By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

According to the Associated Press, two high-profile women running for California offices have spotty voting records. They are U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, who is challenging longtime incumbent Barbara Boxer, and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who is running for governor. I don't know about you, but I'd have a hard time voting for someone who didn't have the time to participate in the voting process at an earlier stage of their career: 

The former head of Hewlett-Packard, who is running for the seat now held by Democrat Barbara Boxer, said she has no excuse for not voting more often when people have died for that right.

"I'm a lifelong registered Republican but I haven't always voted," she said Thursday during an event in Sacramento. "And I will provide no excuse for it. You know, people die for the right to vote. And there are many, many Californians and Americans who exercise that civic duty on a regular basis. I didn't. Shame on me."

Fiorina's frank assessment of her inconsistent past appears to be a campaign strategy to blunt potential criticism after Whitman found herself in the middle of a political firestorm over her poor voting record.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

It's not new, but it's newsy. There's a North Carolina program for younger sisters of teen mothers that pays these girls a dollar each day NOT to get pregnant. What a brilliant idea! And why aren't we doing that nationwide?

College Bound Sisters was launched to help protect teen girls in the highest-risk category from getting pregnant and dropping out of school. There are strict eligibility criteria as follows:

• Is between the ages of 12-16
• Has a sister who had a baby before age 18
• Has never been pregnant
• Wants to attend college
• Is willing to attend a 1.5 hour meeting each week at [the University of North Carolina-Greensboro]

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Tomorrow, two states, including my own, will elect governors. President Obama has campaigned for both Democratic candidates, and the question is whether his efforts will pay off for them. At least in Virginia, there's not much hope for Creigh Deeds. According to the Associated Press, even GOP experts agree that Tuesday's elections are hardly an Obama bellwether:

"It's a great overstatement to say this is a referendum on President Obama, but his policies have had a lot of effect on people's thinking," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governor's Association, told CNN on Sunday. "People are worried about jobs. ... Most Americans can't understand why the government keeps spending so much money. They don't see much effect from it."

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Health centers and clinics across the country began turning away people this week who came in search of the H1N1 or swine flu vaccine. A report from Bloomberg states:

From New York, where October deliveries fell short by 400,000 doses, to Dallas and Phoenix, which have postponed mass vaccinations, to San Francisco, where one family clinic is fielding 400 calls a day, local officials are being pressured by parents for swine flu vaccine as the death toll for children in the United States reached 95.

The flu threatened to blossom into an epidemic, as the government reported 95 deaths from H1N1 and 351 schools closed down nationwide, shutting out 126,000 students in 19 states—to prevent spread of the flu.

How the Obama administration handles this public health emergency could be key to its healthcare reform proposal. In a major blunder, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted that of the 80 million to 120 million doses it was promised this summer, just more than 23 million doses have been delivered.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

President Obama drew heat last week for a story that surfaced outing his private White House male-only b-ball games. The story was that even though two female members of his cabinet were members of their college basketball teams, they were excluded, as were all women, from this most private of male-only clubs. The story became a metaphor for how the president views women generally and threatened to reveal some inconvenient truths about the man.

Now we see reports that gender-insensitivity charges have resonated with the Obama White House. According to Politics Daily, the president dragged chief domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes to the golf course on Sunday, and she became the first female to join his golf foursome since he took office. The event produced a photo op of global proportions.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

It took tomes of online and on-air protests for Pepsi to remove its ridiculous iPhone "AMP" application, which is nothing more than a low-brow commercial for its highly caffeinated drink. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The soda company created an iPhone application called "AMP UP Before You Score"—aimed at helping men "score" with women—to promote its AMP energy drink.

The application provides pick-up lines and other charming tools to seduce a "wide" variety of female stereotypes—24 in total—including the bookworm, the cougar, the athlete and the women's studies major. It also has a "Brag" feature which encourages users to "include the name, date, and whatever details you remember" about successful hookups or failed conquests.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

Here's a perfect example of why it's important that the United States do more to stem violence against women in developing nations. CNN posted this story about debt-ridden Indian farmers "selling" their wives to the lenders to whom they have become beholden:

To survive the bad years, some farmers say they turn to the "Paisawalla"—Hindi for the rich man who lends money. Farmers say the loans from these unofficial lenders usually come with very high interest.

When the interest mounts up, lenders demand payment. Some farmers work as bonded laborers for a lifetime to pay off their debts. Others here say because of years of little rain and bad harvests they are forced to give money lenders whatever they ask for.

Sometimes that includes their wives.