SOUNDTRACK: KT TUNSTALL-“Wash ya Hands” (2020).
KT Tunstall has been on my radar a lot lately (I think she’l l have about five posts about shows I’m not going to). Turns out that she released a special COVID-19-related song called “Wash Ya Hands.”
It’s not a great–but it is danceable and funny–for a song that’s all about a message.
The music starts kind of menacing (which is appropriate I suppose) with some swelling strings. But it’s all about dancing and washing your hands.
Lyrically it’s pretty straightforward and easy:
Here’s the rules you have to follow
Wash your hands while you can
Keep on following the plan
Keep your fingers off your face
Keep your distance, give a wave
Call your fiends that you love
Shout out who you’re thinking of
If you gotta cough don’t be dumb
And don’t forget your thumbs.
Those last two lines fall flat, for sure.
However, the video is pretty cute and it’s full of kids dancing around (and the song is clearly for them).
The middle breakdown section is interesting with strings and lots of percussion, including water droplet sounds.
The end adds a bit more fun when the song moves up a step and the lyrics continue:
Wash your hands while you dance
in your favorite underpants.
It’s a positive message in a negative time. Remember: all you’re spreading is love.
[READ: July 4, 2020] Becoming RGB
Why is is that children’s (graphic novel) biographies are so good? Is it because they can focus on all of the important things in a short amount of space? Is it because it is written at a levy that is easy for anyone to understand? Whatever the reason, this biography of the amazing Ruth Bader Ginsburg is fantastic. The illustrations from Whitney Gardner are great too–clean and informative.
Most Americans know that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the tiny woman on the Supreme Court. She’s been there for a long time and she is steadfast and true–very much unlike the two jokers who were recently appointed.
But aside from that, what do most of us know about her? Well, for me, that was a big “not much.”
Her real name is Joan Ruth Bader. But there were three Joans in her kindergarten class so she went by Ruth (everyone called her Kiki anyway). She grew up in Brooklyn. She was left handed and the school forced her to switch (which she refused to do). It was the first of many time she bristled at what a girl was supposed to do.
Ruth’s family was Jewish and they listened to the horrors of the Nazi progression on the radio. Her grandparents immigrated from Russia and Australia years earlier assuming they could escape prejudice in America. But Antisemitism was alive in New York. As was racism and sexism.
And yes, it’s still here–somehow more vocal than ever.
But RBG saw it and wanted to do something about it. She was inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt who said that “cruelty is a double-edged sword, destroying not only the victim but the person who indulges in it.”
Ruth grew up being told how a lady should act. Some of it was sexist, but some of it was also sensible: “a lady doesn’t get disturbed by off-putting things” and “anger, resentment and envy just sap your energy–they don’t get you anyplace.” But mostly her mother wanted her to be independent.
Ruth did great in school and enjoyed public speaking and writing persuasive essays. She looked forward to excelling in high school. But then her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Ruth still excelled, but that loomed over her head the whole time until her mother died just before her graduation.
She had seen sexism before but it came home when her mother died and Ruth was not allowed to be a part of the prayer service because she was a woman.
She went to Cornell where she met her future husband, Martin Ginsburg. Their marriage was different from the start because Ruth couldn’t cook and Martin loved to cook. She excelled at Cornell (taking classes from Vladimir Nabokov–can you imagine?) and learned about law and government. At this time, Joseph McCarthy was being unAmerican and the professors were concerned about it. She was caught up in everything that was happening.
She and Martin wound up going to Harvard Law School (Harvard business school didn’t accept women). Sexism was rampant at Harvard. There were no women’s bathrooms in one of the classroom buildings. The Lamont Library was not open to women–Ruth needed her husband to get an article for her. When she was invited to the law school banquet she was not allowed to invite her aunt–the party was men only (aside from the few women students).
Then Marty found out he had cancer. Luckily for them, he beat it.
Ruth also beat sexism wherever she could.
Many judges refused to have a woman work with them, but Ruth was so smart that her teachers wrote glowing recommendations with one even saying, “If you don’t give her a chance I will never recommend another Columbia clerk to you.” Judge Palmieri finally chose her and after she worked for him for two years, he couldn’t say enough good things about her and doors opened up for her.
She began to fight systemic sexism. And that meant fighting for men as well. She fought for Charles Moritz who denied a benefit because he was a man. He looked after his elderly mother and tried to get a federal tax benefit. But the law stated that only women could get it–they were the only caretakers after all. She fought and got that law changed.
But when she was offered a job teaching at Rutgers, she was given a salary far lower than the man who started at the same time (he had a family and was the main breadwinner after all). She didn’t fight it, but she didn’t forget it either.
She started working for the ACLU and fought for teachers who were fired because they were pregnant. She won cases in New Jersey which didn’t impact the country as a whole, but which did set precedents.
It’s easy to forget that Congress passed the ERA in 1972. But since not enough states ratified it, it didn’t pass. That meant Ruth had to fight for everything.
She continued to write about sex discrimination, when a fiend suggested she use the word “gender” to take “sex” out of it. She fought to have women on juries–I cannot even believe that in 1978 a case in Missouri said that women were not expected to be on juries. She won.
President Jimmy Carter was committed to women’s equality and hired a lot of women for his cabinet. By the end of his term, he increased the number of female federal judges from six to forty–one of those judges was RBG.
There’s a little chapter about Antonin Scalia a horribly conservative beast a of a man who has harmed this country tremendously. He and Ruth were polar opposites politically. But the chapter tells us that they got along very well and were actually friends. Ruth was also professional when they disagreed.
It as after Byron White stepped down in 1993 that Bill Clinton appointed her to the Supreme Court. She was not the first female judge–that was Sandra Day O’Connor, but for a time she was the only one. Then Barack Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. RBG always imagined there would be four women on the bench. It’s close.
In 1999 she was diagnosed with colon cancer but she beat it (and didn’t miss any work). In 2018 she had surgery for lung cancer she beat that as well.
She is a national treasure and we must keep her healthy until trump is out of office.
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