This issue is very important to ALL of us. Please read to the end - and vote!

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers, as they
lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were granted
the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless. 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."

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head
and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. 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, twist ing
and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at
the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards 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. 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.

So, 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?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie
"Iron Jawed Angels." It is a gra phic depiction of the battle these women
waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my
say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the
actual 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.

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.

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 indepen dent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.

Well, I am definitely doing better right now. Because my good friend, Fiona, told me about it, I wrote myself an abundance check this last new moon. And I believe it is already doing it's magick! I finally started getting outcall clients (woo hoo) who not only paid promptly, but tipped well also! Then, today at work, I didn't have to work as hard as I have been lately - great news for my poor shoulders and arms. All deep tissue and no relaxation make for a sore therapist, I gotta tell ya! Then, to top things off, I got a call from my soon to be 12 year old daughter in Oklahoma, and not only does she know about the trip here in March, she is looking forward to it!! Which means, of course, that her father is NOT going to keep her from coming!! Yaaaay!

I can hardly wait for her to get here - I bought a book that tells all the cool things you can do with kids here in Vegas - and who knew you could actually do something besides gamble here ? ? ? lol

 

 

ANDREAS HELGSTRAND - WEG2006 Freestyle Final

Can you believe it? Yesterday, while sitting at McDonalds with the kids, we first thought it was raining, but really, it was snow!! How could I tell? Well, first off, I am from Washington state, so have seen my fair share of snow. Second, rain does not drift in circles as it comes down.... So, yes! We had snow falling in Vegas yesterday.

Of course, none of it stayed at all, not even for a few minutes. And most of Vegas was totally oblivious. But looking out, I can still see some on the surrounding mountains, and I feel a bit homesick. Sigh. It's too bad I can't even get out to play in it here - it's only about an hour away where it is, but I don't want to take the chance of getting stuck in it, or out there, or anything. My car is great around town, but I am certain it won't like the snow, or ice - brrrrrrrrrrr

Hope you have something exciting to see/do today!!

Blessings

Sandy