Daily Archives: August 21, 2014

Rock on-Peace Out, Viva!

Despierta al futuro: Momias medievales de Siberia desconciertan a los arqueólogos

Los académicos retoman el trabajo para liberar los secretos de una misteriosa civilización medieval relacionada con Persia en el límite del ártico siberiano.

Las 34 someras tumbas excavadas por los arqueólogos en Zeleniy Yar arrojan muchas más preguntas que respuestas. Pero una parece clara: Este remoto lugar, a 29 kilómetros del Círculo Polar Ártico, era un cruce de rutas comerciales de cierta importancia hace aproximadamente un milenio.

via Despierta al futuro: Momias medievales de Siberia desconciertan a los arqueólogos.

Feminism, healthcare, human rights, Rock on-Peace Out, Viva!

Do the Taco or Beer Challenge

“You find yourself a fucking taco, or a fucking beer, or a fucking taco and a beer, then you eat the fucking taco or drink the fucking beer or eat and drink both the fucking taco and the beer, and then you donate some money to an abortion fund. You fucking film yourself doing this shit and then you send us the fucking video and we put it on the fucking internet.”

Andrea Grimes started the challenge as a bit of a joke, after seeing the “ice bucket challenge” take off. Tacos and beers have about as much to do with abortion as ice buckets have to do with ALS — but they’re much, much more enjoyable.

And actually, you can make the challenge even more simple. You can skip the filming part and even the eating/drinking part (although I can’t imagine why you’d want to pass on that) and just donate to an abortion fund. As Grimes writes, “The Taco or Beer Challenge is about doing what’s right for your own taco and beverage needs, just like having an abortion—or not—is about doing what’s right for yourself and your family.”

As we remind you pretty regularly around these parts, access to abortion in this country is treated as a privilege, not a right — and abortion funds play a critical role in filling that gap and helping to ensure that everyone who needs an abortion can afford to get one.

You can find an abortion fund serving your community here.

via Do the Taco or Beer Challenge.

Afghanistan Women Poets

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Afghan Woman

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Afghan Woman.

When you see me, you can never know
it is I: a woman with a smile.
When you see me, you can never know
it is I. I’m covered, hidden, censored.
Do you think this is my choice?
Do you think this is my culture—my wish
maybe—to be covered so?
I say: It is wrong to hide me,
wrong to think it is my culture.
It is not my wish to be covered, hidden,
broken. My desire—I will tell you—
is to wear a rainbow-colored dress.

I walk into a room—the darkest room.
A man is there. Who is he? I wonder.
He is not the one of my dreams.
He comes close to me, closer,
grips my hands, touches my breasts.
Suddenly, there is a storm in his eyes.
The room becomes a prison cell.
My teeth pierce my tongue.
I taste blood in my mouth. By way of my feet,
my desires desert me.
I am a woman, an Afghan,
an Afghan woman. Is this who I am?

He treats me like an animal,
commands me to lie down.
He knows what to use me for:
A baby machine, or a servant is good.
He hides me, covers me, all of me,
tries, tries to turn me into his slave.
But he can never touch inside of me
where the sky of my soul lives.
He cannot see that I am strong and powerful.
In my rainbow-colored dress, I am his equal.
I will not be his slave.
I will not be the victim of his crimes.

I am a woman, an Afghan,
an Afghan woman. This is who I am.
There are mountains of beauty in my breasts.

By Pari

Fail!, Fascism, Feminism, Fundamentalist terror, Global Politics

AFA Jumps the Shark: ‘ALS Challenge Kills Babies’ | Hatewatch

AFA spokesperson Bryan Fischer has been leading the way. In recent weeks on his radio program, Fischer has:

Declared it will be “the end of America” if Congress does not impeach President Obama.

Denounced anyone who uses the word “racist,” then insisted that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are “racists.”

Sided with radical Islamists in Iraq in calling Obama a “devil worshiper.”

Suggested on Twitter that accepting homosexuality leads to people to commit acts of necrophilia.

Said that LGBT people are inherently disqualified from holding public office.

Written an article in which he wonders if Robin Williams will go to heaven and insults Williams’s mother’s belief system (she was a Christian Scientist, Fischer says, and that is “a counterfeit form of religion that is neither Christian nor scientific”)

via AFA Jumps the Shark: ‘ALS Challenge Kills Babies’ | Hatewatch.

Apartheid, Fail!, Fascism, Fundamentalist terror, Gaza, Gun-violence, Palestine

Bibi and Hamas – working together to preserve each other? Did Bibi choose to preserve Hamas to avoid talks with Abbas? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Hasson:  The starting point in this claim is that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are like connected vessels, and it is impossible to separate them as part of the solution. Facing this, there are three approaches in Israeli politics on the conflict with the Palestinians: the faith-based approach of [Economy and Trade Minister Naftali] Bennett and his friends; the second approach, of the defense minister and maybe also the prime minister, is that the conflict with the Palestinians must be managed [instead of striving to resolve it]; and the third approach is that we must devise a solution to the conflict.

When I take a closer look at what is happening now, I can only conclude that the diplomatic approach that determined the manner and pace of our operational activity during Operation Protective Edge was the one that says that this conflict has no solution and must be managed instead, so we cannot push anything to the edge. In other words, we mustn’t push Hamas too far into a corner and improve Mahmoud Abbas’ standing, because if he gets stronger, we will eventually have to pay him back in diplomatic currency, a currency that we are not willing to lay out.

via Did Bibi choose to preserve Hamas to avoid talks with Abbas? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

human rights

IRIN Asia | Record harvest loss, food shortages hit dry Sri Lanka | Sri Lanka | Aid Policy | Disaster Risk Reduction | Environment | Food Security | Governance

Sri Lanka’s government is scrambling to ease the impact of record harvest losses on millions of farmers as the country enters its tenth month of an acute dry spell.

“It’s severe. In some areas in the North, North Central and Eastern Provinces, the water levels in the irrigation reservoirs will be sufficient only for drinking purposes and that, too, will be barely enough. No harvesting will be possible [until the next rains],” Lalith Weeratunga, secretary to President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the country’s top-ranked public official, told IRIN.

via IRIN Asia | Record harvest loss, food shortages hit dry Sri Lanka | Sri Lanka | Aid Policy | Disaster Risk Reduction | Environment | Food Security | Governance.