Happy Mother's Day Quote

"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts." — Washington Irving (1783-1859), American author

COUNTRY OF THE WEEK: Myanmar/Burma

This Southeast Asian country won the random selection. Myanmar/Burma has been in the news recently, because of a massive cyclone that has reportedly killed up to 100,000 people and the communist, military junta's unwillingness to allow relief efforts from other countries. Readers may remember last year's protests led by Buddhist monks in support of democracy.

Wikipedia writes about the country's name change, which became official in the late 1980s: "The name 'Myanmar' is derived from the local short-form name Myanma Naingngandaw. In Burmese, the name Myanma (or Mranma Prañ) has been used since the 13th century. Its etymology remains unclear. In older English documents the usage was Bermah, and later Burmah....On 18 June 1989, the military junta passed the 'Adaptation of Expressions Law' that officially changed the English version of the country's name from Burma to Myanmar, and changed the English versions of many place names in the country along with it, such as its former capital city from Rangoon to Yangon (which represents its pronunciation more accurately in Burmese though not in Arakanese). This prompted one scholar to coin the term 'Myanmarification' to refer to the top-down programme of political and cultural reform in the context of which the renaming was done. The action was strictly an executive act, not based on any statutory authority, and the government did not hold a national referendum to have the Burmese electorate ratify the name change. Within the Burmese language, Myanmar is the written, literary name of the country, while Bama or Bamar (from which 'Burma' derives) is the oral, colloquial name."

More about the country's name change: "The renaming proved to be politically controversial. Opposition groups continue to use the name 'Burma,' since they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government nor its authority to rename the country in English. The name change has been recognised by the United Nations, China, India, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Bangladesh, ASEAN, and Russia. However it has not been recognised by many Western governments such as the United States, Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom, which continue to use 'Burma,' while the European Union uses 'Burma/Myanmar' as an alternative."

A former British colony, Myanmar/Burma has a population of 55.4 million people. Its per capita GDP is US$1,691. Myanmar/Burma's Human Development Index is .583, putting it in the "medium" category by international standards. However, the country is one of the poorest nations in Southeast Asia.

The most famous Burmese is probably Aung San Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy dissident and the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner who remains in house arrest.

Quote Of The Day

"Hillary Clinton makes the case that she should be the nominee because she has whitest, uh, widest appeal...There's a pattern alright. This is the 'eggheads and African-Americans' critique that Paul Begala pushed a couple of days ago -- with vigorous pushback from Donna Brazile. Though, ;Sen. Clinton's] 'working, hard-working Americans, white Americans' is a nice added touch. Obviously, Obama's base of intellectuals and blacks are either not working -- or not 'hard-working.'...I have long had the belief that, in the back of the Clintons' mind(s), there exists the ultimate 'nuclear option': They are willing to risk the Democratic Party's long monolithic grip on the black vote (by denying Obama the nomination). Indeed, they may be willing to sacrifice as much as 25 percent of the black vote with an eye toward cobbling together a new general election coalition of more working class whites -- and Latinos. As my erstwhile colleague Ryan Sager has noted, the fertile ground for Democrats right now is the Mountain West states -- Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico. Hillary and Obama split those four states -- but she has consistently done better among Latinos (that fact alone probably explains poll numbers showing her doing better than Obama against McCain in Florida). With most of the South (including their huge numbers of 'non-essential' black votes in red states) -- again, not counting Florida -- conceded to the Republicans, nominee Hillary would count on all the blue states Kerry won, plus picking up Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas and possibly Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Of course, she would have to get the nomination first. Regardless, African-Americans shouldn't be too surprised at this. The latest Census numbers demonstrate that Latinos are now the largest 'minority' in the country. Hillary -- as will future Democratic candidates -- is already calculating, a la Barry Goldwater, to go 'hunting where the ducks are.' If trading a bunch of black votes for more Latinos and downscale whites results in a victory, so be it. Besides, the thinking would go, the rest of the blacks will vote Democrat anyway (where else they gonna go?). Cynical? Yep. Cold-blooded? Definitely. Completely insane? No, not really. Democrats though who are confident that 'this thing is over' had better think again. A candidate who -- in an on-the-record-interview making the case for why she should lead her party -- broadcasts her intent to willingly toss aside a fair segment of the most loyal voting bloc of that party does not sound like someone preparing to close up shop." — Robert A. George, moderate-conservative Republican blogger, on the racial undertones of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential bid

COUNTRY OF THE WEEK: Afro-Venezuelans

Although Venezuela's census does not break down demographics by race, but an estimated 10-12% of the population is black. Sixty-percent of all Venezuelans, however, claim some African blood, and Afro-Venezuelan culture is acknowledged as an important component of national identity. African words - especially those of Bantu and Mandingo origin - are frequently used in Venezuelan Spanish, especially with reference to instruments and dances.

According to EveryCulture.com, the largest Afro-Venezuelan population is located in the Barlovento region about 50 miles east of the capital city of Caracas. There are also important Afro-Venezuelan communities along the coasts of Carabobo, the Distrito Federal, Aragua, and the southeast shore of Lake Maracaibo. Smaller pockets are also found in Sucre, the southwest area of Yaracuy, and the mountains of Miranda. An important Afro-Venezuelan community is also to be found in El Callao, in the southernmost state of Bolívar, where miners from both the French and British Antilles settled in the mid-nineteenth century.

Throughout the twentieth century, Blacks in Venezuela have faced subtle forms of racial discrimination despite a philosophy of racial democracy and an ideology of mestizaje that contends all groups have blended together to form a new, indistinguishable type, called the mestizo. Yet underlying this ideology is a policy of blanqueamiento, or "whitening," that has encouraged both the physical and cultural assimilation of Afro-Venezuelans into a Euro-dominated mainstream. However, public festivals such as the Fiesta de San Juan have emerged as focal points in the reappropriation of Afro-Venezuelan culture, articulating current transformations in a living tradition of cimarronaje (resistance to the dominant culture, consciousness of being marginal).

"There's not a better moment for us than now, under our president, Hugo Chávez Frias," said Máryori Márquez, assistant to the director of culture in Venezeula's Sucre City, Venezuela in 2004. Ms. Marquez claimed that only under President Hugo Chávez - a Marxist who is of African and Amerindian ancestry - have black Venezuelans been able to celebrate their culture and their ethnicity. "This is a project that has been widely accepted in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela," she said. "We look at this as the beginning of multiculturalism and pluriculturalism in Venezuela. Up until now, there's been respect for minorities but only for those minorities officially recognized. Now, Afro-Venezuelans also want to be recognized: Blacks were always seen as a part of the nation, but we want it to be known that we have a history, a culture, a sense of being that must be respected. Not only because of our music, our dance, our drums, our Santería—but because of all the things that make us a people."

The Desde África Venimos celebrations in 2004 have led to calls to have Venezuela's constitution officially recognize blacks as a distinct ethnicity; calls to create at least 10 special schools that emphasize the study of Afro-Venezuelan culture; and calls to create a "Permanent Commission on Afro-Venezuelan History" designed to help all Venezuelans recognize, learn, and appreciate Afro-Venezuelan culture.

Mark M on Remembrance

This op-ed was emailed to me by one of Booker Rising's regular comment posters:

I had a guys’ weekend recently where we played golf, ate great food and had great discussions. The location for the outing was Kiawah Island, just off the South Carolina coast and about an hour from Charleston. The friend who hosted the event owned a home there. He and his wife spend maybe 2 months a year there and the rest at their primary residence. We were just shooting the breeze when we looked out onto the Atlantic Ocean from the veranda of the Ocean Club, a haughty country club of mostly wealthy Southerners with a not so small smattering of Northeasterners, and thought about the slaves arriving at Charleston, one of the largest slave ports in the country at the time. We even drove by the slave market right in the middle of downtown Charleston. The irony did not escape us that the descendants of former slaves were playing golf with a white caddy searching for our balls and cleaning our clubs and were getting massages at the hands of white women at the spa. The irony was not that white people were serving us, but that we were being served. For some reason, out of the depths of insanity and absurdity, the country, through a moment of moral clarity, provided a small opening for black folk to self-actualize. That self determination continues today, but bends in directions unlike the past.

That irony made us think about our parents’ generation -- a generation with one foot in the cotton fields and one foot aching and fighting for posterity. We were talking about our parents and their thirst for knowledge even when opportunities were limited. Most of the guys who attended had parents who went to and/or worked at HBCUs. While my parents did not attend college and my late mother didn’t finish high school, many of my relatives of that generation did. In fact, I’ve heard the stories of my close uncle who endured everything imaginable but went on to graduate at the top of his chemical engineering class at the white college he attended, teach at one of the military academies during the Vietnam War (he was not able to get a room for him and his pregnant wife south of the Mason-Dixon line while he was working to help defend our country) and become the first black chemical engineer hired at a certain Fortune 500 company. He was one of the few that ventured outside the norm of becoming a teacher, preacher, lawyer or doctor. What astounded us was that most these men and women went to school and got jobs that paid far less than what they could have made in a factory or a mill or doing other forms of labor. They could have done so many things but were circumscribed in what they could do, not because their dreams were small, but because reality was cold and they thought it was more important to develop young minds.

We are not our parents, but we are certainly their byproduct. That same generation that produced such greatness was also haunted by self-doubt, disappointment and decisions that, in the wisdom of time, were questionable. The fight for civil rights, as opposed to economic rights, was a debatable strategy when one looks at the black underclass. Yet, I do not begrudge them for this decision because, in no small way, civil rights promoted those in the community who were best prepared to take advantage of integration and may very well prove to be the most enduring footprint of that generation. However, the fight for legal rights meant little to a large number of blacks who needed to benefit as much as anyone else, if not more, in the vast economic expansion from the 1940’s to the 1980’s. It might have been possible that urban decay and many of the horribles of the inner city would have been less formidable if the focus was more on economic stability for poor blacks. My parents’ generation, a generation with very little material wealth, also clung to a calcified classism and remnants of anti-black thought that harmed economic growth in our communities and, depressingly, prolonged some of the black insecurity we still see today. But I have to tip my hat to that generation because it was a precursor to “black is beautiful”, a revolution that changed the face of the world.

My generation learned a great deal from the prior generation. We are much bolder in the most simple matters. It is of no consequence for us to have certain occupations, make money or integrate within the larger community without the past generation’s angst or valiance. We do not feel as inhibited in speaking our minds or questioning authority. When the past generation spoke the truth to authority, it was a rightful sign of heroism and honor. When we do the same, we’re just speaking our mind.

We are, however, still defined by race, but that defining is partly our own choice. We go to black churches. We socialize mostly with black people and still do not discuss certain things in the company of whites. We still believe it is “us” and “them” and we still get uncomfortable when crime shown on the evening news has a photo of one of “us”. We are comfortably and defiantly not them, a white society we believe, mostly in our paranoid minds, barely tolerates us.

My buddies are all successful in every sense of the word, but we always wistfully remember the journey. We remember our parents. We visualize those slaves being sold in Charleston.

Quote Of The Day

"[The Real McCain author Cliff] Schecter also seems to blame McCain and the GOP for who McCain is today, leaving the voters innocent. McCain in his view should have switched parties to send the GOP a message. However, in a democracy, the voters and wider public do have the power and responsibility to deal with their leaders. We are far from helpless sheep. Lots of former Republicans have either switched parties or become Independents because of the party’s rightward tilt and it has done…nothing. There would be a lot of Republicans who would be happy if McCain left, they would not be wondering how they could steer towards the center. But this also brings up a point about the role of voters in our nation. Schecter places the onus of change on the politicians. It is up to McCain to be the brave and courageous one, not us. The problem with many Independents is that they don’t hold themselves accountable or as agents of change - that’s the politician’s job. But the thing is, it’s our job too. What if some of those former McCainiacs had organized in the way that the Religious Right did, acting as a pressure group and demanding change from McCain and the wider GOP? That is something that I have done over the years with groups like Log Cabin Republicans and Republicans for Environmental Protection. But most people don’t want to get their hands dirty in politics. They want a candidate they can fall in love with. In 2000, many fell for McCain. Many of these people projected their loves and hates on to him and were surprised when reality set in. They were shocked when they realized he was a Republican and not the raging moderate or liberal they thought he was. I think the same thing is going on with Obama. Many people are projecting their hopes and fears onto Obama and will be surprised when they find out he was a Democrat after all. Now, if Romney or someone else had been the presumptive nominee, I would not consider voting for the GOP. I wanted a Republican who would be willing to work with Democrats as McCain has done. I wanted a Republican who cares about global climate change. I wanted a Republican with a more sensible foreign and military policy. McCain fits all of this. I don’t agree with him on all the issues, (such as taxes and abortion) but I am willing to support him. But I know that he is a Republican. A Republican that has worked with Democrats, but a Republican nonetheless. I’m not interested in falling in love with a candidate. When you do that, you end up setting yourself up for a hard fall. I do want someone who is going to get things done. For me, that’s McCain. For others, it might be Obama. Even if Obama wins (and that is very, very likely), he will not be the savior some Independents make him out to be. He will fall short for some people, for not being as 'apolitical' as they had hoped. He will be a liberal Democratic President trying to do the best he can to lead a country of 300 million people. But I think there will be a lot of Independents that will be disappointed and heartbroken again." — Dennis Sanders, black moderate-liberal Republican, on how voters should influence U.S. politics

R. Kelly Trial To Begin

R.Kelly’s trial for filming child pornography is set to start today in Chicago. It has been six years since the R&B singer was arrested and accused of video-taping himself having sex with a girl it is claimed was 13. A videotape of the incident - which allegedly took place sometime between 1998-2000 - was sent to a newspaper and passed to police. R.Kelly faces 14 charges related to the alleged video. His lawyers are asking the judge to postpone the court hearing because he has had adverse press reports about him printed.

JULIETTE OCHIENG OP-ED: Behaving Like Dictators

The conservative Republican blogger, on Myanmar/Burma: "Myanmar's military junta has appropriated the UN's first shipments of relief supplies which were destined to feed the survivors of a cyclone that has killed over 60,000 and which could kill more than 100,000 due to disease and starvation--issues that are sure to be exacerbated by the seizure....Additionally, the government won't let the US--whose relief aid resources are second to none (and spare me the Katrina myths and memes)--anywhere near the country. UN officials euphemistically characterized such decision-making steps as 'unprecedented.' No they're not--we've seen this before."

She continues her commentary: "It's pretty easy to see why Myanmar's government wouldn't want the UN and especially the US coming to the aid of its suffering citizens. The relationship between dictators and their subject population is like that of an abusive marriage. Dictators can't be seen as impotent or powerless under any circumstances and are insanely jealous--they would rather see their people die that allow them to realize that other forms of government are infinitely better equipped to assist them in their time of dire need. And dictators have behaved this way from time immemorial."

'Blue Dog' Democrats Join GOP In Opposing War Bill

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday postponed consideration of a bill that would continue funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a bloc of moderate and conservative Democrats balked at the high cost of including several of Pelosi's favored domestic spending programs. Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.), who also faces Republican stalling tactics in protest of unusual parliamentary procedures, predicted that the complaints of "Blue Dog" Democrats would be addressed and that the bill eventually would receive unanimous support from Democrats. "I am very confident that, next week, we will come to the floor with a bill that has the full consensus of the Democrats and hopefully can attract a large number of Republicans, as well," she told reporters.

The Blue Dogs have objected to the creation of a program that would guarantee veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a year of in-state college tuition for each year served in the war zones. They said the House hadn't found additional money - through spending cuts or tax increases - to pay for the program, a violation of pay-as-you-go rules imposed by House Democrats in 2007. "We have a duty as a country to tend to [returning soldiers]. But we also have a duty as a country to pay for them," said Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), a leader of the Blue Dog coalition. When House Democrats unveiled the proposal earlier this week, they put its price tag at $195 billion, including more than $162.5 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to keep them going well into 2009.

The bill has been divided into three pieces. The first is the war funding, which is expected to pass, largely with GOP votes. The second are policy limitations on the war, including a goal of withdrawing all combat troops by December 2009. The third contains the proposed domestic spending, including the veterans' education program and an $11 billion extension of unemployment benefits. Without the votes of most of the 47 Blue Dogs, the domestic spending provisions would have great difficulty passing the House.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) yesterday called the domestic add-ons "unnecessary extra spending" and denounced Speaker Pelosi's decision to bring the bill to the House floor without first letting the Appropriations Committee review it. To show their displeasure, Republicans forced procedural votes this week that delayed consideration of the bill. Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee are poised to approve their own bill that would provide more funding than Speaker Pelosi's initial proposal, including $6 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan operations. That bill may face a Republican filibuster because of its price tag, raising the possibility that the Senate would turn to the House bill. Either way, the Senate is expected to strip the provision calling for troop withdrawal and, if Democrats can round up the 60 votes needed to fight off GOP objections, send a bill with war funds and domestic spending back to the House.

However, President Bush has announced his opposition to any bill that contains veterans' benefits and unemployment insurance in addition to the war funds.

Cohabitation As Broken Window

William Weston, a sociology professor and moderate Democrat, warns against shacking up: "James Q. Wilson is most famous for his 'broken windows' theory of crime. He argues that communities should aggressively combat small quality-of-life crimes, such as broken windows and graffiti, to prevent larger ones. The theory is that if a neighborhood is visibly neglected, the criminals move in. The nest is unprotected, and the larger predators figure they can get away with anything. When a community lets the small disorders of broken windows multiply without resistance, the big disorders -- robbery, rape, murder - grow, too. In my family life class we ended with another fine James Q. Wilson book, The Marriage Problem. He argues that the breakdown of marriage is at the root of the rest of our social disorders. One of the most widespread ways of undermining marriage is cohabitation. Many people cohabit before marriage, and some cohabit instead of marriage. Most college graduates -- always the most strategic group in adult social trends -- cohabit before marriage. They think it is a rational way to test the relationship before the big commitment. Research over the past decade, though, has shown that cohabitation is not a good test drive for marriage. On the contrary, couples who cohabit before marriage have a higher divorce rate than couples who do not live together first. College graduates, being a smart and better informed group, have begun to change their habits as this research gets diffused more widely."

He adds: "Putting these two ideas together yields an interesting insight: cohabitation is like broken windows in the neighborhood of relationships. A community that tolerates cohabitation indicates that its social neighborhood is unprotected. Marriage becomes just another personal choice, not the bedrock of social order. When a community lets the small disorders of cohabitation multiply without resistance, the big disorders -- divorce, illegitimacy, domestic violence - grow, too."

Is It Wrong If It's True?

Asks Rod Dreher, a conservative Republican journalist and blogger: "Continuing in yesterday's vein re: Hillary and race, I was watching Obama interviewed on CNN yesterday when Wolf Blitzer repeated a recent quote from John McCain, saying that it's clear that Obama is the favorite presidential candidate of Hamas. I winced, and thought Obama handled this coolly and classily. 'This is offensive,' he said with banked heat, and then elaborated. I thought well of him for that, and sat down this morning to write an item dinging McCain for such a low blow, and praising Obama for the way he dealt with it. It turns out that McCain was not pulling that out of thin air -- a Hamas advisor really did say to the media last month that 'we like Mr. Obama,' and praising his JFK-ness. So, was it wrong for McCain to have said that Hamas prefers Obama to him? Not if it's, you know, true. To be sure, Obama responded to this in his CNN interview with a clear, forceful defense of his commitment to Israel, and I'm sure that he was appalled to learn that Hamas wants to be his BFF. Still, I don't see that McCain's remark was unwarranted, given that it's not a crude smear -- as I'd initially thought -- but based on something a Hamas big actually said."

Blue Dog Superdelegates Hope To Dodge The Clinton-Or-Obama Question

Despite calls for the Democratic Party's decisionmakers to decide already, members of one important Democratic group don't seem overly eager to get involved in the marathon slog for the presidential nomination. About half of the Blue Dog Coalition, a cadre of moderate to conservative Democrats in the U.S. House, have yet to endorse anybody. If they have their way, the contest will end before they must. Although Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have energized the Democratic base during their six-month slug-fest, it's unclear how their liberal bona fides will play among the conservative Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans who put the Blue Dogs in office.

"Most of us represent districts that are in large part independent, moderate districts," said Rep. Allen Boyd, a Blue Dog co-chairman from Monticello, Fla. who remains uncommitted. "Some of them have a real good, heavy Republican bent. A lot of them are districts that President Bush won. And in an election, there's no mandate to make a decision until the election comes about." And, he pointed out, that election won't come about until the Democratic National Convention — in late August.

All Democratic members of Congress are among the nearly 800 so-called "superdelegates" who can vote for whomever they wish for the nomination. With neither Sen. Obama nor Sen. Clinton likely to win the 2,025 delegates in the primary elections needed to cinch the nomination, the superdelegates may have the final say. Democratic National chairman Howard Dean and other party leaders have implored them to pick a winner soon, so the nominee can begin to focus on Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican candidate.

While the Blue Dogs make up just a fraction of the 235 Democrats in the U.S. House, they account for one-third of the 70 House members who remain uncommitted. Many are like Rep. Tim Mahoney, a freshman Blue Dog from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Rep. Mahoney won with just 49.5% of the vote in 2006, even though his Republican predecessor, Rep. Mark Foley, resigned in disgrace just weeks before the election. President George W. Bush won the district by 10 percentage points in 2004, and Republicans have high hopes for retaking the seat this year. Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama each have sought Rep. Mahoney's support, but he's not hitching his wagon to either. "Hillary is very popular in places like Palm Beach, but when you get out to Okeechobee, it's a different story," Rep. Mahoney explained.

For a glimpse of what some Blue Dogs might be worried about, look at the campaign for next Tuesday's special election in northern Mississippi. The U.S. House seat became vacant after the seven-term Republican was appointed to the U.S. Senate, and Democrats believe they had a strong candidate in Travis Childers, a businessman and chancery clerk who's running against Republican Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven. Mr. Childers is fiscally and socially conservative, "pro-life and pro-gun." But a TV ad aired by his opponent put photos of Mr. Childers alongside photos of Sen. Obama. "When Obama's pastor cursed America, blaming us for 9/11, Childers said nothing," the narrator declares. "When Obama ridiculed rural folks for clinging to guns and religion, Childers said nothing." The attack prompted Mr. Childers to distance himself from Sen. Obama, using his own TV ad to complain of "ads linking me to politicians I don't know and I have never even met."

Throughout the campaign, Sen. Clinton has argued that she is better equipped than Sen. Obama to win working-class swing voters in the general election, voters who could make the difference in such states as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Yet the reticence of many Blue Dogs to endorse someone suggests neither candidate holds much appeal for their constituents, despite their efforts to rub a little blue in their collars — Sen. Clinton reminiscing on how her father taught her to shoot, or Sen. Obama bellying up to a bar for a Yuengling Lager in rural Pennsylvania and bowling in Altoona. The antics have left some Blue Dogs wincing.

Instead, the candidates should do a better job of applying their platforms for improving education, jobs and health care to rural areas, Rep. Mahoney advised. Then they'll get more support from Blue Dogs and the people they represent. He said he has had that conversation with Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton, as well as their surrogates. "I have told their supporters there's a big chunk of uncommitted Blue Dog delegates, and we're waiting to see what they're going to do for rural America. What's their agenda? What are they going to do for our constituents? And we're still waiting."

KATIE CAMPBELL COMMENTARY: Nothing Says "I Love You, Mom" Like Paid Family Leave

Asserts the policy analyst for the Democratic Leadership Council, a moderate-liberal Democratic organization: "In the United States, only 51 percent of people are offered paid leave through their work to care for their families. In fact, 48 percent of workers in the private sector do not even get paid sick days for themselves. The numbers among low-wage workers are even more dramatic: nearly 80 percent do not get paid sick days. President Clinton has a long list of accomplishments from his tenure in the White House. At the top of that sits the signing of the Family and Medical Leave Act which guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a sick family member, care for a newborn or newly adopted baby, or recover from their own illness. This program has given more than 50 million Americans the ability to support their families. Yet, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families, 78 percent of employees have needed to take leave, but said they could not afford it. No American should have to choose between taking time off to care for a new baby and having enough money to buy diapers. Nevertheless, mothers and fathers across the country have to face that painful decision every day."

She adds: "In addition to the laws in California, Washington and New Jersey, two cities - San Francisco and Washington D.C. - have made a commitment finding a real equilibrium in the work-family balance. Both cities recently passed laws that would give workers in their communities’ access to paid sick leave. Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro have introduced similar federal legislation that would guarantee workers a maximum of seven paid sick days per year to recover from their own illness or take care of a sick family member. This year, as we decide what to get Mom on her special holiday, maybe we should think beyond that new piece of jewelry she has been admiring. To honor moms all over the country, let’s demand that our next president commits to a true family values agenda that gives moms and dads the opportunity to keep their job and care for their family."