3626
Do you have a favorite book?
A week ago I was the guest speaker at a young adult women's Bible study (not from my church). Their theme this year is mentoring, so each hostess invites a "mature" friend to speak to their group. After giving my testimony I moved on to evaluating Christian books (I used a Christian publisher, Alternative Medicine by O'Mathuna), and the book in hand (using a Randy Alcorn title, Christian imprint I didn't know by a mainstream publisher). They were a delightful group, sincere and well-read, involved in their families, church and community. Most, but not all, had children. The only people this age I have much contact with are my own children--who don't use libraries and don't attend a church (what we call Chreasters--attend on Christmas and Easter), so I wasn't sure what to expect. When I talked about recommending a title for their public library, which most of them used regularly (some Hilliard, some Columbus, some Dublin), a few expressed surprise that they could recommend a book. Is that a well kept secret? Do library websites and staff not encourage this (mine doesn't, but I thought it was a local "we know best" attitude)?

Then one well-read mama asked me, "What is your favorite book--besides the Bible?" I could definitely feel a blush on that one. Not only am I reading through the One Year NIV for the first time, but I'm somewhat promiscuous when it comes to favorite books--fickle and flitting, rarely reading the entire book. Table of contents, index, bibliography and a few key chapters and I'm out of here. So I mumbled a title I enjoyed two years ago, Wide as the waters by Benson Bobrick (Simon & Schuster, 2001). The sub-title "The story of the English Bible and the revolution it inspired" pretty much describes the theme. The book didn't do that well in sales, because several others with the same thesis appeared at that time, but I definitely think this one does the best job of showing that once the Bible was available in English, reading books of all types increased dramatically. There was an increase in the circulation and production of books (printing by then had been invented). "At the same time, once the people were free to interpret the word of God according to the light of their own understanding, they began to question the authority of all their inherited institutions, which led to reform within the Church." In short, it changed the world politically and socially, as well as spiritually. See author interview here. Another favorite, which I didn't mention, and which I did read cover to cover is The Story of English, a beautifully written and illustrated book that resulted from a TV program by the BBC. I bought it for $1.00 at a book sale, and I'll never let it go.

So if you ever are called on or choose to talk about books, arrive prepared. You might be asked about your favorite book or author.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3596
Homosexual adoption
Honest, I was looking for the amount of CO2 termites contribute to global warming, and somehow wandered into this strange story of the granddaughter of IBM founder, Thomas Watson, who adopted her adult lesbian partner, then they split, and now about 15 years later, the ex-partner is trying to get herself listed as the 19th grandchild of her ex-lover's biological mother so she can help support her own biological mother, who apparently had no objections to giving her up for adoption. Serves the greedy little twit right if she loses her suit. Serves the flaky IBM granddaughter right if she loses in court to her ex-lover. Story here. Some people give adoption a bad name. Some people give women a bad name. Some people give money lust a bad name. Some do all three.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3577
It's naughty to be not nice
DePauw University (Greencastle, IN) has pulled its approval from the Delta Zeta sorority. It seems that 23 of the sisters were asked to take "alumna status" and leave the house because they failed to meet recruiting goals. DZ National's story. The sisters claimed it was because they weren't pretty enough. The photo in the USAToday shows some not unattractive, 20-something ladies with too much mascara and some extra poundage.

Sororities, cliques or social clubs for women (or men) whether in high school, college, or real life aren't designed to include everyone. Their very existence says, "we are somebody," and you aren't. Why is it worse to exclude a woman because she is not attractive than because she isn't a good athlete or a good student? Will black sororities be required to include whites? Will Jewish sororities have to rush Bahai's? Do engineering fraternities have to include thespians?

All 23 of those women when they went through "rush" knew they got in because someone else didn't. They knew that with the next class, they'd be the ones excluding another young woman whose grades would bring the average down, or she drank too much and embarrassed them, or her table manners were poor, or . . . she was homely. Is prettiness more superficial than bad manners or poor grades? I disliked the Greek system from the get-go, and never participated when I was in college. I lived in an independent dorm and loved it. It was the judging and exclusion stuff I disliked. But this is childish! Talk about "in loco parentis!"

Ladies, it's a big bad world out there. Deal with it. Don't be a victim. Don't join the Greek system and then whine about exclusionary behavior like this is all new to you and you just had no idea what was going on.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3533 Why do Republicans try so hard to look stupid?

Laura Ingraham (radio talk show host based in California) sounds like she's living 3 centuries back by trying to equate the HPV vaccine with conservative, Christian values. Did she ever raise a daughter? Was she ever a daughter? Your little virgin sweety pie could have saved herself from birth through age 30 for her future husband because of all your careful upbringing, private schools, Sunday school and VBS, and your selection of her peer group, but you didn't raise the man she will marry! And since women get HPV from men, who are you kidding lady? For some reason she thinks that 6th graders will run out and have sex if they have this vaccine's protection from a cancer they won't get until they are 40, despite what they are taught at home and church, but won't behave that way if they don't have the vaccine, being taught the very same values. Are our values that fragile? Someone in this future couple will have had pre-marital sex. HPV vaccine cannot protect your daughter from pregnancy, or herpes, or syphilis, or any number of STDs--nor can a condom--and the vaccine can't protect her against a broken heart and an unfaithful husband. But for the love of God, give her the protection you can for the cancer!

Then they try to top that stupid behavior by seriously considering Rudy Giuliani or John McCain as presidential candidates for 2008, both unfaithful to their wives and personally not men of good character, instead of Romney because he's (whisper) a Mormon.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3532 Strong willed mother-in-law

Prayer Job Jar I have so many people on my prayer list with really serious, mind numbing problems, I admit I got a bit testy and talked back to the ingrate woman who wrote "Dear Abby" this week about her mother-in-law.

It seems her MIL does her laundry and dishes when she comes over to babysit. She started doing it when the complainer was bedridden and really needed the help, but she just won't stop! Really, what some people call a problem, I can fix in 3 shakes of a lamb's tail. DO THE LAUNDRY AND DISHES BEFORE SHE GETS THERE. Start picking up after yourself so Mama and others won't see your home looking like a cyclone went through as you run off for lunch with your friends, or where ever you're going. If your home looks like a federal disaster zone, don't be surprised when the volunteers show up for cleaning. Or, here's another thought. HIRE SOMEONE TO BABYSIT. Then invite your in-laws over for a non-working time with the kids (she wanted MIL to supervise the kids instead of cleaning up messes).

Now, wasn't that easy?Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3528 Browsing in libraries

When I visit a city, I try to make a stop at the public library. Often I can't get inside because I get up too early and am on my way to or from the coffee shop! But today, you can visit some of the most fabulous libraries on line. I keep a link at the left to the New York Public Library. In the early days of my career in the mid-1960s, when libraries were just beginning to figure out how computers could help store and access information, the card catalog of the NYPL had been photocopied and bound into huge volumes. It was a good source for slavic material, as I recall, so I would often take my handful of slips and cards into the huge reference room of the University of Illinois Library (I used to get very light-headed and thought it was excitement but later learned I had atrial fibrillation), write out the transliteration, and search the many possibilities of the authors' names. This was called doing an "authority search," and if you found the author, you made a little check mark. NYPL was considered a reputable authority and we trusted the toiling, underpaid librarians who had worked the decades before us.

February in the United States is called Black History month, and I'm awfully tired of the same old PSAs I've been hearing on the radio. Someone has not put much thought into the historical riches, particularly poetry, literature and music, that are available on-line. ("Hello! There are topics other than slavery and misery to show accomplishments!" she says to the radio.) I went to the NYPL home page and typed in "poet" in the search window, and received a huge number of photographs of African-American and Afro-other literary figures. I looked through the photos and selected this woman, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture:

I then went to Google and looked up her biography and some of her poetry. She had a very interesting life (born to free parents in 1825 and raised by a relative) and received an education far better than most white women of her time. I really enjoyed her poem about Moses, which you can find and read, but she also wrote several novels and this essay was included in a Unitarian sermon source, still worthy of being read today:

True and False Politeness [by F.E.W. Harper]

False politeness can cast a glamour over fashionable follies and popular vices and shrink from uttering unpalatable truths, when truth is needed more than flattery.

True politeness, tender as love and faithful as truth, values intrinsic worth more than artificial surroundings. It will stem the current of the world's disfavor, rather than float ignobly on the tide of popular favor, with the implied disrespect to our common human nature, that it is a flaccid thing to be won by sophistry, and satisfied with shams.

False politeness is an outgrowth from the surface of life. True politeness is the fair outflowing of a kind and thoughtful life, the sweet ripe fruit of a religion which gives to life its best expression and to humanity its crowning glory.

True politeness is broadly inclusive; false politeness narrowly exclusive. …

True politeness has no scornful epithets for classes or races, who, if not organically inferior, have been born under, or environed by inferior conditions. Humanity is God's child, and to fail in true kindness and respect to the least of His "little ones" is to fail in allegiance to Him.

Contemptuous injustice to man is treason to God, and one of the worst forms of infidelity is to praise Christ with our lips and trample on the least of His brethren with our feet,-to talk sweetly of His love, and embitter the lives of others by cold contempt, and cruel scorn.

Beyond the narrow limitations of social lines are humanity's broader interests…

If today you believe that your faith is simple and vision clearer than that of other forms of belief, should not the clasp of your hand be warmer, the earnestness of your soul greater, and the throbbings of your heart quicker to clasp the world in your arms and bring it nearer to the great heart of God and His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ? Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3504 Will Bush be blamed?

Women soared ahead of men in the U.S. job market in this decade. They posted a net increase of 1.7 million jobs paying above the median salary and 52.5% of the total increase in jobs.

The myth still persists that there is a wage gap between the genders, but studies show when you adjust for career track behavior, sometimes women are ahead of the men who won't move, won't apply for advancement, won't take additional courses, and won't take risks.

This report (which appears in WSJ today) might leave reporters in a rut, but fortunately for them, illegal immigrants continue to depress many wage and social indicators, so they are a two-fer for the media who need to trot out sad stories of working class America about every six weeks and also report on how heartless we are not to want an open border policy.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3493 WMD--Women, mothers, daughters

In 2003, the U.S. allocated $27 million dollars to support women's programs in Iraq. Under the guidance of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. and other foreign sources funded Iraqi women to organize a number of national women's conferences and to support newly formed local NGOs that focus on women's issues. Groups like The Iraqi Women's league, The Iraqi Higher Council for Women, and the Organization of Women's Freedom are actively working for women's full representation in the political process and to ensure that the women's rights agenda does not get marginalized in the country's road to democracy.

In the 1970s, Iraq had a quality health care system, which began to decline in the mid-1980s and by the 1990s, it was in crisis. This took the greatest toll on the elderly, women, and children. The Gulf War had a particularly drastic effect on the large and increasing number of widows in Iraq who are heads of households. . . by the late 1980s the government had stopped assistance to the widows of the Iraq-Iran war. There are many unmarried women in Iraq today due to the deteriorating conditions since the early 1980s.

There was no freedom during the Saddam regime, but Iraqi women are talking today like never before and they are concerned that fundamentalist Islamic groups, Sunni and Sh'ia alike will succeed in introducting legislation that will control and limit them again. When the U.S. military commander in Najaf appointed an Iraqi woman lawyer as the first female judge in Najaf, it drew protests and death threats, and she was forced to resign.

To win support of tribal and conservative religious factions after the Gulf War, Saddam reversed many of the advances women had made in the professions and universities in the 1970s--40% of teachers, 30% of doctors, 50% of dentists, etc. By 2003 they were found--if employed--primarily in the agricultural and service sector. When schools reopened in 2003 after the U.S. occupation, the women principals and teachers went back to classes and they are well represented in the media.

Source: Women's rights in the Middle East and North Africa, Freedom House, 2005, Chapter on Iraq written by Amal Rassam, co-author with Daniel Bates of Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East.

And all this will be lost if the Democrats have their way, because they really don't believe there are WMD in Iraq.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3483 What I know about women and money

It's a bit tedious relabeling old blogs, but I really like this feature in the new Blogger template. Now I'll be able to sort and print only the ones I really like. It is really useful for the memory and family photo blogs. This morning I'm reviewing (all cozy and warm during our latest Ohio snow storm) what I've written about women. I liked this one enough to give it a rerun in case you missed it. These points are all common sense, so you might not see them anywhere but here.

I haven't read the [census] report. But here's what I know for a fact going in.



• Married people are wealthier than unmarried;
• children of divorce are poorer than children of in tact families;
• divorced and unmarried fathers are less likely to provide a college education for their children than fathers married to the children's mother;
• people who work have more money than people who don't work;
• government programs often encourage people not to work, or at least reward them for working less, so they have the unintended consequence of creating a poor class;
• people in the bottom quintile usually don't stay there because their age, education or marital status changes;
• inexpensive leisure activities and entertainment lull people into not doing their best but create great wealth for a small number;
• millions of destitute people sneak into our country every year and are added to the poverty rolls;
• marijuana and alcohol keep a lot of people poor and dysfunctional while making a small number rich;
• for 30+ years schools have encouraged students to seek non-monetary satisfactions and rewards in life and liberals shouldn't complain if it is working.

Women (of certain types and political thought) have been leading the charge that keep families poor for over 30 years. Wake up and smell the coffee, ladies.
Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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What Women Want

When I started blogging in 2003, I had a small problem finding interesting blogs written by women. Now they've taken over blogdom. The crafters are stunning with gorgeous photos of wip and wonderful group projects; the cooking blogs can put on weight just reading the ingredients; the mommy blogs are so well written you can almost smell the diapers and spit-up and they write vivid descriptions of labor and delivery, something I've tried hard to forget; the photobloggers seem to have a way with cats and nature; the book reviewers with their TBR lists put me to shame; the career blogs are sometimes a bit specialized and require some anonymity if they want to keep their jobs; and of course, the librarian blogs are very high tech but with a light, feminine touch.

Almost every blog I read gets 20-30 times more comments than I do (I get a lot of readers; not many leave comments). There are reasons for this, and you won't be surprised when I tell you why.

1. My age. Yes, folks, I'm old enough to be the mother or even grandmother of some of the ladies whose blogs I link to. This is a huge disadvantage in drawing comments--it's a cultural divide of unbelievable proportions. When Crazy Aunt Purl, who is 30-something, cute, divorced and struggling, not to mention funny and a fabulous cat photographer who knits, writes about getting out of debt with a strict budget, she might get 145 comments! If write about budgeting to stay out of debt, I'd be lucky to get a yawn. It's much better to hear from a peer than someone your mom's age who's never even had a balance on her credit card! Even if I sprinkled my budget advice with adorable photos of my cat, I wouldn't get comments. Aunt Purl and the very political Neo-Neocon's sites act as discussion boards where people return and comment on the remarks of the other readers.

2. Mine is not a happy-clappy blog, cheering on the ladies like some of the boomer bloggers I've read who have come out of life's struggles with a smile and a hug for everyone, and never a critical word. Wow. I love to read them, too--and you should see the comments. Lazy Daisy is just the person to visit if you need a lift--except for that really gross-out story about her son's apartment.

3. I am a conservative, evangelical Christian and am also politically conservative. I could measure the drop off of readership if I even mention abortion or creation. They are lead balloon topics for blogs, unless you're targeting those groups (dominated by male bloggers who think women should keep quiet in their presence). But I can't resist pointing out fallacies and murky thinking when it comes to protecting the weakest.

4. Although I read a lot, I'm really a dabbler, and prefer magazines and newspapers. I have no background in literature (in college I never had a class in British or American literature and rarely read fiction of any type). I like to read the review and literary blogs, but can't really make a contribution.

5. Many of my "regular" readers and commenters that used to stop by closed up shop after a year or so. Some have totally removed the blog site, others have just stopped posting anything. Even two guys I used to visit have disappeared with no explanation.

6. I don't participate in more than one ring, or event at a time. Women just love these things--they are so social! I liked Friday Feast, but moved on to Thursday Thirteen, then left that and took up Poetry Thursday. Many of the women I visit have an event going on every day of the week, sometimes two. Tasks for Tuesday or Wordless Wednesday or Super Bowl Menu and so forth--I think it's like running into each other at the market and stopping for a chat.

7. And lastly, even my friends and family don't leave comments. Some don't even read--they say they are too busy, or can't find them, or have to clean a closet. I read a lot of blogs where the comment windows are like family reunions. If it weren't for good old Murray whom I knew in high school and sends me the obituaries from our home town, you would think I just growed.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3470 Speaking of dress codes

I grew up in the Anabaptist tradition where some women, mostly older, wore modest dresses and prayer coverings. It was called, "dressing in order." I have relatives in the German Baptist Brethren sect who still do this. I've seen clothing sites on the internet for Mennonite, and old order groups, but here's an interesting take on the products. Check out the page called Vogue Italia.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3468 Dress for Success

Remember that old saw? Wonder what happened? When I retired in October 2000, I vowed not to appear in public in the retiree's uniform--sweat pants and athletic shoes. Unless I'm going out to pick up trash along the road side, I've pretty much kept that resolution. However, today I outdid myself. I went to the coffee shop decked out in a suit. Yesterday I bought a black pinstripe pantsuit, cuffed leg, short jacket, 100% wool and fully lined, Jones New York brand, size 8. If the Jones* page displays correctly, my suit (or something like it) appears in the "collection" category. I actually wouldn't have worn this when I worked, because libraries are too dirty; my staff were assigned dusting or table washing if we were slow. Also, I never wore slacks to work.

I don't know what these suits cost new (ca. $120 I think), but I got it for $18 at the Cancer Society Shop which sells only donated clothing (passing along $200,000 a year for cancer research), a lot of it by someone who has my short legs and small waist.

If you first started wearing slacks to work 20 years ago, dress-down or casual Fridays put you in jeans. Today at the coffee shop I saw a young woman in flannel pajama bottoms--and I see this almost every Friday. In 2000, I just didn't know how bad it was going to get.

-----

*The Company's nationally recognized brands include Jones New York, Evan-Picone, Norton McNaughton, Gloria Vanderbilt, Erika, l.e.i., Energie, Nine West, Easy Spirit, Enzo Angiolini, Bandolino, Joan & David, Mootsies Tootsies, Sam & Libby, Napier, Judith Jack, Kasper, Anne Klein, Albert Nipon, Le Suit and Barneys New York. The Company also markets costume jewelry under the Givenchy brand licensed from Givenchy Corporation and footwear under the Dockers Women brand licensed from Levi Strauss & Co. Jones Apparel GroupSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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Poetry Thursday #6




CHANGE is this week's theme in honor of PT's new website. What changes more than women's fashion? Truthfully, my style doesn't change that much, especially with no job to go to. So when I say good-bye to a favorite style or fabric, it is a sad day. Some go to my "vintage closet"--not to wear, but to look at, like a formal my mother made when I was in high school, or my mother-of-the-bride dress from 1993.

This poem is about the last pair of shoulder pads in my closet. Shoulder pads (for women) returned to fashion in the early 1980s after a hiatus of about 30 years. They started small and then became enormous, and gradually disappeared. Now we all have narrow, dainty, child-like shoulders again instead of looking like we suited up for the middle school football team or the soap opera Dynasty.


On removing shoulder pads from a favorite blouse
by Norma Bruce
Feb. 7, 2007

Others told me
(helpful friends)
someday on my own
strength
would I go
to meet the world
tall, strong, confident.

I’d waver; you were silent.

Mirrors told me
(how they lied)
only with your
help
could I climb
the ladder of
greed, success, power.

I’d arrange; you were silent.

Today told me
(glaring lights)
it was now past
time
should I cling
another minute to
padded, shaped, contoured?

Snip and toss; you were silent.


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3448 I'm putting myself first
There's a phrase that makes me gag. I was watching Oprah today while fixing supper (potatoes, onions and carrots with a little olive oil in the oven, and then I'll grill some salmon). She's doing a show on women who don't look their age. It's really amazing what getting them out of jeans and sweats and putting on a little hair color and mascara can do. But one woman came out and they had the photo of her 10 years ago and today on the screen. "What did you do?" asked Oprah. "I decided to put myself first," she said oozing confidence. "How did you do that?" Oprah repeated. "I'm putting myself first," she repeated. I guess if you eat junk food and never exercise, that's putting others first? When I did that I just called it getting careless and eating anything that wasn't nailed down.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3440 A proud grandma

A girlfriend (yes, we still say "girl" at our age) showed me the photos of her new grand daughter at about one hour old. She arrived 10 days early, very shortly after her mom's shower. Gorgeous, pink, and chubby with straight black hair and eyes, she is bi-racial, her father a Nigerian and her mother an Irish American. Her skin will darken some as she gets older, but right now she's a match with mom, not dad and because of the way we view people in this country by custom, culture and government edict, she will always be counted as African-American for the census, medical studies, scholarships, school diversity programs and employment opportunities. We have such an established bureaucracy dependent on keeping our citizens divided into groups, she may never in my life time be able to just be who she is.

African Americans are now the second largest minority group in the US--Hispanics are first. Many of the U.S. black population, like my friend's son-in-law, are recent arrivals--in fact 8 percent. According to the New York Times (reported at City Journal), more African immigrants have arrived voluntarily since 1990 than the number who once came as slaves. These immigrants, too, have far higher employment and education levels than native-born blacks. Barack Obama's name is out there for President. His father, although never a citizen, was born in Africa, and married an American and Barack was raised in Hawaii. Both his parents had advanced degrees. You can't say anything about his father only seeing him twice or being a Muslim or you are declared a racist, so just go read his autobiography or read a liberal blog which will tell you the same thing, but won't be called racist. Unlike some who have called him "privileged" because of private schooling, I'd say growing up without dad to help you sort through life's problems and hurts removes you from that definition.

Meanwhile, Diddy Daddy dawdles and hasn't married his "long time girlfriend," the mother of his new twin girls (and his older son) and Diddy didn't marry the mother of his oldest son. I feel a poem coming on. . . Poor Diddy's kiddies/Diddy or did he/you be one sad dad/You be P. Diddy. The failure of some highly visible and successful celebrities to become real fathers contributes to the poverty of the women and children left with Uncle Sam by young men who imitate the bling and strut of the diddy daddies of this world.

Technorati: Sean John Combs, P. Diddy, fatherhood, African AmericansSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3434 Global warming vs. climate change

One is a political, social and economic juggernaut designed to bring down global investments, high employment and capitalism, requiring hysteria and lemming like behavior; the other is a scientific, measurable fact, something that has been going on since Ohio was covered with glaciers, Lake Erie was flooding Cleveland, and Greenland was green, requiring some humility, hard science and common sense.

Animal rights vs. animal welfare

One is a political movement designed to bring down or stop medical research and pharmaceutical companies, various industries and capitalism in general; the other is a compassionate, moral and scientifically sound way to treat animals for the best interests of people.

Feminism vs. women's rights

One is a far reaching political movement designed to stomp out certain patriarchal cultures and behaviors by replacing them with matriarchal forms just as repressive and capitalism in general; the other suggests that although not a better or more moral species, women have a lot to offer society especially in government and business.

Pro-choice vs. pro-life

One is a political movement in which struggling people fearing loss of convenience and power, destroy the weakest and most frail, often with cruel and painful methods, choosing death today; the other is a spiritual movement in which struggling people decide to do what is difficult today, believing that life is sacred, choosing death 90 years from now.

Undocumented workers vs. illegal aliens

One is a political and social term used by most politicians, business CEOs and union officials, all looking for more votes, higher profits, or more members; the other is the term the rest of us use for the people flooding across our borders, swamping our social services, taking our jobs and sending money back to their villages to prop up a corrupt and failing government, primarily run by people of Spanish European ancestry whose ancestors used to control most of North and South America and now want it back.

Technorati: climate change, global warming, animal rights, abortion change, illegal aliensSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3420 Home Alone

Normally, I would post this at Coffee Spills, where yesterday's entry would lead you to a great site for alpaca clothing. However, this blog is my "opinion journal," so today I want to mention here what I overheard there.

I was at my usual spot at Panera's, listening to classical music, enjoying the fire and reading the Wall St. Journal. Two women I see there about once a week sat at the next table, also by the fire, our chairs nearly touching. I hear them talking, then realize one woman is talking quietly on her cell phone to her son, who is still at home waiting to be picked up by the school bus. It's dark in central Ohio at 6:30 a.m., and today is bitterly cold. She's sweetly reminding him to open the front door so the bus driver knows he is in the house, and to be sure the porch light is on. She also reminds him to turn off the TV before he leaves, and then she signs off with something lovey-dovey, and starts to chat with her friend.

I hear her tell her tablemate that she and her kids communicate better by e-mail and IM than they do face to face. Gee, I wonder why?

And I have tears in my eyes thinking about a little boy at home alone, in the dark, waiting for the school bus while Mom enjoys a cinnamon crunch bagel and coffee with a friend. Did he have breakfast? Does he need to review the spelling words? Will the dog get out? Will he "forget" to wear his gloves?Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3398 Silly word choices

An article on full body scans for skin cancer for female veterans I noticed this odd phrasing, "We found that 16% of subjects would refuse the examination if the primary care provider were of the opposite sex, whereas 38% would not refuse but be less willing to be examined. "

Seems that whole sentence could be tightened up a bit by using the term, "male doctor."

And who knew our brave women soldiers were so squeamish around men?

Archives of Dermatology. 2006;142:312-316.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3369 Boxer's no champion for women

A commenter and story reported over at Amy's blog wrote:

"OK, Rice has no children serving in the military because she has no children. But Boxer also mentioned she has neither children nor grandchildren in the military. Therefore, why the hell does she get to serve Foreign Relations?"

Another news maven called Boxer's comment a giant step backward for feminists. It's the Kerry foot-in-mouth, garden variety, Democrat, double standard.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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3332 My letter to Oprah

My husband suggested I turn on the Oprah show--she was doing a program on "class." I watched a few minutes (it was a rerun of an April show), but couldn't handle the twaddle of Robert Reich, Clinton's former Secretary of Labor. Her web site summarizes his thoughts:

Reich "says that a family's ability to provide their children with a quality education, health care and access to other resources determines one's class. "A lot of kids who are poor or working class are not getting the schools that they need and are not having the connections and the models of success that they need."

He notes three indicators of class: "weight, teeth and dialect. In terms of appearance, people who are overweight or have poor teeth are generally regarded as lower class."

I didn’t see the part about teeth but did hear him saying they (lower class and poor) aren't getting good schools. That's been proven false by putting lower class district children into stunning new schools with incredible technology. New bricks don't turn out new scholars. Old values and concerned parents do. Poor families who take the initiative to get their kids into charter schools benefit in the long run. Immigrant Vietnamese and other Asians and even some immigrant Mexicans have managed to move their families into the middle class by hard work and strong family values, not good teeth and good schools.

Here’s my letter to Oprah.


I was disappointed in your "class" show because of the misinformation Robert Reich presented.

The growing gap is not between classes, but between families of married couples and unmarried women with children. Women can virtually eliminate poverty by 1) finishing high school, 2) not having babies as teen-agers, and 3) marrying the father of their children. If her husband takes a job, any job and keeps it, he will almost guarantee their success.

There is still plenty of opportunity in this country--illegals who flood over our borders seeking it is proof of that. But young women need to get smart and stop listening to musicians and boyfriends who call them "Ho" and "bitch" and get down to the business of saving their future children with some backbone and pride.

Maybe you could also open a school for girls here in the U.S.



Source update: William Galston, a Democratic strategist and former domestic affairs adviser to President Clinton is usually acknowledged as the source of the statistics on the relationship between poverty, education and marriage. See James Q. Wilson, City Journal, Why we don't marry. The original Galston source doesn’t seem to be on-line, but every one quotes him. You can look through his bibliography--may be co-authored with Kamarck.

Source update: Kansas City--money and school performance, Cato Policy Analysis . "The lessons of the Kansas City experiment should stand as a warning to those who would use massive funding and gold-plated buildings to encourage integration and improve education."

Robert Reich
Oprah show
poverty
marriageSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/women
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