March is full of things to do and to celebrate. We start with March 8, which is International Women's Day. We celebrate how far women have come in the past 200 years and we have people like Susan B. Anthony, Elisabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt, among others, to thank for their courage to make changes in our world so that women are not treated like second class citizens or as being enslaved to their husbands. We, as women, should be proud of the fact that we are women, as Helen Reddy once sang, "I am woman, hear me roar." Womanhood has come a long way. We are able to make decisions regarding our own bodies, such as whether or not to be pregnant or if we choose to wear dresses or jeans. We can decide if we want to have long hair or short, if we want to be prim and proper or just wear sweats and t-shirts. We have the right to vote, and to run for office. We can decide for ourselves what is best for us. Unfortunately, as many are aware, in many other parts of the world, women do not have these rights and I feel helpless as to how to assist them. And in our country our current president is trying to eliminate women's rights and he is trying to force low income women to get married. Unfortunately, its not that simple Mr. Bush! Many women choose to leave an abusive situation and need the help from our government to survive until they can get on their feet. Even Christ admonished that we take care of the widowed and those without fathers. But, Mr. Bush, who claims to be a Christian, seems to have forgotten that. He is trying to cut funding to various programs that would help low income people (not just women) to pull themselves out of the place they are and to better themselves. He is trying to cut funding and use our Social Security to pay for his war and that will hurt many older people, especially women, who rely heavily on Social Security just to get buy daily. Its is apparent George W. Bush only cares about the rich and those who can line HIS pockets. Here is an excerpt from an editorial on his budget for 2003 and what he is trying to do in the USA:

BUSH BUDGET: BAD NEWS FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES

This budget does not contain one new idea to create jobs and economic growth. There are 40% more Americans unemployed than when President Bush took office last year, yet his budget calls for cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in job training funds, college tuition grants, youth opportunity grants and assistance for dislocated workers.

Women�s wages have gone down in the last year, yet this budget has no provision that would reverse this trend by helping working women get equal pay for their work. Instead of planning how we can get back on the path of fiscal discipline that enabled our economy to grow over the previous eight years, this budget calls only for more corporate and upper-income tax cuts at a time when economists agree that further cuts of this nature will not stimulate economic growth.

This budget endangers the Medicare and Social Security [italics mine] trust funds. Since President Bush took office one year ago, $4 trillion has disappeared from our surplus, and estimates indicate that the Social Security trust fund will be raided to the tune of $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. Instead of protecting Social Security and Medicare funds as he pledged to do, this budget creates a long-term crisis in their funding.

The President talks about �reform� of Social Security, but what he means is a Social Security privatization plan that would raise the retirement age and cut benefits. This would be particularly dangerous to women, over two-thirds of whom rely heavily on Social Security and its related survivor benefits for income once they reach retirement age.

President Bush talked about prescription drug coverage, but his budget would cover at best one-third of seniors, and the private insurers that are supposed to make the plan work have called his proposal unworkable. The President and Republican members of Congress told American families they were for prescription drug coverage; this budget tells us they weren�t serious.

We know that protecting Social Security and Medicare and providing real prescription drug coverage are particularly important for women, who have been paid less throughout their working lives and are least likely to have any other form of pension coverage in their retirement years.

And Bush�s plan is particularly harmful to women in many other ways. The White House recently recommended the closure of the Women�s Bureau offices of the Department of Labor � the only government agency dedicated to the concerns of working women. In addition, Bush�s budget would slash funding for after-school programs that offer education and safe space for children of working families; would eliminate funding for international family planning that offers hope to the poorest, most vulnerable women around the world; would offer insurance coverage for embryos while extending no new coverage for low-income women; and increase funding for abstinence-only education, which censors educators on important topics such as birth control.

In his state of the Union speech, the president said dignity for women was an American value. We agree; it is unfortunate that the President�s budget doesn�t live up to that principle.

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Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee. http://www.democrats.org

Two of our more famous women in the movement for equality:

Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Unfortunately the President's budget will hurt our most vulnerable, the children. They are our future and they deserve to be protected and given every opportunity to succeed. Our children deserve better than what Mr Bush is giving them. What kind of hope do they have of a future if its all taken away and given to a war or to the people over seas. Don't get me wrong, I know that others need our help, but OUR OWN people need it just as much, if not more. I have put together two pages of thoughts about our kids. I welcome to you to take a look at them. The first is a Mother's prayer.

March is also a month where we celebrate Easter or Ostara, as in the old days. Many people color the eggs, a sign of fertility. To read more about Easter/Ostara, please follow this link.