Shakesville

DOMA Goes Down in Massachusetts

From the New York Times:

A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled that a federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional because it interferes with the right of a state to define marriage.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro on Thursday ruled in favor of gay couples' rights in two separate challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The state had argued the law denied benefits such as Medicaid to gay married couples in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions have been legal since 2004.

Tauro agreed, and said the act forces Massachusetts to discriminate against its own citizens.

The Justice Department argued the federal government has the right to set eligibility requirements for federal benefits -- including requiring that those benefits only go to couples in marriages between a man and a woman.

For those of us who have been wondering when this would become breathtakingly obvious to the court, it is a long-awaited ruling (PDF). The court ruled against DOMA based on violations of the Fifth and Tenth Amendments; that it violated equal protection as embodied in the Fifth, and overrode the rights of the states to establish their own laws.

The right wing will go into paroxysms of all kinds of batshittery, screaming about "activist judges," and, to be sure, this ruling will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, probably getting there at the same time as Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case being decided in California on Prop 8.

As Melissa said in an e-mail, "Awesome. I can't believe it took this long to find a court to come the ridiculously obvious conclusion that it forces states to discriminate against their own citizens, even when they don't want to."

HT to Shaker Scott Madin.

How Many?!?!

Those were the words in my head as I watched this film, by Isao Hashimoto, on the history of nuclear testing, from 1945-1998 (SFW, if work is okay with extensive beeping; can be viewed without sound effectively). Purposely displayed completely without language (to be comprehensible as visual art without regard to audience language), the film takes a one-second-per-month look at a world map, as flashes of various sizes denote nuclear tests between the abovementioned years. Counters with flags above and below the map show the countries which have performed each test and a running count, while the map flashes are colour-coded (and tone-coded) to show the testing nation. The tones build to an almost melodic level, which is chilling when it occurs what's being represented.

I'm 44, or nearly. In my lifetime, there have been over 1200 nuclear tests, more than half of those by one country: the United States.

Just sayin'.

Tip of the CaitieCap to Arkadia.

Daily Dose o' Cute

The Livsinator

Top Chef Open Thread

[Cheftestant Stephen makes a poopy face.]
Last night's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...

Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

Quote of the Day

"In a counter-insurgency campaign, the people are the prize."—UK Defence Minister Liam Fox, explaining the decision to send 300 additional troops to Afghanistan.

See also: the US Army's Combined Arms Center's blog, and U.S. Marine Corps Brigadier General Lawrence Nicholson.

I Write Letters

Dear Teen Vogue:

I had a gay best friend in high school. We are still friends now and I still LHLAS.

We became friends when I was a girl of 15, and he was a closeted gay boy of 14, a friendship formed in the discovery that we shared a peculiar and ironic sense of humor, back in the age of the dinosaurs when irony wasn't cool and was damning evidence of vulnerability, rather than an advertisement of indifference. There only needed to be one other person in a school of 3,000 who knew down to his bones what I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar really means to make the world perfect, and I found him, or he found me, and so it was.

Todd and I were two peas in a pod, attached at the hip, like-minded misfits in mail-order t-shirts and Doc Martens, whose collective nirvana was making light-headed pilgrimages to Wax Trax records to browse their dusty bins for long-awaited releases or rare bootlegs, shuffling among the other angsty shoegazers there for the same purpose. We dyed our hair and graffitied our leather jackets with images of the deities—The Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie. Our tribe. We staked out our place among them and locked arms.

We've now known and loved each other longer than we lived on this earth without our friendship—and we have been there fast and hard for each other through difficult things that lesser friendships would not have weathered. He came out; I was raped; we have both fallen in and out of love, sometimes in spectacularly heartbreaking fashion, including with one another; and we have seen each other in both good times and bad as our worst and best selves.

Our intertwined lives have left me with indelible memories of all the things we've done as a duo—writing an underground paper, writing a shitty screenplay, writing shitty songs, making silly movies, going to university together, living together, working together, vacationing together, attending innumerable concerts together, celebrating our 9-days-apart birthdays, marching in Pride parades, seeing thousands of films, eating thousands of meals, getting drunk, doing drugs, hanging out, wasting time, shopping, swimming, singing along to The Smiths at the top of our lungs, spending nights talking 'til dawn, laughing until we are gasping for air and swearing we shall never recover.

One of the things we have never done is treat one another like accessories.

It would be a lie to say that Todd's being gay didn't matter to me; it always mattered, primarily insomuch as anyone who dared to treat him as less than because of it was clobbered with the blunt end of my ire. And we may, in an indirect way, have become friends because he is gay, which gives him a particular perspective on the world that informs many of the things I like about him, and trust about him.

But I did not collect him like a trading card. And I was not friends with him because friendships with women are somehow more difficult. I am still friends with my female BFF, who I've known since we were 11, too.

That you would even pose the question "Is a GBF (Gay Best Friend) the New Must-Have Accessory for Teen Girls?" appalls me. That you would insert an editor's note trying to justify such unmitigated horseshit by asserting "Friendships with other girls—even the healthiest and most supportive of relationships—are always a teeny bit complicated" fills me with contempt.

And the truth is, if my friendship with Todd hadn't had some "teeny complications" over the course of two decades, I don't guess it would have been much of a friendship.

Sincerely,
Liss

Today in Rape Culture

[Trigger warning.]

Rape culture is prioritizing the protection of footage of two daughters being sexually assaulted by their father over their desire to have the footage returned to them or destroyed, because that father was an artist and his sexually assaulting them on film is thus "art."

Rape culture is also describing that artist's sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl as an "affair."

[H/T to Shakers Sarah and Rachel. Related Reading: Discussion Thread: Work of Art.]

Truth is a Casualty of the Gulf Disaster

by Shaker Mouthyb

[Trigger Warning: The following video contains testimony describing the damage to the homes of fishers in the Gulf, illnesses of the residents, including children, and damage to the gulf as seen from a personal boat. The woman speaking in the video also uses a very objectionable term to describe herself and her ethnicity, which is Cajun. While this is a local term to Southern Louisiana near the Texas border, it is a highly objectionable one with an associated history of racial violence. I am aware of the term and in no way whatsoever do I wish to condone its use.]

[The video is subtitled, but if you cannot view the video, here is a paraphrase by Liss of its content: Kindra Arnesen, a woman who lives on the Gulf—and was, after speaking out at a townhall meeting, given security clearance and thus access to BP's coordination meetings, clean-up efforts, and meetings with safety officers—gives a speech about what she has observed. 1. BP is using a "ponies and balloons" strategy, deploying all assets to hardest-hit areas when officials visit, and then dispersing people once the official is gone, satisfied the clean-up is all-hands-on-deck, all the time. 2. No one is wearing a respirator to clean, because BP refuses to let anyone wear a respirator for clean-up until they've had training, but are claiming that OSHA and the EPA say that the air is fine, so the training isn't necessary. 3. Seven men were taken for medical treatment, one by helicopter and six by ambulance; she inquired what was wrong and was first told it was food poisoning, then told heat exhaustion, and was then told by OSHA that the boats the men had been on were sprayed with Pine Sol, and the men had breathed in Pine Sol fumes and had chemical poisoning from that. 4. Her children have broken out in rashes; her daughter has upper respiratory problems. She and other residents are being told there are "bad air days," during which they should close up their houses and put the air conditioning on recirculation, but "everything's fine." 5. There's a media blackout on the significant and extensive environmental damage.]

Yesterday afternoon, a friend of mine posted this video to her facebook account. I've been paying attention to this issue for two reasons: first, I plan on using it as a staple issue in next semester's 101 courses. And second, because I'm from South Louisiana.

The people I know in my Mawmaw's (grandmother's) town have a cynical, pessimistic view of politics and history. Often with good reason—my grandmother's town contains an Olin Petrochemical processing plant, a CITGO processing plant, Lyondell Chemicals, American International Refinery Co and a Conoco processing plant and drilling operation.

We grew up with the ever-present waste torches staining the clouds orange, the air thick and faintly sulfurous. With the torches came stories of people who fell in, people who lost hands or feet, people covered in chemical burns or with cancer, or whose kids were sick. But my relatives, like many of the people I knew, were fanatically loyal to the companies which paid them, for fear of losing one of the only jobs with regular raises in town.

Even before Katrina and Rita, the prevailing attitude is best summed up by a political cartoon I saw as a teenager, featuring a man in a nightshirt, labeled 'voter,' standing between two beds filled with gators.

The gators, of course, were labeled after the two then-current gubernatorial candidates.

I asked my Mawmaw how she felt about it, and with a very French Cajun shrug, or at least one typical to my experience of them, she said that this was just as it was. I'm not going to even try to capture her liquid, rolling accent.

And the uncles and aunts agreed: That's life. It just goes on without you.

Even after being evacuated to Alabama just before Katrina, and finding out she had lost the house my Pawpaw build for her, the same sort of stoicism governed my Mawmaw's responses. She told us not to make a big deal out of it, just a hurricane and some water. They could always rebuild.

Perhaps because I have a soft, gooey center, visiting the family always bothered me: The environment made by those plants was killing them by inches, but nothing ever seemed to be done about it. They were determined not to complain, or too afraid to be retaliated against. And, since your family worked at the plants, the retaliation was never isolated to you. Your whole family could lose their job.

This video was a little more shocking to me because I know that the people I know in Southern Louisiana do not complain. They shrug off injuries, make do with a steadily more poisonous environment, keep trying to go on as things fall apart. They weather illnesses and deaths with the same sort of refusal to admit that it troubles them, holding out that last concession of defeat because in the end, they have their pride.

And, increasingly, not much else.

As Kindra Arnesen talks about her children in this video, their mysterious rashes and trouble breathing, I find myself picturing the people I know, and how hard it would be to say something, even with your children. The long term health gamble is more feasible than watching your children go without.

What Arnesen has to say is damning, as if there were ever any doubt.

"Ponies and balloons," a phrase she overhears from BP officials, discussing the visit of inspectors—ponies and balloons like a circus has come to town, a show for the people who trek out to those small, forgotten places in rural Louisiana, to tour the destruction. The local fishers, who are quite typically poor and working class, are asked to participate in the circus for a paycheck.

Their livelihoods are gone, as Arnesen points out.

Where, she says, where can I go? Point me where I can go to get back to work.

The fishers get to be a part of this macabre show, which happens until the inspectors leave. But, and I suppose this comes as no surprise, only on BP's terms.

For those of you who do not know, to this date, nine fishermen have been hospitalized for working on the crude oil clotting the beaches and marshes of Louisiana without respirators or safety equipment. Arnesen addresses this: She was told first that they all had food poisoning. Then that they had heat stroke, and finally that they had covered their boats in Pinesol and then, inexplicably, sat in the fumes all day.

The fishermen aren't talking. Clint Guidry, the President of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, told Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now that the workers feared to lose the only paycheck they were getting.

Guidry, like Arnesen, confirms that BP would not allow the fishermen to use respirators. According to the discussion during Guidry's interview, the transcript for which is here, it is to prevent lawsuits over safety. To allow use of the respirators is to admit the severity of the problem. During Arnesen's testimony, she states that she was told the EPA found the air fine, and that until the EPA certifies it, there is no need for BP to provide and train the fishermen on how to use the respirators. They cannot use their own; according to BP, it creates liability.

Are we expendable, she asks. Are the people I care for expendable?

And that is the million dollar question: When all there is to measure value is profit, is there any value to people?

I love Louisiana, and I miss it sometimes, but I grew up seeing the answer to that. It was in the plodding death of inheriting your parents' jobs, when they die of cancer. And in the brown night sky, and the howl of chemical spill sirens telling you to stay indoors, in your house, the way Arnesen was told to just stay indoors on 'bad air days.'

I think we are all seeing the answer to that question, over and over and over again, in the news. And, like Arnesen, I think many of us are blazing pissed when we aren't feeling hopeless at the enormity of the problem.

Arnesen ends the video asking where people are. Where, she asks, is the government as the crude surrounds her house on three sides? Where is the government when she has to send her children away because they are falling ill?

There is no simple answer to that question, because it is as enormous now as it was after Katrina. The best I can come up with is to go about my day looking for those ways, small and large, to teach, live, support and constantly remind the people around me that we are actually in it together. And it, that complex mass of society, environmental policy and technology, is not working for most of us. For all the people saying it's not that bad, and that not all the seafood is ruined, and all the other ways in which the problem is made to seem not as serious, thanks to the internet and the possibility of citizen journalists, we get these kinds of guerrilla videos popping up, as people who are sick of it try to get the truth out and mobilize people.

This video and the ongoing reports on the subject make me all the more determined to do what I can to fix it. Those things are many. I can write my senators about this video, I can talk to people about this video, I can lobby in groups in front of my government buildings and express my disgust with the collusion of regulatory agencies and BP in an environmental disaster which is, as we've discussed on this site, un-fucking-precedented.

I'll also be exploring this topic with 45 first year students this fall, because showing people that they are a part of the world around them is an essential part of understanding who they are. And because I want them to not accept, as many of my family members and the people I know in Louisiana do, that they are expendable and that life just passes them by.

Dear deity, I do not want those first year students to go through college accepting that they are a passive part of the process. One student at a time, in the little power any individual has, I want to make a difference for them.

I want to be a part of using citizen journalism to restore the fourth estate, and to make it clear that there are times when the internet can be used to expose the horrific incompetence and apathy of a corporation.

This is what I love about this site, and why I keep coming back as I view videos like these, when I read the most heart-rending news.

When I can't find anyone else to wield a teaspoon, I know I can come here.

Because I know we have teaspoons.

Sarah Palin Wants YOU for Her Army of Pink Elephants, Ladies

The video is a bunch of video clips edited together behind some generically inspirational piano music and a Sarah Palin voiceover, which I'm guessing was stitched together from various speeches.

Video description: Graphic: "SARAHPAC" over an image of the US where the "heartland" has been replaced by Alaska (it is surely meant to look like Alaska has been "relocated" to the "heartland," but instead looks like a cut-out). Palin stands at a podium in front of a giant US flag, a crowd applauding behind her. A young white women holds a sign reading, "We don't care for Obamacare," next to an old white woman holding a sign reading, "No Government Run Healthcare!" A young white woman in a "Savagette" t-shirt holds a sign reading, "Annoy Liberal [sic] Work Hard & Pay Your Own Bills." A middle-aged white woman in a wheelchair has a sign reading, "Don't Tread on Me." An old white woman holds a sign reading, "We [heart] Sarah USA." Montage of Palin waving, hugging, standing in front of giant US flags. A young white woman holds a sign reading, "I Love Sarah Palin because she loves my country!" Montage of white women at Palin events, holding supportive signs and/or US flags, many of them wearing patriotic gear. Montage of Palin shaking hands, greeting people, hugging, posing for pictures, being applauded while standing at podiums, giving the thumbs-up. Same "SARAHPAC" graphic as at the beginning.

Voiceover transcript: This year will be remembered as the year when common-sense conservative women get things done for our country. [applause] All across this country, women are standing up and speaking out for common-sense solutions. These policies coming out of DC right now—this fundamental transformation of America—well, a lot of women, who are very concerned about their kids' futures, say, "We don't like this fundamental transformation, and we're gonna do something about it." It seems like it's kind of a mom awakening in the last year-and-a-half, where women are rising up and saying, "No, we've had enough already." Because moms kinda just know when something's wrong. Here in Alaska, I always think of the mama grizzly bears that rise up on their hind legs when somebody's comin' to attack their cubs, to do something adverse toward their cubs. Ya thought pit bulls were tough! Well, ya don't wanna mess with the mama grizzlies. [applause] And that's what we're seeing with all these women who are banding together, rising up, saying, "No—this isn't right for our kids and for our grandkids. And we're gonna do something about this. We're gonna turn this thing around; we're gonna get our country back on the right track, no matter what it takes, to respect the will of the people." Look out, Washington!—'cause there's a whooooole stampede of pink elephants crossing the line and the ETA stampeding through is November Second, 2010. Lotta women, coming together.

Two Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Blur: "Tracy Jacks/Magic America"

Mel Gibson Is A Vile Racist Douchebag Of Epic Proportions... But You Already Knew That

[Trigger warning for racism and sexual violence.]

So, what racist slur will Mel Gibson spit out next? Anyone care to take a guess? Go on, think up something, I'll wait. Okay. Did you come up with "wetback"? If so, give yourself a churro.

Dlisted is reporting another gem in the tapes made by former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Speaking about one of his Latina employees Gibson had this to say:

"I will report her to the fucking people that take fucking money from the wetbacks."

I'm not sure entirely what that statement means, but add one more threat and racist nugget to Gibson's répertoire. These same tapes also include these statements from Mel: "You look like a fucking pig in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of n****rs, it will be your fault" and "I am going to come and burn the fucking house down... but you will blow me first."

[Cross-posted.]

Oh Good

For a moment there, I thought the decision about Don't Ask Don't Tell wasn't going to be decided by mob rule.

The Pentagon on Wednesday began sending out to troops a survey of more than 100 questions seeking their views on the impact of repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" restrictions prohibiting gays and lesbians from openly serving in the U.S. military.

An administration official confirmed to CNN that the survey is being sent to 200,000 active duty troops and 200,000 reserve troops. The official declined to be identified because the survey has not officially been made public.

The survey, which service members can expect to receive via e-mail, asks about such issues as how unit morale or readiness might be affected if a commander is believed to be gay or lesbian; the need to maintain personal standards of conduct; and how repeal might affect willingness to serve in the military.

The survey also asks a number of questions aimed at identifying problems that could occur when troops live and work in close quarters in overseas war zones. For example, the questionnaire asks military members how they would react if they had to share a room, bathrooms, and open-bay showers in a war zone with other service members believed to be gay or lesbian.

There also are several questions about reactions to dealing with same-sex partners in social situations.

And—wouldn't ya know it?—the Joint Chiefs "want to see the results of the survey before they offer their final advice on the impact of a repeal" to the President, re: Ye Olde Certification Trigger.

So, just to be clear: The decision about lifting the ban on LGB soldiers serving openly is contingent upon the results of a questionnaire designed to maximize homophobic responses from 400,000 people in one of the most homophobic institutions in the world.

Meanwhile, let us recall that in 2006, 73% of servicemembers polled said they were comfortable around LGB soldiers, 23% said they knew an active duty LGB soldier in their unit, and 55% of those said the presence of LGB peers in their unit is well-known by others. All of which, as the executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network pointed out at the time, highlighted "the absurdity of [the] hypothesis [that] openly gay personnel harm military readiness."

It will be very curious indeed if research four years later suddenly finds a different conclusion.

Katie doesn't understand economics? Episode 1.

[I'm regularly blindsided by capitalicious stories or other fundamental tenets of truth that are apparently so universally understood by all people that matter* except somehow me I momentarily doubt my capacity for reason. In this spirit, I present part one of a one-or-more part series
*This might be the problem.]

Yesterday, NPR ran a story about the Obama administration's push to stimulate the economy by encouraging the export of US-made goods.

Basically, there are a ton (several million tons, actually) of people outside the US that want to buy stuff. If the US, as a nation, could get these people to buy USian stuff, there'd potentially be more factory jobs in the US, ergo the US economy would improve. Got it.

The Obama administration (and friends) are interested in boosting exports by, among other things, signing new free trade agreements. Free trade agreements would make it easier for consumers in foreign countries to buy US-made products. Got it.

This is also where I apparently don't get it. Don't free trade agreements also open up US markets to goods made in other countries? In essence, just as a free trade agreement between the US and Columbia would make it easier to buy USian goods in Columbia, it would also make it easier to buy Columbian-made goods in the US, which could lower the domestic demand for US-made products.

With all the free trade agreements the United States has in place, I'm guessing there's some data out there on both the benefits and costs of free trade to the US economy, and also US workers (a tangential consideration, as always). Maybe this information is why Obama is was formerly so upset about NAFTA.

Free trade can't possibly be all good things to all people, can it? Or am I missing something?

Kenny G Weighs In On Prince Internet Kerfuffle

Why? Why not, I guess. Kenny G was interviewed recently (Why? Why not, I guess) and asked about Prince's recent pronouncement that the internet is dead. Kenny G responded "then I must be dead, too, 'cause I use it all the time."

As the old saying goes: Kenny G said, I believe it, that settles it.

[Cross-posted.]

No Place Safe

Today, I am on the bright side of the sickest period, physically, of my life. And days ago, while I lay on my bed, thinking I might be slowly dying, my darling father actually did. To say that I am not well is an understatement. My family and friends banded together to bring me back to the city to better care and I am feeling the effects.

The nausea no longer turns me inside out.

I no longer have to close my eyes while my best friend or my mom or my sister bathes me.

I can actually make tears and jokes and dear God, words.

But just now in this hospital, the sickness has rebounded in a way. I feel assaulted, so shaken, so fucking tired that I can only do the one thing I feel that I know how sometimes--write.

The other day, long dark hours ago, when I couldn't speak and my mother was telling one of the admitting doctors that I was a professor, and of history no less, I should've felt the warning come of him, but Lord I was so ill. He said something like, "A-ha! Is she ready?"

He came back today. I was not. He pulled his chair up in the middle of this room where my mother and I sit now and began with the questions. What did I teach? Surely I realized the broad scope of my fall classes? Had there been black films made in a protest tradition? Could I find copies of them?

Did I get the Amazon suggestions he left at my bedside table the other night while I was vomiting--books I should read as a historian, he assured me. My mom asked had he been a history major. "No," he said imperiously, "I just read."

Because of course she doesn't.

And then came the heart of his argument. Could I understand the position of white people like him who respected black people who had seen real racism in the 1940s and 50s but now had to deal with the anger of black people for whom racism was rare, and mostly a memory?

A memory of resentment, I think he said. No black person born after 1970 has really encountered racism--well, maybe me from Louisiana, but here? Oh no. No, we want to preserve our racial preferences without acknowledging our racism. We too often assume racism.

As an example, he'd grown weary of his black friend who often wondered if poor service was a result of her race. Anyone could be served badly in a Texas city by the end of the 20th century.

And yes, he understood the feelings of (black) nurses' aids who cared for (white) patients who were subjected to racist abuse. BUT Alzheimer's... delirium... old memories... and couldn't I understand that one of the greatest fears of old white women was that a black man would come do something to them into the night?

Also, when would I teach about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Wasn't Israel as guilty as South Africa? Step outside my comfort zone--it was as easy to teach about others as ourselves.

Finally, he prepared to leave after telling me I didn't talk enough for him. Me with the nausea and the phlegm and the cracked lips.

He doesn't see racism (or sexism I'm sure)

but he

came into my room

turned down the TV my mama was listening to

disregarded my recently delivered dinner

ignored my signs of discomfort and final outright silence

advised me on what to teach--though he never asked my specialties

gave me homework

planned to challenge me and my authority from the moment he knew my title.

Before he re-situated his chair and left, he said, "I feel better now."

My blood pressure when they just checked it?

149/104

And all I can do

is write.

Will this be my life?

ProfessorWomanofColor?

I don't want it right now.

Action Item: Save Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

[Trigger warning for violence.]

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is a 43-year-old Iranian mother of two children, who is facing death by stoning after she was delivered a death sentence for adultery by a judge invoking "judge's knowledge," a provision in Iranian law that "allows for subjective judicial rulings where no conclusive evidence is present." In other words, some judge had a gut instinct she's guilty, despite a lack of evidence and her children's testimony to the contrary, so now she's going to be killed on his hunch.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

Sakineh has already received 99 lashes and spent five years in prison for her alleged crime:

Speaking to the Guardian, her son Sajad, 22, and daughter Farideh, 17, say their mother has been unjustly accused and already punished for something she did not do.

"She's innocent, she's been there for five years for doing nothing", Sajad said. He described the imminent execution as barbaric. "Imagining her, bound inside a deep hole in the ground, stoned to death, has been a nightmare for me and my sister for all these years."

Under Iranian sharia law, the sentenced individual is buried up to the neck (or to the waist in the case of men), and those attending the public execution are called upon to throw stones. If the convicted person manages to free themselves from the hole, the death sentence is commuted.

...Five years ago when Sakineh was flogged , Sajad was 17 and present in the punishment room. "They lashed her just in front my eyes, this has been carved in my mind since then."

Mohammed Mostafaei, an acclaimed Iranian lawyer volunteered to represent her when her sentence was announced a few months ago. He wrote a public letter about her conviction shortly after. "This is an absolutely illegal sentence," he said. "Two of five judges who investigated Sakineh's case in Tabriz prison concluded that there's no forensic evidence of adultery.

"According to the law, death sentence and especially stoning needs explicit evidences and witnesses while in her case, surprisingly, the judge's knowledge was considered as enough," he said.

International pressure could save Sakineh's life. Please take a moment and, if you have a blog, blog this story. Write your senators and representative and ask them to make noise on Sakineh's behalf.

Sign the Free Sakineh petition here.

And send a letter to the US State Department to urge action. Here is my letter, which you are welcome to borrow:

Dear Secretary Clinton:

I have recently become aware of the imminent death by stoning of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in Iran, the result of a judge's proclamation despite a lack of evidence for her alleged crime. As I am aware of and resoundingly support your emphasis on women's rights worldwide, I am hopeful that there will be a swift response to this appalling human rights violation, and I strongly encourage you to take a bold stance on behalf of the women of Iran.

Sincerely,
Melissa McEwan
Indiana

Get those teaspoons working, Shakers.

Open Thread

Hosted by Quaker Oats.

Question of the Day

Are you a bug crusher or a bug relocater?

When I find a bug indoors, I try to relocate to the Great Outdoors if at all possible—especially spiders and moths and daddy longlegs (longlegses?), which are our three most common visitors. Even bees and wasps and houseflies I'll try to usher gently out the door or window.

Two exceptions: Ants and mosquitoes, who get smashed without compunction.

We don't get cockroaches, but I suppose if we did, I'd be highly unlikely to enter them into the bug relocation program, too.

Actual Headline

Reuters: "Tired Gay succumbs to Dix in 200 meters."

[H/T to Shaker Anitanola.]