According to a study of online generosity by Convio:

When it comes to online giving to charity, Alexandria, VA, Cambridge, MA and Minneapolis, MN topped the list as the nation’s most generous cities based on per capita giving in 2008.

In 2008, Reno ranked 129th with 6,251 donors giving $459,060.  The average contribution was just over $73.  (Las Vegas was 65th!)  For 2009, Reno is on track to come in ranked 94th.  Way to go Nevada!

An event celebrating donors

The City of Austin has apparently jumped from the bottom ten to the top ten, thanks to their “I live here, I give here” campaign.  Seems to me something similar is the logical next step for the “We love this place” campaign with the Community Foundation of Western Nevada.  Or maybe:  Truckee Meadows Tomorrow’s Accentuate the Positive and Give!

Give!

Keep up the great work!

You know I’m Republican.   I’m an “Old School Republican” – as in fiscal responsibility, thoughtful approaches informed by the lessons of the past, and belief in individual responsibility and accountability.  The first campaign I worked on was Paul Laxalt’s U.S. Senate race in 1974.

I can not begin to imagine the politicians I grew up with, Senator Laxalt or Governor List or even President Reagan, coming unglued at the idea of the President making a national address directly to students on the importance of education.  Honestly.  Don’t you think Ronald Reagan, master of communication, would have addressed our students if he had had the technology available?

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

“Obama would not be the first president to address American students in a speech televised from a public school. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush urged students to demand more of themselves in their studies. His speech was shown on CNN and broadcast on the radio.

Democrats at the time attacked the speech as political advertising and a waste of taxpayer money.”

We are talking about the President of the United States, not Fidel Castro.

Here’s what I don’t get.  Republicans – we’re patriotic, right?  We’re dedicated to fighting terrorists and those who “hate freedom” and to helping spread Democracy around the world, right?  Democracy:  that’s got something to do with peaceful elections, majority rule and protecting the rights of the minority, doesn’t it?  Plus the first and second amendments (equally important to me)?

Well, you win some and you lose some.   America elected President Obama in 2008.  Now we can say, people didn’t get what they expected, but I don’t think we can insult the American people and say they were tricked or didn’t know what they were doing.  If they knew what they were doing when they elected President Bush, then they knew what they were doing when they elected President Obama.

If people are so scared one speech from the President will sway their children, then by all means, they should keep their kids home.  But honestly, don’t you think our kids know what our values are?  And where we stand?  Haven’t you taught them to speak up for what they believe?  Whether it’s popular or not?  Isn’t that what has always made this country great?

As my son often says, “don’t panic.”  People, it’s undignified.

A friend passed this along via Facebook … and I totally support this idea!  The 3/50 Project:  Pick 3 independent businesses in town that you’d really miss if they were gone, spend $50 a month with them … Save The Local Economy!  I’m in!

My three would have to be:
Sundance Books

Santa Fe Hotel

Paper Moon

What would yours be?

Reading an article from the Iowa Independent today (it’s for work!) where Lynda Waddington reports:

The 1,018-page health reform bill currently before the House makes no mention of abortion or any other specific medical services. This has prompted some anti-abortion advocates to claim that the bill contains a hidden “abortion mandate.”

And from there, it’s a very small jump to this kind of hyperbole:

“What you probably haven’t heard is that the health care bill being advanced by Democrats is the abortion industry’s dream come true. In fact it is the most disturbing piece of pro-abortion legislation in recent memory,” James Dobson of Focus on the Family told [anti-abortion] webcast participants. 

Bottom line?  Here are the marching orders:

Although the [health care reform] bill has been able to attract a wide variety of supporters from both the “pro-choice” and “pro-life” movements, socially conservative activists reject it in part because it provides funding for birth control and comprehensive sex education. 

And let’s be clear, by “abortion,” these opponents of health care reform mean terminating a pregnancy AND birth control pills, and emergency contraception, and …

Jim Sedlak, vice president of the American Life League and executive director of STOPP International, described why the current battle actually goes far beyond what the public identifies as abortion to encompass nearly all reproductive health services.

Sedlak and his supporters consider emergency contraception, birth control pills and some other contraceptives as equivalent to abortion, leaving little room for compromise. Any health care reform bill that pays for coverage of virtually any women’s reproductive health services, regardless of their legality and widespread acceptance, will be morally unacceptable to them.

Might just note here that a HUGE, but clearly wacky and possibly even – according to some – immoral, majority of Americans support birth control and comprehensive sex education.  Really.

According to the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association:  The overwhelming majority of Americans support family planning. 

According to MSNBC:  Few Americans favor abstinence-only sex ed.

Most Americans, regardless of their political leanings, favor comprehensive sex education in schools over abstinence-only programs, researchers reported Monday.  Of the nearly 1,110 U.S. adults they surveyed, 82 percent supported programs that discuss abstinence as well as other methods for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Half were in outright opposition to abstinence-only education.

Even among self-described conservatives, 70 percent supported comprehensive sex ed., while 40 percent opposed the abstinence-only strategy.

Look, I totally understand that people have strongly held feelings about abortion … and they range from completely opposed, to completely in favor of safe, legal abortion … with MOST Americans falling in the middle somewhere.  While folks may call themselves “pro-life,” at the same time, they believe abortion should remain legal and safe and a private decision for a woman to make with her family and her doctor.

But is it any wonder people can’t stand elected officials when they can take a 1,000+ page document that doesn’t mention abortion, or any other medical procedure, even ONCE and claim its a “pro-abortion mandate”?

Have a really interesting thread going on Facebook at the moment in response to my Twitter post:  “KNPR – interesting interview on the GOP’s situation & future.  I say – no, it’s not enough to be anti-obama & hope he fails.  Vision?”

My brother thinks vision isn’t needed; we only elect candidates because of the failures of the previous incumbent.

A few friends think it’s HIGH time we got back to a thoughtful, even intelligent vision (as opposed to extremist blather).

Other friends harken back to “first principles” and / or vision of the Founding Fathers: “Limited central government, strong national defense, lower taxes, enforcement of the borders, commitment to individual liberty and the principles of federalism.”

There’s no doubt the Founding Fathers were amazing and brilliant.  At the same time, I don’t think the “first principles” are quite enough.  Or why have government at all?  I think we need to add SOME acknowledgment of the social contract and our obligation to one another [the Republican Party used to stand for helping those who truly couldn't help themselves ... or has that been scrapped?]

I know the Republicans have offered some specific proposals for creating jobs or fixing health care, but somehow they don’t really seem to come through in a positive way.  Still sounds like “no, no, no.”  Or, the message isn’t credible.

For example, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) says “I don’t want the government between the patient and the doctor.”   Unless the patient is a woman, and she wants reproductive health care.  Sorry – that’s just infuriating.

Well, maybe a little surprised that it took the American Medical Association so long to chime in.  But, they’ve just voted that comprehensive sex education is the most effective.

Sex education that provides information about abstinence, condom use and other contraceptive methods is the most effective way to reduce the growing number of teenagers who contract a sexually transmitted infection or become pregnant. So federal funding should flow to comprehensive programs proven to address these public health issues, according to a Council on Science and Public Health report adopted at the AMA Annual Meeting.

The American College of Obstetricians / Gynecologists reaffirmed their commitment to comprehensive sex education last month, noting:

With births to adolescents in the US on the rise for the second year in a row, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) reaffirms its position that every teen should be provided with comprehensive, scientifically accurate sex education and that access to contraception services should be available to all teens.

The US continues to have the highest rate of teen pregnancy of any industrialized nation. The birth rate among US teens ages 15-19 was 42.5 (per 1,000) in 2007, marking a 5% increase since 2005. Births to adolescents had declined 34% from 1991 to 2005.

Experts believe the increase is partly due to abstinence-only sex education programs combined with decreased contraception education and decreased contraceptive use among teens. “Abstinence works for some teens, but the idea that most teens will wait to have sex indefinitely is rigid and impractical,” said Richard S. Guido, MD, chair of ACOG’s Committee on Adolescent Health Care.

Curious to know what your kids are learning in school?  It’s a pretty safe bet that it’s not what you got (as lame as that was) because we’ve invested over $1 billion dollars in “abstinence-only” education … which has been proven time and again to be ineffective.

So if you want to know … ASK!  You’ve got a right to see the curriculum and to know what’s going on in your child’s classroom.  And if it’s not comprehensive – ask why not!

Here’s PETA in Reno.  For some reason, the only way they seem to be able to show their disgust over the treatment of animals … is to treat women disgustingly.  Really?  So, treat women like second class citizens until chickens are free?

I’m all for people taking action on behalf of causes they’re passionate about!  It’s what I do for a living.

Feministing.com has written about PETA’s misogyny many times:  “Should we be surprised this is the work of PETA? It just never ends.”  I get that putting people in cages shows that caging up animals in inhumane.  But why, exactly, are we only caging women?  And why are they in bikinis … instead of feather suits?

I think one of their commenters, GottaBeMe, said it the best:  who nicely summed up the issue (in a previous PETA thread):

“But again, the issue for me is that although PETA has apparently used naked men in a tiny number of their ads (which I’ve never seen and got nowhere near as much press as the naked women) is the fact that they have long used the objectification of women to attract attention to their point.I’m not saying that the women who get naked for PETA are being exploited. I’m saying that PETA is promoting and using the objectification of women as sexual objects to get attention for their cause, which has nothing to do with sex.”

Sometimes PETA’s tactics are even more astonishing … to the point of endangering the people who should be protected.

Reason Hit & Run points out:

PETA recently celebrated World Vegetarian Week in Memphis by shrink-wrapping its interns (and laying them out in their parking lot) like a couple of flank steaks, despite 80+ degree weather.

When officers inquired about the well-being of intern Shawn Herbold (bottom) and volunteer Thomas Olsen, a sweat-soaked Herbold replied that she was in pain and feeling nauseated from the heat after being wrapped in cellophane for 30 minutes, and also asked how much longer she needed to stay there. Byrne let her know it wouldn’t be much longer and left her under the hot afternoon sun for 30 minutes more while debating with the officers.

The kicker:

PETA would never treat a cow that way, but I guess it’s OK for an intern.

Is it just me, or has there been a lot of commentary this week about Republican women, sex, sex education, and politics?

It started with Bristol Palin making the rounds with her son and her dad as the spokesperson for the Candie Foundation.  While a lot of folks gave her a pretty hard time about it – I had to agree with this post from Reproductive Health Reality Check:  “Why We Need Bristol (And Levi)”  Christina Page of Birthcontrolwatch.org noted that although she’s not polished, Bristol actually is saying what most of us are saying (although she’s clearly off script when she gets this out:)

But in her roundabout way, Bristol is in fact voicing the core message of comprehensive sex ed which is: there’s no better protection against pregnancy and disease than abstinence, teens should postpone becoming sexually active, but those that are having sex need to use to protection.

A few days later, Meghan McCain chimed in with The GOP Doesn’t Understand Sex on the Daily Beast.  She raises a question I share:

Here’s what I’ve never understood about the party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life. But using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all. Actually, the best way to prevent abortions is to educate people about birth control and make it widely and easily accessible. True, abstinence is the only way to fully prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Still, the problem with abstinence-only education is that it does not make teenagers and young adults more knowledgeable about all the issues they face if or when they have sex—physically and emotionally.

Another Republican woman off script, but I have to agree.  Why aren’t Republicans the world’s biggest proponents of birth control?  I don’t assume, as Meghan seems to, that all Republicans are “pro-life.”  The last survey I saw from Nevada, just asking the straight out question, showed that 52% of Nevada Republicans describe themselves as “pro-choice.”  But whichever philosophy one subscribes to … you’d think that birth control to prevent unintended pregnancies would be the “common ground” we could all agree on.  I know – asking a lot.

Then today, I ran across this article US News & World Report:  Republican Women are Stay-At-Home Moms While Female Democrats Run for Congress.
Bonnie Erbe questions the geographic theory (Democrats are stronger in the North and West where women get elected, Republicans are stronger in the South where voters are more likely to elect men), and instead her theory is that GOP women embrace traditional roles.

I think the main reason, however, is that Republican women are generally more traditional than Democratic women, who tend to be more progressive. Therefore, GOP women are more likely to be fulltime homemakers or to work part-time and not to pursue all-consuming careers such as politics.

I know!  I’m biased AND my family is hardly a representative sample.  But geez!  Of course, I had to comment.

My mother was the first woman elected to a constitutional office in Nevada and my grandmother was the fist women elected to a federal office in Nevada. Both are pro-life Republican women who managed to balance work, family and pretty impressive political careers (and, yes, I know I’m biased).

My view of women’s issues is not the same as theirs, but I’ve found (maybe because I do live in the West) that Republican women believe in looking at candidates based on their merits.

One of the important aspects of the Republican philosophy is the idea of individual responsibility, which fits in with the idea of voting for the best candidate.

I think Mary Kate Cary may be 100% right that the GOP will lose a huge percentage of women if it rejects moderates. But really, how many women get to play “homemaker” any more? In this economy – that’s a function of education, financial situation and philosophy, right?

My favorite take on it all is that smart women have better sex.  So, study up!

” Emotional intelligence seems to have a direct impact on women’s sexual functioning by influencing her ability to communicate her sexual expectations and desires to her partner.” Greater intelligence may also lead to more elaborate fantasies that help get the job (whether alone or with a partner).

Good to know.

Learned a lot at Reno Tahoe WordCamp — kind of amazed, no idea why, at how many local folks are blogging about safe, healthy, wholesome sex.  We’ll have to have our own session next time, I’m telling you!

Couldn’t have said it better …. it’s worth checking out Michael Higdon’s column in “The Sagebrush,” especially his last one:

Shedding sex’s taboo means more dialogue, not less

He starts out by saying:

The most interesting feedback I received this year about my columns is that “sex is a topic best discussed between a man and a woman inside the bedroom. It does not belong in a newspaper.” Are you sure?

And continues with very thoughtful analysis of the sometimes crazy world we live in … saturated with sex in some ways yet fraught with as many taboos as Victorian England in others.

While you’re there, browse through some of the articles … the writing is pretty amazing!

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe after today, I’ll be better about blogging!  Sure to be inspired.  See  you there?

Great line up of speakers … including Reno’s own Ed Adkins, Michelle Montoya, David LaPlante, Chelsea Otakan and Colin Loretz.  Plus national WordPress folks!  I’m excited.   (Still a little buzzed from the Reno Jazz Festival concert – Jerry Gonzales and the Fort Apache Bank last night, but the coffee’s brewing … I’ll be ok.)

“La Boheme” at Nevada Opera tomorrow.  The weekend is packed!