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
Do Genocide and Slavery Ever Become History? Too many of the book reviews I find online, in magazines or books are too long for my use. So, I end up writing reviews of reviews. Following is my review of a book review written by Deborah Lipstadt and published in The…
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How Can We Protect Our Children? I suspect that the overwhelming majority of American women could come up with a childhood experience like mine. It occurred when I was in grade school and involved our next door neighbor, Mr. Blank, who owned the biggest lumber yard in the town. Every…
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Affordable Housing Something has to be done about the ever-increasing gap between the poor and rich, especially as it relates to the availability of affordable housing for those who need it. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that in no state in the union can a full-time worker earning…
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How to Take Care of Captives I think that we in the peace movement are so accustomed to looking at the need for action that we tend to let slide the various bits of upbeat news in the world of international politics. The Star Tribune of Aug. 25, however, published…
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How to Take Care of Captives I think that we in the peace movement are so accustomed to looking at the need for action that we tend to let slide the various bits of upbeat news in the world of international politics. The Star Tribune of Aug. 25, however, published…
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Unfair Remuneration The Star Tribune recently ran an article entitled “Worker pay stagnates as it soars for CEOs.” It would be great if on its publication that situation could be rectified, but no way is that going to happen! The organization responsible for the report, the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute,…
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Guns banned in New Zealand During World War II my husband spent about a year on duty in Australia and his letters to me from there exacerbated my interest not only in Australia, but also New Zealand. So, the New York Times article about gun usage in New Zealand drew…
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Good gun news It’s seldom, if ever, one reads good news about guns. So, this bit of news should be well received. There exists a group with a mission antithetical to that of the National Rifle Association (NRA). it’s called GUNS DOWN AMERICA, organized in 2016 in Orlando, Fla., as…
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Good gun news It’s seldom, if ever, one reads good news about guns. So, this bit of news should be well received. There exists a group with a mission antithetical to that of the National Rifle Association (NRA). It’s called GUNS DOWN AMERICA, organized in 2016 in Orlando, Fla., as…
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The rich get richer A great deal of what I do when I write is to reduce word usage. For example, a small newsletter that I receive monthly contains so much information about the corporations that run this country. (No, they don’t govern it; they simply control those who do…
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Hope for the Earth, our home The New York Times of Jan. 7 carried a full half-page ad signed by Michael Kurtyka of the Polish National Foundation and president of the environmental group COP24, describing the most recent U.N. climate policy conference, the Katowice Rulebook. Negotiators from 196 countries and…
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Why should your child die from a gunshot wound? The doctor has found the task a most difficult and onerous one and who wouldn’t? Dr. Marianne Haughey of St. Barnabas Hospital in Jersey City, N.Y., has been assigned victims of homicide for 25 years and one of her tasks has…
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Why should your child die from a gunshot wound? The doctor has found the task a most difficult and onerous one and who wouldn’t? Dr. Marianne Haughey of St. Barnabas Hospital in Jersey City, N.Y., has been assigned victims of homicide for 25 years and one of her tasks has…
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Forgotten victims of war Recently I read a newspaper article about the so-called “comfort women” of World War II and it reminded me of my visit with several of these women years ago. Marianne Hamilton and I were in the Philippines protesting something or the other that Bill Clinton had…
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BY POLLY MANN It was the first and only time I have had caviar: a long long time ago when I was in Moscow with my husband who was attending a joint meeting of American and Russian judges. The occasion was a cocktail party hosted by the Russian judges. It…
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