Recently in News Category

Whole Foods has been getting a lot of bad press lately. Last year, the CEO John Mackey caught a ton of flack for publicly opposing health care reform. Whole Foods has long been known for being anti-union, and they recently scored 27 out of 100 on sustainable business practices.

Well, now, the icing on the proverbial cake.

Via MotherJones and Jezebel, Whole Foods recently announced a new employee discount program based on qualifications like BMI, cholesterol and smoking status. Employees who rank best in these categories will have their employee discount upped from 20% to a max of 30%.

Kind of ironic that a lower BMI means you get to buy more food for less?

Or just gross.

In a letter detailing the program, CEO John Mackey explains that it's an attempt to lower health care costs (since he doesn't support legislative moves to do so, as we know).

In case you needed another reason to stop shopping at Whole Foods.

You can see one of the flyers advertising the new policy after the jump.

The landmark federal lawsuit against Prop 8, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, has begun today. Here is some pretty comprehensive background info on the case.

While Justice has received nearly 140,000 comments in favor of the case being televised, we find via Pam that the Supreme Court has blocked YouTube from broadcasting the case for the next 48 hours. Yep. Fortunately, you can track what's going on at this blog created specifically to liveblog the trial in the meantime.

Pam's House Blend will also be providing legal analysis and recaps by folks from the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) this week.

As Courtney mentioned yesterday, the NJ State Senate said no to same sex marriage in a disappointing 20-14 vote. You can view individual voting records, as well as a play-by-the-play of the debate that went down in the State Senate here.

In light of this monumentally disappointing-- if not entirely surprising-- setback, I offer as very small comfort the following comment on the sanctity of marriage:

pic via. h/t to Kelly.

Update: Some commenters have pointed out there are a couple of inaccuracies in this map. The point of this post was to reinforce the hypocrisy of "sanctity of marriage" arguments against gay marriage. For a more detailed and up to date map of same sex marriage laws in the US, check this out.

From the New York Times, a New Jersey Judge ruled that a woman who was the gestational surrogate for her brother and his male partner can file for custody of the children (they had twins). Gestational surrogate means that her eggs were not used in the pregnancy--her brother and his partner used their sperm and donor eggs to create the embryos that were then implanted in her uterus. She gave birth to twin girls, and is now fighting for custody. According to the NY Times, she is claiming that the surrogacy agreement was coerced.

This Judge cited the famous Baby M case as precedent, which was one of the first legal battles over these types of surrogacy arrangements in the US. The Baby M case was the first to give the surrogate mother rights--but in that case, the surrogate was also genetically connected to the child who was born from her egg as well. What's interesting is that the woman in this case, Angelia Robinson, is being represented by the same lawyer who represented the surrogate mother in the Baby M case, Harold Cassidy.

Surrogacy is undoubtedly a complicated process. It brings up a lot of questions about parenthood, genetics, parental rights. It's becoming a more common practice, probably because of advances in genetic technologies and also a new international surrogacy market. It's also one of the technologies that allows queer people to parent, and for gay men who can encounter difficulty adopting because of restrictions based on sexuality (and who can't give birth on their own using donor sperm), it may be one of their only options.

Protesters at a May 6, 2009 rally in the Dominican Republic against Article 30, a proposed constitutional provision that threatened to severely restrict reproductive health access. Although the provision eventually passed, extraordinary women-led efforts made opposition known publicly and drew international attention.

Photo by Lorena Espinoza Peña, courtesy of IWHC.

Sometimes, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the bad news about women's issues we hear on a daily basis. From large to small, this past year has definitely seen its share of setbacks and sorrows. But 2009 has also been a year of victories and successes, progress and growth for women and women's movements internationally.

The non-profit I work with, the International Women's Health Coalition, has just issued "Top Ten Wins for Women's Health and Rights", a publication highlighting these achievements. With this list, we hope to both acknowledge and celebrate the positive developments for women that have happened all over the world this year, as well as to emphasize the interconnectedness of global efforts for change.

Though this list certainly highlights some positive developments from 2009, it doesn't mean that the work surrounding those issues is "over". As important as it is to celebrate victories surrounding women's rights and health, it's also important to acknowledge when there's still much more work to be done. Click on any headline for a more detailed summary of each win that, in addition to highlighting the positive progress made on any given topic, also considers "what's next".

And now, without further ado, I present to you IWHC's top ten international wins for women's health and rights in 2009:

You may have missed it amidst all the news about the health care reform debacle, but quite a bit has happened in the past week about immigration reform. Here is a quick round up of what's been going on on immigration.

It's long been said that once health care reform was dealt with, immigration would be the next big issue to tackle. Folks have also predicted that the fight for immigration reform will be even more difficult than health care (hard to fathom). The Obama Administration had made promises to tackle the issue this year.

Representative Gutierrez introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill last week in the House of Representatives.

Others are claiming that the bill is DOA (dead on arrival) because the House leaders are hesitant to take on such a controversial issue during an election year. The Dallas Morning News reports:

Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quietly assured freshman Democrats and other vulnerable lawmakers that she won't allow a floor debate on immigration unless the Senate acts first. Backbenchers are frustrated at being forced to cast politically delicate votes on issues like cap-and-trade, only to see the bills stall in the Senate.

USA Today caught flack for an article about immigrant students where it referred to them as "illegal students." A campaign called USA Today Fail has been created to fight back.

Finally, a check out the Media Consortium's blog The Diaspora for more on what's happening with immigration reform.

The Women's Health Amendment was passed by the Senate yesterday with a vote of 61-39. Woot!

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) proposed this amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will require all health care plans to cover women's comprehensive preventative care and screenings (like gyno exams, mammograms, STD testing and treatment and family planning) with no cost to women (or with limited co-pays).

Amie over at RH Reality Check gives us the rundown, although noting that this particular amendment doesn't yet specify whether birth control is covered or not, but women's health advocates seem to be hopeful:

While the question on everyone's mind is whether or not birth control falls under this list, it seems at the moment there is no clear answer. While contraception is not specifically listed in the amendment, Tait Sye, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America tells me,

'It allows Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) [editor's note: the Health and Human Services department developing these guidelines] to recommend what should be covered, so HRSA can/could recommend birth control be covered.'

According to a Senate Democratic aide, responding to concerns that birth control is not specifically called-out in the amendment, if individual drugs or 'even categories of drugs' were listed, 'we would have seen amendments filed on each one (or each category). I trust Sebelius [Kathleen Sebelius, head of HHS] to do the right thing with respect to covering birth control.'

Let's also not forget abortion coverage in health care reform legislation is still in danger.

However, the most significant thing about the Women's Health Amendment is that it could potentially save the lives of millions of low-income women who often skip basic health care exams and screenings because of added costs, says the National Women's Law Center. And that's huge.

In Tuesday's What We Missed, we briefly mentioned the new USPST mammogram guidelines, which now recommend that women begin getting regular mammograms at age 50 rather than at 40, and that the frequency be reduced from annual to once every two years.

The guidelines have been criticized for being "patronizing" and "dangerous" for women's health, but there's one community that is put at particular risk by the guidelines but isn't receiving as much attention: black women.

My colleague and former classmate Ashton Lattimore writes on News One that "the potential impact of these guidelines on black women is a really important piece of the puzzle that so far hasn't gotten much discussion."

In her piece, she interviews Dr. Marissa Weiss, a leading breast cancer specialist and founder of BreastCancer.org, who confirms that African-American women are more likely to get breast cancer than white women when they're under age 40. (The U.S. Department of Health reports that Black women ages 35 to 44 have a breast cancer death rate more than twice that of white women in the same age group.)

The new guidelines, then, as Weiss points out, "would pass over the time of greatest risk for African-American women."

Lattimore also points out that triple negative breast cancer - an aggressive form of cancer- disproportionately impacts Black women, and that Black women are already diagnosed with later stage breast cancers more frequently than other groups.

Looks like perhaps the only good that will come out of these guidelines is increased awareness about the importance of ignoring them completely, as well as the importance of women- especially black women- undergoing regular and early mammogram screenings.

You know, we've written about police brutality and taser violence before...but this just beats all.

For those of you who haven't already heard, let me repeat that: the Republican National Committee (RNC) has a health insurance plan for their employees that covers abortion. Now, this shouldn't even be surprising, despite my out-loud laugh half in amazement, half fury when I found out arriving home last night. Because as Amie and Cecile Richards say - of course their plan covers abortion! It's a standard health benefit plan any employer would want to offer their employees, yes?

But as Politico points out, for a committee whose platform that says abortion is "a fundamental assault on innocent human life," and its members just voted for the Stupak-Pitts Amendment attacking the very existence of abortion coverage in health insurance plans (along with enough anti-choice and cowardly Dems) in the recently House passed health care bill, this is pretty incredible to hear.

Of course, the RNC is scrambling to cover for this apparent mistake, saying the policy had been in effect since 1991 (so were you pro-choice then?) and is assuring folks that their insurance plan is going to immediately be changed. Says a late release from the RNC late last night:

News reports have revealed that the RNC's health plan dating back as far as 1991 may have included some coverage for elective abortion. Upon learning of this, Chairman Michael Steele instructed the RNC Director of Administration to opt the RNC out of any coverage for elective abortion services in its health insurance policy.

"Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose. I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled." - RNC Chairman Michael Steele

It's not so much that the RNC are hypocrites that gets me - we've known that too well and for too long - but that their female employees are now having the right to reproductive health care stripped from their plan. It's like they're the first to be sacrificed in the midst of this assault.

About. Damn. Time.

Via The Advocate and Akimbo:

"The United States is one of a dozen countries that bar people with HIV from entering the country," Obama said as he announced the lifting of the U.S. policy banning travel and immigration to the U.S. by people who are HIV-positive.

"If we want to be the global leader in HIV, we need to act like it."

This should go a long way towards battling the seemingly ubiquitous stigma and discrimination HIV-positive people face worldwide. What a great way to end the week!

One of my biggest struggles when I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area as a South Asian, was the unapologetic way self-proclaimed new-agers would appropriate Indian culture. Wearing Indian inspired clothing, listening to Indian music, eating Indian foods, studying Indian traditional medicine and of course, practicing yoga (including all various types of chanting and instrument playing). It has never been an easy line for me to tow. I believe that culture is fluid, it doesn't necessarily belong to any one person and South Asian culture is the jam, so it is easy to understand why people are drawn to its complexity.

Or are they? Perhaps it was curious exploration, but to me it has always felt like the new-ager obsession with India feeds into the belief that Americans don't have their "own" culture, so they need to participate and steal from "mine." Even though I had adopted a Western lifestyle and it was definitely "my culture"--one trip to India made that very clear. Furthermore, it felt very convenient for people that hadn't experienced life as a person of color and an immigrant in this country to participate in a culture by choice, one that I had been discriminated against for being a part of. My ambivalence to Westerners adopting and often distorting what I knew as my "home" culture has only grown, where yoga practice for me is sometimes my fight to deal with my anger around cultural appropriation.

This very personal confrontation I have had with cultural appropriation (and the fact that I am human) makes me think the incident with the Oprah-approved self-help guru, James Arthur Ray who took some 50-odd people to a retreat center in Sedona, Arizona, had them fast and then sit in a sweat lodge, after which 2 of them died and 19 were hospitalized, is especially disgusting. The blatant lack of recognition of cultural appropriation, how dangerous and deadly the situation turned out to be and the chilling reality that perhaps this could have been anyone of the new-agers I encountered in San Francisco, starved and craving a culture of their "own," is irksome at best.

Indigenous leaders agree. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle, writes personally on NDN News,

As Keeper of our Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle, I am concerned for the 2 deaths and illnesses of the many people that participated in a sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona that brought our sacred rite under fire in the news. I would like to clarify that this lodge and many others, are not our ceremonial way of life, because of the way they are being conducted. My prayers go out for their families and loved ones for their loss.

Our ceremonies are about life and healing, from the time this ancient ceremonial rite was given to our people, never has death been a part of our inikag'a (life within) when conducted properly. Today the rite is interpreted as a sweat lodge, it is much more then that. So the term does not fit our real meaning of purification.

Who knows what Ray's intention was, but not knowing how to do the ceremony properly led to the unnecessary death of 3 people and injuries to countless others. According to CNN the deaths will be investigated as homicides.

I am so deeply disturbed by this.

No. Just no.

Via Amanda Terkel at Think Progress, we find that a Louisiana justice of the peace has denied a marriage license to an interracial couple, his reasoning being for the children's sake. From AP:

"I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children."

Bardwell said he has discussed the topic with blacks and whites, along with witnessing some interracial marriages. He came to the conclusion that most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society, he said.

"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell said. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."

If he does an interracial marriage for one couple, he must do the same for all, he said.

He also added, "I try to treat everyone equally," and when he says "equally" he means he lets his black friends use his bathroom:

"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way. . . I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."

Angry Asian Man says it right, "Well, that is great. I was mistakenly under the impression that he was one of those racists who makes his black friends pee in the backyard. Turns out, he treats them 'just like everyone else.' Except when it comes to letting interracial couples get married."

Pam and Racialicious have more.

As you all know, Jos, Vanessa and I have been attending the 5th Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initative this week in Manhattan. We've put up several posts already about the event, including coverage of the opening session, photos from the first day, and coverage of Wednesday morning's Plenary Session on Investing in Women and Girls.

I'd like to offer a different kind of coverage here, one that tries to understand if and how the broader thematic goal of the Meeting- namely, cross-sector participation in addressing the world's problems- works, and how it will ultimately affect women and girls globally.

In other words- Can business interests and NGO interests ever align productively? Can the World Bank really make positive contributions to social change, given its rather horrific history of debt-mongering and culturally insensitive politics? Or are these interests mutually exclusive, in constant battle over zero-sum resources and therefore doomed to clash? CGI suggests convergence and collaboration can benefit all. I ask- what kinds of compromise on women's issues does such an ambitious mandate demand?

The winners of one of the most prestigious awards in the US, the McArthur Fellows program, were announced this week. Also known as the McArthur genius grant, it's a no-strings-attached award of $500,000 that winners don't even know they've been nominated for until they receive notice that they've won via phone call. 24 people were named winners this week.

Winners are usually pretty impressive folks, activists, academics, researchers, journalists, writers. They range in age this year from 32 to 69, and are a geographically and racially diverse crew.

Anna Clark has a break down of the three writers who won awards, but profiles of all the winners can be found here.

A video of one of the winners, Camille Utterback, a digital artist, is after the jump.

Scott Roeder, the man who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller, won't see trial until next year.

Roeder was scheduled to go to trial today, but both prosecutors and Roeder's lawyers wanted it moved to a later date.

Related posts: Esteemed Doctor and Friend of George Tiller to Provide Late Term Abortion Care in Kansas, Thank you Dr. Tiller, Vigils for Dr. Tiller

NPR and the Associated Press are reporting that Operation Rescue may be completely out of funds and in danger of closing.

Don't remember Operation Rescue? They are the scary anti-choice organization, who've been linked to a number of violent anti-choicers, including the man who killed Dr. Tiller. From NPR:

Roeder, who is charged with shooting Tiller during a Sunday morning church service, had the name and number of an Operation Rescue adviser in his car.

Operation Rescue also has had the gall to offer to buy Dr. Tiller's clinic after it was closed. Obviously that isn't going to happen with their current financial situation.

Randall Terry, the founder of the organization, also is responsible for a few scary and violence provoking stunts, including the "Defeat Sotomayor Tour."

The current head of the organization, Troy Newman, who told the AP he hasn't been paid in two months, was at the Tea Party Protests this weekend in DC, according to the organization's website.

While admitting that donations are down 30-40%, Newman didn't offer reasons as to why the organization has lost support. I would hope that links to something as horrific as the murder of Dr. Tiller would encourage those who are pro-life but do not support violence to take their dollars elsewhere. The group also lost their non-profit status in 2004, which may be impacting their fundraising.

Sam Riche/AP Photo

*Possible trigger warning*

Many of you have probably heard about the arrest of former GOP lawmaker and one-time gubernatorial candidate Steve Nunn, whose ex-girlfriend was shot and killed on Friday. Hours later, Nunn slit his wrists.

While Nunn (who survived) is pleading not guilty to the charges made - he had a domestic violence order against him by victim Amanda Ross and found with a gun at the scene of his suicide attempt - his lawyer Astrida Lemkins is saying that the issuance of the domestic violence order this past winter "caused all the problems":

"It caused Steve Nunn to lose his job, reputation and drove him to slit his wrists," she said.

"If there does turn out to be a relationship between the death of Amanda Ross and Steve Nunn, it is not because the DVO failed, but rather because the DVO was issued," said Lemkins.

Lemkins said Ross should have also been held accountable for her role in the domestic violence incident.

"Things are not black and white," she said. "There's a lot of gray in there."

Um, what? Whatever Steve Nunn has done to himself and to Ross is absolutely no fault but his own - to place any blame on a woman who was not only a victim of abuse but has no opportunity to defend herself (because, you know, her life was taken from her) is inhuman.

Furthermore, blaming the DVO made against him after he repeatedly beat Ross and implying that if he did kill her, that could have been avoided sounds pretty damn similar to threats used to keep women in abusive relationships; in other words, if she hadn't went to the authorities and caused trouble, she would be alive right now.

There are just no words for this kind of offense.

h/t to reader Katie

Check out Kai Wright's fantastic article over at The Root about Caster Semenya and the absurdity of what she (and other female athletes) have put through by gender identity testing.

The International Association of Athletics Federations has demanded Semenya, who won the 800-meter gold last week, submit to a sex test; bookies are taking bets on the results. But whatever the IAAF's shameless doctors conclude, the verdict about Semenya is already in--she's a monster. What remains is to determine what type of monster we're gawking at. A hermaphrodite? An intersexual? A genetic boy whose parents raised him as a girl? Or just a mannish woman, after all?

If "science" concludes the latter, Semenya can keep her medal. Her humanity, however, has already been sacrificed to Western culture's desperate, frightened effort to maintain the fiction of binary, fixed gender.

Read the rest.

Courtney also weighed in on the case.

This morning, the sad news that Senator Edward has died from brain cancer.

As many have already said, he was a great politician who was a great supporter of many social justice issues, and did what he could to fight those battles in Congress.

Let's hope that his biggest legacy will be that of health care reform, and in his memory pass legislation that might actually begin to fix our broken system. From the Young Invincibles campaign, a quote from Senator Kennedy:

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on. The cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.

More about Senator Kennedy's work on healthcare, visit the Our Bodies, Ourselves blog.

For more reading on Senator Kennedy's life:
Michael Tomasky at The Guardian
Harold Meyerson and Adam Serwer at The American Prospect
Thoughts from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Robert Scheer at The Nation
John Broder in the NYTimes

Oh, it's ON.

On one side of the ring, we have Senator Joe Lieberman, who said that rape survivors shouldn't have a problem going out of state to get emergency contraception. On the other? Actor Alec Baldwin, a men's rights activist who calls his daughter a "pig" while hiding behind the faux movement of "fathers' rights" and claiming feminism has destroyed American women (but mail order brides are A-OK!) So everyone online is asking: Who is going to get the crown for the Senate seat in Connecticut??

That's right, Alec Baldwin has revealed his intentions to possibly run for the Connecticut Senate seat and defeat Joe Lieberman in 2012. (Which was disclosed in a Playboy interview, I might add. How poetic.) Baldwin says, "I'd love to run against Joe Lieberman. I have no use for him."

Burn!! Lieberman's response? "Make my day." Nothing is more hilarious than two anti-women assholes using cliché sayings to exert their masculinity over one another - and a Clint Eastwood quote, no less.

What's not really funny about is that it's over a seat in the U.S. Senate. But still, thanks for the good laugh, gentlemen.

UPDATE: Baldwin now says he won't run. I guess he knew to back off when Joe busted out the big guns with that Eastwood quote.

A group of women gather at the National Stadium, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke at a rally in Kabul. Photo by Nikki Kahn - The Washington Post

Tomorrow, Afghanistan goes to the polls -- and many people are questioning whether it's even possible to hold a "legitimate" election given the potential for low turnout due to recent threats of violence by the Taliban.

But, as Jeanne Brooks reminds us at Women's eNews, it's not just violence that threatens democracy in Afghanistan -- it's the disenfranchisement of women. President Hamid Karzai recently signed a law that severely restricts women's rights. Among many other appalling provisions, it prevents Shia women from casting a vote without their husband's permission.

As Rachel Reid writes in the Washington Post,

Things got much worse recently when President Hamid Karzai officially promulgated legislation that would make the Taliban proud. Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern: As Karzai's government has grown weaker he has increasingly turned to some of society's most conservative elements for support.

In other words, Karzai has shored up his own power at the expense of women. Among Afghans who are risking their lives to vote, he is seen by many to be the only "real choice" in tomorrow's election.

We've got a feminist Secretary of State who has professed her commitment to keeping women's rights central to her agenda. And yet, Brooks points out, the U.S. and British governments decided not to raise a political uproar about the latest restrictions on women's rights "out of fear of disrupting the election." But if women's voting rights are restricted, the election is already disrupted and illegitimate -- violating several articles of the Afghan constitution and international treaties that Afghanistan has signed.

MADRE (an international women's rights group) has created a survival fund that "supports an underground rescue network of women committed to providing shelter and secret transport to women who have been targeted because they dare to speak out for human rights." Click here to donate to the fund.

Related:
Alternatives to Military Escalation in Afghanistan
An On the Ground Perspective on Afghanistan
What do the Women of Afghanistan Want?
The military's disingenuous talking points on women's rights

After the madness that was Marriott's victim-blaming bullshit towards a rape survivor who was sexually assaulted in their hotel garage in Connecticut, we find (sort of) good news about the case:

The Marriott hotel chain on Monday abandoned its legal claim that a Connecticut woman raped at gunpoint in a hotel parking garage, in front of her young children, had been careless and was partly at fault.

The withdrawal followed days of backlash against Bethesda, Md.-based Marriott International Inc., which had claimed in its defense of a lawsuit by the woman that she had "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities." (Emphasis mine)

The statement given by the Marriott says they are "profoundly sorry that such a terrible thing happened to the victim of this violent crime" and that the lawsuit has "created a mistaken impression that Marriott lacks respect" for victims of violence. Blaming a rape survivor for her assault? That's no mistaken impression of disrespect, but a certainty.

Many are also saying (and I concur) that the damage has already been done. Although it's obviously good that they're not using this horrific defense anymore, what kind of message has already been put out there? Nancy Kushins, executive director of Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, contended,

"The fear of being blamed for being raped is one of the most common reasons that victims of sexual assault don't come forward."

The president of the International Olympics Committee announced yesterday that women's boxing is going to added to the 2012 Olympics in London.

While I'm thrilled about this news, I just don't understand why women ski jumpers have had to struggle so hard to get a spot in the Olympics over the last several years. In fact, a group of women ski jumpers are set to appeal in court in November to the decision made not allowing them to participate in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. You can sign their petition here.

(Random disclosure: I know the woman in the pic on the left, Alicia "Slick" Ashley, and she rocks the house. She volunteered for GGE when I was there, teaching our girls how to box; as a 5'5'' world champ, she made me all the more sure that smaller women can kick ass too. Awesome.)

We got the good news last week that Euna Lee and Laura Ling were returned home. To add to that feeling of relief that came upon hearing the news, I also wanted to share this video of Laura Ling speaking of the experience and Bill Clinton securing their release.
Tear-jerker warning!

Go Bill!

Thanks to Neela for the link!

68-31 baby. Finally, a person of color on the SCOTUS that doesn't suck.

In May, we posted about 20 year old Samantha Orobator, a pregnant British woman who was jailed in Laos on drug charges - and originally sentenced to death by firing squad. (She became pregnant while in jail; her mother feared that she was raped while in prison - Orobator says she was not.)

CNN reports that Orobator will be freed to today and go to Britain to receive a sentence there.

Related: Amnesty International's Human Rights Report on Laos.

Billie Jean King, 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

I don't know how many of you remember Former President Bush's picks, but Obama's have a significantly different tenor.

A refresher of Bush's picks from the AP (which included the anti-abortion advocate Henry Hyde in 2008):

Though recipients are typically applauded, President George W. Bush's decision in 2004 to award them to three people central to his early Iraq policy were controversial.

Bush awarded medals to former CIA Director George Tenet, former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer and retired Gen. Tommy Franks. He was especially criticized for including Tenet, who came under fire for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war.

Among the 16 awardees announced by the White House today are Senator Edward Kennedy, Nancy Brinker, founder of Race for the Cure, Billie Jean King, well-known tennis player and first openly gay sports figure and Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected mayor. Also included was the first female President of Ireland, Mary Robinson.

You can see the full list here.

Harvard professor and editor of The Root, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was arrested in his home late last week after police came to investigate a break-in, which has resulted a call by many for an investigation into racial profiling by the Cambridge police department.

Gates entered his home on Thursday afternoon after struggling with a jammed lock upon returning home from the airport. Shortly thereafter, Cambridge police showed up at his house (due to a call from a neighbor) where he was subsequently arrested, despite him giving them his driver's license with his address and Harvard ID card.

The officer apparently arrested Gates for disorderly conduct when he reportedly (and understandably) got pissed he was being accused of criminal behavior for being in his own home.

S. Allen Counter, a Harvard Medical School professor and colleague of Gates spoke with him on Friday, saying that Gates was "shaken" and "horrified" with the arrest. Counter is also black, and was nearly arrested in 2004 when two Harvard police officers supposedly mistook him for a robber suspect.

Pam has a good run-down of what happened, and asks very real questions to consider when thinking about Gates' reaction to the police officers and why this is a fucked situation:

• Would a white professor have been subject to the same suspicion by the woman who called in the report of a break-in?
• While a white prof wouldn't have yelled "I'm a black man in America", say he had said something to the effect of "is there some reason you're standing in front of my home?" and proceeded to engage angrily in the same manner. Would he be arrested?
• Would a white prof react as strongly to the police officer's initial inquiry since he would not be a victim of racial profiling?
• Did Dr. Gates's explosion of anger in his own home warrant an arrest? Is this a manifestation of the "angry black man" phenomenon, where the lower threshold of public anger by black men is seen as more threatening than it would be for a white man?
• Was the fact that Gates threw down the "don't you know who I am? card a mitigating factor?

Post-racial America, my ass.

Here is the police report. The Root also published a statement by Gates' lawyer.

The death of Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt is not feminist news, I know. But McCourt had a special place in my heart, so I just wanted to take a minute to acknowledge him.

I knew McCourt as Mr. McCourt - he was my English teacher in high school for a short while. He was also the first person to read my writing out loud - he picked my essay out of everyone's in our class to read as an example of good work, and it made an incredible impact on me. (In no small part because I admired him so much as a teacher.) He was a big part of the reason I wanted to be a writer.

McCourt's writing touched a lot of people, but I'll always be grateful that for years, students in New York City were blessed with him as a teacher.

This is horrible. Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped and killed yesterday in Chechnya, where she dedicated her life to human rights work despite warnings from Chechnya's president, who is being blamed for her murder:

Human rights campaigner Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped and murdered this week in Chechnya, and a human rights group blames Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov for her death. Estemirova was seized from her home in Grozny, and her body was found Wednesday in the neighboring region of Ingushetia.

...

Estemirova worked for the Chechen group Memorial and in conjunction with Human Rights Watch. One of her greatest achievements was bringing the issue of Chechen victims to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in their favor and demanded Russia pay retribution to more than a dozen victims.

She was 50 years old, and had a 15 year old daughter.

See a video and get more information here.

The Obama Administration took a step in the right direction this week regarding immigration reform and domestic violence in attempts to reverse Bush's policy (or lack thereof) concerning DV survivors seeking asylum in the U.S.

The action was taken due to the revisiting of the landmark case of Rodi Alvarado (trigger warning), a Guatemalan woman who sought asylum in the U.S. because she feared for her life; her common law husband (who was really more her captor than anything) consistently beat her and raped her at gunpoint, including tried to burn her alive when he found out she was pregnant. Because there was no U.S. asylum law specifying for the protection of DV survivors, she wasn't granted asylum and was forced to leave her children in Guatemala when fleeing to the U.S.

Even as recently as last year, the case was addressed where Bush administration lawyers argued that Alvarado and other survivors could not meet the standards of U.S. asylum. According to the Times:

Any applicant for asylum or refugee status in the United States must demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution" because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or "membership in a particular social group." The extended legal argument has been whether abused women could be part of any social group that would be eligible under those terms.

And Alvarado wasn't a part of any "persecuted group." Right.

Now the administration has submitted an immigration appeals court filing, requesting that Alvarado's case be further reviewed. While this may be a good sign of how Obama plans to handle immigration reform and undocumented women's rights, there are still strict requirements for asylum:

[A]bused women will need to show that they are treated by their abuser as subordinates and little better than property, according to an immigration court filing by the administration, and that domestic abuse is widely tolerated in their country. They must show that they could not find protection from institutions at home or by moving to another place within their own country.

Not to mention the issue of women seeking asylum from genital mutilation is not included in the new policy. But while these "requirements" aren't leaving me with a huge feeling of victory, it's certainly the right step moving forward.

How 'bout that. Norma McCorvey was arrested outside of Sotomayor's Supreme Court confirmation hearing today with other anti-choice protesters. According to WashPo, she made it into the chambers when she start yelling while Sen. Al Franken was speaking.

While most of you probably know, McCorvey served as the plaintiff in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the U.S., only later to become a spokesperson for the anti-choice movement.

Via the Frisky.

News outlets are reporting that Obama will nominate Regina Benjamin for the post of surgeon general. The announcement is supposed to come in a few hours, in the midst of the first day of hearings for another somewhat controversial women of color appointment, Sonia Sotomayor.

About Benjamin (via McArthur Foundation):

Regina Benjamin is a rural family physician forging an inspiring model of compassionate and effective medical care in one of the most underserved regions of the United States. In 1990, she founded the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic to serve the Gulf Coast fishing community of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a village of approximately 2,500 residents devastated twice in the past decade by Hurricanes Georges, in 1998, and Katrina, in 2005. Despite scarce resources, Benjamin has painstakingly rebuilt her clinic after each disaster and set up networks to maintain contact with patients scattered across multiple evacuation sites.

At first glance her work sounds pretty amazing, and I think it's awesome to be elevating someone who has worked in on the gulf coast.

More at Salon.com

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's hearings begin today at 10am.

USTREAM is offering a live feed of the hearings (embedded below).

Video streaming by Ustream

Other places to get live coverage:

SCOTUS Blog

ABC News
PBS

Today's events should include opening remarks by Senate Judiciary members and Judge Sotomayor will be delivering a statement.

As the Women's Media Center has documented, there has been a pretty nasty stream of both sexist and racist coverage of Sotomayor since her nomination.

Lots of groups are steadying themselves for a difficult nomination process are on the watch for sexist or racist remarks during the process.

We'll be providing updates and links throughout the process, but if you're watching and want to comment on what you see, this is the thread to do it.

UPDATE: The National Women's Law Center also just released The Thinking Woman's Guide to the Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings.

Last week, over 60 black and Latino day campers were turned away from a swim club in Philadelphia because of complaints by white adult members of the club that, according to the club's president John Duesler, "[A] lot of kids would change the complexion ... and the atmosphere of the club."

Community blogger zp27 beat us to the punch on this story, an absolute nightmare and truly telling to the stark reality of the racism and bigotry that exists in this country. The club is of course backtracking and saying that the issue wasn't race, despite some of the kids overhearing racist complaints by the members of the club right before they were asked to leave and the club returned the $1,950 check Creative Steps Day Care had given them to use the pool.

The good news out of this is that the day care center has gotten tons of support from surrounding clubs and schools since, some who have offered their pools for the campers to use. But this doesn't change the fact that these kids, as young as five years old, have already been told that they aren't allowed to swim in a pool because of their race. It's just unreal.

Shark Fu has a great piece up at Angry Black Bitch about this, as does Melissa Harris-Lacewell at the Nation. Go read them now.

A local video on the story after the jump.

Damn straight! On Wednesday, an appeals court ruled that despite two Washington pharmacists' lawsuit saying that their religious beliefs should allow them to refuse to stock and provide emergency contraception to their customers, personal convictions doesn't trump a patient's right to timely medication.

This decision is huge as it could affect policy across the Western U.S. regarding the "right to conscience" nonsense that has been gaining momentum over the past few years, particularly with the help of Bush implementing the anti-choice HHS regulations before he left office (which we're still waiting for Obama to rescind like he intended). But this ruling creates a precedent for future cases around the issue.

While the pharmacists won a temporary injunction by the U.S. District Court in Seattle under their claim that they should be protected under the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals wasn't having it. They lifted the injunction, saying that a person's religious beliefs "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability":

"Any refusal to dispense -- regardless of whether it is motivated by religion, morals, conscience, ethics, discriminatory prejudices, or personal distaste for a patient -- violates the rules."

Booya.

Photo by Jason Wagner, via Gothamist.

This is horrible:

Greenpoint resident Chrissie Brodigan says she was riding on the L train between Bedford and First Avenue when her pug, who has health problems, overheated and began vomiting in the tote bag she was carrying him in. As she was leaving the subway station with the dog in her arms, she says a police officer's attempt to issue her a ticket turned ugly, and when she became upset the cop began saying, "If you're going to act like a woman I'm going to treat you like a woman."

Brodigan says the cop went on to punch her in the back, and in the scuffle to handcuff her, he "grabbed my breasts and pinched them." A witness's account:

Melissa Randazzo, a speech language pathologist who lives in Williamsburg, witnessed the arrest and tells us, "something about it seemed very wrong. The cop's tone seemed really inappropriate and he kept saying things like, 'Are you going to act like a woman?' She tried to walk away, and then he grabbed her and pushed her against the wall outside the turnstile."

Luckily both Brodigan and her dog are okay.

A couple of thoughts here. Because the cop who Brodigan identified as her attacker is the NYPD's lone Hasidic officer, the Gothamist comments section has a bunch of racist comments and negative stereotypes about Hasidic Jews. Can we all please just agree that racism is not a useful response?

Also, Brodigan appears to be pretty plugged-in, and has thankfully been able to draw attention to this incident. I wonder how often this sort of abuse happens, but the woman in question does not have so many resources at her disposal. How many of these incidents do we never hear about?

A new level of batshit crazy has come out of Oklahoma, and not surprisingly authored by homobigoted Rep. Sally Kern (R).

The state representative has taken it upon herself to create an "Oklahoma Citizen's Proclamation for Morality," which essentially blames the nation's sinners (you know, like the gays and divorcees) on the economic recession. Here's a snippet of the document, which can be read in its entirety here:

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and

WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery; and

WHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; and

WHEREAS, grieved that the Office of the president of these United States has refused to uphold the long held tradition of past presidents in giving recognition to our National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior;

This makes me shudder to think that this woman has any clout in this state (or on earth, for that matter). Check out some video news coverage after the jump.

Dr Neera Desai, a founder of India's first women's studies program, the Research Centre for Women's Studies at SNDT Women's University, passed away last Thursday from cancer at the age of 84. Professor Vibhuti Patel, a colleague and friend of Desai and the director of department of Post-Graduate Studies and Research at SNDT said:

"I had been working with her since 1977. In all these years that I had known her, I thought of her as a warm person who was forever motivating and ever ready to experiment with new ideas. She was a major institution builder. This is a period when women's studies is coming of age. However, she started work in this field in the early 50s and for over two decades fought a lone battle to raise awareness about the same till the 70s when she began garnering support from several quarters."

She wrote a number of books on women's rights and feminism in India, including Women in Modern India (1952) and Feminism in Western India (2004). She was nominated for 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Via (including pic) FeministsIndia.

Also check out community blogger ramlath's post.

After the news tha the remaining five defendants of the Jena 6 case were getting a plea deal today, we find that they pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery, sentenced to seven days probation and fined $500 plus court costs. Color of Change's Executive Director James Rucker said:

"The story of the Jena 6 was an extreme example of what can happen when a justice system biased against black boys operates unchecked. But it's also an example of what can happen when hundreds of thousands of people across the country stand up to challenge unequal justice. Together, we drew the country's attention to this case and raised the money necessary to fund a strong legal defense."

This is great news.

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 expected to be made today, but we're not sure yet what that lesser charge will be. We'll keep you posted.

Related:

The Jena 6.
Jena 6: Mychal Bell Conviction Vacated
Jena 6 Information and Day of Action
Um, wow.
Jena 6 Revisited
Still awaiting justice in Jena.

States may find themselves losing money if they continue to let sexual assault in prison be swept under the rug, reports AP.

New standards are being proposed by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission to Attorney General Eric Holder on revising the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, an act that has been problematic for survivors for a number of reasons, one being that prisoners are required to prove "physical injury" in order to file claims against prisons. (This allows courts to say that sexual assault by itself doesn't count as an injury.)

Holder has a year to write national standards. If states don't adopt them, they can lose 5% of federal prison grant money.

While folks are confident that states will sign on, some are worried that certain county prisons won't be able to afford to implement some programs that require extra funding, like hiring additional staff specialized in mental health treatment for rape survivors. But other steps to prevent sexual assault, like closer screening of inmates and staff and zero tolerance policies, can and should be taken - particularly when sexual assault is so often committed by prison guards.

Check out Just Detention, a organization that advocates for the rights of prisoners to be free from sexual assault, for more information on rape in prison.

So you may have heard that yet another prominent Republican politician, Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, admitted to having an affair today.

** Insert snark about Republican leaders "defending" marriage here **

Then go read Shark-Fu's post on the subject. (It's actually about Nevada Sen. John Ensign, but the sentiment applies to Sanford, too.)

Sanford has been booted from the speakers line-up at the uberconservative Values Voter Summit this year. And speaking of values, I have to quote my colleague Tim Fernholz, who makes an important point:

It took an admittedly sensational story about Governor Mark Sanford's personal life to get the national press to converge on South Carolina and declare his political career "over" due to "values" issues. (Whatever, he wouldn't be the first southern governor to be a come back kid after marital infidelity). But when he attempted to deny much needed unemployment funding to people suffering under the recession while cutting school funding and the social safety net, in the name of an economically-baseless austerity policy that involved telling his weakest constituents to effectively drop dead, well, those decisions didn't threaten his political career or reflect on his values. That made him a "star" in the GOP. Priorities, priorities.

Word.

Finally, I was glad to see neither Ensign's nor Sanford's wife did the ol' "stand by your man" routine at the mea culpa press conferences. Hope this is a new trend of politicians standing on their own when they apologize for their personal indiscretions.

Speechless:

A plea deal that sent an ex-convict accused of raping a 4-year-old girl to jail for only a year has prompted outrage across Oklahoma, where lawmakers are calling for the removal of the judge who approved the deal and the attorney general is investigating a new set of abuse allegations.

Under the deal, David Harold Earls, 64, of the southeastern Oklahoma town of McAlester, pleaded no contest last month to first-degree rape and forcible sodomy. Normally, the rape charge carries a sentence of between five years to life in prison, but the deal he struck with prosecutors called for 19 years of his 20-year sentence to be suspended.

While many involved are saying this happened because the outcome of the case rested on the testimony of the now 5-year-old girl, whom made "contradictory statements" in pretrial hearings, Earls admitted to the crime and medical evidence showed she was sexually assaulted. Can someone in law please explain how and why this sentence was reduced so significantly, because I just can't fathom it.

An update on this story:

From the Bangor Daily News:

A pregnant, HIV-positive African woman will give birth in a Portland hospital rather than a federal prison after a U.S. District judge on Monday ordered that she be released on personal recognizance bail while her appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is pending in Boston.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock last month sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh, 28, of Cameroon to 238 days in prison -- twice as long as the recommended sentence of 114 days -- for having false documents.

The National Advocates for Pregnant Women has more about the case on their blog.

Samhita mentioned this in her What We Missed post yesterday, but I want to address it more fully.

From Talking Points Memo:

According to local law enforcement, three people posing as police officers forced their way into the home of Raul Flores in Arivaca, Arizona, about 10 miles from the Mexican border, on May 30. They shot and killed Flores and his nine-year-old daughter, and wounded Flores' wife. The three, Shawna Forde, Jason Bush, and Albert Gaxiola, were arrested and charged last Thursday and Friday.

This happened this past weekend.

After Dr. Tiller was murdered, and the guard at the Holocaust Museum was shot and killed, discussions have been afloat about how during more liberal administrations, right wing violence (of the white supremacist and anti-choice variety) tends to go up. The Department of Homeland Security even issued a report about it. For those of us in my age bracket (I'm 25), this is a really new phenomenon. It's been a long time since I could remember a liberal administration--I was pretty young when Clinton was president. This type of violence, often linked to white supremacist and anti-government organizations tends to increase when individuals believe the government is being run by the left. I can only imagine what Obama's presidency is doing to fuel their fire.

The issue of immigration reform has allowed for a new crop of anti-immigrant groups to enter the mainstream dialogue, even though many have ties to hate groups with violent records. One of the perpetrators in this crime in Arizona, Shawna Forde, has been liked to the anti-immigration group FAIR. Here is a video where she is listed as a representative of the group:

We can't let white supremacy and hate mascarade as legitimate politics through the guise of immigration "reform" just like we can't let it slip into mainstream dialogue about women's rights or the right to choose.

For more links to responses from the blogosphere, see the FIRM blog.

Maddow discussed it on her show last night, but this is what the Associated Press had to say:

President Barack Obama plans to extend health care and other benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of federal employees. White House officials say Obama plans to announce decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president had not yet made the announcement.

The move would give partners of federal employees access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves. Officials say Obama would detail more details of the decision on Wednesday.

This is all in response to the heavy criticism Obama has been facing after his actions in regards to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don't Ask Don't Tell.

While the closing of Dr. Tiller's clinic and the infuriating possibility that anti-choice extremist group Operation Rescue may try to buy the space has made us realize things actually could get worse, Dr. LeRoy Carhart brings us some hope.

Via Feministe, we find that Carhart has stepped in to take Dr. Tiller's place in providing late term abortions in Kansas, although potential plans to open an actual clinic are unknown:

A Nebraska doctor said Wednesday that he will perform third-term abortions in Kansas after the slaying of abortion provider George Tiller, but would not say whether he will open a new facility or offer the procedure at an existing practice.

Dr. LeRoy Carhart declined to discuss his plans in detail during a telephone interview with The Associated Press, but insisted "there will be a place in Kansas for the later second- and the medically indicated third-trimester patients very soon."

"I just think that until everything is in place, it's something that doesn't need to be talked about" in detail, Carhart said a day after Tiller's family announced his Wichita clinic was permanently shutting its doors.

Tiller's clinic was one of the only facilities in the country that performed third-trimester abortions. Carhart has run his own clinic in Bellevue, Neb., since 1985, but had performed late-term abortions at Tiller's clinic because of Nebraska's more restrictive abortion laws.

Carhart is indeed of the Gonzales v. Carhart Supreme Court case, which upheld the 2007 Federal Abortion Ban. (Carhart argued that the ban didn't provide an exception for the woman's health.) He was also a longtime friend of George Tiller.

Check out Ann's piece from a couple of years ago when she met Carhart at his Nebraska clinic, which he had struggled to keep open himself amidst anti-choice forces. But whether or not he opens a clinic in Kansas or practices at an already-existing clinic, we all can rest easier knowing this brave doctor is stepping in to protect women's health and lives.

Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, impresses female voters.

A new survey shows that women aren't represented fairly in research published in the "best" medical journals.

Naomi Wolf says Angelina Jolie is a feminist icon. (I say meh.)

Jezebel has a great reason to stay off Twitter.

Awful news today: A man opened fire in the Holocaust Museum in DC -- reportedly killing a museum guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns.The suspect is 88-year-old James von Brunn, a white supremacist and anti-semite who has said some truly vile things.

As Dana Goldstein writes,

A World War II veteran and resident of Maryland, Von Brunn is the author of a pamphlet entitled "Kill the Best Gentiles: A new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool." He is a Holocaust denier who has written that "Hitler's worse mistake" was that "he didn't gas the Jews."

She also notes that, like Dr. Tiller's murder, this act constitutes domestic terrorism.

I can't really find the words to say much else about this right now. How awful. My thoughts are with Johns' family.

Dr. Tiller's clinic in Wichita, Kansas has been shut down according to his family.

"The family of Dr. George Tiller announces that effective immediately, Women's Health Care Services, Inc., will be permanently closed," according to a statement issued on Tuesday morning by the family's lawyers. "Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic."

This is awful. And can someone explain to me why the NYTimes is so concerned about where all these murdering pro-life "activists" will go? I didn't realize that by balanced coverage we were going to highlight terrorist organizations as having a legitimate mission and goals.

Thanks to commenter Jovan1984 for the heads up.

The Supreme Court has decided not to hear a case challenging Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which according to TPM was in response to the Obama Administration's request. From Talking Points Memo:

The Supreme Court has turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.

The court said Monday that it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is unconstitutional.

The AP has more details here.

The optimist in me hopes this is because the Obama Administration wants to handle the dismantling of Don't Ask Don't Tell legislatively through Congress. It was one of his campaign promises, but we have yet to see any movement on overturning the policy, or stalling the dismissals of people in the military based on this policy.

From HuffPo:

During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. Meanwhile, the White House has said it won't stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.

The Servicemember's Legal Defense Network has counted 238 discharges based on DADT since Obama was sworn in.

This is pretty unbelievable. Choi Jin-sil, a South Korean actress and model who died by apparent suicide in 2008, is being sued posthumously for failing to maintain a decent image while working as a spokesmodel for the Shinhan Engineering and Construction Co, LTD.

What's worse is that the South Korean Court ruled in their favor. The heirs of Jin-sil are being forced by the courts to repay the damages requested, totaling the equivalent of almost $400,000.

So what is it that Jin-sil did to fail in maintaining a decent image? She was a survivor of her husband's abuse. Pictures were released after Jin-sil ended up in the hospital as a result of this abuse.

From The Chosun Ilbo:

The company paid Choi W250 million in March 2004 for modeling for apartment buildings. The contract included a clause that if Choi disgraced the image of the company by damaging her social and moral image through her own fault, she would repay the firm twice the modeling fee. Five months later, pictures of her beaten and of the inside of her house in a chaotic state were released.

As the clause states above, the fact that the Courts ruled in the company's favor means they actually believe that this abuse was "through her own fault." It's disgusting victim-blaming at it's worst, and shows that some people still blame women for domestic violence.

We received an email from Catholics for Choice on Obama's appointment of Alexia Kelley to serve as the Director of Faith-based and Community Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services - and unlike Kathleen Sebelius' recent confirmation to head HHS, it's no news to be celebrating.

Kelley is the co-founder of the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), an organization that not only has publicly acknowledged their opposition to abortion (here's an extensive PDF of their anti-choice history) but also supports reducing access to abortion care. This is a much different tune than the administration's supposed stance on reproductive rights, which is to reduce the need for abortion.) Catholics for Choice President Jon O'Brien says:

"If Ms. Kelley had been appointed to another position in the administration, there might be less reason for concern. However, the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for providing and expanding access to key sexual and reproductive health services. As such, we need those working in HHS to rely on evidence-based methods to reduce the need for abortion. We need them to believe in men's and women's capacity to make moral decisions about their own lives. Unfortunately, as seen from her work at CACG, Ms. Kelley does not fit the bill.

"From the beginning, Alexia Kelley directed CACG to ignore the question of access to abortion and reframe the debate in terms of reducing the number of abortions--although polls consistently show that the majority of Catholics support abortion rights. This language around reducing the number of abortions should be a huge red flag to anyone who believes in and seeks to defend a woman's right to choose. While evidence-based prevention methods can go a long way towards reducing the need for abortion, some women will always need access to safe and legal abortion and we must recognize that and ensure public policies support that access."

CACG has seemed to identify themselves in the past as more of a progressive religious organization (although technically nonpartisan), a stand-out among (and even left out of) the other mainstream Catholic organizations in the country. But when it comes to abortion, that's hardly the case. Sarah Posner at TAPPED points out that in Kelley's co-authored book last year, she wrote this on abortion: "Each abortion constitutes a direct attack on human life, and so we have a special moral obligation to end or reduce the practice of abortion to the greatest extent possible." And while the organization and Kelley skirts around the issue of legalization, they've made it clear they're for abortion restrictions.

It's no news that has been a really bad week for the reproductive health world. And this just makes me so much sadder. Maybe Obama thinks appointing Kelley will alleviate the strong tensions right now, conservatives will get off his ass about Sebelius and we'll all reach a "common ground" around the abortion debate that has led the conversation as of late. But I think "'common ground' is pipe dream," as Amanda says, contending that we're not going to eliminate the need for abortions by relieving women's financial problems. (Which is partly what the "common ground" idea supports.) And as O'Brien also points out, CACG even used flawed economic research to push for anti-poverty measures as a way of reducing abortion.

But this is just not going to work, and neither is Kelley if she ends up having control over policies around reproductive health in this country. And it looks like she very well may - according to the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives website, the department assists faith-based organizations in attaining partnerships with and getting funding from the federal government, which includes family planning grants.

The only comforting part of this appointment is that Kathleen Sebelius will be her boss.

I am literally speechless, was not expecting this at all.

Former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle must stand trial for murder in the New Year's Day shooting death of an unarmed man, an Alameda County judge ruled today.

After hearing seven days of testimony since May 17, Superior Court Judge C. Don Clay said prosecutors had presented ample evidence to show that Mehserle could be found guilty of murdering Oscar Grant, 22, at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland.

Related:

Justice for Oscar Grant-Please spread widely!
BART officer arrested for Oscar Grant's murder
Understanding the Dialogue around Lovelle Mixon.
Understanding the Dialogue around Lovelle Mixon: Part 2

There have been some really good posts from around the blogosphere about Obama, Cairo and women's rights. Here are a few that caught my attention.

Sarah MC takes Obama to task on not being afraid to offend religious fundamentalists and make a statement about state sanctioned religious law.

Peter Daou has a very strong and powerful criticism to Obama's discussion of women's rights.

Dana responds to Peter at the American Prospect and reminds us there are far greater problems facing women in fundamentalist regimes outside of the hijab.

Yolanda at the Kitchen Table on Muslim women and the concept of "choice."

Tami has a few thoughts on nuance and messaging in the Obama speech along with the full video and transcript.

Add more in comments as you read em! And what did you think about Obama's remarks on "women in the Arab world?"

A cartoon video via the Women's Medical Fund in Philadephia about abortion clinic workers in honor of Dr. Tiller:

And a round-up of all the Community Posts about Dr. Tiller:

Boston Vigil for Dr. George Tiller by meganjpeterson (For a full listing of events, see Ann's post or our calendar)

A Moment of Silence for Dr. George Tiller by FunFrnd10

An Abortion Provider Reacts to the Murder of Dr. George Tiller by sbherold

On the Issues: An Abortion Provider Reflects on Dr. George Tiller by On The Issues

George Tiller and How Dehumanization Leads to Violence by cng87

A Very Short Post from Skrr

Thanks to everyone who contributed posts today. If you attend vigils tonight, post about them at the community blog.

Dr. George Tiller, an outspoken advocate for abortion rights and one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country, was shot dead in church this morning.

Cara writes at Feministe,

This is the first time an abortion provider has been murdered in over a decade. I have friends who work in abortion clinics. This is terrorism. And right now, I just don't have the words.

The loss of Dr. Tiller is deeply upsetting, and Cara rightly identifies this as a terrorist act. It is the culmination of an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services. I've been paying attention to the more militant strains of the anti-choice movement, so this news shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did. But, like Cara, I have friends who work and volunteer in abortion clinics. When violence against abortion providers was hitting a fever pitch 10 years ago, I was not strongly pro-choice identified. I remember reading about the murder of an abortion providers, but it certainly did not affect me the way this news has. Whether it's rational or not, today I'm afraid for everyone who works in a reproductive health clinic. And not only those that provide abortion.

I am also worried about what Tiller's murder means for women in Kansas and elsewhere in the country who need the services that he provided. The simple fact is there are almost no doctors who provide late-term abortions, especially in rural parts of the country. I was in Nebraska several years ago to interview Dr. Leroy Carhart (whose challenges to abortion-restricting laws went all the way to the Supreme Court), and Carhart and Tiller were the only two late-term providers in their region. If one wanted to go on vacation or got sick, the other had to fill in. There was no one else. Perhaps it would be a fitting memorial to Dr. Tiller to contribute to Medical Students for Choice, and encourage more doctors with a deep commitment to reproductive rights to become abortion providers.

UPDATE: More from the NY Times, Bastard.Logic, Pandagon, Matt Yglesias, SarahMC, Andrew Sullivan, and Pro-Science.

MEMORIAL VIGILS: See here.

Previous posts on Dr. Tiller:
A Hurrah for Dr. George Tiller
Judge in Tiller case has anti-choice history
The Attacks on Dr. Tiller Continue

Recent updates about the photos taken at Abu Ghraib (and being withheld by President Obama) including sexual assault of the detainees is incredibly upsetting, infuriating and fills me with deep shame for being a citizen of a nation whose (previous) administration sanctioned this kind of inhumanity and violence. And these truths are ones that I along with so many others feel must be exposed. Author Tara McKelvey, whose book has accounts from female prisoners of Abu Ghraib, takes on the issue at TAPPED, saying that without the photos it's almost as if the crimes didn't exist:

While reporting my book, Monstering, I heard about an interpreter who had worked at the prison and allegedly raped a 14-year-old boy, and that there was a video or a photograph of the crime that had been recorded by a female soldier. (It wasn't Lynndie England -- I asked her about it.) Military investigators looked into the alleged crime against the boy - but half-heartedly -- and the investigation was eventually dropped. Since there was no photo or video that had been released to the public, it was not a priority.

At the same time, Mark Goldberg at UN Dispatch notes that not a lot of folks are talking in depth about the privacy rights of the detainees who were so brutally assaulted:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for refocusing "public attention on the torture, humiliation and abuse of prisoners sanctioned by senior Bush administration officials" as Daphne Evitar says. But scanning memeorandum, no one seems to be balancing the rights of victims of sexual abuse with the need to air the previous administration's dirty laundry. (Emphasis mine)

It's so difficult to decide what's "right" in this situation as so many of us are advocates for survivors' rights but also feel that openness is the only way to wake Americans up to the realities of our Iraq policies. I have to say that amidst our horror of these atrocities, my gut feels it would be deeply problematic to ignore the rights of the individuals that these atrocities were perpetrated against.

After everything they have endured, shouldn't detainees be able to decide whether these pictures go public or not? If their privacy rights were violated by these photos being released "for the good of the country," aren't we relying under the same argument pro-torture folks might make for committing these crimes against them?

Two important race scholars, Ron Takaki and Ivan Van Sertima, passed away this week.

Ivan Van Sertima was an anthropologist, linguist, literary critic, and the author of They Came Before Columbus (on Africans in ancient America) and Black Women in Antiquity, a history of real and mythical images of black women, from goddesses to queens to madonnas, presented in a powerful and respectful way. Watch Van Sertima discuss one of the themes that underlines his work:

Key quote: Human beings are equal. What makes human beings unequal is they can for example be forced to believe they are unequal. And then they start acting unequal. They could be forced into certain economic disadvantages that don't make the fullest use of their capacity. Or they could be made to think they are inferior, therefore they behave inferior, they begin to think inferior. But those are passing things. As they begin to become aware of their capacity, that they are equal to all human beings, changes occur dramatically.

Van Sertima played a major role in the process of changing how we understand human beings' equal capacity. His passing is a huge loss.

Ron Takaki was an activist and scholar who pioneered the field of ethnic studies. Did you talk about multiculturalism in your college classroom? Chances are you have Takaki to thank. Oiyan at the APAP blog (via Angry Asian Man) has a powerful personal take on the impact of Takaki's work:

I first encountered his book Strangers from a Different Shore at the local public library in Springfield, Massachusetts. It had just been published, and I was 16. I'm not sure how I came across the book, but I found myself feeling like I needed to hide as I read the book. Each chapter detailed Asian American history, which until that point, I had no idea existed. With each chapter read, I began feeling more and more power. The knowledge the book presented almost felt illicit. Having grown up in a provincial, all-white, lower-middle class, mostly immigrant community, and being told over and over by the society in which I was growing up that my experience did not matter, the book was electrifying. I remember checking the book out, going straight home, and sitting in the corner of my bedroom on the floor, door closed, and the book lit by my desk lamp I had brought with me to the floor. I'm not sure why I read it like that, but I remember shaking as I devoured the book. You have to understand that in my experience, true relevant knowledge was made out to be illicit and dangerous. When I was 13, I wasn't allowed to do a book report on the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Maybe that's why I hid in a corner to read Takaki's book when I was 16. I do remember that the book was critical in helping me make sense of the violently racist experiences I had and the historical contexts for these experiences, and my relationship to the rest of the world around me, as an Asian American. It was the first time I realized I was Asian American, and I began to develop a voice.

Both Van Sertima's and Takaki's scholarly contributions -- their writing of the unwritten histories of people of color and of race in America -- are testament to the idea that knowledge is a deeply powerful and often radical thing. I love this anecdote:

Takaki was hired and in 1967 taught the university's first African American history class.

When the young Japanese American, sporting a crew cut, walked into the classroom for the first time, the students, some wearing Afros and dashikis, fell silent. One student finally spoke up.

"Well, Prof. Takaki," the student said in a challenging tone, "what revolutionary tools are we going to learn in this course?" Takaki replied: "We're going to study the history of the U.S. as it relates to African Americans. We're going to strengthen our critical-thinking skills and our writing skills. These can be revolutionary tools if we make them so.' "

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the best way to remember these scholars is to continue to use writing and critical thinking as revolutionary tools.

Hyphen has info on where to send memorial donations for Takaki. There is also a more informal memorial on Takaki's Facebook page. No official word yet on memorials for Van Sertima.

Bob Herbert has a really interesting Op-Ed at the NYTimes about how the coverage of white murders tends to be more extensive than the coverage of the murder of people of color. He writes,

[T]he press is still very color conscious in the way it goes about covering murder. Editors may not be asking, "What color is that victim?" But, on some level, they're still thinking it.

Which is why we've heard so little about an awful story out of Chicago. Some three dozen public school students have been murdered since the school year began, most of them shot to death. These children and teenagers have been killed in a wide variety of settings and situations -- while riding a city bus, playing in parks, sitting in the back seats of cars, in gang disputes, in robberies, in the crossfire of sidewalk shootouts.

It's an immense and continuing tragedy. But these were nearly all African-American or Latino kids, so the coverage has been scant.

In contrast, the news media gave the public enormous amounts of information about the Wesleyan student, Johanna Justin-Jinich, and -- in another big story -- about Julissa Brisman, the masseuse who had advertised on Craigslist and was killed in a Boston hotel room last month.

I think that we can recognize the tragedy in these stories and still have an analysis of the rate of coverage of different communities. I actually think that Herbert is giving them an easy way out suggesting that it is just that mainstream media frequently overlooks the deaths and murders of people of color. When people of color are involved in the death or murder of a white person, that is definitely headline news. Or when a person of color lives up to their given "stereotype," i.e. terrorists, cop-killers, "hookers," etc., that is also all over the news.

So, while Herbert is suggesting that the stories that cover the murder of women of color, poor people and other disenfranchised communities are far less, it is not just that they are overlooked, it is that they are strategically woven into the narrative of good verse evil. White women are pitted against communities of color, contrasting innocent verses guilty. Not only does it tell us, as Herbert suggests, how we see each other, it also shows us that white women are considered helpless, innocent, and need the support, coverage, protection and watchful eye of the news media, along with legal counsel, police and politicians. And that people of color are perpetrators of crime, always guilty, not victims and therefore need our harshest penalties and strictest of eyes.

As the New Hampshire Senate passed a bill this week to legalize same-sex marriage, we find trans people's rights were completely fucked on the same day.

While the House rejected a bill in late March that would protect transgender people's rights under the state's anti-discrimination and hate crime law, the Senate is apparently in the same boat:

The New Hampshire Senate today unanimously rejected a bill that would have extended anti-discrimination laws to transgendered people.

House Bill 415 would have protected those with sexual identity issues in areas of housing and employment, much the way the state's laws protects others from discrimination on the basis of color, race, religion or sexual orientation.

I find it interesting that Democrats apparently "blasted opponents of the bill for dubbing the measure the 'bathroom bill,' a move they said created misunderstanding and fear among the general population" but the Senate (with a Democratic majority) unanimously rejected the bill with a 24-0 vote. Am I missing something, or is there a huge WTF here?

Read more at Questioning Transphobia and Pam's House Blend, and then contact the Senate and tell them how appalled you are at this bullshit.

Who's smirkin' now, sucka?

Remember the anti-feminist lawyer who was suing Columbia for offering Women's Studies courses because, according to him, it's discriminatory towards men? His case (not surprisingly) was thrown out last week by a Manhattan judge.

This is not the only case Roy Den Hollander has pursued; he's also filed lawsuits against clubs that offer Ladies Nights (because of course that's feminism's doing?), and is pretty blatant in the acknowledgment that his sole purpose in life is working against the evil feminist machine, saying:

"What I'm trying to do now in my later years is fight everybody who violates my rights... the Feminazis have infiltrated institutions, and there's been a transfer of rights from guys to girls."

Holy eloquence. Is this dude really a lawyer? Also not surprisingly, when the judge dismissed his suit, Hollander "assailed the judge as [insert gasp] a feminist" and claimed that "[w]hen it comes to men's rights, judges act with an arrogance of power, ignorance of the law, and fear of the feminists."

There are too many contradictions there even worth repeating, but regardless you better be careful - that kind of talk may not bode well with The Feminists...

Says NPR:

The court has completed hearing oral arguments for the year and will be issuing rulings and opinions until the end of June. Souter is expected to remain on the bench until a successor has been chosen and confirmed, which may or may not be accomplished before the court reconvenes in October.

At 69, Souter is nowhere near the oldest member of the court, but he has made clear to friends for some time now that he wanted to leave Washington, a city he has never liked, and return to his native New Hampshire. Now, according to reliable sources, he has decided to take the plunge and has informed the White House of his decision.

Souter's retirement would give President Obama his first appointment to the high court, and most observers expect that he will appoint a woman.

Via TPM, we find that SCOTUSblog had a few predictions earlier this year as to who would be picked if there was a space to fill this summer:

The three obvious candidates are Elena Kagan (SG), Sonia Sotomayor (CA2), and Diane Wood (CA7). The sleeper candidate is Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.

All four were born between 1950 and 1960. Diane Wood is the most respected as a judge. But she is the oldest (born 1950), and as a consequence a seat this summer would likely be her one shot. Kagan and Granholm have the advantage of being the youngest (born in 1960 and 1959, respectively). Granholm has experience dealing with legislatures and actually representing people, as well as law enforcement experience as the state's attorney general. Sonia Sotomayor has the advantage that she would be the first Hispanic nominee to the Court; she also served as a trial judge. She and Judge Wood have the longest written track record, but not one that would present any obstacle to confirmation with this Senate.

While folks say that whomever Obama picks won't change the ideological makeup of the court considering Souter's tendency to lean to the left, it's still seriously exciting to anticipate another woman justice; that in itself will be a notable change. (Send good thoughts to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is now recovering from cancer surgery - and currently the only woman serving.)

Melissa Harris Lacewell suggests Kimberle Crenshaw for the job. Does anyone have a favorite or wish list for the shortlist?

The NY City police officers that were charged with the rape of an intoxicated woman have been indicted.

A grand jury in Manhattan has voted to indict two New York City police officers in the December rape of a woman who claimed she was sexually attacked after the officers escorted her from a taxicab to her apartment in the East Village while she was intoxicated, according to law enforcement officials and other people familiar with the case.

The grand jury last week charged both officers -- Kenneth Moreno and Franklin L. Mata -- though the details of the indictment were not immediately disclosed, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The officers, who have been on modified duty, stripped of their guns and badges and working in administrative assignments, are expected to surrender on Tuesday morning and face arraignment in criminal court.

Ugh, what a scary case.

Via NYTimes.

This is horrible. Up to 12 people have been killed in a shooting at the American Civic Association, an immigration center in Binghamton, NY that helps undocumented folk and refugees with citizenship issues and personal counseling.

Between 20 and 40 people were taken hostage until around noon, when two gunmen were taken into custody. (With a potential third suspect being chased.) The Albany Project has more.

This is coming a wee late but is fantastic news. After years of harassment and public shaming through what seemed to be a neverending trial, charged on 19 counts of misdemeanor by the state of Kansas, Dr. George Tilller came out on top and was acquitted on all counts on Friday.

A background: While Tiller is one of the few late-term abortion providers in the country, Kansas law allows late-term abortions only when two independent doctors sign off on the procedure. Prosecutors charged Tiller of having a financial relationship with the doctor that he frequently received authorization from. This, in fact, was nothing more than an anti-choice witch hunt over a law that exists to undermine women's ability to make their own decisions and make abortion providers' jobs harder. (This is not to mention Tiller's clinic was subsequently closed during the trial and he was also shot.)

According to the Times, it only took 45 minutes for the jurors to acquit him on Friday. Unfortunately, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts is now "investigating" complaints related to the same charges. But today, we pay homage to Dr. Tiller and congratulate him on his acquittal. In other words, halle-freakin'-lujah.

Yesterday, the New Hampshire House voted to allow same-sex couples to marry.

It won just by a seven-vote margin and now lies in the hands of the Senate, although folks are unsure if Governor John Lynch will veto the measure if it passes the house. (He has stated he's against marriage but signed a law allowing civil unions last year.)

Just don't start praising the House yet - it also rejected a bill that would extend protections to transgender folks under the state's anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws. There was a ton of pushback and even mockery by opponents of the measure, coining it, "the bathroom bill" (you know, the whole "horror" of the idea that trans men and women would be walking into bathrooms and saunas as they please) as well as sending emails to constituents claiming the bill would be protecting "sexual predators."

Let's place the horror here where it truly belongs - contact the Senate and let them know your thoughts.

Most industries are facing difficult times right now. Media, and independent media in particular, have long faced uphill battles, but the economic emergency is pushing many state and local newspapers to fold. As the bad news continues, I wanted to speak with someone about the possible ramifications of these losses.

Tracy Van Slyke, former publisher of the progressive, independent magazine In These Times, is the program director of the The Media Consortium, a network of the country's leading independent journalism organizations. (Full disclosure: Feministing is a member.) From their website:

"Millions of Americans are looking for honest, fair, and accurate journalism. We're finding new ways to reach them. Our strategy has three focal points: Making Connections, Building Infrastructure, and Amplifying Our Voice."

Here's Tracy...

I'm the kind of person who likes to keep up with current events. I listen to NPR more than music and generally like to know what's going on in politics and the world. But over the last six months, listening to the radio has become taxing. Shit is depressing. If I have to hear one more news report about job losses, unemployment or foreclosures I might just lose it. I'm nervous enough as it is, I don't need the doom and gloom media adding to my anxiety.

That's where the Good News Network comes in. I actually heard about it on NPR (thanks for recognizing your own depressingness!), and it's a news website dedicated to only reporting good news.

About GNN:

The mission is to provide a "Daily Dose of News to Enthuse." The Good News Network is a clearinghouse for the gathering and dissemination of positive news stories from around the globe. Daily stories will confirm what we already believe -- that good news itself is not in short supply; the advertising of it is.

Why Good News? There are many ways that positive news can improve our lives by bringing emotional well-being, health and even prosperity.

During times like these, it's important to look at the bright side of things, even if just to keep our mental health in check.

In a similar vein, I really appreciated this optimistic post from The Kitchen Table.

SIECUS and other organizations are calling for action against the suspension and following resignation of a high school teacher in Grandfield, OK who taught her students about the Laramie Project. Via USA Today:

The episode began in January, when Debra Taylor showed students at Grandfield High School The Laramie Project, a 2002 film based on the play of the same name, about the murder of Matthew Shepard. The students soon decided to film selected scenes themselves for an in-class project.

Taylor, 50, knew the project was controversial with strong language, but got her principal's permission. A few weeks into it, the principal told her to stop production. After students protested, she held a 20-minute ceremony in a nearby park in which students wrote their thoughts and rolled them into helium balloons, then released them.

The next day, Taylor says, Superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the class. After she complained to a school board member, Turlington put her on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation Friday.

This is outrageous. What's funny is that the district is saying that Taylor wasn't forced to resign because of the play. Attorney John Moyer (representing the district) says, "If someone is saying that adverse employment action is being taken against Ms. Taylor because of homosexuality, they're wrong." So why don't you shed light on exactly why Taylor was suspended the day after she held the mock funeral based on the play?

William Smith, SIECUS Vice President says: "What happens when the next teacher tries to talk about intolerance and hatred and murdering people for that, and they get harassed and forced to resign? This is bigger than just what's happening to Debra Taylor. It's about the perpetuation of hatred and injustice in our society. The same sort of hatred and discrimination that led to Shepard's death leads to this teacher's firing. We can't allow that to stand." (Emphasis mine)

SIECUS is asking folks to take action and call Superintendent Turlington at 580-479-5237 or send an email and tell him:

"Debra Taylor did not deserve this kind of treatment. Young people need dedicated teachers willing to confront issues of respect and acceptance for people of all sexual orientations. She should be commended for creating a safe space for all her students and should be reinstated immediately."

h/t to Max!

From Financial Times:

Barack Obama, US president, on Monday made another decisive break from the Bush years by overturning a ban on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research and promising to remove all ideology from scientific studies.

In a landmark policy change that angered anti-abortion groups, Mr Obama signed an order to permit public money to be used for research that scientists hope will produce cures for a range of serious conditions such as Parkinson's.

"We will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for, and fought for, these past eight years," Mr Obama said at the White House.

There really are no words for this kind of case.

A community poster already covered the uproar by the Brazilian Roman Catholic Church of the abortion of a 9-year old girl who was raped by her stepfather. This is despite the fact that abortion is legal in Brazil in cases of rape and when the woman's life is in danger, which both applies to this girl (as she not only weighs just 80 pounds but was pregnant with twins):

The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.

He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.

How merciful of them.

Hallelujah. Remember Bush's parting gift, the last minute HHS rule that not only allows health care providers to define contraception as abortion, but allows them to deny health care based on their moral or religious reasons? Well, folks are saying that President Obama plans to move to repeal the regulation today. Via AP:

The Obama administration is moving to rescind a federal rule that reinforced protections for medical providers who refuse to perform abortions or other procedures on moral grounds, an official said Friday.

A Health and Human Services official said the administration will publish notice of its intentions early next week, and open a 30-day comment period for advocates, medical groups and the public. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official notice has not been completed.

The Bush administration instituted the rule in its last days, and it was quickly challenged in federal court by several states and medical organizations. As a candidate, President Barack Obama criticized the regulation and campaign aides promised that if elected, he would review it.

Looks like we'll have another 30-day comment period to take action despite the fact that over 200,000 people submitted their opposition to the regulation originally, so we'll keep you posted on where to send your comments. In the meantime, I'm keeping confidence that Obama will put this shit to bed already. Thank him in advance.

This is good news. Via RH Reality Check, we learn that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intends to name Michael Posner, the current president of Human Right First, as Assistant Secretary of State.

Posner has a 30-year history involved in human rights work, with a focus on refugees' rights, the protection of and justice for torture victims as well as strengthening accountability for war crimes. He also helped found the Fair Labor Association, which promotes corporate accountability for working conditions in the apparel industry.

You can check out his bio here, but all in all, this dude seems too good to be true. And for that, HRC is our homegirl today.

Via AP:

Police said Thursday they will investigate death threats against octuplet mom Nadya Suleman and advise her publicist on how to handle a torrent of other nasty messages that have flooded his office.

Word that the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother is receiving public assistance to care for the 14 children she conceived through in vitro fertilization has stoked furor among many people.

Police Lt. John Romero said officers were meeting with Suleman's publicist Mike Furtney about the flood of angry phone calls and e-mail messages against Suleman, her children and Furtney.

"We are aware of the media accounts of the threats, and that they are being sent to the West Los Angeles detectives for appropriate action," Romero said.

Furtney said 500 new e-mails were received early Thursday.

In the meantime, MSNBC ponders "baby addiction - when moms always want a newborn, even at the expense of other children." Sigh.

The Chicago Tribune breaks down the twelve states that are all considering legislative restrictions that would require an ultrasound before a woman gets an abortion. (Or force a doctor to offer one.)

This reminds us of the whole "informed consent" absurdity that the antis love to push as some sort of right when it's nothing but completely belittling, implying that women don't understand their personal decisions (or at least they don't without the "guidance" of their friendly neighborhood anti-choice legislator). Cara says it well:

It all seems to be about the poor little woman who doesn't understand what it means to be pregnant, or who will surely have a change of heart once she sees a blurry, cloudy image that I've never been able to personally make out. It's about forcing government into the decisions of doctors, trumping science with ideology, and attempting to take away the privacy of women. Indeed, it's about taking the focus off of women and their rights and yet again putting the fetus, this time literally, right in the front and center of the picture.

More at Feministe.

According to the NYT:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Thursday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the court said.

Ginsburg, 75, had the surgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. She will remain in the hospital for seven to 10 days, said her surgeon, Dr. Murray Brennan, according to a release issued by the court.

The court announcement said the cancer is apparently in the early stages.

This might be the best news I've heard all day.

Related: Girls Gone Wild founder off to jail
Joe Francis with yet another sex charge
Girls Gone Wild founder gets community service
Rapists Gone Wild
Stay classy, Joe Francis
Rape culture gone wild

Well, this is fucked. Two transsexual women are suing the state of Illinois for refusing to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities.

When Kari Rothkopf went to her hometown in Springfield to change her birth certificate, the supervisor at the vital records office told her that it couldn't be changed because she intended to have her gender reassignment surgery outside the U.S. (Both Rothkpf and Victoria "Tori" Kirk had their surgery in Thailand.) So the two teamed up with the ACLU to take action. Kirk said at a recent news conference:

"It could create significant problems for me in the future . . . A document that says I am male puts me at risk of embarrassment, harassment and possibly even physical violence."

As all three are too well known to the trans community. Let's hope these women get some justice for this bullshit.

via Feministe.

Algeria's top CIA operative has been accused of drugging and raping two Muslim women in his home, who after nearly two years of investigation, has been returned home to Washington, DC. Since Andrew Warren wasn't just an officer but headed the entire CIA office of security services in Algeria, the case is being perceived as potentially damaging to the U.S. as the new administration makes attempts to wipe clean our Bush-dirtied image in the Muslim world, according to the Washington Post.

While a CIA spokesperson claimed that they "would take seriously, and follow up on, any allegations of impropriety," Warren has yet to be officially charged. I hope this happens soon, considering there's videotaped evidence; apparently Warren has several videotapes of him "having sex" with women, including a tape of him raping one of the accusers, who is shown in a semi-conscious state.

Pretty much everyone else is declining to comment on the case, although WashPo managed to get a jackass to very clearly confuse rape with romance:

Mark Zaid, a private attorney who represents current and former CIA officers, said the case raises questions about the adequacy of the agency's self-policing of its senior officers. All CIA officers are required to report any unofficial contact with foreign nationals, although in practice, the agency sometimes looks the other way when its employees engage in romances overseas, Zaid said.

While cases of rape would be "unbelievably rare," the reality is that some agency employees "are sleeping around while posted overseas -- sometimes brazenly -- and no one does anything about it," he said.

The U.S. government is no stranger to sexual assault accusations, whether as a weapon of war or within the military, and also in cases like this where a top official feels entitled to women's bodies in his stationed country. One of the survivors told investigators that she briefly became conscious during the attack, asking Warren to stop, in which he said to the effect, "Nobody stays in my expensive sheets with clothes on."

However, the Department of Defense has a history of downplaying the existence of sexual assault by their folk. So while we worry about this case and how it's going to effect our relationship with Muslim nations, it also wouldn't be a bad idea to start paying attention to the larger problem surrounding it.

Six months after the FDA rejected Merck and Co.'s request to approve the distribution of Gardasil - the HPV vaccine - to women aged 27 to 45, they've sent a response letter to Merck requesting that they resubmit their request after a full 48-month study. Merck's original application included research from a 24-month period.

As Shark Fu noted, January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, so I'm not too surprised that this update is being released now. The good news is that the end of the 48-month study will be by the fourth quarter of 2009. Let's just hope this will be enough.

In the meantime, Merck also requested FDA approval for its use in males last month. I'm definitely curious how that's going to play out.

A week after I blogged about the the recent case of a lesbian being gang raped right outside of San Francisco, we find that most of the suspects have now been found and arrested.

Two of those in custody are 15 and 16 years old.

This is upsetting. Yesterday, nine Muslims, including three children, were escorted off a plane after two passengers overhead them talking about airport security:

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother's wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."

AirTran is defending its decision, saying that they strictly followed federal rules. Spokesperson Tad Hutcheson said, "At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them . . . Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

"It just so happened." The fact of the matter is that if "these people" weren't of Muslim faith and appearance, this wouldn't have happened.

UPDATE: AirTran's made a recent statement saying they were not notified that the passengers were cleared to rebook a flight, even though passenger Inayet Sahin said that was not the case: "The FBI agents actually cleared our names . . .They went on our behalf and spoke to the airlines and said, 'There is no suspicious activity here. They are clear. Please let them get on a flight so they can go on their vacation,' and they still refused." Hm.

Trigger warning

This is pretty devastating. Last Saturday in San Francisco, a lesbian was beaten and repeatedly raped by four men, while the perpetrators "made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation." They then left the 28-year old naked outside of an abandoned apartment building, who was helped by someone living nearby.

This year has brought an increase in violence against LGBT individuals and a dramatic spike in murders resulting from LGBT hate crimes. And not surprisingly, some folks believe that anti-LGBT legislation such as California's Prop 8 is what is fueling the fire. Avy Skolnik of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) responded:

"Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks. . . People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice." (Emphasis mine)

The NCVAP is beginning to conduct research in the states that had gay marriage bans on the ballot this year to document the correlation with hate crimes.

Police in Richmond are offering a $10,000 reward to those who could lead them to the attackers. In the meantime, the local rape crisis center has set up a trust fund for her. Just donate in honor of "Jane Doe Richmond."

(Potential trigger warning)

Mind you she was resisting a false arrest.

Two officers in Galveston, TX were alerted to three white prostitutes soliciting a man and drug dealer, after which they mistakenly went to 12-year old Dymond Millburn's home, saw her outside in "tight shorts," assumed she was one of the perpetrators (even though she's not the same race as the suspects) and attacked her:

[A] blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, 'You're a prostitute. You're coming with me.'

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.' One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

The house where they were supposed to be going was two blocks away. And despite the fact that this girl was not only hospitalized with black eyes, throat and ear drum injuries, the police came to her school three weeks later and arrested her for assaulting a public servant.

The case is scheduled for a new trial next month (it was declared a mistrial originally), but her lawyer is confident, saying "I think we'll be okay. I don't think a jury will find a 12-year-old girl guilty who's just sitting outside her house. Any 12-year-old attacked by three men and told that she's a prostitute is going to scream and yell for Daddy and hit back and do whatever she can. She's scared to death."

Two years later, Dymond still suffers nightmares from the attack.

The thought that these officers haven't seemed to even be considered for reprimand after sending this girl to the hospital is unbelievable. Is it okay because they thought she was a prostitute and, you know, police brutality is okay against prostitutes? Or is it okay because she's black? This makes me fucking sick to my stomach.

There is no doubt that I was super upset when hearing the news of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's arrest on federal corruption charges. After all, he has been a huge advocate for emergency contraception in Illinois. But amid the disappointment, the New York Times added even more distaste to the debacle when covering his wife Patricia Blagojevich's role in the scandal.

While many are in shock and awe over the "brash" phone conversations she took part in that resulted in the charges against the governor, the Times' tabloidy take on Blagojevich by painting her as this "first lady gone bad" is just tacky. Firstly, the author takes it upon herself to identify what the proper role of a first lady is:

The Web site for the governor's office says that in addition to raising the couple's two daughters, Ms. Blagojevich occupies herself with typical first lady issues: raising awareness on children's health, food allergies and literacy, and starting the State Beautification Initiative, which planted native wildflowers along state roads. (Emphasis mine)

I didn't realize horticulture was a "first lady issue" (whatever that means). Of course breeding is expected, but planting flowers too! Yet behind the blooming buds of a first lady's life, Ms. Blagojevich didn't only know about her husband's dealings but is, in fact, a potty mouth.

And, in a blast of vulgar language, Ms. Blagojevich eggs on her husband when he reportedly threatens to prevent the Tribune Company from selling the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field unless The Chicago Tribune fired editorial writers who had called for the governor's impeachment. Ms. Blagojevich is quoted in the complaint as saying that the state should 'hold up that [expletive] Cubs [expletive] ... [expletive] them.'

Taking any opportunity to paint women involved in politics as divisive and manipulating is sadly an old tactic by mainstream media. But when it specifically comes to women who are married to men involved in political scandals, the media seems to usually victimize them for not knowing about their husband's "double life." This case, however, is different; her knowledge of it immediately makes her not only his partner in crime, but the trophy wife turned trickster.

h/t to Boondoggle.

Related: A few days ago, community poster Nicolechat questioned what the "role" of a first lady actually is.

It's about time. After a four-year anti-choice crusade against women's health clinics in Kansas, former Attorney General Phill Kline was slammed by the Kansas Supreme Court on Friday for his baseless attempts to criminalize Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. The Court said:

Kline exhibits little, if any, respect for the authority of this court or for his responsibility to it and to the rule of law it husbands. His attitude and behavior are inexcusable, particularly for someone who purports to be a professional prosecutor. It is plain that he is interested in the pursuit of justice only as he chooses to define it. (Emphasis mine)

Hallelujah. Peter Brownlie, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, responded, "The Court confirms what Planned Parenthood has said all along: Phill Kline is a zealot pursuing a lawless prosecution and misusing the people's trust to advance a radical anti-choice political agenda. We are saddened and angered by the travesties recounted in the Court's opinion, and we are grateful the Court rebuked him for his disgraceful acts."

Related posts:
Kline files 107 counts against a Kansas City Planned Parenthood (Weekly Feminist Reader)
Abortion records seized by Kline now missing (WFR)
Special Prosecutor fired, Kline criticized by governor Kathleen Sebelius (WFR)
Kline's special prosecutor linked to anti-choice terrorists (WFR)
Phill Kline's "investigation" continues
Are you going to second base? The Kansas AG wants to know.
Hearings on Kansas abortion records to be closed

The lovely Campbell Brown gives us the low-down on a Massachusetts woman and her husband who were pulled over for speeding, given a ticket, and then asked by the state trooper to prove her pregnancy by showing her belly.

Read transcript here.

Nothing gets me more heated than law enforcement officials and the like who feel the need to expose and humiliate women, probably because I've had a couple of encounters myself. One was when I was in the airport last year going through security check-in - the security person told me to take my scarf off, which I did. Then he told me to take my thin cardigan off (I only had a small tank underneath), which I refused - you know, considering the woman who was already in the clear in front of me wasn't asked to take her scarf or jacket off. So he "allowed" me to proceed. Fucking jerk.

I'm sure some of you have had your own experiences...

This is pretty appalling. An Illinois woman is suing Waukegan radio station WXLC for being sexually assaulted on a "date" she won from one of their contests.

The station promoted Travis Harvey as a "great" and "kind" guy in their challenge, "Win a Date with Travis," which she ended up getting after being asked a series of questions by Harvey along with other contestants. So after being tested and judged as to whether she was an adequate "date" for the bachelor, Harvey invited her to his house on the night of their oh-so-special date where he drugged and raped her.

And this all happened despite the fact that Harvey had a record, which the station failed to find out:

Baizer [the rape survivor's attorney] said Harvey had previously been convicted twice of violating a domestic violence order of protection taken out by another woman. The radio station was negligent for not checking Harvey's record, and for promoting him as a safe--and desirable--date, the suit alleges.

To top it off, Harvey himself was only charged with criminal sexual abuse and is just serving probation for a measly year. (Since there was no physical evidence.) *Fuming*

h/t to Veronica.

This is just peachy. Via Pam, we find that a South Carolina priest is telling his parish that folks won't be receiving communion if they voted for Obama:

A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.

"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein. (Emphasis mine)

This news comes just a few days after U.S. bishops met to discuss the new President-elect's support for choice. It's nice to know that at least others are saying Newman's statement is extreme. Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats, responded:

"He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."

So I watched CNN all day yesterday waiting for the vote on the bailout bill, but I noticed that even though I don't have any money to really lose (just the hope that they may not notice how much debt I have) I still felt stressed out. I also realized that when rich people lose money, it is a national crisis. But poor folk have trouble making ends meet every single day. Where is our news coverage?

The thing with money stress, for most of us, it is always there. So why this panic and media frenzy? Because the Dow Jones dropped? Or because we need to sensationalize everything and create fake scenarios to see how our to be presidents will react? Now, I am not saying that the financial crisis isn't real. Giving out money that doesn't exist will lead to problems. But this has problem didn't happen over night. As Naomi Klein would suggest,

[R]ight-wing governments use the shock generated by disasters or other crises to push through unpopular free-market policies when the population isn't in a position to oppose such programs.

via Chronicle Herald.

So instead of taking a jab at some shoddy economic analysis (which it seems like a lot of people are doing), I thought I would give you all a chance to share your thoughts on the economic crisis. I realized after watching the news all day I started to feel really panicked and started revisiting all my bills and stressing out about money. I also realized the spending on the war in Iraq is almost as much as the amount that is needed for the bailout.

Talk to me.

Due to the looming financial crisis and recently proposed bailout plan, McCain just announced he will be suspending his campaign.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the "historic" crisis facing the U.S. economy. McCain said it was time for both parties to come together to solve economic crisis.

The Arizona senator called on his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, to do the same.The Obama campaign announced that Obama would make a statement shortly.He also urged organizers of Friday's presidential debate at the University of Mississippi to postpone the event.

"I am calling on the president to convene a meeting with the leadership from both houses of Congress, including Senator Obama and myself," McCain told reporters in New York. "It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem."

It was not immediately clear how extensive the suspension he announced would be -- whether it would include dropping television advertising or just canceling scheduled appearances. McCain took no questions after reading his statement.

Via CNN
More at Think Progress

UPDATE: You can vote on whether or not you think the debate should be postponed.

UPDATE II: Obama says he will continue with the debate as planned.

"It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said in a news conference in Clearwater, Fla. "It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once."

Aw, shit. I like her.

Transcript available at HuffPo.

This one you have to just read to believe. Seriously.

Finding out that Sarah Palin charged Wasilla rape victims to pay for their own rape kits was quite a shock. How much of a shock is another question, but the very idea of making victims pay up to $1200 to gather medical evidence against their attacker seems surprising even for the most conservative of folk.

Well, apparently Palin's history of apathy towards victims of sexual assault doesn't end there.

Shakesville put it all together after finding the details behind Troopergate. While Palin fired her Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan after he failed to reopen an investigation into her sister's ex-husband, her failure to address the epidemic of sex crimes in Alaska led him to plan a trip to Washington to seek federal funding to address the problem, in which he was stopped short in his tracks:

The last straw, the McCain campaign said, was in July, when Monegan planned to travel to Washington to seek federal money for a plan to assign troopers, judges and prosecutors who could exclusively handle sexual assault cases -- one of the state's most intractable crime problems.

In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: The governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request was "out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. (Ted) Stevens."

Four days later, Monegan was fired. He said he had kept others in the administration fully apprised of his plans to go to Washington.

Not only did Palin drive her Public Safety Commissioner to Washington due to her failure to address sexual assault in her state, but didn't allow him seeking federal funds because of a fear of mucking a relationship with a senator later indicted for corruption. And then subsequently fired him. Melissa says:

And even if it were true, it still means that Palin is shockingly indifferent to rape and domestic violence in her own state and contemptuous of the people who don't share her indifference--and, weirdly, the McCain campaign appears to believe that's somehow more palatable than Palin having simply fired Monegan for insubordination because she wasn't getting what she wanted from a public servant on her personal family matter.

That's quite an amazing calculation.

Yes it is. It has become painfully clear that not only is Sarah Palin not an advocate for rape victims, she is not an advocate for women. But Palin doesn't hate women; she just doesn't care about them.

Pic via AP.

The chairman of the Macomb County (Michigan) Republican Party wants to deny people the right to vote if they are homeless due to foreclosure.

"We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren't voting from those addresses," party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. [...]

Carabelli is not the only Republican Party official to suggest the targeting of foreclosed voters. In Ohio, Doug Preisse, director of elections in Franklin County (around the city of Columbus) and the chair of the local GOP, told The Columbus Dispatch that he has not ruled out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.

The move would disproportionately affect African-American voters, as "more than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans -- the most likely kind of loan to go into default -- were made to African-Americans in Michigan." One of the largest Republican fundraisers in the county is, you guessed it, a "foreclosure specialist." These people make me sick.

Today Hurricane Gustav made landfall. Kate Harding published some quotes from a CNN article about people who are staying behind. And not because they want to:

"The thing is... most people don't have cars to leave, don't have money for gas. Pay for a hotel for that long? I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do, and I guess I'm gonna stay and work." [--Michael Kennedy, dishwasher]

"If I left, I'll probably lose my job," said Jeremiah O'Farrell, another dishwasher who is staying put. "I really don't have anywhere to go if I could leave."

[Ninth Ward resident Sidney] William wants desperately to leave his native New Orleans to avoid Gustav. He didn't leave for Katrina because he didn't have the money. He won't talk about what happened to him during that storm.

"I wish I had the money to go." Rejected for disability subsidies, he depends on his 23-year-old daughter, Gloria, to support the family.

That's heart-wrenching. Keep these people in your thoughts/prayers.

Feministing tech goddess Deanna also passed along the following ways to stay informed and in touch:

• Volunteer, discuss, get updates at http://gustav08.ning.com/
• Gustav info wiki: http://gustavwiki.com/
• More info from Andy Carvin
• Official NHC alerts
• Twitter stream on Gustav (slightly overwhelming)

And remember, INCITE needs your support to help low-income women of color affected by Gustav.

UPDATE: Suzie at Echidne's place links to a report on the gendered aspects of natural disasters. Check it out.

INCITE! needs your support in their efforts to help low-income women of color with evacuation efforts as Hurricane Gustav approaches the Gulf Coast.

Your assistance is urgently needed to help low-income women of color and their families evacuate safely if need be, stay safe for the duration of the evacuation, and return to the city as soon as possible so as not to fall prey to the pushout that has kept so many folks from being able to return to New Orleans since Katrina. Local organizers are using whatever resources and funds at their disposal to help women and their families evacuate, bond people being held in Orleans Parish Prison out, and support those who make the choice to stay in whatever way they can.

This money will go directly to supporting the hundreds of low income women of color that are the constituency of the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic.

Once again, the particular vulnerability of low-income women of color and single female-headed households (including folks with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women) has been erased in the face of disaster and overlooked in the days leading up to the storm. With few resources, facing challenges and concerns for their families of their own, INCITE! New Orleans and WHJI have stepped in to fill the gap. Please send all your support, solidarity, sisterhood and strength their way, and join us in hoping for the safety and well-being of the people who are already suffering from Gustav in Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti, and willing the storm to subside or veer off safely before it strikes the Gulf Coast.

TO HELP: Click here to make a donation online (be sure to put "New Orleans" in the "Purpose" line). [Updated link.]

Or you can write a check directly to WHJI and send it to:
PO Box 51325
New Orleans, LA 70151

Terrible news:

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, is reported to have suffered an aneurysm and is not expected to recover, according to CBS affiliate WOIO in Cleveland.

WOIO also reported that the congresswoman is on life support at this time.

Tubbs Jones was the first black woman to represent Ohio, and one of only 23 women of color in Congress. Our thoughts are with her family.

UPDATE: Tubbs Jones has died.

UPDATE II: Apparently there are conflicting reports.

Community blogger MaraJ3791 covered this a couple of days ago, and thankfully some good news has come out of this heinousness.

The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) attempts to mitigate violent crimes in the UK by giving victims reparations. But in their most recent case, a 25-year old woman who was raped was told the £11,000 she was to be given was actually going to be reduced by 25% because she was drinking on the night she was assaulted. She received a letter saying that, "the evidence shows that your excessive consumption of alcohol was a contributing factor in the incident."

"It was just so cruel and unthinking and so wrong because there is nothing you can do to prevent yourself being raped. It is not illegal to go out and have a drink, it is illegal to rape somebody," said the survivor.

The good news is that after some pushing, the decision has been overturned. But unfortunately, this is too little too late for others. The CICA also acknowledged that they had already cut reparations for 14 other rape victims this year, but refused to review the past cases to potentially right their wrong.

"If an applicant accepts our decision then that case is finalised and closed," the CICA said. "If they wish to ask for a review they must do this themselves, in writing."

The fact that these people can be so smug after admitting guilty to blatant injustice through victim-blaming is beyond me. Let the CICA know that they should take responsibility for their shameful actions and give the 14 women their reviews; they certainly shouldn't have ask for it.

Former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards has admitted to having an extramarital affair. Thoughts?

The math wars - Economic Woman: Allison at the fabulous blog Economic Woman takes an in-depth look at the recent study showing girls perform as well as boys in math.

Girls=Boys in Math - The Onion: I couldn't let you miss The Onion's take as well.

Recognising 'gendercide' - The Guardian: Heather McRobie proposes that we start talking about gender-based massacres, like Ciudad Juárez, in using the word 'gendercide'.

Our Bodies Our Blog - Tribal Law and Order Act Aims to Address Abuse of Native American Women: "Last week, bills were introduced in the House and Senate that are intended to empower tribal governments to address crimes that take place on their lands, and, among other aims, to 'reduce the prevalence of violent crime in tribal communities and to combat violence against Indian and Alaska Native women.'"

LENIN'S TOMB - Noam Chomsky on Pornography: Chomsky speaks out on porn in the video clip.

Popgadget - Samsung thinks patronising women will get us into tech; Engadget agrees: "As Engadget gleefully reports, Samsung has designed a concept compact hard drive that looks similar to a piece of make-up - and this picture shows it surrounded by make-up, to prove the point."

1960s ad for rice - Boing Boing: For funsies.

Picture from 2DaH Max.

This is only the second time in history that Planned Parenthood Action Fund has endorsed a presidential candidate. Check out endorsement statement by President Cecile Richards and clip of Obama below.

CEO Barbie Criticized For Promoting Unrealistic Career Images - The Onion: "Toy company Mattel is under fire from a group of activists who say their popular doll's latest incarnation, CEO Barbie, encourages young girls to set impractical career goals."

First Female General Nominated - Feministing Community (Marc): "I'd say it's the beginning of a very critical start in the equalization of genders in the military. One of the reasons I decided to stay in after eight years of service, almost to the date, is because I realize that in society where rank does matter, that those who have a bit of rank can affect the people below them. Patriarchal as it is, the military leaves some room for change - and it is up to those in the military,with what little bit of rank they have, to change the culture."

Unfetter women's intellect on campaign trail - Newsday: "Media coverage everywhere is "Michelle vs. Cindy." Where do they buy their dresses? Do they make bacon for breakfast? And, of course, which one can we compare to Jackie O? Is anyone else as appalled as I am at how quickly we have gone back to thinking of women in the oldest of stereotypes - as only wives and mothers?"

The Loud Silence of Feminists - The Washington Post: "Michelle Obama has become an issue in the presidential campaign even though she isn't running for anything. An educated, successful lawyer, devoted wife and caring mother has been labeled 'angry' and unpatriotic and snidely referred to as Barack Obama's 'baby mama.' Democrats, Republicans, independents, everyone should be offended. And this black woman is wondering: Where are Obama's feminist defenders?"

"If she's not crying...then I did not do my job" - Women Who Serve: "In this same story, [Justin] Gimelstob goes viciously after Anna Kournikova, calling her a bitch, a douche and a scumbag. With regard to playing against her in World Team tennis mixed doubles, he says 'If she's not crying by the time she walks off that court,' then I did not do my job." That is mild, however, compared to: '...she's gonna be serving 40 miles an hour and I'm gonna be just plugging it down her throat.'"

Bratz Candy Cosmetics - Candy Blog: The doll company launches candy makeup for young girls.

Pantsuits and the Presidency - The New York Times: "Some supporters of Hillary Clinton believe that sexism colored news coverage of her presidential campaign. The Times reported in a front-page article on June 13 that many are proposing boycotts of cable news networks and that a 'Media Hall of Shame' has been created by the National Organization for Women. The Times itself, however, was barely mentioned, even though two of its Op-Ed columnists, Maureen Dowd and William Kristol, were named in the Hall of Shame."

Generation Y Refuses Race-Gender Dichotomy - AlterNet: Courtney's latest!

Judge's ban on the use of the word ‘rape’ at trial reflects trend - Kansas City Star: "It’s the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her. She was raped. But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word 'rape' in front of a jury. The term 'sexual assault' also was taboo, and Bowen could not refer to herself as a victim or use the word “assailant” to describe the man who allegedly raped her....Bowen’s case is part of what some prosecutors and victim advocates see as a national trend in sexual assault cases."

Tila Tequila: California lifted its gay-marriage ban "because of me" - Reality TV World: "Tila Tequila thinks she deserves some credit for California lifting its ban on same-sex marriages."

From the Associated Press: "Gay couples in Norway will be granted the same rights as heterosexuals to marry, adopt and undergo artificial insemination under a new equality law passed Tuesday."

I've been closely watching the news about the massive flooding throughout the Midwest -- I grew up in eastern Iowa, and some of the hardest-hit places very near to my hometown of Dubuque.

I talked to my dad this weekend, who told me the vast majority of the people affected don't have flood insurance. (My dad, who sells insurance for a living, is in the know about such things.) The most flooded Iowa towns aren't right on the Mississippi. They're in a 500-year floodplain. Wikipedia tells me that means there's a 0.2% chance of these areas flooding in any given year. So it's not surprising that people aren't insured for water damage like this, and are really going to be hurting financially.

I'm not going to attempt a "flooding is a feminist issue" post. But with my personal connections to the areas affected, I felt remiss in not mentioning it.

Click here to donate to flood relief efforts.

I am speechless, honestly. via CNN.

A new initiative has been introduced in Washington DC to try and curb a recent wave of crime. The new tactic is being compared to a police state, possibly for good reason. From the Examiner:

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

There are many problems with this kind of plan (efficacy, legality, etc) but most concerning is what kind of rights are being violated in favor of security. Sound familiar? Violent crime is a huge problem here (DC has been called the Murder Capital) and that needs to be addressed, definitely. But we need to find a way to address the root causes of this crime (poverty, joblessness, drugs) without holding people living in low-income neighborhoods hostage in their own communities.

Why Judy can't add: gender inequality and the math gap - Ars Technica: "[A] new study suggests that, when it comes to math, we can forget biology, as social equality seems to play a dominant role in test scores."

After Caesareans, Some See Higher Insurance Cost - NYTimes: "When the Golden Rule Insurance Company rejected her application for health coverage last year, Peggy Robertson was mystified. 'It made me feel very helpless,' she said. 'It made no sense,” said Ms. Robertson, 39, who lives in Centennial, Colo. 'I’m in perfect health.' She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section."

"Feminist" Marc Rudov believes "most American women are as shallow" as Sex in the City characters - Media Matters: More genius from the man who wrote Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables.

The Summer of Brownface - Vulture, New York Magazine: "Outside of color-blind Shakespeare adaptations, cross-race casting has been one of Hollywood’s obvious taboos for decades now — a no-no so basic it didn’t even merit discussion. No more: Enough Hollywood stars are enthusiastically applying bronzer in 2008, either for a quick gag or for a serious leading role, that we’re forced to hesitatingly declare this movie season the Summer of Brownface."

Jonathan Martin's Blog: Duprey defies captions - Politico.com: Just click on it. Trust me.

Outcry after French court rules on virginity - Associated Press:"The bride said she was a virgin. When her new husband discovered that was a lie, he went to court to annul the marriage—and a French judge agreed."

This is big.

Less than a year after she was appointed by George Bush to lead the nation's family planning office, contraception-hating wingnut Susan Orr announced her resignation on Wednesday.

Her resignation shortly followed after the the Family Research Council, the organization she was formerly employed with (along with 80 other conservative groups) called on George Bush to reinstate a "domestic gag rule." Like the Global Gag Rule, this means that eligibility for Title X funds (which covers a huge chunk of our nation's family planning clinics) will require that centers don't refer patients for abortions or share facilities with abortion providers.

Title X is the only federal funding program that provides contraceptive services to low-income individuals, and Susan Orr's job was to watch over its management. The Family Research Council are working hella hard to get this "domestic gag rule" passed, and if Bush decides to leave us with this gift before he leaves office, a lot of clinics and a lot of low-income women and men are going to be fucked.

Check out RH Reality Check for more background on this, and take action here; tell Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt that the gag rule has no home here.

National Science Foundation - Chore Wars: Men, Women and Housework: "Husbands create an extra seven hours a week of housework for wives, according to a new study. But wives save husbands from about an hour of housework a week."

Shakesville: Horrifying New Law: Forced Ultrasounds Condition of Abortion: "Last week, the Oklahoma Legislature overrode the governor's veto and enacted a law that puts a horrifying twist on informed consent requirements for women seeking abortion. While other states require that women seeking abortion be offered an ultrasound, this law requires that the woman have either an abdominal or a vaginal ultrasound, whichever offers the clearer picture, as a condition of having an abortion."

New York Times - More Mothers Breast-Feed, in First Months at Least: "About 77 percent of new mothers breast-feed their infants at least briefly, the highest rate seen in the United States in more than a decade, according to a government survey released on Wednesday."

The Frisky - The Daily Squeeze: Disney push-up bras?!

Our Bodies Our Blog: On Increasing Rates of Diabetes in Pregnancy: "An article set to appear in the May issue of the journal Diabetes Care is garnering widespread media attention today, as it declares that the prevalence of pre-existing diabetes in women who become pregnant has doubled over the past several years."

Femme Den - Design for females, without "pinking and shrinking": "Women are still underrepresented in the design industry," says designer Erica Eden, of Smart Design. To combat that, Eden and three other female members of Smart's staff (Agnete Enga, Yvonne Lin, and Gina Reimann) have started Femme Den, an in-company initiative to address the needs of female consumers without alienating males by merely 'pinking and shrinking' existing products.

Or so the major news outlets are reporting. Deborah Jeane Palfrey was found dead this afternoon.

Read our previous posts: Vanessa on the outcome of Palfrey's trial ("a pointless, slut-shaming witch hunt"), and Samhita on how the Washington dudes who purchased sex were let off the hook.

UPDATE: More from Thomas and Carissa at Blue Lyon.

I added an update to my post on Wednesday about the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act -- noting that Senate Republicans blocked the bill from passing. John McCain wasn't there for the vote, but he opposed the legislation: (via Scott)

"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems," McCain told reporters yesterday. "This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system."

To summarize: McCain's not against women and people of color being paid the same as white men for doing the same work -- heck, if businesses want to pay fairly, that's great! -- but he doesn't think we should make businesses do so. And not holding businesses accountable for wage discrimination is the same thing as endorsing it.

In my interview with Lilly Ledbetter, she actually responded to McCain's position on the legislation:

We've had a lot of opposition that said this would just open up a multitude of lawsuits, and it would be tough on corporations to fight these cases. But that's not true. If a person or individual thinks they have a case, they can't even go to EEOC unless they have proof. You can't just waltz into EEOC.

Right. It's not exactly like it was easy for Ledbetter -- and others in her situation -- to prove they were discriminated against. In fact, there are some very high barriers to getting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to recognize your complaint as valid.

So the "I hate lawsuits" defense is bullshit. McCain is really saying that he values the rights of corporations over the rights of women and people of color who work for them. Thanks, buddy.

Most U.S. women have 'disordered eating' - UPI.com: "Sixty-five percent of U.S. women ages 25 to 45 report having disordered eating behaviors, such as skipping meals or cutting out food groups, a study found."

Oh Joy: The Stupid Spirit Airlines M.I.L.F. Sale Is Back: "We're probably just encouraging them, but we felt some sort of strange obligation to let you know that Spirit Airlines has brought back the (controversial?) M.I.L.F. sale."

Facebook - Equal Rights Amendment: An ERA fan page!

For Chris Matthews, Misogyny Pays Handsomely - AlterNet: "In fact, in Matthews' case, the sexist outbursts have helped propel his career. That's how he landed on the cover of the Times magazine. Why? Because misogyny pays."

Congress Holds Hearings on Abstinence-Only - RHRealityCheck: "Numerous scientific and ethical critiques have been raised about abstinence-only education for young people. These concerns are articulated in reports by the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the American Public Health Association, and others."

Our Bodies Our Blog: Mortality Inequality: Life Expectancy Declines for Some U.S. Women: "The Washington Post has a front-page story today that's a shocker: Lfe expectancy for some U.S. women is on the decline, and the data points to a growing inequality between the best-off and worst-off counties."

Woman, 19, becomes youngest college professor - MSNBC.com: "Perhaps in Alia Sabur’s wildly advanced studies she came across a famous quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 'Knowing is not enough. We must apply,' the German writer once observed."

This is horrible news:

The Triqui indigenous community of San Juan Copala, which declared autonomy on January 21, 2007, has suffered the bitter loss of two young women. Felicitas Martinez, age 20, and Teresa Bautista, age 24, were traveling in a rural part of Oaxaca state on route to the statewide meeting “For the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca,� when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle late Monday. The gunfire killed the two women, and wounded three others in the vehicle, a man and wife and their three-year-old child, the Oaxaca attorney general’s office said in a statement.

Did you catch that? They were 20 and 24 years old, respectively. For me (someone who works in journalism), this news was a stark reminder that being an independent lefty journalist means very different things and carries very different burdens depending on where you live and the color of your skin. These women were infinitely braver and more dedicated than I will ever be.

The community radio station they worked for is called La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (“The Voice that Breaks the Silence�).

Feminist Peace Network has information on which authorities to contact to demand an investigation into the murders and punishment of those responsible.

Marriage: Do it for the economy!

Well, that's what some groups would like us to think...

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments - notably job creation - would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families.

But who needs jobs when you have a husband, right? The study was sponsored by four organizations that identify as part of a "marriage movement" - Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest, and the Georgia Family Council (an ally of Focus on the Family). So yeah, not biased at all.

Studies like these are not just about promoting marriage, of course, they're about promoting traditional marriages. And the idea that women don't need a job (just a man) has hurting women welfare recipients for far too long. So if we're worried about the economy, let's focus on jobs, education, and affordable child care for parents - not weddings.

Thanks to Monica for the link.

Sara Fajardo is a staff photographer at the Orlando Sentinel. Her photojournalism journey has taken her to many places, from local places in the States to covering the rise and fall of president Alberto Fujimori in Peru. You can see some of her photos at her website: http://sarafajardo.com/.

She's also the author of a children's nonfiction book, Enrique's Day: From Dawn to Dusk in a Peruvian City.

Here's Sara...

To the folks at Morning Joe: Shame on you. What pains me is that I generally really like Mika Brzezinski, and consider her a voice of reason in an otherwise frat-boy-gross show. But this is just horrifying.

UPDATE: There's an email form on Morning Joe's website that you can use to complain, or you can check out the general MSNBC contact info.

Allison Kilkenny describes herself as "a political humorist, a fancy way of saying writer, who makes shitty world news funny." She is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, The Beast, Alternet.org's Wiretap Magazine, and Timothy McSweeney's. Her work has appeared on The Nation and SIRIUS radio.

Here's Allison Kilkenny...

A forewarning: This is about as bad as it gets.

A Maryland man with bipolar disorder with a history of suicide attempt murdered his children this weekend after a court refused to submit a permanent restraining order requested by their mother partly because she was still "having sex" with him in fear for her and her childrens' lives.

While the psychologist's report claiming that Mark Castillo was not someone of harm to his children was a factor in the decision, Amy Castillo said that her husband told her "the worst thing he could do to me would be to kill the children and not me so I could live without them," which she wrote in the petition for the order.

Nonetheless, Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr. said, "I am not satisfied that indeed there is clear and convincing evidence of abuse in this case." And brought up the fact that Amy continued to "have sex" with her husband, including "twice on the day he allegedly talked about killing the children," despite Castillo testifying that she was - very understandably - scared of him and worried that if she didn't, he would suspect she was taking action against him.

This is beyond horrid. To discredit a woman for being raped to save her and her childrens' lives is unbelievably heinous. I wonder if Dugan has that on his conscience now that her children are dead. Fucking horrible.

Thanks to Sarah for the tip, who is from the same neighborhood.

A woman who filed a restraining order against former boyfriend and present Republican candidate was pressured by the Republican party to drop it.

Ali Hasan was in the midst of his campaign when Alison Miller and his relationship ended, after which, according to Miller, Hasan hired a company to hack into her email accounts to find out here whereabouts as well as harassed her. "He followed me to intimidate me and control how I handled the situation," said Miller, also a Republican, stated in the court documents.

Chairman of the Eagle County Republican Party, Randy Milhoan, implied that the story was concocted as a campaign smear, which is also what the Hassans are claiming. "The whole thing is just crazy. You couldn't have scripted a story more cleverly than this one," says Milhoan. Hence the article title, "GOP candidate in a 'crazy' soap opera drama."

Yeah, because stalking just seems just so outrageous! And a Republican woman to file a restraining order against her own kind?? Pshhh.

After Hasan hired Kobe Bryant's law firm and local party officials began telling her she was "embarrassing the Republican party," Miller decided not to move forward with a permanent restraining order. Criminal charges may still be filed by the district attorney.

Let's all say it together now: Stalking is a very real and serious problem. To brush it off as some melodrama and shame a woman for trying to protect herself is what the Republican party of Eagle County should be embarrassed by.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, complaints of pregnancy discrimination hiked up by 14% between 2006 and 2007. There has been a 40% increase over the last decade, reports the National Partnership for Women and Families.

The Wall Street Journal suggests that this is party because women are increasingly working later into their pregnancies, including new advocacy being created for pregnant women and women with children.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act can't straight up protect women from being fired or not hired, but if they're singled out based on their pregnancy, they're liable to take action. And unfortunately, the Family and Medical Leave Act poses a problem: while unpaid maternity leave is required, it doesn't doesn't require paid maternity leave. (California and Washington are exceptions.)

Regardless, it's good to see women taking more action on pregnancy discrimination; we're getting closer to accurate numbers on how prevalent it really is in the U.S. and maybe, just maybe, our family-friendly policies will someday get friendlier. Check out MomsRising and the National Advocates for Pregnant Women has a great list of more resources about pregnant women and mother's rights at work.

iPartySmarter.com - Smart Women Smart Choices:"Girls just want to have fun. Right? However, a woman's party style can make all the difference between having fun or having regrets." (Nothing like a little victim-blaming campaign to shame women into not "partying.")

Copyranter - French men can't see the forest for the trees. Or something: Some charming ads for hair removal cream.

Rebel Dad - Men: Shrinking Violets?: Brian takes on Laura Sessions Stepp's latest nonsense.

Open Society Fellowship: "The Open Society Institute has launched a fellowship program for outstanding individuals from around the world working on issues concerning national security, citizenship, authoritarianism, and new strategies and tools for advocacy." (For all you activists who need funding, check it out!)

Feminists More Open-Minded on Weight - New York Times: "If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then try to be beheld by a feminist."

Think Progress - HHS Secretary: OB/GYNs With Objections To Abortion Should Not Have To Refer Patients To Other Doctors: "In a little-noticed letter on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt wrote a letter to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), stating that providers with moral objections to abortion should have no obligation to refer patients." (NPR has more.)

"Spanx" Now Hold In Your Unsightly Boobies As Well As Your Hideous, Mutant Gut - Guanabee: "Speaking of bacon cups, “Spanx� underwear brand is re-launching their line of bras designed to make you, the average bacon-chomping woman, look more like the feminine ideal put forth by store mannequins and anime heroines alike."

Kansascity.com - Kansas House gives first-round OK to abortion bill: "The House today advanced a bill supporters say will lead to better enforcement of restrictions on late-term abortions. Approved on a voice vote, it also requires that women get more information about the fetus and the procedure before having an abortion."

Chicago Business - Illinois AG to appeal overturning of abortion notification law: "In an action that is scrambling normal political alliances, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has decided to appeal a federal court order that overturned the state’s law on parental notice for abortions for minors."

Religion Dispatches - An Open Letter to Western Feminists: "It is appalling that in these catastrophic times, many U.S. liberal feminists are focused only on misogynistic practices associated with particular local cultures, as if these exist in capsules, far from the arena of imperial occupation. Indeed, imperial violence has given fuel to some of these patriarchal practices of misogyny and sexism. They should also know that such a narrow vision furthers a much older tradition of feminist mobilizing in the service of colonialism--�saving brown, or black women, from brown men,� as observed by Gayatri Spivak."

Top Ten Feminist Blogs - TakePart Blog Network

In Alabama, a Crackdown on Pregnant Drug Users - New York Times: "A day after she gave birth in 2006, Tiffany Hitson, 20, sat on her front porch crying, barefoot and handcuffed. A police officer hovered in the distance...Ms. Hitson’s newborn daughter had traces of cocaine and marijuana in its system, and the young woman, baby-faced herself, had fallen afoul of a tough new state law intended to protect children from drugs, and a local prosecutor bent on pursuing it. She made arrangements for the baby’s care, and headed off to a year behind bars." (Note: Make sure to check out this response from the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.)

Akansas Woman, Left in Cell, Goes 4 Days With No Food or Water - New York Times: "A woman was locked for four days in a tiny holding cell in a northern Arkansas courthouse, forgotten by the authorities and left without food or water, the local Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday...'Everybody is backing away from it as fast as they can,' Mr. Petty said. 'Frankly, that’s how they treat Hispanics down here. They treat Hispanics like cattle, like less than human.'"

UK-based videocasting channel Truetube has a great series on feminism, Feminism 3.0. It includes pieces on feminism in India, the Hijab, sex, and a piece about "random acts of feminism" where they interview yours truly. Check it out...

In the wake of Spitzer's resignation there's been a ton of commentary (feminist and otherwise) about prostitution, trafficking, legalization, and a host of other related issues. I've been out of town and haven't found time to write a substantive post on the subject, but I've been reading a lot of interesting things 'round the internet:

First up, check out Nicholas Kristof's column from Sunday's Times: Kristen's story is "a dangerously unrepresentative glimpse of prostitution in America. Those who work with street prostitutes say that what they see daily is pimps who control teenage girls with violence and threats — plus an emotional bond — and then keep every penny the girl is paid."

Amanda forges ahead and opens what we all know can be a huge can o' worms for a sex-positive feminist: "But when degradation and harm are the work itself, struggling over labor standards becomes confusing. ... Which is why I tear my hair out at the people who focus on the exceptions, like Kerry Howley arguing that prostitution is about women who love sex so much they want to make it a career. That sort of argument serves only one purpose—to shame people with serious questions about prostitution into not asking those questions for fear we’ll be labeled as prudes. Well, I’m not taking the bait."

Safe to say Twisty's against decriminalization: "Note that the goal is merely to curb the male appetite for trafficked women. The message? Pay-for-rapists are here to stay! It is unfathomable that human society could exist entirely without a subclass of sex slaves." UPDATE: Twisty has a clarification.

Brad Plumer looks at what happened in Nevada and Sweden when they decriminalized prostitution: "[O]ur currently policies are grotesque, but honestly, I don't know what the ideal alternative is. I'd lean toward legalize-and-regulate as the least-bad option, although the idea of providing generous support for women who want to get out of the sex trade sounds like the best idea on offer. But if Sweden can barely manage it, good luck putting anything like that in place in the United States."

...and dnA has more thoughts on legalization.

The Sex Workers Project says: "To focus solely on the salacious scandal created by Mr. Spitzer’s alleged actions without attention to the realities and needs of sex workers does nothing to provide solutions for sex workers."

Jill takes on conservative John Derbyshire, who actually wrote that: "To a lover of liberty, it’s hard to see why a woman shouldn’t sell her favors if she wants to. Trouble is, weak or dimwitted women end up in near-slavery to unscrupulous men, and I think there’s a legitimate public interest in not letting that happen." Yeah, you read that right: "weak or dimwitted women."

Jill also points out that there is not an inherent contradiction in being a sex worker and a feminist.

What have y'all been reading/writing about this issue? I'd love to see more links in comments.

Bad first: A Florida House committee passed an Unborn Victims of Violence Act that defines an "unborn child" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb" and removes all language around viability.

The good news: The Oklahoma House voted by a tiny margin to reject a bill that would require parental consent before students receive sex education. They currently already send "opt out" forms to parents of children enrolled in classes that provide sex ed.

Early Thursday morning there was a huge fire in Mt. Pleasant, a neighborhood in NW DC. The neighborhood is predominantly Latino, although quickly gentrifying as well. An entire apartment buidling was destroyed in this fire, which displaced around 200 people, mostly low-income Latino immigrant residents.

It's a complicated story, unsurprisingly for those who are familiar with struggles around gentrification and housing. The building was one that had been neglected for a long time, in what some would say was an attempt by the owners of the building to force out their low-income residents. Well now nature has done it instead, although the source of the fire is as of yet unclear (I smell a rat). Luckily no one was hurt.

So now we've got a crisis in Mt.Pleasant, with a ton of displaced people who have lost everything. If you happen to be in DC, there are some donation options: you can donate supplies (like clothing, Bottled Water, Blankets, Trash Bags, School Supplies, Gift Cards, Baby Formula) or money to some local orgs and businesses that are serving as facilitators for this process. Also a friend of Jen's is organizing a happy hour tonight to raise money for the displaced people.

These sites provide the best information on how to help: Hear Mt. Pleasant, Neighbor's Consejo, then info about the fundraiser tonight.

Why do things like this always affect the most vulnerable populations? Not only are these people out of a home, but their building will probably be turned into luxury condos they can't afford anymore. It's just so frustrating.

Pictures of the fire here.

Wow!

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

Mr. Spitzer, who was huddled with his top aides early this afternoon, had hours earlier abruptly canceled his scheduled public events for the day. He is set to make an announcement about 2:15 this afternoon at his Manhattan office.

Just last week, federal prosecutors arrested four people in connection with an expensive prostitution operation. Administration officials would not say that this was the ring with which the governor had become involved.

What made him admit this?

via NYTimes.

New York is introducing a bill to the City Council this week that would expand protections of victims of intimate partner violence to unmarried couples. Only married/divorced couples or blood relatives can currently seek a civil order of protection from a family court. The bill would allow same-sex and unmarried couples to get the order without having a criminal proceeding first, which is known to possibly escalate violent behavior.

"We will continue to advocate on the state level for a broader definition of family, but we can't wait for the state to act," said Christine Quinn, speaker for the City Council.

Check out more information on intimate partner violence in LGBT relationships.

Hey all, just a little shameless self-promotion... Check out my article in The Nation, The Sisterhood Split, a commentary on what I think the feminist election tension says about the movement more generally.

I'll be honest, I was nervous about writing this - I knew that I'd be criticized for feeding the backlash and such. But I truly do think that if we want feminism to move forward, we have to be honest about the problems within it.

Gloria Feldt, who I quote in the article, has a response here. I have a ton of respect for Feldt and the work she's done, but I do think her post demonstrates the problems I talk about in the article. For example, Feldt says that I'm buying into the "catfight" stereotype - but if feminists can't talk about issues within the movement without being accused of fanning the backlash flames, how can we possibly get any work done? In any case, check it out for yourself...

Black man vs. white woman - The Boston Globe: "Hillary Clinton contends with gender stereotypes, and Barack Obama with racial ones. Which bias runs deeper in the American psyche? The answer does not bode well for Clinton." (Oppression Olympics defined. Just check out the graphic!)

Vaccinating Boys for Girls’ Sake? - New York Times: "Will parents of sons consent to a three-shot regimen that has been marketed as benefiting girls? How do you pitch that to Gardasil Boy’s parents? Think altruism. Responsibility. Chivalry, even? Oh, and yes: some explicit details about genital warts..." (Shocker: this is in the Styles section.)

Obama: First Female President? - Newsweek.com: "It has been a rarity in modern political life: a wide-open race for the nomination of both parties. But whatever happens from here on out, this campaign will always be remembered for the emergence of the first serious woman candidate for president: Barack Obama."

Never Too Young for That First Pedicure - New York Times: "One recent rainy afternoon, Eleanor LaFauci, 7, sat with her feet in open-toed foam slippers, admiring her toenails, freshly painted watermelon pink. 'Look, we’re reading an adult magazine,' Eleanor told her mother, gleefully waving a copy of People..."

Want the government to pay for your sex change? Go to Iran. - FP Passport: "Last fall, Passport noted that more sex-change surgeries are performed in Iran than in any other country except Thailand. Ayatollah Khomeini approved them for "diagnosed transsexuals" 25 years ago, and today the Iranian government will pay up to half the cost for those in financial need."

Barbara Seaman, born September 11, 1935; died February 27, 2008
Contributed by Jennifer Baumgardner

I came to New York City in 1993, age 22, to take an internship at Ms. magazine. Within a few months, I was asked to fact-check a profile of Barbara Seaman, a pioneer in the women’s health movement on the 25th anniversary of the publication of her classic The Doctors Case Against the Pill. I called her and three hours later got off the phone a changed person. She had answered my fact-checking queries, but then peppered me with friendly questions: Who was I? What was my background? Was I interested in health? Was I on the Pill? Did I know Mary Howell? No, I really must meet her. Was I working on a book? I was clearly smart, she could tell by our conversation. Did I want to attend a gathering with her at Erica Jong’s house? I really must meet Erica.

The questions and opportunities went on and on. I was flummoxed by her interest and offers—didn’t she know that I was just a lowly assistant (by that time) at Ms.? Did she have me confused with someone else? I had ambitions, sure, but I was far away from admitting I wanted to write a book—I just wanted the cool Ms. editors to learn my name.

Barbara continued to fax and call me at Ms., providing me with endless history, important contacts, and insightful analysis. She goaded me to get to know the feminists who she felt were being forgotten by history—women like Cindy Cisler (perhaps the most significant philosopher in the push to legalize abortion) or Dr. Mary Howell (the first woman to become a Dean at Harvard Medical School). She organized intergenerational gatherings in 1994 where I first met Leora Tanenbaum and Jennifer Gonnerman, who were my same age and who also began to think (with more than a little nudging from Barbara, I presume) that they would write books. (Leora went on to write Slut, Catfight, and Taking Back God; Jen wrote Life On the Outside.) Barbara asked me to introduce her at a party for her held in a gorgeous penthouse, saying, “I’d love it if you said a few words, Jen. Then Katie Couric will probably say a few things.� She did introduce me to Erica Jong–and Alix Kates Shulman, Margot Adler, Shere Hite, and countless others who adored Barbara.

Pregnant teacher discrimination suit OK'd - UPI: "A North Carolina judge refused to dismiss a teacher's lawsuit claiming she was unfairly demoted by her school district when she became pregnant."

Giveaway of emergency contraception angers anti-abortion group - Chicago Tribune: "A free giveaway of emergency contraception doses at Planned Parenthood health centers in Indiana cities with large college populations has angered an anti-abortion group, whose leader calls it 'irresponsible.'"

Gothamist: New Game Teaches Immigration Laws: "A NY-based nonprofit called Breakthrough launched a video game yesterday called ICED: I Can End Deportation (also a play on the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department). In the game, the player chooses one of five immigrant teens, each of a different ethnicity and immigration status, and walks through their shoes -- learning 'how immigration laws deny due process and violate human rights to all immigrants.'"

YesButNoButYes - Vagina Punch: Not fucking funny at all. A video game where people punch women in their vaginas.

Inside the Mind of the Boy Dating Your Daughter - New York Times Blog: "The stereotype of the 16-year-old boy is that he has sex on the brain. But a fascinating new report suggests that boys are motivated more by love and a desire to form real relationships with the girls they date."

This just pisses me off. An anti-choice group in Rapid City, SD is suing the school district because of a middle school that didn't allow them to use the auditorium to feature an anti-choice speaker.

The suit is claiming that the school's community-use policy is "unconstitutionally vague" and impinges on free-speech rights. This "unconstitutional" policy that the middle school dares to apply says that "use of school facilities will be granted only when a proposed activity is suited to the available facility," as well as that the school "shall not be used for political purposes" and lastly, that requests to host politically-related events will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

The good thing is that the district doesn't seem to be wavering. An attorney for the district said its officials believe the policy is sound and are filing a response to the suit.

No misinformation in sex-ed classes in my state!

Adding to her excellent record on reproductive health issues, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano recently turned down $1 million in federal funds for abstinence-only education.

"While we all support abstinence-only and don't believe, in particular, that teenagers should be engaged in sexual relationships of that sort, the fact of the matter is that some do," Napolitano said. "They need to have complete information for their own health."

Arizona is the 16th state to reject federal abstinence-only dollars.

In not-so-great Arizona news, an appeals court just ruled in favor of "Choose Life" license plates. Grrr. As we've mentioned before, most states don't also provide a "Choose Choice" (har har) license plate option. And in many cases, the state is, uh, less than diligent in monitoring how anti-choice groups are spending the proceeds from these license plates.

Nearly six months after the House passed its companion measure, the Senate heard testimony for S. 1843, the "Fair Pay Restoration Act," or the "Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act", reports the ACLU. Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, stated:

"This bill is a modest and logical fix to an ongoing civil rights problem. American workers should know that they are protected from wage discrimination and are able to challenge such discrimination when they discover it. There should be no benefit to employers in keeping pay discrimination hidden."

Let's hope this is soon put to bed.

This is almost as obvious as the recent study revealing that (gasp!) bisexuality is an actual identity and not a phase; more new research shows that same-sex couples not only can maintain a healthy and committed relationship, but are just as happy and committed as your average heterosexual couple:

The researchers found that all the couples had positive views of their relationships, but the more committed couples (gay or straight) resolved conflict better than the heterosexual dating couples.

The belief that committed same-sex relationships are 'atypical, psychologically immature, or malevolent contexts of development was not supported by our findings,' noted lead author Glenn I. Roisman. 'Compared with married individuals, committed gay males and lesbians were not less satisfied with their relationships.'

Roisman added that gay males and lesbians 'were generally not different from their committed heterosexual counterparts on how well they interacted with one another, although some evidence emerged the lesbian couples were especially effective at resolving conflict.'

Who woulda thought.

While sex-segregated train cars aren't new to Mexico City, the most widely-used form of transportation, buses, are now including women-only vehicles. (And like Brazil, has pink included on the new "ladies only" buses.) While it seems that women in Mexico City are pretty happy about this change, we go back to the question - is it protection or segregation?

Related: Check out Jessica's Guardian piece on the issue from this past summer.

With hospitals charging as much as $12,000 to $15,000 to deliver babies, home births cost $3,000 to $4,000. And now, New Hampshire may require insurance companies to pay for babes delivered at home by midwives.

While the federal government reimburses women for home delivery under Medicaid, a woman with health insurance that includes maternity benefits has to pay out of her own pocket if she decides to deliver at home.

On a related note, it's not news that Rick Lake recently made a documentary which argues that the medical industry has turned childbirth not only into a business, but pregnancy into a medical condition that needs to be "treated." Check out the trailer after the jump.

Has anyone seen the movie? Thoughts? Experiences?

The Guttmacher Institute has released a mother of a study today revealing that in 2005, the U.S. abortion rate was the lowest it has been since 1974. In other words, the rates continue to decline. The study reveals a number of other interesting (and depressing) findings, like:

The number of abortion providers is decreasing, yet at a slower rate than previous years

Medication abortion - or mifepristone - use is growing

More than 1 in 4 abortion patients reports traveling at least 50 miles to reach a provider.

Nationwide, 87% of counties have no abortion services, a figure that has existed since 2000

They also have a state-by-state guide with abortion rates and access. Check out the full study, "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and Access to Services, 2005."

Who said teens need role models when they can be their own? This week, high school students are our hero.

Pregnant teens at East High School in Denver are requesting maternity leave due to the school giving unexcused absences if school days are missed immediately after giving birth. Unfortunately, it's not atypical for a high school to make being pregnant or teen mother difficult to stay in high school; aside from the general struggles of being a teen parent, another Colorado school rejected the suggestion from one student that a day care center be created within the school because the principal felt it would encourage teen pregnancy.

Let's hope East High won't have a similar sentiment. (You know, because a month off and some day care makes having a kid at 16 SO appealing.) Only a third of teen moms receive their high-school diplomas and 1.5 percent get college degrees before they turn 30, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Back east in New York City, high school students have testified before the City Council to make sex education in Bronx high schools mandatory. While the NYC Department of Ed approved sex ed curricula to be disseminated to all high schools, it's at the principal's discretion as to whether the curriculum is used or not.

But that wasn't enough for concerned teenagers from P.S. 218 in the South Bronx, who have been advocating for the right to sex education in all Bronx high schools, a borough where the rate of teen pregnancies is nearly 14% as opposed to 10% throughout all of New York City.

If that's not some serious inspiration, I don't know what is. Here's to the teen activists of Denver, New York, and beyond.

Sandy Shin is program coordinator at Breakthrough USA. Breakthrough is an international human rights organization that uses media, education and pop culture to promote values of dignity, equality and justice. It has two offices, one in NYC and one in New Delhi, India.

Sandy Shin has a Masters in Human Rights from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology from the University of Albany. She was the Legal Advocate Project Director at the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault where she coordinated statewide trainings and provided constituents and the general public with services. Sandy has also been involved with community-driven social movements led by local activists employing anti-racism, anti-war ideologies.

Here's Sandy...

Pakistan's former prime minister and leading contender to serve for the third time was killed today in a suicide bomb attack. Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim country, and served as an inspiration for many.

This was not the first attempt on her life; 134 people were killed in a previous attack just a few months ago. During today's campaign rally, she was shot in the neck and chest immediately before a man blew himself up, killing at least 20 others.

It is a very sad day.

While federal funding for abstinence-only education is being extended for another 6 months despite extensive reports showing its ineffectiveness, a new report shows that comprehensive sex education is doing its job.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a report, which was also published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, revealing that teenagers who have received sex education in school are far more likely to put off sex than those who haven't. Who would have thought.

They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex. . . But sex education appeared to have no effect on whether teen girls used birth control, the researchers found.

Additionally, black teenage girls who received sex ed in school were 91 percent less likely to have sex before age 15. Trisha Mueller, an epidemiologist with the CDC who led the study, said it plain and simple which actually made me laugh out loud: "Sex education seems to be working."

Indeed, Trisha. Indeed.

Shortly after a Texas woman came forward stating that she was gang raped by her Halliburton/KBR co-workers in Baghdad, we find that (shockingly) she may not be alone.

Three other women have come forward with testimonies of sexual harassment and rape by co-workers, including one who was fired shortly after making it clear she felt uncomfortable that her rapist was still able to work alongside her.

While Jamie Leigh Jones, the first woman to come forward, and others are suing the company, they have to comply with a statement they signed at hiring that forces them to settle disputes through private arbitration. Jones stated:

"What is to stop these companies from victimizing women in the future? . . . The U.S. government has to provide people with their day in court when they have been raped and assaulted by other American citizens. Otherwise we are not only deprived of our justice in the criminal courts but in the civil courts as well. The laws have left us nowhere to turn."

Check out TortDeform's Kia Franklin's take on this bullshit and the legal ramifications for women of mandatory binding arbitration.

via AP.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Demolition of three public housing complexes, slated to start this weekend, was halted Friday amid complaints about the scarcity of housing for the poor after Hurricane Katrina.

The Housing Authority of New Orleans agreed to postpone the start of demolition pending a hearing Thursday before City Council. Opponents of the tear-down plan had filed a lawsuit contending that the council's consent was required by the city charter.

Sometimes activism works! Feel proud people, this is a win, but we must persist!

To update from my post on Tuesday about the demolition of four housing projects in New Orleans, activists (including my homies at Ruckus--raise the roof!) yesterday stopped the bulldozers with a 30 person blockade.

via AP.

Protesters wielding bullhorns and shouting "housing is a human right" stopped demolition at a massive public housing complex Wednesday in this hurricane-ravaged city in dire need of homes for the poor.

More than 30 protesters blocked an excavator from entering the fenced-off area of the B.W. Cooper complex. It was the first of what likely will be many standoffs between protesters and demolition crews that are tearing down hundreds of barracks-style buildings so they can be replaced with mixed-income neighborhoods.