Rita Pike

As a Jewish woman and as a human being, I was shocked to learn of the massive misinformation and lack of knowledge regarding the Holocaust that’s been making news. Before I knew of my own Jewish heritage – hidden for at least a generation by family members because of fear – I drove by the Dachau Concentration Camp in Bavaria, Germany. Built-in 1933, this was the first concentration camp set up by the Nazis and the remaining evidence on the site is overwhelming, horrifying, and heart-shatterin...

Fifty-six-years ago today, a woman from Ohio became the first woman to fly solo around the world.
No, you are not doing the maths wrong. I am not talking about that other, much more famous, female American aviator. I am talking about Jerrie Mock, private pilot, housewife - and my grandmother.
When she left for her round-the-world adventure, she was dubbed The Flying Housewife by the media.
She was a 38-year-old mother of three who had wanted to fly around the world since she was a little girl...

It began with the dream of a little girl taking her first airplane ride. In 1932, in Newark, Ohio, that little girl understood what her destiny held, even if not the details. “I will fly around the world.”

In grade school, she studied the atlases of the world and found two more dreams for her life: to ride a camel in the Sahara and to ride an elephant. In college, she was the only female in a class of 100 studying aeronautical engineering.

As the years passed, she pursued her dreams as b...

“Does the name Vincent Van Gogh ring a bell?”
“Don’t mention that man to me…he’s drunk, he’s mad, and he never pays his bills.”
When this episode of Doctor Who begins, we laugh at the absurdity that this restaurateur would reject one of the most famous paintings in the world because the man trying to hawk it was a bit of a drunk. Any of us would accept this piece, even if we’re not personally fond of the man’s work. We know its value, which is: practically priceless.
[Content Warning: this es...

Whether you’ve heard of Australian singer Helen Reddy or not, you might have heard the words to her 1971 smash hit “I Am Woman.” The song became an anthem during the women’s liberation movement for good reason and not simply because of the lyrics, but because of Reddy herself.
In a recent interview, Unjoo Moon, director, producer, and visionary behind this incredible film shared her journey with me. Her personal connection...

Thanks to the giant spikes in COVID-19 cases, in mid-November, Chicago’s mayor Lori Lightfoot put out a stay-at-home request for everyone extending out into the suburbs where I live. Immediately, our holiday plays came to mind. The mayor is asking us to stay at home, cancel Thanksgiving plans, and survive the holidays without family.
My husband and I would survive the holiday together alone, but so many of our friends and family live on their own. They have no one to see, no ...

When we think of Autumn we tend to be reminded of the changing leaves, the crisp coolness in the air, the bright, vivid sunsets, and wisps of fireplace smoke that puff into the sky. We become enchanted with all of these things, which bring such warmth and comfort that only cooler weather provides.
But this year, Autumn feels different. Maybe it’s the lockdowns continuing, the massive upticks in the pandemic, and the weird weather thanks to global warming. I think this year, thanks to that wei...

American founding father, Benjamin Franklin, once told us that only two things in life are certain: death and tax-es. In the late 1960s, my grandmother, Geraldine ‘Jerrie’ Mock, discovered the second to be true. You see, in 1964, she was dubbed the ‘flying housewife’ by the media as she set out to claim the title of first woman to fly around the world. Twenty-nine days later – after surviving sand-storms, iced-over wings and engine troubles – she landed back in Ohio on April 17 and claimed that title...

When I returned this winter to Tallahassee, Florida, where I grew up, I was met with hugs and welcoming words, but as I sat in church circles and restaurants, the reality of the racist South hit hard. In these communal places, people openly make comments like, “But there’s a Black church across the street from that BBQ joint, so, you know what kind of neighborhood it is…”
The bigotry prevented me from making a second Sunday visit to the church that once I loved and served in faithfully for se...

Any time I post anything even slightly political on my social media, I log out and vow not to return for at least a few days. I’m a sensitive soul who is easily wounded by the horrible, nasty things that my once-upon-a-time fellow church members say to me when I make announcements like “I don’t support Trump.”

I learned this the hard way – and have lost many friends in the Southern Baptist Church where I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. I was also told by a former pastor, that I was “siding with fascists” because I refuse to support Trump.

After these unkind, unloving, sometimes hateful resp

Until this election, we will have only had “First Ladies” and “Second Ladies.” Now, with Kamala Harris as Vice President-elect, we have the first “Second Gentleman” in American history.
Traditionally, the spouses of the president and vice president resign their jobs to become the full-time spouses of the White House. Doug Emhoff, Harris’ husband, is joining the ranks of these full-time spouses, putting his wife’s career ahead of his own.
Emhoff is leaving behind a lucrative law practice where...

Since the pandemic hit, the United States has seen baking supplies sales on the rise. We’ve lost access to our gyms and we’ve had this swirling depression rise and fall, over and over again, as we remain stuck at home. With autumn arriving, and winter quickly on its tail, the fear of further weight gain – even beyond the COVID “fifteen” – is legitimate.
As a nation, we already struggle with obesity when we don’t have restrictions keeping us from hiking trails safely with friends or going to t...

After much chaos, misinformation from social media sources, and protests against counting all votes for this world-changing election, the results are finally in: Joseph R. Biden, Jr. won the 2020 United States Presidential Election against former president Donald J. Trump.

With him, Kamala Harris, becomes the new Vice President of the United States, becoming the first woman, first woman of color, and first Person of Color to become the Vice President of the United States.

Since taking office in 2019, unseating longtime incumbent Joseph Crowley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC as many of us have affectionately come to call her, has been making changes wherever she can. She’s been talking up a New Green Deal since taking office – well, since her campaign – and she’s spoken out against misogyny and racism in the USA, just to a name couple of ways she’s impacted streams of thought.

There’s got to be more than talk, though, and AOC has been doing everything she ca...

It seems as though books have been banned since the invention of the printing press. There have been recognized cases of banning since Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan over 400 hundred years ago, and possibly earlier. While we may despise this kind of censorship, it does still happen today, most often due to pressure by conservative religious groups.
How Do Books Get Banned?
Before a book is banned from a library, school, or geographical region, there is a challenge pr...