Peace to All Mothers on Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all our readers who are mothers, and to all mothers everywhere around the world.

The original advocates for a Mother's Day holiday, including activist Ann Reeves Jarvis and poet Julia Ward Howe, wanted a day when mothers would gather together to promote peace. Here is an excerpt from Julia Ward Howe's "Mother's Day Proclaimation:"

International Women's Day

Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. First celebrated in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, International Women's Day is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. But this day dedicated to celebrating women's contributions to society is not officially recognized as a holiday by the United States government. 

Paging the 92 women of the U.S. House and Senate . . . 

A lack of legal recognition won't stop us from celebrating the day at MOMocrats, though. In honor of International Women's Day, we offer you a list of awesome political blogs written by women whom we think you should be reading in addition to us:

State Education Funding in Crisis: Missouri Risks Its Future

Even as Congress debates on whether to proceed with more than $4 billion in education funding cuts proposed this in year's federal budget bill, states across the U.S. continue to slash local education funding in the name of balancing struggling state budgets.

As mentioned in our latest MOMocrats MOMochat podcast on Blog Talk Radio, in Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon -- a Democrat -- recently proposed millions of dollars in cuts to state education funding, including $39 million in cuts to scholarships and financial aid for college students, a seven percent cut in general funding to state universities (which will result in the elimination of up to 116 degree programs), a $4 million cut to the Parents as Teachers early childhood education program, and a myriad of other cuts at every education level.

VOTE 2010

We know all you mamas out there are probably just as crazy busy today taking care of your families as you are every day of the year. But please, remember to take some time out of your hectic schedule today to VOTE. At many polling places it only takes minutes to cast your ballot.

To make voting a little easier for the frantic and frazzled, here are a few helpful links:

Find your polling place. Google is making it easy to find your polling place today with a special Google Maps Vote feature. Just enter your address and Google will not only find your polling place, but also give you directions.

Review local candidates and issues. Not sure what's on your local ballot? The League of Women Voters stands ready to help a mother out! Check out SmartVoter.org, where the League provides nonpartisan information on ballot issues and candidates across the country.

If you can't find your own local ballot information listed there, try your state Secretary of State website. The National Association of Secretaries of State has links to all 50 of them.

Can't find a sitter? Bring your kids. Got a toddler permanently attached to your hand or a newborn in a sling? Don't be afraid to haul your kids right into the voting booth with you. You won't be the only one!

The first time I tried voting with a baby in tow, back in 2004, I was really nervous that my kid would make a fuss in the long lines and make everyone stare. But I went anyway, and stood in line, holding an umbrella crookedly over my fussy six-month-old as a chilly rain fell on my own unprotected head. We both survived.

In fact, I've brought my son to vote with me in nearly every election since he was a baby, and every time, poll workers and fellow voters have been nothing but thrilled to see him and cover him in I VOTED stickers. Far from finding democracy boring, these days, my son gets angry at me if I can't bring him to vote.

Taking your children along to vote teaches your kids that participating in democracy is important to you. So if you have to bring them along, bring them, and do it with pride.

If your older kids whine about standing in line, just tell them you are voting to improve their future. And then when they roll their eyes at you, sneak them some leftover Halloween candy to distract them until you're finished voting.

MOMocrats Interview: Jim Meffert

Last week MOMocrats writer Jaelithe Judy had the chance to speak with Jim Meffert, a Democrat running for Congress in Minnesota's Third District against incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen, who was elected in 2008.

A former president of the Minnesota State PTA Board, a member of the P-20 Partnership for Education, and the the executive director of the Minnesota Optometric Association, Jim Meffert is also a father of three. 

Listen to the interview below, or read the transcript. 

Meffert_Interview_MOMocrats

Jim Meffert: I'm going to get get my wife hooked up with you guys.

Jaelithe Judy: That's great.

She's a professional musician — clarinetist — and has extremely strong opinions, on everything! Which is fantastic. And frankly, about a year ago when we were looking at getting into this, she and I would gauge where we were at with getting into the race. She was at 70% on day one; I was at about 50%. And she said, you've got to get out and do this. So she would be great to connect with.

We definitely like opinionated women at MOMocrats.

And I tell you, I don't know if you know any of my background, but, being on the board of the state PTA, and I was chair of a group called the Minnesota Children's Platform Coalition, and worked with Every Child Matters, and so I have spent my entire, my volunteer career, around strong women trying to do the same that you're doing — trying to get families involved, trying to talk about how we help families and kids, talking about parents' involvement in schools. So, anything that I can do to help you guys also, to broaden the audience and broaden the discussion, let me know, because we've got to use campaigns to do that too.

Well thanks, I appreciate that! Well, I have some questions for you if you're ready.

Ceci n'est pas une Sarah Palin Presidential Campaign Video

So today I saw this:

That swelling music. Those billowing flags. Those crowds of adoring, hopeful followers. That leader's hair, blowing gently in the winds of change . . . is it any wonder the political punditsphere has been atwitter all day about this latest SarahPAC video's strong resemblance to a campaign ad? A campaign ad of the presidential persuasion?

Sure, the video is titled "Tea Party" not "Sarah Palin 2012" but for a video ostensibly about a grassroots populist movement there sure are an awful lot of dramatic, compelling shots of an individual. Shots that happen to capture said individual being adored by crowds and speaking authoritatively at podiums. 

And then there's that one shot of a guy wearing a Vets4Sarah.net t-shirt and holding a sign that reads VOTE.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.  

The Tea Party Coloring Book

Every now and again I like to check up on the activities of my local chapter of proud Gadsden flag wavers, the St. Louis Tea Party. I haven't seen them out protesting in their usual spot in front of my neighborhood Target in a fair while (I suppose Target is no longer an ideal Tea Party protest location in the wake of the whole Citizens United contribution debacle. Heavens forfend the Tea Party be mistaken as gay rights supporters) and I was starting to miss their cheerful yellow rattlesnake flags, and their signs about taking back their country from Nazi communists. So I thought I should see what my patriotic neighbors have been up to.

It turns out that members of the St. Louis Tea Party have recently published a Tea Party Coloring Book for children! A tip from a Very Famous Conservative Blogger led me to the site ColoringBook.com, where I found the following description on the site's home page:

The newest, latest and the greatest on Tea Party info for kids that's collosal fun and informative! This book is a "must have" for children and parents to learn more about The Tea Party. A very pleasant song, coloring and activity book! 

I was pretty sure the publishers meant "colossal" fun. I'd like to snark, but as my readers know, I'm certainly not immune to typos, And anyway, like any overprotective liberal parent, I'm a sucker for scare quotes that tell me my child "must have" something. So I clicked through to the full product description.

In the Wake of the Gulf Oil Disaster: Where Do We Go from Here?

As devastating pictures of sullied waters, ruined beaches and oil-drenched wildlife continue to inundate our television and computer screens; as the idea sinks in that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill devastation is not over, and will not be over next week, or next month, or next year, or this decade, not even if some new feat of technological acrobatics finally succeeds in fully stopping the still-flowing leak; as we realize that the damage from this unprecedented ecological disaster may well permanently alter not only the vital ocean and wetland ecosystems of the Gulf, but also the lives of millions of people who depend, in one way or another, upon those ecosystems for their livelihoods and lifestyle, here at MOMocrats, we ask ourselves: where do we go from here?

BP's deliberate, mindful neglect of safety procedures in the name of speed and profit appears to have been the most immediate cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The federal government's lax enforcement of its own oil drilling regulations allowed BP to get away with such negligence, on a far too regular basis, for far too long. When it comes to casting blame in this crisis, there are real people we can point our fingers at, people we, the victims of this disaster, can accuse by name, who committed real and terrible mistakes in their reckless desire to profit from our nation's hunger for oil. And those people should be punished for their selfish negligence.

BP Lies, Again and Again. Where Are the Consequences?

A video, courtesy of the National Resources Defense Council, cataloging several of BP CEO's Tony Hayward's most egregious gaffes and falsehoods regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill:

In the first hours after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20th, British Petroleum officials claimed there was no oil leaking from the broken well head, and that the oil seen in the water was a small, residual slick that had leaked from the rig itself as it was destroyed.

Days later, BP announced that there were 1,000 barrels of oil leaking from the well per day. BP continued to publicly cite that estimate for several days, even as the U.S. Coast Guard, using data given to it by BP, estimated that at least five times the amount BP claimed -- 5,000 barrels -- must have been leaking from the well daily.

When journalists and independent scientists looking to verify the flow rate asked BP for video of the leaking well, BP refused, repeatedly, until May 13th, when it finally released a 30 second video. Just one day later, scientists who had analyzed the brief video came to a grim conclusion: the Deepwater Horizon oil well might actually be leaking anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil daily.

Go Watch It: Gulf Oil Spill on National Geographic

Tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT, 9 p.m. CT, the National Geographic Channel will air a documentary special on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, featuring exclusive video of the disaster and interviews with rescuers who witnessed the immediate aftermath of the explosion that caused the spill, and helped save the remaining crew.

As what may well be the worst environmental disaster in North American history continues to take shape, putting miles upon miles of ocean habitat and coastline ecosystems at grave ecological risk, it's important not to lose sight of the fact that the explosion itself also took the lives of 11 oil rig workers and put over 100 more workers, as well as their rescuers, in mortal danger.