During his acceptance speech in 1992, Bill Clinton said: “I want an America where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches. An America that includes every family.” (p. 65). A year later, as President, he said: “It is certainly true that this country would be better off if our babies were born into two-parent families.” He also brought us “welfare reform” that included marriage promotion as an anti-poverty platform.
Nov 272008
Nov 272008
I don’t know what it is about holidays but I find them a big turn-off. To me, they feel like fake traditions that have been over-commercialized and are full of obligations most people rather avoid. Maybe I am just a total holiday Scrooge. I just can’t get excited about Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas, which is completely meaningless to me as an atheist. The only thing it means to me is that there’ll be crowds everywhere and I’ll be exposed to Christmas music and decorations wherever I go.
According to the Center for Women’s Global Leadership: The 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence (25 November – 10 December) is an annual campaign that is symbolic of the global women’s movement and end-violence networks. Its starting day, 25 November, is observed each year to honour the Mirabal sisters, three political activists from the Dominican Republic who were assassinated on the same date in 1961. The end of the 16 Days is marked by 10 December, International Human Rights Day. You can read more here. And you can say NO to violence against women at Unifem and we can … Continue reading »
Apparently, they haven’t heard of the 1,100 rights that only people who are married get. Or maybe they have and that’s why they want to move the dividing line of marital status a bit by including that part of the LGBT community that wants to get married. I received an email from the ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero. Well, it wasn’t a personal email. It was an email to ask ACLU supporters to point out to “Uncle Harry” what’s wrong with Prop 8 if he brings it up over the Thanksgiving dinner: Here’s my biggest piece of advice for when … Continue reading »
President Bush proclaimed November 23 through November 29, 2008 to be National Family Week. What’s a family, according to Bush? He doesn’t define it but it is clear that it has to include children (“families instill [important values and character] in their children and in our society”) and a married couple (since he points out that his administration “reduce[d] the marriage penalty”). Such a narrow(-minded) definition leaves out a slew of other families – from families without children to people living together without marriage. A more inclusive definition was presented by the American Home Economics Association in 1973: [A family … Continue reading »
Nov 202008
Did you know that the 40-hour workweek is 70 years old? The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 made the eight-hour day and the 40-hour workweek the law of the land. Another 70 years have passed since passage of the FLSA but the standard workweek remains frozen at 40 hours despite immense improvements in productivity and profound demographic shifts in labor-force participation. (From the TBYT November newsletter) The vision was that this would be the beginning of a gradual reduction in hours so that citizen have the time educate themselves. What happened? Two names: Taft Hartley. The Act named after … Continue reading »
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