Vanessa recently wrote a great post on why Paul Ryan is bad for women and basically every person on the planet (besides the vested interests he serves and represents). UltraViolet has put out this great infographic, which you can share, on why Ryan is terrible for women specifically.
Matthew Vines describes himself as ”an advocate for the acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people within Christian communities and in society at large.” And advocate he does! What’s so great about this speech that he delivered at the church in his hometown, is that he challenges the hijacking of Christianity by using… Christianity. After all, he did grow up in a conservative church in Kansas. Vines makes me want to give up my agnosticism and become religious… almost.
The iconic Olympics rings are everywhere we look. But what happens when we look at them a different way. That’s what artist Gustavo Souza did in his project Oceaniaeuropeamericaasiaafrica. Souza explains, “The rings represent healthy competition and union, but we know the world isn’t perfect. Maybe understanding the differences is the first step to try to make things more equal.” So Souza uses the colors of the continents and plays with the size of the rings, so they illustrate the differences and disparities among the world’s regions.
This is really adorable. And important. And moving. As Upworthy‘s Rollie Williams writes, “These two children belong to feuding Malaysian ethnic groups. The little boy, Tan Hong Ming, is Malaysian Chinese while the girl he loves is Malaysian Malay.” See what happens!
The eight-day trialagainst three members of the feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot, charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred after they performed a punk prayer in an Orthodox church, asking the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of President Vladimir Putin, wrapped up Wednesday. The prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence and the verdict will be announced Friday August 17th.
The trial was a major miscalculation for the Russian Government. It has shed light on a struggle between a repressive regime of censorship on the one hand and martyrs for freedom, free speech and artistic expression, on the other. The defendants themselves linked their persecution to that of Soviet-era writers in their closing statements. Standing in front of a slit in their glass and metal cage, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova said, ”I, like [writer Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn, believe that words will crush concrete… We sit in a cage, but we didn’t lose. And the dissidents didn’t lose. Disappearing in psychiatric wards and jails, they convicted the regime.” She also stated, “this is a trial of the whole government system of Russia, which so likes to show its harshness toward the individual, its indifference to his honour and dignity….If this political system throws itself against three girls … it shows this political system is afraid of truth.” Another member, Maria Alyokhina, said, ”I am not afraid of you. You can take away my ‘so-called’ freedom, but you can never take my inner freedom.”
While we won’t see the fruits of some of Obama’s Affordable Care Act until 2014, a regulation goes into effect on August 1 guaranteeing certain free reproductive health care services. Check out this Center for American Progress infographic to see what this could mean for you:
As I wrote earlier, I’ve been struck by the unproductive coverage of the Aurora Colorado shooting. Thankfully, some politicians, like mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rep Carolyn McCarthy (whose husband was killed and whose son was paralyzed by gun violence), as well as some in the media, like Melissa Harris-Perry, have been fearless in linking tragedy to policy. In contrast, others, like Senator Ron Johnston, are not only refusing to look at the connection between gun laws and violence, but suggesting that armed citizens could have prevented the killing. The idea that armed citizens could have engaged in a shoot out with a men in full riot gear without hurting others in far-fetched at best.
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), has long been inspired by Joe McCarthy, and this time, she is aiming her witch hunt at Huma Abedin, a Pakistani-American top aide to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, for her alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Abedin is also married to Jewish former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), the perfect way to inflitrate, not only the U.S, Government, but the Jewish World! [that was sarcasm and I’m Jewish]
Guess who defended Abedin and religious liberty (for Muslims, not just Christians, which is often the implicit argument made by those who defend religious liberty lately)? Conservative Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)! Here he is during a town hall meeting on Sunday, trying to reason with a most unreasonable constituent who implores her congressman to support Bachmann’s investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s inflitration of the U.S. Government and ties to Abedin.
The tragic shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado has received non-stop coverage. Much of it, however, has been abysmally irresponsible, transforming a potential moment for national reflection and discussion on gun laws, mental illness, and popular culture into frenzied sensationalism. Of course, we must mourn the victims, but in the name of the victims, and to prevent more victims, we need to engage in this conversation. Some see this as an inappropriate politicization of tragedy. I see it as a way to prevent more tragedy, and a matter of life and death. If you care about the victims, you need to care about the policies and politics that shape our realities, lives, and deaths. Here are some things you should know about gun violence that you won’t hear from the so called mainstream media.
The Brady Campaign against Gun Violence explores the relationship between women and gun violence. “U.S. women’s firearm death rate is 12 times higher than the combined rate of 22 other populous, high-income countries.” You can sign the Brady Campaign’s petition to Congress here.
Campers race during Kinderland’s World Peace Olympics
First of all, I’d like to thank the Daily Caller and Americans for Limited Government for red-baiting Camp Kinderland. For one, I’d be upset if they praised us. Also, it allows me to experience to a very limited degree the 1950s, in all of its McCarthyist glory, without having actually lived through it.
Erica Groshen, Obama’s nominee for commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, evidently sent her children to Camp Kinderland. We should probably look at every educational institution any child of any nominee has attended to make sure we don’t turn any Communist into a government appointee.
But since I don’t have time for that, let me tell you some of the things we do at camp that the ALG and Daily Caller would consider subversive.
katiehalper.com 