Is it really for the victims' families?

Recently I learned of a site that posts names, pictures, life histories, and surviving relatives of those tragically killed in the turmoil in Isreal, and even allows you to send a condolence note to the families. In addition to asking for donations, you can even buy a bracelet with one of the victims' names on it or a "poster of victims". This money (and organization) claims to "provides financial, legal, and emotional assistance to the survivors of terrorism" (and I have no reason to doubt that this is what they actually do).

But the problem is, this isn't necessarily what the families of the victims want. I was directed to this site by one such woman. Her mother was tragically killed by a suicide bomber last June. Neither she nor anyone else in her family has given this organization permission to use her mother's picture, name, life history (and even their own names). They have, in fact, asked that her mother's picture and name be removed . . . to no avail.

If an organization is supposed to be for the benefit of survivors, and a memorial to the victims, shouldn't they take the victims' families' feelings into consideration? Shouldn't they have the right to mourn the tragic loss of their mother in any way that they see fit -- not what someone else sees fit?

When will the exploitation of victims and their families end?

As one family member said:

I don't think the profile is what really bothers me, I already accepted this level of "publicness". What I can't stand is the commercialism. These people are selling shares in grief, and it's not even theirs to sell.

[Note: all links are to general pages, and no identifying information for the particular victim is mentioned in this post, for the sake of her family. And, once again, I would like to send out my deepest sympathies for the tragic loss of your mother to Yahewe and Vevedation (screen names only).]

Some inspiring words

Someone I "know" (from on-line) just saw Ani (DiFranco, for those not in the know :p ) tonight, and brought back with her a bit of a new song -- one that depicts precisely why Ani is one of my idols:

i am shocked to tears by each new vision
of all that my ancestors have done
like, say the women who gave their lives so that i could have one
people we are standing at ground zero of the feminist revolution

behold if you please
a patriarchy on its knees
yes it was an inside job
stoic and sly
one we're supposed to forget, and downplay and deny
but i think the time is nothin' if not nigh
to let the truth out
the coolest "f" word ever deserves a fuckin' shout

i mean look around
we have *this*

So happy I could cry!

Landmark Appeals Court Ruling for Battered Women!

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

In a landmark decision that could affect thousands of immigrant women and children, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday defined domestic abuse as "extreme cruelty" and a cycle of violence that knows no borders.

For the first time since Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, a three-judge panel interpreted key phrasing used in the immigration provisions of the law passed to prevent victims of domestic violence from being held captive in abusive relationships by threats of deportation.

The court defined domestic abuse not only as physical assault, but also as part of a well-documented cycle that includes psychological abuse over time and intermittent periods of remorse and reconciliation.

In doing so, the court stopped the deportation to Mexico of Seattle resident Laura Hernandez ordered by Seattle Immigration Judge Anna Ho and the Board of Immigration of Appeals.

"The 9th Circuit just smacked the INS hard," said Lisa Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center in Seattle, a non-profit legal organization for women that represented Hernandez in her appeal.

From the Ninth Circuit decision in Hernandez v. Ashcroft:

Abuse within intimate relationships often follows a pattern known as the cycle of violence, "which consists of a tension building phase, followed by acute battering of the victim, and finally by a contrite phase where the batterer's use of promises and gifts increases the battered woman's hope that violence has occurred for thelast time."...

The literature also emphasizes that, although a relationship may appear to be predominantly tranquil and punctuated only infrequently by episodes of violence, "abusive behavior does not occur as a series of discrete events," but rather pervades the entire relationship...The effects of psychological abuse, coercive behavior, and the ensuing dynamics of power and control mean that "the pattern of violence and abuse can be viewed as a single and continuing entity"...Thus, the battered woman's fear, vigilance or perception that she has few options may persist...even when the abusive partner appears to be peaceful and calm."...The psychological role of kindness is also significant...since in combination with the batterer's physical dominance, such kindness often creates an intense emotional dependence by the battered woman on the batterer...

"Congress clearly intended extreme cruelty to indicate nonphysical aspects of domestic violence. Defining extreme cruelty in the context of domestic violence to include acts that "may not initially appear violent but that are part of an overall pattern of violence" is a reasonable construction of the statutory text at hand. This interpretation is congruent with Congress's goal of protecting battered immigrant women and recognition of past governmental insensitivity regarding domestic violence...

Canadian Union threatening boycott for sexist ad campaign

We've all probably heard about boycotts against companies that produce sexist ad campaigns. Some of them are even quite successful (think back to the early 90s when Sprite was using waif models, such as Kate Moss -- and thanks to the boycott, they switched their ad campaign to the later, funnier one making fun of celebraties endorsing products). But, when you think of these boycotts, who do you think of as promoting, even starting, them? Well, feminists, of course.

So, when a labor union of maintenance and trade workers in health care, as well as construction workers and heavy equipment operators threatens a boycott of a company due to a sexist ad campaign, well, ya gotta figure it's pretty sexist. And sure enough, it is.

Anger over a national billboard campaign has prompted the Manitoba Federation of Labour to call for a boycott of Terra Footwear, which sells protective boots.

The company's billboard ads depict women in lingerie in suggestive positions while wearing workboots.

The Web site of Terra Footwear also features a streaming video commercial for the boots featuring topless dancers.

Michael Alberg with the Operating Engineers of Manitoba, which represents maintenance and trade workers in health care, as well as construction workers and heavy equipment operators, says the ad campaign is offensive and sexually discriminatory.

His union has lodged a complaint with Terra Footwear.

"In the e-mail, it says we expect them to pull the ads immediately," he said.

"If they refuse to do that, we would be looking at a boycott not only locally, but nationally and perhaps North American-wide through the different labour congresses," said Alberg.

Alberg's union has the backing of the Manitoba Federation of Labour, which has more than 95,000 members.

The head of the federation, Robert Hilliard, says it may ask the Canadian Labour Congress to join in the boycott.

"I kind of thought that most companies would be a little more sensitive for exploiting women in that way to market construction boots, of all things," said Hilliard.

To see one of the billboard ads, go to the article. To see the video commercial, go here.

I always knew I liked unions. :D

Edited to add: It looks like the web commercial has been taken down, possibly by the server. If, however, it's a bandwidth issue or something and comes back up, it should be noted that this commercial contains extreme amounts of gratuitous nudity. I should have made that disclaimer from the beginning -- sorry about that.

Just popping in...

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. In addition to doing massive amounts of painting lately, I've been working a lot of overtime at work and working on a website for a friend. So, I haven't had much time to spend here. But I'll be back in a few weeks with a couple of "series" I have in mind -- which should be illuminating and interesting for everyone (well, at least to me :p ).

But, I did want to pop in and post briefly about a few things of interest that have been going on lately.

• More good news for gays and lesbians in Canada. One day after the House of Commons narrowly defeated an opposition motion to support a heterosexual definition of marriage, it voted 141 - 110 in favor of adding "sexuality to a law which bans hatred towards minorities in speech, publications, on radio and television."
  

  Gays and lesbians have been covered for many years in the physical violence provisions of a separate law in the criminal code, but had not been added to the promotion of hate law.
  
  "The message that is sent out by the failure to include gay and lesbian people in hate propaganda legislation is that our lives aren't as valuable," [New Democrat Svend] Robinson said during debate on the bill.
  
  "If we're going to say no to the promotion of hatred and violence based on religion, color, race and ethnic origin, surely we should say that gay bashing and promotion of hatred and violence against gay and lesbian people is just as unacceptable."

• Even better news from Nigeria. Amina Lawal's conviction was overturned by an Islamic appeals court in northern Nigeria.
  

  Ms Lawal, 32, was sentenced to be stoned to death under Sharia law in March 2002 after she gave birth to a child outside marriage. Twelve mainly Islamic states in northern Nigeria have adopted Sharia, though the Nigerian government had argued for Ms Lawal's release. In an hour-long ruling, the judges in black robes and white turbans said Ms Lawal was not caught in the act, and was not given enough time to understand the charges against her. They also complained that only one judge was present at her initial conviction, instead of the three required under Islamic law.
  
  Reading the verdict, judge Ibrahim Mai-Unguwa said the court accepted Ms Lawal's appeal, and told her she was free to go.
  

• I'm sitting in a crack house. It's a nice house: a clean, cozy, middle class home. I've come to ask the proprietor a few questions, hoping to gain some insight into the mind of a practitioner of the world's second oldest profession.

  
  The above an introduction to a very interesting interview with a crack dealer.
  
  
• The national convention of College Republicans has caused quite a stir by selling racist and homophobic t-shirts.
  

  One T-shirt has a photo of Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell with the line "Mr. (?) and Mrs. (?) Rosie O'Donnell." Another says "No Muslims No Terrorism." A third has a photo of black filmmaker Spike Lee and the message "Bring back the blacklist." A fourth says "The Clinton Legacy" and shows the World Trade Center after one of the 9-11 terrorist attack.
  

• Hillary Clinton's biography Living History has been published in China and has already become the most popular foreign political memoir in Chinese history, with 200,000 copies sold in just over a month, according to government-owned publisher Yilin Press. The problem? The Chinese edition omits any passage deemed offensive to China.
  

  The passages in "Living History" about the 19 years that the dissident Harry Wu spent as a political prisoner disappear in the officially licensed Yilin Press translation, which has sold more than 200,000 copies in just a month. Gone too, in violation of Senator Clinton's book contract, is her sympathy for the students in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and her account of Tibetan activists banned from a United Nations conference on women near Beijing in 1995.
  

  According to Ross Terrill of the New York Times:
  

  Here is the nub of the issue: foreign opinion, even that of the Clintons, is less important to Beijing than keeping its grip over the minds of its citizens. China's post-Mao openness to the world, an economic strategy, remains contradicted by its fear of a free flow of non-economic information reaching the ears and eyes of the people. Citizens of the People's Republic are trusted with their money but not their minds.

Suffragists vs. Suffragettes

In a recent entry from Ampersand, there's been a bit of debate over whether the term should be suffragist or suffragette.

As I stated in the comments section:

Actually, there is no right or wrong way to use the term -- or rather, the preferred term would depend on who you were talking to.

The term Suffragette was coined by the London newspaper, the Daily News in 1906 -- scathingly they referred to the women as not real suffragists. By adding the "ette" diminuitive, it tried to ridicule the women as something small, almost like an imitation of the real thing such as one would compare a kitchenette to a real kitchen.

After that, many British suffragists, and a few American ones, adopted the term as a way to differentiate themselves from the staid constitutionalists who sought political equality through negotiation and lobbying. Most American suffragists, however, continued to use the term suffragist, choosing to not reclaim the insulting term.

At some point, suffragist came to mean someone who was fighting for the vote for women in a "peaceful" way, while the radicals (or militants), who would break windows, set fires, and go to jail were known as suffragettes.

After writing that, I did a little search, and I ran across an interesting website -- Britain 1906 - 1918 Contrast, Contradiction, and Change. As you have probably already figured out, even before clicking on the link, it's all about movements in England. Nonetheless, there are certainly enough similarities between the British Women's Suffrage movement and the American Women's Suffrage Movement to get an idea of what was going on. There are some great documents included on this site -- cartoons, photographs, correspondance, and articles. On the particular topic of Suffragists vs. Suffragettes, you can see, perhaps more clearly, the lines drawn between them.

It's Jocelyn Elders, all over again

What could be so offensive that it would cause newspapers to pull a Doonesbury strip? Saying something derogatory about the president? Taking an "un-patriotic" stance? No, no, of course not -- that only happens to those Black cartoonists. For Doonesbury to be pulled, it has to be something really offensive. Like using the word masturbation.

Characters in Sunday's strip discuss a recent study by Australian scientists who found that men who masturbate often in their 20s are 30 percent less likely to get prostate cancer later.

Some U.S. newspapers have chosen to run a substitute offered by Kansas City-based Universal Press Syndicate.

"We felt it was something our readers would not like, and we did not have a good reason for running it," said Diane Bacha, assistant managing editor for features and entertainment at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Bacha posted a query about the comic on an industry e-mail message board and received responses from 34 newspapers. Nineteen said they would not run the strip, 12 said they planned to and three did not know what they would do.

I believe the controversial strip is due to appear in some newspapers on September 22.