Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

In lieu of deleting this blog and starting over, I’m extending my hiatus (well, sort of) to work out some changes. In the meantime, entries will be random and most likely unrelated to anything of major importance.

Like this: How all superhero comics should be. Yes, I know it’s violent and wrong (but funny), but I am so damn tired of the “kidnap the girl to get at the hero” trope.

Benazir Bhutto killed

This is bad.

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s opposition leader and one of the country’s best known politicians, was assassinated Thursday in a stunning suicide attack that also killed at least 20 others at a rally.

The death of the charismatic former prime minister threw the campaign for the Jan. 8 parliamentary election into chaos and stirred fears of mass protests across Pakistan, a key ally for the West in the war against terrorism.

A wave of violence had already begun by Thursday night. In anger and grief, protesters rioted in the southern port city of Karachi, firing shots at police, setting tires and cars on fire and burning a gas station. One person was killed north of Karachi in the violent aftermath of the assassination.

Violence also erupted in other cities in Pakistan. [Source]

You know what’s worse? A good half of the articles I’ve seen are about how Bhutto’s assassination will affect the U.S. I’m not even going to start.

I don’t know much about Benazir Bhutto, but I hope that Pakistan can recover from her murder and that her family and friends have the support they need right now.

Judging a nation

There’s a saying, that you can judge a nation by how it treats the least of its citizens; if we’re going by that rule of thumb, well, the U.S. certainly doesn’t smell like roses right now.

Tonight, the New Orleans city council voted to raze four public housing projects. When the people who had lived in that housing prior to Hurricane Katrina and who have spent the last several months trying to return protested the decision, police sprayed them with pepper spray, tear gas, and other chemicals, and fired Tasers (surprised? you shouldn’t be) into the crowd.

I wish I could talk about New Orleans, but there’s absolutely nothing I could say that could break it down better than kactus does, so go read her post instead.

It’s not just New Orleans. Small town folks are going to have their land stolen by the government to build an illegal, environment-destroying wall. [Source]

The Lakota people have been so mistreated by the government (they have the lowest life expectancy of any group in the U.S. at about 45-50 years; the median income on the Pine Ridge reservation is $2600-$3500 A YEAR and unemployment is at over 80%; infant mortality is 300% higher than U.S. average and teen suicides at 150% higher, just to name a few issues [Source]) that they have chosen to break their treaties with the U.S. — treaties that the U.S. has never honored — and re-declare themselves a sovereign nation. [Source]

BIA official James Fletcher has petitioned to close a migrant camp on the Torres Martinez Indian Reservation in California, stating that the conditions are unfit to live in; no solution for how the migrants, who make far less than the federal poverty line, are going to be able to move somewhere appropriate has been given. [Source]

And that’s just today. If you check yesterday’s news, apparently uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years than insured cancer patients, because they cannot get the treatment they need in time for it to do any good. Go back a week or two, and read about how families with two working parents have to go on assistance because they can’t afford to live otherwise. Go back a few months, and there was a story about how African Americans are more likely to die of health problems related to stress. Go a few more months and look up how poor people of color were disproportionately screwed over by the subprime mortgage collapse. Go back a year or two and see comparisons between poor, inner city and rural schools and suburban, wealthy schools — and look to see how those gaps have only grown. Look up the names Megan Williams, Steve Salinas, Marlo and Romel Custodio, Shaquanda Cotton, Cassandra Hernandez, Ashley X, etc. Conversely, look up Teresa Carr Deni. Compare the government response to Hurricane Katrina to the response to the SoCal firestorms; hell, compare the government response to the firestorms in Malibu versus on the local Indian reservations.

Now ask yourself, how does the U.S. treat those of its citizens it deems worthless? Does the U.S. care?

If you answered “Crappy, and no,” then you get an A+. And yet we let the people directly responsible for these problems — the U.S. government and the wealthy corporations and lobbyists who have it in their collective pockets — turn us all against each other. Divide and conquer. We should be working together to build ourselves up, not tearing each other down (and I don’t mean useful criticisms, which help to build more than going along does; I mean people who are going out and passing laws against migrants, homosexuals, people wearing baggy pants, etc. because Ford laid them off and transferred jobs to another country)

And if you’re feeling really disillusioned now, take a look at how the U.S. is using U.S.-based companies (instead of qualified, cheaper Iraqi and Afghan companies), U.S. contractors and slave labor (as in actual forced labor) from Southeast Asia and South America to “rebuild” Iraq and Afghanistan — directly contributing/causing to the poverty that is causing so much violence in both places.

Now, how are we going to be judged by future generations?

Sorry, I know that I’m preaching to the choir for most folks who read here. But I needed to vent, after today’s news.

Help Pretty Bird Woman House

I’ve spotted this around a blogosphere a bit, and it should be passed on, so … Pretty Bird Woman House is a women’s shelter on the Standing Rock Reservation, one of the Lakota reservations in South Dakota. It was created and opened two years ago by Jackie Brown Otter and named for her sister, who was brutally raped and murdered.

Unfortunately, a recent string of break-ins through the exterior walls have made their current house unsafe to live in, and the residents were forced to leave. PBWH is trying to purchase a new house to use as a shelter. They are fundraising for that. They need winter clothes for women or children, towels and washcloths, sheets, toothbrushes and toothpaste, shampoo, and other supplies. They also need new underwear, bras and sweat suits for women who are sexually assaulted, since the hospital often keeps their clothing as evidence; and are requesting pamphlets from from www.tsnelson.com on coping with sexual assault ($2.50 each).

If you would like to contribute, either monetarily or with supplies, you can do so through their website. Their site also has more information on needed items and how to help, and photos of the interior of the house they are bidding on. Currently, donations are at $51,367 toward the house; they need $70,000.

Checks can be sent to:
Pretty Bird Woman House
P.O. Box 596
McLaughlin, SD 57642

Packages can be sent to:
Pretty Bird Woman House
302 Sale Barn Rd.
McLaughlin, SD 57642

Semi-hiatus

Yes, again. Sorry.

I have been working on the same entry for about three weeks now. I have been sick for over a week. I have finals. And one of the postcards on PostSecret this week sent me into a two-hour sobbing fit yesterday and now all I feel like doing is watching holiday specials on TV. I’m kind of a mess lately and need to just take a break from the world, which is not going to happen. And now I’m whining, so I’ll spare you all.

I’m going to be be on semi-hiatus — if I post, I post, if not, I’ll see you — until after Christmas. Have a safe and happy holiday if you celebrate it, and a safe and happy Tuesday if not.

P.S. Got one submission for the solidarity mini-carnival. Calling it off indefinitely/possibly permanently. Will see how things look on the other side of this and decide then.

The Parable of the Good Muslim

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead.

And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee.

— The Parable of the Good Samaritan, Luke 20:25-37

There is nothing that makes me angry quite as fast as the “War on Christmas” baloney spewed by Bill O’Reilly, particularly because I am surrounded by a city full of people who talk, quite seriously, about how they are denied their Christian rights to celebrate the birth of Jesus, all because someone making minimum wage at Wal-Mart followed company policy and wished them “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I have seen customers get in people’s faces about it (real Christian behavior there, huh?). And yet I look out my window at night and see Christmas lights on all the houses. There have been Christmas concerts at the local colleges. Christmas carols are playing in the mall.

Let me tell you something. The “War on Christmas” is bullshit. It’s not a defense of the right to say Merry Christmas. No one gives a shit if you wish them a Merry Christmas; in fact, many people appreciate it, even if they aren’t Christian, and will wish you a Merry Christmas right back (or the appropriate winter holiday of their religion). No one is beating you up for saying Merry Christmas; no one is making you wear a yellow cross sewn onto your clothes; no one is rounding you up and putting you in a prison camp; no one is giving you weird looks in the airport; no one is telling you that you killed their religious figure. No one is denied the right to celebrate the birth of Christ (except maybe the poor Wal-Mart employees you’re chewing out for wishing “Happy Holidays,” who aren’t making enough to buy presents for her kids or cook a big dinner for his family).

So getting in people’s faces about it? Is really, really uncool and un-Christian.

But not as un-Christian as beating up some Jewish kids celebrating Chanukah and telling them that they killed Jesus. (Where did that whole “Jews killed Jesus” thing come from anyway? I’m pretty sure it was the Romans who nailed Him to the cross, and I’m also pretty sure it was 2000 years ago and beating people up over it now isn’t going to bring Him back. Also, violence is a sin. Stop it.)

Cops are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime, though no bias charges have been filed.

The three friends who suffered multiple bruises and cuts allegedly at the hands of Jirovec and his group have no doubts the attack was religiously motivated.

“They said, ‘You dirty Jews, you killed Jesus on Chanukah, you should all die,’” said Maria Parsheva, 23, a Baruch College student.

Parsheva said she and her boyfriend, Walter Adler, also 23, are half-Jewish and were celebrating Chanukah at a Manhattan bar with Angelica Krischanovich, 21, and Nick Rosenbaum.

They carried a menorah and dreidels as they boarded the Qtrain at Canal St. bound for Brooklyn, Parsheva said.

On the train, they said Jirovec, Babajko and their friends loudly yelled “Merry Christmas” - and became infuriated when Krischanovich responded, “Happy Chanukah.”

“[One woman said,] ‘You can’t say that, we are Catholic,’” said Krischanovich, a Hunter College student who is not Jewish. “That’s when two guys stood up and showed us their Jesus tattoos,” she said. “They started yelling at us and telling us we have no savior.” [Full story]

The good news, though, is that they did have a “savior” in the more mundane sense of the word — a man stepped in to defend them, giving them time to pull the emergency brake and get police help.

The Good Samaritan who tried to stop the Christmas-versus-Chanukah subway beating has two black eyes and a sore nose - but no regrets.

“I did what I thought was right,” said Hassan Askari, 20. “I did the best that I could to help.”

Askari, a Bangladeshi Muslim studying at Berkeley College in Manhattan, was on a Q train headed to Brooklyn late Friday when he came to the aid of young women confronted by a group of 10 thugs.

Fearful for the women’s safety, he pushed one of the men away - and was then pounced on by the group, he said.

“They grabbed me and punched and beat me up,” Askari said. [Full story]

Of course, their attackers are saying that, despite the dreidels, menorahs and Happy Chanukah wishes, they did not know that the people they were attacking were Jewish. One of the attackers even claims his mother is Jewish, so it can’t have been a hate crime. Right.

So who do you think are the “good neighbors”? The Christians who use an invented “War on Christmas” as an excuse to attack those of other religions? Or the ones who show acceptance and mercy? And shouldn’t we all “go and do in like manner” instead of arguing over who gets to have a happy holiday season?

The “What the Hell is Wrong With People!?” Roundup

1. Alexis Goggins, 7-years-old, took six bullets for after her mother’s enraged ex-boyfriend kidnapped them both and tried to kill her mother. She was trying to protect her mom. [Source 1; Source 2]

2. An Aboriginal Australian girl, 10-years-old, was gang-raped by nine young (presumably white, since their race is not given) men. The judge gave out sentences including probation (without a recorded conviction) to the juvenile offenders and suspended sentences for three adult men, including a previous sex offender. Why? The girl might have agreed to sex, and the men were from “prominent families.” [Source 1; Source 2]

Please click the links for more information. Here’s contact information for the second case, if you’re outraged (and if you’re not outraged over both of those cases, you’re a pathetic excuse for a human being):

Judges Chambers
District Court
PO Box 7515
Cairns Q 4870
AUSTRALIA

DX 41349
CAIRNS

Telephone : 07 4039 8909
Facsimile : 07 4039 8006
E-mail: associate.bradleyjdc@courts.qld.gov.au

More required watching, and required reading

If you didn’t know already, Sudy is amazing:

And go read this post by BFP while you’re at it, for an example of why “mainstream” feminism, the “great equalizer,” just isn’t cutting it when it comes to helping all women.

Required watching

I will someday post something of substance, when I’m not so tired.

Until then, here are a couple of videos to watch c/o Women of Color Blog and Intercontinental Cry.

Poor people in New Orleans are fighting to return to their homes; HANO is planning to demolish New Orleans public housing for “redevelopment” (i.e., tourism).

Defenders of the Black Hills are “a group of volunteers, without racial or tribal boundaries, whose mission is to ensure that all of the provisions of the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868 are upheld by the federal government of the United States.”

Actually, go check out all of the videos at Intercontinental Cry when you have time.

To those who would condemn the Jena Six

To those of you who say that a sneaker is a weapon, that charging teenagers with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder for a fistfight is the right response, who are just so outraged on the behalf of Justin Barker. I have a question for you.

Will you demand assault charges for the attackers of Samira Ramirez? Where is your outrage on her behalf?

Or do you reserve your anger and hatred of violence for young, black offenders?