British voters nearly doubled the representation of women in Parliament, thanks to the Labour Party's decision to field women for a quarter of all seats - an action that has now been ruled as unfair to men.

A news report said, "In France, a record 1,448 women campaigned to break into the National Assembly - one of the industrialized world's most closely guarded men's clubs. With women representing only 6.4 percent of legislators, France ranks No. 105 in its representation of women, behind Algeria and Tunisia. French women were not allowed to vote until 1944, and didn't win the right to work without their husband's permission until 1965.

"And until this month's vote, the `mother of parliaments' had, in fact, few mothers. At 9.5 percent female, the British Parliament ranked No. 75 worldwide, edging out Laos and Bangladesh....Worldwide, women constitute 11.7 percent of the world's parliamentarians....The Nordic nations of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have long topped the list of nations with the highest representation for women. All elect lawmakers to parliament via a system of proportional representation, which allows parties to weigh candidate lists in favor of women. Under this system, the candidate placed highest on the party list is most likely to be elected.

"In Sweden, which leads the world with 40.4 percent women in parliament, the five leading political parties require that men and women alternate positions on party lists. Political parties in Norway regularly field 50 percent women candidates for national votes, either by tradition or by party rules. Finland adopted 40 percent quotas for women in 1995. "

Other nations with a high percentages of women in the legislature have also adopted some form of quotas. The African National Congress Party in South Africa requires women to head a third of all lists. Argentina, Mexico, and Belgium have also made quotas compulsory for all political parties. Germany and Spain boosted parliamentary representation for women to 26.5 and 16 percent respectively through party quotas."

"Every country that has made progress on (the issue of women in parliament) has used some kind of quota system to deliver the change,"' says Clare Short, who helped develop the British Labour Party's strategy on women.

Well, kiddies, you don't know the half of it sitting out there in wonderland removed from the spouting cess pool that is Kenneth Starr's investigative methods. For a long time there was that truck in downtown Little Rock sporting big signs that invited any woman who has had sex with Bill Clinton to come forward ... (Yeah, it happened but Starr says in his simpering way, "No, dahlin', not me! I'm not responsible. I'm not that kind of a woman.")

The $40+ million (although the press seems stuck on last year's $30 million) 4-year investigation that has turned up NOTHING against Clinton in the Whitewater matter - which is what Starr was SUPPOSED to be investigating. But Starr - the good Christian family man (who looks darling in drag) - dragged Monica Lewinsky's mother before a grand jury TWICE to testify against HER DAUGHTER!!! Think that's bad, well our favorite Arkansas paper (only a weekly, but OH MY WHAT A GOODIE) came out with the following: In the one prosecution out of the Whitewater investigation, Starr tried to get Herby Branscum's son to testify against his dad - and also tried to get Jim Guy Tuckers' stepson to testify against BOTH his parents. At least TWO HUBBLE family members have been hauled before the grand juries plus Hubble's son Walter who was quizzed about checks written to him from out-of-state banks (CONSPIRACY!) Duh??? They were rent checks written to him during college when he shared housing with some other guys. "Oh? Sniff," went the prosecutor and turned with a vengeance on Walter in a gotcha tone, " HOW ABOUT THE $1,OOO CHECKS BEING WRITTEN TO YOU FROM A WOMAN NAMED MISSY???? Duh??? Missy is Walter's wife ... Hubbell's sister Terry Collins of Little Rock has been hauled before the grand jury to explain why she is helping her brother financially. Yes, you read right. The Republican lackey wants to know why a sister is helping her brother! GAWD I love the family values of these fundy Christians (Starr ministers to men in prison in his spare time!) Thought you might want to know how your $40 million is being used to make America a safer, gentler nation. AND since almost all of the investigations have been conducted by Starr's hand chosen FBI MEN ... They are the guyz who spent so much time investigating the mysterious "Juanita" in Clinton's life until someone tapped them on the shoulder and pointed out that Juanita's is a popular restaurant and night spot in Little Rock (A fun place, we've been there. Kinda new age meets hippies under the taco moon. Fancy it ain't.)

Will someone PLEASE explain why Kenneth Starr, a chubbier Michael Hayes, needs an EXPENSIVE public relations guy??? I thought (oh, fooooolish me) that legal justice was based on facts.

Has no one wondered why the media has been absolutely silent about the conflict of interests that Starr has been PROVEN to be guilty of while they pounce on every rumor about Clinton's sex life? Starr picked up a HUGE fee for representing a muffler outfit and remains on the payroll of tobacco industry - and guess who's the smoke lobby's number one enemy is? Good `ole Bill - the on ly person in Washington who seems to be paying attention to his job and not his rumored sex life.

But Kenneth Starr is "impartial," Rep. Henry Hyde (Ghengis Khan is my muse!) is "highly respected," and Paula Jones is "tearful" (bidding goodbye to her Mercedes). What the hell kind of a dictionary are those media people using? Maybe you are too young, but it used to be that articles in newspapers were signed by the writers so that we, the people, could judge the accuracy or the bias of what was presented. Now it is generic NEWS! And we have no way of knowing how many of the writers are paid propaganda people from the Oral Roberts school of journalism, etc. Or are being supported by Robert Mellon Scaife's newspaper empire. We have become a nation of sheep. Move over Dolly - our minds have been cloned.

A new black market is opening up - a black market for Viagra and men are spending the family grocery money to buy it - young men who want to have multiple sex experiences daily (and who ordinarily have had to rest a day or two between ejaculations). The going rate seems to be $10 or $12 a pill and some want 3 to 5 a DAY which is increasing prostitution as wives refuse to go through that self-centered "slam-bang, with no thank you ma'am" three minute huff-huff, puff, pooff ff f f ---- f , , . that so many men call sex. AGAIN and we really have to emphasize this, MARRIED WOMEN SHOULD DEMAND THAT THEIR HUSBANDS USE CONDOMS. You can bet your sweet ass that AIDS and other venereal diseases are going to increase as men seek "fulfillment" because of their drug habit in all the wrong places. That health insurance companies are funding this random pill habit is beyond comprehension. I can understand why the Pope (at his age) okayed Viagra (but what do he do when ... ah, let's leave that question for now). But doctors are handing out the prescriptions without even seeing the patients ... And from NOTHING I have read is there any indication that tests were made to track any sperm defects the medication may cause - defects that cause defects in children. Shit, even the woman's condom had lengthier testing than Viagra. As of 05-31-98, 14 men are REPORTED to have died after taking Viagra. Yes, dear heart, you MUST count the men who died in the trials. But how many others? Are they REALLY counting???? More men have died using Viagra that is approved by the FDA than women have died using RU486 (the abortion pill) but RU486 is still not approved in the U.S. Tell me that there isn't bigotry and hatred of women out there. NOW, you and I both know that more sex means more pregnancies (WHOOPS! Error - NOW is silent on the issue - so that should read "Now," you and I both know that more sex means more pregnancies unless there is more birth control. A bill is before Congress to do something about it. HA! Planned Parenthood IS speaking out but the support in the feminist community is nonexistent. "(The lack of interest in Congress about making insurance companies fund birth control pills the way they are funding Viagra) shows to me what happens when you have a male-dominated legislature. If this were a problem that affected men, this thing would have passed decades ago.'' - Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., May 30, 1998 "If we're going to tell a woman you can't get an abortion, then for God's sake let's help them prevent unwanted pregnancies.'' - Rep. Jim Greenwood. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine and Rep. Jim Greenwood, R-Pa. a bill to require health insurers that pay for prescription drugs to cover prescription contraceptives, devices and services. Similar legislation takes effect in Maryland in October, and a few other states also require some insurance coverage of birth control. Planned Parenthood spokesWOMEN are bringing the discussion to a boil since health companies IMMEDIATELY approved Viagra for their clients that costing two to 25 times what birth control for women costs.

Case in point: all that blather in the U.S. Senate over late term abortions came from men whose ONLY concern is that their sacred sperm be incubated. It's a total laugh to think that they are thinking from some higher moral ground. They are thinking from the same place as tom cats and male dogs when the male animals try to get at the young offsprings to kill them ... just so the tom's or STUD'S can have THEIR sperm incubated in the next batch of kittens or pups. Those talking suits in congress were talking from their zippers. Those talking suits in congress can talk high and mighty because they will not have their bodies and minds and emotions ripped apart by God's mistakes, aka defective fetuses. Until they have to bear the good or bad fetuses, these guyz ought to simply butt out. Of course, the ultimate in hypocrisy is that of Sentor Santorine whose wife had a - ahem, let us all bow our heads in prayer for the sinner among us - late term "miscarriage," and not a later term abortion. That's what he said. A miscarrige! What tripe! I sympathize with his wife for her loss but I also wonder how she can live with that sleazeball who won't even own up to the manner of death of his "unborn child." Good thing Santorine wasn't on the Titanic. He'd have been that classic coward dressed in women's clothing shoving women with children out of the way and then claim he made a mistake dressing in the dark.

Oh m'a Gawd - And I can't get a grant to publish Women of Achievement and History on the Internet, but some British research "scientists" claim they have proved that dyslexia is hereditary using a big-time money grant. Instead of spending all that money, why didn't they just ask my daughter? Or if the guyz persist on insisting that it ain't fact until a man says its fact, then ask the child of ANY dyslexic. Sort of like it ain't fact until the guy scratches his balls who intones "it ain't over until the fat lady sings." Dyslexics suffer from transpositions of letters, words, etc., that make reading and spelling difficult despite usually sufficient intelligence. (Which explains why sometimes the spelling in Catt's Claws is "unusual." - It now takes me about two weeks to "forget" what I wrote and start seeing what's actually on the page/screen. A month is even better and six months makes it new.

Sure I got complaints about the piece I wrote about HIV/AIDS secrecy. But the fact is that the new drugs, especially RITONAVIR, can hold off the progression of HIV to AIDS - and the earlier it is given the better. Women, mostly MARRIED women, are the ones who suffer most from the legally mandated secrecy about HIV/AIDS carriers - and they are the ones who would benefit most from the use of treatment such as Ritonavir. Single/married women who are ten times as likely to be infected as a man from vaginal sex are at great danger from the enforced ignorance.

We have written about the rapist Lawrence Singleton who raped and mutilated Mary Vincent by hacking off her arms between her wrists and elbow then stuffing her into a culvert and leaving her to die - and several CC readers offered to pay for new prosthesis for her because the government wouldn't - She was recently asked for one more act of bravery.

She went to Florida to testify against her rapist again face-to-face. He was sentenced to such a lenient term in California that he served it out and moved to Florida - and murdered a woman there. Well he got the death penalty but unfortunately he'll die of old age before he uses up all his appeals, but it would be nice to see him fry. (Does this wish for his death bother some of you? He RAPED a young girl, cut off her ARMS - and left her to die. And you want me to feel compassion? He then went out and murdered the mother of a young child? Compassion for him? Not in my lifetime.) I believe in the death penalty.

Camille Paglia - the name stains the screen - she is on a kick about Hillary Rodham Clinton's sex life ruining the legacy of Bill Clinton, claiming HRC is a lesbian in thought if not action, and that's what's doing it to poor Bill. And she even defames Hillary's mother in an article in Salon magazine, a copy of the article was sent to me by a reader.

Paglia is a self-proclaimed lesbian and has written that her own personal "best sex" is fellatio with a gay man in an alley - and her knees. She was not given tenure (fired from ulta-liberal Bennington College) for dressing in black leather and hitting on young, underage girls at college social gatherings. She's into S&M. And she believes the age of consent for girls should be dropped to 14. Well, saying all that is her right. But saying that she's a nut case is also *my* right. Kathy S. who sent me the article wrote, "Camille Paglia column (is) so absurd, I cannot believe it was actually printed. Much of it is laughable yet the sad part is that there are people who read it and think it's somehow intellectual and intelligent." Yeah, if you really want a laugh, try reading her book _Sexual Personae_ - and then look at the people who think THAT was intellectual and intelligent.

Someone wrote saying that I was eligible for the brass tits award. Sorry, can't accept. I think chubby Newt has bigger ones than I have - but if you are handing out the brass ovaries award I'll take.

George Will, that esteemed ultra-conservative columnist, is preaching that penalties for illegitimate children should be higher. Let's see, he divorced his first wife and dumped on his kids to get a trophy wife - who gets money for Republican causes that he espouses - and then he is paid as a columnist with the Washington Post (Oh Mizz Graham must be suffering at what happened to her old paper) and on TV to condemn Clinton for advocating trade policies that his wife is getting paid to oppose - ah, didn't you follow that?

OK, we'll sum it up: Will is a pompous hypocrite with the morals of a Wall Street inside trader who hates children and think they should suffer because of the sins of the father - even his own children. And he'll do anything to advance the paycheck of his trophy wife. Betcha followed that. And it's true. There isn't a talking head on Sunday morning TV who isn't a millionaire.

To get information and help to live a better life after being infected with herpes, contact the Herpes Resources Center, American Social Health Association, PO Box 13827, Research Triangle Park, N.C. 27709. Enclose $1 for materials, etc.

REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND ETHICAL ABUSES GINGRICH USING CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE TO PAY LEGAL BILLS Speaker Newt Gingrich has spent nearly $900,000 in legal fees since his unprecedented House reprimand and $300,000 fine last January. Gingrich is using his campaign committee to pay his legal bills, allowing conservative political donors to defray the costs of defending Gingrich's ethics abuses. Gingrich still faces House Ethics Committee inquiries into his original political committee, GOPAC, according to the HILL magazine/information service.

New female HIV preventative may finally puts women in control - 3/22/97 See the column by J. B. Dixson that explains it: Column

One in eight women in our country will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, compared to one in 20 a generation ago. And 46,000 American women will die of breast cancer this year. Time for your monthly breast exam - remember, the breast you examine is the one you want to keep. For those who don't read Women of Achievement and Herstory, B. 02-02-1647, Maria Sibylla Merian, German entomologist and botanical illustrator of extraordinary accomplishments... Hers were the drawing featured on the U.S. stamps last year. She actually traveled to Surinam to study flora and fauna in their natural settings instead of using dead samples collected by others, she added commentaries to her work ... even including the native women's habit of chewing the seed kernels of a plant called Flos Pavonis (plate 45) which prevented conception and resulted in spontaneous abortions. Note the dates of her life. Have you heard anything about Flos Pavonis???? We continue to seek the answer.

The Emergency Contraception (EC or Morning After Pill). Their number is 1-800-584-9911. They are available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and will refer you to the nearest place to get EC. EC has a website (http://opr.princeton.edu/ec/ec.html. EC hotline has information about emergency contraception and have a directory of more that 1800 clinicians willing to prescribe emergency contraceptives.

To receive Catt's Claws by email, mail to Listserv@Netcom.com and in the body of the note "subscribe Catts-Claws". We thank Jennifer Gagliardi for handling the madding subscription list through her listserv.

Send your ideas, comments, and news for inclusion in the Catt's Claws feminist newsletter which will be emailed as we get to it. This is NOT an interactive discussion net but an exchange of information. Catt's Claws is NOT sponsored by any organization. The contents are strictly the opinion of the author. Copyright 1998, Irene Stuber. PO Box 6185, Hot Springs, AR 71902