Oh God! Do I remember! Women wearing pants (guys with long hair) occupied a legion of arguments and other conversations around that time.

It was a decade earlier, but there's an Andy Griffith episode (color) where the Taylors go to Hollywood. They're on a bus driving down the street and Opie excitedly tells his father "There'a woman wearing pants."

Oli, in 1988 I moved to a unit of my employer that had a large group of women managers. I learned that the most powerful women were...nannies. Not a day went by without several of my female colleagues coaxing, pleading, pampering, their nannies. Some also used free-lance gofers to shop for them, wait for deliveries, find summer camps for their kids. One of my female colleagues referred to hers as "my wife."

TIS: In that same era, female managers lived by a rigid, self-imposed dress code. Dark-colored business suits, hose, pleated blouses, closed pumps (no heels higher than 3"), straight, medium-length hair (curly-haired women weren't taken seriously). When walking to meetings, they donned new white athletic shoes with only enough piping to distinguish them from nurse or waitress shoes; white athletic socks with the tops turnd down exactly 2"; toting a bottle of Naya water in one hand (Poland Springs was "tacky"), and a bag holding their dress shoes in the other. They referred to themselves and other female managers as "women"; clerical and secretarial women were "girls" or "ladies." Clerical and secretarial women referred to themselves as "girls," and to managers as "ladies."

Wow, and what's really amazing is it was in our lifetime. "We've come a long way baby" (I know you know where that comes from)

TIS

Hey Tis,

It sounds like you were a regular "That Girl" back in the '60s .

Ha ha ha!! I did watch That Girl sometimes but preferred Mary Tyler Moore much more.

Hey, look how far we have come. "I am woman, hear me roar."




TIS

Funny you mention that, Tis. I was born in '59, so when those shows were on I was just a kid. But Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie and Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie were absolutely my first crushes on adult women as a boy. They still make me goofy, and they're both in their 70s now!

Remember the controversy over Laura's pants and the poll they took? I was in love with MTM also.

Capri pants .

My wife used to sing that song while she was shaking out baby's diapers in the toilet...

Remember this parody from the Imus morning show back in the '90s?

'I Am Hillary'

(To the tune of "I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy)

I am Hillary, hear me roar

I'm more important than Al Gore

I could run this country if I had the chance

Got an office down the hall

Now Bill can't fool around at all

In this White House family I wear the pants

Oh, yes, I'm his wife, but I'm in love with politics

Yes this is the life, I might run in ninety-six

If I want to I will say anything

I'm so strong (strong) I'm un-divorcable (divorcable)

I am Clinton

I am Clinton, I'm un-divorcable

I am Clinton, I am invincible

+ I am Hillary Rodham Clinton

I KNOW we're getting off topic, but real quick in response to TB's post.

Speaking diapers, when I had my first baby had had like 3 dozen cloth diapers right? When I left the hospital they gave me a few days supply of then, kind of new, disposable diapers. I thought I'd use those but stick with the cloth and save money not having to buy diapers every week. Right after I finished up the disposables the hospital gave me (maybe a few days worth), I thought "hell yea, I'm using these." All those new cloth diapers became rags and were also were great for wiping windows.


TIS

Well they were designed for wiping something .

Romney = Don Draper?

http://bcove.me/s4a1c9qz

Very good. Although I may not have seen a likeness to Don Draper when Mad Men started, I can see the comparison now.





TIS

IS there an election anywhere in this thread?

Yes. Some Board members have elected an alternative topic (it's all TIS's fault).

Back on topic: In Gallup's first official daily tracking poll of the 2012 general election, Romney leads Obama 47-45, with 8 percent undecided. A statistical deat heat. This thing might get interesting after all.

Gallup poll: Romney, Obama statistically tied in 2012 matchup

By Holly Bailey | The Ticket

According to Gallup, 47 percent of voters polled are backing Romney, compared to 45 percent who prefer Obama. That's well within the poll's margin of error, which is plus or minus 3 percent.

While both men are doing well within their respective parties, the most notable finding came among self-described independents, a swing voting bloc that could very well determine the outcome of this fall's election. According to Gallup, Romney leads Obama among indie voters by 6 points, 45 percent to 39 percent.

The survey is Gallup's first daily tracking poll of the general election.

Oh yea, blame me for everything.

DT, I assume you mean a thread in which the BB can vote for President? I think we had one election before last. Anyway, feel free to start an "election voting thread". I'm sure many don't want to get into the political discussion thread but will cast an anonymous vote.

TIS

You can make your own predictions here.
My take at the present moment is that it will be very close but the President will win by peeling off NC and taking CO and NM. So final count will be 281-257. Of course new information means new predictions..

Also Nate Silver will be starting forecasts shortly.

I think it will all come down to the economy. If it continues its slow but steady improvement, the President will be re-elected. If something unforeseen happens, or gasoline prices derail the recovery, the Republicans have an excellent chance.

The Pennsylvania primary is a week away, and while Santorum suspended his campaign some time ago, Romney is still running tv ads attacking him.

One change in our general election here will be the requirement that all voters must present photo id in order to vote. While first-time voters have always been required to bring an id, it has never been required of returning voters, who've been casting their ballots in the same local precincts.

There has not been any problems with voter fraud as the local precinct system has served the Commonwealth well. However, our Republican House passed this measure in a thinly veiled effort to minimize the electoral impact of the young, the elderly, and minorities, who are less likely to have a driver's license, and will be required to travel to a designated licensing center to obtain a photo id.

This legislation came on the heels of their failed attempt to change PA's electoral votes from a winner-take-all (as it always has been) to a division of votes, based upon popular votes within each congressional district.

Kly,

I understand that several states are doing this AND you are correct that Voter ID fraud is next to none. I fear that many of the people that THEY don't want to be able to vote, have not be paying attention, will go to the polls and find out they suddenly can't vote.


TIS

Guess What State Will See Lower Health Insurance Premiums This Year?

Don’t look now, Governor Romney, but you may need to execute yet another of your famous flip-flops when it comes to Obamacare, the federal law modeled on your own Massachusetts experiment.

It turns out that Romneycare is beginning to work out quite nicely as insurance premiums for many Massachusetts residents
participating in the state’s Health Connector Commonwealth Care program are going down this year—by as much as five percent—representing the second consecutive year of reduced premium payments.

This from The Commonwealth Connector, the agency created by the legislation that helps Massachusetts residents shop for and acquire health insurance:

For the second year in a row, the Massachusetts Health Connector’s Commonwealth Care program will provide private health insurance to eligible residents at a lower cost than the previous year. At tomorrow’s monthly meeting, the board of directors of the Health Connector will vote on bids from private insurance carriers that provide an average five percent reduction in per-person cost. Combined with similar savings achieved this year, tomorrow’s action will save the state approximately $91 million with no benefit reductions or member co-pay increases.

Nice. So, how is Massachusetts pulling off this good news?

According to Lynn Nicholas, president & CEO of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, the positive developments are the result of the major stakeholders in the state’s medical community working together to accomplish some key goals—goals that might look familiar to those who are familiar with the objectives of the Affordable Care Act.

In an article published in Kaiser Health News, Nicholas points out that Massachusetts is well along the way towards converting the state from a fee-for-service medical framework to one “in which caregivers are organized to provide comprehensive patient care, and are rewarded for providing access, quality and efficiency. In such a system providers not only accept increased responsibility for care, they also accept financial risk that was once the responsibility of insurers.”

What Ms. Nicholas is referring to are Accountable Care Organizations, the ‘medical home’ approach to lowering costs while improving health care outcomes that is the at the very core of many reforms found in the Affordable Care Act. More than 1.2 million Bay State residents are now participating in these medical home programs and, from the looks of things, it’s all beginning to work out quite nicely.

Hospitals in the state have also done their part—lowering their costs by billions over the past three years while holding onto their reputation as some of the best hospitals in the nation.

Massachusetts currently has the highest level of healthcare coverage in the country with more than 98 percent of its residents insured. As for the cost of that insurance, based on medium household income, Massachusetts ranks as the 48th lowest state in the nation in healthcare expenditures.

So, what about those long wait times to see a doc?

Things are still rough with average waits to see a family medicine doctor running 36 days (up 7 days from last year), while the wait for an internist has improved to 48 days, five days better than last year’s experience.

While I have no desire to minimize this problem, it is important to put it into perspective—something that is often missed by the opponents of this type of reform.

As Jonathon Cohn has pointed out, the shortage in primary care doctors was underway in Massachusetts —and in virtually every other state in the nation—well before the state reformed their health care system. The following chart would appear to bear this out as we see wait times in Massachusetts running high before Romneycare took effect in 2007.



Other states, with more traditional approaches to healthcare, also experience access problems when it comes to family medicine physicians and internists simply because our medical schools do not turn out enough physicians who wish to practice in these areas. The reason is simple—these doctors can make substantially more money by going into speciality practices. With many doctors coming out of school with $200,000 in debt, who can blame them?

The Affordable Care Act seeks to address this problem by increasing the amount paid to primary care physicians, something Wellpoint—the second largest health insurer in the nation— recently picked up on when they too decided to boost what they pay to primary care physicians treating patients with Wellpoint insurance plans.

The bottom line here appears to be that the Massachusetts healthcare reform is showing some real signs of success and that is good news for us all—with the possible exception of Obamacare foes. The problem of increasing available primary care physicians still looms as a real challenge, but there is reason to believe that adjustments in the pay schedules for these doctors will entice medical students into the field and alleviate the troubling wait periods.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/20...iums-this-year/

That's exactly right, Babe.

A year ago people thought Obama had no shot to be re-elected. A month ago he was a shoo-in. Polls mean nothing. It's all going to boil down to the economy. And if it stalls, Romney might just win.

The economy will have nothing to do with why Obama wins again.

It's all about demographics. He's going to get a huge minority turnout in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia and win.

That's why Obama went on Univision to say that Romney supports racial profiling. That's why Obama got involved in the Trayvon case. He knows it helps mobilize black voters, which is just what he wants. Especially in a swing state like Florida.

Cool.

Besides, I don't see the big deal about Ann Romney speaking her mind about working women. So what if she never worked a day in her life? It's not like Karl Marx ever worked in a factory. He probably never even met a factory worker.

Even the die hard lefty feminists stuck up for Ann Romney this week on the Stephanopoulos show. And that panel is as skewed as it gets.

Begrudging money is un-American, plain and simple.

I told my class the other day that I was probably richer than any of them, but I don't feel bad about it. I don't like the use of variable definition words such as fair. I wish Obama would get off that tack.

I agree, Oli. It does nothing but promote class warfare. The last thing Obama needs to do is fuel the fire by making people think that he's pitting Americans against other Americans.