!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! ! ! ! Catt's Claws ... A Feminist Newsletter #68 ... September 24, 1995 ! ! ! !.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.! The newspapers and TV love to publicize the horrors of finding small children left alone while the mothers are somewhere else, and if the children are obviously neglected, it makes for bigger coverage and is cited closer to the top of the news - a BIG story. But have you EVER heard ANY of the reporters ask, "Where was the father?" They just AUTOMATICALLY ignore family values ;-} It's always, "Where was the mother?" Even in cases where the father had custody or was in possession of the chilren. And you won't start hearing about men abandoning their responsibilities unless you start calling the newspapers and TV stations and ask "Why don't you ever mention the neglecting father? - the men WORMTS?" (Men Who Only Revere Men's Thingies ... and take that acronym ANY way you want to.) ....................... * ........................ It was one of the shortest boycotts on record. The Wal-Mart store in Miramar, Florida ( right down the street from where I used to live many moons ago) was selling a locally-made t-shirt that ssaid, "Someday a woman will be president." Someone complained and Wal-Mart announced it was withdrawing the t- shirts because it offended their "family values" position. (This is the company that featured the book written by Gennifer Flowers right by its front doors ... and that thing is raunchy !) WELLLLLLL !!! Let me tell you women (and right thinking men) bombarded Wal-Mart with protests and the t-shirts are back on the shelves ... And I've sent word (with check) down to my daughter-in-law who still lives in the area to get two from my granddaughters. I'll betcha that the t-shirt goes national at Wal_Mart. But the moral of the story is not only what Wal-Mart did to cave into some weirdos, but that the weirdos would object to a t-shirt proclaiming that a woman will be president. That's damned scary. No one should take anyone like that seriously. ....................... * ........................ Jurors took 22 minutes to convict a former policewoman of killing three people, including a police officer, in a restaurant holdup and took only 35 minutes to decide to condemn her to death in New Orleans. Antoinette Frank is now the only woman on Louisiana's death row and if appeals fail, she would be the first woman executed in Louisiana since 1942. Frank was allowed on the police force although she failed pyschological tests. Dr. Philip Scurria acknowledged that he had judged Frank an unacceptable candidate for the police academy, but insisted that she did not suffer from a "major emotional disorder" that would have prevented the death penalty. Catt's Claws brings this case up because about 15 years ago, a friend of mine was shot to death on the streets of New Orleans by a man who jumped out of his car and attempted a purse snatching. Kim said something (making no physical move according to witnesses including the shooter's girlfriend who remained in the car) but the would-be purse snatcher shot Kim to death on the spot. Kim was not carrying a purse. The woman she was walking with and who fled the scene BEFORE the shooting was carrying a purse. The killer was back on the streets in 3.5 years. -- Caleb Fairley will escape the death penalty because he made a deal with legal authorities in the Philadelphia suburb of Collegeville to tell them where he had hidden the body of a woman he had killed after a jogger had found the dead body of the woman's daughter. A devotee of the Dungeons and Dragons games, Fairley was alone in his parents' store, Your Kidz & Mine, when Lisa Manderach, who police said "fit the physical description of the woman in Fairley's sexual fantasies," entered to shop with her daughter Devon Marie. He strangled both. He is charged with two counts of murder (because of bargaining neither is capital murder), one count of robbery, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of theft by unlawful taking, and one count of abuse of a corpse - a euphemism that usually means sex with a corpse. Ms. Manderach's body was found nude except for a black lace top. Her long black hair was arranged so that it covered her face. -- In August 1973, Joseph Spaziano murdered and mutilated a nurse, Laura Lynn Harberts, 18, an Orlando hospital records clerk. For the past 22 years he has worked the system and remains alive on death row. The latest ploy is a stay of his execution set for Sept. 21 because - please sit down and take a deeeeep breath before reading on - because the Florida State Supreme Court said his lawyer refused to cooperate with the state attorney. It is the FIFTH time Spaziano's execution date has been set aside. Justice in the U.S. is not only blind, but all too often gagged. ....................... * ........................ Jimmie Wayne Jeffers, who killed his ex girlfriend by injecting her with an overdose of heroin after luring her to a Tucson, Arizona, motel room in October 1976 was executed almost 19 years after the murder. His last "words" were a series of curses and obscenities. He admitted he injected Penelope Cheney, an addict, with enough heroin to kill a horse, but his constitutional appeals lasted 19 years. ....................... * ........................ The absolute heartlessness of modern newspaper reporters is reflected in the following lead: "NEW YORK (AP/ITN) - Kimberly Antonakos' greatest misfortune wasn't that her kidnappers were exceedingly cruel. It was that they were exceedingly inept." What the hell does this reporter call cruel? Kimberly Antonakos was bound to a chair, gagged, and burned alive. The three men, Nicholas Librett, 19, and Joshua Torres, 22, along with a third kidnapper they probably murdered to silence, had botched up an attempt to collect ransom when they kidnapped Ms. Antonakos. The young woman had been left alone tied to a chair in an unheated basement for three days and then doused with gasoline and set ablaze so she couldn't identify the kidnappers whom she knew. We don't believe New York state has the death penalty ... ....................... * ........................ Male teachers are being allowed to take a day off to attend the ALL- MALE Nation of Islam Oct. 16 Million Man March,. which leader Louis Farrakhan has billed as a gesture of support from black men to black women, families, church, and community. However, one woman has requested permission to take a personal day off to attend the function as have three male teachers in Hartford, CN - and school officials are "not sure" if permission will be given to the woman since it is an ALL-MALE parade. It is being billed by Farrakhan as a black holy day - but obviously a black holy day for men only. Well, we know how that goes, don't we. We don't object to the all-male parade, although not even NOW has all-woman parades. But we do object to male school teachers being paid by public funds getting preferential treatment that women are refused...simply because someone in the private sector decides to lead a parade. ....................... * ........................ "I may be stepping on somebody's toes tonight," President Clinton said in a recent fund raising speech. "I don't have any comment on whether those Calvin Klein ads were legal or illegal. But those children were my daughter's age in those ads and they were outrageous. It was wrong. It was wrong to manipulate those children and use them for commercial benefit." {I like this guy more and more. First, he took on the mighty health care industry and got his nose bloodied but vowed to come back. Then he takes on the very rich tobacco industry, which is hooking kids on jazzed-up nicotine drug load in cigarettes, and now he speaks his mind like any concerned parent. What a refreshing change from the rich-to-make-more-money rhetoric on his opponents!} ....................... * ........................ By the way, are you aware that with all the rhetoric and all the speech- making, the GOP-controlled Congress has yet to send President Clinton any of the 13 bills needed to provide funding for the government for the next fiscal year beginning October 1? Would you like to see YOUR household run with such planning? Wish Gingrich, Dole, and Gramm would stop wasting all that time running around trying to get the Republican nomination for the race for President (that they can't win) and stay and do the job they are getting paid to do by the taxpayers. ....................... * ........................ In what SHOULD be a blueprint for action for American women, the Japanese are threatening harm to Americans and American property in retaliation for the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa by three American servicemen. Until women fight back against rape - my gawd, you should read the filth that American boyz-WORMTs write on such places as ALT.FEMINISM - Until women start naming the men and start ridiculing them in public to make them responsible for their actions; Until we STOP THE SILENCE that protects these monsters, we are just asking for more of the same. STOP THE SILENCE. It has been ingrained in women to not tell about what men say or do to them. Men beat prostitutes but the prostitutes are not allowed by society to tell the truth about those men, as if these pitiful men who need to buy love and sex are somehow protected from the same moral laws which condemn the prostitutes. STOP THE SILENCE. Rape is wrong. Incest is wrong. Physical abuse is wrong. Emotional abuse is wrong. NAME THE NAMES. STOP THE SILENCE THAT PROTECTS THE MONSTERS ... even those monsters who wear three-piece suits and sit in the U.S. Senate. ....................... * ........................ A Canadian blood test that can help detect whether a woman's breast cancer has returned is before the Food and Drug Administration. A simple blood test that detects male's prostrate cancer has been available for years. The test measures antigen that is produced by cancer cells and any elevation may indicate the cancer has returned. The test would replaced X- rays and other tests. It would help determine the return of cancer by five months over standard tests in place now. One expert said the test was better at determining there was no cancer than that there was. ....................... * ........................ HELP - My Eudora email program has sent out hundreds of copies of the speeches of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donna Shalala in BinHex - Will those who have gotten them, please write again. If you've gotten the speeches in gobbledegook, please write back. I did not save the addresses of those who asked for the speeches. ....................... * ........................ Mary Cain of Canterbury University, New Zealand, wrote about a sterling example of sex prejudice in the legal system there. (So the U.S. shouldn't have ALL the fun?) Last September Gay Rosemary Oakes "was charged with the murder of her partner by putting an overdose of a prescribed medication in his coffee. (New Zealand criminal law follows English common law. It does do not have different degrees of murder; it is either murder or it isn't. There are two defined defences to murder: provoction and self-defence. If the jury accepts your defence, then you will be found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. In law there is a HUGE difference between the two crimes.) "Her defence was provocation; a 10-year history of violent abuse perpetrated by her partner was presented to the court. It included spousal rape, terrible physical, emotional, and psychological abuse and the sexual abuse of a child. The court accepted that she was a 'battered women' and accepted the facts as put forward by the defence. The jury found the woman guilty of murder. She received a mandatory life sentence." Last week Lawrence Lloyd "was charged with the murder of his partner by stabbing her and slitting her throat. His defence was provoction. Evidence was presented to the court showing that she had stolen his dope (4.5kg) and said 'harsh things' to him the night before. The jury found him guilty of manslaughter. Lloyd is awaiting sentence. It will not be for life." Mary says GRO's appeal decision is available as R v Oakes [1995] 2 NZLR 673. She says neither trial will be available in reports because, of course, they were jury trials (same in US she asks?), but Gay's appeal decision is far from over. Mary Cain belongs to a group called Women for Justice for Women. She said, "we have a particular interest in women within the criminal justice system, particularly those in a position such as Gay. Her case aroused a lot of controversy and media frenzy and was sensationalised all over the place. One of the reasons being that it was over a year before the body was discovered buried in the garden. And so the 'body in the garden case' was born. Lloyd also buried the body of his partner and no fuss was made about it in the media at all. Not a bit! "Gay's legal options have not been entirely exhausted yet and she has quite a number of supporters, both on a personal level and a more political level. And, of course, there are other women in a similar position to Gay in jail here . . ." Obviously justice for women is a dream that is far from being realized anywhere on the face of the earth ... ....................... * ........................ A Chicago, Illinois, Roman Catholic police officer is suing to stop from being posted to guard any abortion clinics. Not only prevent, but PAY him damages and punitive costs for having guarded the peace in the past. Chicago has a policy of trying to accomodate employees' religious beliefs. The City Attorney pointed out that police officers are assigned to protect the peace and not to protect a woman's legal right to an abortion. The officer is now on desk duty. CC-->> This case reminds me of the U. S. military officer who refused to lead his company to the invasion of Haiti because there were women in his company and it was against his religious beliefs to put them in danger. He later recanted (long after the fact) and was allowed to stay in the military. ....................... * ........................ Dear, dear Molly Ivins had a great column about old blunder-mouth, former U.S. President George Bush who said he never saw anything wrong in his son profiting by many millions of taxpayer dollars in the famed Silverado S&L failures. Well, he's back into open mouth, insert foot. Recently Mr. Bush was collecting million$ of his own by making speeches in South Korea for Rev. Sun Myung Moon ! As long as he was in the neighborhood, he stopped in China to make a few more talks for a bit more pocket change. Molly quoted ex-President Bush, who trashed the U.N. women's conference in Beijing and then said, "I feel somewhat sorry for the Chinese, having Bella Abzug running around in China." (CC note: Bella Abzug is in a wheelchair now.) Molly went on to ask, "Have you noticed how the coverage of this women's conference is going? Hillary Rodham Clinton (her attendence) naturally made a big splash ... she made a magnificent and gutsy speech... It made me proud to be an American ... " (HRC said:) `If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights, once and for all.' Molly went on to say, "The reaction in America was as grudging as anything I have ever read. Instead of the praise she deserved, Clinton received the most condescending, half-hearted pile of "well, not bad" notices you can imagine. "The conservatives, who had squawked about her going to China at all, could not bring themselves to admit that she did our country credit. No one could think of a way to criticize what she actually said, so they criticized her for what she didn't say ... One TV host could think of nothing more important to talk about than Clinton's hairdo." Then Molly summed up the male-dominated news coverage of the Fourth United Nations Conference of Women: "Time magazine devoted two pages to the conference -- in the same issue that carried three pages on the Miss America contest. And we wonder why American girls are confused?" CC-->> We had the decided pleasure of hearing Molly Ivins speak at the NOW conference two years ago and were able to exchange the usual brief hellos that go along with such things. She is a dynamite speaker and even though it was a speech of "normal" length, it was so interesting that it seemed shorter than a Calvin Klein TV commercial. We recommend her highly. <<--cc ................................................. To receive Catt's Claws by email, write and in the body of the note No name, nothing else. ....................... * ........................ 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 irenestuber@delphi.com for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed three times a week: Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information and 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. Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902.<<<<