CDW meeting was held Monday night at the Spaghetti Warehouse on Delk Road. The food was good and the location was next to the interstate. This will make a good location for Hillary and Barak meetups.

The Daylily Brunch cannot be held this year and even in future years should not be an “annual event” nor even a brunch, could be a cocktail reception type event.  At the Jan. 13^th board meeting, we discussed an alternate fundraiser as we agreed we wanted to continue to donate money to our candidates.  The suggestion was a wine tasting at the Marietta Wine shop near the Square.  The time-frame suggested was September and La Ronda Barnes offered to help.  These suggestions will be passed to the new board.  Are there other suggestions that we like to pass along regarding alternate fundraisers?

When a paragraph is this well organized, you can be sure I just copied and pasted it from the CDW agenda.

I’ve been fortunate to be at a few Daylily Brunches. I’m sad for the people who have not had the good fortune to experience Bill and Diana Waldrop’s hospitality and the beauty of their back yard. I wish my daughter could have visited once. It was a lot of hard work and a change to something different sounds like a good idea too, if the CDW is in charge. FYI, the Waldrop’s have hundreds and hundreds of the most gorgeous Daylilies in their back yard. They were even on HGTV.

Daylilies bloom in the morning. The flowers from yesterday are pushed aside by today’s flowers. Eventually the old flowers fall off. At the Daylily Brunch, there were no flowers on the stem, except today’s flowers. Bill and Diana and friends would strip off the old flowers the night before the brunch. The Daylilies weren’t beautiful. They were perfect.

I can remember Cathy Cox one year and Mark Taylor the next, standing on the bench on the deck and speaking to the many Democrats in frilly dresses, fancy hats, and silly hats. Connie McManus made sure everyone with a hat got an appropriate award for the most patriotic, flowery, silly, blue; Connie would make up categories as she went along.

Then there were the flaggers who showed up one year and stood across the street and waved their flag and spouted off the two clever (they thought they were clever) sentences they knew. They didn’t understand the concept of “right of way” (they didn’t understand very much) and thought it was ok to put a white porcelain commode on the Waldrop’s property next to their mail box. There was a sign sticking out of it that said “Flush Roy” or was it “Flush Cathy”? To be brief, I thought that Diana was going to stick a couple of those flaggers into that commode and bury it. They thought so too and got real polite in a hurry.

Diana Waldrop is a wonderful person on so many levels, a saint if I have ever met one but not a person that I’d want upset at me. I wonder if she ever taught in elementary school.

All the people, who worked those Friday nights stripping flowers or got up early Saturday to move tables and chairs and put on the table cloths, prepare the lovely and tasty finger food, or direct traffic will never complain if they have a chance to do it one more time. I don’t ever remember it ever raining on a Daylily Brunch. Diane would allow it.

Getting back to the CDW meeting. Jane Donahue, a union pipe-fitter / plumber (like my dad) introduced Will Phillips from AARP, associate state representative of Advocacy and discussed AARP’s 2007 state legislative agenda and tips on lobbying.

Identify theft was discussed thoroughly and the son of former CDW President Debbie Teilhet, State rep. Rob Tielhet of Smyrna, was mentioned often. Rob is trying to get legislation passed that will allow a person to “freeze” their credit records from anyone but themselves. Over twenty states have passed “security freeze” legislation. Georgia ranks ninth in the nation in identify theft and 263,000 Georgians are victimized each year because credit companies in Georgia who resist this legislation have more influence than some other states. Some issues lend themselves to bipartisanship and Rob has a Republican co-sponsor on his bill.

Nursing homes - Speaking of legislative influence, the nursing home industry in Georgia is only interested in what is good for their bottom lines and not the citizens of Georgia. Other states have asked for wavers to Medicaid requirements that mandate nursing homes as the only option for many elderly. With wavers, Medicaid money can go for assisted living homes, in home support, among other options. In Georgia, with very few exceptions, nursing homes are the only option.

I’ve asked the question before, “Where are the Democrats?”

It is so much fun to be around Democrats. They have breakfasts, meetups, parades, and knock on doors. Sometimes, I don’t see them often because they’re off doing important things that I’m not familiar with. I did learn about one such activity recently. You won’t see Juliana at breakfasts very often. On Saturdays, she is frequently at the midtown AtlantaSurgiCenter.  http://www.atlantasurgicenter.com/contactus.html It is a medical facility that provides abortions. (the clinic that Eric Rudolph bombed in 1997 was in Sandy Springs and Birmingham in 1998). Eric Rudolph is in jail but protecting a woman’s legal rights is still a difficult and sometimes dangerous business.

One of two SurgiCenter’s offices is in midtown at 1113 Spring St NW across the street from party HQ. On Saturdays, women drive to midtown, park their cars a block from the clinic, and walk the rest of the way.

Waiting to greet them are people from Operation Rescue.

The Operation Rescue group is confrontational. Women walking to the clinic receive intense, sustained verbal abuse.

Randall Terry founded Operation rescue in 1986 but is no longer involved. In 2000 Terry divorced his wife of 19 years and married Andrea Kollmorgen, with whom he has had three children. For this, his own organization, Operation Rescue, declared him to be "separated from his church." According to a Washington Post report, Terry was censured in 2000 by the Landmark Church of Binghamton, New York, where he had been a member for 15 years, for a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women."

The New Birth Church is there, Bishop Eddie Long’s folks. You’ve seen mister masculine, the reverend macho on Sunday morning TV condemning gays, choice, and anything progressive. He’s the guy with the big biceps. How do I know? He likes to wear t-shirts with short sleeves to show off his manhood.  

Bound 4 Life, they have red tape over their mouth – really. The Bound 4 Life http://bound4life.com/ intimidate by quantity – just being there.

Neal Hoarsley takes pictures of women walking to the clinic and puts them on-line with abortionscam.com.  Yes, he is the guy who sheltered Eric Rudolph for a while.

Infrequently, a group of older folks from Macon, and random groups and individuals.

Holidays bring out the largest crowds.

Their ages are roughly 16 – 50 about the same age as the group that escorts the women to the clinic. The escorts (mostly women) call themselves the The Feminist Outlawz (with a “z”). The Feminist Outlawz are non-violent and non-confrontational. They do not “engage”: no words or eye contact which validates and encourages the behavior. The protestors “get off” on a response to their actions.

About all a Feminist Outlawz will say is “clear the sidewalk”, “mind your own business”, or “stay with the security guard”.

There used to be a ban on this terroristic (I can’t think of another word) activity till a federal court overturned it.

In addition, I quote, “2005: Neal Hoarsley, an anti-abortion zealot whose website rails against “abominations” such as homosexuality and premarital sex, admits on a radio talk show that he had sex with animals as a boy, stating, “when you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule.”

The Feminist Outlawz, when children aren’t present, will remind Mister Hoarsley of his past.

Currently, the bulk of the volunteers come from Agnes Scott College and the transgender community. All volunteers get a cool t-shirt with the “FO’Z logo either black or white. Please join.  Normally they work Saturday from about 9:30 to 12:00.

I remember the time (or was it twice) that Mark Taylor came to a breakfast, gave a nice speech, and as he was getting off the stage was met by a member of the transgender community who got in front of Mark Taylor wore out the Lieutenant Governor’s ear for a long time. I was a little embarrassed at the time but now I know it was for the wrong person.

To stand up for what is right in the face of opposition, to reach out to others in their hour of need..." Frederick Douglas

TO INSURE THE SAFETY AND COMFORT OF OUR PATIENTS AND THEIR ESCORTS, SECURITY IS ALWAYS PRESENT.

 

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