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Personal Information

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http://www.ramonasvoices.com
Biography

Ramona used to write nice feature pieces for newspapers and magazines, along with columns that, yes, got testy once in a while (Ronald Reagan was president. What could she do?) but were basically and overall nice.

 

But then. . .

. . .then came the hanky-panky and subsequent impeachment of Bill Clinton!  Then Bush v. Gore!  Hanging Chads!  Katherine Harris!  Supreme Court busy bodies! 9/11!  War with Iraq! (Iraq??)  The right wing!  The religious right!  The TEA PARTY, for God's sake!

 

Whatever she is today is the fault of all of the above.  She is not to blame.

 

Favorite Quotes

 

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe.  Carl Sagan

 

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.  Dorothy Parker

 

"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow ... money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands" - Abraham Lincoln

 

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. - John Steinbeck

History

Member for
2 years 45 weeks
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Blog Posts

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Keeping Down with the Joneses was Never Going to Work Anyway

by Ramona 9/20/2012 - 11:02 am   |
 

Months before the Republican and Democratic Conventions in the summer of 2012, when politicians fell all over each other trying to out-Poor-Me-Before-the-Bootstrap-Thing, Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, had already had enough of pretending he was one of the little people.  (Did you notice it was Ann Romney and not Mitt who told the tale about having to live in a ceement basement when they were in college, poor as church-mice except for those stocks they could cash in whenever they ran out of Ramen Noodles?)
 [Read more]

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On Waking Up to Seventy Five

by Ramona 9/17/2012 - 6:29 am   |
 

So yes, it has happened:  I am 75 years old today.  Don't worry, I feel fine.  I'm still the same person, but one now saddled with the realization that I have lived three quarters of a century.  My God. How does a thing like that happen?

I'm planning a big day in which I'll be pondering some burning questions:  How the hell could three quarters of a century have sailed by so fast?  If I had been paying attention, could I have done something to slow it down?  And any chance I'm only half way to the end?
 [Read more]

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Stop the Madness! Sign this Petition!!

by Ramona 9/13/2012 - 10:04 am   |


 



Hello, fellow outraged citizen.  Are you as outraged as I am we are?  Have you had enough?  Are you one of those astute, sentient, breathing persons who has noticed that things are all topsey-turvey and upside down and going over a cliff and getting really bad? 
 [Read more]

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Connie Schultz on What it Means for Women to Vote

by Ramona 9/10/2012 - 10:59 am   |
 

Connie Schultz is one of my favorite writers and it pains me that so few women know who she is or have read her masterful, often poignant columns.

In 2004, in her Cleveland Plain Dealer column, she wrote a piece for women called,"And You Think It's a Pain to Vote".  It went viral, but Connie didn't always get the credit for it.  It traveled far and wide via emails and blogs and comments, credited to "Anonymous", if at all. 
 [Read more]

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The Problem with Unions? They're not Corporations

by Ramona 9/3/2012 - 10:12 am   |
 

WARNING: It's Labor Day and I'm feeling the love for labor, so what follows will be totally biased and in no way fair or balanced.  (If you've been wondering what fair and balanced really means, go ask your two-year-old.  It'll make as much sense as any other definition you've ever heard, but it'll sound so much better coming from the mouths of babes.)

Way back in 2010 when the Supreme Court said yes, indeedy, corporations are people, too, it started a whole new revolution in this country.  If corporations are people then a government of the people, by the people, and for the people takes on a whole new meaning.
 [Read more]

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Why You Gotta Lie? A compendium of the Worst from the GOP Revels

by Ramona 8/31/2012 - 9:46 am   |
 

The media is abuzz about the speeches at the 2012 GOP Convention in Tampa, critiquing them on style, effectiveness, the number of laughs, the number of attacks on Barack Obama--especially the attacks on Obama.  Clint Eastwood even got an invisible Obama to sit in an empty chair and become the foil for some raucously out-there jokes.
 [Read more]

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Bravo, Chris Matthews. I will Never Call you "Tweety" Again

by Ramona 8/27/2012 - 7:15 pm   |
 

 I can't say for sure (because there's no definitive source that I could find), but calling Chris Matthews "Tweety" started about three years ago, probably on Twitter.  All I can say about it is that the first time I saw it in print I instantly understood the connection. Whether it refers to "Tweety Bird" in the cartoons, or the incessant tweeting some birds do just to drive you crazy on a quiet morning, it conjures up a kind of squeaky, never-ending cacaphony.  Tweets with no seeming function except to make sound.   Tweets and trills and calls and caws, over and over again, no matter when or where or what the occasion. [Read more]

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The GOP Fixation on Rape and Sex and Women's Bodies: There are Cures for That

by Ramona 8/21/2012 - 7:29 am   |
 

So I guess you heard what House Science Committee member Todd Akin (R-MO) said, when asked whether rape would be reason enough for abortion: [Read more]

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Happy Birthday, Social Security. And Many, Many More. XOXOXO

by Ramona 8/14/2012 - 7:04 pm   |

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act, and even though it's not one of those anniversaries we might consider A Big One, it's important.  For this reason:  it may well be the last time any of us will be able to celebrate this landmark law without also being reminded of its untimely death.
 [Read more]

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One good reason the Feminist Movement had to Get Moving

by Ramona 8/3/2012 - 8:33 pm   |
 

In 1973 Marabel Morgan wrote a book called "The Total Woman".  It was a follow-up to her successful "Total Woman" programs, in which Marabel taught women how to be seductive and outwardly submissive so as to get whatever  they wanted from their stern or indifferent husbands, most of whom had chronic roving eyes and/or wallets covered in cobwebs.

The secret, as Eve could have told any one of those wannabe Stepford Wives, was sex.  No, not withholding it, a la the women in Lysistrata, but reveling in it, wallowing in it--in a Godly way, of course--as the very best way to keep your man happy.  (Second best is staying sweet by keeping your mind clear and your mouth shut.) [Read more]

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