Essential Estrogen

A bubble gum blast from the past for the earworm this week: Debbie Gibson singing "I Get Lost In Your Eyes."

I still love the hair scrunchie on the top of the head. This also the song to which I had my very first heart-pounding, barely-breathing slow dance.

I have to admit that I was little excited when I looked at the primary candidate filings and saw the name Kim Schmett in the 3rd District congressional race. Iowa has yet to send a woman to Congress, and I immediately assumed that this Republican candidate was female. Ahh... no. This Kim is a man. There's a photo and bio at Cyclone Conservatives.

The latest numbers from the Democratic county conventions (held yesterday) are as follows:

• Obama - 25 delegates
• Clinton - 14 delegates
• Edwards - 6 delegates

In addition to these delegates, Iowa also has 12 super delegates for a total of 57.

These figures, of course, reflect a pick-up by the Obama campaign. The other story coming out of the conventions is how well the Edwards delegates held firm. It's surprising given how little instruction they received from the candidate or campaign. To my knowledge, there was only the one email message from campaign co-chairpersons Rob Tully and Roxanne Conlin given to the Edwards delegates by way of instructions.

There's a post on the Women for Peace Iowa blog that has another perspective on the recent Karl Rove visit at the University of Iowa.

The must-read post of the week comes from Diary of an Anxious Black Woman.

... I think about this recent history because, more than 25 years since the first AIDS patient was diagnosed, and more than 20 years since AIDS activism, I am now forced to acknowledge a harsh reality. On this day, National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, AIDS now bears a black female face. Something I never thought would be a reality, back in 1987 when I started high school, when AIDS was this "gay man's disease," even though at that time, black women were already starting to become infected. Unlike gay men in the '80s, however, we are conspicuously silent (or rather "silenced") in mainstream media and within the national conscience. Unlike gay men in the '80s, who had no illusions whatsoever that the rest of the society could and would leave them to die, black women (and women in general) still get lulled into thinking that, as long as we align ourselves within heterosexual patriarchy, we will be protected - not realizing that this has exacerbated the problem. ...

Much more at the link above.