just do it.

My heart is heavy about the shooting today at the Holocaust Museum. I cannot write about it yet, because my head is swimming. Ugh.

I spent today on the hill advocating for increased funding for domestic and sexual violence services. If you have never lobbied, I strongly encourage you to attend an advocacy day with a group of your choice. They are supposed to listen to us and will give you the attention you deserve. Overall, we were treated very respectfully by the Missouri delegation (i say 'overall' because there were a couple moments of disrespect but nothing major).

For more information about how to do this lobbying thing, I'd recommend a book called Lobbying for Social Change (this one is a little pricey, buy an earlier edition or find it at a library...).

Heroes: Advocates to End Domestic and Sexual Violence

This posting will be brief because I'm tired and have to be up extremely early tomorrow morning. I spent the day with the National Network to End Domestic Violence in preparation for tomorrow's advocacy day. Tomorrow will be my first experience lobbying on the hill and I'm looking forward to it. I will be shadowing one of my mentors, Colleen Coble, the director of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Colleen received two separate awards today for her absolute amazingness.

It is an honor to spend two days of this week with advocates against domestic and sexual violence from almost every state within the US plus DC and some territories. The people in the room with me today, along with every other individual who works in the anti-domestic and sexual violence field are my heroes.

We were honored to have the following people present to us today (in chronlogical order): Valerie Jarrett (Obama's Senior Advisor), Marylouise Kelley (from HHS), Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (via video), and Catherine Pierce (Acting Director of the Dept. of Justice's Office of Violence Against Women).

At the reception, we heard Secretary Hilda Solis, Vice President Joe Biden (via video), Karen Rogers (Vice President of the Mary Kay Ash Foundation Board of Directors and granddaughter of Mary Kay Ash) Congresswoman Gwen Moore (WI), Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson (MO), Congressman Ted Poe (TX) and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL) declare their commitment to ending violence against women and children.

I look forward to seeing some meaningful legislation behind the wonderful speeches I heard tonight. And I look forward to tomorrow's jam packed day.

Heroes: Used Book Stores

On day three of the month-long challenge, I didn't write. Boo. I have all sorts of excuses and reasons why that I won't get into... I doubt this counts but I will attempt to post two entries today.

Instead of driving back to DC directly from Richmond, VA (the aforementioned undisclosed location of the surprise party), my partner and I decided to take the long way home through Charlottesville, the Shenandoah National Park Skyline drive and Harrisonburg, VA. It was a beautiful day for a drive (though we would have preferred to be on motorcycles) and nice to be able to take our time and not hurry home. While in the cute downtown section of Charlottesville, we wandered into a used bookstore (there is a surprising quantity of used book stores in c-ville).

This leads to my first 'Heroes' themed post. I define a hero as someone (or an entity) that sticks to its principles through adversity and models self-sacrifice.

Somehow, I had forgotten my love for used book stores. I generally try to support local independent bookstores, though I do have my lazy amazon moments. For some reason, however, it had been way too long since I entered a bookstore with only used books. I could have spent the next several hours sitting on the floor surrounded by books.

I worry about the extinction of books and therefore am impressed that any (especially independent) can stay in business. I left the store with three books that I hope to complete this summer: Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia ($3), The Trial by Franz Kafka ($3) and My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki ($6.50).

Mommies & Sparents

Today is Mother's Day in the US and in Mexico (and probably other places as well). Mexico always celebrates Mother's Day on May 10th while in the US we celebrate our mamas on the 2nd Sunday in May. Why, you ask?

As holidays come along, I like to look into their purpose prior to the mass commercialization. (If I had been blogging the last couple of months, I would likely be hyperlinking 'mass commercialization' back to posts exposing the history behind St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo, maybe I can back date what I would have written on those days...).

Anyway, as Ruth Rosen reports on slate.com, Mother's Day was initially a day of political activism starting in 1858, and lasting for three decades, mothers protested against poor sanitation, war, child labor, lynching, trafficking of women and even consumer fraud.

Anna Jarvis was the first woman to organize a Mother's Day protest. In 1905, her daughter sought to honor her mother's activism with a national mother's day. In 1914, Congress formalized the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. Jarvis' daughter was not too happy with what became a billion-dollar industry...

So as I watched my facebook feed fill with posts about mother's day and mommies and after I called my own Mom to wish her a happy day, I started to think about my choice to not become a mom. I prefer, as Elizabeth Gilbert put it in a recent lecture, to be a sparent. That is, I can be available, if necessary, on retainer to provide parental duties but I am not interested in parenting as a full-time endeavor. (The only exception I would make is for my nieces. In that case, I would pour my heart and soul into full-time parental duties.)

What does it mean to be a 30 year-old woman who does not want to be a mommy?

1. I have the privilege to choose whether or not to have children. This is indeed a privilege on many levels.
   
2. As a lesbian, becoming a mommy cannot happen accidentally.
3. My partner and I are (potential) DINKs and have the luxury (when we are both gainfully employed) that goes along with DINKdom.

I have been firm about this choice for many years, yet people still regard me as if I'm betraying biology or destiny by being childless by choice. I regard it as population control, a way I can feel less guilty about being selfish, and the one you can call when you need a 'sparent'.

So Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies. I admire you. You deserve more than one day, of course, just like African-Americans deserve more than the shortest month of the year. I hope that you have several lovely sparents in your life for those days (weeks?) that you need some time for you.

Oh, and next year, let's throw some political activism back into Mother's Day... let's make Anna Jarvis proud.

really. what year is it?

I got up this morning (much earlier than ever) to try and get some work done, but alas I got distracted by my rss feeds (and now by blogging - man, a girl knows how to procrastinate).

The first thing I notice was that there was a cross burning last weekend 30 minutes from my home. The local paper could barely expend 3 short paragraphs on it. And it's in today's paper... three days later. Meanwhile, Northern Illinois University was closed on Monday because someone wrote "tell those n****** to go home" and "the VA tech shooters messed up with only having one shooter" on a wall. Don't they say it usually gets worse before it gets better? I hope this is one of those times. better. soon. please.

be bold be red

Remember the fright associated with Halloween when you were a kid? Not only was fear of razor blades in apples invoked in you but the ever present fear of ghosts, goblins and witches was at its highest on this night.

Do you know what its like to be afraid, like really afraid? The kind of afraid where you can't open your mouth because if you do either no words will spill out or you'll scream... and neither will help you survive? The kind of fear that overwhelms your sanity and takes over your every movement/thought/breath? The kind of fear that makes you sick... like when you eat too much Halloween candy?

Do you know what it's like to be told "it's just your imagination" or "you're being silly" or "stop telling stories"? Why is it that on Halloween, fear is fun, violence is imaginary and kids ask adults for a trick or a treat?

Be bold be red is taking back halloween, and calling it what it is: "Halloween is about “fake” and “imagined” terrors, the violence committed against women of color is very “real.” Not only is it a “real” reality on October 31st, but it’s also a “real” terror for the rest of the year."

Documentthesilence.wordpress.com documents some of the recent incidences of violence against women of color and urges folks to wear red on Wednesday, October 31st. The site lists rallies and other actions going on around the country and lists a variety of resources for women of color and their allies in the movement to end violence and stop the silence.

do you know what it means to miss new orleans?

When St. Louis was hit by a bad thunderstorm last summer, I didn't have power for a week. I was miserable. It was hot as hell out and barely anything was open because they didn't have power either. My partner had to drive 30 minutes to get ice. I was struck by the lack of empathy of those around me, who were lucky enough to have power. "So what? You didn't have air conditioning as a kid, did you? You survived then!" People failed to remember that not having electricity affects the ability to have a lot of other things... like a fan, a fridge, an alarm clock, a radio, a tv.... you get the picture.

When Katrina hit New Orleans, no one had any idea the impact it would have immediately or long term... and a lot of people have no idea, two years later, the impact it had on people's homes, lives, livelihood. After the storm, people had climbed up to their attic, hoping to be saved and died of the heat while waiting if they didn't drown. People did not have electricity for seven months.... if not more. People's lives were ruined, they lost everything they owned, their friends and family members were scattered all over the country, and insurance companies refused to help (because people had hurricane insurance and not flood insurance, and obviously, the damage was caused by a flood and not a hurricane). And our government failed to help...

and so did you and I.

I talked to a woman last week who went down to New Orleans for the two year anniversary - she talked to lots of folks who were working on their houses and they'd come home one day to find their house had been bulldozed with no notification.... this is after all of their belongings had sat in 12 feet of water and they spent almost two years trying to prove to the bureaucracy that they owned the property.

Sadly, I've never been to New Orleans but hopefully that will change. We just finished watching Spike Lee's documentary "When the Levees Broke". Please, if you haven't seen it already, go rent it.

We also ran across a short video that was in the 7th Annual Media That Matters Film Festival called "Still Standing", a youth produced doc you can watch with one woman's story - there's a longer version that can be ordered, with more stories.

This is the stuff that matters.

yes. he said that.

Last night, after a day of training and seeing the new documentary about the US Occupation in Iraq: No End In Sight, my partner and I went to a popular pizza place in the south city neighborhood of St. Louis for dinner. It's a crowded place and not only does it take an hour to get a pizza, it takes about that long to get a place to sit. My partner and I were having a beer, chatting and standing by an old-school bowling game and I kept noticing this guy staring at us. He was with his girlfriend, but not paying much attention to her, and paying way too much attention to us. He was white, built, and had obviously been drinking. I felt uncomfortable, but ignored him, and eventually we went into the other room to see if we could find a table. We found a table, near an obnoxious group of early 20-somethings. My partner went up to the bar to get another drink, and noticed that a table was opening up. She pointed, and I quickly went over there so we could get this booth before any one else. It was where the previously mentioned guy and his girlfriend had been sitting, and they got in line behind my partner to pay their bill while I set my coat down on the booth to save it for us.

I could tell that this guy was saying something to my partner, but couldn't tell what. I stood standing, about a foot from him, and he finally turned around and started to say something to me, but his girlfriend tugged on him and told him to be quiet.

This is the conversation that had ensued, as reported to me by my partner, went something like this... She is MP (my partner) and he is TG (the guy):

MP: Hey, are you guys leaving?
TG: Why? Do you want to come with us?
MP: No, I want your booth.
TG: Why don't you just come with us? I can beat off while you two get it on.
MP: Uh.. no thanks.
TG: Come on, why not? Or would you prefer that she (he points to his girlfriend) beats off instead?

At this point, his girlfriend had pleaded enough that he shut up. They left, to go home to their (un)happy home, and we were stuck with... who says that? how do we live in a world where someone says that? Now this guy didn't harm us physically, but he attacked our sense of safety in a way that he will never understand.

In my work, I work with guys like him all the time. People say, "I don't know how you do it" - I say, "thankfully, someone is..." and the guys I work with are actually in a program that is challenging their abusive and/or violent behavior. This guy... probably isn't... but hey, maybe I'll see him again sometime, for 48 weeks of his life.

visualizing safety

there's an activity I do when leading a training about violence, oppression or violence prevention. in fact, I just facilitated it yesterday... I believe it comes from a Paul Kivel curriculum. It goes like this:

Close your eyes for a moment, get comfortable in your chair, and imagine a place in the world where you feel completely safe. Stay with the first place that comes to mind... the most important thing is that you feel completely safe and unafraid. Think about what it feels like to be in this place. Without opening your eyes, look around in this place. What do you see? How do you feel? How does your body feel? What makes this place safe? This is a place you can go in your mind when you need to feel safe. This is your sanctuary - a place where you can be protected from anyone or anything that might harm you...

After a few moments of silence, I have the group open their eyes. Then, I ask them to draw their safe space. If the group knows each other relatively well, I ask them to share something about the visualization or their safe space. I ask, "how would this world be different if everyone felt completely safe?" How would they feel? What would they do?

The conversation basically leads itself after this. We eventually get to the point that feeling safe is a privilege... one that not many people don't have access to. One time when I lead this activity, a young woman left the room crying. I was told today by one of the participants, that yesterday when she was asked to draw her safe space... she drew a question mark.

What do you think about safety being a privilege? I'd love to hear your thoughts... or even better, where is your safe place? what do you visualize when you think of a safe place?

a day in the life of a scooter newbie - random apolitical post

Today was the first day I took the Honda Ruckus out of the neighborhood. I rode about 10 - 15 miles total. I had barely gotten the Ruckus out of the garage when a guy working in the yard across the alley asked "what type of scooter is that?" "how many ccs?" "how fast does it go?" "how much did that cost you?"... this was after he said, "I didn't know anyone lived in that house!" Hmmm... the 80 lb. dog that spends a lot of time in the yard didn't give it away?

I rode to work. All the construction workers working on my new offices were impressed... three of them commented on it... all three of them asked at different points during the day "what type of scooter is that?" "how many ccs?" "how fast does it go?" "how much did that cost you?". One of them told me about the bike he wants... 1000ccs. The Ruckus has 49. Hmmm.

Then I went to get a pedicure (yes, you read that correctly - it's my second one ever! my first was in Mexico in 2004). After another (walk-in) customer got all upset because they took me before her (i had made an appointment), I was sitting in the massage chair getting my feet soaked (um, why haven't i done this more in my life?) when a guy walked in to the nail salon and said "whose bike is that out there?" i raised my hand tentatively and he, you guessed it, asked "what type of scooter is that?" "how many ccs?" "how fast does it go?" "how much did that cost you?". He went on to want to know where he could get one. I told him we bought ours on ebay from a guy that didn't live too far away. He asked me where that was. I told him it was on the internet. This perplexed him and he walked away -- and left the nail salon. When he first walked in, I was hoping he was going to get a mani and a pedi... but no.

i can't remember the last time that i got this much attention from men...

this. american. life.

Believe it or not, my first opportunity to write in a long time has come on an unexpected day off. i would be working right now, but can't due to some city bureaucratic bullshit, which is a mixed blessing. Anyway, i'm taking time this morning to listen to this week's podcast of This American Life. The episode originally aired in 2002 and is called '81 Words' and explores "how and why the American Psychiatric Association decided in 1973 that homosexuality was not a disease". 1973 was not all that long ago. Listen to it if you have a chance, it's great, and contains the kind of activism I wish we had going on today. It also gives me hope that other kinds of needed changes can happen within my lifetime.

oh, and to get the episode for free, you have to download it this week.

now this is a government that puts people over profit

so i've talked before about some of my concerns with the pharmaceutical companies... i was about to leave for work this morning when a headline caught my eye that i had to write about. Thailand has figured out how to be able to better provide affordable or no-cost drugs for HIV and heart conditions.

a (literal and figurative) dangerous (not so recent) trend

60 Minutes reported last week on 'stop snitchin'', you can watch a bit of the report, among other video clips, if you're interested. This discussion goes back to a previous post of mine... and, actually, a 30 page paper I wrote in graduate school (though the paper I wrote was specifically about immigrants and crime reporting). But really, what incentive is there to report crime? And what about for people who have no reason to trust the police will help them? Is this self-destructive, self-protective or a little bit of both?

ramblings and thoughts about the Virginia Tech shootings

i'm sad that we live in a world where a fatal 'domestic dispute' on a college campus is no cause for alarm. A white student named Emily and a black student named Ryan were shot... domestic dispute or not... this is cause for alarm. Regardless, there was no way they could have expected or assumed that the campus needed to be shut down... and I'm not at all saying that it should have been. I've just been irritated that every news report I hear says the police thought it was "just a domestic dispute" over and over again. Like shrug, another day at the office. Any violence should be a cause for alarm in my world... I've discovered over the past few days that there were other issues at play. My pal wrote a bit about this issue and with her permission, I'm pasting it here:

I think, actually, that their decision is more a reflection of information they have based on what has been, and not on the changing nature of our culture. What happened yesterday was an anomaly of what we have known. But it is not nearly such an anomaly of what we are becoming - placed in context of the overall level of violence in our culture - mobility, access to guns, stress, entitlement, rage, a completely meritless war, warped construction of masculinity laced with violence that depends on the oppression of women for the roots of its construction, the most powerful man in the world blatantly acting in irrational, disrespectful, and oppressive ways, AND the continuing hate against women that entitles men to express their rage by using all of the means that are now at their finger tips.

In addition, it turns out that another reason they didn't respond was this "person of interest", a man they were questioning (Emily's boyfriend) as a possible suspect... because Emily's roommate had divulged that he (the boyfriend, named Karl Thornhill) had guns and that she had gone with him recently to a shooting range.

i'm overwhelmed with the ache I feel for everyone that has been affected directly or indirectly by this... the victims, their families, the survivors, other students that no longer feel safe at their schools, every person who feels sick to their stomach or ache in their heart about this tragedy. And yes, believe it or not, I even feel ache for Cho Seung-Hui.

i'm angry that the media continues to miss or discuss how so many school shootings (a) are often directed against girls or women and (b) could have be prevented. This is an opportunity - but it's not used as such.

Notice I wrote, 'directed against girls or women'... not because of girls or women. Day before yesterday, an Australian paper started their article about the shootings with a picture of 18 year-old Emily Jane Hilscher, the first victim, and printed "THIS is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US history." Um, hold the phone (as my grandma used to say). WHAT? She sparked it? I just noticed that the paper has noted the negative reaction to the author's language. They insist they were not trying to blame Emily for being shot. The problem is this is what always happens. Her skirt was too short, what was she doing out at that time of night, etc. Even though, Cho Seung-Hui wrote a note that said "you caused me to do this" - it was not in fact caused by anyone or anything but Cho Seung-Hui and more so, the US's addiction to violence. And also, to be clear, this is the worst school shooting in history... not the worst shooting in history (as some have asserted)... ask the native people.

Ok, so the last time I checked, each individual is responsible for his or her own actions. I believe that a person who takes responsibility or holds him or herself accountable for his or her actions is the standard we should set, is how we should socialize our children. Say a lamp falls off of a table, every child within 10 feet of the lamp yells "I didn't do it!" We need to raise our children to say, "it was me, I'm sorry, I'll clean it up". And as adults, we need to acknowledge the accountability and have fair and consistent consequences. But we don't. We raise our children to blame one another. Then are children grow up with the guilt and shame of believing things completely out of their control were their fault (parent's divorce, sibling's sexual abuse, their own sexual abuse, a pet's death... you get the point).

Boys are allowed to be angry, not sad - and never to cry. Boys are allowed and sometimes expected (in the US) to externalize their anger with violence... whereas girls, aren't allowed to be angry and since they have every reason to be pissed off as hell, they tend to internalize their anger (which manifests in the form of eating disorders, self-mutilation, low self-esteem, etc.).

But then when an angry young man (not originally from the US) is responsible for the worst shooting in history, we have to find out why? Why would this man do this? He had a history of stalking women, was suicidal at times and was sent to counseling. His writing tutor was so afraid of him she had an assistant with her when she tutored him.

Another article I ran across, shed a little more light on some of the warning signs. One of his professors, sassy poet Nikki Giovanni, said of his violent writings:

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of
his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk
and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy.
It was the meanness - I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people - it
was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including
taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to
class, and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken
out of her class, saying she would quit if he was not removed.

His fellow students were "waiting for him to do something":

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former
classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an
AOL Web site.

"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't
have even thought of."

He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry
about whether he could be a school shooter."

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to
hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But
when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying,
bawling."

Something tells me that there's a reason his writings were "like a nightmare". Something tells me his life was a nightmare to him, a nightmare he wanted to end. It's awful that he had to create a nightmare to end his own.

So Ms. Cambio, a.k.a. Ms. Violence Prevention? What have you got for us? What is the answer?

Well, my gut tells me this could have been prevented. Even though he was hospitalized at one point, and obviously was potentially dealing with some major mental illnesses, he did not get the help he needed. (oh right, boys aren't supposed to get help, especially not from a therapist) It's hard for anyone, especially someone that's extremely troubled, to establish enough trust in a short period of time to have therapy actually be helpful. As a country we need to be more proactive and less reactive when it comes to violence. I don't want getting onto a university campus to become akin to getting on an airplane. But, of course, I don't want anything like this to ever happen again. Where's the middle ground?

If I had the time and the energy, I'd like to analyze all of these school shootings sites listed on the school violence resource center website and see if we can glean any potential prevention points. Maybe they've done that already. Anyone looking for a dissertation topic?

All I know is, we need more violence prevention programs (if you want to know of some good programs to donate to, let me know), and fewer guns. Please. The early shootings, even before Columbine, should have inspired some change... and by change, I'm not talking about more security, metal detectors or banning black trench coats. Why does it have to come to this? Please, please, please let me see a world, in my lifetime, where prevention is made a priority. For our children, for our grandchildren, for ourselves.

men ending violence in high heels

i'm not really about awareness months, as i believe we should be aware and talking about these issues every month. However, this morning, as part of my new job (uh.. the job that has made it nearly impossible for me to keep blogging every day), I participated in an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes. Today was a cold and rainy day but still a lot of people came out to walk and we received many donations and pledges - money that will support organizations (like mine) that are working to end violence. As part of the event, men don a pair of high heel shoes and literally walk a mile in them. There will be walks all month throughout the country, check if your city is doing one. The walk came out of the United Gender Movement and the International Men's March to stop Rape, Sexual Assault and Gender Violence. This movement is looking for ways to include men in the movement to end violence against women. Too often people working in the field of domestic and sexual violence are all women.

There are a lot of organizations that are men actively working to end violence, including Generation Five, One in Four (previously called No More), Men Ending Rape, Men Stopping Violence, A Call to Men, and several more. I commend the men involved in these (and other like-minded) organizations. Violence can't end without it (and while it gets good publicity, walking in high heels isn't enough...)

So if you want to be part of the movement, contact a local anti-violence agency and inquire about volunteering. If you live in the US, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center has a list of state coalitions - or you can check the list posted on the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website. Some states have joint sexual & domestic violence coalitions, while others have coalitions specific to each issue. Either site is a good place to start to find a local place. If you can't volunteer, make a donation -- every little bit helps.

Ok... stepping off my soapbox now. Oh wait, isn't that what blogs are for?

global warming is great! when you have access to air conditioning...

A report released today by the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (a UN Panel) has proclaimed that poor people will be hurt most by global warming, aka climate change. Hmmm... that's weird. It never works out that the people with the least power to change something are the most affected...

The report states that:

• Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.
• A global assessment of data since 1970 has shown it is likely that anthropogenic warming has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.
• Other effects of regional climate changes on natural and human environments are emerging, although many are difficult to discern due to adaptation and non-climatic drivers.
  

Check out the interactive map on the BBC website.


PS. If you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth... uh, you should -- no matter what you think about Mr. Gore.

nine million children would vote if they could

if you haven't heard already, there is a ten year-old running for President of the United States. Ok, so not really but check out the website anyway. The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) has started this campaign to increase awareness about the nine million children in the U.S. without health insurance and to encourage people to contact Congress about the All Healthy Children Act (H.R. 1688) which would insure children and pregnant women.

i'm all about creative ways to get people's attention and respect the CDF but since I just got back from facilitating a training about positive youth development, i'm a little annoyed by the tokenism. That didn't stop me from signing the petition though... and not just because my mom's maiden name is Flynn. (errr... can we think of a new name for that besides maiden? her pre-marriage name? her original name? her natural name? any suggestions out there?)

random aside: i had a bumper sticker at one point that I bought at a CDF conference (about 8 years ago) that said something like "I vote because kid's can't" -- i need to find that again.

mexico lindo

so, i'm a tease, aren't i? five minutes ago i posted that my blog entries were going to decrease then i turned around and posted another. just trying to keep you on your toes.

i wanna live in mexico again. our neighbors to the south are becoming more progressive as the U.S. is becoming regressive recessive more conservative with some of its social policies. Not only did Mexico City pass a civil union law in November but they are likely to legalize abortion soon. Though

he country's antiabortion activists pushed back last week by introducing a bill that would charge women who have illegal abortions with a one-to-three-year prison sentence -- already they face a sentence of six months to a year. (There had better be a clause in the bill for an increase in prison funding, though -- conservative estimates project that 110,000 or so women each year have illegal abortions in the country.) (read more)

I like the parenthetical comment. I couldn't have said it better.

Mexico has impressed me when I was there in 2002, 2003 and 2004. I attended the Pride March in 2002 and 2004 and also in 2004 I attended a convention for the 10th anniversary of the Catholics for Choice group. I also had the opportunity to attend HIV prevention conferences and other activist events with CETLALIC, the school I attended and volunteered with. None of the people I met, got to know and talked with could have ever imagined that such laws would have been passed in their lifetime... they hoped and hoped and hoped though. I'm so happy for Mexico... and my friends there.

un cafecito por favor

Well folks, I started my new job today, which might change how often I will be able to post... though my blog posts will decrease a little... my coffee intake will definitely increase. Therefore I have coffee on the brain.

I've been attempting to drink both fair-trade and organic coffee as often as possible ever since I read a little more about the process... particularly when I read A Cafecito Story by Julia Alvarez. Since I'm short on time this evening, I'm going to be totally lame and post a link to an article that caught my eye this evening. The article is from salon.com and talks about a recent USDA ruling that changed the requirements for organic certification that will potentially affect our access to organic coffee, among other organic goods...

oh phyllis...

believe it or not, i have some sympathy for phyllis schlafly. i said, some. she's really internalized a lot of the bull shit and finds herself spewing it something awful every once in awhile... most recently at Bates College. But hey, it starts people talking... or blogging. Here are some highlights from her presentation:

"She belittled the feminist movement as 'teaching women to be victims,' decried intellectual men as 'liberal slobs' and argued that feminism 'is incompatible with marriage and motherhood.'
...
One [disappointment] came when Schlafly asserted women should not be permitted to do jobs traditionally held by men, such as firefighter, soldier or construction worker, because of their 'inherent physical inferiority.'

'Women in combat are a hazard to other people around them,' she said. 'They aren't tall enough to see out of the trucks, they're not strong enough to carry their buddy off the battlefield if he's wounded, and they can't bark out orders loudly enough for everyone to hear.'

At one point, Schlafly also contended that married women cannot be sexually assaulted by their husbands.

'By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape,' she said."

Ahhh! I need a beer. If it weren't so early in the morning, I'd go down the street to the Schlalfy Brewery here in St. Louis (her hometown). The beer company's President and Founder is Phyllis's nephew, Tom Schlafly... she, thankfully, isn't involved with the business. Incidentally, he recently published a book called A New Religion in Mecca - about beer and his brewery.

Sorry for that digression, back to my sympathy... it was Phyllis (among others) who fought so hard against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 70s & early 80s. Her website on the topic states that:

"The Equal Rights Amendment was presented to the American public as something that would benefit women, "put women in the U.S. Constitution," and lift women out of their so-called "second-class citizenship." However, in thousands of debates, the ERA advocates were unable to show any way that ERA would benefit women or end any discrimination against them. The fact is that women already enjoy every constitutional right that men enjoy and have enjoyed equal employment opportunity since 1964."

yeah. right. like getting raped in their own homes or while in the military that they shouldn't be in anyway. uh huh.

So, in a lovely coincidence, there is buzz that we're going to be seeing a renewed fight for the ERA again... this time under its new name WEA (Women's Equality Amendment). This is not the first time it has been reintroduced but maybe, just maybe, it will be the last time it has to be. It has been introduced in five states since January and has several federal and state lawmakers behind it.

Last time around only three needed states didn't ratify it. It needed 38 states and got 35. I've been reading that the 35 states would still stand, and the amendment would still only need three states. I've got people in five of the unratified states that I can call up - what about you?