<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^>^<^> .....................Catt's Claws # 87 December 12, 1995...................... ..................... A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber...................... ................................................................................ To subscribe: email >listserv@Netcom.com< and in the body of the note type >subscribe Catts-Claws and your full name< -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Recent news stories about the internal problems of NOW have brought out the long standing refusal of feminist to discuss the MANY past problems within NOW, ranging from poor money management, poor record-keeping, almost no cooperation with local chapters, etc. Only ONE reader has written to chastise Catt's Claws because we discussed the matter and are daring to start pulling back the veil of censorship that has been imposed by the National NOW officers. A LOT of readers have written and said "Right on; NOW has to be reformed." Tammy Bruce has said that she will not back down and that she will continue her fight to make domestic violence a main topic in NOW's programs. In an AP story, Tammy said, "We're going to take action. Something is going to happen. It will never be the same again." Tammy was censured on the anniversary of the Montreal massacre (!) by NOW President Patricia Ireland for taking a strong stand on domestic violence after the OJ Simpson acquittal and denying the racial issue as foremost. By choosing that particular day to chastise anyone speaking out about violence against women indicates stronger than anything anyone can write that the NOW officers and Patricia Ireland are completely, totally out of touch with the affairs of women. But then Patricia Ireland vacationed in Bangkok following her election - Bangkok where up to 90% of the women are forced into prostitution, some beginning as young as five, but most not until nine. Ms. Ireland's sensitivity on NOW priorities is as far as we're concerned, a bit suspect. NOW has been turned into an ineffective do-nothing organization because its leadership has been sold on the idea that they have the moral responsibility to solve ALL the problems of the world and not, as its founders had created: The National Organization FOR Women. The present-day (Smeal onward) leaders have made it a national organization OF women trying to do the scuz social work of the world, in other words taken us back to the days when women were expected to put their desires and their welfare behind that of everyone else. Get thee back to the nunnery ... Learn to prioritize ... Three deaths a day and innumerable beatings that injure and permanently disable should take priority over any other problems women face. The killing of the two lesbians in Oregon may have been gay related, but NOTICE PLEASE - it was two women who were killed not two men. We've always said NOW needs a hired professional director who knows something about PR and effective fund raising, not a bunch of attorneys who were trained to quibble, not to act. NOW's leadership is more weighed down with attorneys (75%) than the U.S. congress. Let's do away with those untrained, highly paid executives and get a completely professional staff under the direction of a national board fairly elected. Most of the present board are so inexperienced that they can be sold anything. And then, maybe, we'd get some budget control? (I use the WE advisedly because my membership which I am not renewing doesn't expire until 1/1/96.) ....................... * ........................ The big news in Mormon country is how to carry out the firing squad execution requested by John Albert Taylor, 36, who gave up on his appeals from the conviction of the 1988 rape and strangulation murder of an 11-year- old girl. The execution is set for Jan. 26. The ACLU and others are opposing the execution on various grounds and are launching legal objections. And the little girl lies violated, mutilated, dead, and forgotten while the monster who did it lives on and will be defended by - your donations to the ACLU. Yes, I believe in the death penalty. ....................... * ........................ A Toronto Roman Catholic priest is putting on a revolutionary play with St. Paul's elementary school. It will have Mary as a single mother who gives birth to her baby in the stairwell of a public housing development. Herod is a drug dealer. The music will be rap songs written by the students. ....................... * ........................ An email protest to Congress was set at the last minute for 12-12-95 against the Internet censorship bill being pushed by the radical religious right, the news media corporations, the Republicans, etc. In our opinion such a protest is needed to show some backbone out here, but the truth of the matter is that it ain't gonna do no good. The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution might. The big media boyz are plenty scared of Internet - they can't control us out here. As far as the smut, porno, etc., that is supposed to be available on Internet, please will someone tell me where it is? I've spent several evenings on the WEB trying to locate it and the best I can do is find a couple of maybe naked women with triangular pasties in anatomically interesting areas. To get the pasties off costs money; big bucks. Hey, naked women or men isn't porno. You can see that much in _Playboy_, etc. And the kids get hold of (or are given) their daddy's mags all the time ... What we think is really wrong is that a bunch of men and women who have never touched reality or gone to the areas of their city where porno is sold don't know what porno REALLY is - hell, even here in the hills of Central Arkansas where the bible is revered more than the sun you can buy porn at any flea market if you know which of the guys sells it - and that ain't hard to spot. When one looks at the statistics: one in three American women are physically abused in their homes, what's a bit of flesh porno in face of the REAL filth that is ignored (encouraged?) by the churches. To the Andrea Dworkin followers: You don't fight the spots in Scarlet Fever, you fight the disease and the disease of porno is the social and religious encouragement of the abuse of women. (And some guys who can't get it up any other way - poor dears.) ....................... * ........................ Ummm- Freudian slip? In the 12-10-95 Catt's Claws it should have been moLars and not morals when speaking about biting the penises of men who force women into oral sex during rapes ... It should have read "One wishes someone would teach women how to bite with their back molars (not morals) - we mean BITE deep - and grab the testicles and twist, hang on, and keep twisting." ....................... * ........................ According to the New York _Times_, Malcolm Steve Forbes has spent $7 million of his considerable fortune to take the number two spot in the Republican rush for the New Hampshire primary win, with no end in $ight. There's more than a good chance that this rich man's son of Malcolm Forbes, creator of _Forbes Magazine_ will be the Republican candidate with New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman is the VP spot ... Long the GOP for the rich! You read it in Catt's Claws first. Steve who??? How come the big time TV boyz aren't mentioning him? Everyone knows Dole is an automatic loser next November unless Clinton self-destructs. Forbes has opened a New York State office and budgeted a million or so there... ........................... * ............................ Santa Fe's first woman mayor has a real bru-ha-ha on her hands with black police chief Donald Grady who is running for a blind man's curve crash with the Santa Fe Hispanic population. Grady has, amongst other things, ordered the men to stop wearing bolo ties which are almost the New Mexico state flag. He is also said to be extremely rude in giving orders to the Hispanic police and the women on the force. Santa Fe has a 1% black population. Mayor Debbie P. Jaramillo, a long-time Hispanic activist picked Grady out of a field of 27 when she took over this year. Grady's credentials? Chief of campus police at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. ........................... * ............................ _When Night Is Falling_ is a new film by Patricia Rozema which is advertised in New York City newspapers: A woman must choose between the man she love and the woman she desires. However, there's not a lot of publicity like the drag queen movies get. Ah, prejudice! ........................... * ............................ In this day and age and in the United States! Something is really, really wrong with the way male humans are raised. Four men died and a 17-year-old man (17 years old!!!!) was hospitalized for using a product called Stone, or Lodestone, or BlackStone, etc. It is a dark hard substance that is supposed to be rubbed on a man's genitals to keep his erection but some of the men have ingested it. Further import has been banned by the FDA but it's out there. ....One ingredient is the dried skin secretions of a toad. A 17-year-old??? ........................... * ............................ As she said, she was "always hard to paper-train," when referring to her 24-year career as one of the most controversial (to men) and effective women congressional representatives in U.S. history. Patricia Schroeder, 55, will not seek reelection. Recently she referred to Newt Gingrich's outburst over his imagined snub on Air Force one as"best performance by a child actor." Oh, we're going to miss her as the best friend woman have had in Congress - and we're going to miss her fast quips. Recently Schroeder said "How in this world this democracy could ever work if we ever allow people to be able to shed tears and be able to shed responsibility" as she called for Rep. Enid Greene Waldholtz to "consider" resigning from Congress to take responsibility for financial wrongdoings she blames on her husband. Using Waldholtz's own words, Schroeder said, "You may not give an election back, but I must say you can step down." Wadlholtz, a ultra-right winger is being defended by the Republicans in her claim that her husband hoodwinked her in a series of campaign irregularities. Poor, poor Enid didn't have sense enough to run her campaign finances but is qualified to help run this country (along with Newtie). Hey, give me a break, already. But Rep. Susan Molinari, R-N.Y., said on Crossfire, "I don't think there's any one of us who could look at Enid Waldholtz and say that couldn't have happened to me." Maybe we'd better look into Molinari's campaigns too. When Schroeder ran for the presidency some years back she was criticized heavily by Republicans for crying during her withdrawal statement and remember the wonderful, kind, compassionate man who was driven out of the presidential race for crying about a piece of shit written about his wife encouraged by the New Hampshire newspaper? ........................... * ............................ The honorable U. S. Senator Robert Dole seeking the Republican nomination for President of the United States has been flying in jets owned by Carl Lindner, the banana king, while paying for his airline tickets with frequent corruption, i.e., pushing U. S. Congressional legislation to help the Cincinnati-businessman sell more Chiquita bananas. Wonder why our marvelous media never thought to check on the planes that Senator Dole is always flying hither, dither, and New Hampshire too? Another thing that the "media," in its love affair with retired General Colin Powell, failed to make anything of was that Gen. Powell as a major was in charge of the initial Mai Lai massacre investigation in Viet Nam and reported back that there was nothing to the rumor, Powell neglected to even interview the soldier who reported the massacre. And this great general of the Gulf "WAR?" whose memory was so acute in his autobiography, failed to remember things in the 114 times during the Contra hearings in which Oliver North starred. Only Ronald Reagan failed to remember more dramatically than Powell. Yes, the Republicans are the party of honorable hypocrites and their multi-millionaire media cohorts are also honorable, but not very good reporters. ....................... * ........................ Oh, the home of the brave and the free !!! A U.N. report shows the United States women suffer rapes at almost three times the rate of its nearest statistical rival and more than FIVE times that of most other nations including Canada. In the U.S., reported 118 rapes per 100,000 women aged 15-59 between 1987-89 -- the latest period available. That was nearly three times higher than Sweden, which was second with 43 rapes per 100,000 women. Denmark was third with 35 and Hungary fourth at 31. Other countries with rape figures were Austria, with 27 rapes per 100,000 women, Netherlands and Germany 26, Canada 23, Bulgaria 21, Norway 20, Finland and Poland 19, Switzerland 18, France 17, Czechoslovakia and Spain 12, Latvia 10, Portugal five, Israel and Italy four, and Malta two. This particular report did not include Africa, the Middle or Far East, or South America. Iceland has led the list in births outside marriage since the mid-1970s, with 53 percent. Sweden followed at 49 percent, then Denmark 45, Norway 36, France 32, Britain 31, the United States 27, Estonia 26, Canada and Finland 23, Austria 22, Ireland 18, Portugal and Latvia 16, Germany 15, Russia 14, and Luxembourg, 13. ....................... * ........................ Los Angeles which is forced to cut back on health and social services as well as police protection because of a cash crunch - LA shelled out $9 million on the OJ Simpson trial. ....................... * ........................ Don Treshman who fled Texas to avoid paying lawfully levied fines against him and who claims to be a virtual pauper and doesn't pay taxes has relocated in to the DC-Virginia area told The (Baltimore) Sun that he was going to write letters to some 500 women whose names his group "found" in the trash of a local, unnamed abortion clinic. Planned Parenthood threatens to sue saying that the names could only have been obtained illegally because clinics are on the guard against such actions. Last year, Rescue America was ordered to pay $355,000 in damages and Treshman was ordered to pay $155,000 for abortion protests staged in Houston. In March, the family of Dr. David Gunn, slain outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic in 1993, sued Rescue America, claiming its activities had led to Gunn's murder. ....................... * ........................ As one who lived in South Florida through a number of hurricanes and been out an about in them as a newspaper reporter when even the sensible police hid, my sympathies to the residents of the West Coast who called their latest bout with 100 mph plus winds "a windstorm." At least in Florida, we had the decency to call it a hurricane. ....................... * ........................ The city of Camden, New Jersey is being patrolled by state troopers after a year of unbelievable crime. There have been 57 murders and MORE REPORTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE THAN ANY OTHER CITY IN NEW JERSEY - and it only has a population of 87,000. The troopers were ordered to Camden by state Attorney General Deborah Poritz. The city had been patrolled by state troopers from late 1992 to mid-1994 but pulled out as a money-savings ploy by the New Jersey governor whose administration had been hailed as an ideal by the Republicans. She's not doing so good lately since the chickens of her rash behavior are beginning to come home to roost and her chances for the vice-presidency of the U.S. seem to be fading with the rising failures of her administration ... the Republicans in Congress in general. ....................... * ........................ Medford, Oregon police are seeking Robert James Acremant, 27, who is believed to have fled to California in connection with the slaying of two lesbian activists Roxanne Ellis, 53, and Michelle Abdill, 42. Gay sources say the two women who lived and worked together were not tortured or raped as first rumors bloomed but were bound with duct tape and then each was shot twice in the head. Their bodies were left in the back of their pick up truck and not discovered for several days. Ellis had shown an apartment and Abdill looked for her when she did not return. The women had spoken out against efforts to limit gay rights in Oregon although police are not revealing suspected motives in the case. Attorney General Janet Reno has been asked to intervene in the case by the Lesbian and Gay Task Force. ....................... * ........................ Do as I say not as I do. David Reed Whitehead, 32, who taught youngsters how to handle their emerging sexual urges in classes at the First Unitarian Church of Miami has been charged with the lewd and lascivious assault on a minor, a 15-year-old boy. ....................... * ........................ Some of you may have seen these since they get passed around the net: _Life's Hard Questions_ Why isn't "phonetic" spelled the way it sounds? Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii? Why are there flotation devices under airplane seats instead of parachutes? Have you ever imagined a world without hypothetical situations? How does the guy who drives the snow plow get to work? If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors? If nothing ever sticks to Teflon, how do they make Teflon stick to the pan? If buttered toast always lands side down on the floor and a cat always lands on its feet, what happens if you tie a piece of buttered toast to the back of a cat and drop it? ....................... * ........................ 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 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.<<<<