Next week my friends and family from Soulforce (a YP4 ally organization that seeks to end religious-based oppression of LGBT people - the same amazing folks who organize the Equality Ride) are giving straight

One of the amazing and historic things about this presidential campaign is that it's made us blasé about how amazing and historic it's been.

No one's really talking anymore about the fact that the Democratic Party just nominated its first African-American candidate for president. Or that a female candidate got closer than any woman's gotten before to securing the nomination.

At this point in time, the reality is that women still don't make as much as men. Women make almost 76 cents to every dollar that a man makes in the workforce. This pay gap is sadly widening. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/censusandstatistics/a/paygapgr... I can't think of unequal pay without thinking of Lilly Ledbetter.  Lilly Ledbetter worked at the Goodyear plant for years and was paid less than her male counterparts.  Her case lost in the U.S. Supreme Court last year.  See and hear Lilly's story at http://www.now.org/issues/economic/080108paycheckfairness.ht...

A fellow scholar from my program informed us of the anniversary of integration of the U.S. Armed Forces, led by former President Harry S. Truman. With all the emphasis on Obama's race i.e. questions including, "Is the U.S. ready for a black president?" and great efforts to recruit minorities in ROTC programs without a comparable move to recruit them into higher education, I wonder, how far have we really come in terms of racial reconciliation?

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release July 23, 2008

60th Anniversary of the Integration of
the United States Armed Forces

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n255/georgienewyork/maineventflyer.jpg

I hope this "outreach dream list" will inspire you!!! Let's spread the word now as much as possible, Remember the motto "If there is a will there is always a way, especially if it is the will of God!"

I'm currently working with other students to create a mock bill of rights to pitch to the student government but I can't find an example of one that addresses student's lives as well as academic issues.

Does anyone have one at their school that they could share to show us the basic layout?

November is Native American history month. Or, atleast it should be. There is a ton of history to be learned on Native Americans. There are well over 500 tribes, and several thousands of years of history. I feel that Native Americans deserve their own month, and it should be in November.

"Another of those silly jokes she forwards to her whole list," I thought as I warily opened the e-mail from my friend and former U. S. Senate candidate, Claire Sargent.

But this was no joke. Claire had forwarded a message from another long time tiller of the women's equality fields, Paula Cullison, who reported that when she went to AOL's greeting cards seeking to send Women's Equality Day greeting cards in honor of the 87th anniversary of women's right to vote, August 26, she found instead a card honoring National Toilet Paper Day.http://greetings.aol.com/display.pd?path=62352&bfrom=3&prodnum=3079182

Not to disparage toilet paper, given its importance to human comfort and cleanliness, but I was, pardon me, wiped

Love Animals? Love Nature? Love Peace? Love Equality?

Well you just may qualify for the Alabama Terror Watch List... So all of you advocates and activists out there, beware!

And people wonder why I prefer driving to flying home to Montgomery!

Disclaimer: I love my hometown and home state, so please read this post with the spirit in which this was written... it's all out of love!

...I did not know about the second one.

 Oh wait. You haven't heard about the second part of that question, right? So how in the world are you supposed to be informed about it? It definitely did not hit the airwaves from where I'm from. Have you heard the fact that Gov. Kulongoski of Orgeon has just signed legislature allowing a Domestic Partner Law for his state? Well, perhaps you have or perhaps you haven't, but I know that I did not get that news from flipping the channels on my television.

  But you know what I'm quite sure of though? I'm pretty sure that everybody has read about why Paris might spend a couple nights in a not so luxurious setting. You probably have a lot more details than I do. She claims that she was misinformed about what she can and cannot do with her suspended license. That's a great first step. Blame someone else right? I'll be optimistic here and pretend that it really was his fault for not knowing the state or the conditions that she has to abide by when it's her very own license that's suspended. Fine, it's his fault. But then the question of "Why was she caught?" comes up. There has to be a reason why she was pulled over in the first place, right? Surely the police officer did not have a device capable of seeing through the car, her purse and wallet to reveal that her license is suspended.