WOW: Women's Older Wisdom

Activism

The Fallacy of Hope

GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI On the fridge door this Indian proverb:  All we need is the morning for that is blessing enough. The greeting sustains me, reminds me of the extraordinary luck just to be born, yet… Outside the front door: homelessness. A few blocks away: families struggle to put food on the table, stay warm as winter comes; hesitate [...]

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I Chose Connection

We are at a critical juncture. Basic freedoms and our safety—rights enshrined in the Constitution are under assault.  We are becoming a nation ruled by Fascists, criminals and grifters. In the face of this danger, why are people disappearing into their phones, binging on Netflix, captive to gambling mania, scrolling through social media, [...]

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Looking for Home

Lately I have been thinking about the meaning of home. Not the wonderful Victorian space I have lived in for almost 14 years; my neighborhood of tree-lined streets; the welcoming market; the Maine coastline that still takes my breath away. These places remain. What has changed is the country I thought I knew. I no longer feel at home here. [...]

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All Hands-on Deck!

This past week America descended further into Fascist Hell, signaling the urgency to take action before protests become illegal aka Texas’ Prairieland Defendants, who received insanely large sentences for peacefully protesting at an ICE concentration camp. These draconian sentences are intended to shut down protests against Trump’s [...]

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No Exit: With Apologies to Sartre

I’m in a dream where I’m trapped. I’m running through a long hall, looking for an escape from the perpetual bombings that leveled Gaza and now aim for the same carnage in Lebanon and Iran, where 170 school girls were murdered by US bombs. For a brief moment the bombs let up, when my attention is diverted to ICE thugs kidnapping my brown-skinned [...]

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Staying Awake

“The great challenge . .  . is to keep awake the part of you that knows . . . what it means to be alive.” The Marginalian, February, 22, 2026 Trump’s devastating takeover of the federal government has awakened many here and abroad to the perils the U S faces. Authoritarianism merges with fascism at home.  Injustice and inequality grow. [...]

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Stepford Wives Redux

The 1975 Sci-fi cinematic thriller,” The Stepford Wives,” bears an eerie resemblance to the women in Trump’s cabinet. The film depicts the upscale suburban community of Stepford, Connecticut where the women are carbon copies of one another. On every sighting, even at the grocery store, they are fashionably attired and perfectly made-up. [...]

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Community ~ Antidote to Despair

GUEST POST by TOM SANTULLI “We make meaning most readily in times of confusion and despair when life as we know it has ceased to make sense.” ~ Oliver Sacks Watching the chaos and suffering unleashed in this country and abroad by Trump – maniacal narcissistic amoral bullying – and his toadies, despair is my first reaction… fear, [...]

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Hope: Where Art Thou?

For two hours on January 1st, watching the inauguration of New York’s new governor, Zoran Mamdani, I felt hopeful for the first in a long time. I was inspired by the populist speech of the new Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams. Moved by Mandy Patinkin singing “Over the Rainbow,” accompanied by fifth graders from Staten Island’s PS [...]

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