Well-behaved women never make history!
Karen Silkwood: I remember in high school her saying, ‘Now what’d you want to take that science class for? There’s no girls in that science class. You take home ec, why don’t you? That’s the way to meet the nice boys.’ ‘Mom,’ I said, There ain’t no boys in home ec. The boys are in the science class.’ She hated when I said, ‘Ain’t.’ With poll below:
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+ Hausfrau, acting on today’s story about Dean’s detractors, says, “We’ve got Dean’s back! Please make a small contribution of $5.01 or $10.01 every time you come across an attack on Dean in the media. If you see the Dean Scream, please contribute $20.01.”
“Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor.
“It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”
Home Ec was an excruciating experience for me. I particularly hated sewing. My rather ambitious mother, seeing that I was having trouble completing the big sewing project, took me to a seamstress who sewed the dress I turned in for my project. Isn’t that awful? At the time, however, I was deeply relieved. Since, though, I’ve been ashamed. There. It’s out in the open now.
I didn’t take Home Ec in high school because my mother the librarian said it was for dummies! Made we want to take it. Not that I was a rebel or anything.
My mom was a Home Ec teacher. Cook, sew, knit, she can do anything. Me, I only inherited her ability to cook and to knit.
my mom was a terrible cook, never could sew and we(four sisters) did all the house work. Our joke about mom was a pound of butter, a pound of ground beef. When she would make spaghetti that is how she would start and she never drained the meat before making the sauce. We used to sneek into the kitchen to skim the grease off. It was gross!!
Oy…why didn’t she just let you all take home ec and pass the cooking job down to you along with the cleaning? Too funny!
hey, believe me, we all taught ourselves to cook…just out of self defense…haha!
Just to make you feel better? Because guilt loves company? My math-impaired SON needed one math class to graduate from high school. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to pass and that he was never going to pass it. Guess who did some of his homework? I swear that’s the only time I have even come close to doing that.
I also took Home Ec and cheated my way to a passing grade. After failing the sewing portion of the class my only hope was the peanut butter cookie test.
The teacher divided us into groups, graciously putting 4 of us she considered trouble makers into one group. We worked hard but due to a small mix up between salt and sugar we made the worst tasting cookies ever. Knowing I would fail, I decided my only choice was to throw out our cookies and steal several cookies from every other group to replace them. Since I used to pick pocket friends for fun (I thought I might need the skill someday) the cookie stealing was easy.
By the time the teacher came around to sample our cookies we had edible ones in place. I passed and went on to shop class the next semester. Which I failed. Damn band saw.
for those of you who are still willing to go THERE, the holyhandgrenade has written a thoughtful and even moving diary on piegate. I’m afraid it will be dismissed as a GBCW post, but it’s worth a read.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/7/161738/9320
You’re so funny. Am going right now to look.
Susan, I just signed up as a user here and bookmarked this page. It looks like a great site. It’s well-organized, has good articles, and I’m sure I’ll be coming here a lot.
But I mostly came here because of Militarytracy’s diary on DKos pointing out that you and Lorraine (among others) had left DKos. And if that’s true I’m very sorry to hear it, as you have written some of the best and most informative diaries I’ve seen.
Just wanted you to know.
Tracy didn’t check with me. I just posted on her diary to say that I haven’t quit DKos.
I’m one of those people who takes a bit of time to decide what to do. I.e., I procrastinate, which actually works for me frequently.
At any rate, I’m glad you’re HERE! This is a fun place wtih some very, very bright and funny people.
me too. That’s all. This whole thing has been pretty discouraging.
a refugee from elsewhere, like you brecht.
Yes, I took home-ec in 8th grade which, iirc, consisted of sewing. I also took cooking in 10th. Both ruined an otherwise pristine GPA.
But P.E. was really the bane of my existence. I hated anything involving running. In high school, at least there were choices. The first semester I picked tennis, but it was full and I somehow got put in Disco dance (yes, it was the 70’s). I managed to get moved to badminton.
Second semester, my best friend and I decided to take weight-lifting. Our reasoning was fairly simple — no running involved, no picking of teams, and the class was indoors.
Little did we know that we were the first girls who’d ever asked to take the class. We were told we couldn’t take it and then, of course, we were on a mission. It turned in to a whole big deal and the teacher threatened to quit his job.
In the end we prevailed and took the class. The next semester quite a few other girls did as well. The teacher grumbled at us a lot, but he ended up sort of liking us.
I thought it would be a good idea to post some of today’s headlines for anyone that wants to take up an issue and write a diary. There is alot going on:
George is reading a speech!
Bush just said that he’s going to help Africa to “get on her feet.”
We won’t help countries that don’t have open economies.
Both Blair and Bush are answering on the Downing Street Memo Q from the press.
I’m male, took metal shop, would probably have been better off taking home ec. It would have been more useful to me today as a husband/father.
Didn’t take it after one class in middle school, which doesn’t count. Learned to cook on my own, as I like cooking and like food. Have no problem with girls in science classes – some of my best friends in high school were girls in science classes who, incidentally, had better grades than I did.
Probably the single most useful class in all of my schooling was a half-year typing class early in high school. We used something called typewriters then, kiddies–like analog computers with built-in printers, but without games.
I have used it for schoolwork, personal correspondence, in several disparate careers, writing for pay, writing for fun, blogging. It’s such second nature now that if anyone asks me where letters are on a keyboard, I have to stop and think about it, because my fingers go there automatically.
So Armando posted a front page piece over THERE entitled “Dems Support A Women’s Right to Choose,” highlighting Harry Reid’s comments on the 40th anniversary of Griswold v. Conn. (which legalized married people’s use of contraception) and promoting the Prevention First Act.
And then Kos posts 3 diaries within 15 minutes, with the effect that the pro-choice diary is now way down the page.
I need to not go there for a while, I think.
You just had to use Karen Silkwood. The case is cold, the memory simmers. Lawyers & Settlements had this:
Twenty-nine settlements have been reached in several lawsuits, including one class-action suit filed on behalf of 500 plaintiffs. The suits alleged that the company’s former wood treatment facility in Avoca, PA caused ground contamination which lead to serious health problems or deaths. (Nov-07-03) [CITIZENS VOICE] [CONTACT KERR-MCGEE]
And from the writer covering the trial for the Seattle-Post Intelligencer, Bruce Brown:
= = = = = =
Essentially, this story revealed that the whole Silkwood nuclear safety controversy had no substance at the center. That’s not to say that Karen Silkwood wasn’t a good person who was tragically murdered. It’s just that it probably wasn’t Kerr-McGee that did it. It was probably just a plain old American psycho killer out for a good time on the highway at night.
Finally, from Frontline:
The lawsuit was about health and safety in the plant, not in the rods. If you haven’t, read the book. It’s been twenty years and I’m still pissed off.
Wow. I’ve never read the book. Is that the book by attorney Gerry Spence?
Richard Rashke wrote The Killing of Karen Silkwood in ’81, and a second printing with added chapters in 2000. If you take the link, you should read the reviews below.
Thank you Susan for your help on getting the word out on “We’ve got Deans Back”. I am going to write up a diary today and will let all of you know how much we have rec’d so far. As of 7:30 this morning (Berlin Time), we have received $480.14 for the DNC. It may not seem much but it’s $480.14 more than had I just got upset and did absolutely nothing.
I would like everybody to contribute something everytime the media bashes Dean. I watched Wolf Blitzer in horror on Sunday night and I wanted to smack Wolf and his guests upside the head when they were treating Dean with such contempt. For me, it was personal, I felt that they were treating me with contempt. I want them to take notice and know that we are real people and that is who Dean represents.