@ Home in the World

Just stick a fork in the GOP, they're done.

So before he is set to give a SOTU speech that 91% of viewers approved after hearing, President Obama gives the order for a daring hostage rescue from a bunch of Somali pirates. He gives the speech, leaves Mitch Daniels to stammer on about being pro-poverty, and calls the father of the rescued woman to let him know that she's safe.

Damn!

 

Tom Clancy, are you getting this?

Sanctum Santorum

Rick Santorum is holier than thou.

Truth be told, I'm actually surprised that Rick Santorum hasn't been the obvious frontrunner long before this, as GOP primary voters tend to be far more conservative than the rest of the population. This is a clear example of where the media has had an impact - deciding who gets the bulk of the attention, who gets what questions in debates, who the loon of the day is, and so on. The media’s attraction to the outrageous antics of Perry, Bachmann, and Cain made Santorum look like a boring also-ran. Yet even from the sidelines, Santorum has consistently made statements that might upset moderates, but which have been the kinds of ideas that would garner applause from this year's shockingly-behaved debate audiences.

A sprinkling of Rick’s sanctimony:

• Singled out black people as recipients of Federal benefits in a state where 84% of the food stamp recipients are white, and like many right-wingers, has erroneously used words like Fascism to describe the social safety net.
• Favors a constitutional ban on abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, and feels that the President should be pro-life because he is black.
• Believes that states should be able to ban birth control. He opposes all forms of family planning and sex education.
• Claims that single mothers are a key factor to both the economic downturn and the advantage of the Democratic party. Of course, he opposes all means of helping women control their fertility and feels the best solution is to marry them all off.
• Signed that marriage pledge stating that a black child was better off being born into slavery. Remember that? Bachmann got for flack for it, but Santorum signed it too.
• Gives credit for Osama bin Laden’s death to the Bush Administration rather than the one who actually authorized the mission (expect to hear more of that kind of talk in the general election, even though Obama made getting bin Laden a priority and Bush expressly did not), and came just short of accusing the President of treason, declaring that Obama has “sided with our enemies” in international conflicts.

Now that’s just in this campaign. Many evangelicals might also look favorably on his attempts to amend the No Child Left Behind law with a mandate to teach Intelligent Design.  However what “small-government Santorum” is probably best known for is his claim that United States citizens have no right to privacy with regard to sexual acts, an argument that is almost always supported with claims that homosexuality leads to bestiality, and was by Santorum. I’ll just let Wikipedia deal with the aftermath of that.

Santorum comes to his proclamations by way of the Catholic Church, which explains many of his anti-contraception, anti-gay, anti-woman positions. However, even the Catholic Church is more progressive about healthcare policy than Santorum.  Sadly, he has chosen to blame Boston liberalism for the clergy sex-abuse scandal, and even to claim, like some in the Church hierarchy, that the victims were not children, but “post-pubescent men.” Someone should ask him about the Grand Jury investigation in Philadelphia, where as many as 30 abusive priests are thought to have been allowed to remain in active ministry by the Archdiocese.

Whether his relative success in Iowa, and his extreme right-wing positions, take Rick Santorum any farther down the campaign trail remains to be seen. New Hampshire is a near lock for Romney, particularly with McCain's endorsement. However, Santorum’s positions are attractive to the GOP base, and he also has the advantage of not appearing “wacky” thus far. As recently as last week, conservative pastors were asking him to drop out for fear of diluting evangelical influence, but now leaders from the religious right are discussing which of the non-Romney candidates they should support post-Iowa. Now that some of the bigger attractions in this circus are packing up their tents, Santorum might do well in South Carolina and Florida - unless Rubio endorses Romney in hopes of a VP slot.

So, yeah, I'm a writer!

Today was a big day for me. Huge in fact.

And the funny thing is - there may be no one in my real life who gets this.

But I should take it back a couple of steps. This blog has been pretty light for over a year. I have been looking back at the archives and not seeing all that much. Both trips to Washington that we took this year have gone largely unwritten, and while I've had a few good posts around going to BlogHer I haven't really done much to follow up on my experience there.

I've been working. Working really hard, and enduring a beastly commute that has pretty much sucked the life out of me. I loved my work, the company I worked for, and the people I worked with, but I couldn't keep up. All the while I was reading about all the other bloggers who have been doing things online, travelling, and having really good experiences to write about. I was hard not to be depressed and resentful about it.

Meanwhile, I turned 45 a couple of months ago. I had thought that I would be back in graduate school by then, or maybe even done, but no. I was working. My job, much as I loved it, was not going to allow for me to take on anything extra - don't get me wrong, they would have totally covered tuition for anything I work related, but I was having trouble matching my real interests to anything that would benefit the company, and really, I didn't have time for anything extra.  Meanwhile, my vision for what the job could be wasn't exactly bearing fruit. Admittedly, it was a bit of a fuzzy vision, and I'm sure that was part of the problem.

I left that job a couple of weeks ago. It's a big step for me, because I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do next, I have flooded the market with resumes, and have gotten a few bites, but they are all largely the same kind of job. I'm finding that the things I'm drawn to these days have more to do with social media or educational technology than instructional design.

Around the same time I left the company, I got a message from my friend PunditMom inviting me to post for her new project. I told her I'd be going to a volunteer event for Elizabeth Warren, and offered to write about it. Then she asked for a bio.

Now normally that wouldn't be such a big deal, but I'm at a crossroads here. How to describe myself at this point in transition? And, possibly, more importantly, do I use my real name? 

I hemmed and hawed about it for over a week. I'm sure my husband is tired of hearing about it, because although he's not really pushed me in one direction or another, when I was about to hit the send button, I announced, "Okay, here goes, I'm going to go with my real name..." he said "It's about time."

All right then.

This morning, I put the Warren post up thinking that it might go live tomorrow, but before I could even send her the photo from the event, she tweeted about the post. It was up! I had an inkling that the Warren campaign might catch it, and this afternoon, they did. It got retweeted to 30K followers. As if that weren't enough, a few hours later EMILY's list picked it up and tweeted it.

And that's not even thinking about having had it tagged on Facebook.

I've just got laugh. I've been writing online under one nom de plume or another for over a decade. This was my very first post using my real name, and a nationwide outfit like EMILY's list has picked it up.

If that isn't a sign from the Universe, I don't know what is.

 

A Candle, and Not a Flag

**Note: This post is from last year. My attempts at writing something more meditative than angry for the 10th year anniversary are, thus far, not going well. The anger is still valid, but I will save it for another day.

I could tell you where I was, what I was doing, what I first thought, and how we were all sent home just in case. I could tell you that the only time the reality of it hit me was when someone on a crowded train home told me that 300 police and firefighters were trapped in the building that collapsed. But really, what I remember of that day hardly matters.

Since I was in Boston, and not in New York, since I had no friends or relatives in any of the buildings, or aboard any of the planes, there isn't much of a story to tell.

This year it snuck up on me. Sure, I've got plenty going on, but I think the real reason is that there isn't feeling that the anniversary is being used for political gain. We have a new president now, one who is not a "War President" even though we are still at war. The focus is returning to where it should be, not on the politics or the President, but on the people who died that day and the families they left behind.

Of course, the politics aren't gone entirely. There were so many rude and inappropriate comments left on an editorial about a national day of service that Boston.com had to shut down the comments for the piece. Apparently, being asked to do something for the people around you is unthinkable. And all of that is without going to the overtly political sites, who have their own questions and objections.

I wonder if and when we will reach the point that 9/11 is like December 7; a day to be remembered, but no longer so fraught with political overtones. It's hard to say whether 9/11 really changed the country, or if our reaction to it did.

When we remember September 11, I wish we could also recall September 13. Before we mistook revenge for justice, and Saddam Hussein for Osama bin Laden; before the flag stood for belligerence and machismo, and before it was co-opted for a single party. Two days after the attacks, the nation stood together in candlelight vigil to honor the dead and comfort each other, and that, we should never forget. 

I'm not alone. You're not, either.

One of my goals for going to Blogher11 was to sit in on the Special Needs Mini-Conference.

Prior to this, I had never really identified as a special needs blogger and somedays I don't really identify as a special needs mom. Over the years however, I have come to realize how others who have had the experience of raising an adopted child - particularly, but not always, one adopted internationally - were drawn to one another at gatherings. More recently I have noticed the vast difference in my personal comfort level in the company of mothers with special needs children. These women have seen it all. A temper tantrum here, an unusual mannerism or several, an aversion to transtions, a sensitivity to the seemingly innocuous, a vocabulary of strange sounds - these parents try to help or they nod in recognition - but they don't judge.

Beyond seeking the company of others who had "been there," I can't say that I had any specific expectations of the extended session except to learn how people, beside those I was already reading, handled this topic. Mir and Christy, for instance, handle it with particular grace; something I have to assume is partly an extension of their personalities, and partly their writing talents. I was also intrigued by the notion, in the session blurb, that we were telling a story that no one wants to hear.

Well, maybe no one outside the special needs community, but as we are learning, that community is a whole lot bigger than people think. The fairly large room at this one conference was filled with people, and this was just one subset of a conference of people who called themselves writers or bloggers. Imagine how big the population outside this one room could be and what we could learn from each other.

It turned out that one of the things author Rob Rummel-Hudson was talking about was advocacy - writing and talking about what it's like to raise a child with special needs when the people around you, who haven't experienced what you are going through, want mostly to avert their eyes. Aurelia Cotta spoke about the people around her not wanting to hear how medication worked for her and how people compared her to a drug addict. Someone in the audience mentioned that she struggled with the hopeful but impossibly high expectations of her relatives for her preemie daughter when the future was far from certain.

At our tables we talked about what and how much we shared about our children or ourselves on our blogs and in real life. How much do the people outside of our immediate lives need to know? Particularly for those with so-called invisible disabilities, how much do we need to explain their behaviors?  How much will they hold against us? Why are each of these encounters and the decisions associated with them so much more of a struggle?

Interestingly, I found myself once again at that scary intersection between my public life and my semi-anonymous blog, and the more we talked and I listened, the more I realized how many dimensions there were to the struggle of parents, including one I have spent much of my life defending - the public school.   Before I knew it, I was standing and speaking and addressing something I have never really discussed on this blog - I outed myself as an elected School Board member.

I am and I have been for the last ten years, a local school board member. I got involved out of a lifetime interest in education, educational technology, and educational policy. I have worked my way through nine budget seasons cognizant of the tension between the cost of special education services and the pressure they put on the rest of the school, I have learned more and can go on and on about how to run a school, what works and what doesn't, what we as a society should have but aren't willing to pay for.

I have sat in on countless IEP meetings as a parent and wondered what it would be like if every student got this kind of attention instead of the half-hour parent/teacher conference twice a year, but the national conversation about education seems to be going in exactly the opposite direction. I have involved myself in countless discussions online about the conflict of reformers who act as though we aren't demanding enough from our teachers and simultaneously maintain that they are overpaid because any idiot can teach. I have argued with people who simply do not recognize the presence of special needs students in their calculations of what makes a successful school, or worse, claim that special ed services are simply a ploy by union members to increase their numbers. What I have found most disturbing though, is the more recent tendency of people, who were once only against mainstreaming, to assert that our scant educational resources should go to those who have the best chance of being productive members of society.

This sentiment has only been escalated by the rise of the Tea Party. Many of those who once feared that such arguments would meet with disapproval for their very selfishness are afraid no more. They speak of our children as a burden for which they should not have to be responsible.

And so, I stood in that conference room and identified myself and advocated for advocacy. Because this fight is going to get worse before it gets better, but it's not a fight any of us has to face alone.

Clarence Thomas thanks you

Anthony Weiner, for behaving stupidly on Twitter at the very moment that you had begun to expose the financial conflict of interest he and his wife have with the SCOTUS Citizens United decision. You really had something, and could not only have done the country and our electoral system a huge service, but you could have made quite a name for yourself as a muckraker. America needed to pay attention to that information, and now, because of your childish behavior, they probably never will.

On a related note, I went to bat for you and lost big. Not only was I convinced that you were smarter than that, I actually did a #FF on Twitter for you hours before the story broke. However, my small loss of dignity is nothing compared to what your actual constituents lost today. Count me as one of those who thinks you should not have resigned and hoped that staying would move the country toward getting over its crippling Puritanism.  I do hope you find a way to continue to speak for the voiceless, as you said, and not on some crappy talk show either.

Congressional Democrats, for not standing beside the most tenacious among you. You didn't have to defend Weiner, you could have even censured him, but to call for his resignation without demanding that Vitter goes too, plays right into the hands of the Republicans. Repeat after me: "Sex is a private matter." Weiner, or even his constituents, are the only ones who should be involved in making that decision. Vitter got reelected, there's a good chance that Weiner would have too. Now, you could make it up to all of us by calling long and loudly for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas, but I'm pretty sure that you won't.

Mainstream media, for going with the salacious as opposed to the truly meaningful. Justice Thomas has an enormous ($700K) conflict of interest problem, which he tried to bury by not filing the proper disclosure, and then filing the Friday before Memorial Day hoping no one would notice. Please remember that it's your job to notice. Bloggers have their role, but at this point legitimacy still belongs to the full-time press. Our democracy depends on you doing better.

Citizens United, yes that Citizens United, for spending $100,000 on ads attacking those who opposed Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court in the first place. There's a little something in our laws about quid pro quo. It's akin to bribery and it's Thomas' job to guard against it, not engage in it.

The American public, again for going with the salacious as opposed to the truly meaningful, and for your utterly backward approach to sex. I've long thought that our American attitudes toward sex and other people's private lives have done more harm than good. We hide things that shouldn't be hidden (namely, abuse) and expose things that should be private (Hillary/Elizabeth/Jenny/Maria/Huma should be allowed to make their own choices without your judgement, thank you very much).

Meanwhile, the things we should really be talking about - the War in Afghanistan, Clarence Thomas, Wall Street abuses, the slashing of the FDA, immigration policy, the intentional sabotage of economic recovery - get little or no attention. It's your democracy, how much do you really know about it?

And when it comes to leaving a legacy for our children, it's that stuff that really matters. Not the bullshit we've wasted the last two weeks on.

A small celebration might be in order. Emphasis on small.

I might have to confess to a bit of jumping up and down last Sunday, but that was mostly out of surprise.

Nearly ten years have passed since 9/11 and President Obama was finally able to announce the death of the mastermind. Twitter came alive with the news before the President even spoke, and outside somewhere, I could swear I heard fireworks. Piper gave me this kind of grimace at the reports of spontaneous singing outside the White House, but I thought it was kind of cool.

Now I'm a mom in my 40s who had to go to work the next morning, but if I were a college student in Boston or New York, or D.C., I might have been out there on the streets. It doesn't seem exactly right to celebrate a death, and I appreciated the Canadian Prime Minister's expression of "sober satisfaction" upon hearing the news, but Americans wanted, and perhaps needed to celebrate.

I'm no hawk, but I supported our invasion of Afghanistan. After we were attacked, the right thing to do was to take out bin Laden. We could not let that attack go unanswered, and if we were able to take out the Taliban and make the situation safer for Afghani women and girls, so much the better. There are certain circumstances where turning the other cheek does not lead to peace and had we been able to accomplish the stated objective, we could have left Afgahnistan a better, more stable place. We might have beheaded the serpent instead of allowing a hydra to grow.

Unfortunately, we squandered that opportunity by allowing bin Laden to escape to Pakistan, invading Iraq, and looking the other way while Pakistan took money from us and from al Qaeda to harbor our attacker. Would all this have happened if Bush didn't have Halliburton to support?

President Obama made the killing, not capture, of bin Laden a top priority. There have been many, many moves in this fight against Islamic extremism, where I have thought we misstepped, but this was not one of them. This was a clean, surgical strike, it did not endanger civilians. It was planned slowly and carefully, and it worked. This is what happens when you take intelligence seriously; when it is not merely something to be manipulated for political gain.

Of course there are political repercussions from this action. Unbelieveably, some Republicans are scrambling to credit the Bush Administration. Obama has put to rest the notion that Democrats are somehow soft on terrorism because we take the time to formulate an appropriate response. A message has been sent to extremists that we are taking this seriously now, the distraction of Iraq is nearly over, and that our approach will be different, based more on intelligence, and less on large scale military action; the way it should have been all along.

That's not to say that we are safer, no, probably less so for the immediate future. In ten years the hydra has grown strong and largely underground, but not entirely. Pakistan has been put on notice, and though they claim to be a partner of ours, the reality is that they are a failed state - with nuclear weapons - getting incredible pressure from extremists who have been allowed to flourish in a corrupt environment.

Sadly, our work in the region is far from over. The President has made it clear that we are not done in Afghanistan, and as our releationship with Pakistan and other countries in the Middle East recalibrates in the wake of this raid and the "Arab Spring," there may be a lot of ugliness still to come.

In the meantime, a small celebration of a job well done, and a mission truly accomplished might be in order. We are not, in any way, celebrating the death of innocents here, as some in other countries did when the towers fell. When something big happens, good or bad, people have a natural tendency to want to congregate, whether in vigil or celebration, to mark the occasion. In this long and terrible war that may never truly end and in which success is hard to define, this was a clear victory. It may be as close to a VE day as we'll ever have.

My 8 year-old can find Egypt on a map

Have you seen this nonsense from FOX News?

 
Credit

Turns out the image is over a year old, but it seems to be authentic. Really? Can they not find Iraq on a map after all those years of drum beating for the war?  As one clever commenter said about the original image; "that's one way to liberate a country."

 I can kind of understand confusion in the Middle East. Very few Americans will actually ever go there. We don't want to think about where oil comes from. We don't get the whole tribal thing, and what is an Emirate, anyway?

But Egypt is on a whole other continent. We learned about Egypt in our childhood story books and Middle School Social Studies. Doesn't anyone remember World Civ? Oh wait, it's that whole 40 years in the desert thing, isn't it?

It's been incredible to watch so much of this whole thing transpire on Twitter. I have a Twitter account that I use mostly for work. The people I follow are mostly learning specialists, but there are some personal bloggers, a few journalists, a couple of comedians, and the State Department (still a Hillary Clinton fan, you know). Almost immediately after it was announced that the Egyptian goverment  was shutting down the Internet, Twitter came alive with people retweeting anything that could get out of or about Egypt. My favorite so far is from Anil Dash: "Mr. Mubarak, tear down this firewall!"  Only the Haiti earthquake has attracted this much attention from people not directly involved.

(A brief pause while we consider what it would have been like to have had Twitter in 1989)

Clearly as a Democracy we don't like dictators and shouldn't be supporting them, but I'll admit to being a bit concerned about what might come after Mubarak. Is this going to turn into the experience we had with Iran? Who exactly is the Muslim Brotherhood, besides the most organized entity in all of this chaos? Are they friend or foe? Okay, they are not fans of al Qaida, not at war with the West so far, so good. Mohamed ElBaradei; Nobel Laureate with strong Western ties, another possible positive outcome. Omar Suleiman; friend of Israel, okay; friend of the Bush Administration's Extraordinary Rendition program, not so good.

The point I'm trying to make here is that although we shouldn't assume that Egypt will become the next Iran, there's really not a whole lot we have to say about it if it does. We've been touting the benefits of democracy, while supporting some decidedly undemocratic regimes; usually for the sake of "furthering our interests." Over the years, and particularly in the last decade, this kind of hypocrisy has diminished respect for the United States around the world and threatened the security we enjoyed, both as a nation, and as individual American travellers. Interesting, isn't it that those who most fear a conservative theocracy in Egypt are those who want to come as close as possible to such a thing here at home.

In the meantime, while street protests move from Tunisia to Egypt to Iran to Libya, Americans are getting a much needed lesson in spreading democracy without invading a country.

We're learning a bit about geography, too.

 
(Drawing by Pumpkin)

 

 

 

Politics

Jared Lee Loughner was disturbed, perhaps even insane.

In spite of the evidence that he planned his assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the right-wingers are quickly pointing to his mental problems as a way to absolve themselves of any responsibility for their violent rhetoric. Many of them gleefully point to Loughner's listing of the Communist Manifesto among his favorite books as evidence that it was the influence of "liberal ideology" that led to the shooting. Conveniently forgotten are the mentions of Ayn Rand works in that same list.

Equally troubling is that "they do it too" (see comments at link) defense of violent rhetoric, that the right is currently using to defend their behavior over the last two years and more. Sorry, that doesn't work for my 8 & 9 year old sons, why should we tolerate it when the character of the country is at issue?

The fact is that organizations like FOX News and people like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin have made their bread and butter on the outrage of people who feel victimized by a changing world. Of course, victimization is not as empowering as anger, and anger must be directed at those who have broken the rules of a rigidly structured world. Those rule-breakers are easily seen as other and usually lesser - the recent immigrants who don't deserve the bounty of this country, even though it has previously been available to all comers; the unemployed who are certainly shiftless and lazy; union employees who must be cheating because they are afforded slightly more protections in the workplace; the mentally ill who were never brought up right; the dark-skinned guy who dared to be President.

Rarely are those on the higher socioeconomic rungs called out as rule-breakers (unless they express empathy for the aforementioned others, then somehow they're "elite"). The rich must have followed the rules to get where they are, otherwise, what good would the rules be? Right?

Part of the reason I largely stopped writing about politics is that it is hard for the voices of moderation to be heard over the vitriolic mob. It's exhausting to try to debate those who would consistently misuse, misunderstand, or deliberately abuse language. And then, there is the troubling trend I've noticed among right-wingers to deny, even in the face of recorded or transcripted evidence, that they said something or admit any culpability for how their words are most commonly interpreted.

In the "lone gunman" world of conservatives, individuals alone are responsible for their actions, regardless of society or circumstance. That allows the right-wing extremists to say what they want, regardless of message, decimate mental health services and blame parents, ignore the ravages of poverty and blame teachers, cut indiscriminately and call it reform, address concerns about gun violence with more guns, lead a life or a business without conscience and call it success.

Certainly part of the psychology of this game is to intimidate or exhaust anyone to the left of Charles Krauthammer into silence. In the Bush era, it was enough to call into question the patriotism of the Democrats. In the brave new world of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party, the opposition must be dehumanized as well. Dehumanizing the enemy makes them easier to kill, and there is no more effective silence than death.

Of those who have used violent language in public discourse, it is instructive to note who is rethinking and who is "reloading."

If people making money off the peddling of hate (and I'd include Sarah Palin among them) refuse to elevate the debate for the sake of their country, perhaps those actually in office might do well to remember that all this ugliness did not win Palin the Vice Presidency, it did not serve Newt Gingrich in his quest for a 50-year GOP majority, it will not solve the problems facing this country, and it will not make you look like the sane alternative.

Anger may be great for ratings, and maybe even fundraising; but it is not a governing strategy or a problem solving tool. It is not a service to our country nor is it reflective of the kind of world most of us want our kids to grow up in. Anger may feel empowering, and there are times when it is justified, but we must no longer allow anger and violence to be a stand-in for leadership. We must counter the screaming about rights with demands of responsibility.

 

"The safety of the world depends on your saying 'no' to inhumane ideas. Standing up for one's own integrity makes you no friends. It is costly. Yet defiance of the mob, in the service of that which is right, is one of the highest expressions of courage I know." Gabrielle Giffords, May 2009

And then it happened to me (a confession of sorts).

I happened to catch "Outsourced" last night. It's not a show I regularly watch, but I do stick around for it every once in a while. It's cute, but I worry about it relying heavily on Indian stereotypes. Last night's episode centered around sexual harrassment and the cultural differences around what constituted inappropriate behavior.

During the show, my husband and I had a discussion about those sexual harrassment training sesssions that they do in nearly every workplace, and how lame and annoying they were, and Jesus, didn't everyone know this stuff by now?

Well, they should.

Of course it wasn't that long ago that behavior considered inappropriate today was accepted as the way men were. And we're not talking back in the Mad Men era, either.

Anita Hill is back in the news after receiving a bizzare phone call from Clarence Thomas' wife Virgina, in which she asked for an apology for Anita's sexual harrassment accusations of nearly 20 years ago. Turns out Ginni may regret that phone call, because - well, I had never heard of Ginni Thomas and her Tea Partyesque activities - some of which benefit directly from her husband's position on the Citizens United case. I can't be the only one for whom this is news. How far can this red flag be raised?

People have their theories as to the "why" of the phone call. Many of them have to do with attention getting or politics. My own theory was that Ginni found or heard something that disturbed the denial she's been living in for 20 years. You know how some women know their husband is cheating, but the tell themselves they don't want to know? If Ginni was really unaware of her husband's bad behavior before, she's going to know now. Lillian MacEwan has some things to say about that era, and her stories appear to back up Anita Hill.

The Web chatter and news articles surrounding these events have made me realize how much my thinking has evolved in 20 years. And here's the confession part: 20 years ago I wasn't sure I believed Anita.

There were two main reasons for this. First, it really bothered me that I was expected to believe her because I was a woman. Second, I just couldn't believe anyone would actually do the unprofessional and immature stuff she was describing. And then, a year later, it happened to me.

My experience was more what we would now term "a hostile environment." The men in the group refused to continue using my maiden name once I got married. I overheard someone saying that anyone without a tie didn't have to be taken seriously, including the women. The guy who became my boss a month or so after I started began regaling me with stories of his sexual exploits with women from his gym. He compared and rated the physical attributes of our female coworkers.

Even though I knew he must be including me in his comparisons when I wasn't around, I don't recall ever objecting, though somehow the relationship got antagonistic quickly.  I was smarter than he was, and I probably didn't hide well enough the fact that I thought so. He was around my height and I took to wearing very high heels on the days that we had to present together so that I would be taller than he was. It was my only form of revenge. But in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't my only problem. A month or so before the end of my time there, someone forwarded me an email that mentioned my breasts in both a positive and negative light. It was part of a game that the sales team was playing and they were making the "welcoming" gesture of including me in it.

I'm no prude, but I am extremely shy about my body. I am, to put it politely, a little top heavy, and very sensitive about it. My rule about hanging around with guys is that they can say just about anything to me, but I do not want to hear that they are saying things about me. I can't take it. I won't take it. The unfortunate scene that I made that day put an end to the game - or at least my inclusion in it. I lasted there no more than six months. I certainly had grounds for a lawsuit, but all I wanted to do was leave.

Thankfully, I haven't had that kind of experience since.  Looking back on it now, it's hard to believe that people ever thought that kind of behavior was ever acceptable, and it's hard to believe that was almost 20 years ago. Anita Hill may not have been successful in keeping Clarence Thomas from being confirmed, but she has changed a lot of other women's lives for the better. Men's too, even if they don't always realize it.  Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done on that front.

My old boss -- is now a VP.

At the same company.

I'm not sure he'd have made it anywhere else.

I hope they have good sexual harrassment training.