Herland Sister Resources

§ Herland Pride Picnic is Coming Home

Our Annual Pride Picnic, the Saturday before the Pride Parade, took a road trip last year to the park at 36th & Classen. It was fun, but people encouraged us to return it to Herland, and so this year, we're coming home to Herland's backyard. From 5 pm until about 8, we will grill hamburgers and hotdogs, and shamburgers and notdogs for our vegetarian friends. And of course baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, chips, as well as all the fixin's for the dogs and burgers. Also included in one low donation of $5: soft drinks, the ever popular bottled water, and great music!

Oklahoma's own (ok, Georgia claims her too) Peggy Johnson will sing for us and emcee. Our lineup is still fluid as we go to press, but we have a marvelous supply of good musicians in Oklahoma, and we'll get a lot of them here to entertain you. Update: Read the flyer.

So come early, stay late, bring the kids and have a good old family picnic with Herland. On Saturday, June 26th, 5 - 8 pm. Call 521-9696 with any questions.

§ Herland Retreats

Our Spring Retreat at Roman Nose last month was one of our best ever. IRIS was great, giving us a Saturday night concert under the stars and singing with the rest of us around the Friday and Saturday campfires. The weather has never been more perfect -- 70's, sunny, no wind.

We learned how to give better massages to our partners and friends, (the woman who lucked into the job of practice dummy still has a silly grin on her face) and learned a lot more about our personality types and how that affects our relationships. That workshop was conducted by an IRIS harmonica player and was very well attended, outdoors under the trees. Only one person fell out of her chair in apparent amazement that she had not ONE alpha-type personality trait. The birdwatchers saw a ton of Painted Buntings, an Indigo Bunting, and two Road Runners, Everyone pitched in and did their part, and we all had a wonderful time. It was just a great group of wimmin.

Next Retreat: September 10 - 12, at Robbers Cave, one of the most beautiful and fun of our state parks. Robbers Cave is closer to Texas and Arkansas than Roman Nose, and we hope some of you Arkansas folks will come over, and that our great new Texas friends will come back. As soon as we know who our entertainment will be we?ll let you know. Meanwhile, save the date, and thanks again to all of the great people who made Roman Nose retreat so much fun.

§ Benefit Herland with Planned Giving

There are many ways to donate to Herland. We have a large donor base of wonderful folks who send money from time to time, and/or bring us great gifts -- couches, rugs, microwaves, lily bulbs, artwork, and of course, books. It is also possible to leave Herland bequests in your will, and via your retirement accounts.

Many people do not know that when retirement plans such as pension funds, 401(k)s, and IRAs are left to an individual other than a spouse, they can be subject to income taxes and estate taxes. The two taxes combined could erode up to 80% of the remaining benefits.

If bequeathed to a 501(c)3, as Herland is, these funds would escape income and estate taxes, thereby reducing the size of your total taxable estate. Herland would receive 100% of the remaining benefit in your retirement plan, and the assets in the plan would be removed from your taxable estate. If you are planning to include Herland in your estate plans, the most effective way to do so is to leave all or part of your retirement plan to Herland, setting aside other assets for partners, family and friends. Naming HSR as beneficiary of your retirement plan is easy: you need only to contact the administrator of your retirement or insurance plan and inform them that you wish to give all or part of the remainder to Herland Sister Resources, Inc., 2312 NW 39th Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73112.

Source: New York Public Library

§ WNBA will be a profitable league by 2007

It's that time of year again when the college basketball season has ended, and the WNBA season is about to begin. The college players entering the WNBA make it an exciting league, and more equal all the time. Sure, the LA Sparks are still pretty dominant in the west, but after their loss last year in the championship to Detroit, it?s no longer a given that they will win it all.

I saw an article this morning where Val Ackerman, president of the league, announced that the WNBA will be a profitable league by 2007. She said a few teams have been profitable from the beginning, but this pronouncement is surprising since three teams folded last year. She also said there are plans to add a 14th team to the league within the next year or two but did not announce the city.

The league is now entering what some journalists are calling "the Taurasi era" in reference to Diana Taurasi, Connecticut?s wonder girl who was the first draft pick this year, picked up by the Phoenix Mercury. It will be interesting to see how she does, and what effect she will have on one of the league's least successful teams in number of wins. She will probably experience more than triple the number of losses in her first year with Phoenix than she did in four years at Connecticut. But she?s really an awesome player and will be a lot of fun to watch.

The fourth pick in the draft, Lindsey Whalen, was picked by the Connecticut Sun. Whalen was the most prolific scorer in Minnesota history, and the darling of the NCAA tournament, particularly after Minnesota surprisingly knocked off Duke in the semi-finals. My favorite memory of Whalen is from that game against Duke when driving to the basket, she did a beautiful spin move and left Alana Beard in the dust and made the bucket. People don't leave Alana Beard behind very often. She's usually the one leaving everyone else behind. Speaking of Beard, she was the 2nd pick, drafted by the Washington Mystics, where former OU player Stacy Dales-Schuman plays. She will add a really strong presence to a team that desperately needs help.

One interesting twist to this year's season is the Olympics, and the WNBA is taking a break from August 2nd to August 31st, while some of their biggest stars play for the USA. The other options were to shorten their season, or continue playing without players like Sheryl Swoopes, Diana Taurasi, Tina Thompson and Lisa Leslie. Yawn.

Television coverage has expanded this year with more networks broadcasting games. ABC, ESPN2, Oxygen, and Telemundo will show more than 60 games this season. Check www.wnba.com for the complete schedule.

The WNBA is getting more talented players all the time, and fewer teams will continue their dominance. That?s good for the league, and the players, and should make for some close games and rivalries this year.

§ Herland Has A Listserv!

About a dozen women met at the Bricktown Brewery and had supper prior to the Melissa Etheridge concert May 19, which they report was a blast. They arranged it through the Herland listserv. If you are not a member, consider joining. Click here to sign up.

§ Help Herland Prepare for Pride Week

On Saturday June 12th, Herland needs volunteers to help prepare for our annual Pride Picnic in the back yard. We will begin at 1 pm and end at 4 pm, giving plenty of time to rest and clean up for the Herland Supper Club that evening. Tasks include cleaning the inside of the building, cleaning out flower beds, trimming shrubs and general allaround sprucing up the yard. So if you have from 1 to 3 hours to give, just show up at Herland on the 12th and your contribution will be greatly appreciated.

§ Make an Appointment with The Therapy Sisters

Austin's Divas of Dysfunction are now accepting new clients. Maurine McLean and Lisa Rogers, long-time Lone Star lampoon artists, travel the country co-facilitating "group sessions" and demonstrating that music and laughter are the best medicine. They'll be in Oklahoma City on Thursday, June 10 at 7:30 pm at Church of the Open Arms, 3131 N. Pennsylvania. Suggested donation is $5 to $15, with all proceeds to benefit Church of the Open Arms.

This is one HMO (Happening Musical Opportunity) you'll want to join.
If psychotherapy were this much fun we'd all have our mental health.

§ Saint Sybil

Dear St. Sybil,

I am heartsick and ashamed at our actions in Iraq. I didn't think we had cause to go to war there, but since we did, it never occurred to me that we would not behave in an exemplary manner in our occupation. Ha!

Oklahoma's Senator James Inhofe, rapidly making a national name for himself as the stupidest member of the Senate, has said that he is more outraged by the public outrage than by the actions at Abu Ghraib (and other) prisons.. Well, I am outraged by his kind of attitude.

Two things that concern me a lot about our reactions to these glimpses of horror: First, I keep hearing the photos of American soldiers abusing prisoners described as "S&M photos" -- well excuse me, Sybil, I saw plenty of Sadism, but just where does anyone see any evidence of the "M" -- masochism? I didn't see any sign of enjoyment on the part of the victims.

Secondly, I hear one commentator after another talk about our soldiers "having sex with the Iraqi women prisoners, and it was not consensual". Sybil! Why can't any of them come out and call it what it is: rape. Rape and sadistic abuse as American policy. Unless we call it by its correct name we won't be able to come to terms with it, to adequately apologize and compensate for it, properly punish it, and put in safeguards to be sure it doesn?t happen again.

Sorrowfully, Vera D. Jectid

Dear Vera,

I know how you feel - I will see your Heartsick and Ashamed and raise you an Aghast and Appalled. Also Confused as to why they keep calling those pictures "S&M" -- that is too bizarre. Perhaps they are trying to "sexify" them, to minimize it by turning it into sex games, boys (and girls) will be boys; while really the pictures show total power-over sadistic cruelty.

Of course, rape is a war crime. There may be a hope that "having sex but not consensually" might not be recognized as a war crime, who knows. It's clear to you and me that it is rape, and to everyone else, I think.

I am most amazed by the defense being put forth by the lawyers and families and, we presume, the perpetrators themselves: they were just following orders. Didn't these people go to school? Didn't their school teach history? Did they not read about the Holocaust? Does the military not devote even ten minutes to instructions on how to respond to illegal orders? How can they bear to resort to crying "I was only following orders" and thus align themselves with guards from Belsen Belsen and Dachau?

And yet, of course, they were just following orders, and as one of them implored in his court martial, "This is not me!" And it wasn't him. At least, it was not the most of him. It was maybe the 1% of him, the 1% that is within all of us, which is capable of terrible deeds. Prison guards and soldiers are most susceptible; they are absolutely subordinate and subjugated to massively powerful people -- wardens, generals, "contractors"; and yet themselves have unbridled power over others, "lower" than themselves.. This is a recipe for brutality and war crimes, every time.

And oh! The women involved, at every level! Am I the only one who read the name "Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski" and thought "Oh God, let Janis be a Slav name, let it be a He"? This more than breaks our hearts, it sears our souls. But what did we think, really? That deep down, women were better than men? That it was all hormonal? Drat that testosterone, it's responsible for all the woes of the world? Or did we think it was the conditioning, if we would just allow little boys to be gentle and cry, they would be as kind and sweet as women? Well, we have certainly had to disabuse ourselves of that notion. It's a good thing to let little boys cry and all, but it is not a panacea. We need to search for the root cause of this tragedy, and unlike the drunk who lost his keys in the shadows but is looking under the street lamp because the light is better, we need to search in the deep shadows where lie the rationalization of war itself, greed, ambition, arrogance, revenge, self-righteousness and the hubris stemming from an obscene notion of superiority and Empire.

Sharing your sorrow,

Sybil

§ The Beauty Industry's Ugly Secret

For decades, cosmetic companies have made products containing chemical compounds that have been linked to reproductive birth defects and cancer. The compounds are phthalates (pronounced THA-laytes) and they help cosmetics adhere without smudging. The European Union has banned phthalates from all cosmetics and now a coalition of advocacy groups has given U.S. companies a deadline to support a ban.

Three environmentally-conscious manufacturers (Body Shop International, Urban Decay Cosmetics and Aveda Corporation) have already volunteered to remove phthalates from all their products. Estee Lauder Companies, Inc. and Procter and Gamble were the only large, multinational companies to follow suit--and they have done so by removing phthalates from one product only, nail polish. Now, Avon Products, Inc has. announced it will remove phthalates from all its makeup as a result of their "wish to allay public concern, not a safety concern," contending that phthalates are not dangerous.

"Chemicals linked to birth defects and infertility don't belong in cosmetics," says Bryony Schwan, a spokesperson for the Montana-based advocacy group Women's Voices for the Earth. "We demand that manufacturers act responsibly and immediately remove them from the products that we use every day."

Source: www.womensenews.com

§ Fighting the Bad Legislation

"Oklahoma -- going out of business" was the headline on an ad in the Business section of USA Today recently. The ad, authored and paid for by Cimarron Equality Oklahoma (www.eqok.org) featured the distinctive outline of Oklahoma with a "Closed" sign hanging on it. And why is Oklahoma closed for business?

Because, according to Richard Florida in his best-selling book "The Rise of the Creative Class", one of the major indices of whether a city will grow or stagnate is its 'diversity' index; and with the abhorrent bills passed by Oklahoma's legislature this year, our Diversity index, already abysmally low, will take a nosedive. Progressive companies will not move their businesses to a state which does not welcome their workers. Studies show that a state's level of tolerance for its Gay and Lesbian citizens directly impacts its success in attracting the talented people and creative atmosphere essential for economic growth in today's competitive marketplace. 211 of the Fortune 500 companies offer Domestic Partner Health benefits, and the large majority of them have nondiscriminatory policies which include sexual orientation.

Oklahoma City has in recent years abolished the Human Rights Commission, in order to keep sexual orientation out of their anti-discrimination policies. They have yanked Gay Pride banners from Classen Avenue poles, passed a law to forbid flying gay pride banners, and when that law was shot down, fought and lost an expensive lawsuit over the banners ? paid with glbt as well as straight tax dollars, needless to say.

And then the clincher was this legislative session, when the folks at the Capitol sent an anti-gay Marriage amendment to a vote of the people in November, and passed that most harmful of legislation, the anti-gay adoption bill. This is not the kind of lawmaking which will bring Dell and Delphi to the state.

Most people looking at the adoption bill think it is most clearly unconstitutional, and that it was just passed as a kind of anti-gay grandstanding on the part of the lege. Just a little political gaybashing. Within the next few weeks a lawsuit will be filed to find it unconstitutional.

Cimarron is saying that these bills, and this history, are anti-business, and hope that the business community can be persuaded to say so also. Cimarron is also conducting polling to determine the best way to fight the anti-Marriage amendment. Collective wisdom says that the amendment will pass big, but CW's been wrong before. For the next five months there will be a massive statewide educational campaign to defeat it. Legal opinion is divided on whether or not the Amendment can be kept off the ballot, and there will be attempts at that also. If it is on the ballot and does pass in November, a legal challenge will be mounted at that time to overturn it.

If you have a particular interest in the outcome of either of these two issues, feel free to email Margaret at herlandsisters@cox.net

§ Peace Camp

Give your kids a wonderful week this summer. The Spiritual Walk for Peace, the Peace House, and Pax Christi, OKC, are sponsoring a Peace Camp for youth ages 12 - 16. The camp will be held the week of July 19-24, 2004, in the facilities of Church of the Open Arms, 3131 N. Pennsylvania, Oklahoma City. This is not a religious or church program and people of any and all, or no faith, are invited. It will be from 10am - 6 pm, with an overnight Friday night ending at 10:30 am Saturday morning.

The camp will be a celebration of nonviolence and student-led activism for justice and compassion.

Youth will make new friends in creative activities exploring community building, conflict resolution, anger management, and peacemaking. They will laugh, eat, play games, watch videos, share fun arts and crafts adventures, have small group discussions, learn about the history of civil rights and non-violence, and get a global perspective. The overnight "Lock In" Friday night will be a highlight of the week.

The registration fee of $55 per camper for the week includes meals, snacks, materials, and staff costs.

Some scholarship money is available. Questions: email: KmcCallie@aol.com , or call 525-9555

Registration forms are available here

§ Featured Events

Herland Supper Club & Night Out
Herland Supper Club will meet at 6 pm on Saturday, June 12th, at Granny Had One in Guthrie. Following dinner, we will trek across the street to the Pollard theatre to see "Godspell". Those wishing to car pool from Herland need to meet there at 5:30 pm. Call Ginger at 942-1535 for more info.

Native American Women
OKC Two-Spirit Society is having meetings for lesbian and bi-sexual women of Native American descent. Please call the OKC Two-Spirit Hotline number at (405) 317-7283 for information.

Womyn of Color
Womyn of Color group meets the 2nd Sunday of each month. Please email womynofcolor@cox.net or call (405) 842-3464 or (405) 947-7691 for more information.

Scrabble Night at Herland
If you like to play games and would like some fun and fellowship, just show up at Herland at 6 pm Saturday June 19th. Each month, about 10 women gather in 2 or 3 groups for a couple of hours of mental challenge and snacks ($2.00 contribution).

Pride Weekend
Plan to celebrate Pride Week by attending Herland's annual Pride Picnic June 26th, once again in the back yard at Herland.

The 2004 Festival at Memorial Park will be two days, Saturday June 26 & Sunday June 27, 2004 with a huge stage of continuous entertainment all afternoon beginning at 3:00 P.M., including special appearances by some of the best of OKC local talent.

§ Events at a Glance

June

Thursday, June 10: Therapy Sisters at Church of the Open Arms. See article this issue.

Saturday, June 12: Herland Hike at Martin Nature Park, 5000 W. Memorial, 10 am. Meet at Panera Bread on Memorial at 9 am prior to the hike

Saturday, June 12: Herland Supper Club In Guthrie -- eat at Granny Had One and see "Godspell" at the Pollard Theatre

Saturday, June 12: Herland work day starting at 1 pm.

Sunday, June 13: Womyn of Color Meeting, call 842-3464 for details

Monday, June 14: OGLPC Monthly Meeting at the Center, 2135 NW 39th, 7 pm

Saturday, June 19: Herland Scrabble Night, 6 pm

Sunday, June 20: Herland Board Meeting, 4 pm, everyone welcome

Saturday, June 26: Herland Pride Picnic in the back yard at Herland, 5 pm

Sunday, June 27: Herland participates in the Pride Parade

July
Wednesday, July 31: Diversity House Fundraiser at Herland

§ Website of the Month

tolerance.org