August 26 is our wedding anniversary together with the 100th anniversary of Women’s Equality Day. Women were not “given” the right to vote. For generations they worked, organized, marched, debated, lectured, were jailed, beaten, force fed, and organized some more. Finally, the papers documenting Tennessee’s ratification, arrived by train in Washington D.C. at 4:00 a.m. where the proclamation was signed by the U.S. Secretary of State at 8:00 a.m. Aug. 26! Burton and I were married in 1962. In our married life we have seen huge changes in women’s rights and the partnership of women and men, but there is still much to be done. We celebrate and pledge to continue to work against sexism, racism, abuse, oppression and exclusion.

For our anniversary we took our lunch to the Carrie Chapman Catt Museum farm and had a private quiet lunch on the back porch of her childhood home in the country. You see the old barn and the new wind farming today in the countryside. This leader in the long struggle for women's right to vote lived only 30 miles from Mason City where she taught, was principal and then superintendent at the age of 24.

U.S. Could Use International Election Observer Team

 My friend Duncan from the Netherlands recently asked me if the U.S. needed someone from the International community to be an observer for our 2020 election. I agreed we could use the help!

The Jimmy Carter Center has observed 111 elections in 39 countries since 1989. Observers bring impartiality, and their presence helps to reassure voters that they can safely cast their ballots.

The United States faces previously unimaginable barriers to people’s constitutional right to vote, including voter suppression, restrictive I.D. laws, and defunding of and slowing down the mail service. The presidential incumbent seems open to Russian interference. He says in advance the elections will be fraudulent and that he might not accept the results of the election These tactics and more make voting in a “peaceful” democracy as hard as possible.

Would the U.S. accept international observers? Probably not, but our issues are serious. Observers bring impartiality and help to reassure voters that they can safely cast their ballots. They begin well in advance of elections and assess registration practices. During elections, the observers monitor voting and remain afterwards to monitor vote tabulation. They can serve as mediators to facilitate the peaceful transfer of power.

My friend Duncan is originally from Suriname which recently held elections. Their President, who had been accused of crimes, was defeated. This Dutch-speaking Caribbean country has a parliamentary multiparty system. The losing party said to the winners: “to every Surinamese of these coalition parties who will form the government, the blessing of the Most High of the religion you profess”.

Their election was held in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May authorities imposed a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, ordered non-essential businesses closed and said people could travel only to get food or medicine. Facemasks are mandatory in shops; meetings of more than five people are banned. As of August 13, there were only 39 deaths in this country of 600,000.

What might we learn from other democratic nations? Might we now need an international team to monitor the 2020 elections in this democracy of the United States of America?

75 Years later: No More Nuclear Tragedies!

 The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Sunday marked its 75th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing where more than 70,000 were killed. The Aug. 9, 1945, bombing came three days after the United States dropped its first atomic bomb on Hiroshima that killed 140,000.

On Sunday at the event at Nagasaki Peace Park, Mayor Tomihisa Taue read a peace declaration raising concerns that countries have moved away from using nuclear weapons as a deterrent.  “As a result, the threat of nuclear weapons being used is increasingly becoming real,” He said that “the true horror of nuclear weapons has not yet been adequately conveyed to the world at large.”  Today we work to make Nagasaki the last place of such nuclear bomb tragedy.