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Sunday, February 27
QC Library Patrons Favor Warning Signs About Patriot Act
by
Trish Nelson
on Sun 27 Feb 2005 07:49 AM CST
 QC Library Patrons Favor Warning Signs About Patriot Act
QC Times
By Tory Brecht
Bettendorf public library director Faye Clow faced what she called a
"terrible choice" recently when asked by the Quad-Cities chapter of the
Iowa Civil Liberties Union to put up warning signs near library
materials.
Specifically, the signs would warn about provisions of the USAPatriot
Act that would allow records of books and other materials borrowed by
patrons to be obtained by federal agents and forbidding librarians from
informing the borrowers if their records were being monitored.
"We have people lobbying on the national level against parts of the
Patriot Act," [Clow] said, referring to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.
"I think people should be aware," said Aaron Brinson, a 17-year-old
Pleasant Valley High School student. "They should know what they check
out can be looked at."
...Bettendorf's Dawn McKinney, 40, thinks it's important to raise
awareness. "People in general need to be made aware of how
much access the government has to their lives," she said. "It's a
little disturbing because I don't know who decides what is justifiable
cause to look at materials."
(click here to read the entire story)
 Click here to receive action alerts from Rapid Response - Iowa
Saturday, February 19
Iowa School Board Association Should Join Anti-Bullying Effort
by
Trish Nelson
on Sat 19 Feb 2005 08:28 AM CST
 Iowa School Board Association Should Join Anti-Bullying Effort
contributed by David Leshtz
by Dr. Carolyn E. Cutrona
Ames, Iowa
All
children deserve a safe, high-quality public education, regardless of
whether they are Christian, Muslim, black, white, brown, gay, straight,
girl, boy, fat, skinny, short, tall, rich or poor. Unfortunately,
this is not yet the case for many of our children. Their reality is
filled with words like “faggot,” “dyke,” or “queer” and the constant
stress of verbal and physical harassment, sometimes just for being
friends with a kid who may be gay or lesbian. Some students are
ridiculed for being unable to afford designer clothes; others suffer
from physical appearance attacks such as “pizza-face” or “banana-nose;”
or disabilities (“Retard!”). Painful, painful stuff.
One of
Iowa’s largest and most powerful education associations - the Iowa
Association of School Boards - is resisting its members’ being required
by law to intervene to protect students from all types of harassment.
This organization opposes anti-bullying legislation that would protect
all of Iowa’s children, regardless of gender, race, religion,
disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, physical
attributes, or any other characteristic, from harassment and bullying.
Fortunately
for Iowa’s young people, the Iowa Association of School Boards stands
alone in their opposition as the rest of the education community - the
Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa State Education Association, and
School Administrators of Iowa - have gone on record stating that all
students should be protected from bullying and harassment in their
support for safe school policies, including gay and lesbian youth,
overweight youth, and youth with any other characteristic that may
trigger mistreatment.
A group
of parents, educators and concerned citizens has been working for three
years to encourage education policy makers and the Iowa Legislature to
pass safe school policies. We have approached this as a
non-political, bi-partisan issue, reaching out to both sides of the
political aisle and bringing people together on a value upon which most
Iowans can agree —that all students deserve a safe, high-quality
education. As the mother of two Iowa children, this is a value I
hold close to my heart, as I want my children and their fellow students
to have a safe place in which to learn and grow.
We need
to send a clear and direct message that Iowans believe that all
students should be protected from discrimination, harassment, and
bullying in our schools.
Wednesday, February 16
Pro-Choice Lobby Day at Iowa State House
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 16 Feb 2005 06:42 AM CST
 Pro-Choice Lobby Day at the Iowa State House
Pro-ChoiceAmerica.org
"Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain."
Have
you signed up for Pro-Choice Lobby Day yet? If not, there is
still time to make sure your voice is heard at the Iowa State
House.
Stand up for reproductive rights, women's health, and
choice with NARAL Pro-Choice America in Iowa and other pro-choice
partners at our:
2005 PRO-CHOICE LOBBY DAY
Thursday, February 24
10:00 am - 3:00 pm
We
need every pro-choice Iowan to be a part of this important grassroots
event! It shows our lawmakers that we will not be silent and will
pay close attention to their decisions this legislative session.
Express your support for any number of reproductive health issues
(medically-accurate and age-appropriate sex education, women's access
to the morning-after pill, safe and legal abortion) - and be a voice
for hundreds!
Talking
with your legislators in person is the most powerful tool an activist
has - don't let it go to waste. Sign up today!
**We
also recommend setting up meetings with your legislators beforehand, so
they know you're coming. To find your legislators, click here.
P.S.
We've heard that anti-choice groups are gearing up to introduce new
legislation to further restrict our reproductive rights. Don't
sit this lobby day out!
Click here to tell your friends about this.
Sign up for NARAL Pro-Choice America's Choice Action Network
Rapid Response needs letter-writers, researchers, readers, and media watchers. Join the Rapid Response-Iowa team. Help us take back the media!
Saturday, February 12
WOMEN DESERVE MORE SOCIAL SECURITY, NOT LESS
by
Trish Nelson
on Sat 12 Feb 2005 07:15 AM CST
 WOMEN DESERVE MORE SOCIAL SECURITY, NOT LESS
MinutemanMedia
by Martha Burk
As we all know from
the State of the Union speech, [Bush] is pushing hard - on his own
party as well as the Democrats - to privatize Social Security. While
some of his folks know carving private accounts out of the present
system is a non-starter, they’re still trying to figure a way to please
their [pResident] and still get re-elected next year. Representative Bill
Thomas, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and a heavy-hitter
in the debate, recently floated the idea of "gender and race adjusting”
benefits. Thomas strongly implied that since women live longer than
men, their checks should be reduced so an equivalent amount of money
would stretch over the additional years.
Great.
Women already have lower benefits than men because they make less over
their lifetimes due to pay discrimination and years spent out of the
workforce caring for kids and elderly parents, so Thomas’ idea adds
insult to injury. But putting aside the fact that gender or race-based
benefits would be against the law, Thomas ought to consider some
“adjustments” that would really be fair to women.
In 2003,
the last full year for which we have Census Bureau earnings data for
full-time, year-round workers, women earned only 75.5 cents for every
$1 men earned. Adjusting women's benefits upward to compensate for that
lower pay, would mean an increase in their benefits of 32.5 percent to
bring them in line with men's benefits.
Making
race based adjustments could help Hispanic and African American women
even more. Hispanic women earn only 52.5 cents for each $1 earned by
non-Hispanic white men, and African American women earned only 62.5
cents. So Hispanic women would need a 90 percent adjustment and African
American women a 60 percent upward adjustment to bring their benefits
into line with white men’s.
And, if
Rep. Thomas wants to compensate women for the time they spend out of
the labor market caring for children and other family members, the
upward adjustment would have to be much larger. The Institute for
Women’s Policy Research recently estimated that the typical woman earns
just 38 cents for each $1.00 the typical man earns over a lifetime,
taking years out of the workforce into account. Since Social Security
benefits are based on the highest 35 years of earnings (and the years
women spend at home are averaged in at $0). To compensate women for the
impact of this lost time doing unpaid care work, women's benefits would
need to be increased by 163 percent, more than double.
Of
course, privatizing Social Security would make all of these inequities
worse, not better, since women have fewer pennies to invest in that
great casino we call the stock market.
The
National Council of Women’s Organizations sent a strongly worded letter
to Thomas, urging him and his colleagues get serious about
strengthening Social Security in ways that preserve and improve
benefits for all those who rely on it, including women. The system is
not in crisis, but it will be if it’s starved by taking money out
through risky privatization schemes. Congress ought to be working to
stop that plan, not proposing ways to further disadvantage women
through disproportionate benefit cuts.
Martha
Burk is a political psychologist who heads the Center for Advancement
of Public Policy in Washington, D.C., a think tank focusing on the
wisdom of providing for more equal treatment of women in society. She can be found at MinutemanMedia.org.
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