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See link below Fat Old Women for Peace

Don't Miss this link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINStsPwgQ4 Fat Old Women for Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh9BmNuqeiQ

I loved this link. See above in title space. "Don't Speak for Me Sarah Palin" sung by a Hockey Mom.

Republicans Try to Block Disabled Persons and Others from Voting

I saw a report on MSNBC Th. morning that the Republican Party is trying to keep a group of disabled persons who live in a group home from having the votes they cast for the Nov. 4th election count. I also read a report that stated the Bush administration is not allowiing voter registration groups to organize outside hospitals and other sites where disabled veterans congregate.* This is part of a general campaign the Republican Party is mounting to keep people who they see as tending to vote Democratic be denied the right to vote. I saw another article that said the Republicans were trying to keep people who have had their homes foreclosed from voting. This reminds me of what happened in the South when Jim Crow laws applied and African Americans were denied the right to vote based on bureaucratic rules and tests and threats and that made it impossible for people to vote because of the color of their skin. Now it has to do with disability and homelessness. What a bunch of crock!!!!!! I hope the courts turn down every request from Republican officers and campaign people to keep ordinary citizens from the ability to vote. In some cases, the Repubican up to no good types are saying the disabled involved do not have the mental capacity to vote. In the case mentioned allt could understand at a 5th grade level. They could understand the broad ideas involved and whether the person seemed able to care about them. That is good enough for me and probably better than what many persons understand when he or she is is in the voting booth. I say let the disabled who want to vote and have some idea who is the best candidate vote. Ordinary people vote for candidates based on really dumb reasons. I suspect the disabled do better than the average person with more intelligence who votes based on whether the person has the right skin color or whether he or she is attractive to them.

Do Disabled Veterans tend to vote Democratic? If so, that says a lot.

Sharon Raphael

Yes for Obama Nov. 4

Gay High School Stymied by Mayor Daly

Mayor Daly of Chicago delays vote on Gay High School. This is a poor move on the part of Mayor Daly. I think his turndown of the School which would have helped LGBT high school students who have been subjected to harassment or could be was probably motivated by political pressures and perhaps, the poor economic times. The need for these kinds of school is dire; too many young LGBT students attempt of commit suicide or drop out of school as a result of outright homophobic treatment and the existence in many schools of a hostile enviroment. Shame on Daly for not doing the right thing. These schools are needed.

SRaphaael

Daley voices concerns about gay high school
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October 24, 2008
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
Mayor Daley on Thursday expressed strong reservations about the Chicago Board of Education’s controversial plan to open the city’s first high school serving gay and lesbian students.

One day after his handpicked school board put off a vote on the School for Social Justice Pride Campus, Daley explained why — by expressing his concerns.

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“You have to look at whether or not you isolate and segregate children. A holistic approach has always been to have children of all different backgrounds in schools. When you start isolating children and you say, ‘Only 50 percent here, 40 percent here’ — same thing we went through with the disabled — then you want to do that when they’re adults,” Daley said.

Daley insisted he was not behind the board’s decision to put off a final vote on Social Justice High until Nov. 19. The school would serve a 50/50 population of gay and straight students.

Schools CEO Arne Duncan had hoped to open the school in the fall of 2010 to offer parents and students more choices and a feeling of safety. He has argued that gay and lesbian students have higher drop-out rates because they feel ostracized.

Duncan was emboldened by a national survey of 6,000 middle and high school students released by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. It showed that nearly 90 percent were harassed at school and that 61 percent felt unsafe.

Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, said Daley is “absolutely correct” on Social Justice High.

“There’s no doubt there’s violence and bullying of gay kids and something has to be done, but segregating them is not the answer,” said Garcia. “It doesn’t stop bullying at other schools. And if a kid is different and the object of scorn or bullying, instead of addressing it, the teacher might say, ‘Send him to homo high.’

“Instead of a school for gay kids, maybe we need a school for the bullies. Gay kids are not the problem. Bullies and teachers and administrators who don’t stop the bullying are the problem,” he said.

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