Marriage Equality

Marriage equality PASSED in NYS!!!!

Hot dogs and Political Scandals

From the NYT this Sunday on "When it comes to scandal, girls won't be boys"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/weekinreview/12women.html?ref=weekinreview

Here is a meme (the second part) we have to change by growing feminist men:
"powerful men attract women, powerful women repel men"

Attacks on Women's healthcare

Paul Farmer has essays in his reader (Partner to the Poor*), on health and human rights, the structural violence of poverty, and global inequality; but here in the US we think that we have adequate health care. Unfortunately we do not--even though we spend more per capita on health care than any other country (#1), we still ranked 37th overall. In 2006, the United States but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy*. (Why do we spend so much to get so little?)
Yet, even with the health care reform, we are still behind in health care provision. And, the GOP seems to be paying more attention to attacking women's health care than they are fixing the deficit. A sample of the articles/editorials starting with the editorial from today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03fri1.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20110603/VIEWPOINTS03/106030305/Funding-cuts-would-hurt-women-s-health?odyssey=nav%7Chead

http://www.adn.com/2011/04/13/1808850/gop-move-is-an-attack-on-womens.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/opinion/10tue2.html

http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/03/womens_progress_around_the_world_vetoed_by_congress.html

http://www.alternet.org/health/150118/why_the_right-wing's_insane_attacks_on_women's_health_may_be_backfiring

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/273-40/5884-new-attacks-on-womens-rights

* WHO Statistical Information System (WHOSIS). Geneva: World Health Organization, September 2009.

Dirty Tricks

The answer to the question from last night's great book group meeting (We read Schiff's Cleopatra) about dirty political tricks today,it was Karl Rove's mentor Lee Atwater.

Yes, our conversations at the book group bring whatever we are reading to date, to apply to what we are experiencing political, socially and culturally.

Our next book is Janny Scott's A Singular Woman about Obama's mother. Our meeting is the first Thursday of July ,7 p.m.
The book for September is Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader.