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From Within, Without
A Homeopathy Documentary From Blind Dog Films and Award Winning Filmaker Laurel Chiten
"Sometimes all it takes is one drop to change your life.
Amazing stories of a mysterious medicine: homeopathy"
"Dr. Samuel Hahnemann was summoned to the White House today! Obama urgently seeking help with the health care crisis"- The Washington Post.
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann. A physician, chemist, linguist, historian of medicine and scientific revolutionary. Early in his career, Hahnemann became so disillusioned with the state of medicine that he stopped practicing, in the firm belief that the methods he was taught did more harm than good. For the next 60 years, he developed and perfected a form of medical treatment that is affordable, does not hurt the environment, and claims to cure many diseases – both acute and chronic. Could this be the perfect solution to our modern day dilemma? If only Hahnemann hadn't died in 1843.
But there's hope. The system of medicine he founded is Homeopathy. Today, there are hundreds of practicing homeopaths in the US alone, who follow the methods that Hahnemann developed over two centuries ago.
The United States is currently in a devastating health care crisis. There are at least 45.8 million Americans who are uninsured and can't afford proper care. People are suffering, the economy is suffering and everyone is looking for a solution. Homeopathy provides an inexpensive and effective alternative.
For those who can't afford healthcare, homeopathy provides access. For people with chronic illnesses, it provides relief. For diseases like autism for which there is yet no cure, it provides hope. For those in the conventional medical field, the film can expand their clinical options.
No one watching this film will come away unchanged. It will deepen our understanding of the mind/body connection and challenge how we look at illness, medicine, and even the world itself.
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR Laurel Chiten is an award winning independent filmmaker, making films for over 30 years. Her films include: Twisted (2006) about people with the neurological disorder, dystonia. Touched, (2003) about people who think they have had contact with aliens and the Harvard psychiatrist who believed them. The Jew in the Lotus (1999), about a group of rabbis that met with the Dalai Lama, and Twitch and Shout (1994) about people living with Tourette Syndrome, nominated for a national Emmy. The intention in all her work is to entertain her audiences while educating them. Ms. Chiten's is known for giving audiences an intimate experience into the worlds of those who are marginalized, using sensitivity and humor.
Chiten also produced a 10 part series with Robin Casarjian based on her book Houses of Healing, a self-study guide utilized in prisons nationwide.
She is a two- time recipient of Independent Television Service (ITVS) funding. Her films have screened at film festivals around the world, and been broadcast on PBS's national series Independent Lens, and POV. Chiten was an artist in resident at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. She received a residency scholarship at Yaddo and the MacDowell Artist Colony .Ms. Chiten also was an editing consultant for Andy Wilson's most recent film, Under Our Skin, about Lyme Disease short listed for a 2010 Oscar.


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Wilfried Zaha was again accused of diving at the weekend, and Jack Snell has had enough of it.
The past two weeks have seen the 'diviest diver in the history of diving' win two clear cut penalties for Crystal Palace. Of course, this is a reference to Wilfried Zaha. For the first, his leg was taken away from under him after a reckless swipe from Seamus Coleman. The second was clumsy defending from a defensive midfielder forced to play as a left back. However, football pundits and fans (from clubs of all sizes) are still standing firmly behind the conspiracy theory of Zaha 'always diving.'
Ex Everton player Andy Hinchcliffe had the guile to call the penalty at Goodison Park, 'a soft one' during commentary. A soft penalty is a push in the back from a corner, a shirt pull, an unintentional coming together or a handball, not when one leg is forcibly removed from under the body by another player. The bias in football punditry is starting to become tedious and it is this sort of behaviour that allows the spread of false information about players. This bias extends to the likes of Raheem Sterling, who also seems to be the most disgraceful footballer in history according to some tabloids and journos.
The late penalty versus Arsenal was no different as it seemed to ignite a passionate uproar of the 'Zaha Is a Cheat' brigade, all rising up with pitchforks raised. Once again the punditry threw question marks in the direction of Zaha for his on-field antics.
The issue is that fans all of other clubs who do not watch Palace week-in and week-out will soak up all this bias and regurgitate these falsehoods with no evidence and no balanced analysis.
Now who are these people? It is likely one of three categories.
1. Jealous fans of other clubs.
No other side outside the top six has a talismanic player to the same degree as Palace have Zaha. West Ham fans will try to argue Marko Arnautovic is one such player, and this argument will, as expected, fall at the first hurdle. Clubs of the same ilk as Palace are OBSESSED with Zaha, namely Palace's rivals. A Palace fan right now would struggle to name half of the Brighton, West Ham and Watford team because of the simple fact that they do not care.
Grabbing a point against the Premier League's most in form team must be a hard pill to swallow for some of these clubs, especially with Zaha influencing the final score. So, what is the simplest thing to do? Just call Zaha a cheat to make themselves feel better. The double standards of this is that if Zaha would move to any club in the division then there will be a plethora people having to scroll through their twitter back catalogue and delete the reams of "Zaha hate" that has wallpapered their page for many years.
LISTEN: FYP Podcast EXTRAAA - Luka makes up for penalty miss as Palace hold Arsenal
2. People who know nothing about football.
Anyone that has played a competitive game of football to a reasonable standard knows that when you are running at full whack your balance gets somewhat compromised. You are not a solid as when standing still as the centre of gravity is shifting around all over the place. The slightest nudge could send you flying, whereas a static spectator may see it differently.
This is not diving. Zaha was running at Granit Xhaka and he carelessly sticks out a leg. Zaha knows he is going to get a wallop but can do nothing about it. Does he stiffen up his body and allow himself to take the full impact? No, he releases the tension when he gets hit as to protect himself. This makes both his feet come up off the floor, but it is not diving. For anyone who has ever played football and been fouled knows this: if you know you are about to get smashed then you try to protect yourself.
This foul has been conceded countless times on Zaha this season in all areas of the park. It is not such a unique case, Zaha sends the defender one way but goes the other and the trailing leg catches him. Yet it is not until it happens in the box, in the last few minutes, against one of the best teams in the country that he is suddenly a cheat.
READ MORE: Palace Ponderings - Eagles Win a Point in Tough Arsenal Encounter
This is why people know nothing about football because Fulham's Aboubakar Kamara disgracefully dived against Bournemouth. It was a clear deception, but since he is not Zaha he has got away rather lightly from that whole debacle. From playing football at grassroots level you are told as a defender 'do not give the striker a reason to go down. Mamadou Sakho's foul on Mo Salah was a soft penalty to give away Selhurst, but Sakho did exactly that, he gave Salah the opportunity to go to ground.
It is painful as a Palace fan to concede such a goal on the stroke of half time, but this part of the game. Soft or stonewall, it is a penalty if there is contact in the box before the ball, just as it is anywhere else on the pitch. Xhaka said there was contact and no matter how Zaha fell to the ground, it is therefore a penalty.
3. Trolls
Palace fans are very protective and precious of our boy Zaha, so when people criticise him then these critics are met with a stubborn wall of defensiveness, and rightly so. However, after years and years of false accusations of Zaha's apparent diving, the Pride of South London have become more frustrated with the naivety and ignorance of those who read something online and conform to the lie that Zaha is a diver.
Since the fanbase has become so passionate about this cause, there is a possibility that trolls are lurking in the depths of Twitter, trying to goad reactions out of Palace fans who have run out of patience. If so, it is working.
Now writing an article about this could be the ultimate victory for the trolls, someone stupid enough to waste their time on this. But, no matter who the haters are, Palace fans know the truth and a few Twitter comments here and there will not change a thing: Palace have the best player outside the top six whether opposition fans like it or not.

subset: commoncrawl


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CULINARY maestro Craig Wilson is Scotland Now's guest chef for May.
Here, he shares the fantastic recipe for his delicious wholemeal, apricot and raisin bread rolls.
25 grams Fresh Yeast
370 ml Milk
13 grams Salt
50 grams Raisins
50 grams Dried Apricots finely chopped
(egg yolk and porridge oats to garnish)
• Put flour, apricots, raisins, yeast and milk into a bowl and mix with a bread hook attachment on a kitchen mixer for around five minutes
• Add salt mix well
• Place a damp cloth over the bowl and prove for forty minutes
• Roll mixture into desired size balls you should get around 20 and place on a floured tray
• Brush the top of the rolls with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle with porridge oats
• Cover with a damp cloth again and leave for fifteen minutes
• Place a tray of water in the bottom of the oven
• Preheat oven to 220 degrees
• Put bread rolls in oven and cook for twelve minutes
Read our profile on guest chef Craig Wilson
Visit our Scottish food and drink section here .
You can check out some of our other weekend recipes here .
In pictures: Diet? What diet? Bust your belly with Scotland's favourite treats
Check out our gallery below to see Scotland's finest food and drink products.


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Donate to MedVAC
Voluntary Action Center's MedVAC service is vital to our communities senior citizens, those with disabilities and persons in need, for transportation to and from medical appointments. This service depends greatly on the generous giving of time along with the opportunity to support the service in other ways such as:
- Donation of infant car seat or child booster seat
- Donation of a vehicle to the program
- Donation of gas cards
- Donation of prepaid phones or phone cards
- Monetary donation for IPASS
- Volunteer Drivers
- Volunteer Personal Assistant for a trip
- Sponsor a driver for one day
- Monetary donation to the program for overall costs
MedVAC is dedicated to those who need our services and grateful to the community for its support.
To contact Voluntary Action Center for additional information call 815.758.3932.
Make a difference. Give a donation to MedVAC today!


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Ah the Nostalgic 90's. 30-soemthings today are so obsessed with the decade of their teenage years that it defies logic. What was so great about the 90's, or any other decade for that matter?
I know, we are all nostalgic for the years when we are teenagers. I mean even the "millennials" are nostalgic over things that happened less than 10years ago. As for me, I'm on the other end of the Nostalgic 90's gang. My teenage years were spent in the 80's. Truth be told, there wasn't much special about that decade either unless you are really into big hair.
90's Music
This is a big one for most 90's fans. A generation is typically thought of as 20 years, but each decade produces it's own unique musical generation, and each tends to believe their music was the best. Fans of 90's music are no different.
When you think of 90's music, your first thought has got to be of the angst ridden alternative rock movement known as "Grunge". The fans of this sub-genre are almost rabid in their defense of it. The only people more vocal about their specific musical preference are metal heads, but we'll get to them another time.
So, grunge changed music forever, right? The appeal was a highly cerebral lyrical movement. The information age was just coming into its own, thanks to the internet really becoming popular with the masses, and this new found knowledge made everyone feel more intelligent. And, for the most part, they were right. So, in turn, their music should reflect this, and it did. Never mind that much of the actual music was lacking in creativity during this era, the lyrics were the focal point. 80's music was best known by a particular guitar riff, while the 90's saw songs known more for their chorus.
The musician in me repels this phenomenon, while the want-to-be intellectual in me embraces it. Since I graduated from high school in 1990, before Nirvana, Pearl Jam or even the next level of metal acts like Pantera came to be, I missed out on much of this when it was new. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even familiar with Nirvana until after their front man died. I find this is not uncommon though as most people, in the first decade after they graduate from high school, tend to stick with what they listened to in their teens. It usually isn't until much later when they "discover" newer stuff.
Grunge fans were the worst about discounting what came after. I still hear bands talk about "The post grunge era" as if anything that came after is a waste of time. In actuality, most decades have seen some significant changes in music. Even the disco craze of the 70's helped to inspire funk, which has influenced the playing styles of artists from many genres today.
90's Television
Ah yes, TV in the 90's was quite a treat. From family shows like Full House to iconic teenage shows such as Fresh Prince of Bellaire, and dramas such as Quantum Leap, the 90's actually made quantum leaps forward in the TV experience.
While cable really became common in the 80's, the advent of digital satellite transmission in the 90's really stepped things up a notch. Digital signals where easier to send and receive, and more could be sent in the same amount of bandwidth. In English terms, you could get more channels in the same space.
It only makes sense that, when you offer that much more choice, competition would increase. When competition increases that much, quality has to go up as well. As a TV network, when there were only 3 channels, you could pretty well count on at least about a 25% market share on your worst night. Now, with hundreds of channels, you are lucky to capture over 5% on a good night. Competition often brings out the best in what people can produce.
I've already ranted about the removal of competition from the lives of our children, so I won't go into that again here, but know that it's a driving force behind this rant.
Now, with on demand services both from your cable provider and other services like Netflix and Hulu, we have seen a shift toward what is known now as "Time shifted media", meaning we consume it on our schedule, not when the network dictates. This has opened yet another window of opportunity, and it was all made possible by those advances from the 90's Thank you guys for that.
90's Movies
One might say that the 90's was the last time we saw real creativity come from Hollywood. From the '91 classic Silence of the Lambs to the 1999 hit The Matrix, the 90's saw their fair share of movies that are destined to become icons for the ages.
I could spend days listing off the other huge hits from that decade. Unlike with music, I was familiar with these too. When I was stationed in Orlando while going to school in the navy, there was a time when I had seen ever single movie that was out in theaters, and waited for the new releases to come out on Friday. Goodfellas, Boyz N the Hood, and Point Break were some of the highlights from that snapshot in time.
The big difference between those films, and what has come since, are that they were all original. Few and far between were remakes of classic films. I'm not exactly sure where the shift took place, but I would say that, if I listed them, at least 3/4 of my top 100 favorite movies would come from this decade.
90's Sports
When I think of sports in the 90's, two things come to mind. .
- God's team, The Dallas Cowboys dominated with 3 Super Bowl wins.
- The best basketball player to ever live, Michael Jordan, ruled the courts.
Sure, there were other highlights. Mike Tyson resorting to cannibalism in an attempt to not get his face caved in for a second time, and Hank Arron's home run record being broken twice in the same season were huge moments. But, Jordan is THE story of sports in the 90's. And, other than maybe Grant Hill, MJ is one of the nicest guys in the NBA.
other stories captured the public attention. Tonya Harding apying someone to smash Nancy Kerrigan's knee in an attempt to win a gold medal got some serious attention. Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500 and Joe Montana set a record for most post season touchdown passes.
90's Pop Culture
All the categories above help to shape the course of pop culture for any decade.
Grunge music, coupled with movies like Pulp Fiction, helped to create the overall "feel" of the decade. The 90's had a dark, sinister, almost depressing quality when it came to the common mentality of the day. My guess is the gloomy weather from Seattle that tinted the soul of the music from that era, but I could be wrong.
Flannel sales were at an all time high while the Levi's 501 almost fell completely off the map. A level of awareness was achieved in the 90's that may very well go down in history as a time when humanity was forever changed. A lot of this has to do with the internet.
Enter, AOL. Remember getting those Cd's in the mail? I can still recall when internet was billed by the minute, like phone calls, and you were allotted a certain amount of free minutes every month with your plan. If you didn't have an AOL CD handy, that's okay. Most retailers had them sitting on the counter next to the cash register. So, you could easily get that squealing tone from your modem letting you know that the words, "You've got Mail" were mere moments away.
SNL saw it's last great group of comics, Mad TV came and then fizzled (is it even still on?). Some of the greatest comics of all time died. The 90's was not a good time to be an overweight comic. Louie Anderson got lucky!
And no conversation on pop culture in the 90's would be complete without mention of a white bronco or a glove that didn't fit. Yes, I'm talking about The Juice, O. J. Simpson.
So, What Was so Great About the 90's?
Apparently quite a lot. Again, this post took a drastic turn from teh original intent. I had gotten so tired of Facebook posts with people drooling all over memories of the 90's, and really wanted to rant about how ridiculous it was to hold a set of 10 years in such high regard. But, in doing my research, it turns out that the 90's really did produce a lot of great stuff.
I still don't' care to read your posts about your favorite 90's TV shows. Oh, and enough about how music was so much better back then. While considerably better than the 70's, and somewhat superior to the decade that followed it, Grunge was not all it was cracked up to be. Lyrically maybe, but you could teach a blind orangutang how to play the guitar parts to most of those songs.
Actually, this was such a learning experience for me that I'm seriously considering doing it for other decades too, so keep watching for those in the near future.
Ah, the Nostalgic 90's
Remember these from VH1?
I Love the 90's – 1990


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Delegating to No One
A revolutionary concept entered my life last week, attributed of course to the most amazing executive coach I know, Beth Ruske from Tiara Coaching. It's natural, when one is staring at a massive "to-do" list to break that list into categories. Naturally, you immediately think each thing on that list is something you personally need to accomplish. If you're lucky, you have a team surrounding you both personally and professionally to delegate certain tasks to. As you scan the list, you think some of the following:
- I can't make that event, I should ask someone else on my team to go in my place.
- Oh no, I won't be able to get to the dry cleaners before it closes. I'll ask my husband to stop on his way home.
- I simply don't have the hours in the day to get through this long-term project successfully, perhaps we can bring in a contractor to help with the work.
- Can't I get my own assistant?
When you look at your list this way – What can I do myself? What can I delegate? – Beth Ruske told me (and it's changed the way I look at my list), that you're missing one massive place to delegate to – no one.
Take a moment, pause, and think about that concept. What is on your list right now that you could delegate to no one?
What does that mean? It means that something on that list needs to drop. You, my dear, need to drop. the. ball. And if you're anything like me, your head is spinning right now. Women spinning 100 plates in the air at any time would be screaming, "But I can't! I can't just drop something for no reason at all." The truth is, though, you can! Dropping the ball, breaking one of those spinning plates, what would it really do to hurt you? The truth is….nothing.
So I took Beth's advice the last couple of weeks, and it's amazing what I've been able to both accomplish and eliminate. Now, I look at my to-do list and I ask myself these questions:
- Is this item something I absolutely have to do and no one except me could do it?
- Is this item something anyone has to do? Is it urgent and important?
- What would happen if this item was never accomplished?
If the answers are "No, no, and no," then I know who I'm ready to delegate that task to….no one! Join the task list revolution. It might just change your list forever!


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This year we didn't do a lot of giftie exchanging ... GB's family decided we'd all make a donation to mission work instead. However ... there was one pretty special giftie under my Christmas tree this year ... my main SSCS giftie - WOO! HOO! This year, my swap partner was Dagmar from southern Germany and can I tell you ... she SPOILT me! :0) It was so very obvious that Dagmar took the time to visit my blog in the months after she was given my name as her partner ... she worked out what my favourite colours were, she realised that I love bears ... and that we'd recently moved so needed pretty things to decorate our new house! :0) How very lovely to know she took such care to spoil me ... Thank you Dagmar!!
Now ... when I opened my main giftie on Christmas Day, I was blown away ... would you like to see why??
... A GORGEOUS pieced wall hanging in my favourite colour, GREEN, featuring a tree-climbing bear. And if you look a little closer ...
... you can see that this lovely, lazy bear has been pieced ... I'm guessing paper-pieced! WOW!! There are some teeny, tiny pieces there ... the ears and nose are each made up of about 8 individual pieces of fabric. This is something I could never make for myself, so I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! THANK YOU DAGMAR!!! I truly feel very blessed and SPOILT!!
And a HUGE thank you to our Swap Mama, too, the lovely Chookyblue, for her work in organising SSCS once again. Chooky has been a VERY busy gal this year and I know she's faced some tough decisions thanks to extended drought which also quadrupled her workload day to day, so Chooky, your efforts are even more appreciated, as organising a bunch of bloggers world-wide is no easy thing. WELL DONE!
My send-to partner this year was Nancy and I think she liked the gifties I sent her, too ...
... I had a lovely time playing with my little stash of Lynette Anderson's "Scandinavian Christmas" fabrics and as well as the ornament of the stocking in the top right corner, I sent Nancy a T-towel apron, a bauble bag to store special Christmas ornaments which features a free stitchery from Gail Pan from a couple of years ago and some cute little strip-pieced mini-Christmas stocking ornaments. In her post, Nancy said she has made a lot of aprons for other people, but this is the first time someone has made one for her, so that was fun. The apron was inspired by a tutorial my blogging buddy Kerryanne shared over at her blog Shabby Art Boutique. It's made from half a t-towel, which makes it great to wipe hands on when cooking ... I may have to make one for myself! :0) In fact ... I've made three this Christmas for gifties ... I'll share some pics next post.
But right now ... I'm off to grab a piece of watermelon to nibble and slurp while I watch the Boxing Day Cricket test ... Aaaaaaaahhh!! Christmas in Australia! :0) Wherever you are in the world, however you've celebrated this special time of year, I hope there's been time for you to rest, enjoy time with family and friends and catch your breath. If you're still travelling, please take care. Til next time ...


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A bright and airy bedroom in a modern style with touch of classic to ensure a timeless look.
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That dress! RT @goldenglobes: From @12yearsaslave @Lupita_Nyongo! http://t.co/deC81EZK4f
A Theory of Violence: In Honor of Kasandra, CeCe, Victoria, Savita and Anonymous4 Jan
**trigger warning**
A few weeks ago, a young Indian woman went to the movies. On her way home she took a bus on which she was raped and brutally assaulted by six men. We don't know the name of this 23-year-old student. We do know that she was tortured so badly that she lost her intestines and needed numerous operations. Six people – including the bus driver – have been arrested. On Friday, December 28 she died.
I don't know her name. I don't have an adequate response, but I feel I should say something. Because I was born in the city where she were assaulted. Because so many, too many, experience such violence. Because I spend most of my waking hours thinking about how we can create a world where women are safe. Because she wanted to live.
This is both about and not about men. Here are some statistical knowables, true across most societies (just take a look at the extant research at both the global and national levels).
- Violence against women and girls occurs primarily at the hands of men and boys.
- Violence against men and boys occurs primarily at the hands of other men and boys.
- Nations, statistically speaking, commit far and away, the most of the world's violence via war and conflict. This involves military forces comprised largely of men and boys, who are both perpetrators and victims of this violence.
Gender, then, rises up as an undeniably important variable in regards to understanding violence. And though we might not have a shared understanding of this fact, sex and gender are different and there are more genders than two. Further, people who are gender-non-coforming, genderqueer, trans and/or those who complicate the gender binary experience violence at disproportionate rates.
In my work at Men Stopping Violence, our focus is on ending male violence against women. Far and away the most common first response to my explanation of our work goes something like this: "Yes, violence against women is a problem but, don't women ALSO commit violence?"
Let me answer that question now: Sure, yes. Women are also perpetrators of violence. As are people of all genders, sexes and sexual orientations. But to refocus the question on women's violence is to obfuscate the real problem. And that problem is violent masculinity. If all the above data has not convinced you yet, please note: According to the National Academy of Sciences, in the US, "Male criminal participation in serious crimes at any age greatly exceeds that of females, regardless of source of data, crime type, level of involvement, or measure of participation." I say this not to pathologize masculinity as inherently violent, I certainly don't believe it is. I say this to move us away from wringing in our hands in despair about a seemingly intractable problem (male violence against women) and move us toward naming the fact that this problem is deeply structural, rooted in patriarchy and colonialism.
The point here is this: violence in general and sexual violence in particular, like all social ills, is best approached with a multi-faceted and intersectional perspective.
"Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of the individual: it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say someone is "in power" we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name." — Hannah Arendt, from On Violence
What is the function of violence?
Resisting essentialist notions about sex and turning to think about gender, there is something in pervasive understandings of masculinity or masculine identity that accepts if not encourages violence. This begs the questions: Is masculinity itself violent? Is there a way to be a man/masculine without being violent? What causes violence? What sustains it? These are questions that I think about daily and with my colleagues around the country. At MSV we work with many different men who join in this conversation with us. For us, that involves honing in on the problem of men's violence against women.
Let me be very clear here, because this is the bulk of my point: we fail at answering these questions if we think of violence as merely a symptom of something else. If you listened to the NRA press conference last week in response to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, you might be lead to believe that the perpetration of violence is some elusive phenomenon, committed by the criminally insane, or at the behest of video games and violent movies. If you watched some of the Indian coverage of the Delhi gang rape story you'd hear lots of speculation that the young men who perpetrated this gruesome act, must have been intoxicated by drugs. I wholeheartedly disagree with this assessment of violence. It's not merely a tragic happenstance. It is not something only done by those who have 'lost their right minds.' Violence is functional.
It is a means of asserting and securing power. When violence targets women in the dark of night it ensures, among many other things, that women stay out of the streets. When violence against trans women goes largely unreported in studies of violence against women, it is tacitly legitimated. When violence against white school children raises a national furor and violence against an innocent black teenager wearing a hoodie doesn't provoke a national conversation about legislating guns, we can see the fault lines. When a football player kills his partner and then himself and we find ourselves knowing his name but not hers, we see which victims matter.
Violence is functional and our response to that violence is also functional. Violence is functions by silencing those whom it targets. Let us not forget that most cases of rape and sexual assault go unreported. Let us not forget the stigma that survivors face. In the US only 24% of rape allegations result in arrest, never mind conviction. Whether it is perpetrated by an individual or made invisible by our social, cultural and political institutions, violence has an aim – to remove power and instill fear.
The numbers can tell us most of what we need to know. But not all. What is lost in the statistical knowables, is the lived reality of women, LGBTQ people and others of us whose stories don't make it to the headlines. Women's lives bear out patterns, and patterns tell a story. If we ask intentional questions about trends – we can learn something about our social orchestration. Looking to recent stories, we might learn something about this functionality.
Kasandra Perkins was killed by her partner, a professional athlete, who had threatened to shoot her weeks before he did. No one was able to protect her despite the fact of his threat.
CeCe McDonald, a trans woman, faced violence in the form of a hate crime and for her retaliation was sentenced to serve her time in a men's prison, denied the right to name a very basic fact of her existence.
Victoria Soto was a school teacher with her students in the classroom one day when she was killed in a massacre by a lone gunman with easy access to assault weapons.
Savita Halappanavar sought refuge from the horror of a wanted pregnancy gone awry at an Irish hospital which (legally) refused to save her life.
And then a few weeks ago a young woman in New Delhi took the bus home one night after watching a movie with a friend and was brutally raped and died, 12 days later, from her wounds.
When something horrific happens, near or far from home, we tend to ask the same questions: Why? How? So, what, then, are the 'whys' and 'hows' in these cases and in inumerable others? There are few actual similarities in these cases, but there are many potential points of convergence: laws that do not protect, credibility that is denied, legislation that is missing, stories that are made invisible. If we are to change things, our belief systems, social structures, and institutional practices must come under the spotlight. And that is because these stories complicate the statistical knowables.
Interpersonal violence usually belies a whole host of social conditions that are hard to qualify and quantify (i.e. privilege, race, poverty, gender, oppression, resistance, wealth, cultural norms, etc.). In this, as in most things, historical context is key. The US has a long history of state sanctioned violence. Consider the genocide of Native and First Nations people, the ever-present legacy of slavery, the internment, without due-process, of those considered a threat, be they Japanese immigrants or detained in Guantanamo via the War on Terror. These factors complicate our understanding of who perpetrates violence and against whom and why. Knowing the statistics is important. Knowing the stories, unearthing the legacies, speaking aloud the names of the victims and the survivors is just as important.
Women's bodies serve as battlegrounds: metaphorically and practically. "Western" feminists look toward the "East" and see beleaguered women facing oppression at the hands of savage (read:black and brown) men. Never mind that staggering and horrific violence happens in the "West." Never mind that the US has never taken a stand to ratify the global Convention on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Never mind international conventions, the US is not able to muster the political will to pass the Violence Against Women Act, or gun control legislation. Never mind that we all have remained unable to effectively address the phenomenon of rape as a tool of war, so as to prevent women's bodies from serving as the actual sites of war and conflict.
Despite all these facts, in the wake of this story, outrage began seeping out from the US, the UK and Europe (which I am loosely defining as the "West" – the demarcations of and within these places could be a topic of a separate blog post) at the problem of patriarchal "Eastern" cultures. The narrative looks something like this: Those poor women suffering at the hands of those horrible men. We must loudly proclaim our empathy for those people, who either know no better or are unable to live by our enlightened social standards.
This narrative is racist, homophobic, sexist, heteronormative and imperialist.
And to step away from all that politicalese: it is quite simply just wrong.
Violence is global. It pervades all cultures and communities. Yesterday, in a brilliant conversation, Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association and one of the main organizers of protests against sexual violence in India and Elora Chowdhary, associate professor of women's studies at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, joined Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now to talk about the case and the way it's being discussed here in the US as well as in India. Chaowdhary says,
So, on the one hand, we see in the Western media some reporters taking this moral high ground and pointing fingers and demonizing Indian culture, as though sexual violence against women is pervasive in only certain parts of the world and that it's somehow reflective of deeply inherent cultural traditions of that part of the world. Of course, what that obscures is that both rape and domestic violence are pervasive in the United States, and domestic violence being one of the leading causes of injury to women, and exceedingly high numbers of rapes that, in fact, mostly go unreported in the United States. So, I think embedded in these kinds of reporting is a certain colonial mindset, of course, there's a long history of that. And this kind of mindset that women are the measure of the progress of a society emerges from colonial practices, that these ideas were used to legitimize both colonization and also imperialism.
I don't say all this to discourage global dialogue. Very much the opposite, in fact. We have much to learn from each other, by sharing our struggles and our victories. Such exchange is key to our success. What we cannot abide however is the reductive and disempowering narrative that allows some folks to offer no local, national or global context. What will not help is an essentialist narrative that paints all (or even most) Indian women as victims and all (or even most) Indian men as perpetrators, by virtue of their culture. We must banish these spectres of our colonial legacy if we aim to build an intersectional, transnational and transformative movement to end violence in our communities.
As I've said, violence, here in the US and abroad, is functional. Violence against women, is rooted in colonialism and patriarchy, in their varied and sundry iterations. We'd do well to keep our eyes on that, and work like hell to dismantle the belief systems, social structures, and institutional practices that support it.
Beat to Quarters*: An argument to register5 Oct
Guest Post by Pat Hussain
The 2012 elections will culminate with President Obama being reelected or replaced as President. Some people have decided to vote in this election; others not to vote. Whatever your decision I urge everyone who is eligible to register to vote by the October 9th deadline.
Every citizenship right we have has come after a protracted struggle: Pressure created by direct action and mass movement organizing provided the momentum for a successful vote in the halls of Congress, state legislatures, or polling places across the country. Not registering to vote feels like speaking passionately on the issues at hand; but on Election Day, placing our hands over our mouths.
After the Civil War the struggle for equality moved from the battlefield to the ballot box, as centuries old violence and intimidation tactics against Black people continued. During Reconstruction, in 1866, the Radical Republicans took control of Congress. Before the War ended, Rev. George F. Noyes had expressed his support of them, and restraint of former Confederates, during a sermon to the Union Army in 1862:
"When a man puts a knife at my throat, and I succeed in conquering and hand-cuffing him, shall I be so foolish as at once to restore him to his former position, knife and all? Let every man's own common sense answer this question. The idea with some even at the North is that the South is to be acknowledged as an equal nation if triumphant, while, if she is subdued after the great and fearful struggle, she is at once to be invited into a front seat, and at once admitted to all her old privileges."
In 1867, Congress replaced Southern civilian government with military districts, and enforced the enfranchisement of Freedmen. Of the 22 Black members of Congress, elected during Reconstruction, 13 were Freedmen; all were Republican. Of the 1st 20 elected as Congressmen, five were denied their seats. Others had their terms interrupted or delayed.
At the 1888 Republican Convention, a new faction emerged within their party. Norris Wright Cuney named this group, the Lily-White Movement: An anti-civil rights response to African-American political and economic gains. Their goal was to eliminate Black progress and get white voters back from the Democrats. As it grew to an organized nationwide effort, most Blacks were prevented from seeking office. Democrats and Republicans erected legislative barriers for Black voters: In the form of poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. George White was the last African-American in Congress for 28 years when he delivered his final speech in the House on January 29, 1901:
"This is perhaps the Negroes' temporary farewell to the American Congress, but let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heart-broken, bruised and bleeding, but God-fearing people; faithful, industrious, loyal, rising people – full of potential force."
That drought was ended with the election of Oscar De Priest: the first African-American of the modern era and the last Black Republican representative for 56 years.
The 20th Century civil rights movement built on work begun during Reconstruction. Direct action changed and engaged our national conscience as we the people gathered and shone a light on unjust laws, rogue municipalities, and flaws in our Union. Our votes sent those we elected to represent us into the rooms where laws are made and changed.
African-American voting strength blossomed across the South from 1960-1966: in Mississippi – from 22,000 registered Blacks to 175,000, in South Carolina – from 58,000 to 191,000; and in Alabama – from 66,000 to 250,000. The number of Blacks in Congress doubled from five to ten as the 1960s drew to a close. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) emerged from that fertile ground in 1971, followed by the 1976 arrival of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. For the first time in this century, a presidential veto on foreign policy was overridden. When the CBC joined others in opposition to President Reagan, they helped bring about the extinction of South African Apartheid.
History reveals that laws enacted to create justice do not make justice happen. And that political party support, at best, is transient. Further struggle is required to make existing laws function – for example: penalties, criminal charges, and sanctions for noncompliance or violations. The thunder of feet marching and ballots dropping on Election Day; oars pulling together as our boat presses forward. Knowing that our need for justice is immediate, it is frustrating that our progress tends to be incremental. That is why I urge you to register to vote. We need you.
The nautical term is, "All hands on deck." Something that you say when everyone's help is needed, especially to do a lot of work in a short amount of time. If you have ever changed your mind, reconsidered a decision, or just like to keep your options open; consider registering. If you do register, you can still decide not to vote. The decision of whether to vote or not just moves to 7:00 pm, November 6th when the polls close. But if you don't register, that option, that oar, is left behind.
Rough waters and big waves have kept us from the shores of full equality and have tried to swamp our boat, relentlessly. It has required every tactic at our disposal, some created on the journey, to keep us afloat. Pack both oars: Direct action and the vote. Those who never had the right and those who lost it have needed us to pull that oar for them.
Election Day will mark our progress, lull, or decline; but not the end of our journey. Tsunamis of regressive, racist, mean-spirited political candidates and policies have raised the call for, "all hands on deck." We need all who are able to give a two-fisted pull toward equality and our own visions of a just world. In the tradition of our struggle, join us.
*Prepare for battle (beat = beat the drum to signal the need for battle preparation).
Pat Hussain is a part of the We All Count campaign and participated in the Southern Movement Assembly two weeks ago in Lowndes County, Alabama. The Assembly brought together 25 delegations from over 40 organizations around the South. Pat is a beloved movement elder and one of six founders of SONG, Southerners On New Ground, an LGBTQ organization working for racial and economic justice. In 1996, Pat co-founded Olympics Out of Cobb County to bring attention to a resolution the city passed in 1993 condemning LGBTQ people. The successful organizing forced the Olympic Committee to remove all officially sanctioned events from the county.
Lady Gaga, Beauty, Ugliness and the Call for a Real Body Revolution27 Sep
Earlier this week, Lady Gaga launched a campaign, via her website, called Body Revolution 2013. An attempt to reclaim the conversation from the folks in the media who were writing about Gaga's body as seen in a few recent photos, wherein she looks a little larger than she usually does. (I'm not linking to those photos and articles, Google if you must.) Essentially, these (assuredly svelte) members of the media were calling Lady Gaga fat. Gaga, in a missive in which she's both vulnerable and angry, spoke out about the fact that she's been dealing with anorexia and bulimia since the age of 15. And as only a global susperstar can, she's re-energized a conversation about the challenges that young people, young women and girls in particular, are facing as they struggle to accept their bodies in a world that is hateful and cruel. These struggles are both external (how do others perceive me?) and internal (what do I see when I look in the mirror?) and they are nothing new. But a dose of celebrity adds another dimension to this already pressing issue.
Several have written about the potential impacts of a celebrity naming their struggles with eating disorders – some think it's helpful, others don't and others find it complicated. There's something both valuable and limiting about a celebrity like Lady Gaga coming forth. On the one hand she embodies a relatively conventional ideal of beauty, being young, thin and white. On the other hand, it's notable that these extremely narrow conventions of beauty are insufferable by almost ALL people, Lady Gaga included. I won't (re)litigate the conversation about the value of her admission here. Generally, I find that anything that breaks into the mythology of celebrity is at least minimally useful, because it allows us to disrupt the damaging messages that come from and through our obsession with fame and fortune as measures of worth. (Here, I mean "worth" the existential sense, as well in the context of capitalism. Lady Gaga is very well compensated for her art, which is entangled with her "image.") So, yes, a "body revolution" in which we flaunt and expose our "perceived flaws" and "make our flaws famous, and thus redefine the heinous" in order reclaim our sense of self from the media machine is a good thing. But there's something else going on here.
In this charged context, what does it mean to be beautiful? And what does it mean to be ugly? And another question, to complicate the binary between beauty and ugliness, because binaries never serve us well: what does it mean to be invisible entirely? Or hyper-visible?
We, as the social creatures we are, long to see and be seen. And to be seen as valuable, worthy of love, and affection, and deserving of care, personal, interpersonal, social and political. There are many measures of value, and they all depend upon being "seen." So, this question, of what it means to see and be seen, is rooted in understanding the pain and agony of people around the world who struggle to see themselves and to be seen by others as valuable. This is about those little girls, who look at themselves in horror and anguish, feeling worthless if nobody calls them beautiful. And in the cases of young girls and women of color, seeing themselves as inherently less valuable. In this context, answering the question "what kind of body revolution do we need?" is urgent. A lot is at stake.
Jessica Valenti's argument in favor of embracing "ugly" comes from the notion that we must confound traditional notions of beauty and the social value that comes with them. In light of the emergent trend in which young girls get plastic surgery so as to avoid bullying and shame, Valenti argues that there are virtues cultivated from resisting these notions, and embracing the anger and dispossession they engender. We fashion the world in our own image, then, and refused to succumb. I find this argument compelling, to be sure. I am routinely pissed off about the way beauty is defined and described so as to exclude me, and so, so many others. And I certainly derive strength from that rage.
But then, I also have to pause. I notice my discomfort begin in earnest whenever we have conversations about beauty and body image that do not include in intentional analysis of beauty as something that lives right at the intersection of race, age, ability, gender and sex. It's not an expendable luxury here, to name these things. For women of color, the notion of embracing and seeking the upside of ugliness is a complicated task in the fight against invisibility on one hand and hyper-visibility on the other. Think of how transgender bodies are erased by the various industrial complexes in which we are mired. CeCe McDonald's very identity is rendered irrelevant when she, a trans woman, is incarcerated and placed in a men's detention facility. Think about the double-sided scourge of Islamophobia and misogyny that Middle-Eastern and South Asian women face daily. Think about the legacy of slavery in which black women's bodies were treated as commodities with categorically dehumanized desirability, worth and beauty. Think about the research telling us that women with disabilities are more likely to suffer domestic violence and sexual assault than women without disabilities. Think about the incessant slut-shaming and victim-blaming that characterizes our national conversations about violence against women.
In these contexts, what is the upside of ugly? Or as Lady Gaga beseeches us to, how do we "redefine heinous?" When "ugliness" carries the threat of violence and disenfranchisement, what does it mean to embrace "ugly?" For a person whose body is dehumanized and positioned as the very definition of undesirable, is it possible to "redefine heinous?" Perhaps, but its not neat. To do so we have a lot to dismantle. To do so we have to dwell in the intersections. Beauty and ugliness are not two sides of a coin, they are the same side of the same coin.
To dismantle them involves thinking through what the other side of that coin is. What does is mean for us to see each other as fully human? And as singularly and collectively valuable?
This project is different than the project of asserting that we are all beautiful in our own way (like those Dove "Campaign for Real Beauty" campaigns implore of us). It is different than embracing the character building elements of being seen as "ugly." It involves conversation about what makes us human and valuable. And it must also include a re-definition of both "beauty" and "ugliness" alike.
Maybe THAT is the body revolution we need.
What violence does13 Aug
These things are hard to think about. They are painful to feel. They engender confusion and rage. After the shooting at the Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin two weeks ago, I have found it so difficult to think about the incident and the aftermath. I can't seem to intellectualize the story without thinking about what it felt like for those inside.
Immediately, I think of all the mandirs and gurdwaras I've sat in. I know what they feel like, what they look like, what they smell like and sound like. I know how loud and boisterous prayer there can be – the clanging of symbols and the women singing, and how soft and silent – the hushed humming of hymns by elders. Immediately, I'm transported to those moments. When I think of violence in that scene, my brain experiences a moment of cognitive dissonance. And then, a wash of sadness, pain, confusion and rage.
These are the hallmarks of terrorism, though. These feelings of confusion and emotional dissonance. This is what terrorism intends. This is what violence does.
This violence, though, is of a kind. It was fueled by bigoted hatred. It was fueled by a racialized rage. It was targeted.
It was not, as it has been called, "senseless." Nor was it the same as the Colorado movie theater shooting; it was not random. These incidents occurred within days of each other so they are coloring and colored by each other. The things they have in common are apparently only two: these acts of violence were committed by white men, who purchased their guns legally. Many have written about the need for stronger gun laws, and some have written about the racial dynamics herein. Some have even written about the unnamed racism and Islamophobia in the impulse to educate the country about Sikhism (as it is different from Islam) in an effort to clear up any misunderstanding. And then there is the deep beauty of the Sikh faith.
All these points are vital. Race is playing a role in the way we talk about James Holmes, and Michael Page. It is playing a role in the way we talk about their motives: are they "crazy?" It is playing a role in the extraordinary search through our collective consciousness to find a rationale for their actions. And failing to find something, the age-old question: Are they "mentally stable?" Compare and contrast this with the incident in which NYPD shot and killed Darrius Kennedy, a man reported to be "mentally ill." Darrius was black. Darrius was shot 12 times. As NYC officials are scrambling to justify that use of deadly force by appealing to the fact that Mr. Kennedy had a history of mental instability, we see the raced and classed treatment of these men, and these incidents.
These nuances, and political framings are helpful, actually. What has made this process so tenuous, I realize, is what is being asked of me. Of us all. We seek explanation. We seek understanding. These things do exist, of course. These men had motives. But these are the wrong questions.
We don't need to ONLY understand their motives and their lives. We need to understand what violence does. We need to understand what racially motivated violence does, in particular. It seeps into our consciousness, it redraws boundaries of safety (movie theaters and temples are no longer "safe"), it makes it seem as though we are not safe anywhere.
This feeling is all too familiar to many of us, black, brown, immigrant, poor, female-bodied, gender non-conforming, non-white, differently-abled, queer, trans etc. This feeling is fear, terror, even. That we are not safe. That is country is not for us. That our difference makes us targets.
It removes our belonging. That is what violence does.
Health care reform, politics and power: Is the Supreme Court Crunk?28 Jun
At 10:07am Eastern Standard Time the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) released its long-awaited decision on whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Obama's major policy achievement during his first term, was constitutional. The ACA was Congress' first major effort at reforming our health care system in many years, with many Presidents trying and failing to make it happen.
Given the balance of the Supreme Court, there was lots of speculation in the hours before the decision that the ACA would be found unconstitutional and struck down. That did not happen, Chief Justice Roberts, a staunch conservative, broke the tie by joining with the 4 more liberal members of the court to uphold the law.
Here's the breakdown (and here's a news round-up):
- The Individual Mandate: The ACA's key provision is known as the "individual mandate" which requires virtually all citizens to buy health insurance meeting minimum federal standards or to pay a fine if they refuse. Supporters of the mandate said it was necessary to ensure that not only sick people but also healthy folks would sign up for coverage, which is how we keep health insurance premiums affordable. (Note: the ACA offers subsidies to poorer and middle-class households, varying with their incomes. It also provides subsidies to some businesses for insuring their workers.) Twenty-six states opposing the law challenged the individual mandate and the Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether the mandate was constitutional. They found that it is indeed constitutional, but in the form of a tax – click here to understand what that means.
- Medicaid expansion: The ACA requires states to expand Medicaid coverage for poor and nearly-poor households. About 30 million people are expected to gain insurance from the law, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Medicaid expansion is one path to making sure that everyone has health insurance coverage. The Supreme Court was tasked in determining whether it's constitutional for the law to make states expand their Medicaid eligibility, or risk losing funding for Medicaid from the government. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding. Here's more about what that means.
There's much more in the ruling itself, to read it click here. But these two issues were the major pivot points for the law's survival.
So, what's does all this mean? The real impact and significance of this ruling will shake out in the coming days and weeks, but here are some important things to keep in mind:
1. The opponents of the ACA were fighting against the law as an unconstitutional use of the government's power, not to mention the horribly racialized imagery that accompanied the messaging around "Obamacare." Much of the opposition was yollering that the ACA was socialized medicine and a scourge that would best be eliminated. That is expressly not true: the ACA is anything but socialized medicine. In fact, some would argue (me included) that the ACA is a love letter to insurance companies, who stand to gain millions of new customers with the implementation of the law.
Also, please note this comment from SCOTUS Blog: "The rejection of the Commerce Clause and Nec. and Proper Clause should be understood as a major blow to Congress's authority to pass social welfare laws. Using the tax code — especially in the current political environment — to promote social welfare is going to be a very chancy proposition."
The only mitigating factor here is that the ACA has many new, and rather strong, consumer protections, like making sure that insurance companies use almost all of the money they get from us on actually giving us health care, eliminating lifetime caps on the amount of health care they will cover, making sure they can't deny folks health care if they have a pre-existing condition, making sure all kids are insured and making sure that insurance companies can't just charge women more than men just because they're women. The bottom line is that this law is not socialized medicine (would that it were), but that it's also got some accountability measures to protect us from insurance companies. There were many passionate and dedicated advocates that fought for these protections during the passing of the law, and I'm proud to have stood with them to make sure they made it into the final law.
2. The narrow reading of the Medicaid provision is, in a word, unjust. By not requiring states to expand their Medicaid coverage, so many poor folks will have no recourse for getting health care, aside from buying it from insurance companies. How will states ensure that it will be affordable? That remains unclear. States are going to have to do a lot more work to make sure that the poorest and most vulnerable get health care coverage, and given that many states are facing extreme budget crunches, I have very little faith that the most marginalized amongst us will get what they need. There is a legitimate fear that many Southern states will opt out of the Medicaid expansion, and given that many of those states have disproportionately high poverty rates, it's a recipe for exclusion and further marginalization. The Medicaid expansion was my favorite part of the law, and it's just been significantly weakened.
3. The ACA was NEVER a perfect bill. It was never really even close to that. The big problems that were there, still remain. It's not a bill that gives us Medicare for all, which is the only real way that we can get equity across the board. Access to abortion and health care coverage for immigrants were thrown under the bus in an effort to get the law passed. It's unclear, based on budget projections whether and how the law will save the country money. And finally, the principle of using corporations as the way to help us achieve human rights is historically proven to be a hot mess. We still need to repeal the Hyde Amendment. We still need to challenge capitalism. And we still need grassroots organizing. Therein, lies our hope for getting real, affordable, accessible, health care for all.
So, is the Supreme Court crunk, you ask? Today, maybe a little.
I'll share more in the comments as I learn more about the bill since this is a really speedy assessment, and I'll also share any amendments and clarifications. Please feel free to crowd source info in the comments as well.
Making Movement Mistakes: What to do when you f@*k up23 Apr
That moment: when some words have escaped your lips, and you realize they were wrong/insensitive/politically incorrect/hurtful. Or the moment when you have made a decision in a coalition that has broken the "do no harm" principle of coalition work. When your actions have undermined someone's agenda. These moments can be big or small. These moments can consist of an interpersonal slight, or they can be damaging to an entire political agenda. We all know these moments; we have witnessed them, experienced them and committed them.
I am a professional activist. I've done work organizing and advocating for policy change at the local, state, national and international level. And every single project I've ever worked on has had an element of coalition building and collaboration involved. That's how you know you're doing it right, in my opinion. If there are multiple stakeholders, with multiple goals involved. If we all, with our intersectional analyses and intersecting interests can find a way to move our agendas forward, together. That also poses many challenges, as you who do this work inevitably understand. Intersectional work is hard, but of course, it's the only way.
I say all this because there are few constants in this kind of work, but if we do it right, if we work across our comfort zones and reach out to unlikely partners, and those with different goals but with a shared vision of the future, we will undoubtedly make mistakes. Here, I'm talking about mistakes made in good faith. Not malicious, calculated ones. I'm talking about the moments where we think we're doing right, but we mess up.
Why does this happen? Why is it inevitable? We make mistakes because we do not know better. We make mistakes because we don't understand another's truth, another's lived experience. Because we operate from some un-interrogated position of privilege, perhaps. We make mistakes because we don't think before we speak, or just aren't sensitive to someone else's perspective. We make mistakes because we are human.
So today, I'd like to crowd-source the question of what to do when this happens. I'd like to hear from you, darling crunk feminists, about how you go about dealing with these moments both when you are the committer of the mistake, and also when it's been committed against you. Here are some of my own strategies, things I've done myself, and things that others have done, that I've found useful (of course, all this depends on the offense, these are generalizations):
If you realize you've made a mistake.
- Apologize. Sincerely. When doing this, think carefully about the best approach. It might not be in person, or it might be. It might need to be public. It might need to be done one-on-one. This depends on the nature of the mistake. But nothing else can happen unless you acknowledge your mistake.
- Don't conflate the mistake and your apology with anything else. The apology is not the time to try and fix the coalition, or your relationship. It's not the time to make your broader political statement. It's a time to do just one thing. Recognize your mistake and apologize for it.
- Ask what amends might be made, if that applies. Ask the person/team/group what might help. Ask without proscribing the answer. Wait. Listen. And then decide whether this is something you can or cannot do. Be honest about that.
- Realize that trust is easier to break that rebuild. Your relationship/s might not ever be the same. And of course it might get even stronger. But you can't know that. You can't have an endgame in your apology, you have to say it, do what you can to fix it and not expect more than that.
- Keep doing the work as best as you can. Learn from it, and don't make the same mistake again.
If you're on the receiving end of a mistake all I can say is: remember all the mistakes you've made. When I think of all the mistakes I've made, it's easier for me to identify with someone who's done something hurtful to me. I try not to hold it too close to my heart, and if at all possible, assume good faith. Sometimes things are fixed, sometimes they are not, but regardless I try not to carry around anger and resentment. That is, of course, easier said than done, but worth the effort.
Anyhow, your turn CFC readers. I'd love for you to share your thoughts/strategies/ideas in the comments.


text:
This postcard from the other side of the world reached me last year as the first from Australia and the second one with a flag on it. Having immigrated into the UK several years ago, it is still very interesting to see and read how so many countries are tied so closely to the kingdom as part of the Commonwealth.
And here is a bit about the history. The flag of Australia is a defaced Blue Ensign: a blue field with the Union Jack in the canton (upper hoist quarter), and a large white seven-pointed star known as the Commonwealth Star in the lower hoist quarter. The fly contains a representation of the Southern Cross constellation, made up of five white stars – one small five-pointed star and four, larger, seven-pointed stars.
Having been to Australia about 10 years ago, a lot of memories came back after reading and watching this card. Australia is such a great country and I would go a live there if it would not be that far away from my family in Germany.
Which place in Australia do you like most and why? My favourite place is Sydney.
Please let me know.


text:
I've submitted my Chartership portfolio! It feels like I've been working on it for ages, but actually I've submitted a little over a year since I started the process. Hopefully I'll hear back soon whether or not I've been successful.
During the last year, I spent a lot of time Googling blog posts about Chartership, so I thought it would be only fair to contribute a post of my own to the mix.
In terms of the overall experience, I am glad I have gone through it. I have now got into the habit of recording my continuing professional development (CPD) activities, and it was useful to identify gaps in my knowledge and actively work to filling them. It was a tough slog at times, and could be frustrating, but hopefully the changes to Chartership under the new regulations will streamline the process for new candidates.
- Collect evidence as you go along. Collect everything – it's better to have more than you need and select from that, than have a mad scramble to find a piece at the end.
- Find a support network. That might be on the mailing list LIS-CILIP-REG, or the #chartership chat on Twitter, or other local candidates in your workplace or area. When I started, three other librarians I worked with also started, so we had a ready-made support group.
- A new edition of Building your portfolio by Owen and Watson is coming out in August, which has been revamped for the new professional registration regulations.
- I found Dropbox useful to store electronic evidence and documents, so I could access them at home as well as at work.
What will I continue?
- I am going to keep recording my CPD in a diary or log, which will be useful for revalidation and for appraisals in work. The new CILIP VLE has an option to do this, so I am going to take a look.
- I found using the SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-bound) model really useful for putting together my personal and professional development plan (PPDP), and I'll continue to use it in my work.
Plans for the future
- A celebratory drink for submitting!
- I'd like to train as a mentor, so I'm keeping an eye out for upcoming training dates (provided I pass Chartership, of course!)
Good luck to everyone going through professional registration!


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Another "movement" that is afoot is the #WalkAway campaign. Regardless of its foundation or intention, this movement is the same as every other attempt at belonging. So now people are jumping from one movement or campaign to the next, one extreme to the other extreme. I am not saying that this is an extreme group or campaign, but why does anyone need a group or a sense of belonging to be honest and open with who they are? The fear that people have with expressing themselves is very eye opening. How long have we forsaken our own individuality for trendy popularity? Does this harken back to the days of tribes and survival? People are always citing the year as if that has something to do with progress. Time and time again, whether laws, religion or perceived "social construct" has shown that human behavior is based on free will. Participate in what you want, but champions are the leaders and the followers are often mediocre.
Why do we care so much about belonging, when at the same time we demand independence? You hear it all the time, whether entertainment, cartoons, books, toys or CEOs and elected representatives, "no one looked like me". I had no idea that homosexual was a look, or that skin color was a defining characteristic or that a vagina or lack thereof was distinguishing criteria. What the hell! What ever happened to being unique? Well, to be truly unique requires independence, if you are not independent, then you are simply trying to fit in. Choose whatever you want but stop bullying the rest of us into filling your wants and desires, while your needs are already met.
If belonging to a group of strangers is how you define happiness and fulfillment, then perhaps you have more problems than simply fitting in. Again, why is mediocrity praised and sought out, while independent thought or expression is falsely championed? From Christianity to Trump, guns and family life, motherhood and fatherhood, why are we always explaining and justifying our choices to those who disagree or disparage? Drug usage and alcohol intake is at an all-time high these days. Are we just simply numbing ourselves from all the "progress" happening?
It shouldn't take a movement or campaign to assure you that you can speak your mind. The more movements afoot, the more that individuals become faceless bodies in the crowd.


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Longford hurlers
relegated after
losing to Roscommon
Longford made a swift return to Division 3B of the National Hurling League as they were relegated after losing to Roscommon at the Athleague grounds on Sunday last.
It was another dismal performance from Longford. Apart from their first two games against Monaghan and Donegal they have been poor and after suffering defeat to Louth the previous weekend it was always going to be tough against a good Roscommon side who won by the wide margin of 13 points in the finish. It could have been worse for Longford had Paddy Cullen not saved a penalty just before the break and if Roscommon had put away a lot of the chances they created. The Rossies ended the game with 12 players while Longford had 14 on the pitch for most of the game.
Early points were traded between Tomas Seale and Eoin Donnellan (free) before Roscommon took control of the game. In the 6th minute Adrian Murphy grabbed their first goal and a long range free from Jerry Fallon stretched their lead to five by the 8th minute.
Donnellan replied with a free for Longford before Thomas Stakem was shown a straight red card. Numerical advantage didn't last too long for Roscommon and they lost Jerry Fallon in the 18th minute.
Another Eoin Donnellan free in the 19th minute cut the gap to just two but that was the closest they were to get to Roscommon. In the 25th minute Michael Kelly converted a penalty after Robbie Fallon was fouled. Gary Fallon (free) and a wonderful sideline cut from Shane Curley put seven between the sides by the 30th minute.
Declan Tanner scored a nice point from play just after but that was to be Longford's only score from play in the entire game. Robbie Fallon and Donnellan (free) exchanged points before Fallon fired over an excellent point.
Just before the break Roscommon could have extended their lead further but Paddy Cullen saved Kelly's penalty after Brendan Kelly was fouled.
Roscommon started the second half well and by the 47th minute they were nine points ahead. Eoin Donnellan was Longford's only scoring outlet and he hit over another free in the 49th minute.
Two points in quick succession from Roscommon saw them 10 ahead by the 53rd minute. As the Roscommon defence cleaned up everything that came their way, Longford relied heavily on Donnellan to get scores from deadball situations and he was on target again with two more frees before he was surprisingly taken off in the 59th minute.
Another fantastic point from corner-back Shane Curley was followed by a Robbie Fallon effort in the 62nd minute. Ros were reduced to 13 men one minute later when Cathal Dolan received a second yellow card.
In the 66th minute substitute David Dolan scored Roscommon's third goal before another substitute Cormac Kelly was sent-off.
Dolan hit over a late free with the last score of the game coming from Longford's Joe O'Brien (free) and Frank Browne's side now turn their attention to the Lory Meagher Cup which starts in May.
ROSCOMMON: Padraig Dolan; Mark McLoughlin, Ronan O'Meara, Shane Curley (0-2); Sean Melia, Michael Kelly (1-0), Cathal Dolan; Tomas Seale (0-1), John Moran (0-2); Adrian Murphy (1-0), Gary Fallon (0-2, 2 frees), Jerry Fallon (0-1, free); Robbie Fallon (0-3, 1 free), Naos Connaughton, Cillian Egan (0-1).
Subs:- Brendan Kelly (0-1) for N Connaughton (26 mins); Cathal Kelly for C Egan (47 mins); David Dolan (1-1, 1 free) for Gary Fallon (47 mins); Cormac Kelly for A Murphy (63 mins); Hugh Rooney for R Fallon (68 mins).
LONGFORD: Paddy Cullen; Rory Breslin, Brendan Stakem, Conor Egan; Paddy Corcoran, Conor Flanagan, Rory Donnellan; Declan Tanner (0-1), Martin Coyle; Joe O'Brien (0-1, 1 free), Kevin Conneely, Eoin Donnellan (0-8, 8 frees); John Newman, Thomas Stakem, Gareth Ghee.
Subs:- Kealan Cox for J Newman (46 mins); Paul Barden Jnr for M Coyle (injured, 58 mins); Conor Keegan for E Donnellan (59 mins).
Referee: Tony Carroll (Offaly).


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KHARTOUM, 25 July 2017 - To help stop antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from killing millions and costing the global economy trillions of dollars, partners from the health and agriculture sectors are coming together in Khartoum, Sudan from 24-27 July to draft a national action plan.
By the year 2050, resistance to life-saving antimicrobial drugs such as antibiotics is estimated to cost the world 10 million lives and US$ 100 trillion per year. In many countries, including Sudan, bacteria, viruses and other pathogens are becoming more resistant to antimicrobial drugs because of inappropriate or excessive use of these drugs in the health and agriculture sectors.
"To stop the life-threatening antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the public health and agriculture sectors must work hand in hand on several issues at the same time," says Dr. Naeema Al Gasseer, the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative for Sudan. "Laws and regulations about drug use and the prohibition of fake or poor quality drugs must be strengthened and enforced. Patients must steer clear of fake antimicrobial drugs, only obtaining their medicine from the proper health professionals and follow their doctor's prescriptions to the end; and overprescription and overuse must be stopped."
Babagana Ahmadu, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Representative for Sudan, adds, "The same issues apply in the agriculture sector, as well as the need for proper hygiene and waste management when handling livestock. In fact, since estimates say two-thirds of the increase in antimicrobial drug use will come from the animal production sector, agriculture is a key part of this fight."
FAO and WHO are developing national action plans (NAPs) to fight antimicrobial resistance, together with national and international partners under the One Health concept. This concept recognizes that antimicrobial resistance is connected to the health of humans, animals and the environment. With the support of the Government of Sudan, the country will only be the fourth in the Region to have such a national action plan which addresses all the causes of antimicrobial resistance in a holistic way.
Building on earlier stakeholder consultations, in-depth research and collaborative workshops, a first version of the national action plan will be drafted on 24–27 July 2017 in close collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Sudanese Ministries of Health (FMoH), Agriculture and Forestry (FMoAF), and Animal Resources and Fisheries (FMoARF).
One Health consultative workshop for development of national action plan on antimicrobial resistance – Khartoum, Sudan, 24–27 July 2017, Provisional programme available on request. from: Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir. and Cette adresse email est protégée contre les robots des spammeurs, vous devez activer Javascript pour la voir.


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Is There a Cyberstalker in Your Future?
|Courtesy of Flickr
By Carl Weiss
Does the title of this week's article creep you out? Good, because more and more intimate personal information is available online about each and every one of us than is "healthy." Worse still, it's all too easy to become a victim of cyberstalking. That's because most of us disseminate far too much personal information on social nets, in chat rooms, and via photo and video sharing services. It's also far too easy to get the vast majority of us to volunteer even more intimate details regarding our religious and political affiliations, income, sexual orientation, and health-related issues. Worst of all, there are companies and cybercriminals that profit from this glut of easily obtained information. The result? We're all putting our personal and financial futures at risk. In this article we'll show you how easy it is to glean reams of information about nearly anyone — and most importantly — what you need to do to keep yourself from getting caught with your pants down. And if that doesn't give you the e-heebie jebbies, I don't know what will.
The Age of Cyberstalking is Upon Us.
Like it or not, your privacy is mostly a thing of the past. Whether you're an employee, are married, or have just ended a relationship, there are computer and mobile apps that make it all too easy for a third party to know a great deal of intimate knowledge about you. To exacerbate this issue, for just a few bucks, any cyberstalker can acquire a sophisticated array of software that make it child's play to track your location in real time, and listen or look in on what you are doing and with whom you're doing it.
|English: http://noalciberacoso.blogspot.com/ Español: http://noalciberacoso.blogspot.com/ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
While this sounds like a plot for a sci-fi movie or a novel, it has become all too real for the victims of this 21st century scourge. During the past few months, everyone from ex-boyfriends, to a Seattle police officer, have been prosecuted for spying on and/or posting sexually explicit photos of their former lovers online. Recently even children have been reported recently for using the Internet to cyberbully classmates … with sometimes tragic results.
The bad news is, despite recent legislation that can impose serious jail time for cyberstalkers, this is a crime that's on the rise, currently affecting one in six women and ten percent of all men. The good news is there are steps you can take to defend yourself in this all too weird, wired world.
Facebook is Cyberstalker Central!
The news post that motivated me to write this blog was entitled, "7 Things You Told Facebook Without Realizing It." Posted on April 29, 2014 by vox.com, the staggeringly detailed post detailed a number of nefarious apps, available to the general public, which are designed to trawl through Facebook to guess your income, your location, and your passwords. There are also apps that seek out men or women who have just ended a relationship, or even scout the social nets, for revealing photos. Like a virus, some of these apps are designed to jump from one posting to another, burrowing into your list of friends in orde
r to do the stalkers' despicable deeds. Read -- "Things You told Facebook Without Even realizing it."
|Profile shown on Thefacebook in 2005 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Of course, Facebook isn't the only social net in vogue with cyberstalkers. And not all cyberstalkers are interested in seeing your swimsuit photos. A post from Technorati.com points out that Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare are now being used by burglars to zero in on vacationing families. The article points out that 75% of convicted burglars admitted that most criminals use social media to find homes to victimize, and they also admit to using Google Earth to case the neighborhood. Let's see if the Neighborhood Watch programs can foil these high-tech thieves. Read how burglars are using social media to perpetrate crimes.
The problem with most people is that they post way too much personal information on social sites. Everything from where you live, to what you own, or where you are … these are often revealed in accurate detail (complete with photos). Then you casually post the fact you're soon leaving on that two week vacation. Voila! Everyone in cyberspace not only knows how long you'll be gone, but you announced you've actually left because you've shared photos of yourself at the airport waiting on your plane, to photos of your vacation each day you're gone. If this sounds familiar, then don't be surprised if, upon your return, you find your house and/or business has been rifled by thieves. (Heck, why not show the thieves where you keep the spare key?)
The Technorati piece goes on to advise readers that if they don't want to be victimized while on vacation, they need to start by taking a vacation from using social media before or during any extended trip. They also advise you to consider sharing your vacation photos after the fact. The article advises readers to also tell their friends to avoid posting tidbits about themselves while they're on their vacations, unless it's to post the fact that they have a vicious watchdog.
You Can Easily Hurt the Ones You Love
|Illustration of Facebook mobile interface (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Even software that was originally designed to protect those we love can be co-opted into working for the bad guys. A blog on Motherboard.com pointed out that spy software and apps designed to help mothers keep tabs on their children has become popular fodder for those who wish to spy on others.
"We do have quite a large proportion of our customers who use mSpy specifically to catch a cheating spouse," mSpy communications director Tatiana Ameri told Komo News last year. Read – Tor is being used as a safe haven for victims of cyberstalking.
Even more chilling, the article points out there's an entire online community that caters to those looking to spy on others.
"Digital communities have sprung up where individuals teach each other how to compromise cell phones to track the victim's whereabouts, listen to conversations in a room, take pictures, and read texts and email so that they can learn about their victim's behavior on a microscopic level."
The NSA Even Spies on Their Own Girlfriends
The above-mentioned article also points out that even spies at the NSA weren't above using top secret surveillance tools to keep tabs on loved ones. The program was so pervasive that it even had its own Codename: LOVEINT. The revelation of this information so incensed Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa that he petitioned the NSA to release information about LOVEINT. The information revealed that at least a dozen of the NSA's best and brightest were implicated in the program.
|Headquarters of the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. Español: Instalaciones generales de la NSA en Fort Meade, Maryland. Русский: Штаб-квартира АНБ, Форт-Мид, Мэриленд, США (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Of course, for every spy there is a counterspy. And in the age of cyberstalking, there are a number of resources designed to help victims fight back. While many of these sites provide checklists designed to help you avoid becoming a victim of cyberstalkers, there are a few that take a more proactive approach. One of these is Tor Network, the same software employed by hackers, crackers, dissidents and whistleblowers to maintain online anonymity.
For several years, Tor, spearheaded by Tor Project executive director Andrew Lewman, has been tackling cyber stalking, working with domestic violence groups to set up countersurveillance programs to help victims evade online surveillance. The onion router can hide a victim's identity long enough for them to research where to find help, and look up what data they can find about themselves without tipping off their stalker that they're online, he said.
Remember that everything from your computer, to your smart TV, to your smart kitchen appliances can be used against you. Any smart device you have including your laptop, tablet and smartphone can be used to track your every move. Malware can be surreptitiously installed on any or all of these devices to allow a cyberstalker to take control of it, even to the point of activating the unit's webcam. So aside from making sure you have one or more layers of software designed to detect and defeat spyware and malware, you personally also have to ensure you don't make it easy for cyberstalkers to get you in their clutches.
In this article, I've outlined the rampant use of cyberstalking on the Internet via smart devices today. I've laid out the scary state of how cyberstalking is threatening our personal security because we don't use social media in a diligent manner. I've provided details and links to several resources and information that can help the reader protect themselves, and listed steps they can take to increase their privacy and personal security. If you follow my advice, your chances of not being singled out for cyberstalking will increase substantially.
Hey! Anybody want to see pictures of my new Rottweiler?
If you like this article, you can find more by typing "security" or "Internet security" in the search box at the top left of this blog.If you found this article useful, share it with your friends, families and co-works. If you have a comment related to this article, leave it in the comment sections below. I hope you have found these questions and answers useful.
If you like this article, you can find more by typing "security" or "Internet security" in the search box at the top left of this blog.If you found this article useful, share it with your friends, families and co-works. If you have a comment related to this article, leave it in the comment sections below. I hope you have found these questions and answers useful.
If you would like a free copy of our book, "Internet Marketing Tips for the 21st Century," please fill in the form below and we will send you this free eBook. Your information is always keep private and never sold.
Carl Weiss is CEO of Working the Web to Win, a digital marketing agency in Jacksonville, Florida. You can interface with Carl every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern when he airs his radio show on Blog Talk Radio.
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