Today is housecleaning day, not a task I particularly love. And then there's those bathroom chores: scrubbing the sink, tub, and the ubiquitous toilet.

But I have nothing to complain about compared to the women in India callled 'manual scavengers' who clean out public toilets. Public dry toilets. No water to flush the excrement.

These unfortunate women have only a broom and a tin plate to gather up human feces which they pile into baskets and carry on their heads for distances up to 2 miles. Often the contents drip into their hair, faces, and bodies.

It's worse than disgusting. The work puts them at risk for viral and bacterial infections of the skin, eyes, limbs, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems, not to mention tuberculosis.

Published yesterday, a Women's News Network article, "A Nation’s Lowest Women Work Under Severe Degradation," explains that although the work is illegal, many poor urban and rural parts of India still rely on manual scavengers:

“I remember the first time I had to carry a basketful on my head. I slipped and fell into the gutter. No one would come to pick me up because the basket was so dirty and I was covered with filth,” said manual scavenger Safai Karmachari Andolan.... “I sat there, howling, until another woman scavenger arrived....She hosed me down and took me home. But that day, I felt like the most unfortunate child in the whole world.”

Making up 98 percent of the majority of manual scavenging workers, these women, also known as “Valmikis,” come from the very lowest castes in India.

Loopholes in the law allow this to continue. The country's Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation had set a deadline of 2007 to end the practice of manual scavenging in India. But that date has come and gone and nothing has changed, as WNN reports:

Placed on the bottom of the list in India’s legislation, women manual scavengers are trapped by Indian society and caste discrimination, as they endlessly bound in cycles of poverty, inequality and lost opportunity....

Women working in the “night-soil” industry are often caught in an endless bind of indebtedness to the upper-caste neighbor households they serve. As they accept loans from employers for their “illegal” work, the women are trapped in an ongoing cycle of debt. These “impossible” loans, coming with a standard 10 percent finance charge, often leave the women workers in a state of perpetual obligation, servitude and bondage.

Unable to pay back any loan, with very little money, many women reach a point of great personal crisis. “Their poverty is so acute that, in desperation, some...resort to separating out non-digested wheat from buffalo dung.”...

Beyond India's borders, efforts are being made to increase awareness of the impossible situations these women face. The United Nations General Assembly will hear the life stories of two dozen manual scavengers the first week in July. It's part of the UN Human Rights Commission's ongoing attempts to pressure India to end this dangerous and desperate practice.

Here's the latest word on issues surrounding the tax stimulus checks that may be of specific interest to women: Foreign-born spouses can complicate the situation. If a spouse does not have a Social Security number and the couple has filed jointly, neither spouse is eligible.

This is of particular concern to many highly-skilled immigrants in the U.S. on work visas who are married to foreigners, and to U.S. service personnel. In BusinessWeek.com, an AP article highlights the problems:

Many of the couples snagged by this provision weren't aware that filing taxes using the foreign spouse's IRS-issued Taxpayer Identification Number instead of a Social Security number would cut them out. On April 14, the day before the tax deadline, the IRS clarified the situation on its Web site....

Sheila Reed, who works at Command Navy Region Europe in Naples, Italy, said she filed taxes together with her husband, who still uses the IRS Taxpayer Identification Number.

"I don't feel this is fair because I pay taxes like any other U.S. citizen," she told Stars and Stripes, a newspaper published for the U.S. military and other Department of Defense personnel. "It's not right. I have three kids."

When my 'computer graphics geek' daughter went off to her first tech camp last summer, we expected the ratio of boys to girls would be off-putting to her. But she was less bothered by gender concerns than by social ones. Everyone around her lived and breathed videogames. And with nothing more current than an antiquated Nintendo GameCube in the house, she felt completely out of it.

Moms of girls worry about whether or not to have Barbie in the house. Moms of boys (and many girls too) worry about the violence and misogyny in most action-oriented videogames.

In the news recently, two items of interest in the world of gaming that will spur the debate:

• The killer franchise of the videogame industry, Grand Theft Auto, breaks all previous computer games sales records with its latest release, GTA IV.
• Columnist Susan Estrich goes head to head with Rockstar, the company behind Grand Theft Auto, and explains her side of the story in very personal terms.

The timing of this has personal meaning for me. Because as I write this on my laptop, there's also a browser window open on an eBay auction for a used Xbox 360. Yep, I've been considering one for my daughter so she wouldn't feel so out of place in her second year at computer camp.

But after reading Estrich's column, I'm tempted to close out that window and work harder at finding other ways for her to feel connected to her peers.

Follow women's issues over time and your radar subconsciously picks up anything that shows gender bias. Civil Liberties Guide Tom Head is About.com's touchstone for all things potentially racist.

Throughout the spring, Tom's been grumbling about certain racial insensitivities in the Clinton campaign. This morning he noted that others are coming to the same conclusion, as evidenced by the opening sketch with Amy Poehler playing Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live this weekend:

Given SNL's consistently positive portrayals of Clinton, satire of media coverage of the Clinton-Obama race, and Poehler's off-screen support of Clinton in interviews, SNL has gotten a reputation for being very pro-Clinton--to the point where she quoted SNL skits on the stump and in at least one debate. Now, the day after Clinton's infamous "hardworking white Americans" remark, SNL and Poehler both let loose.

SNL sketches have frequently caused a buzz this campaign season. Tom's reference to "positive portrayals of Clinton" include the now-famous "bitch is the new black" segment done by Poehler and returning SNL alum Tina Fey earlier this year.

NBC has the clip of the segment. What do you think? Is this just political parody, or have they changed their tune about Clinton?

Happy Mother's Day!

Although your family is honoring you today, you're equally important the other 364 days of the year to advertisers and businesses that recognize what you and other moms are collectively worth - a whopping $1.6 trillion dollars.

No, that's not a typo. I'll say it again. One point six trillion dollars.

Didn't realize you were so valuable? Then you need to learn about word-of-mom.

And no, it's not an ultimatum to "clean up your room or else...."

_{Photo of Hillary Clinton's mouth © Joe Raedle/Getty Images}

The tax stimulus checks are coming! The tax stimulus checks are coming!

How are women spending their checks? No, this isn't the set-up for a joke about Manolo Blahnik shoes. And yes, there is a gender difference in how the money is being handled.

Even with the new Sex and the City movie coming out May 30th - spurring some Carrie Bradshaw wannabes to shop - most of us are being practical as always.

Photo of Manolo Blahnik shoes © Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images

Voter registration drives are such an essential aspect of a democratic society that I hesitate to share this story.

But in recent days and weeks, the advocacy group Women's Voices, Women Vote has been bombarded by accusations that it was behind a series of 'robocalls' (automated calls) received by African Americans in North Carolina in the days preceding the primary.

Messin' With Their Heads

No big deal, you're thinking? Many were told confusing information that suggested they weren't registered to vote, which many were. They were also told that forms would be sent in the mail. Yet it was already past the deadline for mail-in registrations.

No group was identified in the calls which seemed to originate locally. But it appears that Women's Voices, Women Vote, a non-profit group based in Washington, D.C. that promotes voter registration among unmarried women, was responsible for the calls.

Possible Widespread Tampering

There's a lot of finger-pointing, and evidence unearthed by the Institute for Southern Studies strongly suggests North Carolina is not the only state in which WVWV has done some shady stuff.

Barely Legal

Anyone who follows political campaigns knows that a phalanx of lawyers are always involved, and that every time some new scheme or plan is considered by campaign operatives, lawyers give the final ruling as to whether or not it violates existing campaign laws. Candidates and political parties come as close to the edge as they can, and in some cases, these activities border on the unsavory. But it's a part of the political process that doesn't get front page coverage every day.

Did Women's Voices, Women Vote cross the line? See what you think.

I'm going to say it, and I promised myself I wouldn't show my personal bias. But I'm breaking that vow.

I want Hillary Clinton to stay in the race.

However, I'm not a political writer. Just a women's issues writer who can grasp the obvious; Clinton can't win the popular vote or the delegate count as things now stand. She need those superdelegates, and even that is a longshot for her. So in my last post, I wrote that she should look hard at yesterday's results because common sense suggests it's over.

I could be wrong. And two About.com political writers, who know much more about the bigger picture, have just posted their thoughts about why I might be very wrong.

I can't present to you a cogent argument about why she should stay in the race. That I leave up to:

• Kathy Gill, Guide to US Politics: North Carolina v Indiana
• Justin Quinn, Guide to US Conservative Politics: Indiana & North Carolina, Conservatively Speaking

No doubt the Clinton campaign would have liked better margins for her win in Indiana. And the solid double-digit lead Obama secured in North Carolina hurt her as well.

So when the going gets tough, the tough re-examine the numbers.

According to today's New York Times, Clinton's team is arguing that Obama needs a higher delegate total than what he currently says will secure his win:

...[H]er aides are asserting that the winner will need 2,209 delegates, not 2,025. That higher number reflects the full inclusion of Florida and Michigan, which held their primaries before the date permitted by the Democratic Party.

The goal of the Clinton campaign here is not just to get the delegate votes counted but also to get superdelegates to consider the popular vote Mrs. Clinton won in those two states; in some calculations that would put her over the top. The party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting in Washington at the end of the month to vote on an effort by the Clinton campaign to permit the seating of the delegations.

“We’re going to argue that it’s going to take 2,209 to get to the magic number,” said Howard Wolfson, one of Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategists. “We’re going to argue that Florida and Michigan need to be seated full-strength.”

Old wives tales tell us counting sheep is a sure-fire way to put someone to sleep. Counting delegates, on the other hand, keeps Hillary Clinton's campaign awake, energized, and still alive...for now at least.

Yet as I write this at 4:02 am, even bleary-eyed me can see one thing clearly: Although I'd be tickled pink to have a female president in the White House, this latest argument by Mr. Wolfson is nothing more than a waking fantasy.

After Indiana's lukewarm victory yesterday, Clinton's belief that she still might win indicates that she's dreaming with eyes wide shut.

Photo © Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Truth is stranger than fiction. Fifty years ago, a husband and wife with the last name of Loving were banned for 25 years from Virginia - a state their families had called home for generations. The reason? Loving each other. Loving each other so much, in fact, that they decided to get married. But in Virginia in 1958, mixed marriages were against the law. Mildred Loving was black. Richard Loving was white.

Five years later, Mildred Loving wrote to then U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy asking for help. He referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union, which took up her case and argued it all the way to the Supreme Court. Nearly a decade after the Lovings were banished from Virginia, the highest court in the land handed down a landmark ruling overturning state miscegenation laws.

Mildred Loving passed away on May 2 at age 68. Today her story is told in the New York Times:

Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed in their modest house in Central Point in the early morning of July 11, 1958...when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, burst into their bedroom and shined flashlights in their eyes. A threatening voice demanded, “Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?”

Mrs. Loving answered, “I’m his wife.”

Mr. Loving pointed to the couple’s marriage certificate hung on the bedroom wall. The sheriff responded, “That’s no good here.”

Mildred had to fight to make it good in Virginia and in the 16 other states that banned interracial unions at the time of their marriage. She died in Central Point, back home in the state that had turned her away so many years ago.

Despite every impediment placed in her way, she lived up to the last name she took in marriage. She was Loving in every sense of the word, and she made loving across the racial divide no longer a crime, but a human right.