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Violence Against RURAL Women Resources

The Rural Womyn Zone is an online community by and for rural women. It was started in 1995 by women who were advocates for rural battered women and rape victims. 

The Rural Womyn Zone produced the first online resource directory of Spanish language resources for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. We worked in coordination with activists in California and Guatemala. The Zone published the first online newsletter for Women's Justice Center/ Centro de Justicia Para Mujeres, which later developed its own bi-lingual web site (Spanish and English.)

The Rural Womyn Zone developed the concept of combining World Rural Women's Day with Domestic Violence Awareness Month each October, and promotes activities in rural communities that draw attention to the intersection of the those issues through Take Action in October.  Some of the annual events resulting from this promotion include World Rural Women's Day in South Dakota and Nova Scotia.  More.

Ride in the car across South Dakota.  Ride in the car with a rural advocate on her way to work in South Dakota.

We have provided online training for advocates of rural sexual assault victims through our Train Station list.

Wrong then . . .
Still wrong. . .
Stop the war in Iraq

U.S. Rural Soldiers Account for a Disproportionately High Share of Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Carsey Institute report by William O'Hare and Bill Bishop (.pdf file)

According to the Carsey Institute study, the death rate "for rural soldiers (24 per million adults aged 18 to 59) is 60% higher than the death rate for those soldiers from cities and suburbs (15 deaths per million)." Of rural areas, Vermont has the highest rate of casualties, followed by Delaware, South Dakota, and Arizona. Only 8 of our states have higher urban than rural death rates. 

ANTI-WAR
LINKS
Military Families Speak Out

Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee's exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq War, features a pair of boots honoring each U.S. military casualty, a field of shoes and a Wall of Remembrance.

American Friends Service Committee Wage Peace Campaign
Not one more death. Not one more dollar. 

What is “rural”?

A new report by the Carsey Institute called Place Matters: Challenges and Opportunities in Four Rural Americas, makes clear that it is no longer possible to broadly characterize rural parts of the country. “Rural” now encompasses both wealthy areas with upwardly mobile newcomers in search of a pastoral lifestyle and impoverished places with few jobs and a steadily declining population. Not to mention everything in between.
The outlines four distinct rural Americas with unique challenges that will require different policies than their neighboring rural places.  The report is based on a survey of 7,800 people in 19 counties.

HEALTH
Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says
By Avram Goldstein
May 5 (Bloomberg) -- The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said. 

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington. 

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment.  Complete story

Related story

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Join this new group:
Rural women for Obama

Rural women working together to elect Barack Obama.
 
 

The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket
by Frank Rich

WITH all due deference to lipstick, let’s advance the story. A week ago the question was: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency? The question today: What kind of president would Sarah Palin be?

It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election. Read the whole column
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Women's Rights Groups Endorse Barack Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — Women's rights groups endorsed Barack Obama for president Tuesday, asserting the historic selection of a female Republican vice presidential candidate does not make up for John McCain's lack of support on issues important to women.

"We don't think it's much to break a glass ceiling for one woman and leave millions of women behind," said Eleanor Smeal, chairman of the Feminist Majority Political Action Committee.

Smeal was among leaders from six organizations that announced their endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee at a news conference.

Obama also won the support of the National Organization for Women, which said it has not endorsed a candidate for president 1984. 

NOW backed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries. "We join with her in saying 'no,'" said NOW President Kim Gandy, referring to a line Clinton used at the Democratic convention last month. "No way, no how, no McCain."

Obama was also endorsed by leaders from Business and Professional Women/USA, the National Association of Social Workers, the National Congress of Black Women and the Women's Information Network. 

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McCain has lost it: VP pick dangerous for our country

“I make them (decisions) as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote in his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For.” “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”

That may be, John, but the entire country doesn't want to have to live with them. - Jane Lane, Rural Womyn Zone
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" . . the cannon has come unbelayed and is rolling perilously around the deck." - Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
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Joe Klein is right, that this is the McCain temperament at its absolute worst. This is his shoot first, ask questions later personality, which even McCain admits gets him into trouble. The problem, of course, is that this time it could get America in trouble - very, very deep trouble. For America's Sake, McCain must dump . . .Sarah
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God doesn't play dice with the universe, said Einstein. But John McCain is playing dice with America.

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It's not that Sarah Palin is inexperienced. It's that this (McCain's decision on his running mate) is gross political misconduct. . . . 
What this does in the most profound and grandiose way possible is give lie to John McCain's pompous posturing that he Always Puts America First. And that undercuts the most prominent campaign issue of his entire career, that everything he does is for reasons of honor. There is nothing honorable about making Sarah Palin your vice presidential nominee. Nothing. Unless you define honor as "blatantly pandering."

But that's not the reason either that this decision is so terrible. . . .
The Worst Vice-Presidential Nominee in History by Robert J. Elisberg, Huffington Post

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MCCAIN/PALIN '08.... There's a political adage that's been around for a while that says the first "presidential decision" a candidate makes is picking a running mate. If that's the case, John McCain would apparently be a very odd president.. . . 

Stepping back, we have the man who would be the oldest president in American history, who happens to have a record of health problems, picking a virtual unknown who's been a governor for less than two years. Amazing.
Political Animal by Steve Benen in the Washington Monthly

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Presidential scholars say (Palin) appears to be the least experienced, least credentialed person to join a major-party ticket in the modern era. 

So unconventional was McCain’s choice that it left students of the presidency literally “stunned,” in the words of Joel Goldstein, a St. Louis University law professor and scholar of the vice presidency. “Being governor of a small state for less than two years is not consistent with the normal criteria for determining who’s of presidential caliber,” said Goldstein. 

“I think she is the most inexperienced person on a major party ticket in modern history,” said presidential historian Matthew Dallek.  . . . . 

. . . . “The first thing that hits me,” said Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution," is that it suggests that John McCain is a gambler. This is a high roller decision.” 

“The next thing you have to ask yourself: Is it worrisome to have a gambler in the Oval Office? That’s an important question," he said, “perhaps more important than anything else today.” Scholars: Palin Least Experienced Person On Major-Party Ticket In Modern Era
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 She’s a gun-toting, hang ‘em high conservative.  Remember - this is where her approval ratings come from. 
What is McCain thinking? One Alaskan's perspective

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It is hard to think of a more cynical and contemptuous political act this year than John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. . . .. . . 
Clearly nobody in the Republican camp is concerned that Palin would be clueless in a national security crisis, should a 72-year-old or older President McCain abruptly die or become disabled. Perhaps the GOP will have to mothball all those "Country First" banners along with the experience theme, because no candidate who puts the security of the nation above politics would ever contemplate this maneuver. 

McCain's Palin pick the epitome of tokenism by Joe Conason, Salon

Alice falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy realm populated by peculiar  figures