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March 12, 2009

Midwestern Innocence Project

Speakers: Jay Swearingen, Tamara Morris, and Darryl Burton

The Midwestern Innocence Project is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to inmates with a substantial claim of innocence but who cannot afford an attorney to navigate for them the post-conviction landscape. The MIP represents a six-state region: Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa.

Darryl Burton was convicted in St. Louis in March 1985 for murdering a well-known drug dealer - a crime he didn't commit. Those of you who were unable to attend this program missed a shocking and moving look into Darryl's experience -- how he came to be imprisoned for 24 years for a murder he did not commit and how he was exonerated through his own amazing persistence.

We've all heard about such cases, but meeting a real person who has experienced the flawed American criminal justice system was incredible, as was the audience. Joining us were many people who had heard about our meeting through KWMU Radio's St. Louis on the Air or a KSDK TV interview with Jennifer Blome. One woman came because, in the Blome interview, she heard Burton name her brother as one of the men he knew in prison whom he believes are innocent. Another woman urged us to advocate for financial compensation for those who have been wrongly incarcerated. Missouri provides none. Jay Swearingen, executive director of the Midwestern Innocence Project, explained the work of the organization and revealed how easy it is for innocent people to be wrongly convicted. We should all be very angry that this can happen to any American. For more information on what we can do, visit their website at www.themip.org.

February 12, 2009

City Faces

Speaker: Bob Hansman - Artist-in-Residence and Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Washington University

Bob Hansman's moving and fascinating presentation woke us up to the challenges children in the inner city face every day, including getting enough to eat. Hansman has dedicated his life to helping children in public housing in St. Louis through his City Faces project. The project uses art to help young people learn about problem solving, cooperation, self-evaluation, and long-term planning, while discovering talents they did not know they had.

He gave an eye-witness account of the obstacles that work against disadvantaged youth attending college and achieving success in life: broken families, gangs, police brutality, and poverty. The emotional toll of Hansman's work was apparent as he showed photos he's taken of his students over many years and then juxtaposed them with newspaper articles and funeral notices that documented the loss of many promising children to the violence and crime in their environment. What motivates him to continue? "You think you're going to change these kids' lives and they change yours," he said.

Hansman adopted Jovan Hansman, now 27, when Jovan was a one of his students. Jovan now operates Faces in the Loop, on Delmar. This shop is the students' first venture into managing their own business. At the store, the students sell City Faces portraits and learn important business skills. Most important, they develop a supportive professional alternative to the negative forces that have claimed the lives and futures of many of their friends.

Their pastel works are for sale as originals or posters. You can also commission a customized portrait of yourself or someone special. You can watch a YouTube video about City Faces here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oup1AYMRnAs

Hansman's program is funded out of his own pocket and by a fundraiser hosted by his Washington University students. When asked how Women's Voices could help him, he indicated that financing the program is a continuing challenge. Women's Voices made a $150 donation to City Faces. If you would like to make a contribution, send a check payable to "Better Family Life" and enclose a note indicating that your contribution is for City Faces.

Better Family Life
Attention: Darryl Cummings
724 Union Blvd., Suite 301
St. Louis, MO 63108

For his work with City Faces, Bob has received a World of Difference Award from President Clinton's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1996, a Missouri Arts Award, and an award from Colin Powell's America's Promise campaign in 1999. He and Jovan were featured in a CBS Evening News with Katie Couric segment in 2007. You can watch the segment here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/10/assignment_america/main3157233.shtml

January 8, 2009

Health Care: The System We Have And The Change We Want

Speakers: Dr. Abbe Sudvarg and Dr. Sidney Watson

At the monthly Women's Voices meeting on January 8, Barbara Finch reminded Women's Voices members of the reason this organization exists: to speak for those who are unable to speak for themselves. Her statement (at the opening of this newsletter) was made in the context of a vibrant discussion on health care reform, which featured two excellent speakers: Abbe Sudvarg, MD, and Sidney Watson, JD. Abbe described the needs at Family Health Center in Holly Hills, where she is associate medical director and family physician. Half of the center's patients are uninsured, and as the economy worsens the number of uninsured is growing. Sidney, a professor at the St. Louis University School of Law Center for Health Law Studies, described current possibilities for reforming the nation's unfair and inefficient health system. We were also fortunate to have Amanda Stiebel join the meeting. She spoke about her new book Are We Feeling Better Yet? Women Speak about Health Care in America, a collection of essays by professional writers, which she coedited with Colleen McKee. The book is available at Penultimate Press in St. Louis and should soon be on the shelves of Left Bank Book Store. The book was one of four given to lucky winners of a drawing. The question-answer period was lively.

December 11, 2008

Peace and Awareness

Speaker: Kate Lovelady, Leader - Ethical Society of St. Louis

Women's Voices members and supporters are active, indeed, and are always interested in learning and engaging in social justice ventures. Our December program we focused on the need for inner peace in order to be more mindful individuals. Kate Lovelady, the leader of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, was our featured speaker. She introduced the concept of mindfulness and talked about how thoughtful reflections and focused awareness can strengthen us as individuals and as activists from the inside out.

November 13, 2008

Shopping for Justice

Once again we got a start on our holiday shopping at Plowsharing Crafts in University City - 6271 Delmar Blvd. in the U-City Loop. The store was open for WV members and guests from 6 - 9pm with light refreshments and the opportunity to support Plowingsharing Crafts in their mission of providing meaningful income to Third World Crafts People by marketing their products in St. Louis. Plowsharing Crafts works with the Ten Thousand Villages and other craft organizations that give jobs and fair pay to people that would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed.

October 9, 2008

Election 2008

Speaker: Repps Hudson

Repps Hudson, well-known St. Louis journalist who is currently teaching a class about elections at Washington University, engaged members of Women's Voices in a lively dialogue about the upcoming 2008 election at the general membership meeting in October.

This year's election is difficult to predict because of a number of unusual factors that may influence it, Hudson said. These factors include race, gender and age. In addition, the recent economic turmoil in the world financial markets has somewhat diverted attention away from other critical issues, including health care and the environment. Social issues so prized by conservatives, such as the emphasis on "guns and gays," abortion and stem cell research, may well take a back seat in this year's election, Hudson said.

He predicted an unusually large turnout, based upon the number of newly registered voters, and questioned whether polling is completely accurate this year because pollsters do not contact people with cell phones. The majority of younger voters are cell phone users and polls may be skewed because they have not been contacted.

Members posed a number of questions, many dealing with absentee voting, the reliability of voting machines, and the possibility of a vote-by-mail system such as the one in place in the state of Oregon.

September 11, 2008

Focus on East St. Louis

Speakers: Harper Barnes, Ann Collins, and Martha Patterson

East St. Louis, Illinois, is just a few miles from where most of us live. But how much do we really know about our sister city across the River? Do we understand its rich history, its compelling problems, and its promise for its citizens?

Former Post Dispatch editor/reporter Harper Barnes joined us to discuss his critically acclaimed book on the 1917 East St. Louis race riot Never Been A Time, an account of the most deadly of the racial battles that occurred in cities across the country in the World War I era.

Then McKendree University professors Ann Collins and Martha Patterson described an exciting project that pairs McKendree freshmen with East St. Louis Senior High School students. The project connects freshman-level honors students at McKendree with students in a junior-level social studies class at East St. Louis Senior High School in order to engage in discussion of the cultural history--literature, music, history, politics--of East St. Louis.

Professors Collins and Patterson are also setting up a website featuring topics that the classes discuss and oral history interviews conducted by the students.

June 12, 2008

Sarafina at The Black Rep

More than 70 members and friends of Women's Voices marked the end of our 2007-08 program year by attending the Black Rep's production of "Sarafina." This energetic and inspiring musical told the story of a group of students in Soweto, South Africa, who stood up to their government and eventually forced an end to aparthied.

Black Rep Director Ron Himes wrote in his program notes:

"We cannot stand by without speaking up.
We can make a difference.
We do, each one, count.
We must be sure to include the young when we make plans for the future."

To these words, the members of Women's Voices say, "Amen."

May 8, 2008

Immigration in the United States

Speakers: Tiffany Baldwin, attorney with Greensfelder, Hemker and Gale; and Jennifer Rafanan, statewide coordinator, Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates

In the run-up to the 2008 general elections, the topic of immigration has surfaced to the top of the agenda for several candidates. But it's impossible to understand the problems of illegal immigration without first understanding legal immigration, according to Tiffany Baldwin, a St. Louis immigration attorney. "To put it simply, we have a problem with illegal immigration because our legal system is broken," Baldwin said.

There are three categories of non-U.S. citizens who are here legally, Baldwin explained. They are (1) naturalized citizens, (2) permanent residents, who are closely related to U. S. citizens (sometimes called "green card" holders), and (3) non-immigrants, who are temporary visitors or those with visas.

"Getting into the U. S. legally is a long and complicated process," Baldwin said. "There are limited options, The visa process is complex and expensive. More restrictive policies have been put into place in the wake of 9-11. Many categories are capped. This has resulted in a huge backlog of people who are waiting to get in. And because only one of every three applicants for a visa can get in, the result has been that many businesses have to open up out of this country in order to find enough workers."

While the intent of much legislation dealing with immigration has been to protect U. S. workers, the actual outcome has been to force large corporations to leave the country and small businesses to go under, Baldwin said. Unskilled, agricultural and seasonal workers will continue to come because they cannot survive and feed their families in their own countries.

"We need a guest worker program to take care of these individuals," Baldwin said.

Jennifer Rafanan described the mission of the Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates as a coalition of organizations that stands up for the basic rights of all immigrants.

"In Missouri, only 3.4 percent of our population is foreign-born," Rafanan said. "Nearly half of those are naturalized citizens. They come from all over the world and they live all over the state."

Rafanan points to NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) as the driving force behind the current influx of illegal immigrants. "Workers come from Mexico and Central America simply because they can't make a living wage in their own countries any longer," she said. "People move to places where they can find work to feed their families."

Policy makers are out of touch with economic and social realities in other countries, Rafanan maintains. "There are only 5,000 work visas per year for unskilled workers to come to the U. S.," she said. "There is no way for employers to sponsor unskilled workers, and there is an out-of-control backlog of family members waiting to get in. These people can't get in line to enter the U. S., because there is no line for them to stand in."

Thirty-two pieces of legislation dealing with immigration have been filed in the Missouri legislature just this year, and much of it is fueling the anti-immigrant sentiment. Both Baldwin and Rafanan agree that the only solution to the problem must come from the federal government.

April 10, 2008

Talking With Our Enemies and Strategic Competitors

Speaker: Ambassador Marshall McCallie

Ambassador Marshall McCallie's subject, "Talking With Our Enemies", was a refreshing shift from the current foreign policy of the United States. Ambassador McCallie's career has been in public service, first as an officer in the United States Air Force for four years and then as a Foreign Service Officer in America's diplomatic corps for 28 years. McCallie began by saying that conducting effective foreign relations will take all of our talent. A wise nation, he said, minimizes its enemies. "We must develop a bias toward peacekeeping", he said. "We must frame issues properly". President George W. Bush's often-quoted declaration about the "axis of evil", in which he included Iran, immediately undercut the possibility of negotiations with them.

He was clear that he does not view engaging our enemies in dialogue as 'rolling over'. While he supports military preparedness, he does not support preemptive strikes. He also believes strongly in intelligence-gathering: there is no substitute for good intelligence, he said.

His years as a diplomat taught him that once negotiations with another entity are under way, confidence and credibility must be established. "Don't lie," he said simply.

He reviewed the situation following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and credited the United States with having both the vision and the will to negotiate with the Soviets, who were opposed to reunifying Germany.

He said that while the United States has few enemies today, we do have strategic competitors, which requires us to think strategically.

Before the U.S. attacked Iraq, his recommendation was to get the cooperation of the United Nations. Our approach has not made the world safer, and we became embroiled in a civil war in Iraq. This should be a wake-up call, that we cannot transform a society culturally or politically. It concerns him that, in Iraq, we've built the largest embassy in the world. It's wiser, he said, not to have set geographical points, which may become a sore point where we've installed them.

He discussed the opportunities we have had to negotiate with Iran, and our concern over Iran's potential nuclear energy. We need the International Atomic Energy Agency's help in these negotiations. He thinks the process will not be easy, but it is not impossible. In fact, he sees Pakistan as a bigger threat.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian situation, most people agree that we must search for a solution. He talked about non-political aspects such as cross-cultural exchanges. We did not recognize the cultural divisions in Iraq. "All the talk in the world is worthless without a deep cultural knowledge". We must develop a "respectful dialogue with the rest of the world". We can afford to negotiate, and this will promote a more stable world.

Questions from the audience included one about the current protests during the relay of the Olympic flame. His opinion is that we should go forward with the Olympics but he also welcomes the protests. He said our government should not "pile on" to this process, but rather let the protesters make the point.

In response to a question about withdrawing from Iraq, he thought the Bush administration saw a "false choice": stay and save Iraq or get out and 'let hell occur.' In fact, a new administration must negotiate so the other countries in the area see that it's in their best interests.

To a question about "conglomerate idiocy" in the Bush administration, he said they were torn between pragmatists, former Secretary of State Colin Powell being an example, and neo-cons such as former U.N. Ambassador Bolton of the former and the latter. Powell was silenced by Vice-President Cheney and others.

Are we moving toward one world government, he was asked. He said he thought not, because people value their own culture.

Does he see promise of better diplomatic relations with a new administration, he was asked. Sen. McCain's thoughts on a "League of Democracies" concern him because he sees that as code for ignoring the United Nations. He thought Sen. Clinton was upfront about getting out of Iraq in a responsible manner; Sen. Obama, he said, had not lived through the Cold War and consequently sees the world as less threatening than the generation ahead of him.

To a question about whether the U.S. has lost prestige and moral authority in the world, he thought that if Sen. McCain were president, the world would see this as maintaining the status quo. If the next president is a Democrat, the international community would greet that person with openness, but he predicted the "honeymoon" would only last three months before a "new way of doing business in Washington" would have to be demonstrated.

The final question about the departure (in 2001) from previous policies and the 'interference' on the part of the U.S. in other countries brought the reminder that actions have consequences. "It will take citizens like us", McCallie said, "to push for open diplomacy".

The following is a bibliography of books to which Ambassador McCallie made reference in his talk:

1. James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War
2. Chris Hedges, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
3. Dennis Ross, Statecraft: How to Restore America's Standing in the World
4. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Second Chance
5. Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic
6. The Iraq Study Group Report, James A. Baker and Lee Hamilton, Co-Chairs

March 13, 2008

Film: Uncounted

On Thursday, March 13, Missourians for Honest Elections* showed a disturbing film, "UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections", that turns many of our assumptions about democratic elections upside down. The film looks at the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections and the many questions that came out of these events.

Voters in several places found long, long lines; some polls opening an hour late; people who had voted in the primary found their names missing from the rolls for the November election; some voting machines were not working properly … these and many other stories seem to bring our right to a fair and honest election into question.

One reported polling place in Ohio had only two voting machines for 1300 people, one of which was broken for the first two hours of the day. Also in Ohio, only one phone number was given for each precinct, making it nearly impossible for people to call for information.

Undercounted ballots (which occurs when a voter does not indicate a choice for a candidate or issue) usually make up 1 - 3% of elections returns, but some precincts in Pennsylvania reported as high as 70 - 80% undercounted ballots. In Louisiana, thousands were unable to vote due to software problems with the electronic voting machines.

The 2000 voting debacle of vote flipping in Florida was examined closely, including the connections between the Bush family, leading Republican Party members, and the people in charge of the election.

Many of the above problems that kept people from voting seemed to occur primarily in ethnic or low-income neighborhoods, which were projected to yield a strong Democratic vote.

In Utah, a county clerk was locked out of his office and ultimately fired after raising questions about the integrity of their voting machines. This in spite of the fact that the county clerk is elected, not appointed.

A significant part of the movie was devoted to electronic voting machines and their inherent flaws. One analogy seemed especially thought-provoking, which is that Diebold, which manufactures both electronic voting machines and ATMs, is able to produce machines which are virtually unhackable, and which produce a paper receipt (and cash), are unable to incorporate the same features in electronic voting machines. The primary assets of these machines seem to be convenience for election officials and speedy election results for the media.

The discrepancy between exit polls and ballot counts was another puzzling phenomenon. Historically, exit polling has been a dependable measure of voter balloting until 2004, when numerous states yielded very different results between exit polling and actual ballot counts. A further curiosity was the lack of media interest in this discrepancy.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this film is the realization that these problems still exist and will affect the 2008 election.

Helen Mcintosh, a member of Women's Voices who also is active with Missourians for Honest Elections, introduced the film. With her were two other very active members of Missourians for Honest Elections, Ginger Harris and Pat Berg, who fielded questions following the film.

Copies of Uncounted were available at the end of the meeting.

Following are just a handful of the related web sites:
http://www.uncountedthemovie.com/about-the-film.html
http://www.bradblog.com/
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
http://electiondefensealliance.org/
http://www.votersunite.org/

*Missourians for Honest Elections is a non-partisan public watchdog group that has been working since 2005 to educate the public and government officials about the problems associated with electronic voting.

February 14, 2008

Targeting Muslim Rights: Private Provocation and Public Action

Speaker: Gulten Ilhan

"Are all Muslims bad?" Gulten Ilhan's daughter had asked her after coming home from kindergarten one day. Professor Ilhan then talked to us about the forms of prejudice that Muslims deal with in the United States since the September 11 terrorist attacks. The depth of misinformation and misunderstanding she described was staggering.

"It is extremely difficult to be Muslim in the U.S.", she said. To demonstrate her statement, she showed a recent Gallup Poll revealing that 39% of people thought U.S. citizens who are Muslim should be required to carry something identifying them as Muslim. One-third of those polled believed all Muslims were sympathetic to al-Qaeda. Another poll showed that 22% of people would not want a Muslim as a neighbor.

Ilhan, who moved to the U.S. from Turkey when she was 16, completed her education through a master's degree, but abandoned her Ph.D. work in order to become an activist for Muslims and Islam. She is now professor of Philosophy and co-director of Global Studies at Meramec Community College and spends her free time working to educate non-Muslims, hoping to put to rest the myths and prejudices that exist. Her many activist roles include committeewoman of the Democratic Central Committee of St. Louis County, and board member of the ACLU.

She showed photos of signs in front of several churches with varying messages to the effect that Jesus supports life but Mohammed preaches killing. One example showed the word ISLAM written with the S replaced by a swastika. She said a story in the Post-Dispatch about Muslims in St. Louis drew nearly 300 responses of which 260 were negative. One including the following comment: "The only good Arab is a dead Arab".

Several clips from television and talk show personalities, including Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter, displayed both ignorance and extreme prejudice toward Muslims. Coulter's comment following 9/11 was, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

She closed her talk by asking, "How many of you fear a knock on your door? We do", she said. "We do."

Professor Ilhan answered several questions, including how many Muslims live in St. Louis, which she estimates to be 60,000 to 70,000. She said that approximately one-third of Muslims living in the United States are African-Americans. The final question to her was, "What can we do?" Her answer was simple: Speak up.

January 10, 2008

YouthBuild in the Hyde Park Community

Speaker: Martha Brunell

The Rev. Martha Brunell delivered a powerful message at the January Women's Voices meeting: "Are you mad?!" she asked us. She said that she understood Women's Voices was started because the founding women were angry following the 2004 elections. Martha, an ordained United Church of Christ pastor for 30 years, said she's been mad for a long, long time, and quoted musician Holly Near's lyrics from her song, "Fired Up".

Martha talked about her church, Friedens United Church of Christ, in the Hyde Park neighborhood. The church, now 150 years old, chose to stay in the north city in the 1950s when what she called a "calculated political plan" caused many people to move to the suburbs. After the 1980 election, she said, "money dried up overnight and the Hyde Park neighborhood fell through the safety net." "We have" she said, ""forgotten how to be aware of the common good."

In 2005 Friedens Church created the Friedens Neighborhood Foundation to ensure the future of their work in the neighborhood. Soon after this, HUD began developing YouthBuild programs in St. Louis, and Friedens was selected to administer one.

She talked about our response to society's needs. "Give us a catastrophe!" she said in describing our society's love affair with "acute drama" such as the Katrina disaster. She compared this with "chronic realities," the day-to-day poverty and misery all around us, which we seem able to tolerate.

She asked us four questions:

• Are you mad?
• What are you mad about?
• How long are you willing to be mad?
• Are you willing to be changed?

She reminded us that being mad takes a lot of energy, so it's necessary to focus our passion, which she calls our "edge." . She described their community garden, begun by a volunteer whose love of gardening led her to recruit young men in the neighborhood to help her.

She warned us not to simply respond to a social injustice we recognize, but rather to choose something we care deeply about, because that's where we will be able to make changes. She warned us repeatedly that this takes lots of time, and many, many failures.

She described YouthBuild as a program for 18 - 24-year-olds who work toward their GED while learning construction job skills such as plumbing and electrical work. Students are given financial reimbursement each day that they come, because regular attendance is also a job skill. This is funded for just one year, and the money may run out before the class is completed. Volunteers are desperately needed to help them find money in order to finish out this year.

She invited us to visit her "corner", as she refers to Friedens Church, and see for ourselves what they are about.

(Friedens United Church of Christ is located at 19th Street and Newhouse, bounded on three sides by North Florissant, North Grand and Hwy. 70. If you're interested in knowing more about the YouthBuild program or visiting Friedens, please contact Sarajane Campbell: SCAMP180@aol.com)

December 13, 2007

Caring for Kids

About 22 Women's Voices members had a great time cleaning, sorting, and accounting for a library of books, videos, and developmentally appropriate toys at the Child Day Care Association on the evening of December 13th. Substituting this activity in place of our December meeting, the women were greeted by the appreciative staff of the association, who had given careful thought about how to best utilize our volunteer services.

While some of us went through the shelves of books, looking for those missing pockets or incorrectly shelved, others took down bins or zipped bags of toys, all labeled by age and developmental skills. We wiped down each piece with antiseptic wipes and cleaned out the bins as well, noting those whose contents failed to match the description on the lids. Toys that were missing pieces were then set aside to be repaired or replaced.

Our librarian members converged on the cabinets of videos, matching them against inventory lists. Somehow, when the time came to stop and get ready to reboard the bus back to the Ethical Society, all of the books had been accounted for, the videos were in order, and 99.7 % of the puzzles and toys had been cleaned and sorted. Best of all, the spirits of all of us were even higher at the end of the evening!

It was great fun for a great cause . . . and we left behind a huge assortment of diapers to be distributed to the First Steps families who really need them. Call it a Win-Win Evening!

November 8, 2007

Jeff Smith - Missouri Senate, District 4
Public Education in Missouri

Senator Smith began by talking about his father, an NBA fan and a strong proponent of cultural diversity. One of his dad's methods of passing this onto his son was to drop him off at the Wohl Community Center on N. Kingshighway on Saturdays and pick him up four hours later, during which time Jeff Smith developed basketball skills as well as an understanding and compassion for the people he now represents in the city of St. Louis. During his four years at the University of North Carolina, Smith was instrumental in getting a Black cultural center on campus. He left school with the intention of teaching in St. Louis, but didn't have the necessary education courses, so, he said with irony, "They hired me as a teacher evaluator." This worked to his advantage, allowing him to spend time in all of the city schools instead of teaching in only one school. While he observed some talented, dedicated teachers, he also came across many who were simply counting days to retirement.

Ultimately, he and Dr. Susan Uchitelle started the Confluence Academies, a group of urban public charter schools in St. Louis. They literally went door to door in search of parents and children, and today have close to 2300 students. The students, primarily Black, and most eligible for the free or reduced lunch program (a standard measure of income level), are a remarkable success story, according to Smith: they are succeeding and their test scores have steadily improved. He clarified that charter schools are public schools operated with public school dollars, not vouchers. (He said during the Q and A session that he was opposed to vouchers.) Charter schools have several advantages, including the ability to determine hours (Confluence students attend two hours longer than most other schools) and to lengthen the school year from nine to eleven months, and they have minimal non-teaching staff.

This commitment to urban education has led Smith to develop several pieces of legislation, including the Missouri Teaching Fellows bill, designed to attract teachers to non-accredited school districts in both the city and county. Another legislative effort would fund early-education programs for pre-Kindergarten students. Yet another idea is to reward science and math majors for teaching in non-accredited schools. He said that one-third of the science teachers in St. Louis schools have taken no science courses in college. Another proposal is a Pay for Performance program, where administrators, colleagues, parents and students would review teacher performance. Teachers who meet the performance criteria would be paid accordingly, and it would be voluntary on the teacher's part. Nevertheless, the teachers' union strongly opposed it. Smith, who probably looks the age of many of his graduate students at Washington University, said, "I've gotten a lot more pragmatic in my old age," bringing one of many chuckles from the audience.

During the Question and Answer session, he was asked about the Mentor St. Louis program in which the questioner participates. He said he's all for one-on-one tutoring, which he does at the Matthews-Dickey Club, but he then described College Summit, a three-day program with high school students which guides them in writing their college-application essay. He called the experience "transformative" for him.

"Cautiously optimistic" was his analysis of the current (appointed) St. Louis School Board. He thought acting School Board president Rick Sullivan was "listening to groups of people."

Asked about his current project with city high school civics students, he said he's visiting every civics class to talk about the legislative process. He then asks the students to propose a bill. He will select the best bill and sponsor it in Jefferson City.

A question and comment from a former St. Louis teacher dealt with how charter school teachers are paid; the questioner thought salary was not as important to most teachers as being "part of the process." Smith firmly believes that teaching salaries are too low, saying, "We pay teachers less than garbage collectors; they should collectively make what engineers make." He also cautioned about "romanticizing" teaching.

He finished by encouraging his audience to participate through programs such as College Summit, College Bound and Mentor St. Louis.

To receive Sen. Smith's e-newsletter, contact his administrative assistant, Christine Brauner: Christine.Brauner@senate.mo.gov.

At this party for members and guests, we had ample opportunity to explore the EarthWays Center and its gardens, located around the corner from the Fox Theater in the Grand Arts Center district. The Center, a division of the Missouri Botanical Garden, is located in a beautiful century-old Victorian residence that has been renovated as a showcase of energy and resource efficiency.

At the May 10 Annual Meeting of Women's Voices we celebrated two historic happenings. We had our first ever elections, with all paid members present voting, and we presented our first annual Special Awards to Outstanding Members.

Our leadership for 2007-2008 includes:

• Barbara Finch, President. Our dynamic leader will continue for 2 years!
• Tresa McCallie, Vice-President. She has been on our Advisory Board.
• Joanne Kelly, Secretary. She is one of the four founders.
• Mary Clemons, Treasurer. She continues an appointed position.

Board of Directors for two-year terms are:

• Chery Green. She has been an Advisor and is our Webmaster.
• Mary Ann Tipton. She is new to a leadership position with WV.

One-year Board of Directors members are:

• Julie Healey. She has helped plan our Shopping for Justice event.
• Barbara Richter. She has been active on the Health Care Focus Group.

Our Special Awards to Outstanding Members went to:

• Jane Bogetto, Cynthia Kramer, and Bev White who all ran for the Missouri House of Representatives in 2006. Our Mistress of Ceremonies, Suzanne Meyer, commended them for their courage in running excellent campaigns in this divisive atamosphere.
• Yaphett El-Amin, who ran for the Missouri Senate in 2006, and sacrificed her House seat to do so.
• Cynthia Holmes, who wrote a pro bono, friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the ACLU's opposition to the Missouri Voter ID law. That piece of legislation was subsequently found unconstitutional.
• Jean Lopez, graphic designer, who is responsible for our Women's Voices logo, which depicts our mission so well.
• Chery Green, who designed and maintains our excellent website which is the envy of other not-for-profits. Chery also used her technological skills to assist candidates Jane Bogetto and Bev White.
• Amy Smoucha was named the Women's Voices Humanitarian of the Year. Amy's determination to restore Medicaid cuts to the state budget, her work with our Health Care Focus Group, and her professional work with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and Jobs with Justice make her an inspiration to our entire membership.

Our meeting concluded with Remarks from President Barb Finch.

Women's Voices will soon launch our third year of existence with the example of these outstanding members and the leadership of our fine new officers. We welcome all members and subscribers aboard.

Mark Rank, one of America’s foremost experts on issues of poverty, inequality, and social justice, laid out several statistics that elicited collective gasps from the large audience of Women’s Voicers and guests who gathered to hear him at the Ethical Society, our new home for monthly meetings.

One was that about 60% of all Americans will experience poverty for at least a year sometime between the ages of 20 and 75. Another was that two-thirds of all Americans will use one of the country’s means- tested welfare programs, like Medicaid or Food Stamps, at some time during their lives. And a third was that as the rate of poverty among the elderly has declined dramatically in the last 40 years, from 35% in the 60’s to just over 10% now, the rate among children has been steadily climbing, so that kids are now more likely to be poor than any other age group in America.

Rank, who holds the Herbert S. Hadley Professorship of Social Welfare at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University, believes that the responsibility for America’s poverty rate, which is the highest in the developed world, lies squarely with the country’s structural failings, rather than with individual fault.

“We tend to point to an individual’s problems and hold him responsible,” he says. “But the reality is that the system doesn’t have enough capacity to support us all.”

Rank uses the analogy of a game of musical chairs, in which there are 10 players but only eight chairs. When the music stops, it’s inevitable that two people will lose out, not because the players are at fault, but because the structure is not big enough to accommodate their basic needs.

To correct this inherently flawed system will require a change in public attitude, Rank feels. Some of this will come from simple self- interest, a recognition that we’re putting our money on the back end of the problem. And some will come from return to values that have been part of this nation since its inception, like shared responsibility, concern for the least fortunate, and liberty, justice and equality for all.

With liberty and justice for all?

Hollow words, according to the three speakers who shared their views on Missouri's death penalty at our March meeting. Susan McGraugh, Assistant Clinical Professor at St. Louis University School of Law, Rose Rita Huelsmann, SSND, Volunteer Services Coordinator for Criminal Justice Ministry at St. Vincent de Paul, and Diana Oleskevich, Justice Coordinator at Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, spoke passionately about their belief that the death penalty is an arbitrary, broken system that should be abolished.
The speakers cited numerous studies showing glaring disparities in the system.

"Throughout the country, a black man is much more likely to get the death penalty than a white for a similar crime," said McGraugh. On a local level, she reported the disparity between the prosecutorial "fervor" of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCullough and his counterpart in the city, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce. "McCullough uses his discretion in calling for the death penalty far more often than Joyce," she said. "And Joyce always gives someone who's been charged with the death penalty the opportunity of taking life without parole. McCullough never offers this. Punishment shouldn't depend on where you live."

Urban/rural disparities are huge, too. "Rural counties can't afford the costs of a capital case," said Oleskevich, "so the death penalty is rarely sought in these areas of the state.

And there are simply no people of wealth on death row, highlighting the difference that highly-skilled, experienced attorneys can make to a trial."

Even if the system could be administered with total fairness, an impossible goal they believe, all three women would still oppose its use. "Killing again just creates more victims," Huelsmann said, "and it doesn't bring closure. If we believe in the human ability to change, which we see certainly in ourselves throughout our lives, we have no right to deny others this possibility."

Abolishment is a long-term goal of all three. In the meantime, they urged Women's Voices to work toward passage of pending legislation placing a three-year moratorium on the death penalty in Missouri and establishing a commission to study it. For more information, visit www.moabolition.org.

A Liberal Religious Leader Speaks Out

When Dr. Michael Kinnamon, The Allen and Dottie Miller Professor of Mission, Peace and Ecumenical Studies at Eden Theological Seminary, began his remarks to the intrepid crowd that had gathered on a bitterly cold night to hear his message about liberal religious values, there was not an empty seat in the house.

He began his comments with a compliment for Women's Voices. "I very much like your approach," he said. "I like the fact that you're not just working for social justice for women, but that you are women working for social justice for all."

Then, in answer to questions raised by the program's title, "Where are the liberal religious leaders of today? What are they talking about?" Kinnamon laid out seven principles he feels all liberal religious people hold in common and can use as they work together toward a better world.

1. Intellectual, spiritual humility is a prime religious value. God is God, and we aren't!
2. Liberals bring the lessons of science and experience into their dialogues. God is still speaking.
3. Liberals believe that God is honored less by the purity of our religious beliefs than by our love for our neighbors.
4. All of creation is interdependent. Within this unity, however, is astonishing diversity. Liberals value this diversity, especially within the human family. "One of the biggest challenges, though," warns Kinnamon, "is the intersection of plurality and evil. We must love the enemies of social justice, while we continue to stand firm against their positions."
5. Liberals refuse to split the world into "them" and "us."
6. God has a preference for the poor, the weak, the sick. This tells us where the God of history is always at work - on the margins.
7. The healing of this world is God's purpose.

During the question and answer period following his remarks, Kinnamon was asked what he would say to George Bush were he given an opportunity to speak with him.

"I guess I'd focus on the issue of human interdependence," he said, "and the idea that our security is inseparable from the security of all other peoples on earth. When our leaders believe that they alone have purity of belief, it's a way of boundary keeping, of separating the world into "us" and "them." That's the wrong way to go about building world peace."

Kinnamon was also asked about the difficulty of loving our enemies. Isn't this just something that's impossible for flawed humans to do? Kinnamon doesn't think so, if "love" is interpreted not just as affection, but as action. "In this sense," he explained, "love is defined as an act of will. And that's something we can control."

Paths to Universal Health Insurance: Is Massachusetts a Map for Missouri?

A large crowd of Women's Voicers listened intently as Sidney Watson, Professor of Health Law at St. Louis University's School of Law, described how Massachusetts developed the nation's first state-based plan to provide adequate, affordable health care for all its residents.

After years of advocacy work by Affordable Care Today (ACT), a statewide coalition of community and religious organizations, labor unions, doctors, hospitals, community health centers, public health advocates and consumers, the plan was brought to fruition last year through the efforts of political leadership that was both bi-partisan and experienced.

The plan includes private insurance premium assistance for low-income residents and the creation of private insurance purchasing pools for small groups and individuals. It also contains an individual mandate that requires people to buy affordable health insurance if it's available. If they don't, they must pay a penalty equal to 50% of the premiums. The mandate, however, doesn't go into effect until such affordable insurance is available, creating an obvious incentive for the state to make sure that happens.

A big portion of the plan's costs will be covered by funds that will no longer be needed to reimburse hospitals for the care of uninsured patients. Last year in Massachusetts, the state's uncompensated care pool was one billion dollars.

Another critical piece is the state's expansion of its Medicaid program to leverage as many federal dollars as possible. For every dollar the state spends on the program, the federal government contributes another two. To Watson, maximizing this stream of federal dollars is a no-brainer. "For a governor to do it any other way," she says, "is just irresponsible."

This led to a discussion of whether Missouri might be able to follow Massachusetts's lead. Watson feels we can, although there are obvious hurdles, one of the highest being our state's legislative term limits that work against the development of an experienced pool of lawmakers.

But the state has over 600 million dollars in uncompensated care costs that could be redirected, millions of additional dollars in untapped federal Medicaid funds, and surprisingly similar ratios of insured to uninsured as those in Massachusetts prior to their reform.

Watson is convinced, however, that no meaningful reform will occur in Missouri without a strong, grassroots advocacy coalition. She sees much hope here, with much already in place and with continuing support from the Missouri Health Foundation and new involvement from Community Catalyst, a national health care advocacy group that has strengthened efforts in several other states.

This grassroots advocacy is what Women's Voices is all about. It's time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work!

Mitchell, a native of Rock Hill who graduated from Webster Groves High School and the University of Missouri/Columbia, worked as a reporter for KTVI-TV and KMOV-TV in St. Louis before joining CBS news. His career has taken him from news hot spots around the world to CBS headquarters in New York, where he currently anchors the weekend news editions. He was recently promoted to news anchor on the early morning show.

Mitchell explained that plans for the evening newscasts on network television begin in the early morning, when senior executives gather to discuss what is happening around the world. Plans for stories are made, crews are dispatched, scripts are written and video is edited throughout the day. Ultimately, decisions about what stories will air are made by a variety of seasoned, experienced news professionals. Only the "big three" network newscasters (those who appear on the 5:30 p.m. segments) have veto power over the stories they will report as part of their contractual agreements with the network.

Mitchell spoke with great affection about some of his mentors in the business, including Dan Rather and Ed Bradley.

"Ultimately, viewers get the kind of television news that they want to see," he said. "Networks respond to viewers. If you don't want to see celebrity news or entertainment on your nightly news show, write a letter. Make a phone call. Change the channel. Use your remote. If enough people do this, things will change."

November 9, 2006

Shopping for Justice

A large, enthusiastic crowd of Women's Voicers gathered at Plowsharing Crafts in U City for "Shopping for Justice," an evening of conscientious shopping and lively discussion during which members and friends...

• Helped select and purchase over 40 new children's books for the Wyman School library in the city. (The wide selection of beautiful choices was made available by the Webster Groves Book Store.)
• Contributed to a basket of "loose change," which, by the end of the evening, contained $100 - enough to buy five flocks of ducks through the Heifer Project for families in third-world countries.
• Learned about environmentally-friendly home products and a new St. Louis store, Home Eco, where they're available.
• Sipped fair trade coffees and organic wines and munched on yummy snacks made from Women's Bean Project mixes.
• Received a "hot-off-the-press" copy of our new booklet, Women's Voices Puts Justice into Giving, in which members and friends share suggestions for stress-free, environmentally-sound giving.
• Purchased gifts from Plowsharing Crafts, including candles, baskets, toys, hand-knit sweaters, potholders, Christmas ornaments, soap, and jewelry. The cash register was busy all evening, and by 9:00, we'd bought bags and bags of merchandise, all of which will help provide a vital, fair income to the third-world artisans who had made these beautiful items.
• Celebrated, at the end of the evening, when we learned that 20% of our purchases, a whopping $637, will be donated to the St. Louis Post Dispatch's 100 Neediest Cases. Wow! Here's the text of a letter of thanks we received:
  
  "Many thanks to Women's Voices for participating in our fund-raising evenings. Your group was great!
  
  At Plowsharing, we say that for every $3,500 sold, we are helpfing one artisan and his/her family for one year. Your sales for the evening were $3,187, which were incredible, and came very close to fulfilling the above equation. I think it would be fair to tell your group that the sales you did in one evening helped an entire family for a whole year. Fantastic!
  
  Enclosed is a check for $637.40, which is 20 percent of that $3,187 amount, which I know you intend to help local needy familes with. It's a win-win."
  
  Shalom,
  
  Rich Howard-Willms, Plowsharing Manager

All in all, it was a great gathering, filled with spirited conversation, post-election glow, and thoughtful "Shopping for Justice."

October 12, 2006

Climate Change - And What WE Can Do About It

Jean Ponzi, environmentalist, gave a lively and informative program for more than 30 members at the October meeting. Ponzi is program manager for the Missouri Botanical Gardens EarthWays Center. In addition, she produces a weekly program titled "Earthworms" on radio station KDHX and writes a monthly column for "The Healthy Planet."

Ponzi distributed the Sierra Club handout, Ten Things You Can Do to Help Curb Global Warming. The tips include:

1. Drive smart...a well-tuned car with properly inflated tires burns less gasoline.
2. Urge government leaders to raise fuel economy standards to 40 miles per gallon.
3. Support clean, renewable energy.
4. Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.
5. Winterize your home, and ask your utility company to do a free energy audit of your house.
6. Use less water by installing low-flow showerheads and faucets.
7. Buy energy-efficient applicances and electronics.
8. Plant trees.
9. Reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever possible.
10. Educate others about global warming and its dangers.

Ponzi discussed various methods of recycling available in the St. Louis area and decried the myth that our recycling simply goes to the landfill. "The same trucks may pick up garbage one day and recyclables the next, but the garbage goes to the landfill and the recycling goes to recycling centers," she said. With single-stream recycling, everything...paper, glass, cans and plastic...is co-mingled. It is then transported to sorting stations where magnets, electronic eyes, airstreams and human hands sort the items. They are processed, bundled, and sent to manufacturers, she explained.

Ponzi urged members to use compact fluorescent light bulbs whenever possible. These produce the same amount of light as normal bulbs, but use about a quarter of the electricity and last 10 times as long. She also encouraged members to save paper (and therefore trees) by eliminating junk mail. Names can be removed from mailing lists at newdream.org, the web site for the New American Dream. In addition, she urged members to become involved in local environmental groups, such as the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

"When environmentally-sensitive questions arise, I tell people to just get the best information they can and then make the best decision they can," Ponzi says. "One of the things I love best about the Green Fields I have chosen to labor in is that there are no 100% right or wrong answers - because peoples' values always factor in."

The Women's Voices Environmental Focus Group is active and is currently encouraging area mayors to participate in Sierra Club's "Cool Cities" program.

John Hickey, executive director of the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition (Pro-Vote), spoke before the largest meeting of Women's Voices we've had to date. Every seat in the large conference room at Alberici was filled as John gave us an insider's look into "Give Missourians A Raise," the campaign to raise the state's minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.50. This past February, his organization and three others took a hard look at the political reality in Missouri. Although the federal minimum wage ($5.15) has remained flat since 1996, 23 states have passed legislation raising it within their borders. Unfortunately, there seemed little chance, given the current climate in Jefferson City, that a raise for Missouri's workers would come from the lawmakers. Pro Vote and its partners decided they'd try to get enough signatures (94,000) to get the issue before voters as an initiative petition on the November ballot. Within less than three months, using mostly volunteers, they'd collected over 200,000!

Who will be impacted if the initiative passes? According to a recent study by the national Economic Policy Institute, more than 120,000 Missourians currently earn less than the proposed $6.50 an hour. If they get a raise, another 136,000 workers would also get modest raises, as pay scales are adjusted, bringing the total of impacted workers to 256,000. John gave us some surprising statistics about these impacted workers. More than 70% of them are over 20. Forty-six percent work full time; 82% work more than 20 hours a week. Although 51% of all Missouri workers are male, 62% of the impacted workers are female. And a quarter of them are parents.

With only 54 days to go before the November election, John urged all of us to become actively involved in the minimum wage campaign -- and in the campaigns to elect progressive candidates to the Missouri house and senate. Pro Vote uses hundreds of volunteers to do phoning and door-to-door canvassing, and he asked that we contact the organization if we can give some time between now and November 7. He also urged all of us to go to their web site and sign up for Pro Vote's E-alert list, an easy way to stay informed about progressive issues and take quick action as needed.

First Anniversary Celebration a Resounding Success ... We had ninety-two very enthusiastic people at the party May 11. The food was good. The program and tour of the Alberici Building were spectacular. Thank you, Grant Lanham! And the very best thing was the gushing enthusiasm from everyone about Women's Voices and what we are doing. We have at least 13 new members as a result of the anniversary celebration. Thank you, thank you to the hard-working party committee: Sarajane Campbell, Karel Hippert, Joanne Kelly, Nancy Reeves, and Maxine Stone.

How worried should we be, as Missourians, about intrusions into our public schools from the religious right? Very worried, according to Rudy Pulido and Cynthia Holmes, two board members of the St. Louis chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State who spoke to our group in April. In recent years, the "closet fundies," as Holmes called them, have been working diligently in Missouri to blur the distinction between church and state, and the public schools are one of their chosen targets.

There have been repeated attempts by the conservative-controlled legislature in Jefferson City to sanction school prayer and the teaching of creationism. Pulido and Holmes suggested that we pay particular attention this year to HB 1266, the proposed "Missouri Science Education Act," which would force teachers to introduce "intelligent design" as a legitimate alternative to the theory of evolution. The wording of the act is deceptively vague – even dishonest – and is being supported by national organizations that have learned how to use this language to get conservative legislation passed.

Another grave concern is the attempt to push through various voucher programs that would funnel money out of public schools into private and parochial ones and, ultimately, even to home schoolers. Again, Pulido and Holmes warned, these proposals are cleverly worded to hide the real damage they would do to our cherished system of public education.

What can we, the members of Women’s Voices, do to help keep our schools free from control by the religious right? First, we can become better informed about the issues. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the national organization that has been working for almost 60 years to protect our First Amendment rights, has an excellent website (www.au.org) that’s a good place to start. Then, we can support Americans United, both nationally and locally, as they work to promote religious liberty. And finally, we can be vigilant about what’s happening in Jefferson City and make our views known.

Most of us know that St. Louis has one of the country’s finest symphonies and one of the best botanical gardens in the world. But until Lynne Cooper’s presentation on March 9, few of us had known that our town is also home to DOORWAYS, recognized as the best provider of affordable, secure housing for people with HIV/AIDS in the nation.

Founded in 1988 by community leaders and representatives from the area’s major religious organizations, Doorways assists approximately 500 adults and 90 children in the St. Louis region every month. In some cases, it does so by offering rent assistance so that people can continue to live in their own homes. In other cases, it provides subsidized apartments for clients, many of whom are women with children. And in the most severe cases, it provides beds for clients who require 24-hour nursing, medication, and nutrition care. Of all the people Doorways serves, 70% of them are able to transition out of the program when their health improves.

Doorways’ mission is based on the conviction that stable housing is the primary requisite for effective and compassionate treatment of this disease. If people have no way to refrigerate their medications, if they cannot keep themselves clean, if they cannot get the rest they need, they will not get better.

Cooper, who has been president of Doorways since its inception, reported that black women are the fastest growing HIV/AIDS population in this country. It is not hard to trace the cause. The United States imprisons a higher percentage of its population than any other country in the world. Black men are incarcerated at much higher rates than their white counterparts. Many of them get HIV/AIDS in prison. When they’re released, they infect their partners. Many of these partners are black women, many of them poor, many with children.

Fortunately for these women and their children, Doorways provides a safe, comfortable place to live while they try to pull their lives back together. They face almost insurmountable challenges, but finding warm beds for their kids and a refrigerator for milk and medications is not one of them.

On a cold, snowy evening, members and friends gathered to watch Paul Haggis’ 2005 movie "Crash." Set in contemporary Los Angeles, the film takes a "provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial conflict in America." Over the course of two days, its complicated cast of characters – two young black car thieves, a wealthy prosecuting attorney and his spoiled wife, first-generation Persian shopkeepers, an affluent light-skinned black couple, an anguished black detective, and a pair of white cops --- find their lives intersecting in a series of crashes, both real and metaphorical. Most of the interactions involve misunderstandings based on racial and ethnic stereotyping; many of them escalate into violence.

In our discussion afterwards, we talked about the complexities of human nature, as depicted in the film. Very few of the characters were "all good" or "all bad." The racist white cop, for instance, who humiliated a black couple during a routine interrogation, later risks his life to pull the woman from a burning car. Another theme was the miscommunication that is typical among people from different backgrounds. The film graphically demonstrates the difficulty of listening well when ingrained stereotypes get in the way.

But what can we do, members and friends of a mostly white women’s organization, to help reduce racial divisions? For starters, we agreed, we can continue to examine our own hidden prejudices and work to eliminate them. And we can continue to look for opportunities to be proactively involved in efforts to dismantle racism. To that end, we are planning to participate in the Annie Malone Parade in St. Louis this spring, both as volunteers and marchers. More immediately, some of us will attend an interfaith program on February 18, "Breaking the Cycles of Prejudice and Racism," co-sponsored by St. Alphonsus "Rock" Church and Congregation Shaare Emeth.

Stacey Newman, our January speaker, had spent two years working as the women's vote director for the Missouri Democratic Party before the last election. She said that after the election, there was a general sense of angst among many of the progressive folks she'd worked with for so long.

"What do we do now?" they asked.

The answer was obvious, at least to someone as committed and energetic as Newman: "Well, you know what you do," she said. "You get up in the morning, and you work on the next election."

And that's exactly what she's done. Newman is now executive director of a new organization, Missouri Women's Coalition, which is committed to getting out the women's vote in upcoming elections. The coalition already has 2,500 members statewide who are ready to make calls, write letters, and do whatever it takes to make sure that the women's voice (sound familiar?) is heard in Missouri politics.

The Coalition is an independent political action committee (PAC), which means that the money it raises is used not to support individual candidates' campaigns, but instead to fund the work done by coalition members to get out the women’s vote.

And why is it important to get out the women's vote? Research shows that the biggest segment of nonvoters in the last national election were unmarried women. There were 22 million of them! And polls show that these women tend to describe themselves as liberal and pro-choice. Looks like we know where the target should be in upcoming elections.

Newman also reported on recent activities of the Coalition Against the War on Women, which is working to defeat legislation proposed by the governor to limit a woman’s access to emergency contraception. Women’s Voices is one of 22 members of this coalition.

For more good information on women’s voting trends at the national level, go to Women's Voices. Women Vote.

Cynthia Kramer spoke passionately about her quest to advocate for a new stem call technology called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT.) A small band of ardent, progressive members of Women's Voices braved snow and cold to hear Cynthia's inspiring and informative talk. Even though the technology does NOT use a fertilized egg in the procedure, because the nuclei of the recipient's egg and a donor's egg are exchanged, and the new cell contains 46 chromosomes, opponents counter that, by their definition, this equals "life" even though the new eggs never leave the Petri dish.

The term "embryonic" cell is used because it comes from an egg which has not yet been "programmed" for a certain function in the body, and thus can become anything. They are NOT fertilized eggs.

Last session, Missouri Senator Bartle introduced a bill which could issue a 15 year penalty on any researcher, doctor, or patient utilizing SCNT. The bill did not make it to the floor, but it could be reintroduced in the new session beginning in January.

Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice has joined the Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures. Our Politics/Religion Focus Group will be leading us in further responses to this critical issue.

In other business, The Education Focus Group is seeking those interested in volunteering time in a Wyman School classroom. They also ask that we each bring some kind of school supplies to each meeting which will then be utilized by the students and teachers at Wyman School.

Ruth Ann Cioci reported that she and Joanne Kelly attended a summit meeting of environmental groups around the state in Columbia. The assembled group decided on priorities to be pursued in the upcoming session of the legislature.

Joanne Kelly reported that The Missouri Budget Project is continuing to develop facts and an approach to work toward reinstituting some of the Medicaid cuts. They are also on top of an initiative called TABOR (Taxpayers Bill of Rights) which has decimated social services in Colorado. The approach gives the false impression that it will hold state spending in check. Amy Blouin says that it is actually "the Hancock bill on steroids."

Our speaker was Diane Sheehan. She is a founder of progessiveTalk.org -- a grassroots effort to bring progressive talk radio to St. Louis. Sheehan's compelling story of her search for balanced media coverage in the months following last year's presidential election was an eye-opener to those in the audience. She told of her despair at the one-sided accounts she found on all major media sources and then her growing appreciation for the in-depth, intelligent discussions she found on Air America radio, which features such hosts as her idol, Thom Hartman. Hear him at thomhartmann.com.

Although Air America's programs are now available on over 70 stations across the country, they can only be accessed in St. Louis over the internet. Sheehan and her colleagues are attempting to find a local station willing to air at least some of these progressive programs, to balance the 55 hours a week of right wing radio now available in our area. They have also recently launched a 30-minute program on KDHX, 88.1 FM, called Reality Now. Hosted by Ed Bishop, the show invites prominent journalists and commentators to share their perspectives on the state of today's media. The show airs on Wednesday nights at 7:00.

Visit progessiveTalk.org to learn more about this group's work and how you can help. Or contact Sheehan directly at cielbleu2@gmail.com if you have questions or want to join the group.

Speaker Ruth Ehresman, health policy analyst with the Missouri Budget Project, discussed the implications of the state's recent Medicaid cuts. More than 90,000 Missourians, many of them children, elderly, or disabled, lost their coverage as a result of these cuts.

Speaker Sylvester Brown, a metro columnist for the Post Dispatch, applauded our efforts to become involved, as a group of progressive women, in issues of social justice. He encouraged us to reach out to African American women who share our commitment to these issues and reminded us of how powerful we can be when we speak as a group. Two days after this meeting, Brown wrote this column about Women's Voices.

Speaker M'Evie Mead, statewide director of organizing for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, gave us an update on recent threats to women's reproductive rights in Missouri; offered tips on effective lobbying that would apply to any issue; and led us through some role playing to hone these newly-learned skills.