This should be a great game, too – two former Cleveland Indians pitchers will face off on the mound: CC Sabathia for the Yankees (19-8 regular season record; 3-0 postseason with a 1.19 ERA). At 6′7″, Sabathia is an imposing presence on the mound. Cliff Lee will be pitching for the Phillies (14-13 regular season; 2-0 postseason with a .074 ERA).

The Yankees will seek their revenge against Cliff Lee, who won against the Yankees in their season opener at the brand new stadium. Each team will have its work cut out for it to win against either one of these stellar pitchers. And each team has very good players coming up to the plate against them.

All in all, it should be an exciting series. Let’s hope so, anyway, with good officiating (THAT would be a change), great plays, and no injuries,

Below is a good review of the upcoming game, the pitchers, and the players:

<a href=”http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=ac3b28fb-a563-4171-a786-73a9970759f6&from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_articles” target=”_new” title=”Rosenthal: World Series preview”>Video: Rosenthal: World Series preview</a>

More on Pedro Martinez on Thursday. That will be fun. (The guys above already touched on it – “Who’s Your Daddy” chant by the Yankee fans will be explained.)

First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden will also be on hand for this game as it will serve to honor returning veterans and their families. Oh, yay – I cannot even get away from the Obamas when watching my diversion from politics! Sheesh. Oh, well – hopefully we won’t miss home runs, or strikeouts, or stolen bases because they are focusing on those two. Just saying.

Believe it or not, this IS an Open Thread, and not just for baseball! What’s on your mind? Rep. Grayson calling Linda Robertson, Bernanke’s adviser, a “whore”? Obama playing as much golf in the first 9 months as Bush did in 34 months? The bombing in Pakistan? Let’s have it!

And if you ARE a baseball fan, hope to see you here later on!

MSNBC is devoting the week to news and opinion stories on the dramatically shifting power and influence of women in America. The week’s reports, led by Maria Shriver and John Podesta, is called “A Woman’s Nation.” Below you’ll find videos of two segments that contain impressive statistics on the growing status of women.

Over and over again, in segments I caught today, MSNBC played Hillary Clinton’s powerful but saddening speech about those “18 million cracks.” (I still cannot watch that speech without my throat tightening. Every time I hear it, I’m reminded about what might have been had she received the nomination she won, and then the presidency, which she surely would have won.)

Then there’s the gorilla in the room that we all know: Only two women, ever, have been on a national ticket (Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin) and, then, as VP candidates.

The only two women to run for president, said the men of MSNBC (with the females* nodding along), were the wives of top-level politicians — Elizabeth Dole and Hillary. The three women running currently for governor, including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, were mentioned as future viable candidates, as was Sarah Palin in passing.

Podesta and Joe Scarborough said there’s no “bench” from which to consider a woman for national office, and the two men referred to the three female candidates as the only potential (emphasis on potent) candidates. Oddly (or typically), in describing the lack of that “bench,” the MSNBC hosts failed to mention the women who currently are governor. Oh, wait – that’s right. Women who are in the same positions as their male counterparts don’t count as much as the men do. How could I forget that reality?

If present and past governors such as Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Howard Dean have been easily regarded as part of the male bench — and we all know that male governors are regularly, habitually promoted for national office — why don’t the MSNBC males consider the current female governors serving their states? Are Jodi Rell (CT), Christine Gregoire (WA), Beverly Perdue (NC), and Jan Brewer (AZ) so shunted aside in any national media discussion that no one outside their states even knows who they are? Why don’t any of them merit a mention for national office? Why is a former governor, Sarah Palin, the only female mentioned, and even then, with derision, as if she had no business even being acknowledged as governor of a state? It is a fairly prestigious accomplishment given the fairly low numbers of governors in general. She WON the position. It was not handed to her. Yet, neither she, nor the other female governors are treated the same as their male counterparts.

Ever since I watched that segment on Morning Joe, the MSNBC males’ dismissal of any of the current female governors — not even a word about them, let alone their names — has been eating at me. How dare these males say that women have “no bench” of candidates until they, themselves, realize that the media regularly fail to mention any of these powerful female governors?

Then there are the 13 female U.S. senators. Why do no media outlets ever bring up, say, Senator Maria Cantwell as a potential presidential candidate? Why not Maria Cantwell? If John (yech) Kerry can be the Democratic nominee, why not Cantwell?

Just in case you are keeping score, there are 61 women in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a reminder, there are 435 Representatives in the House.

You know, for a group that is the majority, women are woefully under-represented.

Now, the videos. The first is a segment from Morning Joe followed by Meet The Press.

It’s important to note the discussion in the videos about what MEN need too.

Yes, women have made some strides, particularly in the workplace. But women still have to outperform men for comparable jobs, and even then, they are often passed over (look no further than the Clinton v. Obama race). Politics in general is still firmly entrenched in the Boys Club. Seems the same for the media, if these two videos are par for the course, and after this past election, I have no doubt that they are.

And so it goes. I guess this old adage is still true: the more things change, the more they remain the same. I’m ready for a change. How about you?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

* His co-host, Mika Brzezinski, and guest, Maria Shriver — the two women in the segment — were astonishingly silent on Scarborough’s boisterous “no bench” imbroglio.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Africa last month, she visited war-racked eastern Congo to speak out against widespread rape by militias. She choked up after meeting with two rape victims and promised more US help – $17 million for medical treatment and security for victims.

Now she’s taking the issue to the United Nations, where the US is leading an effort to shore up a resolution to end sexual violence against civilians during armed conflict. The Security Council passed Resolution 1820 last year, but follow through is sorely lacking.

Women’s rights are becoming a signature issue for America’s top diplomat. In her official travels, Mrs. Clinton talks with women, meets with female activists, and presses the twin challenges of women’s rights and abuse with political leaders. She wants US development aid to focus more on women, and has appointed the first US ambassador for global women’s issues.

The Bush administration, too, championed women’s rights, especially in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan. But no Secretary of State has sought to make women as high a priority as Clinton is attempting. It’s a potentially powerful shift. If she can pull it off.

As Rev. Amy noted in her terrific piece, Well, Isn’t This a Nice Change, the Washington Post started the very short parade to end the virtual press blackout on Clinton by writing a lovely and informative article focused on the woman’s work, not her pantsuits or cackle:

“Amid all the distractions, what is Clinton actually doing? Only overseeing what may be the most profound changes in U.S. foreign policy in two decades.”

Well, if anyone can pull it off…

A more detailed article on this issue appeared in the Washington Times today, noting:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared genuinely moved after her August visit to rape victims in eastern Congo, is expected to chair a special U.N. Security Council session at the end of the month to review U.N. efforts to curb the epidemic.

“Meeting with survivors of rape, which is now used increasingly as a tool of war, was shattering,” Mrs. Clinton told a New York audience Friday. “The atrocities described to me distill evil to its basest form. These are crimes against humanity. They don’t just harm a single individual, or a single family, or village or group. They shred the fabric that weaves us together as human beings. This criminal outrage against women must be stopped.”

In a new approach, two U.N. reports issued last week could lay a basis for war crimes prosecutions against individual soldiers.

…the U.N. Security Council meeting Sept. 30 would review implementation of Resolution 1820, passed last year explicitly to outlaw sexual violence in conflict and afterward. Women’s groups praised the 2008 text for designating rape as a threat to international peace and security.

As Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast recently stated in her otherwise sexist piece Obama’s Other Wife, “Hillary Clinton has been fighting for the rights of women since before it was fashionable.” I applaud Secretary Clinton for making this a priority. The CSM article states that:

Obstacles abound, including the unruly thicket of US aid programs. But the greatest challenge is the deeply rooted culture in countries that oppress women and girls – often violently and even to the point of enslavement, sexual and otherwise. Honor killings, child brides, female infanticide – all of these accepted customs need to be realized as unacceptable.

They wisely point out that Secretary Clinton is doing her best not to fall into the trap of being seen to lecture foreign countries on their treatment of women, or to create social upheaval and note that she is “wisely framing the issue in terms of countries’ own interests”:

Her pitch: Healthcare for women, especially maternal care, makes for healthier children and families. Schooling for girls contributes to economic progress. Microloans to women pay handsome dividends as women pay them off and invest further in businesses and their families’ welfare. (The majority of the world’s small-holder farmers are women.)

Some experts also see a link between the oppression of women and the problems of extremism and terrorism.

“It is a very-well-researched fact that women are key to economic progress and social stability,” Clinton said in India this summer. Global aid groups, the World Bank, the US military, and economists agree. “Gender inequality hurts economic growth,” reports Goldman Sachs.

Attitudes in male-dominated countries can change once men see the monetary benefits of female empowerment. Writers Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn give a convincing example of this in their new book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”

Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn also deserve kudos for drawing attention to this issue. British PM Gordon Brown recently praised their important book in his article Taking Women’s Rights Seriously:

They tell of Saima Muhammad, a poverty-stricken wife and mother near Lahore, Pakistan, who suffered daily beatings from her jobless husband. For lack of food, she had to send her daughter to live with an aunt. When her second child, a girl, was born, Saima’s husband was urged by his mother to take a second wife so he could father a son.

Then Saima got a loan of $65 through a Pakistani group that lends exclusively to women. She started an embroidery business that now employs 30 families in the neighborhood (including her husband). She paid off her husband’s debt (more than $3,000), kept her girls in school, and upgraded her house, adding running water and TV.

The authors write that Saima’s husband is now more impressed with girls. They are “just as good as boys,” he says.

Yep, we are just as good as boys. And once in a while, we’re even better. Sssh. Keep that under your hat. Would have been nice if people figured that out in 2008. But I digress…

In closing, the Christian Science Monitor states that Secretary Clinton has found the best way to frame this issue in order to get the most mileage, since we know appealing on a humanitarian basis has not gotten us very far in the decent and equal treatment of women and girls – either here or around the world:

Of course, women’s rights are human rights. They don’t need to be justified for any other reason than that. But in many countries, the path to that realization may well begin with economic self-interest, and Clinton is right to recognize this.

It is the understatement of the century that I would prefer her leadership as President, yet I appreciate she is making this cause such an important element of her platform as Secretary of State, a cause she promoted in her famous speech in Beijing in 1995, which she delivered in defiance of the U.S. State Dept. and the Chinese government:

“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.”

I am so proud to have supported Hillary Clinton in 2008 and to see that she is still working for the issues she holds near and dear, no matter how she is treated, no matter how the American press pretends she doesn’t exist, no matter what else is going on around her. This is an adult who sees the bigger picture.

She’ll always have my vote.

Now to the article in Washington Post, “Clinton Puts Spotlight On Women’s Issues.” May I just say, before I share the article with you, that she is doing EXACTLY what she said she would do. I’m just sayin’ – she is remaining true to her principles and what she considers to be important. Unlike SOME people I could name. About time some in the MSM got the memo, but WaPo did:

She talked chickens with female farmers in Kenya. She listened to the excruciating stories of rape victims in war-torn eastern Congo. And in South Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a housing project built by poor women, where she danced with a choir singing “Heel-a-ree! Heel-a-ree!”

Clinton’s just-concluded 11-day trip to Africa has sent the clearest signal yet that she intends to make women’s rights one of her signature issues and a higher priority than ever before in American diplomacy.

She plans to press governments on abuses of women’s rights and make women more central in U.S. aid programs.

But her efforts go beyond the marble halls of government and show how she is redefining the role of secretary of state. Her trips are packed with town hall meetings and visits to micro-credit projects and women’s dinners. Ever the politician, she is using her star power to boost women who could be her allies.

“It’s just a constant effort to elevate people who, in their societies, may not even be known by their own leaders,” Clinton said in an interview. “My coming gives them a platform, which then gives us the chance to try and change the priorities of the governments.”

Wow. That is quite a statement. I am glad she is doing this work abroad, for the marginalized and oppressed. Oh, how I wish she was doing it as the President (and we know she would have kept her word then, too).

But, things don’t always run smoothly, as we know:

Clinton’s agenda faces numerous obstacles. The U.S. aid system is a dysfunctional jumble of programs. Some critics may question why she is focusing on women’s rights instead of terrorism or nuclear proliferation. And improving the lot of women in such places as Congo is complicated by deeply rooted social problems.

“It’s great she’s mentioning the issue,” said Brett Schaefer, an Africa scholar at the Heritage Foundation. “As to whether her bringing it up will substantially improve the situation or treatment of women in Africa, frankly I doubt it.”

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, said that Clinton has to tread carefully in socially conservative regions, particularly those where the U.S. military is at war. “You might be right, in the narrow sense of women in that country or region need to be empowered, but you’re saying something inimical to other U.S. interests,” he said.

Despite Clinton’s efforts to spotlight women’s issues, it was her own angry response to what she perceived as a sexist question at a town hall meeting in Congo that dominated American television coverage of her Africa trip. A student had asked for former president Bill Clinton’s opinion on a local political issue — “through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton.” Snapped Hillary Clinton: “My husband is not the secretary of state. I am.”

Clinton is not the first female secretary of state, but neither of her predecessors had her impact abroad as a pop feminist icon. On nearly every foreign trip, she has met with women — South Korean students, Israeli entrepreneurs, Iraqi war widows, Chinese civic activists. Clinton mentioned “women” or “woman” at least 450 times in public comments in her first five months in the position, twice as often as her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice.

And that is why it still shocks me that women who consider themselves feminists, and womens organizations, did not wholeheartedly throw their support behind Hillary Clinton, rather going for the young, inexperienced man. Clinton is not new to this issue, and doesn’t just pay lip service to it, either:

Clinton’s interest in global women’s issues is deeply personal, a mission she adopted as first lady after the stinging defeat of her health-care reform effort in 1994. For months, she kept a low profile. Then, in September 1995, she addressed the U.N. women’s conference in Beijing, strongly denouncing abuses of women’s rights. Delegates jumped to their feet in applause.

“It was a transformational moment for her,” said Melanne Verveer, who has worked closely with Clinton since her White House days.

Clinton began traveling the world, highlighting women’s issues. She gradually built a network of female activists, politicians and entrepreneurs, especially through a group she helped found, Vital Voices, that has trained more than 7,000 emerging leaders worldwide. She developed a following among middle-class women in male-dominated countries who devoured her autobiography and eagerly watched her presidential run.

“She might not be having the same restrictions as we have, but she has had restrictions — and she’s moving on. That’s a symbol to us,” said Tara Fela-Durotoye, a businesswoman in Abuja, Nigeria.

Clinton’s legacy is evident in such places as the Victoria Mxenge housing development outside Cape Town, South Africa, a dusty sprawl of small, pastel-colored homes she championed as first lady. When her bus rolled into the female-run project during her trip, a joyful commotion broke out. Women in purple and yellow gowns lined the streets, waving wildly.

Huh. How does this match with the rhetoric spewed by Obama about Hillary Clinton and her work abroad? Does the expression, “Liar, liar, pants on fire” mean anything to you? And yet, people bought his words, hook, line, and sinker. I wonder how they’re feeling now, especially when they read what the effects of her work are, discernible, and quantifiable:

A youth choir swayed outside a community center decorated with photos of Clinton on her previous visits to the project, which has grown to 50,000 houses. Clinton vowed in a major policy address last month to make women the focus of U.S. assistance programs. The idea is applauded by development experts, who have found that investing in girls’ education, maternal health and women’s micro-finance provides a powerful boost to Third World families.

Ritu Sharma, president of the anti-poverty group Women Thrive Worldwide, said she already sees the results of Clinton’s efforts in the bureaucracy. When Sharma’s staff recently attended a meeting about a new agricultural aid program, she said, one State Department official joked, “We have to integrate women — or we’re going to be fired.”

Still, Sharma questioned whether the program would succeed in reaching poor women, especially given the weaknesses in U.S. foreign assistance.

“There’s a lot of healthy skepticism about ‘Will it really happen?’ ” she said.

In a sign of the priority she gives to the issue, Clinton has appointed her close friend Verveer as the State Department’s first global ambassador for women’s affairs.

“She will permeate the State Department, as I want her to, with what we should be doing about empowering and focusing on women across the board,” Clinton said.

This reminds me – do you remember that Obama has a school named after him in Kenya? You know, the one to which he has given not one thin dime? Uh, yeah. Who walks the walk here? Clearly, it’s Hillary:

One issue Verveer has been concerned about is violence against women, particularly the stunningly high number of rapes in eastern Congo. Last week, Clinton, Verveer and the delegation boarded U.N. planes to visit the remote, impoverished region and meet with rape victims. Clinton pressed the Congolese president to prosecute offenders and offered $17 million in new assistance for victims.

“Raising issues like the ones I’ve been raising on this trip to get governments to focus on them, to see they’re not sidelined or subsidiary issues, but that the U.S. government at the highest levels cares about them, is important,” she said. “It changes the dynamic within governments.”

Clinton’s efforts are being reinforced by a White House women’s council and a Congress with a growing number of powerful female members. One sign of that: Aid dedicated to programs for Afghan women and girls increased about threefold this year, to $250 million, because of lawmakers such as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who was recently named head of the first Senate subcommittee on global women’s issues, and Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations.

It is striking how much time Clinton dedicates to women’s events on her trips, even ones that receive little public attention. In South Africa, a clearly delighted Clinton spent 90 minutes at the housing project, twice as long as she met with South Africa’s president. “It feeds my heart,” she explained. “Which is really critical to me personally since a lot of what I do as secretary of state is very formalistic. It’s meetings with other officials.”

“It is striking how much time Clinton dedicates to women’s events on her trips, even ones that receive little public attention.” Because she doesn’t do it for the publicity, she does it because it is the RIGHT thing to do!! That is another big, huge, difference between Hillary Clinton and other politicians. She does a LOT of things about which people don’t know (as in, not publicized in the media) because she actually, genuinely cares about people.
And that is why she will always be my hero – because she cares, because she SHOWS she cares, and because she brings action to her words. I think we could use a whole lot more of that from our elected officials, don’t you?

If you wish to see where Secretary Clinton went, and what she did, click on this link: Secretary of State Clinton’s Africa Travels – Interactive Map

The results of this article came out the other day, though one might think the results would more likely be from the 19th century:

Newly minted brides should do more than vow to love their hubbies for a lifetime, say the majority of Americans. Some 70 percent of the respondents in a new study feel they should also take their spouse’s surname – and 50 percent say that it should be a legal requirement for a woman to take her spouse’s last name.

The study, presented Tuesday at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting, was done by the Center for Survey Research at Indiana University, as reported by USA Today.

Some 815 people were asked multiple choice and open-ended questions about a variety of family and gender issues. On the issue of marital name change, the majority of respondents weighed in with a fairly conservative answer, says Laura Hamilton, Indiana University associate professor and lead study author.

“The results were surprisingly conservative,” she says. “Even though there is a general movement toward neutral language, like saying chairperson instead of chairwoman, people seemed to feel it was better for a woman to change her last name to her husband’s.”

You gotta admit. This is pretty surprising. Well, I should say, it would have been MORE surprising back in 2007, if you get my drift. But wait, there’s more:

She said that the fact that half of American thought this should be a legal requirement was also surprising.

“Americans don’t want much government intervention in family life, so for 50 percent of Americans to feel this way was interesting,” she said.

Only 5 to 10 percent of women keep the name they were born with when they marry, Hamilton says. She notes that some studies show that younger women are more likely or as likely to change their name as baby boom brides. “It’s not a straight age trend,” she said, according to USA Today.

When the respondents were asked why they felt women should change their name after the wedding, Hamilton says, “They told us that women should lose their own identity when they marry and become a part of the man and his family. This was a reason given by many.” (Emphasis mine.)

Other respondents said they felt the marital name change was essential for religious reasons or as a practical matter.

“They said the mailman would get confused and that society wouldn’t function as well if women did not change their name,” Hamilton says.

For cryin’ out loud, really? That’s some of the logic going on there? That the “mailMAN” will get confused if people with two last names at the same address get mail?? Well, our mailWOMAN doesn’t get the least bit confused delivering mail to us. Hey, I’m just saying (and no, I am not putting down men – just the sexist implications all the way across the board with that one).

And yes, that so many think it should be a LAW is significant. So much for personal liberty and all that. Who needs to make decisions about something as personal as their name? Certainly not the little lady who just got married.

This is not as surprising, though:

Americans who feel that women should take their husband’s last name also tend to be conservative in other areas, according to Hamilton.

“Asked if they thought of a lesbian couple as a family, those who believe that women should take their husband’s name are less likely to say yes,” she says. “If you’re more liberal about the name change issue, you tend to include a larger population in the definition of family.”

Oh, well. I feel better about that, don’t you? It’s a start, I suppose. Maybe we actually get to KEEP our own identity then?? Woohoo – being a lesbian in this culture is finally paying off! Yippee!!!

Ahem. Yes, according to the survey, “women should lose their identity…” LOSE THEIR IDENTITY. Forget about this sounding like the 19th century. It goes back WAY father than that. This is so disturbing on so many different levels, I can only shake my head in utter disbelief. Seriously – can you BELIEVE this? This “subjugate yourself to the man” thing is freakin’ biblical – and two THOUSAND years later, women are still expected to eradicate themselves?

Wow. You know, it is only a matter of degrees between this survey, and this recent article, Afghanistan Passes ‘Barbaric’ Law Diminishing Women’s Rights, Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands.

(Photo, Kabul, 2002, Sung Nam Hoon)

It is exactly the mindset above that gives SPACE to this kind of thinking, and allows laws like this to gain approval:

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

“It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her,” the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

Holy freakin’ shit. I feel like I have fallen through a wormhole and traveled way, WAY back in time.

But wait – didn’t The One wave his magic wand, ride in on his Rainbow Unity Unicorn and say this wasn’t such a peachy keen idea because women-folk around the globe might get a tad bit miffed, thus casting a pall on the reflection from his halo? Well, close enough:

In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.

Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country.

Islamic law experts and human rights activists say that although the language of the original law has been changed, many of the provisions that alarmed women’s rights groups remain, including this one: “Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband’s reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband’s permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient.”

Huh, well, I’ll be damned. Evidently, SOME people don’t give a damn what The One has to say. Ahem.

Clearly it didn’t matter what Obama and Brown said, especially when you consider this:

The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country’s Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday’s election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday.

Human Rights Watch, which has obtained a copy of the final law, called on all candidates to pledge to repeal the law, which it says contradicts Afghanistan’s own constitution.

The group said that Karzai had “made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election”.

Brad Adams, the organisation’s Asia director, said: “The rights of Afghan women are being ripped up by powerful men who are using women as pawns in manoeuvres to gain power.

“These kinds of barbaric laws were supposed to have been relegated to the past with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, yet Karzai has revived them and given them his official stamp of approval.”

Indeed. Women are pawns, and property of men. Dare I say it, they are forced to give up their identities, and their own bodies, to every wish and whim of the men to whom they are married? And any violation of the woman is really a violation of the man to whom she is linked. That is, to whom she belongs.

As for Karzai:

The latest opinion poll by US democracy group the International Republican Institute showed that although Karzai was up 13 points to 44% since the last survey in May, his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, had soared from 7% to 26%.

If those numbers prove accurate, it would mean the contest would have to go to a second round run-off vote in early October. In that scenario, 50% of voters said they would vote for Karzai and 29% for Abdullah.

The survey was conducted in mid to late July, so it is not known whether Abdullah has made further gains on Karzai.

He could further increase his chance of victory by joining forces with Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister who is also running on a platform fiercely critical of Karzai.

Fifty-eight per cent of the 2,400 people polled by IRI said they would like to see an alliance between Abdullah and Ghani, who is polling in fourth place.

In other words, at least from when this survey was taken, Karzai still seems to be the frontrunner. Gosh, that is SO good for the women in that country, isn’t it? Yeah, right – not even close.

And speaking of women in Afghanistan, this article came out recently, too “Marines Try A Woman’s Touch To Reach Afghan Hearts“:

Put on body armor, check weapons, cover head and shoulders with a scarf.

That was the drill for female American Marines who set out on patrol this week with a mission to make friends with Afghan women in a war zone by showing respect for Muslim standards of modesty.

The all-female unit of 46 Marines is the military’s latest innovation in its rivalry with the Taliban for the populace’s loyalty. Afghan women are viewed as good intelligence sources, and more open to the basics of the military’s hearts-and-minds effort — hygiene, education and an end to the violence.

“It’s part of the effort to show we’re sensitive to local culture,” said Capt. Jennifer Gregoire, of East Strasburg, Pa. She leads the Female Engagement Team in the Now Zad Valley of Helmand province, the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

“If you show your hair, its kind of like seeing a nude picture here, because women are very covered up,” she said.

Uh, yeah, you can say that again. As another reminder:

(photo by worldwidewandering)

I think that qualifies as “very covered up” (click HERE to read the rest of the Women Marines story). What is more, there is absolutely NOTHING of the actual woman underneath the burqa. You don’t know who she is, you can’t see her eyes, her mouth, HER. You cannot SEE her.

That is the point of women “losing their identity in men,” is it not? Of women being nothing more than the property of their husbands, or their fathers, because who they are doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter. They are NOTHING unless they are connected to a man, and he may do to her as he wishes, whenever he wishes, and she must, simply, take it.

Well, at least according to the majority of those who took the survey here in the US, and according to the lawmakers in Afghanistan. Yep – seems there are people here who seem to have the same high (cough, choke) opinion of women as they do in Afghanistan. “What Women’s Lib,” indeed.

I bet you didn’t see THAT coming…

As she circles the globe in coming years, making the case for women’s empowerment, starting with their basic right to be taken seriously, Clinton really has her work cut out for her. And it isn’t just because the situation of women around the world is so dire, and the ocean of problems confronting them — maternal mortality, sex trafficking, domestic abuse, malnourishment, lack of education, lack of adequate medical care, just for starters — is so wide and so deep. And it isn’t just that her historic mandate — to equally empower the other half of the world’s population, to chip away at the forces “devaluing women,” in the words of Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s new ambassador at large for global women’s issues — is so huge and vague and seemingly overwhelming. It’s also because the tide of trivialization that washes over all things “Hillary” is just so powerful. That tide threatens to drown out anything of substance Clinton might attempt for a population whose problems have long been obscured in the androcentric world of diplomacy. And that’s a huge pity.

Ms. Warner is correct. And shame on the media for their wish to trivialize Secretary Clinton’s work.

This is not about ego or elevating Hillary. This is about decency. The media needs to relearn professionalism, highlighting issues that are of vital interest to our nation and the world. I never cease to be both incensed and amazed that the pundit class and venal newscasters aren’t ashamed to focus on fluff and junk politics. We need to draw attention to important concerns, as Ms. Warner painfully notes below:

This was supposed to be the trip that would show exactly how Hillary Rodham Clinton would make good on her pledge, at her confirmation hearing for secretary of state, to make women’s issues “central” to U.S. foreign policy, not “adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser.”

There could have been no more dramatic setting: Overruling the security fears of her aides, she traveled to eastern Congo, where hundreds of thousands of women have been raped over the past decade. She visited a refugee camp and met with one woman who was gang-raped while eight months pregnant; she heard of another who’d been sexually assaulted with a rifle. She was told of babies cut from their mothers’ bodies with razors. She spoke of “evil in its basest form.” She promised $17 million to fight sexual violence.

And back home, all anyone could talk about was Bill.

Had he upstaged her with his trip to North Korea? Had he dogged her, in absentia, all the way to Kinshasa, where a university student, wondering about “Mr. Clinton’s” views, set her off, and set the world cluck-clucking, once again, about her marriage, her temperament, even her hair?

When this last paragraph is all the media can talk about, they send a huge message:

Sexism and misogyny are alive and well.

They also telegraph the fact that they could give a damn about focusing on the atrocities against women in the Congo that left Secretary Clinton so shaken. She has been fighting for the rights of women’s empowerment, education and equality here and around the world long before it was fashionable. When women have greater access to education, health care and jobs, the economy thrives, too. This is not just about a “female agenda.” This is something that affects all of us. As Ms. Warner notes:

This could be a moment for America to redeem itself as far as the world’s women are concerned. Our recent track record, after all, is pretty dim. The Bush administration sent anti-feminists to Iraq to train that country’s women in participatory democracy. We pulled our financing from the United Nations Population Fund and imposed a global gag rule barring women’s health organizations that merely talked about abortion from receiving U.S. funds. We never ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a pretty base-level human rights treaty, because of worries by black helicopter types that American sovereignty would be compromised. Our lack of paid maternity leave made us something of a world joke. (snip)

…a peculiarly gendered form of trivializing scorn still tags our secretary of state. Just two weeks ago, The Washington Post had to remove from its Web site an ostensibly humorous video sketch by two of its prominent political journalists that juxtaposed a picture of Clinton’s face with a bottle of derogatorily named beer. This sort of thing bodes badly for the country’s ability to treat her — and the issues she most passionately champions — with appropriate respect.

In 2008, we clearly saw the media is incapable of treating this woman with appropriate respect. It is beyond shameful because by constantly shooting the messenger, we diminish the possibility of citizens getting more involved in these vital causes. Her message is blunted by a media blackout about all things substantial in favor of smear and tabloid journalism.

“We have our own work to do at home,” Verveer told me. “We trivialize the importance too often of these issues: the ‘women’s issue’ — you put it in quotes, that little category over there, the box you check. What we have to do is realize these are the issues; if we want societies to prosper and if we want our own security, we have to raise the status of women.”

Women’s empowerment won’t be delivered at the end of a gun or through economic sanctions or even overt criticism, if it cuts into accepted cultural practices. This is messy stuff; some of our most sensitive allies have horrific records on women’s rights. Programs that show success tend to be slow-moving and incremental. Can all this complexity attract — much less sustain — the attention of the public?

Maybe — if we stop viewing everything Clinton does as entertainment.

The UK Independent’s article today, Hillary Wins Hearts As She Concludes Africa Tour offers more by way of real news and real progress made as a result of Hillary’s trip. Certainly something the American media was loathe to cover. Please be sure to read the article.

As the media has clearly demonstrated its bias time and time again, it seems the fourth estate has long abdicated its responsibility for fair or substantive reporting. And we are losing out in the bargain.

And I wrote this:

I said all along that Obama, the DNC, and the MSM declared open season on women. There was little or no comeuppance for ANYONE who made disparaging, sexist, or misogynistic comments about Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. I knew it was going to continue, and possibly get worse. Here we are. With these two sexist pigs suggesting Clinton, who can run RINGS around these two intellectually, politically, and HUMANELY, drinks “Mad Bitch beer.” What a couple of _______ – you fill in the blank…

Back to Milbank and Cilliza: WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE THEIR JOBS???? I guess the same reason people like David Shuster does – he can call Hillary Clinton a pimp, and her daughter a whore, and keep his job with just a little slap on the wrist. So I guess what Milbank and Cillizza did was mild by comparison? Their comeuppance cannot come too soon, and it SHOULD come for this blatantly sexist attack on Secretary of State Clinton. Now. They should be fired.

Lo and behold, the “Mouthpiece Series” has been canned. And Cilliza and Milbank have apologized.

Well, big whoop-de-doo. They have already spewed their sexist BS. They still have their jobs. Hell, Milbank even had the nerve to say this:

“I regret that we put up that image,” Milbank said Wednesday, “and while I highly doubt the secretary of state has seen ‘Mouthpiece Theater,’ I would be honored to have the opportunity to apologize to her over a beer.”

I hope she tells him what he can do with his beer. Just freakin’ spare me already.

Oh, they go on and on about how they didn’t mean any harm, they don’t want to discredit their paper, the Washington Post, blah, blah, blah. Well, too late, guys, you already have. And the Washington Post has discredited itself by keeping these guys on their payroll, IMHO.

In their own words:

As for the dozen videos they have made in what was designed as a summer tryout, “it’s clear there was an audience for it out there, but not large enough to justify all the grief,” Milbank said. “My strength is in observational, in-the-field stuff, and that’s what I should do. I’m sorry about the reaction it’s caused, but I think it’s important to experiment. The real risk to newspapers is not that they take too many risks, but that they don’t take enough risks.”

Oh, yes – that’s what we need. MORE media outlets willing to allow two of their big names to spew sexist tripe against the Secretary of State and ALL women. Oh, Dana – you are just misunderstood, right???

Unfortunately, there is more:

Cillizza agreed that the plug should be pulled, saying: “We’d hoped the self-deprecating humor of me and the irreverent humor of Dana would combine to make something funny and interesting and on the news. It wound up not working. . . . Ultimately it wasn’t funny.”

The Clinton joke, Cillizza said, “was inappropriate, over the line and highlighted the broader problems with the show. I’m personally apologizing on The Fix. It’s not consistent with the Post brand, but more important to me, it’s not consistent with the Fix brand I’ve worked to cultivate — insider, straight-dope journalism that tries to shoot down the middle.”

You’re damn right it was inappropriate. And very telling, Chris.

Feel free to click the link if you want to read more from, and about, Chris Cillizza and Dana Milbank. Frankly, I’ve seen all I need to see of them.

Good for the Washington Post for canning this series. Of course, it didn’t happen soon enough before a spoof of the video above came out (h/t to NQ Writer, pm317):

As I said to pm317, the only problem with THIS video is that is is more professional (!) than the original…

The spontaneous march in response, the solidarity evident, brought tears to my eyes.

While we are on the subject of the GLBT community, as of this writing, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 332 service members have been dismissed under DADT under Obama and this Congress.

As for Obama and Same Sex Marriage, anyone holding their breath that Obama will do anything FOR it should breathe now. I’ve been saying this for a while, and James Kirchick writing for the Washington Post had this to say in his editorial, “Obama Said ‘I Don’t. He May Just Mean It” (h/t to American Girl in Italy):

~snip ~ When it comes to same-sex marriage, the movement can’t count on support from the current president either. When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about Clinton’s comments, he told reporters that his boss “does not support” same-sex marriage. “He supports civil unions,” Gibbs assured. And despite President Obama’s statement that he opposes the ban on gays serving openly in the military, Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings (Fla.) last week said that the White House pressured him to withdraw an amendment that would have prohibited funds from being spent on investigating “don’t ask, don’t tell” violations.

Even if Obama does in fact believe in marriage equality, he hasn’t done — and is unlikely to do — much to forward the cause. And apart from some toothless sniping from a handful of gay activists and donors, he seems to be getting away with it. In this way, the presumed (yet secret) good intentions of Democrats can wind up doing more harm than good: They tell the gay community that Democrats are at least better than the GOP, thus providing an excuse that can be employed endlessly while they stall.

This trust in covert backing from liberal elected officials is an article of faith among most supporters of same-sex marriage. In a recent interview with Newsweek, gay playwright Tony Kushner spoke of Obama’s secret belief in the righteousness of same-sex marriage as if it were painfully obvious. “Pbbbht! Of course he’s in favor of gay marriage!” Kushner exclaimed. His views were echoed by Steve Hildebrand, a gay political consultant who served as Obama’s deputy national campaign director. “I do believe that in his heart he will fight his tail off until we’ve achieved full equality in the gay community,” he told journalist Rex Wockner. I’ve lost track of the number of liberal friends and acquaintances, gay and straight alike, who assure me that Obama “really” supports same-sex marriage and, furthermore, that this point is obvious.

How can they be so sure? People want to like political leaders, and when someone as charismatic as Clinton or Obama comes along, it’s easy to ignore the facts that get in the way of an idealized image. That liberal politicians are indifferent — if not outright opposed — to same-sex marriage stands at utter odds with liberals’ notion of an enlightened community of like-minded progressives. “Does anybody actually believe that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama think that we shouldn’t have — that this man who is a constitutional-law scholar — is it a complicated issue?” Kushner sputtered, as if anyone who disagreed were an imbecile.

Ah yes, why actually believe Obama’s own WORDS on this issue, is the question I would have for Kushner. Obama, and Biden, have been VERY clear that their position on same sex marriage is EXACTLY THE SAME as Sarah Palin’s. Exactly the same. Identical. No difference. But please, keep lying to yourselves so you can continue to glorify The One. And go have some more Kool Aide while you’re at it. Kirchick continues:

Because people such as Kushner view political liberalism as a positive personality trait and not just a worldview, they assume that someone who opposed the Iraq war and sees himself as a “citizen of the world” would also believe in the right of gays to marry. People cannot conceive that such a cosmopolitan and eloquent man as Obama would disagree with them on an issue that they consider a no-brainer.

This is convenient for liberals because it allows them to deflect blame from politicians they like onto those they don’t, namely conservatives, the sincerity of whose opposition to same-sex marriage they never challenge. If only Republicans desisted in their homophobia, this narrative goes, justifiably timid liberals would come out of their closets of prevarication, so to speak, and support gay marriage unambiguously.

Framing gay rights as a strictly partisan issue also allows liberals to obscure the awkward fact that while they are more likely than conservatives to support same-sex marriage, a key Democratic constituency, African Americans, overwhelmingly opposes it.

Obama’s history on the issue does have a complicating twist. On a 1996 Illinois Senate race questionnaire, Obama (or more likely a staffer) wrote, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” Liberals take from this revelation the assumption that Obama’s apparent flip was insincere.

But there is nothing in his record since he became a national political figure that should give them any reason to think he will revert to his supposedly pro-gay-marriage position. And if Obama actually does believe in same-sex marriage, that makes his public opposition to it worse than it would be if he were genuinely opposed. How is it in any way reassuring to liberals to suppose that a politician agrees with them while selling them down the river? Even if Obama’s apparent flip isn’t genuine, he nonetheless acts as if it were, rendering his supposedly silent support worthless in tangible political terms. Whatever he “really” thinks, Obama’s stance on gay marriage is virtually indistinguishable from that of John McCain.

For some time, liberal politicians have taken a largely wink-and-nod approach to gay issues. They’ve done so with the excuse that the culture must catch up before any progress can be made (an excuse that conveniently doesn’t apply to other liberal interest groups, such as unions and trial lawyers, that do very well when Democrats are in power). Obama paid tribute to this timeworn tactic recently when he told gay activists at the White House: “I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, but by the promises my administration keeps. By the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.”

Talking about “feelings” is a cuddly liberal pastime, and Obama’s promise conjures up the phrase that Clinton famously entered into our political lexicon when he told an angry AIDS activist, “I feel your pain.” Maybe now, when it comes to same-sex marriage, he finally does. But it would be nice to have a sitting president whose feelings translate into action. (jkirchick@tnr.com James Kirchick is an assistant editor of the New Republic and a contributing writer to the Advocate.)

Good for Mr. Kirchick to actually point this out. I seriously doubt that the people who refuse to believe it will see the light, but at least he tried, right? And I appreciate the effort on his part.

Speaking of the Washington Post, we had this this, from July 31st. It is a shift from homophobia to sexism. You will most likely recognize the two “players” in this video:

I said all along that Obama, the DNC, and the MSM declared open season on women. There was little or no comeuppance for ANYONE who made disparaging, sexist, or misogynistic comments about Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. I knew it was going to continue, and possibly get worse. Here we are. With these two sexist pigs suggesting Clinton, who can run RINGS around these two intellectually, politically, and HUMANELY, drinks “Mad Bitch beer.” What a couple of _______ – you fill in the blank.

Oh, and one last thing. Vanity Fair has an article about Sarah Palin entitled, “It Came From Wasilla.” Yes, the author is a man. They are calling the former Governor, a woman, “It”?? Like when Glenn Beck said of Hillary Clinton, “It cries”??? Sheesh, the author isn’t even original. And naturally, the article is another hatchet job of this woman who dared to work her way up, buck her own party, and do right by her state. Naturally. Not for nothing, but I would have more rights in Alaska because of Sarah Palin than in most states in the Union. Just sayin’.

Back to Millbank and Cilliza: WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE THEIR JOBS???? I guess the same reason people like David Shuster does – he can call Hillary Clinton a pimp, and her daughter a whore, and keep his job with just a little slap on the wrist. So I guess what Millbank and Cillizza did was mild by comparison? Their comeuppance cannot come too soon, and it SHOULD come for this blatantly sexist attack on Secretary of State Clinton. Now. They should be fired.

Then there’s the whole Obama v. Officer Crowley v. Gates kerfluffle. What the hell, already? Is this what they mean by a “bully pulpit”?? Because that sure seems to be the way Obama sees it. What a ridiculous, stupid, issue for Obama to engage in, especially when he doesn’t even know the facts of the case before opening mouth, inserting foot. American Girl in Italy pointed that out beautifully in her piece, “Obama: I don’t Know Anything About It Except The Cop Acted Stupidly.” Uh, yeah. Way to show some real decorum befitting your office there, Obama.

Are we all back in junior high school now or something? Holy smokes. The name calling, the cliques, the back-stabbing, stealing people’s lunch money (as in our pensions, jobs, and companies), and on it goes, like a pep rally for school spirit. Grow up already. Learn a little decorum, for crying out loud.

Obama is just wearing me out. And while the following Onion video could be all too true (both in terms of treatment of women and how we are all going to need to learn Chinese). for the moment at least, it is funny as hell:


Police Still Searching For Missing Productive, Obedient Woman

Oh, my. Can’t you just see that day coming upon us, especially after the sexism and misogyny of the past Primary/Election? I sure can…

And since the issue of Climate Change has been big in the news of late, there is this planet-saving initiative from Taco Bell (via The Onion):

Taco Bell’s New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Now that should make a difference, shouldn’t it?? Oh, yeah…

Damn, those Onion folks are FUNNY!

I’m off to enjoy my last full day with my awesome cousin who is here visiting until tomorrow morning (early). I hope you’re able to enjoy your day, too. At least now I don’t feel like my head’s gonna explode, and that’s saying something. Hope the same is true for you!

This doesn’t happen very often. In fact, it has only happened EIGHTEEN TIMES EVER, including this game. A perfect game. Wow. It is not the same as a no-hitter, bear in mind, which Mark Buehrle of the White Sox has also thrown. A perfect game means that no one reaches base, through either a walk or a batter who has been hit by a pitch (MLB took down the really good video of this game):


Only eighteen times EVER – wowie zowie…That is simply staggering. Congratulations, Mr. Buehrle, on this outstanding accomplishment!

For another first, which also involves the number eighteen, at the soccer match we saw Wednesday night (7/22), the US Women v. Canada Women (national teams), the lone goal was scored by Christine Nairn, who is eighteen years old, in the last minute of the match. This was her first international goal in only her second international match. Get this – she hasn’t even played on the collegiate level yet (she’s going to Penn State). To put this in perspective, there are only a few of women who have accomplished this feat. You may have heard of one of them, Mia Hamm. Another woman who accomplished this feat was Kristine Lilly, a personal favorite of mine as well, is the most capped person (most international appearances) of any soccer player, male or female (click here to see some highlights). For reasons I don’t understand, Nairn’s goal didn’t make it to the Top 10 on ESPN. Oh, wait, that’s right – because they are sexist. Oh, they had plenty of goals from the men on their Top 10, just not the women. Ahem. Christine Nairn sure made it to my Top Ten list, and my congratulations go out to her. What a great match to watch, and a great win.

And for some not so-great football news, Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, was accused of rape by a casino employee in Lake Tahoe, who also claimed the Harrah’s Casino people covered up the rape. Roethlisberger has denied the claim.

Holy smokes. Well, he can join the long line of professional athletes who have been accused of mistreating women. Many of those accusations have proven to be true, I might add. Though in the case of people like Mike Tyson, he can be accused of battery, and rape, serve time for rape, have help getting out early so he can return to boxing, and is now in a movie. Huh – what happened to the woman he raped? Just wondering…

Blech. Well, I can’t let this end on such a downer note. Let’s go back to Mark Buehrle in acknowledgment of his incredible achievement. Apparently, he is also a really great guy, which makes his accomplishment that much sweeter. Good for Buehrle! Good for Nairn! And good for us to have some fun news for a change!

As I read Amy Suskind’s excellent piece “Sit Down and Shut Up” on the marginalization of American women in politics, I couldn’t help thinking about all that the suffragettes endured – ridicule, beatings, and imprisonment in their quest to gain the right to vote for American women. And just a few weeks ago, those courageous Iranian women who went out into the streets facing death and bodily harm to protest their country’s election.

The world wide oppression of women and women’s rights seem to be reaching epidemic proportions these days. Or would that be a pandemic? And yet, there are clear signs that the resolve of women to push back continues to gather strength. So I wanted take a moment to recognize and celebrate women from around the world– who stand up in the face of great opposition, who give voice to grave wrongs, and who take responsibility for trying to right those wrongs. And I wanted to let them know they are being honored and they are being heard.

So here is a small, international collection of videos honoring women for standing up and speaking out.

The title for my post was inspired by this first video. In it journalist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro tells a wonderful story of a rural Mexican phrase – Esta boca es mía. This mouth is mine. Ms. Ribeiro is the recipient of a 2007 Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation. As you listen to the video you realize that for her, speaking up is not about a personal right. Speaking up is about taking personal responsibility. And it is about recognizing the personal obligation each of us has to ourselves and our society.

Female Freedom of Expression in Mexico (Lydia Cacho Ribeiro)

___________

Some 500 protesters from the women’s wing of the Dahal party marched on President Ram Baran Yadav’s residence Thursday, chanting slogans while police used bamboo batons to beat back activists who tried to break through a cordon. Some of the women were lightly injured.

Women protest in Nepal

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Bahraini Women’s Rights Activist Ghada Jamshir Attacks Islamic Clerics for Fatwas Authorizing Sexual Abuse of Children. This is an excerpt from an interview with Bahraini women’s rights activist Ghada Jamshir , which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on December 21, 2005.

Women’s Rights in Islam: Sex with Infant Girls

__________

Thousands of women hold a massive rally in India protesting against an increasing number of abortions. In some areas of India an estimated 2,000 unborn girls are illegally aborted every day, according to the United Nations. This has led to disproportionate sex ratios where a 2001 census showed less than 800 girls for every 1,000 boys.

Indian Women Protest Sex-Selective Abortions

____________

The courage displayed by the women of Iran has become an inspiration to other women throughout the world. Despite the tragic death of Neda Agha Soltan, shot 6/20/09 by security forces during a protest against Iranian Presidential Election 2009.

The Women Of Iran

__________

This mouth is mine. And so is the right, the responsibility and the obligation to stand up for myself and others. We can not reserve our voice for only the chosen few that are deemed to be of the right age, race, sex, class, education or political views. Standing up and giving voice to wrongs and taking part in righting those wrongs- it is something that is required by all of us and for all of us.

And since I also believe “this mouth is mine” to give thanks and acknowledgement – a huge thank you to NQ’s American Girl in Italy. She is an amazing writer, as you all know, but she is also an awesome researcher who managed to find every one of these great videos (and a half a dozen more) and in record time. So thank you AGII!!

And for a fantastic piece (including video) on Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s outstanding speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, check out Hillary Clinton Delivers a Major Action Focused Foreign Policy Speech by NQ writer Bronwyn’s Harbor.

The seed for the first Woman’s Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, the conference that refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. Stanton, the young bride of an antislavery agent, and Mott, a Quaker preacher and veteran of reform, talked then of calling a convention to address the condition of women. Eight years later, it came about as a spontaneous event.

In July 1848, Mott was visiting her sister, Martha C. Wright, in Waterloo, New York. Stanton, now the restless mother of three small sons, was living in nearby Seneca Falls. A social visit brought together Mott, Stanton, Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt. All except Stanton were Quakers, a sect that afforded women some measure of equality, and all five were well acquainted with antislavery and temperance meetings. Lucretia Mott Fresh in their minds was the April passage of the long-deliberated New York Married Woman’s Property Rights Act, a significant but far from comprehensive piece of legislation. The time had come, Stanton argued, for women’s wrongs to be laid before the public, and women themselves must shoulder the responsibility. Before the afternoon was out, the women decided on a call for a convention “to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman.”

To Stanton fell the task of drawing up the Declaration of Sentiments that would define the meeting. Taking the Declaration of Independence as her guide, Stanton submitted that “all men and women had been created equal” and went on to list eighteen “injuries and usurpations” -the same number of charges leveled against the King of England-”on the part of man toward woman.”

You have to love the symmetry with which Stanton crafted the “Declaration of Sentiments.” And what an interesting choice of words for the Declaration, isn’t it? Stanton didn’t stop there:

Stanton also drafted eleven resolutions, making the argument that women had a natural right to equality in all spheres. The ninth resolution held forth the radical assertion that it was the duty of women to secure for themselves the right to vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton afterwards recalled that a shocked Lucretia Mott exclaimed, “Why, Lizzie, thee will make us ridiculous.” Stanton stood firm. “But I persisted, for I saw clearly that the power to make the laws was the right through which all other rights could be secured.”

The convention, to take place in five days’ time, on July 19 and 20 at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls, was publicized only by a small, unsigned notice placed in the Seneca County Courier. “The convention will not be so large as it otherwise might be, owing to the busy time with the farmers,” Mott told Stanton, “but it will be a beginning.”

A crowd of about three hundred people, including forty men, came from five miles round. No woman felt capable of presiding; the task was undertaken by Lucretia’s husband, James Mott. All of the resolutions were passed unanimously except for woman suffrage, a strange idea and scarcely a concept designed to appeal to the predominantly Quaker audience, whose male contingent commonly declined to vote. The eloquent Frederick Douglass, a former slave and now editor of the Rochester North Star, however, swayed the gathering into agreeing to the resolution. At the closing session, Lucretia Mott won approval of a final resolve “for the overthrowing of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.” One hundred women and men signed the Seneca Falls Declaration-although subsequent criticism caused some of them to remove their names.

How telling is that, that no woman felt “capable of presiding” at their own Rights Convention? Holy smokes. At least there were some supportive men there, including Lucretia Mott’s husband, to step up. But not everyone was supportive:

The proceedings in Seneca Falls, followed a few days later by a meeting in Rochester, brought forth a torrent of sarcasm and ridicule from the press and pulpit. Noted Frederick Douglass in the North Star: “A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman.”

But Elizabeth Cady Stanton, although somewhat discomforted by the widespread misrepresentation, understood the value of attention in the press. “Just what I wanted,” Stanton exclaimed when she saw that James Gordon Bennett, motivated by derision, printed the entire Declaration of Sentiments in the New York Herald. “Imagine the publicity given to our ideas by thus appearing in a widely circulated sheet like the Herald. It will start women thinking, and men too; and when men and women think about a new question, the first step in progress is taken.”

Stanton, thirty-two years old at the time of the Seneca Falls Convention, grew gray in the cause. In 1851 she met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women. When national victory came in 1920, seventy-two years after the first organized demand in 1848, only one signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration-Charlotte Woodward, a young worker in a glove manufactory -had lived long enough to cast her ballot.

What a day that must have been for Charlotte Woodward, but how sad it took 72 years for women to get the right to vote after Seneca Falls, and that she was the only remaining one able to cast her vote. Still, what a joy that must have been for her. Can you imagine it?? WOw.

Let’s just see how far we have come in the past 161 years:

We have come nowhere near far enough. I can only imagine what Mott, Stanton, and the others, would have thought of this past primary season. On the one hand, no doubt, they would be thrilled that a woman would win the popular vote, would win almost all of the big states, many by a landslide. On the other, they most likely would have seen the treatment of that woman (and Sarah Palin, too), as more of the same. Forced by the powers-that-be to give up delegates she won fair and square for the inexperienced, younger man, forced to play by a different set of rules at the Convention than anyone else EVER, a different kind of convention from Seneca Falls, that’s for sure. It was one that failed to live by its OWN rules in order to put this woman firmly in her place. No doubt, what happened this past year would feel all too familiar to them. And to too many of us.

My deepest appreciation to these women who began this process. We have come a ways from that Convention 161 years ago, but we have far, far to go to achieve real equality in this country. One thing I do know – no one is going to hand it to us. We must keep fighting, like Hillary Clinton kept fighting in the face of the naysayers. And maybe next time, the best person, who happens to be a woman, will actually win…

It’s not personal, it’s business. Revenues have been decreasing at an escalating rate in all business lines. Major losses in the main subsidiary have been financed through intercompany borrowings. Despite the financial hemorrhage, management has been taking salary increases. A bankruptcy filing could be imminent. Is this Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers? No, this is the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Some may think that NOW is an organization which has become obsolete, that women’s advocacy can move forward without this remnant of the second-wave of feminism. But that is missing the point. The success of national women’s organizations such as NOW is as important to women’s advocacy as it was for Wall Street to have Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley find their financial footing.

Last weekend, a major coup d’etat occurred at NOW’s election conference in Indianapolis.

One attendee described the conference as “the nastiest election conference I’ve ever attended.” Another added: “People I had worked with for years refused to greet me or even recognize me in the hallways of the hotel.” When all was said and done, after 417 delegate votes had been cast and counted, the underdog slate headed by Terry O’Neill had taken over the reigns of NOW by a mere eight votes. This despite NOW’s established leadership endorsing, actively supporting, and utilizing hardball tactics (including the disqualification of LA Chapter delegates) in support of their hand-picked slate of candidates.

What went down in Indy? Ahead of the election conference itself, a group of long-time feminists who were upset with the direction that NOW had taken decided to organize a resistance. One such feminist, Dr. Lynette Long, pulled NOW’s old tax returns. Dr. Long’s research revealed that NOW’s membership, which reached 500,000 at its zenith, is currently closer to 60,000. Yet, the conference and election itself were mostly a symbolic gesture and the turning of a page. The damage to NOW has been done over decades.

Ask a target audience on the soccer sidelines what they think about NOW. Jenna’s mom says: “Yeah, I joined after college a couple of decades ago, but then totally lost interest.” Katie’s mom says: “Their issues just don’t resonate with me.” Zoe’s dad says: “I’m concerned about my teenage daughter, but there’s no place for me at NOW.” And the polls show the same — just 20% of those surveyed consider themselves “feminists,” and only 17% want their daughters to be.

A whole lot of folks will look back and try to decipher what has caused the downturn at NOW. Yet, the answer is quite simple: the organization stopped representing its constituents. Management became insular and lost touch with the folks, so the folks moved on with their busy lives. Management became like a clique with strict rites of passage including being liberal and pro-choice. As management increasingly focused on issues that divided their members, they didn’t hear the decades-long patter of 440,000 footsteps slowly walking away.

This is not dissimilar to what occurred on Wall Street. There too, management lost track of the basic tenets of customer focus and service. Management instead relied on excessive financial risk through esoteric financial tools which took management further and further away from their customer base. It was only a matter of time.

And just as Wall Street lifts itself from the ashes of ruin, now, so is the women’s movement. While Wall Street rises with the help of TARP, the Next Wave gets underway courtesy of the sexism in the 2008 election. Wall Street got aid from Henry Paulson — the Next Wave got invigoration from David Letterman. The CEO ranks of Wall Street were merged and reshuffled; a new slate of leadership has taken over NOW and a new national women’s group has been formed. Wall Street will be forever changed, as will the women’s movement.

And thank goodness — it’s about time. Because we’ve come a long way, baby, yes, but the 2008 election showed us that sexism is alive and thriving in this country. Women have made great strides, but just beneath the surface, where eyes cannot discern, the roots of sexism and misogyny have been left to grow unabated. The roots flourish in our media, our schools, our workplaces, even our political parties.

And in 2008 we reached a nadir. For Wall Street it was the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. For the women’s movement, it was the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.

As the Next Wave of “feminism” is ushered in, women’s advocacy can learn a thing or two from the lessons of Wall Street. The success of national organizations such as NOW and The New Agenda are just as critical to the way forward for women’s advocacy as it was for the stock market to see Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley shore up their capital base.

That at first may seem counter-intuitive. After all, thankfully, there are thousands of single-issue women’s organizations that have enjoyed tremendous success. Prominent and successful groups champion women’s issues such as fair pay, safety, and representation in business and government. These organizations have enjoyed successes; yet the women of this country have only come so far. Women still make 78 cents on the dollar of what men make; one in four women are still victims of assault at the hands of intimate partners; women’s representation in government has stalled and in business management is moving backwards. It seems that despite the noteworthy work at these issue-specific groups, making progress is still so incredibly hard.

There is a solution — and it’s right here, right now, at this moment. We have, for the first time in decades, the impetus and outline for the Next Wave. And the success of this Next Wave is in everybody’s interest. The underpinnings of the Next Wave is to make our country better, not for ourselves, but for the future. So when we turn to the next generation, we can say: “When you run for political office you will be judged on your merits. When you go to your first and last job you will get a fair shake and a fair wage. When you go to high school, you won’t have to be afraid of bullying and sexual assault. And most importantly, you will have mentors and role models in your life each step of the way.”

This is the message that will start to win back the 440,000 who left us because they felt that their voices were not being heard. Sure, we can look down our noses at the PTA moms and the softball dads who left along the way and insist that we don’t need them — but we do. We need unity. We need messages that will bring back the masses as the Next Wave begins. We need to focus on the issues that unite us, not divide us. We need national organizations that can excite and inspire. We need these national organizations to form alliances and fight for all of us.

And in fact, our collective success depends on it. When mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors come back to us, we will finally have the groundswell of support needed to make this country better for the next generation. And we can do this. We simply need unity and alliances. We need to ensure the success of our national organizations in cultivating the Next Wave. We want the 440,000 and then some all to come back. And once they are back, the rest will take care of itself.

Personally, I’m not one to follow the Hollywood gossip news, my life has enough drama in it so I don’t need to watch it on TV. So, why am I bringing them up in my post? I’m doing it to show there seems to be an ongoing message being sent to women by our court system. In Rhianna’s case– her abuser, Chris Brown, struck a “plea bargain” and managed to get away with beating Rhianna severely about the face and threatening to kill her, and received only five years probation. Of course, anyone who isn’t brain dead could see that justice was not served in this case. But then again…when it comes to women being beaten and threatened by men, is it ever served? I’m beginning to wonder….

On the front page of the Chicago Tribune this morning, the headline of the day…

“HE GETS PROBATION–SHE FEARS THE POLICE”

As the story goes, a woman named Karolin Obrycka was a bartender who had a run in with a Chicago off duty police officer, Anthony Abbate, who was drunk and went after her because she refused to serve him any more liquor. Apparently he took offense at that so he hurled her to the floor and started kicking and punching her. Mind you, Karolin is a petite young woman and Anthony Abbate is a burly guy who looks like he could snap a tree trunk in half without much effort. Just in case you don’t remember, here’s a reminder:

Karolin had her day in court, and as is often the case, the our court system let her down. Karolin no longer works in a bar because she fears that something like this will happen again. She said, “If I ever go back to bartending, the owners would have to be there all the time.” Karolin was also affected by this beating in other ways, she’s afraid of the police because they might be friends of Abbate’s who want to take out retribution on her for having the nerve to press charges against him. She realizes that fearing all police is “not rational” but as she stated, “I know they don’t want to hurt me, but I have fear.”

The judge in this case, Circuit Judge John Flemming, decided that Abbate shouldn’t get time because Obryka didn’t suffer “serious injury”. During the trial, Abbate’s lawyer, Peter Hickey, blamed Karolin for the incident. Of course! It’s all her fault that she was following the law by not serving someone who is already drunk, more liquor! So…Abbate get’s off virtually scott-free and Karolin Obryka gets to live in fear of the police and fear working as a bartender. Circuit Judge John Flemming feels that Abbate has already “been punished enough for his act of stupidity”. Judge Flemming also opined, “He went out and got himself so drunk that he got into this position and ruined his life.” I guess the fact that the woman he beat up is living a care-free life now, eh?

The Chicago Police are just as guilty of adding to the unfair treatment of women who are abused by men…they tried to charge Abbate with only a misdemeanor…that is until the video of the beating came to light.

Moral of the story: It’s ok to beat a woman, just don’t punish the guy for doing it…it’s not his fault he did something “stupid”.

OH, BUT IT DOESN’T END THERE!

Another story in the Chicago Tribune (hidden away on page 10), shows what happens when guys like Abbate are given a pat on the back and sent back to the good ol’ boys club.

NAPERVILLE: “MAN ACCUSED OF BEATING GIRLFRIEND”

For those who aren’t familiar with the Chicago metropolitan area, Naperville is a suburb of Chicago and happens to be the town I live. It seems that a man, Darron Richard who is 38 years old has been charged with “domestic battery” for, as the paper states it…”striking a 42 year old woman”. That’s putting it mildly, believe me. The woman is now in a coma and on a ventilator and has a 50-50 chance of living. If she does live, the chances are that she is so brain damaged, she will not live any type of a quality life. This whole thing came about when she and Richard had an argument and he “beat her with his fist, knocking her to the ground, unconscious.” Afterward, instead of calling an ambulance, he picked her up and put her in bed where she remained unconscious until Sunday when a family member “convinced him to take her to the hospital.” I guess the family member didn’t think it was necessary to call the police or to call an ambulance themselves…because, you know…this was just another one of those “stupid” things that happens in society. No big deal, she’s just another woman who needed to be put in her place.

Is Darron Richard in jail? Nah…bail was set at $750,000. Believe me, if you live in Naperville, that’s not a lot of money to dig up. Oh…and just another note to add to this story. Richard had previously been in prison on a battery charge before being released in April. So, of course! Give him bail on another battery charge!!!

Just a few beatings…no harm, no foul. Except…another headline in the Chicago Tribune this morning:

LIFE IN PRISON FOR BRUTAL KILLING OF WIFE

In the Chicago metropolitan area of Harwood Heights, a man, James Pender, will spend the rest of his life in jail (not the death penalty) after bludgeoning his estranged wife to death with a large hammer on a River Forest sidewalk. Therese Pender, the victim, had filed for divorce and had an order of protection against James Pender (which we all know is nothing but a piece of paper that gives a false sense of security).

James Pender didn’t care about the order of protection, he took a Metra train to River Forest and waited in Keystone Park with a brief-case containing knives, a large hammer, a ski mask and other items. When he saw Therese walking down the sidewalk, he took the hammer and grabbed her arm and “tapped” her on the head. When she screamed, he hit her multiple times in the head. Moments later, she lay on the ground with her head surrounded by “wounded brain tissue”.

The reason that the Judge gave this guy life instead of a death sentence….Pender had “a long history of having narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder.” According to the Assistant Public Defender, Preston Jones, “The death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst, James Pender is not that.” “He is a 57 year old pathetic man….it doesn’t mean you kill him.” Just a pathetic old man….no problem.

The Court System in this country continues to give guys like Chris Brown, Anthony Abbate, and Darron Richard all the breaks they need, until they kill someone…a woman, and then they will be sent away because they aren’t “the worst of the worst”. What is the message that is being sent to women in this country? Answer: Women don’t deserve justice until they are killed…and even then, justice is not guaranteed.

Let me say that there is a vast misperception about why people stay in, or return to, abusive relationships. There is a cycle of violence that begins with the gradual chipping away of the victim’s self-esteem. It does not happen overnight, and does not come on suddenly. If someone threatened someone with physical (emotional, psychological) abuse right off the bat, I think most people would tell the offender to slam off. No, it doesn’t work that way. The person begins slowly, often isolating the victim from friends and family, thus cutting off support resources from them, and it goes downhill from there, with a LOT of belittling, demeaning, emotional/psychological abuse layer upon layer. The physical abuse may start small, then ratchet up, but by then, the victim is already so demoralized, has already been told so many times that no one else will want her, that she deserves what she got, brought it on herself, or quite often, if she leaves, will be killed (and a whole heap inbetween those two extremes), thus leaving the victim feeling like she has no choice but to stay. The reality is, many victims who DO leave, are killed. That is the sad reality.

And within the cycle of violence, there is the repentance on the part of the abuser, promising never to do it again, that changes will be made, please don’t leave, and so on. It’s a “hope springs eternal” situation, and not for othing, but the victim usually actually loves the abuser. I know that sounds strange, but like I said, the abuser didn’t start OUT that way, and most likely, doesn’t always ACT that way. There is just enough repentance, or good times, or what have you, to convince the already battered victim to stay. So, it isn’t quite so easy as just walking out the door. It is usually at that very time that the victim is most at risk.

Rihanna at least has the MEANS to be on her own, which is a major plus for her. Most victims don’t have that option, another reason why they stay. They have been made financially dependent on the abuser.

So, when people “blame the victim,” saying Rihanna was an idiot for not leaving, they don’t understand that it is a FAR more complex situation than that.

And now to the big trial. You saw the video above. You have seen the photos of Rihanna. Well, there wasn’t a trial. There was a plea deal struck. Brown admitted he was guilty. Want to know what his sentence was? He got five years of probation, 180 days of community service (in VA), and has to go to a domestic violence program for a year. Oh, and there is a “stay away” order, that actually goes both ways, the judge was quick to point out. And get this – a number of articles talk about how hard this is going to be on BROWN. WOW. Talk about missing the point…

Let’s recoup: Brown beat the SHIT out of Rihanna, threatened to kill her, in front of a third person, and he will spend NOT ONE DAY in jail. Not one day. Not one damn day for beating the pure-t shit out of someone who was basically captive (she was in a car).

I have to say, I am getting pretty sick of writing about these men getting away with battering women, threatening them with death, and getting light sentences, or raping minors and getting away with a slap on the wrist. It sounds a message that is loud and clear, one we saw on the airwaves and in the press throughout the course of the past “election”: in the USA, women (and girls) are still less than, not as important as, and far more expendable than, men. As long as these men, celebrities or not, are allowed to beat women senseless, rape little girls, and get little more than slaps on the wrist as “punishment,” it is a tool to keep ALL women “in line.” That is to say when men are allowed to batter women with little comeuppance, it is a lesson to ALL women (and girls) that they better mind their p’s and q’s. And you better believe women pay attention to this. When approximately ONE THIRD of women in this country experience some form of abuse, you better freakin’ believe the other two thirds get the message – loud and clear. The same goes for girls.

Frankly, this is unacceptable. We cannot go around talking about the importance of human rights and women’s rights in other countries when so many women in THIS country are having their rights trampled on regularly, by their batterers, and by the courts. That Chris Brown could plea down to serving absolutely NO jail time for what he did, the court system has failed women. And we damn well know it.

And we need to STAND UP to these lax sentences, to the increasingly more accepted violence toward women. We must stand up, for ourselves, for our sisters, for our daughters, nieces, and granddaughters. We deserve better.