Re: WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

http://rense.com/general83/whywomen.htm - Not sure who the author is.

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE.

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

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

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

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

(Lucy Burns)They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for! r the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis) They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered hisguards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul) When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdfSo, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. Do I need a reminder?

(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York)All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But theactual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing,but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order. (Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl[ace] [Washington, D.C.]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.' Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.

(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.")History is being made.

Why cant I meditate lately?

I Had a trying weekend. I had headed up to my parents ranch. Everyone was doing their own thing, so after lunch I went upstairs to listen to a new meditation CD that I just got. I really loved it, as the guy is from Scotland. http://www.wildmind.org/about/about-bodhipaksa
Basically another Celtic Buddhist. So, I was in my room, all blissed out from my new CD and my older brother arrives with his demon dogs that sit right below my window and whine and howl. Fuck! Its impossible for me to tune that ruccus out. I gave up on relaxing and went back down stairs to join the fray.
I still love Bodhipaksa and plan to buy all of his CD's.

Yesterday, My younger brother, wife and little Paul and I all set off to go to Red Feather for a hike and to see the great Stupa. On our hike a storm crashed in and we had to run for the car. Lightning crashed near us and I screamed like a girl. Not so relaxing. We got to the Shambala center during a lot of rain and a crabby toddler. We didnt dare go into the quiet of the stupa.

Later that afternoon I got about 20 minutes of reading in before little Paul found where I was hiding. He is fun, but exhausting. So, I packed up at 5pm to say I was heading home. I drove half the way out to the highway and was so bummed that my weekend was all so hectic. I started laughing thinking about you telling me "shame on you" for not taking care of myself. So, I drove my care off the dirt road and drove over the prairie off to a big pile of rocks. I ended up hiking and taking photos for about an hour and a half. I was exhausted and knew that no one knew where I was, so if I fell off the rocks and broke my humpty dumpty self, there would be now all the kings men to find me and try to put me together again. But I was soooo much happier that I finally had gotten some time to myself out in the wild.

Today is exhausting at work, but I have a massage appointment tonight with a new gal - Carol McDaniel.

Hopefully my week will be ok, or at least if I do end up getting called for Jury duty on Wednesday, I wont be so crabby.