Women's History Month 2013 Begins

As a prelude to Women's History Month PBS ran the 3 hour documentary MAKERS - The Women Who Make America on Tuesday, February 26th.  Not only was it a look back at the successes and failures, but for me there were stories of individual women previously unknown to me.

You can watch the full show online at this link: MAKERS documentary 

Personally, I wish the program had been longer.  There were several icons of feminism missing whose writing has greatly influenced me.  They include Alice Walker, Susan Griffin, Elizabeth Gould Davies and Andrea Dworkin.  I came across a review by Katha Pollitt in The Nation that I found myself agreeing with for the most part.  Check out the article here.

I plan to do my best to post daily, spotlighting different stories about women whose places in history have often gotten overlooked or who I have found inspiring.

One final note for all of us to celebrate.  On February 28th, fourteen months after the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) came up for reauthorization by Congress, the bill finally passed in both the House and the Senate.  It will be headed to the President, where he has promised to sign the bill into law.  The stumbling block was finally overcome - and protection for Native American women on their lands, LGBT women and undocumented women immigrants is included in this bill.  During those fourteen months, SIXTEEN MILLION women were victims of violence. 

Time Flies.....

.....when you are worn out.

I can't believe it's been 2 weeks since I've posted anything to the blog.  Frankly, even though our nightmarishly busy season at work is over, I'm still buried alive in work to do.

Barely into the New Year, I found out that our IT person and all round Jack of All Trades had accepted a new job and would be leaving before the end of the month.  It was a scramble to try to find a replacement, get the new guy trained and have others on staff (mostly me) pick up the rest of the IT guy's duties.  Maybe, before I am eligible (and rich enough) to retire I'll be able to get back to doing my job duties instead of taking on more.  Yeah, right.  Add to this that our Development Director will be retiring in March (that deserves an entire post of its own), and I'm in stress overload.

When I get home from work I am beat.  I feed half the cats and the dog and then choose between fixing myself something for dinner or feeding the other half of the cats.  On a good day I can do all 3 plus scoop a couple of litter boxes.  Lately, I've been asleep in front of the television by 8PM.

I'm going to make this brief so I can get to the laundry, dishes and, of course, the litter boxes.  I hope you will check out the video links below.  I have been a fan of Bill Moyers since the first time I saw one of his PBS shows many, many years ago.  I am never disappointed and always come away better informed as well as angry about the latest injustice most often committed by our elected officials.  This week was no exception.  He began with the underhanded, but typical, Washington insider BS that gave half a billion dollars to AMGEN, an American biotechnology firm convicted in Federal court in December, 2012 and fined $762 million dollars.  Our tax dollars are supporting a criminal operation - imagine that!  The second segment was about Roe v Wade.  Once again, a thoughtful and informative piece of journalism.  It also gave me hope that the forces on the Right will not continue to dismantle this critical legislation.  I highly recommend watching the full show.