Politics & Pearls

I caught the last half hour of the Democratic debates last night on MSNBC. Enough to see Hillary Clinton talking tough on terrorism, Barak Obama responding to a question about the envrionment, Dennis Kucinich give an empassioned and compelling case about being the only one to want to impeach Dick Cheney, and yes, I tuned in with enough time to see Gravel unravel.

But what really got me was the post-debate commentary. Chris Matthews liked Hillary's pearl necklace and thought Michelle Obama looked great too.

What is this?? We had all 8 democratic presidential hopefuls together, acting respectful towards one another (thank god), and speaking to today's most important issues. And all they can say afterwards is that the women looked nice? Give me a break.

Yesterday I had the good fortune to interview three radical writer-mamas who were on the Ideals & Crazy Dreams book tour in Asheville. Ariel Gore, founder of Hip Mama zine and author of her latest book, How to be a Famous Author Before You're Dead; Annie Downey author of Hot & Bothered; and China Martens, long time zinester and auther of a new zine-book, The Future Generation. The interview aired on WPVM-LP 103.5 FM Asheville on the show I co-host with Leah, Listen 2 Women. After the interview the women all said how nice it was to be interviewed by another woman; the questions were good and they really enjoyed themselves.

Makes want to find a way to get women covering women during the upcoming presidential election.

I can guarantee we'd ask questions about things that are really imporant to American women. And we wouldn't end the interview saying "Thanks honey, love the pearls."

Preaching to the Choir

This has been a week of tragedy and its hard to get my head around anything else. As the story in Virgina unfolds we start to see yet another example of the absence of real mental health care as well as a failure for our school system to nurture our children. At the same time, there are people working steadfastly to second class women in health care by legislating what kinds of relationships they can have with their doctors and procedures they can access. This week I had to take a lot of deep breaths and remember to be present and mindful. These are challenging times as a kind of dark ages mentality eclipses the taken-for-granted season of enlightenment thinking. I'm taken back to my early college days and the words of Hegel, "...from where we stand we can see no land" these words became a mantra for me; they became a way for me to remember that the future is always ours to create. And so, it is with that that I'm surviving these days because I can see an alternative future to the one that is taking shape. I can us shaping a future of sustainable living, residing in an ethos of caring and developing a place for everyone in our society. In this future there are museums for guns and gas stations, rather than trees and butterflies. In this future mother wisdom will nurture us all.
Next week I'll write more about healthcare. This week I needed to purge.

Universal Health Care

April 8, 2007

The New York Times Magazine (April 1, 2007) contained an article by Jonathan Cohn on "universal health care". It's worth reading just to ensure against the Big Business co option of the discourse regarding real universal health care. What Steve Burd, CEO Safeway and Lee Scott, CEO Wal-Mart are interested in is relieving the burden of caring for workers. At its most extreme the system they propose will look like auto insurance complete with an across the board Federal mandate that everyone purchase health insurance from private insurance companies. At its best, this system will develop into a two-tiered health care system where most of us making $40,000 a year or less will receive substandard care at clinics established at places like Target and the wealthy will be able to afford preventative care and real medical professionals. I'll keep an eye on the thread of this story to see how the media uses it to shape the conversation about health insurance for children (the plan that Big Business is proposing doesn't seem to figure children into the picture at all).

Expectations

We need to back up a bit. We decided to blog for several reasons, but we first want to be clear about expectations. Our goal is to post something new at least once a week.

You might think as a team, two moms would have lots of time to muse and write everyday. We both have work commitments outside of the home. We each have a toddler. A husband, a house, families, and friends. A community we care about. A radio show we do together on a regular basis (check out Listen 2 Women every Thursday from 5-6pm on WPVM 103.5 FM Asheville or on WPVM archives.).

We’re also really excited about this blog and the potential it holds to share information and start dialogue. Our title is about “electing” – but I really think it’s about participating in general. Being engaged, participating in life. Knowing what happens in your neighborhood, your town or the world. It’s about getting good information out in ways that women find useful. Too many times I’ve found out about an event after it happened or the news was so convoluted I couldn’t make sense of how the issue would really impact my life.

Our initial vision for this blog is tied in to the 2008 elections. We will write candidates locally and nationally, asking the candidates to respond to various questions related to issues we care deeply about. We’ll post our letters, the responses – or non-responses – we receive and let you know about the process all along. We'll also write about other things that get us fired up.

We plan to use MomsRising.org's MOTHERhood platform as a starting point. The MOTHERhood 6 issue platform focuses on:

Maternity & Paternity Leave
Open Flexible Work
TV & After-school Programs
Healthcare for All Kids
Excellent Childcare
Realistic & Fair Wages

Join in, let us know what you think, and let’s get started!