New campaign has “eye tracker” on how domestic violence goes unseen


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Amnesty International has released a pretty high-tech public awareness campaign against domestic violence: in bus shelters, the poster has an “eye tracker,” making the image change from a seemingly happy couple (if you’re looking directly at it) to an image of violence when you look away.
The text on the ad says, “It happens when nobody is watching.” Thoughts?
h/t to Shara.

Click to see larger.
Amnesty International has released a pretty high-tech public awareness campaign against domestic violence: in bus shelters, the poster has an “eye tracker,” making the image change from a seemingly ...

Friday Feel-Good Story: Teen Lesbians Voted Best Couple in Yearbook


SistersTalk made a great point:

While the adults in Albany, NY still can’t get it together to vote on the gay marriage bill in the NY Senate, the students of Mott Haven Village Preparatory (Public) High School in the Bronx have already cast their vote – and made history.

Victoria Cruz and Deoine Scott were voted (by a landslide!) “Best Couple” by their high school peers, the first time a gay couple was voted Best Couple in the school, and possibly in the Bronx.
Check out their story, it’s really sweet.
H/t to Bialogue.


SistersTalk made a great point:

While the adults in Albany, NY still can’t get it together to vote on the gay marriage bill in the NY Senate, the students of Mott Haven Village Preparatory (Public) High ...

Jena 6 case expected to reach plea deal

Via AP, we find that the the Lousiana courts are anticipating reaching a plea deal today with five of the six black students from Jena High School in Lousiana who were being outrageously being charged with attempted murder, the outcome of a series of racist events which in turn led to a huge civil rights movement against the charges. Here’s a good sum-up of what happened:

The only thing that’s outdated in the video is that the sixth defendant, Mychal Bell, ended up pleading guilty in December 2007 to a misdemeanor second-degree battery charge and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
There’s no doubt that the movement that arose out of this injustice led to the plea deal ...

Via AP, we find that the the Lousiana courts are anticipating reaching a plea deal today with five of the six black students from Jena High School in Lousiana who were being outrageously being charged ...

Local Struggles for Environmental Justice in the Midwest

I saw an amazing panel yesterday about some different local struggles and their connections to global climate change. Two of the most affecting:
Elisa Young, a 7th generation Appalacian, is part of Meigs Citizens Action Now. She talks about the coal-fired power plants in her area and how they are affecting so many people’s health. She’s had cancer herself and has lost friends and neighbors to a range of other cancers thought to be caused by close proximity to so much CO2 emissions. Some tests estimate that folks in the area are being exposed to 341 million pounds of sulfur dioxide a year–unprecedented and highly dangerous levels. Young’s own family has deep roots in the coal industry, but ...

I saw an amazing panel yesterday about some different local struggles and their connections to global climate change. Two of the most affecting:
Elisa Young, a 7th generation Appalacian, is part of Meigs Citizens Action ...

What We Missed

In New York, stem-cell researchers will be allowed to pay women for their eggs.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin introduces a bill to end health-care disparities faced by LGBTQ Americans.
Lynn Nottage on the how a playwright’s race and gender affects whether their works are produced on Broadway.
Why women-only networking is different than discriminatory all-boys clubs of the past.
Neda is not the first person to die in this. She’s not the first person whose death has been captured on video camera, either. But she was young, slender, and pretty, and so Western media images are obsessed with watching her die over and over.”

In New York, stem-cell researchers will be allowed to pay women for their eggs.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin introduces a bill to end health-care disparities faced by LGBTQ Americans.
Lynn Nottage on the how a ...

Commemorate Stonewall with activism, not tourism

New York City is commemorating the 40th anniversary of Stonewall by asking wealthy LGBTQ folks to make a “Rainbow Pilgrimage” to the city. (See poster at right.) Meanwhile, the city has refused to fund shelters that serve homeless queer youth. As a statement from Queers for Economic Justice puts it:

The campaign’s website encapsulates Stonewall in a nostalgic distant light; a movement of the past now best found in a culture of style, restaurants and hot new clubs that are profiled in the ad campaign. The past violence and homophobia is replaced by the promise of a New York experience akin to Sex In The City. Further denying the violence of that fateful night in June, the Rainbow Pilgrimage ...

New York City is commemorating the 40th anniversary of Stonewall by asking wealthy LGBTQ folks to make a “Rainbow Pilgrimage” to the city. (See poster at right.) Meanwhile, the city has refused to fund shelters ...

Intersectional Environmentalism

I’m at a summit today in Detroit, Michigan on environmental justice–specifically looking at climate change. It’s an issue that I’m learning more and more about thanks to one of the amazing subjects for my book, Nia Robinson, who is the Executive Director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative.
In short, the environmental justice movement (formally born in the 80s, traced back to indigenous Americans by some people), is aimed at calling attention to the ways in which low income people and people of color have been disproportionately affected by environmental issues (toxic power plants are often built in low income areas, those most vulnerable to the effects of global warming are in the Gulf South etc.). Hurricane ...

I’m at a summit today in Detroit, Michigan on environmental justice–specifically looking at climate change. It’s an issue that I’m learning more and more about thanks to one of the amazing subjects for my book, Nia Robinson, ...

Supreme Court rules against strip searches

Today the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that it was illegal for middle-school officials in Safford, Arizona to strip-search 13-year-old Savana Redding because another student claimed she’d hidden ibuprofen in her bra. The lone dissenting vote was Clarence Thomas.

Thomas warned that the majority’s decision could backfire. “Redding
would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her
undergarments,” he said. “Nor will she be the last after today’s
decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in
school.”

That’s not a typo. Jill quips, “Thomas only restates what high school girls everywhere have always known: Your panties are the safest place to secrete. “

On
a more serious note, Amanda ponders what this means for student privacy

Today the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that it was illegal for middle-school officials in Safford, Arizona to strip-search 13-year-old Savana Redding because another student claimed she’d hidden ibuprofen in her bra. The lone dissenting vote ...

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