GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





Ray McMurrey for U.S. Senate

If you heard Ray McMurrey last night and want a sign we have some in the office. Ray is running for the U. S. Senate seat that is now held by Cornyn.





Maggie and Don on the Radio Tonite!

NOTE: Do not come to KEOS tonight to listen to Maggie and McLeroy. There is not a lot of seating. Tune in at 6 to 89.1 FM.





From CSISD....

The community is welcome to come and view the Kindergarten-5th grade mathematics textbooks that are eligible for adoption for the 2008-2009 school year. The textbooks are available for viewing in the College Station Administration Building on the following dates:

January 5, 8:00 am-5:00 pm
January 11, 8:30 am-12:00 pm
January 24, 1:00 pm-8:00 pm

For more information, contact Donna Adams at 764-5420.





Message from the TDW (Texas Democratic Women) Brazos Valley

Dear Fellow Democrats,

I will be the first to admit being vehemently opposed to Bush's agenda and his Republican supporters. However, as a Democrat who very much wants to see change, we cannot afford to isolate ourselves within our community. Let’s not shun our neighbors and their establishments, but instead reach across the aisles of Brazos Valley to (hopefully) begin to change the existing political climate.

I am very much looking forward to seeing you January 26th at our winter TDW brunch meeting and welcoming our guest speaker, Dr. Rich De Vaul. The meeting will be held at Fritellas in Bryan on Texas Avenue starting at 10 a.m.

Wishing us all a successful 2008.

Carol Biggs
President, TDW Brazos Valley





Campus News And Events

Inaugural MLK Breakfast Scheduled For Jan. 17

The annual “Campus With A Dream” schedule of events will kick off with the inaugural Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Breakfast at 9 a.m. Jan. 17 at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. The breakfast, which organizers hope will become an annual event, is sponsored by the MSC Woodson Black Awareness Committee. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of theology, English and African-American studies at Georgetown University, will be the featured speaker at the event. Dyson is the author of Know What I Mean? Reflections On Hip Hop, as well as other works exploring the intersection of art, culture, politics and race in American life. He has written provocatively about Hurricane Katrina, Marvin Gaye and the class and generational conflict in African-American society. Critics say his most popular work explores hip hop and defends it as a highly intellectual art form, despite the excesses that have also made hip hop a lightning rod for controversy. Advance tickets can be purchased at the MSC Box Office, located in Rudder Tower, or online at http://boxoffice.tamu.edu. A reception and book signing for Dyson will begin at 12:30 p.m. in the Rudder Exhibit Hall. The reception is free and open to the public. For more information on “Campus With A Dream” events visit http://wbac.tamu.edu.





Women Are Never Front-Runners

By GLORIA STEINEM
January 8, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor

THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father - in this race-conscious country, she is considered black - she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.

Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?

If you answered no to either question, you're not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

That's why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).

If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama's public style - or Bill Clinton's either - without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits.

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects "only" the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more "masculine" for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren't too many of them); and because there is still no "right" way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

I'm not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That's why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that.

I'm supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country's talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule. I'm not opposing Mr. Obama; if he's the nominee, I'll volunteer. Indeed, if you look at votes during their two-year overlap in the Senate, they were the same more than 90 percent of the time. Besides, to clean up the mess left by President Bush, we may need two terms of President Clinton and two of President Obama.

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of "playing the gender card" when citing the old boys' club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn't.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama's dependence on the old - for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy, though Senator Edward Kennedy is supporting Senator Clinton - while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It's time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: "I'm supporting her because she'll be a great president and because she's a woman."

Gloria Steinem is a co-founder of the Women's Media Center.





Gonzales Has Rough Time Tapping Young Minds for Legal Defense Fund

Buried by legal bills and hard up for cash, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hit the college speaking circuit last month hoping to rake in big bucks. Instead, he's been raked over the coals, heckled or flat out turned down by students whose institutions he charges exorbitant fees to tap his amnesiac mind.

And things aren't likely to get any easier for Gonzo (as he's known in the tabloids) now that he has been identified as among the top Bush White House officials involved in discussions about the fate of the destroyed interrogation tapes.

Even before the CIA tapes scandal, Gonzales had become the subject of angry editorials and protests on campuses near and far. At the University of Florida last month, he was viciously heckled to the point that two students wearing black hoods and orange jumpsuits blaring the words "civil liberties"- impersonating prisoners at Abu Ghraib - walked on stage and stood next to the former attorney general as he spoke. (Until they were arrested.)

It was a tough way to make $40,000. And it stands to get tougher. Gonzales is scheduled to speak on Feb. 19 at Washington University in St. Louis, where more demonstrations are expected, according to the student body president.

The talent agency Gonzales signed up with to get him speaking gigs at colleges and universities doesn't seem to be having a ton of luck. The agency, Greater Talent Network, based in New York, sent out a blast email to schools pitching Gonzales as a top-notch get - without mentioning, of course, that he's raising money for his legal defense fund. (Given the uproar, it's a good thing the agency promises its clients "the experience to handle any crisis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." Though one crisis the agency cannot handle is questions from reporters about Gonzales' popularity - or lack thereof - on the speaking circuit. "No one here would answer questions from a reporter," snapped one of the associates who answered the agency's phone, before she hung up on us.)

Pomona College in southern California is one school that has decided Gonzales isn't worth the $35,000 cost or the headache. Politics Professor Heather Williams lit the firestorm with an Op-ed in the school paper titled "Alberto Gonzales Is a Disgrace, Not a Speaker."

"Why invite a man who repeatedly broke the law, shredded the ethical codes of the institutions he served, and then lied about it?" Williams asked. In a telephone chat, the professor told us, "It occurred to me that in 15 years Gonzales might well be up on war crimes charges."

He's currently under investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general, who's looking at whether Gonzales committed perjury before Congress or improperly sought to influence the testimony of aide Monica Goodling about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

For Pomona professor Neil Gerard, the associate dean of students, the issue was more about cost than about Gonzales's ethical and legal woes. "[The students] couldn't raise the money," he said.

But the Gonzo show will go on at Wash U, where the student newspaper's liberal-leaning editorial page has endorsed the former AG's appearance - even though it opposes his policies.

While other schools may shy away from controversy, student body president Neil Patel, a Democrat, says controversy is a big motivation in having Gonzales come speak. "One of our goals this year was to get this campus more politically engaged." He welcomes peaceful demonstrations as part of that dialogue.

And with potential fallout over Gonzales's involvement in discussions about the destruction of videotaped waterboarding sessions of terrorism suspects, imagine how creative hecklers in St. Louis could get!





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America