Women's Day

 8 of March.

I remember it quite well from a primary school in Communist Poland.
Day before the celebrations, our class teacher dictated:
In 1910, at an international conference of socialist women, Klara Zetkin and Eugenia Cotton proposed to celebrate International Women's Day ...

Above Klara Zetkin with Rosa Luxemburg.
By Unknown author - Public Domain, Link

The first Women's Day celebrations took place on February 28, 1909, in New York, on the initiative of the Socialist Party of America, at the request of a certain Teresa Malkiel - KLIK.

Socialist Party of America - I sighed appreciatively and clicked to find out something about Mrs. Teresa.
"Ukrainian born American activist".

Ukraine in 1910?
Actually Teresa Malkiel was born in a Polish part of Ukraine, which at the time of her birth was administered by Austria.
Somehow I found these connection quite significant.

No wonder I got quite excited when I learned that my local library organized a Women's Day Trivia Night.
I joined and connected to zoom.

The evening was hosted by Mrs. Tracy Bartram, apparently a very popular presenter of radio programs, comedian, singer.

Her behavior confirmed that she was a professional comedian, because before she said something, she was already laughing, when she started talking, she was choking with laughter every now and then, and when she finished speaking, she laughed until the last person in the audience stopped laughing.

Very quickly she moved to the actual women's issues.
Firstly, memories of sufferings women had to endure while using diafragm as anticonception.
Then the double edge of menopause.

At this time I got a hint - men-o-pause .
As I was the only men connected to the session I paused - switched off 

The Happiest Man on Earth

The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I feel very uncomfortable.
A book written by a very honest and good person. A book describing how to turn each bad experience into something good. A book with lots of wise advice.
How can a sensible person say anything critical about such a book?
I do not pretend to be a very sensible person so I will mention some disappointments.
Eddie Jaku was born in Germany, in a Jewish family, which felt completely assimilated into German society.
So it was a terrible shock to them, that in 1933, after A. Hitler won the election, everyone around turned against Jews.
Father arranged false identity documents for his son and sent him to a good technical school away from home.
5 years passed - in the book there is absolutely no mention what happened in these 5 years. Just click and Eddie lands in concentration camp in Buchenwald.
Next 5 years are filled with numerous arrests and escapes until landing in Auschwitz where he managed to survive till the end of the war.
I read number of relations of Auschwitz survivors, I met few personally, but I never read or heard so dispassionate relation.
I do not know whether it was matter of age (Eddie was 99 when he started to work on this book) or time passed since things happened or a deliberate move to put more emphasis on the positive side of the experience, but for me it deprived story of any emotions.
Then, about a quarter of the book is filled with a lecture how much better it is to be good.
I agree with Eddie and with his message. I have great respect for his character and achievements, but my reception of this book was lukewarm.

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