The South Bend Tribune from South Bend, Indiana • B7

WRITE TO CONGRESS U.S. Rep. Peter J. Visclosky 1st District of Rayburn House Office 20515. 225-2461 E-mail via Web site: www.house.gov/visclosky U.S.

Rep. Joe Donnelly District of Longworth House Office 20515.Phone:(202) (574) 288-2780 in South Bend. E-mail via Web site: www.house.gov/donnelly U.S. Rep. Mark Souder District of Rayburn House Office Building, 20515.Phone: (202) 225-4436 E-mail: Web souder U.S.

Rep. Steve Buyer District of Rayburn House Office Building, 20515.Phone: (202) 225-2267. E-mail: www.house.gov/writerep Web site: www.house.gov/buyer U.S. Rep. Fred Upton District of Rayburn House Office Building, 20515.Phone: (202) 225-3761 E-mail: Web upton U.S.

Sen. Richard Lugar Hart Senate Office 20510.Phone:(202) 224-4814 E-mail: gov Web U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh Russell Senate Office 20510.Phone:(202) 224-5623 Web site and e-mail link: bayh.senate.gov U.S. Sen.

Debbie Stabenow, of Hart Senate Office DC 20510.Phone:(202) 2244822 E-mail: Web site: stabenow.senate.gov U.S. Sen. Carl Levin Russell Senate Office 20510. 224-6221 Web site and e-mail link at levin.senate.gov By KATHA POLLITT Special to washingtonpost.com I never watched Oprah a Celine Dion fainted at an Obama he is my preferred candidate.According to Charlotte makes me an exception that proves the rule that women fall for the hysterical, the superficial and the gooily used to watch from time to I even shed some tears when Denny died.Maybe being female has turned my cortex into Cream of all. Maybe just another of charter member of dumber In a casual essay of 1,700 words (printed March 5 in The manages to stir together a breathtaking mishmash of misogynistic irrelevancies and generalizations.One minute mocking women who bake cookies for their castigating Hillary campaign as because she fired her campaign manager too close to the Texas primary.

(Note to won Texas with a flood of Latino votes.) She wonders why man contracts nebulous possibly psychosomatic to Allen: do.) She asks why women have more driving to below.) Could it be because women are mentally proved by greater ability to mentally rotate three-dimensional objects in space? Unless a cute little is, or maybe a cookie. The ladies should focus on what really good at interior decoration and taking care of men and children. me with a spoon. culture can be silly but what does that prove? not as though men spend their evenings leafing through the plays of Moliere.Susie whips up doggy surfs porn curls up with the Friday Night Knitting watches football.Or maybe the two of them watch half the audience is male.If you go by cultural could just as well claim that women are obviously smarter than men look around you at the opera concert hall.Women read more than men tend to story about things that happen? How does that work?) Women even read fiction by men and about men, further evidence of their imaginative powers while they do pick up a sure estro- really the dim woman who see the beauty of Theft the man who thinks Tom Clancy is a great writer? For definitely the brain is just too puny.She cannot mentally rotate three- dimensional objects in space and we all the very definition of smarts.Funny how that definition keeps women conquer field after field that was supposed to be beyond them.In the 19th insisted women cope with college: Studying would send rushing to their brains the blood that was needed for the womb.Back credited women with the superior verbal abilities and memories Allen says scientists now find women to possess. True to dismisses these as minor talents that only helped her school and life.But back when the experts were explaining why women be lawyers or professors or poets (at least not very good poets), nobody said verbal skills and memory were only became trivial when women were found to excel at them.

Now the sexists diss women as inferior mental-object-rotators. I have no idea whether this is whether if so you have to admit this is a very narrow scrap of turf on which to plant the flag of manly superiority. I was forgetting crucial skill.Allen claims that the misogynist canard is to their superior visuospatial (although maybe not gay men?) are better 5.1 accidents per million miles compared to 5.7.“The only good that because they take fewer risks, accidents are only a third as likely to be fatal.That’s a very interesting definition of ability behind the better drivers are the ones who take more risks and are three times as likely to end up dead. Why did accounts a good reporter on religion in a previous this silly piece? tempting to say she wrote it because she exemplifies the dimness and illogicality she describes after is a woman who cheerfully claims not to be able to add much beyond I suspect that Allen, who works for the right-wing anti-feminist Independent just annoyed that so many educated middle-class women are and political moderates and liber- als.Democrats,in other words. Girls swooning for Obama, Elizabeth Gilbert leaving her OK eat, and write a huge Grey and Dr.

McDreamy smooching between Clinton running for president instead of spending the rest of her life apologizing for her marriage it does indeed make a picture. But it one of unique raise your hand if you think Hillary Clinton has a lower IQ than George W.Bush.What bothers Allen about this picture is that these women every fiber of their latte-loving slut-shaming crabbed misogyny of the Republican right. A far more important question is did The Post publish this nonsense? I imagine a great newspaper airing comparable trash talk about any other Really Do Just Wonder Such a Mess: Full of Black Misogyny is the last acceptable nowhere more so than in our clueless and overwhelmingly white- male-controlled media.I can just picture the edit meeting: This get a woman to say women are dumb and silly! If readers raise too big a editor John Pomfret can say it was all in are dingbats! Get it? Ha.Ha.Ha. a thought.Maybe another thing women can do besides fluff up their more important jobs at The Washington Post.We should be half the assigning the half the regular columnists too (current roster of op-ed men, two got those superior verbal Drastically increasing the presence of women a foolproof recipe for gender fairness Allen is far from alone in her dislike of her sex but I have to believe a gender-balanced paper would reflect a broader view of women than The Post does at present. A male editor with a lot of women colleagues on his level might think twice before proposing a sweeping or he would have come to respect women as equals from working with them but if he were just afraid of being seen as a total caveman, that would be OK too.And maybe this kind of editor would have flagged as tired cliches references to Oprah and Celine have looked up the studies Allen claims prove women have the IQ of a bowl of cereal and found they say anything like that; would have wondered if more women bake doggy treats than subscribe to Scientific American or run how does the treat-baker come to stand for all women? And all seeing that piece still ring even vaguely-kinda- sorta imaginary editor would have asked a know what I think of this good editor would have think really Katha Pollitt, a poet and essayist, is author, most recently, of to Drive and Other Life By NATHAN G.

SCHNELLENBERGER and WARREN L. WILLIAMS I is possible to provide homeowners with real school property tax relief without sacrificing instructional programs. current property tax relief plan under consideration by the Indiana General Assembly will not work either for homeowners or for public school instructional programs. Public school instructional programs depend on more than $1 billion of property taxes. These property taxes are stable revenues necessary to reduce class full-day free textbooks for low-income families, and expand extra learning opportunities for students who need more time and attention to master the mandatory academic standards.

Proposals to completely eliminate school instructional property taxes will not work.State revenues are already more than $200 million behind revenue projections.During the last economic revenues allocated to the school funding formula were decreased. instructional program property taxes are notthe cause of any current property tax problems.The General Assembly has strictly controlled school instructional property in the school tax instructional program tax levy being the slowestgrowing of all local government property tax levies. Eliminating school instructional program property taxes will not help homeowners and will harm valuable programs necessary to improve student learning.Homeowners and students will both lose. The real problem with school property taxes is school construction.Currently,prop- erty taxes provide nearly $2 billion annually for school construction and repair projects. The school construction property tax levies are the fastest growing of all local govern- ment property tax levies.

The Indiana State Teachers Association urges Gov.Mitch Daniels and the General Assembly to establish the School Construction Quality and Accountability Fund.State taxes should replace property taxes for up to 70 percent of school construction costs to build sufficient classroom air conditioning and modernize science and instructional technologies. The current system of school construction does not work well for either homeowners or schools. Some schools are state-of-the-art and other schools do not have air science labs or up-to-date technologies. The current system of financing school construction almost completely with property taxes does not treat taxpayers fairly. School construction debt tax rates vary from as little as 20 cents in some school corporations to more than 90 cents in other school corporations.

Two years had a good idea.His executive order stated that building projects should first and foremost support the academic needs of the student school officials consider construction primary focus should be on enhancing academic programs and limiting nonacademic Fifteen states already replace nearly half to all property taxes for school and Kentucky.Law- suits have been filed in 37 states because school construction based predominantly on property taxes not only results in unequal and inadequate in poorer also imposes unfair tax burdens on homeowners. Both homeowners and students deserve fair treatment. There is still time for Daniels and the General Assembly to enact real and responsible property tax reform. Nate Schnellenberger is president of the Indiana State Teachers Association. Warren Williams is executive director.

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True to form, she dismisses these as minor talents But back when the experts were explaining why women be lawyers or professors or poets (at least not very good poets), nobody said verbal skills and memory were trivial; they only became trivial when women were found to excel at them..