Porn use and child abuse

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/12/child-abuse.aspx

The link may be greater than we think, a controversial study suggests.
By Tori DeAngelis December 2009,
Vol 40, No. 11 Print version: page 56
Tori DeAngelis is a writer in Syracuse, N.Y.

Clinical psychologists Michael Bourke, PhD, and Andres Hernandez, PsyD, have been making waves in the psychology and law enforcement communities with the recent release of a paper suggesting that men charged with Internet child pornography offenses and those who commit hands-on child sex offenses are, in many cases, one and the same.

"There is this assumption­in the treatment context, in courtrooms, in investigative circles and in the assessment literature­that these are dichotomous groups," says Bourke, Chief Psychologist of the U.S. Marshals Service, who conducted the research with Hernandez between 2002 to 2005 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C.

"However, in the course of treatment, these men would disclose to us that their use of the Internet was not the limit of their sexual acting out­it was in fact an adjunctive behavior."

The study, published in the April Journal of Family Violence (Vol. 24, No. 3), analyzed data on 155 men convicted of possessing, receiving or distributing Internet-based child pornography, who took part in an 18-month treatment program.

As part of their intensive therapy, the men filled out assessment measures including a "victims list," where they revealed the number, though typically not the identity, of children they had sexually molested in the past.

At the time of sentencing, 74 percent of the men had no documented hands-on victimization. But by the end of treatment, 85 percent had admitted they had sexually molested a child at least once, with an average of 13.5 victims per offender, the study finds. The numbers are more than twice that of other studies, a discrepancy the authors attribute to the fact that this is the first study to examine offenders who have disclosed secret abuse over time, while other studies mainly look at criminal convictions or at admissions made by people outside treatment settings.

"Our treatment team worked for an average of 18 months with each offender, and the environment was one of genuine therapeutic trust" that encouraged the men to tell the truth about themselves, Bourke says.Before its publication, the paper had been a source of controversy within the Bureau of Prisons. Although BOP had internally vetted the paper and it was accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Family Violence, the BOP asked for publication to be halted in 2007, when a public affairs official at BOP discovered that Bourke and Hernandez hadn't modified their paper to include suggested edits made by a BOP lawyer, says Bourke.

Those edits minimized the scientific nature of the work by removing professional language and inserting inappropriate replacements that downplayed the significance of the research, including a statement saying that the results could not be generalized to other child pornography offenders, Bourke notes. (The suppression of the study was covered in a July 19, 2007, front-page article in the The New York Times.)

The team held its ground, however, and refused to change the wording. "We felt it would have been scientifically incorrect to say the findings are not generalizable­we simply don't know the degree to which the results are generalizable to other child pornography offenders," Hernandez explains. "Our study was exploratory, and our aim was to highlight the apparent co-morbidity of two seemingly distinct forms of criminality. "

Once Bourke took his job at the Marshals Service, he contacted the journal and it proceeded with publication.

Reactions to the study

The paper has been met with both caution and enthusiasm here and abroad.Fred Berlin, MD, PhD, director of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University, says he thinks the team should have more strongly emphasized the preliminary nature of the findings, and noted the lower rates of crossover found in other studies. "These studies have tremendous implications, both in terms of community safety and in terms of individual liberties," he says.

"So we have to be very careful that our conclusions are valid before we get too firmly tied to them." Issues he would like to see addressed in more depth include the possibility that the prisoners over-reported because they were trying to please the therapists or to otherwise seem cooperative, he says. But Graham Hill, head of Great Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre­an independent arm of the Serious and Organized Crime Agency, Britain's equivalent of the FBI­says the findings verify what his agency has seen and suspected for years. "In our view, the therapeutic relationship is the strength of the survey, because these men are more likely to be truthful with therapists they trust than if they're just filling out a questionnaire," says Hill.

So impressed was his agency by the findings that in May it conferred an award on Bourke and Hernandez for outstanding contributions to child protection. The center is now using the findings as a training tool for law enforcement officers, Hill adds. Meanwhile, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jennifer Eakin says the research and the team's in-depth clinical observations have helped to inform investigative practices at the bureau. In particular, the team's finding that men tend to vastly underreport actual child molestation and offend close to home has steered the FBI to conduct more thorough investigations that aren't just based on child sources and other material they find on the men's computers.

"The research was kind of a revelation for us, and made us much better and wiser at refining our investigations," Eakin says. Changing the system? To Bourke, the findings speak to some realities about these crimes and to current flaws in the system.

Because children tend to keep silent about sex crimes, it's easy for men to lie about or to avoid disclosing them, he says. Meanwhile, clinicians, lawyers and others enable this secrecy by accepting these men's innocence at face value, giving expert testimony to that end, and offering arguments like the "'pop up' defense," where offenders maintain they are innocently browsing the Web when links to child pornography spring up out of nowhere. When he confronted these men in treatment, however, Bourke heard a different story.

The men confessed that they never received unsolicited child pornography­that in fact they had actively Googled search terms related to child exploitation, for instance."I've never seen a case that convinces me that the Internet causes an individual to become sexually interested in children, and there are no compelling studies to suggest that, either," says Bourke. "You don't wake up at age 40 suddenly afflicted with a bad case of pedophilia."

Bourke and Hernandez hope others will try to replicate the study, and Bourke is planning to do more research in his role at the Marshals Service. In any case, the study advances the debate on an important and still-shadowy topic, says Britain's Hill. "The only way we'll move this area of crime forward is by promoting people to talk about it openly," he says.

Queenie Still Needs Your Help!

Please Urge U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to Take Immediate Action to Protect Endangered Elephant

You will remember that the elephant Queenie, or Boo, was left behind with abusive circus trainer Will Davenport in August as her companions Tina and Jewel were taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and sent to the San Diego Zoo for badly needed medical care. All three elephants were victims of Davenport’s negligence and inhumane care, but the agency claimed to only have grounds for taking the two.

We cannot forget the last image we have of Queenie, tied to a tree and bellowing, as the truck holding her companions pulled away, leaving her to an uncertain future.

The USDA filed serious charges against Davenport in October, and we expected the agency to negotiate a prompt settlement which would result in Queenie’s release to a sanctuary, as has happened in other cases. However, Davenport is fighting the charges, and no settlement has been announced. Queenie remains in his hands, although he is not permitted to exhibit her or move her without the agency’s consent.

IDA has grave fears for Queenie’s safety, based on Davenport’s long history of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations and neglect. The USDA no longer oversees her health and well-being since Davenport gave up his exhibitor’s license, and it appears that no law enforcement authority has checked on her since August. So we have turned to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the government agency charged with enforcing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and protecting endangered Asian elephants, like Queenie.

IDA is asking the USFWS to investigate Queenie’s health and current circumstances, based on the following troubling facts:
Davenport made public statements indicating that he was low on funds, and elephants cost a great deal to feed. The USDA repeatedly cited Davenport for failing to provide adequate food and nutrition for the elephants.

Queenie’s barn apparently has no heat source or insulation, and the temperatures where she is confined in Leggett, Texas, have dropped into the teens this winter. The USDA cited Davenport for failure to protect his elephants from the cold when they were in New York one December and he did not provide them with heat in their tent, and for failure to meet other sheltering requirements.

Lack of food and consistently cold temperatures can be life-threatening for an elephant. While we cannot state for a fact that Queenie is hungry or cold, we do know that there is a strong possibility she is suffering both.

Davenport has repeatedly failed to provide necessary veterinary care for elephants, and to handle them so as to protect them from harm.

The USFWS is the agency with both the ability and the obligation to send an agent to check on Queenie’s well-being now. They also have the authority to seize her if they find that the ESA is being violated.

Please contact the USFWS and remind them that there is an endangered Asian elephant in the hands of someone with an egregious history of negligent and abusive care of his elephants, and that her safety is their responsibility. Use the points outlined above to describe Davenport’s history and urge the agency to take immediate action.

Mr. Benito PerezChief of the Office of Law EnforcementU.S. Fish & Wildlife Service4401 N. Fairfax Dr., MS-LE-3000Arlington, VA 22203Phone: 202-208-3809Fax: 202-208-3143Email: benito_perez@fws.gov

Dr. Benjamin Tuggle, Southwest Regional Director U.S. Fish & Wildlife ServiceP.O. Box 1306Albuquerque, NM 87103-1306Phone: 505-248-6282Fax: 505-248-6910Email: RDTuggle@fws.gov

Please continue to contact the USDA and urge the agency to do everything in its power to ensure that Queenie is taken from Davenport’s hands and sent to a sanctuary.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom VilsackPhone: 202-720-3631Fax: 202-720-2166


Acting APHIS Administrator Kevin SheaPhone: 202-720-3861 Email: Kevin.A.Shea@usda.gov

Please make a call or send a fax for Queenie today, and as often as you can until she is rescued.
For more information, see http://www.helpelephants.com/tina_jewel_and_queenie.html.

SEC workers investigated for porn-surfing

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Jim McElhatton


The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span: "It was kind of distraction per se," he later told investigators.

But he wasn't alone. More than two dozen SEC employees and contractors over roughly the past two years have faced internal investigations after they were caught viewing pornography on their government computers, according to records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and other public documents.

The activities of porn-surfing SEC workers, a small fraction of the overall work force, have been serious enough to warrant a mention in each of the past four semiannual reports sent to Congress by the SEC's office of inspector general.

In response to the open records request by The Washington Times, the inspector general's office provided more than 150 pages of records and transcripts on the investigations, but declined to identify the employees involved. The office noted that disclosure of the employees' names "could conceivably subject them to harassment and annoyance in the conduct of their official duties and private lives."

Allan Bachman, education manager for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, said such problems are hardly unique to the SEC. He also said the findings are troubling aside from "the egregious nature of what they're doing."

"They're simply just stealing time," he said. "They're getting paid to do something that they're not supposed to be doing."

SEC officials said the inspector general's investigations began as a result of the agency's "sophisticated surveillance and filtering system" aimed at uncovering abuse of government computer resources.

"Any level of misuse of government resources for inappropriate purposes is a matter of serious concern, which is why the SEC provides regular and comprehensive training on the proper use of the Internet," SEC spokesman John Nester said.

"Indeed, each of the cases investigated … was detected by our surveillance systems and referred to the inspector general for investigation," Mr. Nester said.

In the case of the regional supervisor, the inspector general found that during a 17-day period, he received about 1,880 "access denials," wherein the computer system blocked his attempts to view Web sites that were deemed pornographic.

The supervisor later told an IG investigator that despite the blocked attempts, he still had been looking at pornography at work up to twice a day and it had "probably occurred for a long time."

SEC records also provide insight into how some employees were able to bypass the Internet filters inside the SEC that were supposed to keep pornography off government computers.

One worker said the computer system blocked him from visiting some Web sites but that he was able to look up blogs containing pornographic images.

"I would click on it and it went to a blog and it wasn't blocked," he told investigators. "And that's how it started."

While the inspector general recommended disciplinary action up to and including dismissal, the SEC ultimately gave the employee a reprimand instead, records show.

Mr. Nester declined to discuss individual disciplinary decisions, saying supervisors examine the situations on a case-by-case basis and that sanctions generally range from counseling to dismissal.

He said disciplinary action isn't based on the number of "access denials" alone. He said denials are just one of several indicators of abuse and don't always reflect the number of times an individual seeks to view inappropriate Web sites at work.

"In fact, a single click onto one Web site that itself may not be blocked can trigger up to dozens of 'access denial' hits, one for each banner or ad on the Web page that might be blocked by our software, even if the individual has not clicked on to any of the banners or ads on that page," Mr. Nester said.

Still, fraud specialist Nicole Bocra, a former special investigator for the National Association of Securities Dealers who owns and operates a private investigative firm in Virginia, said even the most sophisticated Internet filters won't work all the time.

"People are always going to find a way around it," she said.

Aside from the obvious lost productivity, companies also have an incentive to block employees from perusing such sites because of the risk of potential computer viruses, she said.

One employee caught snooping estimated that he had been spending part of his workday looking up pornography for more than a year, though he added that he tried not to let it affect his work.

"I justified it because I would work late and I rarely would put in for any kind of comp time or anything like that," he said.

In another case, investigators found that an SEC headquarters enforcement employee had received 406 access request denials for pornographic sites from February to April last year. He was suspended for three days, records show.

Managers proposed a one-day suspension in another case involving a regional office branch chief who had received 271 access denials for pornographic sites during work hours.

Other employees resigned before being formally disciplined. One was a worker who told investigators he'd looked up pornography at work about twice a week for up to two years.

It's unclear what, if any, post-employment benefits that employee or other SEC workers caught looking up pornography at work are entitled to receive after retirement.

"We are not aware of any law that permits us in these circumstances to reduce the benefits of an employee who resigned in lieu of termination," Mr. Nester said.

WOMEN IN IRAN - WE ARE ALL CONNECTED - WOMEN ARE A CASTE IN SOCIETY - WHAT HAPPENS TO WOMEN UNDER ISLAM AFFECTS THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN EVERYWHERE

Rose and Fred are Dancing on First Light which is their Anniversary - Together Again Their Joy Is Their Music

July 20, 1918 Sun in Cancer, Moon in Saggitarius, Rising Sign in Libra

I left myself behind in pieces
I know you'll need them when I'm gone

Hail Rose,
Daughter of Grace,
Your Lord is with you once more;
blessed art thou amongst women,
so bless the fruit of your womb, Virginia.
Holy Rose, Mother of Mine,
pray for me and forgive my sins,
now and at the hour of my death.

Amen
----------------------------
My Mother
My Mother

The mothers and the daughters
the mothers and the sons
all together hold the longings
All together
We are One

----------------------------
Song's "Love Never Dies" here

AT LAST ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN WHO WANT TO CONNECT GLOBALLY FOR WOMEN'S LIBERATION

Jacqueline O'Neill
Advocacy Co-ordinator

The Institute for Inclusive (meaning women) Security

You will be able to see a video in a day or two in the C-Span video archives on-line. This organization is training women to be police and military officers in Islamic countries, organizing women in those countries and holding international conferences of those women who are working for equality.

First Light - February 2, 2010 - Welcome the Groundhog King - Protect those who Hibernate

My favorite website is Mything Links

Here is her First Light page which she calls by the old names

MYTH*ING LINKS
An Annotated & Illustrated Collection of Worldwide Links to Mythologies, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Sacred Arts & Sacred Traditions
by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

Imbolc (celtic),
Candlemas (Catholic)

Also:
Lupercus (Strega),
Thryphon Zarezan(Bulgarian),
Disting (Teutonic, Feb 14th)
Valentine's Day (feb 14th)

Author's Note:

Imbolc arrives in early February in what feels like the dead of winter in much of the Northern Hemisphere -- cold and white during the days, and with long bluish shadows falling over the snow as twilight nears. Nevertheless, this day marks the first seed of springtide (whose midpoint will be celebrated later in March).
by Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.

Greenconsciousness Notes: This is not true for me, but go to the Jenks site, Mything Links, and read it because she has all the beautiful practices and ancient lore of this day from all over the globe. Jenks' site in general is breath taking. Find the home page and look at the Index.

I personally believe this day marks either the near end or the middle of winter in my climate, depending where the Sun is on the horizon (hence the Groundhog's shadow watching). The Sun is born at Yule and light is halfway to equality with the dark at First Light. One thing is constant - this is the time of the quickening. Time of The Change. The old ways say the seeds stir in the ground.

I celebrate First Light/Groundhog Day as the time we can see the light's return. Actually notice it is lighter when we get up and still light on the drive home from work. I want to learn more about the orbit position of the earth in relation to the Sun at this time of year.

Samanthasmom where are you?

It is good to know how this cross quarter day was celebrated by people in other countries in older climates. But blind following of old dogma is better left to religions. That is not for those who seek to live in harmony with the earth cycles and the sky processions in their own environment.

I find it hard to accept February as the beginning of spring in southern Wisconsin, much less further north. March tips winter into spring as far as my experience in this climate can determine. Therefore, I celebrate the last day of winter and first day of spring at the Spring Equinox.

Here at First Light, I celebrate the coming end of winter and the return of the light. If I move south, that might change.

Celebrate the cross quarter day by closely observing what it signals in your climate. To mark our observance of the earth cycles and their meaning in our lives is why we celebrate the earth holidays. So do it and find out what this day means on your part of the earth. One thing is certain. First Light is a day of transition, as are all cross quarter days. Something is shifting into another form. These times are too interesting to let go by unnoticed and unmarked. Pay attention.

Meditate on the tarot card, The Hermit. The light you seek is the one you carry, the one that is always with you.

Spiritually, it is a time to consecrate the wish we made at Yule to be accomplished in this earth cycle. At First Light, purify your wish - connect it with your Source. Surround the wish with conscious intent that it harm none, including yourself; call on those who work for your good to work with you for your wish; the wish grows in purity and power.

From Mything Links

Let the cloth of life be mended.
Let the thread be linked again,
restored, cleansed - the forests growing,
native plants in field and fen.

Let the cloth of life, in beauty,
be restored by will to be.
People with the plants and creatures,
tending earth and sky and sea."

by Rae Beth

http://www.knibbworld.com/rae/spell-start.htm

Greenconsciousness Notes: Traditionally this day is celebrated with dairy products because in rural times, this was the time the sheep, goats and cows were preparing to give birth in the Spring. At this time their udders and teats would begin to swell in preparation for the birth of their babies. Seeds to be used at the spring planting are blessed and organized at this time. Soon they will be planted indoor so as to be ready for planting outdoor in May.

Is milk, in this age of factory farming, really a suitable offering?

The babies taken from the mother - put in veal crates - all the milk sold by profiteers - the mothers calling in their confinement for their babies - the calves in crates across the road crying in return.

Be careful what you offer on this day when we think about dairy product and the mother preparing for birth.

"Silk" is a good soy non-dairy milk product in most all food markets although manufactured by a bad company.

Still better to use Silk than products from abused animals if you must have milk. Try the Silk Nog which tastes like vanilla. Use Silk in bread.

At Imbolc, which I call First Light, for purity in your rites, your celebrations can, in the traditional way, offer to feed guests and earth spirits seeds to eat. Pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds etc., in seed muffins, cakes and scones, braided seed breads and soy milks.

This change, moving away from use of products from degraded animal pregnancies toward products made without cruelty, in honor of the sanctity of the birth process and the production of mother's milk to feed new life, in itself would be a purification at Imbolc

I am looking for poppy seed scones maybe with some fruit and honey in them?

Also when thinking about seeds remember to plant for the pollinators. I have to do this in the front yard because the cats are in the cat -fenced in back yard. But these are attractive gardens so it is fine to have them in front of the house.

To all my friends - read this and laugh till you cry

How to Squander the Presidency in One Year

Hey, Conan Obama: How About Now? Can You Hear Us Now?

by David Michael Green

Chechen Sexism - Islam Ruled - Terrorist Generating

Kadyrov Says Polygamy Reduces Promiscuity

26 January 2010

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said Monday that he supports polygamy among Russian Muslims because it reduces sexual promiscuity and prostitution.“That’s a tradition we’ve always had. God allows Muslims to do so,”

Kadyrov, 33, said in an interview broadcast by state-run RT television. “Is it better to have 20 lovers rather than four lawful wives?”Kadyrov said he was not asking federal authorities to the change law, which prohibits multiple marriages.

Polygamy makes men accountable to their wives and reduces philandering, he said.Kadyrov is “married with seven children,” according to his web site.

(Bloomberg)

Boys who see porn more likely to harass girls

From Dignity:

Maurice Chittenden and Matthew Holehouse

BOYS exposed to porn are more likely to indulge in casual sex and less likely to form successful relationships when they grow older, according to research carried out in a dozen countries.The report, Harms of Pornography Exposure Among Children and Young People, also found that young boys who see pornography are more inclined to believe there is nothing wrong with pinning down or sexually harassing a girl.

Michael Flood, who carried out the study at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, said: “There is compelling evidence from around the world that pornography has negative effects on individuals and communities.“We know it is shaping sexual knowledge. Some people may think that is good. But porn is a very poor sex educator because it shows sex in unrealistic ways and fails to address intimacy, love, connection or romance. Often it is quite callous and hostile in its depictions of women.“It doesn’t mean that every young person is going out to rape somebody but it does increase the likelihood that will happen.”

Research in the UK suggests that 60% of boys under 16 have been exposed to pornography, accidentally or deliberately. The average age at which they first saw porn has dropped from 15 to 11 in less than a decade. The average amount of time they watch porn on the internet is 90 minutes a week.

John Carr, an adviser to the government and secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS), said: “We had a case in west London where a boy in the first year of primary school was bringing pictures to school and was acting them out in the playground during the break. When they did a home visit the dad was downloading it and it was all over the house.“

It is not an argument for banning it but it is an argument to find better ways to make it harder for kids to get hold of it.”

Such is the international spread of porn through the internet that youngsters in Asian and African countries see blonde white women on screen and then regard tourists with the same attributes as sex objects, Flood says. (Same thing with US movies unrealistic portrayals of women as one dimentional which are distributed globally.)

However, Thaddeus Birchard, a psychotherapist who runs a sex addiction practice in London, said: “We are entering a period of moral panic and this is part of it. Children are not receiving sex education at home. Sexually explicit material on the net can even help educate them.“The internet is a way of being sexually addicted but it does not cause the addiction. What causes it is the relationship between the child and their parents. Almost always they are maternally deprived.”

Petra Boynton, a psychologist, said: “Children are not necessarily looking at porn for gratification. They are doing so because they are bored and not supervised. Often when children look at more extreme porn it is done for bravado so they can laugh and say how disgusting it is.”

Greenconsciousness Notes: If life drawing of nude models were done in grade school starting with kindergarten, young children would not be so needy of porn to learn and understand what their own bodies look like, as well as the body of the opposite sex. Dolls should be atomically correct and always used for sex education. No doll should be made without genitalia.

As they turn 11-12 years old children should be given sex ed complete with videos showing masturbation and intercourse in a straightforward way without the porn aspect. Such videos exist and can be shown in sex segregated classrooms. Parents can attend these lectures - mothers in their daughters classroom - fathers with their sons or in a separate class for single parents. But since there are so many sex offenders among the parents it is best not to mix adult genders with children in sex ed classes.

The answer to the porn lie is not repression which never works and not porn or sexual preference advocacy which is slyly done by some teachers (both homo and heterosexual advocacy should be discouraged). Instead sex ed should consist of definitions and accurate, straightforward, honest information complete with a discussion of the hormonal changes, adolescent lack of impulse control and disease symptoms and consequences.

Such classes should include the reproductive system of both sexes and birth control as well as trips to planned parenthood clinics. Parents can teach morality but all citizens in a secular society should be educated about their bodies and the bodies of the opposite sex.

Blessed Birthday Neda

Your death has become a symbol which strengthens your country's people in their struggle to be free. May they see the wisdom of developing a secular society separate from religious beliefs.

Martha Coakley and Democrat voting

A comment I wrote at Clarrissa's Blog:

You understand that failure to perform for the voters is not because the Dems are incompetent.

They are obligated to perform for their corporate masters who fund their employment in very prestigious and lucrative positions.

All those perks and pensions would be gone without that corporate funding. So theDemocrats use their Harvard educations to twist language in the belief that the working class is too stupid to discern the difference between the words "healthcare reform" and the actuality of insurance subsidies.

They use the word "bi-partisan" to cloak the fact that they cannot offend big pharm and big medicine/insurance. They try to blame republicans; again because they believe we are stupid.
So even with a filibuster proof majority they cannot perform as promised.

Because the promise was a lie, not because they are incompetent.

After believing in Hillary's feminism and identification with the working class despite her do nothing history,

and then finally voting for Obama in order to get health care and because I believed the Republicans were worse for overpopulation and working people,

and then watching Hillary gut all the programs which functioned to assist Muslim women economically and politically, started by Condi Rice in the State Dept., and replace them only with speeches about her commitment to women globally and nothing else,

and after realizing that we were fooled again and would get forced insurance instead of health care reform despite electing an overwhelming Democrat majority to a Congress who used the promise of health care reform to subsidize and increase income for the insurance barons instead of eliminating this unnecessary parasite,

after watching those who fund campaigns deplete every tax dollar ever paid by the working class in order to maintain their elite lifestyles with the assistance of the democrat party,

after watching "don't ask, don't tell" remain as US policy to degrade those who give their lives and limbs for democracy,

and watching the abandonment of equal rights for women in Afghanistan and Iraq,

and after watching Tammy Baldwin sell out women and the working class in Wisconsin in order to do what the Democrat party tells her to do,

then realizing that money and health care benefits and pensions and power is why democrat women politicians campaign although they do fight for their own equal rights,

and that they will play ball with the boys and screw women just like the Republicans at the command of the boys who run and fund the "Party".

Greenconsciousness says:

Work primarily to implement the ballot initiative/referendum in every state. (So we can write the laws and people’s organizations can work across state lines)

Once that is accomplished, ignore the alleged two party system, particularly politicians and their assorted groupies, bullies, and sociopath organizers.

Reduce their corruption by demanding that the benefits given federal workers be shared by the entire population including the student loan forgiveness many federal workers receive along with their health care and pensions.

Demand that federal legislators operate from their own states, not Washington, and communicate with each other by computer.

Demand that all politicians receive as salary the medium income of their state's private sector workers with no benefits.

Demand state government workers get a salary no higher than the medium income of the private sector workers.

Support people's single issue, pressure organizations if they do not have corporate funders or fundraisers on their boards. (Those orgs with corporations on board and some Unions do not work for us or even for their stated objectives. They now work for those corporations who hire their staff)

Fight density and overpopulation whether it occurs by immigration or tax supported breeding. (Despite what the elite tell you, density is not good for the environment, humans, or nature. It is just good for real estate developers. Check out the environment in New York City)

Save the wild places, parks, forests, sanctuaries and trees.

Fight toxic agriculture, grow and eat organically.

Fight child and animal abuse, and:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Health Care Reform????Not for Women

noabortionban.org

When the Fight Is Over

THANKS TO INVISIBLE VOICES FOR THIS:

When The Fight Is Over: Cockfighter Rehabilitation With Miriam Jones

Cockfighting is major news in the United States these days, with almost weekly reports of police raids on the illegal fighting and gambling operations. What happens after the raids, rescue and relocation? On this week’s Animal Voices program, we catch up with Miriam Jones from the Eastern Shore Bird Sanctuary who tells us about the politics and practice of fighting rooster rehab. Though the process can be long and difficult, Jones gives us a clear picture about why it is vital that we don’t give up on animals who have been trained to fight.

From the Website:

“Founded in a rural region dominated by the poultry industry, the Eastern Shore Sanctuary and Education Center provides a haven for hens, roosters and ducks who have escaped or been rescued from the meat and egg industries or other abusive circumstances, such as cockfighting.

We work within an ecofeminist understanding of the interconnection of all life and the intersection of all forms of oppression.

Thus we welcome and work to facilitate alliances among animal, environmental, and social justice activists.”

The Eastern Shore Statement on Backyard Birds:

Animal Abuse Links to Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence Linked to Animal Cruelty

From planning pet-friendly vacations to spending oodles of money on toys and treats, most people consider their pets members of the family. Unfortunately, when it comes to domestic violence, pets are also deemed part of the family unit and forced to suffer in silence at the hands of abusers. Some studies estimate that 88% of companion animals living in households where domestic violence occurs are routinely threatened, harmed or even killed.

In cases of spousal, child or elder abuse, a beloved family pet can become a pawn for an abuser who is willing to injure or kill the animal as a form of revenge, to create isolation, or to intimidate his or her victims.

ASPCA Special Agents often witness this trend firsthand. "We see a connection between animal abuse and domestic violence all the time," says Special Investigator Diane DiGiacomo. "For example, we'll go out and investigate a complaint of animal abuse and find that the children have already been removed from the home or that the suspect has a history of spousal abuse."

Studies also show that 50% of domestic violence victims delay seeking help for fear that an abuser will harm a pet. Furthermore, most domestic violence shelters are simply not set up to accommodate companion animals—however, in recent years, animal “safe haven” programs, which provide foster care for pets in domestic violence situations, are becoming more common in cities across the country.

And at least 11 states have enacted legislation to allows pets to be included in domestic violence-related orders of protection. This means a court can order an abuser to stay away from an animal or impose other conditions to protect the pet's safety—violations could result in arrest.

Greenconsciousness Notes: There are only 10 states listed and of course Wisconsin is not one of them.

To learn more about the link between domestic violence and animal cruelty, or to find out how you can lobby for stronger legislation to protect animal victims of domestic violence, visit ASPCA.org. If you or your pet is a victim of a violent crime, please call 911 or your local law enforcement.

Greenconsciousness Notes: Half the time it is the cops who kill your pets and they enjoy it as do many hunters. The ASPCA is naive as are most of the animal legal organizations. They are too busy blaming pet owners to actually look at law enforcement as part of the problem. Police are not screened for animal abuse and fire fighters and police are big offenders. See: South Carolina v Rye. The fact is the link between DV & AA is old news. The studies started in the 1970's but still the courts do not take the acts of animal abuse seriously and often punish the victims worse than the abusers.

Megan A. Senatori Posted: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:35 am No Comments Posted
The story of a man who allegedly beat his girlfriend’s 5-week-old puppy to death with a flashlight has captured the attention of our community.

The story is heart-wrenching. But the lesson it can teach our community is deeper than many recognize.

Animal abuse and domestic violence are inextricably linked. A 1995 survey of 72 women seeking shelter for abuse in Wisconsin revealed that 86 percent had pets. And in 80 percent of those cases, her batterer had abused her pets.

Batterers routinely abuse animals as a tool of domination and a threat of the consequences if crossed. There is an easy explanation for why batterers use animal abuse to control their human victims — it works.

Three studies have confirmed that between 18 percent and 40 percent of women seeking shelter from abuse report that concern for the well-being of their pets prevented them from seeking shelter earlier. These statistics do not account for victims who never left to protect their pets.

I commend the Fitchburg Police Department and the Dane County District Attorney’s Office for taking swift action in this case.

But when a man pummels a puppy to death as his girlfriend stands helplessly by, unable to save her pet, there are two abuse victims.

That is the lesson I hope our community learns from this horrible incident.

— Megan A. Senatori, Madison, co-founder and president, Sheltering Animals of Abuse Victims Program (http://www.saavprogram.org/)

As I said hunters comprise a large majority of domestic animal abuse. Narurally, the national rifle association has stopped reform in Wisconsin - read their crap below and do the opposite. Note their chosen targets.


Bill Seeks to Make Animal Abuse Equal to Domestic Abuse in Wisconsin

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Senate Bill 162, introduced by State Senators Fred Risser (D-26), Tim Carpenter (D-3), and Julie Lassa (D-24) would make “harm or threat of harm” to an animal a form of domestic abuse. In Wisconsin, being charged with domestic abuse means losing the ability to purchase or possess firearms.

The absurdity of SB 162 is that it not only equates animals to humans, but also does not define what “harm or threat of harm” is. Animal “rights” extremists could argue that the training of hunting dogs or everyday treatment of dairy cattle constitutes abuse. A restraining order filed against you for common activities involving an animal will result in loss of your Second Amendment rights and a violation could put domestic abuse charges on your record.Please contact the members of the Senate Committee of Judiciary and Corrections and respectfully urge them to vote against SB 162 when the time comes.State Senate Lena Taylor (D-4), Chair(608) 266-5810Sen.Taylor@legis.wisconsin.gov State Senator Jim Sullivan (D-5), Vice-Chair(608) 266-2512 or (866) 817-6061Sen.Sullivan@legis.wisconsin.govState Senator Glen Grothman (R-20)(608) 266-7513 or (800) 662-1227Sen.Grothman@legis.wisconsin.govState Senator Mary Lazich (R-28)(608) 266-5400 or (800) 334-1442Sen.Lazich@legis.wisconsin.govState Senator Kathleen Vinehout (D-31)(608) 266-8546 or (877) 763-6636Sen.Vinehout@legis.wisconsin.gov

Dane County Animal Rights News

Thursday night is the first part of a discussion by Will Tuttle, Ph.D about his book "The World Peace Diet, Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony". To learn more about the connections between our diet and our lives, tune in at 10pm to WYOU on: Channels 95 cable, 991 digital and http://www.wyou.org/.

Remember it's also on-line, live stream on http://www.wyou.org/

This will be followed at 11 pm by Undercover TV, Episode #58, Beyond the Cage, Is Animal Experimentation Necessary? There was some technical difficulty last week, so this is being repeated.You can also watch it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5603770683964338376
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The UW-Madison has been in the news hot spot the last 2 weeks- They were cited with 20 oversight violations by the USDA & OLAW and this week the UW "decided" that their research on monkeys is ethical.Read Dave Zweifel ( Capital Times editor emeritus)" Plain Talk:Animal rights folks were right about UW".

Check out the live links: http://www.allanimals.org/

And read Todd Finkelmeyer's report about Friday, Jan 8th's UW All Campus Animal Care & Use Committee's decision.
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/campus_connection/article_7c40cc70-fcc9-11de-baf4-001cc4c002e0.html
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PLEASE share this information with others. Let them know about WYOU's Animals Have Rights & Undercover TV on Thurs nights 10-11:30,http://www.wyou.org/, online livestream and also on 95 & 991

Please ask them to contact their alder and county board supervisor. They should be concerned about what is happening in our community. We all have a responsibility to not let suffering and unnecessary experimentation on innocent animals continue.

Please send copies of any communication (email or letter, or let us know you phoned)

We have an on-line petition that you can sign and forward on to others . Please sign your name and forward it on to everyone you know in Dane County that cares aboutanimals. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/isitethical/

Thank you.
Ann

Mary Daly Died

"More than any other radical feminist thinker, Daly reclaimed language–the “power of naming’ and linked it to the inventive recovery of the hitherto unimaginable. "

"Daly’s Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy (1984) and Webster’s First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (1987) introduce and explore an alternative language to explain the process of exorcism and ecstasy. In Wickedary Daly provides definitions as well as chants that she says can be used by women to free themselves from patriarchal oppression. She also explores the labels that she says patriarchal society places on women to prolong what she sees as male domination of society.

Daly said it is the role of women to unveil the liberatory nature of labels such as “Hag”, “Witch”, and “Lunatic”.

Daly's work continues to influence feminism and feminist theology, as well as the developing concept of biophilia as an alternative and challenge to social necrophilia. She was an ethical vegetarian and animal rights activist. Gyn/Ecology, Pure Lust, and Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary all endorse anti-vivisection and anti-fur positions.

Daly was a member of the advisory board of Feminists For Animal Rights, a group which is now defunct." From Wikipedia

Posted at Hecate

"Mary Daly, hugely influential Goddess scholar, widely-read feminist, and a woman whose writings rocked my world and changed my life, is dead at 81. I disagreed with a few of her ideas about sexuality, but she taught me most of what I know about the poison of patriarchy. She lived her ideals, making academia back down once, and quitting rather than violating her principles when the religious right went after her. Just how much the catholics hated her is made clear in catholic "culture"'s post on her death: ...."

I did not know Daly as a goddess scholar. I saw her as a Radical Feminist.

"Studying archetypal forms and prepatriarchal religion convinced Daly that church doctrine consisted of a series of significant "reversals." She explained these to NCR writer Jeanette Batz in 1996:

the Trinity, from the triple goddess once celebrated worldwide;

the virgin birth, from the parthenogenesis that once begat divine daughters;

Adam giving birth to Eve.

Women operating on patriarchy's boundaries, she once wrote, can spiral into freedom by renaming and reclaiming an ancient woman-centered reality that was stolen and eradicated by patriarchy.

She took great delight in castigating the "eight deadly sins of the fathers": processions, professions, possession, aggression, obsession, assimilation, elimination and fragmentation.

"Laugh out loud," she urged, "at their pompous penile processions."

As for God, there's simply no way to rid the language of allusion, she wrote, so, "if you must be anthropomorphic," she preferred “Goddess.” NCR

I think I read Beyond God the Father but Gyn/Ecology:The Meta-Ethics of Radical Feminism was the first Daly book I read that stunned me. This is a book that helped me find the words out of my oppression. Then I read, Wickedary and Pure Lust which added the finishing touches - wrapped it up. I lost interest in reading somewhere at the end of Pure Lust. After that or during that book Mary got deep into lesbian politics and I felt she romanticized women in ways she had not before. Romanticized relationships between women - wrote her hopes rather than reality. Hope and illusion about gender differences. Thought women manage power better than men...

I did and do agree with her analysis of transsexuals as a male problem. She was close to it and had a clear view of it in the catholic church's jealousy and hatred of women. She saw transsexuals as reinforcing and validating gender stereotypes.

Daly's analysis toward transsexual's cannot be dismissed with labels. She demanded individuals have the courage to live their inner realities and challenge society's assumptions about gender rather than cutting off their genitals to conform and fit in with gender stereotypes. Courage rather than cowardice is what real women have to exhibit every day in order to live free in patriarchy. Those who are seduced by the Big Lie hate her because she refused to validate choices that contribute to the slavery of all women.

Left women tried to burn her at the stake for not being diverse enough. Thought she was too white. Yet it was Daly who recognized the global oppression of women in 1974 and she did detailed analysis of the slave status of women of color all over the world, especially in GYNecology. The left women still have not caught up to her brilliance and they probably never will. Women of color in the US are glorifying Africa and Muslim culture. To think people like that could ever criticize such a superior intellect is laughable. Daly spoke out against clitoridectomy and infibulation in the 1970,s while her women of color critics were celebrating Muslim culture and rationalizing the veil.

"And she would say again and again that we underestimate misogyny and talk about the Burning Times, shouting to be heard over the voices of male academics and statistically thwarted historians who wanted proofs and records and details and numbers. Daly looked back and saw women burning, over and over again, burning women disappearing from history, women’s lives and horrible deaths unrecorded, the hatred of women that reached back to the brutal dawn of patriachy."

Daly is right up there with Phyllis Chesler, Andrea Dworkin.... the great feminist theoreticians.

I am doing it - Laughing Out Loud at their absurd labels - their penile processions - it has been dangerous and liberating -- here -- in the Middle East, it has meant the death and torture of my sisters -- I spit on their penile processions and the female camp followers whose ignorance and greed drives them on in their self defeating ambition --- Thank you Mary. I will tell the young girls to read GYN/Ecology when they want to understand Radical Feminism. The world is less for your passing.

While reading some comments on a pagan site, I found this which sums up how I feel
Audrey · 19 hours ago

Mary Daly, the great voice for uncompromising women's freedom worldwide will never be forgotten. She'll always be the great one to me, the woman who said NO MORE to male supremacy, to the rape culture of religions, and she was the true voice of radical lesbian everywhere who wanted lands free to grow without the oppressors anywhere near. And she did it all with wit, with great humor, and no one will ever be able to stop her ideas as time goes by. Quintessentialist is what she would say to the cockaludicrous prickers and plug uglies. She stopped the penile processions and put an end to the witchcraze which is still in the churches today. I raise the double ax to her, and drink of mighty toast...death to patriarchy!

'I am for sale'

Greenconsciousness Notes: WHERE ARE THE 8 REGIONAL WOMEN'S CENTERS HILLARY?? THE ONES CONDI RICE WAS BUILDING IN AFGHANISTAN. WHERE ARE THE BW SHELTERS THE SOLDIERS OPENED? WHERE ARE THE ARMED WOMEN TO GUARD THEM? YOU DESTROYED ALL THOSE PROGRAMS FOR OBAMA AND SOON EVERYONE WILL KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. THERE IS A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL FOR YOU HILLARY.

A passionate young Afghan has dreams for her life, but her three brothers have another plan: Marry her off to an older cousin for $20,000. The scenario is not uncommon.

By Masha Hamilton

January 3, 2010
The Los Angeles Times

American thinking about Afghanistan these days is largely focused on figures: troop numbers, casualty tolls, war chests, withdrawal dates. It can be difficult to see individual Afghans standing in the shadows. This is the story of one of them, a woman whose narrative is both uniquely her own, and emblematic.

She's a wonderful writer, and she should be telling her own story. But she cannot risk it.

I came to know her through the Afghan Women's Writing Project, which I founded last year. Working in three secure online classrooms, the project pairs Afghan women with American women novelists, poets, memoirists, screenwriters and journalists. Through writing assignments and a revision process, the women tell their stories, which then go on a blog using first names only for security reasons. Sometimes, even that much identification is too precarious. This is one of those cases.

The young woman I'm writing about is determined, passionate and full of dreams. Unlike most young women in Afghanistan, she had a rare early advantage: a father who encouraged her to achieve academically, even during the years when the Taliban barred her from attending school. Here's how she described her early life in an essay she wrote as part of the writing project:

"During the Taliban's black government . . . my father bought me school supplies, and told me: 'Be patient. One day you will finish your studies.' He was right. I waited five years, but after that, I could go to school. . . . When I was sixteen years old, one of my neighbors came to our house and proposed that his son marry me. My father was angry and told him: 'Do you know my daughter is sixteen? It is time for her to study. If the king comes and knocks at the door of my house and proposes that my daughter marry his son, I won't accept it. Please, leave my house and never come back again.' "

But then, as she was finishing high school, her father died. "When I lost him, I lost my shadow," she wrote. In keeping with Afghan cultural practices, her three Taliban-influenced brothers became responsible for her. For several years, in exchange for her turning over much of her salary, they allowed her to continue her education and be employed outside the house.

But now they've decided -- over her strong objections -- to marry her off to a first cousin, a man of about 40. This situation is not uncommon. According to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, up to 80% of all women in the country face forced marriages. In February, she is to be engaged in return for a $20,000 dowry that will go to her brothers. "This money," she writes, "might possibly keep my family alive."

Yet for her, the marriage will mean the opposite of life: an end to her studies, her work outside the home, her connections to non-Afghans. Her uncle's family lives in a conservative, Taliban-held province. Women there "are required to wear burkas and are responsible for cooking, cleaning and caring for the animals," she wrote in her essay. "Most have eight or nine children. They can't go outside the house."

Even as her brothers make their plans, she is seeking a way to oppose them. But as an Afghan woman, her options are limited.

"I told my mom: 'Please give me a chance. I don't like this man. I can't marry him. If you want to sell me, then I am ready to buy myself. I have a plan for my life. Please give me a chance, please, please.' She didn't reply, but cried silently with me. . . . Running away is not an option, because girls who run away here are raped by men and spend years in jail, and I am not such a girl. I can't leave my mom because my brothers believe anything 'wrong' I do is the fault of my mother, and they will kill her. . . . I am like a piece of cloth. I cost little. Who will buy me?"

If she can't avoid the marriage, she says, "I won't stay in this world." The threat is not simply dramatic: In recent years, suicide has become increasingly common among Afghan women trapped in unions they opposed, a disturbing trend noted by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch and others.

There is risk involved in sharing this story here, even though I have withheld the woman's name and location. But she allowed me to do so because there is also danger in not sharing it. If we don't ask these women to speak, and then listen to their stories, we are gagging them as surely as the Taliban did. And when we stop sharing these stories with each other, our understanding of what we are doing in Afghanistan, and why, will necessarily become more narrow.

Masha Hamilton has written four novels, most recently "31 Hours," and is founder of the Afghan Women's Writing Project and the Camel Book Drive.
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

SLEEPING WITH CATS

I am Marge Piercy -- reading her life is truly reading my own life except she "made it" through and I get bogged down. I love her poetry ( TO BE OF USE has tarot poems among others of value)- I loved her book "women on the edge of time". Go feminists -read her life here and then buy SLEEPING WITH CATS

"Marge Piercy is a literary icon...Novelist, poet, social activist. Here is the story of her life."—Alice Hoffman
"[An] utterly lovely memoir...a passionate reflection on sleeping with cats—and sleeping around."—The New York Times Book Review

"A touching and engaging memoir of a life boldly crammed with poetry and novels, lovers and friends, radical politics and feminism, and the cats who've shared it all. Because where would we be without cats?" —Katha Pollitt

"Piercy's Sleeping With Cats is the memoir of a woman who has refused to live her life according to the expectations of family, friends, lovers or literary followers. To the conventional-minded, some periods of her life may seem a tortuous path. But the streetwise girl who emerged from poverty has become one of America's most respected authors.

She calls herself "a stray cat who has finally found a good home," and cats wander in and out of the memoir. Growing up in working-class Detroit, the child who became a writer began as a reclusive dreamer. She writes, "I found the space under the front porch mysterious, sandy and hung with spiderwebs. I loved the front porch, screened in by my father, with its creaky glider Icould lie on and stare up at the boards of the ceiling. That was one piece of furniture my cat was allowed on, so we curled up there together."

"The cats are the constant. Marge Piercy, feminist, activist and author of 15 novels, as many volumes of poetry and scores of essays, has rarely been without the solace of at least one feline companion. The cats, firmly placed in the emotional center of her memoir, "Sleeping With Cats," do double duty, opening the doors to reflections on love,creativity and mortality. Piercy begins in the present in the Cape Cod home she's shared with her husband, writer Ira Wood, for the last 20 years.

As she excavates memories, she keeps returning to this cat-filled house with its exuberant vegetable and flower gardens. These domestic interludes provide respite from the political and emotional tumult of a life packed with an ever-shifting cast of husbands, lovers and friends. At age 65, Piercy has seized this moment to "reflect, reexamine, make amends and corrections--a sort of High Holidays of the soul in which I judge what I've done and left undone."

Piercy's poetry has mined these emotions, and her fiction has grappled with social and political currents, but here she takes a much more deliberate path, attempting to illuminate the present through recounting her past. Although she announces that she will focus her account on her "emotional life, not on literary or political adventures," the radical politics, feminism and cultural ferment of the '60s, coupled with her unswerving commitment to her writing, provide the inextricable backdrop of her tale.

Her fierce ambition to become a writer propels her beyond her rough Detroit childhood, a world laced with violence, street gangs, racism and prostitution. Born in 1936, she spent her early years in a family still reeling from the Depression. Her father installed and repaired heavy machinery for Westinghouse; her mother, a housewife, worked incessantly to keep their lives together. Although she credits her mother with introducing her to the joys of language through word games, neither of her parents understood her dreams: a college education, a literary life. Despite the lack of familial encouragement, by the age of 15 she had established the foundations of her future self. "

In that year," she writes, "I lost one of my best friends to a heroin overdose; my gentle intelligent cat was poisoned by neighbors because an Afro-American family was moving into our house; and my grandmother Hannah, to whom I was very close and who was my religious mentor, died of stomach cancer.

My family moved to a larger house where I had a room of my own with a door that shut, and I began to write." Years later, as an activist for civil rights, she realized that her militant feelings against racism had their roots in the murder of that cat. ...."

Those who know me, my activist history and what I went through as the legal system protected the monster Dombecks who killed my cats will understand ........

Her second marriage in 1960 "opened" in the middle of that decade, and its twists and turns with numerous partners over the next 10 years were often difficult for Piercy to negotiate. The recounting of confusion, pain and betrayal in the context of experimentation and liberation does not make for easy reading. In 1970, after living in New York City for several years, Piercy, whose work was beginning to be published, moved with her husband to Cape Cod, as a respite from the factional politics of the collapsing New Left and for relief from Piercy's often debilitating emphysema. There, she set up priorities from which she's scarcely wavered. "One of the things I chose explicitly was to put my writing first. Everything else in my life waxed and waned, but writing, I discovered during my restructuring, was my real core. Not any relationship. Not any love. Not any person." Ex-husbands and old friends might fret over their characterizations, but Piercy is no softer on herself. "In the best of times I am not an easy woman to get along with, but when someone is estranged from me, I can be annoying indeed. Everything about me seems too much, too fast, too sure, too loud."

Though she ultimately reconciled with her mother, her relationship with her father remained distant and difficult to the end. She is emphatic about not confusing familial obligations with affection: "In the retirement community facility, they imagined I adored my father because I fought them to accede to his wishes. Nonsense. I wasn't going to put up with him, so they were going to have to."

Writing about her cats, these limits dissolve; her prose expands and relaxes. As she sifts through the past, she sometimes seems irritated at failures of memory, the errors made, the destructive trajectory of relationships. In the end, it is the cats, the house, the present that resonate. The journey she depicts was not always pleasant; she has little nostalgia for days gone by. And she makes her case. Like her, the reader is content to return to the aging cats and writers sharing their lives and love in their house by the sea. " —The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Marge Piercy wrote the forward for a lovely book, Painting Cats. The painter speaks of how a feral changed her life. Join the club. Two changed mine. Luna taught me love and sacrifice. Stormy taught me about my PTSD. Blessed are the Feral for they bring us wisdom.

“Birds in the Hand, Birds for your Heart”

ACTUALLY I LIKE THE SMALL AND MEDIUM ONES BEST BECAUSE THEY NESTLE IN YOUR HAND. I HAVE MANY BUT THE LARGE ONE I HAVE IS SPECTACULAR WITH SWIRLS OF BLUE AND RED, GREEN AND ORANGE. I HAVE ALL THE BABIES AROUND HER.

i WROTE HERE:
Jackie also sent, a bright red happy sparrow. The sparrow is part of her "bird in the hand" series; they are egg shaped birds that nestle in one of your hands. She is selling a lot of the happy "speros" at her art co-op store.

Jacquie has a card that goes with these lovely little happy birds that reads: SPERO from the Italian word "Sperare", meaning "to Hope for".

Spero translates as, "I Hope.

Birds retail for small $22; medium $25; large $28
Jacqueline Jrolf

Email address: jjrolf@yahoo.com

Rebecca Whisnant addressing the National Feminist Antipornography Conference

The day started with Rebecca Whisnant’s paper on the challenges pro-pornography 3rd wave feminism poses for a feminist anti-pornography movement. But rather than just lament the problems with 3rd wave feminism, Whisnant uses this opportunity to articulate a clear distinction between 2nd and 3rd wave feminism. She argues that viewing the difference as solely generational is a mistake. There is a fundamental difference between the 2 waves that isn’t reflected in current literature.

In 3rd wave feminism, she argues, there is a reluctance to speak for other women, and thus, most of the arguments about what counts as feminist revolve around the choice of the women directly involved. Therefore, if a woman chooses to appear in pornographic material, that choice is necessarily feminist.

Members of the 2nd wave believed that women shared a common condition, and as they began to uncover the political implications of their private lives, they felt very strongly that their personal decisions had much broader implications for women everywhere. Because of these divergent views about what constitutes feminist action, 2nd and 3rd wave feminists developed very different reactions to pornography.

In fact, it seems like the 3rd wave arguments are less about pornography and more about personal freedom and autonomy. But those concepts are not uncomplicated. To say that something was autonomously chosen is so complex and contingent that it becomes a meaningless statement. These accounts rarely take into account the full weight of coercion, adaptive preferences, economic and social inequality, and a whole host of other factors that constrain one’s autonomy.

We’ve been talking a lot in one of my classes about feminism being similar to membership in a union. In certain situations, you may be asked to give up something that is personally beneficial because your rejection of it works to the advantage of the entire group. This example was offered in our discussion of marriage, but I think fits somewhat into the pornography debate. However, this argument assumes that participation in the porn industry is beneficial to some women, and that’s a dicey claim I don’t really agree with. It can be economically beneficial, but to the extent that much participation in pornography is fueled by one’s own experiences with child sexual abuse I’m inclined to say that it isn’t beneficial.

Regardless, the fact remains that the existence of pornography and the porn industry impact the lives of all women, and taking that into consideration is something that distinguishes 2nd wave feminism from 3rd wave feminism. She points to the distinction between liberal and radical feminism as another way to understand the difference, arguing that 3rd wave feminists favor liberal feminism while the second wave is radical. This is a problem, though, because a lot of the members of the 3rd wave identify as radical feminist while promoting and advocating a liberal feminist agenda (is anyone else uncomfortable about the cover of Feministing blogger Jessica Valenti’s new book, Full Frontal Feminism?).

One of Whisnant’s suggestions for trying to raise awareness about pornography in a culture that is absolutely saturated in pornographic material is to challenge the belief that commodification is linked to freedom. Feminists must promote a view of human freedom that is contrary to the commodification of everyday life. This works specifically against claims that participation in the pornography industry is liberating.

Whisnant rightly challenges the idea that because something is recorded and bought and sold it is liberating. I think this also has to do with the work Gail Dines has done on the importance of imagery – that there is a pervasive belief that to be represented or recorded as an image is liberating or positive in some way.

From the blog Radical Feminism 0 read more here.

Immigration facts and consequences

VIEW THIS VIDEO - THREE MINUTES OF JAW DROPPING FACTS THAT IS ENTERTAINING AS WELL AS INFORMATIVE


100 Million More
Projecting the Impact of Immigration On the U.S. Population, 2007 to 2060
August 2007
By Steven A. Camarota
Download the .pdf version
This study uses Census Bureau data to project how different levels of immigration impact population size and the aging of American society. The findings show that the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year) will add 105 million to the nation�s population by 2060. While immigration makes the population larger, it has a small effect on the aging of society.
Among the findings:

Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million.

If immigration continues at current levels, the nation�s population will increase from 301 million today to 468 million in 2060 � a 167 million (56 percent) increase. Immigrants plus their descendents will account for 105 million (63 percent) of the increase.

The total projected growth of 167 million is equal to the combined populations of Great Britain, France, and Spain. The 105 million from immigration by itself is equal to 13 additional New York Cities.

If the annual level of net immigration was reduced to 300,000, future immigration would add 25 million people to the population by 2060, 80 million fewer than the current level of immigration would add.

The above projection follows exactly the Census Bureau�s assumptions about future birth and death rates, including a decline in the birth rate for Hispanics, who comprise the largest share of immigrants.

Net immigration has been increasing for five decades; if immigration continues to increase, it will add more than the projected 105 million by 2060 that will be added if immigration levels stay the same.

While immigration has a very large impact on the size of the nation�s population, it has only a small effect on slowing the aging of American society.

At the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year), 61 percent of the nation�s population will be of working age (15-66) in 2060, compared to 60 percent if net immigration were reduced to 300,000 a year.

If net immigration was doubled to 2.5 million a year it would raise the working-age share of the population by one additional percentage point, to 62 percent, by 2060. But at that level of immigration, the U.S. population would reach 573 million, double its size in the 2000 Census.

The nation�s ongoing debate over immigration generally has not focused on the effect it has on U.S. population size.

Yet, increasing the nation�s total population is one of immigration�s clearest and most direct effects. Supporters of low immigration point to the congestion, sprawl, traffic, pollution, loss of open spaces, and greenhouse gas emissions that could be impacted by population growth. Supporters of high immigration argue that population growth may create more opportunities for businesses, workers, and consumers.

Whatever one thinks of population growth, the projected 167 million growth in the nation�s population in the next 53 years is very large. It is larger than the entire U.S. population in 1950, and it is more than the combined total populations of California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and New Jersey.

Even the impact of immigration by itself is enormous. The 105 million immigration will add to the population by 2060 is more than all of the population growth that occurred in United States in the first 130 years of the nation�s history after independence.

Our findings are consistent with projections done by the U.S. Census Bureau and others. Since we have used Bureau projections of death and birth rates by race and simply varied the immigration component, this is to be expected.

The Methodology Appendix at the end of the report explains in detail how the projections were created. We provide many alternative levels of immigration, leaving the reader free to judge how different immigration levels impact population size and the age structure. This report makes clear that immigration has a very large impact on the nation�s population. The question is not whether immigration levels are a key determinant of population increase � they are. The question is what costs and benefits will the increase bring. How we answer these questions will to a significant extent determine which immigration policy we pursue.


Conclusion Consistent with Census Bureau projections, we find that future immigration levels have a very large impact on population growth. Also consistent with Census projections, we find that immigration has only a small positive effect on the aging of American society. At present, 1.6 million immigrants settle in the United States annually, and 350,000 leave, for a net level of 1.25 million a year.

If that level of net immigration continues, the nation�s total population will grow by 167 million, to 468 million, by 2060. Immigrants who have yet to arrive, but who do so by 2060, plus their descendents, will account for 105 million � or 63 percent � of this future increase.

If the annual level of net immigration were 300,000 a year in the future, the population would be 80 million smaller in 2060 than if immigration continues at the current level.

While immigration has a large effect on population size, it has only a small effect on the aging of society. At the current level of net immigration, 61 percent of the nation�s population will be of working age (15-66) in 2060, compared to 60 percent if net immigration were 300,000 a year. If immigration was doubled to 3.2 million a year (2.5 million net), it would only raise the working-age share of the population one additional percentage point, to 62 percent of the population in 2060.

However, at that level, the nation�s total population would be 572 million, 272 million larger than it is today. Immigrants do tend to arrive in America relatively young, but they grow older just like native-born Americans. Immigrants admitted today become tomorrow�s retirees. And although they tend to have somewhat larger families than natives, the differences are not large enough to significantly change the nation�s age structure. As a result, immigration makes for a much larger population and more densely settled country, but can have only a small effect on the aging of society.

The debate over immigration should not be whether it makes for a much larger population � without question it does. The debate over immigration should also not be whether it has a large impact on the aging of society � without question it does not.

The central question this study raises and that Americans must answer is what costs and benefits come with having a much larger population and a more densely settled country. Some foresee a deteriorating quality of life with a larger population, including its impact on such things as pollution, congestion, loss of open spaces, and sprawl.

Others may feel that a much larger population will create more opportunities for businesses, workers, and consumers. These projections do not resolve those questions. What the projections do tell us is where we are headed as a country. The question for the nation is: Do we wish to go there?

ALSO SEE: IMMIGRANT GAINS: NATIVE LOSSES

The recovery from the recession of 2001 has been described as �jobless.� In fact, an analysis of the latest Census Bureau data shows that between March of 2000 and March of 2004, the number of adults working actually increased, but all of the net change went to immigrant workers. The number of adult immigrants (18 years of age and older) holding a job increased by over two million between 2000 and 2004, while the number of adult natives holding a job is nearly half a million fewer.

This Backgrounder also finds that the number of adult natives who are unemployed or who have withdrawn from the labor force is dramatically higher in 2004 than it was in 2000. These findings raise the possibility that immigration has adversely Affected the job prospects of native-born Americans.

Among our findings:

Between March of 2000 and 2004, the number of unemployed adult natives increased by 2.3 million, while the number of employed adult immigrants increased by 2.3 million.
Half of the 2.3 million increase in immigrant employment since 2000 is estimated to be from illegal immigration.

In addition to a growth in unemployment, the number of working age (18 to 64) natives who left the labor force entirely has increased by four million since 2000.

Even over the last year the same general pattern holds. Of the 900,000 net increase in jobs between March 2003 and 2004, two-thirds went to immigrant workers, even though they account for only 15 percent of all adult workers.

Spawn of Islam

It is Britain which is the breeding ground and development center for radical Islam and the rest of the world suffers for it. Pressure needs to be directed there with collateral reform in the US. The immigration policies of the US and England are atrocious – no emphasis on acceptance of western values or human rights as a requirement for citizenship. Here in the U.S. we allow Muslims to continue their disgusting treatment of animals without any investigation or publicity. If you follow these links remember that in most places with large Muslim populations, the newspapers are forbidden to use the word "Muslim " or Islam. That would be a hate speech crime. Media must use the word "Asian" to mean Muslims. CAID will soon demand that US media do the same thing.

But the educational and legal system in Britain seems to breed virulent radical Islam. Their acceptance of ghettos of cheap labor to serve their uber rich – the spawn of their class system which they love so much, creates neighborhoods where the secular police do not enforce secular law.

Police do not even enter these neighborhoods. They leave Order to old Muslim men which just strengthens the practice of Sharia. How many “missing” teen age girls before the world demands England reforms its’ class based legal system?

It is important because the same thing is now developing in the US under the same doublespeak of cultural relativism, tolerance, religious freedom, bla bla bla. Now the U.S. has a veiled religious advisor in the White House who supports the destruction of the statute of liberty. All to the benefit of the U.S. upper class need for cheap labor.

What is that? You don’t think there is a class system in the U.S.? Those million dollar bonuses at AIG and Goldman Saks just slipped past your consciousness? The too big to fail mantra makes sense to you. Forced insurance instead of medical system reform just happened as a result of the democratic system?

PRIDE

It's made up of lonely moments
There was always a moment there when I knew.
You always gave installments,
Always knew you concentrated and grew.

And I believe in reinvention,
Do you believe that life is holding the clue?
Take away all the lonely moments,
Give me full communication with you.

Your smile, shine a little light, alright?
Don't hide, shine a little light,
Give up on your pride.

Do you believe in reinvention,
Do you believe that life is holding the clue?
Any way to face the silence,
Any way to face the pain that kills you.

Your smile, shine a little light, alright?
Don't hide, shine a little light,
Give up on your pride.

Give up on your pride, the moment's gone;
Give up on your smile, life is long.
So, I seen a bad dream, that you were gone:
I got bitten on the soul, my blood will run.

Give up on your pride, the moment's gone;
Give up on your smile, life is long.
So I seen a bad dream, you were gone:
You're bitter and cold, my blood will run.

For My Marys

Dreams

I sometimes have prophetic dreams usually around the earth holidays usually difficult to interpret but true dreams. This year, last night I dreamt there was an awakening to the status of women in Muslim countries from the educated men who are actually also terribly oppressed by the Muslim religious law. I saw the women smiling driving cars and laughing - free without their male "guardians". I saw the academic men so interested in them, admiring, wanting to know more. The revolution comes from those who are writing papers, especially in academia both in the middle east and especially in the US.

There was no hint of western assistance from the "feminists" in the US. I will say no more to US feminists who are really just politicians as corrupted as those politicians who are in positions of power and who do nothing for women. US feminists are groupies who "love" certain politicians and hate others and call that feminist organizing, following their leader and ignoring the parking meters.

Anyway, my Muslim sisters are going to come through with the assistance of their men. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Solstice Party the Rightway

I have just come from the best Solstice party ever. And I am the only one at work who celebrates the Solstice. The women at work, knowing I love the Solstice, decided to have the Christmas party on the Solstice, just for me really.

And there was a Rosemary herb "Christmas" tree growing in a pot and decorated. Fruit plates and hard cheese plates (Parmesan, rosemary and olive oil Asiago, Romano, crackers, cranberry brick). They had chicken and I had the Burger King soy burger with everything on it which they went flying to buy just before the party started. And we had soy non-egg nog that tasted like vanilla cream and carrot juice. I loved the organic fruit plate from Basics, with pineapple, grapes, pears, apples, oranges and even pink grapefruit, all sliced and ready to eat. I brought a lot home. Oh, and did I mention the red velvet cake? Oh YES, red velvet cake! Try these raw gingerbread cookies
and these Yule anise cookies.
We lit the Solstice candle and made wishes, what we wanted to end and what we wanted to replace it during the new cycle. Lots of laughter and support, fence mending and joy. Holiday music from the computer and GIFTS. Oh, Oh, Oh, the GIFTS!

A few weeks ago my old friend of 40 years, Joel, gave me a beautiful black and white book bag purse that I use all the time now that the cats peed on, AND IN, my attache case. The beautiful bag was with me today reminding me of kind beautiful strong Joel.

I am laying in bed the abundance all around me. I am wearing the new soft and plush, wide striped pink and white bathrobe, and matching slippers Mary G gave me - yes I am wearing the pink and white striped slippers with the little pink ribbons in bed. The robe is called, is strangely called, "Covington", on the little card that tells you the size and stuff. Covington is the name of the Appalachian mountain town in Virginia where my father was raised. Mary said that means my father is hugging me from heaven.

I now have foaming bath balls, a bath pillow, white soap roses to float in the tub, and a foot scrubber that fastens to the wall of the tub on which you rub your feet to get a solitary massage. Oh yes, I made out like a robber baron.

I received a golden sun mobile that spins to honor the return of the sun which I will hang in my office above the white porcelain cherub that was in another package. And vanilla incense with a beautiful jade incense holder. And a cup with red birds on it to drink my never ending black coffee at work. HOW THOUGHTFUL ARE THESE PEOPLE?!

Speaking of red birds, my artist cousin Jacquie Jrolf sent me three of her Bingen sculptures which are strange and fascinating(halfbird/halfhuman,emerging from what might be eggs or cocoons).

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179) was the last of ten children and tithed to the church where she was raised and, though uncommon for women at that time, educated. She went on to become a German abbess, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, channeller, visionary, composer, and polymath, She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations. Always ahead of her time, she was a renaissance woman during the middle ages

But Jackie also sent, a bright red happy sparrow. The sparrow is part of her "bird in the hand" series; they are egg shaped birds that nestle in one of your hands. She is selling a lot of the happy "speros" at her art co-op store. I am going to get one for my Uncle John so far away.

Jacquie has a card that goes with these lovely little happy birds that reads: SPERO from the Italian word "Sperare", meaning "to Hope for".

Spero translates as, "I Hope.

On Solstice, the darkest day, the longest night, what better message than hope is flying to us with the sun's return. Hope through the cold and the bitterness, hope comes flying when everything is barren except the evergreens. I LOVE this bright red baby bird with the bright eyes and little pointy beek and the wavy black line wings

And I will tell you what else is coming, ---- PICTURES!

Oh yes, after the Christian holiday, when I am rested, I will have the women at work take pictures of me in my bathrobe with my birds and I will post them. Oh yes, I will.

I am remembering Jill from the Sirius Sunlight Store in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, who during my darkest time made me crystal ropes to hang in my windows so I would have rainbows. She gave them to me as a gift- no charge, she said. It took her hours to string them. They make rainbows all over my walls. I wish her a prosperous holiday season in the store on High Street.

And others, I am remembering others - their gifts fill my house. Tonight I heard from people who are out of my life but who I have tenderness for despite my common sense. I wish them well. I wish them love, peace and their own laughter.

I am living alone with the cats now. I like to be alone - it is a gift to be able to survive alone, on your own. There is no loneliness because of the cats. I live with a Pride. I bought them their salmon tonight - they have eaten and are content. Sleeping with their heads on my legs, - snoring actually. My old friends, my darling dear companions. The baby is creeping around in the dark outside the bedroom, trying to find someone to ambush, which is why all the old cats have found refuge on this bed. Ah the young and their energy. When no one will play he whimpers heartbroken in the dark. Poor baby. Someone threw him over my fence a year ago.

When we are not working because of the Christain holiday, I will wash the floors and clean the house. They will be happy for the space that comes when the clutter is eliminated.

Tomorrow I pay the annual property taxes, the predatory property taxes. I will not even go there tonight. I will stay in the very pleasant now.

MY favorite lines from Rimbaud come to mind as the cycle begins anew:

Let my eternal soul
fulfill its' promise
in spite of the night alone
and the day on fire.

I am wishing you, dear reader love - yes I am - happiness breeds the desire to share love. I have been given a lot of love lately. We have made it through the darkest of times, the cats and I. I have lived in the mist during my dark decade.

I am loving you right now. Let us love as if the world really will end in 2012 - just for today, just for tonight, in the dark of the Winter Solstice, 2009, with the cats and all the animals, may they find love instead of cruelty, may we all find love in the dark and in the light, instead of cruelty.

And now I go to get some more of that fruit I brought home...Good Night Good Night 2009.

PS: BIG BOX left on porch --my cousin Grace is an excellent seamstress. In addition to working two jobs, she sews. And she sews wonderful creations, in the tradition of women's art through the ages. She has made my mother and I beautiful pillow cases in the past which I treasure. Bight colors, ribbons and roses...But this time she actually made a pillow. The background is cats loving and magical and then the front is framed in wonderful colored stripes and in the middle of these bands of color which form a frame is a blown up old photo of my father and mother with her brother Jim (Grace's father) and other family members. All smiling and looking at the camera, my mother looking at my father... I am stunned. How did these fabulous artists survive the struggle of our working class roots, with all this skill, color and creativity? Such energy, such beauty, such love and caring. The cream rises. Amazing Grace.

Winter Solstice: Axial Tilt Is The Reason For The Season

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/the_universe/uts/winter.html&edu=mid&back=/search/search_navigation.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solstice

Winter Festivals and the Solstice

Samanthasmom says: Greenconsciousness,For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, the sun is actually at its closest point to us on the winter solstice and farthest away at summer solstice, and it’s the opposite in the southern hemisphere. I would love for children to become more in tune with the motion of our planet and its position in the universe. ( Happy Perihelion) Not only would it make them more knowledgeable, it would also foster some humility.

At first glance, it makes no sense. If Earth is closest to the Sun in
January, shouldn’t it be summer? Maybe, if you live in the Southern
Hemisphere. So what does this mean?

Earth’s orbit is not a perfect circle. It is elliptical, or slightly oval-shaped. This means there is one point in the orbit where Earth is closest to the Sun, and another where Earth is farthest from the Sun. The closest point occurs in early January,
and the far point happens in early July (July 7, 2007). If this is the mechanism that causes seasons, it makes some sense for the Southern Hemisphere. But, as an explanation for the Northern Hemisphere, it fails miserably.

In fact, Earth’s elliptical orbit has nothing to do with seasons. The reason for seasons was explained in last month’s column, and it has to do with the tilt of Earth’s axis. But our non-circular orbit does have an observable effect. It produces, in concert with our tilted axis, the analemma.

The Winter Solstice occurs exactly when the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. Though the Winter Solstice lasts an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like Midwinter to refer to the day on which it occurs.

For most people in the high latitudes this is commonly known as the shortest day and the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest.

The seasonal significance of the Winter Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days.

The Winter Solstice is also the shortest day or lowest sun position for people in low latitudes located between the Tropic of Cancer (23°26'N) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23°26'S).[1]

Depending on the shift of the calendar, the winter solstice occurs some time between December 21 and December 22 each year in the Northern Hemisphere, and between June 20 and June 21 in the Southern Hemisphere.[2]
_________________________________________
SOLSTICE GREETING CARDS

____________________________________
http://www.greenconsciousness.org/weblog/2007/12/winter-solstice.html

http://www.greenconsciousness.org/winter_solstice.html

http://www.greenconsciousness.org/weblog/2008/12/happy-winter-solstice.html

http://www.greenconsciousness.org/weblog/2008/12/example-of-homemade-tree.html

http://www.greenconsciousness.org/weblog/2008/12/poem-to-earth.html

http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/762

_______________________________________________________

The first day of Winter. THE MOMENT THE SUN REACHES ITS' GREATEST DISTANCE SOUTH OF THE EQUATOR. Following this, the sun begins to travel back toward the north. Amounts of sunlight which begin to decrease after each June's Summer Solstice now begin to increase all through the bitter cold which is the result of that decrease.

So that life is born in death and death is born in life.
And only change is constant. The lesson is to keep the faith even in the darkest time when all the doors are shut and life is hard, for your good times are slowly returning. Live to meet them.

http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=usor&c=holidays&id=4955

http://housewrenstudio.typepad.com/charlotte/

http://www.candlegrove.com/mail.html#holly

1984 is not just a book

Top 1 Percent Control 42 Percent of Financial Wealth in the U.S. - How Average Americans are Lured into Debt Servitude by Promises of Mega Wealth.




Obama has let the banks pay off their TARP money. Lenders have certain obligations once they accepted Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money. Lenders signed a Participation Agreement with Treasury (through Fannie Mae and FHA-HUD) as a condition of taking government money. The Participation Agreement commits lenders to follow guidelines issued by Treasury in regard to foreclosure on defaulted mortgages. Banks agreed to modify loans to make the payments reasonable. Lenders agreed to stop litigation once the loan is in the modification process.

So now, in allowing the banks to get out of the TARP agreements, the government will have no power to force the banks to modify the predatory ballooning interest only inflated loans they issued and converted into securities and sold to speculators. And the vultures of wall street will foreclose on more homes, free of any govt restraints. For sure they will be free to add to the principal, late fees, attorney fees, exaggerated costs and penalties of all kinds which they were not allowed to do under the treasury guidelines. Banks/lenders/servicers continually did try to add all these fees to the original loan so that the home owner's mortgage loan grew by thousands before it was modified but they feared the courts would disallow these added costs. Now that the lenders are not subjected to the TARP agreement guidelines, they are free to feed off distressed homeowners without restraint.

Could this administration be any more perverse? Sexism, envy and hatred of powerful women among the elites kept democrats from supporting their most qualified candidate who the working class elected. But the rules committee manipulated the rules so that their big money horse won the race (card). Women raced to support a male over a female and prove themselves "progressive" winning the tolerance of the males in their life. Traitors to their gender, "progressive" the label they crave, not "feminist". These women, desperate to have it all, try to define feminist as something that is not primarily concerned with the rights and equality of women, e.g., intersect, cis, bla bla bla. They employ the doublespeak they see all around them and which Mary Daley exposed in GynEcology. Because women get "ahead" by trashing other women and validating men.

Now that Hillary is humiliated, irrelevant, a lapdog for Obama, they tolerated her. She's learned her place and wore the veil for Obama after his Cairo speech. Why should she fight for women globally when women locally trashed her as she tried to obtain her own place from which Hillary could have used power to help our gender. Yes, Hillary is no longer a threat or a source of aid for the working class.

Howard Dean did not support Hillary Clinton and now he admits the Obama health care program is worse than the status quo. The White House, using the same tactics on Dean as they used against Hillary, characterized Dean's reasoned and knowledgeable analysis as "a temper tantrum". Obama wants to give us forced insurance obligations and call it health care reform. Another of his many gifts to big money. These are the same insurance companies who push people from hospitals a day after surgery, send women home with babies a day after giving birth and tell women rape is a pre-existing condition. Strange how every program Obama promised during the campaign ends up a windfall profit to his campaign contributors.

How much can the people of this country bear? Our corporate politicians support massive immigration legal and illegal, which destroyed our hard won wages, civil rights and benefits, forcing us to become wage slaves. The politicians support wage slavery not just with legislation, but by quiet state grants of over a million tax dollars annually to immigrant organizations such as United Migrant Opportunity Service, (UMOS) in Wisconsin to provide "training" housing and day care for "farm workers".

Now the politicians are taking our homes in foreclosures and every surplus dollar in property taxes, income taxes and new financial obligations such as forced insurance and increased gas and energy costs. Millions for Al Gore's cap and trade business but no relief for working people.

Big money bought our airwaves and their propaganda comes at us continually shouting over the voices of those who can see what is in front of them. The American people do not want govt managed health care, they say over and over. They send their dupes out to demonstrate, financed in buses paid for by big money. Look at the polls they say. Their polls. Their cable news channels. Their bought and paid for politicians. Yes look and try to see.

They laugh and slap names on their bills like health care reform instead of forced insurance. They laugh and say, Let them eat cake. Meanwhile Iran and North Korea make their nuclear plans. Our politicians say, Nuclear energy is clean energy.

Look in the mirror Howard Dean, Pelosi, Reid and Mike Moore and all the so called feminists who elevated race and charisma over competence and experience.

FROM UPPITY WOMAN HERE:

Support the Conyers-Turner-Lofgren Amendment

Americans For Financial Reform and other groups sent the following letter to members of the House of Representatives. Download the letter as a PDF.

HELP MILLIONS OF FAMILIES STAY IN THEIR HOMES …AT NO COST TO TAXPAYERS!SUPPORT THE CONYERS-TURNER-LOFGREN AMENDMENT TO H.R. 4173

Dear Representative:
... ...
It is estimated that an additional 2.4 million homes will be lost to foreclosure next year and millions more in 2011, for a total of 7.5 million homes foreclosed on between 2006 and 2011.
Congress should act now to help arrest the foreclosure crisis and the terrible toll that it is taking on American families, communities and, indeed, the entire economy.

Many of AFR’s members have long have supported legislation to empower bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages on primary residences as the “stick” financially strapped homeowners desperately need to get their lenders to work with them to prevent avoidable foreclosures.

This narrowly tailored change to the bankruptcy code represents a valuable tool, at no cost whatsoever to the taxpayer, for stopping foreclosures and stabilizing the economy by providing homeowners access to court-supervised mortgage modifications.

The Conyers-Turner-Lofgren amendment will not excuse families from paying their mortgage. Rather, it simply will give judges the authority to modify unaffordable loans for families who are facing foreclosure and cannot obtain a voluntary modification.

primate justice

Thanks again to all of you who came Tues Dec 1st to hear Rick Marolt talk about
"Why Primate Research at the UW is Unethical"


Luciano Matheron videotaped it and aired it last Thursday on his show "Freedom of Peace" on line and also on Cable 95 or Digital 991. In case you weren't able to hear Rick Marolt on the 1st, you can watch it on our program tonight, from 10-11pm.

Last week I showed a past episode with Rick Bogle discussing Bill Lueder's Isthmus cover story about Monkey ro4040.

I thought it was very relevant to the issue of the ethics in UW's primate research, so here's the link to Bill's article again:
http://www.isthmus.com/daily/article.php?article=25897
Check out the extensive coverage and documents on this link regarding primate research.

IDA Undercover TV follows from 11-11:30, and tonight's episode exposes the cruelty of the fur industry, and the Australian mulesing practice still used on sheep, the cruel transporting of sheep and Martha Stewart speaks up against fur.

Past episodes of Animals Have Rights: http://www.vimeo.com/animalrights/videos
and keep up with Rick's commentaries on http://primateresearch.blogspot.com
www.madisonmonkeys.com

http://www.blogger.com/www.allanimals.org

Please forward this information to others and contact your city alder and Dane County supervisor and urge them to find out more about this issue. It's time for our community to stop avoiding this disturbing ethical question and finally address it. As long as we do nothing, this cruel and wasteful research will continue.

Please become involved and help us and the animals.

Thank you,
Ann
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"On the elevator ride to our destination, one worker tells Capuano, "The guys you're looking at are getting big for their cage."

It's true. r04040 and his cellmate, r04060, are both nearing 10 kilos (22 pounds). The federal Animal Welfare Act requires that monkeys between three and 10 kilos each have 4.3 square feet of floor space (that's 25 by 25 inches).

But at 10 kilos they must get six square feet.

We enter a room with about a dozen double cages, each less than four feet in any direction. r04040 and r04060 are the only two monkeys in the room, in an upper-tier cage. Capuano says the room is going to be hosed down later that day, as is done every two weeks. These two were left behind for now, pending our visit.

Both monkeys react with alarm to our intrusion, pacing quickly back and forth and on several occasions throwing their bodies against the side of the cage, making a crashing sound. I try to take some photos, but it's difficult.

Capuano asks if I'd like r04040 put into a smaller enclosure nearer the floor. This will require the assistance of one of the staffers I met a few minutes ago.

While we're waiting for her to arrive, Capuano shows me a pair of larger, vaguely zoo-like rooms across the hall, joined by a transit hole. Both are also empty, due to renovations. Here, I'm told, is where r04040 spent most of his life, housed with about 10 other rhesus macaques.
Capuano also shows me a room like r04040's that happens to be full of monkeys. They dart about and make a lot of noise. Each cage contains a red plastic ball, one of the "enhancements" provided by the center to keep the monkeys occupied.

For a minute I am left alone by the doorway of this room. Suddenly one monkey, a 10-year-old male, leaps onto the cage wall, clutches the wire with all four limbs and pulls his body violently into it, eight times in rapid succession: Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!

In the hallway are two large cages, each containing about 10 tiny marmoset monkeys. They're perched shoulder-to-shoulder on the top rung, as though posing for a family portrait. We make our way back to r04040's room.

The staffer, whom I hardly recognize in her getup, holds a transfer cage up to r04040's enclosure and creates an opening. Like a shot he rushes in, hitting the far wall.

"See how fast he did that?" asks Capuano, explaining that the monkeys are taught this, for when they must be moved. r04040 exits the transfer cage into the smaller enclosure just as swiftly.

I make mostly unsuccessful attempts to photograph my monkey as he darts nervously around his strange new environs. He regards me warily, opening his mouth in an obvious threat. Even when he adjusts to our presence — becoming, says Capuano, "more comfortable" — there is still fear in his eyes.

I wonder what I'm doing here, taking his picture, using him. Is the trauma my visit causes justified because I plan to write about it?

Comments (9)

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

Letter on women from State Dept neglects to note that the Council did all this under Condilizza Rice not Hillary Clinton

Note: Condi Rice founded the USAWC and many other programs for women in Afghan and Iraq and globally where women have slave status. These programs have been eliminated by Clinton and Obama. But they do have the nerve to send out PR taking credit for what the Bush adm did for women globally from Rice's State Dept. SEE BELOW. No mention of the brave women of Iran dying today.
FROM THE STATE DEPT.
Women: The U.S.-Afghan Women's Council
Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:28:11 -0600
Women's Issues

December 7, 2009
________________________________

The brave women of Afghanistan suffered immensely under the Taliban and continue to endure hardships as they work to rebuild their country. The American people have not forgotten their plight. Our compassion is enduring , and we are working hard to improve the situation of the women of Afghanistan. The United States is committed to the goal of a thriving, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan – a goal for which the talented and determined women of Afghanistan are essential. Without their full participation, Afghanistan cannot flourish.

The U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council harnesses the power of the American people as an agent for positive change. We are a public-private partnership that connects the U.S. and Afghan governments to the private sector and NGOs to develop and implement initiatives for Afghan women and girls. Council Members are pre-eminent figures in government, the private sector, and philanthropy. We develop and implement projects to improve the lives of Afghan women and children in health, education and literacy, entrepreneurship, and political leadership.

The Council has made considerable public sector investments in education, health, and job-creation programs. In addition, we have:


* Established the American University of Afghanistan and provided scholarships for students to receive a world-class education there;
* helped construct a school for over 200 disadvantaged children in Bamiyan;
* opened Afghanistan’s first reconstruction and burn center in Kabul;
* trained and employed midwives to address the Afghan maternal mortality crisis;
* provided training, literacy skills, and health care to Afghan women and their families in the hand-knotted Afghan carpet industry;
* trained Afghan women entrepreneurs and partnered them with American business mentors;
* built the capacity of women-led NGOs to advocate for women’s rights and to provide legal services to abused women;
* donated computers and software to the Women’s Teacher Training Institute (now the Afghan National Literacy Center);
* helped furbish Women’s Resource Centers to provide literacy, computer, and business training materials;
* provided leadership training to senior women in the Afghan civil service.

For more information, and to find out how you can get involved, please visit us at http://gucchd.georgetown.edu/76315.html.

Project Artemis by Condi Rice

Green Iran

Hold Your Breath - Revolution has broken out in Iran Again Today

The people understand that they need to fight.

We, the US, need to make sure they have weapons.

See, CNN here.


Jordan: "Honor Killing" by Brother of Pregnant Sister

Jordan: Report that Queen Rania to Give "Quiet Support" to Change Laws Giving "Impunity" on "Honor Killings"

Spain: Woman Abducted, Sentenced to Death Under Sharia, by Islamic Supremacist Kidnappers on Adultery Charge


UK: "Honor crime up by 40% due to rising fundamentalism"

Support the BPA Free Kids Act

Support the BPA Free Kids Act!
Click here to take action.

A new study released last Wednesday found that 9 out of 10 babies tested were born with bisphenol-A (BPA) in their umbilical cord blood.

That's the same industrial chemical linked to cancer, onset diabetes, and obesity that is commonly found in baby bottles and sippy cups sold in Wisconsin.

Unbelievable! It's time to make Wisconsin BPA Free.

Support the BPA Free Kids Act here, and help us send a message to our state leaders that we want our babies to be BPA Free!

On Wednesday of this week, the state Assembly is hearing a bill that would ban BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups in Wisconsin!

Toxic chemicals have no place being in children's products. Bisphenol-A (BPA), an industrial chemical linked to cancer, early onset diabetes and obesity, is found in many baby bottles and sippy cups sold in Wisconsin. It leaches from these products and puts our children's development at risk.

The chemical industry and others with a financial stake in the chemical are continuing to argue that BPA is safe and trying to torpedo efforts to protect our kids. That's unacceptable.

Companies such as Nalgene, Playtex and Eden foods have all started using BPA-free alternatives. Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us have also pledged to stop selling baby bottles containing BPA.

This summer, both Minnesota and Connecticut passed a ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. It's time for Wisconsin to do the same.

Support the BPA Free Kids Act here, and help us ban the manufacture and sale of bisphenol-A in children's bottles and cups.

http://www.wispirg.org/action/toxics2/support-the-bpa-free-kids-act?id4=ES

Sincerely,

Bruce Speight
WISPIRG Advocate
action@wispirg.org
http://www.WISPIRG.org

Trafficking Of Native Women is widespread

Trafficking Of Native Women is widespread

By Madeleine Baran

Three decades ago, the relatives of an eleven-year-old Native girl in Minnesota forced her to have sex with a man in exchange for alcohol. The story was not front-page news. It was not the subject of a feature-length film with a happy ending. No one intervened. But when she turned eighteen, the police started paying attention. She was arrested and convicted over twenty times for prostitution. Her parents’ addiction became her own, and she entered treatment dozens of times.

At an early age, the girl became one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Native American children and women forced into prostitution in Minnesota, falling under the radar of social services, the community, and the media.

“If it was a bunch of white, blonde hair, blue-eyed girls, believe me, there would be an end to this,” said Vednita Carter, executive director of Breaking Free, a St. Paul-based nonprofit serving women involved in prostitution.

In September, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center became the first organization in the state to release a report about the widespread trafficking of Native women. The agency hopes its effort will draw attention and funding to Native victims of sexual exploitation.

Advocates say the report’s findings cast little doubt that the situation has already become a crisis. In a sample of 95 Native women seeking services from the resource center, 40 percent reported being the victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Sixty percent of the women surveyed entered prostitution or pornography before the age of 18. And about one-fifth had been sexually exploited before their thirteenth birthday. When the girls become adults, the exploitation often continues. They remain in prostitution, but the law often no longer views them as victims, but as criminals.

The 126-page report, called Shattered Hearts, written by esearch scientist Alexandra Pierce, focuses on women who live outside of reservations. The report compiles statistics, identifies flaws in the legal system, draws parallels to the historic exploitation of Native people, and makes dozens of suggestions about how to address the problem. Pierce incorporated the Resource Center’s own studies, interviews with social service workers, and available government data.

“To me, it’s an emotional issue; it’s a financial issue; it’s a justice issue; it’s a human rights issue,” said Suzanne Koepplinger, the Resource Center’s executive director.

Although the legal system treats prostitution and trafficking differently, the report often uses the terms interchangeably, as many advocates believe that prostitution can never be considered fully consensual. The prostituted woman is the true victim of the crime, they argue.

“There’s a general acceptance that prostitution is a lifestyle choice, when it’s actually a federal crime against women,” Koepplinger said.

The report found that Native women have been disproportionally impacted by sexual exploitation. For example, Native American women make up about 25 percent of all women on probation in Hennepin County for prostitution-related offenses, according to data from 2007. But Native women represent only 2.2 percent of the county’s population.

Past treatment of Indian women

Some of the reasons for the staggering numbers are clear. Native Americans have the state’s highest rates of homelessness, poverty, and alcoholism – what many call the legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism. But the report also argues that generational trauma plays a role. White settlers repeatedly raped, tortured, and murdered Native women over hundreds of years, treating their bodies as disposable and worthless.

In one account from the 1860s, a white rancher describes a government attack on the Cheyenne: “I heard one man say that he had cut out a woman’s private parts and had them for exhibition on a stick…I also heard of numerous instances in which men had cut out the private parts of females and stretched them over the saddle-bows and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks.”

Other more recent practices, including the involuntary sterilization of Native women and the Indian Adoption Project (which removed Native children from their homes), added to the collective trauma, the report says.

“There’s been so much violence and destruction of families because of colonization,” said Nicole Matthews, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition.

In Minnesota, advocates say that Native women have been prostituted onto ships in the Duluth harbor for generations, although local law enforcement say that they have not noticed any trafficking since harbor security was ramped up after 9/11.

“Girls have conversations with their mothers about their time, when the mothers were working on the boats,” one advocate said during a round-table discussion conducted as part of the report. “Many of the girls were conceived out of working on the boats.”

These historical experiences leave Native women psychologically vulnerable to exploitation, the report says. Once women enter into prostitution, they are less likely to ask for help, as violence against women may seem normal.

Sexual exploitation in the Native community

Advocates say that many Native communities have also normalized sexual exploitation. Although data is limited, the fact that Native women are often exploited in childhood suggests that Native men play a significant role in their abuse. In many close-knit Native communities, women may have difficulty speaking out.

“It’s a very difficult issue because it’s a very painful issue,” Koepplinger said. “But not talking about it hasn’t helped us.”

An advocate who was interviewed anonymously as part of the report said that when she has tried to talk about sexual violence with members of her Native community, “Some of the elders don’t appreciate that.”

Another participants agreed, saying, “Oh, I know, I know. I was ‘that nasty girl who talks nasty.’”

Criminalization of victims

If the girls don’t find help before they turn eighteen, the legal system takes over, often criminalizes their abuse, and fails to effectively stop sex trafficking, advocates say. But disagreement exists among both advocates and law enforcement about the best intervention methods.

“Police get a hold of them first,” said Linda Miller, executive director of Civil Society, a non-profit that provides legal and other assistance to trafficking victims. “They’ve declared that they’re not going to look beneath the surface.”

But St. Paul Police spokesperson Paul Schnell points to the federally funded Gerald D. Vick Human Trafficking Task Force, a police-led effort to coordinate services for victims of trafficking. The police department trains officers to recognize signs of human trafficking when they approach criminal situations.

However, many women are distrustful of law enforcement, and Schnell acknowledges that police officers frequently arrest women engaged in prostitution.

“In the moment, a case may become a case, “ he said. “But over the course of time and doing that investigation via prosecution or defense counsel, there are different places where there can be interventions to address the trafficking issues.”

Carter, of Breaking Free, said that St. Paul police officers have been increasingly receptive to treating prostitutes as victims. More police officers are bringing women directly to Breaking Free instead of jail, she said.

Nonetheless, arrests continue, and advocates say that a prostitution conviction – or even an arrest – can prevent a woman from ever having a decent job or housing.

“Not many women want to spend the rest of their lives saying that they engaged in prostitution,” Miller said.

Trafficking laws in minnesota

Minnesota law does provide some additional legal protection to victims of sex trafficking. While the federal definition of trafficking requires that traffickers use “force, fraud, or coercion,” state laws say that a person can never consent to being sexually exploited. Under state law, anyone who had been prostituted by others is considered a trafficking victim.

In May 2009, the Minnesota legislature unanimously passed an amendment to the state’s sex trafficking law. The amendment allows prosecutors to give sex traffickers higher penalties when the offender repeatedly traffics victims into prostitution, where bodily harm is inflicted, where an individual is held more than 180 days, or where more than one victim is involved. The amendment also categorizes sex trafficking as a “crime of violence,” which prohibits traffickers from owning firearms.

As of late October, prosecutors have not convicted any traffickers under the amended bill. Advocates say the lack of prosecution is not surprising. It’s a lot easier to arrest the prostitute on the street than investigate what could be a larger, more organized business, they say.

But sometimes, despite massive investigative efforts, trafficking cases fall apart. Deputy Chief John Beyer, of the Duluth Police Department, said that investigators spent hundreds of hours working on a case in 2000, involving two Native girls being trafficked onto boats in the Duluth harbor. The officers even obtained video footage that showed the girls going onto the boats.

Beyer said the case fell apart when the girls stopped cooperating with law enforcement’s efforts to prosecute the case. “That was really frustrating for all of us” he said. “We really wanted to go after those guys.”

Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner says her office has not seen any cases involving the trafficking of Native women in recent years. However, she says that the lack of cases does not mean that trafficking does not exist, but that women face barriers to reporting their abuse.

“In my mind as a prosecutor, the barrier is not the language of the statutes,” she said. “The real barrier is the lack of reports and the lack of awareness by system’s personnel,” including health care providers and teachers.

Punishing the victims

Many advocates say that law enforcement needs to address not only the traffickers, but also the individual men who pay for sex. Carter, of Breaking Free, said she believes that the men should receive felony convictions as a deterrent.

“We believe it’s about supply and demand,” she said. “And there’s so much focus on the supply, which is the women. The demand is the men who buy them. That’s what keeps prostitution thriving is the demand.”

Breaking Free runs a monthly program for men convicted of soliciting a prostitute, and Carter says the program has had some success. Out of about 400 male participants, only a handful have been re-arrested. But she cautioned that this might not reflect the true reality. Men may just work harder to avoid detection, she said.

On the victim’s side, advocates say that women have little incentive to come forward and share their stories. Few services exist for victims of trafficking. The situation is often parallel to that of domestic violence victims. Without adequate support, leaving the situation could place women at greater risk of violence, including murder, advocates say.

Programs like Breaking Free, Women of Nations, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth, and others are trying to address the problem, but advocates say that a lack of funding for housing prevents many women from coming forward.

“Why would we want to put a woman through that if nothing’s going to happen?” said Matthews. “You’re kind of opening the wound without doing anything about it.”

The Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center runs an emergency shelter program for women, but they had to turn away 50 women and children last year. About 150 women are on the agency’s waiting list for supportive housing.

The report also recommends other measures, including: raising awareness of the problem, increasing criminal penalties for purchasers of sexual services, training health care workers and others to identify signs of sex trafficking, and providing job opportunities for victims of prostitution.

Although advocates are quick to point out that sexual exploitation is not unique to Native communities, they say that Native people need to take some responsibility for addressing the situation. The first step, they say, is ending the silence that exists in many close-knit Native communities.

“If enough people in the community say this is a problem, then we can get something done,” Koepplinger said.

Advocates emphasize that Native people can also draw on specific cultural strengths to confront the problem. For example, the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth holds traditional full-moon ceremonies every month to help women begin to heal and recover from their experiences.

“It’s important to provide a safe space where they can feel comfortable saying that I don’t want this to happen to my daughter,” said Sherry Sanchez-Tibbets, the agency’s executive director.

Meanwhile, advocates say they hope that agencies will collect more data, which could be used to secure badly needed funding.

As part of this initiative, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition recently began a project to interview Native victims to learn more about their struggles, and to ask the women for input about what services would be useful.

The agency hopes to interview 100 women by February, and intends to hold a community feast to celebrate the project. Plans are also in the works to create a quilt in honor of the women and to publicize the problem.

Koepplinger stresses that her agency’s report is just the first step to identify and begin to more fully address the problem. “I’m not naive enough to think we can do this in the next two years, but we have to start somewhere,” she said.

In the meantime, every day Native woman are being prostituted in Minnesota. The story of the woman who was sold into prostitution at age eleven demonstrates the challenges of intervention.

The woman did not connect with social services until her mid-‘40s. By that time, she was entrenched in a cycle of violence. Civil Society has provided her with emergency help several times over the past few years, but she faces limited options.

Right now, she is once again in treatment for alcoholism, and Miller, of Civil Society, said she still hopes the woman can create a healthy life for herself. But, she added, “Her story, and the other victims we see, are just the tip of the iceberg.”

*** To read the full Shattered Hearts report , see: www.miwrc.org .

If you are being prostituted, sexual exploited, or trafficked, there are agencies that can help you. Here are several:

• Breaking Free: 651-645-6557

• MN Indian Women’s Resource Center: 612-728-2000

• MN Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition: 651-646-4800

• Civil Society: 1-888-772-3324 (toll-free) or 651-291-8810

No One Ever Washed a Rented Country

Listen to Tom Friedman on Afghanistan (Fared Zakaria's show GPS today CNN 12-1 pm). Finally a male voice that is true to what women need in Afghanistan.

Recent book:
Hot Flat and Crowded

Politically Correct Zakaria defends Muslim's rights to force their religion on non believers by demanding Europe and the US approve the rights of Muslims to build minarets from which to blare the call to prayer into the surrounding neighborhoods.

Residents already in the neighborhood don't want to listen to to Muslim prayers blasted from churches or mosques often by the use of loudspeakers 5 times a day.

Couched in tortured reasoning, using all the left's buzz words, Zakaria's argument is that those who oppose minarets and presumably all the other aspects of forced religion and sharia law (now in the US because of transplanted Muslim immigrant culture), are in opposition because:
1. opponents are racists (Islamaphobes)
2. and stupid.

Zakaria is the exact opposite of Tom Friedman - He is the embodiment of the beautifully wrapped but empty package that fools the people most of the time.

As always, Read Chesler

REAL NEWS

FROM REAL COURAGE:


http://www.realcourage.org/2009/12/chicago-hate-group-leader-louis-farrakhan-americas-time-is-up/">Chicago: "Hate Group" Leader Louis Farrakhan: "America's time is up"

Louis Farrakhan is reported speaking at Chicago's Mosque Maryam which is the national headquarters for the SPLC-designated "hate group" Nation of Islam (NOI). "Hate group" leader Farrakhan told a standing room only audience in Chicago: "The government already knows that your time to be a slave in America is over!" and that "America has run out of time."
Farrakhan stated that Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad "met with God... [to]... challenge the government of America, the White people of America and warn them of their inevitable destruction..." According to the Final Call report, "Farrakhan challenged the Black man and woman to stand up and reclaim their rightful place of rulership."

Farrakhan concluded that "There is nothing in either (Bible or Holy Qur'an) that teaches integration of the righteous with the wicked."

The report also stated that "Akbar Muhammad [and Farrakhan associate], a world traveler who has been to 139 countries during his work as international representative of the Nation of Islam, said it is important for the people to know the type of respect and honor Minister Farrakhan receives from prominent leaders within the Muslim world. Regarding the Minister's message, Akbar Muhammad called it a 'clear warning' to those involved in 'diabolical schemes' to prevent our rise."

In 2007, the Nation of Islam's Akbar Muhammad (aka Larry 4X Prescott) appeared at a Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) meeting with Siraj Wahhaj, reportedly "to deliver a passionate speech defending convicted cop killer Jamil Alamin." (Siraj Wahhaj has also been vice president of ISNA, has called for replacement of the U.S. government with an Islamic caliphate, and spoke at the July 4, 2009 ISNA convention in Washington DC.)

According to supporters of Jamil Alamin, MANA's call for an alliance of "indigenous Muslims in America" "initiative began almost two years ago when Imam Jamil Al-Amin made a call for the formation of such an alliance."

In October 2009, when reported Jihad plotter Luqman Ameen Abdullah was killed in a shootout in Michigan, the FBI criminal complaint regarding members of the Masjid Al-Haqq's role as part of the "The Ummah" was as follows - "Their primary mission is to establish a separate, sovereign Islamic state ('The Ummah') within the borders of the United States, governed by Sharia law. The Ummah is to be ruled over by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rapp Brown, who is currently serving a life sentence in the Florence, Colorado Supermax for shooting two police officers in Georgia." MANA's Ihsan Bagby disputed this FBI report and indicated that while members of "The Ummah" were "anti-government," they did not promote violence.

The Final Call report on Farrakhan's speeech in Chicago concludes with demonstrating the power of Farrakhan's outreach, stating that "Nare Makhan, a Chicago resident who had just returned from Florida early Sunday morning said, 'There was so much information that was so empowering.' 'It was overwhelming. It's touching in a way. I've never owned a Qu'ran, but now I just bought me a Qu'ran and I am going to study it. I just bought everything to catch up as far as what I think is necessary for me to move forward now in life. It's a serious hour.' "

Related Reports:
-- "The Nation of Islam" listed as a "black separatist" "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
Fort Hood Attack: 'Nation of Islam' Hate Group Leader Louis Farrakhan Discusses Fort Hood Shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan
U.S.: Nation of Islam Hate Group Leader Louis Farrakhan speaks on the Taliban
Farrakhan welcomes Gaddafi
Michigan: Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan will have ‘message for everyone’
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Reports on Racial Supremacism

One Sign of Reason

VEGNEWS

As of December 1, all 27 nations of the European Union will officially recognize animals as sentient beings. The Lisbon Treaty, originally signed in 2007 to go into effect this year, mandates that since animals are legally recognized as sentient, their welfare must be taken into consideration.

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