Dear Readers,
Welcome! This is one of the platforms I use to raise alarm about the many ways women’s rights are denied in the U.S. and globally. It’s not enough to know what’s wrong. We have to fortify a global womanist community that resists the diminishment embedded in our cultures. Transformative actions like The Howl have to be birthed. Possibly we start in October.
I will not be posting my usually weekly commentaries for the rest of August. Stepping away tends to invite new insights about the work, so I’ll be back refreshed. A bit of news before the break.
The Journey So Far
Two of my good friends hosted a discussion/signing party for When All the Girls Stopped Singing. The exuberant event boosted my writer’s soul. There’s nothing like personal contact with readers! And, new allies have arrived. That’s always exciting. And people have become excited my 2019 book, Trouble Ahead: Dangerous Missions with Desperate People, a memoir of my work in Africa.
During August, I’ll be discussing and promoting THE INVOICE: Settling the Debt with Black America. This project grabbed ahold of me about two years ago and its importance grew beyond all expectations. Our company, TruDat Productions, just received a grant from the Berkeley Film Foundation to advance the project. A long-planned Kickstarter effort will help us “top up” for the next critical phase of production and marketing.
If economic justice—the payment of a long overdue debt to Black Americans— resonates with you as it does with me, please contribute. The campaign goes live Tuesday, August 11 for 30 days.
Momma Earth
Estimated Waste: In the first month of the war with Iran, the U.S. fired off more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles (at $3.6 million each) and more than 1,000 Patriot (at around $2 million each) and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems (at around $13 million each). At minimum that’s $10.5 billion in five months. All one-use items. That would pay for how many scholarships or school repairs or clinics or women’s shelters or. . .?
Inestimable loses: 18 U.S. service members killed and hundreds injured.
fromWashington Post Aug 6, 2026
We have to get serious about ways to end this madness.
Mt. Shasta in Northern California with its magical summit-hugging cloud, where spirits and extraterrestrials are said to convene.