photo: wikipedia

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.

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...

...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

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

...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:

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.

...to save a life-- or maybe two-- with a $10 donation to fight malaria with a bed net: "Send a Net, Save a Life." What could be simpler?

One quote:

"This is the all-time no-brainer," said [Sports Illustrated's] Rick Reilly. "No governments to topple, no disease to cure, no warlords to fight. Ten bucks puts a net over a kid -- sometimes two and three kids -- and saves their lives. For the price of a new CD, you just saved two lives. It's such a good feeling; the country is starting to get behind it. And that's a very cool net result."

I had not yet read Robin's interpretation of the upcoming eclipse (in the previous post) when I had already decided I would post something about Harold Meyerson's column today. And, yet, there is a metaphysical thread connecting karma with heroism... or its lack.

In his column today, Meyerson weaves together an eloquent narrative of what it means to be a hero-- or not-- as he combines ancient strands of Art from Homer with more modern ones from the late director, John Ford.

Meyerson's column begins:

At its highest levels, the literature of war is often about a hero gone bad, a hero, in fact, who becomes indistinguishable from his enemy. Achilles, to begin at the beginning, outrages the gods by his desecration of the body of his slain archrival, Hector, and it takes a message from Zeus to persuade him to relinquish the body for burial.

That was Ted Turner, speaking about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He continued: "If you started wars with everyone you don't like, well good God, we would all be at war with everybody." So reports Editor & Publisher on Turner's appearance "before a group of journalists and international policy leaders at Reuters' offices in New York."

But, Turner went much further than most elite men with money to spare, and the will to spare it, would be willing to go, when speaking of political matters:

When asked about the possibility that the next U.N. secretary general might be a woman, Turner went a step further, advocating that men should be barred from public office for a hundred years in every part of the world.

Lyssa Strada offers heartfelt beau-kudos to premier journalist Keith Olbermann and Mayor Rocky Anderson for having the steely nerve required to speak out against the attacks on our constitutional form of government-- not by enemies abroad, mind you-- but by so-called representatives of this same government.

For a transcript of Keith Olberman's passionate take-down of Rumsfeld's speech before the American Legion in Salt Lake City, read this link from his blog. And, then... for the full effect of his disdainful tone, check out the video links at YouTube and C and L.

Episcopi vagantes-- or "wandering bishops"-- is a term I came across while surfing the history of the Old Catholic Church...

What is "Old Catholic?" 

The Old Catholic Church traces it roots to the 7th century. It was during this time when the church was one and undivided that the Anglo-Saxon monk Willibrord missionized the area of Europe now known as the Netherlands and France.

The name "Old Catholic" began to come into use in 1741 when the Church in Utrecht turned from Roma and began to refer to call themselves as Roman Catholics of the “Old Episcopal Clergy” (Old Catholics).

...there's a short introductory piece on Salon's Broadsheet that includes both an explanation of why there is so little mainstream coverage-- i.e., no gratuitous interviews-- and a link to Part One at the Christian Science Monitor, where you will find the rest of the series as it becomes available.

The importance of this story lies in more than Jill's personal trial; it includes the nuanced story she was working so hard to report. The Christian Science Monitor's report weaves both of these stories together in a compelling narrative.

even as I write this post... and you can read all about it right here.

If you have the means to contribute anything at all, just think of it as a way of "sticking it to the man."

What could possibly be more satisfying?

Pass it on...

The conclusion of Riverbend's most recent post at Baghdad Burning...

[...] And the world wonders how "terrorists" are created! A 15-year-old Lebanese girl lost five of her siblings and her parents and home in the Qana bombing… Ehud Olmert might as well kill her now because if he thinks she’s going to grow up with anything but hate in her heart towards him and everything he represents, then he's delusional.

[....] The whole point of the exercise was to come up with a bill that might force some Democrats to vote for an estate tax cut they would otherwise oppose, and enable Republicans to claim they weren't really the Dickensian grotesques that many of them in fact are. Which may be why the Republicans' midnight orations in favor of raising the wage bore minimal resemblance to, say, the Sermon on the Mount. Their tone was best captured by Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp, a Mayberry Machiavelli if ever there was one, who could not restrain himself from telling House Democrats, "You have seen us really outfox you on this issue tonight." [emphasis added]

However, rather than paint too negative a picture, lest we forget how to get up in the mornings... Meyerson is careful to mention some hopeful markers to hearten us:

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness — and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.