More Motivational Quotes

"Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal." - Luis Escobar

"Man imposes his own limitations, don't set any" -Anthony Bailey

"Endurance is patience concentrated." - Carlyle

"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts." -Steve Prefontaine

"Every man dies, but not every man really lives." -William Wallace

Why Women Should Vote

I received this as an email from a good woman friend of mine. It should serve as a reminder of the what a privilege it is to vote; let us always remember where we came from, so we will not be doomed to repeat painful injustices in our past.

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

(Lucy Burns)

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.' They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917 , when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.

Paling around with Terroists-The Pendulum Swings Both Ways

I just found an article that discusses Palin's ties to the Alaska Independent Party (AIP), an allegedly violent anti-American group aimed as ceding from the nation at all costs and reportedly working with Iran to sponsor their anti-American harangue. My disgust with the Republican campaign began to build more rapidly when Palin started claims that Obama had ties with revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers. Though I have not heard the Obama campaign speak at all about the seemingly undeniable ties of Palin to the AIP, I can not believe that it because the Obama campaign is unaware of this. I figure that the reason for this is that the claims made in the salon article are false, or at best, like Palin's claims, these claims are actually just exaggerated forms of a distant association. If the AIP claims are true, I suspect the reason we have not heard of this before it is mostly likely because the Obama campaign has refused to resort to the dirty politics that Palin seems to be riding on for her ticket to the White House. If this is the case, I'm proud of my candidate; however, I think every American that has been told that Obama pals around with terrorists should also be made aware of the potential ties of Palin to the Alaska Independent Party.

One Step Closer To Vegan

After posting the Mutts comic yesterday, I began to ponder my own dietary habits. I've only bought eggs labeled free-range and grain-fed for years now, but for the last six months or so I've been eating Eggbeater egg whites that come in a carton. I am convinced the lives of the chickens who produce these egg whites can be no better than the lives of the chickens who produce the standard eggs you buy in the grocery store. In fact, they just might be the same. So, here it is. I'm giving up yet another one of my favorite foods because I just can't stomach the possibility that I'm contributing to the cruel factory farm conditions most chickens are enduring. Having thoughtfully considered my egg consumption, I'm giving serious consideration to giving up eggs entirely. However, maybe not. Only time will tell if I will continue to eat the eggs from free-range, grain-fed chickens, but due to the lack of convenience of these (i.e. I can't easily eat them at work since that's where I eat breakfast), I can't see these eggs coming close to replacing the Eggbeater product I've ignorantly enjoyed for some time. It wasn't that long ago that I awakened and realized that fish and shellfish were just as much of an animal as cattle and chicken, so I'm curious if I'm on the road to an eventual vegan.


Texas vegans however are a seclusive population and very little is known about how they survive in their native habitat.

Food for Thought

What You Didn't Know About Columbus Day

Today is Columbus Day but apparently not everyone is happy about that. Wikipedia has an interesting section in their Columbus Day entry about opposition to the widely celebrated holiday.

Since the later part of the 20th century groups have voiced opposition to Columbus celebrations. Indigenous groups in particular have opposed the holidays as celebrating the man who initiated the European colonization of the new world. Opposition often focuses on the cruel treatment indigenous peoples faced at the hands of Columbus and later European settlers and the fact that the European conquest directly and indirectly caused a massive decline in population among the indigenous peoples.
In the summer of 1990, 350 Native Americans, representatives from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis, California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12, 1992, International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People. The largest ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quincentennial, saying, "What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others."[15]
Venezuela responded to opposition by renaming the Día de la Raza holiday the Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance) (see above).
Some groups and individuals have in turn defended Columbus celebrations. Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute said Western civilization brought “reason, science, self-reliance, individualism, ambition, and productive achievement” to a people who were based in “primitivism, mysticism, and collectivism”, and to a land that was “sparsely inhabited, unused, and underdeveloped.”

Read the whole article here

Today's Inspirational Quote

"Despite what seems like the extraordinary nature of these events, in the end, they make you even more human." - Joel McNamara