Photos scrolling above were taken at the January 2018 Women's March in San Marcos, California. 
                    So far! So fast!                    
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A New DayOn the Way: January 3, 2019
Published 11/13/18

​Having been on vacation for two weeks and indulged myself with another 10 days to get organized, catch up, and follow the recent election, I find myself at a loss to know where to begin as I switch into voterbeat mode. 
 
Since last I wrote, 11 followers of the Jewish faith were murdered in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue, 13 people died in the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, dozens perished in wildfires in California, a spree of primitive bombs were sent to opponents of the president, and the outcome of key races in the 2018 election remains uncertain amidst claims of various shenanigans.  
 
Meanwhile, Congress has done nothing.

  • Nothing on gun control
  • Nothing on issues of climate change
  • Nothing to reign in a president bent on rescinding regulations which protect the environment
  • Nothing to address the fallout from the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act
  • Nothing, nothing, nothing.
 
I know they’ve been preoccupied with campaigning, but sometimes I wonder what proportion of their time our elected representatives spend doing their job—which, after all, is legislating—and what percentage is spent in “politicking”—fund raising, meeting with donors, PR stunts to solidify their grasp on the offices they hold. 
 
There’s something terribly inefficient and, even worse, unresponsive in this system. But still … there’s a bright spot: the election of a diverse group of women to various posts.  Numbers continue to vacillate, but it looks like we’ll have more than 100 in the House of representatives, 23 in the Senate, and 9 in governorships of various states. 
 
How will those legislative bodies change as women become a larger force? I don’t know, but if Martha McSally’s (R) concession to Kyrsten Sinema (D) in the Arizona race for senator is any indication (watch it here), we might see, at least, a heightened and personal touch of class. What better way to tamp down the rhetoric than to give your concession “speech” while sitting on the couch, petting the family dog?     
 
I’m looking forward to watching the dynamics evolve in the District of Columbia, historically the bastion of the privileged white male. At the risk of overgeneralizing, simplifying and, (worse yet, oh horrors, sounding sexist), it’s been my experience that women in general like collaborating and searching together for solutions. And often, they don’t really care who gets the credit. It’s not that we don’t like recognition. We do. But workable solutions outrank credit in the long run.
 
I’m not saying men can’t do the same thing. Obviously, they can and sometimes they do. I’m just saying perhaps the increased presence of women can move the Congress a bit more swiftly in a collaborative direction. Soon, to use an overused phrase . . . we'll see what happens. ​
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