All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

When Leonard Nimoy chauffeured The Bangles in 1985

The+Bangles+and+Leonard+Nimoy.jp

How many people remember when Leonard Nimoy hung out with The Bangles? In 1985, he played the part of the chauffeur in The Bangles’ music video Going Down to Liverpool; this came about due to Nimoy being a friend of Tamar Simon Hoffs and Susanna Hoffs‘ family.

<iframe frameborder=”0″ height=”480″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zj7OJeyhq2Q?rel=0

via When Leonard Nimoy chauffeured The Bangles in 1985.

The Scandal in Malaysia | DQ-en

It does not take authoritarian autocracy to run a country into the ground. Regardless of system of government, it takes only political elites out of touch with their people, a co-opted judiciary, an electoral process that even while open fails to surface progressive leadership, and a system that keeps to the law but fails to protect those speaking truth to power.

via The Scandal in Malaysia | DQ-en.

Peter Van Buren: The Balance of Power in the Middle East Just Changed – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

There are two crucial points to take away from all the angry chatter to come: first, none of this matters and second, the devil is not in the details, though he may indeed appear on those Sunday talk shows.

Here’s what actually matters most: at a crucial moment and without a shot being fired, the United States and Iran have come to a turning point away from an era of outright hostility. The nuclear accord binds the two nations to years of engagement and leaves the door open to a far fuller relationship.

via Peter Van Buren: The Balance of Power in the Middle East Just Changed – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics.

“I had a nanny named Carmela Geribelli. She was a…

tumblr_ns7tkzLTwD1qggwnvo1_500.jpg

“I had a nanny named Carmela Geribelli. She was a Sicilian woman who lived across the hall from me at my apartment building in Queens. We lived in 2B and she lived in 2M. My parents were always working so I’d live with her during the week. She always had me pick her horse when she bet on the races. And whenever something bad happened, for some reason, she’d scream: ‘Shit on toast!’ All my extended family lived in Korea, so I even called her ‘Grandmother.’ I’d spend every Christmas with my Korean family, and every Christmas Eve I’d spend with my Italian family across the hall.”

via “I had a nanny named Carmela Geribelli. She was a….

The Iran agreement is a disaster for Isis | Federica Mogherini | Comment is free | The Guardian

this is not just about Isis. The whole Middle East is in turmoil. Sectarianism is on the rise. We need to restart political processes to end wars. We need to get all regional powers back to the negotiating table and stop the carnage. Cooperation between Iran, its neighbours and the whole international community could open unprecedented possibilities of peace for the region, starting from Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

The sceptics will argue this is very unlikely, or impossible. The pessimists will warn of the dangers. The negotiations in Vienna showed no brain-teaser is too hard to solve as long as there is the political will to overcome the difficulties. Travelling to Iran is an obvious choice for me; as years of negotiations have come to an end, our common work is definitely not over. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

via The Iran agreement is a disaster for Isis | Federica Mogherini | Comment is free | The Guardian.

“Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage.I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of…”

Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage.

I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of skills: interpersonal, medical, and technical skills, as well as the crucial skill of performing under pressure. I often make decisions on my own, in seconds, under chaotic circumstances, that impact people’s health and lives. I make $15/hr.

And these burger flippers think they deserve as much as me?

Good for them.

Look, if any job is going to take up someone’s life, it deserves a living wage. If a job exists and you have to hire someone to do it, they deserve a living wage. End of story. There’s a lot of talk going around my workplace along the lines of, “These guys with no education and no skills think they deserve as much as us? Fuck those guys.” And elsewhere on FB: “I’m a licensed electrician, I make $13/hr, fuck these burger flippers.”

And that’s exactly what the bosses want! They want us fighting over who has the bigger pile of crumbs so we don’t realize they made off with almost the whole damn cake. Why are you angry about fast food workers making two bucks more an hour when your CEO makes four hundred TIMES what you do? It’s in the bosses’ interests to keep your anger directed downward, at the poor people who are just trying to get by, like you, rather than at the rich assholes who consume almost everything we produce and give next to nothing for it.

My company, as they’re so fond of telling us in boosterist emails, cleared 1.3 billion dollars last year. They expect guys supporting families on 26-27k/year to applaud that. And that’s to say nothing of the techs and janitors and cashiers and bed pushers who make even less than us, but are as absolutely crucial to making a hospital work as the fucking CEO or the neurosurgeons. Can they pay us more? Absolutely. But why would they? No one’s making them.

The workers in NY *made* them. They fought for and won a living wage. So how incredibly petty and counterproductive is it to fuss that their pile of crumbs is bigger than ours? Put that energy elsewhere. Organize. Fight. Win.

Jens Rushing

via “Fast food workers in NY just won a $15/hr wage.

I’m a paramedic. My job requires a broad set of…”.

Dutee Chand, Female Sprinter With High Testosterone Level, Wins Right to Compete – The New York Times

The final appeals court for global sports further blurred the line separating male and female athletes on Monday, ruling that a common factor in distinguishing the sexes — the level of natural testosterone in an athlete’s body — is insufficient to bar some women from competing against females.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Switzerland, questioned the athletic advantage of naturally high levels of testosterone in women and therefore immediately suspended the practice of “hyperandrogenism regulation” by track and field’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations. It gave the organization, known as the I.A.A.F., two years to provide more persuasive scientific evidence linking “enhanced testosterone levels and improved athletic performance.”

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

Sports of The Times: Sprinter Dutee Chand Challenges Ban Over Her Testosterone LevelOCT. 6, 2014

Gender Games: The Line Between Male and Female Athletes: How to Decide?JUNE 18, 2012

I.O.C. Sex-Verification Rules Are Flawed, Critics SayJUNE 25, 2012

The court was ruling on a case, involving the Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, that is the latest demonstration that sex is part of a spectrum, not a this-or-that definition easily divided for matters such as sport. It also leaves officials wondering how and where to set the boundaries between male and female competition.

via Dutee Chand, Female Sprinter With High Testosterone Level, Wins Right to Compete – The New York Times.

Could I Become the Next Sandra Bland? | Dame Magazine

three White women passed through the full-body scanner at the TSA security line, with no fuss, before they got to us. My mother entered first. She followed protocol: raising her hands, and then stepping out of the scanner when she was asked. The TSA official said she had to search my mother’s hair.

Because the TSA has an ugly, discriminatory history with scrutinizing Black hair, I was expecting a pat down on my long Senegalese twists. But I fully expected them to lay off my mother, whose hair is long, thin, and bone straight. The idea of her being able to hide so much as a pen in her hair is absolutely comical. But there was the TSA guard, with her claws up, ready to work through my mother’s scalp. That’s when my mother did what has now become the unthinkable: She refused.

I watched the TSA guard swell like an airbag with faux-institutional power, and at that moment I forgot myself, and started right through the full body scanner, hearing but not hearing the other TSA officer yelling at me, “Ma’am, ma’am, step back. Step back!” I was not going to let them take my mother from me. I know my anger could cost me my life—we are living in a climate where a Black woman can be brutalized or killed in custody and then blamed for her own death. But that was exactly why I was fuming. My instincts were locked and loaded, a simple chant thrumming in my head: Sandra Bland, Sandra Bland, Sandra Bland.

via Could I Become the Next Sandra Bland? | Dame Magazine.

“There were two young people fighting at the apartment I was…

 This was really wrong and still it goes on – jailing people and holding them for… not being US citizens and???

tumblr_ns62er3ZTY1qggwnvo1_500.jpg

“There were two young people fighting at the apartment I was staying in, so the police came. They took all our IDs and saw that my green card had expired, so they took me to jail. It was my fault for not renewing it, but I really thought they’d let me go after a few days. I couldn’t afford a lawyer. When they finally assigned me one, she told me that I was going to have to stay in jail and that it was going to take over a year to sort out. I couldn’t believe it. There were four times that I went in front of the judge: first they presented the case, next they figured out the charges, next they started working on the case, then they made a decision. But there were several months between each court appearance. I had never gotten in trouble before. Just a few misdemeanors when I was younger. But I had to wait in jail for 18 months. It was my fault, though. I should have renewed my green card.”

via “There were two young people fighting at the apartment I was….