Polly Mann
Click this image to read Polly Mann’s Easy Essays
I was born Nov. 19, 1919, in the little town of Lonoke, Ark., and spent my growing-up years in Hot Springs, Ark. After high school I got a job in the Transportation Section of the Quartermaster’s Office (U.S.Army) in Little Rock. During my couple of years there I watched bayonet practice and troop trains depart for the war in Germany (very sobering experiences). As a result I became a pacifist and that belief guided the rest of my life. I married a military draftee, a young lawyer from Minnesota, who shortly was sent by the military to a base in New Guinea. I then got a job with the U.S. government and went to Ecuador and Peru for a couple of years. When the war was over, my husband, Walter, and I lived in Minnesota where he practiced law and eventually was appointed judge. We (Walter and I and our four children) lived in Windom and Marshall. Upon his retirement we moved to the Twin Cities. He died in 2004. When we came to Minneapolis, a friend and I started an organization, Women Against Military Madness, which has 1,000 members, one staff person and a newsletter editor and is going strong. Today I write occasional articles for the newsletter, see my friends and enjoy retirement.
A Portrait of Polly Mann: a 53 minute documentary, part of her 1988 run for the U S Senate
Polly Mann on Leadership: a 30 minute interview of Polly on the Mary Hanson show, 2002
Journal entry on CaringBridge by Connie John (Polly’s daughter)— Jan. 19, 2023 It is just over a week ago that I woke up about 4 a.m. and heard Mom wheezing. I got up to see how she was doing. Mostly after the stroke when she could not be trusted to…
Continue reading
The soldier and the peacenik I am a voracious reader and years ago when I read of the coming birth of a college in Marshall, Minn., where I was living, I decided to apply for the position of bookstore manager. Never mind that I had no experience in running a…
Continue reading
The desperate need for prison reform Linda Franks of Baton Rouge, La., turned a room in her beauty salon into a meeting place for the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition, exemplifying what is happening to prison reform all over the country. One example is Vanessa Fano’s brother who…
Continue reading
Call it murder The Catholic Agitator of June 2021, a monthly newsletter, carried an article by the journalist Chris Hedges, entitled “The Age of Social Murder” which should be required reading for all of us. He defines the murderer’s weapon as global warming, seldom defined or recognized as such. Each…
Continue reading
How will the U.S. Armed Forces command space? In December 2019 the U.S. Space Force was established as the sixth branch of the military. Its initial staff consisted of two, but since then it has added more than 80 Air Force Academy lieutenants and plans to have a permanent staff…
Continue reading
Conscientious objection Conscientious objectors of every generation have heard some version of this: “Your freedom to be a conscientious objector was won for you by the military you refuse to join and the wars you refuse to fight.” Yet, those same generations have seen the military used to suppress the…
Continue reading
Julian Assange, a journalist in danger Remember him? He’s the Australian founder of the website “WikiLeaks” who ended up in a London jail on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse. He could spend the rest of his life in the U.S. prison in Florence, Colo. He was…
Continue reading
COVID vaccinations Israel leads the world in per capita COVID vaccinations, with more than a million and a half Israelis having been vaccinated. Authorities estimate officials can administer the vaccine to some two million Israelis before the end of March, if not earlier, and hope to have the bulk of…
Continue reading
‘Capitalism in the 21st century’ Years ago, I read a glowing review of Thomas Piketty’s book “Capitalism in the 21st Century” and I tried to read it. I read about a fourth of the first chapter and gave up. Now he’s written a new book, but I know better than…
Continue reading
Mexican children incarcerated at the U.S. border Some Central American children coming into the United States are being stopped at the border and are being returned by the U.S. Border Patrol to Mexico or placed in custody. The transfer is contrary to both U.S. policy and an outstanding diplomatic agreement…
Continue reading
Mexican children incarcerated at the U.S. border Some Central American children coming into the United States are being stopped at the border and are being returned by the U.S. Border Patrol to Mexico or placed in custody. The transfer is contrary to both U.S. policy and an outstanding diplomatic agreement…
Continue reading
Mexican children incarcerated at the U.S. border Some Central American children coming into the United States are being stopped at the border and are being returned by the U.S. Border Patrol to Mexico or placed in custody. The transfer is contrary to both U.S. policy and an outstanding diplomatic agreement…
Continue reading
The choice between peace and mutually assured destruction There it was—the article reminding us of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and who better to write it than Helen Caldicott, pediatrician, founder of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Nobel Peace Prize winner. It’s been 75 years since the…
Continue reading
‘Capitalism in the 21st century’ Years ago, I read a glowing review of Thomas Piketty’s book “Capitalism in the 21st Century” and I tried to read it. I read about a fourth of the first chapter and gave up. Now he’s written a new book, but I know better than…
Continue reading
‘Black Boy’ by Richard Wright The first 24 years of my life were spent in the south—that is, the southern part of the United States: Arkansas. In our household of nine, we always had one black servant. We called her the maid, but she really was the “jill of all…
Continue reading
