Hey again. It's been a while. Sorry about that, I've been a wee bit busy with school for the past week or so... it's going all right, don't worry.

My mother sent me this article and I thought I would pass it on to all of you. This pretty much sums itself up, I encourage all of you to read it. It's about how women are being mistreated around the world (by men, mostly--which really depresses me, because I am a man, but, unfortunately, I'd have to agree that quite a majority of men are louses and cads) and how helping them could be the first and biggest step toward ending global poverty. Which, of course, makes me wonder why they aren't getting more help.

So, here's the article. Page 3 was especially depressing to me. Just think about everything in here and maybe if we put our heads together we'll come up with something we can do to help out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&8au&emc=au

Protection of Image Rights or Protection of Free Speech?

Hello, everyone. Amusingly, it seems that now there is actually an everyone to say hello to. I am very pleased, and I thought I should probably write more now that I have followers. So, today's issue: Freedom of speech vs. personal image.

White House Decries Poster That Invokes Obama Children

A friend of mine sent me (and, I believe, several of you, my followers) a link to this article, and it's raised some troubling issues. A nonprofit nutrition-reform organization in Washington, D.C. has put up posters bearing the image of a smiling girl, with the caption, "President Obama's daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don't I?"

Good question. I do have to agree that yes, it seems ridiculous that most public schools don't appear to have very good nutritionists. At my own school, when macaroni bowls are turned over, the noodles cling in place for over seven good, long seconds. Then it glops bouncily to the tray. 

Does this seem healthy to you? I didn't think so.

However, the White House is outraged by this poster, saying its makers had no right to mention the Obama daughters. The President's daughters are "always off-limits," according to Frank Luntz, a Republican political consultant. The White House has demanded the posters be taken down. The company that put them up, interestingly, refuses. "No ifs, ands, or buts," Lutz continues. "And while it may draw short-term attention to the issue, the White House will hate the organization for it. And I assure you they will be punished. You don't mess with the President's children. It's an unwritten rule."

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Did he say they would be punished for breaking an unwritten rule? That simply by exercising their freedom of speech, they were somehow doing something wrong? That sounds a little bit sketchy to me. I mean, this guy isn't even in charge. He's a Republican... how does that work out?

However. There is always a however. We have to see this from the White House's perspective. President Obama's daughters were referenced without his permission or his knowledge. They were mentioned on a poster that criticizes the way the public school systems are run. I certainly wouldn't want to be used this way, and I know that if I had children, I wouldn't want them used this way either. 

In the end, we end up with a very awkward grey area: the poster makes a good point, and its creators technically broke no laws. However, they did rather step out of the bounds of good taste, and the President should have some say in the way the idea of his daughters is used. Then again, maybe the White House is overreacting.

On the one hand, we could end up with no control over our own "images." On the other hand, we could end up with a government that can completely crush freedom of speech at its own whim.

I think we should all be just a bit disturbed.

Here's the article, if you want to see for yourself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081003126.html?g=0

Women Oppose Sudanese Dress Code Trial. And Get Beaten Down.

Hi again, I decided I should do another post tonight, so here it is.

SEXISM RUNS RAMPANT; POLICE BRUTALITY ENSUES; TWO-HEADED ELVIS CLONE BORN TO ALIEN.

Okay, so there's no two-headed Elvis Clone. And there's really nothing funny about this situation. However, it seems to me as though far too many members (not all, but a great many) of the general public pass up news reports like this as easily as it ignores outlandish statements like "two-headed Elvis clone born to alien." The thing is, this is real. This is happening now. We Americans enjoy rights to free speech and dress. We enjoy much more equality between sexes and religions than many other parts of the world. Unfortunately, in those "other parts of the world," people are still being beaten, harassed, and brutalized for standing up for their rights. Today in Sudan, a crowd of female protesters were beaten and gassed by police, simply for standing against the absurdity of Sudanese women's dress codes. 

The women were protesting a trial in which a journalist by the name of Lubna Hussein faces 40 lashes for breaking public indecency laws. Her great sin? Wearing trousers in public. Hussein says the law is oppressive and un-Islamic. She says she doesn't care about the punishment, she just wants to change the law, and that she is willing to take the case all the way to Sudan's constitutional court, and is willing to take up to forty thousand lashes if that's what it takes to change the law. She even had to quit her job as a journalist for the UN just so that she could be tried and make a political statement.

She has to be one of the bravest people I've ever heard of. 

Still... it is obscene that police would beat and gas a crowd of women protesting this trial. It is obscene that police would beat and gas anyone at all, simply for exercising freedom of speech. Which isn't actually one of the freedoms enjoyed in Sudan. 

So. Not only are human rights being oppressed, but they're being oppressed with corporal punishment. I can only wonder what kind of barbaric and savage species we are to allow things like this. To do things like this. 

It certainly makes me feel ill. Anyone else?

Here's the article, if you want to see it for yourself.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090804/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_sudan_women_flogged

Release Of American Journalists From North Korean Custody

Hey everyone, it is I again, bringing good news: the two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were arrested by North Korean authorities on March 17 of this year, have finally been released following negotiations between former president Bill Clinton and Kim Jong Il himself, I believe. Well, I must admit, I am very very pleased with this turn of events. However, I have to complain just a bit here. I wonder why on Earth did it take so long? We have had these two extremely brave women locked up for, what, five, almost six months now in some North Korean detention facility, and they are only now being pardoned? Correct me if I'm wrong, as my memory has a tendency to be rather swiss-cheesy, but I can only remember hearing a big to-do about this whole affair for the three weeks or so following the initial incarceration. After that, it seems like these women were left on their own, to fend for themselves. Why did it take us so long? Why did two innocent women have to wait almost half a year for rescue? I'll admit, United States relations with North Korea  have been rather tense lately, but shouldn't we at least have heard more about these women? Shouldn't there have been some sort of "Free the Americans!" rally or fund or something? 

I don't know. I'm not the United States government. I'm pleased that this situation has been resolved, but I have to ask: Why did it take so long?

Here's the story if you want to check it out. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090804/ap_on_re_as/as_nkorea_journalists_held