BREAKING: Geraldine Ferraro Has Died

Posted: March 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Breaking News | Tags: , | 21 Comments

Sad news this Saturday morning.

NBC New York — Geraldine Ferraro Dead at 75:

Geraldine A. Ferraro, who earned a place in history in 1984 as the first woman to run on a major party national ticket for vice president, has died. She was 75-years-old.

Ferraro, who was born in Newburgh, New York, passed away today at Massachusetts General Hospital, surrounded by her loved ones, a statement from her family read.

The cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for twelve years, her family said.

Geraldine Anne Ferraro Zaccaro earned a place in history as the first woman and first Italian-American to run on a major party national ticket, serving as Walter Mondale’s Vice Presidential running mate in 1984 on the Democratic Party ticket.

Though best known for her political achievements, Geraldine Ferraro started her career in public service upon graduation from Marymount Manhattan College in Manhattan, where she received her B.A. in English in 1952.

She became a New York City schoolteacher, teaching second grade at P.S. 85 in Astoria, Queens, part of the District she would later represent in Congress.

While teaching, Ms. Ferraro earned a law degree from Fordham Law School. One of three women in her class, she recounted that an admissions officer said to her, “I hope you’re serious, Gerry. You’re taking a man’s place, you know.” She passed the New York State Bar exam three days before her marriage to John A. Zaccaro, and practiced under the surname Ferraro as a tribute to her mother’s struggles as a widow to raise her.

Ms. Ferraro spent thirteen years at home raising her children, during which time she also practiced law pro bono in Queens County Family Court on behalf of women and children and served as President of the Queens County Women’s Bar Association.

In 1974, she was sworn in as an Assistant District Attorney in the Queens County District Attorney’s Office. There, she started the Special Victims Bureau, where she supervised the prosecution of sex crimes, child abuse, domestic violence and violent crimes against senior citizens.

Ms. Ferraro was first elected to Congress from New York’s Ninth Congressional District in Queens in 1978, and served three terms in the House of Representatives before being tapped for the Vice Presidential run.

In her second term, she was elected Secretary of the Democratic Caucus (now called Vice Chair).

Her committee assignments in Congress included the Public Works and Transportation Committee, Post Office and Civil Service Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Select Committee on Aging.

Her legislative achievements included creating a flextime program for public employees, which has become the basis of such programs in the private sector. She also successfully sponsored the Women’s Economic Equality Act, which ended pension discrimination against women, provided job options for displaced homemakers, and enabled homemakers to open IRAs.

From 1988 to 1992, Ms. Ferraro served as a Fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics.

In October 1993, she was appointed the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission by President Clinton, and served in that position through 1996. During her tenure, the Commission for the first time condemned anti-Semitism as a human rights violation and prevented China from blocking a motion criticizing its human rights record. Prior to her nomination as Ambassador, Ms. Ferraro served as a public delegate to the Commission in February 1993 and as the alternate United States delegate to the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in June 1993. She was appointed head of the U.S. delegation to the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna shortly thereafter, and headed the delegation to China for the Fifth World Conference on Women.

From 1996 until 1998, Ms. Ferraro was a co-host of Crossfire, a political interview program, on CNN. She was also a partner in the CEO Perspective Group, a consulting firm which advises top executives.

In 1992 and 1998, Ms. Ferraro was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate.

In February 2007, Ms. Ferraro became a principal in the government relations practice of Blank Rome LLP, where she counseled clients on a wide range of public policy issues. Prior to joining Blank Rome, Ms. Ferraro chaired the Public Affairs practice of the Global Consulting Group (GCG), a leading international communications firm.

In a statement released shortly after her death, her family said “Geraldine Anne Ferraro Zaccaro was widely known as a leader, a fighter for justice, and a tireless advocate for those without a voice. To us, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and aunt, a woman devoted to and deeply loved by her family. Her courage and generosity of spirit throughout her life waging battles big and small, public and personal, will never be forgotten and will be sorely missed.”

Saturday: Women in Active Control

Posted: March 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Hillary Clinton: Her Campaign for All of Us, morning reads | 19 Comments

Rise and shine, news junkies.

Here are my Saturday offerings. Enjoy.

But former Obama administration official Anne-Marie Slaughter says that “this idea of the women going to war is wildly overplayed.”

“On the one hand, you get the women in the administration criticized because they focus on development issues and empowering women and humanitarian issues, and the next minute they are being stylized as Amazons — that’s ridiculous,” says Slaughter, who ran Clinton’s policy planning office at the State Department until recently.

Clinton initially took a cautious line on military intervention, turning only after she was assured that Arab states supported it and would play a role.

Only the day before, Mrs. Clinton — along with her boss, President Obama — was a skeptic on whether the United States should take military action in Libya. But that night, with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces turning back the rebellion that threatened his rule, Mrs. Clinton changed course, forming an unlikely alliance with a handful of top administration aides who had been arguing for intervention.

Was President Obama “henpecked” into waging war on Libya by his “Amazon warrior” female advisors? Only if you’re shocked by the thought of women in positions of power actually asserting their power. It also helps if you consider skepticism of military engagement to be inherently “feminine” and think that getting convinced of something by a woman is in and of itself emasculating. And if you’re Maureen Dowd you repeat all that stupid, backward cant, because you’re the hard-charging award-winning New York Times columnist with the most retrograde conception of gender relations this side of Hays Code-era Hollywood.

  • Photo (at the beginning of this post): U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledges the crowd at a ceremony marking World Water Day at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, Tuesday, March 22, 2011 (Reuters).

The water crisis can bring people together. In fact, on water issues, cooperation, not conflict, is and can be the rule.

  • This year’s theme for the UN’s 19th annual WWD was

Water for Cities: responding to the urban challenge.

  • Heather Allen at NRDC, on the MOU (memorandum of understanding) agreement on water, signed by Hillary and World Bank president Robert Zoellick on WWD 2011:

Last year Hillary Clinton’s speech on World Water Day catapulted water to the top of the mind among the diplomatic and humanitarian communities. Previously water had done well in Congress (regularly receiving signficant appropriations and passing the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act), however focus from the White House or Administration had been lacking.

In Clinton’s 2010 speech she called water the ‘wellspring of all life’, and characterized it as central to international development. From that speech and other actions over the last year we have seen significant progress toward prioritizing water. Just last month the Rajiv Shah the Administrator of USAID appointed Chris Holmes to be the new Global Water Coordinator – a position designed to help build a water strategy across government agencies. In addition President Obama requested just over 300 million for water appropriations for 2012 – the largest amount ever, indicating an increasing focus on water.

This MOU will help to ground these advances and build support at all levels throughout government agencies for cooperation on water. Agreements like these can be powerful tools to support innovative projects on water, because they make it clear that the highest levels of government intend to see progress here.

Today’s agreement on water helps people in the World Bank and the U.S. Government focus attention where we need it most – to bring water and sanitation to the billions who lack it, a great reason to celebrate on World Water Day.

  • Hillary and Zoellick exchanging documents after signing the MOU (click to view larger):

  • Perusing through the various links I came across on water day, I was reminded of the Guardian’s John Vidal recently asking What does the Arab world do when its water runs out? (h/t Minkoff Minx for pointing to this piece in one of her roundups last month.)
  • Check out this brilliant slideshow of twenty photos from around the globe on World Water Day (via SacBee’s The Frame).

He raised the bar for what it means to be a public servant and set new benchmarks for what a private citizen can accomplish to make the world a better place. He also has more energy and travels more miles than anyone I know—aside from maybe his brilliant wife.

“With the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, America has lost one of its greatest talents and fiercest advocates for HIV/AIDS research. Born in England, Elizabeth became thoroughly American royalty. For more than a generation, she brought to life unforgettable characters on film, and her tireless efforts to combat AIDS brought hope to millions of people around the world. We were honored to host her at the White House in 2001 when she received the Presidential Citizens Medal for her relentless crusade for more AIDS research and better care. In founding amfAR, she raised both millions of dollars and our level of awareness about the impact of AIDS in the United States and around the world. Elizabeth’s legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired. Our thoughts are with her family, her friends, and her many fans. We will miss her talent, her heart, and her friendship.”

Taylor was an avid Hillary Clinton supporter during the 2008 presidential race and donated the legal maximum of $4,600 to Clinton’s campaign.

“I have contributed to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign because she has a mind of her own and a very strong one at that,” Taylor said in 2007. “I like the way she thinks. She is very savvy and a smart leader with years of experience in government, diplomacy and politics.”

As Walker’s biography indicates, Taylor wasn’t afraid to go public with these sorts of feelings. Although Taylor is widely recognized for her work as an AIDS activist, she clearly saw the world in feminist terms. One public event chronicled by Walker shows how fiercely vocal Taylor could be when she felt women were not taken seriously:

The senator was addressing a policy forum of Republican VIPs and saying that women should be exempt from the draft, when Elizabeth gave vent to a dissenting mutter and then, to the surprise of many, a prolonged boo. Warner, in what was interpreted as an attempt to placate her, succeeded in looking as if he were slapping her down. Women, he claimed, were volunteering for jobs in the services. Elizabeth’s hard-edged voice split the tense atmosphere….’What kind of jobs — “Rosie the Riveter” jobs?’ Laughter broke out. Emboldened by feeling that the audience was with her, she backed up her position. ‘Women have been in active control since Year One.’ Look at Margaret Thatcher, she said: look at Cleopatra. Warner, now flushed, appeared to try and subdue her with a wave of his hand — a gesture that brought her leaping to her feet. ‘Don’t you steady me with that all-dominating hand of yours.’

Today, 85 countries from every region of the world joined together in a historic moment to state clearly that human rights apply to everyone, no matter who they are or whom they love.

  • This next one is from a conservative think tank, so you’ve been duly warned — Christina Hoff Sommers, via the American Enterprise Institute — Tina Brown’s Post-Feminist Summit:

When panelist Anna Holmes, founder of the website Jezebel, denounced fashion magazines for retouching photographs of female models, Brown refused to see it as a pressing moral issue. “When I get photographed,” she quipped, “the first words out of my mouth are, ‘Am I going to be retouched?'” A dismayed Holmes replied, “But you still want to look human!” “No,” said Brown, “I just want to look great.”

  • For something more inspiring — Homa Sabet Tavangar met up with Hillary’s go-to person between sessions at Tina Brown’s summit in NYC the other week and posted this interview on Huffpo a couple days ago: Don’t Know Melanne Verveer? Why you Should.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the famous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, which killed 146 workers and prompted labor reform in the United States, HBO is letting the basic-cable-subscribing public watch its recent documentary about the events.

“Triangle: Remembering the Fire” will re-air on CNN on Saturday, Mar. 26 at 11:00 p.m. ET — just one day after the anniversary.

That’s it for me. What’s on your blogging list today?

[originally posted at Let Them Listen; crossposted at Taylor Marsh and Liberal Rapture]

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: 100 Years Ago Today

Posted: March 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, worker rights | Tags: , , , , | 13 Comments

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. The AFL-CIO blog has an excellent post up to commemorate this tragic anniversary. Here is a bit of it, but I suggest you read the whole thing if you can find the time.

When word got out two weeks ago that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had ordered the windows of the state Capitol building bolted shut during the ongoing protests against his attacks on public employees, it was a chilling reminder of a similar action by the employers of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory.

Nearly 100 years ago to the day of Walker’s order—which he rescinded after public outrage—146 workers, mostly young immigrant girls, jumped to their deaths from the 10-story building, unable to escape a fire because factory foremen had locked all the doors. The owners, Isaac Harris and Max Blanck, worried the workers would steal from the company.

Hyman Meshel worked on the eighth floor. When the rescue crew found Meshel, who was still alive,

the flesh of the palms of his hands had been torn from the bones by his sliding down the steel cable in the elevator, and his knuckles and forearms were full of glass splinters from beating his way through the glass door of the elevator shaft.

Thirty dead bodies clogged the elevator shaft. All were young girls. Among the many victims, the New York Times reported the day after the disaster, were two girls:

charred beyond all hope of recognition, and found in the smoking ruins with their arms clasped around each other’s necks….

In Greenwich Village, relatives of victims marched in a procession to honor those who died so tragically–as well as those who managed to survive

Rosie Weiner, one of 146 victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, was only 19 when she died.

“She jumped from the ninth floor window. According to reports, she was holding her friend Tessie Wisner’s hand,” said Suzanne Pred-Bass, Weiner’s great-niece.

Pred-Bass was one of hundreds marching in a procession from Union Square to the scene of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Another of her great-aunts, Rosie’s 17-year-old sister Katie, somehow survived that day 100 years ago.

“She grabbed the cable, really so courageously, of the last elevator to leave the ninth floor and saved herself. It was really remarkable,” said Pred-Bass.

Annie Springsock, then 17 years old, also survived. Her granddaughter, Eileen Nevitt, came from California to pay tribute to her and the historical impact of the fire.

Today, as we watch Republicans do everything in their power to destroy unions, remove safety regulations, and cut off funding for regulators, we need to remember what happened on that awful day 100 years ago. We can’t give up the fight. We must stand together against these politicians and their war on workers.

This is an open thread.

Wisconsin Republicans Seek Return to McCarthy Era

Posted: March 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 9 Comments

William Cronon

What has happened to Wisconsin? The Republicans there seem to be modeling themselves after Joseph McCarthy, Senator from Wisconsin from 1947-57.

McCarthy was obsessed with rooting out “communist infiltration,” and became the public face of the obsessive hunt for “reds” in government, the military, academia, the media, and the entertainment industry that took place during the ’50s. The smear tactics, demagoguery, and abuses of civil liberties used during those awful days have come to be referred to as “McCarthyism.”

Joseph McCarthy

Today’s Wisconsin Republicans, not satisfied with destroying the public employee unions in their state have now begun to persecute those who supported the cause of the schoolteachers, janitors, and social workers of Wisconsin. First up, Professor William Cronon, a historian at the University of Wisconsin.

James Fallows wrote about it at the Atlantic today.

Because Cronon dared write an op-ed piece in the New York Times* pointing to Wisconsin’s long tradition of bi-partisan, “good government”-minded support of collective bargaining rights, and criticizing Gov. Scott Walker for his campaign against organized labor and collective bargaining, the Wisconsin Republican Party is launching a legal effort to look through his email archives to see if he has been involved in the recent protests in the state. The putative rationale is that Cronon’s messages were sent on the University of Wisconsin’s email system and therefore are covered by the state’s open-records law.

Fallows later learned that the attack on Cronon began even before the op-ed, and instead was a reaction to this post on Cronon’s personal blog.

In the post Cronon writes that he doesn’t believe the Koch Brothers funding of Walker provides a full explanation of what is happening in the Republican Party and the wave of reactionary legislation Republicans are proposing in so many states. Follow me below the fold….
Read the rest of this entry »

Hypocrisy ad infintum

Posted: March 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Republican presidential politics | Tags: , , , | 10 Comments

I actually know something about Sharia’h compliant finance and banking systems.  They’re roughly similar to those used by orthodox Jewish communities in places like New York state that follow the biblical imperative of no usury.  Just as orthodox Jewish communities have long been allowed clauses in laws providing institutions that reflect the no interest imperative, Minnesota had a program to help strict followers of the same Islamic imperative.  That is until today when Governor and Presidential Wannabe Tim Pawlenty shut down a program aimed at structuring loans that would be compliant in both faiths.  I want you to remember and read his rationale first.

Pawlenty’s objection: “The United States should be governed by the U.S. Constitution, not religious laws,” Conant said.

This is from a man that wants his extremist Christian views defining abortion rights among other things.  Here’s some of the background from Adam Serwer who framed the Minnesota Housing program as Pawlenty’s “Sharia problem”.

Abid Lakhani wanted to buy a home.

Unfortunately, as an observant Muslim, his options were limited. Many Muslims hold that the paying or charging of interest is prohibited, which makes it difficult to purchase a home in the United States.

“The house I was living in, I was living in it for 22 years because I don’t believe in getting interest-bearing loans,” the 44-year-old insurance salesman and father of four explains. But after years of renting, he was finally able to acquire a home for himself and his family this month through University Islamic Financial, Corp., which structures house payments so as to avoid charging interest. “For a Muslim living in this day and age, it’s difficult to practice and stay within the rules of the faith,” Lakhani says. “These kinds of options weren’t available before.”

Sharia-compliant financing is a growing industry, particularly when it comes to mortgages. “Traditional secular, money lending banks are setting up Sharia-compliant products because they make money,” says Abed Awad, an attorney who specializes in Islamic law. Companies like Citigroup and Visa have tried their hand at Sharia-compliant products. Usually companies structure the payments in a sort of house-buying layaway plan. “It’s a major moneymaker for banks.” Shariah compliant mortgages allow observant Muslims like Lakhani to buy homes, where previously they were stuck renting to avoid interest payments.

There’s nothing sinister about the growth of Sharia-compliant finance. It is just capitalism at work, an emerging market in which firms are meeting demand for a particular kind of product. But a decision by one 2012 Republican hopeful, Tim Pawlenty, may come back to haunt him in the GOP presidential primary, where any association with Sharia-compliant finance could be toxic.

Yes, there is absolutely nothing sinister about Sharia’h finance or any other numbers of laws that we have that help people’s religious tenets co-exist with modern, secular life.  This includes allowing Jehovah’s witness’s to forgo “so help me god” in oaths so they don’t take their god’s name in vain.  They can say “I so affirm” instead.  This clause lets me–an atheist and vajrayana Buddhist–say the same so I don’t have to violate my Buddhist and atheist precepts.  I’m not suppose to do anything that  puts any worldly gods ahead of dharma, sangha, and buddha. This includes all the possible monotheistic and polytheistic combinations of gods you can come up with.  Every time I have to swear an oath, it puts an earthly god in front of my own beliefs.  This really makes me highly uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, having to recognize some one else’s invisible friend creeps me out completely.  So, you know that it’s not like I want to establish religious laws.  I do believe that we can do things to accommodate various belief systems and this one is no more than an accommodation.   Like I said, we have accommodated the same set up for Orthodox Jewish Communities for years.  There were three people in Minnesota that used this particular accommodation.

Here’s Sewer’s explanation in The American Prospect which makes it even more sad that it was his article that  motivated Pawlenty to remove the program from devout Muslims in Minnesota.   Talk about stoking the flames of bigotry and hatred.  Pawlenty’s probably afraid it will bite him in his extremist Republican ass;  just as the article speculates.

While many conservatives believe Sharia-compliant finance is part of a “stealth jihad” to subvert the Constitution, Islamic finance is no more frightening than Kosher food. “You have a segment of society willing to pay more for products as long as they comply with their religious strictures,” Awad says. “We want to grow our businesses and make more money. This is the American way.” In 2005, when the MHFA issued its plan for increasing minority homeownership, the idea of the U.S. coming under Taliban-style Islamic law was still a fringe conspiracy theory, if it existed at all.

This just makes me sick.  Pawlenty can’t rise above naked political pandering or the opportunity to be hatefully macho in the face of right wing republican religious extremists.  Not even a subtle gesture of accommodation can ever be made by an ideologue and his fanatical followers.

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