2007-05 Vital Source Mag – May 2007
Up in smoke
When Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York following 9/11, there was concern that the terrorist attack would harm the city’s economy. Bloomberg and the New York City Council, with help from the state and federal governments, enacted a wide variety of tax incentives and other programs designed to support businesses and save jobs. But Mayor Bloomberg also pursued another policy that some regarded as anti-business. Bloomberg was relentless in his support of a ban on smoking in all public areas and workplaces including restaurants and bars. This was just plain common sense, Bloomberg, a Republican, said. The evidence was overwhelming that secondhand smoke is a public health hazard and one of government’s key functions was protecting the health of its citizens. Despite the objections of some business owners who feared customers would stop frequenting restaurants and bars if they could no longer smoke, the policy passed and the impact on the hospitality industry has been negligible. Few businesses closed, net revenue grew and the policy has been replicated in many other places. The entire state of New York soon followed the city’s lead and other states including California, Connecticut and Georgia and cities ranging from Chicago, Madison and Appleton have gone smoke-free. Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Spain and New Zealand are among the countries that have enacted smoke-free workplace legislation nationwide. The war at home If we shift our lens to Milwaukee we see a different picture. Early in the administration of Mayor Tom Barrett, his newly appointed health commissioner, Bevan Baker, was quoted in an article on the proliferation of smoking bans in support of them. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of saying what he believed before checking with his boss. Barrett distanced himself from Baker’s position and dropped the hot potato into the lap of the Common Council. The Mayor stated that he would sign a bill banning smoking in workplaces if the council passed it, but he felt a ban probably should include an exemption for bars and taverns, where people expect to be able to smoke. When Alderman Joe Davis introduced a comprehensive workplace smoking ban for Milwaukee, he urged his colleagues to support it as a public health imperative. The proposal was assigned to the council’s Public Safety Committee, chaired by Ald. Bob Donovan, a smoker and outspoken opponent of restrictions on tobacco use. The hearing attracted hundreds of people who spoke passionately on both sides. It got off to a contentious start when Donovan restricted Davis to the same three-minute limit placed on all members of the public who wished to speak. Davis objected that the customary practice was to permit a bill’s sponsor to speak at greater length, but Donovan stuck to his guns and Davis left angrily. Health advocates, students, people with asthma and other chronic conditions were among the bill’s supporters while bar and tavern owners and their customers argued passage would drive customers to establishments in West Allis, Cudahy, South Milwaukee and other communities. Donovan’s committee eventually tabled the […]
May 1st, 2007 by Ted Bobrow
Amandine
Banjo. Strings. Piano. Guitar. Maybe the occasional trumpet. The acoustic over the electric; the organic over the synthetic. This is the shape of indie-pop today. From Songs:Ohia to The Mountain Goats to Paige France, Americana and folk have spread across the countryside in a blaze of unconventional instrumentation and unshaven singer-songwriters. If quiet is the new loud, a mountain-man beard is the new trucker hat. Apparently the Atlantic Ocean didn’t stop this wildfire from besieging Europe. Amandine have checked in as Sweden’s offering to this renaissance with their sophomore release, Solace in Sore Hands. Unfortunately, they journey across the pond to offer nothing new to the mix, and instead deliver a homogenized blend of formulaic indie-pop. “Faintest of Sparks” opens the album with banjo and glockenspiel and the lyrics “Started a fire with the faintest of sparks/sprung from the friction of two empty hearts.” Amandine don’t waste time setting a mood, instead opting to spin dark, pretty yarns of lovelorn weariness. The second track, “Chores of the Heart,” features the album’s high point – a waltz melody crescendos and fades with choruses that resemble many a standout Decibully track. But from there on the disc suffers from suffocating sameness. The tempo rarely varies; the mood never changes. It’s a trap that ensnares many an aspiring indie band – develop a formula, write a few songs, record them, forget to pursue variety. This being Amandine’s second release, they’ve already spent their one pass in that department. Solace in Sore Hands has its moments, but they’re lost amidst the 6/8 tempos and acoustic strings. Perhaps if Amandine hit upon a mood other than “wistful,” that’ll change. VS
May 1st, 2007 by DJ Hostettler
Falling in love with Roberta
As I sit to write this, I am surrounded by half-full boxes and piles of things for Purple Heart. The Slightly Crunchy Parent has bought a new house, and we’ll be moving very soon. The house my partner and I found was a foreclosure and in desperate need of much work before being habitable and, as a result, we have spent the last three weeks just getting it put together enough to move in. I wrote the following poem while I was working and falling in love with our new home. This four-bedroom, four-square colonial is all I’ve been able to think about for weeks. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped during this process, because contrary to the way it sounds when you read the poem, I did not do the work on the house by myself – there is simply no way one person could have done it all and, as usual, my friends and family stepped up and lent more than a hand. My sisters have been there for us every step of the way, encouraging and cleaning, sanding, painting and cleaning some more. Michelle and Mrs. Jesi have fed us and listened to us cry and worked at our side. My parents Jude, Kenny and John have been instrumental with the greenbacks and I am grateful to have come from such great people. Allen, the wood guru, walked us through doing the floors and logged uncountable hours managing that monstrous project. My secret connection at the paint store made it possible for us to repaint the entire interior of the house before we moved in and gave us solid counsel about just how to manage the minor mold problem in the basement. As always, my little Lena has showed up to work every day she wasn’t in school, and has made me more proud than I’ve ever known I could be. There were more people who helped and more people who have promised their services than I can name here, and we are thankful to each and every person. VS
May 1st, 2007 by Lucky Tomaszek
Watts Tea Shop – 103 years and counting
photos by Kevin C. Groen Watts Tea Shop 761 N. Jefferson Street Milwaukee, WI 53202 414-290-5720 Tom Millot is one of those rare managers who actually wants his employees to learn how to do his job. As Executive Chef of Watts Tea Shop, he fosters leadership qualities in his staff of 14 full and part timers. “I love my staff. They respect what I try to do and the reverse. We have a team concept. We’re always looking to go forward. Besides myself, we have three staffers who can produce any of our baked goods,” he says proudly beaming ear to ear. “You’re only as good as your team.” If Millot sounds like a major league coach, it may be because he’s always been a team player: at home, on the field and in the kitchen. Raised in a family of 11 children, he says, “Everybody pitched in. Sometimes there were too many cooks and not enough elbowroom. We didn’t even fathom eating out, we were so used to eating off the land. We were on a tight budget and that has helped me in my profession. It keeps waste to a minimum and you value everything.” Everyone in the Millot family was expected to be at the dinner table on time. “That was very important for bonding with family. There’s not enough of that [today]. Everybody’s in a hurry to go nowhere fast.” Summers in Hartland, when not doing chores, Millot played baseball in six leagues, several games a day, seven days a week. However, he decided on a career in cooking in his teens and some years later found a lifelong mentor and friend in Louis Danegelis, Senior Chef Instructor at Waukesha County Technical College, where the young chef studied. “He taught me passion. Passion for what I do for my career, with food and more importantly with the people you work with and manage – the culinary team. He taught that the speed of the leader is speed of the team.” “Cross train yourself and your employees. Having an employee adept at doing any job duty within your framework, giving them a sense and feeling of leadership, that’s what he taught me and I try to pass that on.” Millot did double duty with Danegelis, studying by day and working nights and weekends at his catering company, Lee John’s. “He instilled confidence in me and helped me overcome my doubts. I have no fear of failure. Louis said when the pressure’s on, the only thing you can do is pin your ears back, pray and go for it and you will get through the day.” It was advice Millot has applied throughout his career from working as Corporate Chef at QuadGraphics to opening the Union House in Genesee Depot. As a result of this attitude, Millot can not only stand the heat in the kitchen, he thrives on it. “I want to get slammed, otherwise you don’t make any money. Titles aside, when everyone works together, they […]
May 1st, 2007 by Cate Miller
Bright Eyes
Polarizing indie icon Conor Oberst lobs his first full-length studio album since 2005’s simultaneous releases I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. Cassadaga, Florida, renowned “Psychic Center of the World” and the “South’s Oldest Spiritualist Community,” is the CD’s namesake. Songs about self-cleansing, balancing out and finding home emphasize the spiritual theme. “Four Winds” – on loan from this spring’s eponymous EP – and the Janet Weiss-drummed “Hot Knives” come as close as Americana can get to head-banging and fist-pumping. “Middleman” flaunts Iron & Wine-worthy breaths of grainy fiddling and “I Must Belong Somewhere” alone embodies enough colorful imagery to defend Oberst’s visionary status. Tribal beats and vocals feel fresh on the atmospheric “Coat Check Dream Song.” “Make A Plan To Love Me” begins as an airy lullaby swirled with female a capella, but becomes so over-produced that it winds up leaning toward theatrical score. Though delivering memorable storytelling and big hooks, the majority of songs also surrender to the same excessive polishing. Gone is the raw zest and neighing naiveté that made Fevers and Mirrors such a powerful release. Oberst even sings “…was a hopeless romantic/now I’m just turning tricks,” a possible reference to fatiguing artistic expression. Is our precious Conor jading over, growing up and abandoning his wild ways? Cassadaga is an attempt to convince, but he’ll most likely still be spitting into microphones, stumbling over amplifiers and wrangling up girls with nice shoes on the album’s supporting tour. Just as he should be. VS
May 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
Lady Day
By Jill Gilmer It’s hard not to have a great evening at the Stackner Cabaret. The nightclub-style setting creates a relaxed and festive atmosphere and the well-heeled crowd doesn’t seem to mind sharing tables with strangers and chit-chatting over cocktails or coffee and dessert. Add to this backdrop the wonderful music of Billie Holiday performed by Grammy award-winning singer Regina Marie Williams and you have the recipe for a string of sell-out performances, which Lady Day has enjoyed since it opened on March 16. But theatre-goers hoping to learn more about the life and legacy of this jazz icon may leave the Cabaret disappointed. Like many theatrical productions that examine a celebrity figure, Lady Day focuses less on Ms. Holiday’s life and career and more on her personality. While this in itself is a worthy endeavor, director David Hunter Koch’s obsession with her surprising dark side nearly overshadows both her story and her talent. The story takes place at the Emerson Bar & Grill, a hole-in-the-wall jazz club in Philadelphia and the actual site of one of Holiday’s last performances before her death in 1959, at age 44. Emerson was, apparently, one of the few clubs in the U.S. where she was still welcomed. A series of temperamental incidents – most likely exacerbated by alcohol and heroin abuse – had tarnished her reputation and limited her performance venues. Regina Marie Williams delivers a riveting enactment of Ms. Holiday’s descent into a drunken trance over the course of her 1-hour and 15 minute performance. At least, we can only hope it was alcohol that fueled the seemingly-endless string of expletives that dotted her performance and the insults she hurled at her unsuspecting audience. This drunken rant was a stark contrast from the image of graciousness suggested by her strapless white satin gown, elbow-length gloves and trademark gardenia in her hair. Leaving the show, audience members who are unfamiliar with her contributions to jazz might even question whether the accolades history has bestowed on her are justified. These thoughts were sufficiently disturbing to send this writer surfing the in search of “the real Billie Holiday.” The artist I read about online seemed to bear little resemblance to the obnoxious faded starlet portrayed in Lady Day. The lack of balance in this portrayal of Ms. Holiday leaves an unwarranted black eye on this great artist. Despite her unbalanced portrait of Ms. Holiday, Regina Marie Williams does a superb job capturing the emotional intensity and famed uniqueness of Ms. Holiday’s voice, if not its exact tone quality. A highlight is a soul-stirring rendition of “Strange Fruit,” her classic song about Jim Crow-era lynchings. The song is a fitting conclusion to Ms. Holiday’s account of a racist incident she experienced while touring with Artie Shaw. That story reminds us of the difficult era (the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s) during which she succeeded in establishing herself as an African-American singer with a ground-breaking sound. The enormous obstacles she had to overcome are proof that this lady […]
May 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
A Shot in the Dark
The Boulevard Ensemble closes its 21st anniversary season with a murder-mystery comedy by Harry Kurnitz, adapted from an original French work by Marecl Archard. It’s a fun, well-balanced comedy adeptly directed by the Boulevard’s Mark Bucher. Bucher has assembled a surprisingly good cast for the final show of a memorable 21st season of theatre in Bay View. I believe it was Alistair Cooke who said that a shot in the dark doesn’t take much time. Well, the Boulevard has certainly taken its time in getting to this one, ending its latest season with a production that feels deftly aimed. The talented Joe Fransee holds together the center of the play as Magistrate Paul Sevigne, who is investigating the death of a Spaniard (Cesar Gamino). The action of the play takes place in Sevigne’s office as he interviews people who might’ve been involved in the murder and is aided in this work by Morestan – his chief clerk played by the ample Al Dobyns. Fransee’s charisma goes a long way here, but it’s the timing between Fransee and Dobyns that really pulls together the center of the play. All of the usual mucking about with exposition that goes on in a mystery is made all the more palatable by the interaction of Fransee and Dobyns. In places, they almost seem to be fencing with the dialogue, which isn’t done enough in local theatre. Fransee has a tight, crisp precision to the delivery of his lines that woks well with Dobyns overall affability. The chief suspect in the murder of the Spaniard is his lover: parlor maid Yvette Lantenay, played by Anne Miller. Lantenay was found at the scene of the crime holding the gun that killed the victim just moments after his death. The Spaniard’s last words even implicated her as the murderer. In spite of all the evidence against her, it is clear that Lantenay did not commit the crime and a good portion of the play rests on the audience’s acceptance of this. We must not think for a second that Lantenay is the murderer; otherwise all of Sevigne’s work to find the true murderer would seem remarkably tedious. Here, the casting of Anne Miller is crucial. To her credit, Miller has a sweet, innocent stage presence; it would be very difficult to imagine Miller as a killer. This is staggeringly important, as the same could not be said of every actress in town. Bucher’s choice in casting Miller does wonders for the production. Other notable performances here include Liz Mistelle as Sevigne’s beautiful wife and Jennifer LaPorte as a wealthy lady of high society. The decision to split the play’s three acts with two intermissions would seem a bit indulgent, but so much of the play relies on plot points revealed solely in the dialogue that two intermissions are welcome. Each intermission allows the audience some distance from the plot to turn it around and possibly figure out who the actual killer is. Bucher and company keep the […]
May 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Simply the best
By Evan Solochek + Photos by Kat Jacobs and Gene Martin He is one of the recording industry’s true living legends; some call him the godfather of modern music. His name is as synonymous with rock & roll as Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton. What’s that? You say you’ve never heard of him? Well, take a closer look at that cursive signature on the headstock of that Gibson guitar your favorite musician is playing. That’s his. His name is Les Paul. Born Lester William Polfuss in 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Les Paul took to music at an early age, performing semi-professionally by the age of 13 and with Rube Tronson’s Cowboys by 17. Shortly thereafter, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri and joined the Wolverston’s Radio Band on KMOX. By the 1930s, Paul was in Chicago playing jazz on local radio stations, and in 1936 he released his first two records. However, despite this early success, Paul was generally disappointed with the musical equipment with which he had to work; he found the acoustic bodies of the ‘30s-era electric guitars to be too dampening for noisy clubs. So, Paul began experimenting, and after some initial success in 1935 with “The Log,” which was nothing more than a length of fence post with a bridge, neck and pickup attached, Paul perfected his design in 1941 and built one of the first solid-body electric guitars, a revolutionary design that made rock & roll’s signature sound possible. By the early ‘50s, Gibson Guitar Corporation had finally taken an interest and used some of Paul’s design suggestions to build a prototype that would come to be known the world over as the “Les Paul” model, immortalized by the likes of Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, George Harrison, Bob Marley, Joe Perry, Slash and countless others. Today the Les Paul design remains virtually unchanged and one of the most popular guitar models around. While Paul also made many groundbreaking innovations in the area of multi-track recording, overdubbing and reverb, he is much more than an inventor. Widely considered the greatest jazz guitarist of his generation, over his 75 years in music and radio Paul has released over 10 albums, recorded and performed with the likes of Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005 and the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2006. Also in 2006, at the age of 90, Paul won two Grammy Awards for his album Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played. Now 91, this musical visionary will return home to Waukesha on May 10 to play a concert at the Milwaukee Marriott West hotel (tickets are $1,500 for up-front Premier Tables of four or $300 for general admission) that will also include appetizers, dinner, a silent auction and an autograph session. While the concert will only be 45 minutes long, it will mark the […]
May 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Tartuffe
The con is on once more. Moliere’s classic tale of deception through feigned piety climbs the stage again in a glossy, big-budget Milwaukee Rep production. Just months after the Skylight Opera closed its production of the musical adaptation of Moliere’s comedy, The Rep opens a more traditional interpretation of the story. Director Joseph Hanreddy has opted for a highly kinetic slapstick approach that engages the audience without any real attempt to find any deeper insight into Moliere’s masterpiece. Longtime Rep Resident Acting Company member Lee Ernst plays the title role of a religious hypocrite who schemes his way into the household of a wealthy man in the interest of taking him for as much as he can get. Ernst is explosively over the top. He’s taken the role to the edge of physical comedy and beyond. Rarely has he been so animate on stage. It’s the type of performance that bigger audiences adore, but it leaves something to be desired from jaded theatre critics. Moliere’s script leaves an impressive amount of room for plumbing the subtle depths of human manipulation with the title character. Ernst’s performance here possesses a manic disregard for subtlety. It may be fun to watch, but it’s a guilty pleasure. The decision to do Tartuffe as somewhat highbrow slapstick doesn’t drown ALL the subtleties of the play. Marianne, daughter of Tartuffe’s victim, is played here with an insightful flourish by Emily Trask. When Orgon (played here by Peter Silbert) offers Tartufe her hand in marriage, it complicates things considerably for Marianne, whose heart belongs to another man. In so many productions this role gets played simply as the comedy of over-emotional youth being hopelessly dramatic about young love. Trask’s performance goes way beyond this. Her rendering of the character has a playful kind of sympathy for it. Trask seems to have brilliant instincts for subtle physical comedy. At one point, she’s face down on the floor center stage in emotional grief. All is silent. She raises her head ever so slightly and lets it fall. The audience laughs. The production lingers on this moment for just a bit longer. Dorine (a sharp Elizabeth Ledo) cautiously says a few more things to her. Marianne ever-so-delicately pounds her head into the floor a couple more times. It’s never overdone. Trask’s timing is perfect. We feel just a bit more for Marianne than less accomplished productions have managed in the past. Most of the rest of the people in the cast follow their usual strengths in roles that they fall into quite nicely. Rose Pickering carries her considerable stage presence to this production in the role of Orgon’s respected mother who has nothing but respect for Tartuffe. Deborah Staples is charming as Orgon’s wife Elmire, who is forced into the unenviable position of having to attempt to snare Tartuffe to reveal his hypocrisy. Jonathan Gillard Daly is shrewd as the honest, respectable Cleante. This is a thoroughly professional cast putting in a thoroughly professional production, but it’s moments like […]
May 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Robbie Fulks
By Allison Berndt The best way to describe Robbie Fulks’ new album Revenge! is to call it an eclectic hillbilly mix produced live on the road for an audience that’s looking for some good ol’ country music alongside a good laugh. Well, it’s true. Fulks, known for his catchy country songs and humorous lyrics, has put together an impressive collection of his very best. Hints of jazz, bluegrass and even a little ‘50s rock are evident in this generally hillbilly-esque compilation. Revenge! is a two-CD set of live recordings, half of which are brand-new songs. “I Like Being Left Alone” is a perfect example of a song that makes you laugh while engaging you musically with a charming melody. The best tracks on the album include previous hits “I Want to Be Mama’d” and “Cigarette State,” as well as a cover of Cher’s “Believe.” Fulks goes off on a guitar tangent that’ll take the listener through some masterful riffs in “Mama’d,” and “Cigarette State” is bound to be a crowd pleaser no matter where or when you hear it – it’s a staple in his repertoire. To hear a western cover of “Believe” is laughable in general, but even more so with the adaptation Fulks provides. Slower and more serious, “The Buck Starts Here” is a great theme that showcases a classic twangy country sound. Revenge! has a smattering of everything on it: old songs and new, covers and originals and any tempo for which you could be in the mood. It’s a solid collection with one constant element: hillbilly. VS
May 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
The Nerd
An unwanted houseguest can make for good comedy so long as it isn’t your house. Put such a houseguest onstage and, ideally, no one has to suffer. It’s comedy for everybody because no one actually has to live with the person. Such is the case with the late Larry Shue’s smash hit The Nerd. The Milwaukee Rep returns once more to the play it debuted over two decades ago in a production directed by original Nerd star James Pickering. Looking into Geoffrey M. Curley’s set, one sees the ‘70s slowly bleeding out into the ‘80s – a distinctly awkward time for popular aesthetics. It’s the house of Willum Cubbert, a successful architect who is nevertheless living in Terre Haute, Indiana. Cibbuert is a single guy with friends who include Tansy McGinnis, a soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend leaving for the east coast, played by Melinda Pfundstein and a theatre critic named Axel Hammond played by Torrey Hanson. (The Hammond thing throws me a little. Precisely how big is the theatre scene in Terra Haute, Indiana in 1979? Do they really need a full-time professional theatre critic?) Shue’s dialogue, always predictably witty, gradually sketches out the casual conflicts of the play until the subject of the title character finally surfaces. As it turns out, the man who saved Cubbert’s life in Viet Nam is in town and just might be stopping by for a visit. He’s a guy from Wisconsin who works in quality control at a chalk factory. Hs name is Rick Steadman and he’s played here by accomplished local comic actor Gerard Neugent. Rick is abrasively difficult to be around, which makes things difficult for Cubbert as he is in negotiations with a client named Warnock Waldgrove (Chris Tarjan). Waldgrove and his wife Clelia (Laura Gordon) are visiting Cubbert to discuss the hotel he is designing for them. As a whole, the production is solid. Pacing and delivery are every bit as impeccable as one would expect from the Rep. The script my be a classic, but it’s not particularly provocative comedy. The play’s comedy relies pretty heavily on the weird. At one particular high point, Steadman leads the cast in a nearly indecipherable game of “Shoes and Socks.” Nugent is great in the role, carrying it off with a nasally whine that is both annoying and endearing. Shue hands some of the best lines in the play to the critic Axel Hammond. If you’re going to be handing most of the best comic lines in a play to a single actor at The Rep, you’d better be handing them to Torrey Hanson. Hanson is brilliant here, throwing wry lines out from the corners of the script. This is a comedy that doesn’t take itself seriously and Hammond is the vice it uses to mock itself. Laura Gordon also puts in a notable performance here as Waldgrove’s librarian wife. A meek woman with some strange habits, Clelia would be all too easy to play as a comic prop. Gordon’s performance feels natural enough […]
May 1st, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Time to grant women equal rights
By Martha Burk The new Congress has been busy, what with scandals in the Justice Department and votes to rein in war spending with some accountability and better training for the troops. Both are good things, and proper priorities. But both are likely to end with standoffs as they go head-to-head with the White House, no doubt because the 2008 election season is already well under way. The president is determined not to give Democrats an edge with voters. But some members of this Congress are already looking ahead and hoping to boost the party’s stock with the majority of voters – women. These Congress members are going beyond non-binding resolutions and bills that won’t get past the president’s veto pen. They are talking about passing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA states “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Recently renamed the Women’s Equality Amendment and introduced March 27 by its chief sponsor, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), to a standing-room-only news conference, the ERA would grant equal constitutional rights to women — something we have yet to achieve. It’s a simple concept that had the blessing of both political parties until the Republicans struck it from their platform in 1980, with the Democrats following in 2004. The ERA was first introduced in Congress in 1923, but was not passed and sent to the states for ratification until 1972. Unlike the 27th amendment, ratified after hanging around for 200 years, the Equal Rights Amendment was passed with a time limit of only seven years for approval by the states. In that brief time, it was ratified by 35 states, but was stopped three short of the required 38 by millions of corporate dollars backing Phyllis Schlafly’s anti-woman storm troopers. They feared unisex toilets more than they valued freedom from discrimination. Schlafly always resurfaces at the Republican platform committee hearings leading a band of zealots campaigning for their own constitutional amendment banning abortion. She says Republican women want to do that. (No doubt a few do. We saw just how few last November, when 100 percent of anti-abortion ballot initiatives were defeated.) Much has changed in the 35 years since Congress first passed the ERA. Women have become the majority of both the population and of the electorate. Most are now in the work force full time, including nearly three quarters of mothers with children between 6 and 18. Women head one third of all households, and a whopping 61 percent of single parent families. While much has changed, little progress has been made. On average, women still make only 76 cents to a man’s dollar, working full-time and year-round. They hold 98 percent of the low paying “women’s” jobs and fewer than 15 percent of the board seats in major corporations. Three-quarters of the elderly in poverty are women. And in every state except Montana, women still pay higher rates than similarly […]
May 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
