Category Archives: Viva!

Toymaker Omits Frida Kahlo’s Iconic Unibrow in New Barbie Doll

Jerks to the end The new Inspiring Women series of Barbies includes Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, and Katherine Johnson (image courtesy Mattel)

Earlier this week, in anticipation of International Women’s Day, toy manufacturer Mattel announced its new Inspiring Women series of Barbies. The first three dolls in the collection represent aviator Amelia Earhart, mathematician Katherine Johnson, and, somewhat ironically, communist artist Frida Kahlo.

“Born in Mexico in 1907, artist, activist, and feminist icon, Frida Kahlo, was and continues to be a symbol of strength, originality, and unwavering passion,” reads the extremely vague description on the Barbie website. “Overcoming a number of obstacles to follow her dream of becoming a fine artist, Frida persevered and gained recognition for her unique style and perspective. With her vibrant palette and mix of realism and fantasy, she addressed important topics like identity, class, and race, making her voice, and the voices of girls and women alike, heard.”

The “number of obstacles” Kahlo had to overcome included childhood polio and a devastating bus accident, which left the artist permanently disabled, yet her Barbie likeness looks just like all the others, complete with those inhuman proportions. Furthermore, it seems Mattel plucked her ultra-feminist unibrow.

Shortly after the dolls were announced, Kahlo’s great-niece, Mara de Anda Romeo, came forward, saying Mattel had no right to use her great aunt’s image. According to the Associated Press, Romeo doesn’t want money. She just wants a redesign. “We will talk to them about regularizing this situation, and by regularizing I mean talking about the appearance of the doll, its characteristics, the history the doll should have to match what the artist really was,” Romeo’s lawyer, Pablo Sangri told AP.

In the company’s defense, Mattel said in a statement that it had worked closely with the Frida Kahlo Corporation, “the owner of all rights related to the name and identity of Frida Kahlo, on the creation of this doll.” But Sangri told Agence France-Presse that the corporation failed to tell Kahlo’s relatives of its plans, and, furthermore, a now-expired contract between the two never granted the corporation rights to the artist’s image anyway, just “certain uses of her name.”

“I would have liked the doll to have traits more like Frida’s,” Romeo told AFP, “not this doll with light-colored eyes. I would have liked her to have a unibrow, for her clothes to be made by Mexican artisans.”

The post Toymaker Omits Frida Kahlo’s Iconic Unibrow in New Barbie Doll appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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GOP Senators Promote Christian Theocracy With First Amendment Defense Act

Goes against everything our freedom of speech and religion stands for – keeping a religion out of government.

Moving the nation closer to a Christian theocracy, Republican senators reintroduce the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA).

The Hill reports:

A group of 22 GOP senators is reintroducing a controversial measure that would protect opponents of same-sex marriage from federal actions intended to curb discrimination.

The First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) would bar the federal government from taking any action against individuals who discriminate against same-sex couples or others based on “a sincerely held religious belief.”

The bill would also protect those who discriminate against marriages not recognized under federal law or individuals who engage in sex outside of marriage.

The measure was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and 21 Republican co-sponsors, including Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Orrin Hatch (Utah).

In fact, The First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) is a draconian policy advocated by conservative Christian extremists eager to install a de facto Christian theocracy. The legislation is designed to be a vehicle to allow Christian conservatives the legal ability to discriminate against those who do not share their conservative Christian values.

For example, FADA explicitly promotes anti-LGBT discrimination by providing special protections for people who wish to claim their religious faith prohibits them from performing certain acts, including baking a cake for a same-sex wedding, or allowing a child to be adopted by a same-sex couple.

In addition, FADA would allow discrimination against single mothers, unwed couples, interfaith couples, and interracial couples. In fact, the policy is so broad that one could refuse to marry two short people if their view against short people marrying is a “sincerely held religious belief.”

While Obama was president, the legislation was not taken seriously, because everyone knew Obama would not sign the bill into law. However, emboldened by the election of Trump, Republican senators plan to reintroduce the legislation. The lawmakers believe that with with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, as well as the backing of President Donald Trump, the legislation now has a chance to become law.

They might be right. In a little noticed press release issued late in the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged his support for the First Amendment Defense Act. Trump’s pledge to support FADA strengthened and reinforced his position among white evangelicals, who would prove to be crucial in his 2016 electoral victory.

In the statement, titled “Issues Of Importance To Catholics,” which has since been deleted, Trump promised to sign FADA into law:

If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths.

Jennifer Pizer, Law and Policy Director at Lambda Legal, told NBC that FADA “invites widespread, devastating discrimination against LGBT people” and is a deeply unconstitutional bill, noting:

This proposed new law violates both Equal Protection and the Establishment Clause by elevating one set of religious beliefs above all others. And by targeting LGBT Americans as a group, contrary to settled constitutional law.

Piza continued:

There cannot be even one iota of doubt that this bill endorses one set of religious beliefs above others, and targets people in same-sex relationships, married or not, as well as unmarried heterosexual couples who live together. It’s an unconstitutional effort to turn the clock back to a time when unmarried mothers had to hide in shame, and LGBT people had to hide, period.

Piza is correct. FADA is clearly an attempt to legitimize and promote conservative Christian bigotry, while giving Christians legal permission to discriminate against  those who do not share their conservative Christian values.

Bottom line: The First Amendment Defense Act is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to move the nation closer to a Christian theocracy, a move Trump seems more than happy to make.

(Large portions of this post were previously published here.)

Donald Trump (Image via Gage Skidmore)

Zinke the Exploiter Plans Auction of Bears Ears Land on March 20, 2018

shove pole up!

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke posted this photo of himself when he toured Bears Ears on May 11, 2017. Now, Interior e-mails reveal the land seized from Bears Ears was for the benefit of oil, gas, coal and uranium corporations, and sports hunters. Sports hunters made contact with Zinke by way of hunting with Donald Trump, Jr., in Utah.
Interior halts oil and gas sale at gateway to Yellowstone

How many murders can a police informer get away with?

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In January, Northern Irish paramilitary Gary Haggarty pleaded guilty to hundreds of violent crimes, including many killings – while working for the British state. By Ian Cobain

One day earlier this year, two prison officers led a portly, middle-aged man into court and instructed him to sit in the dock. He was wearing an ill-fitting grey suit and a grey tie; his hair was grey, and so too were his handcuffs. The only flash of colour came from his florid and slightly sagging face. In the public gallery, 10 feet behind the dock, a handful of people sat and stared at the back of the man’s red neck. Outside, 30 armed police officers were standing guard.

In the dock, Gary Haggarty sat and listened for almost an hour and a half as the judge explained the sentence he was about to receive, for offences to which he had already pleaded guilty. It took so long because there were so many crimes to be considered: 201 of them, in fact.

Continue reading…

8 Short Stories by Arab Women for International Women’s Day

Your gift for International Women’s Day is eight great short stories by Arab women, in translation, available free online:

By artist Helen Zughaib, in an exhibition “Arab Spring/Unfinished Journeys: Humanizing Politics Through Art.” A detail image of her piece Generations Lost, 2014. Photographer: Stephanie Mitchell.

Many short stories I’ve recently enjoyed — Hanan al-Shaykh’s “The Angel” in Arab Women Voice New Realities; Najwa Binshatwan’s “Return Ticket,” tr. Sawad Hussain, in Banthology — have been written by women. Yet relatively few are available online. A translation of Samira Azzam’s “Man and His Alarm Clock” has been paywalled for $42.50.

Here is a handful of pearls, stitched to a branch:

1. “Pearls on a Branch,” from the collection of folktales Pearls on a Branch, ed. Najlaa Khoury, tr. Inea Bushnaq.

This gorgeous, subversive, beautifully translated collection — subtitled “Tales from the Arab World Told by Women” — is a must-have for all ages. This story, published on Tin Houseopens:

There was or there was not
In olden days that time has lost…
O you who like stories and talk
No story can be pleasing and beautiful,
Without invoking the Almighty, the Merciful.

THERE WAS A KING – there is no sovereign but God – and this king had a daughter. She was his only child and he liked to please her. So when the month for the pilgrimage to Mecca drew near, the king asked his daughter:

Tell me what do you want me to bring you from the Hajj?

2. Rachida el-Charni, “The Way to Poppy Street,” tr Piers Amodia.

This story — by Tunisian writer Rachida el-Charni — was also selected for the Granta Book of the African Short Story, ed. Helon Habila.

She saw him coming towards her, whistling and humming. He stopped in front of her to ask politely if she knew the way to Poppy Street. Not for a moment did she imagine that he would use the second she took to think to snatch her gold necklace and take to his heels.

3. Lena Merhej, “I Think We Will Be Calmer in the Next War,” tr. Merhej.

This story, by talented Lebanese artist, cartoonist, and graphic novelist Lena Merhej, opens:

You can read both the Arabic and the English of these graphic short stories — or comix — at grandpapier.org.

4. Malika Moustadraf’s “Just Different,” tr. Alice Guthrie. 

This story, by the maverick Moroccan short-story writer Malika Moustadraf (1962-2006), opens:

Avenue Mohammed V is silent and desolate this late at night, empty apart from a few stray cats meowing like newborn babies; it’s a creepy sound.

5. Basma al-Nsour’s “Disappointments (and a Few Clarifications),”tr. Andrew Leber

This story, by acclaimed Jordanian short-story writer and attorney Basma al-Nsour, opens:

My life would have been a lot easier if only my grandmother had not been a liar. Or, to put it more nicely, if she hadn’t been so imaginative on that winter night when she convinced me that she would never leave me.

You can also read al-Nsour’s “That Pathetic Woman,” tr. Thoraya El-Rayyes, on ArabLit.

6. Adania Shibli’s “Out of Time,” translator not named.

This story, by Palestinian writer Adania Shibli, is built on the work of classic Palestinian short-story writer Samira Azzam, best-known for her collection, The Clock and the Man. Unfortunately a translation of Azzam’s “Man and His Alarm Clock” is no longer online.

My little watch is the first to sense the change going in to and out of Palestine.

7. Rasha Abbas, “The Gist of It,” tr. Alice Guthrie

There are also a number of other Rasha Abbas stories online, such as “Statement of Absolute Hatred,” “Falling Down Politely, or How to Use Up All Six Bullets Instead of Playing Russian Roulette,” and “Statement of Absolute Hatred,” all tr. Guthrie.

8. “The Sea Cloak,” by Nayrouz Qarmout, tr. Charis Bredon

A collection for Qarmout’s stories, titled The Sea Cloak and tr. Perween Richards, is forthcoming from Comma Press this May. The story isn’t printed online, but you can listen to it performed by Grazyna Monvid:

لا للتقاعد التعسفي للمعلمين

لا للتقاعد التعسفي للمعلمين

 

نستقبل آذار استقبالنا البهيج بانتهاء فصل الشتاء. يوم المرأة ويوم الأم ويوم الأرض، وهناك يوم للمعلم في بعض الدول .

في فلسطين تغلبت وزارتنا على الجميع وأحالت معلما في سن الثلاثين للتقاعد المبكر. هل يعتبر الأمر سابقة، أم مجرد إجراء تعسفي طبيعي في ظل فساد حكم مستفحل في كل مكان؟

وقبل تناول الموضوع أكثر، يجب التوقف عند سبب إحالة المعلم الشاب الى التقاعد . السبب موقفه من الاحتجاجات التي قادها المعلمون قبل سنتين. أي ان ما جرى كان اجراء انتقاميا ضد المعلم كان قد بيت من قبل صانع القرار في الوزارةمنذ سنتين.

هل لنا ان نتخيل ماذا يعني هذا الاجراء؟

أي نوع من القمع يتم ممارسته من اجل المطالبة في حقوق تعتبر مبدئية لمعلمي المدارس؟

نحن نتكلم هنا عن المعلمين. بناة المستقبل، ناقلي التعليم وحاملي شعلة الامل لأبنائنا.

كيف نروج لنظام تعليم غير تقليدي، منفتح، ريادي، قيادي، والمعلم هذا يعرف انه عندما عبر عن نفسه قضي على مستقبله؟

لا أعرف ما الذي يجب ان نسكت عنه او نحارب من اجله في ظل هذه التراكمات من الانتهاكات الانسانية.

لماذا تصبح مرة اخرى الطامة أكبر عندما نرى تجاوزات وانتهاكات وزارة التربية والتعليم؟

بكل بساطة ، لأنه المكان الذي نعد للمستقبل من خلاله … أهذا هو مستقبل الاجيال؟ حاضر مبني على القمع والعقاب عند التعبير عن الحق؟

المشكلة لا تنتهي عند وزارة التربية والتعليم ، التي تحولت ممارساتها الى إجراءات عجيبة منذ عرض “انجاز” الى نوع المسابقات التي تبدأ باسم الوزير رتنتهي بصورته على العملة النقدية.

المشلة في تعاطينا لهكذا ممارسات انتهاكية والتعامل معها على انها خاصة لمكان بعينه أو شخص بذاته .

ضحية اليوم من ممارسات القمع والترهيب كان معلما. ولكن هذا لا يعني ان ما جرى لهذا المعلم يؤثر علينا كمجتمع من كل الاتجاهات . لا استطيع الا ان اتساءل ، اذا ما كانت نتيجة وقوف معلم بالاضرابات قد أدى الى فصله او احالته الى التقاعد المبكر. تخيلوا ان هذا الشاب يتقاعد في هذا العمر؟ كم من المعلمين بانتظار إحالتهم الى الاستقالة او التقاعد ؟ ما الذي نتوقعه من الدوائر التعليمية > من المعلمين الاخرين ، من الطلاب ، من الاهل ؟

في بلاد العالم الطبيعي ، أعرف مبدئيا ، انه لن تكون هكذا حوادث لأنه من المستحيل التفكير زن هناك وزارة تقوم بهكذا فعل لمدرس ، ولكن ، هذا لا يأتي فقط لأن النقابات فاعلة. لا اعرف ما الذي يقال في هذه الاثناء عن نقاباتنا المختلفة . اين دور النقابة ؟ حالة تطويع النقابات ليس ايضا فرضيا او غريبا ، لأن المشكلة ليست مصادفة. فحالة التطويع هذه تبدو جماعية. لقد تحولنا الى مجتمع متكامل في حالة تقويضه وتطويعه.

غدا يصادف يوم المرأة … كم حالة تشبه حالة قمع هذا المعلم الشاب عند النساء؟ من الواجب ان تكرس النساء يومها غدا من اجل قضية معلم المدرسة. لأن الموضوع لم يعد يقتصر على تمييز وتنكيل بجنس محدد . ولكن التنكيل صار مؤسساتيا يطال كل من يخالف رغبات الامر او صاحب السلطة.

قضيانا تتضاعف وتتشابك ، ولا زلنا نردد نفس الشعارات والمطالبات من اجل قضية على حساب اي قضية اخرى . فتحولت قضاياتا الى ايام احتفال ، نقف فيها على المنصات ونندد ونطالب ونتذمر.

يجب ان يكون يوم المرأة هذا العام يوم نصرة للمعلمين المهددين بانهاء مسيراتهم التعليمية قبل ان تبدأ بالتشكل. يوم المرأة هذا العام ، يجب ان تكون صرخاته ونداءاته ضد الاضطهاد والقمع الممنهج من قبل السلطات المختلفة ، وفي هذه الحالة وزارة التربية والتعليم ، التي تكسر كل قواعد الريادة في كل مرة ، وتؤكد ان التعليم اذا ما استمر في هكذا مسار كمؤسسة ، فلا عتب على الاجيال القادمة .