Mood Rings and Magic Carpets

We had a yard sale over the weekend on Saturday and it sprinkled then poured rain throughout the day despite a weather forecast of partly cloudy with 20% chance of rain. It may have been May 31, but we and all our early arrivals were all in long sleeves with hoods up, and shivering. Our first sale was for .50, a scrap of silk from an Indian sari I'd sewn into a scarf.

One of our early customers was a woman of approximately my same vintage, in a mini van who was particularly interested in the antique hand-knotted wool Hamadan 2'10 x 9'7 hall runner on sale for $200. The price was too high, it was early in the day, so she left without the rug and I forgot all about her.

Foreign Coverage?

From a series at Salon.com described as "The latest installment of a continuing series in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries" comes the following analysis of the NY Times/Abramson firing debacle:

"Once considered a regional media outlet for the city whose name it still anachronistically bears, the New York Times has long been a national force, though it is primarily consumed by the economic elites who cluster in the coastal metropolitan areas of this economically stratified country...Reports have since emerged that Abramson may have been paid less than her male predecessor, and that some in the paper’s leadership may have resented her aggressive style. While the laws of this rapidly modernizing country outlaw gender discrimination in compliance with international norms, inequalities rooted in centuries-old patriarchal practices still persist, even in elite institutions, and those who challenge these unwritten rules can face severe backlash." - Josh Keating via Slate

That's right folks! "Inequalities rooted in centuries-old patriarchal practices still persist, even in elite institutions..." and we should all be ashamed. #Pushy.

#Pushy

Abramson Fired

A prominent New York media observer wrote in a recent post, Why Jill Abramson Was Fired, that former NY Times editor Jill Abramson was fired, in part, because she inquired as to pay discrepancies between her remuneration and that of her male predecessor:

"...Abramson discovered that her pay and her pension benefits as both executive editor and, before that, as managing editor were considerably less than the pay and pension benefits of Bill Keller, the male editor whom she replaced in both jobs. “She confronted the top brass,” one close associate said, and this may have fed into the management’s narrative that she was “pushy,” a characterization that, for many, has an inescapably gendered aspect." 

I will wait to hear from Ms. Abramson herself before tearing the NYT a new one. In the Twitter feed of Solange Knowles (I know, right?) lies this gem: "Yo. I don't believe in violence but I almost beat someone's ass tonight. Lot a bit of Martin, but a lot a bit of Malcom" (via Huffington Post). As white as I am, I know the feeling well.

Paycheck Fairness

The bill's lead sponsor, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) got a little emotional in her remarks after the recent failure of the Paycheck Fairness Act by a vote of 53 to 44.