...what my favorite part of this TOTES AWESOME!!!1!eleventy! article filed in the BBC's "Health" section (!) is, but I'm going to go with this passage:
Cavemen are said to have preferred blonde mates because fair hair was an indication of higher levels of oestrogen and fertility.I never get tired of hearing what "cavemen" preferred in their mates. Go science!
[Trigger warning.]
Washington Post: Haiti's elite spared from much of the devastation.
Guardian: Cruise ships still find a Haitian berth.
UKPA: Haiti victims wait for food and aid.
NPR: Doctors Without Borders Says Coordination of Aid Still Not Sufficient in Haiti.
IOL: 'A choice between life and death':
Doctors helping survivors of the earthquake in Haiti have turned to conducting surgeries in the streets of Port-au-Prince, the head of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti told the German Press Agency dpa.Donate to Doctors Without Borders here.
The international organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has long been active in Haiti, operating three hospitals in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince alone. However, the hospitals all suffered such severe damages in Tuesday's devastating quake that they can no longer be used.
"The most important thing is saving human lives. That is what we have been trying to do from the start, and we will continue to do it," said Dutch doctor Hans van Dillen, who leads the organization's team in Haiti.
"There is a huge number of extraordinarily-seriously injured. Now, so many days after the quake, the situation is not getting better. This means that we have to carry out a large number of amputations of arms and legs. Saving human lives without any medical equipment, that is the challenge at hand."
Most people in Haiti do not even want to hear of going into hospitals, just like many of them are scared to go home amid fear of aftershocks.
"People are so traumatized that they refuse to go into buildings, no matter how good the condition they are in. That is why we have taken out medical equipment outdoors and have started to perform surgery in the open air."
"We have even done amputations there. For example yesterday, with a fallen tree trunk as an operating table. There is no alternative. It is a choice between life and death."
"Guided by our values, we endeavor to have our products used wherever precision aiming solutions are required to protect individual freedom."—From the website of Trijicon, a gun sight manufacturer with "a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army," which inscribes "coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ" on its rifle sights.
Today's Blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Pat Robertson Talking Action Figure, now with sufficient flexibility to fit both feet in its mouth at once! Available in Snide & Sexist, Rude & Racist, Horrible & Homophobic, and many, many more! Start your collection today!
Tiger Beatdown: Breaking awards show news
Mongoose Chronicles: RIP Myriam Merlet - another loss to the earthquake in Haiti
WitchWords: Wednesday WTF/Words Mean Things: Rape, again (about the word, rather than the act)
Jump Off the Bridge: The "No Abortion Ban" Campaign (video with transcript and commentary)
What Tami Said: Tami's Favorite Music: Up to the Mountain (MLK song) (in honour of the US' MLK Day today)
Small Strokes, Big Oaks: Teaching Feminism: Everyday Activism
Womanist Musings: Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Legacy Ignored
Think Weird Thoughts: The Absurdities of Advertising
Also, a webcomic I happen to be really enjoying, about geeklife: Weregeek.
[Trigger warning.]
Harper's: The Guantánamo "Suicides": A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle, in which Scott Horton speaks with "four members of the Military Intelligence unit assigned to guard Camp Delta, including a decorated non-commissioned Army officer who was on duty as sergeant of the guard the night of June 9–10" about the alleged suicides of four Gitmo detainees, the absurdity of the report about their deaths, and the possibility that there was a black site being operated at Gitmo about which the American people never knew.
Close Gitmo Now.
Actual Headline: Fewer Americans think Obama has advanced race relations, poll shows.
My first reaction, upon reading this headline, was that it's rather spectacularly unfair to suggest it's President Obama's personal responsibility to "advance race relations." Silly me, I was under the impression that the problem of racism lies with privileged people who express and/or act on unexamined or proudly-held racist views, and thus racism is their responsibility, not the president's.
I read further, to see if, perhaps, the headline was not truly representative of the content of the article. And it wasn't—insomuch as the article didn't merely lay the responsibility for "advancing race relations" at Obama's feet, but also endeavored to underline that the only role white people have to play in race relations is commenting on them via poll.
On the eve of President Obama's inauguration a year ago, nearly six in 10 Americans said his presidency would advance cross-racial ties. Now, about four in 10 say it has done so.Note how the article starts out talking about "Obama's presidency"—about which it was eminently reasonable for people, of any color, to hope, wish, believe would mark a change in American race relations—and then casually veers back to talking about Obama himself: "In the new poll, 51 percent of African Americans say he has helped, a wider gap between expectations and performance than among whites." Expectations and performance: It's one thing to note expectations related to his presidency (which firmly and quite rightly places the responsibility of reactions to that presidency with other people), but performance is about the man doing the job. A lazy and selfish man who refuses to wave his magic wand and eradicate racism!
The falloff has been highest among African Americans. Last January, three-quarters of blacks said they expected Obama's presidency to help. In the new poll, 51 percent of African Americans say he has helped, a wider gap between expectations and performance than among whites.
African Americans' views on achieving racial equality have become more pessimistic since the inauguration, returning to their preelection levels. The share saying blacks have reached racial equality dropped 9 percentage points, to 11 percent, and the percentage saying equality will not be achieved in their lifetimes climbed 9 points, to 32 percent. About one in five blacks say they will never achieve racial equality. Among whites, four in 10 say African Americans already have it and 31 percent say it will happen soon.Well, that's a relief!
Soaring expectations about the effect of the first black president on U.S. race relations have collided with a more mundane reality, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.That "mundane reality" is called privilege.
I just received the following text message:
From: 9099This is totally legit, right?
Sent: Jan 18 8:48AM
Msg: customer issue, us bank service frozen. please call at 570 763 3989
[Voices singing "We Shall Overcome."]
Intro: At this time, I have the honor to present to you the moral leader of our nation. I have the pleasure to present to you Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
[Applause.]
Dr. King: I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Britpop's founding fathers will reunite this Spring for a single gig at London's Royal Albert Hall, with proceeds going to the Teenage Cancer Trust. The line-up will consist of Brett Anderson, Richard Oakes, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert, and Neil Codling.
The date of the show TBA.
Feel The (Quiet) Homomentum
From today's New York Times: Pentagon Steps Up Talks on Ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’:
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is stepping up internal discussions on how gay men and lesbians might be able to serve openly in the armed services, military officials said on Thursday, in anticipation of fulfilling President Obama’s campaign pledge to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.
The discussions, centered in a small group assembled by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are in preparation for a possible Senate hearing on the 1993 law this month.
[Trigger warning.]
CNN: Fears of lawlessness grow amid chaos in Haiti.
Fears of civil strife grew Friday in earthquake-ravaged Haiti as emergency crews raced against the clock to rescue those trapped under rubble and to keep survivors alive, fed and sheltered.Also from CNN: Voices from Haiti. This is a repeatedly updated section in which CNN is "collecting stories from bloggers, residents and Twitter users on the ground to share in their own words what they are seeing in different cities in Haiti following the earthquake."
Despite relative calm, there were reports of sporadic looting and violence after Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake clobbered the capital, affecting millions of people and possibly killing tens of thousands.
"If help doesn't come quickly, it probably will [get worse]," Agnes Pierre-Louis, manager of the Le Plaza hotel in Port-au-Prince. "We're not hearing anything from the government. We're not seeing any foreign aid yet."
...Former President Clinton told CNN's "American Morning" on Friday that the military's major priority should be to distribute supplies, get people radios, arrange adequate shelters and develop lighted areas at night.
"You've got unprecedented numbers of the people roaming the streets at night with no place to sleep. They haven't had any sleep in two days. They don't have water. They don't have food," said Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti.
"Think how you would feel if you lost everything? You were wandering around streets at night, they were all dark; you were tripping over bodies, living and dead, and you didn't have water to drink or food to eat. That's what we're facing now. That's what we've got to get through now."
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Deeky Approved™ paints and brushes.
Recommended Reading:
Towleroad: Iowa Bigots Protest and Republicans Introduce Resolution Proposing Constitutional Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Womanist Musings: [The Animal Rights Group That Shall Not Be Named] Takes On The Pro Life Movement
Fineness & Accuracy: I Don’t Care If You’re Offended
Joe. My. God.: Maryland Pol Introduces Bill To Bar Recognition Of Same-Sex Marriage
Shark-Fu: Reflectitude...
Feminists with Disabilities: Admit Two
Leave your links in comments...
I think we all knew that Rush Limbaugh's journey into bilious booshwah about the earthquake in Haiti wasn't over with his pronouncement earlier this week. Yesterday he not only stood by his conviction that President Obama is helping Haiti for political reasons, he told one caller, "April" from Paducah, Kentucky, that he was right to say so and wouldn't back down.
What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a blockhead. What I’m illustrating here is that you’re a closed-minded bigot who is ill-informed. … And if you had listened to this program for a modicum of time you would know it. But instead you’re a blockhead. You’re mind is totally closed. You have tampons in your ears.It's probably an exercise in rhetorical questions to ask, "Why Does This Person Still Have a Job?" because the usual answer is that his audience eats it up and he knows that this is what they expect from him. So the next question would be at what point does his audience finally say "Enough!"? To quote the immortal Joseph Welch speaking to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
