Wednesday Reads, Wisdom indeed…

Morning everyone, Minx here and I have some morning reads to get y’all thinking. Many are dealing with women’s issues, so I hope that you spend some time reading the links.  March has been quite a wet month for us in Banjoland, I love the sound of fat rain drops hitting the tin roof.  I think spring is on the way…With all the revolts in MENA, I wonder if it will get worse when the temperatures really start to rise? If you missed the last few post from Dakinikat and Wonk the Vote, be sure you check them out. Dak brings up the subject of Welfare State in Jesusland and Wonk discusses the violence seen in Egypt’s Million Woman March. Such sad state of affairs…

Anyway, let’s get on with it shall we?

Below is a video taken on the Lybian Tunisian border where people fleeing Gaddafi and his violence are gathering.

As the world marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, euronews went to the Libyan-Tunisian border to meet some of the female migrants who are fleeing the violence in Libya.

If you missed the news about the refugees check out this link from March 4^th: Refugees airlifted from Tunisia – Africa – Al Jazeera English

In other Libyan news, it looks like “crazy-ass” Gaddafi  has some worried he will completely loose it, and blow the oil and gas complexes to smithereens. I could see him doing this, couldn’t you? I wonder if the bookies are taking any bets as to whether Muammar will go out in “Gaddafi” style.

Libya oil tanks seen as ‘time bomb’ – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

For now, opposition forces control this and virtually every other natural energy facility in the country.

But as this conflict wears on, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will need oil. He will have to try and take it by force or, as many fear, he could bomb oil and gas complexes to prevent anyone else from using them

“ We expect that he will destroy everything because he is crazy,” Fahad Kheri, superintendent in Libya’s oil and gas Industry, told Al Jazeera.

The installation is only a few hundred kilometres away from Gadaffi’s hometown and stronghold of Sirte.

Al Jazeera has found that the frontlines are fluid and that the rebel fighters lack organisation. As a result, the natural gas plant here is a potential time bomb waiting to go off.

In Yemen, it looks like President Ali Abdullah Saleh is channeling Gaddafi, by attacking his own people as they protest his rule.

Yemeni army fires at student protesters, wounding 98 – thestar.com

The Yemeni government escalated its efforts to stop mass protests calling for the president’s ouster on Tuesday, with soldiers firing rubber bullets and tear gas at students camped at a university in the capital in a raid that left at least 98 people wounded, officials said.

The army stormed the Sanaa University campus hours after thousands of inmates rioted at the central prison in the capital, taking a dozen guards hostage and calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. At least one prisoner was killed and 80 people were wounded as the guards fought to control the situation, police said.

Update: Yemen protester dies after police attack – hospital | World | Reuters

In Egypt Tuesday, celebrations for International Women’s Day turned into a disappointing display of the anti-woman sentiment that is inherit in male dominate societies. I’ve already linked to Wonk’s post on this from last night. Be sure and take the time to read the comments too, Wonk added some links and quotes to update her post.

Barry Lando has some thoughts on the first Bush to be a resident in the White House. I am talking about George H.W. Bush, and the legacy he left after we got Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War.

Barry Lando: When America Left Arab Rebels to the Slaughter – Truthdig

As the standoff in Libya takes on the potential of a bloody civil war, President Barack Obama is forced to consider possible U.S. intervention—at the very least, the enforcement of a no-fly zone. He has ordered his staff to examine how his predecessors handled such situations. One of the most frequently mentioned: how George H.W. Bush dealt with the Shiite and Kurd uprisings in Iraq in 1991, after U.S. forces drove Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait.

But, rather than being an exemplary use of American power, that whole affair was a disgraceful episode that reverberates to this day. What actually happened was that an American president called for an uprising against a brutal Arab dictator, then turned his back, leaving tens, possibly hundreds of thousands to be slaughtered. I recounted that sorry affair in a documentary, “The Trial of Saddam Hussein,” excerpted on YouTube. (See Part 5 and Part 6.)

[…]

When it looked as if the insurgents might actually succeed, the American president turned his back. The White House and its allies wanted Saddam replaced not by a popular revolt which they couldn’t control but by a military leader more amenable to U.S. interests. They were also fearful that Iranian influence might spread in the wake of a Shiite takeover. In fact, American officials refused to meet with rebel leaders who were not under Iran’s control and were desperate to explain their cause.

Closer to home, we have heard about the violence and murders that seem to flourish in the border towns of Mexico. In Juarez, there is another side to these drug wars, which do not get much play in our MSM. (I wonder why that is…) Women are just another casualty and it seems that many vanish…leaving grieving mothers to wonder how they can stop the Femicides from happening.

In Juarez, women just disappear – Features – Al Jazeera English

The story of young women who simply disappear is all too common in this border city, but in the last two years, gendered violence has been drawn into the broader blood pool in Mexico’s murder capital. A grisly drug war has claimed at least 7,800 lives in the city since 2008.

But femicides, or targeted attacks on women represent something different from the killings affecting all residents, activists say.

‘International shame’

The Mexican government does not keep official statistics on these femicides, says Flor Cuevas, a member of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission.

“There is a negative attitude from government towards the problem,” Cuevas said during an interview in her Juarez office. “Femicides must be covered up, as they are an international shame.”

[…]

When celebrity appearances and official institutions fail, mothers take a bleak view of justice in a city devouring its young women. “You can just beg,” said Malu Garcia Andrade, “that within this drug war, these killers and rapists get shot.”

All hope is lost, and the only prayer these mothers have is in fate, that these murderers and rapist will get killed by the bullets of the drug wars that are ongoing in Juarez. Sad…Sad…Sad.

We have been keeping up with the assault on women here in the US. For more on this I link to a recent post on Huffpo: Deborah Burger: The War on Women’s Health

Nationally, the U.S. Senate is likely to act this week on a decision by the House last month to bar Planned Parenthood health centers from receiving any federal funding. That would deeply cut into the broad array of health services provided by Planned Parenthood including not just abortion, but also birth control, cancer screenings, HIV and STD testing, and more.

All this week, Planned Parenthood is holding events in multiple cities to encourage people to lobby their Senators to stop this unwarranted and dangerous assault.

It looks like Deborah has giving my own state top PLUBs honors for the proposed miscarriage is murder bill that our crazy GOP state senator has drafted.

But the award for the most extreme may have to go to Georgia where state Rep. Bobby Franklin who wants to criminalize not just abortions but even miscarriages, potentially punishable by death. As Jen Phillips wrote in Mother Jones, “basically, it’s everything a ‘pro-life’ activist could want aside from making all women who’ve had abortions wear big red ‘A’s’ on their chests.”

This is the same Franklin who last year pushed legislation that would redefine rape victims as “accusers,” in an apparent attempt to generate sympathy for rapists.

I will leave you all with the final line from the Huffpo link…

…the current rightwing crusade a war not just on women’s health, but also on women’s futures.

I wonder if those GOP idiots would consider this “forcible rape?” In this case of Gang Rape of an 11 year old girl, it looks like they have at least made some arrest…Gang Rape of Schoolgirl, and Arrests, Shake Texas Town – NYTimes.com

The police investigation began shortly after Thanksgiving, when an elementary school student alerted a teacher to a lurid cellphone video that included one of her classmates.

The video led the police to an abandoned trailer, more evidence and, eventually, to a roundup over the last month of 18 young men and teenage boys on charges of participating in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in the abandoned trailer home, the authorities said.

Five suspects are students at Cleveland High School, including two members of the basketball team. Another is the 21-year-old son of a school board member. A few of the others have criminal records, from selling drugs to robbery and, in one case, manslaughter. The suspects range in age from middle schoolers to a 27-year-old.

18 arrested! Can you believe it? And one of them a 21 year old son of a school board member.  Check out the quote from the nurse who attended the victim.

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

[…]

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.

“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”

The boys have to live with it the rest of their lives, what about the girl? See the attitudes of the people interviewed and the tone of the reporter/journalist who wrote it? WTF? What is wrong with these people? You can read the rest of the article to see what an ordeal this child had to go through. For more sexism and hate just look at this link: Cleveland residents still reeling after gang rape of girl, 11 | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle It is disgusting…

So what are you all reading this morning? And what do you think about the situation in Mexico? Comment section is below, hop to it.

Photo: United States Geological Survey

Okay…I couldn’t leave it on a down note, so here is one mama who has seen a lot during her 60 years…Oldest known U.S. free-flying bird hatches new chick on Midway | Reuters

The oldest known free-flying bird in the United States, a roughly 60-year-old albatross named Wisdom, hatched her latest chick weeks ago to become a mother again on Sand Island at Midway, wildlife officials reported on Tuesday.

[…]

Wisdom holds the record as the oldest wild specimen documented during the 90-year history of the U.S. and Canadian bird-banding research program.

A U.S. Geological Survey scientists first tagged the bird with an aluminum identification band when she was about 5 years old in 1956 as she was incubating an egg.

Since then, the albatross has logged about 3 million flying miles, the equivalent of six round trips to the Moon.

Wow, six round trips to the moon…just think about that. So Wisdom is a new mama, it kind of gives the rest of us a bit of hope doesn’t it? I mean if she can survive in this crazy world, then maybe things can’t be all that bad…right?