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Burried Treasures
from Georgia Jones

She ate like a pig, a big fat pig, even as she was professing her delicate sensibilities. She reached clear across the table with her fork, stabbing absently at the largest piece of cheese, and reeling it back to her gaping mouth. Aunt Agatha twitched her nose like one of the characters in those detective novels she always read, ones her mother had read before her, the very ones from which she had chosen her daughter's name. "Not bad," Agatha pronounced to no one in particular. "A bit heavy for an afternoon cheese but, altogether, not too bad." She landed another piece which she carefully deposited in her mouth.
From her place opposite, Dors winced. Agatha took in the table with her eyes, searching like a predator. Cunning, but without real intelligence, Dors thought without an ounce of mercy on her side. How could Agatha have been related to her own delicate mother?
"Are you going to eat that, Doreen?" Aunt Agatha's fork was poised again, aimed for another surgical strike, this time at Dors' vegetables: asparagus and potatoes, which she had carefully pushed aside to eat last, as she always did with her favorites. "No." Dors replied, pushing her plate away in a gesture of resignation and barely disguised irritation. "Must you call me by that name?"
Dors' Aunt Agatha had moved in 3 weeks ago, just before the funeral. There was nothing Dors could have done to stop her; even trying would have been in poor taste considering the circumstances. Still, it was time for Agatha to go. Past time, but Dors could not find a delicate way to state that obvious conclusion—not in the presence of Agatha herself. Dors had already vented her frustration to friends who had come to visit, bringing with them condolence and more food that Agatha inhaled almost as it came in the door.

Neils Carson came to the funeral. Dors wondered if her mother had known he still lived in town. She wondered, too, if they were really lovers before her mother had met her dad, or if that was part of family lore, those things shaped by time and circumstance to fit a might-have-been past, better than the present. Dors did know for sure that Neils had lived next door to her mother and Aunt Agatha and had been a constant companion to the two girls during their early years. Dors wanted to ask Agatha about that bit of history but she didn't want to seem to be opening up to her aunt, who had been demanding just that emotional contact with Doreen since she had arrived.
Her mother and Agatha were nothing alike. Agatha was five years younger but 4 inches taller and at least twenty pounds heavier than Ilene, Doreen's mother, had been even before the cancer ate away most of the person she had been. Agatha barreled into life like a tank, taking what she wanted and rolling past or over everything else. There was nothing subtle about her, nothing to admire from Dors' point of view, nothing to emulate, nothing instructional, attractive, or interesting. Perhaps Dors was being too harsh? Perhaps her animosity toward her aunt had something to do with just how unlike her mother both of them, she and Aunt Agatha, were.
When Agatha showed up just before the funeral... She really had her timing down; Dors had to give her that! When Agatha arrived only a day after her mother had died, the healthy bulk and affectionate consolations of her aunt had seemed even more repellant to Dors, who had always wondered that her mother stayed in touch with her sister. Agatha was a constant embarrassment to the family.

For her own part, Agatha had never understood Dors' animosity toward her. Did she think Agatha was jealous of her older sister? There was no question that Ilene was the beauty in the family; even compared with her own daughter. (Poor Doreen.) Ilene had been a knockout almost to the end. Agatha had been relieved not to have to live up to that standard. It left her free for other things — and free from yet others. She had never been married, for instance, and so had been spared the nasty divorce her beautiful sister had endured. Beauty was one thing but not a strong or important enough thing to keep misery and disappointment at bay, Agatha mused.
Agatha hadn't married and that had been an embarrassment to her parents. Instead, she traveled. It was her job—travel—and her life. She liked it and, as much as she might have thought that having children would be nice and was expected of her, it never seemed to be worth the sacrifice of her freedom. She was only hanging around now because some sixth sense told her Doreen had not yet come to a full emotional recognition of her mother's death and would need someone when it sank in. Doreen didn't have anyone else, unless you counted that pestilence she called her father. Agatha had been as hurt by his betrayal of her sister as Ilene herself had been. Ilene forgave him, perhaps because they still shared Doreen, but Agatha never did. It was odd that Agatha still felt protective toward Ilene. It was probably only her own guilt for driving her sister and that eventual husband together, as she was certain she must have done, that caused this reaction in Agatha. Agatha was not usually a person to harbor a grudge.
The last conversation she had with Ilene, the call that had brought Agatha to this, their family home just a day too late to see her sister alive one last time, had been intriguing — nothing to do with old guilts.
Nothing to do with old loves either, but Neils had called to ask if Agatha minded if he came to the funeral. "It's been thirty years, for heaven's sake!" She exclaimed, amazed at the small town thinking that drove him to ask such a thing. Then she'd handed the telephone over to Doreen because she already knew how possessive Doreen was of the "arrangements." Doreen had seemed very impressed that Neils wanted to come to the funeral and asked if he would ride in the car following the family limo. Agatha had suppressed a smile; sometimes Doreen reminded her so much of Ilene. It would be good to spend some time with Doreen.
Agatha hadn't seen Ilene for over five years before the call that day. She had known about the cancer, of course, they wrote occasionally, but she had not felt the need to see her sister before then. Technically, they weren't estranged but it had been years since they had anything to talk about.
"Remember the buried treasure?" Ilene had asked when Agatha answered the phone. How could she forget? she responded. Neils had told them the story. Who knew, now, if it was true or not? Their house was built over a way station used in the Civil War where a courier had come to bring funds to General Lee— a sniper attack, and Lee had quickly moved his men to a safer encampment. The courier was overlooked, wounded in the eagerness of some recruit to return the fire of the enemy. The money he carried was buried for safe-keeping. When she thought about it later, Agatha realized what a preposterous story this was. And where had Neils garnered all this information? But here was Ilene, on her deathbed if her letters were to be believed, calling to tell Agatha that the treasure had been found. Why, they had spent most of their childhood digging in that yard with every secret hope of finding gold bullion or coins entangled in the roots of the old willow tree or hidden in a metal box beneath what had become their mother's flower bed. They never had.
Agatha came at once, only to find that Ilene was already gone, unable to answer Agatha's questions, to solve the mystery. She had not even left behind a hint. Now, Agatha sat at the table with Doreen and Neils Carson and tried to pretend the only thing on her mind was lunch. She picked at the food around her.
When Agatha told Neils about the call from Ilene, Neils only smiled that knowing smile that used to infuriate her when they were children. Both he and Ilene were older than she and they often seemed to Agatha to be conspiring against her.
"'Remember the buried treasure?' That's what she said, what she called me in Rome to say! It must be true…. She found it, the Confederate treasure."
"There wasn't any Confederate treasure, Aggie, we just made that up to tease you." Neils responded, amused by this memory from childhood.
"Yes, I know…" Agatha answered distractedly. Then she went on "There must be a clue in there somewhere: 'I can't believe… After all these years, there it was. I always thought you would find it as hard as you looked for that treasure. I wanted you to, planned on it. I wish you had… Things might have been different.'"
"She was almost babbling she was so happy; or maybe it was the medicine. We have to ask Doreen if the medication made her silly. I don't think we can ask Doreen that, though, she is in such deep denial… You'd think Ilene had gone out for a hair appointment." Agatha and Neils had ridden to the cemetery together, in the car behind the family limo. Doreen had made those arrangements as well and Agatha was just as happy to be sitting next to Neils talking about that last call from Ilene and their childhood memories instead of sitting next to Doreen trying to behave in some unnatural way her niece considered proper. It wasn't until after the funeral that Agatha thought of this lunch with Neils. Of course, Doreen had to be there too. It was her house now.

Agatha had spent some time finding Neils' telephone number. The town had grown so much and Neils didn't exactly live in town anymore. He was several miles out in a new bedroom neighborhood, but she found him. He said he would come. Agatha had not told Doreen she was even looking for Neils, let alone inviting him over. Lunch was uncomplicated as meals go; Doreen wouldn't need much notice… Agatha justified herself, but what she really meant was conversations with Doreen were so difficult that putting this one off was just easier somehow. Besides, she didn't want to tell Doreen about the treasure, not yet.

"I would love to talk to you some time about my mother as a young girl." Dors finally managed to find words she thought would be adequate to approach Neils on the subject she really wanted answered; was he in love with her mother? It had been years since they had seen each other, or so Dors thought until he called, so conveniently, about the funeral. Had they reconnected after the divorce when her mother moved back to the family home? If only Aunt Agatha weren't sitting across the table, stuffing her mouth and sticking her nose into Dors' business, she might have asked more directly. As it was, she grudgingly admitted to herself, Neils wouldn't even be there if Agatha hadn't invited him.
"Any time." Neils answered from behind his fork. He didn't go on and Dors was ready to scream at him: Now would be a good time! but she didn't want to appear too desperate. She didn't want to give the impression she didn't know everything of importance about her mother's life, though the fact was she knew very little. Dors wondered if anyone knew anything about anyone, really. It wasn't a new thought, just new to her.
The meal ended. The last morsel had been gobbled, savored, or picked at, depending on whose perspective you took, and the chairs were pushed back. It was time for… What? Dors was unsure what would happen next. She hadn't invited Neils, but now she was very anxious that he not go—at least not until she had found a way to quiz him. Neils smiled engagingly at Doreen but slid his chair back and, with a brief "Thank you, very nice meal," was out the door with Agatha. Dors didn't even know what had happened until she realized that she was alone in the dining room, facing a table full of dirty dishes and the echo of questions she would never get an opportunity to ask. He was gone.
Well, perhaps, not gone exactly, because he and Agatha had gone to the garden. They were still very much on the premises. Dors squinted in the direction of the garden door, pretending to herself there was a chance, just a chance, she might be able to see into the garden and into the minds of those two. What were they up to? Was Agatha taking her opportunity with Neils, after all these years, now that Doreen's mother was out of the way? Poor Neils, not that Dors would have worried had she even known Neils well enough to be concerned about him. There was no chance Agatha could ever measure up to Ilene. Dors was as certain of that as she was that the sun would rise in the morning or that Ilene had been the only true beauty in the family.

Outside and away from Doreen, at last, Agatha pointed her nose toward the willow. The old tree had been the target of many of their searches and it seemed very unlikely they had overlooked anything all of those years ago, but they had to start somewhere. Neils followed obediently, if his face showed his skepticism. "Ilene was sick; she wouldn't have ventured very far or dug very deep." Agatha announced as if that rationale justified her choice of beginnings.
"OK, say she really did mean 'treasure'" Neils protested. "She couldn't have meant that treasure. There was no such thing."
"I know." Agatha answered again but with no more conviction than she had displayed the last time he made that point. "Where do you think we should start, then?" She demanded.
"I don't know." Neils was sullen but resigned. "Do we even know she went outside in those last days?"
"What a clever Dick you are!" Agatha veered abruptly back toward the house.
"Inside?" Neils' resignation was replaced by amusement.
"No, of course not. Inside! I'm not 8 anymore, you know."
"What then?"
"I think you may be right. She didn't go out. She was always worried about her skin, even before… You don't change the habits of an adult life just because you're dying." The word dying had a sour taste. Was Doreen the only one who was not accepting its finality? "But not inside. I can see our Ilene, sitting melodramatically at her window, pining for a better fate. You look over there. Do you think she would have looked straight down or a ways out? She wouldn't find anything out as far as she could see. She couldn't see that far without her glasses and I don't imagine her ending her days with her glasses on." Agatha looked over at Neils to see if he was taking all of this with the humor she intended. He smiled back. It was a rather weak, unpracticed smile to be sure, but he did smile.
"It's been awhile. I may be out of practice." Neils answered. "There hasn't been much need for treasure hunting of late."
"There is always need for a good treasure hunt," Agatha rebounded.
It seemed almost like the old days, she and Neils in the garden. Even after Ilene went off to school… Ilene was gone too long. Agatha knew that as soon as it happened, but Ilene didn't know so it had been all right. At least it had seemed so at first. Agatha had never planned on getting so close to Neils, so close to territory already marked and plotted by her own sister.
Lunging around a garden in the afternoon heat wasn't how Agatha spent her days either, but she wasn't about to admit she was already feeling winded and might prefer to sit in the shade with an after lunch coffee. "Try this," she told Neils and handed him a small rock she had picked up a few moments before and slipped into her pocket. "I'll stand by the window and you take that over by the willow. See if I could find it looking from here." Neils did as he was told, dropping the stone as conspicuously as he could to make the point that this was a silly exercise. "No, I couldn't find it from there. Besides, a treasure would be buried or hidden…" For a moment, Agatha felt defeated. She had never been able to read her sister's mind. She couldn't even guess when Ilene was in love. She wondered if Ilene had ever loved Neils or if she had been wrong about that too.
Agatha looked to Neils for help. He knew Ilene; probably better than she ever did. Neils shrugged. Agatha sucked in her breath. "Let me put myself in Ilene's place." She furrowed her brow and seemed to be concentrating.
"I'm not sure that's the best approach," Neils observed coming back to the window where she stood looking out toward the yard. "Your whole life, all of our lives, would have been different if you could have seen through Ilene's eyes what she saw and thought."
"I am not going to talk about this. I had no way of knowing she was about to marry that plague upon the earth, Doreen's benighted daddy, that philandering slime who ruined her…"
"Please spare me your indifference to the man!" Neils laughed.
"OK, it wasn't him anyway. It was me, you and me, Neils."
"Do you really think Ilene got married just because she found out I was becoming fond of you?"
"You should have gone away to school, too, not hung around…"
"…and waited for you to grow up," he finished. "But I did wait. I waited a whole lifetime and I'm not sure you've grown up yet."
"Ilene waited long enough for you to ask her." Agatha shot back at him. She wasn't going to stand there and be insulted by this man even if she had cared about him. She handled tougher than Neils every day.
"Did she? Was she waiting for me? I've never been convinced of that. I wanted Ilene to say something, to give us a message, word that we had her blessing… or not; something. If she came back now, there is only one thing I would ask. I left it too long and we will never know for sure what she wanted."
"Does it matter anymore?" Agatha wasn't trying to be coy. She meant exactly what she said. It didn't matter now. Their lives had gone on. Neils was nothing like she remembered him, maybe he never was. That didn't matter either. What did matter was that they were there now, and they were enjoying this afternoon together.
"I don't know. You tell me." Neils answered.
Agatha shifted her bulk. She was aware all of a sudden that she was not attractive. She never had been. What Neils had seen in her as a gawky seventeen year old was as baffling then as now. That he might still feel any attraction to her at her age was unimaginable. She took a step away from him, thinking he must find her awkward and clumsy, and, as if in answer to her expectations, stumbled and fell against the wall just under the window. Agatha looked down to see what she had tripped over. It was a small metal box.

Dors heard laughter coming from the garden. How could they be laughing with her mother lying dead in her grave? How could Agatha, even Agatha, be so tasteless and crass as to pursue Neils when Ilene was barely cold? How could Neils… But her own father had not come to the funeral. Ilene had very poor judgement when it came to men. That was something Dors inherited, even if she didn't have the beauty to make it matter very much to anyone but herself, of course. She already had two divorces to her mother's one. The divorces weren't the mistake, it was the marriages; Ilene had reminded her often enough. Neither of those guys had been right for her, but how would she know what was right? Ilene had been unable to give her an answer. She should have been like Agatha this once: stayed alone and never taken a chance. Now, she had inherited one more thing from her mother; this house. Dors would live here in quiet seclusion, just as Ilene had done after her diagnosis, step back from the turmoil of wrong decisions, of any decisions, of life with all of its messy questions. If only she could stop wondering about things.
Dors wondered what it would be like to have children of her own; would she be a good mother? would her children look like her? learn from her? She wondered if she could really be successful in business; even, if she would get the promotion she was due. She wanted to be her own boss; could she do that? She wondered what the world was like in other places than this. Sometimes she envied Aunt Agatha her Bohemia lifestyle. Of course, she would never admit that to anyone and, when she had that thought, drove it out of her mind as quickly as she could. Dors longed for the serenity she imagined Ilene achieving just before death.
The laughter stopped. The garden was quiet. What was happening out there? She looked around the dining room. It was almost finished. She could go out to the garden if she wished. It was hers now, after all, and there was nothing, no element of politeness, no hostess duty, no obligation to respect a privacy neither Agatha nor Neils had requested… nothing to keep Dors from the garden and the afternoon sunshine. Why did she feel as if the garden was off limits to her today?
Doreen listened. Not only the laughter had stopped, all human sounds were gone. Had Neils and Agatha slipped out the back gate? The very thought was preposterous. Yet, there it was, the silence as evidence of their absence. Dors couldn't stand it any longer. She opened the door and looked around. There was no one there. The empty garden was proof of the accuracy of her hearing. She was alone. She wasn't sure she had ever know what real aloneness felt like before.
Then she noticed the mud caked metal box sitting, open, on the patio table. She went up to it, wondering where it had come from. This mess must have been Agatha's doing. The box was rusted, held together by the mud as much as anything, barely resisting gravity and age. It may have had a pattern on it. In its present condition Dors couldn't tell. The opened lid revealed aged, rotting paper and an odd collection of artifacts. Dors poked at the box with her finger. Whatever it was it should have stayed buried, she thought as she turned away.

Read this feature from past issues.

We Are CELEBRATING WOMEN

Stronger, better, smarter... When will they let us out of the secret warehouse where bionic women are stored?

Women Have a History Worth Celebrating

She was "a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man." She was Anne Hutchinson. The year was 1637. The place was New England, a New World where the constraints of the Old World were, at once, being thrown off and reaffirmed.
Anne was accused by the ministers of Newtown, Massachusetts Bay Colony of speaking against the church. She was called in for questioning. The governor (judge) in his opening statement to her charged, "You have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex..."
This was a very delicate situation for a woman in 1637. If she was too ardent in asserting her understanding of the law she would be emphasizing her responsibility when she was found guilty, and a guilty verdict was pre-ordained. If Anne Hutchinson was to survive, she had to convince these men that she knew her place and had done everything possible to stay in it. The best verdict she could hope for was banishment to the wilderness, a frightening thought made more so by the fact that Anne was pregnant.
The court, led by the governor of the colony, was overtly chivalrous throughout the proceedings but refused her request that her accusers, the ministers, take an oath to tell the truth (two of them were sworn in before the final vote on her guilt was taken).
Anne Hutchinson was banished to the wilderness for presuming to take the leadership role in her community and in her religion that her latter years proved she was suited for. She did not die in that wilderness but was followed there by a group of supporters, including her husband, and was instrumental in establishing the colony of Rhode Island.
It is interesting to note that when her child was still-born, the ministers of Newtown reopened their attacks from their pulpits, claiming her dead child as greater proof, from God himself, of her guilt.

Born into a family of Unitarian ministers in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1744 the future wife and mother of presidents is considered to be the first American feminist. Abigail Adams came from an enlightened religious background, and learned the importance of logic and moral influences. Her religious and moral leanings brought her to condemn slavery and to write letters her husband, John Adams, urging that he "remember the women" when the Declaration of Independence was being shaped.
Abigail Adams was not a public activist and treasured the quiet contemplation of her home and garden, but her letters to her husband show that she was a thoughtful woman working behind the scenes for what seemed obvious to her even then: equality and fairness in dealings between all people. Not all of her choices were ones we would make today but her consideration of important questions of her day and yet in ours makes her an invaluable measure in women's history.

In order "to honor and recognize Harriet Tubman for her important role in the history of Tennessee and the United States," March 10 of each year has been designated by the US Senate as Harriet Tubman Day. March 10 is the day Tubman died in 1913. It is also right in the middle of Women's History Month.
"Harriet Tubman was one of the most remarkable people our country has ever known," Tennessee State Senator Ophelia Ford, D-Memphis, said. "She became known as the 'Moses of Her People' for her tireless efforts to help slaves reach freedom through the Underground Railroad. Historians estimate that as many as 100,000 people escaped slavery on the Underground Railroad between 1810 and 1860, and Harriet Tubman was a part of that effort."
Harriet Tubman was an advocate of equality for women as well. She was a member of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, the National Association of Colored Women, and the New England Women's Suffrage Association.
In 1896 Harriet Tubman was the speaker at the first meeting of the National Association of Colored Women.

Leta Stetter Hollingworth was born on May 25th 1886 but her influence on how we see women reaches into today. Unlike Abigail Adams and women of that earlier time, Leta Stetter entered the University of Nebraska at the age of sixteen, completing her Masters studies and beginning work with "mental defectives." She received her Ph.D. in June of 1916.
Hollinsworth's main work was with "gifted children" but the one that makes her stand out in women's history is her study of the psychology of women, with emphasis on the issues of intelligence and intellectual ability. We can thank her for the tested and proven (though still not always accepted) fact that women are not mentally incapacitated during menstruation, and, with possibly wider reaching importance, disproving the idea that women were not able to excel or reach the highest achievements and would have to settle for mediocrity because of an assertion by assessors at the time that women lacked variability: Women were pre-programmed for a certain narrow range of behaviors.
Leta Stetter Hollingworth empirically tested the "menstrual madness" hypothesis and proved that women's performance of cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks was similar to that of males, even during menstruation. She also carried out a large study, examining 1,000 male newborns and 1,000 female newborns, and found no greater inherent similarity in female capabilities or skill range than in males.

Women were not allowed in the first, Helenistic, Olympic sports. Some interesting dates to recall:

1567 Mary Queen of Scotts is believed to be the first woman to play golf in Scotland (first country of golf)
1811 first women's golf tournament is held at Musselburgh, Scotland
1851 Amelia Jenks Bloomer recommends the practical pants for women athletes, the bloomer
1856 Catherine Beecher published the first exercise manual for women, advocated a system of calisthenics designed to make women's bodies stronger and healthier
1884 Maud Watson is the champion at the first women's singles competition at Wimbledon
1900 Women compete in the Paris Olympics in golf, tennis, and croquet
1924 Figure skating is the only sport open to women at the first Winter Olympic Games
1928 Women finally compete in Olympic track and field events
And in the sports category of most often overlooked significant achievement:

1931 Virne Mitchell, pitcher, becomes the first woman in professional baseball. She strikes out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrigin an exhibition game. Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis bans women from the sport later that year.

"Woman as Inventor: Shall She Be Given a Representation at the Columbian Expositions"
Thanks to Mary Lockwood, the District of Columbia's member of the Board of Lady Managers and James DuDubois, editor of Inventive Age, that headline went out for the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. There were so many women who signed up to show their inventions in the Women's Building that a special "Inventions Room" was opened and up to 335 inventions (by one visitor's account) by women were showcased. There was, as one might expect, criticism of the "scientific" value of women's inventions but given the limited education and generally non-existent funding for such exploration this number is amazing, even if it is considered that far fewer than 335 were actually listed in the catalogue.
The Tracy Gravity Safety Elevator (Yes, that was an elevator invented by Harriet Tracy.) was one of the sensations of the exposition… Most of Tracy's inventions were shown in the Men's Building.
Other Women Inventors in History:
Isabella Helen Lugoski Karle (1921- ) is a American physical chemist who invented new methods of X-ray Crystallography.
Kevlar was invented by Stephanie Louise Kwolek and was first marketed by DuPont in 1971.
See this month's Exceptional Women for an interview with this inventor.
Sarah E. Goode invented the folding cabinet bed (sometimes called the "Murphy Bed"), a space-saver that folded up against the wall into a cabinet.
The windshield wiper was invented by Mary Anderson in 1903 to help streetcars operate safely in the rain.
And last here:
In 1809, Mary Dixon Kies received the first U. S. patent issued to a woman. Kies, a Connecticut native, invented a process for weaving straw with silk or thread.
Look into what women have created. You might be surprised.

Find out about some contemporary women in this month's Exceptional Women and more on the nomination process at Special Feature and Your House is on Fire.

Read this feature from past issues.

Time to Remove the "No Women Allowed" Sign on the White House
by Doris Jeanette, Psy.D.

Are we going to elect yet another presidential candidate based on big money and rhetoric? Are we going to elect yet another president who is male?
Obama raised over 7 million dollars in two days after Super Tuesday. Since women make 75 cents for every dollar men receive, they do not have that kind of money to give Hilary. For every $100 worth of work women do, we have $25 less to spend on groceries, housing and child care than a man.
Winning elections based on the money you raise has always made me doubt the election process. Reading in the Wall Street Journal this year that Obama wants to subsidize the car industry with government money did not appeal to me. Why not subsidize the single mothers in America instead? Many of them are African American, Native American and Hispanic.
Obama talked in flowery tones in his speech on Super Tuesday about his promise to help two boys in the ghetto get what they deserve. Yet I cannot find any record of a bill he has introduced in his years in the senate to help boys or girls. What has he done for the poor people? What has he done for minorities? What has he done for women?
I like facts. Words and rhetoric lie. Abigail Adams tried her best to get John Adams to include women's right to vote from the very beginning in the USA constitution. He couldn't sway the other white men to include white women. No. White women were regulated to the same status as slaves. No vote. No participation.
American white men gave black men the vote 50 years before they gave white women and black women the vote. American women did not have any say over the events in their life until 1920. Native American women were still excluded. This was and still is, an unhealthy case of taxation without representation. American women received the right to the vote; years after New Zealand, Russian, Finland and Australian women were allowed to vote.
American history is very strange in terms of genuine liberty and justice for all. Treaties, bills and white men destroyed the Native American people and culture. These treaties have been broken and not fulfilled by a government dominated by men. None of this appeals to me.
Democracy seems to be failing without any proper checks and balances over the last eight years. Men never have stood up and asserted my needs as a citizen of the USA. Changing the color of a man is no change in my eyes. We need to really change and choose a woman for the first time in the history of the USA.
I am a white woman. I grew up poor on a farm in North Carolina and made my way to Waco, Texas to get my Doctoral degree in psychology at Baylor University. This is where I learned that "Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior." If a man has never taken action to improve my life, he is not going to do it in the future. If a woman has stood up to get fair health care for all of us in the past, she will do so in the future. If a woman has "stood by her man" following her heart and rising above the judgments and attacks of a mean spirited group of people, then she will do the same for the rest of us.
There has never been a woman in the White House. Why is that? There seems to be a deep hate for women in America. There seems to be a deep distrust of women in America. Even from women themselves. As a learning theorist, I understand how easily humans are conditioned to hate a certain quality in themselves. American women have been brainwashed so we vote against our very nature.
Women bring natural talents and innate skills to any business and government. Female energy is strong and resilient. Men and women both have female qualities. American men and women have been conditioned into hating anything that slaps of the feminine.
Under Hitler, there was no heart. Women add heart. Germany learned its lessons. Women have made good leaders in Germany. Most Europeans countries, England, Israel, South American and even sexist, classic, India have profited from women leaders. Currently there are 12 women leaders in the world.
American is still in the dark ages. I agree with what Pat Shroeder, former presidential candidate, said, "It is time to remove the sign on the White House that says, "No women allowed."

Read more on this topic from our last issue.
Listen to Dr. Doris Jeanette on Live at the Edge or go to her website at DrJeanette.com.

Read this feature from past issues.

In Support Of Womankind

March is Women's History month, so I am told, and what better time to focus on our sisterhood. It is the perfect time to discuss our innate and heightened abilities as negotiators, peacemakers and leaders, and to underscore a few of our major differences with the males of our species.
Firstly, we woman have a lot more of the information carrying, nerve fiber-containing (axiom) white brain matter than men, and nine times more in the area of the brain that governs intelligence. Men have six times more of the information processing grey matter in that same area of the brain, making them more analytical. Thus, their brains do not function at the same lightening speed as ours!
The female cerebral cortex is filled with more nerve cells than the male's, and this gives us better reasoning abilities; we can weigh up and react to situations quicker, and on multiple levels. Our language, judgment and memory skills are superior, making us natural communicators. When it comes to thinking on our feet, we women have it hands down! Men can take hours, if not days, to make up their minds about something, and yet some of you still want a man for a president...why?
Our corpus callossum - the tissue that connects both hemispheres of our brains - is larger than men's; this gives us an innate ability to multitask, whilst men are better at turning their focus to one thing at a time. We are actually also good at math!
Then we have the whole hormonal thing: Men, as we all know, have lots more of the macho hormone testosterone. This is why they can get mighty aggressive, thump their chests, and wage wars and get into barroom brawls at the drop of an insult. Science calls this 'nature'! Women, on the other hand, have lots more estrogen, and this makes us the 'nurturers' - motherly, caring and compassionate. In real life, both men and women have some of each others' hormones; some to greater or lesser degrees. We have very manly women, and very feminine men, which is when the opposite sex's hormones are either naturally present at higher levels than would be considered normal, or are deliberately taken to facilitate transsexual transitions. Most of us fall somewhere in-between on either side of our male/female hormonal continuum:

Testosterone (male)     Men          Women      (female) Estrogen

Throughout history, women have pioneered and succeeded in the invariably male-dominated world, despite often seemingly insurmountable odds. Sometimes, they have lost their lives for their herculean efforts, but their names should be indelibly stamped in our consciousness, and we should strive to walk in their footsteps, and not shy away from the opportunity to force change where change is both necessary and due. We have the strength...we are built to give birth, for Pete's sake. We can do anything!
If you are struggling to think of any female trailblazers, how about:
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt
Queen Nefertiti of Egypt
Boadicea
Joan of Arc
Queen Amina of Nigeria
Mbande Nzinga of Angola
Mary Queen of Scots
Queen Victoria
Elizabeths I and II
Susan B. Anthony
Tzu-hsi Empress if China
Amelia Earhart
Marie Curie
Florence Nightingale
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Catherine the Great
Isabella I of Portugal and Spain
Indira Gandhi
Golda Meir
The 'Iron Lady' herself - Margaret Thatcher
Joy Adamson
Jane Goodall
Margaret Meade
Margaret Sanger
Benazir Bhutto
Diana Princess of Wales
Susan G. Komen

And I haven't even scratched the surface.
For some reason, particularly here in the US, women today continue to have a really hard time breaking through the glass ceiling, yet as a nation we practically lead the world in innovation. There are relatively few women captains of industry, and in executive positions of the most powerful companies. But, we have all the right skills, and some of those even dictate that we should be in the majority, not just because we really ARE in the majority - 50.7% in 2006, but because we are more qualified.
So, why is it that many of us are still only earning 70-80 cents to the man's dollar? It is positively obscene. We should be storming the bastions of male dominance and demanding equality. What is wrong with us that we should allow this egregious injustice to prevail? It is, after all, the 21st century, yet, we might as well be living in the Dark Ages. Nature versus Nurture is one thing; being unilaterally taken for a chump is something else entirely!
Apart from being built differently from the guys, did you know that we also metabolize (process) many different things; from medications to foods and drink? It is one of the reasons that scientist are now recommending that women only consume 1 (one) alcoholic beverage per day. It is because alcohol takes longer to work its way through our systems, and thus stays around to do more harm to such essential organs as the liver. Men metabolize faster and differently to us, and are the main reasons that the scientific research done by pharmaceutical companies is so out of step with reality! They do their clinical studies on healthy, 40-year old men, then wonder why women and older patients have so many bad, if not fatal, drug reactions after the medications go on the market.
Women are far more likely to succumb to a heart attack than our male counterparts (and several other diseases besides), largely because our healthcare providers do not do adequate screenings, and because we fail to recognize the symptoms of heart disease and attacks when they occur. Thus, please read the following:
Women can experience any of the following during a heart attack:

Dizziness
Nausea
Vomiting
Indigestion or gas pain
Pain or discomfort between the shoulder blades
Recurring chest discomfort, pressure
Unexplained weakness, fatigue
A sense of impending doom
Breathlessness
Clammy perspiration
Swelling of the ankles or legs

It is incumbent upon us all to insist that our primary (health) care providers take any and all measures to ensure that we are given the same diagnostics as men, and if you have any family history of heart disease, be sure to let them know. Forewarned is, after all, forearmed!
Enough of focusing on the negative let us shift focus to the positive. We have an opportunity, today, to elect the first female president, who is currently teetering on the brink of being beaten back by yet another man. The fact that he is of mixed race is also significant, but it is not relative to his ability, or lack of, to do the job at hand. Hillary Clinton may not be the most charismatic of candidates; she may not be the greatest orator, but what she has is the intelligence, maturity, experience, and capability of a natural-born leader. What sets her apart from all the others are the extraordinary qualities and attributes unique to women; the very things that I have underscored in this column. Think about it. Use your reasoning abilities; weigh up the benefits of finally having a woman at the helm. It is, after all, what we are designed to do!
Until next time, stay well, stay safe, and stay attuned...

Here are some useful links:
Great resource site: How Stuff Works! Here info on the differences between men and women
Some notable women in relatively recent history
Encyclopedia Britannica's 300 women who changed the world
US Census Bureau
Alcohol metabolism
Heart attack symptoms, also those peculiar to women
Sophia Cariati (with the Society for Women's Health Research) has written some excellent articles on women's health and medications:

http://sci.rutgers.edu
http://www.drdonnica.com
http://www.womenshealthresearch.org

Visit MyHealthNavigator.com

Listen to Tina on "Blue Lips" at LadybugLive and...
Read this feature from past issues.

Oops, I drove there again

I admit I have spent more time than I should watching the exploits of Britney Spears. I have also discovered I spend my own time doing many of the things bringing her so much attention. In the past two weeks, I caused quite a paparazzi scramble as I went through the following schedule.
Went to CVS to try and play the coupon and Extra Care Buck game.
Real trip back to CVS to get toilet paper and baby shampoo which I forgot due to candy whining crisis.
Went to Kroger to get week's groceries.
Went to Kroger again to get mini-marshmallows required for school project.
Went to Publix to get chocolate chips for different school project. Didn't want to create too much frenzy at Kroger so varied my stores a little.
Eldest child wanted to walk in all stores. Youngest child wanted to be carried or "help" me push the cart. Three-person circus ensued at all grocery locations even with cookie bribes. Ended up pushing heavy cart and drag/carrying toddler. Check-out girl/tabloid reporter videoed me with her cell phone.
Went to Sally Beauty Supply for silver hair spray to make my son look old for yet another class assignment. You would think kindergarten wouldn't be so complicated.
Went to Party City for silver hair spray to make my son look old because apparently Sally had already been hit up by the rest of the moms. No silver hair spray needed for to make me look old. One up on Britney as all my hair is real and turning silver all on its own.
Went to Walmart for hairspray and bobby pins I forgot in my visits to the grocery stores and beauty supply store.
Went back to Walmart to walk after dinner.
Went to McDonalds five times. Varied the location in case Ronald himself was making an appearance and would sell me out to his publication with the kids fries stuffed in my mouth and the plastic wrapper of the toy between my fingers as I drove away.
Went to Taco Bell once on the same night as McDonalds because someone wanted a taco as well as fries.
Went to KFC to vary the drive-in food trip.
Waited in line at the bank for thirty minutes while other obvious a-list mommies chatted up the teller. After my children knocked down the bank sign and threatened mutiny, I asked the teller to please deposit my enormous check and did she realize I had been waiting for thirty minutes? I felt as rejected as I was pushed behind the velvet rope at the latest club. She didn't know who I was. She does now. Who could forget my son using one fingernail to erase their current loan rates of the day or my daughter using their deposit slips for confetti? Must go to bank on other side of town to avoid recognition unless I want a bucket of free lollipops and a Brinks escort to the parking lot.
Trip to Starbucks for Teacher Appreciation gifts.
One trip to dance class in pouring rain.
One trip to urgent care in pouring rain because Clutzy Mommy hurt her foot doing simple dance move. Need to work on my routine for next performance. If had on my torn fishnets, the rehearsal might have gone better. I did wear my Payless ballet shoes and no makeup as I posed for our exit. I can see that on the front page now. My silver hair (no spray needed) and cheap ballet slippers all but hint at retirement and washed-up status.
Another trip to urgent care for coughing, feverish child who lost all traces of illness when we entered the door.
Two trips to Tae Kwon Do in pouring rain. Random moms I haven't seen before obviously stalking me as I prod my son into getting his uniform on. One tried to steal his belt/tie it for him while I was chasing the toddler out of the boys' dressing room. I can see the headline now that my son is a trained martial arts expert bent on world destruction.
Trip to video store on Tuesday to get latest releases.
Trip back to return one of the movies. Rental box out of order.
Trip to second rental box to return first movie.
Trip to first box to return second movie five miles down the road.
Another trip to McDonalds.
Each day, trip to school to drop off son, back home, back for lunch, back home, back to wait for 45 minutes in carpool lane, back home.
Buy gas.
All in all, a busy week. There have been no real headlines. My son did give me a Valentine handwritten with his wish that I have a Valentine's Day. The main difference between Britney besides her obvious youth and $750,000 monthly income is that my children are with me. My husband is with me. The only people who see me on my marathon trips to be a mom are other tired, harried moms picking up chocolate chips or Fruit Loops.
I am sad for Britney that her trips are alone or with strangers. She is searching for something and I hope she finds it. In the mean time, I am finishing my wait in the car lane. We will head home with tales of the day's schedule and plans for the weekend. Dinner might include another trip to Walmart to walk off the "kid" food. I have logged many miles and hours but it is all worth it in the end.
Next week, the trips will begin again. I have the best intentions to reduce the trips and even better intentions to schedule them away from naptime. I may not make the front cover of People magazine. I may even wear Mom jeans and have my hair in a ponytail. The only time I'll be up past 1:00 AM in the night is because someone is crying and scared or puking and I need to go back to CVS. There is no way that I could be apart from my kids for a month or trade partying at Chuck-e-Cheese for dancing on tables. In the end, even if I drive from one end of the town to the other and back again, we will be together and that is all that matters.

Read this feature from past issues.

Hope your winter is good so far. Californians are so very fortunate in the weather department. We really are spoiled. We start whining and complaing when it rains more that 2 days. It's been raining, snowing and blowing here---oh yeah---it's winter. We are wooses...Fondly speaking, myself included.
But, hey, my doctor doesn't think that I'm a woos.
I just had my oncology "check up" appt., last week. I was informed that I looked very well, and that I had lost 2 pounds. Oh great I say.... I gained 35 with chemo.
My doctor tells me that she is very proud of me, because the average American gains 7 pounds from November to January---and I lost 2 pounds.
Yipppeeee.....now what about the other 33?
She just gives me that look--like--hey--you're alive, right?
Well of course---RIGHT>>>>
She says that physically I am doing well, but what about mentally how am I doing?
Well, I tell her that I now only think of breast cancer a hundred times a day instead of a thousand....That there are actually hours that go by that I don't think I have had breast cancer.
See, I said "had"... I am told that I am supposed to think that way.
I tell my doctor that I am feeling on top of the world energy wise, and my positive attitude is in place. Then, I'll hear a tragic story of a woman losing her battle with breast cancer, and that throws me down into despair. Temporarily.
I try not to stay there...but it takes alot of energy to get my attitude back up in the positive range. My doctor assures me that in time, this will be a distant memory.
I say a silent prayer of thanks.
I was walking my dogs last night, the sun was setting, the wind was kicking up, and the chill was in the air. And I had such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude.... As I walked with my dogs, out loud I said what I was thankful for: I thanked God for allowing me more time on this earth. I thanked Him for all that he has given me.
Even though it is hard for me to thank Him for breast cancer---in a way I did. BECAUSE....I now see what life is truly about, and what is truly important. I thought that I was one of the "enlighten" ones that already "got it"...but I was to learn otherwise.
Walking my dogs in the windy, chilly air and feeling more alive than I have ever felt. And happier than I have ever been (with the exception of the birth of my child)
Life is good. Life is challenging. Life is a constant change.
But...LIFE is good.
Stay well, and stay positive.

Sincerely,
~asher

Read this feature from past issues.

The Cosmic Pizza of Life

Sometimes I think life might just be one great big video game that we are playing in some cosmic pizza parlor. And when we finally die all it will mean is that your pizza is ready.
Today is my last day of being 55. I've loved my 50's so far. I'll happily take the worries of high cholesterol, wrinkles and retirement over the worries of my forties when my children were teenagers and careening all over the freeways with immature driving skills, riding rough shod through the house in stampeding herds and wreaking havoc on the thin struts of our rather weak financial structure.
Things were jumbled up in my life then. Each day resembled a Jackson Pollock painting in that I knew there was a lot going on but I just couldn't quite figure out what.
In my forties, I couldn't remember my exact age. I was lost in a sea of 4's and 1 - 9's. Was I 45 or 46? 44? 48 maybe? The numbers of that decade whirled by like the scenery viewed from a Tilt-a-Whirl. I didn't really care. What's the difference to anyone if you are 45 or 46? What did it matter to me?
The question of my age only came up during physical exams. When doctors asked me how old I was I'd try to subtract the current year from my birth year to come up with some sort of reasonable answer. This would annoy doctors greatly, and they would invariably end up waving away the question as though it were rhetorical anyway.
In those years, I was a woman without a quiet place to sit. I was a woman without a can of soda to her name no matter how many cases of Pepsi I'd buy and hide (unsuccessfully) all over the house. I was a woman who stole her life in moments between calm waters and teenage tidal waves of trouble.
And once the tide came in? I was just so much seaweed washed up on a crowded shore, responsible for all the other seaweed and, me, having never spent much time at the beach.
Invisibility was my primary identity then. An accurate portrait of me would have been titled, Find the Mom in the Hidden Picture. And if you looked closely, you could make me out behind the wheel of a Dodge Caravan. The one I'd drive from block to block to block, sometimes picking kids up; sometimes dropping them off, until I'd get to the end of town, turn around and do it all over again. I was Sisyphus retooled for the 21st century.
It wasn't all bad, of course. I remember lots of laughter and lots of tears and then lost of laughter again. Plenty of crazy and sometimes horrifying things happened. But I'm happy to report I successfully made the precarious journey from being a person to being a mom and back to being a person again (at least most of the time) and lived to tell the tale.
So I love this last day of being 55. I have less stress and more money. I know how old I am without having to subtract. And if I were to open my fridge this very minute, there would be a can of Pepsi waiting there—just for me.
And when the number for my cosmic pizza is called? I just may put another quarter in the Video Game of Life.

Blog with Linda! ~ Read her thoughts on "My Empty Nest" at www.OverTheGardenFence.com
Linda has joined the lineup of ejoyable programming at LadybugLive.com. Listen to "Shut the Hell Up Girlfriend." And, did you know: Linda Vernona was a Grand Prize Winner of Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest.

Read this feature from past issues.

THIS MONTH:

Poetry Corner

This was so apropos that we decided to repeat this poetry section from November 2000 LadybugFlights

Canvassing for Equal Rights in Massachusetts, Summer 1982
1. The Beginning Screen door. What keeps anyone safe in these houses? Houseflies come and go as they please. The dog sleeps on the welcome mat. You step carefully over a pair of sneakers flung on the porch. In the kitchen, there is an argument that has been going on at intervals over years. An occasional raised voice reaches you. You have no idea how long it's been since the last caller. The latch is broken, Someone has just left, or someone has just gone in. 2. Peabody, Mass. June Crossing wide lawns, late evening, I slip from house to house through gates and out back fences to the next darkened yard and the next. A woman looks out from her doorway, exhaling smoke. 3. Another night in Peabody I know Forenza. Everyone on Forenza is anti-E.R.A. or anti sudden visitors with clipboards asking for money and talking fast in the gritty hours of hot afternoons. Meade and Grant were worse: the no's cracked like fly swats every door Look, we got trouble here you want money for what? well, I'm not for it. And on Lake: I don't sign at the door and anyway we're having supper and payday's tomorrow and my husband's out of town and I'm out of work and you got something, maybe, I can read? and oh, this is for the wives and I guess I'm for equal rights all right but I really don't think much about it well, all right I'll sign but I can't give you money or would a dollar be enough I expected better from Lindauer but nobody was home the whole street except the kids and some dogs. On Winona, my luck turned. A woman on a ladder scraping away old paint called down "I own this house with Nancy. We gutted the whole inside ourselves and are repairing the roof. The men in the neighborhood say 'watch yourselves up there -that's a hard job' They're not accustomed to us women on ladders this being a pretty traditional town." She scrambled down to write me a twenty dollar check. I had no problems after that, even though I'd left my street map in her yard. I wound my way down Winona at dusk past the train tracks and the lake collected over a hundred in that last hour alone my last night in Peabody. 4. Groton Dropped off at a roadside near woods and ponds full of green July, I watch the car pull away tires grinding on gravel. Alone, at the top of a hill I begin where two peacocks cast blue shadows on a rust red pickup truck. A farmhouse there, ramshackle, no one home Continue downhill on St. Martin Road, tramp two miles of dust and weeds the steamy hum of cicadas till I come to the first house. Face cracked in a smile old woman comes to the door. "oh I am too old to care 'bout politics but I hope we see you again, dearie." What do you want? I'm old I'm blind I can't come to the door I like my life it's been a good one those mannish women don't want the men to open doors and give up their seats on the bus for me my wife she don't want to come to the door says she's not innerested in equal rights and that's her free choice honey Equal rights? damned if I pay him alimony that's what you people want oh yes it is Equal rights? I enjoy being a lady don't want to give it up and why should I? Maybe my daughter's for equal rights she goes in for that type of thing but she don't live here Equal rights? let me get my wife Equal rights- wait she's in the kitchen hey you wanna talk to this gal at the door 'bout womens' rights sorry she's busy the women are taking the mens jobs away equal pay's all right I guess if they can do the job but they don't want to go up on ladders then they get pregnant and quit on you I'm for some of the E.R.A. but I think those women have gone too far. I sleep, and dream of a doorstep again the rattle of my voice in the wind of doors opening and shutting again I am not here to dream there is something I came for.
Rivkah Lapidus

I wrote these impressions in the summer of 1982, when I had a job as a door-to-door canvasser for the National Womens' Political Caucus. It was early in the Reagan era, and late in the fight for an ERA. I remember the profound sense of isolation I felt as a young activist encountering men and women as I approached their suburban homes.
I live in Somerville, Massachusetts and am the mother of two girls. I am a psychotherapist and am also a visual artist. You can find out more and see my art work at www.rivkahlapidus.com. These poems commemorate a particular phase of my life. (And the ERA never did pass).

Read this feature from past issues.

The First in a Series on Relationships:
Keeping the Juice


Hear the rest at LadybugLive.com

We are serializing Flying Lessons for Butterflies by Sheila Whitman. Sheila Whitman is a Professional Counselor and Life Coach, with a private practice in CT. She has done agency counseling with pregnant and postpartum women, and coordinated a residence for women and children in a domestic violence program. Sheila strives to nurture the potential of her clients, and understands that past or current abuse is incredibly detrimental to this goal of self-actualization. The lessons contained in this book invite the reader to challenge old beliefs, and make concrete changes in self-esteem and creative risk taking. Emphasis is on strategies for altering perceptions and behaviors that may have been distorted during childhood, and the development of a healthy integration of mind, body, and soul. The underlying message is that every individual has great value and can eventually soar to discover his or her best self. Sheila completed her B.S. at Temple University and M.S. at Southern CT State University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Connecticut and a Registered Professional Counselor in California.
Information about Sheila Whitman's counseling and life coaching can be found on the web site http://www.counselorlifecoach.com/.



Flying Lessons For BUTTERFLIES
How to free yourself from the effects of abuse

Chapter 2
PHYSICAL ABUSE

Lesson 4 - Relationship abuse
The reader should understand that, while the author's references often are made to female victims of abuse, it occurs in the lives of men, as well, with partners of either gender. Simply put, the mistreatment of women by men is more frequent, but that does not dilute the suffering of men in similar circumstances. In truth, it can be more difficult for male victims, because of cultural stereotypes, and if a man's abuser is a male partner, there are limited venues where compassion and assistance can be found.
Relationship abuse is one of the most difficult things to face. Often, we deny that it is happening or downplay its severity: being pushed seems better than being hit, and that's superior to being attacked with a weapon. Verbal abuse seems tame compared to any of these. Abuse in a marriage feels like a failure and a loss. Who would have believed that love would evolve into pain and fear?
The dynamics of relationship abuse abound with contradictory messages. For example, an individual may be accused of being promiscuous, then on another occasion, be told that no one could possibly be attracted to her. Often she is forbidden to see or speak with friends or family, and without their input, she can lose perspective and begin to believe that she deserves the blame and criticism. Battering of the self-concept often precedes escalation to physical abuse, and in many relationships it is the victimization. Destruction of self-esteem may feature harsh judgment, ridicule, and sarcasm. There may be rigid rules concerning when and where the person may travel, with whom he/she can speak, and how to run the home. This may be accompanied by accusations and twisted interpretations of words and actions.
Control is inherent, and with each attack the abuser's power grows, in parallel with the victim's disempowerment. There may be efforts to prevent the inevitable next incident, but this is a no-win situation. The nature of abuse overrides any efforts to reign it in, and the victim's abilities, ideas, appearance, and spirit are devalued, regardless of any efforts to change things.
People who are abused spend a lot of energy trying to keep peace; however, the cycle of abuse is not within their control. It follows a predictable pattern of gradual escalation to an explosive incident, which may lead the victim to thoughts of leaving. Generally, this is followed with apologies, affection, gifts, and promises that it will never happen again. In many cases, he or she relents, hoping that a loving and peaceful life is possible. This is called the honeymoon phase. Gradually, escalating abuse creeps back in, another crisis occurs, and the cycle repeats itself. This sequence is outlined Lesson 8 of this chapter.
Relationship abuse is a challenge, because it is embedded in circumstances that originated with love, attraction, and the hope that your partner could make your life complete. There was a bond or appeal that connected you to that individual and your dreams for a loving future. It is a great loss to let go of those memories and expectations, even if they have been replaced by pain. Many times, even in an abusive relationship, you will catch glimpses of that former lover, and this is strikingly reinforced during the honeymoon phase.

Lesson 5 - How do you know if you are in an abusive relationship, now?
The following is a brief questionnaire, which can help you evaluate your situation. It is not an exhaustive list, but does touch on several behaviors that occur in abusive relationships.
Yes or No:
__________Does my partner ridicule, shame, and blame me?
__________Has my partner destroyed my possessions?
__________Have I been physically hurt by him or her?
__________Am I accused of causing these abuses, or told that I am                     overreacting, distorting, or lying?
__________Do I try to control the home environment and children, in                     an attempt to prevent partner's anger?
__________Does my partner control or forbid my phone calls, trips                     outside the home, contact with friends, or use of money?
__________Does my partner threaten to harm people who help me?
__________Does my partner threaten to take the children and/or our                     assets if I leave?

If you have answered Yes to any of these questions, you may want to reevaluate your feelings of self-blame, and notice whether it is your partner who initiates the arguments. It is a good time to find people who will listen to your feelings and help you decide what to do next. No one deserves to be demeaned, limited, isolated, or physically battered, and no one has the right to control another. And that includes you!

Next month: Lesson 6 - Assess the warning signs for current or impending abuse

To order Flying Lessons for Butterflies: How to free yourself from the effects of abuse:
Contact the author at 203-910-4279 or WhitmanLPC@aol.com

OR

Get information on Domestic violence and violence against women at LadybugBooks.com
We invite any of you to contribute on this subject. We feel it is important to continue the discussion of domestic violence.
Read this feature from past issues.

Exceptional Women are Our History and Our Future:

Read this feature from past issues.

A little bit in writing about what's happening at
LadybugLive.com, MooseMeals.com, and TeenTalkNetwork.com

Serious and Entertaining
We have it all
News this Month:

I am talking with several new hosts who will premier this Spring, so wait for the news!

Dr. Jeanette Just Keeps Getting Better
Last year we did one of our special programs, where one of our hosts works with another, and combined Dr. Doris Jeanette with teen host Rae Quigley to talk about successfully dealing with the stresses of testing, and passing those tests. It was an excellent teaming and both of them have not only regularly mentioned the shows they did together, but have done more. This time, Dr. Jeanette has teamed up with Rae for a discussion of parenting issues and Brittany Spears "train wreck".
That show was a follow-up to Dr. Jeanette's interview with Dr. Beth Halbert discussing:

What Britney Spears needed and didn't get!
What parents need and don't get.
What everyone needs and few get.

Teenagers face a wide variety of challenges every day. And because they do, so do their parents. In order to be able to handle these and other difficult issues, teens and parents need the proper tools, support and information. Dr. Beth, founder of Compassionate Parenting, offers programs and tools to connect with your child and easily create a healthy, loving relationship-accepting yourself just as you are. We have put a shortcut to that show below.

Dr. Beth Halbert



Reminders from LadybugPress and NewVoices.com

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If you are a writer and would like to become a NewVoices author or artist, contact:
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Please use the subject title: NewVoices Information

     It's Not Your Same Old Radio!

"There are people who have something to say and those who have something to sell. We are interested in the ones with something special to teach the world."

For LadybugLive, TeenTalkNetwork, and MooseMeals to continue growing, we need correspondents and readers. The process is quite simple: submissions are by email. If accepted, a reader calls, either our local or our toll free number as directed in the acceptance email, to record. What will you be recording?
We are looking for: readings of original creative work, comment and commentary, and ideas for regularly appearing programming that can be done within this format. We are not able, as yet, to do direct call in shows, but shows that require listener (delayed) response are OK. All of this, of course, within the same guidelines as everything we do: Of interest to women (no particular restrictions). This format might also be ideal for some of those traditional topics, such as clothing and makeup, with a fresh "twist."

Send ideas and proposals to Georgia@ladybugbooks.com
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Read this feature from past issues.

Investing in Women and Girls

UN-gendering the Global Agenda

This International Women's Week celebration will have an intense focus on financing for gender equality. It is an occasion to review how far women have come in their struggle for equality and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize in support of meaningful change.

Women's Week is a time for current and aspiring leaders and investors in high-growth companies to develop networks in order to support each other and reach out to women who are starting businesses and careers. The focus will be the offering of programs for education, networking, mentoring, and exposure to investment resources.

What is the market for women entrepreneurs?

The market is good for women entrepreneur's ideas. Census data show that the number of women-owned businesses and the revenue from them has increased faster than the number of all businesses combined. Women-owned businesses are less likely to fail. Despite these facts finding money to back a woman-owned business is a problem. One that includes two kinds of investments: seed and venture capital (VC).

Seed, or "angel" money is an amount of money, occasionally several hundred thousand dollars, needed to get a business off the ground (early stage money). "Angels" typically don't publicize their investments. Venture capital provides more money to take a promising business further down the road. Both angel and VC money are in short supply when it comes to women-owned businesses. However, there is a lot of money out there for women, just not a lot of early stage money.

A national report includes data that details the numbers. The 2004 report, from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, states:

The venture capital industry is "overwhelmingly male".

The turnover rate is high. Two-thirds of the female VCs listed in 1995 had left by 2000, compared with one-third of the men.

Investors often make decisions based on who they know, and most of those people have been men.

The result is that less than 5 percent of venture capital investments have historically gone to women, according to the report.

The consequences for women entrepreneurs can be significant: either they turn to more expensive funding sources, or slow down their plans. The ability of men to raise capital directly relates to the disproportionate growth and success of male owned businesses Women have an extra hurdle to clear. It's deal-flow, it's who you know. Women have a harder time getting introductions.

At the national level, five-year-old Springboard Enterprises, a nonprofit organization helping women access private equity markets, has had considerable success. Springboard, which claims to have 4,000 investors and $3 billion in capital, has held 14 forums across the country at which 320 women entrepreneurs presented their pitches. Four Springboard companies have gone public, according to the organization's website.

Two new funds for women are in the works

The following are excerpts from recent articles in midwest newspapers.

Women Angels of Milwaukee, headed by Milwaukee attorney Barbara Boxer, plans to invest only in women-owned businesses in Wisconsin and perhaps beyond. It is an "informal investment group of 19 women," Boxer said. Investors must be "qualified," meaning that they have an annual income of $200,000 or net assets of at least $1 million, which can be held jointly with a spouse, she added. "Women Angels is currently considering several investments, which will range from $250,000 to $2.5 million", Boxer said.

Lauren Flanagan is also forming a private women's angel investment group, Phenomenelle Angels Fund I, to invest in women or minority owned or managed businesses in the Midwest. Membership will be limited primarily to women who are accredited investors as well as select entities, foundations and institutional investors. "What we're trying to offer to women-led companies is, if you had a choice, wouldn't you rather have successful women as investors?" Flanagan said. The money is there. In the past, women have tended to give their wealth to charity instead of thinking of it as investments. There are a huge number of women with money.

The dichotomy in wealth held by women and their willingness to invest

Reports show that women hold roughly 50 percent of the nation's wealth, they do only about 8 percent of the venture investing. If women invested at the same rate as men, there would be plenty of early-stage capital in the market. One explanation for that, according to the latest research, is there are very few women investors with the necessary expertise and experience to be effective sources of angel capital.

On the other hand , women angels may encounter barriers to quality investment opportunities compared to their male counterparts, and because of this they decide to participate in the market at a substantially lower rate than men. Men have an advantage in making contacts at investment funds, so the “good old boy” network explains some of the disparity.

Gender comfort

One of the reasons funds like the Phenomenelle Angels have been established is the belief that entrepreneurs would rather look for angel funding from angel investors of the same sex. Women-owned businesses are more likely to submit proposals to women angels. Increasing the supply of women angels has encouraged a greater number of women-owned business deals to investors, and greater participation of women entrepreneurs in the high-growth, high-return industries typically financed by private equity.

So far, the Phenomenelle Angels Fund has raised $3 million, with the ultimate goal of raising $10 million. The fund has two companies in its investment portfolio - IDC, an accounting software firm, and TrafficCast International, a global provider of digital traffic data, for a combined total of $1.3 million in committed capital. In addition, it soon plans to invest in a third company, and four or five additional investments are under active consideration.

A silver lining

Reports documenting investment results show that although women seek angel financing at rates substantially lower than those of men, they appear to have an equal probability of receiving investment financing. Studies found no significant difference in the rates at which women-owned businesses are funded (13.33 percent) compared to male-owned businesses (14.79 percent). This raises the important question as to whether the low rate of women-owned businesses receiving angel capital funding indicates a low request rate.

There are a lack of contacts for women in predominantly male angel networks, but it does not seem to be fear that prevents women entrepreneurs from seeking angel capital from male investors. Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs. In some cases women entrepreneurs receive funding from female or other investors that operate outside of organized angel groups, or prefer to invest as individuals.

Research pattern

Another report asks the question "Do women-owned businesses have equal access to angel capital.”

So far, the evidence they have gathered suggests that women-owned businesses and male-owned businesses must offer similar amounts of equity in return for an investment. However, more detailed research on deal-level data is needed to provide more insight into whether there are differences in the conditions under which investments are made to male-owned businesses and female-owned businesses.

Field Trips

The Story of Women and the United Nations

Happy Trails,

B.S.

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Books, Cooks, Looks & Ms. Elani

Dear Friends and Readers,
An Underground for scores of Jews or any Russian that looked Jewish.
The Zookeepers Wife
by Diane Ackerman
ISBN 9780393061727

For many a trip to the zoo is a pleasant memory of their childhood. Every country has zoos that are known to tourists as shining examples of the way animals should best be housed. The Warsaw Zoo, known throughout Poland, was designed to rival any in Europe, especially Germany. In 1929 Jan and Antonina Zabinska took over the zoo with the hope of spending the rest of their lives among the animals.
In Diane Ackerman's The Zookeepers Wife, the zoo becomes the backdrop for what happens in Warsaw between 1939 and 1945. The Nazi Party had plans to cleanse the city of Jews and develop an Aryan society. By chance Lutz Heck, a member of the Nazi Party, was overseer of the Berlin Zoo and a big game hunter. He befriended the Zabinski's as he needed their animals to help him resurrect Neolithin horses (known as topans, aurochsa and 'forest' bisons), experimenting with the European bison to once again have pure breed bisons. He soon either removed all the animals in the Warsaw zoo to places where he could use them for his experiments or had them killed in big game hunts.
With no animals to care for the zoo became an Underground for scores of Jews or any Russian that looked Jewish. Blond haired, fair featured were the traits prized. Those not having these characteristics needed a temporary home before moving on, or in the case of some, a place to live. During this time Jan was a Home Army Lieutenant and convinced Heck that with the cages in the zoo he had a perfect place to start a pig farm to help feed the German troops. He succeeded and thus opened the door for most who stayed to 'hide among the enemy' and do the mundane jobs needed to run a pig farm.
This riveting tale brings into play Jan, who took daily risks getting and giving messages, Antonina, the organizer of the many people who lived in the Villa that housed the zoo and their son, Ryszard who learned early that secrets were necessary. These three, along with countless others, made "The House Under a Crazy Star' a safety net for hundreds and The Zookeepers Wife a jewel for us to read.

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YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE

A Two Party System

There is a lot of talk about the primaries and about the "popular vote". Before we can talk about why that is in quotation marks, it is necessary to understand what political parties are and what they are not.
There have been two main political parties throughout most of the history of the United States. The first parties were the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, not the Democrats and Republicans. The existence of parties has become a tradition and the freedom to create new political parties is part of this system. While we talk about our two-party-system, two is not a fixed or, necessarily, perfect number, though no third party has been able to gain the support they need to develop past a single issue or a single election, and most voters believe their vote will count only when it is used for one of the two major parties. This attitude slows the development of new parties, but also forces change within the existing parties. Even if no third party exists, one can arise at any time there is strong enough support for a point of view, a candidate or an issue to establish one. That threat forces attention to voter concerns by political bosses whose main interest is always the accumulation of power rather than the advocacy of any point of view.
The earliest political parties developed because of polarized views on how the new government was to be organized. The Federalists believed in a strong central government and the ratification of the Constitution. They also supported industrialization, a national bank, and government aid to build roads and canals. The Anti-Federalists, who eventually evolved into the Democratic-Republican Party, held the opposite views. Views developed into what we call "platforms" today and the parties themselves changed and evolved over time.
The one element that may not be clear in this development is that political parties are independent organizations, not government entities. Their structure is individual to each organization, though both include a series of state chapters with separate, and in some ways, independent organizations. The rules, bylaws, and management structure of each party is established by the party leadership and is regularly changed to meet the challenges of the political and legal landscape. Thus, a "popular vote" as such is only meaningful to the degree that the Party has chosen to make it important to its internal structure, and you and I seldom have ready access to that information. Political parties are privately funded through contributions which are regulated by Federal Laws.
The Democratic National Committee has set up a particularly arcane method of allocating "delegates". Delegates are, most of us suppose, those who will carry our intentions as reflected by our votes to the top level of Party decision makers. It happens that way but only more or less. The Parties are still incubators for political power and much more power brokering goes on behind the scenes than the illusion of popular votes would lead us to believe.
Some of us recall party conventions where delegate brokering happened right up to the final minutes before the votes were cast—and multiple votes on the convention floor. Some of this happens because of committed delegates who are promised to candidates who later drop out, some because not all states require that a delegate vote for the candidate who was the popular choice or that all of their delegates vote together, as a block. How a delegate votes is an area where state and national party authority overlaps and conflicts can occur. In fact, the state and national authorities can sometimes come to figurative blows on issues of authority over everything from delegate selection to the timing of the primaries, as we saw in Florida and Michigan where the disagreements became very public this year. It is not yet clear what will happen to those delegates.
The Federal government has limited control or involvement with political parties: They must comply with certain rules of disclosure and finance, but their structure and their goals are not part of this oversight. State governments, on the other hand, have a somewhat larger role in the process because the primary elections are held within the legal structure of state governments. Once again, though, their structure and goals are not part of this oversight. That is appropriate if you consider the effect any broader control by a government agency would have on the freedom to put forward ideas and candidates.
Still, this necessary freedom gives political parties, especially the organizers and officers, unelected and unfiltered political power of an extraordinary nature. Most of us do not think of party power between elections but they are active full time and much of what goes on in Congress, in state and in local politics is negotiated or orchestrated by these, almost invisible, political bosses.
It is important to watch for the strong arm of those bosses and the manipulation of politics to favor the Party overview of success which does not always rest on the ideals put forth in the platform but is often more focused on the survival and growth of the Party itself.

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From the EDITOR

It Isn't Over 'Til It's Over

This is going to be more personal than usual, but I think most of us are watching what has gone on with the Democratic primaries (and coverage of them) and women all over the country are angry and hurt, and outraged. I know I certainly have been. What I am not upset about, am in fact heartened by, is the number of women who have written to me to express similar feelings to my own.
On Obama, the man: He is a very ordinary man with the singular exception of pigmentation… After the racial question, there is the rest of a very ordinary man, who I will grant you seems to have a rock-star appeal and a nice speaking voice… Are those qualifications for President of the United States these days or do they just appeal to the shallow, appearance is everything, reputation we have gained as a country? I'd say the latter, and since there are real rock-stars and he is likely to have more worth saying in, say, eight years when he has experience, I'd have to once again point out that he is ordinary.
He is male. How ordinary can you get in the corridors of power? He got where he is thanks to political cronyism but he claims to be an outsider—It's been done before, just eight years ago, by the Republicans by the way. He is not a great intellect. Have you noticed how Hillary gives a thoughtful answer to a debate question and he repeats it back to louder applause? (One reporter commented after the last debate: "He hesitated and she jumped in. She schooled him, which is what she should be doing.")
He may or may not be a man of peace, but he is definitely not an activist. I didn't see him in Turkey (where I was for a planned peace conference) at the start of the war. I didn't see him at any candlelight vigil, or risking his present or future employment (which many of us did during Vietnam), or even voting against this war.
He was voting "present" in Illinois when Hillary was sticking her neck out in the Senate, making a hard decision in good faith. Which brings us to the only substantive criticism of her and the further criticism that she might do it again. Why should Hillary be penalized for telling the truth: She can't rule out anything if US interests are at stake and she is president. I can see Obama waving his hands over the 125 million Americans, a conservative estimate of those who would storm the White House, demanding something more substantial than deep breathing if the US were actually attacked.
It is lovely to talk peace. I'm certainly for it. It is better to try alternatives to war (which I have worked for years to encourage and which an open discussion of real alternatives, or the lack of alternatives, sponsors far more than vapid promises) and I suspect that Obama is for alternatives, though I am also certain that Hillary has the experience and intelligence to make the effort viable. I respect the integrity of a politician who will not tell people that she has any unflinching stand in a world where things change faster than we can plan and lives and futures would depend on her decisions.
Which brings us to the latest attack: She favors NAFTA. Perhaps she did. Perhaps she does. But if you want it changed, count on someone who can promise change that is actually viable, not someone with no experience of the negotiation and little basis for promises that NAFTA can just go away.
Where does this complete nonsense about entitlement come from. She has been battered, criticized, showed up for her votes (instead of voting "present") and made hard choices. No one has treated her with kid gloves. The media treated her as an oddity (a whore with nice manners) from the first.
And what about the day to day of the Presidency? Obama voted "present" 123 times in the Illinois legislature, refusing to commit. He chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs (an incredible plum for a first term Senator and more so if we are to believe that he got there without a huge infusion of someone else's power) but admitted the other day, himself and in public, that he had been too busy campaigning for president to accomplish much. What will be his excuse when the office requires hard work and constant focus?
Women respond to Hillary because we know from first hand experience that no matter what anyone says about her she has worked harder, is smarter to begin with and is tougher than any man they can throw at her. She has to be. Most of us have to be and that makes it easy to recognize in others.
And, since I promised a personal perspective, I will say that I have been to that glass ceiling myself and can, as can any who have been there, easily recognize the quick-silver nature of the tools that are used to keep women out. Even enlightened men who would support your cause are blocked, and all without any blatant appearance of such tactics.
At this writing, there is a shift in the coverage taking place. It could even be real and initiated by women's objections. Or maybe it is just a little leg-shaking since the candidate of the media and Party Bosses seems to be undefeatable right now, and boredom is not in their interests. Either way, there is time to send your regards and a little of your best argument to everyone (especially every woman) you know and ask them to pass it on to residents of Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.
And one closing note: Thank someone behind the scenes with strong determination for stopping the hoopla about an Obama-Clinton ticket. Still, I imagine Hillary to be a party girl, the kind who will stick by the very Democratic bosses who once more stepped up to words like equality with their strategies to divide and conquer. I will not be voting for her intellect coming out of his mouth. I may not be voting at all, since it seems all too likely that we will continue to be the women behind the great men for the rest of my life anyway and I refuse to vote for that status.

Georgia Jones, Editor

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At LadybugFlights we have always encouraged the participation of our readers. For that reason we have this space, a place where you can be heard. Nothing as formal as an article or a column... Just some venting, self-expression, or a chance to communicate what you are thinking on almost any topic. Send it to us and we will let you know if we can use it!

Frances Sbrocchi has been a regular here, though she has not been very active recently and she sent this note to let us all know that she is still part of Ladybug and still cares about what is happening in here. We appreciate that kind of support from all of you and we thought you might want to see what Fran had to say.

I keep thinking about the longevity of LadybugPress and how you have managed to beat the odds and how grateful I am for the continuing contact over so many years (History is a short term in any Internet world). Do you know anything of Anne Johnson in these days? It was Anne that directed me to you...I just thought I'd spend a moment saying thanks from these days when the word crone is so very real in my life.
Love, Fran

Any reports of Anne Johnson or any of our old friends are always welcome!

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©March 2008 LadybugBooks.com

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