Happy World Contraception Day!

I am so grateful for contraception.  If I could only keep three modern inventions, I'm pretty sure that one of them would be contraception.

Parents, please be sure that your raise your kids knowing how to access and use contraception so that they can protect themselves and make safe choices when they are ready.  Far too many teens are operating on no information or bad information, but they are still making choices. Remember that if you are not talking to them, they will listen to the people who are.

Call For Submissions - Lone Star Ma #11 - Deadline Extended

Call For Submissions - Lone Star Ma #11 Calling for submissions for Issue #11 of Lone Star Ma:  The Magazine of Progressive Texas Parenting And Children's Issues!!!   For this issue, we are looking for feature articles on the effects of lax enforcement of environmental standards on children in Texas.  We are looking for articles on how the Right-Wing War on Women affects mothers and children.  Specific other topics we might be interested in:  social services funding in Texas, education in Texas, urban farming for busy families, the Texas State Board of Education, libraries, sex education, breastfeeding, safely avoiding insect-borne tropical diseases.  We do accept articles on other themes as well if they strike our fancy, so send whatever you think we should consider and we will ponder it.  Things are bad for the women and children of Texas these days, folks.  We need to spread the word and save our kids' futures from the likes of those who only care about the wealthy and the powerful.  Not on our backs.  Not on our children's backs.  Not now.  Not ever.  We will stop them. Please see the general submission information below for guidelines and please consider submitting to our various departments.  Lone Star Ma wants poetry.  Lone Star Ma wants mama fiction.  Lone Star Ma wants brilliant articles. What have you got?  The deadline for submissions has been extended to November 15th.  Raise your voices.  xo, Lone Star Ma Submissions Lone Star Ma is a reader-written magazine covering topics of progressive Texas parenting and children's issues.  I totally cannot pay you for your submissions, but if I like 'em, I'll print 'em.  We need to get our voices out there.  To submit an article or poem to Lone Star Ma, please send it in the body of an e-mail to submissions(at)lonestarma(dot)com.  E-mails with attachments will not be opened. Please include working contact info., including a mailing address, phone number and e-mail address, if possible.  I may print a submitted article in a later issue than you had in mind, so if you don't want it printed after a certain date, please say so.  Published work may be archived on the website unless you ask to have it removed. Please include with your submission a bio-line, such as "Radical Rae is the mother of 4-year-old Joey and works as a social worker in Houston."  Thanks. In addition to features, mamafiction and poetry, Lone Star Ma accepts submissions for the following regular departments: Letters We Love them!! Please write!!!  Attn:  Letters. Longhorn Lactation If you have lactation news, information or action alerts, please submit them, attn:  Longhorn Lactation. Vegetarian Vittles is your place for recipes and resources for vegetarian families. If you have vegetarian recipes, news, alerts or stories to share with fellow parents, please submit them, attn:  Vegetarian Vittles.  (Recipes with nuts ain't welcome in these parts.)  Please send recipes attn:  Vegetarian Vittles. Yellow Rose Reviews Is where you review exceptional children's toys, books, magazines, music and educational products that you might not hear about in more mainstream venues.  Please send reviews attn: Yellow Rose Reviews. Educatin' The Young 'Uns If you have education news, information or action alerts, please submit them, attn:  Educatin' The Young 'Uns.

Modify Website

Texas Republicans And Voter Suppression: Redistricting Maps

A three-judge panel of federal judges ruled in August that the redistricting boundaries passed by the Republican-controlled Texas state legislature are in violation of the Voting Rights Act.  To quote the judges' ruling:

“Texas ... seeks from this court a declaratory judgement that its redistricting plans will neither have 'the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, or [language minority group].  We conclude that Texas has failed to show that any of the redistricting plans merits preclearance.”

For the November elections, Texas will have to make do with stop-gap maps drawn by federal judges as there is not time to go through the process to come up with new maps before then.

It is worth noting that part of the 2012 Texas Republican Party Platform calls for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act.

Texas Republicans And Voter Suppression: Voter ID Laws

Texas has been right in line with the trend of Republican-led state legislatures who have been frantically passing voter suppression laws to try to keep minorities and people who are poor and unlikely to vote Republican from the polls.  Fortunately, some of our courts remember their judicial duty to protect the constitution and all.

In August, a federal judge blocked the Perry-backed Senate Bill 14, a voter ID law, which required voters to present one of five kinds of valid ID (only specific, picture IDs, not voter registration cards) at the polls in order to vote. 

While no one has been able to point to evidence that in-person voter fraud is an actual thing, it is known that many, many Texans are in possession of none of the IDs that are allowed.  Many Texans also do not have the money to obtain such IDs.  

It's weird to see Republicans gadding about asking why this is a big deal as IDs are needed to cash checks, rent movies and cars, etc. and surely everyone has them.  Do the Republicans really not realize that our state - in fact, our country - is chock full of people who do not have the income to do any of those things?

They realize.  Their lifestyles depend upon it.

These laws are in no way truly intended for the purpose of preventing fraud.  They are for the purpose of voter suppression, plain and simple.  

I would never try to get someone I disagreed with not to vote - that is just terrible.  Everyone needs to vote - everyone.  That's the only way democracy works.  What the Republicans are doing is truly wicked.  They may as well crown a king and be done with it.

47% And Counting

I really do not understand how people like Mitt Romney can pull their whole "we built it" nonsense and claim that Americans who do not earn enough money to pay income taxes or who receive public services are a "dependency culture".  Romney and his ilk receive just as much government assistance, if not more, themselves.

What the President said about how businesses are dependent upon workers and the government and vice versa is just true.  No one (except the military and I don't think the Republicans have a problem with that) gets as much government largesse as big corporations do.  The tax breaks and tax credits that exceedingly wealthy corporate entities receive dwarf the 47% he is talking about every time.  

It's not 47 percent - it's 100%.  It's called interdependency and it is part of being human.  None of us can make it on our own. We evolved into tribal groups and, later, societies, for that very reason.

Note that I am not trying to say that there is never any reason for the government to help out big businesses the ways it does - the ways from which Mitt Romney has benefited tremendously - maybe there is.  I am saying, however, that if they deserve it, then certainly children needing health insurance deserve it, too. And people needing clean air, nutrition, child care and public education ... they deserve it, too.

It is not wrong for societies to decide to create structures that allow everyone to thrive.  

It's not fair to create structures that support only the wealthy few.

We really are all in this together.  We can build nothing alone.

Dental Joyfulness And Unamusing Spouses

The Lone Star Baby broke a tooth - we thought -  on Friday night and it looked like a big, scary break.  I had visions of all-too-expensive root canals and crowns.  Only the fact that she was in no pain and the tender online ministrations of a dentist friend from the Mommy Club (first rule of Mommy Club...) kept panic somewhat at bay.  The dentist had no answering service on his phone or anything so we could not reach him until this morning.

Today Lone Star Pa took a half-day in the afternoon to take her to the dentist.  I called him the moment school got out, seeing a missed call from home.

Me:  You're home?

LSP:  Yes.

Me:  Well?

LSP:   Weelll...they're going to work with us.  We'll have twelve monthly payments of ( I was believing it grimly up to this point) $500 dollars each.

Me:  NOT FUNNY!!!!


She's totally fine, though.  It was a filling, not the tooth, that broke and he just re-filled it.  He didn't even charge us anything for it.  She feels totally fine.

Whew!

Happy Constitution Day!

Let's all try to have just a little respect for the principle of popular sovereignty today, shall we?

Citizenship And Reality

Please remember, mamas, that voting for anyone other than Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is, in effect, the same as a choice not to vote - except that it is one that will also possibly give an advantage to one of those two candidates (which one is pretty hard to say right now).  You may not like the real choices much, but they are far from the same guy and every responsible citizen must, at this point, choose to vote for one of them.

Personally, I would love to have a more parliamentary, coalition-y, less two-party system for certain, but we do not have one now and protesting that by wasting one's vote is childish.  Working for that system is valid and admirable, but wasting a vote in the election we have is not. Also, even in our two-party system there is a pathway for working to choose a candidate who is to one's liking:  the primary elections.  A citizen who is not happy with the choices in November but who did not work hard to try to get a better choice in the primaries has little about which to justly complain.

Politics is real life.  Every vote affects a real child.  Being disgusted with the system is no excuse for not meeting your responsibility to those children by doing what you can do, even if it is not all that you wish you could do.

Hey, Citgo - It's A Crime To Hurt People - A Crime With Victims

On Friday, a federal judge ruled that the people in Hillcrest and other Corpus Christi neighborhoods that were harmed by the illegal pollution created by  Citgo's East Refinery have the right to be considered crime victims in the sentencing phase of the case against Citgo.

This is a landmark case, as it is the first time a refinery has ever been convicted of criminal charges.  It is also the first time residents living near a refinery have been recognized as potential crime victims.

Citgo is already talking about all of its appeals, of course, and I have no doubt that it will use its corporate money to continue its wicked appealing until all of the damaged children of Hillcrest have grown old (or not) and died.  Citgo will pay any amount, it seems, to avoid doing the right thing.

All the same, it is a good precedent for the court to set.  It is good to at least recognize that it is a crime for corporations to sicken communities full of people who might have otherwise lived healthy lives.

Flu Shot Mama

We got 'em done at Walgreen's today - The Lone Star Girl, the Lone Star Baby, Lone Star Pa and I.  With the Girl and her asthma around, I am serious about flu shots.  Unfortunately, only Lone Star Pa's health insurance covers them, not ours, so we are also down almost a hundred bucks.  It's worth it to keep everyone safe, but we could have used that money at the dentist's next week for the Lone Star Baby's broken tooth.  I really hope our health insurance gets better soon.

The Maternal Really Is Political, And Partisan, Too

When I was a very young and idealistic woman, who had only myself to be concerned about and who did not always take the time to remain as informed as the electorate should be but usually is not, I can remember cringing over negative campaigning and "wishing we could all just stick to the positive".  I wanted to vote "for", rather than against and all that.  In my personal dealings with people, I try always to look at their best attributes and give them the benefit of the doubt and, in most cases, I find that my overall feeling towards most people I meet are positive and non-judgmental.  Generally, I find this a sound strategy for dealing with people.  In today's political arena, though, it is more of a naivete that wants something beautiful so much it refuses to deal with ugly reality.  Now that I have matured and have more at stake (my children), I have to say that I find that "let's all be positive" viewpoint that I once had more dangerously detached than sweet.

I still think that it is wrong to hatch negative political campaigns based upon people's personal lives.  I never like Sarah Palin's politics, but I never thought it was okay for anyone to bash her for campaigning when she had an infant, or because of her pregnant daughter.  I don't support going after Mitt Romney because of his religion.  I did not think it was okay to go after Clinton politically because of Lewinsky or all his other women, although his behavior utterly disgusted me - I was a lot more worried about the way he signed Gingrich's Welfare Deform into law than with whom he exchanged bodily fluids. That sort of personal negative campaigning is bad, but campaigning strongly against platform planks and ideas that will destroy the American people - that is completely necessary and the President has done far too little of it.

I like President Obama, but not as much as I thought I would.  I chose him over Hilary in the Democratic primaries primarily because he voted against the war but ... he has been an extremely militaristic President and this distresses me.  He is not as strong a supporter of teachers as I would have him be - falling a little too easily under the sway of business-model "reformers" at times - but he is better than the alternative as far as education goes.  I think he did the best he could with health care and has done the best he could with the economy, labor issues and the environment given the outright hostility with which Congress blocks every positive thing he tries to do and the fact that, really, it is Congress who decides the law - not him.  He supports women's rights and gay marriage - these things I love about him - although he has not been able to do much about them.  Truthfully, he seems like a nice guy who I would like to have to dinner except that I would be afraid that our housekeeping and etiquette might be a little beneath his standards - his family is so graceful.  When he first became President and tried to function in a civil, non-partisan way, trying to bring an end to the culture wars and compromise with Republicans - I felt a bit chastened as well as impressed.  Since the days of W., I have definitely been part of the "culture wars" and for a short time, I thought hopefully that maybe President Obama's less partisan, more diplomatic and friendly way would help us all to rise above all that.

I was wrong.  So was he.

Maybe, if President Obama had been a strongly partisan bully like LBJ, he would have been able to get more done domestically.   Whether or not this Congress could be bullied into putting the American people first is hard to say, though.  The only thing we know for sure is that they have been willing to block everything that the President has tried to do for the health and prosperity of American citizens, often because of their self-centered values and short-sightedness, but often for no other reason than that the ideas belonged to the President - I believe racism is a key factor there.  Over and over again, the President politely took the attacks and ugliness hurled at him by the Republican Party and for several years, he rarely ever responded with anything negative in return.  This simply meant that our citizenry got indoctrinated with the people who were screaming the loudest - the mean side of the Republican Party - because they were the only ones speaking up. The President's courtesy got him nowhere.

There are things I like about President Obama, but my vote for him in November will not really be about him.  My vote for him will be about the fact that he is running as a Democrat which implies acceptance of the values outlined in the 2012 Democratic Party Platform - a document that, with a few key exceptions, very much mirrors the values that I want to see in American life - you should read it.  Even more, though, my vote for President Obama will be a vote against the Republican Party.  Mitt Romney is running as a Republican which implies that he accepts the values of the 2012 Republican Party Platform - a document that is more sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-science and elitist than any screed I have ever seen.  It is amazing to me that the Republican Party would openly admit to believing in the things outlined in their platform - it seems more like the sort of thing extremists would whisper about in secret but hide in public, and yet they are not hiding it - it is published for all to see (I have to give them that).  Again, I have to say - read it.

I feel very strongly that victory by the Republicans would endanger the future of my own children, as well as of children in general.  I am not saying that to be sensational - I have read the platforms and I believe this to be true.

The Republican Party no longer believes in public education and is out to de-fund it.  The Republican Party wants to do away with health care reform and funding for early childhood education programs.  The Republican Party thinks it is a-okay for health insurance plans to discriminate against the health care needs of women and is pretty keen on doing away with many forms of contraception, not to mention Family Leave.  It supports the suppression of minority voters and other voters who might vote against the rich.  It wants to gut science education in our schools (for as long as we have schools) and teach vague religious theories in its place.

Worst of all, the Republicans want, as climate change laps at all of our shores, to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and allow full reign to the polluters.

I have daughters.  There are children everywhere.  This cannot be allowed to happen.

Am I angry?  You bet I am.  I am very angry that the Republican party has been able to buy up so much of our political system and aim it as a weapon against the futures of my children.  Am I full of negative rhetoric?  Believe it.  Will I, more than anything else, be voting against rather than for something in November?  I certainly will be.

I have to.

A vote against what the modern Republican Party has become is a vote for a future in which my girls have the rights and protections that they deserve.

Somewhat Offended

Somewhere, someone on the interwebs (on AOL specifically)  has tagged my "second first day of third grade" photo of the Lone Star Baby as "she flunked third grade", either having not read the post or not cared.  Makes me wonder what they thought of the "third first day of third grade" photo.

Just to be clear - the Lone Star Baby happens to be so academically advanced that the very thought of her failing a grade is ludicrous.  She was reading on a 4th grade level and multiplying and dividing fractions by the end of first grade and was working with exponents early on in second grade.  My only concern about her and third grade academics is that she may already know everything they teach this year.  And she knows it in English and in Spanish, as well.

That said, many young children do not pass grades in school, as everyone struggles with different things.  The fact that the Lone Star Baby is academically advanced hardly means that she is advanced at everything else - we all have our strengths and weaknesses.  She did not walk unassisted until she was 16 months old, for instance - everyone develops in different areas at different paces. I think it is pretty gross that someone would tag a picture of a child that way whether it was inaccurate or not.  No one should make comments like that about children, regardless.

Although people on the internet will pretty much do as they will, I will also mention this:  everything on this blog is mine and it is a violation of intellectual property law to do anything with it without my permission.   

Don't let me catch you. 

Fantastic Discovery: 24-Hour Outpatient Lab

I needed to take the Girl to get some lab work that she needed done this week and came to an amazing discovery:  you can go get your kid's lab work done at the outpatient lab at Driscoll Children's Hospital any time - day or night.  No more having to take time off work to get that child's endless lab workings done at the various doctor's offices - I will tell the doctors to mail me the orders and I can just take her at night.  Woo hoo!  I got one doctor's lab work done that way already this week and will be able to get the lab work another doctor wants next week done that way, too!

Can you imagine?  Something actually convenient about medical care?  So amazing!

Tell The TCEQ No More Coal For Corpus!

The Port of Corpus Christi is seeking a permit amendment that would allow them to triple the amount of "materials" - read coal - going through their bulk terminal.  Specifically, the permit asks to increase
emissions of hydrogen sulfide and particulate matter.   Coal dust and particulate matter make asthma and other respiratory and heart conditions worse and can lead to premature death.  There are many schools within five miles of the Port and approval of this permit would significantly increase the exposure of these school children and the surrounding neighborhoods (and the rest of the city) to dangerous particulate matter.

Any such expansion in materials needs to be limited to non-coal (and not petroleum coke!) products.  No emissions expansions should be permitted.

Please contact the TCEQ and tell them of your opposition to this permit due to the health risk it poses to our community and ask for a public meeting to be held on the permit in Corpus Christi.  You will need to include the permit number - 47881 - and can submit your public comments to the TCEQ at:


http://www10.tceq.texas.gov/epic/ecmnts/index.cfm?fuseaction=per.p3


 . 

The deadline for public comments is this Sunday, so please do not delay, Mamas!  Thank you!

4 or 50 - or 1 or 2

The Lone Star Family was sitting around the table the other day talking about how close this presidential election is and how much we hope that President Obama will win.  I said that even if - God forbid - he doesn't, after four more years the Republicans won't stand a chance because there will be so many states with Latino majorities and lots of electoral votes and, although you can't really generalize, of course, Latinos usually care too much about the poor and middle class to allow the Republicans to win.  I told the Lone Star Girl it would probably be hardest for her if her young adulthood years were under the pall of a Romney presidency, but to live like a nun for four years if it happened and then we would get our country back.

The Lone Star Girl said that, as encouraging as that was, it would not be only four years we would have to worry about - more like fifty.  If Romney wins, he will probably get to appoint 2 or 3 Supreme Court Justices.  I hadn't really thought about that but she is right - if Romney wins, we can kiss civil rights good-bye for a good, long time...they'd never consider gay marriage or women's rights under a Court like that and I fear that the Voting Rights Act could be overturned as well - terrifying.

Then the Lone Star Baby piped up -  "Four years or fifty, it won't help that little girl."

That silenced us.

She was talking about the little girl whose mother spoke at the Democratic National Convention - the one whose lifetime cap on insurance benefits has been lifted due to the Affordable Care Act.  Her mother said she will need her third open heart surgery in one or two years.  If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, she will reach the lifetime limit of her coverage then.

"What if it was me?"  the Lone Star Baby asked. 

Rough Week But On The Mend

This was a hard week.  It's getting better, though.  I have medicine and things that could have been serious were not, and I am grateful.

Happy Labor Day!

I hope that everyone is having as restful a day as possible.  I am taking time today to remember how much my family owes the labor movement - the ability to make a living while still having time for each other, weekends, family leave, safe working conditions and a living wage.

Today in America, the one percent - and the working people the one percent has deceived - seem to think that labor is nothing.  They truly feel that their "ownership" of workplaces gives them the right to require whatever they wish of workers with no input from the worker at all.  They believe that their investment of capital is somehow more important than the investments of all of the hours of work, sweat and skill from workers everywhere.

They are wrong.

It is the workers who build this country every day.  We built it - not the owning class.  They can do nothing of value with their money without our labor.  We build it everyday.  We must continue to build it and we do not build it for the one percent, but for us all. 

Poetry Published!

My poem Uprooted is published on Vox Poetica today!  Please read it here.  Tomorrow it will be archived on the poemblog here.

Cow Pea Harvest

  
Yesterday, the Lone Star Baby and I took advantage of a short period of rainy coolness to harvest my dried purple cow pea pods.  It was really fun to have her enthusiastically helping me with something in the garden like I always dream the girls will (mostly they like to give me appreciative comments about how cool the gardens are, not help in them or eat from them, though).

Inside, we shelled the beans and got a beautiful pile of dried cow peas.

And a tiny pile of pinto beans (most of the pinto beans are still growing).

While we really enjoyed this activity, I was disappointed in the yield.  I had a lot of bean plants - they took up most of my growing space -  and they grew beautifully and were just covered with bean-filled pods.  When shelled, though, we got enough beans for just a couple of family meals, maybe.  Slightly less than you find in one of those small plastic bags of dried beans at the grocery store.  I really enjoyed growing them and they grew so well, but...it may be that bean growing is not going to be a reasonable hope for giving our family a little protein independence in the event of drastic futures.  I may need to go back to trying to convince Lone Star Pa to allow me to get some laying hens. 

Portrait of The Artist With Her First Paycheck

The Lone Star Girl had two pieces up in a show at the Art Center of Corpus Christi this summer and one of them sold.  The check arrived this week.  Now, she has three pieces that will be up soon in the Art Center's September Sell-A-Thon.  One is her huge recycled plastic sculpture, Bottle Lilies (it's very impressive), and she has two new mixed media, mostly paper, sculptures, Fireseed and Anemone (I just love Anemone - I wanted to steal it).  If you are looking for some beautiful, affordable art, I suggest going to the Art Center of Corpus Christi and giving it a look!

 

Call For Submissions - Lone Star Ma #11 - Deadline Extended

Yeesh, mamas!  Before we went online, I used to get more submissions than I politely knew what to do with, but now that Lone Star Ma:  The Magazine of Progressive Texas Parenting And Children's Issues has come back and is online, I am not getting enough submissions!  Texas mamas (and other mamas) need a publication about the issues that affect our children and I need your articles to make it work, please.  The deadline for Issue #11 has been extended to September 30th.  I am posting the Call below - please heed it!

Call For Submissions - Lone Star Ma #11 Calling for submissions for Issue #11 of Lone Star Ma:  The Magazine of Progressive Texas Parenting And Children's Issues!!!   For this issue, we are looking for feature articles on the effects of lax enforcement of environmental standards on children in Texas.  We are looking for articles on how the Right-Wing War on Women affects mothers and children.  Specific other topics we might be interested in:  social services funding in Texas, education in Texas, urban farming for busy families, the Texas State Board of Education, libraries, sex education, breastfeeding, safely avoiding insect-borne tropical diseases.  We do accept articles on other themes as well if they strike our fancy, so send whatever you think we should consider and we will ponder it.  Things are bad for the women and children of Texas these days, folks.  We need to spread the word and save our kids' futures from the likes of those who only care about the wealthy and the powerful.  Not on our backs.  Not on our children's backs.  Not now.  Not ever.  We will stop them. Please see the general submission information below for guidelines and please consider submitting to our various departments.  Lone Star Ma wants poetry.  Lone Star Ma wants mama fiction.  Lone Star Ma wants brilliant articles. What have you got?  The deadline for submissions has been extended to September 30th.  Raise your voices.  xo, Lone Star Ma Submissions Lone Star Ma is a reader-written magazine covering topics of progressive Texas parenting and children's issues.  I totally cannot pay you for your submissions, but if I like 'em, I'll print 'em.  We need to get our voices out there.  To submit an article or poem to Lone Star Ma, please send it in the body of an e-mail to submissions(at)lonestarma(dot)com.  E-mails with attachments will not be opened. Please include working contact info., including a mailing address, phone number and e-mail address, if possible.  I may print a submitted article in a later issue than you had in mind, so if you don't want it printed after a certain date, please say so.  Published work may be archived on the website unless you ask to have it removed. Please include with your submission a bio-line, such as "Radical Rae is the mother of 4-year-old Joey and works as a social worker in Houston."  Thanks. In addition to features, mamafiction and poetry, Lone Star Ma accepts submissions for the following regular departments: Letters We Love them!! Please write!!!  Attn:  Letters. Longhorn Lactation If you have lactation news, information or action alerts, please submit them, attn:  Longhorn Lactation. Vegetarian Vittles is your place for recipes and resources for vegetarian families. If you have vegetarian recipes, news, alerts or stories to share with fellow parents, please submit them, attn:  Vegetarian Vittles.  (Recipes with nuts ain't welcome in these parts.)  Please send recipes attn:  Vegetarian Vittles. Yellow Rose Reviews Is where you review exceptional children's toys, books, magazines, music and educational products that you might not hear about in more mainstream venues.  Please send reviews attn: Yellow Rose Reviews. Educatin' The Young 'Uns If you have education news, information or action alerts, please submit them, attn:  Educatin' The Young 'Uns.