Republicans get it wrong for women. Again.

It’s an old story. Two people work the same job but one makes more money. 

Back in 1941 President Roosevelt created a committee to do something about it. The Fair Employment Practices Committee was implemented, and it required companies with government contracts not to discriminate on the basis of race or religion. While such a measure was not very comprehensive--it said nothing of the private sector jobs who no doubt were often discriminatory--it was a good step. The problem was that the office was understaffed and had little budget to really do anything. 

A few years later an attempt was made to give it some more teeth, to pass the Fair Employment Practices bill. There were many who fought it. At the time, writing in her April 30, 1945 “My Day” column, Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Many people have come to think of this bill as being of value only to certain minority groups. I think it is....equally vital to each and every one of us who are citizens of the United States. If we do not see that equal opportunity, equal justice and equal treatment are meted out to every citizen, the very basis on which this country can hope to survive with liberty and justice for all will be wiped away.”

The fight continues to this day. It is estimated that a woman in this country, during the course of her working life, will earn $431,000 less than a man in the same job. The figures show that full time women are paid only 78 cents for every dollar their male counterpart makes. Latinas make only 56 cents. 

Whether people are making less money because of their skin color or their gender, the practice needs to stop. This is not a minority issue, or a woman’s issue. This is a fairness issue and a family issue. Often those being paid less are trying to support a family. By unfairly paying the breadwinner less than if she were a white male, a crime is being committed to children. 

While we can hear from our religious traditions beatitudes praising the love and respect of children--”Suffer not the little children” echoes in my ears--sadly those in charge of commerce are not always guided by high-minded principles. So it is wonderful that President Obama and other elected leaders are championing the Paycheck Fairness Act. It seems like a no-brainer, voting for equality and giving hurting families the money they have worked hard for and earned. So why is it that Republicans are voting against it? Why, on April 9, 2014, did Republicans filibuster and block this bill?

Tomorrow the polls will be open in America. There are many things at stake this election, and many politicians right now would have us hear them talk about the future. Sometimes, though, we need to simply look at what our officials have done in the past to make our best decision for tomorrow.

Kale it what you want, but we pronounce it delicious

It's happened before and I'm sure it'll happen again. I roll up to our CSA (community supported agriculture) pickup location to get our weekly box of vegetables, and another member arrives about the same time. I've seen her before, so I try to say positive, but I know what's coming.

"We've got so many [fill in the blank with any vegetable] we don't know what to do with them."

Has that ever happened to you? You read the zines and books, you know that you are supposed to eat mostly plants, and so you plant a big garden or get zealous at the farmers market only to realize later you've got produce rotting in your fridge.

I feel your pain. My wife and I subscribe to a CSA, where we get 3/4 bushel of fresh vegetables 20 weeks out of the year. On top of that, we have our own garden. While some things are in precious scarcity, like our homegrown asparagus and raspberries, other things are in great abundance. Kale is one of those items.

But rather than fight it, we have learned to embrace this tough skinned veggy.

The beauty of kale is that it's ultra healthy and super easy to grow. We buy four plants at a local plant sale Mother's Day weekend, and since the stalks reproduce themselves, there is no time during the summer and fall that we don't have a few dozen fresh leaves waiting for us to be picked. Our CSA contributes to our horde of the stuff, so we've had to become creative. A couple standbys are good all the time. Kale chips are easy to make and surprisingly tasty for something so healthy. There are numerous recipes on the net, but really you just bake it with a little olive oil sprayed on. We recommend removing the stalk, as it's quite chewy, but that is a personal preference. Another standby is our weekly egg bake. Consisting of eggs, mushrooms, onion, cheese, and of course kale, it's an easy quick breakfast that my wife bakes Sunday nights and reheats portions each day.

Kale is easy to grow and nutritious. What you may not realize is that it's also quite versatile. It can adapt itself to a lot of different meals. For example, if you have a gluten intolerance or cannot eat wheat or just want to avoid the simple carbs found in pastas, kale is one thing you can use. I am not going to tell you it tastes like spaghetti. It simply doesn't. But for me the best part of Italian is the sauce, not the pasta, so the following quick meal is completely satisfying as well as low carb.

14 stalks kale
2 cups Monte Bene garlic marinara
2 Italian sausage links
1 onion
handful of mushrooms

The preparation is easy. Wash and de-stem the kale and throw into a 12" or larger frying pan. Add enough water to create steam, and then turn the burner on medium high. Add a sliced onion and throw in the sausage links. Assuming the links are raw, cook about 20 minutes (maintaing water for steam) and then throw in the mushrooms (diced) and the tomato sauce. Cook for five more minutes on low, and there you have it!

As described above, this meal serves two. And here are some numbers per serving:

604 Calories
12g Fiber
34g Protein
34g Carbs
14g Sugar
32g Fat
2387 Potassium
1665 Sodium
278% Vitamin A
202% Vitamin C
33%  Calcium
40%  Iron

* * *
For those who follow this blog locally, we recommend Common Harvest (CSA) and Mississippi Market (co-op) homemade sausage.

An Open Letter to Scott Walker

Mr. Walker,

When I cross over the border each weekday to teach at my new job at the Hudson High School, there is a “Thank You For Visiting Minnesota” sign but none welcoming me to Wisconsin. Indeed, the first sign that I am in a different land comes from the occasional sign proclaiming “I Stand with Scott Walker.” I hadn’t given the name much thought until last week, in a section of English 10, when one of my students came in wearing a shirt with the same message. “What do you think of my shirt, Mr. Dahl?” the young man asked me.

I know I have to be careful. Even the American Civil Liberties Union would warn me to consider holding my tongue. “A teacher appears to speak for the school district when he or she teaches,” says the ACLU’s website. And as a new teacher, I am unsure of what my district thinks (or admits publicly) about Scott Walker. So, on the fly I invent an answer that I hope stirs this student’s brain into thinking past his party’s rhetoric and yet helps me retain my employment. “I believe in human rights,” I tell him. 

It may seem like a funny thing to say, perhaps. I mean, don’t we all believe in human rights? The more I study the issue, though, I realize that no, not all believe in them universally. The matter is probably in the forefront of my mind because one of the graduate courses I am taking this semester is an Ethics course in which we are studying Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Right now we are reading A World Made New, which tells of Eleanor Roosevelt’s role in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It had been a while since I’d read them. Mr. Walker, when was the last time you read them? I’ll remind you of the first two.

Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. Mr. Walker: when you put limits to the brotherhood in this state for the purpose of collective bargaining, aren’t you stepping onto a slippery slope? What I mean is, when you take away some people’s rights for the sake of the “greater good,” where do you stop?

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind.... Mr. Walker: why do the laws you propose and support reduce the number of people included in the word “any”? In particular, what about the rights of the teachers, police, and firemen in your state? 

When you were facing a recall election, and asked why, you said, “Simple: the big government union bosses from Washington want their money.  They don’t like the fact that I did something fundamentally pro-worker; something that’s truly about freedom. I gave every one of the nearly 300,000 hard-working public servants in my state the right to choose. Now, each of them gets to determine whether they want to be in a union or not.” But you are incorrect, Mr. Walker. I am now a hard-working public servant in your state, and I didn’t have a choice. I asked about union dues when I got my job, and I was told that we no longer had the right to unionize. So Mr. Walker, where is my freedom? How was your decision to take away my collective bargaining “fundamentally pro-worker”? In other words, in what ways am I benefitting from your reducing my human rights?

I’m not asking you, Mr. Walker, to agree with history that claims that unions have given us (your hard-working public servants) higher wages, greater benefits, reduced hours, or improved working conditions. But I am asking you to live up to your words. You promised the right to choose. You promised freedom. But if your decision was such a good one, why did USA Today report that 100,000 (of your nearly 300,00) public servants publicly protested against Act 10?

Maybe it's because they have read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for protection of his interests. Maybe they know, even though Article 10 may have been formed in the greatest of interests, that it is taking away something we hold so dear: universal human rights.

Sincerely,

Matt Dahl