Articles [12]

Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey
Posted: 3 Feb 2011
Source: The Task Force
Tags: education, employment, homeless, housing, IDs, LGBT, newsjournal, police brutality, research, transgender

Articles [11]

Zimbabwean Police Vow to Crush Any Egyptian-Style Uprising in Harare
Published: 4 Feb 2011
Source: Voice of America
Tags: Zimbabwe, Africa...

Cambodia sentences Thai activists for spying
Published: 1 Feb 2011
Source: CNN IBN [Indian Broadcasting Network]
Tags: Cambodia, political activists, wrongful imprisonment

PAD: Govt has 3 days to free Veera from Cambodia
Published: 4 Feb 2011
Source: Bangkok Post
Tags: Cambodia, political activists, wrongful imprisonment

'The Transgender Soul' (Completed Art Project)

It's finished! Wow, amazing what you can accomplish when you're given so many free hours in a row. I also credit the incredible resilience and quick-fixing abilities of latex and hot glue. HURRAH!


Title: The Transgender Soul
Gender is both a cage and a map. It can guide us, tell us where we are and where we going, but it also confines us, tells us where we cannot go, where we are forbidden.
The Transgender Soul transcends this blurred divide. By shattering the walls around, the Transgender Soul lets in the light which reveals the true fragility of our constructions, even as it celebrates our incredible creativity. The Transgender Soul represents the limitlessness of human identity.
But without boundaries, we are fearful. And so we have done all we can to keep our gendered boundaries, to fortify them. We have attached Gender to Sex, our greatest vulnerability, and heaped all manner of evil upon the Other. We have chained ourselves to the cold sterile ground through unequal access to employment, to health care, to civil rights, and we have held ourselves in the shadows of violence and confusion because they are somehow familiar.
Men and Womyn have been at war so long we can't even remember what are differences and similarities really are. The Transgender Soul will free us, if we let it.




A description, in case it's not clear. What you have here is a papier mache egg (constructed strictly from the pages of The Dallas Voice I might add) which represents gender - gender which is something that both protects and confines. The egg is colored with the "traditional" or typical colors that denote the gender of a newborn baby, but blurred slightly where they meet. The gendered shell is chained down by various elements (you could interpret the three chains as Ignorance, Fear, and Hate, or some other relevant triad). The inside of the egg is painted dark, to show how even though we are all inside this shell, we are barely aware of it. The Transgender Symbol is stainless steel (this was made by someone else) and is bursting through the shell, representing how only when a soul which stands outside of the normal shape we've come to expect of gender comes along, can we see, and be free, of the bondage of gender. The chains are unbroken however, we've only just begun to see our way out, it will take a long time before we are free. The shards which lie in front of the shell are painted gold - this could be because they are so highly prized, but also because they are very, very costly. Some of the shards are labeled, representing some of the greatest barriers the Trans community (and consequently, ALL people) face - from the simplest things like 'personal safety' and accurate 'documents of identity' to the challenges of economic equality, family and marriage equality, and equal access to decent complete health care!

Art Project - 70%

Thanks to four days of snow and ice keeping us home, I'm pretty much through the hardest part of my art project, which was the papier mache and the painting. I wish I had a larger board to mount it on but alas, we work with what we've got.

Pics for you!

Articles [10]

Christians protecting Muslims while they pray during protests in Egypt. - Imgur
Incredible

Christians protect Muslims as they pray in Egypt
Published: 3 Feb 2011
Source: Loon Watch
Tags:

Images of Solidarity...
Published: 3 Feb 2011
Source: Daily Mail
Tags:

Egypt: Stop Attacks on Peaceful Protesters
Published: 3 Feb 2011
Source: Human Rights Watch
Tags:

Mexico: Deliver Justice for Killings, Disappearances in Monterrey
Published: 3 Feb 2011
Source: Human Rights Watch
Tags:

Film: Romero

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
[post is unfinished]

"The Church is a whore. She spreads her legs to the highest bidder."
The power and corruption of faith.
"We're human beings."
"let my blood be a seed fo freedom"
the Church of God is the people


what is eucharist on the ground?
flashing photos of victims
1980-89 - 60,000 Salvadorians killed


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098219/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romero_%28film%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero

Economic injustice is the root of our problems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu



[Prayer for Social Justice, by Sister Helen Prejean]

God of Compassion

You let your rain fall on the just and the unjust.
Expand and deepen our hearts
so that we may love as You love,
even those among us
who have caused the greatest pain by taking life.
For there is in our land a great cry for vengeance
as we fill up death row and kill the killers
in the name of justice, in the name of peace.
Jesus, our brother,
you suffered execution at the hands of the state
but you did not let hatred overcome you
Help us to reach out to victims of violence
so that our enduring love may help them heal.
Holy Spirit of God,
You strengthen us in the struggle for justice,
Help us to work tirelessly
for the abolition of state-sanctioned death
and to renew our society in its very heart
so that violence will be no more.

Amen.

Class Cancelled!

We're snowed in!!! Help! No school for day 2...

Film: In the Name of the Father

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
[post is unfinished]

Those of you who know me have probably become familiar with my tendency to personalize things I see/hear/read about/etc. I like to put myself in as many different shoes as I can to get a more complete story. It's actually part of my introverted personality - I take in and absorb information first, process it internally, and then evaluate or act.

So the first effect of having watched this film was to wonder how I would respond under pressure of torture myself. It's a very real question, since I definitely foresee myself potentially entering high-profile high-stakes human rights situations, where I definitely could become a political target. I realized I need to have a conversation with my friends and family members about this scenario too, since it's too easy to bring one's family


Links to the background of British/Irish conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisations_known_as_the_Irish_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildford_pub_bombings
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildford_Four_and_Maguire_Seven

Articles [9]

John Boehner's push to redefine rape
Published: 1 Feb
Source: Salon
Tags: gender, women's rights, local, abortion, rape, legal definitions

This article made me absolutely sick to read. I don't think men have ANY business making laws about abortion, period, and I want to throw up when I think about how rape cases are so much about blaming the victim.

Articles [8]

Ugandan gay activist David Kato's funeral marred by angry scenes
Published: 28 Jan 2011
Source: The Guardian
Tags: Africa, Uganda, LGBT, government lies, murder, activism


Holocaust Survivor Creates Unique Jewish Museum in His Valley Home
Published: 30 Jan 2011
Source: Patch - North Hollywood
Tags: holocaust, reconciliation




http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/28/AR2011012807284.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/28/AR2011012807284.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/26/AR2010122601699.html

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/01/25/ctw.intv.elbaradei.cnn


http://www.fly.co.uk/news/pc-air-recruits-transgender-flight-attendants-1983480.html

http://lezgetreal.com/2011/01/gay-lesbian-transgender-asylum-seekers-in-usa-given-a-raw-deal/
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/27/renaming_our_transgender_child_open2011/

Report: Henry David Thoreau - "On Civil Disobedience"

Henry David Thoreau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/
http://www.library.ucsb.edu/thoreau/thoreau_faq.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0503e.asp
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/71/71.txt



was born July 1817, died 1862
American of French descent, Concord Mass.

studied at Harvard, declined his Master's degree diploma (which was meaningless)
traditional professions bored him
spent time as a ink maker

Interests were in natural history, ecology, personal experience, symbolic meaning,
proponent for simple living

civil disobedience - refused to pay poll taxes, opposed the Mexican-American war, beleived both would extend slavery
his aunt paid his taxes


Civil Disobedience
essay, published 1849
Argument for individual resistance to civil gov't and moral opposition to an unjust state gov't should not override conscience

Civil disobedience - resistance to civil government

gov't is a machine, when it produces injustice it must be stopped by people

became "Civil Disobedience" in 1866
power to state or individual? INDIVIDUAL




---------


Karl Marx
'Communist Manifesto'

born May 1818 German (Prussian)
studied in Berlin
influenced by Voltaire and Immanuel Kant
was lower middle class most of his life
died of bronchitis in 1883


Communist Manifesto
published in 1848


capitalism replaced feudalism; communism should replace capitalism
stateless, classless society
capitalism is a contradiction, creates tensions that lead to its collapse
ideas hit the Russian Bolsheviks in 1917

1843 "on the jewish question"
argued against a statement saying religion is basically what keeps the Jews unemancipated

spiritual and political freedom still bound by economic slavery


state or individual power - state





The section ends by outlining a set of short-term demands:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.[12]