Internet Break Two

At left, Bachelor's buttons on the Swamp Rabbit Trail.






Going to the coast! And doesn't that make me sound just SO RICH?! Actually, the coast is within driving distance, or we'd go somewhere else.

And so, I am hereby leaving you with the most recent online scandal du jour: Atheist author/spokesdaddy Richard Dawkins decides child sexual abuse is no biggie. Suck it up you whiny tittybabies, and stop your sobbing! (To their credit, other atheists have wasted no time in condemning this most recent nonsense.)

For those who missed Dawkins' last Twitter tantrum, trashing (nah, go on) Muslims, the details are here. (Another good account HERE.)

~*~

:: Also, check out Lynda Barry's "20 Stages of Reading" comic, which is perfect and priceless.

:: In this heartbreaking clip, a baby elephant cried for five hours after his own mother attacked and abandoned him at a zoo in China. :(

And no, I simply couldn't leave you with anything so sad (sniff)... so I am hereby signing off with a tried-and-true monthly dose of cute. This video has well over 54 million views on YouTube!

Yes, it really does deliver on the cute front:

Talking cats



See you all when I get back! (kisses)

Radio radio - update from the airwaves!

At left: Efia Nwangaza at the Multicultural Festival on June 27th.


Local Occupier, powerhouse Civil Rights attorney and director of the Malcolm X Center for Self Determination, Efia was on our July 4th radio show -- #Restorethe4th -- wherein we discussed reclaiming the 4th Amendment.





Efia was also on yesterday's show, greatly assisting us in our interview with Ralph Poynter, spouse of activist lawyer Lynne Stewart, who is suffering from advanced-stage cancer and currently seeking compassionate release from federal prison. There are two national support rallies for Lynne today (in New York City and Los Angeles) and one on Friday (in Washington, DC); please go to LynneStewart.org to sign the petition and learn more about her case. There are names and numbers to call, and much work to do.

We thank Ralph for being on our show and laying out the case so well.

Today: Bradley Manning, Ariel Castro, force-feeding Muslims during Ramadan at Guantanamo, and other timely topics on OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE, live at five!

Broadcasting from McAlister Square in Greenville, to all points of upstate South Carolina, all the way to Gaffney. Live streaming available at WOLI AM, so give us a listen.

Got links?

At left: a very colorful Page of Cups.



Lots of great reading out there, and I can barely keep up.

Here's a sampler of goodies you may have missed:

[] Arkansas Republican endorses death penalty for children (Raw Story) In case you wonder, candidate Charlie Fuqua got this straight from Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

So if you disagree, talk to God about it, okay?

[] Woo hoo, it's Conspiracy Theory time! Elections bring them out of the woodwork as little else does. AlterNet gives us 10 Conspiracy Theories Hatched by Conservative Fearmongers As Election Day Nears, which is entertaining enough that I hope to cover a couple of these on my upcoming radio show.

As a South Carolina Green Party member in good standing, my hands-down favorite is "The Green Plot to enslave the world":

Agenda 21, a little known and non-binding resolution adopted by the United Nations, is viewed by some on the right as an attempt to control the lives of people throughout the world by regulating everything they do. Amongst their paranoid fears is that Agenda 21 will cede U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. and a one-world government. The truth is that Agenda 21 is a set of principles to guide the development of practices to preserve a sustainable environment for future generations. It is entirely voluntary and was agreed to by the U.N. in 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush.

But to hear doomsayers like Glenn Beck put it, it will “suck all the blood out of [our communities], and we will not be able to survive.”

[] My friend JW finally had the daughter I foretold for her and her partner in their Tarot readings. Alright! Our hearty Deadhead congratulations go out to both of them, as well as lovely big sister LM (whom regular DEAD AIR readers may recall from THIS photo).

To celebrate, a look back at JW's reading, as well as a popular piece I wrote about the Tarot titled, How I learned to stop worrying and love the Tarot.

In addition, here is South Carolina Boy's post about my reading of his cards.

[] Anti-Muslim subway ads that sparked anger in New York are now popping up in D.C. (Huffington Post)

The ads, paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, are supposed to be posted in the U Street, Georgia Avenue, Takoma and Glenmont stations for one month.

The ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." They have been widely condemned as promoting Islamophobia.

[] Interesting piece titled Nerds and Male Privilege comes directly on the heels of Annalee Newitz's controversial The Great Geek Sexism Debate. BE INFORMED!

[] A heated exchange about disability and abortion starts with Disability, Prenatal Testing and the Case for a Moral, Compassionate Abortion, which brings an angry response from Tiger Beatdown: Lives worth living: Disability, abortion, and slipshod ethics (comments also mandatory reading). Response/Part II: Disability and Abortion, Part Two: Individual moral choices are not categorical imperatives.

Caution: Very heavy, emotionally-wrenching stuff, but it's what we all ought to be thinking about, as science marches on and genetic testing becomes increasingly commonplace and culturally accepted.

[] Historic Number of Women on Ballots Could Lead to Historic Year for Female Lawmakers (Reality Check) Thanks to my California-droog Barbara! (kiss)

Along these same lines, check out some FEMINIST HALLOWEEN COSTUMES!

[] In further election news, our embarrassing Teabagger Senator, Jim DeMint, has decided to join Rick Santorum in backing Todd Akin for Senate in Missouri. I do find it interesting that Chris Christie wants no part of Akin, and has cut him loose.

Translation: Obviously, Christie has his eye on the proverbial Big Tent (higher office), while DeMint is intent on consolidating his power and influence on the right.

[] No list of links is complete without Glenn Greenwald. I especially recommend last month's one-two punch, CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news (subtitled: The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial)... and Conservatives, Democrats and the convenience of denouncing free speech (subtitled: Westerners love to decry censorship aimed at them by Muslims while ignoring the extreme censorship they impose on them). Both from the UK Guardian, and required reading for newshounds.

[] And finally, your long-overdue dose of cute: Panda mama nurses her little baby pandas. AIYEEE! SQUEEE!!! (((dead from cuteness)))

Non-muslim feminists face off over the veil

Natalia Antonova writes astutely about the recent "debate" over the hijab in Salon.

I put "debate" in quotes, since it isn't recent and isn't a debate, more of an ongoing, convoluted ideological brawl.

Okay, so two well-known Jewish feminists dueling over the hijab have been given ample coverage in a well-trafficked lefty space... during Ramadan? Oh dear God. (Pardon expression.) I was cringing already, before I clicked on Natalia's link.

Who decides on these things? Where is the Muslim feminist? (I actually met one on my JOB here in conservative South Carolina, so I do know they exist.) Were they afraid a Muslim feminist would not be able to comment intelligently on her own culture and religion? Or were they going for the famous feminist "names"? In this corner, Naomi Wolf, and in this corner, Phyllis Chesler!

Predictably, this is cast as a cool, multicultural Third-Waver vs old-fogie Second-Waver, although plenty of Second-Wavers (including me) have harshly criticized Chesler's unending anti-Islamic jihad. (And her comments quoted in Salon must be read in that context. Below, I have linked her own blog, so that you can judge for yourself.)

Natalia, who has lived in Islamic countries, comments:

On one hand, I think Islam (at least classically speaking) is more more tolerant of the human body than, say, Christianity (being at least a nominal Christian myself, I do often think about this divide). Yet you can’t deny that not all aspects of veiling or purdah are all about celebrating family [as Wolf claimed], some of them are there to celebrate prudishness, sexual anxiety, dehumanization of women, gender apartheid, and The Grand Tournament of Punishing Sluts. Who are sluts? Well, any women who don’t fit into whatever arbitrary standard of what is “appropriate” out on the street today. Something tells me that Wolf has never overheard, say, a clutch of women loudly discussing another for looking like a “slut” because her hijab does not cover her eyebrows. Maybe she will one day, and a dash of actual complexity will be introduced to her further writings on the subject.

Salon writer Tracy Clark-Flory correctly reports that Chesler tends to freak out about the idea that the veil could be anything but oppressive:

Chesler is horrified by Wolf's argument and doesn't pull any punches in a blog response titled "The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice?" It bears the taunting subhead: "Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy." Chesler hyperbolizes Wolf's argument, suggesting that she sees women in chadors as "feminist ninja warriors" and "believes that the marital sex is hotter when women 'cover' and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands."

She goes on to contend that "most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families" and asks whether Wolf is so "thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects." (Never mind that Wolf is talking specifically about the experiences of women she encountered in Morocco, Jordan and Egypt, as well as those of women in France and Britain, where there is great political resistance to Muslim dress.) This caused Wolf to e-mail Chesler to ask that she correct "terrible inaccuracies" in the post. Chesler hit back, posting Wolf's e-mail along with a hostile response; yesterday, she posted a related item with the subhead, "The Hundred Year War Begins."

It's always a very nasty, immoral act to publish someone's email. To me, a pretty LOW thing to do. Chesler takes the LOW ROAD, then. Automatically. And she brought her crew, too! That famous radical feminist David Horowitz has jumped into the fray. (Caution, extremely unpleasant and noxious link.) And Chesler responds to the Salon piece, angry, of course. (And we wonder why Second-Wavers have such bad reputations?)

[EDIT ADDED 9/10/09: Reader Histfan upbraids me and maintains that Wolf gave Chesler permission to publish the email, although on my first reading, this was not evident. Wolf's words on page 2 of the Chesler post: "You are welcome to reprint this letter on your website, actually please do, I don’t know how to do so." I have issues with this, since of course she knows how to do so, it's called leaving a comment on a blog, and even I have managed to learn how to do that... so I dunno the reason for Wolf's sudden net-ignorance? But I have added this for clarification and correction.]

Sometimes, you just can't think of anything to say. Natalia does, thankfully:

Of course, I agree with Wolf about the aspect of choice. I don’t care what Phyllis Chesler, or anyone else, feels about the veil, the burkini, the hot-pink catsuit I saw a woman wear on the bus today… You don’t get to tell anyone how to farking dress. I don’t care what you may think their reasons for dressing this or that way are.

Amen! I am so tired of women policing each other!

And it comes back to that. I am often "offended" by the clothes I see both women and men wear every day. So? They didn't ask me before they put them on, and it is none of my business. Conversely, they can keep their mouths shut if they don't like what I am wearing.

But Natalia also describes the experience of women "on the ground"--so to speak. She doesn't quite accuse Wolf of "slumming"--but comes very close:

Chesler does, however, have a point when she says that the Muslim world can be just as “debauched” as anything you’d ever see in the West; people just hide that sort of thing better, they don’t flaunt it, it’s all very surreptitious, but it happens. Closed societies deal with repression in all sorts of colourful ways. Considering the amount of so-called Muslim men that regularly tried to solicit sex from me while I was in Jordan, I just don’t buy Wolf’s insistence that society is somehow purer and human interaction is less explotative when most of the women are veiled. I found Wolf’s own wearing of shalwar kameez and headscarf in Morocco to be touching. Personally, I’ve worn the veil to escape sexual harassment, and no, it was not a “calming” or “serene” experience, it was an “oh crap, now I get to pretend to be someone else just for a scrap of respect around here” kind of experience.

I don’t like Chesler’s blanket, baiting statements about Islam, especially as Islam does often get confused with culture, but I’m not going to sit here and say that trying to pass as a Muslim for fear of something genuinely bad happening to me was a bit of wonderful cultural exchange I’d gush to my friends about. It would be as silly as expecting a woman who is, say, forced to take off her headscarf for fear of Islamophobic attacks to gush about it as well. I don’t mean to say that Wolf has no right to frame her experience as she sees fit – hey, I’m glad she enjoyed, I wish I could have felt the same, if only for a moment or two – but I do hope she at least realizes that when she says “choice is everything” she has to apply that to her own situation as well, and perhaps realize that choice can have a bit of a gray, fuzzy area around it.

Indeed. Within patriarchy, we only have limited choices, and make our lives within the boundaries we know. We all do. And that awareness is a global radical feminist awareness, not demonizing the evillll Muslims as the "worst of the worst," but as a particular manifestation of patriarchy.

But we are groping for these truths. Because we are not Muslim and in a very real sense, we have to admit that on a religious level, we don't know what we are talking about.

I'll end with Natalia's incisive wind-up, because I can't improve on it:

The publicity must be pretty good for both Wolf and Chesler right about now (and awww, look, isn’t it sweet? They both agree that porn is ba-yud), but if I was a Muslim woman watching all of this, I’d probably feel as though I was in a room full of people who were telling me to be quiet when the adults are talking.

And with that, I wish a prayerful Ramadan to my Muslim readers.

What I feel, I can't say, but my love is there for you anytime of day...

The Greatest Beatle of them all. From Dark Horse: The Life And Art Of George Harrison by Geoffrey Giuliano.



I think I first realized it when reading Dark Horse, the biography of my favorite Beatle. The quiet one, the spiritual one.

And on an internet message board some time ago, during the time I was reading the book, someone announced (yes, you know the drill) Christianity Uber Alles and as proof, offered the pop-culture "facts" that the Beatles and Elvis were Christian, at least until John met that awful woman. [1] I wasted no time in jumping on it: Excuse me, but George was no Christian! HANDS OFF GEORGE.

The response: Show me where George officially converted!

And of course, I could have Googled my little heart out and not found a thing... Hinduism is not like Christianity. They do not dip you in water and then announce you are one of them. They just don't do it like that. George spent considerable time in India; learned to play their holy instruments; did whatever various gurus told him to do; financed English translations of the Bhagavad Gita and named his son Dhani. Isn't that enough for you?

No, not for this guy. And I suddenly realized that our world has been MARKED by the presence of the two major religions, Islam and Christianity, the religions that commanded their followers to make believers of all nations.

The Majors, in competition with each other, have very precise rituals for conversion. It starts with an altar call, the announcement: I am a Christian, I am a Muslim. It's on the record. And then, more rituals, classes, education. In Christianity, baptism, and in Catholicism, Lutheranism, Orthodoxy, there is also Confirmation, known as Receiving the Holy Spirit. All of these rituals leave a mark on the convert, as they do on those raised in the faith: you have crossed over. You have been accepted into a tribe; you are one of us.

On Easter, lots of new folks come into the Catholic Church; it's one of the main draws of the long Easter Vigil Mass, in fact... we can watch the faces of the people as they are baptized: some are so pensive and introspective and some are in tears of ecstasy. Some are looking at wives, husbands, moms and dads: I hope this pleases you, because this is embarrassing. The variety of faces reflect all manner of religious experience. I always pick the faces that look happiest, and afterwards, I welcome them personally into the Church. Thus, I am also part of the ritual, if I choose to be.

Other religions do not do this. Therefore, being the Majors, we can judge the conversion not to have really happened. We apply our standards, our measuring sticks, and then find them lacking. Where is the baptism? Did you ANNOUNCE yourself somewhere? Where are the official records?

They don't do it that way. WE do it that way.

Unfortunately, the lack of officialdom, like a lack of borders, can lead to trouble and weirdness. It can lead to appropriation.

And yes, I realize that Islam and Christianity, as The Majors, are appropriated all the time. Rather than see Christmas as Christianity encroaching on secularism, for instance, I tend to see it as the secular world stealing our cool shit. (Hey, Santa Claus was St Nicholas of Myra, goddammit, leave him alone.) When you have all classes of rock bands singing SILENT NIGHT, all you can do is shake your head in amazement. But when you are one of The Majors, you can endure that. In fact, it is just more proof of how BIG you really are. They have Santa Claus in Japanese store windows, now, take that! (Are we #1 or what?)

In the end, Christmas trees and bad carols notwithstanding, the question, the BORDERS, stay constant: ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN? There is only one answer to that. You can modify it any number of ways (and Lord knows, I love my modifiers), but in the end, there is only one answer. There is a BORDER, and there it is: Yes or no?

Again, other religions may not have the brightly-drawn borders; the yesses and nos are not in stark relief.

That means, the stealing is not as well-understood. How can it be stealing if they are giving it away? They do not do it like we do, after all... they don't have a ritual demarcating one's entrance. You can enter and exit at will, any time you want.

And so, people do.

~*~

Daniel Pinchbeck, photo from Sounds True.




All of this came to mind as I read Reality Sandwich, new to my blogroll. I've heard Daniel Pinchbeck's CDs regarding 2012, much of which is also in his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. My first thought, after so much discussion and teeth-gnashing throughout Feminist/Lefty Blogdonia: Should he be doing that? Does the shamanic tradition properly belong to him? Is he stealing?

Much of Pinchbeck's work is about psychedelics and spirituality, which we could rightly claim is the recorded tradition of another tribe altogether, a tribe with a recognized pedigree, in which he does belong: hippies. (Pinchbeck's mother was Joyce Johnson, paramour of Jack Kerouac.) But there is a particular way that hippies approached enlightenment, and that is not necessarily the way Native Americans did, even if the mescalito is the same.

From the blurb on Pinchbeck's recent CD, titled Emergence 2012: The Soundtrack for Global Evolution:

Take a musical journey into the lush soundscapes of the 2012 phenomenon with Emergence 2012. Inspired by Baktuns—or cycles of the classical Mayan calendar—this mind-bending music infuses psychoacoustic rhythms with the chants of ayahuasca shamans and natural harmonics found deep within the forests of South America. Created by sound healing visionary Alex Theory and Daniel Pinchbeck, bestselling author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

And now we come full circle, to that place where hippies encroached on Native American religion, as well as Eastern religions.

Or did they?

What if they feel they were directly asked by [fill in words for God here]? What if, in fact, this is The Truth? Does the religious activity still qualify as "encroachment"--or is this the end result of an exhaustive spiritual journey? Is it cultural appropriation and imperialism if one BELIEVES THEY HAVE FOUND THE TRUTH?

I don't think it is.

This is not appropriation, any more than learning another language is. I think it is endorsing another spiritual truth. It is LEAVING The Majors, for something one finds more suitable and real.

But I'll be honest: I get unaccountably nervous when I hear hippies employing ancient chants that were never theirs.

And then AGAIN: If white hippies with education and privilege announce that something is genuine and true, isn't that something of a revolutionary endorsement? This is the real thing, not what I was taught by my own culture--is a pretty powerful statement. (Maybe THE most powerful statement.)

Where does appropriation start, when we talk about religions? Because they are not simply cultural, they are accounts of life, creation, consciousness, truth and morality. They are VERSIONS of how we approach the divine.

Can we rightly say this is stolen, when it is being endorsed as the Truth, above and beyond The Majors?

What do you think?

~*~


[1] If you haven't read Cara's fabulous several-part series on racism, sexism and Yoko Ono, go over there RIGHT NOW and read the WHOLE THING. Great analysis.

[2] The title of this post is from the first lines of my favorite George Harrison song, What is Life? (And yes, I realize it was produced by Phil Spector, subject of much fulminating here at DEAD AIR.) Embedding has been disabled, she sighed once again...

The song was also employed to excellent advantage in the DEAD AIR favorite GOODFELLAS, which I also intend to blog about one of these days.

They do it over there, but we don't do it here...

According to my recent stats, we are practically back to START, boys and girls. Ain't nobody reading. (But if you are, HI!) I figure this means I can post whatever I want, such as (see left) photos of myself selling important books about fiber diets, taken by my co-worker's brand new iphone.

I think I have earned a bad reputation in lefty/feminist Blogdonia: argumentative; always defending Jesus, Krishna and All Their Friends; not fully understanding why the people from good homes are talking this year.* (And last year, and next year, too.)

I am trying to formulate some ideas/theories about CLASS in Blogdonia. Being working class or coming from poor people, etc...how do we fit in? Well, that's just it. We don't. We are embarrassing. We uncomfortably remind the so-called progressives that their references to chi-chi vacations, private preschools and hoity-toity colleges, summer homes, pricey co-op apartments, frou-frou dinner parties, et. al. just JUMP RIGHT OUT AT US while reading blog posts. (Damn, I wish they didn't, but they just do.)

I am reminded of Roy Clark on The Beverly Hillbillies, the poor, dumb relations from back home who bother everybody, till we do some sort of minstrel act, some kind of savant show: Hey, we got talent, we know a few things!

In short, we are intimidated and do not belong. And they very much want us to go away, which is probably the reason I don't; I'm awfully stubborn. (Four different Virgos in my astrological chart! Just try and make me!) But certain big blogs have all but banished me/us, jumping on working class comments with aplomb; correcting, cajoling, intimidating. This reads: Who the hell are you, and what the fuck are you doing here?

Add AGE to the mix, and well, you get the idea.

In the past couple of weeks, I have commented on blogs in which the Original Poster was careful to thank EVERY PARTICIPANT BUT ME for their opinion. (I mean, come on, do you have to be so damned obvious about it?) Direct questions ignored, in favor of dialogue sought with young, stupid punks. Well, okay. I get it. If I knew the hip lingo, the cool shit to say, if I knew the right brand names and the right schools, maybe they'd thank me too.

But I won't hold my breath.

I mean, I was long-ago run off the cool-kids sooper-seekrit email list (see last post for my opinion about those) for using politically-incorrect language, so this is just more of the same. Thing is, as in the last instance, I dunno exactly what I am saying that is so wrong, and nobody will tell me. You are just supposed to KNOW. That is part of being the right kind of person, the right class and age.

Meanwhile (punch line) they all blabber on about diversity and inclusion. While the average participants of their blogs are all 20 years younger than me, have college degrees, etc. Yes, real diverse!

I try very hard to erase difference when posting on other blogs... I edit several times, I go through and take out simple words and insert longer, educated-sounding ones. (they are far easier on those posts, I've noticed) I don't think it matters, in the end: WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE. And I've been placed on moderation on several of my favorite blogs... and I don't even cuss usually, while other people are effing all over the place. Huh? (Is it more than cuss words? Then what is it?)

What to do? Quit blogging? They wouldn't miss us at all; that is exactly what they want us to do. They want Blogdonia to themselves, the way they run everything else. Well, maybe it makes no difference then. They run things, always have, and we only have the illusion of being part of what they have crafted for themselves.

Try to engage? And get either ignored or singled out in embarrassing ways?

I have no idea.

Opening the floor for discussion, and all 4 of my present readers can respond!

~*~

I missed some stuff in my rather hurried post yesterday, and wanted to add some links:

Talk radio guru Trevor Carey of Colorado's KNUS, made some really ferocious comments on his show, condoning violence against transgendered people, since they have supposedly "committed fraud." This is pretty gross.

I have emailed everybody in protest, and so should you. He really deserves to lose his job, not simply "disavow comments"--but I realize this is TALK RADIO and that is quite unlikely to happen.

But it should.

The idea that transgendered people are "committing fraud" is just, well, good God, do you think you have the right to know everything about a person? If a cisgendered woman seduces you, and you get home and discover she only has one breast, has she committed FRAUD by not sharing that with you until you are in an intimate setting? Not hardly. That is called DECENCY AND MODESTY, asshole. (Not that I would expect a talk-radio maven to comprehend that.)

You can download the Feminist Quran at Irshad Manji's website!

Chinese parliament has just passed a law making celebrities who endorse products LIABLE, if the product is questionable and/or harmful. Not a bad idea AT ALL, and since I hear about celebrities who pontificate about products every single day (yes, Oprah, I'm lookin at you)--I wouldn't mind if the USA had such a law, too.

Maybe then the glut of celebrity-infomercials would finally come to a grinding (and very welcome) halt.

~*~

*The title of this post is from David Bowie's "Fashion"--which of course, has all embedding disabled and I can't post it here. It is linked in the second paragraph.

The lyrics--

Listen to me (don't listen to me)
Talk to me (don't talk to me)
Dance with me (don't dance with me)
No

...just reminds me so much of Blogdonia...

Dead Air Church: All the children are insane

AP photo of child in Gaza.




All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain

--The Doors, The End.




~*~


For Dead Air Church this week, we hang our heads in shame. We beg for mercy and forgiveness from almighty God, for any part we have had in this horror.

And we have had done plenty.

We are footing the bill, for one thing.

And in our ignorance and guilt, we have made the whole thing "equal": those rowdy folks just need to behave and learn to get along. They are all at fault.

If I've heard this tired old platitude once in the past few days, I've heard it a dozen times: Those people just can't get along over there. They've always fought, the conversation concludes, sometimes accompanied with a dismissive shrug.

Little Light writes:

That's part of the trouble--I always bought into just enough of the propaganda that I could shake my head and say, well, it's just so sad. It's just a shame. If only the cycle of violence could stop. If only they'd put down those weapons. Hey, you kids, you two, knock it off. The stories I listened to only worked if I put away the numbers, put away the proportions.

Yes, that is exactly the word I have been looking for: proportions.

The sides are not equal.

This isn't two wayward children quarreling, this is one much larger child, stomping all over a tiny one.

From Shiraz Socialist:

Israel’s assault on Gaza is undoubtably ‘disproportionate’ in at least two closely related ways. Firstly, of course, Israel’s massive and sophisticated military machine is in a completely different league to Hamas and its home-made Qassam rockets. Secondly, the casualty figures speak for themselves: 4 Israelis killed so far, compared to 400 Palestinians.

There is simply no denying these self-evident facts, which make a mockery of any attempt to portray the Gaza conflict as an even-handed battle between two evenly matched sides...

Who benefits from continuing to view the conflict this way?

Little Light continues:

But, you keep saying, those Gazans are harboring Hamas, hiding terrorists among them! Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, with a million people who are not allowed to leave and have nowhere to run. And they deserve death if their apartment--if they still have one--is within shrapnel range of some guy who works for Hamas or his office or the school he went to? If their neighborhood mosque has a couple members who own a gun? If they have the audacity to be on the street trying to feed their families? They're not harboring anyone. They're pressed up against them in prison.

But, but, they voted for Hamas. Tell me what you would do! Tell me! Who do you believe, who do you listen to, who do you rely on? You are walled into a prison with guns pointed at you all the time. Food is not allowed in, fuel is not allowed in, medical supplies are not allowed in. You lose count of family members violently dead or maimed. Your schools and hospitals and places of worship are destroyed, your neighborhood is full of rubble with few buildings intact, and you cannot expect to live to thirty. And you don't know any of the people on the other side of that wall.

Who do you listen to as a reliable source? The guys with the guns pointed at you, who took the food away and tell you you deserve to have nothing, but who the outside world tells you are decent folks acting justly? Or the people you're told are evil scumbags, but who provide you food, medicine, a little pride, a little order, and the promise to fight for you? Who among you, looking at your hungry, sick child, is going to listen to the person telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to care for them over the person handing you bread and antibiotics and a little civil infrastructure? Do you listen to the asshole who gives you food, or the asshole who takes it away? When you have nothing, no dignity, no hope, when you've got nothing to lose, who do you listen to? What do you think you would do differently?

I can't imagine what I would do; my home gone, my land destroyed, my very limited hopes and dreams reduced to rubble.

As Neil Clark writes:

...ponder these words of Israeli's Foreign Minister Tzipni Livni, in her address to The Knesset:

The true conflict is between the extremist elements and the moderates in the region.

Well, I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I don’t think 'moderates' bomb a crowded place of worship and kill 12 people at prayer, do you?

No, I don't.

The Political Cat writes:

One — this one, anyway — can't help wondering what the fuck is going on in Gaza this week. Why is Israel bombing, shooting, and sending the sixth largest and best equipped army in the world into Gaza, the refuge of 1.3 million Palestinians, most of whom are unarmed civilians? Some 400,000 of that population lives in refugee camps funded by the UN.

Israel has bombed the power plants, water and sewage treatment facilities, and restricted movement in and out of Gaza which has essentially become the world's largest standing concentration camp. Why? What is this about? And why is Israel getting away with this starkly inhumane treatment?

Why, indeed?

As I wrote a couple of days ago (about To Kill a Mockingbird), during the time I was contemplating writing this piece: When people are powerless, this is what happens. They learn to seize what they have, and use it as a bludgeon, as it has been used against them.

People throughout the world have granted Israel a pass because of what was once done to them.

Palestinians mourn the death of 10-year-old Noran Deeb, who died of a bullet wound Monday at her school in Gaza, photo from MSNBC.


The Vatican has condemned these attacks, but many Christians in the USA, both Catholic and Protestant, have been supportive. My question: Where are the lefty atheists and agnostics who continuously condemn theocracy? Apparently, Israel is the only theocracy they don't question, busy as they are worrying over Mike Huckabee at home.

Why this roaring silence, except for the ongoing news reports of unbridled mayhem, death and destruction.

Greg Mitchell writes:

After more than eight days of Israeli bombing and Hamas rocket launching in Gaza, most notably, The New York Times had produced exactly one editorial, not a single commentary by any of its columnists, and only one op-ed (twice the normal length and favoring Israel's bombing). The editorial, several days ago, did argue against the wisdom of a ground invasion - - but even though that invasion had become ever more likely all week the paper did not return to this subject.

Amazingly, the paper has kept that silence going in Sunday's paper, with no editorial or columnist comment on the Israeli invasion.

The invasion, to no one's surprise, did begin on Saturday -- so any further criticism will now come too late. As in the past, U.S. media coverage and commentary has overwhelmingly backed the Israeli actions (as it did in the Lebanon war in 2006, which turned into a fiasco).

On Friday, Amnesty International condemned the U.S. response to the "disproportionate" Israeli bombing of Gaza -- with largely U.S. weapons. Some of it amounts to U.S.-backed "human rights abuses," it charged.

The group recalled that the U.S. supplied most of the millions of cluster bombs dropped by Israel in the Lebanon war in 2006.

"Amnesty International USA is particularly dismayed at the lopsided response by the U.S. government to the recent violence and its lackadaisical efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza," the group told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the letter, which was released to the media.

For me, "particularly dismayed" is putting it lightly. I am totally stunned by this barbarism.

And let us call it WHAT IT IS: BARBARISM. MASSACRE. And as Little Light reminds us:

This is being done in my name, by a state that says that anyone who questions its actions is an anti-Semite--that anyone who finds their state actions unacceptable is threatening me. It's funded with the taxes I pay to my own government, on the other side of the world. This is being done to the families of people I love. When it was my ancestors, fighting back and sometimes doing awful things in the Warsaw Ghetto, at Masada, it wasn't "terrorism," it was self-preservation. I just celebrated a holiday commemorating an outnumbered, outgunned guerrilla war against an overwhelmingly-better-armed occupier who said, hey, look, don't mind our elephants, just put your slingshot down and we'll stop setting everything on fire. We don't call Judah Maccabee a terrorist, either, but what's the difference? Tell me the difference. Because this is genocide. This is genocide in my name, in the name of a people who have always considered ourselves underdogs and who, in this one place and time, suddenly have the overwhelmingly upper hand. How have we not learned better?

(You must go and read it all.)

And on this January 4th, the Feast Day of St Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint, we earnestly pray that the American people, as well as people all over the world, will see the light and demand an end to this brutal carnage. We pray for peace and for forgiveness.

And we recall Mother Seton's simple prayer:

If I am right Thy grace impart still in the right to stay.
If I am wrong Oh, teach my heart to find the better way.

~*~


EDITED TO ADD:

Links to Israeli and Jewish voices opposing Israel’s attacks on Gaza (Alas, a Blog)

The View From Tel Aviv and Israel in Gaza: Irrationality (The Nation)

Once More, With Feeling (Modern Mitzvot)

Local Grandmother Claims Doll Says 'Islam Is Light'

At Left: An innocent doll? Or an agent of Islamofascism? You decide! (photo credit from Mattel)


~*~


Think you've heard it all? Guess again!


Woman Hears Hidden Message From Granddaughter's Doll

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- An Upstate grandmother said on Friday that there's a hidden message coming from a baby doll she bought recently.

At first the baby giggles and says the word "mama."

But at the end, Ann Ward said she swears she can hear the words, "Islam is the Light."

While she has no problem with religions different from her own, she said she doesn't want her 14-month-old granddaughter saying something they don't believe.

Ward said it's not unusual for her to spoil her only granddaughter. The child even has her own room in Ward's house.

"This is her little play stuff that she plays with," Ward said of her granddaughter's toys.

So Ward said, when she saw the doll, she couldn't resist buying it.

"I would hope this would be a doll that she would want to carry," she said.

Built with a motion sensor, the Little Mommy Cuddle 'N Coo doll makes noises when something moves near it.

Sometimes it coos, but Ward said she started hearing something else.

"My theory is that it's saying, 'Islam is the Light,'" Ward said.

She said she couldn't believe what she was hearing, so she listened to it over and over again before taking it to work for another opinion.

"When I got that many opinions and everybody's saying they're hearing the same thing, then that's when I'm thinking I don't want her to have the doll," Ward said.

Mattel makes the doll. In a statement, Mattel said, "The only scripted word the doll says is 'mama.' To avoid any potential misinterpretation, we have eliminated that segment of the sound file from future production."

Ward said she plans to bring her doll back to the store.

"I don't want her saying the first doll she got was saying something we don't agree with," Ward said.

When the time comes, Ward said she wants to teach her granddaughter about other religions, but she doesn't want that lesson learned from a doll.

Mattel said anyone with questions or concerns about the doll can call their consumer relations center.

Note: The accompanying WYFF video can't be beat. (This will only be available for a short period; go to linked video page and choose story from the indexed selections.)

Halloween really brings them out of the woodwork, yes?

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Listening to: The Volebeats - Radio Flyer
via FoxyTunes

Supreme Court issues stay of execution for Freddie Owens

Freddie Eugene Owens, from the Greenville News.


~*~

Supreme Court issues stay of execution for Freddie Owens

By Dan Hoover • STAFF WRITER • October 1, 2008

Two-time killer Freddie Eugene Owens has received an indefinite stay of his scheduled Friday execution from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. signed the order Tuesday afternoon.

Roberts ordered the stay to allow the Greenville man’s attorney time to raise constitutional issues to the high court dealing with his death sentence stemming from a 1997 robbery-murder on Laurens Road.

In his order, Roberts wrote that should Owens’ petition for a writ of certiorari be denied by the justices, the stay would automatically terminate. That would clear the way for the state Supreme Court to set another execution date. A writ of certiorari requests the Supreme Court to review a decision by a lower court.

John Blume, a Cornell University law professor and death penalty opponent, filed the appeal. Blume is a former executive director of the South Carolina Death Penalty Project. He heads a similar program at Cornell.

The appeal that was filed Sept. 24 raises three issues from the penalty phase of Owens’ trial that will be included in a writ of certiorari that will be filed with the state Supreme Court. They center on the trial judge’s admission of records dealing with Owens’ behavior in prison.

Blume contended in the appeal that without the stay, "Mr. Owens will not have adequate time to properly prepare and file a writ ... in which to raise these constitutional claims."

South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster opposes Owens request for a stay. The order gives Owens’ attorney until November 6 of this year, to file an appeal to the US Supreme Court. Owens (age 30), was sentenced to death by lethal injection at 6 pm on Friday, September 26, 2008, for the 1997 murder of local convenience-store worker Irene Grainger Graves. He killed fellow inmate Christopher Bryan Lee in 1999, the same day he was convicted for killing Graves (see account below). He has not been charged for that crime, pending outcome of his appeal.

According to all accounts, Owens has been sentenced to death no less than three times for the Graves’ shooting. The recent sentence, delivered in 2006, was unanimously upheld by the state Supreme Court on July 14, 2008. The two previous sentences were voided due to judges' errors.

Freddie Eugene Owens was born to a poor teenage mother and grew up in and out of foster care. Violence was the way:

As a target for neighborhood bullies, Owens often found himself being chased to and from school.

At age 6, his stepfather told Owens that he would no longer be allowed in the house if he planned to use it as a refuge from the bigger neighborhood kids.

If Freddie wanted to enter his own home, he had to fight his way in and fight his way out.

Freddie Owens learned to fight.

Role models in Owens' home were scarce. The new stepfather carried on the family tradition of spousal abuse.

Owens' grandmother, in an argument with Owens' uncle, pulled out a gun and shot the man. She went to prison when most people of her age were thinking about retirement.

Social worker Marjorie Hammock said that she has interviewed tens of thousands of troubled families during her career. Owens' family ranks among the worst, she said.

"It would rate down in that great group of people who had extreme poverty, extreme violence, and a lot of challenges," Hammock said.

For years, Owens' teachers struggled to figure out why he performed so poorly in school.

Psychologists tested his IQ. Over the years it ranged from the mid-80s to low 90s – average or slightly below.

Nonetheless, he was forced to repeat the first and sixth grades and dropped out of high school after his freshman year.

After some serious skirmishes with the law, Owens ended up in juvenile detention, where he undoubtedly made friends interested in the same types of things he was interested in. On Halloween 1997, Owens, accompanied by three such friends, decided to go on a "robbing spree":

They began at Anthony's Jewelers, but hesitated when a man in the parking lot saw Owens put on a mask.

Undaunted, the group hit a dry cleaning store, then a gas station.

They went to Owens' house and split up the money. While they were there they learned a man in the neighborhood had been in an argument with Owens' mother.

They jumped in the car and rode through the streets of Nicholtown looking for the man.

According to Golden, Owens was looking to shoot someone.

"He said he was going to 'kill someone tonight'," Golden said.

The four men drove to a motel and rented a room, intending to play cards later in the evening.

Within minutes, the four men were parked behind the Starvin' Marvin Speedway gas station on Laurens Road.

Two of the men intended to rob a nearby Waffle House while Owens and Golden robbed the Speedway. They were competing to see who could get back to the car first.

"We were racing," Golden said.

Golden ran into the Speedway first, clutching a .32-caliber pistol in his hand and demanding money from the store clerk, Irene Graves.

Owens ran behind the counter and demanded that Graves open the store safe.

She insisted she couldn't do it and suggested if Owens wanted it open, he could open it himself.

Owens said, "Oh, well," and shot Graves in the head.

The .32-caliber slug pierced her head and ricocheted off the inside of her skull. A co-worker found Graves in a pool of blood, a ballpoint pen clutched in her hand.

Golden and Owens ran back outside to find Young and Vance at the car. The two other robbers had again hesitated in their robbery. Owens asked Vance if he had heard the shot.

"I shot the bitch," Owens said.

It was only a week before word on the street leaked to investigators. A Greenville County SWAT team dragged Owens out of his house on the morning of Nov. 7. He was jailed and charged with murder.

The account of the second murder is pretty bone-chilling:

In the 24-hour waiting period between the guilt and sentencing phases of Owens' 1999 trial, Owens met Christopher Bryan Lee in a cell they shared.

Lee was serving a short sentence for a traffic violation.

It was 11 p.m. and the inmates were watching the news on television.

Newscasters told the story of Owens' guilt. Owens shook it off, worked out, took a shower and went to bed. At 3 a.m. officers entered the cellblock to take another inmate to prison.

According to a statement given to investigators, Owens said, "While they were getting the guy ready to go to Perry, Christopher Lee said, 'You won't be the only one because Freddie's coming down there with you.' I told him to 'shut the f--- up.' He told me his cousin was on the jury.' "

Owens hit Lee in the eye, knocked him to the ground, and stabbed him in the eye with a ballpoint pen.

Owens tried to stab Lee in the chest with the pen but it wouldn't penetrate. So, Owens stabbed Lee in the throat. Blood started to poor from Lee's mouth.

Owens wrapped a sheet around Lee's neck and started to choke him with it. He pounded the young man's head on the concrete floor. Fluid started pouring from Lee's nose and mouth.

Owens spotted a cigarette lighter under a bunk, lit it, and burned Lee's eye and hair. Owens rammed Lee's head into the floor and walked out of the cell.

According to the statement, Owens told investigators, "I heard the crazy moaning again so I grabbed the pen off the floor where I had thrown it and went back into his cell. I got back over him and rammed the pen up his right nostril.

"I closed his left nostril with my left hand and started choking him with my right hand. I kept checking him to see if he was dead. I would check his pulse on his wrist and I put my ear beside his neck and chest to hear if he was breathing. I wanted him to be dead at that time.

"I finally thought he was dead so I threw him on his bunk and covered him up. The first time I put him on the bunk he fell off. I then packed my stuff and put my mattress on the table and went to sleep."

While Owens slept, his cellmate lay dead nearby.

And Owens shows absolutely no remorse and has continued to behave violently, which is why I think they will inevitably give him the needle:

In March of 2002, Owens stabbed a correctional officer in the face. In June he found himself in a holding cell adjoining his former friend and co-defendant Stephen Golden.

Golden said Owens threatened to kill him. The next time the two saw each other, Owens tried to kill him, Golden testified.

"When I went to walk by, he grabbed my belly chains, pulled me into his shower and stabbed me in the stomach," Golden said in court.

According to Golden, Owens' only comment was "gotcha."

Over the next several months, Owens continued making knives, attacking inmates, and attacking prison officers.

"Every time he assaults another guard, I submit to you that it is for his own personal entertainment," said Deputy Solicitor Betty Strom.

Owens' attorneys then attempted to build a case primarily to save their client's life in a death penalty state, bringing judicial attention to his violence-laden childhood and adolescence:

Judge John Kittredge described Owens' life story as a "parade of horribles."

Owens could have put his case in front of a jury, but opted to allow Kittredge decide his fate.

Under South Carolina law, Owens was allowed to make a final statement to the court.

As he began his final statement, Owens started to contradict his attorneys' case.

"I don't think (my history) played a role in my actions," Owens said.

During a statement that lasted for more than half an hour, Owens said that as a black person he came from a long line of persecuted people. He said white society created him.

"You fear me because I'm black. You fear me because I'm conscious," Owens said. "You fear me because you don't know what to do with me."

Owens said he holds a great deal of hatred toward a great many white people and that traditional laws don't intimidate him.

He said people who challenge him should be ready to defend themselves.

"If you feel that you are man enough to make a challenge toward me and disrespect me as a man, then you need to be man enough or woman enough to take the consequences that come with it," Owens said.

In the end, Owens, claims to have converted to Islam and changed his name to Kahlil Salaam, said he answers to no one but Allah.

Owens said Kittredge may judge him but the judgment is irrelevant.

"You're not my peer. They're (prosecutors) not my peer," Owens said. "They don't have anything to do with me. They don't have any common identity with me."

After a day and a half of deliberation, Kittredge decided to send Owens back to South Carolina's death row.

Kittredge described his day-and-a-half of deliberations on the sentence as "painful and agonizing."

"Mr. Owens correctly describes himself as a menace," Kittredge said in pronouncing the sentence. "He has a total and utter disregard for the rights and safety of others."

Owens' face showed no emotion as the judge read the sentence.

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Listening to: Nina Simone - I Shall Be Released
via FoxyTunes

Friday musings: death and virginity

Left: Tapestry on my living room wall. Mr Daisy thinks the sun looks like Mel Brooks.

The more I look at it, the more I agree with him.

~*~

It's been rather depressing around here lately, with the passing of souls near and far: Aunt Laura, Grand Old Man, Harriet McBryde Johnson, Sean Costello, and now...I am sorry to announce, Maya's Granny (Joycelyn Ward). She was one of my favorite bloggers and possibly yours, too.

You might want to pay your respects.

~*~

The "Secondary Virginity" movement (which brings derisive snorts from the DaisyDeadhead household) has gone surgical, if you can believe it. Yes, they are SURGICALLY REPLACING hymens.

Ellen Goodman writes on AlterNet:

This time the subject isn't spiritual revival but surgical re-virgin. The furor comes from Europe where there's a trend among women -- mostly immigrants and mostly Muslims -- to have their hymens restored for the marriage market.

This began with a recent case that has France in an uproar even by French standards. A Muslim groom who discovered on his wedding night that his wife was not what she claimed to be -- a virgin -- sued for and won an annulment. He claimed a breach of contract on the grounds that virginity was an "essential quality" of the woman he chose to marry.

This ruling outraged a country that bans headscarves in schools and has immigrants sign a pledge that describes France as a secular country where men and women are equal. It was described by a cabinet minister as a "fatwa against emancipated women" and identified by others as something that would pressure more women into hymenoplasty.

Now, why precisely one woman found guilty of fraud would drive other women into deeper fraud I'm not sure. But gynecologists in Paris report women coming to them for certificates of virginity, and medical tourist packages take women to places such as Tunisia where the surgery is cheaper. There is even a new Italian movie about an immigrant returning to Casablanca to "have her odometer brought back to zero."

All this is happening despite the fact -- Biology 101 -- that the presence or absence of a hymen may be unrelated to sexual experience.

And before we write this off as those-crazy-Muslims-are-at-it-again, don't forget the Promise Keeper faction here at home:

...American doctors are also offering to repair hymens in website ads promising privacy and like-a-virgin results -- thank you, Madonna.

Bioethicist Alta Charo squirms over the idea of hymen repair but then says we ought to "put it in the larger context of how far women will go to make themselves marriageable and sexually attractive." Just what will secular, modern women do to fit their own cultural stereotypes -- breast implant, anyone? What will they do to stay employable -- face-lift, anyone?

But there's something in the tale of fear, fraud and France that resonates with the darker side of the abstinence-only education movement here.

Government-promoted virginity lessons are not simply an attempt to protect our daughters -- and, oh yeah, sure, sons -- from a culture that sells sex like Pop-Tarts. Nor are they just about helping them delay and think twice about hooking up. They too are based on fear and control.

And consider the father-daughter Purity Balls dotting the country. At these deeply creepy events, fathers promise "to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity." How far is that protection from the protection racket where fathers oversee their female property until it's passed on -- intact or else -- to a husband?

And what, you may reasonably ask, is a Purity Ball? It sounds utterly horrid. Glamour magazine (of all places) ran a pretty good article about these balls last year, well worth reading:

Wilson’s voice is jovial [Pastor Randy Wilson, cofounder of the Colorado Springs’ Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball], yet his message is serious—and spreading like wildfire. Dozens of these lavish events are held every year, mainly in the South and Midwest, from Tucson to Peoria and New Orleans, sponsored by churches, nonprofit groups and crisis pregnancy centers. The balls are all part of the evangelical Christian movement, and they embody one of its key doctrines: abstinence until marriage. Thousands of girls have taken purity vows at these events over the past nine years. While the abstinence movement itself is fairly mainstream—about 10 percent of teen boys and 16 percent of girls in the United States have signed virginity pledges at churches, rallies or programs sponsored by groups such as True Love Waits—purity balls represent its more extreme edge. The young women who sign covenants at these parties tend to be devout, homeschooled and sheltered from popular culture.

Randy Wilson’s 19-year-old, Khrystian, is typical: She works at her church, spends most weekends at home with her family and has never danced with a male other than her father or brother. Emily Smith, an 18-year-old I meet, says that even kissing is out for her. “I made a promise to myself when I was younger,” she says, “to save my first kiss for my wedding day.” A tenet of the abstinence movement is that having lovers before marriage often leads to divorce. In the Wilsons’ community, young women hope to meet suitors at church, at college or through family connections.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Listening to: PJ Harvey - This Mess We're In
via FoxyTunes

Local Democratic primary

...is today, at last.

I leafleted Walmart windshields on Ted's behalf (or should I say, on behalf of the good people of the 4th district!) in this searing, blistering heat. (There have been perpetual "heat advisories" the last couple of days, which caused me and Mr Daisy to cancel a hike we had planned on, phooey.) We are all running around like crazy people, but I'll keep you posted.

The Greenville News did not endorse Ted, which he put on his website: NOT endorsed by the Greenville News.

See? Too much of a Yippie to get elected, with a sense of humor like that.

~*~

In other news--South Carolina leads the nation in the number of Hispanic worker deaths on the job:

During the time studied, 51 Hispanic workers died on the job in South Carolina, a rate of 22.8 per 100,000 workers, the CDC reported using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The number was twice that of Oklahoma, which had the second-highest rate.

Falls were the leading cause of injury and 63 percent of the deaths were in the construction industry.

The high rate in South Carolina most likely can be attributed to the state’s relatively new immigrant population where workers would be less likely to speak English and would be unfamiliar with employee safety laws, said Sherry Brown of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Occupational Health Disparities Program.

“A reasonable explanation is new immigrants are moving to work in construction, which has a higher risk,” Brown said.

The study found 88 percent of the Hispanics who died while at work in South Carolina were foreign-born.

Across the nation, on-the-job deaths of foreign-born workers have been increasing, and overall Hispanic deaths rates are consistently higher than those of white and black workers.

On-the-job deaths can include everything from car wrecks and murder to falls and explosions.

For the past five years, the state has recorded the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the nation.

Hispanics make up about 3 percent of the state’s labor force, according to the Census Bureau.

The most notorious work accident involving Hispanics in the Midlands happened in 2003, when teenage brothers, Moises and Rigoberto Xaca, died while digging a trench at the Blythewood High School construction site.

The brothers, ages 15 and 17, were illegal immigrants who showed fake documents to get hired. The company that hired them was fined for six safety violations.

Two years after the Xaca brothers were killed, the S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation created a Spanish job safety training program for the construction and landscaping industries, said Jim Knight, a department spokesman.

~*~

And Natalia reports on ArabComment that Leila Hussein, mother of honor-killing victim Rand Hussein, was shot and killed as she was walking with two women activists to meet a contact to take her to Amman, Jordan:

Leila Hussein drew her family’s ire when she refused to support her husband’s decision to murder their daughter for entertaining a crush on an American soldier. Leila Hussein’s sons had also participated in the brutal act, and did not support their mother in her escape.

Hussein’s husband had previously boasted to the media that the local police had fully supported him. And while Basra law enforcement officials have told the press that Leila Hussein’s defiance had nothing to do with her murder, that this was a routine spat of sectarian violence targeting the women activists, their own role in this story makes their statements suspect.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Leila Hussein was being made an example of. This wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last time, in today’s brutalized Iraq. The activists who were trying to help Hussein escape are receiving threats as well. Any woman who does not submit to her role as a passive piece of human garbage is a potential target in a patriarchal society scarred by years of violence.

What can we do? The good women at Jezebel are collecting money to help.

Another thing we could do is BRING THEM HOME NOW, and let Iraq heal from its many wounds.

Odds and Sods - Sunday Matinee edition

Check out Neil Sinhababu's Six Reasons Why Clinton shouldn't be Obama's VP over at Cogitamus. Speaking personally, I thought a joint ticket was a pretty good idea until reading this. Hmm. (Great discussion, worth price of admission.)

Also: I need to calm down (formerly known as Vox Ex Machina) writes about Racism in the Voting Booth.

~*~

A Very Public Sociologist reports on the Gender, Law and Sexuality postgraduate symposium at Keele University (UK). Feminist researcher Wei Wei Cao's presentation was especially interesting:

Where bioethics are concerned feminism opposes legal obstacles placed in the way of women's access to (reproductive) medical services. But, Cao argued, there has been a tendency for feminism to place emphasis at different times on legal arguments, and at others ethical arguments, instead of a more coherent approach. This failure to combine them effectively can lead to the enshrining of progressive legal rights on paper, but in practice, serving to perpetuate the patriarchal structures they aimed to combat. For example, in Cao's native China, abortion law is very liberal. But far from enhancing women's reproductive rights, it has strengthened patriarchy's hold over women's fertility by "encouraging" the abortion of female foetuses, particularly in rural China. Taken with the one child policy this has resulted in there being somewhere in the region of 50-60 million more (mainly young) men than women.

And as we know, in the more liberal societies of the West, abortion is still taboo. Many women who undergo the procedure often have to deal with the difficulties of doing so in silence.

Therefore, Cao suggests that while the fight for reproductive autonomy remains a key feminist objective it needs to be more sensitive to women's experience.

~*~

As I have stated before, my favorite author and the greatest living genius of our age, JG Ballard, is very ill with late-stage cancer. BALLARDIAN offers us a Spring 2007 interview in an unnamed German scifi publication, titled “I really would not want to fuck George W. Bush!”: A Conversation with J. G. Ballard, conducted by Werner Fuchs and Sascha Mamczak:

Ballard: I’m very interested in social pathology, in what really drives us on in our everyday lives. My newest novel Kingdom Come raises the question of whether the consumer thinking of the present day might not at some point suddenly turn into fascism.

A very trenchant thesis.

Yes, but just take a look at what’s going on in these huge shopping malls. Evidently not much more than shopping is left for us. That and sport. That’s where we get our kicks, those are the new religions. I already believe that one of these days we could end up in a kind of leisure-time dictatorship.

But don’t events like the attacks of the 11th of September or the catastrophe in New Orleans remind people of the hard facts of reality?

I’m not so sure about that. I think it was difficult for many people to distinguish the picture of the collapsed World Trade Center from all the other images they know from Hollywood. It’s such a binary matter: real, unreal, real, unreal… And as for whether the current American administration finds itself brought down to reality or not, I very much doubt it. No, I think we live in dangerous times.

~*~

Left: A boy and his dog, outside the Greenville County Library yesterday.

From the Roanoke Times, comes another puppy mill conviction. And once again, no time will be served. (Why do they bother?)

This one is notable in that Carroll County (VA) animal rights activists intervened and alerted authorities:

Junior Horton, who operated Horton's Pups in Hillsville where more than 1,000 dogs were discovered in November by local authorities acting on a tip from the Virginia Partnership for Animal Welfare and Support, had been charged with 14 counts of animal cruelty, 25 counts of animal neglect and one count of failing to obtain a license tax for 125 unlicensed adult dogs.

700+ dogs were rescued. The Humane Society has called it the largest canine rescue operation in the USA.

Veterinarians working with the animal welfare advocates filed reports to the office of Carroll County Commonwealth's Attorney Gregory Goad. The charges accused Horton of depriving dogs of necessary food, drink, shelter or emergency veterinary treatment, and of failing to adequately house, feed, water, exercise or care for animals in his possession.

~*~

And finally, this just in--by way of Renegade Evolution. Pornographer Nina Hartley was hacked by some Islamic extremists. As reported by Ernest Greene on The Blog of Pro-Porn Activism (you've been duly warned as to content):

Nina.com was hacked by a couple of young guys in Turkey who characterize themselves as "Islamic cyber-warriors." They've hacked hundreds of other sites all over the world that they regard as suitable targets for their jihadist fury for whatever reasons and make no secret of their intention to go right on doing so. Indeed, for a couple of days after the fact, they were all over Turkish media trumpeting their great triumph at shutting down the site of the "Jew whore" Nina Hartley. And they got pretty far with that too, even making it onto the TV news back home. This will get them more views for their clumsy gangsta-rap vids on youtube (you can see their collection of laptops in the background as they bust their moves) and presumably sell more of the malware they peddle on their own site. Great heroes of the coming caliphate are these two twenty-nothings. May they be welcomed into paradise by those 72 virgins at the earliest possible date. Given the TNP's impatience with swaggering braggarts who like to stir up trouble, that date may come rather sooner than they expect.

But those of us over here are stuck with some troubling questions whatever fate may hold in store for these pathetic low-lifes. The unpleasant fact remains that the hate they feel for Nina and all she believes is shared in equal measure among right-wing Christian evangelicals, left-wing anti-porn feminists and their fellow Islamic fundamentalist fanatics all around the world. Even though these extremists all despise each other, they agree on something basic about human nature - their deep-seated distrust and dislike for it. Where they find common ground is in their abhorrence of personal freedom and individual liberty.

Indeed.

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Listening to: The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
via FoxyTunes