Photo Ops and Lip Service. Enough Already. Can't We DO Something Here?

Cooper pointed out this story by David Greene on NPR yesterday.

Ethel Williams lost her home on Pauline Street in the New Orleans' Upper Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina. After the storm, President Bush visited Williams and promised that the federal government would help her rebuild.

We spoke with Williams last year, when she was angry at the federal government — but not at President Bush. She called the president a friend, saying she was convinced he would keep his word.

But Williams still has not had her house rebuilt. Her house, gutted and empty, is in danger of being condemned by the city. She now lives at her daughter's home across the river.

Here's a picture of Ethel Williams last April when President Bush visited her.

From the story last year,

"She's confident that President Bush will make sure things work out: 'You can't get me to say he won't, because he will. Watch.'"

More from yesterday's story:

Ten months ago, President Bush stood on Williams' yard, promising help from the federal government. When he came back again in August, he invited Williams and her daughter, Wanda, to sit with him at a church service.

But her mother isn't angry at the president — despite her woes, and the president's omission of the Gulf Coast from his State of the Union speech last month.

"Nope, I'm not angry with him at all," she says. Asked why not, her answer is simple: "Well, one reason why I'm not angry is because I didn't look him up. He found me. This wasn't something I asked for, and [am] not getting."

The president is scheduled to return to New Orleans next week, his first visit to the city in six months. The White House said it couldn't release details yet, and Williams said nobody from Washington has contacted her.

Here's the picture of her now, standing in front of her unliveable house.

Can it really be that the only action this country can take to help and support Ethel are photo ops? We are the wealthiest and strongest and most innovative nation on the planet and we can't bother to take care of our own. As a mother, thinking of Ethel as another mother who wants to get her life and home back, it breaks my heart.

Click here to listen to the piece.

MomsRising and Kiki in the New York Times!

Joan Blades, Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner and Kiki Peppard, three of our favorite women on the planet, are making a HUGE splash today in The New York Times Style Section, in a piece called Mom's Mad. And She's Organized.

It's a great article about MomsRising and once you've read it, we think you'll agree that moms across the country need know about it and the great things that MomsRising is doing.

Here are a few highlights from Kara Jesella's article:

A generation of mothers who are largely perceived as postfeminist in every way, from sex to economic discrimination, has begun a consciousness-raising that is almost old-fashioned were it not for the technology involved. Raised to believe that girls could accomplish anything, these women have reached parenthood, only to find they faced many of the same pay, equity and work-family balance issues that were being fought over decades before. From that awakening, they say, has come the inkling of a new movement.

Here's another:

The seeds for MomsRising were planted in 2004, when Ms. Blades read a book about women and politics by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, 36, a married mother of two. Ms. Blades, 51, said she was astonished to find that many younger women didn’t identify with feminism and by the data showing vast disparities in incomes between mothers and fathers, with single mothers faring particularly badly.

“I’d been doing the MoveOn thing for over eight years and I thought: ‘I’m an organizer and I wasn’t aware of this. I don’t know how many people are aware of this,’ ” she said.

The article talks about Kiki's great work, about the fact that yes, employers do descriminate against mother in hiring and that in many states it's legal to do so, and how easy MomsRising is making it for mothers to get involved and be heard.

The article also mentions some of the other great organizations that are helping mothers organize: Mothers & More, the Mothers Movement Online, Mothers Ought to Have Equal Rights and the National Association of Mothers’ Centers.

The photo at the top is Kiki, and here's the photo of Joan and Kristin.

Go here to read the article in full.

Please help Joan and Kristin and Kiki get the word out! If you decide to blog about the article or send it to friends, maybe you wouldn't mind letting us know here in the comments. We're going to help MomsRising track the bloggers who get on the bandwagon after reading the piece, and will be sending Joan and Kristin a list of the blogger brigade. Thanks so much everyone!!! And congratulations to Joan, Kristin and Kiki! (But the Style Section?!?)

Yes, we are caught up in it too

Two words: Lakisha Jones.

The Girls are All Right

This past week I have been working on a very cool project for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

In an effort to understand the online social networking world of teens a bit better, I interviewed, via email, three teenage girls. The girls, Minrose, Ally and Hannah, were open, honest, funny and smart.

(Thank you Cynthia and Andrea for some great questions to pose to the girls!)

The most important thing I found is that all three are doing just fine on the Internet.

They told me they did not engage people they did not know when they were online - they had a pragmatic, almost street savvy approach to online safety - and more than one of them pointed out to me that there were dangers both on and offline, it is just a matter of being smart wherever you are.

The results of these email conversations track pretty closely with our friend, the amazing Amanda Lenhart's work at Pew Internet & American Life Project. Amanda has found many the same things: like that girls, especially, use the internet to strengthen existing friendships and that they don't typically interact with strangers.

My conclusion on the bad stuff online is - kids who display self destructive behavior online, are most likely troubled and risk takers in the offline areas of their lives, too.

Like all things, a few major media stories, and the alarming studies, terrify us all. My take away on this -- at the end of the day, as the girls told me, it is all about open, honest communication and trust, and giving your kids the tools to be balanced, smart and sensible, because that Internet thing ain't going away anytime soon.

At least it's pretty

Do you think I'm going to have to learn how to homeschool?

Between illnesses and snow days, my four children - I swear to God - have been out of school for a month. In three weeks they go on Spring Break. Starting yesterday, they have "Winter Break" until Wednesday. "WTF?" as they say.

We are sinking (well, we have pretty much sunk) into a depraved existence of Chuck E. Cheese's, video games and cotton candy. And I am losing my mind. MY CHILDREN NEED AN EDUCATION. My son just told me he loves me as much as Super Mario 7. And my daughters have memorized (and have acted out now about 37, no, 38, times) the "praying to baby Jesus" scene from Talledega Nights: Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
And the older three are teaching the baby to say words like "suck" and "pee pee," which he repeats often because, as you can guess, "pee pee" and "suck" kill with the under-10 demographic.

One.day.at.a.time.

My office wall

A new addition, isn't it nice?

David Brooks -- arrgh

David Brooks at the New York Times wrote a column a few days back called “Who’s Afraid of the New Economy” in which he says, basically, that there is no such thing as the middle class squeeze, and that "the main reason incomes have become more volatile over the past decades is motherhood ... As women play a more signficant role in the economy, their movements in and out of the labor force to care for children increase volatility."

[Edited] Wait a sec … aren't these moms, the ones going in and out of jobs, aren't they the ones being squeezed? Here’s Amy Traub’s take over at the Drum Major Institute:

“It's true that having a baby is the leading cause of poverty spells in the U.S., that working mothers are paid less than childless women for the same work, and that married couples with children are twice as likely as childless couples to file for bankruptcy. So what's the upshot, Mr. Brooks: do we fight for paid family leave? Universal pre-school? Health care for all kids? An end to wage discrimination against mothers?

“None of these. For Brooks, the fact that becoming a mother causes family incomes to plummet is simply a way to say that falling pay doesn't matter. Pay no attention to the squeeze: it's mostly the people trying to raise the next generation that are getting the worst of it.”

This isn't about conservative versus liberal or progressive. This is about doing right for families, and for moms, and ignoring the facts about how hard it is for so many mothers trying to take care of their families is wrong. The Drum Major Institute has all the latest stats.

And in case you didn’t click on the link in Amy's last paragraph, about becoming a mother, it takes you to Amy’s announcement of the birth of her son in November – beautiful.

Nice

Emily and I are very excited about The Dixie Chicks, mothers all, winning about every award there is last night at the Grammys.

As you all know, just before we headed into war four years ago, Natalie Maines told the audience at a concert that the band did not like the fact that President Bush was from Texas. That's it, that's all she said. Hard to believe the band soon started to receive death threats and were all but banned from Nashville - but, given the divide we find ourselves in here in the US, I guess it can't be too surprising. Thank goodness the Chicks stood firm these past few years, and even wrote an album in response to the messages they got from so many (just shut up and sing seemed to be the popular theme) because last night must have been the sweetest of victories for the band.

Don't you just love when the old mantra is proven true: take a stand for what you believe in, don't give up, and it will all work out in the end.

From the Dixie Chicks' winning song, Not Ready to Make Nice:

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

If you could ask a teenager about being online, what would you ask?

Hi everyone,

If you could ask a teenager anything about their life online, what would you ask? Now is your chance. This is for a cool project I will tell you about soon.

Let me know if you have ideas or questions, my deadline is Wednesday.