Free Republic

This is Race to Dinner. A white woman volunteers to host a dinner in her home for seven other white women – often strangers, perhaps acquaintances. (Each dinner costs $2,500, which can be covered by a generous host or divided among guests.) A frank discussion is led by co-founders Regina Jackson, who is black, and Saira Rao, who identifies as Indian American. They started Race to Dinner to challenge liberal white women to accept their racism, however subconscious. “If you did this in a conference room, they’d leave,” Rao says. “But wealthy white women have been taught never to leave...

President Obama instead, he's promoting himself and his agenda, sitting in the hot seat of the daytime talk show in an effort, once again, to go beyond the traditional media filter and speak directly to the American people, especially women. In an exclusive preview clip that aired on "World News" tonight, Barbara Walters asked the president what the recent high and low points of his time in office had been. "In the last month what has been the rose and what has been the thorn?" she asked, referring to an Obama family tradition of taking stock of their lives. "In...

NATICK - You could call them the Override Moms - politically powerful suburban women who lobby for property tax increases to pay for teachers, new schools, and better classroom gear for their school-aged children. Think soccer moms, with an activist bent. In one community after another, these mothers have banded together in common cause. They are nimble and they are quick, often performing with the agility and strategy of an expert strike force. With at least 40 Eastern Massachusetts cities and towns planning to ask voters for more than $50 million over the next few months, this is the make-or-break...

Four top ranking female Republican presidential campaign operatives brushed aside the notion of the “women’s vote” in a panel to promote “their man” Tuesday afternoon. In her introduction of campaign spokeswomen for Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, moderator and Washington editor of National Review Kate O’Beirne chortled at Democratic pollster Mark Penn’s assertion that Hillary Clinton would draw the female vote because of “emotional appeal” based on gender. “There’s no such thing as the monolithic women’s vote,” O’Beirne said. Rather, these women seemed confident that men and women alike would vote for a Republican candidate because...

Fred Rogers, the late TV icon, told several generations of children that they were "special" just for being whoever they were. He meant well, and he was a sterling role model in many ways. But what often got lost in his self-esteem-building patter was the idea that being special comes from working hard and having high expectations for yourself. Now Mr. Rogers, like Dr. Spock before him, has been targeted for re-evaluation. And he's not the only one. As educators and researchers struggle to define the new parameters of parenting, circa 2007, some are revisiting the language of child ego-boosting....

Competitive Parenting 1-A http://fetchingjen.blogspot.com/2007/05/competitive-parenting-1.html http://tinyurl.com/2q3zwh By KATY GRIMES, Sacramento Union Columnist Thursday, May 24, 2007 (online) Friday, May 18, 2007 (paper edition) (Sacramento Union) When did parenting become America's most competitive adult sport? Outrageous stories from parents all around Sacramento abound, from parents behaving badly at kids competitive sports events to academic competitiveness. Competitive parenting is out-of-control. Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a world where children could play at being children. …playing fields for games of soccer, baseball and capture-the-flag; and tight-knit neighborhoods where kids played hide-and-go-seek and red-rover until it was dark…...

“We’ve never had a mother who ever ran or was elected president…” That was Hillary Clinton speaking earlier this week, when she appeared on the television show The View. Don’t think for a minute that she was just making an interesting historical observation. No, Hillary doesn’t work that way. She never says or does anything that hasn’t been perfectly scripted and endlessly polled beforehand. She had a message, a new strategy to try out. So look for the new “Mom Strategy” to be the anchor of her presidential run. Forget Soccer Moms and Security Moms; now it’s going to be...

JIHAD IS FUN! VOTE DEMOCRAT! by Ann Coulter November 1, 2006 John Kerry is the "botched joke" of American politics. For those of you keeping score at home, John Kerry has now called members of the U.S. military (a) stupid, (b) crazy, (c) murderers, (d) rapists, (e) terrorizers of Iraqi women and children. I wonder what he'll call them tomorrow. Whatever Karl Rove is paying John Kerry to say stupid things, it's worth every penny. Now, back to the midterm elections ... Analysts place the average midterm loss for the party in the White House at around 15 to 44...

Soccer's catching on here in the United States, they tell me. We've reached the point where the American team is somewhat competitive in the World Cup. I like many things European, particularly the beer. But I have never quite fathomed soccer. Then yesterday I made the connection between the two. I turned on the TV to give the World Cup a try. Portugal was playing Mexico. People were falling over a lot and the ball was going everywhere but into the goal. The announcer seemed excited anyway. It turned out that Angola was playing Iran at the same time, he...

Long unknown at home and ridiculed abroad, the United States isn't being written off in the soccer world anymore. But the Americans will need to pull together as team to get past their tough World Cup group. A motorcade of police cars with flashing blue lights and a massive, unmarked FIFA bus has announced the arrival and often rapid departure of the US soccer team in Hamburg over the past week. But when the American players are on their own, it's a different story. On Friday, star midfielder DaMarcus Beasley sat, blissfully anonymous, at a sidewalk café outside the Americans'...

Residents are up in arms over a push by the Education Department to open a school next door to a popular Bay Ridge shooting range. The school, proposed inside the recently shuttered Fortway Theater on Fort Hamilton Parkway, would bring about 440 students within earshot of the 40-year-old Alpine Arms shooting range - an FBI and NYPD favorite. "We're trying to get children away from guns, not near them," said Donna Sbordone, a mother of three who lives three blocks from the 67th St. site. "It's just not a good place for a school."

The National PTA, representing 26,000 local affiliates, solicited a workshop and exhibit by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) for public school action against anti-homosexual beliefs at the PTA's convention next month. But another group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) of Alexandria, was rejected as an exhibitor at the June 24-26 convention in Columbus, Ohio.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American women are anxious these days and no wonder: They've been vilified as inadequate mothers, desperate housewives, lackluster academic scientists and -- most rudely -- too fat to be French. These characterizations have come in guilt-edged packaging on television, in newspapers and a raft of non-fiction books about the plight of U.S. women in the 21st century. One of the most celebrated new works takes aim at the fallacy of having it all as a mother. Author Judith Warner dubbed the problem, and her book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety." It isn't just about...

Children are the new focus between the haves and the have-nots, Australia is producing the smallest generation of children we have ever seen, relative to total population. While we debate the implications of this for our ecology, our economy and our immigration policy, spare a thought for the children themselves. They will be living in a world of bewildering mixed messages. Their overzealous parents will be lavishing attention on them, praising their every achievement as if they are superheroes, yet protecting them as if they are fragile and incompetent. Meanwhile, there'll be a growing band of non-parents out there who...

Democrats are Losing the Women Vote on Abortion and Security By Joseph Taranto. Posted 10/20/2004 2:53:00 PM According to a new Survey USA poll, pro-life voters favor George W. Bush by 46 points, while pro-choice voters only favor Kerry by only 30 points. The issue of abortion always causes divisions in America and Bush and Kerry virtually on opposite sides of the spectrum. The poll provides data from 28 key states, including nearly all the battleground states. For example, in Arizona Bush leads Kerry among pro-life voters by 50 points. Kerry only leads Bush among pro-choice voters by 14. In...

Suddenly, the hottest phenomenon in presidential politics is the metamorphosis of women from "soccer moms" to "security moms." If this group is as much in play as some polls suggest, then working and other mothers who are concerned first and foremost with their children's security may well prove to be president-makers in 2004. It should hardly come as a surprise women are instinctively preoccupied with the well-being of their families and communities. Roughly a decade ago, the Center for Security Policy conducted a series of focus groups around the country in which people were asked how they felt about being...

It's no accident: First lady Laura Bush, at seven campaign stops in the last eight days, has employed exactly the same phrasing to pound in an important theme to the women who crowd her events. In Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, NJ, Wisconsin and Iowa, Bush acknowledged that the economy, education and health care are important issues. "But as we grieve for the families in Russia and as we mark the third anniversary of September 11th,'' she said, "I believe what's most important is my husband's work to protect our country and to defeat terror around the world. '' Even in...

NEW YORK - In Illinois politics, the old adage about nice guys finishing last will be turned on its head this fall. Nice guys - and women - will win the suburbs. If President Bush and Illinois Republicans hope to win Illinois, they must focus on the suburbs, say moderate GOP members. Both around Chicago and around the nation, the suburban vote is considered in play largely because the people who call the suburbs home refuse to be pinned down by politics. And the first key to winning their votes is to tone down the partisan rhetoric. That's the advice...

Hosts of ABC's "The View" Gang Up on Giuliani for Backing Bush Joy Behar ridiculed Giuliani for claiming that the first thing he said after the 9/11 attacks was "thank God" George W. Bush "was our President" and she insisted that "of course" Al Gore would have been just as "tough" on terrorism. Former CBS News correspondent Meredith Vieira, who participated Sunday in an anti-Bush march, seemed similarly ignorant, scolding Giuliani: "The implication is that if you disagree, I think, with the administration that somehow you are on the side of the terrorists. " Giuliani shot back: "That isn't who...