Recently in Human Rights Category

This afternoon, I participated in a conference call with Loretta Ross, National Coordinator of SisterSong Reproductive Health Collective on the notorious Stupak Amendment. I have known her for years and she has mentored me from fledgling feminist thought to where I am today. I hopped on the call while my head was still reeling from the auctioning of women's rights on Saturday. But hearing the voice of Loretta, a woman who once regaled me with stories about her days tracking extremist hate groups in the South, made everything all right. She is that elder feminist that puts her hand on your shoulder and makes you feel like the impossible is in reach.

What I admire most about Loretta Ross is that preserving and restoring women's human rights is central to her analysis. "Health care," she said "is not an option, not a privilege -- but a human right." She described Stupak's amendment as "a loss and injury to the human rights of women" and referred all members on the call to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was adopted by the U.S. government in 1948. Articles 12, 16 and 18 discuss privacy, the right to find a family and the right to "manifest faith" as one sees fit -- all tenets that Stupak ignored. This isn't just a document that has shaped America's Bill of Rights. In it lies the ethics that encompass what Obama has referred to as the character of our country. "This frame of human rights," Loretta argues, "has potential for feminists to situate women at the center of the debate allowing us to call attention to our rights to our body and control over our money."

But it wouldn't have been a feminist call without a few words on the opposition's framing. First, it was the Christian Right's seemingly contradictory statements about the $1.1 trillion for health care as excessive while stressing the value of human life. Loretta summed up the ironic logic of abortion rights opponents, "You can't put a price on a human life, but you can put a price on a human right?" Then she anguished over some lawmakers calling the bill "a benefit to all Americans." She asked, "Aren't women Americans, too?"

In the end, she had no negative sentiment towards Obama, who in recent days has voiced dissatisfaction with the Stupak Amendment. But she maintains that this has got to be an approach from the bottom-up. "Sending an e-mail," she said, "may not establish a long-term relationship that will allow us to advance the agenda for women's rights." Of the hundreds of protesters affiliated with SisterSong who banded together on Saturday in DC to oppose the bill, "70 percent made advocacy visits," she said. The callers agreed that a reenactment of 2004's March for Women's Lives may very well be on the table.

Under pressure from the international community, President Karzai has secretly pardoned Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student imprisoned and sentenced to death in Afghanistan for trying to promote women's rights. The 24-year-old journalist-in-training has been flown to an undisclosed foreign location. The Independent reports: "Prior to his departure, he spoke of how his relief was mixed with deep regret at knowing he was unlikely to see his family or country again."

Earlier this year Kambaksh was doing some research when, according to reports:

He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without - say his friends and family - being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

This is pretty distressing:

Tens of thousands of people in Mali's capital, Bamako, have been protesting against a new law which gives women equal rights in marriage.

The law, passed earlier this month, also strengthens inheritance rights for women and children born out of wedlock.

Sigh. Perhaps even more depression-inducing is this quote from Hadja Sapiato Dembele of the National Union of Muslim Women's Associations: "A man must protect his wife, a wife must obey her husband...It's a tiny minority of women here that wants this new law - the intellectuals. The poor and illiterate women of this country - the real Muslims - are against it."

Like most of you, I'm sure, I was excited to see the package of articles in The New York Times Magazine yesterday on the state of women's rights globally. Times columnist Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, authors of the lead article, have a forthcoming book on the subject. This is their attempt to show that women's rights are not a niche concern or a "soft issue," but are core to fixing the major problems that plague the world today. The simple fact is that in places around the globe where women are doing well, everyone is doing well. If only our foreign policy reflected that fact. (Hillary is working on it, I know. But it's a long road.)

I am thrilled to see this point made so prominently. But there's also something about the article that rubbed me the wrong way. I think the banner on the Times' website sums it up:

Saving the World's Women? When I tweeted last week that the "we Westerners must save women!" phrasing rubbed me the wrong way, a few folks piped up to offer alternatives. Emily Douglas suggested, "How about getting out of the way so women can save the world?" I like that perspective a helluva lot better.

The international women's rights groups that have worked on these issues for years (WEDO, MADRE, AWID, etc.) are absent from the articles. And, consequently, so is their framing that in order to build a better world, women need to be empowered to be an active part in making that change. The U.S. swooping in to "save" them will not actually fix things in a sustainable way. International women's rights groups, most of whom are working in collaboration with women on the ground, emphasize the importance of supporting grassroots movements and change that is driven by women rather than imposed on them. (Yes, microlending is a way of directly supporting women, but Kristof and WuDunn fail to make this broader point about how Western nations should approach international women's rights.)

Anna N. at Jezebel has another critique of their approach:

It may be true that a society is more peaceful when women are empowered, but the idea of promoting women's equality in order to reduce terrorism is still problematic. First, as WuDunn and Kristof are no doubt aware, there are plenty of examples of female terrorists. But the very idea of helping women because they behave the way we want -- not drinking, whoring, or planting bombs -- implies that we have a certain ideal of how developing countries should operate, and we want to shape them according to that ideal. It's also not necessarily good for women, who must continue to behave well in order to retain their status as model recipients of aid.

Just to be clear, I am really happy to see global women's issues brought to the forefront. However, the way we look at these issues is just as important as the fact that we're looking at all.

A group of women gather at the National Stadium, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke at a rally in Kabul. Photo by Nikki Kahn - The Washington Post

Tomorrow, Afghanistan goes to the polls -- and many people are questioning whether it's even possible to hold a "legitimate" election given the potential for low turnout due to recent threats of violence by the Taliban.

But, as Jeanne Brooks reminds us at Women's eNews, it's not just violence that threatens democracy in Afghanistan -- it's the disenfranchisement of women. President Hamid Karzai recently signed a law that severely restricts women's rights. Among many other appalling provisions, it prevents Shia women from casting a vote without their husband's permission.

As Rachel Reid writes in the Washington Post,

Things got much worse recently when President Hamid Karzai officially promulgated legislation that would make the Taliban proud. Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern: As Karzai's government has grown weaker he has increasingly turned to some of society's most conservative elements for support.

In other words, Karzai has shored up his own power at the expense of women. Among Afghans who are risking their lives to vote, he is seen by many to be the only "real choice" in tomorrow's election.

We've got a feminist Secretary of State who has professed her commitment to keeping women's rights central to her agenda. And yet, Brooks points out, the U.S. and British governments decided not to raise a political uproar about the latest restrictions on women's rights "out of fear of disrupting the election." But if women's voting rights are restricted, the election is already disrupted and illegitimate -- violating several articles of the Afghan constitution and international treaties that Afghanistan has signed.

MADRE (an international women's rights group) has created a survival fund that "supports an underground rescue network of women committed to providing shelter and secret transport to women who have been targeted because they dare to speak out for human rights." Click here to donate to the fund.

Related:
Alternatives to Military Escalation in Afghanistan
An On the Ground Perspective on Afghanistan
What do the Women of Afghanistan Want?
The military's disingenuous talking points on women's rights

Cari Sietstra and Kerry Howley have a great conversation up at bloggingheads about reproductive health on the Burma/Thailand border. Here's a brief segment about the impact of Burma's abortion ban:

(Click here to watch the whole conversation.)

Cari works with an awesome organization called the Adolescent Reproductive Health Network (ARHN), which recently put out a report that reveals just how little health professionals around the world know about the reproductive health situation in Burma and in conflict zones. In a survey of 400 adolescents who fled violence in Burma and are living in Thailand, ARHN found:

a) knowledge of sexual health and anatomy are very low among adolescents from Burma's conflict zones;

b) cursory knowledge of condoms and birth control pills is widespread (more than half of teens know of them) but use of family planning and safer sex techniques is incredibly low;

c) the estimated rate of STI's in this population is 7%;

d) both young men and women report high levels of acceptance of gender based violence and male authority over women's reproductive choices: more than half of young men and a third of young surveyed believe that women sometimes deserve to be beaten; more than half of young men think that husbands shoud determine whether or not wives use birth control.

ARHN works to educate teens about sex and reproductive health. To support their work, visit their Facebook causes page. If you're in New York, you can also attend an event (info after the jump) on Thursday.

Moderator Isobel Coleman begins by pointing out that there is some controversy over the title of the panel itself. She asks: "Is this a new agenda? Who's agenda is it?"

The first panelist to speak is Lamia Karim (pictured right), from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. She speaks to all of the various human rights discourses, many of which she obviously doesn't think are complex or ethical. "What I am most interested in is grassrooots, indigenous, human rights movements organized, not around an individual human, but much more on a group rights basis.This is taking up these rights discourses but trying to renegotiate with the realities on the ground."

"As feminists we need to really go beyond the rhetoric of the empowerment of women and ask carefully, 'What does it take to empower women? Is money enough? What does it mean to give women access to capital without giving them skills training?' This is the Grameen Bank model--based on neo-liberalism."

Larnia has a book coming out through UC Press in spring 2010 which she describes as "a radical critique of this model, this particular model. I wanted to put it out there because this has become a very innovative way of framing how women, especially in the global south and very poor women, can be economically and socially empowered." Can't wait for that!

Isobel turns to Jill Lester next, who is the ED of The Hunger Project, to ask her what her reaction is to the radical critique of micro lending.

"Unfortunately, I think we're going to be in violent agreement." [audience laughs]

"The Hunger Project believes in an integrated approach to poverty. Part of that is having a micro finance facility. We ask the community to form a micro finance committee of 100% women to set their own agenda."

Next up is Radhika Balakrishnan (pictured left), of the Marymount Manhattan College:
"Rather than talking about the crisis as if it something that fell from the sky, we're calling it the 'manufactured crisis,' caused by deliberate changes that the government made in the regulatory framework."

"We're trying to turn human rights around on them. You want to oppose human rights all over the world? What about the human right violation right here. What about the TARP legislation? There's no transparency. That's public money. This is our institution. Therefore there's a human rights obligation on the state."

Cynthia Enloe (holy amazing) jumps in as the pinch hitter:

"One has to be able to think analytically in order to act. I've hated the theory-practice divide. It's stupid. Anyone who acts, especially if you try to act collectively, if you try to mobilize beyond your best friend, it means you've done some causal thinking. You are an analyst. Out of your action come new analytical understandings. It works and you think why did it work? Or it didn't and you have to go back to the drawing table. We are all analysts. We are all thinkers who think thinking matters. Thinking is in handshake with action."

"If we've learned something from feminist thinking from around the world, it is that you have to think big in order to think small--the guys say that of course--but you also have to think small in order to think big. It works both ways and it's really one of the great strengths of feminist thinking for action."

"We are at a moment now where we've got a pool of schools and an understanding of what needs to be acted upon, some people call it an agenda, and we are at a moment, not just because we have a new president of one country, not just because the institutions of capitalism are wobbly (they're not as wobbly as we'd liked)."

"We really are at a moment amongst all of us, and I mean all of us who aren't in the room, where we have the capacity to think as if it matters and the capaity to know what needs to be acted upon. This is a very, very exciting moment. We shouldn't let cynicsm let that moment pass."

"Think as if it matters and then act as if it affects our thinking."

Check out this interesting guest post by Dr. Ana Nogales, a health and human rights advocate, on the power of women's stories, as understood through her own mother. This is one more voice to our continued exploration of generational issues, leading up to the conference this fall at the Omega Institute. We are publishing a series of guest posts as a fun way of initiating some of the speakers--who are generally new to blogging--into our exciting online community. Please make them feel welcome.

My mother never told me her whole story. She relayed pieces of it here and there, but I could tell that her pain was much greater than her measured words revealed. After marrying my father in a quasi-arranged marriage just before World War II, the two of them left Poland for South America. My mother never saw her parents again. She talked about the love she had for her father but said almost nothing about her mother. I gathered from the little she told me that her mother, my grandmother, was neglected as a child and never had a voice in her family. In our family, my mother had a voice but most of the time it was a voice of negativity. I believe that the reason for this was that my mother was never able to overcome her family's tragedy.

It was only in the last few months of her life that my mom was able to speak from her heart. She spoke of how it was in her family when she was growing up--that girls and women knew their place and couldn't deviate from that--and how the attitudes of her elders were passed on to her. She also opened up about my Jewish family's ordeal in Poland and how painful it had been for her to leave her family behind. I had known the outlines of her story but not her feelings about all that had happened. It was so important for me to finally receive the missing pieces of that story, because it was part of my own history as well.

Today, sadly, there are too many women whose voices are silenced due to discrimination and violence against women. Sometimes we keep our stories to ourselves because we don't want to burden our children with the pain of the past. But such silence doesn't allow the younger generation to learn from what their elders went through--and to strive to create change. This is why it is so crucial for grandmothers and mothers to reach out to the younger generations and share their stories, however painful they may be, so that our personal and cultural histories are not lost. And it is equally important for younger women to keep asking their mothers and grandmothers to relay the stories of their lives. As we engage in this process of intergenerational dialogue, we can begin to connect to each other at the soul level--and work together toward the goal of women's empowerment.

Bio after the jump.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling

As you may have heard by now, two American journalists with CurrentTV, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were just sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp. They were found guilty of unspecified "grave crimes" and "hostile acts" -- which really just means they were muckraking journalists who dared to cross into North Korea.

Washington's former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson called the sentencing part of "a high-stakes poker game" being played by North Korea. He said on NBC's Today show that he thinks negotiations for their "humanitarian release" can begin now that the legal process has been completed. Other South Korean analysts also said they expect the two to be freed following negotiations.

But we should still keep the pressure on. Click here to sign the petition for their release. There are more action suggestions here. Join the Facebook group. And for regular updates, follow LiberateLaura on Twitter. AngryAsianMan also suggests "emailing the State Department at secretary@state.gov demanding they step up negotiations with North Korea."

Using journalists as political pawns and bargaining chips is unfortunately nothing new. Roxana Saberi's case made headlines recently. But this is not only a tactic used by Iran and North Korea. The United States -- yes, the very U.S. that claims to honor freedom of the press and human rights -- is holding an Iraqi journalist named Ibrahim Jassam. He hasn't been charged. An Iraqi court ordered he be released. And yet he remains in U.S. military custody. This is by NO means a suggestion that it's "fair" for North Korea to hold two American journalists. But it's hard for America to have credibility on this issue. Those of us who push for Ling and Lee's release need to expect the same standards of our own government. (See more at the Committee to Protect Journalists.)

Interestingly, Nerdette encountered a lot of push-back when she tried to get folks to sign the petition and take action for Ling and Lee. She writes,

I know that this petition will not directly sway the North Korean government. That doesn't mean its not a meaningful act. That's not why I'm trying to get people to sign it. The point is to keep the energy, the noise and the interest at as heightened a level as we can... so that maybe the media will pay attention to what's going with Laura and Euna... As we come together - online or even off (there was a vigil for Laura and Euna last week) - we are building capacity. Yes, none of us are diplomats, but that doesn't mean we don't have an opinion. Moreover, why would anyone want to silence that? Isn't that the problem with North Korea? That they censure their people? Even if you think the petition is dumb, futile or pointless, luckily the internet is so vast there is space for me and 13,000 other people to publicly declare that we want Euna and Laura to come home. The idea that someone would tell me "don't try, you look ridiculous" just makes me more committed to becoming even noisier.

Those are wise words for any action campaign. Even if it doesn't achieve the desired result, the very act of collectively standing up and saying that we are watching, that we will defend human rights, that we value the right to free speech and fair trials, that, in and of itself, is valuable and important. 

More on Euna Lee and Laura Ling from Matt Yglesias, Jezebel, and Latoya Peterson.

A bunch o' peace organizations have created a coalition to push a nationwide day of reflection on and renunciation of military escalation in Afghanistan. I'm totally sympathetic to their cause, and always a fan of stepping back and considering non-military solutions, but also feel confused on this issue. As I've written previously in this space, I'm most concerned with what the nonviolent citizens of Afghanistan, especially women, want the U.S. to do.

Contrary to the tired old rhetoric about the U.S. soldiers swooping in and and "saving" poor, repressed Afghan women, there is a vital movement of Afghan women working to change their own communities and cultures. It is these women that I want to hear from, these women whose opinions I trust the most. And yet, it's hard to figure out--all the way over here in my little Brooklyn hovel--who these women are and if there is any sort of consensus on what it is that they want from the U.S. When I was at the Code Pink Mother's Day Vigil, an Afghani woman spoke about the horrific conditions that so many Afghan women are facing. After she left the stage, an interesting discussion took place between her and some of the Code Pink members in which she asserted that, contrary to the peace movement's assumptions, Afghan women want the U.S. military to stay in Afghanistan. "They don't feel safe," she said. "The international presence makes them feel safer."

Of course, she was just one woman. It would be reductive to expect all U.S. women to think unilaterally on such a complex issue (think presidential election 2008 and all the ridiculous "THE women vote" talk), so why would Afghani women be any different? This video, produced by Code Pink, features a dynamic woman who opposes military escalation:

So here I am, paralyzed by all the complexity. Anyone have bright ideas or trusted sources to contribute? If you're convinced that military escalation is wrong, here are some things you can do about it.

*Trigger Warning*

Not so much. Last week women's organizers in Kenya decided to go on a sex strike to ply their husbands into ending political divisions.

via the Root.

The Women's Development Organization spearheaded a weeklong strike in which they called on Kenyan women to withhold sex from their husbands and lovers until they put an end to the political divisions that threaten to destroy the Grand Coalition Government of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The act of conjugal disobedience was straight from the pages of Aristophanes' Lysistrata. The women involved even paid prostitutes not to ply their trade during the seven-day holdout.

As author Lisa Crooms concludes, if only it were that simple. Rape has consistently been used as a weapon of war in Kenya by British soldiers and gang rape has become commonplace. Despite seeming like a creative organizing effort, the implications are not good.

Kenya has also been a country in which gang rape has been part of the violence the sex strikers are trying to force their men to end. Add to this politically exacerbated sexual violence, claims of widespread rape of primarily Samburu and Maasai women by British soldiers. Add those who have been raped and sexually assaulted Somali refugees in Kenya, as well as women and men in Kenya's western Mt. Elgon district near the Ugandan border who have been violated by members of the Sabaot Land Defense Force. Underscoring the widespread link between sex and conflict are the thriving illegal sex trade and its accompanying trafficking of women and girls, the continued refusal to criminalize marital rape, and the sexual abuse, violence, coercion and discrimination that render Kenyan women and girls particularly vulnerable to being infected with HIV/AIDS, and a sex strike seems like a dangerously futile means of coercion.

The proposed sex strike does little to change the way that Kenyan women are viewed and valued in both the public and the private spheres where women are disempowered and largely absent from public positions of power.

I think what it does show is that Kenyan women are acting on the fact that their sexuality is being controlled by state and parochial power, it is just a matter of having the means to organize effectively. It is a sad state of affairs that they are trying to leverage their own bodies and that it is considered laughable since their person hood is not even recognized, let alone their right to consent to sex. Ugh.

There was no question that the immigration detention facilities and policies in this country are dehumanizing, but the latest news out of Arizona underscores it. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) jail is being called out for human rights abuses against female detainees. From the Inter Press Agency:

MCSO is currently under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department over alleged abuses of a section of immigration law known as 287(g) that allows the federal government to deputize local police to enforce immigration law.

"The abuse of these powers within the jails is worse than in the street," said Salvador Reza, an organizer with the pro-immigrant group Puente that has been monitoring the alleged mistreatment. "If we were able to stop torture in Guantanamo Bay, we should be able to do that in Maricopa County," he added.

On May 2, Reza's group organized a six-mile march to protest this situation from the offices of the sheriff in downtown Phoenix to the Estrella jail, a detention facility for women.

The march was in response to claims of abuse by an immigrant woman whose arm was allegedly broken by sheriff's office guards, and a letter by 13 others who also denounced mistreatment within the same jail. At the protest, 43 women inmates launched a hunger strike to make their point.

"Please help us, we're in a tunnel without end, treated like dogs," reads the letter obtained by Respect/Respet, a local organization that documents human and civil rights abuses. Among the signatories is an immigrant woman who claims the sheriff's deputies broke her jaw during a workplace raid.

I've written about this issue in the past. Not only is this whole thing a gross violation of human rights and a moral black mark on us all, but there is a giant business behind it that few are aware of. While this is a government jail, many women are being detained in private prisons (the biggest being in Texas) that make big money off of imprisoning innocent immigrants (including children).

I'm so glad to see people protesting this issues and trying to organize others to join them. Check out Grassroots Leadership if you want to learn more, especially about family detention. Here's a video they made:

Thanks to the Women's Media Center for the heads up.

Miriam touched on this briefly yesterday when the Matthew Shepard Act passed the House, but this really takes the cake. Anyone that is opposed to hate crime legislation must have a tremendous super power to ignore all the violence that has been inflicted upon marginalized populations all through out history, a violence that continues. And anyone with this power must be deeply evil.

Take for example Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Congresswoman who dared to suggest that the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard was a hoax.

Transcript:

Rep. Foxx: "The bill was named after a very unfortunate incident that happened, where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's, it's really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."[House Floor Speech, 4/29/09]

Always take fundies at their word, even when they try and backpedal.

Via Pam's House Blend.

Tomorrow marks Obama's first 100 days in office. Obama has been all over the place, but a couple of things that make me happy I voted for him include the overturning of the Global Gag Rule, the passing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, and his signature to shut down Guantanamo Bay. I am also happy with many of his appointments, most notable to me is Van Jones as the green czar, someone who comes from the same organizing community as myself.

The one place I differ with this administration, even if far better than the last administration, is their stance on foreign policy from our role in the G20 to our stance on Afghanistan. That said, I will say in watching the news coverage of Obama in international settings, it is nice to have a president that is not a total embarrassment to us and how we are represented overseas.

What are your favorite accomplishments of the Obama administration to date and how do you think he has prioritized his work around gender based reforms, healthcare, the economy, the war, and immigration?

Immigration reform is back in the news. I asked Christine Neumann-Ortiz, founding executive director of Voces de la Frontera based in Wisconsin, to help explain the latest developments.

Here's Christine...

via AFP.

US President Barack Obama announced Friday the creation of a new foreign policy position designed to tackle global women's issues.

Obama named Melanne Verveer, an aide in former president Bill Clinton's administration, as ambassador-at-large for international women's issues. She will serve at the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The appointment, which has to be approved by the Senate, "is unprecedented and reflects the elevated importance of global women?s issues to the president and his entire administration," the White House said in a statement.

Clinton has put efforts to improve the lot of women at the heart of boosting international development, which she says must be an "equal partner" with diplomacy and defense in US foreign policy.

I am feeling this, it is working for me. Thoughts?

Today the Gay Men's Health Crisis, the Women's HIV Collaborative of NY, along with other HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention groups in NY will be marching on the steps of city hall to raise awareness for the alarming rate at which young women are being infected with HIV. One of their demands is increased education around issues of HIV and AIDs.

Why is this an important issue? The Women's HIV Collaborative blog tells us.

Here in the United States, women comprise about 27% of HIV infections, up from about 8% in 1984. In many countries around the world, women already represent over 50% of HIV infections. Rates of sexually transmitted infections among youth and teenage pregnancy have risen over the last several years - both indicators that we may soon see a corresponding rise in HIV infections among both young women and men. And, although generally considered a chronic manageable condition in the U.S., HIV continues to be the leading cause of death among African American women aged 25 to 34 years old.

Yet most of the general public in the U.S. think of HIV as a men's disease and some members of the HIV advocacy/policy community have gone so far as to say "HIV/AIDS in this country is a men's disease".

If you are in NY the march is today at 1 pm. More specific info can be found here.

If you are not in NY but know of other events please put them in comments.

via Newsday.

UPDATE: Also check out this piece from the Feministing Community (originally appeared at HuffPo) about HIV in NY with this year's theme for the National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day theme being "HIV is Right Here at Home."

Rona Taylor, author of the piece tells us,

The theme for this year's National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, "HIV is Right Here at Home," hits close to home here in New York City, where 10% of all women living with the virus in the United States reside.

It's the largest population of women with HIV in the country. If all 30,000 of these HIV-positive women and girls were to come together and walk down Fifth Avenue, the crowd would approximate the swell of runners in the NYC Marathon. They could sell out Radio City Music Hall five times over and occupy more than half the seats in Yankee Stadium. A disproportionate number of these women--90 percent--are black and Hispanic; over half, or 68 percent, are over the age of 40; and more than a third, or 41 percent, were infected through heterosexual activity. This is the same female face of HIV that we have been seeing since the epidemic first began to be acknowledged in women in the 80s.

You can check out the report from the Women's HIV Collaborative of NY here.

There's been lots of talk about clean coal these days. Have you seen any of the industry's commercials? But what you haven't heard much about since Robert F. Kennedy visited the region back in the day is where coal comes from -- the Appalachian Mountains. His son continues to speak out about the region. Ashley Judd a long with many folks in her home state of Kentucky have been doing a lot of activism around mining and the disparities in the Appalachian Mountains there. Judd recently spoke out about a piece Diana Sawyer aired on 20/20 last week called "Children of the Mountains on Appalachian life in Kentucky -- Diane Sawyer is also from the state. The piece sparked some reaction in the blogosphere from folks who have been in the trenches working on these disparities just about their whole lives.

I decided to ask Theresa L. Burriss, the Assistant Professor of English & Appalachian Studies at Radford University, about everyday life in Appalachia and what she thought about clean coal and Diane Sawyer's piece. (Diane Sawyer did a follow-up piece last night on "Mountain Dew mouth".)

Here's Theresa...

Check it out:

The North Dakota Senate voted 27 to 19 today in support of a bill that adds gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to the protected classes in the state Human Rights Act.

Sen. Tom Fiebiger, D-Fargo, the prime sponsor of the proposal, said Senate Bill 2278 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The bill would prohibit discrimination in housing, employment, credit transaction and use of public accommodation.

Thanks to readers for the heads up.