This one is for the Girls

How do we as women think of ourselves? Our community? Our personal lives? and our place in this world?

How many times the women in our lives do one of the following when it comes to guys:

1. Spend hours getting ready to just go outside their door so they have that perfect look whether it is putting on pounds of makeup, changing outfits several times or changing their accessories, or trying to make themselves just a little more sexy. 
2. Although they may not be boy obsessed like a 12 year old, you have a friend that talks about marriage on a weekly basis: whether it is who is getting married next, when they want to get married, what their wedding will be like (when they are single), and worrying about never getting married, etc. 
3. Some think they can change guys or are waiting for them to grow up in some way
4. They pine after a guy that has no interest and thinks one day he will come to the conclusion that I am the one, or he will dump his current girl and date me. 
5. They let these supposed amazing guys treat them like crap: stand them up, get drunken disorderly and you have to call a cab, speaks disrespectfully etc. 
6. When a guy does walk away they do one of the following: they cry for months on end, they see their overall worth decrease because they got dumped and are no longer with their man.  They put their life on hold to heal or adjust. And they care when he starts dating again and in some cases obsess when he is with someone for years after.  

Now we all have at least one friend who has experienced at least something mentioned above with it comes to guys. Honestly We are all guilty of one of the above at one time or another. 

Women are also affected by other women and our friendship

1. Women can be more competitive with other women whether it is the work environment or the personal.  
2. Women gossip about other women they know or acquaintance both good and bad
3. Women can become jealous of the new woman with their former boyfriend 
4. Women compare themselves in both attractiveness and intelligence to other women
5. Women can be harder on other women both personally and professionally

I wish I was talking about teenagers, but unfortunately I am not...

 I am talking about women who have their bachelors degree, their masters degrees and even starting PhD programs. These women who are professionally ambitious, driven, and successful. Women who have jobs and solid career paths. Women who are the future of America. 

But these same professional successful women daily well being or personal happiness is very tired to their relationship status, friendships and attractiveness.

Why do women regardless of education, socio-economic status, race, etc. have their worth, self confidence, tied to their relationships?

How many times does have a fight with a boyfriend or spouse lead to bad day?

How many times does a fight with a friend ruin your day?

How many times does a hurting friend affect you? Or even a close acquaintance?

How many times does a first kiss make a day great?

How many times does a dress that makes look attractive or in style make a great day?

How many times does a spending time with friend or boyfriend make us feel great?

Why do women react this way? Why do these women rise and fall with relationships and friendship when men don’t? Why is it about being sexy or stylish? Why is it about being attractive?

Some of it is women are just more relational and tied by friendships. 

Another major factor is the messages women are inundated with in the media and advertising.  I will examine how the media shapes our perception of ourselves and other women in my next three blogs. 

Media and relationships

TV and Movie characters- yesterday, today and the trend

Who are our real role models and who does the media think are our role models

Dianne Feinstein a Woman of California

Unless you are in your mid-thirties or older, you don’t remember who our senators were before Senators Feinstein and Boxer.  Both have held the office for the last 19 years. 

But what do we really know about Feinstein, besides she is a liberal Senate Democrat by reputation. 

Let’s start with her history. She has had an interesting political rise.  It started back in 1969, (over 40 years ago) on the San Francisco board of supervisors. She served a couple of terms on the board. She had been planning to retire from politics, when Dan White killed Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. 

After the assassination she became mayor, the first woman mayor of San Francisco. She was re-elected twice in her own right as Mayor of San Francisco and considered a moderate during her tenure. She increased the strength of the police force, upgraded the sewer system and refurbished the cable car system.  She also developing trading relationships with cities in Asia, Europe and Africa. 

In 1990, she attempted a bid for governor, but lost to then Senator Pete Wilson.  Luckily for Feinstein, this left a state office open for her, so she ran for the his senate seat and won, taking office in 1992. Representing all of California, just not in the way she originally intended.

Her Senate Career. She is the first California woman senator to represent our state (she took office before Senator Boxer). In that time, Senator Feinstein has developed a reputation on certain issues.  According to Project Vote Smart, based on overall responses by various interest groups taken yearly on job performance in various areas that affect them.  Senator Feinstein is very supportive of a woman’s right to choose, Animal rights groups, and civil liberties groups except the arab american civil rights groups.  Senator Feinstein is also a defender of the environment.  She gets mixed reviews from the business community, not necessarily a bad thing between the Occupy Movement and high unemployment. Some years she has protected the business community but more often than not she protects consumer rights. Generally she is considered a more progressive member of the senate.  

Over the years she has had many achievements in the senate and they can be found on her website: bills she introduced and supported.  

Her current legislative priorities according to the Senate and campaign websites are: 

- Repealing the defense of marriage act

- Overseeing the US intelligence community & protecting national sercurity

- Blocking health insurance hikes

- Extending health insurance coverage to uninsured

- Securing our borders

- Restoring Lake Tahoe to her former beauty

- Banning dangerous chemicals from baby products

- Helping California farmers and legal workers

- Ending unwise energy subsidies- ethanol specifically

She works with both Republicans and Democrats to have accomplished her legislative priorities.  Although considered a liberal she did support the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.    

Although She hasn’t declared she is running, she has a 2012 campaign website that was recently updated! 

There were rumors all over the web that speculated that the Senator would retire, seeing as she is 78 and at the end of her next term she would be 84, which isn’t old by Senate standards. 

As far as election prospects go, she currently has one of the lowest approval ratings of her career.  She is vulnerable especially with the presidents approval rating being low too. She could be a target for 2012. On the plus side, all the possible known Republicans that can run against her, do not even come close to catching her in a head to head poll or have already said they are not running.  

On the side note, she is giving her campaign 5 million dollars due to Kinde Durkee, an accountant for a number of California Democrats who took campaigns funds for herself and lied to the Federal Election Committee in a number of races.  Unfortunately Feinstein was a victim of her scheme. So all of Feinsteins previous campaign accountants are frozen. 

This exempliary woman looks to be well on her way to a fifth term as she approaches the age of 79. She shows no signs of slowing down or backing down. She has made some incredible strides for the women of California, as mayor and senator. She continues to be an example of strong woman fighting for what she believes in. 

Sources

http://www.diannefeinstein2012.com/

http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/

http://www.votesmart.org/bio.php?can_id=53273

http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/feinstein-dianne

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/DFeinstein.html

The Strong Women of California

The women of our society are not what they seem.  According to TV and other media, strong and independent women are man-haters, desperate or can’t have a real relationship.  They are portrayed as imbalanced workaholics without home lives or if they do have a home life it is dysfunctional and unhappy.  Women are shown to lack an important area of their lives.  Some examples of female characters are C.J. Cregg, Sue Sylvester,  Addison Montgomery, Meredith Grey, Olivia Dunham, etc. These tv characters of past and present shows are show to have successful careers, but not much else.

But this is not the reality when it comes to the political women of California.  Senators Boxers and Feinstein have both been married over 30 years and have children.  Nancy Pelosi has also been married for over 30 years too and has five children.  

There is the sister duo in the House of Representatives.  Loretta (47th congressional district) and Linda Sanchez (39th congressional district).  Loretta is known as a moderate while Linda is more liberal.  They are first pair of sisters to serve in congress concurrently.  They have both married and have been in congress for several years.  They had been active for years in their local communities before heading to congress.  

These women from a seemingly liberal state who are strong enough to defeat political opponents.  They have dealt with the harshness of the press.  They have defeated personal attacks.  These are strong tested women.  These women do amazing things and affect our lives everyday.  These women pass and laws everyday that affect us. Yet they have a career and have stable families too. 

It isn’t only our congressional leaders.  Beth Gaines serves in the California Assembly as a Republican.  She has been married for 25 years and has even home schooled her children (Beth Gaines for Assembly) while her husband Ted serves in the State Senate. 

These women aren’t the cold, self-centered, single career women we are told we have to be to succeed.  

They have families, grandchildren, they go to church, etc. 

These extraordinary people are more like us than the fictional characters the media draws up.  

Maybe its time we get to know them a little better.  

Save Our Beaches

Save Our Beaches 

Its been approximately one year since the dreaded BP oil spill that sent excessive amounts of oil into the gulf for about 3 and half months.  The spill which effected jobs in fishing and tourism and forced the government to spend money on the clean up, etc. 

In response to this disaster, President Obama and the interior department declared a moratorium on new deep sea drilling.  Now the House of Representatives has passed a bill (HR 1231) introduced by Representative Hastings (WA-4) that reverses the offshore moratorium.   It also has a plan for expanding offshore drilling, which can include coastal areas where there isn’t deep oil rigs.  Say Southern California.  Senator Barbara Boxer and Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom have already come out against this bill. 

After the oil spill that destroyed the gulf, the oil companies and their congressional allies want to mandate deep sea offshore drilling in California. 

As Senator Boxer argues, we have huge tourist and fishing industry off the coast.  If the oil companies expand here, the oil that they could find wouldn't necessarily even help the current gas prices.  There is no guarantee that oil is there.  There is also no way to tell how much extra oil is in the deepwater off the California coast. 

The potential for spill could damage California more than the oil would help.  It would damage our economy and stall many other industries if their was a spill.  

Goodbye Parks

Due to the fact the state of California can’t manage to balance a budget, somehow closing 70 state parks going to help.  This is the solution? Really?

California Leads the Way on Energy

By Cali Correspondent

On April 12, Governor Brown signed SBX12, which requires 33 percent of California electricity to come from renewable resources by December 31, 2010.  Currently only 20 percent of California energy is from renewable resources. 

This year in the President Obama’s State of the Union address, he called for Americans to invest in innovation.  He called for this moment to be our generation's potential Sputnik moment.  

With this new bill, the state of California is doing its part.  During the 90s, Californians brought us the tech revolution and the development of Silicon Valley in the Northern California.  This new bill is the opportunity to develop the green industry here and make it the new industry based in our state.  

This is great opportunity for a state with over 10% unemployment.  

There is support for this in the private sector and federal government here.  The same day SBX12 was passed, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $1.187 billion loan guarantee to support a private renewable energy project, the California Valley Solar Ranch Project, which is managed by Sunpower Corporation.  This development will create approximately 350 jobs and significantly reduce carbon emissions.

Another project in the works is the Blythe Solar Project.  It also have $2.1 billion loan guarantee to support the private energy project by Solar Millennium.  This would create approximately 1,000 construction jobs.  

Google has invested $350 million in renewable energy and energy efficiency and they are looking for new projects.  

These are just three examples of a burgeoning green energy industry and considering the bill was just passed a couple of weeks ago.  It can be the start of great things.  Although it is mandated by the laws, the private sector is the one driving the innovation.  

The Majority held Captive

By Poppy Pundit

All the major news networks are covering the federal budget battle between President Obama and Speaker Boehner and the looming government shutdown.   

On the federal level in the legislative branch, the Republicans hold a majority in the House of Representatives and the budget obviously has to be approved by the house.  There are compromises in the works, hopefully.  President Obama announced yesterday that the budget cuts have reached 73 billion, which is the amount of cuts the speaker originally requested.  But the point is the Speaker and the Republicans actually have a majority in the House of Representatives.  It makes sense that the federal government has to compromise.  

Which brings me to California....

In California, Not only do we have a Democrat Governor, but both the State Assembly and the State Senate have a Democratic majority.  

In order to pass the budget we have to a simple majority (50% plus 1).  

So the average person would ask, well then why do we have to compromise with the minority party, the Republicans....

The California budget process is no simple task.  To get a very a detailed description of the budget you can visit the California department of finance at http://www.dof.ca.gov/fisa/bag/process.htm

Here is a quick summary simplified summary.  

1. So the governor present his version of the budget by January 10 either in a speech or in the State of the State Address.  
2. Next the budget goes the to the Assembly Budget Committee and the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee.  It is adjusted and approved by the committees.  
3. Then the budget is approve by both houses of the legislature.

There are some things to note.  The budget, due to Prop 25, which was passed by voters last November, the budget needs to be passed by a simple majority and if the legislature does not pass the budget in by June 15 they lose their salary.  It also maintains that to raise taxes, the legislature has to approve the measure by supermajority (2/3 of the legislature) 

Which brings us to the current problem..... Governor brown would like to pass a budget, but it requires, extending Tax increases that are already in place on vehicles and dmv fees, etc., and for mega corporations to be treated like individuals and not be given a preferred tax rate, which they can afford.  

If the tax extensions are not passed, some necessary resources like education, health care, etc., are going to be greatly affected and reduced. When I say education, I mean k-12.  1 to 20 ratio will be a thing of the past.  We will lose the young teachers with passion.  It will mean layoffs for teachers who have had their own classroom for 5+ years.   

In order to pass governor browns plan, he needed only 2 republicans in each house to cross the aisle.  Just 4 politicians.  There are 15 Republicans in State Senate and 27 in the assembly.  There are 25 Democrats in the state senate and 52 in the state assembly.  There is a total of 120 members of the legislative branch.  This means that roughly 33% of the legislative branch is republican.  

33% is holding up the budget.  They aren’t coming up with alternatives.  They are making a list of demands that is 7 pages.  7 pages.  If these demands were so popular, why are they not demanded by the populace.  So this little third of the legislative is holding the state hostage.   

Could we have a more inefficient system where a third of the government can dictate what the budget and taxes are going to be about?  

I commend Gov. Brown for having his limits and not bowing to all the Republican demands.  I can appreciate his taking ideas directly to the people. 

It is like having to share a pizza and although there is more of your family at the dinner table you have to give your neighbor and bigger portion for fewer people because you are dividing evenly between your families.  

I can appreciate minority rights, but not when the minority to infinitesimal that they stop real progress from happening.