General
New York Soiree into Action See Jane Do event
Networking Event
See Jane Do NY Soiree into Action
See Jane Do’s Soiree into Action™ events are “Parties with a Purpose” engaging women with networking opportunities and fun filled activities to stimulate action.
New York Soiree into Action.
Networking with Purpose.
Lead With Your Dreams!
March 5, 2012, Green Spaces (TriBeCa), 6:30-9:30
(Click here to read event details)
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UN – Women, Power, and Peace event
Keynote Speaking Event
Women, Power, and Peace: Leadership in a New World
As part of UN-CSW 2012, Women’s International Center Foundation I was part of a panel discussing Women, Power and Peace: Leadership in a New World. We explored both the challenges and opportunities of stepping into leadership across sectors and around the globe.
The other speakers on the panel included:
- Ms. Annette Richardson, Senior Advisor, United Nations Office of Partnerships.
- Ms. Carla Goldstein, JD, Omega Institute’s chief external affairs officer and director of the Women’s Institute at Omega.
Kimberly King, Senior Vice President and UN Representative for Women’s International, served as presenter and Moderator.
February 29, 2012, 10:30 AM.Women, Power and Peace: Leadership in a New World – Panel Presentation and Dialog at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
(Click here to read event details)
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Good Move, MSNBC: Buchanan’s Out, Harris Perry’s In
Was MSNBC wrong to move Pat Buchanan out? I think that’s good news, but the better news is that Melissa Harris Perry is moving in. I had the pleasure of doing a practice run with her recently and look forward to the launch of her show this weekend. Vigilant media advocacy for fair treatment by groups like the Women’s Media Center (where I’m on the board) does pay off eventually.
Arena asks: Was Pat Buchanan’s Firing Fair?
My response: It’s time for these men, like Pat Buchanan, Foster Friess, and Rick Santorum to climb back under the prehistoric rock from whence they came.
Read MoreWill the GOP win the birth control fight?
My response to the question above. What’s yours?
If President Obama caves to the Catholic Bishops on contraceptive coverage, especially on the heels of his recent caving on Plan B emergency contraception, he is toast with the wide spectrum of progressive and middle-of-the-road women who elected him.
If he, on the other hand, engages this controversy wisely, he can recast the debate over contraception properly into one about women’s moral and human right to make their own childbearing decisions, as well as one essential to the health of women and children. In so doing, he will be a hero to the 99% of American women, including 98% of Catholics, who use birth control at some time during their lives to responsibly plan and space their children. And well over 75% believe that contraceptive coverage should be mandated in insurance coverage, as it currently is in 28 states and the Federal employees health plan, in addition to being the standard of care in health insurance in general.
The right is trying inaccurately (deviously?) to create a religious freedom issue with a dash of the dreaded abortion debate thrown in for good measure. Let’s get this straight: no one is trying to force religious institutions that primarily serve their own flock to do anything against their consciences. Those institutions are free to do whatever their faith dictates.
Catholic schools serving primarily Catholic students with primarily Catholic staff using private money are different from large public institutions such as hospitals that are run by Catholics but serve a broad range of the taxpaying public with a broad religious spectrum of staff and use billions of federal dollars to do so (think, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal program and research grants, etc.). Those institutions should no way be exempt from providing contraceptive coverage because they are essentially secular institutions despite being stewarded by religious orders.
But look further behind the curtain, the Bishops and anti-women’s rights members of congress are trying to roll back the clock FOR ALL THE REST OF US on existing laws that rightly require health plans to cover contraception if they cover other prescription drugs.
We women are the 99% on this one, and we’d better speak up or we are in great danger of losing all the hard fought gains that were made during the last two decades to include basic contraceptive care in health plans. It’s only fair, and it’s the standard of good health care to boot.
Read the original post on Politico Arena here.
Read MoreAnother Year of the Woman? Really?
There was a short piece in Monday’s USA Today saying that 2012 is shaping up to be another “Year of the Woman.” And they did have some very good news numbers to back that notion:
…a notable number of candidates are running in potentially competitive races in both the House of Representatives and Senate that could send a wave of female lawmakers to Washington in November. If so, it would reverse the 2010 election trend that saw the first dip in female representation in the House since 1978 and only sent one woman, New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte, to the Senate.
In the 2012 Senate lineup, there are 10 female candidates — four Republicans and six Democrats — seeking office. Of the six states with female Democratic candidates — Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota and Wisconsin — none has ever elected a woman to the Senate.
Republican women are running in Connecticut, Hawaii, Missouri and New Mexico.
I want to believe, oh how I want to believe. These numbers, though inching up, still represent a mere fractional increase—even if all of them are elected—a probability somewhere around that of hell freezing over.
At the rate we have been going for the last 20 years and since the first “Year of the Woman” in 1992, it will take 70 years to reach gender parity in Congress.
Read MoreWill ‘man on dog’ bite Santorum?
For once I like title Arena gave to today’s question about whether Rick Santorum’s way out of the mainstream views about sex will get noticed after the media swarm in the wake of his IA caucus near-win. Please tell me you’ll help keep this buzz alive. Because in truth I don’t trust the press to keep shining a light on it–and there are devastating implications for women’s rights as well as gay rights if the public doesn’t know Santorum just how zealously would work to take them entirely away.
Arena Asks: In a recent CNN interview, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum tried to put space between comments he made that appeared to equate homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, Political Wire reports.
“In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing,” Santorum told the Associated Press during a 2003 interview. Santorum recently told CNN: “I didn’t connect them. I excluded them.”
Will these comments haunt Santorum on the campaign trail? Or will they be lost in the hubbub of the election cycle?
My Answer: Right now Rick Santorum is the Flavor of the Minute with the press. That’s the best thing that could possibly happen IF reporters keep on finding (which they will if they look) statements like his “man on dog” comparison to homosexuality. Santorum made that comparison, from which he is now trying to distance himself, in a slippery slope litany of what he speculates might happen if social definitions of marriage were to include the possibility of homosexual unions.
But he can’t distance himself from his repeated disdain for gays and lesbians let alone same sex marriage, IF the media keeps on doing its job…
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Is Marriage Equality at a Tipping Point?
Watching the historic June 24 vote that sealed the deal for New York to become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage was goose-bumpy exciting. In this guest post, journalist Tracy Baim speculates on whether New York represents a tipping point, as some have speculated.
While opposite-gender marriage slips into a minority percentage of the population, the movement for gay marriage equality shows no signs of slowing down.
Read MoreRecipe: Texas Head Start Chili
[caption id="attachment_3808" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Hatch long red chiles"][/caption]
I wouldn’t ordinarily post a recipe here–other than a recipe for using the 9 Ways power tools :-)–but I wanted to post this on Facebook and my fanpage has no place for posting word documents any more. So here you are. Something to warm your heart and tummy on a cold day.
Texas Head Start Chili Con Carne
Back story: I learned this recipe from the moms of children in my Head Start class in Odessa Texas, sometime around 1969 or 1970. It’s the real deal—no fancy stuff and minimal ingredients. We made vats of it for fundraising dinners. Head Start was new then and the name of our nonprofit organization, Greater Opportunities of the Permian Basin, reflected the Great Society’s ambitious intention. Head Start has proven its worth over the years and is one of the few Great Society programs still around; this recipe is equally durable.
There’s an easy way to make it and an authentic way. I find the easy way close enough to authentic in taste and texture that after you wrestle with the dried chilis once just to say you can, it’s not worth going to the trouble and mess again.
When I pulled the recipe out of my file on Christmas, 2010 to prepare it for friends, I noticed that the crumbling, yellowed, grease-spotted hand written recipe I’d used for years was on the back of the Planned Parenthood (formerly known as) National Executive Directors Council 1980-81 budget. So I thought I should digitize it for all eternity because life would be hell without great chili once in a while. And great chili is the one thing you can’t call and order for delivery in Manhattan—or at least I haven’t found any this good in the city yet.
Over the years, I’ve often made this chili for PP staff and volunteers. Once in AZ, it was central to brokering cooperation between the persistently competitive Phoenix and Tucson affiliates. In New York, every year I’d make it for the PPFA management team. And many times, I’ve shared the recipe in staff newsletters upon request.
The recipe is so simple that you’d think I’d have it memorized. In recent years, however, I’ve made green chile stew more often than this bowl of red. Thus I’m out of practice and thought it would be a good idea to look back at the recipe.
I start by cooking two pounds of dry pinto beans in a separate pot or crockpot slowly, with water and salt (and if you wish, throw in some garlic cloves), for several hours or until they turn very brown and the bean liquor tastes rich. You won’t need all of them for the chili, but as long as I’m cooking them I make extra for future purposes.
Read MoreFree Copies of No Excuses From Progressive Book Club
I am pleased to announce that I’ll be a guest on Book Talk Radio, Wednesday, October 27, at 8pm EST. I hope you’ll join me for the live on-line conversation about No Excuses with Salon.com‘s Joe Conason. RSVP to join the discussion.
Book Talk Radio will email registrants with the tune-in information prior to the event.
This special Book Talk Radio discussion is brought to you by our friends at Progressive Book Club. We hope you can join us!
If you have not yet joined Progressive Book Club, please do so now and get a free copy of No Excuses.
Read MoreShow Her the Money
That Warren Buffett’s bio is called The Snowball inadvertently has application also to the gathering speed of women’s intention to share the nation’s economic pie. We already know that the economy’s downturn disproportionately affects women. But a number of interesting articles lately have made the point that women are increasingly likely to say “Show me…
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