Category Archives: Co-Bloggers

No Justice, No Peace: I Attended the Minneapolis Rally for Trayvon Martin

Posted on March 30, 2012 by | 14 Comments

A week or so ago, my best friend, Kat, sent me a FB invite to the Minneapolis Trayvon Martin rally, and I immediately accepted – though it meant missing my tai chi class.  I really didn’t know what to expect as I haven’t been to a protest in a long time – and we Minnesotans are all decorous and shit.  I highly doubted things would get out of hand, but who knows when tensions are running as high as they are over the Trayvon Martin injustice?

Last night, I put on my hoodie and took pics of me looking suspicious in preparation for the rally.  I headed for my best friend’s house to hitch a ride with her and her daughter, Kitten, who was attending her first rally/protest.   Kitten’s eight, and I was worried about how the rally would be for her, but I think it’s important to get kids involved in social justice issues at a young age.
(Click for more rallying and protesting)

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Posted in asiangrrlMN, Do The Right Thing, I Heart Ye

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Tweet of the Day — Current TV Edition

Posted on March 30, 2012 by | 10 Comments

Presented without Comment…

…or a Special Comment.

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Posted in Allan, Our Pundits of Perpetual Disappointment, Tweet of the Day

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Land Day in Israel/Palestine and Fridays with Billy.

Posted on March 30, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Today is Land Day in Israel/Palestine, a memorial day commemorating the March 30, 1976 deaths of six Palestinian-Israelis, killed while protesting Israel’s practice of expropriating Palestinian-Israeli land.

Since then, Palestinians both inside and outside of Israel-proper have marked March 30 as a day on which to protest not just issues concerning land within Israel’s internationally-recognized borders, but also Israel’s generally discriminatory practices toward its Palestinian citizens, and the occupation/settlements.

So far (1:45 pm, CST) one protester, Mahmoud Zaqout, has been killed in Gaza, but at least one other person has been critically injured by Israeli fire, so it’s likely that the number of dead will rise by at least one. Many others have been injured and/or detained.

Such a day seems a particularly good day to run Billy Bragg’s “The World Turned Upside Down,” about a 17th century land protest.

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Posted in Emily L. Hauser, International Shenanigans, Now Hear This!

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Why I Have No Idea What You’re Talking About, Sir

Posted on March 30, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Diplomacy: the art of stating the obvious and getting immunity for it.

Observation:  The Bush administration leaked sensitive information to journalists to start wars.  The Obama administration leaks sensitive information to journalists to stop them.

Two reports today about Iran’s nuclear program and the possibility of an Israeli military strike have analysts in Israel accusing the Obama administration leaking information to pressure Israel not to bomb Iran and for Iran to reach a compromise in upcoming nuclear talks.

The first report in Foreign Policy quotes anonymous American officials saying that Israel has been given access to airbases by Iran’s northern neighbor Azerbaijan from which Israel could launch air strikes or at least drones and search and rescue aircraft.

The second report from Bloomberg, based on a leaked congressional report, said that Iran’s nuclear facilities are so dispersed that it is “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be…” A strike could delay Iran as little as six months, a former official told the researchers.

“It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking,” analyst Yoel Guzansky at the Institute for National Security Studies told ABC News. “I think the [Obama] administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon. They’re trying hard to prevent it in so many ways.”

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Posted in International Shenanigans, Our Pundits of Perpetual Disappointment, Zandar

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My President is a feminist II – President Obama addresses Planned Parenthood supporters.

Posted on March 29, 2012 by | 1 Comment

“Let’s be clear here: Women are not an interest group…. They’re half of this country.”

“If you truly values families, you shouldn’t play politics with a woman’s health.”

Word.

(Do you think the President saw my tweet?)

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Posted in Body/Health Shenanigans, Emily L. Hauser, I Heart Ye, Obama 2012: Yes We Will!, Obamacare? No, ObamaCares!, War on Women

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One More Win in the Fight Against the War on Women™, in Arizona

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | 11 Comments

UPDATE:  BREAKING NEWS!!

Via @LbrlOkie77 on Twitter, an Oklahoma county judge struck down as unconstitutional the Oklahoma State-Sanctioned Rape aka Transvaginal Probe Law. It had been blocked temporarily, and now it’s permanently gone. Another win for #TeamUterati!

END OF UPDATE

We’re winning the fight against the War on Women™

Remember when I wrote about the two small victories in the fight against the War on Women™, one of them concerning the Right to Shame Employees as Sluts and Refuse to Pay for Their Contraception Bill in Arizona?  I said that even though Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko’s (R-Traitortoallwomenville) new version of the bill was still invasive and odious, the fact that she was rewriting it at all because of the national outcry over it was a small win for us.

I wrote that post assuming that the bill would pass, because, you know, it’s Arizona where it seemed as if no law is too punishing of women, LGBTQ, and undocumented workers.  This bill should have sailed right through the legislature, only to be signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer (R-Crazybittertown).

It didn’t.

Let me say that again.  The slut-shaming, protect-our-religious-freedoms, give-all-the-power-to-the-employers bill didn’t pass in Arizona.
(Click for more of that good news)

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Posted in asiangrrlMN, Body/Health Shenanigans, War on Women

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Huge correction re: Ehud Olmert & the Arab Peace Initiative.

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

For years now, I’ve written some version of the following words:

“All 22 members of the Arab League, including the Palestinian Authority, offered a comprehensive peace in exchange for a two state solution not once, but twice: in 2002 and 2007. Both times, Israel entirely ignored the offer.”

I wrote these words in good faith, but it turns out I was wrong. Wrong matters.

Late Monday night, while he was speaking to the annual J Street conference, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said this: “Those who say that Israel did not address itself to the Arab Peace Initiative do not speak the truth. Israel was prepared to negotiate within the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative.”

I took note but was busy transcribing the speech for a client, so couldn’t do anything at the moment. By the time Olmert was done, JTA’s Washington bureau chief Ron Kampeas had tweeted:

I tweeted back a question asking for clarification, and he very kindly obliged — and lo, it turns out that at the Annapolis Peace Conference in November 2007, then-Prime Minister Olmert said in his address:

I am familiar with the Arab peace initiative, which was born in Riyadh, affirmed in Beirut [in 2002] and recently reaffirmed by you in Riyadh. I value this initiative, acknowledge its importance and highly appreciate its contribution. I have no doubt that it will be referred to in the course of the negotiations between us and the Palestinian leadership.

So first of all: I was wrong.

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Posted in Emily L. Hauser, International Shenanigans

On The Hunger Games and general female badassery.

Posted on March 28, 2012 by | 9 Comments

We saw The Hunger Games on Sunday — and oh my God.

That’s kind of the sum total of my review, because, dudes: Oh my God! So good!

Sosososososo good!

Note: More images of badass women, after the jump. Jump, dudes! 

Ok, there could have been a few fewer hand-held close-ups — but mostly they worked. And ok, Gale should have somehow been given a few more minutes to establish just how close that relationship is. And I’m not sure Lenny Kravitz was really meant to act.

But other than that? OH MY GOD. (And come on come on, the 12 of you who are silly enough to have any Josh Hutcherson [Peeta] hate. He.was.perfect. Haterz to the left! Done).

Plus, bonus: We didn’t go on our own. We brought the boy (who got me into the books in the first place) and one of his closest friends — two seventh grade boys absolutely determined to see a girl with a bow kick some serious ass on opening weekend. They loved it. LOVED it. The boy’s one critique? “Jennifer Lawrence was great and everything – I just wish Katniss could have been even fiercer, somehow.”

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Posted in Emily L. Hauser, Kick Ass, Watch it!

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Lying to support Trayvon? No thanks, Larry

Posted on March 27, 2012 by | 79 Comments

I’ve gotten out of the habit of tuning in to evening cable news shows, but I flipped on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell last night in time to catch him dressing down Rene Stutzman, a reporter for The Orlando Sentinel who covered the leak of George Zimmerman’s statement to police.

For more coverage of the Trayvon Martin case, here’s a link to all Angry Black Lady posts with that tag.

I was astonished as O’Donnell began to ream Stutzman, apparently quoting her story in the Sentinel.

O’DONNELL: Rene, I want to ask you about some lines in your story today that are presented as fact, and I don’t understand why they’re presented as fact. You say, “Zimmerman was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.” Now, others have said that he was on a community watch thing. You don’t say that Zimmerman says that. You don’t say that police told you that. You just report it as fact as if you know exactly what Zimmerman was doing. You don’t know that.

STUTZMAN: I think you’re misreading the story –

O’DONNELL: No, I’m reading –

STUTZMAN: — High in the story, it says –

O’DONNELL: — I’m going to quote you again. “Zimmerman was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.” You don’t attribute that to anyone, except your own knowledge.

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Posted in Criminally Stupid, Do The Right Thing, Ian Boudreau

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