unusualmusic_lj_archive

It takes a community to sustain a small farm


from willowSteelworkers Plan Job Creation via Worker Coops:US Steelworkers to Experiment with Factory Ownership, Mondragon Style: 'One Worker, One Vote' YEAH!!!


There's more stuff over at angry black woman if you are interested.

Accompanying articles:Morocco’s desert region a widescreen backdrop for Hollywood films

good things

Evan Low Becomes Country's Youngest Openly Gay Mayor He's also Asian-American. I love his reasons for running.


First Black Lesbian State Legislator Elected in Georgia Yeah!!!!


Cleveland Rocks! Unanimously Passes Transgender Civil Rights Protections


IAAF-'No Discussion Of Caster Semenya's Case At The IAAF Council Meeting', she's done nothing wrong, can keep her medals and money.


Washington DC gay marriage bill passes first reading


NZ defense counsel no longer able to use "gay panic" defense FUCK YES! More countries around the world like this, please!



event promotes transgender strength



bad things

New York State Senate Votes Down Gay Marriage Bill


The Implications of Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Dsteffen at Daily Kos has a very informative and horrifying series of how regulation came to be in some cases. Here it be: How Regulation came to be: 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act

According to an AP article that appeared in our local daily this morning, one of the tools the federal government may use in going after Stewart Parnell and other management of the Peanut Corporation of America is the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. Ironically, the 1938 law has its roots in an incident of corporate hubris and disregard for public safety not unlike the present salmonella-tainted peanut butter case.
"A spoonful of sugar," Julie Andrews sang in her role as Mary Poppins, "Helps the medicine go down." In the middle of the Great Depression, the S. E. Massengill Company found something much better than sugar. Or so they thought. The disaster unfolds on the flip.MORE

How Regulation came to be: The Iroquois Theater Fire

Here's a little mental exercise for you. Picture yourself standing at the front door of your house or apartment preparing to go outside. How do you open the door? Chances are you reach out, grasp the door knob or handle, turn it, and pull the door in towards you. Now picture yourself standing at the door of a business, school, or other public building. What's different? If you answered that the door swings out, give yourself a gold star.

If you know what the Iroquois Theater had to do with this difference, give yourself a big gold star.

...And if you don't, you know where to find out. To the flip.MORE

How Regulation came to be: Radium Girls - Part I

The Radium Dial Company employed about one thousand local women to paint dials primarily for their largest customer, the Westclox clock factory in Peru, Illinois that made the ubiquitous "Big Ben" alarm clock. In an era with few occupations open to women, the pay at the dialpainting factories was significantly better that most alternatives -- as much as three times more -- and the factories had little trouble filling positions. The women, many of them girls fresh out of high school, became part of a phenomenon that would become known collectively as the "Radium Girls".

The women working in Ottawa were assured that the luminous material was safe. Their instructor, wife of the plant manager and teacher of the lip-pointing technique, once ate the radium-laced paint from a spatula to demonstrate its innocuousness. The workers were told by their supervisor that the radium would "put a glow in our cheeks," that "the paint would make us goodlooking,"
Claudia Clark, Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform: 1910-1935

And then, the workers bones and teeth started to rot, and some began to die

( Read more... )

Simply put: Nyota Uhura is not a white girl.

While women of color are not necessarily embroiled in an entirely different feminist struggle than white women, they sure as fuck are not in the same place. (emphasis mine)

...

Uhura being single in TOS was not empowering.

She was single because the male leads were all white and as a black woman she was less of a person than them, she was less of a person than a white woman, and the fact that this serendipitously ended up meaning that she didn't have to spend all of her time mooning pathetically after dismissive men does not make that any more acceptable.

She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you're not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous. You are invisible.MORE

[IBARW] Announcement and Ecumenical responses to the Northern Territory (Austrailia) Intervention Basically the Australian gov't is fucking with the Aborigines "for their own good".

Prior to the 2007 Election, the Howard Government began an "intervention" into Indigenous Communities in the Northern Territory. It was supposedly in response to levels of child abuse found in some communities, but used a "one size fits all" approach, and implemented draconian measures such as income "quarantining", getting rid of the permit system in NE Arnhemland, and other bizarre actions that would not be accepted by any other segment of the Australian community without utter uproar and outrage.

...
Anyway: a joint NATSIEC/NATSICA (Indigenous ecumenical bodies originating in the mainstream and evangelical churches respectively) forum earlier this year released this statement. An excerpt:

We believe that Aboriginal Peoples have not been listened to and our stories have
not been heard. The Intervention was implemented without consultation with
Aboriginal Peoples and Government continues to fail to listen with respect and in a
manner which is culturally appropriate.

MORE

For the White Person who wants to be my friend

Pat Parker

The first thing you do is to forget that i'm Black.
Second, you must never forget that i'm Black. MORE


Cages, Vick and Cherry

I remember, as do most people, a couple of years ago when Michael Vick was sentenced to prison. I also remember that a lot of the talk about him revolved around him being a brute (beast/monster/animal/Black) who gained pleasure from torturing dogs. The nail in the coffin for Vick was of course his abuse (murder/torture) of animals that Good people cuddled with, instead of the numerous animals that most of americans are cool with killing for pleasure (meat tasting so good and all). It was, of course, many of my fellow herbivores who went nuts with the racialized and brutal imagery. MORE

International Blog Against Racism Week - Indigenous Small Presses

the Australian Productivity Commission has just released a report on the parallel importation of books. Basically this is a proposal to cut import costs on books, which will probably lower the price of books and almost certainly knock some small presses out of business in Australia. Which would include the small Indigenous presses. I have written to the Government asking that they take the likely impact on small presses into account. Closing small Indigenous presses would mean fewer great books like Sally Morgan’s *My Place* (Fremantle Arts Press, 1987). It would mean losing great books to educate kids about Australia’s indigenous culture like *Aussie Toddlers Can* (Magabala, 2006).* It would mean losing a record of Australian experience, like Yami Lester’s autobiography (IAD Press, 1993). If not for books like *Yami* how would people know about the experiences of Western Desert people exposed to nuclear testing at Maralinga?MORE

Looking for my particular brand of Unicorn

There are talented actors of Persian or Middle Eastern descent in America. They would really like to play roles that do not involve terrorism. Us Middle Eastern people would like to see them play roles that do not involve terrorism. Why? Because media representation of our people fucking matters. It matters to our own perception of ourselves, and it matters to the world's perception of us. The news is bad enough with portraying all Middle Eastern people as some bloc of terrorists, potential terrorists, and oppressed people what need saving by white people. For once, we'd like to see Middle Eastern people living the same stories on the big screen that the white people get to live. And failing that, we would fucking like to see Middle Eastern people playing the roles actually based on our cultures and peoples.MORE

Digby sez:

DASH CAM VIDEO: http://www.cnjonline.com/video/?video...
Tucumcari Police Chief Roger Hatcher has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into last weeks Taser shooting of a teenage girl.

Hatcher said he shot two Taser darts at Kailee Martinez, 14, Thursday while responding to a domestic dispute between the girl and her mother. One hit her in the head and the other struck her back.

Martinez said she was released from Albuquerques University of New Mexico Hospital on Sunday following a two-hour surgery to remove one of the darts from her head.

The surgery left her with 18 staples and six stitches.

"I feel good being home," Martinez said Tuesday. "It is a lot better than being in a hospital."

Martinez mother, Stacy Akin, said she drove her daughter to police headquarters after they fought about a cell phone.

Hatcher said the girl walked away from the police station and when he talked with Akin she had a bloody lip and scratches from a fight.MORE

The she links to a guest post on that cesspool of Repubublican crazies known as the Corner, in which a police tells us what we all know already, they are in authority and we all need to sit down and shut up and don't give them any lip. OR ELSE. The next jackass who tells me anything about protecting and serving will get a pile of expletives. Yes, I am that pissed at the mo'.


To make matters worse...Taser International has just announced an improvement to their abomination of a weapon. It can now fire three rounds without needing to be recharged. YIPPEEE!!!! I am sure we will all sleep better at night with this info. And fuck it, while they are at it, why don't they get some federal dollars for that shit, so that law enforcement can continue to torture people with them? I mean, stimulus and all, right?

After all, there are so many people to torture:In Mobile, Alabama this week, policemen used lethal force on Antonio Love, a deaf and mentally disabled man, who would not come out of the bathroom. Because he had a lethal weapon. An umbrella

And in something I should have blogged but managed to forget, which sucks:In the memory of Robert Mitchell can we please stop calling tasers nonlethal force?


Annndddd: Assault on Black Women - Tasered While Black After her toddler Murdered

Immigrants, of course tend to get some of the worst of police violence directed towards them:Homeland Security and racism


Of course, it is no wonder that those same racist, entitled, I-have-a-gun-and-a-badge-so-I-can-do-anything-bastards, pull these shenanigans: a study has found that ICE agents are breaking and entering people's homes to look for illegal immigrants. This because they are under pressure to fulfill their quotas.

The researchers sketch out a harrowing scenario of a typical home invasion:

There is story after story of ICE agents, armed with only an administrative warrant, yelling and banging on doors and then forcing their way into homes in the pre-dawn hours by pushing their way in if residents unlock their doors, and otherwise climbing through windows or kicking in doors. Some residents report being awakened by the presence of armed ICE officers in their bedrooms who illegally gained entry through unlocked doors.

MORE

And, finally, we come to Sheriff Arpaio

In case you don't know who Sheriff Joe Arpaio is, he fancies himself as "America's toughest sheriff". By "tough", he means "racist, sexist, and costing Arizona money hand over fist". The Phoenix New Times has an entire archive based on this guy's antics, and it's updated regularly. Highlights of Arpaio's 17-year reign include breaking a woman's arm, crushing a prisoner's larnyx, taping women inmates in the restrooms, some financial funny business and the occasional baby death. MORE

And thats just the start. And why does he get away with his unlawful, illegal, sick twisted cruel fucked up behaviour that has cost the state 43 MILLION DOLLARS in lawsuits? Even though the crime rate hasn't moved?

Well. His district is full of mostly conservative whites. And great many of his victims are suspected illegal immigrants So he is powerful enough, therefore, to quash dissent.


I mean, I thought this was crazy: Sheriff Arpaio has suggested raiding the town of Mesa because the wife of a mayor there had the temerity to say during jury selection that Joe was not her hero..


But this:

The Phoenix New Times ran an investigation of Arpaio's real-estate dealings that included Arpaio's home address, which he argued was possibly a violation of state law. When the paper revealed that it had received an impossibly broad subpoena, demanding, among other things, the Internet records of all visitors to its web site in the previous two and a half years, sheriff's deputies staged late-night raids on the homes of Michael Lacey and James Larkin, executives of Village Voice Media, which owns the New Times. The deputies arrested both men for, they said, violating grand-jury secrecy. (The county attorney declined to prosecute, and it turned out that the subpoenas were issued unlawfully.)

Is fucking nuts. And he's untouchable.

And please please please don't make the mistake of thinking that these are isolated cases. Cut that the fuck out.


EDIT: via:colorblue a dead on musical selection
Sabac Red Feat. Immortal Technique - Fight Until The End


EDIT:Our whackos in red too?!?!?!?!?

Who was the first african american transwoman?


Torchwood's third season is shit


On Burlesque


Kerry Washington Interview


Women's Clinic in Canada excludes transwomen, women who happen to be addicts. Protests continue


Jackson Lee, NBJC, NAACP, Cong. Black Caucus Demand Investigation into Murder of August Provost


Murdered Seaman August Provost Laid to Rest, Racist and Homophobic Comments in News Coverage" but, the military is fucking around with the details of how he dies


Coverage of Latesisha Green's Trial this week


26 AIDS Activists Arrested in Capitol Hill Needle Exchange Protest


Black transgender woman assaulted in New York City, while crowd stands by and does nothing


Can we stop using the term ally?

The suppressed fact:Death by US torture

The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Awhile back, Digby wrote she feels the torture debate slipping away. I'd like to try and put this in context. This was always going to be tough. It is a fight worth fighting, but nowhere in the world has the still potent previous ruling order ever rolled over and taken their lumps for the crimes they committed while in power without a massive fight. While we may make references to Nuremburg, the most important difference there was that the Nuremburg trials were an act of imposing international law on Germany and Japan after conquering them. This is an attempt to have domestic law enforcement mechanisms go after the leaders of the previous government for their official policy. In the US, I don't believe such a thing has been done. Worldwide, it isn't so common either. MORE

For abydosangel

Dissenting Justice on the DOMA Brief, Part I: The Politics

Politics of the Brief
Politically, the submission of the brief will further erode trust for the Obama administration among GLBT individuals. During the Democratic Primaries and in the general election campaign, President Obama expressed passionate disagreement with DOMA and vowed to seek its repeal. Yet, in the first case requiring his administration to comment on the constitutionality of DOMA, Obama has defended it as a rational law that does not violate any constitutional norms. Accordingly, the brief represents a betrayal by Obama on his pledge of support for GLBT rights and regarding his specific opposition to DOMA.

A closer examination of Obama's record, however, demonstrates that Obama has not always held a consistent position on DOMA -- a fact Dissenting Justice first examined in March 2009. For example, when Obama ran for the Senate in 2004, he wrote a letter to the Windy City Times (a Chicago GLBT newspaper), which states that he opposed DOMA when it was enacted in 1996. In 2003, however, Obama completed a candidates' questionnaire and stated that he did not support the repeal of DOMA. In 2007, a campaign spokesperson for Obama explained that he changed his mind after "gay friends" told him how hurtful DOMA was to them. Of course, Obama could not have intellectually opposed DOMA in 1996, supported it in 2003, and suddenly opposed it again in 2004. Instead, his conflicting stances are likely motivated purely by political calculations.

Today, Obama is engaging the exact same song and dance regarding DOMA. Although he maintains that he supports the repeal of this "hurtful" law, his administration has defended it as legally rational legislation. This position is patently absurd.MORE

Dissenting Justice on the DOMA Brief, Part II: The Legal Arguments

Standard Full Faith and Credit Analysis or Equating Same-Sex Marriage and Incest?
The Constitution requires states to give "Full Faith and Credit. . .to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. . . ." Based largely on the Full Faith and Credit Clause, states traditionally have recognized marriages performed in other states.

The government's principal argument in defense of DOMA's full faith and credit provision contends that courts have allowed states to deny recognition of marriages from other states that violate their own "public policy." The relevance of the public policy exception to same-sex marriage has received an enormous amount of attention from legal scholars. Furthermore, the government's discussion of the exception represents a fairly routine way of analyzing the legal issues presented by the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

Despite its unexceptional nature, this section of the brief has inflamed many GLBT advocates because the Department of Justice cites to a series of cases that apply the public policy exception and allow states to deny recognition of certain marriages. These cases include an incestuous marriage between an uncle and his niece, a marriage involving a 16-year-old, and a marriage between first cousins.MORE

Transprose: An Open Letter

Dear Cissexual Queer/Gender Theorists, Feminists, and Trans Allies:
We need to talk. That’s not quite accurate, actually. I need to talk, and you need to shut up and listen for a minute. Because some of y’all have been talking about me, and you’ve been talking so loudly that you haven’t been hearing what I’m saying. Some of you haven’t even noticed that I’m in the room.
You probably don’t know me. But a few of you seem to think you know everything you need to know. Enough to fill up chapters in academic texts or pages on your blogs. Enough to make fetishistic jokes or webcomics. Enough to name my genitals for me.MORE

quinacridones talks about the response from the previously radical woc clinic (that had some transphobic language on its website), explaining that they are so cash strapped that they are not providing medical services at all, and that they are having serious trouble locating medical staff that do not pathologize women based on a number of oppressive factors Please go read the whole thing. Also Questioning Transphobia has has the full set of communiques between the clinic and their bloggers, further hashing out the details of their current dire condition. Which is completely fucked in so many ways, and considerably complicates the picture. However commenter algormortis points out that the language on the website is still transphobic, and that needs to be addressed. EDIT: Because basically, while the clinic was in operation, it had issues providing care to trans women. And that is problematic.


In the meantime: voz_latina has been inspired by this whole mess to produce a film project on the serious, life-threatening, downright refusal to provide medical care to the transgender female population that is the norm. Its is called the Trans Female Health Experience Media Project She also has a discussion going here I also suggest this threadat Feministe, (via bfp) in which the comments break down exactly what is wrong with the language used on the website and why it is such a problem. (There is much less fail here than normal, but there is some).

In the meantime: Seeking Avalon first drew my attention to the fact that Pam's House Blend is banning people for referring to folks who are not part of the transgender population as "cis". She links to a post on Questioning Transphobia, which explains that some white gay guy felt insulted by the word. Whereupon Autumn, one of the transgender regulars, backed up by siteowner Pam, decided to cater to his privilege at the expense of transfolk. And used MLK Jr. quotes to back up her argument. Which is...interesting, to say the least. Then she followed that up with a rather eyebrow raising post again privileging the feelings of white gays over trans folk And the tone argument was strong.

And so fail continues to roll in left and right...

Hullabaloo points out:

Following up on my post last week about the shall we say, friendliness between the business and national security elites, here's a story from 2006 for the wtf files:

President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations. Notice of the development came in a brief entry in the Federal Register, dated May 5, 2006, that was opaque to the untrained eye.

Unbeknownst to almost all of Washington and the financial world, Bush and every other President since Jimmy Carter have had the authority to exempt companies working on certain top-secret defense projects from portions of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Administration officials told BusinessWeek that they believe this is the first time a President has ever delegated the authority to someone outside the Oval Office. It couldn't be immediately determined whether any company has received a waiver under this provision.

...



A trip to the statute books showed that the amended version of the 1934 act states that "with respect to matters concerning the national security of the United States," the President or the head of an Executive Branch agency may exempt companies from certain critical legal obligations. These obligations include keeping accurate "books, records, and accounts" and maintaining "a system of internal accounting controls sufficient" to ensure the propriety of financial transactions and the preparation of financial statements in compliance with "generally accepted accounting principles."MORE

Think of the possibilities...


Pam'ss House Blend:

Meantime, our Obama's response to 77 members of Congress sending him a letter to ask him to help repeal DADT?Pass the hot potato

ENDA has been been introduced into the house and it includes the transgender population this time


Our heterosexual privilege knapsack


NC:Anti-bullying bill passes -- awaits Gov. Perdue's signature


In the meantime:

Obama: No apology for CIA fucking up Chile Let us look forward! Ignore history!

Q The point being that almost no Latin American nation has been free from CIA -- bloody CIA intervention, Chile being a prime example, President Bachelet being one of its victims. Is it time for a historical apology?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, look, I think you answered your own question right at the beginning, which is I’m interested in going forward, not looking backward. I think that the United States has been an enormous force for good in the world. I think there have been times where we’ve made mistakes. But I think that what is important is looking at what our policies are today, and what my administration intends to do in cooperating with the region.MORE

It's a good thing we don't have rationing like all those horrible European countries or people wouldn't be able to get health care when they need it...



Glenn Greenwald:

The "Neda video," torture, and the truth-revealing power of images


Obama, the Right, an defendants Rights Remember that Supreme Court ruling that defendants have no constutional right to access states evidence and request a DNA to prove their innocence? Guess who supported this? Obama's DOJ.