Fresh off of her success yesterday at getting the Fresno City Council to approve the newly rebranded Office of Independent Review (aka police auditor), Ashley Swearengen dropped in yesterday afternoon to chat with The Moms on the Central Valley Moms weekly momcast.
As a working mom myself, I was especially interested in how the mother of two keeps things on the homefront flowing smoothly. Ashley went on at great length about how much her husband, Paul, and the flexibility they enjoy from his job as a radio sports announcer helps in that regard.
How charming! How interesting, especially for single working moms who do not have Swearengen's luxury of "flexibility" and not the financial resources for good child care. I think a male mayor would keep his mouth shut on that score in a poverty riddled city like Fresno where children get abused by inadequate baby sitters.
Isabell,
Ashley was not ignorant to the fact that her own family circumstances are vastly different from those facing many mothers in our community. I think her focus on priorities for our city in the coming months and years will reflect her dedication to increasing opportunities to strengthen families for both low-income families and single moms.
During the podcast, we also discussed child abuse, not just at the hands of babysitters but also by parents: One of our CVMoms blog readers asked which Ashley thought was more important, getting the police auditor approved or reducing the number of child abuse cases in a month. But this is not an either/or situation. Both issues, as well as many other, must be addressed.
OK! And you are right, it is not a matter of one or he other. I pray that Swearengen shall be up to the task ahead of her.
That's quite a politically-correct standard you've set up for public figures, Isabel.
"Dizzy"... when you pray for her do you call her Ashley,Ms. Mayor, or Mrs.Paul Swearengen.I agreed with your first post.If people really cared about poltical folks family lives then the Mayor of SF and LA would have been tossed out on their "Cheatin' Butts" trying not to land on "The Predator President" aka. Bill Clinton.
I guess it is the natural agenda of a mayor who claims her nurturing gender. Refreshing in this day and age.
I hope that the grand notion of mothering by independent auditor has been diluted enough in the pandering process that the idea has evaporated.
In light of all the other possibilities in this imperfect witch filled world, I would suggest that mayors assume the office that they were elected to and abandon such applications which diminish their role.
Three thoughts come to me from this article:
*Why do people assume just because she is the mayor that they mayor holds the secret to being a working mother? However, I do like that they talked about more than just that.
*With the number of single parent families run by fathers. It may have had an greater impact to speak with working parents not just mothers.
*Dang Bart, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? HA!
...the predator president is the current president, he's killed dozens of pakistani and afghani with that most insidious weapon, the 'predator drone',... remote-control death-what a world...ya wonder how they like their messiah now?
Doing the proverbial bending over backwards to be fair, I wondered if I had missed something in the article, so I clicked on "momcast" But nothing came up.
But one of my college textbooks educates me to this. Spencer's social Darwinism is justifying the existence of poverty as natural for the "unfit". "Any attempt by government to to relieve poverty was an attempt to defy natural law, because the American economy is governed by a natural aristocracy that had risen to the top in the struggle for profits but which rewarded only the strong and eliminated the weak." And I, the old fool thought that the 19th century was behind us . Apparently not in Fresno.
In 1952 ,I asked my husband why they did not tear down all those old shacks near the farmhouses. He told me that the farm workers lived in them. So it is not the economic crisis that produced Fresno's mindset. Only the problem became larger; more intensified and reaching those who were productive members only yesterday, and now are impoverished through no fault of their own. And there are still voices advocating to pay a $87.000 wage-earner up to $200.000 with overtinme instead of hiring another for $87.000. I am not referring to any particular branch of work.
I better take my own advise. Talking myself blue in the face is not providing one single roof, or feed one hungry child.
Excuse me for furthering this digression but I believe Sen. Diane Feinstein was recently criticised for revealing publicly that drones are launched from inside Pakistan. It appears that two successive Pakistani governments have been unopposed to saving thousands of coalition force lives on these important missions. It is the American way.
"Oh-Oh'...You stole my thunder...your closing line-were you saying that in your best Edward G. Robinson voice.I have always found that to be one of the best lines and one of the most curious casting decisions in cinema history...but I like it(Edward G.Robinson as asst. to the Master Builder in The Ten Commandments).