We just heard about blogs being attacked and/or forced to shut down because they are accused of spam.

Last week our e-mail list was attacked. We’d been sending out a weekly newsletter to hundreds of subscribers here and abroad for years. Then suddenly this week, our ISP, comcast, shut down our outgoing mail.

No explaination, no response until we contacted our Secretary of State and sent comcast a copy.

First they tried to say it was our mail program, Eudora, that was at fault, then after more prodding they admitted that we had been charged by some unidentified people of “sending spam”.

Our newsletter for gendergappers.org was started for the many who only have e-mail and have no or limited access to the Web.  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Parts one, two and three.

The highlight of the session “Women Confront Globalization” was the screening of a rough cut of the film Poto Mitan - Haitian Women, Pillars of the World Economy, directed by Renee Bergan (she is also the founder of Renegade Pictures) and she co-presented it with anthropologist Mark Schuller of UC Santa Barbara, co-director of the film.

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“because her client doesn’t like her.”
A grand jury in Schleicher County is hearing evidence regarding adult members — and possible further sexual misconduct charges against Warren Jeffs — of the YFZ “Ranch.” Cult mouthpiece “Thug Willie” Jessop told reporters today the lawyer for a 16-year-old girl “spiritually sealed” to an older man in the FLDS, a Dallas attorney working pro bono, was mislaying the blame for her client’s intransigence. The lawyer sought a restraining order to keep Jessop away from the minor, alleging he intimidated her. The girl has avoided service of a subpoena to appear before the Schleicher County grand jury.  Read more 

Woohoo!! My DVD arrived today!

Persepolis is the animated film by Marjane Satrapi, relating her coming of age in Iran, starting before the fall of the Shah regime to today.

The film is divided into several segments:  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Ok, Correntians, this is one of these long and substantial posts of mine where one of you shows up in the comments and summarizes the whole thing in 2 lines… making me look like a blabbering fool!

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these posts on reports - most of the time by IRIN - on the deplorable conditions under which women and girls live in many parts of the world. However, the articles have been piling up in my Newsreader, so, it’s time for one. So here we go:  Read more 

A 16-year-old girl has asked to have her pro-bono lawyer removed from her case after she was the only minor child not returned to the FLDS last month. The lawyer says FLDS Spokesman and “enforcer” Willie Jessop has intimidated her client. The nastiness in the name of God goes on forever.

(Hat tip to the invaluable Echidne.)

A Lincoln, Nebraska judge handed down an order that the 21-year-old university student whose experience included being given drugs and having sex against her will could not call what happened to her rape, describe herself as a victim, refer to the man who drugged and had sex with her against her will as a rapist, or refer to the incident as a sexual assault.

This judge is not alone, and rulings like this are a trend in the nation’s courtrooms.

Still, not all judges or law professors agree with the order:  Read more 

From Riverdaughter, the quintessence of necessary advice:
Turn off the media. Watch only CSPAN. Be careful what you read. If it feels like guilt, it’s probably David Axelrod upping the Haka. We have to stick together and not let anyone or anything get under our skin. Remember, this is the guy who wouldn’t campaign in Kentucky because he thought the Applacahian vote wasn’t worth his time of day. This is the guy who took delegates away from his opponent in order to “win”. This is the guy whose enablers have been screaming for Clinton to quit since Iowa. And most of all, this is the guy who LOST CA, NJ, NY, MA, PA, OH, TX, FL and MI. He LOST them. No other Democratic nominee has ever been allowed to fail so spectacularly. We do not reward failure. We do not reward sexism. We do not reward cheating. We do not reward disrespect.
Turn off the media. Turn off Claire McCaskill. Turn off Barack Obama.

She’s absolutely right.
The time has come to stand up for principles.
The time has come to recognize what Democrats are about.
The time has come to stop pretending otherwise.
The time has come to say, “We don’t want the next W.”
The time has come to say, “We’re not buying the media hype.”
The time has come to say, “We’re not going to take this anymore.”
The time has come to say, “We saw what you did and we know who you are,  Read more 

I would be interested to know if anyone else has been contacted by the media looking for this information. I got a call this AM from a features reporter, Sam Hemmingway, at the Burlington Free Press [VT]. He called me after finding that I had been contributing to Senator Clinton’s campaign regularly and for some time.

His main question was: “Do you regret spending all that money on a losing candidate?”

I answered that it was the DNC and not the voters that say she lost and in any event, I did not regret supporting her. I went on to say that the election was illegal because —  Read more 

Texas authorities collected Warren Jeffs’ DNA as part of the State’s investigation into four child rapes the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints celebrated as “spiritual marriages” while Jeffs, convicted of conspiracy to commit rape in a separate incident, stayed at the Yearning For Zion ranch near Eldorado . The female children were not born in Texas but were residents of the state when the “spiritual marriages” — recognized by the church but not legal in Texas — took place.

According to the CNN story, The criminal investigation moved to the forefront Friday as a Texas judge refused to sign an order returning to their homes more than 300 children seized last month from the polygamist sect’s ranch. Judge Barbara Walther said she wanted all the mothers involved to sign the order first.

Jeffs is believed to have “committed the felony offense of sexual assault of a child,” the affidavit says. One of the 12-year-olds, who was believed to have married Jeffs on July 27, 2006, allegedly was sexually assaulted by him that day, the affidavit states.

San Angelo state district court judge Barbara Walther didn’t take the appeals’ court and Texas State Supreme Court decisions returning the children lightly, but she is acting to protect the children at risk  Read more 

As Paul and Bringiton have documented, exit polls and voting results since March have shown that Obama has lost support among a wide array of demographic blocs. Despite the talk of Unity, Obama has done little to reach out to women and working class whites, two core groups of Clinton’s supporters.*  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

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It is clear that Senator Clinton did not imply an assassination attempt against Senator Obama. Listen to the clip.  Read more 

Top blogger, A lister, Obama supporter, and “progressive” Avarosis:

Is Clinton acting out because Obama told her no to VP?

… Hillary’s bizarre behavior of the past couple of days … [may be] be due to Obama having told Hillary directly (according to the latest rumor)* that she won’t be his VP. As I’ve written repeatedly, there’s a certain illogic to Hillary’s actions of late, and something is missing from the story - something that would explain what she’s doing and why. An irrational, emotional response to not getting the vice presidency is certainly one theory that explains her childish and destructive behavior. It’s a temper tantrum.

Avarosis…. Avarosis. Wasn’t he the blogger who had a hard time making it on $75K?  Read more 

A thought experiment:

Men call women “sweetie” at their own risk.

Try it at work if you doubt my advice. Step to your female supervisor and ask about a raise or maybe a promotion. No matter what her answer, respond with, “Thanks, sweetie.”

After returning from a talk with the human resources officer, try it again, only this time with a female co-worker. Step to your colleague and ask her a question about the company vacation policy.

No matter what her response, smile and say, “Thanks, sweetie.”

Exactly. How hard is this to understand?  Read more 

Two years ago coverage of these events invoked images of incest and paternalistic fundamentalism. Now the NYT provides coverage of the charms a “purity ball” offers not just the young women pledging to retain their virginity until their wedding night, but (surprise, surprise, surprise!!) the fathers who bring them to these events (or in some cases the stepfathers and fathers-in-law to-be). I still find the idea vaguely creepy and outright anti-woman.

In the wake of the success the FLDS is having with its pushback against the State of Texas’ raid on the Eldorado cult compound, “Yearning for Zion Ranch” (now even usually sensible and often-progressive bloggers think the care of the children is costing the state too much money!), the not-vaguely religious overtone of this article, similar to the tone of the article the invaluable Digby originally posted upon in 2006, makes me ill.

Infantilization is not liberation, people.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a black man, a white woman, or an entire generation you’re infantilizing, it’s still a putdown and it’s still wrong. Of course, it goes hand-in-hand with today’s political  Read more 

On the morning of the West Virginia primary, Washington Post Associate Editor Kevin Merida published a blockbuster story about ugly racial incidents experienced by Obama campaign workers that continues to fuel debate.

Media pundits are now using it to prove that “Clinton is willing to ride these biases to the White House.”  Read more 

Sen. Obama has finally announced that Obama supporters should be nice to Clinton supporters:
“At the fundraiser, he told a boisterous crowd of about 300 supporters that a win in November would require a unified Democratic Party, adding: “That means all of you have to be nice to Clinton supporters.”“(WaPo, The Trail, The Green Zone’s Matt Mosk.)

There were no apologies, or new policies for women, the older voters, Latinos, Appalachians or lunch bucket Democrats, or any other group of Hillary supporters.

Can we conclude from this that it has been policy for Mr. Obama to NOT rein in his supporters and bloggers previously? Can we conclude that even with his own very optimistic figures, Mr. Obama realizes he needs some if not all of the Clinton 17 MILLION VOTES?  Read more 

So, I guess I have to do this one in a blog post, seeing as the hubby in question has a wife who reads, filters, and discards emails in *his* box she doesn’t want him to read. But for his sake, because he’s a sweet and dear man who deserves to know it’s (for once) Not his Fault:

Goodbye, Dear Friend. It was nice knowing you. Thank you for being there for me when it mattered, so long ago. You are a Good Man, perhaps the greatest of str8 men I’ve ever known when it comes to your kids and compassion, and I love you in the way I love everyone like you: decent, hardworking, honest person that you are and always will be. But it’s her choice, and her right. And one I don’t want to be a part of, not in any sense. She threw down the gauntlet, and I refused the challenge. I wish you both, and your kids, the best.

It’ll all work out well for you all, I’m sure, and in time she’ll see: I’m not and never was a threat.

I’ll use a term I don’t like in the way I don’t like “sheeple,” but which every once in a while I fail to think of a better substitute for the sentiment. Breeder Games are so Boring. Really, they’re boring in the way “white trash” or “ghetto” games are dull to those with wealth, education and opportunity. Sad, sick, unhealthy people trapped in sad, sick, unhealthy and unprofitable relationships are to be pitied. And so I do. But I also don’t include them in my life, not as counselor, nor as friend, unless (brually speaking) I’m paid. I’m an Adult, for better or worse, and my definition of that includes an intolerance for what I perceive to be childish games. Get over yourself, get over projection and obession with other people who aren’t the cause of your problems. Bottom line to the Breeder female: someone like me, well, I’m not even thinking about men like your husband. I could produce 0000 blog pages explaining why, but that fact that you don ’t know this already tells me it would be a waste of my time. So I won’t waste it! He’s yours, honey, always has been, always will be. Perceive and believe that, for the sake of your children. Because now, I won’t be there to help you with them, and believe me, there will come a time when you wish you had all the help you could muster when they hit toddler stage and you have repeated ’Calgon’ moments. Ask my sisters; they’ve enjoyed knowing that having a competent and concerned nonbreeder woman/friend is very, very valuable, at times. Don’t cut us all out of your lives, that’s all I’m Sayin.

Sigh. Str8 marriage games are just so tired. At least we queerfolk have good shoes; they make playing our games a tad more Fabulous, yo?

…and then there’s a tangential “CD encounters the Str8 World at the Bar” moment that I’ll share, Lambert-like, later when I have a chance to come back to this post. But let me say in the blogger way: I’m bitter I just wasted 2/3 a day on some other people’s crap; when I could’ve (and would’ve) just said, “Hey, that’s fine! No problem, call me in ten years!” and been done with it. Instead, the morning/workday is gone, and all I have to show for it is bitterness about educational standards in this country (“your” = “you’re;” “here” = “hear;” etc.) Jeebus Krist we’re fucked. I know because the insanely, foolishly jealous woman I’ve been dealing with all morning is 1) preventing a liberal Brilliant Scientist from focusing on his work in alternative energy with her jealousy about the non-threat that is me and 2) will pass on many of her issues/problems to their kids, thus fucking another generation of taxpayers/schoolfunders/you and me, Faggot/whatever. Bah. At least they are an “integrated” Southern couple, there’s that much progress, I suppose.

Can’t we just all grow up already? Is that really too much to ask? Don’t tell me; I’ve read this blog enough to know: the answer is, sadly, No. Feh, such is life.

For those unpersuaded by or dismissive of the 90 examples in Shakes’s Hillary Sexism Watch, [by Erica’s massive takedown* (via violet),] or our own less systematic efforts, try this from Marie Cocco in WaPo:

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan “Bros before Hos.” The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker

I won’t miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a “big [expletive] whore”…

I won’t miss [nice use of anaphora!] Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

I won’t miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie “Fatal Attraction.”

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a “she-devil” (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she’s “looking like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court” (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it’s mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like “a scolding mother, talking down to a child” (Jack Cafferty on CNN).

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: “White women are a problem, that’s — you know, we all live with that” (William Kristol of Fox News).

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven’t publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Bingo. Double bingo. Triple fucking bingo. Special Bazillion-Dollar Jackpot Happy Hour Triple-Bonus Pony bingo. I do have just one nit to pick with the headline:  Read more 

Since this is Mother’s Day in the US, let’s note that the NGO Save the Children has created an index of the best and worst places to be a mother. Also check out their great multimedia presentation. It’s a great resource. Save the Children based their index on the following criteria:  Read more 

If Obama becomes the party nominee, as seems likely, those of us who are not Obama supporters will get an earful on why we have to vote for him in November. Some of these reasons will be fairly good ones. One of them, IMO, is not. That one is that of course we all have to support Obama, think of the Supreme Court. This one is often aimed at those of us who are women with the implied threat that if we don’t fall in line and be good girls, we’ll lose our rights under Roe v. Wade.

I call bullshit on this argument. I will not have my body held hostage by the Democratic - or any - political party.  Read more 

I often wonder if it is my strict fundamentalist upbringing that allows me more skepticism when someone is trying to sell me swampland in Florida.

I have seen this comment before, I started this campaign pro-Hillary, I loved her since the Clinton era.

I knew that the attacks on her were on her because she was a moderate female. It is a rare thing to have a moderate “equalist” woman anywhere. The top 50 pundits had 7 women only one was a feminist and she was also a moderate.

I am tired of obama supporters, really tired of them.

I will not be blogging as much as I start back to the grind next week.  Read more