MOTHERS Book Bag

Wrapping it up at The Big Tent: Cracks in the Glass Ceiling

The last session I attended at the Big Tent was Cracks in the Glass Ceiling a panel discussion with Jehmu Greene, Political Director of WomenCount, who I met the day before at the Women Count in the 2008 Election session . Also on the panel was Marie Wilson of the White House Project and co-creator of Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, Erin Kotecki Vest, in her capacity as the political director of BlogHer, Sarah Granger an online communications expert who helps political campaigns use new media, and Lisa Witter, who wrote The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World -- And How to Reach Them.

This was the panel I was waiting for all week.

What Women Want at The Big Tent

After grabbing a quick Udi’s roast beef sandwich with caramelized onions, I dashed back to the tent for What Women Want: Journalists and Activists Connect Stories and Solutions. Rita Henley Jensen, Editor-in-Chief, Women's eNews, moderated the session. (They’ve been blogging from Denver this week, too.)

Sara K. Gould, President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women introduced us to several women’s whose organizations have received grants from the Ms. Foundation. First, Althea Francois, Safe Streets/Strong Communities, New Orleans, LA talked about the devastation that Katrina still inflicts on New Orleans and how the city and the police department need to be rebuilt.

Mary Kay Harris, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), Providence, RI talked about the struggles post-Katrina are representative of other crises and failed policy prescriptions across the country, and how systemic, comprehensive policy change in the Gulf Coast will ensure justice and well-being for families and communities throughout the U.S.

The last morning at the Big Tent

I had planned to attend Have “They” Gone Too Far? The medical and political implications of attacks on reproductive health care, including Colorado’s Amendment 48. Cecile Richards, President Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Nancy Keenan, President NARAL Pro-Choice America, Dr. Eliza Buyers, MD, Obstetrician – Gynecologist, and Dr. Ruben Alvero, MD, Obstetrician – Gynecologist, Certified in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility were scheduled to appeared.

I dropped off the kids at school, drove downtown, parked and started walking towards the Big Tent. Then I realized I left my pass at home and there was no way to get into the tent. So I had to drive back home, get my pass, and rush back. An hour wasted and 65 more miles on the car.

Not a problem as prochoiceamerica taped the panel and downloaded it on YouTube:

I did make it back to see Townhall on the Internet and Politics with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google with Eric Schmidt , CEO of Google, Inc
and Rachel Maddow, host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Air America Radio. (You can view the video on YouTube.)

Voting: Google putting voter registration and polling location info on the Internet. Rachel Maddox believes that voter registration has become a partisan issue.

Privacy: Trade off between cool stuff (Google calendar, chat, email, reader, docs) vs. privacy. Google believes it has the best privacy policy of all its competitors and only keeps personal data for 18 months.

Other things that Google is doing:

• Google has a green initiative.
• Google analyzes its hiring practices to detect biases in hiring women, harder for people of color (smaller data set).
• Google is very concerned that Americans have less access to broadband services and wireless data networks.

Finally, Rachel Maddox made an interesting observation in using Google's online news. It's so targeted that you're not informed about things you didn't know you needed to know.

More DNC blogging to check out

Fellow Boulder Media Woman, Claire Walter, is blogging about volunteering at the Democratic National Convention on her travel blog, Travel Babel.

Check out her posts Convention Volunteering - Day 3, Convention Volunteering - Day 2, and Dem Convention Has Denver A-Buzz.

She took some fun pictures of celebs behind the scenes. (That’s her picture of Bill Clinton just before he shook her hand.)

You should also check out Claire’s food blog, Culinary Colorado and her post, Convention Eats.

Hanging with my peeps at the Big Tent: WomenCount.org

So far, the Big Tent has been about the environment and the economy with a dash of healthcare thrown in. Nothing wrong with these topics since they all affect families. But what about – dare I say it - “women’s issues”?

Well I got to be with my “peeps” today on the Fifth Floor:Open Space of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado’s building for “WomenCount in the 2008 Election.”

It was a small, personal discussion with Jehmu Greene, Political Director of WomenCount and former president of Rock the Vote. As a group we discussed how the historic candidacy of Hillary Clinton changed the conversation for and about women in America, but uncovered serious challenges to our political process in the form of sexism and gender bias.

WomenCount officially launched yesterday with a big reception featuring Senator Hillary Clinton and more than 700 supporters. Here’s the video courtesy of EchoDitto.

Jehmu talked about how WomenCount is engaging younger women using the MoveOn.org model. Then we all shared how we engage other women and engage action and women online and off, whether it’s via email campaigns, advertising, or blogging.

We discussed how the women’s movement needs to go from “Chicken Little” and the sky is falling, to “The Little Engine that Could” and I think I can, I think I can. Another discussion revolved around sexism and class and creating cultural change not just movements.

My contribution to the discussion

I shared how I became involved in the mom blogosphere and how I find that it’s very competitive. There’s an attitude among many mom bloggers that if you make money via your blogging, you’ve sold out, pimped your kids, or you’re not a good mom because you’re ignoring your children while you write. Or that if you blog about your family life you’re putting you and your children at risk from pedophiles, kidnappers, and stalkers or that you’ve invaded your children’s privacy.

I believe that this feeling from some parts of the blogosphere is due to jealously, especially to the “rock star” bloggers like Heather Armstrong of Dooce. But it’s also wanting to put others down because women do not feeling confident in their roles as mothers and women.

We touched on this previously at MOTHERS Book Bag in the MOTHERS interview with Amy Richards, author of Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself. I also touched upon it in my review of a mom blogging anthology, Sleep Is for the Weak: the best of the mommybloggers including Amalah, Finslippy, Fussy, Woulda Coulda Shoulda, Mom-101, and More! (a BlogHer Book).

Along with Jehmu, I met several people from NOI, the New Organizing Institute who sponsored the event. I also met women from EchoDitto, DC WebWomen, and Lisa Witter, who wrote The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World -- And How to Reach Them. (She ducked out before I could tell her that her book is on my Amazon wish list, darn it.)

These organizations are all ones I want to keep in touch with and I recommend that you check them out, too.

Important to the security of families: An interview with Gov. Jeanne Shaheen

Julie Piper of BlogHer and the MOMocrats interviews Gov. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire who is running for the U.S. Senate. Gov.

Shaheen weighs in on a women's right to choose, a women's access to birth control, health care, and health insurance coverage for families and small business owners.

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For life assurance information check out lv.com.

More from in and around the DNC

Becky Updike, the director of Every Child Matters in Colorado is attending the Democratic National Convention. She's blogging about it at the Every Child Matters blog.

Another blog you want to check out is The Type Runner by Colorado freelance writer Laurel Kallenbach. She's volunteering at the convention and has some unique insights to behind the scene happenings.

Me? I'm back home and exhausted. It's tiring sitting in a hot tent all day taking notes and pictures. I'll be watching the convention tonight in my PJs.

Day Two: Taking a break from The Big Tent

Another hot day in Denver. I'm taking a break in the air conditioned cool of the Tattered Cover Bookstore just down the street from The Big Tent before the session on the "Next New Deal" with Alan Charney, USAction Program Director, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Anna Greenberg, Senior Vice President, Greenland Quinland Rosner Research , and William McNary, USAction President.

An amazing day. Dan Rather gave a talk that should be the commencement speech at every journalism school in the world. Some sound bites:

• Affect the powerful and comfort the afflicted.
• Be skeptical not cynical.
• Act both as a consumer of the news as well as a producer.
• The government is controlling the message and sanitizing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Corporate media must work for the public interest while making a profit.
• Diversity is needed in media - alternative and unheard voices.
• News is a public service and part of the public trust.
• The media needs to get some guts and grow a spine.

He also got visibly upset when he mentioned the dead bodies and damaged soldiers returning from the war. You can call him an old softie, but in truth Dan Rather cares.

I also attended TAKE BACK AMERICA: "The Economy"

• Robert Kuttner, Co-Founder, The American Prospect and author of new book, Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency
• Leo Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers
• Majora Carter*, Co-Founder, Green for All

This was sponsored by Campaign for America's Future. Major'a's and Leo's ideas for a green economy providing jobs that cannot be outsourced were exciting and echoed what I heard from Bobby Kennedy, Jr. yesterday.

They also sponsored "TAKE BACK AMERICA: Healthcare for America Now!"

• Rep. Jan Schakowsky, (D-IL)
• Roger Hickey, Co-Director, Campaign for America’s Future and steering committee, Health Care for America Now!

Rep. Schakowsky signed the Health Care for America "Which Side are You On?" pledge at the end of the talk. You should definitely check out their website and their The Now! Blog

My Twitter feed on Michelle Obama’s speech

Michelle Obama: HRC breaking the glass ceiling! 19 minutes ago from web

Equal Pay for Equal Work! 17 minutes ago from web

Michelle Obama: health care, mental health care, good jobs 17 minutes ago from web

Health care available for every American; world class education for our kids. 17 minutes ago from web

Change and hope. 15 minutes ago from web

Listening to our hopes instead of our fears. Stop doubting and start dreaming. 13 minutes ago from web

You want a persistent president. HA. Hi Daddy indeed! 10 minutes ago from web

Those girls! oh my, too cute. Will they move into Amy Carter's treehouse? 9 minutes ago from web

See the response to Michelle Obama’s speech at BlogHer

A warm start at The Big Tent: DNC Day One

It reached into the 90s today in Denver. And it was almost that hot in The Big Tent – much to hot too blog. Still, the sessions were terrific. Most had a green focus, but poverty and voter rights were discussed, too.

However, there was a common thread: Change must be a grassroots movement. There needs to be public outcry. People need to get active, register to vote, make change in their own communities, and demand change on a federal level.

That can be said about all our issues, whether it’s the mothers movement, the economy, healthcare, and so on.

Left Behind: What Katrina and a Stolen Election Taught Us About Race and American Politics

• James Rucker (ColorOfChange.org)
• Scott Myers-Lipton (Gulf Coast Civic Works Project)
• Jonah H. Goldman (National Campaign for Fair Elections)
• Stephen Bradberry (Louisiana ACORN)

Rescuing a Planet Under Stress - Plan 3.0

• Lester Brown, Author of Plan B 3.0

Now or Never - Climate Solutions

• Moderator Lester Brown
• Randy Hayes, Climate Policy Officer at the World Future Council
• Chuck Kutscher, Principal Engineer and Manager of the Thermal Systems Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
  David Orr, Author, Enviromentalist, named “an Environmental Hero for 2004” by Interiors & Sources Magazine
• Betsy Taylor, executive director of the Center for a New American Dream

Climate Problems and Solutions, Local to Global

• Introduction by Daryl Hannah
• Moderator: David Orr
• Bill Becker, Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project
• Robert Kennedy, Jr, Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and President of Waterkeeper Alliance
• Michelle Wyman, Executive Director for the US Office of ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability

Some sound bites:

• Create a new WPA type project with H.R. 4048: Gulf Coast Civic Works Project to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Katrina.
• Climate change is a misnomer. Instead, we have an environmental problem that should be called Planetary Destabilization. These are not normal times, these are drastic times. And saving civilization is not a spectator sport.
• Energy is not a supply issue, it’s an access issue.
• We need to become energy producers, not consumers.
• Green collar jobs cannot be outsourced.
• We need to open the power grid to everyone and create an open market place. Energy entrepreneurship.
• Our addiction to oil is destroying our country’s wealth, economy and prestige.
• There are profits in “green.”
• Need to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2020.