<^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> ........Catt's Claws # 140 ... January 19, 1997......... ........ A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber......... istuber@direclynx.net is solely responsible for its content <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear to.... + Continue and increase my fight against domestic violence; + Continue and increase my battle against deadbeat dads (and those few moms) who refuse to support their children; + Continue and increase my battle against those who attack a woman's right to choose; + Continue and increase my pledge to make the United States government more like America by appointing more women (and minorities) to government posts than ALL of my predecessors COMBINED... + Continue to protect the women of America from the reactionary religious and Republican forces which would strip women of social, civil, and legal rights... And the author of Catt's Claws is grateful - and am starting to work for the election of Albert Gore Jr., in 2000. Just think of what would be happening January 20, 1997 if Republican ?Liberals? such as Christine Whitman, Arlen Spectar, or Pete Wilson had their way: I, Bob Dole, solemnly swear to return women to the kitchen barefoot and pregnant... and give the reins of government over to that admitted crook Newt Gingrich and others who would destroy women's rights ... . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Haven't heard if she's been caught but a lone woman is believed to have robbed several California banks by pointing a gun and demanding a pink plastic shopping bag be filled with cash. She then leaves on foot. (That pink bag description makes me suspicious of the accuracy of all this.) There is basic agreement of witness that she is a white woman in her late 20s or 30s, 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-8 inches tall, weighing from 120 to 140 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes, police said. In each robbery she has worn a dark hooded sweat shirt that concealed the length and texture of her hair. This *is* carrying equal employment opportunities too far. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Ultra-Orthodox rabbis are recommending non-Jewish sperm for creation of Jewish test tube babies when the husband is sterile. If the donor were Jewish, the possibility would exist that the donor is related to the mother, and thus make the child unweddable. The religion of the male is of no consequence since under religious law, any child of a Jewish mother is considered Jewish. The same rule used to apply to men who wanted to be priests... their mothers had to be Roman Catholic. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Several people questioned my position regarding the scare stories about the reported lessening number of sperm in dead men. We do not claim that such a phenomena MAY or may NOT be occurring but question the way it is being investigated by using cheap scare tactics. Pollution is being blamed - and oddly enough the more macho a man, the less he seems to care about the environment. Real men don't hug trees. Well, maybe real men don't care about their testicles either (wanna bet). And now there are scare tactics about fish in Florida having odd sex changes, evidentally because of offal from a paper mill ... isn't it strange that pollution will ONLY attack sex organs? Gimme a break - pollution has been killing fish for many years. But the hot button of men's testicular health has been pushed. Which is good for treating pollution, but unfortunately (we venture to guess on the basis of past experience) tons of money will be used for sperm/testicle research and not be aimed at pollution as a whole (or any of women's pollution concerns). . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Dear Mother of Mercy, have you heard the newest Republican ideas about welfare and single mothers? (Remember Newt Gingrich and his idea of bringing back orphanages? The 1997 version are just retreads of Newt's ideas and the rewording is coming from the LIBERAL wing of the Republican party.) The proposals include cutting off ALL welfare money until the mother establishes paternity (think about rape and a woman being forced to share her life with a rapist or a man who beats her), and California Governor Pete Wilson's crackpot idea that single mothers should give their children up for adoption. The men's rights organizations are also aiming towards tougher divorce laws so that women will have to stay in miserable marriages. Bad marriages have traditionally been great for guyz. You doubt that? Oh, come on. Why do you think divorce was so tough to get under the exclusively patriarchal form of government? Because MEN suffered? . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Helena Bird of Abigail's Rebels is setting up a web site which will be a handy, one stop place for the addresses and contact names for action. One site with all the names and addresses that we can easily access to start our protests and give our thanks ... send us your suggestions and we'll forward them to Helena. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . A benefit for California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and her legal defense against Bob Dornan's continuing legal challenge to overturn his defeat was held Sunday night. To contribute ($5 to $5,000) send a check made out to Loretta Sanchez c/o the American AIDS Political Action Committee 1808 Swann St, NW, Washington, DC 20009, which sponsored the event. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . One of the most horrible things about the coverup about HIV/AIDS is that wives are often never told that their husbands have the disease. I've known of several cases personally. The women got sick and never knew what killed them. Women "conveniently" die so quickly of AIDS. However, there is now a federal mandate in the Ryan White CARE Reauthorization Act that requires spousal notification, but the CDC appears to be dragging its feet on the matter. It also has not pushed it nor campaigned for health department investigation for notification of sex partners as occurs with other venereal diseases ... Disgusting. Of course, the CDC opposes a lot of AIDS/HIV safety information that would be helpful to women including information about the use of Nonoxinal nine as a killer of the virus because it "might" kill the sacred sperm too...(* For years the CDC kept secret the information that one of the methods gay men used to lower their AIDS infection rate was the use of a spermicide containing Nonoxinal9. Seems that the use of a spermicide or birth control was against some of the brass' beliefs. The other method used to lower the "gay" rate of AIDS infection was to include lesbians in the records, lesbians having almost no incidence of AIDS. So what if it defamed lesbians and opened them to completely unfair attacks?) HIV/AIDS is preferable to birth control? Maybe that's why there's been so much research on preventing transmission of AIDS/HIV from mother to child. Get the women knocked up and then get rid of them ... A twisted way of gaining the all-male society with disposable female wombs ... Writing your congressional representative above the non-compliance of the laws by the health departments in your area might be in order. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Excusing themselves from doing anything about the too-powerful airbags that have killed more than 60 children and women, authorities are throwing around figures like "cost the lives of 2,000 unbelted people a year," and "save over 600 lives of people wearing seatbelts." Oh macho hockey fertilizer pellets. The truth is that the American airbags were designed differently than the rest of the world because seat belt usage was not considered macho and American men weren't expected to use them. Safety experts today say - justifiably - that men not obeying seat belt laws should NOT be protected by high-power airbags that put children and women at risk. The government is proposing to depower airbags by 20-35 percent is to go into effect next month, along with another proposal to allow car owners to have mechanics disconnect their bags if they consider them an unacceptable safety risk. Yeah - to you idiots on the men's rights usenets who made fun of me for having bought a car with air bags in it (you can't buy one without) - and then I'd like to watch that idiot macho who said he'd take a screwdriver to it. BAM - no head! If anyone chooses to retain the too-powerful airbags, that is their choice. But as it is now, we have NO choice. This is not right! Another child in the front seat of a car was recently killed by a air bag. More children have been killed by airbags than were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing ... . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . "If the judge or the jury rules that President Clinton did engage in this kind of a violation of Paula Jones' civil and constitutional rights, I think it would raise a very serious question about whether he could continue as president of the United States." A statement by Jerry Falwell? Ralph Reed? Bob Dole? Nope. A statement by Pat Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women against a man who has done more for women's rights than Pat Ireland could ever dream of doing ... A gratuitous remark. One that did not have to be made but she couldn't resist showing off her law degree, who couldn't see she was being sandbagged by the far right to make a rash, foolish statement. I do hope the National Board will seriously question Pat Ireland's sense of good judgment in making such a statement. For years Pat Ireland has said Paula Jones blew her off and went to buy a new dress instead of meeting with her. Pat's pique about being scorned by Paula Jones has been palpable. (By the way, I was president of Arkansas NOW at the time and Paula Jones NEVER contacted Arkansas NOW for help or anything else - a fact that I passed on to Pat Ireland when she phoned me back in those days.) However, since Pat has been ignored by President Clinton (she had such a crush on him, blushing and carrying on so) she is now acting like the woman scorned. First she called for women NOT to support his re-election and now she is (as an attorney?) PREJUDGING what or what is not to be the results in the Paula Jones case. You know, Pat, you may couch your words in all sorts of "ifs" etc., but the thrust of your words, AS YOU INTENDED, was to try to dent the women's support for Clinton and the Democratic Party. Women didn't pay attention to your in November, 1996 and they sure aren't paying attention to you today. What happened to innocent until proven guilty and what happened to the good sense not to comment on partial evidence? Paula Jones WAITED THREE YEARS before filing her lawsuit after the alleged incident. NOW waited some time before backing Anita Hill (although Ireland failed to point that out to news commentators who tried to use the Hill backing as a wedge. And NOW feminists gave Sen. Packwood YEARS of doubt before coming out against him. Obviously Pat Ireland has become the puppy paw of the far right by making rash and unsubstantiated judgments. For shame. If there are any people left in the nation who haven't read that pile of right wing macho hockey fertilizer called the Paula Jones suit against Bill Clinton, it's on the Internet in its entirety. I got a xerox copy of it the night it was filed but search Internet under Paula Jones ... It's unbelievable in its details - something that is VERY unusual in lawsuits which are generally worded so vague that its sometimes difficult to understand what they're about. In this lawsuit, it reads like a bad porno script. If it comes to trial, it's going to be almost impossible to win. But what has always stuck in my mind about the case is that Jones never accuses Clinton of trying to FORCE her in any way ... in fact, when Paula Jones says "No, I'm not that kind of a girl," instead of LEAVING the room, she walks over to the couch and SITS DOWN. And that's when she alleges the pants came down. Gimme a break ... as one comedian (who makes a living funning politicians) said, Clinton is an intelligent man and certainly wasn't hard up, so why should he do anything stupid like that????? (Actually, her lawsuit description reminds me a lot of the car scene with John Travolta in that movie where he was the dance queen). Yes, the NOW board should ask Ms. Ireland why her rush to judgment? Why her support of right wing rhetoric? . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Did Bill Clinton ask Paula Jones for sexual favors? I don't know. Did he try to force her? I doubt that very, very much. I do know, however, that women melt in his presence. I remember introducing him to a woman at a political rally while he was governor. SHE held his hand (shake) while she explained some imagined relationship - cousins removed or something - and to this day she claims he came on to her... He IS a sexy man! (He's too young for me...although the grayer he gets...;-) . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . It used to be that women in England got out their metal pans and such and banged away noisily in front of a house to announce to the whole village that a violent, wife-abusing man lived inside. It was called shaming and was gradually done away with by the male-dominated law, social, and church establishments. However, some American judges are beginning to think that shaming might be more effective than prison terms. Instead of women banging pans, the culprit is forced to put up a sign in front of his house such as occurred in Ittsfield, Illinois where Glenn Meyer was ordered to put up the sign: "A Violent Felon Lives Here. Travel at Your Own Risk." Meyer who bashed a neighbor in the face is appealing the sentence. Others being shammed have to use special license plates to warn motorists that the driver is a convicted drunk driver. Personally, I'd like to see signs put up in front of all the home where police have been called to for domestic disturbances. And where convicted rapists and child rapists live. Betcha those brave macho men who beat on the helpless wouldn't like that one damned bit. So don't expect to see the law changed anytime soon. A suggestion to your state legislator??? . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . An investigative piece by Michael Taylor of the San Francisco Chronicle states that "Motorists who run red lights in San Francisco are, by and large, highly educated, stressed-out men in a hurry who have a dozen excuses for running the light but almost never own up to making a mistake..." The same kind of OJ man beats his wife and children too...it's NEVER his fault. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . What happens when science goes faster than male laws? In an act that was probably passed to protect men from "predatory women" trying to *force* them from becoming fathers against their wills, the English health care system is forbidding a widow from being artificially inseminated by sperm drawn from her husband while he was in a coma before dying ... the government says he didn't give permission to be a father - and is also forbidding her to leave the country to have the procedure done someplace else. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . The right wing zealots who hate women and minorities and shoved through California's Proposition 209 that bans affirmative action have formed the American Civil Rights Institute to carry their hatred to all the corners of the United States. Their stand is that all race and sex preferences should be abolished which will result in white males staying in control. The Institute is being financed by a cadre of multi-millionaires. Your Coors beer purchase will probably help finance the right wing causes as will your purchase of a Wendy's hamburger or L.L. Bean clothes. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . NOTICE: Bristol-Myers Squibb is recalling 150,000 packages of the birth-control pill Ovcon 35 28-day formula on Friday because of a packaging mix-up in which the green dummy pills are positioned to be taken during a woman's most fertile period (week one instead of four). The batch is Lot No. H6J272A. Under the recall, women who have packs from that lot may return them to their pharmacies for a free replacement. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . The truth of the right-wing zealot's rule is seen in the budding administration of Baptist minister, Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee who came to power in the craziness of the Whitewater prosecutor's vendetta. Anyway, within days of being named governor, Huckabee ordered an execution ADVANCED three months so he could go to the Republican convention as a "bloodied" governor. Then he refused to allow state funds to be used for the abortion of a retarded girl whose stepfather had raped her. (And his people fired the woman who had taken care of the grounds of the Governor's mansion for years.) Then he announced he would give a pardon to a convicted rapist because the rapist had suffered enough. (Some masked men had castrated him but the local right-wing newspapers today fail to mention that the rapist has been given regular state-paid-for treatments and he has had fully satisfying conjugal visits with his wife). Although Rev. Huckabee had to back down on the pardon in face of public outcry the parole board SUDDENLY freed the monster who shows no remorse and is VERY angry, implying REVENGE! Women members of the state legislature are demanding a full-scale investigation. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . John M. Riddle writes, "Low doses of ferujol, a substance that occurs in the genus _Ferula_, to which silphium (a now believed extinct plant that was known to induce menstruation in ancient Greece) has been nearly 100 percent successful in preventing pregnancy in female rats up to three days after coitus." CC-->> The gestation period of a rat is brief compared to that of a human. And no one, to our knowledge, has looked for a modern-day silphium plant, although the seeds of the common Queen Anne's lace weed aka Wild Carrot (that tall weed with big, flat white flowers that generally grows at the side of roads) have been used as an effective folk remedy for unwanted pregnancies for the millennia - according to hill folklore, a teaspoon of seeds after sex to keep you regular. <--cc Riddle reported that a number of chemical tests from 1976 to 1986 showed that Queen Ann's Lace seeds were effective as postcoital antifertility agents. (Why weren't we told????) Pennyroyal is also a very effective birth-control agent but it is TOXIC and must be taken in precise amounts in tea. It evidentally contains pulegone that terminates pregnancies in humans and animals. One woman is reported to have died using pennyroyal incorrectly. We may be taken to task for writing about things that MIGHT be toxic, but how ridiculous can you get? (Do you have *any* idea of the folk remedies used by men to induce erection?) Listen up: we believe women have the common sense to do right even though men are constantly trying to convince us that ignorance about our bodies is for our own good. That's macho hockey fertilizer pure and simple - and we do mean BULL. If a woman is desperate enough to take a fatal dose of a home remedy without sufficient knowledge of its dosage, then who or what is to blame but our educational/social system that keeps women ignorant of their bodies or keep women without the medical facilities that women want and NEED. To read more about ancient anti-fertility methods, get John M. Riddle's _Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to Renaissance_, and _The control of Late Ancient and Medieval Population_ by Josiah C. Russell. We recommend buying copies of the books to be put away for the just- in-case future. Riddle's book is only $14.95. The religious right is gearing up for another fight for the Presidency, the Congress and full control of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001. They would take away women's right to her own body. The battle for our bodies is not over. . . . . . . . ^c^c^ . . . . . . . Women's rights are young and tender and we must protect them from the plagues of holy hypocrisy and newts. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >>> Send your ideas, comments, and news to istuber@cswnet.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed up to three times a week. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information. Catt's Claws is NOT sponsored by any organization. We are accepting *limited* donations (only what can be spared) to help offset the online costs of posting Catt's Claws. Copyright 1997, Irene Stuber, PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902, email istuber@direclynx.net<<<< To receive Catt's Claws by email, write and in the body of the note We thank Jennifer Gagliardi for handling the madding subscription list through her listserv.