Wednesday Reads: Countdown to Thanksgiving… #OrangeTheWorld

Happy Thanksgiving’s Eve

Damn, it is the Ghost of Thanksgiving’s Past……There is nothing like having a pissed off old bird haunting you night…and day.

Especially one who is fighting against Violence against Women!!!!!!!!!

(I am the pissed off old bird in that scenario.)

Today is November 25th, and each year….November 25th…. marks the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women – 25 November

Why This International Day?

• Violence against women is a human rights violation

• Violence against women is a consequence of discrimination against women, in law and also in practice, and of persisting inequalities between men and women

• Violence against women impacts on, and impedes, progress in many areas, including poverty eradication, combating HIV/AIDS, and peace and security

• Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. Prevention is possible and essential

• Violence against women continues to be a global pandemic.

Facts and Figures

• 35% of women and girls globally experience some form of physical and or sexual violence in their lifetime with up to seven in ten women facing this abuse in some countries.
• An estimated 133 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation/cutting in the 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East where the harmful practice is most common.
• Worldwide, more than 700 million women alive today were married as children, 250 million of whom were married before the age of 15. Girls who marry before the age of 18 are less likely to complete their education and more likely to experience domestic violence and complications in childbirth.
• The costs and consequence of violence against women last for generations.

 

 

From 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day, the16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign is a time to galvanize action to end violence against women and girls around the world.

This year, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women invites you to “Orange the world: End violence against women and girls.” Join the UNiTE campaign and organize “Orange Events” between 25 November and 10 December 2015.

#OrangeTheWorld

So to “celebrate” this International Day to end Violence against Women, the National Institute of Health, has a series of three articles, and various links, that you should give some time to today.

Confronting Violence: Home page Exhibition…

• Introduction
• Generations of Reformers
• Nurses Take A Stand
• Medicine Confronts Violence
• Change Is Possible
• And the Work Continues

Nurses changed the way the medical profession identified and treated women who were battered. By the 1990s, all the major medical organizations recognized domestic violence as a significant health issue and urged their members to take action, reinforcing over a decade of advocacy by nurses and their allies.

Temperance and women’s rights advocates called attention to family violence and agitated for reform during the mid-19th century. Despite their efforts, society as a whole continued to ignore domestic violence.

 

Activists and reformers in the United States have long recognized the harm of domestic violence and sought to improve the lives of women who were battered.

 

Take a look at the main page of their program, via the NIH’s blog Circulating Now : Confronting Violence | Circulating Now

From Private Matter to Public Health Crisis | Circulating Now

Dan Sheridan addresses a group of nurses collaborating to improve women’s lives, ca. 1990s Courtesy National Library of Medicine

Domestic Violence in the 1970s | Circulating Now

Ms. magazine, founded in 1971, ran a regular feature “No Comment” that encouraged readers to send in sexist advertisements and other media.
Printed in Ms. Magazine, July 1973

Medicine and Wife Abuse in the 1970s | Circulating Now

Working on Wife Abuse, a directory of services for survivors of domestic violence, compiled by Betsy Warrior, 1978
Courtesy National Library of Medicine

I hope you look at all those links and various sites, it is very interesting and educational.

Now for today’s links. since I am running late, as usual…but later than that…a link dump. (My cousin David is in town, we are eating too much and having lots of fun!)

CNN Analyst “Shocked There’s No Violence” During Chicago Protests | Video | Media Matters for America – Go figure!

The #Justice4Jamar Protests Are a Reproductive Justice Issue – A summary of sorts…

Fox’s Steve Doocy Laments That American Mosques Are No Longer Spied Upon By Police | Video | Media Matters for America – Doocy rhymes with Asshole. Really it does!

Uh, take this next link for what it is worth: Article: Nuclear Reactors Make Isis an Apocalyptic Threat | OpEdNews

Mars to lose largest moon, gain a ring | Science Wire | EarthSky Lose a moon, gain a ring…hmmmm.

Records reveal Minnesota priests raped hundreds of kids for decades — and church buried the evidence Of course the church buried it.

Pope Francis stuns Kenyans by traveling in a Honda — with windows down – LA Times

No trunk in the back of this Honda? This Pope has got back, I mean…Balls. (With a capital B.) No Pope Mobile for him!

First Full ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Trailer Sees Heroes Fighting Heroes : T-Lounge : Tech Times

6 Widely Repeated Phrase Origins—Debunked! | Mental Floss

4. UPPER CRUST

Getty Images

The Tall Tale: Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or “upper crust.”

The Facts: An isolated source hints at such a custom. One of the first printed books on household management, John Russell’s Boke of Nurture, circa 1460, says (translated into modern English), “Take a loaf…and lay [a trencher] before your lord; lay four trenchers four-square, and another on the top. Take a loaf of light bread, pare the edges, cut the upper crust for your lord.” It’s not clear whether the upper crust was considered the tastiest nibble or the sturdiest substitute for a plate, but such instructions have cropped up nowhere else. Over the centuries, the phrase upper crust appears in reference to the earth’s surface, bread and pies. But it’s not until the 19^th century that we find it used to mean upper class, so the connection with the apportioning of a loaf is dubious.

In the 19^th century, upper crust appears as a slang term for the human head or a hat. In 1826,The Sporting Magazine reported, “Tom completely tinkered his antagonist’s upper-crust.” Most likely it’s simply the idea of the upper crust being the top that made it a metaphor for the aristocracy. Here’s how Thomas Chandler Haliburton put it in 1838’s The Clockmaker; or the sayings and doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville: “It was none o’ your skim-milk parties, but superfine uppercrust real jam.”

13 Scientific Terms Even Smart People Misuse | Mental Floss Speaking of Moons and Rings.

4., 5., AND 6. METEOR, METEORITE, AND ASTEROID

Although some use these terms interchangeably, meteors, meteorites, and asteroids are all different things. Here’s how to use them correctly: Asteroids are the rocky bodies that orbit the Sun mostly between Mars and Jupiter; they’re much smaller than planets, and they’re sometimes pulled out of their orbit by the force of Jupiter’s gravity and travel toward the inner solar system. The vast majority of meteorites—rocks that fall to Earth from space and actually reach the Earth’s surface—are parts of asteroids. Like meteorites, meteors are objects that enter Earth’s atmosphere from space—but they’re typically grain-sized pieces of comet dust that burn up before reaching the ground, leaving behind trails that we call “shooting stars” as they vaporize.

Football On Thanksgiving Is Nearly As Old As The Holiday Itself

On Nov. 6, 1869, 25 players from Rutgers University carried scarlet handkerchiefs onto a field in northern New Jersey as a means of distinguishing themselves from the opposing Princeton squad. That matchup marked what is considered today the first football game ever played. Only weeks later, the country’s newest sport would be played on one of its newest official holidays: Thanksgiving. And so, the longstanding tradition of football on Turkey Day was born.

Football and Thanksgiving have been coupled almost since the birth of each of them. Abraham Lincoln had declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, just six years prior to the first football game on Thanksgiving, played so soon after the sport’s invention. After that inaugural game in 1869, high school and college teams throughout the rest of the century, and throughout the rest of the country, began to purposely schedule games on Thanksgiving, when the day off would bring the greatest number of people to the local fields to support the amateur squads.

I had no idea football went back that far…

Twitter Proves There’s Nothing Like #ThanksgivingWithHispanics

Tuesday morning #ThanksgivingWithBlackFamilies began trending on Twitter, and it wasn’t long before #ThanksgivingWithHispanics followed suit.

Using the hashtag, Twitter users shared hilarious tweets, memes, vines and photos that all perfectly captured the spirit of #ThanksgivingWithHispanics. No topic was left untouched and no relative was spared. We’ve rounded up some of the best tweets and listed them below. You’re welcome.

Go to the link to see a few of those. As well as:

#ThanksgivingwithCubans:

And, there is also, #ThanksgivingWithItalianFamilies:

Some of them even overlap:

This is an open thread….