Saturday, March 8, 2008

Remember How Women Got The Vote?


by humbled and voting Wednesday, Jun. 23, 2004 at 1:29 PM

Vote is a verb, it does not exist without action. It is a hard won right not a candidate or party.

Remember how women got the vote


The women were innocent and defenseless. 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 helpless 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?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

There was a time when I knew these women well. I met them in college--not in my required American history courses, which barely mentioned them, but in women's history class. That's where I found the irrepressibly brave Alice Paul. Her large, brooding eyes seemed fixed on my own as she stared out from the page. Remember, she silently beckoned. Remember.

I thought I always would. I registered voters throughout college and law school, worked on congressional and presidential campaigns until I started writing for newspapers. When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president, I took my 9-year-old son to meet her. "My knees are shaking," he whispered after shaking her hand. "I'm never going to wash this hand again."

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes, it was even inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was. With herself "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote? 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, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."

HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it 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 Bunko 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 watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. 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."

Friday, March 7, 2008

AHA.. a win/win


HI, I'M BUFFY SUMMERS, AND THIS IS MY LOVER SATSU
In the 12th issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic book series, released this week, it was revealed that Buffy slept with a woman ((Thanks to the dozens of AE readers who wrote in to alert me to this news!). You should definitely check out the whole issue — it's a good one! — but for you impatient types, here are the relevant panels, in which Buffy wakes up in bed with a fellow slayer named Satsu who had recently confessed her love for Buffy:  (more)

this looks like fun

Wanted Exclusive Trailer

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Messed Up.. what if women killed men who hit on them?



When I was in Chicago last weekend. The DJj played this clip on air then took calls. I was shocked that the first caller said he understood what the killer was thinking. The DJ and myself were shocked at his comments. If murder is somehow a rational response to unwanted advances, no men would be left on the planet. Sick.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

In case you missed it...

Hillary laughs it up on "SNL"

I want several things from our next president. A coherent foreign policy. An economic plan that helps the poor and middle class instead of corporations and the rich. An extension of full equal rights to all LGBT Americans. And last, but not least, an ability to laugh at her/himself. However you feel about Sen. Hillary Clinton, she proved she could deliver the latter this past weekend, with a surprise stop by Saturday Night Live. (READ)




It's never easy being a trailblazer. For whatever missteps or miscalculations her campaign may have made along the way, you have to applaud how historic Hillary's candidacy has been. In a race with so many firsts, it's easy to overlook what a truly transformational notion a female president still is in America. And if her candidacy does nothing else, perhaps it has exposed how opposed some still are to the very thought of a woman in charge. If I hear/read/see one more discussion about her voice/laugh/dress/hair/femininity/lack of femininity, I think I'll scream. In the face of all the mainstream sexism and old-school misogyny that still exists, it's easy to get discouraged. And, even here, maybe Hillary has shown us the way. Just laugh.
(READ)

Obama Makes Gay Push, Hillary Pushes Back

In terms of the Clinton call, Herrin added, “What really surprised us was her passion – that she understood the immediate need for our community.”

Within the first 100 days of her presidency, Herrin said, Clinton promised to extend benefits to all same-sex couples who work for the federal government with an executive order, end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and use the bully pulpit to advocate for a fully inclusive ENDA and a fully inclusive hate-crimes bill. (Herrin and her executive board were not clear how Sen. Clinton would end “don’t ask, don’t tell” – if by executive order or some other means.)

Clinton also discussed how adamant she is about allowing everyone in America to adopt children if they are a qualified couple. “It was like she was indignant,” Herrin said of Clinton’s manner while talking about same-sex couples’ adoption rights. “Her voice just really changed, and that was the part that surprised us – her passion.” (READ)

Slate's Delegate Calculator


IT ONLY GETS HARDER FOR CLINTON GOING FORWARD.
By Chadwick Matlin and Chris Wilson
Updated Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 1:18 PM ET

The dust hasn't quite settled from last night's festivities, but Clinton almost certainly finished the night better than she started it. She picked up about a dozen delegates in Ohio, according to NBC News and, as of now, is ahead in Texas' delegate assignments. More nuanced delegate estimates and caucus returns are still trickling in throughout the day, so Obama could still trump her in Texas, despite losing to her in the primary. (READ - PLAY WITH CALC)

She Lives!


CLINTON HAS COME BACK, BUT HAS SHE COME BACK FAR ENOUGH?
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, March 5, 2008, at 12:58 AM ET

During Hillary Clinton's 11 straight losses to Barack Obama, her aides and allies started talking about the Clinton roller coaster. She wasn't in a death plunge, they said; it was just a steep drop before an inevitable upward rise. By winning the Ohio and Texas primaries Tuesday, Clinton got that lift, but her campaign seemed less like a roller coaster and more like Lufthansa flight LH 044, a careening near-death experience that stabilized only at the last white-knuckle moment. (READ)

Why is everyone beating up on Hillary? Can't we complete the race?

Or is it just me? But I don't see why Hillary should quit when it's so close.. lets finish. I'd like to vote yet too ya know. I tried to find an article on this view but couldn't find one. So here is something else. If anyone see one, please comment with it.

Dems Fret Over Prolonged Bitter Fight

"Despite Obama's impressive victories in February, Clinton's comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and one of nearly 800 party leaders known as superdelegates for their ability to determine the nomination. "In order to clinch the nomination, he must anticipate the worst attacks ever." (READ)

Is it the beginning of the end for marriage?


Forced to unpack my antipathy, I would cite four po-faced motives: atheism; feminism; a loathing of state and/or public intervention in matters I deem private; and something more oddball regarding the close-down of narrative possibility. One reason would be enough to quash any Doris Day ambition; the four together topple into each other like spinsterish dominos. (READ)