Caturday Heroines

1950’s Jean Patchett

Morning, news junkies! Okay so not a cat picture, but Jean Patchett qualifies as pretty darn feline in my books… heh. Also, I can’t get this pic to post because it’s copyrighted, but here’s a photo of Hemingway and Patchett in tow with kitties.

Well that’s it in the way of an intro for today. Let’s get right to the links.

First up… by now I’m sure you’ve all read quite a few of the “Hillary makes history” items in the headlines lately, so I won’t reinvent that news wheel. But, in case you missed it…here’s a neat profile on Hillary Rodham Clinton at makers.com, entitled “The Lesson of ‘Hillarycare'”. Includes several video interview clips of Hillary reflecting on her life. Snippet from the write-up:

Wellesley College seniors had never before chosen a commencement speaker from their own ranks when Hillary Rodham stepped to the podium on the last day of May in 1969. Education, she said, must grant “the courage to be whole” and permit people to live “in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence.” The speech received national attention and marked Rodham as a leading light for the young women of her generation.

By now, it’s safe to say that the early promise has been borne out; had Hillary Rodham Clinton “merely” attended Yale Law, served on the staff of the Senate Watergate Committee, become a respected children’s rights advocate, been the first female partner at her law firm, been a mother, and served as First Lady of Arkansas, we would think of her as a leader. And yet she has by now spent two additional decades at the very heart of the national consciousness—as a sometimes-embattled First Lady, as a distinguished senator from New York, as a groundbreaking 2008 Presidential candidate, and now as the 67th Secretary of State. Clinton has outlasted the smears to top Gallup’s “most admired woman in America” a record 16 times since 1993. “The courage to be whole,” indeed.

Next, from the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson… Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Hero:

I am glad that John Roberts, the Chief Justice, voted to uphold almost all of the Affordable Care Act. But the stance of humble gratitude toward Roberts that’s been assumed by many in the past day is beginning to be a bit much. This is especially true since the real hero of the day is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

On the front page of the late edition of the Times Friday morning, there were four stories on the Supreme Court decision. One talked about Roberts’s “exquisite delicacy,” and how he “considers himself the custodian of the Supreme Court’s prestige, authority and legitimacy.” Ginsburg’s name didn’t appear before the jump in any of them; she only ever appeared in one, seventeen paragraphs in. Her picture and surname were in the infographic—all the Justices were there. There were four pull-quotes: two from Roberts, and two from the joint dissent from Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy.

And yet Ginsburg wrote what would have been the dissent—and a strong one—if Roberts had voted with the four conservatives to throw out the entire health-care law.

Read the rest. It’s worth the click and it’s news you won’t find out from the Dewey Defeats Truman newsrooms of America!

Historiann on Nora Ephron…. I highly recommend clicking on the first link in her post, which I’ve linked here too for your convenience:

Now I will really miss her.

From the New York Times obit:

The producer Scott Rudin recalled that less than two weeks before her death, he had a long phone session with her from the hospital while she was undergoing treatment, going over notes for a pilot she was writing for a TV series about a bank compliance officer. Afterward she told him, “If I could just get a hairdresser in here, we could have a meeting.”

Ms. Ephron’s collection “I Remember Nothing” concludes with two lists, one of things she says she won’t miss and one of things she will. Among the “won’t miss” items are dry skin, Clarence Thomas, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and panels on “Women in Film.” The other list, of the things she will miss, begins with “my kids” and “Nick” and ends this way:

“Taking a bath

Coming over the bridge to Manhattan

Pie.”

And, on that note. I’m gonna go draw a nice soothing bath and bake something yummy this Saturday. You know what to do in the comments, Sky Dancers… Have a lovely weekend!