Who Were Your Heroes?

You know that in real life Mary really was blind, but never bcame a teacher or got married don’t you? Years ago I had a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder that had photos of the family….. Their daddy had a HUGE long thick beard almost down to his waist.

murphy 12.19.08 at 9:46 pm
i look more like molly ringwald than melissa gilbert, but thanks!
—————
Is that what Mama told you??

NY Daily: McCain refuses to endorse Palin for president in 2012: ‘I can’t’

[ The media is trying to spin this as negative to Palin, but here are soem of McCain's actual words. - tdo ]

“Have no doubt of my admiration and respect for her and my view of her viability”

[Re 2012:] “I can’t say [about] something like [2012]. We’ve got some great other young governors. I think you’re going to see the governors assume a greater leadership role in our Republican Party,” he said.
He then mentioned governors Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Jon Huntsman of Utah.
McCain said he has “the greatest appreciation for Gov. Palin and her family, and it was a great joy to know them.”
“She invigorated our campaign” against Barack Obama for the
presidency, he said. [....]
“Have no doubt of my admiration and respect for her and my view of her viability, but at this stage, again … my corpse is still warm, you know?” he replied.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/12/15/2008-12-15_mccain_refuses_to_endorse_palin_for_pres.html
Comment box is about half way down this page, between the story and the comments. My name was already on the box as we have had many alerts here. Comment went right up.

My heroes: My mama…an independant passionate woman who raised us and who along with other women and some men raised all the money to build a church, furnish a convent, protested at City Hall in 1957 for an underpass for children to get under railroad tracks to get to school, a red ligt with at the time latest push button to stop traffic for children to get across the busiest highway at the time…to get to school, a protedtive fence along a deep and dangerous drainage canal next to the school, a walking bridge across the same canal for people to walk over instead of having to walk 10 blocks…a gym and all with a bunch of other women,of a small Mother;s Club…She was action orientated..dont just talk DO something…Dont complain, change it…and dont expect somebody else to do it…you do it or forget it..

Joan of Arc: a real person who did great things for a real country.

Dr.Louise S. Cowan: built a University…was talking and reading Betty Freidan to all of us before most people knew who Betty was..and who at 92 has a brain sharper than most people three times less her age..

We should run Murphy against Caroline. I just heard on Lou Dobbs that residency is not a requirement until you are actually appointed.
Earlier, he and a panel were discussing (broadly)possible sources of donations to Obaama’s campaign. I didn’t realize that’s been a subject on MSM.

Nancy Drew was perfect. I don’t know how any of our generation grew up less than her.

Well, maybe because she was pretty and popular and had a rich supportive father. So I thought it required all those things.

I liked Pippi Longstocking (or as she would say, Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraimsdaughter Longstocking) because she was strong! (And had those amazing braids!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippi_Longstocking

NOW is finally …”irked”? Will start …a petition?
http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/now-theyre-irked/

taggles1 12.19.08 at 9:53 pm
But there is another one I liked even better when they were all on saturday detention in the library. was that the breakfast club?
—————-
That’s the one.

When I was young I wanted to be a priest when I grew up. I said my own Mass every morning before I went to school. Guess what kind of school?

Sacajawea!

Zee
Thanks!

#11 Mountainsong
I don’t understand why the media has been questioning Pres. Clinton’s foundation contributors as relates to Hillary’s appointment and don’t look at OBadma’s campaign?

PS My hero was Louisa May Alcott because I wanted to be a writer. I loved Little Women and Little Men.

I hope NOW lists themselves on said petition as useless fucked up and needs to go….

WHERE ARE THE HEROES? here, of course

I have to brush cats tonight, pray for me:)

murphy, you are brave to have children. they are lucky to have you as hero

good night dear pumas

In another Story type, I always thought Mary Magdalene was cool as the first female “preacher.”

My Sheroes as a child were my grandmothers, both of whom worked so hard outside and inside their homes – and knew how to love their children (and grandchildren) very well.

B E T T Y J E A N
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

My great grandmother was a hero. She was a catholic lady who married a methodist man (my great grandfather). They had 3 children, and she didn’t want to be “just a housewife” so she divorced him and left with one of the kids (my dad and one sister were raised by my great grandfather- she kept one daugher for some reason). I have no idea how she pulled this off back in those days, but she raised the child she left was as strict catholic (back in those days divorce was taboo, and remarriage was even worse). She (my great grandmother Kate) remarried a rich man… who later she divorced also. She went to work as the hostess at the top-notch hotel restaurants around the nation… such as NY NY for example. She was a “women’s libber” before there WAS such a thing. I have a xerox copy of her diary which she wrote… about the end of WWII, working in all those top restaurants, etc. My mom has the engagement ring (it’s a ROCK) from her 2nd husband. GreatGrandma Kate…. a woman before her time….

I have a picture of great grandma Kate standing on the steps of a house, with my grandfather (her son)… he was a dashing young gentleman about age 18 and VERY handsome… she was GORGEOUS and leaning over the steps at him like she was flirting with him…. what a lady! She took charge of every situation and conquered it for herslf…..

What about Angela Lansbury “Murder she wrote”… I just love that show….Angela always figured out what was going on..no matter what….And, What about “Golden Girls”….still today, I think why don’t they have shows like anymore…???

37Murphy: That means I was in your neighborhood years ago…except you were not there then! That is a beautiful area. We visited all over there when I was living in Boston.
I still can feel the thrill of being around those places of history.

I missed the premier of Veronica Mars and could not catch up, so that’s going to be one for renting in the future…

Ugly Betty, too…I missed it live. I think that actress was a Hillary fan, too.

More favorite books as a child:

A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (who also wrote The Secret Garden)

and

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

The sequel, “The Long Secret,” is also an excellent book, dealing with puberty.

Oh, Ya!!!!!!! THECATSMEOW…Suzanne Sugarbaker…..

ok, this one may date me…But, I do think the ever busy, and get involved in everyone lives was none other than the “HAZEL” show along with Bewitch and I dream of Jennie…….

Murphy, right at the moment the only one I can locate is one taken the same day… she’s not flirting with him, but standing beside him laughing. He’s serious as all get-out.. do you want that? If so, want me to send it to you or to the actioncenter?

Another heroine of mine: My mamas sister: Her husband died at young age, after WW11, she had two children to raise, started a nursery in her home, then people started to bring her children no one else could handle..brain damaged, downs syndrome..she worked with them using her own lights..eventually this woman..started the Strive Center in NO ..the first and only..still exists..adult workshop for adult down syndrome people to come to work and earn money..she went and got contracts from Wembley tie company and others and invented how to teach them to put together various components of ties and other items which they were then paid for and Wembley and others bought to sell..and this way before this concept was out there..education? Her imagination and will…She also was elected the first Female Elder in the entire South of the Presbyterian Church and used to laugh about how when she attended the first many state wide conference, they had to find a bathroom she could use as well as someplace for her to stay..since everybody else were males…Right…some strong women before me..for which I am forever grateful..

Nancy Drew, Yes!

And Sherlock Holmes.

And Jessica Fletcher.

lol, I told my son recently about “test patterns” when tv got done broadcasting for the night!

at age 10…not typo 9

Now I remember why I liked “Julia” on “Designing Women”:

[A sleazy photographer, DeWitt Chiles, goes one step too far when he asks Julia to pose for a photo shoot while sucking pearls.]
Julia:THAT’S IT!!!!
CHILES: What? What are you saying?
Julia: I’m saying I want you and your equipment out of here now. If you are looking for somebody to suck pearls, then I suggest you try finding yourself an oyster. Because I am not a woman who does that, as a matter of fact, I don’t know any woman who does that, because it’s stupid. And it doesn’t have any more to do with decorating than having cleavage and looking sexy has to do with working in a bank. These are not pictures about the women of Atlanta. These are about just the same thing they’re always about. And it doesn’t matter whether the clothes are on or off… it’s just the same ol’ message. And I don’t care how many pictures you’ve taken of movie stars — when you start snapping photos of serious, successful businessmen like Donald Trump and Lee Iacocca in unzipped jumpsuits with wet lips, straddling chairs, then we’ll talk.

As to which women we learned about in school…did anyone else pick up on the women most romanticized?

They all had violent deaths:

Isadora Duncan
Amelia Earhart
Joan of Arc

Those were the biographies I remember available to read.

71Catsmeow: Kinda sound like Jennifer …huh? Now that I see this dialogue again!!!

Hey Jenni…check out Julia…

And, yes Zee include Frida Kahlo….Very tragic and sad life and death..

Nancy Drew didn’t have a mother. That’s why she was able to do stuff that normal mothers would forbid–and skip over all that baggage our generation has with our traditional post WWII stay at home mothers. There was also a maid who did all the cooking and other grunt work–unless of course Nancy actually WANTED to do it once in a blue moon. And the rich father who would pull strings. The real author was sort of like that herself–but maybe not so well behaved.

If I were talking non-relative I think it’d be Amelia Earhardt for me.

Murphy, you have mail

Harriot Beecher Stowe’s Gone with the Wind–but that was a difficult book with all the accents and dialect. I read it in 8th grade.

Wonder Woman!

She was so pretty and so strong and brave.

Casper Cat #47
I *love* The Golden Girls.

XENA!!!!

I am just realizing as we are talking about all these female characters in books and outside of books, family members, that there were few so called secular books of biography about women,as I said for a a young girl to read, but there were stories about female “saints”, in Catholic school. Hummm..intersting..
Yet I never wanted to be Bernadette or so many of the others…I just wanted to be Joan of Arc! Heroic, noble, and a fighter!

Murphy, that photo was taken in NY NY… Grandpa went there (he was 18) to get her permission to marry my grandmother. He needed her permission since he wasn’t of age yet. That’s what he was doing there then. At that time she was the hostess of one of the swankiest hotel restaurants in New York City… I’d have to look through her diary to find the name- it’s probably in there somewhere… LOL.

Don’t forget “Big Valley” with hmm,,er..anybody know her name? she died a couple of years ago, I think. but she was Boss Mama on that show.

86CatsMeow: Oh yeah, that mouth on Julia especially I loved..I adored her and all of the other women and that show..I remember both of the episodes you have posted..Nothing even close to that kind of female portrayal anymore on tv..nothing…except bimbos and rape, murder of women.

When I ask my Mexican students for female athletes to practice the personal pronouns they always say Ana Guevara (track).

Ooooh Xena! Lucy Lawless!!! Those violet eyes.

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is practically a saint–in Chicago there are people who refer to her as Santa Inez de la Cruz. She had a famous correspondence with a bishop under a pseudonym sort of refuting contemporary religious thought, especially about the double standard–I read it in Spanish in college, very difficult but satisfying.

Catherine of Siena was an amazing woman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Siena

@ # 100

Who’s The Boss also had divorced mom!

One of the Golden Girls was divorced as well. Bea.

What the FEC is in the “Other” file:

The BO campaign’s Other file contains $6,052,336.67 in contributions with no state of the United States specified. There were 27 donors totalling $35,549.05 over the $4,600 limit per donor.

The files were a nightmare but I was just dying of curiosity so I sorted through most of it and here is what I found:

$4,073,233.14 –Total Identified Countries

$492,670.26 –US Military/Government

$59,307.03 —USA ID by Zip & City

$553,700.83 –Information Requested & Other Garbage

$873,425.41 —Woking on it

I will put more in another post following.

Catsmeow: I also loved The Mary Tyler Moore show…but I loved Roda…that was my alter ego..then…

Carole Burnett!

You talk about one hell of a Woman Leader…Well, hold on to your seats and keyboard and check this out!!!!!!!WOW!!! You are a true leader and MY favorite Leader to move forward… THANK YOU!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1TBybDpXKI What a great and appreciated gift YOU are to all of us…………………….

#95 You are SO right about that, NOP! Those depictions of strong, smart, gifted women — especially women together! — are few and far between. How quickly “Commander in Chief” was canceled! Instead we have the “reality” shows with a whole gaggle of gals vying for the attention of one “Bachelor.”

Based on the $4,073,233.14 that I could identify from other countries, the breakdown Of BO’s Other file was:

Receipts –Country
$1,750.00 –Egypt
$3,805.00 –Saudi Arabia
$4,750.00 –Kenya
$14,950.00 –South Africa
$20,496.50 –Austria
$21,599.82 –Bermuda
$23,634.00 –United Arab Emerates
$32,707.00 –Netherlands
$43,581.33 –Australia
$66,589.24 –Italy
$73,285.14 –Spain
$83,126.20 –Germany
$151,216.96 –Switzerland
$159,332.69 –Japan
$284,967.59 –France
$311,383.35 –Canada
$341,748.22 –China
$365,463.00 –Puerto Rico
$414,413.68 –Virgin Islands
$1,399,580.20 –United Kingdom
$254,853.22 –Misc.

$4,073,233.14 –Total Identified Countries

Dances, #87

Oh ya, XENA, the Warrior Princess. That show had quite a following.

I went into a store in Haight-Ashbury and everything was Wonder Woman and XENA and lesbian toys and lesbian joke books and calendars and t-shirts.

I was like, what’s up?? Can’t a gal just *like* her some Wonder Woman and Xena without all the hoopla?

Well, anyway, I got me some vintage wonder woman postcards and Vargas pin up magnets thank you very much.

Kat, “That Girl” was maybe four years earlier.

Madame Curie?

OMG Headclunker! T%hose are some amazing figures! If the FEC does not investigate him, then they should all be investigated! That is very clear that he was breaking the law.Big time!

#93 Sunshinelvr 12.19.08 at 10:49 pm

Don’t forget “Big Valley” with hmm,,er..anybody know her name? she died a couple of years ago, I think. but she was Boss Mama on that show.
=================
Wasn’t that Barbara Stanwick? And is that the one that used to be married to ronald reagan?

124Murphy: I recently found a site The Joan of Arc Historical Society which has on line various historical mongoraphs regarding all aspects of what historically we know of her…I read an interesting article there regarding Joan and the wearing of men’s clothes..Technically that is why they burned her…the set up used…yet the reason she did it was to proctect herself from being raped in the secular cell where they held her for the trial…15th century male clothing was quite a lace up literally which was a further protection for her…Interesting material there.

#126
“Mama’s Boy”? Oh, now I do feel ill…

By 2012, we will have just renamed the presidential elections for “American Idol.” Not much different from this year though, except some of those contestants could at least sing.

ah hah @ # 130
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Girl

131Catsmeow: Precisely. If you review the so called Voting Rights ACt for 2007 we will be almost there..call up on your cell phone or internet…hardly any perameters for protection of the integrity of the vote.

#115 Headclunker 12.19.08 at 11:01 pm

$4,073,233.14 that I could identify from other countries
—————————————————
awesome Headclunker

mountainsong:

hey babes, yes. She was mentioned downstairs. maybe up here as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Barton

136
Sunshinelvr 12.19.08 at 11:13 pm

How many of your teachers in elementary school were men? Does anyone think that children excell more with women of with men? women OR men?

Hi NOP. Hi Kat:)

I hate reality tv shows..They for the most part show human beings out to get something and using the worst of human tactics to get what they want…kind of Alynskyite tv actually when I think of it.

Well I need to hit the sack guys… again thanks for putting Great Grandma Kate’s photo up on top Murphy. I (and she) are truly honored. Goodnight everyone!

Damn, figgin COLD!!!! 12 in of snow outside, more coming tomorrow and it finally warmed up….to 16 today.
Please…tell me again why I didn’t like Florida?

Time for my “cat nap” too! Night, y’all! Have a great rest of the evening. You are my Sheroes!

Goodnight Catsmeow…see you soon I hope.

Oh…yeya, the only mountains in Forida are what we, here, call ‘freeway overpasses’. And we like our rain in the wintertime.

Most of my childhood heroes have been named here but I also loved Diana Rigg in “The Avengers” and Diahann Carroll in “Julia”.

mountainsong 76 here today,still at 67High tomorrow (Saturday) 77 — but expected to cool down soon to 60′s in daytime and 30′s at night. And maybe rain by Christmas Eve. come on out and visit with me for a spell.

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.”

-Katharine Hepburn

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/katharine_hepburn/

(oh darn, I am falling into quote sites…)

159

Sunshinelvr 12.19.08 at 11:30 pm

Where are you?

antifish, what is “quite warm”?

It’s 30 degrees by me.

Ohhh, atypical, did you write this??

(repost from downstairs)

atypical 12.19.08 at 9:41 pm

Girls need to ignore the boys…
BOYS WILL BE BOYS
When I was young,
I looked at the boys
And they me.
All liking what we saw.
Now I peer out
From ancient eyes
At all the old men
As they pass by
Hoping to find
Some faded friends
In gray disguise
But, they do not
Look at me.

mountainsong:

Yes! I want my own room! But ya know, I’ll share bedroom and bed. *But* I like the idea of meeting in a different bedroom on some nights.

I don’t want to be on top of man like roomie. Maybe big house would help.

I am just a way bit farther south than anti-fish. And still the humidity will get you here, too, mountainsong. I hated it very much when I first moved back. But, I do love sunshine and this area gets LOTS of it!!

antifish #168

*instantaneously envious*

Headclunker is fantastic. #115

Dorothy Parker’s 1925 poem “Resumé”:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

#172 moutainsong,

I think it would be appropriate for Barack and Michelle to wear fig leaves at the coronation to celebrate their newly-found religious fundamentalism.

Nijma 12.19.08 at 11:42 pm HaHahaha!! Made me spit…lmao.

Ya know, at the moment,I think Barack Obama and I have something in common…… We’re both glad as hell we aren’t in South chicago tonight!!!

Oh, yeah~~~neither one of us would take Michelle with us to see our sick Grandmother.

Nijma #177 ha! yup. Dyin’ seems to blow. Death may not be so bad…but dying..blah.

mountainsong: Yes, meeting up in separate bedrooms are exciting. If I got married, I’d like to meet up in all sorts of places for dates. Not always leaving together with the nagging and hurrying crap. Don’t know how to make that happen though if living together.

NewOrleansPuma: Oh yes, double shotguns are cool. Two fam house. What’s really great are the looooong hallways. I really like split level homes in NOLA.

@ #187
are exciting** no, *is* exciting. oh brother.

Molly Ringwald

Pretty in Pink

If you want to get medieval, there’s Christine de Pizan:

In The Book of the City of Ladies de Pizan creates a symbolic city in which women are appreciated and defended. De Pizan, having no female literary tradition to call upon, constructs three allegorical foremothers: Reason, Justice, and Rectitude. She enters into a dialogue, a movement between question and answer, with these allegorical figures that is from a completely female perspective (Campbell 6). These constructed women lift de Pizan up from her despair over the misogyny prevalent in her time.

Egad, some things never change.

Place is kinda dead without music. lol Just SOSTBA

Hey, Kat!!!! You better make up with your b/f. I hear it’s going to get cold and snowy back there tonight. Gonna be one of those ‘one-bedroom’ nights. lol

mountainsong and Kat, Parker attempted suicide several times but died of something else.
There was a recent discussion on a language forum:

But, as he writes me, there’s an argument in the comments section about the exact meaning of “nooses give” in the original: some say that the noose may break off under the weight of a body, while others advocate for the meaning of “stretch, become looser.” As I wrote him in response,

Now that I think about it, I realize that line has never completely made sense to me: how exactly does a noose “give” (OED: “yield, give way”; M-W: “to yield to physical force or strain; to collapse from the application of force or pressure”)? A rope can break, sure, but can a noose, the knotted part around your neck, “yield, give way”? Doesn’t seem likely. My guess is that she knew it was inexact phrasing but went with it because of the rhyme.

But I don’t trust my own judgment on this, so I throw it (like a juicy bone) to the assembled multitudes. Snap, stretch, or poetic license?

Katinhat: Split level? Do you mean duplexes..one on top of each other? or Camel Backs? with secnd story kinda behind and above the front?

my heroes:

My Mom, a waitress who supported 5 children.

My mom’s Mom, who was always there for us.

My great Auntie, who knew how to take care of those blood blisters you get under your fingernail when you slam your finger in the car door.

kat in your hat 12.20.08 at 12:08 am

HAhahahaha. You’re funny. Now convince me.

NewOrleansPuma: #201

The split level ones, like built in the 50′s and 60′s…like the living room is one level and kitchen and den on lower level (down a few stairs) and all bedrooms on second floor.

MKfromLa: Which is also why clearly Billie Jean Kling is my knid of hero…Hear that Billie Jean? You are pristine..you are a woman and a mother and a public person who is the finest tradition of excellent women I have known or met or known of and would very much like to meet!
I am still praying for you and daughters.Billie Jean!

katinhat: Yes..the true split level.I have always liked that kind of house.

Mountainsong: They will only riot or go to the streets
when there is “no bread.” And while that is true now it is not sufficiently and I pray God it does not become so..widespread and consistent enough to have that happen yet.

kat in your hat,

I love the split levels too. I grew up in one with terrazzo floors in Florida. I will never forget my Dad fooling around (probably under the influence of Jack Daniels Black) and running down the lower level, he hit the top of lower ceiling with his head and landed flat on the floor down in the T.V room. Had quite a gash on his forehead but was in good spirits!

I’d like another 2-story log house. with dormers, and a big,stone fireplace with a soft Bearskin rug in front of the fireplace. Listening to the wind singing in the trees, an occasional owlhoot, cougar screech, coyotes yapping and wolves howling back their contempt. Heat from wood is so wonderful. It penetrates completely.

Mountainsong: That sounds like a wonderful place to be…

the blog was just screwy for me. I went and screamed at the cabin. lol.

shasta2001: #215

LOL. You just reminded me of my grandpa who slipped holding the turkey platter in the kitchen…he fell on his butt and the turkey landed on his lap. (lol!) aw, poor grandpa. lollol.

See ya guys later. xo
night.

Mountainsong: I agree…and I agree! My point was just to note what if anything would move them!..giving what has already transpired.

I will have to go for now…hope to see you all soon..stay warm and peaceful whereever and however you can…and sleep well in comfort and quiet abiding joy…for dreams of joy will follow you.

lmao

We lost the east coast a while back and now us in central time is getting groggy–
if anyone on the west coast–carry on!

Oh, Yes, and witches–did you know the witch trials were really about heresies?–mostly the Cathari heresy or the Manichean heresy? But the Manicheans in France had women as religious leaders—totally unknown in the Christian church of that era.

Female role models, Canadian version: “Anne of Green Gables”. Locale is PEI (Prince Edward Island), which gets HUGE tourist trade from the association, especially from Japanese girls & families.

I really cannot believe you mountainsong.

dang.

NewOrleansPuma # 225

look at that nice goodnight there.

goodnight kat in your hat

My sheroes were: my grandmother, who bore 12 children and buried three while they were children, made their clothes, canned the food, worked the farm and factory and worked in “private family” until she was 72.

Aunt Louise-a WAC in the Air Force
My mother-had to come to California with two babies to complete her education

Harriet Tubman-a simple, brave and ingenious being
Eleanor Roosevelt-who stood up for what was right when she didn’t have to.
Ida B. Wells, E.C. Stanton, S.B. Anthony, Abagail Adams, Dorothy Dandridge, Odetta, Nina Simone, Kitty on Gunsmoke, Annie Sullivan, Queen Elizabeth and plenty of other too numerous to mention.

My other hero was Virginia Wolf……
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf was an awesome disfunctional movie! Liz Taylor’s best.

kat in your hat 12.20.08 at 12:36 am

LOL I thought you already left. I knew you loved me… hahaha

xoxoxoxoxox ((((((Kat)))))) (K) X 10 and here’s one for your…ummm….neck…ummm

Everyone have sweet dreams and wake up to the best day of your life.

Just struggling with the 52 degree temp in Florida. The heat has not kicked on yet….. The dogs will not go outside.

Ugh. Finally received this response.

“I appreciate knowing of your concern over a rumor that President-elect Obama is ineligible to serve as President because he is not a U.S. citizen.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Since President-elect Obama was born in Hawaii two years after it was admitted as the 50th state, he is a natural-born citizen. He has released a copy of his birth certificate and it has been authenticated by experts. Following Obama’s overwhelming and undisputed victory in the recent election, the Supreme Court has considered challenges to his citizenship and dismissed them as being without merit.”

Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski
United States Senator

“…honor the position of the nest President…”

Honor the thief and misgynist? No!

I have another letter from Inslee regarding voter fraud. I do not think I can resist taking the time to write serious responses. If the Obama DNC wants to organize a coordinated PR counteroffensive against exiled democrats who write letters, well I can only try to throw it back in their face…with a pen!

etchedinthestars 12.20.08 at 2:02 am

Ugh. Finally received this response.

“I appreciate knowing of your concern over a rumor that President-elect Obama is ineligible to serve as President because he is not a U.S. citizen.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Since President-elect Obama was born in Hawaii two years after it was admitted as the 50th state, he is a natural-born citizen. He has released a copy of his birth certificate and it has been authenticated by experts. Following Obama’s overwhelming and undisputed victory in the recent election, the Supreme Court has considered challenges to his citizenship and dismissed them as being without merit.”

Sincerely,
Barbara A. Mikulski
United States Senator//
=========
Dear Senator Barbie (if I may call you that);

Your response is unsatisfactory, consisting as it does of non-sequeters and falsehoods. The extant public documentation does not establish anything about PEOTUS Obama, other than that his birth was REGISTERED in Hawaii within a year of his birth. His citizenship status is wholly unproven at this time.

As for the POTUS decision(s) they relate only to requests to stay the sitting of the Electoral College, and have no bearing on the substantive questions of his eligibility. In other words, the Supreme Court declined to prevent the EC from putting its foot in it. If you do not want the same pedal pollution, I advise you to take the Constitutional onus on your office seriously.

You have been warned.

Etched, &c.

murphy

if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
————–

This one’s for you Murphy…
Every Sperm is sacred, Monty Python.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8

Today at pumaresponders.blogspot.com we have links to MSM comment strings at the following stories:

WP: [Favreau] Helping to write history
ABC: Rift Cracks ‘Demoralized’ McCain Campaign
ABC: Warren Invite, Cabinet Picks Irk The Left – N…
NY Post: CAROLINE’S SPOTTY VOTING HISTORY
NY Daily: McCain refuses to endorse Palin for pres…
NY Daily: CK not registered to vote for a while
NY Daily: several against CK etc
politico: Gay leaders furious with Obama
ABC: Federal probe complicates move to impeach Bla…
Post-Standard: Caroline Kennedy meets with Syracus…
Several stories about Caroline K fm upstate NY
A PUMA needs support at PJ – EASY POST

http://pumaresponders.blogspot.com

Shero’s ?hmmmmm… That one made me think but I see where who I admired became part of me. In the early 60′sm my mom worked as an upholsterer, she was the only female on the floor in the factory, her mom was the housekeeper for the priests at St. Josephs. I think that it was, of people I knew , my great grandmother Touzel. She was 4’10″ (as I am) and ran the house with an iron fist and occasionally an iron frying pan. Her husband was 6′ 2″ and was terrified of her. She organized the families immigration from the Jersey Islands in 1912 and that included 11 children. We went to their house after school so I saw her in action a lot.
I adored Miss Marple and was fascinated with Agatha Christie. I have had a long interest in law enforcement and do have an advanced degree in Criminology. I liked Hazel too. I told my husband I wanted the Hazel dvd for Christmas. (I love how all those old shows are on dvd now) My favorite tv woman was Loni Anderson in WKRP. I loved how she, like Hazel ran the place. I was fascinated with military and my favorite show on tv was Combat. My goal was to be an MP. Almost made it, but in the two years between applying and call up, I fell in love and married a navy brat who had zero interest in being a military husband. This was 1978. I took another degree in stage management and now work in theatre. Funny though, when I was younger, about 10, I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper or a fire watcher. Either one of those jobs I would still take like a shot.
Miss Marple stories were my favorites as a child, but try writing a book report on The Mirror Cracked in grade 4. I loved Shakespeare’s women, they were so strong. I started with Hamlet in grade 5. I was born in 1955, so I saw a lot of changes in woman’s roles while growing up. After reading about the Triangle Fire, I wanted to be a union activist and that was the turning point for me on becoming a feminist. I was about 12 at the time. This led me to reading about the suffragettes and politics when I found out that women had to fight for that basic right to vote. As you can tell Murphy, I enjoyed looking back. I think I will dig out what is probably my 20th copy of The Mirror Cracked and read until the rest of the world gets it in gear.

KarenWI
I thought you would enjoy this story from here. People help fund injured dog’s surgery. I found you on the map, you get the storms we get, after you get hit, storms cross two great lakes building up steam and then dump on us.
http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1354583

Delle
I was stunned to find out the same author wrote both Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Can’t remember the name though.

sue66 12.20.08 at 6:40 am

Delle
I was stunned to find out the same author wrote both Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Can’t remember the name though.

—

The Hardy Boy books were written by Leslie McFarlane who used the Franklin W. Dixon. He’s a Canadian. I believe he wrte about 20 of the books, then other ghost writers wrote the rest.

The Nancy Drew books were written by Carolyn Keene.

TrishfromCanada
They are both the same person. When I found that out I did notice some similarities. It’s sort of funny in a way, but he sure kept kids reading in his time.

I also used to love reading The Dana Girls mysteries.

We may have been fooled, but they were really good books.

Delle

Good morning Pumas. Back to CHRIS PORTER. Can someone tell me how he got ahold of our Puma prowl to the FEC? Was he one of the recipients? I have been going back and forth with him and this is our latest exchange:
Mr. Porter: Why is your name not mentioned as one of the electors in WA? These are the electors from WA who voted for Obama on 12/15. Your name does not appear. Who are you? And why are you pretending to be an elector?
Ladyhawkke

Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of senators and representatives it has in the U.S. Congress. Of Washington’s 11 presidential electors, one is from each of the state’s nine congressional districts, plus two at-large electors.

Washington’s 11 electors, all submitted by the state Democratic Party, were:
1st District: Jafar Siddiqui of Lynnwood;
2nd District: Maggie Hanson of Bellingham;
3rd District: Jane Buchanan-Banks of Vancouver;
4th District: Pat Notter of Wenatchee;
5th District: Marcus Riccelli of Spokane;
6th District: Bradford Donovan of Montesano;
7th District: Lesley Ahmed of Seattle;
8th District: Di Irons of Fall City;
9th District: Calvin Edwards of Spanaway; and
At-large electors Kristine Fallstone of DuPont and Matt Daniels of Seattle.
RESPONSE:
Lady
Please do not mistake what I send on all emails that bash Obama as hate against women. That is ridiculous ask anyone that sent me harrssing emails. Male or female the response is pretty much the same so stop right there with the anti- woman talk. My life and career centers around women do you get nothing there.
If you knew I was not an elector, why didso many from your group send me those awful emails bashing Obama and his supporters accusing him of crimes. Chris

What would Nominee Obama think of your language and the idea that what you say is not hope and change but hate towards women?

Good Saturday morning. First of all, I’d like to ask those of you who are praying folks to throw one up for me. I’m going to go to my dr’s office “walk in clinic” this morning in a few minutes. I was up all night…. I’ve been having a pain in my back by my left shoulderblade for a couple days now… last night in bed sometimes when I inhaled it felt like my heart was squeezing or something. So I thought I’d better go in.

Secondly, here is an article. Yes, men murder more than women do… but here is a statistic that doesn’t do me proud as a woman.
***********

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83705

WND Exclusive SEXTRA CREDIT
Cougars preying in the classroom
Why are so many female teachers targeting boys for sexual abuse?
Posted: December 20, 2008
12:30 am Eastern

In the wake of one the most publicized stories of a female teacher sexually abusing an underage student, the case of the beautiful Debra LaFave, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer asked a psychologist TV guest “why someone who looks like a living Barbie Doll would need to have sex with a young kid.”

LaFave was 23 years old in 2004 when it was discovered that she had been having sex with her student, a 14-year-old boy.

At the time, LaFave became a media sensation for her stunning good looks and the story – a woman seeking the sexual attention of a barely adolescent boy – that so crossed up society’s expectations of who sex offenders are and what they look like.

National statistics, however, demonstrate that LaFave’s case is far from unusual.

According to a major 2004 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education – the most authoritative investigation to date – nearly 10 percent of U.S. public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees, and in those cases, 40 percent of the perpetrators were women.

Titled “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature” by Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Charol Shakeshaft, the report brought to light staggering statistics.

WND Exclusive SEXTRA CREDIT
Cougars preying in the classroom
Why are so many female teachers targeting boys for sexual abuse?
Posted: December 20, 2008
12:30 am Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Debra LaFave, teacher convicted of having sex with 14-year-old boy student

In the wake of one the most publicized stories of a female teacher sexually abusing an underage student, the case of the beautiful Debra LaFave, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer asked a psychologist TV guest “why someone who looks like a living Barbie Doll would need to have sex with a young kid.”

LaFave was 23 years old in 2004 when it was discovered that she had been having sex with her student, a 14-year-old boy.

At the time, LaFave became a media sensation for her stunning good looks and the story – a woman seeking the sexual attention of a barely adolescent boy – that so crossed up society’s expectations of who sex offenders are and what they look like.

National statistics, however, demonstrate that LaFave’s case is far from unusual.

According to a major 2004 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education – the most authoritative investigation to date – nearly 10 percent of U.S. public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees, and in those cases, 40 percent of the perpetrators were women.

Titled “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature” by Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Charol Shakeshaft, the report brought to light staggering statistics.

(Story continues below)

Compare the numbers with the much-publicized Catholic Church scandal.

A study by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded 10,667 young people were sexually mistreated by priests between 1950 and 2002.

Shakeshaft’s study, however, estimates that roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a public school employee between 1991 and 2000 alone.

If female employees are responsible for 40 percent of those crimes, that means America could be facing an average of more than 11,000 instances of women abusing students in school each year – in other words, more cases in one year than were reported in 50 years of Catholic priest abuse.

Why would so many trusted teachers, even young, vibrant, beautiful women like Debra LaFave, target children for sexual abuse?

WND spoke with some of the nation’s leading experts in the field – including Shakeshaft – for answers to why female teachers would prey on boys and what can be done about it.

Teacher outside, teenager inside

“There’s a range of reasons these women are abusing boys,” Shakeshaft told WND, “not just one.”

“One of the reasons is because they can, because we haven’t done in schools what we need to do to stop this from happening,” Shakeshaft said. “A second reason is because they are in power positions, and they abuse power just as males abuse power.”

Shakeshaft told WND, however, that most of the women who aren’t hardened predators – including perplexing cases like LaFave’s, where a woman may only grow attached to one boy and wouldn’t dream of sexually abusing others – rationalize their romantic fixation because, inside, the teacher feels like a teenager herself.

“Most of these people who cross boundaries have arrested emotional development,” Shakeshaft said. “They’re putting themselves into the same peer group as their students.

“What they say is, ‘I think this person is just the same as I am,’” Shakeshaft explained. “Though they wouldn’t say it out loud, they rationalize that the child is really more like a 40-year-old, or that that they are really more like a teenager.”

In a 2006 interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, LaFave demonstrated Shakeshaft’s explanation.

“The only way that I can describe that is that I felt that I was a peer of theirs,” LaFave confessed. “I was just thinking of it as being a young girl who just got caught with her boyfriend.”

When played a recording of a phone call LaFave made to her student, she acknowledged of her giggling adolescent demeanor: “That sounds so childish. … That’s not something an adult would say.”

Gary Schoener, executive director of the Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis and one of the nation’s foremost pioneers in working with sex offenders, agrees that many of these teachers see themselves as peers with the teens they abuse, but warns there may be other factors as well.

How she sees him

“These cases have a lot of variety to them,” Schoener told WND. “The women are not all the same, and they don’t all fit a pattern.”

Schoener is a licensed psychologist who has worked for decades with teachers who sexually abuse their students. Along with former WICC Clinic Director John Gonsiorek, Schoener developed one of the first and most widely respected tools for assessing professionals – therapists, clergy, teachers and others – caught in sexual misconduct.

“What does the woman see in the boy?” Schoener pondered. “Obviously you have some where [the students] are 17 years old and they’re mature for their age, at least physically, and you can more readily see how somebody could develop fantasies.

“But then when you get the 14-year-old boy who is immature, why did this woman who was married, who was not known to have marital problems, who had kids, why would she go in this direction?” Schoener asked.

“Most of these women don’t know the answer,” Schoener explained. “But if you ask them what they’re feeling, they would say, ‘This kid is the most honest person I’ve met in my life. He’s much more honest than adult males.’ What you hear a lot from women is very similar to what you hear from men who prefer girls: that they’re pure, that they’re innocent.”

Schoener explained that the teachers exhibit thoughts and patterns very similar to a psychological fallacy called counter-transference, which is when a caregiver in authority – such as a therapist or a teacher – connects with some virtue in the subject, but then distorts that into a romanticized idealization based more on the caregiver’s own projection than on reality.

“They absolutely romanticize this young kid,” Schoener said, “and somehow in their mind make him into this sensitive, caring, thoughtful, honest, insightful ideal.”

But, Schoener explained, “Each of these things they’re describing and they feel very strongly are not things that could have come from actual experience with the kid. … These are gut feelings. In this context of the teacher-student relationship, somehow the kid becomes bigger than life, and they react to him like their great, fantasied love.”

Scheoner told WND that the one factor he sees in the vast majority of cases where female teachers abuse boys is fantasy about the student’s character that does not match what others observe.

“It is very much driven by emotional connection, rather than sexual drive,” Schoener said. “In a huge number of the cases we’ve seen – not all, some are largely sexual – the thing was driven by a fantasy where the kid was seen as this wonderful human being and age ceased to matter. In fact, reality ceased to matter.”

“The sexual turn-on is not the first thing that occurs,” Schoener summarized. “It begins with an emotional fixation on a kid. After that, chances they take don’t matter any more. They risk careers. They do crazy things like planning on how they’ll live together after the wedding. They get in trouble for the sex, but it started with irrational feelings and thoughts.”

What’s the harm?

When LaFave’s story broke in the news, as has happened with other stories of attractive teachers sexually abusing their male students, some questioned whether the boys were truly harmed. After all, it was argued, many teenage boys would see the wooing of a beautiful woman as a good thing, regardless of her age.

Following another publicized case of teacher abuse, Steven B. Blum, a consulting psychologist to a sex offender program in Nebraska, explained teenage boys don’t always see the harm initially.

“Generally the male doesn’t feel victimized,” Blum told the Los Angeles Times. “A lot of teenage boys would see that as their lucky day.”

But the 16-year-old victim of Margaret De Barraicua, a 30-year-old California teacher who pleaded guilty to four counts of statutory rape, did not consider it his “lucky day.”

“I’m not the same boy,” the student said in a letter read in court in Sacramento. “At school I became the center of attention. Everyone knew my name.” The boy was so traumatized, his mother wrote in a letter read in court, that “his hair is falling out.”

The father of a Colorado boy molested by Silvia Johnson – who held drug-alcohol-and-sex parties at her home with teenaged schoolboys to be “cool” – told the court the 40-year-old woman “took away my best friend, my hunting buddy. I can’t have him back now. He is gone.”

Experts agree that, in time, even willing teenage boys coaxed into sex by their authority figures, no matter how attractive, exhibit abused child symptoms.

“Boys and girls who are put in these situations aren’t emotionally ready to deal with all the complexities of these relationships,” Shakeshaft told WND.

“The lasting effect is very similar to the effects on females: they don’t trust people, they have trouble forming intimate relationships, they often feel used, exploited, dirty, ashamed,” Shakeshaft explained. “And that often leads to dysfunction in other areas – drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and particularly inability to have intimate relationships.”

Dr. Richard B. Gartner, a leading expert and specialist in field of treating men with history of sexual abuse, writes in a commentary on his website, “Many sexually abused boys grow up distrustful, considering people dishonest, malevolent, and undependable. They often become frightened of emotional connection and isolate themselves.”

“Confusing affection with abuse, desire with tenderness,” Gartner writes, “sexually abused boys often become men who have difficulty distinguishing among sex, love, nurturance, affection, and abuse. They may experience friendly interpersonal approaches as seductive and manipulative. On the other hand, they may not notice when exploitative demands are made on them – they’ve learned to see these as normal and acceptable.”

Shakeshaft told WND, “Historically, if a boy mentioned it, it was not seen as abuse, it was seen as, ‘You should be so lucky.’ I think that’s changing. I think we’re seeing a change in that double standard; I think we’re seeing people understanding that the issues are the same whether it’s a male or a female.”

What can be done?

The answer to stopping teachers who prey on their students sexually may be as complex as the answer to what’s causing it.

For Shakeshaft, who specializes in educational leadership, the answer is teaching people to spot the warning signs.

“A lot of teachers, if they understood the patterns, would be able to identify them in their colleagues,” Shakeshaft told WND. “We hear from other teachers, ‘I always suspected something, I was always uncomfortable – I just wasn’t sure.’ What they didn’t have was that body of knowledge that would have led them to identify what was going on.”

Shakeshaft warned that fixated predators may be too sly to spot, but with close supervision and a swift, knowledgeable response, the education community may be able to help teachers who are about to cross the line.

“If we keep aware of what these signals are,” Shakeshaft said, “we are more likely to be able to intervene and stop them.”

Schoener, however, believes the best defense may come from parents.

“I don’t think from the teacher end it’s very easy to spot,” Schoener told WND. Instead, he suggested parents be watchful of how much interchange their children are having with school officials.

“The first warning sign is a kid spending a lot of private time with the teacher,” Schoener said. “The second: text messaging and emails that go back and forth. At the grade school, junior high, high school level, most teachers are discouraged from a lot of Internet interaction. Frequent emailing and text messaging are questionable. It would be a rare occasion where a teacher would need to be in that level of contact with a student.”

Schoener also warned that parents be clear on the purpose and the chaperoning of all field trips and events outside of school.

Finally, Schoener said, the boundaries of a teacher’s role need to be clearly set.

“A teacher’s job is not to counsel students past a point,” Schoener explained. “Even if the kid really needs help and it’s legitimate counseling, it’s rare that a teacher should be doing a lot of counseling. That’s the school counselor’s job. If there are a lot of private meetings, you have to ask yourself what’s going on.”

But for David Kupelian, WND’s managing editor and author of “The Marketing of Evil,” the ultimate answer – beyond the necessary watching for warning signs – is rooted in a society that has lost its spiritual moorings.

In an award-winning 2006 Whistleblower article, Kupelian wrote, “Without the understanding of our spiritual origin and destiny – of who we are and what purpose our maker intended for us – we can’t possibly understand sex and its intended role in our lives. Instead, all we have driving us are the desires, physical and emotional ‘needs,’ cravings and compulsions we find welling up from within us.”

Discover how Judeo-Christian America was sold on sexual anarchy in David Kupelian’s controversial best seller, “The Marketing of Evil,” available today, autographed, for only $4.95 — an amazing $20 discount!

In her interview with WND, Shakeshaft bolstered Kupelian’s point.

“Part of the problem is bad judgment; part of it is narcissistic behavior, in other words, ‘What I want I should get,’” Shakeshaft said.

“The focus here for [these teachers] is that they’re looking out for their own needs and not the needs of their kids,” Shakeshaft said. “What they’re interested in is getting what they want, not doing what they need to do to make sure the students they have are safe. The common denominator is focus on self, focus on their own needs, focus on their own desires.”

“That is America today,” Kupelian wrote. “In what was once the finest and most robust expression of Western Judeo-Christian civilization and the core values underlying it, most of us, too, have forgotten. … Forgotten the simple, intuitive understanding of right and wrong that we grasped effortlessly when we were innocent children, but which we were later intimidated or seduced into doubting – and abandoning. Forgotten the core truth about man’s condition – that he is in reality a ‘fallen’ being, ‘born in sin,’ and that his sexual urges must be channeled into marriage.”

Kupelian concluded of all the reasons female teachers seek sexual or romantic gratification in children, the largest contributing factor may be a secularized society that has lost a sound basis for teaching both morality and the self-control to exercise it.

“An even more important factor in this sexual-predator epidemic is the fact that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ just aren’t real to most of us anymore,” Kupelian wrote. “Even if [a female teacher] was attracted sexually to a child, for whatever reasons, it’s still wrong to have sex with a 13-year-old. And knowing something is wrong is enough reason not to do it – even if part of us wants to.”

mountain;
Plains radio, Thurs. Dec. 18 show, has a long interview with Bob Chapman you might like to listen to. He gets into the camps at about the hour market. There’s lots more that goes along with some of the direr comments you’ve made.

#255 turndownobama 12.20.08 at 3:27 am

Today at pumaresponders.blogspot.com we have links to MSM comment strings . . .

http://pumaresponders.blogspot.com
———————————————

Thank you turndownobama! I was unaware of the above site, and it sure makes it easy to post comments to the MSM.

bbl
off to bond with my dentist

KarenWi
Glad to hear you had a clean checkup. Watch that snow. We have the same warnings. Got the lat of the chocolates, cookies, blankets, bears and toys to the woman’s shelter. They’re all set but promised to call me if they had an emergency entry in need of something special. If they do we’ll find some cash somewhere, we always do. Took 5 trips on a jeep with the back seat removed. Unfortunately, that was a record.
Glad you liked the story about the dog saved by the people. I was sure you would.
Will continue to pray for Louisa, she is fighting so hard, she needs every ounce of strength she can get from us.

My 4 year old daughter’s heroes are Laura Ingalls Wilder and Loretta Lynn.

We recently read the entire Little House series and she LOVED it! I highly recommend reading these to young children. I think boys would like it too. There is a lot of adventure and tons of education in these books. My husband and I found them interesting too. Our whole family talks about the Ingalls family’s life almost every day.

Nancy Drew, and “Cherry Ames, Nurse.”