i agree,

this makes me smile
THIS my dears is an ad for a mattress. if you do not wish to see a birth, don't watch it (hell, people get all bent out of shape when someone breastfeeds. i can only imagine what they'll think or say on seeing an ugly, unnatural, shameful, the most wonderful, beautiful birth!!!!)
(from feministing)

Mattress ad depicting home birth makes me joyful

You know, it's not often that a commercial makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. The tagline: "Tu cama. El lugar mas importante del mundo." ("Your bed. The most important place in the world.")

Read a translation and transcript here.............

i wanted to link to this article

a couple of friends were discussing ayn rand the other day. while i did say i read her, i was conspicuously quiet thereafter. there's a reason and coincidentally, i just happened across this article RIGHT NOW:
(from left blog)

Ayn Rand, sociopathic politics

At one point Ayn Rand referred to her own work as propaganda. It is militantly capitalistic; she vigorously campaigned for the demolition of the common good. She energetically promoted selfishness, and wrote to root out altruism.

Not only is her whole program diametrically opposed to liberal values; Ayn Rand’s ideals are profoundly undemocratic. She doesn’t just describe a world that was unfortunately Darwinian, but urges that it should be that way.

She always put strength above morality; and she despised the average man. In a letter unearthed by Jeff Walker, she wrote, ”I am becoming more antisocial.”

Walker, her biographer, researched her personal journals and found an entry written when she was 30: “One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one’s way to get the best for oneself. Fine!” (All this in the pursuit of happiness.)

This is belligerent contempt for your fellow man. Aggressively pushing your impulses at the expense your group is not normal behavior. It destroys human bonds. It corrupts community.

It destroys trust. It is sociopathic..............

well they're not going to prosecute

the torturers are they? (we all know they're not).

so i'm VERY happy about THIS:

(and you know lt. watada is right. the invasion of iraq WAS illegal and immoral)

Justice Dept. drops case against war resister Watada

By Stephen C. Webster
The Department of Justice has dropped its case against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a war resister who refused Iraq deployment in June 2006 and denounced President George W. Bush’s decision to invade as illegal and immoral.

In Feb. 2007, military judge Lieutenant Colonel John Head halted Watada’s case following possible inconsistencies concerning a “stipulation of fact” agreed before the hearing. The decision led to a mistrial, ending Watada’s court martial. The Army appealed, but a judge said Watada could not be tried again on the same charges, as it would violate his right to be free of double jeopardy.

The Justice Department is dropping its appeal of that judge’s decision.

“Because there are no longer any criminal charges pending against Lt. Watada, and because (his) military service has been extended far beyond his normal release date, he anticipates that he will soon be released from active duty,” Watada’s attorney, James Lobsenz, said in a media advisory published Wednesday. “He plans to return to civilian life and to attend law school.”......

way to go maine!

nothing i really have to add here, EXCEPT remember what horton said, 'a person is a person no matter how small'. MEANING of course (not that gay people are small you silly) meaning EQUAL RIGHTS to everyone.

a gay couple marrying is NOT going to un-do your marriage. it's NOT going to turn your kids gay and it's NOT going to have people demanding to marry animals. relax. if you don't want to marry a gay person, DON'T!

Gov. John Baldacci's statement on same-sex marriage bill

Maine Gov. John Baldacci issued this statement today:

“I have followed closely the debate on this issue. I have listened to both sides, as they have presented their arguments during the public hearing and on the floor of the Maine Senate and the House of Representatives. I have read many of the notes and letters sent to my office, and I have weighed my decision carefully. I did not come to this decision lightly or in haste.

I appreciate the tone brought to this debate by both sides of the issue. This is an emotional issue that touches deeply many of our most important ideals and traditions. There are good, earnest and honest people on both sides of the question.

“In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage............

boing boing points us to some

liberal vs. conservative 'humor'

first, here is some liberal 'humor'. you see, the artist made all the republicans INTO CLOWNS. funny, huh?

secondly, here is some conservative 'humor'. you see the artist talks about KILLING non-conservatives. funny, huh?

those conservatives sure are funnier, huh? a gun sure is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy more funny than a red nose, huh? yup. i can certainly see why THEY are so much better (than the rest of us poor soon to be DEAD SLOBS)

(boing boing posts by Mark Frauenfelder,)


clown collage: Hebiclens / WMxdesign

listen, they can convert who they want to

and who wants to be. i've posted about them converting the dead before. it's a hideous practice from yet another ridiculous religion (most if not all of them are. i'm NOT just picking on mormons). it really doesn't matter. the person is dead. they're NOT going to actually convert no matter what those mormons think they're NOT saving a damn soul (so to speak)

Lying for the Lord
by John Aravosis
It's a Mormon thing. It's called Lying for the Lord. And it's a tenet of the Mormon faith that, Mormons think, gives them to the right to tell you a bald-faced lie, so long as it's a lie that somehow furthers the Mormon cause.

What else to call the Mormon's laughable statement today that their posthumous baptism last year of President Obama's mother was a "rare" mistake that might have been done by "pranksters."

Yes, we're to believe that the Mormons, just by coincidence, forcibly converted a presidential candidate's deceased mother, 13 years after her death, and only months before the presidential election. And we're also to believe no warning bells went off at Mormon Central when they saw that the woman's husband, whose name is clearly listed on her "baptismal record," is "Barack Hussein Obama." (Obama's father has the same name.) Yes, all one big unfortunate "rare" mistake. Kind of like a clerical error. Except instead of giving you the wrong change, they just stole your mother's soul.......

wednesday with the la's

i heard congressman mcgovern on npr the other day

and had not realized the united states knew about these torture tapes LONG ago (under king george of course) and BURIED THEM

i'm not surprised. i'm really not. king george authorized torture, so what's the big deal with a uae prince torturing?

glenn greenwald in salon sets us straight: like how can we complain when we fucking did it too and destroyed the torture tapes, destroyed the people we tortured, denied torturing them, didn't bring them to trial, didn't compensate them, dumped some of them and are still keeping some of them locked up.

fuck the uae, fuck us for allowing what happened to happen THERE AND EVEN MORE SO HERE

UAE "torture" scandal and cover-up sparks outrage in the U.S.

As more videotapes emerge documenting the torture inflicted on numerous victims by Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a prince of the United Arab Emirates, the controversy is beginning to jeopardize the UAE's relationship with the United States, a country that absolutely loathes torture and demands real accountability for those who do it:

"I have more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa's involvement in the torture of more than 25 people," wrote Texas-based lawyer Anthony Buzbee in a letter obtained by the Observer.

The news of more torture videos involving Issa is another huge blow to the international image of the UAE . ......

oh shite!

what the HELL are they thinking? oh, i know. THE SAME THING THEY WERE ALWAYS THINKING

why is it when 'THEY' do something wrong

'they' do everything in their power to sleaze out of it. when someone else does something wrong or inappropriate or even something 'they' simply don't like, 'they' yell out for blood. i can hear 'them' saying 'OFF WITH THEIR HEADS' as we speak...............

Bush Officials Try to Alter Ethics Report
Focus Is Approval of Harsh Interrogations

By Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Former Bush administration officials have launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts.

Representatives for John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, subjects of the ethics probe, have encouraged former Justice Department and White House officials to contact new officials at the department to point out the troubling precedent of imposing sanctions on legal advisers, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

The effort began in recent weeks, the sources said, and it could not be determined how many former officials had reached out to their new counterparts.....

and an oh shite!!!! moment:

Torture Memos: Inquiry Suggests No Prosecutions
By DAVID JOHNSTON and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — An internal Justice Department inquiry has concluded that Bush administration lawyers committed serious lapses of judgment in writing secret memorandums authorizing brutal interrogations but that they should not be prosecuted, according to government officials briefed on its findings.

The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask state bar associations to consider possible disciplinary action, which could include reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said.

The conclusions of the 220-page draft report are not final and have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials said that it is possible that the final report might be subject to further revision but that they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or recommendations........

(because the united states DOES NOT torture. and if we DO torture, those that ordered it and committed it and knew about it and loved it should get medals instead of the time in the slammer they deserve)

one of THE most unbelievable stories i've ever heard

911 police officer refuses to help girl who calls about her dying father because she said the F word before the call was answered

Posted by Mark Frauenfelder,
In Lincoln Park, Calif. Michigan, a 17-year-old called 911 when her father (recovering at home from brain surgery) had a seizure. Her first call didn't go through, so the panicked girl hung up and tried again. While the phone was still ringing, the girl said "what the fuck." Apparently 911 calls are recorded even while the phone is ringing, so the police officer heard her say it. When the officer answered the call, he was only interested in the fact that the girl said "fuck" and wouldn't help the girl. Instead, he swears at her and hangs up. ........

by the way, HIS NAME IS SGT. ROBERT MCFARLAND

let's see what our good buds in dubai uae

are up to now (they're ALWAYS so wild and wacky!)

shite, as the article CLEARLY states, it's obvious ALL WOMEN MUST AVOID DRIVING OR I'D GO FARTHER AND SAY BEING IN A CAR - IN THEIR LAST TRIMESTER

UAE fines mother over baby death

A court in Dubai has found a woman who lost her unborn child in a traffic accident guilty of manslaughter in what is said to be an unprecedented ruling.

The Lebanese woman, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was also ordered to pay blood money. She said she had not caused the accident.

The judge based the ruling on Islamic law. The court said the rights of unborn babies needed to be protected.

Prosecutors had argued that the verdict should act as a deterrent......

........................Salah Bu Farousha, head of traffic prosecution, said women in the third trimester of pregnancy should avoid driving altogether to protect their own and their foetuses' lives..........

the daily kos SWEARS this is real

and NOT from the onion
Fox adds “accurate” to “fair & balanced” slogan

Posted by Jed Lewison

it's peabody and sherman tuesday

if i was a teenager

and forced to watch this lyin' MISINFORMED asshole, i would risk suspension and walk out of the assembly
his voice is grating, annoying AND he sure the hell isn't very articulate

Virginity Rocks!
.......H/T to RH Reality Check, which has more on the insanity you'll witness when you press play on the video below ...

They call him Keith Deltano, an abstinence "educator" and comedian who apparently gets paid to spread lies about prophylactics and threaten to smash kids genitals with cinder blocks. (Which is basically what happens to all those people who catch a VD, right?)

This is the cutting edge of abstinence education programs ... Many of which are funded by tax dollars. (Not sure if this guy is or not, but it isn't uncommon for school districts to pay people like Deltano for presentations your kids will mock for years to come.)...........

i admired her

but i did not fully agree with her. my belief is; women as a whole cannot have their power taken from them unless they allow it. they allowed it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy back and we're still fighting to get it back (well SOME of us are, some don't give a flyin' yoo hoo and another portion never wanted their equality and never will). thanks for stepping up to the plate back in the day though. your voice counted

MARILYN FRENCH, 79 Controversial Feminist Author Known for 'The Women's Room'

By Patricia Sullivan

Washington Post Staff Writer

Marilyn French, 79, a feminist whose 1977 debut novel "The Women's Room" sold more than 20 million copies and who became a prominent thinker on women's history, died of a heart ailment May 2 at a New York City hospital.

Ms. French, an erudite and angry writer, blamed men for the condition of women throughout the centuries, a stance that brought her sharply divided critical attention. Although many feminists lauded her for writing one of the most influential novels of the emerging feminist movement, others outside the movement charged that her books were belligerent and artless.

"In a way, 'The Women's Room' was, to a particular part of the women's movement, what Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' was to the civil rights community," feminist Gloria Steinem said yesterday. "She was always so far ahead because she wasn't writing about reforms around the edges. Her theories were big and exciting, and they definitely appeal to younger women who hear about them."........

(hint to naomi wolf-see my posting yesterday: instead of even talking about helen gurley brown, you should concentrate more on the frenchs' of the world)

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

from rawstory

..................This was screencapped today from Fox Nation, Fox News' month old conservative opinion site,........


hope the secret service is investigating this NOT SO DAMN SUBTLE threat to the president of the united states of america!

oh my stars

we're losing our jobs. we're losing our companies. we're seeing a great deal of gun violence. our citizens can't afford medical treatment. people are losing their 401k money and pension money and their homes. the wars in iraq and afghanistan are continuing (no, i didn't forget that)

and our courts are going to concentrate on a split second of nippleage. fuck that

we're not in the mess we are in now because we saw janet jackson's nipple

Court Sends Janet Jackson Case Back for Review
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to re-examine its ruling in favor of CBS Corp. in a legal fight over entertainer Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.

The high court on Monday directed the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to consider reinstating the $550,000 fine that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Jackson's breast-baring performance at the 2004 Super Bowl.

The order follows the high court ruling last week that narrowly upheld the FCC's policy threatening fines against even one-time uses of curse words on live television........

I didn't realize

This was the Foodshare walk. I was stuck at the corner (girard & fern by hartford seminary) for what HAD to be almost a half hour. I wouldn't have minded but I did have to 'freshen up' (euphemism for I had to pee like a racehorse)

it's leo kottke monday

keep an eye on this website

from time to time.

you'll get some interesting insights into insanity

bachmann watch michele bachman vs. the truth!

i'm not a big fan of

naomi wolf and i'm even less of a fan of helen gurley brown. have you ever actually READ a cosmo? i haven't seen one in years and years (are they still published, i don't know?). they were absolutely insulting to women back in the day.

oh shite, there still IS a cosmo. i looked it up. what is one of the cover articles (at least on line) you ask?
'quiz: do guys think you're sexy?'.

my answers to the quiz are;
#1) who gives a flying shite
#2) do you WANT to be sexy
#3) if yes to #2, do YOU think YOU are sexy?
#4) if yes to #3, that's good enough

neither of you speak for me and i hope the majority of women

(it's just a book review, but geeze, like i said, who gives a flying f**k about helen gurley brown. she calls us 'girls' for goddess' sake. she wants us to take money for sex for goddess' sake)

and how DARE you compare or say michelle obama is who she is because of helen gurley brown. that's is an INSULT

Who Won Feminism?
Hint: She's the diva who ran Cosmo.
By Naomi Wolf

Bad Girls Go Everywhere

The Life of Helen Gurley Brown

By Jennifer Scanlon

Oxford Univ. 270 pp. $27.95

Look at Michelle Obama: She has segued seamlessly from an active professional life as a highly paid hospital executive to her current incarnation as fashion plate, doting mom and demure sex object, posing for Vogue in a hot fuchsia frock that shows plenty of skin. What's most surprising about this metamorphosis? How few people are objecting to it.

Every other first lady in living memory has been flattened into some stereotype of either/or femininity -- from Nancy Reagan as adoring Stepford wife to Hillary Clinton as shrill career woman. But now we finally seem to have reached the point where women don't face a false choice between sacrificing their softer qualities to be taken seriously as professionals or embracing love, sensuality, fashion and pleasure only to be dismissed as frivolous. And this revolutionary development isn't unfolding just in the White House: It's now affecting your house and mine. It's everywhere......

excellent question misha!

not so great an answer connddii

torture is NOT legal in the united states OR by united states citizens. no matter WHO orders or approves it

4th-Grader Questions Rice on Waterboarding
Ex-Secretary of State Stresses Legality

By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Days after telling students at Stanford University that waterboarding was legal "by definition if it was authorized by the president," former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was pressed again on the subject yesterday by a fourth-grader at a Washington school.

Rice, in her first appearance in Washington since leaving government, was at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital before giving an evening lecture at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. She held forth amiably before a few dozen students about her love of Israel, travel abroad and the importance of learning languages, then opened the floor to their questions.

The questions had been developed beforehand by students with their teachers and had not been screened by Rice. At first, they were innocuous: What was it like growing up in segregated Birmingham, Ala.? What skill did she want to be best known for?

Then Misha Lerner, a student from Bethesda, asked: What did Rice think about the things President Obama's administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?...........

i posted about the first tape

i didn't know about the others. that doesn't surprise me though. nor does it surprise me the video(s) and stories are being blocked by firewalls from being seen and read in the uae. what i DIDN'T think about was; WHO is supplying these firewalls...............


Video of UAE torture prince assaulting 25 others -- who's censoring this news in the UAE?
Posted by Cory Doctorow,
Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, the prince from the UAE who made a video of himself brutally torturing a businessman with whom he had a dispute, has been implicated in 25 further video-recordings of other assaults.

In the leaked video, the prince sets fire to his victim's testicles, sticks a cattle-prod up his anus, beats him with a board with a nail through it, scourges him with a whip, rubs salt into his wounds, and then runs over him repeatedly with a Mecedes SUV (you can hear the bones break).

The UAE's national firewall is blocking stories about this (see the screengrab above). I know that a number of US firms have supplied the UAE with firewall services -- I'd be interested in any detail any Boing Boing reader has about the blocking shown above: did it come from a company that also supplies moral guardianship to western kids in their schools?.............

dependable renegade

points us to a lil' story about one of my favorite (if not my ABSOLUTE favorite) justice
N O T
Ah-HAHAHA! Vaffanculo, Nino!

What's good for the goose is good for the shithead:

Last year, when law professor Joel Reidenberg wanted to show his Fordham University class how readily private information is available on the Internet, he assigned a group project. It was collecting personal information from the Web about himself.

This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments that seemingly may have questioned the need for more protection of private information, Reidenberg assigned the same project. Except this time Scalia was the subject, the prof explains to the ABA Journal in a telephone interview.

His class turned in a 15-page dossier that included not only Scalia's home address, home phone number and home value, but his food and movie preferences, his wife's personal e-mail address and photos of his grandchildren, reports Above the Law...........

dependable renegade

i can't think of anyone

i would rather spend a sunday with, other than the boys town gang

picture of album cover: bizarre records

honor killing

a vibrant beautiful woman was killed by her brothers. why? she did something VERY wrong. what? she sang on television. we MUST stop honor killing. we MUST stop these men who are so seriously effed up they don't know up from down. honor killing anywhere in the world is unacceptable. period
Singer Ayman Udas ‘shot by her brothers for TV sin’
Daud Khattak

A RISING musical star was allegedly shot dead by her own brothers in the conservative city of Peshawar in Pakistan last week after she had appeared on television.

The murder of Ayman Udas, who was in her early thirties and newly married, has shocked the city’s artistic community because it symbolises a backlash against women and cultural freedom in an area that is increasingly dominated by Islamic funda-mentalists.

As a singer and song writer in her native Pashto, the language of the tribal areas and the NorthWest Frontier province, Udas frequently performed on PTV, the state-run channel.

She won considerable acclaim for her songs but had become a musician in the face of bitter opposition from her family, who believed it was sinful for a woman to perform on television.

Ashamed of her growing popularity her two brothers are reported to have entered her flat last week while her husband was out and fired three bullets into her chest. Neither has been caught.

The final song performed by Udas on screen seems to have portended her death. It was entitled, “I died but still live among the living, because I live on in the dreams of my lover.” Udas, a divorced mother of two, had remarried 10 days before she was murdered. ..........

i shuddered when i read this and i'm STILL shuddering

i couldn't believe what i was reading! no wonder women are still being discriminated against. no wonder women are earning less than men. no wonder women are thought to only be breasts and high heels. no wonder women will continue to be downtrodden. why? because of absolute giant flaming assholes clueless people like amy wilson

p.s. good thing we're not in india when it's not unusual for girl children and girl fetus' to be killed

p.p.s. not only is it obviously outrageous for amy giant flaming asshole wilson to be writing this, it's effing outrageous for cnn to EFFING PUBLISH IT

Why I didn't want a girl
By Amy Wilson
In an elevator, in line at the grocery store, waiting for the bus, it always goes like this: Strangers' eyes zero in on my belly first. Then they dart furtively to my face, as if to make sure I'm not a mutant, just visibly pregnant.

After this, they ask, "Is this your first?"

"My third," I answer. "I have two boys at home."

And for the kicker, they unfailingly give me a sideways grin, and say: "Going for your girl?"

"Nooo, just going for a baby," I reply, gritting my teeth a little. "Another boy would be fine with us."

I know these people are just making conversation. But this constant assumption leaves me a little offended. What's wrong with boys? Why wouldn't I want another one? It bothers me that people assume I feel incomplete without a daughter, let alone that it's my motivation for being pregnant with a third child in the first place............

.............I sat there in a daze. This child I was just starting to feel stir inside me was a girl? I waited for the excitement to wash over me. It didn't come. Not only was I not thrilled -- I was disappointed. I'm still not sure whether I was more bummed by how I found out or what I found out. Either way, I was shaken...................

a ticking time bomb spells trouble.......

or if you'd rather;



(ht: evil slutopia)

oooooooooooooooo

picture: Picture: AP

(click here to see what it is)

effin' funny

'appropriated' from boing boing

why all the fuss

about 'miss' california? i really don't get it. she is a 'beauty queeeeeeeeeeeen' contestant. most of them (let's be honest here) are NOT known for their minds, their points of view, their leadership, their examples and on and on. is perez hilton or anyone else surprised at her views? i sure as shite am not. if she was of 'average' intelligence, i'd expect her to be actually articulate on the subject of homophobia. what did you EXPECT her to say anyway? i'll bet if you asked all the contestants (i think it was 'miss' usa, right?) the same question, 90% would have answered in the same vein. a particular type of person enters beauty pageants (am i prejudiced against them? you're damn straight i am. women who walk around in high heels, bikinis and fake breastesesesesees thinking it's ok to be judged on that alone?). a person i really do NOT wish to associate withn enters them


c'mon now, she's just a bubble-headed boob (really her boobs ARE made of bubbles)

Olbermann and Musto on Miss California
by John Aravosis (

oh snap!

guess who owns SEVERAL pairs of docs? yup, moi! (they ARE vegetarian mind you. made of fabric)

guess who is NOT a threat. who is in no way shape or form A TERRORIST? ME. i am NOT A TERRORIST.

(my personal favorite on the list you ax? i tell you then...it be RACIAL NORDIC MYSTICSM. yup, 'racial nordic mysticsm'. isn't that the shite?)

you know the f**k what? radical terrorists from other lands don't have to attack us. we're self-destructing on our own

New Homeland Security memo lists black power, shaved-head Doc Marten wearers as ‘extremist threats’

By John Byrne
It’s not just right-wing “radical” groups on the Department of Homeland Security’s black list anymore.

Another embarrassing Homeland Security memo (pdf here) detailing those the agency believes are extremists has leaked. The first was sent to police and warned of radical groups on the right; the second is sure to offend an even broader array of those involved in activism.

The memo, dated March 26, 2009, is titled “Domestic Extremism Lexicon,” and came after the original memo fingering right-wing groups as a threat.

Those now listed as dangerous extremists include: Mexican separatists, “black power” advocates, “racial Nordic mysticism” practitioners and black nationalists.

Homeland Security told The Daily Beast’s Benjamin Sarlin, who posted the Lexicon, that the memo had been recalled almost as soon as it had been sent out.

Notably, Sardin says the memo includes no mention of Muslim extremism.

Perhaps the most amusing item is the document’s loose definition of “skinhead,” which appears to encompass anyone who shaves their heads and wears Doc Martens. Even those skinheads who merely preach “group unity” are worrisome, the memo says..........

i know this is true for a fact

i have many many many friends in the service industry. some have benefits (insurance that is) but almost NONE of them have sick time, paid sick days.

there are a LOT of immigrants in the business too. it's not unusual for them to work well over 8 hours a day, 6 and 7 days a week. while they get paid MORE than the flat $30.00 a day mentioned in the article (i mean they get paid by the hour and it's NOT 3.00 unless they are waiting tables and/or getting tips), most of them do NOT have the medical coverage.

of course this effects both men and women, however, women are going to get hit a lot harder.

it's idea to stay home when one is sick. SOME PEOPLE CANNOT STAY HOME WHEN THEY'RE ILL


A Sick Situation
-Judith Warner

Early this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that anyone with flu symptoms stay home from work or school.

President Obama reiterated that advice at his press conference on Wednesday night. “If you are sick, stay home,” he said. “If your child is sick, keep them out of school.”

“I know it sounds trivial,” the president said, after asking families to start taking other “very sensible precautions” like washing hands and covering up during coughs. “But it makes a huge difference.”

The president’s admonition to the sick to stay home didn’t sound trivial to Silvia Del Valle, a 42-year-old restaurant worker in Miami.

It sounded impossible.

When I spoke to her Thursday morning, Del Valle was sick in bed with a cough and a fever. Was she planning to go to work, I asked her, Obama’s press conference still fresh in my mind.

“Yes,” she said. “I need to go. Because if I don’t go, I lose my job.”...........

uh oh

(ht: super touch)

say whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhattttttttttttttttttt

this article restates what we already know

and what i've posted about a LOT. i will never stop posting about this subject though. women in the military being raped and/or brutalized (i will NOT stop posting about lavena johnson either. i won't stop posting about lavena johnson until the truth comes out. until her family gets the TRUTH AND PEACE. lavena johnson did NOT commit suicide, SHE WAS MURDERED AND THE MILITARY IS COVERING IT UP



Culture of Unpunished Sexual Assault in Military

by Dahr Jamail

MARFA, Texas - Sexual assault of women serving in the U.S. military, while brought to light in recent reports, has a long tradition in that institution.

Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775, and their travails are as old.

Maricela Guzman served in the Navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia, and later in Naples, Italy. She was raped while in boot camp, but was too scared to talk about the assault for the rest of her time in the military.

In her own words she, "survived by becoming a workaholic. Fortunately or unfortunately the military took advantage of this, and I was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic."

Guzman decided to dissociate from the military on witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. The effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from her rape had taken a heavy toll.

After undergoing a divorce, a failed suicide attempt and homelessness, she moved in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the veteran's administration (VA) for help. She began seeing a therapist there who diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.

She told IPS that the VA denied her claim nevertheless, "Because they said I couldn't prove it ... since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behaviour while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened."..............

beautiful song

unfortunately way too many drunks in the audience