What a brilliant idea!
Identify a freedom women in developed countries have taken for granted for decades. Recognize how the lack of that freedom in developing countries is yet another force — so simple and obvious it’s been unrecognized — holding girls and women back from access to education and achievement. Then turn the remedy into a business opportunity for young women.
What are we talking about? The availability of safe, convenient sanitary supplies.
Says Elizabeth Scharpf of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE):
I started SHE because of my shock and outrage at the incredible scale and effect of the problem: of girls and women lacking access to affordable, quality, sanitary pads. Currently, girls and women in this setting—if they have an option at all—turn to either premium priced international brands, which are too costly for widespread and sustainable use, or to alternative methods such as rags, which, in combination with a lack of a clean and accessible water supply, are potentially harmful and do not effectively contain blood flow. Poor girls and women in rural settings may even use dried mud, or even bark. As a result of girls’ unmet need for affordable, high-quality sanitary pads, they are often absent from school—missing up to fifty days of school per year—thereby, thwarting their educational and professional potential.
Slogan: better sanitary protection. period.
Talk about things that make you go “DUH.”
Palin Undefeated: “A story of empowerment for modern women and their daughters”
Stephen K. Bannon, Director of the epic Palin documentary “The Undefeated” — “a story of empowerment for modern women and their daughters” — talked with Stacy McCain about “the gap between the reality of Sarah Palin and the perception created by the media” at the Right Online conference in Minneapolis last weekend, where the film was previewed before what Bannon calls “the vanguard of this revolution, the bloggers.”
By Sissy Willis of sisu
“Sarah Palin Reportedly Quits Bus Tour Halfway Through,” snarked the headline at Talking Points Memo this morning, seamlessly spinning a speculative Real Clear Politics story about “one of the most unpredictable political figures in America” into their Palin’s-a-Quitter narrative of choice:
Former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin has reportedly packed in her bus tour… halfway through.
Oh, and lest we forget how stupid she is, a bit of shopworn, gratuitous boilerplate thrown in to keep the natives happy:
The bus tour was launched over Memorial Day weekend, and was particularly scrutinized after one event in Boston where Palin badly flubbed the story behind Paul Revere’s ride.
The card-carrying commenters piled on with glee, signalling their membership in the tribe. Our favorite:
“the quitta from wasilla” or the ”Iquitarod queen” which discribes Palin the best?
We couldn’t resist and posted a guest comment of our own with links vindicating Palin — The Boston Herald’s recent “Old North Church vicar defends Palin on Revere” and John Fund’s July 2009 WSJ column “Why Palin Quit: Death by a Thousand FOIAs.” It was too much for TPM, who promptly removed our comment without ceremony, but not before a rabid pack of regulars — irregulars? — had had a chance to pile on:
Get lost troll. Go collect your money for posting here at TPM.
Great sources. hahahaha!!!!!! America is such a great country, everyone is free to choose from which direction they take a spin [Oh, the irony!]
Two papers owned by Rupert Murdoch, who just happens to be Palin’s employer?* Is that your idea of objectivity? *I wouldn’t be surprised if he was yours as well.
If only. But moving along, as we mentioned in a follow-up comment, had TPM been doing their homework, they would have discovered this bit of inconvenient truth from a June 1 ABC News report:
Palin confirmed that she’s going to Boston after New York and that after the northeast, she’ll go back to Alaska before re-launching the tour – called the “One Nation Tour,” after all – on the West Coast.
“Sigh. Reports of Tour Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated,” the deftly disintermediating Palin twittered, not without a bit of snark of her own:
I wouldn’t think it to be such a slow news day that, what with numerous wars and serious economic woes concerning Americans, a bus is driving news stories today. The next leg of the tour continues when the time comes. In the meantime, no one should jump to conclusions – certainly not the media with their long track record of getting things wrong or just making things up.
As Big Hollywood editor John Nolte twittered in awe at this latest Facebook coup:
“Sarah Palin lets the MSM climb way out on a limb before sawing it off. It’s called fighting like a girl.
Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
Palin for the defense: A judge can look at a kingmaker
“What I would like to see is a little bit more of the GOP contenders’ not hesitating to call one another out on their records,” Sarah Palin told Judge Napolitano on his Fox Business show “Freedom Watch” yesterday, adding “We condemn the Democrats … for not having vetted their own candidate. Obama wasn’t vetted by the press, but he also wasn’t vetted by his own party.” What a novel idea. Using primary debates to inform the public rather than conceal what the candidates are really up to. See Palin Promotions’ “Gov. Palin on Freedom Watch: ‘Love to Give White House Fits” for an excellent summary with quotes, and watch the interview here. Props to twitter buddy Brian of The Right Scoop for putting up the vid.
By Sissy Willis of sisu
Her fierce determination and authentic American voice won our heart and mind that fateful day in late August of 2008 when she burst into the national consciousness as John McCain’s pick for vice presidential running mate. For nearly three years now all things Sarah Palin have been relentlessy savaged by a “lamestream media” hard-wired to reject any member of the fair sex who isn’t buying — or selling — the postmodern feminist party line of woman as victim and identity politics as savior. Palin’s agile mind and servant’s heart eluded not only the usual suspects on the left but — more revealingly — many among America’s “Ruling Class,” members of the Northeast Corridor Conservative fuddy-duddy community for whom being a member of the tribe trumped any interest in the conservative cause. But now some of those former fuddy-duddies are peeling off, taking a fresh look at Palin and liking what they see. As Dan Morgan, aka danthebarbaian twittered last night, referencing Fox News personality Judge Napolitano’s engaging and informative Palin interview pictured above:
“If @judgenap and @DennisDMZ can change their minds so can a lot of Americans!”
After all, it wasn’t that long ago the Judge was just another voice in the Palin-Is-Stupid chorus:
Judge Napolitano Attacks Palin; Calls Her a “Goofball” Without the “Mental Capacity to be President” – Audio 11/17/09
Now he’s laughing with her, not at her, and eliciting serious answers to serious questions.
Crossposted at Riehl World View, Cloven Not Crested and Liberty Pundits.
Before You Decide Feminism is Dead . . .
. . . listen to Isabel Allende. Listen to her even if you don’t share her politics, or would disagree with her solutions, because she is right about so much beyond our relatively safe and special world. Oh, and because she’s funny.
Rep. Weiner: “You and I have different values”
“I hate that stupid picture of me in the blue. I’m standing in the mirror making a weird face, why would anyone use that?” twittered a sadder-but-wiser Gennette Cordova this morning in a series of 140-or-fewer-character expressions of disgust with media distortions of her image, both physical and psychological, since last Friday, when Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism broke the Big Story that came to be known as Weinergate. Above, Photoshopped “mirror” images of Cordova based upon her Twitter avatar.
By Sissy Willis of sisu
“If calling out publications for their inaccurate/shoddy journalism is stirring the pot, so be it,” twittered justifiably miffed Seattle journalism student Gennette Cordova this morning, attempting to regain her balance in the aftermath of being mugged by the reality of business-as-usual journalistic spin. It was the left-leaning Politico and the right-leaning New York Post who, she said, had spun her own and her mother’s words to sensationalize and distort the facts as she knows them in the Weinergate scandal. Salaciousness sells! In the case of Politico, for example, compare the political journal’s headline with Cordova’s follow-up tweet:
Politico: “Seattle student: Weiner photo meant for porn star.”
Cordova on Twitter: “It wasn’t an interview. I spoke candidly with someone posing as a photog assistant. And I never said the picture was meant for a porn star. He [Politico reporter] suggested it and I said maybe. I don’t know and don’t care.”
Update Cordova to Reuven Fenton at New York Post: I clearly remember you suggesting the idea about the pornstar, as well as me being “collateral damage.”
Sadder but wiser, indeed. A cautionary tale for young lovelies who “just want to have fun” to be wary of the skeevy allure of little big men like ”The Ick-arus of Capitol Hill” prowling the internet. A self-described “progressive,” Cordova describes the moment “When Gen met Tony“:
Actually I became a fan after I saw him demolish Bachmann on Hannity about 2 months ago. It was great.
“You and I have different values. That’s what this fight is about,” said Congressman Weiner in a rare moment of truthtelling during a March 16 shouting match debate with Rep Michele Bachmann (MN-6) on Hannity. Oh, the irony.
Can you say eye of the beholder?
Note: Hats off to Michelle Malkin for turning us on to SnapBird, an invaluable aid in following Twitter conversations:
As an avid Twitter user myself, I use the SnapBird archive to search old tweets You can search anyone’s public tweets through the service.
Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
Krauthammer’s Complaint
“I want to be the one to walk in the sun,” Cyndi Lauper explains in “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” a pop cultural artifact that mystically embodies the spirit of Sarah Palin’s fierce determination and authentic American voice that captured the hearts and minds of so many of us burgeoning Tea Partiers way back when. Or so we think.
By Sissy Willis of sisu
“Krauthammer cannot ‘get out more,” writes blog buddy Gayle Miller of And you thought YOU were Cranky in the comments to our previous post, “Sarah Palin loves New York!” We were going to mention Gayle’s observations in an update, but they’re so darned insightful and well expressed that we’re giving her top billing:
It would shake his complacently settled view of the world! Much as I adore the man — and his brilliant mind — and much as I am of an age with the Northeast Corridor fuddy duddies, what has happened is that mentally I have remained fresh and young! I revel in the uproar and turmoil attendant since Mrs. Palin’s arrival on the scene. May it continue long enough to dispose of all of those fusty mental midgets that the “Elite Media” is trying to foist on the right! The so-called frontrunners are nothing more than the people being promoted in the media right now, much as they promoted John McCain in 2008. Once he had the nomination, they crucified him, and that’s what they’ll do with the new Republican nominee — if they are permitted to do so.
Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
Sarah Palin loves New York!
Sarah Palin shone the spotlight on the American Dream in a visit to the Statue of Liberty this morning, the latest stop on her ”One Nation” bus tour of the land of the free and the home of the brave. Disintermediaing the powers that be, she left “Beltway journalism insiders eating her dust,” as Michelle Malkin writes with wit and wisdom in “Chasing Sarah: The Boys Behind the Bus.” American exceptionalism resonates under culture warrior Palin’s tutelage: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” (Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” engraved on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty). Image above of “Immigrants Arriving at Ellis Island (1892-1954).
By Sissy Willis of sisu
“We’ll highlight the beauty of legal [!] immigrants’ work ethic and love of freedom while visiting Ellis Island & Statue of Liberty today,” Sarah Palin twittered her 538,522 followers this morning, shooting “to where it’s going, not to where it’s been” as she tossed a word bouquet in the direction of the historic port of entry for generations of “huddled masses yearning to breath free“:
Thanks for beautiful flowers, NYs Bouquets & Baskets! Man, people are nice around here! Glad immigrants who built USA got to come here first.
“Good morning! It’s Fleet Week here in NYC and I’ve had the honor of meeting many Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. Thanks to all for their service. Had a great time in the City. Enjoyed some great NY pizza with Donald Trump and his wife last night in a nice quiet setting, Times Square,” quips Palin at her dazzling new website, SarahPac. At Liberty Island this morning, above.
Too bad Ruling Class opinionator Charles Krauthammer isn’t following Palin’s tweets, let alone the disintermediating logic of her “One Nation” bus tour of “historical sites that were key to the formation, survival, and growth of the United States of America.” Brilliant as he may be in his areas of expertise, when it comes to Sarah Palin, Dr. Krauthammer has always been stuck on stupid, from that day back in late August of 2008 when he declared John McCain should have chosen someone “safe,” up to last night on The O’Reilly Factor [h/t The Right Scoop], when he once again revealed his contempt for Sarah Palin and people like us who are energized by her fierce determination and authentic American voice:
The problem with her, I think, is that she is not schooled. I don’t mean she didn’t go to the right schools. I mean when you get into policy, beyond instinct. I like her political instincts, I like her overall view of the world, but when it comes to policy, she’s had two and a half years to school herself, and she hasn’t.
How would he know what she has or hasn’t been doing in the last two and a half years? He needs to get out more. As we say, stuck on stupid, and while the good doctor and leading member of the Northeast Corridor fuddy-duddy community will never see it, we twitterred him and his fellow Beltway tribesmen a little advice this morning:
Honest and truly, @Krauthammer & fellow #RulingClass fuddy duddies, if you want to know what’s up, must follow #Palin in both old & new media.
Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
Jedediah Bila: “Elitism is what’s eating away at our country”
Like many of her admirers, we first came upon leg-chair lovely Jedediah Bila early one morning in the “take-no-prisoners” parry and thrust of Greg Gutfeld’s ”Red Eye” on Fox.
By Sissy Willis of sisu
“I always have thought that elitism — on the left and the right — is what’s eating away at our country,” writes “Hot Conservative American” columnist and commentator Jedediah Bila in her new book, Outnumbered: Chronicles of a Manhattan Conservative, an album of anecdotal moments in the making of a “conservative girl with a twist.”
“I followed my heart — as always — and have held dear the wise words of my former college professor to “sit down, trust it, and write” when I feel lost. It never disappoints me,” Jedediah explains the eureka moment in March of 2009 when “my focus on writing political commentary was born.”
It’s a fun and easy read — sweet and savory — and sticks to the ribs. We downloaded Outnumbered onto our desktop Kindle app yesterday morning and finished before cocktail hour, devouring tasty morsels amongst the usual multitaskings of a busy day. Arranged as a series of vignettes based upon everyday encounters with the politically correct multiculturalists of the upperclass milieu she moved in as a Spanish teacher at a Manhattan private school, Jedediah’s story is full of aphoristic quotable quotes suitable for promulgating on Twitter. A sampling:
Kids are supposed to go to school to learn HOW to think, not WHAT to think.
I learned that what people say about you has a lot more to do with them than with you.
It’s incredible how a mind prone to collectivism will quickly try to impose that same branding on you.
I treasure people who come to this country with big goals, loads of ambition and an inspiring work ethic.
“They felt the need to ‘remind’ me that Obama is a ‘genius,’ Palin is an ‘idiot,’ and anything and everything is George W. Bush’s fault,” Jedediah recalled sitting through lockstep faculty-lounge chatter in the aftermath of President Obama’s election.
Back to that quote in the title to our post:
I always have thought that elitism — on the left and the right — is what’s eating away at our country.
Jedediah’s insight resonates in a series of eureka moments of our own dating back, perhaps, to those early days in early spring of 2009 when we found our voice as an anti-statist Tea Party activist. As we wrote last year in “Gramsci’s long march through the institutions ends at the water’s edge“:
Then came Angelo Codevilla’s palate-cleansing revelation that neither statist democrats nor nominally limited-government republicans gave a darn about the electorate. It was the Ruling Class vs the Country Class. Enter stage right the Tea Party and Barbara Bush’s unmasking when she revealed her contempt for you and me. And now the cascade of outrageous intrusions on our Bill of Rights.
“I thought the academic elite were supposed to represent the pinnacle of sophistication?” notes Jedediah in mock surprise:
Oh, wait. That’s only when they agree with you.
William Staneski observed the phenomenon — a case of “epistemic closure‘ in the trendy parlance of the day — as it applies to another of our cultural institutions, the media — in an American Thinker piece awhile back:
It is said that a fish is not aware of the water in which it swims since it is totally immersed in it. This is the way cultural Marxism is taking over our world in its inexorable Gramscian march. We swim in it. It enters every pore of our existence. It is everywhere. We can’t escape it. Many people accept this world without even realizing it, just as the fish accepts the water in which it swims. They don’t realize it as the left creates new conventional wisdom and new intuitions about truth …
Curiously, whereas the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral.
Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything. The result is the same: for much of the media, the fact that Republicans keep winning can only be due to the backwardness of much of the country.
“Perhaps Mark Levin said it best when speaking of his dog Sprite in his touching book, Rescuing Sprite: ‘But the truth is, Sprite did more for us than we ever could have done for him.’ I feel exactly the same way about Emma,” Jedediah wrote at her blog a few months back about her precious Maltese Emma, featured in a portfolio of images in the final pages of Outnumbered. “She has taught me more about trust, loyalty, commitment, and honesty than I could ever have dreamt of teaching her.”
Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
Sarah Palin redraws the electoral map: “The 2012 election starts here” in Madison, WI
“Hello Madison, Wisconsin! Woo. You look good. I feel like I’m at home. This is beautiful.” Sarah Palin welcomed a grateful mini-multitude of Tea Partiers braving snow and rain to greet the Mama Grizzly of All Mama Grizzlies at the steps of the State House this afternoon. “These are the frontlines in the battle for the future of our country. This is where the line in the sand has been drawn, and I am proud to stand with you today in solidarity.” LOVE that anti-statist Polish trade union reference!
By Sissy Willis of sisu
Sorry, Iowa and New Hampshire. Sarah Palin just redrew the electoral map in a rousing challenge to President Obama’s creeping statist agenda in front of the State House in Madison, Wisconsin this afternoon. We watched and live-tweeted her Tea Party keynote. A few excerpts from our own and others’ tweets (hard keeping up! Will link later when a transcript becomes available) to give you the flavor:
Our president isn’t leading … the only future that Barack Obama is looking to win is his reelection.
You ignored us in 2010, but you cannot ignore us in 2012. You willfully ignored the will of the American people. You ignored it when you rammed through Obamacare …
Madison, you defended that 2010 electoral mandate. You are heroes. You are patriots.
The 2012 election begins here. We will take the courage and the integrity that you showed all of America.
We will fight for America. And it starts here in Madison, WI. It starts here. It starts now. Mr. President, GAME ON.
“Whaddya think, Jim? She going for it?” Melissa Clouthier twittered James Pethokoukis following the speech. Jimmie P’s (that’s what Larry Kudlow calls him) reply:
Talked to someone other day who knows Palin. Said he didn’t know if she’d run. Sounded like a candidate today … In addition, she may not know yet. Won’t run traditional campaign if she does.
“Sarah never does anything in the traditional way!” we protested. The conventional wisdom had it that the President himself had opened campaign season with his tin-eared, confrontational debt-reduction speech Wednesday, but disintermediating the powers that be via her own eclectic mix of media old and new, “shooting to where it’s going, not to where it’s been,” Palin once again caught traditionalists off guard.
A special shout out to Brian of The Right Scoop for providing the timely live feed for all of us insatiable consumers of political fodder.
Crossposted at sisu, Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
