Category Archives: Fail!

The US supreme court’s abortion buffer zone ruling protects a gauntlet of horror | Jessica Valenti | Commentisfree | The Guardian

Imagine trying to walk into a building, trying to get a medical treatment – and someone screams at you. Someone is two inches from your face – two feet from the front door – and that someone is videotaping you, calling you a whore. There’s ketchup poured in the snowbanks around you, made to look like spurted blood. You try to take a step forward, but people block your way, yelling that you’re going to be “mother to a dead baby”. They hold signs in your faces, whisper “murderer” in your ear as you pass. Maybe they shove you.

Don’t believe portrayals to the contrary – from anti-choice activists and the news media – that these kinds of protestors outside abortion clinics are not grandmas praying, or kindly “counselors” who just want to talk reasonably to women. These people wait outside clinics to shame and to harass; they are there to scare.

via The US supreme court’s abortion buffer zone ruling protects a gauntlet of horror | Jessica Valenti | Commentisfree | The Guardian.

The Massachusetts Buffer Zone Protected Me | National Women’s Law Center

This sense of safety hasn’t always been the norm for employees and patients of reproductive health care providers in Massachusetts. Prior to the buffer zone law, some protestors would dress up like Boston Police Department officers to deceive patients into providing their contact information. Some protestors would intentionally block the entrance to the door or stand in front of cars entering the garage. There were cases of protestors photographing or throwing literature inside of patients’ or employees’ cars. Most tragically of all, two employees were murdered at neighboring health centers in Brookline in 1994.

Part of my responsibilities as Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts’ Counseling and Referral Supervisor included overseeing the 60 volunteers who staffed our hotline, some of whom had been volunteering for Planned Parenthood since before I was born. I was often reminded by our volunteers of how lucky I was to have only known the health center after the buffer zone law was passed. When I trained new volunteers, many asked if I felt safe at the health center, and I would explain how the buffer zone worked. They were relieved to know that they would have a safe, clear path to the door every day.

Today, the Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts buffer zone law that made me, my coworkers, and the patients feel safe and protected. It is incredibly disheartening to learn that my former coworkers and their patients won’t be protected by the same 35-feet that kept me safe. I trust that the staff at Planned Parenthood will continue to do whatever they can to help protect their patients and provide excellent, non-judgmental care, and encourage you to follow them online (find the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund on Facebook and Twitter) for ways to action to replace the buffer zone law.

via The Massachusetts Buffer Zone Protected Me | National Women’s Law Center.

Prominent female activist killed in Libya | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR

Bugaighis was shot in the head Wednesday night, just hours after casting her ballot in Libya’s parliament elections, the state news agency LANA reported. She was rushed to a hospital where she died of her wounds, it said.

Earlier in the day, she had been speaking by phone from her home on a Libyan TV channel about fighting raging near her neighborhood, sparked when militants attacked army troops that had been deploying to protest polling station.

“These are people who want to foil elections,” she told Al-Nabaa network as rattling gunfire interrupted her call. ” Benghazi has been always defiant, and always will be despite the pain and fear. It will succeed.”

In the evening, five gunmen broke into her home, the house’s guard told police, according to the Al-Wasat newspaper. They first asked about her son Wael, then shot the guard in the leg, then broke into the house. The guard said that he heard gunfire from inside.

Bugaighis’s husband, who is a member of the Benghazi municipal council and was also at home at the time, has disappeared since the attack, the paper and other Libyan media said.

Bugaighis had only just come to Benghazi from the capital, Tripoli, especially to cast her ballot in the election, a family friend Hanaa Mohammad told Libya Ahrar TV. She had fled with her family some time back to Jordan because of death threats against them.

via Prominent female activist killed in Libya | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR.

Israel demolishes mosque walls in Jerusalem’s Shufat camp | Maan News Agency

Israel rarely grants Palestinians permits to build in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It has demolished at least 27,000 Palestinian homes and structures since occupying the West Bank in 1967, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

via Israel demolishes mosque walls in Jerusalem’s Shufat camp | Maan News Agency.

Your (not so) “bee-friendly” plants | Pesticide Action Network

Bee-harming pesticides in our lavender and daisies? In the same week that an international body of scientists released a comprehensive global assessment of the harms of pesticides to bees, a new report shows that these very same pesticides are found in many of our backyard plants — at levels of concern — that are meant to support pollinators.

The report shows that 51% of garden plant samples purchased at top garden retailers (Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart) in 18 cities in the United States and Canada contain neonicotinoid (neonic) pesticides — a key driver of declining bee populations. Concerning levels of the pesticides were found in places like California’s San Francisco Bay Area and in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. In some cases, multiple neonics were found in the same plant, in the leaves, stalks or flowers.

via Your (not so) “bee-friendly” plants | Pesticide Action Network.

vintage everyday: Vintage Photos of Foreigner Women Pose in Kimono Dress

Vintage Photos of Foreigner Women Pose in Kimono Dress – Long history of cultural appropriation. Fad, fancy, thinking its a compliment but OK to marginalize, and later intern and imprison Japanese just because they or their parents were Japanese. In the 1920’s it was walk like an Egyptian.

via vintage everyday: Vintage Photos of Foreigner Women Pose in Kimono Dress.

90-year-old woman raped in Rochdale | UK news | theguardian.com

A 90-year-old woman has been dragged off the street and raped.

The attack happened in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, as the woman walked to a local shop.

The victim felt a hand go over her mouth and she was hauled backwards in Spotland Road at about 6.45am yesterday, police said.

Greater Manchester police want to hear from anyone who may have seen the victim, and potentially the offender.

The pensioner is white and wore a white summer dress with a floral print, and a cardigan.

Because of the nature of the attack, the only description of the offender is that he was white.

Superintendent Alistair Mallen said: “I am sure the entire community will share our revulsion at this. The victim has been through a horrific ordeal and we are all hoping she can make a full recovery. She is now being supported by experienced officers and we are doing everything possible to reassure her that we will catch the man responsible.

“This kind of attack is, thankfully, so rare that it will naturally cause a huge amount of concern in the community.

“I now want people, including the criminal fraternity, to imagine if that had been your mum or grandma. I want to harness these feelings and use them to help the police do their job – catch this man and put him before the courts.”

via 90-year-old woman raped in Rochdale | UK news | theguardian.com.

Wanna be a Roach Rancher? Insects as the food of the future: Locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, silk moth pupae, and beetle and moth larvae — ScienceDaily

Some entrepreneurs, such as Patrick Crowley are making it happen. Crowley is the founder of Chapul Cricket Bars, the first company in the United States to use insects as source of nutrition. At Chapul, he is directly challenging the existing perceptions of insects as food by producing, marketing, and selling an energy bar, in a variety of flavors, made with high-protein cricket powder. “It’s an exciting time to be the forefront of this budding industry,” said Crowley.

While in some countries, insects are harvested in the wild, such practices are typically inefficient and involve risks from environmental toxins and pathogens. Insects, such as crickets and mealworms, can be efficiently farmed in an industrial setting free from contaminants. In fact, samples from insect farms in the U.S. and Europe have been tested for contaminants that sometimes present problems in foods from animal sources, such as salmonella, listeria, E. coli, or Staphylococcus aureus, and have been found to be free of contaminants.

There are a number of challenges for quality mass production of insects that still must be overcome, but the expert panels agreed that insects as a source of food is the way of the future.

via Insects as the food of the future: Locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, silk moth pupae, and beetle and moth larvae — ScienceDaily.

Peace talks can now be held in Israeli jail? 23 Palestinian members of parliament in Israeli jails | Maan News Agency

Twenty-three Palestinian lawmakers are currently being held in Israeli jails, a majority of whom have been detained in the last two weeks during the Israeli arrest campaign across the West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said on Wednesday.

Eleven of the 23 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were detained prior to the campaign, the first of whom was Marwan Barghouthi in 2002.

The two most recently-detained lawmakers were taken on Tuesday night during a raid in Bethlehem.

More than 500 Palestinians have been detained in the last two weeks as part of an Israeli search for three Jewish teenagers who went missing from the Gush Etzion settlement in the West Bank.

Detainees who have been tried and sentenced:

1. Marwan Barghouthi, Ramallah, sentenced to five life sentences.

2. Ahmad Saadat, Ramallah, sentenced to thirty years.

3. Ahmad Atwan, Jerusalem, suspended sentence.

Administrative detainees being held without charge or trial:

1. Mahmoud al-Rimhi, Ramallah.

2. Abduljaber Fuqahaa, Ramallah.

3. Muhammad Jamal al-Natsheh, Hebron.

4. Hatem Qfish, Hebron.

5. Nizar Ramadan, Hebron.

6. Muhammad Badr, Hebron.

7. Muhammad Abu Teir, Jerusalem.

8. Yassir Mansour, Nablus.

Detained during the recent Israeli campaign, some of whom have been sentenced to administrative detention:

1. Aziz Dweik, Hebron.

2. Hassan Youssif, Ramallah.

3. Ahmad Tahtuh, Jerusalem.

4. Abdulrahman Zeidan, Tulkarem.

5. Ibrahim Abu Salem, Jerusalem.

6. Husni al-Burini, Nablus.

7. Azzam Salhab, Hebron.

8. Ahmad Mubarak, Ramallah.

9. Ahmad al-Hajj ali, Nablus.

10. Ayman Daraghmah, Tubas.

11. Khalid Tafish, Bethlehem.

12. Anwar Zboun, Bethlehem.

via 23 Palestinian members of parliament in Israeli jails | Maan News Agency.