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Posts Tagged ‘Feminism’

“Be Advised

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2014| 2 Comments »

…this video contains profanity.”

If you happen to be one of those people, you know the kind that think feminism isn’t an issue anymore, that’s it’s been taken over by Lesbians, that it’s so over, well think again. Did you hear the news this morning about the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella? Apparently he thinks women in his company should just trust in Karma. Don’t ask your boss for a raise ladies, just trust in The Man Karma to make it happen.

Caitlin Moran doesn’t trust anybody to make her life happen, except herself. She’s an irreverent comic, a Times UK columnist and a best-selling novelist who also happens to be a die-hard feminist. Not exactly sure when she first caught my attention, but it may have been a brilliant essay about why safe and legal abortions should be part and parcel of every country. Her writing spares no one. Her latest book, “How to Build a Girl,” is a coming of age tale:

“I want to be a self-made woman. I want to conjure myself out of every sparkling, fast-moving thing I can see,” she declares, “I want to be the creator of me. I’m gonna begat myself.” First, she’ll change her name. This, then, is how to build a girl: find a cause; identify your image; let nothing stand in your way.” http://www.npr.org/2014/09/29/350891370/novelist-caitlin-moran-wryly-shows-how-to-build-a-girl

In this Youtube interview, and don’t forget she might swear, filmed last month in Canada, she lets it all hang out, literally. She admonishes girls to do three things regularly: 1) go on long, country walks, 2) masturbate frequently, and 3) start a revolution! You can see where this video is going with its warning. She snorts when someone asks her the age-old question about childcare, and asks does anyone ask a man interviewing for a job about childcare? Then gamely suggests that editors should make male columnists write about childcare.

Moran’s pearl of an idea is that in order to change our patriarchal culture we have got to use Art – writing, media, painting, film – to make it Cool. Marching around with placards and petitions, arguments at town hall meetings are all well and good, but once we see Dr Who kissing the bisexual Captain Jack Harkness, well then the younger generation says that’s alright! On our side of the pond, I think Ellen DeGeneres’ show is partly responsible for the fast pace of the marriage equality movement.

Moran wrote her book about girl-building because when she was 16 she wished she’d had a book like this. Today, a 17 year old girl won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Malala Yousafzai.

Pakistani child advocate Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the face for believing that girls should have every right to an education as boys, has certainly let nothing stand in her way. Shining her light on the deplorable conditions of child slavery and work in her country, she has started a revolution! Malala is deliberate in her cause, even as a Pakistani womens’ rights lawyer was executed by her government last week. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29564935

So as headlines like, “Mother of Three Heads up BBC”  are still cranked out by old white men, and an American CEO can tell his female employees they should not ask for a raise, the popular media backlash to Western corporations is telling. We are all laughing, Isn’t that funny? But in Malala’s world, the Muslim world, women are not laughing. “Overwhelming percentages of Muslims in many countries want Islamic law (sharia) to be the official law of the land, according to a worldwide survey by the Pew Research Center. But many supporters of sharia say it should apply only to their country’s Muslim population.” http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/

Just try to imagine if that “17 (18,19??) Kids and Counting” crazy Quivering Christian movement were the law of our land. I know, I’d get pretty profane and stop laughing too.

 

 

 

 

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Happy New Year

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on September 25, 2014| 2 Comments »

It’s that time of year again. Time to cook with apples and honey. Time to walk to the river and throw our sins away, symbolically of course. Time to make a fresh start, before the Book is closed on Yom Kippur.

Yesterday I drove into town for a haircut. IMG_1149My stylist, Christopher, is a wizard, who wears his scissors in a tool belt like a hipster cowboy. One of his clients brought him a bottle of Grey Goose, I usually only bring yellow cherries. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, our hairdressers are like priests; we tell them everything in exchange for making us feel beautiful. If only until the next shampoo.

It was an overcast, rainy day with satellite trucks placed strategically around the Historic Downtown Mall. News outlets from all over the world are waiting to hear if  our outstanding Police Chief, Tim Longo, will find Hannah Graham. She will be missing for 2 weeks this Saturday. The Person of Interest, JL Matthew, is being held in Galveston, TX since last night. Our Chief must have found some evidence in his home or car since he is now being charged with Abduction and not just Reckless Driving. http://www.click2houston.com/news/suspect-in-hannah-graham-case-in-custody/28238756

This new year, I wonder if we can begin to understand how words help shape our culture.

Calling something “domestic abuse” is ridiculous, it’s shorthand for what it really is – assault. If a man pinned another man against a wall in a bar, choking him and threatening to kill him, why I believe he’d be in jail soon enough. If a man punched the lights out of another man in an elevator, well, you get the drift.

When we tell our young women to “Never walk alone,” to “Watch what you wear,” or “Don’t drink too much,” which is what many are saying around the Hannah Graham case, and I previously didn’t even want to go there, but what they are saying is, “Get Back,” don’t display yourself, don’t ask to be raped. We blame women, we say as our college President has said, “Don’t put yourself at risk” – which is putting the blame on the victim, the woman, again and again.

Because we would never tell a man what to wear, not to drink or when he could go out alone.

This Saturday women are gathering around the country at house parties for “V to Shining V” – a Lady Parts Justice initiative to get women out to vote and supporting our reproductive rights. I’m liking this new breed of feminist, thank you Sarah Silverman. It’s not enough to burn bras and knit nipple shaped hats for our nursing babies. We need to elect legislators who know what we’re talking about, who don’t want to go backward. http://ladypartsjustice.com Here are some reasons to join in the fun:

Because women decide elections and if we get together, blow this shit up in a smart and funny way, we just may be able to get folks to sit up, take action and reverse this erosion of rights.
Because neanderthal politicians are spending all their time making laws that put YOUR body squarely into THEIR hands.
Because extremist goon squads exist in EVERY statehouse in America and are sneaking in tons of creepy legislation. We’re staying on top of this shit so you can stay on top this shit.
Because you use birth control.
Because you like sex and it’s not all about having babies. Think about it, if it were there would be no room to stand.

It’s like a second women’s consciousness raising group, only better because it’s huge thanks to social media. I couldn’t wear pants in the streets of Boston, or obtain birth control when I was in college. Look at us now. Let’s take back our language, let’s guard against the erosion of our human rights.

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In Brief

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on June 2, 2014| 2 Comments »

The Briefing Room will be losing one of the sweetest White House Press Secretaries in recent years. Jay Carney, who btw looks like an altar boy I once knew, happens to be married to a fellow journalist, Claire Shipman. He told the morning news feed that he has two small children and he was missing too much of their lives! I almost spit up my coffee.

What a relief, to hear a man in a position of power say such a thing, proudly, bravely and without rancor. Is it just coincidence that Shipman and her co-author Katty Kay just published a book about the confidence gap between men and women? I recently wrote about “The Confidence Code” and a woman’s tendency to talk less in meetings and ruminate more; “tortured cycles of useless self-recrimination.” 

Reminds me of Josh Levs, a CNN reporter, who recently fought CNN’s parent company Time Warner for equal paternity leave. Moms and adoptive parents were allowed 10 weeks family leave whereas dads only got 2 weeks paid leave. “It can’t be a conversation by women about women,” Levs said of resolving family-work conflicts. “In a country that prides itself on family values, we need to do a much better job of valuing families … and that includes fathers.”

One of the best things we women of the 60s and 70s did was to raise our sons to expect to be involved in their children’s lives. Millennials today want to not just be in the birthing room, they want to be present in the sturm and drang of childhood. Hooray I say! Let’s all lift our coffee cups to men who change diapers.

And to my honey, who stuck by me for 35 years as of tomorrow, I’d like to say in brief, “Cheers!” Even if he did hang one piece of wallpaper upside down a long, long time ago, he proved to be the most loving father and supportive husband in the world. For sitting with me in the family room while “sleep training,” for teaching them how to ride bikes and drive cars, for telling me countless times that everything would be OK, even after endless days of toddler turmoil and teenage angst. I salute you dear partner in life. And I’d pick you again, in a heartbeat!    IMG_0073

 

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Let Them Go

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on May 4, 2014| 2 Comments »

I laughed out loud while watching the White House Correspondent’s Dinner last night. The whole “Orange is the new black” about Speaker Boehner; and “Mecare” getting young people into doctor’s offices so they can see what a magazine is really like. And the bit about CNN still searching for their table… I’ll tell you one thing, this news junkie is fed up with CNN. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel started speaking in German at the Rose Garden conference the other day on CNN, and kept speaking in German without any translation, I switched to MSNBC and I’m not looking back. If you missed any of last night’s joke fest, here it is http://www.c-span.org/video/?318916-1/white-house-correspondents-dinner

But the abhorrent act of kidnapping 300 young Nigerian girls from their school by Boko Haram terrorists was not a joking matter, and the fact that Western news outlets took their time getting around to the story only doubles the crime.

International outrage has been slow to build, but it’s coming now – the story has been covered extensively in the media, and girls’ education proponent and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai spoke out against the abductions. Nigerians are marching in the streets demanding the girls be brought home alive. #BringBackOurGirls is trending on Twitter.

On the surface, these kidnappings follow a theme we’ve seen across the globe: religious extremists don’t want to see girls getting the kind of education that will allow them to enter the workforce, because they correctly understand that education sets girls on a path to economic independence and self-reliance. Education also makes girls (and women) less dependent on men, less subservient to authority and less acquiescent to the social and religious strictures that don’t serve girls’ overall interests – educated women are more likely to refuse practices like female genital cutting, for instance, better able to resist domestic violence, and less tolerant of discrimination at home and in society.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/kidnapped-nigeria-school-girls-boko-haram-education

Ah religion, I just can’t say enough about it. But here we see again, how black girls in another part of the world are not valued by Westerners in the same way white girls are perceived. We saw it in the time lapse of our response to Rwanda, as opposed to Bosnia. Genocide by blacks or by whites, one trumped the other. Time and again we’ve seen Amber Alerts for white girls, but the black child’s family is left waiting for some time period to pass because somehow that child must be complicit. Imagine what would have happened if 300 school girls outside of Paris had been kidnapped?

The trial of Alexis Murphy’s kidnapper and murderer, a local girl I wrote about before, is getting started this week. Without a body, it will be a hard case to win.

Our media outlets would rather cover a missing Malaysian plane, or a racist rancher’s rant. Sparring with Putin is at least newsworthy! But time has passed for these Nigerian girls who have most likely been sold into slavery. If we can do one thing, it would be to pressure our legislators to demand more resources be used in helping to find these girls. We can also write to the Nigerian embassy in DC.http://www.nigeriaembassyusa.org/index.php?page=contact-us

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Fashion Rules

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2014| 2 Comments »

Whenever I see a newsworthy writing prompt, I keep it in a folder for a rainy day. And even though it’s stopped raining, this one has been calling to me for weeks. “Rejoice, Dressing Your Age is Dead,” by Erin G Ryan in Jezebel. http://jezebel.com/rejoice-dressing-your-age-is-dead-1515208677?utm_campaign=socialfow_jezebel_twitter&utm_source=jezebel_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Despite the best efforts of survey respondents and dating advice columnists, women aren’t necessarily heeding the social directive to stop caring about fashion once Hollywood stops casting women their age as the love interest in action movies. Gone are the days of No Miniskirts After 35. Women well into adulthood are storming Asos to deplete its supplies of unicorn sweaters…

First of all, I hate unicorn sweaters. And I hate those fashion magazines that deign to advise us how to dress at “any age;” we see the layouts for our 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Then what happens? Are we supposed to sail out to sea like a Viking warrior, put on grannie shoes and call it a day? Here’s how you dress in your 60s ladies – however the hell you want!

I got my start in the newspaper business with a very tongue-in-cheek essay called, “The Fashion Hot-Line.” It was 1980, and I was all about the local custom of wearing flannel everywhere. Big hair and bling hadn’t quite made it up to the Berkshires. To be honest, the whole fashion thing had eluded me for years. Except for the occasional trip to Loehmann’s while visiting Grandma Ada, my style was more mid-century mama – ie, comfy.

Still, I admit to not liking the look of young girls and their moms dressed alike. That whole leggings and sweatshirt Falshdance craze just seemed too contrived. But matching Laura Ashley dresses? Now that I could understand. The Bride soared beyond my stilted fashion sense while she was still in high school; even cautioning me not to wear what I had worn in the 1960s. Which does not mean I don’t love hippy-chic baby clothes for the Love Bug!

In an industry that must change every season in order to maintain exceed its sales, I’ve always given short shrift to trends of any kind. Florals are IN for Spring, how original! If malls are dying and no one knows where teens are buying their clothes these days, as Ryan says in her article, then maybe that’s a good thing. They are probably raiding their mother’s closet, going to thrift stores, and shopping online at TopShop with the occasional trip to TJ Maxx. Maybe they are even saving their money?!

My 20 something Rocker has another modeling gig in LA. Remember when the band did that photo shoot for Paris Vogue? Well they want the boys again! I never would have thought my sweet son, who wore a black armband for weeks over his grungy surfer tee shirts 20 years ago when Cobain died, would be the fashion forward face of our family! Everyone always said the Bride should model, she was so tall, so svelte. But fashion is fickle, Rock on Dude!

2 Guitarists: the Rocker on Top

2 Guitarists: the Rocker on Top

 

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Overwhelmed

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on March 12, 2014| 4 Comments »

This getting back to normal business can be frustrating. Obviously it’s difficult waking up and not having a toddler waltz into your room to escort you to breakfast; or should I say the feast of fresh fruits and juices and any other breakfast food imaginable no longer awaits you on a breezy terrace with the ocean looking on. No, it’s back to making my own coffee and cutting up my own banana in yogurt looking at the mountains, all the while waiting for a single crocus to bloom…really, shouldn’t that have happened already?

So I did what any red-blooded American woman would do after finally getting over my flu-like illness. I went to the gym – I figured if I kept waiting for spring it would never come. Like the proverbial boiling pot. And on my way home just now, I  listened to an author on NPR about feeling time crunched because she was a working mom. Way to put my problems into perspective! My daughter was returning to her everyday life which included the usual; grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and laundry and also a sick toddler and a job that was anything but 9 to 5. It was more like 11pm to 7am, then she’d get some sleep and wake up to write her charts while the Love Bug napped.

I thought she must be feeling overwhelmed about now. So I made a mental note to tell her about this book since its author was heartbreakingly good on the radio. Brigid Schulte, a Washington Post columnist, wrote Overwhelmed; Work Love and Play When No One Has the Time. She talked about her generation and how they didn’t want to have a traditional marriage, the kind their parents had where the woman was in charge of the home, even if she had a full or part-time job. She wanted a more equitable distribution of work – like one always loads the dishwasher at night and one will always empty in the morning.

Last one out of bed makes the bed, and even if he forgets to put the pillows back on the bed you don’t do it…you leave them on the floor. I don’t think men understand just how hard that is for us, not picking up pillows.

Eventually Schulte and her husband did get to that place of marital housework justice, but it was a shock to see how far they had slipped into a more traditional model. She had to rewrite her to-do list, which is surprisingly the cover art of her book. Because after writing down every single thing she was trying to cram into her days, she realized that if she didn’t plan for her own recreational time, it would not happen.

I was just with my father who’s had a stroke, and sitting in a hospital room really makes you remember: … We don’t have that much time; what do you want to make of your life here on this Earth? And so, my to-do list is really: What are my priorities? What is most important to me? And then everything else, everything my to-do list used to be, I call the other 5 percent — it shouldn’t take more than 5 percent of my time or energy. There’s a lot of stuff that I used to do that I don’t do anymore. http://www.npr.org/2014/03/11/288596888/not-enough-hours-in-the-day-we-all-feel-a-little-overwhelmed

In many ways the Bride is lucky. Her Groom does his fair share around the house and truly shares child care when he is at home. Maybe my SIL could use this book? In Mexico she said she never gets any down time. To which I foolishly replied, but doesn’t your daughter go to school every day? Because she said, “Yes, but I go to work.”

If I were a list maker, this would be my list for today: 1) make bed, 2) pick up tickets for Book Festival, 3) search for a purple crocus. And I only make the bed because Nell said even if that’s all you do in a day, at least you did something!

Breakfast Anyone?

Breakfast Anyone?

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#IWD

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on March 8, 2014| 4 Comments »

Happy International Women’s Day 2014!  http://www.internationalwomensday.com If I were sitting at a cafe on my favorite island in the French West Indies, I would have been handed a rose already. Instead I’m watching the snow melt this morning from my aviary and reflecting on that Virginia Slims ad; we have come a long way baby and we’ve got a long way to go.

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights” Gloria Steinem

We Americans can feel smug when we read about countries where women cannot drive a car, or a woman cannot feel safe on a public bus from being gang raped. But if we truly pay attention, our sisters are under assault in a myriad of ways. A recent, hideous example is a misogynistic and homophobic judge in Arkansas – “Sluts are just whores in training.” Did I mention this is a family court judge? http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/03/07/3376181/sluts-are-just-whores-in-training-and-other-wisdom-offered-by-a-sitting-arkansas-judge/#

And then there’s the Army’s top sexual assault prosecutor being charged with…sexual assault. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/us-army-prosecutor-suspended-assault-claims

One of my favorite comedians, Sarah Silverman, schooled me on my retro-feminist views. In a YouTube sketch, she asks us to stop telling our girls they can be anything they want to be. I was guilty of this. I wanted the Bride to know she could be President if she wanted – thank God she didn’t. But why, why stop saying this to our daughters? Silverman said:

“Because it would never occur to them that they couldn’t.”

Over the years, I’ve written about and marched for reproductive freedom, because without that essential human right, women worldwide have shortened expectations and shortened lives. Pro Choice women are Pro Life women, we just continue to care about the lives of mothers and children.

Like the first woman rabbi, Sally Priesand, once said, I too look forward to the day we can stop making a news headline out of the “First Woman” anything.

1lyrnsq-smaller

 

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Forty-One

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 30, 2014| 1 Comment »

No, I’m not talking about a Bush presidency. And I’m not talking about being over the “hump” which was what we called the age of forty, before we knew better. What needs to be seriously talked about is that Roe vs Wade turned 41 last week, and nobody mentioned it.

Except this writer, Caitlin Moran, the best selling author of “How to be a Woman,” who absolutely gets it! She wrote an article for The UK Times titled, “Why is Abortion Under Threat Again?” She reminds us that world-wide, 40 Million women seek abortion services every year, and that these women do not “…have abortions recklessly.” Moran continues to say that Europe seems to be blindly following suit with America in trying to restrict access to reproductive health for its citizens, citing a law passed at the end of last year in Spain that would restrict a women’s right to an abortion.

Following recent controversial abortion restrictions across America, it seems two otherwise progressive, First World countries are now framing abortion as some relatively recent, morally licentious activity that blew in on the same wind as disco, homosexuality and Dallas, and which must now – in more sore, sober and reflective times – be curtailed once more. The only abortions are these modish, legal abortions, and now they must be stopped. http://ge.tt/3cnPGjD1/v/0

Rolling Stone has an article in this month’s issue titled “The Stealth War on Abortion,” that illuminates some of the incremental, state by state restrictions that GOP legislators have been passing long before Wendy Davis stood her ground in Texas. I’ve certainly talked about them here, the TRAP laws and personhood bills, from time to time. The “War on Women” is alive and well folks. The party that dismisses government as abusive and overbearing just loves to get into our panties.http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-stealth-war-on-abortion-20140115

What I like about Moran’s take is her historical and global perspective. We women have been trying to abort for just about as long as Neanderthals mated with Homo Sapiens. Before we tried coat hangers, candles and blood letting with leeches, there was “…pennyroyal, tansy, (and) hellebore. Silphium was the remedy of the Ancient Greeks – the main export of Cyrene, demand for silphium was so huge that it was harvested into extinction, but not before its image was imprinted onto Cyrenian coinage.”

Today half of the 40 Million abortions are performed safely and legally, but half are illegal. Think about that. Here’s the kicker, many who abort illegally end up dying – from sepsis most likely. That means about 47,000 women die annually around the world. Some of that can be connected to that 41st President and his son #43 who tied global aid to women’s health clinics that would not perform abortions…yes, religious zealots writing international policy. That’s just the way it is, everybody thinks they have God on their side.

The problem is impoverished women around the world are suffering. If we stop to consider that one in every three women we meet have had an abortion – 1 of every 3 – we may find ourselves thinking differently about choice. I’m glad the Right to Lifers have stopped killing physicians, but we need to have more men and women stand up for our right to choose. And young women in particular, we cannot go back to the back alleys.

http://www.upworthy.com/an-avenger-talks-about-the-hell-his-mom-went-through-back-when-women-had-no-choices?c=cur1

Illustration by Victor Juhasz for Rolling Stone

Illustration by Victor Juhasz for Rolling Stone

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Cohabitation

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2014| 2 Comments »

Birds do it, bees do it. But apparently if you happen to be the next single woman to serve as a university president in some parts of these Southern United States, you won’t be allowed to do it – that is, live with a partner in the usually big, beautiful, university-provided campus president’s house.

Dr. Gwendolyn Boyd, is leaving Johns Hopkins, and is slated to become the first Black female president of her alma mater, Alabama State University in Montgomery, next month.

“Her contract requires the 58-year-old engineer to move into the president’s home…(one) clause states ‘for so long as Dr. Boyd is President and a single person, she shall not be allowed to cohabitate in the President’s residence with any person with whom she has a romantic relation.'” http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/01/17/263484808/no-cohabitation-for-alabama-states-first-female-president

She seems to have no problem with this clause, after all she signed the contract. Still, it makes me smile to think about the “scandal” happening in France right now. President Hollande jets around at night on his scooter, disguised in his helmet to visit his lover, a film actress. He is only discovered by the fashionable French press because of his shoes! It’s all over the papers, but knowing some French people as I do, and listening to the interviews on the streets of Paris, his citizens could care less! Alors, Les Liasons Romantique!

Fidelity is over rated in France. “When it comes to extra-marital affairs, the French are the most forgiving nation in the world, according to a recent study. The U.S., however, is still as unforgiving as ever, ranking 27th on the list, right between Brazil and Ghana.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/infidelity-study_n_4611674.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

What I didn’t know until I read the above article, is that President Hollande is simply cohabiting with his First Lady, Valerie Trierweiler, who was his previous mistress. Yes sirree folks, they are NOT married, but have been together since 2007. I am trying to imagine this arrangement in the USA. My brain just cannot do it, sorry. But let’s try…it would be like Bill living cohabiting on Pennsylvania Avenue with Gennifer Flowers, and then seeing an intern on the side. You can see how the first part just wouldn’t work!

If there’s one thing I learned from moving South, it’s that things move a lot slower down here. We talk to strangers, we help each other in airports, we drive slowly in the left lane. In fact, I’m pretty sure our Governor would never close any lanes in a grudge match, after all we can snarl traffic just fine by stopping to talk to a neighbor on the road. And no Virginian would think of honking their horn!

So maybe this cohabitation clause wouldn’t work at NYU, and it certainly wouldn’t be considered at any French university. I doubt that the clause would have appeared on a male president’s contract. But I’ve got a feeling that Dr Boyd has bigger fish to fry. Might I suggest she give our single female UVA President Teresa Sullivan a call? After all, somebody always gets hurt when all those glass ceilings shatter. http://www.virginia.edu/presidentsreport/

Here is the Bride with Great Grandmother Mamie and some of her great grandchildren after a lunch at the MSU President’s gorgeous historic home that honored my brother and sister-in-law last year. And The Love Bug with her cousin, Frankie.IMG_1554IMG_1558

 

 

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Blue Mountains = Blue State?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2013| 5 Comments »

We lost an hour on the clock this morning, and if the polls prove to be true, the whole country will be watching VA turn blue on Tuesday. I don’t know about your state, but we’ve been flooded with phone calls and TV ads to get out the vote in this off-year election for Governor, and it’s become apparent that Democrat Terry McAuliffe holds a double digit lead among women against his anti-choice, pro-gun, climate change denier Tea Party opponent, Ken Cuccinelli. 130508_ken_cuccinelli_terry_mcauliffe_ap_605

While McAuliffe is ahead in all the public opinion polls and while he and his allies have greatly outraised and outspent Cuccinelli and the outside groups backing the GOP candidate, this is expected to be a low-turnout, off-year election which tends to trend older and slightly more conservative.http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/30/how-close-is-the-race-for-governor-of-virginia/

But in addition to voting for Governor, we also have a few down-ballot boxes to tick; on Tuesday Virginia elects two other statewide officers, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. In addition, some other delegates to the state house are busy trying to defend their majority. With over a two to one margin, it’s unlikely the Republicans will lose the house.

Still, we Dems just might win the top trifecta of seats in VA, thanks to women voters. Which would mean we’d never have to suffer another humiliating vaginal probe ultrasound bill, or personhood bill, or a bill that adds exorbitant regulations and building requirements for reproductive health care clinics, or a bill that will try to tell doctors where they can practice….thereby changing our purple mountain’s majesty deep blue. Or maybe orange?

November Sunrise

November Sunrise

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