This week, a 20-year old woman in Subalpur in West Bengal was sentenced to be gang raped by the sick, deranged conservatives who run her village. The village chief and the 13 rapists were arrested yesterday. After she couldn't pay a 25,000 rupee fine ($459) for dating a Muslim man, the village council decreed she be raped.
Like Obama's, this was a tough year for Morrissey. When his band wasn't being food poisoned at gigs, he was in the hospital with serious health problems. He was forced to cancel so many concerts that he lost the ability to get tour insurance. On the other hand his book, Autobiography entered the British charts at #1 and sold more copies its first week than Keith Richards' did.
According to Pelosi, when women succeed, America succeedsYesterday I got an e-mail from an awful candidate running for an open House seat in northeast Iowa, Swati Dandekar. Blue America is backing the progressive running for that seat, Pat Murphy.
A young member of Congress, Don Young (R-AK), mostly senile these daysWhen Valerie Foushee replaced Ellie Kinnnaird in the North Carolina state Senate, she gave up her District 50 state House seat (Orange and Durham counties), Thursday, a 4 person selection committee, two Democrats from each county) voted to replace her with Graig Meyer.
In a comprehensive new study of the state of women in America, the Center for American Progress gets into great depth about how women are faring in terms of economic security, leadership and health. The differences between the states are startling.
If you're not a reader of the Hollywood Reporter you probably missed Thursday's brilliant OpEd by actress and activist Kathleen Turner: I've Had Enough. I serve with Kathleen on the board of People For the American Way and have found her to be an inspiration for many years. Her passion for equality is infectious and uplifting.
Sorry for the Cher version; I'm sick. I shouldn't be looking at something as serious at another Egyptian revolution-- there are already a couple dozen people dead and 14 million angry Egyptians in the street including some real assholes-- through the prism of U.S. pop culture, let alone my own travelogue.
I wish I could remember his exact quote, but a high school history teacher impressed me by explaining how technological achievements galloped way ahead of society's ability to evolve spiritually, intellectually and morally to deal with those achievements. He said it so elegantly though. In her book, Murder in the Name of Honor, journalist/activist Rana Husseini makes a similar point about backward, morally-primitive conservatives and how they relate to women.
Conservative immigrants are not adequately screened. I've been reading a fascinating-- and horrifying-- book by Jordanian journalist and activist Rana Husseini, Murder in the Name Of Honor.
Last summer the cover-up of the epidemic of military rapes at Lackland-- engineered by House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon-- began to unravel, due, primarily, to the tireless efforts by Protect Our Defenders. POD battled McKeon's determination to cover up the scandal and keep it out of the public view. At all times, he insisted on closed briefings rather than the public hearings this kind of scandal demanded.
