Britney Spear's sister is pregnant at age 16

Okay, I don't really know who Britney Spears is. I know she's a singer who apparently does drugs and doesnt know how to care for her own children. (And I believe she's the one whom everyone castigated as being fat on a recent come-back performance in which she wore a halter top, to reveal a fine tummy beneath, just not "ripped" as if she'd been lifting weights. (Yes, I did see a photo of that and could only shake my head. Not that her performance was apparently so bad, but because people were calling this woman - who was not fat, fat.) She wasn't "toned," but she certainly was not fat!

But I suppose if you choose to wear a suggestively sexy outfit, and perform sexily suggestive moves on stage in front of thousands of drooling males, you have to expect being called fat if you don't look anorexic.

Anyway, the sister is 16. Apparently she is an actress, in some show called Zoey, and has been living alone, with her boyfriend, who is all of 19 (this with the blessings of her parents). I wonder what he does for a living? Hopefully he's an actor to and not just some pretty boy she picked up off a street corner.

On one hand, this is not necessarily a bad thing. As the star in a TV series, she makes a lot of money, and so giving birth to a child when she is a child herself, not to mention unwed, will not put her on the welfare rolls, as it does with the vast majority of girls who make this mistake. (Unless she exhibits the same amount of intelligence that she has up to this point, loses all her money in some stupid deals, is abandoned by her fans, and then has to go on welfare because she has no education and no smarts to do anything else.) Perhaps she will be smarter than her sister, and employ some full-time nannies who know something about raising children.

There's an article at yahoo.news in which people are sounding off about what parents will tell their own children about this news. Invariably, they all say that they will teach their child not to have sex until they're married.

Now, this is a good plan...unless the child doesn't intend to get married. There's no reason for a woman who doesn't want to get married to deprive herself of sex. The thing is - she should wait until she is emotionally and more importantly financially ready to have sex and cope with any aftermath!

Women - even unmarried women - have a "right" to have a baby, in my opinion, only if that baby will not be a burden on society. If the mother can't afford to have it and will thus be on welfare for the rest of her life, she should not have that kid. And the baby, being brought up on welfare and thinking it the most natural thing in the world, will be on welfare for the rest of its life! Sure, there are exceptions - don't get me wrong. I know that many women, and men, fight their way out of the poverty trap. But statistics show that most, don't.

I'm always sent into emotions combined of despair and anger whenever I read statistics about teenage pregnancy. Don't these girls have any ambition, any plans for the future? Unfortunately, the media has inculcated them since the day they were born that they are nothing if they are not attractive enough to get a man, and if they can't get a husband, well, at least they can get a baby to prove that some boy has thought them attractive enough to have sex with (never realizing that the boys aren't concerned with attractiveness, they're concerned with availability. As witness, the fact that the boy doesn't marry the girl once he's gotten her pregnant.)

Well...this is a bit of a rant. But on so many levels - from the status of women to the status of my tax dollars - I find the news about unwed mothers very sad and disturbing.

55 women pilots

I just received a set of playing cards from the International Women's Air & Space Museum. In the center of each card is a photo of a specific pilot, and a couple of lines of information about each one.

They're really cool, and you can get them from the shop at their website.

I'll be researching these pilots for articles at Winged Victory, but I'll share their names here as well.

• 1st 6 women astronauts: A Fisher, S. Lucid, J. Resnik, S. Ride, R. Seddon, K. Sullivan, chosen 1978
  
  
• Patricia Arnold- 1st woman in the world to own a helicopter, air race participant
  
  
• Pancho Barnes - Barnstormer, movie stunt pilot, winning air racer, Lockheed test pilot
  
• Berrnice Barris- CFII, commercial multi-engine land/sea safety instructor, air racer
  
• Jan Haviland Bartoo - Pennsylvania Central Airline DC-3, Cleveland Municiplal Airport, 1946
  
• Marta Bohn-Meyer- Only woman to fly the SR-71, Aerobatic champion, NASA engineer
  
• Caro Bayley Bosca - WASP. 1951-1st woman's aerobatic champion. Altitude record: 30,203 ft
  
  
• Myrtle "K" Cagle- One of the Mercury 13
  
• Jacquline Cochran- Supervised WASP 1942-1944, 1st woman to break the sound barrier
  
• Bessie Coleman- First African-American woman to earn her pilot's license in 1921, barnstormer
  
• Eileen Collins - 1st woman to pilot and command the space shuttle
  
  
• Arlene Davis - 1st woman to earn an M-4 rating, devoted to work with youth in aviation ( qualifying her to pilot multi-engine airplanes up to a gross weight of 10,000 pounds over land and sea; first private pilot, man or woman, to receive an instrument rating which qualified her to fly blind; first woman to receive the Veteran’s Pilot Award; first woman to receive the Elder Statesman of Aviation award.)
  
  
• Amelia Earhart- 1st woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, first president of the 99s
  
  
• Viola Gentry- Established a solo endurance flight record for women pilots
  
• Betty Huyler Gillies - one of the original 25 WAFs, Chairman of AWTAR 1953-1961
  Pauline Glasson - Founding member of the Air Race Classic, flight instructor
  
• Mayte Greco-Regan - "The Angel from Above"
  
  
• Mary Haizlip- Set women's speed record at 1932 Cleveland National Air Races
  
• Jean Hixson- WASP, COlonel in the Air Force reserves, one of the Mercury 13
  
• Joan Hrubec- Airplane modeler, 99 officer, IWASM trustee, air race pilot
  
• Margaret Hurlburt - WASP, Class 43-6, winner of the Halle Trophy Race in 1946
  
  
• Teddy Kenyon - Winner National Sportsman Champion 1933, Grumman Aircraft test pilot
  
  
• Irene Leverton- 63 years of flying - commuter, ferry, air ambulance, air Taxi, CAP, CFT
  
• Clara Livingston - Puerto Rico's first female aviator, Colonel in the Civil Air Patrol
  
• Nancy Harkness Love - organized and led the Women's Auxiliary Ferry squadron durong WWII
  
• Connie Luhta - President of IWASM, owner of Concord Air Park, air racer
  
  
• Kate Macario- "stalwart supporter of general aviation and the 99s for over 50 years"
  
  
• Bernetta Adams Miller- 3rd woman in the US to fly
  
• Jerrie Mock- First woman to fly solo around the world: March 19-April 17, 1964
  
  
• Ruth Nichols- Held records for altitude, speed and distance at the same time
  
  
• Harriet Quimby - 1st licensed female pilot in the US, 1st woman to solo the English channel
  
  
• Helen Richey - 1st woman in the US to obtain a commercial pilot's license
  
• Margaret Ringenberg WASP, 99, instructor, race pilot (2xs around world, Girlscanfly.net
  
  
• Louise Sacchi- Set world speed record in single-engine plane, NY to London - 1971 (2 cards)
  
• Blanche Stuart Scott - 1st US woman pilot, 1st woman test pilot, 1st woman passenger in jet
  
• Lauretta Schimmoler - Founder: Aerial nurse Corps of America, USAF #1 Honorary Flight Nurse
  
• Evelyn Sharp - Nebraska's Queen of the Air. Original WWII ferry pilot, WAFS/WASP
  
• Anne Shields- Ferry pilot, WASP, FSS Weather briefer
• Betty Skelton - International Feminine Aerobatic Champion 1948-1950
  
• Elinor Smith - Voted Best Woman pilot in the US in 1930, teenager demonstration pilot
  
• Bernice "B" Steadman- Past president - IWASM and 99s, one of the Mercury 13, avid air racer
  
• Katherine Stinson- "The Flying Schoolgirl." 1st woman to own and operate a flight school.
  
  
• Louise Thaden- First women to win the Bendix Transcontinental Air Race, 1936
  
• Nancy Hopkins Tier- IWASM President 1985-1996. 1st women colonel in the Civil Air PAtrol
  
• Virginia Thomas- Pilot and aviataion historian
  
  
• Mary von Mach - 1st woman to obtain pilot's license in MI, 1929 Air Race Pilot
  
  
• Fay Gillis Wells- Charter 99, White House correspondent, co-founder Forest of Friendship
  
• Irene Wirtschafter - "self-made woman loved to fly and gave back all she could"
  
• Connie Wolf- Set 3 ballooning records in 1 flight: endurance, distance and altitude
  
• Katharine Wright - "Third member of the Wright Team"
  

Girls need flight plans, not fairy tales

I've been surfing the web, in the course of compiling index pages for musems featuring women in aviation, organizations of women pilots, magazines and webzines devoted to women pilots, etc.

Today, came across Girls with Wings. And I love their motto: Girls need flight plans, not fairy tales

Check out the site at http://www.girlswithwings.com/index.html.

We use aviation to entertain and educate girls about
their limitless opportunities for personal growth.

Pakistani women pilots

This is a Youtube video showing four female Pakistani pilots getting their wings. Because Pakistan is a Muslim country, it's interesting - sad and depressing at times - to read the "Members comments" to this video at Youtube. This world isn't going to get anywhere with 1/2 the population confined to their homes by the other half - which is what fundamental Muslims want. (And fundamentalist Christians as well, seems like! But at least they don't go around murdering people who dare to teach women how to read...)

These women --Saba Khan, Nadia Gul, Mariam Khalil and Saira Batool -- are heroines - it took great courage for them to become pilots...and it will take great courage for them to continue to be pilots. Let's not forget that even the WASP found some of their planes sabotaged during WWII because the women were putting men out of jobs...