wow

powerful

and moving

and true

and almost ALL of us, to the one, have been through one or many of the things ms peterson writes about

it is not only important for us to educate our girl children, it's important for us to educate our boy children as well.


Original Essay: The Not Rape Epidemic

Written by Latoya Peterson

*Trigger Warning*

Latoya’s Note: So, as promised, here’s the original version of the essay that appears in Yes Means Yes. If you see this popping up in your reader, I do not recommend you read it at work.

Rape is only four letters, one small syllable, and yet it is one of the hardest words to coax from your lips when you need it most.

Entering our teenage years in the sex saturated ’90s, my friends and I knew tons about rape. We knew to always be aware while walking, to hold your keys out as a possible weapon against an attack. We knew that we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and if we absolutely had to, we were to avoid shortcuts, dark paths, or alleyways. We even learned ways to combat date rape, even though none of us were old enough to have friends that drove, or to be invited to parties with alcohol. We memorized the mantras, chanting them like a yogic sutra, crafting our words into a protective charm with which to ward off potential rapists: do not walk alone at night. Put a napkin over your drink at parties. Don’t get into cars with strange men. If someone tries to abduct you, scream loudly and try to attack them because a rapist tries to pick women who are easy targets.................

..........This is how the Not Rape epidemic spreads - through fear and silence, which become complicit in perpetuating the behaviors described here. Women of all backgrounds are affected by these kinds of acts, regardless of race, ethnicity, or social class. So many of us carry the scars of the past with us into our daily lives. Most of us have pushed these stories to the back of our minds, trying to have some semblance of a normal life that includes romantic and sexual relationships. However, waiting just behind the tongue is story after story of the horrors other women experience and hide deep within the self behind a protective wall of silence.............

a big fat DUHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

just because one hides one's head in the sand doesn't mean the ass end isn't gonna get kicked

if one doesn't allow their children to be instructed in a good thorough COMPREHENSIVE SEX EDUCATION program, we all know there is more chance for pregnancy AND health issues.

it's sex, almost ALL of us ARE gonna do it. get real (AND GET EDUCATED)
i hope now that king george's ass is almost out the door, the ridiculousness of ABSTINENCE only education is also out the door

it's JUST downright FOOLISH

Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds
Teenagers Who Make Such Promises Are Just as Likely to Have Sex, and Less Likely to Use Protection, the Data Indicate
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.".........

no five year old or seven year old or twelve year old girl should EVER have to go through this ANYWHERE. in some cultures women are thought to be UNCLEAN unless fgm occurs. well lots of cultures think females are unclean PERIOD.

EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE INCLUDING FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION


For Kurdish Girls, a Painful Ancient Ritual

The Widespread Practice of Female Circumcision in Iraq's North Highlights The Plight of Women in a Region Often Seen as More Socially Progressive

By Amit R. Paley

Washington Post Foreign Service

TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq

Sheelan Anwar Omer, a shy 7-year-old Kurdish girl, bounded into her neighbor's house with an ear-to-ear smile, looking for the party her mother had promised.

There was no celebration. Instead, a local woman quickly locked a rusty red door behind Sheelan, who looked bewildered when her mother ordered the girl to remove her underpants. Sheelan began to whimper, then tremble, while the women pushed apart her legs and a midwife raised a stainless-steel razor blade in the air. "I do this in the name of Allah!" she intoned.

As the midwife sliced off part of Sheelan's genitals, the girl let out a high-pitched wail heard throughout the neighborhood. As she carried the sobbing child back home, Sheelan's mother smiled with pride.........

she was five when this happened:

They pinned me to the ground, and I just cried and cried," said Shaker, who spoke barely above a whisper. "I was just so astonished. But now I realize that they want to prevent women from living their lives normally." Her mother, Shukria Ismaeel Jarjees, a 38-year-old housewife, said she was forced by her relatives and elderly women in the community to have her daughter circumcised. "I made a huge mistake, and now my daughter is always complaining of pain in her pelvis," Jarjees said. Her eyes began to fill with tears. "I now advise my daughters to never circumcise their children."

i agree with ccoonnddoolleezzaa

rice. i think we and generations yet to come WILL thank king george for all he's done IF WE'RE F**KING HIGH on acid that is

no one in their RIGHT MIND would even CONSIDER most everything that man has done as beneficial to people OR the earth

ccoonnddii WTF are YOU smokin grrrlfren'?

Rice: 'This generation' will 'soon thank' Bush
Andrew McLemore
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the last eight years of President Bush's policies as an achievement that is not reflected in the lowest approval ratings of all time.

Rice said it won't be long before Bush's contributions to the world will be acknowledged and that recognition of big achievements sometimes take a long time.

"I think generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this president for what he's done," Rice said in CBS interview Sunday. "This generation will."

Asked what grade she would give the administration on foreign policy, Rice said some decisions merited an "A-plus" while others "deserve a lot less." But she remained adamant that Bush's central decision to invade Iraq was the right one......

this is the funniest horror i have ever heard of

i mean it's not REALLY funny in any way shape or form of course. it's absurd. it's obscene. it's ridiculous. it's insane. it's fucked up

we're getting our asses handed to us on a plate so what do we (the we is NOT me or any SANE person, it's king george and his band of merry white boyz) do?
this:

U.S. will give free weapons to Afghan civilians
David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster

One way to quell a violent and deteriorating situation, according to the U.S. military, is to flood the place with guns. That's exactly what is planned for Afghanistan, where a rising tide of chaos is slowly pushing the country past Iraq as the most dangerous battlefield Americans tread upon.

"The U.S. military plans to help the Afghanistan government recruit, train and arm local Afghans to fight a resurgent Taliban," reported CNN's Barbara Starr.

"For the United States, the most sensitive part of the proposal will be the use of American military funds to purchase small arms, most likely AK-47 rifles, that will be given to local Afghans, according to a U.S. military official."

"There are worries," Starr continued, "putting even more weapons in the hands of local communities could lead to tribes fighting each other instead of the Taliban. U.S. troops could get caught in the middle." The plan would also hinge upon the weak Afghan government to maintain the loyalties of the newly armed populace...........

this land is your land

n Harriman, Tenn., flooding from fly ash sludge on Monday after a storage pond wall broke. (Photo: J. Miles Carey / Knoxville News Sentinel / AP)







this land is my land. woody guthrie wrote the following words and i'm sorry to say he's wrong. this land was not his land nor mine. now, it belongs to king george and the good ol' white boy network. ESPECIALLY big big big bid-nez who cares NOT a wink for woody's legacy OR me

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin'  -  I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side  .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

"Empty Promise": The Broken Federal Commitment Behind the Tennessee Coal Ash Disaster

by: Sue Sturgis, Facing South

When Earthjustice Attorney Lisa Evans testified earlier this year before a congressional committee about the looming threat from coal combustion waste, she warned that the federal government's broken pledge to regulate disposal of the potentially dangerous material threatened the health and safety of communities across the country.

Speaking before a June 10 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources titled "How Should the Federal Government Address the Health and Environmental Risks of Coal Combustion Waste?," Evans pointed out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in its Regulatory Determination on Wastes from the Combustion of Fossil Fuels published in 2000 that federal standards for disposal of coal combustion waste were needed to protect public health and the environment.

The federal failure to regulate the waste has put 23 states -- including Tennessee -- in a special bind, since their statutes have "no more stringent" provisions prohibiting them from enacting standards stricter than those found in federal law. Without federal action, those states can't regulate coal combustion waste disposal beyond the few obviously inadequate safeguards that now exist...........

more from drb

'holiday' pictures

(don't know who took either of these, i LOVE the ladder one.)

gifts: (image credit: Rob Sheridan)

please do check them ALL out at dark roasted blend

seems like LOTS of people feel this way

(from dark roasted blend Labor union members in Newark, New Jersey march against Prohibition, 1931.)

in his own words

one of THE biggest travesties of justice out there

an interview with don siegelman

Karl Rove Destroyed My Life
By Paul Alexander, The Daily Beast.
Last week, Al Gore sent an email message urging supporters to give money to Don Siegelman's legal defense fund. Gore is the latest in a string of high profile supporters to suggest Siegelman, the former Governor of Alabama, was the victim of a Republican plot when he was found guilty of bribery, conspiracy and fraud in 2006, and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Now, in the waning days of the Bush administration, Siegelman is trying to win back his freedom -- not to mention his good name -- in a courtroom in Atlanta. Earlier this year, an appeals court granted his release after he had served nine months, saying the Governor's appeal had raised "substantial questions" about the case against him. Siegelman's cause was helped by a bipartisan group of 54 former state attorneys general from across the country who filed a federal appeals brief supporting his bid to overturn the conviction. Republican insiders have also come forward to say Siegelman was unfairly targeted by Rove and his circle.

Making it in prison depends on one's level of tolerance. I'm used to mopping in my wife's kitchen. It was just a bigger floor.

Siegelman's appeal was heard earlier this month and the verdict will determine whether he returns to prison to finish out his sentence, or goes free.

How did a former governor -- and a rising star in the Democratic Party -- end up in a situation like this?.................

this isn't racist

no, NOT at all

with cute lil' songs like:
barack the magic negro
or
the star spanglish banner

these f**kwads are the f**king SCUM OF THE EARTH

listen you wads, be as racist as you want to be. i am never going to be able to change you. BUT BE MAN (or woman) ENOUGH TO ADMIT IT

RNC candidate distributes controversial Obama song
By Reid Wilson
RNC candidate Chip Saltsman’s Christmas greeting to committee members includes a music CD with lyrics from a song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” first played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular radio show.
Saltsman, a personal friend of conservative satirist Paul Shanklin, sent a 41-track CD along with a note to national committee members. “I look forward to working together in the New Year,” Saltsman wrote. “Please enjoy the enclosed CD by my friend Paul Shanklin of the Rush Limbaugh Show.”

The CD, called “We Hate the USA,” lampoons liberals with such songs as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Several of the track titles, including “Barack the Magic Negro,” are written in bold font..........

RNC chairman candidate defends 'Barack the Magic Negro' song
CNN) -- A candidate for the Republican National Committee chairmanship said Friday the CD he sent committee members for Christmas -- which included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" -- was clearly intended as a joke. "I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman told CNN. "I think RNC members understand that."

The song, set to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon," was first played on conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh's radio show in 2007......

and this my dears is EXACTLY why we're

f**king up in afghanistan AND elsewhere

(see previous posting)

our right hands don't know what our left hands are doing. our government is promising people that help them payment or other incentives, then backing out. our government uses whatever means necessary (again see previous story) then denies denies denies. one agency swings one way, another agency swings another and no one knows what's in the middle (or who is caught there).

the ONLY people i feel sorry for are the troops who have lost their lives or come back unwhole AND the innocent people of the countries we've 'brought our form of democracy' to

Tangled U.S. Objectives Bring Down Spy Firm
Private Agents Snared Afghan Drug Kingpin
By Richard Leiby
Washington Post Staff Writer
After a federal jury in New York swiftly convicted a major Afghan heroin trafficker and Taliban supporter named Haji Bashir Noorzai, the government promptly issued the usual celebratory news release thanking the men and women of the DEA and FBI for their "countless sacrifices" in making the case.

Left out was any credit to the party most responsible for the government's victory: an unusual three-man private intelligence firm called Rosetta Research and Consulting.

At the instigation of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Rosetta agents lured Noorzai to America and delivered him right into the feds' hands. He spent 11 days in an Embassy Suites Hotel in Manhattan in 2005, enjoying room service and considering himself a guest of the U.S. government -- until he was arrested. He was imprisoned for three years awaiting his trial, which concluded in September. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in January. .......

whatever it takes

including 'pharmaceutical enhancements for aging patriarchs with slumping libidos'

well normally i wouldn't care about such things EXCEPT
isn't almost all intelligence coming out of afghanistan saying WE ARE UP SHITE'S CREEK?
don't most of the people that support this king and all he has done under his reign believe not only should a woman's choice be abolished BUT THERE SHOULD BE NO CONTRACEPTION? so women can't choose regarding THEIR bodies, but MEN GET ENHANCEMENTS LEFT AND RIGHT.

the story mentions a 60 something year old tribal chief with four younger wives. the cia tosses viagra at him so he can get it up. yet it says NOTHING about how the wives feel or for that matter are treated (then again i think we all know how women and grrrls are treated in afghanistan)

hmmmmmmmmmm
Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.

For U.S. intelligence officials, this is how some crucial battles in Afghanistan are fought and won. While the CIA has a long history of buying information with cash, the growing Taliban insurgency has prompted the use of novel incentives and creative bargaining to gain support in some of the country's roughest neighborhoods, according to officials directly involved in such operations. ...........

the REAL scoop on rick warren

do YOU want someone leading YOU in prayer that believes humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth TOGETHER, that women are and/or should be submissive to men, that really CANNOT PROVE anything they say about helping the 'poor folk in africa'? well i sure as shite DO NOT

Max Blumenthal on 'Rick Warren's Double Life'
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.

Beyond that, he compares pro-choice advocates to Holocaust deniers. He recently was interviewed by Sean Hannity, and Sean Hannity asked him, “Should we attack Iran?” And Rick Warren said, “Well, it’s our God-given obligation to take out evildoers.” He has recently scrubbed material from his Web site claiming that man walked the earth with dinosaurs, basically that, you know, history is one big "Flintstones" episode. He will not allow homosexuals to be members of his church, and he recently scrubbed that from his Web site..........

..............eyond that, you know, Rick Warren says he’s for the environment. Rick Warren says that he’s for fighting poverty, which is great. But what has he actually done? You know, I’ve spent hours scouring the Internet, calling around, trying to find some results that Rick Warren has produced in Africa against AIDS, results he’s produced against poverty. And all I can find is that his peace programs, which he calls them, are sort of recruitment vehicles for the churches that he’s planning in Africa and that he is using these programs actually to evangelize, and there’s no real way of measuring his results. And there are Christian groups that are doing good work, you know, in the Third World, that are fighting poverty, and they measure results, groups like Medical Teams International. Even World Vision measures results. But we have no way of knowing what Rick Warren is doing..............

and of course MY personal favorite

.........Warren has a doctrine of women’s submission, which he preaches to his church, and he tells the female members of his church that they have to support their husbands’ decisions, even if they make bad financial decisions, because women have to submit in a biblical manner to their husbands..............

i look forward to this EVERY year

girls

if they're not being threatened with murder (see a couple of postings ago), they're being beaten and sexually abused and made to work their fingers to the bones. this story is about OTHER countries, but it happens HERE too. it happens to girls AND women. we must make this stop worldwide. we must protect ALL of our children. it seems to me, girls and then women ALWAYS get the worst of everything though.

we are your mothers and daughters and sisters and aunts friends. don't allow this to happen to us

In Togo, a 10-Year-Old's Muted Cry: 'I Couldn't Take Any More'
As the Global Trade in Domestic Workers Surges, Millions of Young Girls Face Exploitation and Abuse
By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
LOME, Togo -- Adiza ran scared and crying into the street. Ten years old and 4-foot-9, she fled the house where she had worked for moire than a year, cleaning and sweeping from before dawn until late at night.
She ran to a woman selling food in the street and told her that since the day she had arrived in this capital city from her village in the country, her employer had beaten her almost daily and kept her in slavelike conditions.

"I couldn't take any more," recalled Adiza, a slight girl with close-cropped hair and almond-shaped eyes, who talked in a halting whisper as she described how her employer beat her with her hands and with cooking pots before the November day she ran away. ...........

normally i DO NOT condone shoplifting

but one MUST make an exception here



Media goes ape over Christmastime shoplifting dog
Ron Brynaert
Are things getting so tough with America's economic woes that even man's best friend can't be counted on to obey man's commands anymore?

Or perhaps the real story is that news during Christmastime is traditionally so dull that outlets (like, um, this one) are forced to hold their noses as they go to the dogs?

Either way, a canine is capturing attention for doing the opposite of giving this holiday season on nightly news reports and in newspapers across the country.

"A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist - in the pet food aisle," the Associated Press reports. "Surveillance video at a supermarket in this Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported Wednesday."......

girls

are no better off than before. worse even. and how much money did we toss into pakistan anyway? not millions my dears BUT EFFING BILLIONS. and yet, grrrls CANNOT GO TO SCHOOL WITHOUT THREATS OF MURDER. fuck the taliban and fuck ANY person who doesn't think grrrls belong in school

Taliban threaten to kill Pakistani schoolgirls: officials
Agence France-Presse
ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Taliban extremists in Pakistan's troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female students, officials said Thursday.

The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.

"You have until January 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted the commander as saying...........

i loved her

she was a woman. a strong woman. a smart woman. a high yellow woman (HER words not mine). she opposed the viet nam war and said it out loud (AT the white house i believe) and for that she was black listed. she came up from a TOUGH life. she wasn't afraid to ooze sex YET still OOZE HER SMARTS

Eartha Kitt, a Seductive Talent, Dies at 81
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- A family friend says Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died. She was 81.

Andrew Freedman says Kitt died Thursday of colon cancer and was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York......

The Purrrfect Diva
Eartha Kitt Had a Taste For the Best Things in Life
By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
In her fantastical life, Eartha Kitt came to like a great many things. Men, sex, bawdy songs. I personally know about the lemon sorbet, the mango sorbet and the strawberry sorbet.
I found myself dining with Kitt -- who died of cancer at the age of 81 yesterday -- at the swanky Cafe Carlyle in Manhattan several years ago. I was working on a book about Sammy Davis Jr., once a romantic interest of Kitt's. Kitt's office suggested the Carlyle. Being on book leave, without a steady income and counting pennies, I gulped: The Carlyle wasn't the place for a penny-pincher. But I needed the interview, so I dared not back out of the chance to talk with her. Kitt had known Davis when both were very young and both were hanging out at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. .............
eartha kitt

merry christmas

this is a wonderful

christmas story. scott arnold is my kind o' person!

For a Va. Neighborhood's Dogs, Santa Arrives on a Mail Truck
By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
In the troubled and toothy history of canine-mail carrier relations, the northwest corner of Zip code 22101 is something of an anomaly. There, dogs do not erupt in an angry frenzy at delivery time, nor to do they savage the mail when it comes through the slot. Some are known to leap up and down in celebration when postman Scott Arnold arrives each day; others simply throw their heads back and howl. But it is during the holidays that the humans along Arnold's route through McLean especially look forward to seeing him. That is when Arnold, a 27-year U.S. Postal Service veteran, transforms into a kind of dog-themed St. Nick, powered not by reindeer but by the force of a curious tradition he calls Santa Paws (he couldn't resist).

Each year, rain, snow or shine, Arnold delivers more than 100 doggy stockings along his route, writing each pooch's name in careful lettering across the cuff.......