Gloria Steinem Can Still Write

Read what Gloria had to say about Palin here.

http://www.truthout.org/article/palin-wrong-woman-wrong-message

I have never been much of a women's libber but Gloria Steinem has really echoed my thoughts and beliefs.

"So let's be clear:" Gloria says, " The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."

Read the entire article at that link above.

Barbara Boxer Fights Back!

"At the Republican National Convention, John McCain used the word "fight" more than 40 times in his speech.

In the 16 years that we have served together in the Senate, I have seen John McCain fight.

I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.

I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.

I have seen him fight against a women's right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.

I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.

I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system "an absolute disgrace."

And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.

John McCain voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent of the time in 2008 -- that's no maverick.

We do have two real fighters for change in this election -- their names are Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

The Issues

You hear a lot of lies today about each candidiate's issues and plans. CNN published this chart to keep those things straight and I am putting it here for anyone else to see. It should eliminate any false information. You can click on it and make it large enough to read easily. I also subscribe to FactCheck.com and they keep track of all the facts and misinformation.

Rain, Rain Go Away!

Well, I've never had one of my garage sales rained out before so this is a first. All that work and I woke up to rain this morning. I just kept the garage door down and will try again next weekend. The weather people don't give us much hope for next weekend either with all these hurricanes down south.

Bob wanted to open up anyhow but I knew no one in their right mind would come out in the rain for a garage sale so I kept the door down to protect all that stuff from the rain. Besides he's going to be gone again today to his workshop.

What About Sarah Palin

What about Sarah Palin?

I think she was chosen to take the emphasis off of issues. She's a distraction.

McCain was desperate and could see no way out of a hole. He really can't address the issues and at the same time be loyal to his Republican base, which is necessary for his even remotely possible election. He has to keep the issues out of his supporters' minds or he will lose the election. So, he can only talk "around" the issues. There was no policy spoken at all last night....only a faulty biography.

And how can he speak of policy? He's a multi-millionaire who doesn't even have a clue about the middle class problems. With the economy in the shape it's in now, who cares what he did forty years ago...besides leaving his loyal disabled wife for a rich young beauty after that wife had waited for him five years while he was a POW. He is a philanderer and a liar and that seemed to matter a lot to the Republican Party when Clinton was President. McCain has a vicious temper and that a could really influence his decision making powers as president. He has lost it repeatedly and publicly on the floor of the Senate. How would you like that finger punching the chest of a fellow senator on that red button?

Sarah Palin is his only hope and she is completely unqualified to be president. The only thing she has going for her is that she is a maverick That won't matter at all to the average middle class American who is worrying about gas prices, utility prices and the prices at the grocery store due to deregulation of big business by the Republican administration. Now we have the highest unemployment in five years. Again, McCain has not even touched on that issue either.

Garage Sale Preparation Day

We are having a garage sale tomorrow and getting rid of all the old clothes I can no longer wear or that are so old I won't wear them. I also have gone through the house and put a lot of extraneous "stuff" in this sale. I am going to de-junk this little house. What doesn't sell is going to get donated to a church. I cannot tolerate not having my closet space free any longer. Why am I hanging on to clothing I wore twenty years ago? That's just stupid no matter how good they are.

Bob has gone to a workshop this afternoon and all day tomorrow so I have the place to myself. Tomorrow we will move the tables out on the drive and leave just the hanging clothing in the garage. I hope most everything sells. The worst part of a garage sale is cleaning up after it.

After I got all the rummage laid out and hung and priced, I took off in Bob's truck (he has my car) and went to the market. Sunday, I will need to fix a dish or two for a basket dinner at church. Our Mission Center President, Kathy, will preach and we will have a dinner after the 11:00 worship service. I am fixing hamburger pie. My kids always loved it and it still goes over well. Then we will take a salad and call our contribution good.

Later I will do my regular after church notes and finally make an Apple Brown Betty for "Living the Questions" group Sunday evening. I will serve that with ice cream.

Surfing the Net

I was surfing the net and found this video which was made by a fellow prisoner of war who also attended the naval academy at the same time with John McCain. It would probably be a good thing if more people found this video. This man knew the real John McCain..the one with the awful temper we have heard so much about.

I knew he was involved in a fight on the floor of the Senate some time back but I thought it might be an isolated incident. Evidently not.

http://littlebangtheory.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/worth-watching
/#comment-3917

Here is a story about his first wife and her accident that left her crippled for life.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html

Why Women Should Vote

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote in this country. We were one of the last first world countries to grant that right to women...

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating,choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' should be viewed by every woman. It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that we could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have our say. We need the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration and voting every election is still my passion.

All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote has become valuable to me 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to know Woodrow Wilson and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to know the doctor refused.

"Alice Paul was strong," he said, "and brave." That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.

A Miracle Day

Miracle of miracles, I don't have anything I HAVE to do today except call in and report the number of ministers that want lunch at our meeting on Thursday. It seems like a long time since I've had a free day.

I will work on our daughter's "new home" scrapbook today and get it done as far as I have photos of the progress...seven weeks.

I worked on it some yesterday evening and it looks like it is shaping up nicely. I do need more "home improvement" stickers. When we go to Bartlesville on Thursday for Bob's doctor appointment to check the progress of the healing of his left eye, we will stop at Hobby Lobby and I will see what I can find there. I checked with my consultant and she did not have any in stock but is trying to get me some on e-bay. I think our daughter will really enjoy this book.

I would like to go to Joplin where there is a scrapbooking store and see what they have but that is an hour and twenty minutes away. I am not even sure where that store there moved to and would not want to drive over there just to find I couldn't find it.

Labor Day Cookout

This is a holiday we always have family for a cookout. However, this year our daughter and son-in-law as well as the son in Saint Robert, Missouri have made other plans so we invited my sister and brother-in-law and a widower friend for our cook out. We will eat in the house so we can avoid the flies. My famous baked beans are in the oven.

We hosted our "Living the Questions" group last night and that went well. I served Judy's pineapple cake dessert and everyone loved it. We had seven. The other six were either out of town or had made other plans. But it was a good small group. We discussed the resurrection. It was an interesting discussion. It went all the way from believing in the literal resurrection to believing the resurrection was metaphorical, since neither Paul nor Mark, the earliest writers wrote about it.

Busy Sunday

We had church this morning and I went early to print the bulletins. We had a pretty good crowd for a holiday weekend and several of us went to Chinese restaurant to eat together afterward. Then Bob and I came home, he took his nap and I made the dessert for this evening's class. We have "Living the Questions" group twice a month on Sunday evenings. I also did my "We missed you at church today" notes for those who weren't there and some "Thank you for attending" notes for the guests.

After I got the dessert finished and the mixing bowls cleaned up, we went to Wal Mart to get dog and cat food and some other small things we needed. It was amazing what we spent. $28. for dog food, cat food, a light bulb, Cool Whip and motor oil for the mower. Then we stopped at the market and Bob went in to get two tomatoes for our dinner tomorrow. They cost him $2.45.....for two tomatoes. Amazing!!

At seven, people will begin coming to the meeting. I hope that dessert is good. I made Judy's pineapple cake dessert.