Please see ERA Call to Action #1 here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

The Equal Rights Amendment is alive and well!

This is an open-ended ratification process and we only need 3 more states to ratify.

Imagine my horror when I discovered that Illinois (!) is one of the 15 states outstanding. I intend to help change that, but quick - that's one down...

In light of the recent elections we have two other states that may be *encouraged* to do the right thing: Arkansas (solid blue now) and Nevada (purple).

I simply do not have time this morning to explain why the 14th Amendment does not cover women's rights, but you can find all that information and more at http://www.equalrightsamendment.org /

PLEASE visit the site and lend your voice to make this amendment happen! We are so close - and the time is now!

For all of those who went before us...

Thank You!

Remember that?

I do.

I remember - some 30 years ago - my mom attending rallies outside the state capitol in Sacramento shouting herself hoarse. I spent many of my most memorable hours as a kid hanging out with my mom and her friends making airbrushed banners and signs, tee shirts, hats and visors too. My little girlfriend and I were then enlisted to wear this political gear at the weekend flea market to advertise their sale.



I remember feeling proud to be a girl, proud to know that one day I would be a woman. I was empowered by the example these women were setting. I was grateful for the efforts they were extending for themselves, but mostly for the girls who would come after them. I felt - I knew - that I counted. I mattered. This was my political awakening and I was crushed when the amendment was not ratified. I knew from that point forward I would have to make my equality for myself. I have been able to achieve equality in my personal life, yet the public sphere is quite another matter: I have been constructively fired from a job simply because I demanded equal pay - this is just one example.

Yesterday – some 30 years later – my mom and I were celebrating the coming of the nation’s first woman Speaker of the House. We also lamented the failure of the ERA. 30 years and nary a word is spoken of the Equal Rights Amendment. There is a whole generation of young women who know nothing of the campaign for women’s rights. Many take for granted the handful of rights they, as women, have: Roe, birth control, most certainly the right to vote; but they are perhaps ignorant of the women who fought for nearly a century – yes, a century – to afford them those rights.

30 years later, and after 6 years of darkness and a serious assault on two of those three rights women have, is it not time to take up the banners and signs again? Is it still too much to ask, now, in the 21st century, that the populist majority in this country be granted the same federal rights as their male counterparts?

I say the time is now.

The incoming majority has much to do, to be sure: raising the minimum wage, ending the immoral and illegal war, addressing global warming, pushing innovation in alternative fuels and ending corporate pollution, investigations into the BFEE (especially the Cheney arm) and so much more…


Please, if I have missed a grassroots movement already in place, make me aware of it so that I may lend my voice.

If no such current movement exists, please join me as I begin to renew the effort from the ground up. Feel free to PM me with any helpful information you may have.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of my favorite *jokes*:

Sailor #1 – That’s a mighty big ocean!

Sailor #2 – Yeah, but that’s just the top of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I have posted here is *just the top of it*

AND

This is the first installment of my *ERA Call to Action*. Subsequent installments will be added as my research and/or pertinent information presents itself.

Thank you.

Peace
Peace on Earth
Peace in our Hearts
Peace in our Souls
Peace to all of you

it's sort of old stuff from Fundies Say the Darndest Things, January but I nearly spit my wheat thins all over my monitor!




http://www.fstdt.com/comments.asp?id=8825

weekly "big shopping", staples, meats, etc.
My bill is now roughly $150 for the same items.
That's interesting: the increase adds up to $120 a month - that's one week of staples a year ago.
Essentially, that's like taking a week's worth of food out of my family's mouth.
Yep, the economy is just great!

I guess the family values folks missed the "pussy wagon" lyrics - otherwise she would have been fired on the spot!



more ---> http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?id=12...

HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) and it's connection to cervical cancer is widely know as some 80% of the population, male and female, are infected. What is not so widely known is that there is, in fact, a cure for HPV - try Googling "hpv cure" and see what you get. Article after article on how there is no cure for HPV.

How could this be?

From the Daily Kos:



http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/4...


Evidently sometime during the summer of 2005 Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reported that a spokesman for the FRC said young women should have to deal with the consequences of HPV (cancer), rather than rely on a new vaccine.

And, reported yesterday on Air America Radio News, the idea from the FRC and BuchCo that the money to develop and distribute the vaccine would be better spent on abstinence education!


Now for my opinion:

As a woman who knows about HPV and its potential to develop into cervical cancer from first hand experience, I can now (although I've known for quite some time) unequivocably say that the Religious Right, Neoconservatives and BushCo hate women - period.