A Double Dose of Passion

Jen Lemen is a blogger who recently wrote about meeting Elizabeth Edwards. The post is a bit over the top but the passion is real and an interesting read.

“I worry about you,” I said, surprised at how emotional I felt putting these thoughts into words. “I know your cancer is back and that you have these little children. I want to be so supportive of what you’re doing, but at the same time I don’t want to participate in something that would diminish this time in your family’s life–your time is so precious.”

It feels shocking now to recount this. Who am I to worry about Elizabeth Edwards or to get myself worked up into some form of motherhood grief over the thought of being ill or leaving little children behind, but the whole thing just gets me. One of my greatest fears is orphaning my children. I feel so deeply how much they need me, how much their hearts would be split in two without me.

She turned to me with so much fire in her blue eyes..."

Read the entire post here.

Family Values and Iran

One of my concerns when we chose our house in the Denver suburbs was that we'd be moving into an all white neighborhood and that my kids only exposure to people of color would be when we hired someone to do work on our house, mow our lawn or clean our house. That's the way it was in Texas.

Thankfully that hasn't been the case in Colorado.

Our neighborhood is remarkably diverse. One family includes both a mom and dad who grew up in Iran, met here in the United States, got married and started a family. They now have a high school age daughter and an elementary school age son. Every couple of years they try to go back to Iran for an extended trip to visit the (now) grandparents and other relatives.

Today was the day one of those trips began. Mom, daughter and son boarded a plane at noon mountain time to fly to Frankfurt and then on to Tehran. They plan on being gone for nine weeks. Their Dad had to stay home to work.

I'm not entirely sure how they are feeling about the trip but I am nervous for them.

Have you heard what the Iranian government is up to? They are holding some Iranian-Americans against their will. The Associated Press reported this way.

An Iranian-American academic who works at a Washington-based institute is being held in a notorious prison after being prohibited from leaving Iran for more than four months, the institute and her husband said Wednesday.
Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, was sent Tuesday to Evin prison after she arrived at Iran's Intelligence Ministry for questioning, the center said.

The article went on to say,

Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months including journalist Parnaz Azima, who works for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda. Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran's resort island of Kish, and his whereabouts are unknown. Tehran says it's continuing to investigate.

More details were provided about what has happened to Haleh Esfandiari,

The Wilson Center said three masked men holding knives threatened to kill Esfandiari, who was in Tehran visiting her 93-year-old mother, on Dec. 30 as she was on her way to the airport. They took her baggage, including her U.S. and Iranian passports, the center said. For several weeks, she was interrogated by authorities for up to eight hours a day, according to the center. Most of the questioning focused on the activities of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. "Although Dr. Esfandiari went home every evening, the some 50 hours of questioning were unpleasant — to put it mildly — and not free from intimidation and threat," the center said.

Now it is very easy for me to sit here in Colorado and wonder if my neighbors should have simply stayed home. But they are going to see family and there really isn't much in the world that would keep me from wanting to see my family. What would you do? Your parents are getting older, so visits seem to be more valuable, you live 7,000 miles apart so visits don't happen all that often and you want your children to know and understand something of their heritage, you want them to understand something of the place where you grew up. What would you do?

I'd be nervous but I'd probably go.

And so, for the next nine weeks, I'll say a prayer for the safety of my neighbors, a prayer for those Americans already being held and a prayer for a more sane relationship between the United States and Iran.

Send the Queen Home

I've read one article about the Queen of England's visit to the United States. I read it because I was interested in how the White House pulls off a big fancy dinner. I really have very little interest in the British royals. I find the entire idea of a monarchy to be absurd.

The article I read was in the NY Times on Saturday. In it, the reporter shared some dos and don'ts as to how people are to behave when hanging out with British Royalty.

Aides to Mrs. Bush shared a few dos and don’ts. The queen shall be addressed as “Your Majesty.” The prince is “Your Royal Highness.”

For women, curtsying is acceptable, but not required. One does not shake the queen’s hand unless the queen offers hers first.

And after Her Majesty finishes her meal, everyone’s meal is finished. (Not to worry, a senior official said of Mr. Bush: “He’s a really fast eater.”)

Will someone please tell the White House we won the Revolutionary War? We aren't royal subjects any more. We don't need to cow-tow to some pompous, old, over-paid, ribbon cutter. We certainly don't need to rush through our meal just so we can finish before the Queen and avoid her having to send us to bed without our dessert.

I'd feel a bit differently if the dinner were in London. But this dinner was in our house. I think it is time for England's Queen to respect our rules.

Women, Politics, Term Limits

I've always been a fan of mandatory retirement for elected officials as long as the retirement came after a significant period of time. I think 24 or 30 years is probably long enough for any politician to hold a job. Most limits on an elected official's term in office, however, are much shorter than that. The Washington Post on Monday had an interesting article that looked at states with term limits for state legislators and the number of women in the legislature.

Essentially what the article found was that states with term limits had fewer women in office while states without term limits had more women in office. Furthermore, states with term limits have seen the number of women in office decline since term-limits went into effect. According to the article:

Term limits are in effect in 15 states, in every region of the country. Created in the belief that they would make statehouses less hidebound and more representative, the rules remain a topic of considerable controversy, much of it about what effect the turnover has on legislative effectiveness.

In six states, term limits have been repealed by the legislature or killed by the courts.

Since 1995, the year before the first limits were imposed for state legislatures, the percentage of women in the legislatures has grown from 20.6 percent to 23.5 percent, an increase of 200 seats nationwide -- on average, four per state.

The overall increase in states with term limits, however, has been smaller than in states without. The number of women in the Michigan legislature, from the year before term limits were enacted to now, dropped from 34 to 29. Missouri went from 45 to 38, Ohio from 28 to 23 and Arizona from 32 to 31. In Florida, women held 38 seats in 2000 and 38 today.

A few states registered gains, notably California, where the number of female legislators climbed from 25 in 1995 to 34 today. Yet even in Sacramento, women occupy just 28 percent of statehouse seats.

What's questionable, however, is whether or not the term limits caused the decline or whether it is simply an interesting coincidence.

What I think is clear is that there has to be a strategy of promoting the candidacies of women if you want to increase their numbers in elective office. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota has been working on such a strategy for decades and the work has paid off.

My college friend, Margaret Anderson Kelliher was quoted in the Washington Post article about the strategy.

In Minnesota, a state without term limits, women have increased their numbers in the legislature from 50 to 70 since 1995, including a jump of 10 last year. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D) credits two factors: the growing number of electable female candidates and the prominence of issues such as education and health care.

"There are more and more women who are serving on local school boards, running for city councils and winning, and creating a pipeline," Kelliher said. "The scholarly literature says it takes on average three times that a woman is asked to run for office for her to do it. My sense is we're maybe down to two times."

Like everything else in politics, success depends on hard work done over the long term. While term limits may serve to prematurely cut off promising political careers I'm not sure they should be blamed for a lack of women in elective office. Term limits simply make having a good pipeline very important.