from "ondelette:"

Next week, March 9-15, is Black Flag Week in Pakistan. The lawyers in Pakistan will carry black flags. And they will probably march, as they have done since November, for the reinstatement of the judiciary, for the rule of law, and for the return to the Constitution and democracy in Pakistan. The head of the lawyers, Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, has been knocking heads with the government over the rule of law during multiple dictatorships going back to Zia ul Haq and Ayub Khan. Pakistan has not had a steady democracy, but rather military dictatorships alternating with often corrupt democratic rule, for most of its history.

Brief History of the Lawyers Protests

The current military government took power in a coup in 1999 at the end of a standoff with India at the line of control, the separation between the two countries in Kashmir. Pervez Musharraf rewrote the Constitution, and ruled as both the head of the military and the president, and has staged rigged elections to maintain power. When the Constitution forbade him to run again this year, he fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudry, hoping to get a better decision on running. Ominously, he had also been apprehending and interrogating terrorism suspects, holding them without charge, and allegedly turning them over to the Americans for interrogation. The Court released many of them, and demanded that the government either bring charges against the others and arraign them in court, or release them.

photo: wikipedia

...and because I am preparing to leave next week on a two-week trip, I have turned off the comments option. Internet access will be sporadic, and cleaning up the spam is time-consuming. I'll try to figure out a better solution after I return...

I frankly have mixed feelings about Unity 08. In theory, it's an interesting idea, but for now I am skeptical that we could make it work, especially given the currently available Republican field. However, I would prefer not to deprive anyone of the opportunity to respond to this survey. It is a rare opportunity to have one's voice heard... So, feel free to click on the appropriate link and make your thoughts and feelings known.

From the inbox:

Unity08 - Your Voice in Politics
Unity08 has launched a unique online study that allows you to rank the presidential candidates and the issues facing the country.

To start the study, visit http://linescale.com/survey/Unity31018.

We've invited you to take and publish this study because we've seen that your site actively discusses politics and the state of the nation. It is crucial for us to include as many American citizens as we can so that we can truly start discussing the "crucial" issues facing the country and how to resolve them... before it is too late.

I hope that you take advantage of this opportunity, enjoy the study, and tell your readers about it. If you'd like to publish access to this study, please use the following link, http://linescale.com/survey/Unity31018.

Unity08 is a political reform movement comprised of concerned citizens from diverse backgrounds, both physical and political, who would like to regain their voice in American politics. Unity08 is the only movement that leverages online technology to give more Americans the power to influence and shape politics at the presidential level. If you'd like to learn more, visit http://unity08.com.

Please feel free to contact me at your leisure.

Sincerely,
Bob Roth
VP Online Marketing
http://www.Unity08.com

From the keynote speech of Amina Rasul delivered at the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy 8th Annual Conference, George Washington University, Washington DC, on April 27, in 2007 to address the conference them: “Women’s Rights in Muslim Communities and Islam:”

A friend told me that women’s rights in democratizing or democratic Muslim societies are like canaries in a coalmine during the industrial age of the West. If the canaries are safe, so is the coalmine. Thus if women’s rights are strong, so is the society.

...for he truly knows not what he has unleashed:

Leah Anthony Libresco is one of the Presidential Scholars who recently wrote a letter to GWB, asking him to eliminate torture from our standard operating procedures, and then presented it to him in person at an event where they were apparently intended to provide a photo-op to cover for NCLB.

Striving not to be caught in either side of the gender inequality wars... Jennifer Fox fought against the "rules for girls," but also refused to identify with those awful "mannish" women.

Until she woke up one day, searching for what was missing in her life. A filmmaker, she began with her camera... filming her own life and then the lives of other women, a journey that consumed both years and continents...

You can read the rest of her post here...

There is something so very alluring about the story of a woman who fights incredibly hard to write her own story, by living her life on her own terms and no one else's... that she casts herself in the role-- perhaps not even consciously-- of being the natural storyteller, not just of her own life, but of the lives of women of all ages, and all over the world. There is something so unifying about the notion that her being/doing are exactly the same thing. For so many of us, they rarely are.

How would you like a nice Hawaiian Punch?!

Of course, I would probably be arrested, booked and all of that, but just think of all the publicity I would get for defending the Constitution.

Frankly, I think that just defending the Constitution really needs to get a whole lot more publicity... if we are ever going to reach the tipping point back to a sane reality, one that is less dominated by testosterone.

Mostly likely, I won't be "wiping" that irritating smirk off Addington's mug, but it is something to fantasize about... 

Crooks and Liars has the goods on Lara Logan. That is, compelling video clips of her reporting. What makes Logan's reporting so compelling is not just that she reports from Baghdad, but also that she consistently pushes back against the Beltway Spinmeisters, even though she works for a major network. And she does her reporting straight... nothing cute, not even biting satire. Maybe a bit of exasperation on occasion, but who wouldn't be exasperated at having to correct the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Wolf Blitzer about whose Iraq coverage is more accurate, or even worse, on the mere importance of the story? I think she shows amazing restraint.

Digby, a noted blogger of the first rank, whose personal identity has been under wraps and a question mark to many, was finally revealed last night, when she accepted an award honoring Paul Wellstone's memory, for the progressive blogosphere. Truly gracious, she accepted it on behalf of all of her fellow bloggers-- men & women alike, those present and those not-- and she also made a special point of the important contributions of the late Steve Gilliard. You can watch the video here... and check out Hullabaloo, too.

photo: Firedoglake

You know the World is really changing when men are promoting books from the mid-1970s, books written by women with feminist sensibilities...

To wit: In today's Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley recalls when he first read Maxine Hong Kinston's memoir, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts.

But the trail of recommendation goes much further than that. It began with a comment in a blog-post that was followed-up by another commenter who went to the trouble of looking up the first reference, and posting an additional comment with the above link-- and both commenters are men.

Even years before the past decade or so of more visible news stories about the abuses of women all over the world. the ethnic cleansings, honor killings, mutilations, oppression, withholding of what should be basic human rights... and so on... even before I knew about these things, I already could see that the world was a place where men waged war...

From Sarah Karnasiewicz at Salon's Broadsheet... a review of a dramatic memoir, by a woman who left her wooded cabin, bought a boat, learned to sail, and traveled from the intracoastal water way in Florida to Maine: The Cure for Anything Is Salt Water: How I Threw My Life Overboard and Found Happiness at Sea, by Mary South.

Something to add to my list of summer reading...

...to any anonymous commenters who would have posted in good faith... but we have recently received many pages of spam comments, and although we can delete the comments en masse, the user profiles must be either deleted or blocked one at a time. We're still working on them...

So, effective immediately, Lyssa Strada will accept no more anonymous comments.

...not so we would celebrate Motherhood with cards and flowers or a Sunday brunch, but to protest warmaking, and to remind American women of the importance of Peacekeeping.

And today, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi began her blogpost, "As a Mother," by invoking Ward, with her proclamation:

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
- Julia Ward Howe, Mother's Day Proclamation, 1870

Not Tony Auth! He is not conflating anything. But... what is going on in the minds of five of the  members of SCOTUS as they defend conflating their own orthodox (rigid/white/male) Catholic dogma with their constitutional duties as justices of the highest court in the land? ...I cannot even imagine.

This cartoon, by the prize-winning cartoonist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, has caused quite a stir. Mostly, I've just seen online comments/blog posts decrying it for its anti-Catholicism and bigotry. That is not my purpose for linking to it here. I've been a fan of Tony Auth for years, but never more so than now.

You can find out more about Malalai Joya by checking out this story on the website for PBS's NOW (what TV ought to be!) which includes an interview with Danish filmmaker Eva Mulvad who has made an inspiring documentary about Joya's underground (for her safety) campaign to be elected to the parliament. And, as is typical of NOW, you will find plenty of web extras.

My intention is that we highlight many more stories like this one and far more often...

Silenced? Not!!!

Rather, Melissa McEwan gives us her perspective on being targeted by the right-wing smear machine; Amanda Marcotte tells her side of the story in Salon; and Salon Editor Joan Walsh provides some additional background to this and some related stories, as the 2008 election cycle gets underway.

If you want to know more about this amazing woman, or find links to some great photos, as well as to a video or two, read my post at Bread Crumbs... it includes links to many fine tributes to Molly.

Photo: Carolyn Mary Bauman/WpN via Salon

That is my answer to the question that concludes the most recent post from Riverbend of Baghdad Burning, (which, either ironically or appropriately, follows her previous post about the decision to execute Saddam Hussein) in which she again tells us what it is really like:

"Just because Americans die in smaller numbers, it doesn't make them more significant, does it?"

Her post begins with:

End of Another Year...

You know your country is in trouble when:

...will be Nancy Pelosi (D-CA 8th), the new Speaker of the House. She is a woman with an ambitious plan for the House's first 100 hours of the 110th Congress.

Pelosi:

If you honor Democratic candidates with your vote today, in the first hundred hours of a Democratic Congress: We will restore civility, integrity, and fiscal responsibility to the House of Representatives. We will start by cleaning up Congress, breaking the link between lobbyists and legislation and commit to pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending.

Andrew Leonard's "How the World Works" at Salon is one of the more interesting and diverse of the blog-style columns in the cybersphere, perhaps especially because he travels the world in virtual time, and takes us with him. If the globalization phenomenon concerns or puzzles you, Leonard's blog will explain things to you... in just enough detail to keep your interest, but not so much that you begin to nod off. And, if you want to discuss these issues with others, his comment threads are open to such discussion. Today he describes his own recent foray into the world of micro-lending, and provides a link that anyone else with an interest might use to participate, too.

I've been reading and hearing about micro-lending for years, but did not realize until Leonard's post that ordinary folks (like me!) could participate. I'm thinking of contributing a small amount per month for a few months... and just have to decide which of the borrowers I want to lend to. So far, while perusing the lists of budding entrepreneurs awaiting additional financing, I found that the following ones interested me, partly because of their content area, and also because in combination they could comprise a small shopping center:

An acquaintance of mine works in the Outreach office in the local mosque. A few years ago, we met so I could learn more about Islam for a paper I was writing. I went on Friday so I could observe a prayer service.

That encounter has stayed in my mind, especially since 9/11 and the rising bigotry against Muslims.

I contacted her again several weeks ago so I could learn more. At that time I had been exchanging email with a conservative OpEd columnist about Islam and Muslims. I quickly ran out of knowledge and sources to cite when arguing with this man. (It had to be a man didn't it?)

Dear Lyssa Stradians:

Here is a great site. It's called OpEd News at http://www.opednews.com/

It has progressive, tough, liberal news and opinion and is edited by Rob Kall, who is an excellent writer.

Check it out for a good read.

Well, this post on Tom Watson's blog is well worth reading, especially because of its thorough discussion in the comment thread on the politics of language... as data points spread across the axes of one's gender and political affinity.

The entry was inspired by one on Firedoglake that was also mentioned by James Wolcott, which, coincidentally, is where I came across the brouhaha. Ironic, considering that I am a frequent reader (tho' seldom a commenter) on FDL... I must have skimmed this one, given its "tone," which I also found needlessly offensive, and moved on to something else. Something less coarse-- and less confusing, for that matter-- considering that I was reading a so-called progressive blog, the kind where one expects to find not only civilized discourse, but open-mindedness and tolerance for those with differing opinions.