Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Contact the publisher at: winterose@videotron.ca

September 6, 2008

Today’s Announcements

Call for submissions:  Storytime Tapestry is in need of more stories, please keep them coming in.

Help support the continued running of Storytime Tapestry join me on mylot and get paid while we talk to each other and others all over the world:  http://www.mylot.com/?ref=winterose  if the link doesn’t work just cut and paste

From my son Steven Roach:

I was thinking you should advertise the link regularly in your newsletter if the link doesn’t work just cut and paste

 
http://greenhorse.com/join_now.ghc?r=177952857
 
tell them it would help support the newsletter and they can earn money from it. They need to sign up and install it but they don't need to do anything else. They just do what they normally would anyways on the net and they earn money while it’s on. In other words they just keep it running while they are online. It’s small doesn't take up much system resources and they can earn more if they advertise their own link and get people under them as well. Let them know some people make 5-10$ a day on it and its been open since 2002. 

Don’t forget to order your copy of Angels Watching Over Me, the story of an ordinary woman facing less than ordinary challenges.  Angels Watching Over Me is a story of family love, sacrifices, poverty and an undying faith that makes heroes out of all of us. Here is the link in case you have forgotten it: http://www.lulu.com/content/964306

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

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 Feature Story

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Sent in by Pamela Blaine

The following has been circulating the net for a while, the origin is unknown, and a Storytime member asked that it be republished here in Storytime Tapestry at this time.

A History Lesson For Women

This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago.

It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women who made it so were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.

Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold.

Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and Kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO ’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Carol, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said. ‘What would those women think of the way I use–or don’t use–my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’

The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a Psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote. History is being made.

Anonymous……

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Katie's Komfort Kolumn

Vol 1342

DSA

Sandi:  Daddy we even have one of our member who is training to be
a sight assisted dog.

BJ:  Wow.

Katie:  Another is a reading dog, she helps children read.

BJ:  So what is your mission statement.

Katie:  We do not have one yet, but it would be something like to further
close the gap between mankind and animals.  We want people to see how
we help.  We are peoples eyes, we help them read, we search for bombs,
drugs, we help look for survivors after disasters.  We are more than pets.
We go to nursing homes and love it when the elderly eyes light up.  I know
when you take us to the nursing home father you taught us we can change
lives.

BJ:  When the people's eyes light up...how do you feel?

Sandi:  Speaking for me, I feel like I have accomplished something.  When
you used me as a lesson in church.  I felt 'connected' to the lesson.  I felt
part of church daddy. 

BJ:  You were part of the lesson Sandi.  You came down the aisle on queue
and the people applauded you. 

Sandi blushing..:  They applauded the lesson.

BJ:  We worked well together that day.

Katie:  So we took those lessons and talked it between us, and decided to
reach out and try to expand.

BJ:  Looking outward ....

Rudy:  What pops?

BJ:  Oh nothing just thinking.  

B.J. Cassady

bjcassady@cox.net

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Poetry Corner

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 Oh What a Beautiful Evening

Norma Liles

"Oh what a beautiful evening

 oh what a beautiful day, we had

 a wonderful evening, everyone

 was in good form"

There was a smile on each one's

face and a tap to the music at hand.

The desserts were of heavenly offerings. Thank you for being so kind!

The grouping was not to be outdone as we were all ready for an outing of sorts where the lush green gardens were sharing their greenery of flowers and bushes and the air was delightful; just lovely with a light breeze.  It goes without saying that 'a good time was had by all!'

Norma Liles  hoopla214@yahoo.com

Norma welcomes snail mail at her new home (if you wish)at Norma Liles Room 102  Echo Manor Nursing Home; 10270 Blacklick-Eastern Rd; Pickerington, Ohio  43147-9225

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New Section: Torah Studies – This section will be filled from time to time with Jewish teaching.

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From the Mailbox

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Carol’s Corner

Tommy Never Made Me Cry!

Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Marilyn Sink, Victor Buhagiar, Clarice Hinson, Conrad