<^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> ........Catt's Claws # 109 ... June 19, 1996......... ........ A Feminist Newsletter by Irene Stuber......... <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> <^> AnnaRose announces a new URL for Abortion Clinics OnLine (formerly http://www.realpages.com/abortion) AND a fresh, new graphic design. It now features an educational HomePages for over 80 clinics in 35 states. (Just because we won the first round in court, don't forget that a Republican-Dole victory this November would enable the dark forces of the religious right and reactionary woman-hating Republicans to change our constitution within a year so that abortions and birth control would be illegal.) So AnnaRose also invites you to visit her new Ultimate Birth Control Links page at . It's a fun and educational look at birth control and the variety of information available on the Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The MILLION WOMEN'S MARCH AND CONFERENCE failed to get any national media and not much local attention except from one of the LA city council who tried to BAN to the march! So much for free speech and equal rights! It was held June 14-16 and was disappointing to say the least. Catt's Claws didn't get the information until VERY late. Festivals celebrating women's lives and advances are drawing bigger crowds. Marches are passe. Delegations to corner politicians in their official office lairs is the more effective use of time and energies. Let us stop protesting and instead celebrate our victories - and then TAKE what should be ours. Marches and speeches to the church choir just don't cut it no more. Look at the fortune NOW spent on the so-called March Against the Right in San Francisco. So few showed up they couldn't even fake a mass picture. A total embarrassment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . At Issue, the rumored appearance of the Butcher of Brentwood on NBC's TV show _Today_. OJ was evidentally scheduled to be interviewed by Bryan Gumble on the anniversary of the butchering of OJ's ex-wife and her friend Ronald Goldman. The BoB was found not guilty when the jury refused to deliberate on the evidence. Initially TOP executives of NBC refused to say whether or not the BoB was scheduled to appear with Gumble, a close personal friend of the BoB as well as a man who hates women. (Please see the article about Jane Pauley in Cosmopolitan magazine when she quit _Today_. It plainly states that Gumble habitually used a four-letter filthy expletive beginning with "c" in public instead of Jane's name). But back to the latest with OJ and Gumble. Tammy Bruce sent out email, faxes, etc., and Catt's Claws did its number with a special episode to warn of the upcoming telecast. Email, phone calls, faxes, etc., poured into NBC and the executives who obviously haven't touched ground in years and thought we'd gotten over the slaughtering of Nicole and Ron got a RUDE awakening. Within two days (following vague denials by the lower echelon who were caught in the middle) an official NBC position was announced that said in effect: "We never had any intention of having OJ interviewed on the anniversary of the murders." Has the interview just been postponed? Was it already taped? Is that why Gumble was off the air for the week? What is the "truth" in all this? Our opinion is based on the evidence and the wording of the first NBC executive interview when he refused to state flatly that OJ was NOT going to be on a _Today_ segment. So yes, in our opinion looking at all the facts, OJ scheduled. And yes, your letters, emails, faxes, phone calls, etc., did the job of letting the executives of NBC know that an appearance by OJ was unconscionable. Did anyone catch any part of that speech OJ made at the college in Southern California where the president of the college claims he didn't know OJ was going to appear? OJ came out swinging, condemning Marcia Clark. Poor abused OJ. However, he failed to explain how he was trying to find the "true murderer" on the golf course or why he turned down the offers of most of the San Francisco private detectives to work for FREE to find the killer IF OJ would cooperate. Look for OJ to leave the country to live in a island country in the lap of luxury after smuggling a few million of his assets out of the U.S. of A. in these past months. He will declare bankruptcy around the time of the civil trial. The millions will have vanished into unmarked foreign banks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It's so damned hard to believe, but it appears that the butcher who attacked four women and killed one in New York City earlier this month is being given an excuse by the media. (Readers, race for the toilet, quick!) The reason he butchered those women, says the color writers, is that the poor man was jilted and was unhappy. He was so nice before ... Look for an insanity plea. A Japanese woman said she had a casual friendship with 22-year-old John J. Royster while she was in the U.S. and was shocked when he proposed marriage. She turned him down. The media has hounded her via long distance to Japan trying to make it out that SHE was responsible for his breakdown which resulted in the horrific beatings - and death. John J. Royster has confessed to the brutal attacks and may face the death sentence on the charge that he killed Evelyn Alvarez, 65, outside her Park Avenue dry cleaners last Tuesday by beating her head against the pavement. He also is accused of the June 4 assault and attempted rape in Central Park that left a 32-year-old woman pianist unconscious, a June 7 attack in Yonkers, N.Y., that left a 26-year-old woman computer company employee in a coma, and the June 5 battery of a 51-year-old woman near a heliport on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. One detective who took Royster's confession stated that "he hated women" and expressed no remorse about the beatings and murder. An old friend said Royster used to laugh at violent porno films in which women were beaten and mutilated. Three and a half weeks ago, just days before the attacks began, he was dismissed from a customer service job at a stationery store for insulting women, particularly white women, according to police reports and several people who worked with him. His father, John P. Royster, is in jail for killing his former girlfriend. e shot her with a shotgun on a congested platform in the Grand Central Terminal subway station eight years ago. When contacted, Royster Sr., said, "He's a chip off the old block." Royster Jr., had been raised by his mother. What is REALLY horrifying is that while the Republicans are spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars investigating what the Clintons were NOT doing ten years ago, no one is insisting that this massacre of American women should be studied. For GAWD sake, more than 1,500 women are murdered EVERY YEAR by their nearest and dearest male friends or relatives. As Liz says, "What is it that does this sort of thing so often? I suppose women get obsessed, too, but geez, they don't go off and start killing people (at least not at the rate men do). We really ought to try to identify the psychology of this... every stalker, every wife-beater-controller, every divorced man who blows away his ex-wife and kids..." Indeed. Four women every day - tomorrow, yesterday, and today, are murdered by their nearest and dearest males and thousands are beaten - and NO ONE appears to be paying any attention or trying to do anything about it. If our self-proclaimed "leading feminist organization" would try to do something about the DAILY MURDERS AND BEATINGS OF WOMEN instead of saying that violence against women is no more important than the other problems faced by society we might get somewhere. Dammit, Patricia and Kim: REMEMBER THAT DEATH IS FOREVER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An uproar at the UCLA campus over the rape or nonrape of a woman at the 50-keg fraternity weekender party has again brought out how violence and sex breeds in the Greek system where scoring sexually, with or without consent, is the most important thing in life. Whether there was consent by a very drunk woman in the UCLA case we have no idea but would it help to know that the Attorney Generals of the states and the insurance companies ranked fraternities as one of the top FIVE most dangerous situations in the United States, right under nuclear disasters. (Hey, we're not kidding about this. It's true.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Everyone take a deep breath before going on. When we question the way we are raising our boys, when we question the motives of sports jocks and the way they hide their motivations in religious right organizations such as the "Promise Keepers," started by football coaches, we have a reason. Read on about the latest horrors of the jocks to whom winning and patting the other guy on the butt is everything while the rights, dignity, and physical safety of women and children are nothing: The administration of Pensacola (Florida) High School was so obsessed with football honors that it tried to hide a horrific incident. Jay Hamburg of The Sentinel Staff Orlando Sentinel reported: "Within minutes, the football players had rushed into the locker room under the stadium of Pensacola High School and crowded around to watch. "Some climbed the stall. Others got on the floor. All glimpsed their teammates taking turns engaging in oral sex with a 15-year-old girl, a learning-disabled student with an IQ of about 80. She had wandered away from an unsupervised class to use the stadium rest room when the first three players approached her. "Eventually, as many as 30 would either have sex with the girl or watch their teammates do so." It happened in October and school administrators refused to penalize the members of the Tigers of Pensacola who were on their way to a championship. A grand jury finally looked into the matter many months later and their report was scathing: "It is important to recognize that core values like honesty, integrity and responsibility will not be adopted by students when their school administrators and teachers act without honesty, integrity and seek to avoid responsibility." Eight students now face charges of sexual misconduct that could land them in jail for up to 15 years. Their trials are scheduled to begin next month. An assistant football coach, instead of supervising a girl's class as he was assigned, left the girls to concentrate on a weightlifing class for his football players. The girls were left to sit alone in a stadium for 90 minutes and it was during this period that the borderline retarded girl went to find a lavatory and found 30 boyz with rape on their minds. Eight months after the incident and after the grand jury report, Escambia County Superintendent Bill Maloy removed the school's principal, two assistant principals, the head football coach and assistant football coach from their duties. None of the suspended educators responded to the rumors of the rape nor reported it to the police. All of them covered it up, but none of them face criminal charges. They may face revocation of their educator's certificates, but frankly Catt's Claws doesn't believe that will happen, especially to the football coaches. The former principal is Horace Jones, a professional football player with the Oakland Raiders during the 1970s. Both Jones and football coach David Wilson gave the assistant football coach Kevin Sanders permission to leave the girls sitting in a stadium while Sanders went to do the weightlifing thingie and set the stage for the rapes. Principal Jones evidentally threatened some teachers and counselors with dismissal if they reported the rape and went so far as to hide part of the incident from the police when it did come to light. The usual excuse that she consented is being screamed aloud by the dismissed "educators" and the parents of the football players, but the fact of the matter is that it is statutory rape under Florida law which says it is illegal to have sex with a girl 16 or younger with or without consent. And she was borderline retarded. Even when ordered to report the rape, Principal Jones waited until his team won its first district championship since 1987 to contact the police and even then he didn't tell it all - some two months later. Of course the girl was harassed when she complained about the rapes and school officials had to escort her through the halls. The harassment and jeers continued even in front of the school officials and she had to be transferred to another school. There are a number of parents who want the publicity to go away and be buried. One student says, "The football players are all down...they have to get used to a new coach... new plays...they're crying." And no where is it written of how the girl is getting along ... Is she crying? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our email buddy Susan Drudings writes: "Put your creativity and needle together for the 1st Annual Women of Taste Quilt Challenge, sponsored by Girls Incorporated of Alameda County, California. "Girls, Inc. is an agency serving girls, helping to ensure that each girl grows up strong, smart and bold. This quilt challenge is being added to the annual Women of Taste event, an evening of fine food, wine tasting, entertainment, and silent auction benefitting Girls Inc., which will take place September 28, 1996, at Mills College in Oakland, California. "For more information and an entry form, send a legal-sized, self-addressed envelope to: Quilt Challenge, Girls Incorporated of Alameda County, 13666 E. 14th St., San Leandro, CA 94577." It's so nice to hear of women's organizations which are actually doing things for women's self esteem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why so many are turned off by Republican politicians. While there are starving people in this country and many without health care, the Reps have spent almost a hundred million dollars ($65 million by special prosecutor John Starr alone) investigating what President and Mrs. Clinton did ten or more years ago. And after three years of intense investigation, nothing - NOTHING illegal has developed - and Starr's office admits it. Isn't it time that people like Sen. DiAmato who made a $37,000 profit in ONE DAY on the stock market stopped spending our money? DiAmato is also the campaign chair of Sen. Robert Dole's presidential campaign! Don't you love it? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jennifer Gagliardi who handles the listserv/mailing list of Catt's Claws and Women of Achievement and co-moderates the email list Abigail's Rebels (aks Abigails-l) and does all the dirty, hard work with it has come over to the dark side of computing. After being a Mac person, she has moved to IBM compatible land. The sun does shine brightly here too, Jennifer. It really isn't dark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Caroline Burnett, RN, ScD, in collaboration with Georgetown University Medical Center, Lombardi Cancer Center, the Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer, and the Lesbian Health Services Program at Whitman Walker Clinic is conducting a study on lesbian and bisexual women's breast cancer screening practices. In order to recruit more lesbians and bisexual women for the duration of the 18-month long study, she requests our assistance. Dr. Burnett and her staff are interviewing lesbian and bisexual women who are at an increased risk for breast cancer due to their family histories of breast cancer. This means that they have a first degree relative - a mother, sister, daughter - who has had breast cancer. Participants in the study must be between the ages of 35 and 75 with no personal history of cancer. Women who agree to participate for the study will be asked to volunteer thirty minutes of their time, at their convenience, to be interviewed over the phone by a female research assistant. This study will provide needed information on a previously understudied population. Interested women are to call the confidential phone line at (202) 687-0647 or 1-800-897-6601. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This has been bouncing around the Internet and people have been adding their own lines paraphrasing the famed statement by a German Lutheran minister after his arrest by Adolph Hitler: "When they took away the Fourth Amendment, "I was quiet because I didn't deal drugs. "When they took away the Fifth Amendment, "I was quiet because I didn't fear government property seizures "When they took away the Sixth Amendment, "I was quiet because I was innocent. "When they took away the Seventh Amendment, "I was quiet because I thought the Rodney King cops were guilty "When they took away the Eighth Amendment, "I was quiet because I thought I'd never be arrested. "When they took away the Second Amendment, "I was quiet because I didn't own a gun. "Now they've taken away the First Amendment, and I can't say anything about it." --Author(s) Unknown To which CC's author would like to add the statement that appears as part of her email signature: "When they come for the innocent without crossing over your body, CURSED be your religion and your life." - B. Walsh. OF course, I LOVE Jessea NR Greenman's signature comment: "The Bill of Rights -- The ORIGINAL Contract with America. Beware of Imitations. Accept No Substitutes. Insist on the Genuine Articles." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The new head of the Father's Rights group of Pennsylvania is Ron Williams of Wynnewood. He says he's a member of the clergy and an attorney. He stated his ambition is to make joint custody a presumption, and, among other things, maintain an effective database on lawyers, judges, and custody experts (blackmail list?), and provide an archive of legal briefs and legal precedents that will assist men to take custody of their children (and to avoid child support). Sounds like a real winner. Has anyone else noticed that most of the men who form father's rights organizations are behind on their child support payments? By the way, if a man gets custody and works, who takes care of the kids? Are fathers scrutinized in the same way as a woman is who places her children in a child care facility? What would the courts say if she left the children in the care of her lover the way men do with their weekly chippies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Looking at the closing credits of Dateline last Friday night, we noticed a lot of long hair on the techies handling the sound and video boards - lots of women in the control room where just a few years ago there were only testosterone jocks. In the old days the appearance of so many women in the lower ranks would indicate that women were ready to push on that glass ceiling. Now, I would bet, those techie women have jack hammers at that ready to attack that misnamed glass ceiling which is actually a rock hard layer of men bound together by self-serving machismo - that love affair among men who only respect each other. But times is a'changin'. Not as fast as we may wish, but they are changing and the men who are terrified of equality will be shoved aside into the dung heap by a new way of living where respect is more important than abs that sag over the belt buckles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . * . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A cry for a health warning on the packages of birth control pills has been ignored by the FDA since 1989. LONG TERM USE OF BIRTH CONTROL PILLS MAY BE A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR IN BREAST CANCER IN WOMEN YOUNGER THAN 45 YEARS OLD. ....................... * ........................ The URLs to the most current weeks' worth of Catt's Claws set up on the Web by Laurie D. T. Mann, the Feminist Webitor, are: http://worcester.lm.com/lmann/feminist/cattsclaws.html The FTPs for Catt's Claws being archived by William Affleck-Asch, are: ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/f/feminist/ (or NCFTP open ftp.eskimo.com cd /u/f/feminist/) The FTPs for Catt's Claws being archived by Dorothy Dean are: FTP.execpc.com And our home page is http://www.imageworld.com/istuber.html and there is now a picture of "moi" at the insistence of our web design man Sam McMillan. ....................... * ........................ 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 1996, Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902.<<<<