a page dedicated to what the White House, the Legislature, and the courts are doing that affect working people. I figure, first of all, forewarned is forearmed, as to little things that may not be loudly reported but which affect us regular people just out here trying to live our lives. So, here’s a link and a snippet. When a person goes on the page, you can get your choice of newsletters in your email box, if you care to; or you can just look around. Thanks for checking it out-I think it will help people.
(I’m running slightly “behind” for the day; yesterday was eventful at home, then I was up a little later watching some of the local coverage of the plane crash in DC. So, I’m takin’ my time today, and what gets done, gets done. Anyway, I’m still enjoying this toon, and I hope you do, too! -A.)
Scottie's Playtime 