Women's Issues

[MaryPage]

Women's Issues If Art imitates Life, what does Literature show about the place of women in our society? From the Red Tent to the new movie Anna Karenina,  to Malala Yousafzai in the news, has the state of women changed? What IS the state of women today, in your opinion? Let's talk about how women are portrayed in the press, and in literature, and how accurate it is.   How does advertising reflect, if it does, how women are portrayed?  (Remember heels and pearls to sell refrigerators?) How does it seem to you that women are portrayed today? Let's talk! National Women's History Project

They are working every possible angle to exclude WOMEN voters.  This is a war between the establishment men and every woman, even those sad little door mats who support them.

[mabel1015j]

Reposted fron Barb's comment in The Library:

Oh, Barb, that is ludicrous! I'll bet women are 80% or more of the people who have such a discrepancy! And how many elections have women influenced in the last dcade??? Ummmhumm. The Right doesn't want us voting!

I am getting so frustrated and angry at all this lunacy! My DH and i were saying last night that society pretends to want civility, kindness,  people listening to each other, no bullying. BUT in reality many in society love the bully ala Chris Christie! They love the fights in hockey games, they want Obama to bomb Syria, the chair of the House Intelligence Comm refuses an invitation to talk with Obama!!! What jerk refuses an invitation to the White House!?! They lie even knowing they will be fact-checked. I'm sick of all of it. They all act like immature 15 yr olds! What happened to the adults???

[MaryPage]

Yes!  Rand Paul was caught, not once but many times, plagiarizing other speeches and writings direct and verbatim.  His response has been to attack those who outed him!

[BarbStAubrey]

Yep, that is the idea Steph - Austin is a hot bed of liberal thinking and this Republican run state tries in every way known to man how to dilute the power of an educated, (Home of UT) and liberal city but they sure want our tax dollars as one of the high income earning population in this town. Ah so - I am pissed and why should I have to take my time to go to the county voting office and arrange for a special ID - if they were being fair when they altered the law they should have had the voting registrations researched and a proper name should have been sent out - it is not like the license to drive department is located across town and with computers it could all have been done in a flash. I am too pissed right now to do anything - I think a couple of well aimed complaint letters need to be created and sent while I am still ranting and raving.

My license used as photo ID - we used to be able to even use our electric bill but no more since there are no photos on our electric bill. Anyhow my name on the license is Barbara Elyse St-Aubrey - on the registration card it is Barbara St Aubrey - no period and no dash and no middle name so the gal who has seen me for years had to say I am not who my registration card says I am. 

[MaryPage]

Why in hell, if they KNOW you, can't they take an oath that you are who you claim to be?

When I was a Judge of Election in many polling places over many years here in Maryland, I could do that!  It was only necessary a couple of times.  Someone sitting "poll watching" would challenge someone and if I knew them, I could say that I knew it was so and so for a fact and heck, I was not even ASKED to swear to it.  My word was considered good!

[BarbStAubrey]

The written word in a law proceeds observation. Anyone can say anything is the justification. Our word does not hold water unless in front of a judge in a court of law after promising to tell the truth...so help me God and an Election Judge does not have the power to over-ride a written law.

[MaryPage]

Fiddlesticks!  We were all sworn in in the wee dark hours of the morning and were made, for that day, "judges" of the election.  To say that we knew someone in that precinct to be the person they claimed to be was PART OF OUR JOB!

[BarbStAubrey]

No longer - we upheld voting protocol and voting rights according to law. The law changed - Each state has its own law on this but I would check with your county.

[MaryPage]

Well, I am too old to put in the hours to be a poll worker any longer, but I can tell you this:  as far as I know, Maryland has not changed any of its voting laws.  And Maryland DOES NOT require a photo ID as of this minute.  I doubt they ever will.  I voted in 2012 with just my voter registration card sent me when I first registered by the Chairman of Elections in my hot little hand.  It has no photo.  But they never asked to see it.  They just asked me my name and address and checked me off in their big book and the next worker gave me a card and I got in line for the booths.  We have not had any problems with any fraudulent voting.

[jane]

But isn't the ID a photo one....doesn't that show you are who you are, even if the period and hyphen and middle name are missing?  It isn't as if your photo ID said your name was Gertrude Turnipseed and your registration was Barbara St Aubrey.

Sounds like common sense was out the door.

I hope you write letters to your state legislators, the newspapers, TV stations, etc.

Jane

[BarbStAubrey]

the registration card comes annually and each year it is a different color - it is post card size no photo, just name, address, sex, birth date, precinct number that sort of thing. Just called Travis County Voter Registration and it appears I ran into an overzealous poll worker - the law says that if there is not an exact match I was supposed to be able to swear who I was to the poll judge and then initial the line on the page where I sign in - there is still the possibility I may have had to vote provisionally.  

Having worked one year where mail-in and provisional votes are counted I know that both are not included in the outcome unless it is a tie vote - we simply checked to see the signatures matched on the request form to the voting form and than they are filed by precinct. Amazing how many do not match - as I see it older people signature is altered with shaking hands or can't find glasses and so the signature goes uphill or is wiggly - all are thrown out as bogus votes. and so all these bogus votes that are offered as rational are a crock.

What is infuriating is how, they as clerks I understand, but they do not acknowledge in voice change the outrage of being denied a vote.

[mabel1015j]

I haven't shown my voter registration card in 39 yrs at my present address in NJ. There is no picture on it. This is all nonsense. Voter fraud is practically non-existent, unlike the ethics violations of lobbyists. We had the lowest voter turn out in NJ history. People are sick of government and the people who govern and are giving up on democracy.

Example of the lies of the right, Frank Gafney - i think that's his last name - said that when people sign up for health care they have to register to vote and its a ploy for the Dems to raise the ranks of the "takers" and we will lose America as we know it bcs everyone will be on the dole!!! Idiocy!

[MaryPage]

Amazing the outright lies being told!
That guy who lost in Alabama, the one who still swears President Obama was born in Kenya.  He is lying outright, and he has to know that is a lie, but he still does it and his followers believe it!
In essence, he is saying our government, including our State Department from waaaay back in 1967 when they issued a PASSPORT for American citizen Barack Obama to go to Indonesia, is conspiring against the American people in allowing this foreign born communist, Muslim, alien, socialist crook to be president.  Who was president in 1967?   Lyndon Johnson, I think.  So it must have been an LBJ led conspiracy?  Who was it who decided back then to make this little black boy president on a far future date?  And why?  Was he a communist, Muslim, alien, socialist crook at birth?  At age six?  I simply cannot connect the dots here.  Do these liars realize you have to send the State Department (ok, properly the Department of State) a BIRTH CERTIFICATE in order to receive a passport?  Oh, crazy, crazy, crazy!
And about the health law.  Michelle Bachman is telling people it will kill people!  Kill old people and children!  There will be death panels, says Sarah Palin.  Do you want YOUR parents to have to go through that?
Dear God in Heaven!

[Steph]

Yes, I have strong emotions about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman.. They both are well aware they are lying and simply dont care. Makes me unhappy about women in general.

[JeanneP]

Steph.

I have been unable to get into S andF today. Will just will not  accept my name. Wants me to sign up again. Are you having problem?

[jane]

I'm getting in fine, Jeanne.

It should not be asking you to register again.  Perhaps you could email JeanneLee...


I'll email you her email address.

[kidsal]

In Wyoming I just tell them my name, they check it off in a book, and I vote.  I have a registration card - about 35 years old -- but they never ask for it.

[MaryPage]

Exactly my experience here in Maryland.  And once they've checked you off in the book, you CANNOT vote again.  And no one else can come in and try to pretend to be you and vote.
They usually ask me to confirm my address after asking my name.  And there is almost always at least ONE person there whom I know or who knows me.  As for some of the others, we know each other by sight, if not by name.  Grocery store and such like;  you see faces, you sense a familiarity.

[BarbStAubrey]

That is the way it was here as well till this new law came along and now we are enemies at the polling station. All this about reasonable since we show picture ID to cash a check etc. we should be wanting to show a picture ID when we do this most important thing like vote is the explanation I hear from those who support this new law - problem it reminds me what it must have been like living in the Soviet Union as everyone is now focused on the correct ID at the expense of the camaraderie that is typical of a Democracy that we are all in this together kind of thing.

Have you noticed how more and more of our government has been taken over by Royalists - they are a persistent lot.   

[MaryPage]

I am afraid I do not know what you mean by Royalists, Barbara.

At the moment, the government seems to be hobbling along as best it can, except when the crisis of the Tea Party trying to put every obstacle possible in its way and hamper the services our citizens expect to be performed slows it down.  In fact, so few of us ever even stop to THINK about how we come by these services on a daily basis, it took the shutdown to open some eyes!
I keep reading about people whose neighbors or kin or just acquaintances shout at them that they want no part of government running their lives, and that that is just what the Affordable Care Act would be.  No matter that the Affordable Care Act calls for purchase of coverage from the private industry insurance sector, and that many of these same shouters are getting Medicaid or Medicare, which do not come from the private sector, but directly from we the taxpayers!  

I am sorry Texas has stomped on your right as a free citizen to cast a vote in an election.  I am still hoping you will raise hell.  Although I was a widow of a Texan and the daughter of a man born in Texas and the granddaughter of a Texas hero and kin to many, many other Texans, including my great great grandfather, who was a congressman from Texas, I am right gratified to be living in the Freestate of Maryland these days!

Excuse me for gloating there, Barbara.  I truly do feel for you and your plight.  Just happy NOT being in Texas these days!

[BarbStAubrey]

    

[Steph]

Barb. I agree with MaryPage.. You really need to make an issue of it. If this happened to you, it also happened to others, who may not be articulate enough to complain.

[BarbStAubrey]

yes, I am putting together my letters to my state rep and to the local party headquarters etc.

[MaryPage]

YOU GO, GAL!  MAKE US PROUD OF YOU!

[Steph]

Go getem Barb.. Texas needs more women like you....

[MaryPage]

When there is a war against women, it is amazing how many angles the men can think up to thwart women having a quality of life.
I expect you have all read about the fate of women under the Taliban and other groups of extremist Islamic fundamentalism.
Such as a woman cannot be examined or touched at all by a male doctor.  And there are no female doctors;  women are not permitted to go to school.  At all.  Ever.
So the rule is that the father or husband tells the doctor what her symptoms are.  And he can prescribe medication and so forth.  If it is wrong, she either gets well on her own or dies.  If she has something organically wrong, say a tumor or appendicitis, she dies.  Women help other women have their babies, but no males present.
Women do not eat with men, even in their own homes, do not go out unaccompanied by a man, and do not look at or speak to men.  Nothing of them, hair, ankle, etc., may be seen by a man.  They can be beaten for a male catching a glimpse of something, because it may overly excite him.
If we do not do all we can to impede the attempts to curtail women's rights in this country, we are headed right down a road to equality with the women of Afghanistan.

[mabel1015j]

If you like champagne, thank the Widow Cliquot for keeping the making of it alive thru the hard times and improving on its production in the good times, beginning the industry. Clever woman and supportive father-in-law. I'm going to see if i can find that book........

From Amazon: The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2013/11/the-widow-who-created-the-champagne-industry/?utm_source=smithsoniantopic&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20131110-Weekender

[BarbStAubrey]

Cliquot my favorite champagne - even served it at my daughter's wedding and my son's rehearsal dinner. 

[Steph]

Sounds interesting and I adore champagne. Must look it up.

[mabel1015j]

Another act of insanity against women from Senate Repubs

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/obama-judicial-nominees_n_4255062.html?ir=Politics&utm_campaign=111313&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=Title

On the other hand this headline gives us hope that there is some sanity in the Congress. Of course, its never going to get passed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/pro-choice-bill-womens-health-protection-act_n_4266599.html

[Steph]

The lunatic from South Carolina has now decided to simply block all nominees.. The Senate needs to revamp all of those good old boy rules.

[MaryPage]

They keep insisting, those white male Republicans, that it is not because Obama is (half) black or because they hate women in business and professions and politics.

But you know it is.  They make it so obvious.

I saw a clip of Sarah Palin on the telly yesterday or the day before.  She was sounding off about the new pope being liberal, and I shuddered at how stupid, really really stupid, she sounds and despaired to think so many feel she is a shining example of womanhood or a perfect example of how women just do not fit into this man's world.

[BarbStAubrey]

Well she sure tries with her hunting and fishing and bagging big game.

[Steph]

yes, the nonsense about the pope is so far out of her field, she should just shut up.. She is cnsidering running for Senator and that makes me sad. She does not ever finish anything.. Why oh why are Alaskan voters even remotely considering her.

[JeanneP]

One women I really can't stand. I suppose that Alaskans
 just would like someone to represent them in Washington. I can't think of who they do have at this time. She,they think would be better than nothing.

[jane]

Alaska has  one Republican  and one Democrat in the Senate.

Republican: Lisa Murkowski   who lost the primary to a Joe Miller,a Tea Party favorite, but she won the Senate election on a write-in vote.  One of a very few who've done this.

Democrat: Mark Begich

They have one Representative, Republican: Don R. Young

[mabel1015j]

Something to make you smile - a great woman comedian........... just an explanation, "left-brain" is what she calls her husband

Jeanne Robertson
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=jeannerobertson&annotation_id=annotation_868099&feature=iv&src_vid=TeUdZ2VkG30

[Steph]

Yes, Murkowski is quite a woman..

[BarbStAubrey]

“I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

[Steph]

All those years ago and she got it right..