Voices for Hillary...

I believe in Hillary Clinton.
I believe in her as a lawyer, a citizen, a mother, a democrat, a liberal, and as a woman.
Women in this culture have been in the background, standing behind and beside the great men of our nation...forever.
It is time for that to change. It is time for a woman to stand and be counted among the great leaders of this great nation, not as a wife or mother of a leader, but as a leader.
It is time for this woman.
Hillary Clinton is my candidate. She is the best candidate for this presidency. She has the most experience, the best chance of working with the status quo to implement changes, the best thought out plans and ideas for fixing the problems facing this nation.
She is also a woman.
I am proud to say that this time, in this election, I want to vote for this woman.
She speaks with my voice,
she understands my challenges,
she represents ME.
I am 32 years old.
I have never cast a ballot for a woman president.
This year that will change.
I will stand up for this. I will stand up for her.
I will make calls, I will donate money, I will blog, and comment, and debate.
I will be heard.
I will be heard because when I am,
I will vote for the candidate with my message,
my voice,
and it will be heard across the nation.
-Scylla

Please welcome my second guest blogger ever, Yvonne Montgomery Ewegen, with her thoughts on the matter.

The Gender Card

YES, WE CAN—IF WE WANT TO

WOMEN VOTERS CAN DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF 2008 ELECTION—there are more of us! If we want to elect the first woman president of the USA, we can. We can have a leader in the Oval Office who has a female point of view. Imagine that.
Yes, Hillary lost the Potomac Primaries last night. Momentum appears to be on Obama’s side. But, but—Obama is on a roll that involves relatively few voters. Most of his delegate total is the result of caucuses, which represent very few highly-committed supporters: not a cross-section.

AND MAY WE TALK ABOUT FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN?
Hillary won big-time in FL, though she didn’t campaign there. No one did, though some of Obama’s national ads were aired. She won Michigan, too. Thanks to the national committee of the Democratic Party, none of those votes count, so the huge bump Hillary should have had never materialized. Ya gotta be lucky as well as good in the political game. (The Republicans penalized the two states by taking away only half of their delegates.)

PLAY BY THE RULES, PAY YOUR DUES, WAIT YOUR TURN.
That’s been the litany for both women and African-Americans. I could see the excitement about Obama if he had the time in grade, the experience, and the more impressive résumé. What has Obama done to justify the excitement he evokes? He has a great speech, a rousing, emotional speech, but what else? Hillary has worked for 35 years, and has accomplished legislation that has improved the lives of American citizens. See www.hillaryclinton.com She has worked with Republicans to get that legislation passed. With the Congressional Quarterly (a non-partisan publication) rating Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate, I have scant hope that he’ll work well with the conservative members of Congress. What will get done?

THE MOST DISHEARTENING THING is the young women I encounter who think sexism is dead, and who have apparently entered the “post-feminist” era I saw mentioned the other day next to a photo of a scantily-dressed woman with great legs. Say what? I take comfort in a young friend’s remark: “I’m for Hillary. I can vote for a man any time.”
Now’s your chance to support the woman.

WE CAN ELECT HILLARY CLINTON PRESIDENT. YES WE CAN.
--Yvonne Montgomery Ewegen

Come, speak up, be heard.

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about the nature of wo(&)man kind. Are people generally good? Bad? What makes a person's life good? What makes it bad? Are we able to have an overall positive effect on the world, or are the unconcious daily decisions we make damaging enough to outweigh any concious good we do?

For example: I donate time and money to a variety of social interests I view important. I vote with my wallet, in that I research companies I purchase from (when I can) and decide whether or not to buy from them based on my research. However, I can't research every company I intend to purchase a good or service from all the time, so am I actually living my life such that I have a net positive effect on the world, or a negative one.

Walmart is an excellent example of this. They are the first company to require a pharmacist on staff who will dispense the morning after pill at all times. They also responded really well to Katrina and are partnering with GE to place floresent lights on their shelves as they are the lowest energy lights and will save energy, money, and time. However, they still employ bad business practices that are designed to drive their mom and pop competitors out of business, they still pay men more than women on average, promote them more, etc, and they still pay their people so little they can't shop at their own store.

So at the end of the day, is Walmart still evil? Is it still the place you never want to support? Does it's negative outweigh it's positives or vise versa.

If you are a foster family, and you shop at Walmart, are you in a net positive or negative? You are supporting the evils of Walmart, along with the goods, but you are also saving the lives of children by opening your homes to them.

Granted, whatever the outcome of your life is, or the aggregate total of evil or good you do, you should not use a net negative argument to stop doing good things, but it is an interesting perspective. When evaluating the human race as a whole, should we look to all the evil they do and all the good they do? Should we instead examine people as they act in groups, individually, etc?

In answering the question, Are people generally good or generally evil?, what traits and actions should be examined?

Little red riding hood...

Little red riding hood and the big bad wolf...



One of the odder things about living in New Jersey is the existence of blooming roses in December and January. They simply will not die!! I am pleased to see new buds every few weeks. Monkey is on permanent rose watch, checking them each morning on the way to school. She has definately mastered the stopping to smell the roses aspect of life.

I am with Hatchet in the argumentative child department, but I fear I only have myself to blame. She attended law school classes with me for 3 out of 5 of her formative years, one can only imagine that rubbed off on her.

This morning was a lovely example of the daily arguing:

She woke up 30 minutes early and came into my room.
Monkey: Mommy, the sun is out!
Me: Morning honey, what time is it?
Daddy: mumble mumble.... 7.... grunt
Me: Please go get dressed and I will be up in a minute
Monkey: no
Me: Monkey, you need to get ready for school, please go get dressed
Monkey: I don't want to
Me: Your dad is trying to sleep a little longer, please go get dressed, I will be right out!
Monkey: Mom! I don't want to!
Me: If I have to ask again, I will not be happy.
Monkey: I don't WANT TO!!
Me: 1...2...3....
Monkey: **fierce growls of frustration, stomping out of our room.** FINE!!

Sigh, it is always a bad sign when the first conversation of the day is an argument. It followed with breakfast (didn't want what I made), teeth (didn't want to brush), shoes (was too busy playing leapfrog to put them on), and coat (didn't need it).
By the time I got her in the car we were already late, and I was developing a headache.

I think I am going to have to begin sending her to school in bare feet without her teeth and hair brushed on an empty stomach. How long do you think I will be able to keep that up before I get approached with a child neglect concern?

Yesterday, after arguing with me over everything all day, I asked her if she had to argue with me over every single thing! Her answer: No. She argued about arguing!! Argh!!

However, she is getting better at cleaning her room, doing her homework, and eating her dinner, so I am counting my blessings. Also, I have learned from reliable sources that this argumentation is the cost of intelligent children. So, my choices are frustration, or fewer smarts. hmmm....

Another political message:

Save the big bad wolf!!


(image from www.tvdance.com)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to release a proposal to strip wolves of their Endangered species act protections across most of Wyoming and de-list wolves in Idaho, where the state is poised to kill up to 75% of the wolves living in the Lolo district of the Clearwater National Forest. Changing the status of the wolves will likely allow the use of aerial gunning and other lethal control methods to kill as many as two-thirds of the wolves in Wyoming and as many as 54 of Idaho’s 65 wolf packs. The states are interested in lowering the wolf population because they cause losses to livestock on some farms and ranches. However, this natural wolf-like behavior is the exact reason they were listed endangered to begin with. Wolves were eradicated from their historic ranges when humans began using those habitats for ranching and farming, and the wolves began hunting livestock as their natural prey disappeared.

If the US Fish and Wildlife service is allowed to delist wolves, there is no expectation that they will remain a recovered species. In fact, with two states already poised to destroy more than half the current population, there is no reason to expect wolves will survive long at all.

Please visit the petition site and lend your voice to the outcry against destorying wolves once again. We worked so hard to get this species to recover, do not allow FWS to strip them of thier protections now!!