Entries Tagged 'Politics & Legislation' ↓

“For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

— Michelle Obama, March 2008

image of Occupy Wall Street Demonstration: abcnews.com

image of students being maced at University of Tennessee OWS protest: abcnews.com

Image of OWS arrest: wsjonline.com

How about now Michelle? 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”

— The Constitution of the United States of America

Share and Enjoy

Mitt Romney is the front runner for the Republican nomination for president in the 2012 elections, by many accounts. That is, if some Christian pastors don’t convince their congregations that it’s unacceptable to vote for a Mormon and persist in perpetuating fictions about the Mormon faith.

I, personally, know quite a bit about the Mormon faith. Though I am not a practicing Mormon, having left the church as a teenager, my entire family is Mormon and I grew up in the faith. Allow me to clear up some common misconceptions about being Mormon, as we focus on Romney’s campaign:

• Mormons do not practice polygamy. They did practice polygamy prior to Utah becoming a state in 1896.  The federal government required Utah to include a ban on polygamy in its state constitution in order to become part of the union, which had the effect of breaking up families, with husbands abandoning wives and children en masse.  Many Mormons felt this was unfair, wrong and immoral. These people broke off from the Mormon church and created their own factions that are not associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today.  They are the ones who practice polygamy today. Watch Sister Wives on TLC for a modern-day picture of polygamy. Other people who practiced polygamy?  Abraham and pretty much everyone else in the Bible.
• Mormons ARE Christians. The church is titled The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - note theJesus Christ part of the title. The first Article of Faith, one of the primary beliefs of the Mormon religion, is “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” Which, as you can see is nearly identical to many Christian faiths belief in the Godhead.
• Mormons believe in an Eternal Family. Mormons are exceptional parents and the foundation of their lifestyle is the family. Like Catholics, Mormons tend to have a lot of children. Not so much because they have to, but because they like to. The family is the center of their lives. They focus on their families in an obsessive sort of way that is really very beautiful. Displayed in the living rooms of my grandmothers, my mother and many Mormons I know is the saying, “No success in life can compensate for failure in the home.”  
• Mormons believe in, and use, various forms of birth control. They are instructed to have only as many children as they can emotionally and financially care for.
• Mormons believe in modern-day prophets, rather like the Pope. It is usually a kind elderly man who has been in the LDS administration for many years. They believe he is ordained and called of God. They believe that there are Holy Men that live today and speak to their members about what God wants of them. Their members follow righteously. When one of them dies, another is called of God.
• Mormons believe, like many religions, that God speaks to people through the Holy Spirit. They believe the Holy Spirit guides their actions, keeping them safe, directing them in the ways they should go.
• Mormonism is a completely volunteer religion. Bishops (equivalent to Pastors), Youth Leaders, Finance Advisors, nursery workers, everyone is a volunteer. No one gets paid for their service. They also do not get to choose their jobs. They are “called” by God to serve where they are needed and they comply. These jobs are temporary, usually for a year or several.
• Mormons contribute billions of dollars to international and national Aid. They donate money, food, clothing and medicine around the world. They do it because service is a foundation of their religion. Women make quilts for infants, maxi pads for girls and women, hats and many other things. Once a month on Sundays Mormons fast and the money they would have spent on food, they donate to the poor.
• Mormons do have a gender-divide like many Christian religions. However, they also have a history of gender-equality. Prior to obtaining statehood, women had the right to vote in Utah. This too, was outlawed by the federal government when they became a state.
• Mothers generally are encouraged to stay at home with their children. This is considered right and good, not because they are not considered smart enough to compete in the marketplace, but because of the vital importance they place on children and the family. Women pursue the raising of their children with an equivalent ambition to any woman’s profession.
• Mormons, including Mormon women, are highly educated. They achieve university degrees in order to better educate their children and to provide for their families should their husbands become unemployed or in case they are widowed or if they choose to work outside the home or become work-at-home-mothers and many do.
• Mormons have a long history of serving in the military. My grandfather, father, sister-in-law, cousins and brother have had careers in military service.
• Mormons have a strict code of accountability. Mormons believe in tithing, church attendance, moral conduct, healthy behavior, kindness to others, and fiscal responsibility. They are accountable both to the church and to each other.
• Mormons wear special underwear. However, as I pointed out to my non-Mormon husband, his white undershirt and boxer-briefs are nearly identical, save the all-white color, to what Mormon men wear. If  you wear Spanx or any type of shapewear, your special underwear is far more confining and restrictive than the loose, breathable white cotton or polyester undergarments Mormon women wear. These garments serve to keep Mormons modest, as well as having other special religious meaning to them.
• Mormons never, ever give up on each other. You can leave the church and 50 years later they will still ask you to come back.
• Mormons take care of their own. If a Mormon is out of work or going through a poverty spell they are supplied with food, money, clothing, employment, counseling services and anything else they might need.
• Mormons are not a cult. Any religion made up of millions of people can’t be considered a cult. They are extraordinarily organized. Not given to whimsy.
• Mormons believe in self-sufficiency. If you were in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina you’d have wanted to find some Mormons. As a tenet of the religion they are advised to keep a storage of food, water and money. They keep survival tools, as well as items to cook, keep warm, travel, and hunt with. They keep 72 hour survival kits. They are extremely active in Boy Scouts. It is common sense. They also believe in the Last Days and intend to survive them, which motivates this tenet.
• Mormons believe in niceness and politeness. Really, you’re not going to find nicer neighbors, nicer people to work with, kinder friends. If you have a baby, Mormons will bring you meals for two weeks. If someone dies, same thing. If you have sickness in your family, you will have help.
• Mormons are evangelical, meaning they are encouraged to serve Missions and convert others.They believe they have the Truth and they want everyone to have it too. Boys of 19 and girls of 21 (because older girls rarely date younger boys) are encouraged to go around the world, learning another language, spreading the word of God. Only young adults who have lived under the strictest of moral conduct are eligible to go and those who do go are encouraged to pay for it themselves. It is a great sacrifice. They put off college for two years to do it. It is a great coming of age experience, a great time of growth and very difficult for some. Retired adults are also encouraged to participate in this experience.
• Mormons hate for people to go to hell. They have three Kingdoms of Heaven to prevent this from happening. The Celestial Kingdom is for those who have lived Holy, Eternal Marriages and kept their Covenants to God; the Telestial is for those who have been Holy but, have not accepted the Mormon faith – even after death; and the Terrestial for those who have been murderers and terrible sinners; Outer Darkness, Mormon’s version of Hell, is reserved only for those who, after death, having been given the chance to accept the truth of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior still choose to reject it. It is one of the most compassionate versions of salvation I’ve ever heard of. Everyone gets a chance after death. They baptize people by proxy after death to account for all of those who were born before Jesus came to earth and those who never had the chance to accept or hear of Jesus during this life.
• Mormons believe in the Bible as the Word of God. They also believe in the Constitution as inspired by God. They also believe in the Book of Mormon as the Word of God. I, personally, believe all inspiration comes from God — thus, the Holy Spirit.

If you’re not going to vote for Mitt Romney, that’s fine. I’m a Democrat, so I most likely will not. But don’t not vote for him because you’re ignorant about Mormons.

Share and Enjoy

Time Magazine has an article about the money sucking, drastically bad investment that many college degrees are becoming in this country and it’s making me rethink my attitude about my kids getting a college education.

Our parental attitude is this: GET A COLLEGE DEGREE!!!!!

Debt Burden

My student loans are our biggest debt burden. I owe about $60,000, having originally borrowed $15,000. I made a crucial mistake — having fielded repeated, harassing calls from solicitors insisting I consolidate my student loans, I accidentally consolidated one measly $1,000 unsubsidized loan with my subsidized loans, causing them ALL to be unsubsidized at a 9.5 percent interest rate, until they finally put a cap on interest at eight percent (after the scoundrels had already racked up a good $30,000 off me) — which has cost me about $40,000 in interest over the last 15 years. It’s the single, most crucial, dumbest financial mistake of my entire life. Once again, I have to thank College Algebra for being utterly useless and wonder why they don’t require Practical Life Math in universities.

Yet, Time’s article I Owe U made me feel like a lucky freakin’ genius!

Students will take out $1 trillion in debt this year. ONE TRILLION DOLLARS! And many of these college graduates can’t get jobs. Or they are resorting to jobs in the service and hospitality industry that they could have gotten without a college degree.

The article, which obviously cited extreme cases that make for good stories, but still, real stories, mentions liberal arts majors graduating with debts of $125,000. It talks about kids who were awarded full-ride scholarships to state schools and turning them down because they got into Ivy League brand name schools, even though they were out $55,000 a year that they didn’t have and then majoring in philosophy or poetry — it reminds me of high school kids who work at McDonalds buying Gucci purses and Fendi Sunglasses. It sites one dude who got a masters degree in multi-media design for a whopping $120,000 (by the way a friend of mine has his own multi-media design shop, makes a decent living of $60,000 a year and doesn’t even have a degree, thus no college debt at all). It sites bullsh!t degrees like “specialized studies” (try selling that on a resume) for $67,000, history degrees for $50,000, and a “global studies candidate” who is about to spend $112,000 for that degree (don’t do it dude — myself, husband and brother essentially all got this degree 15 years ago and we’re all making under $70,000 after 15 years of hard work and we’re scraping by with no where near this debt burden.)

Predatory Lending & Another Bubble

What possesses a bank to loan a POETRY MAJOR $125,000? 

The same thing that possessed that same bank to loan a dental assistant and a computer technician $500,000 on a home worth $200,000.

They knew they would make more money on the penalties and interest than they ever would on a good loan that could be paid back by a solid candidate. They got greedy. They lost their moral compass. They got predatory. They capitalized on the Mythology of College being the Golden Ticket to the American Dream.

And many economists are predicting another bubble blowing up on our already struggling, shaky economy — how can it not? We have an entire generation of Liberal Arts Majors with what amounts to massive mortgages without homes they can live in or sell. Nor, because of bank lobbies and legislation, can a person ever get out from under a student loan. They are not allowed to be written off in a bankruptcy, unlike a home, which you can walk away from and cut your losses. And this is what they have to bring into their adult lives — into marriages and families, into first jobs with starting salaries. If they are lucky enough to score one, that is.

This is one major issue of the Occupy WallStreet Movement. It’s a legitimate question. It’s a legitimate issue. It’s a protest-worthy complaint.

Mythology of College being the Golden Ticket to American Dream

Maybe it’s time to reexamine the Mythology of a College Degree being the Golden Ticket to the American Dream. It used to be that college was the Golden Ticket and if you got good grades, got into a decent, reputable school and worked hard you were essentially guaranteed a good job and a career path in an upwardly mobile direction. Or at least we believed this to be true.

But, even in my generation this hasn’t turned out to be particularly true. As I’ve approached 40 and looked around, I’ve noticed that my peers without college degrees that are in sales, insurance and for a long time real estate and construction are doing far better than I with my gig as a journalist in a profession struggling to hang onto itself in the face of the digital revolution. My friends who have two-year trade degrees in medical fields are making far more money, with far more job security than I am. My friends who work in industrial fields, electricians, auto mechanics, specialized laborers, tend to get laid off more frequently (which they treat as extended vacations on workman’s compensation), but when they work they make quite a bit more money.

Then we have the reality that President Obama is challenging America to produce more college graduates. But, we don’t have enough jobs, as the Time article points out, for the college graduates we currently have. The article then states that what we’re really flooded with is a bunch of unemployable Liberal Arts majors and we’re sorely lacking in Science, Technology, Information and Medical graduates and we’re forced to hire immigrants or outsource these jobs. We’re not being competitive in the right fields.

The question then becomes, why is the US Government continuing to back Liberal Arts Degrees? Evidently, having a college degree itself is a meaningless debt burden. Having a practical degree with an actual career plan and a real job available at graduation is what’s going to make a student a reasonable candidate to pay back student loans. Why is the Federal Government backing loans it can’t reasonably expect students to be able to pay back?

Reduction in Interest Rates Could Help

The Federal Housing Finance Agency  recently announced that it will allow underwater homeowners to refinance their homes, allowing them to reduce their interest rates from over 6 percent to around 4.1 percent. This could put up to $200 a month back in their pockets, which one hopes will stimulate the economy. (There is a fair bit of skepticism about this, though the idea is a good one and I intend to apply.)

The Obama Administration recently signed a student loan reform bill as part of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, which is supposed to help students of the future avoid some of the problems current and former students are making. But it’s not retroactive and won’t help students who have already taken out a loan, are already in repayment or are delinquent on their loans. This does nothing to help the millions of students who are now walking into their lives burdened with enormous debt, caused in part, by the government giving cart blanche access to students and subsidizing banks while they issue predatory loans to naive teenagers and young adults with no real world experience to enable them to fend of or resist these loan sharks.

The U.S government should seriously consider enacting an interest rate reduction for current loan holders, as they are in the mortgage situation. Student loans are under much stricter regulation than mortgages and can never be written off in a bankruptcy. An entire generation of college graduates are burdened by enormous debt, the likes of which this country has never seen. I can’t see how they’ll ever be able to pay it off and become upwardly mobile. And if student loans really are another economic bubble that’s about to burst, well, one has to wonder just now much our stumbling economy can bare at the moment.

A reduction in interest is the least we can do for perpetuating the myth that college was a sure thing that would ensure their futures. A dream that is quickly turning into a pretty fairytale or an ugly farce.

Tracee Sioux is a freelance writer, the creator of The Girl Revolution and author of Love Distortion: Belle, Battered Codependent and Other Love Stories. Love letters from editors and clients can be found on her Linked In page, like her on on Facebook and follow her onTwitter. 

Share and Enjoy

This is real beauty. You have been blessed. What you see in the mirror is real. Other people will notice you. Beauty is an asset that will provide you with opportunities. Be grateful for it, but realize that it’s not your only asset.

You were also blessed with brains, intelligence, a sense of humor, creativity, a thirst for knowledge, kindness, love, compassion and many other unique gifts. These assets will provide you with more opportunities as you pursue your ambitions and passions. 

Confidence is sexy. Brilliance is sexy. Intelligence is sexy. A sense of humor is sexy. Knowing who you are is sexy. Being comfortable in your own skin is sexy. 

—excerpted from Ainsley, Wonder Years by Tracee Sioux

Evidently, I am the only girl advocate on the Internet who thinks the Self Esteem Act, which is supposedly going to make its way to Congress is a stupid waste of time. The Self Esteem Act is a “truth in advertising act,” a bill attempting to force advertisers to put a tiny little sentence admitting they use Photoshop on photographs in advertising — which is also somehow going to “save girls’ self esteem.” Google it. Everyone is simply head-over-heals crazy in love with this idea. It’s supposedly going to make such an impact on how girls feel about themselves and prevent eating disorders and solve all these body issues that the media causes with their evil ways of making women look too thin and too pretty (and girls are too stupid to be aware of Photoshop you know).

Personally, I think it’s going to cost a great deal of effort and have no impact at all. Let me explain why.

• The government is not responsible for the self esteem of anyone. Period.
• Media, marketing, advertisers and corporations are not responsible for the self esteem of anyone either. Period.
• You and only you are responsible for your own personal self esteem. Your mother is not responsible. Your husband is not responsible. Your boyfriend is not responsible. Your best friend is not responsible. Body Image is the relationship you have with your body and your image in the mirror. Self esteem is the relationship you have with who you are. It is your responsibility alone. If it brings you pain, then you bring your own pain. If it brings you joy, then you bring your own joy. Deal with it, either way.
• Maybe you’ve noticed, but no one in Congress can agree on a single thing. What in the world makes you think they are all going to huddle up and say, “Oh the girls. Yeah, we won’t force corporations to give women equal pay, but let’s force these same corporations to put a tiny disclaimer on their advertising copping to using Photoshop. Why didn’t we think of that Ladies?”
• There are bigger fish to fry in this country right now. In other words, I personally, and a lot of unemployed Americans might agree with me here, believe there are a lot more important issues that Congress should focus on — unemployment and job creation, tax equality, a world economy on the brink of collapse, hundreds of thousands of mortgages that are underwater or in foreclosure, people drowning in debt. You know, things a tad more significant than whether you’re looking in the mirror and saying, “I hate my thighs,” no matter how many times I’ve advised you to stop doing that.
• As Tina Fey says in her brilliant book, Bossy Pants, no one under 80 doesn’t know that advertising is Photoshopped. In fact, tweens and teenagers are better at using Photoshop than Photoshop artists employed by magazines. Why do people presume that kids are idiots who don’t understand computers? They come out of the womb Internet Savy. It is WE who find this shit shocking and have to wrap our brains around it, not them.

There are actually things that DO work that take a lot less effort than trying to get Congress to pass a lame bill that’s never going to make a dent in anyone’s self esteem.

• MOM — Mothers have, and will always have the biggest influence on their daughters. Don’t believe me — try to get your mother’s voice out of your head. I’m 38 and have been unable to accomplish this. If you’re 60 or 80 you have been unable to accomplish this. So, make good use of it. Tell your daughter she’s beautiful. Tell her she’s got a great body.
• If you’re a mother, make peace with your own body and get a self esteem. Nothing, but nothing is going to replace this. Not a bill. Not a law. Nothing. Grow a Self Esteem.
• Make it against the rules to talk badly about your own body. My kid gets in trouble if she calls her brother a name. Likewise, she gets in trouble if she calls herself a name. We don’t call names here. Period. We don’t “feed” negative body talk with a bunch of B.S. sympathy either, “oh poor baby why do you feel badly about yourself?” If it’s something we can fix, we fix it. If it’s not, we tell her it’s perfect the way it is, and that it’s simply not okay to bash yourself. Period.
• Tina Fey, again in Bossy Pants, recommends we embrace Photoshop because it’s here to stay and it’s better than plastic surgery and we should simply add a credit like a photo credit to the work. Photographed by, Tracee Sioux. Photoshopped by, Tracee Sioux. This is free and doesn’t involve Congress and serves exactly the same purpose as the Self Esteem Act.
• Dove’s viral videos, Campaign for Real Beauty were genius. They were targeted to women. They should target some to girls. Publish them where tweens and teens hang out on the Internet.
• If all the non-profit organizations that are gaga for this Self Esteem Act pooled their resources they could make Public Service Announcements informing girls about Photoshop and educate them about self esteem. Run them during iCarly and Gossip Girl, thus reaching their actual target audience. This would actually be effective  instead of wasting their time and energy on something futile.
• Church youth groups, Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls, 4H, and other organizations need to address the issue of healthy body image and will do a better job of it than a tiny sentence on some ads that kids will never read.
• School Boards should make sure healthy body image and media education is in the health class curriculum. Parents and girl advocate groups should make sure School Boards do this. Cause that’s how the system works.
• Parents or grandparents can write their daughters a book or just tell them about beauty and sexiness and Photoshop and what it is and isn’t. Novel concept, I know.

Share and Enjoy

It’s that time of year again. Republicans have introduced a bill that will ban federal funding for abortion procedures and Democrats have gotten all up-in-arms because this will put funding for birth control at risk because they have threatened to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization which supplies millions of women and girls with vital and necessary birth control.

Every year this happens: if there is a sitting Democratic President and a majority Republican Congress, Congress passes the bill and the President vetoes it. If there is a sitting Republican President and a majority Democratic Congress, Congress passes the bill and the President vetoes it. If both the President and Congress are Republican, Planned Parenthood relies on private funding until Democrats come back into power and unwittingly, Republican representatives increase the abortion rate by decreasing access to birth control and driving up the rate of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. If both the President and Congress are Democrat, Planned Parenthood gets its funding, Right-to-Lifers are up-in-arms protesting louder than ever and tend to take to the Supreme Court.

Year after year after year after year. Same story. Year after year after year after year.

And every year, it’s the same tone of outrage and shock on both sides.

I have a proposal that would SOLVE the problem once and for all.

Planned Parenthood should become two separate non-profit family planning organizations.

• One should supply birth control family planning services as it has done since its conception in 1966.
• One should focus on the termination of pregnancy and be completely privately funded.

Share and Enjoy