Holiday Cards for Heroes

Hero....one that shows great courage, bravery, honesty, and selflessness.

SSG Sean Sanders, from Philadelphia, 489th Civil Affairs Battalion, currently attached to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, hands shampoo to citizens of Wahida, Iraq, after a free medical operation. Pic: SGT Natalie Rostek

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Bridget Ellison, Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq, carries a box of school supplies into a Baghdad elementary school. Ellison and others from the command distributed school supplies, toys and candy to Iraqi schoolchildren. Pic: SSG Christopher Frost

An Iraqi boy in southern Baghdad's Doura Market takes time to talk with 1st Lt. Eric Fiedler, a team leader with Company A, 450th Civil Affairs Battalion from Washington, D.C. Pic: PFC Nathaniel Smith.

Capt. Aaron Wilson, from Watertown, N.Y., 203rd Brigade Support Battalion surgeon, checks a baby’s chest for wheezing during a free medical operation in Wahida, Iraq. Pic: SGT Natalie Rostek

Capt. Se Young Um, from El Paso, Texas, a pediatrician in the 203rd Brigade Support Battalion, checks a baby from head to toe during a free medical operation in Wahida, Iraq. Pic: SGT Natalie Rostek

Pfc. Kevin Smith of Los Angeles, with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), talks with Iraqi children at their home in Iskandariyah, Iraq. Pic: SGT James Hunter.

Photos courtesy of Iraq Pictures Blog.

Please send a hero a holiday card this year!

The American Red Cross is helping you reach a hero this holdaiy season.

Holiday Mail for Heroes
PO Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Pitney Bowes is teaming up with the American Red Cross to help you send your cards to the many heroes who served our nation in uniform. Click here for more info.

If we are lucky, we will have a hero in our lives ....who made a difference.

Who is YOUR HERO?

All Hail the New Presisent

Congratulations to Barack Obama, our President-elect.

Wishing you the very best and I'm holding you ...to your promises.

"Courage in Women is Often Mistaken for Insanity"

One of my girlfriends sent me this. It's an amazing read. 'Course, we are all familiar with these women and the fight they fought on our behalf. I bet some of us even watched the film "Iron Jawed Angels", if you're one of those who hasn't seen the film, I highly recommend it.

It always amazes me...how strong women are. These were woman that I would have been proud to support and call my "friends". I would like to believe that I would have been right there...at their side..fighting for our rights. Yes...I think I would have been strong enough.

No matter what party you are supporting or what causes you are fighting for. Honor these women and cast your vote on November 4, 2008.

To find your local voting location, just click on "Where to Vote".

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

(Lucy Burns)
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.' They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

To read their stories, please click on Suffrage Prisoners.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.

Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just
younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote republican, democrat, or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.

Didn't I tell ya it was an amazing read! WHAT WOMEN IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU ADMIRE?

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

Menopause! What-Not!

A few years ago, I started my "change of life" journey. I thought...hell, I can do this without drugs, supplements and what-not.

Well...folks that was a few years ago. And now...I'm ready for the what-not!

I'm tired of being tired, having an achy body, dry skin, dry hair, and hum...other dry parts.




So.....off to see that lovely doctor and her stirrups. Mind you....NOT riding stirrups.

Dr. Suzette took one long look and declared "Yes dear, you need the what-not."

The big one....Estrogen.

Now ya'll know that I am a horse lover, so the what-not must be plant-derived ....not from anything equine.

I got my script, faxed it to Medco. In order to get the lower cost meds, I must use the mail order process.

Medco calls, and leaves a computer generated voice mail on my home phone to tell me that they ONLY accept faxed scripts directly from the docs.

Okay...now, I have to contact Dr. Suzette again to ask her to PLEASE fax my script to Medco.

Finally...that is done, I get a call from Medco (that PC voice again) telling me that my script is ready for shipment, just need a Visa in order to complete the order.

I ring them up....sit on hold for ...gosh....I ain't kidding...over 20 minutes, all the while....I'm standing in the cleaning section of Walmart, trying to decide which dish soap to buy, since my fav foaming stuff is not on the shelf.

A young CSR girl finally gets to my call and tells me that I owe them $170.00 for three months worth of what-not.

Good lord...$170.00! I just about died. No wonder I've let things dry up for the last few years.

Don't know about you, but folks that's alot of moolah, smackers, greenbacks, dough, bacon...just plain hard earned cash.

I can buy lots of stuff for $170.00. Horse stuff! Gas! Food! Dog treats! Did I mention fuel?!

I shudder...shake my head....mumble something under my breath (remember I'm in Walmart) and give the young girl (who is busy producing her own what-not) my Visa card number.

Geez....now the two week wait for the what-not to arrive in my mailbox ....begins.

Menopause Joke of the Day:

My husband, being unhappy with my mood swings, bought me a mood ring the other day so he would be able to monitor my moods. We've discovered that when I'm in a good mood it, turns green and when I'm in a bad mood, it leaves a big red mark on his forehead!!

BTW....I ended up with Palmolive dish soap...in a pretty shade of green. Matched the cash I just spent on what-not.






Okay...I'm done ranting...go home now!