Average Jane

Category: Current Affairs

  • Average Jane Prepares for Community Service

    IMG_1529Have you ever considered serving as an election worker? There's absolutely no question that the 2020 elections will have huge voter turnout and most counties in the U.S. will need nearly double the election workers they recruit for off-year elections.

    A few years back, I noticed that nearly all of the election workers I encountered at the polls were retired people. Figuring that they could probably use some younger people, I signed up and began taking every election day off from my job to work at the polls instead.

    After that first election, I decided to branch out a little and agree to be an assistant supervising judge. It sounds fancier than it is because all election workers are technically called "election judges" and sworn in before each election. The assistant supervising judge is the second-in-command at a polling place and in my county has some specific duties around opening and closing the polls.

    For anyone thinking about stepping up, here are some pros and cons of being an election worker.

    Pros:

    • It's not actually volunteer work – you do get paid a small stipend, sort of like jury duty.
    • The work is an important community service and a lot of the voters will express their appreciation, which is nice.
    • You learn a lot about how your own county's election office operates.

    Cons:

    • There is a ton of training. My county pays a small amount for completing the training, but I try not to think about how much it is per hour because between regular training, hands-on training and assistant supervising judge training, I end up spending ~7 hours in class before every election. This is where you start to understand why so many election workers are retired; it's because those are the people who have that kind of free time available.
    • Election days are LONG. You arrive for setup between 60 and 90 minutes before the polls open and the law requires that you stay there  all day until after the polls close. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., so it can easily be a 15-hour day.
    • You'll be standing for a lot of that day. Election workers rotate between various jobs, but not many of them are done seated. On slow election days, there are more chances to sit down. On busy ones, you'll be on your feet for many hours.

    The cons look heavy, but I obviously feel it's worth it anyway. At this point, I have my routine so down pat that I have a specific kind of sandwich I always bring. (French roll with pesto, fresh mozzarella and sliced tomatoes, all drizzled with balsamic vinegar, if you're curious.)

    I'm working tomorrow's election, so I'm actually glad for the time change because it will help me get to my nearby polling location by 5:30 a.m.

    Wherever you live, I hope you'll consider joining the ranks of election workers next year.

  • Average Jane on the State of Things

    Change the World

    Since the advent of this blog and social media in general, I have tended to keep my deeper feelings offline. I imagine that my political leanings and sense of social justice can be read between the lines, but I've rarely been overt about them. However…

    There is systemic and pervasive inequality and unfairness in this country that has been worsening steadily throughout my lifetime. I need look no further than the state where I grew up to see the fallout from one egregious example playing out right now.

    I can tell from reading my Facebook feed that a lot of people, particularly those in a position of relative privilege, are having difficulty grasping what is happening and why. Here's a short interview with Jamilah Lemieux of Ebony Magazine that I think really says a lot.

    I'm also observing many people who, willfully or not, can't seem to observe this situation from other perspectives. Chuck Wendig wrote what I feel is a very powerful post about cultivating empathy.

    I'm not quite sure of what my role can and should be in trying to address these societal ills, but this article has some very reasonable suggestions. Most of them are just a start, but it's vital to educate yourself, even if only in service to not being part of the problem.

    If you're feeling helpless and want to do one simple thing right now? How about a donation to the Ferguson Public Library? 

    I completely understand the impulse to despair at the state of things in our country right now. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had some serious conversations about moving away and starting over somewhere else. But no. That is not the solution, it's just an avoidance of the hard work it is going to take to find solutions.

    These problems we have—and they are numerous and far-reaching—can only be solved by people standing together to make changes happen. That means demanding accountability and true representation from government leaders, rolling up our sleeves and working to give all communities an equal chance to succeed, and resolving not to rest until wrongs are righted.

    That is far, far more easily said than done, but it must be done. It must.

    Photo source: BZ Tat

  • Average Jane Rallies

    Yesterday I went to the Kansas City satellite of the Rally to Restore Sanity. I had several relatives and friends (including Laurie) at the real Washington, D.C. rally, but since that was out of my price range for this year, I thought the KC version would be the next best thing.

    It was not a particularly large event, but it was fun to see several of my social groups converge. I can't do a better wrap-up than X.O., so I'll let you read his description and just post my handful of photos from the rally.

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    I recorded the real rally on our DVR, but I won't have time to watch it until next week.

  • Average Jane Celebrates

    Today is International Women’s Day. It’s the perfect time to honor the women you know who have made a difference in your life. I’m fortunate to be able to say that there are too many for me to mention. How about you?

    As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a member of Soroptimist International, which is a community service organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls. Right now they’re having a Live Your Dream essay contest. Women are invited to enter their wildest dream, and a randomly selected winner will receive a $500 gift card to pursue the dream of her choice.

  • Average Jane on World Water Day

    I received this information from Yvonne DiVita earlier this week and wanted to pass it along:

    WaterPartners International is a non-profit
    organization dedicated to helping fight unsafe and inadequate water supplies. Today, March 22, 2006, is World Water Day, which seeks to call attention to the global water crisis
    which is the leading cause of death and disease in the world, taking the lives of more
    than 14,000 people each day, 11,000 of whom are children under age 5.

    Did you know that the
    average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water is 6
    kilometers? Women and girls spend more than 200
    million hours every day walking to collect water
    from distant, often polluted sources—time that could be better spent on more
    productive endeavors such as work and school.

    Most people
    are not aware of this crisis. WaterPartners hopes to bring more
    attention to the world’s leading cause of sickness and death in women and children. We know that the only
    way we will come closer to providing a solution to this problem is by making
    more people aware of it. Our experience tells us that once people are aware of
    the magnitude of this problem, they want to help solve it.

    If you have a moment today, please check out the site and see how you can help.

  • Average Jane Thinks About New Orleans

    It’s taken a few days for it to sink in that the New Orleans I visited less than two months ago will never be the same again.  While we there there, it was Hurricane Dennis that had everyone concerned.  Now I realize that we weren’t worried enough.

    I’ve been through all of the links from my July post and several of the sites are down.  The Hotel Villa Convento has been taking messages through their site and updating their home page periodically.  The family has evacuated and who knows if and when they’ll be back.

    The Gumbo Shop, where we had dinner the first night of our trip, still has a working site that touts "Visit our New Biloxi, MS Restaurant."  I just hope they haven’t lost two restaurants.

    It’s hard to begin to grasp what the people we met in New Orleans have been going through this week.  When I think of cities swallowed up by water, it’s usually in terms of ancient myths, not the evening news.

    It’s hard to sit by helplessly as all this happens.  All I can think to do is provide a link to donate to the Red Cross.  I’m sure every little bit will help.

  • Average Jane on Bad Ad Songs

    This week, Slate shared the results of asking visitors, "What’s the worst ad song ever?"

    One I particularly agree with:

    "I have to nominate Applebees’ ‘Take this steak and top it’ ads. Since
    the source of the jingle is ‘Take This Job and Shove It’—and the ‘shove
    it’ is short for ‘shove it up your ass’—it’s a horrible choice.
    Applebees wants to shove a steak up my ass?"
    —ILR

    Others seemed a little nitpicky to me since they depended on a thorough knowledge of how the lyrics and meaning of the song differed from the intent of the commercial.

    What ad songs do you really dislike?  What bothers you about them?

  • Average Jane’s Soapbox Issue

    I keep my opinions out of this blog to a large extent, but women’s equality is the one issue that resonates so strongly for me that I can’t help but take up the standard.

    You may have seen the news recently that U.S. women are now, on average, making only 75.5 cents for every dollar that men make. Yvonne DiVita of Lip-Sticking covered this last week. As Yvonne says, what a disappointment.

    I come from a family in which the women have worked outside the home since before it was a common thing to do. My grandmother often told me about her experiences as a newspaper reporter, a job she loved. One day she discovered that the male reporter with whom she shared an office earned significantly more money than she did. She complained to the paper’s managing editor who said, “Your husband works, doesn’t he?”

    I had rather innocently hoped that anti-discrimination laws had made that kind of attitude extinct, but the news about the pending class action suit against Wal-Mart contained many similar stories, some worded almost exactly the same way.

    I refuse to believe that there’s anything radical about political, economic and social equality for women. These days a lot of women are distancing themselves from the “f” word, “feminism.” I’ll never forget how shocked I was the first time I heard a conservative preacher use the word “feminist” as though it were an epithet. There are many social issues in this world with a lot of grey areas, but “equal pay for equal work” sounds like simple, playground-level fairness to me.

    Yesterday I wore my favorite new t-shirt that says, “This is what a feminist looks like.” I would love to see a whole roomful of different and varied women, all wearing that shirt. That should address any lingering sterotypes in one fell swoop!

    The days of coasting on this issue have ended. If you can think of a way to make even a small difference, now’s the time to get started.