Russia’s feminist punk music protest collective Pussy Riot has released its first song since three of its members were imprisoned for staging an anti-Putin punk prayer protest in a Russian-Orthodox church in Moscow in 2012. Their latest song and video is called Like a Red Prison. The lyrics to the song are written out in English in the music video posted above. As you’ll see, Pussy Riot takes on the oil industry, the President Putin (“Your president is like an ayatollah in Iran”) hompphobia (“Homophobic vermin, out from history”) and sexism (“Fucking sexist, leave the hole alone.”)
Judge overturns b.s. ban on medical abortion
Here’s some good ovaries-related news, for a change. A North Dakota judge struck down a ban on medical abortions Monday. East Central Judge Wickham Corwin ruled that the 2011 state law outlawing the two drugs used in medical abortions was “simply wrongheaded” and violated the North Dakota and United States Constitution. Corwin wrote that “no compelling state interest justifies this infringement …” He also criticized an expert witness for the defense, Dr. Donna Harrison, the president the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, whose “opinions lack scientific support, tend to be based on unsubstantiated concerns and are generally at odds with solid medical evidence.”
This is great news for the state’s only abortion clinic, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, and the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), which is representing them. Medical abortions make up approximately a quarter of abortions in the first nine weeks and are considered safe and effective. According to the CRR, the ban “needlessly forc[es] women seeking an abortion to undergo surgery even when such a procedure may be medically inadvisable.”
Stevie Wonder Stands Strong Against Stand Your Ground
Singer, songwriter and all around musical genius Stevie Wonder announced that he wouldn’t perform in Florida or any states with “stand your ground” laws, at a concert in Quebec on Sunday, a day following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin.
Wonder said to his audience: “The truth is that, for those that are being lost in the battle for justice, wherever that fits in any part of the world, we can’t bring them back. What we can do is we can let our voices be heard, and we can vote in our various countries throughout the world for change and for equality for everybody.”
He continued to spell out how he would fight for justice: “And I know I’m not everybody, I’m just one person, I’m a human being. But for the gift that God has given me, and for whatever I mean, I decided today that until the Stand Your Ground law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again. As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world.”
Watch This White Woman Attack A Black Singer For Dedicating Song to Trayvon Martin
Hours before George Zimmerman was acquitted for the death of Trayvon Martin, Lester Chambers, the 73-year-old soul singer, who was part of the 1960’s music group The Chambers Brothers, was physically attacked. Why? According to witnesses, it was because, while singing at the Hayward Russell City Blues Festival, he made the mistake of dedicating Curtis Mayfield’s Civil Rights anthem “People Get Ready,” to Trayvon Martin. So, Dinalynn Andrews Potter, a white 43-year-old woman, jumped on stage and pushed Chambers to the ground. Potter was arrested and Chambers was taken to the hospital.
See the attack at 4:20 in this video
Pennsylvania AG Refuses to Defend State’s Gay Marriage Ban
Citing the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage on Tuesday–and that’s fine for the state’s attorney general, Kathleen Kane, who announced on Thursday she won’t be defending the law.
Speaking at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Kane cited the Pennsylvania Constitution’s ban against discrimination and said, “It is now the time here in Pennsylvania to end another wave of discrimination.”
The audience cheered and clapped in response to Kane who was elected last year and is a possible gubernatorial candidate.
While Kane, a Democrat (duh), may be embracing marriage equality, the Republican Governor Tom Corbett favors discrimination and opposes same-sex marriage.
Unsurprisingly, his fellow Republicans are also upset that Kane is getting in the way of the homophobic status quo.
Pennsylvania GOP chairman Rob Gleason wrote in a statement that it is “unacceptable for Attorney General Kathleen Kane to put her personal politics ahead of her taxpayer-funded job by abdicating her responsibilities… She is blatantly politicizing the highest law enforcement office in our Commonwealth at the expense of a core responsibility of the Attorney General’s office… Pennsylvanians are left with the question, if Kathleen Kane’s political beliefs are the standard for law enforcement, what law will she ignore next?”
Chile won’t let pregnant 11-year-old raped by her mother’s boyfriend have an abortion
She is known as Belén. She is eleven years old and 14 weeks pregnant. She was raped repeatedly by her mother’s boyfriend over the course of two years. The mother claims the relationship that started when her daughter was NINE was consensual. Thankfully, Belén’s grandmother doesn’t see it that way, and she alerted the police to the abuse, which the boyfriend admitted to. There are several reasons even an anti-choicer would think Belén deserves an abortion:
- She is eleven years old.
- She is a rape victim.
- She is the victim of incest.
- The pregnancy poses a serious health risk to Belen.
- The health of the fetus is at risk
Belén’s doctors want to terminate. But they are afraid to. Because Belén happens to live in one of the five countries (along with El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Malta) that does not allow abortions under any circumstances. […]
Yasiin Bey (AKA Mos Def) undergoes force-feeding procedure to protest GTMO
Major trigger warning. The hip-hop artist and actor formerly known as Mos Def and currently going by Yasiin Bey underwent the force-feeding procedure administered to some of Guantanamo Bay inmates on hunger strike. Over 100 prisoners are on a hunger strike, which started in February and 44 of them are being fed against their will. Bey made the video with the Human Rights organization Reprieve “to rally support for Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are on hunger-strike in protest against their detention without charge or trial” and to urge the Obama Administration to halt the force-feeding during the month-long day-time fast of Ramadan observed by Muslims. The video was released on Monday, to coincide with the start of Ramadan. The procedure performed in the video is based on a 30-page long Standard Operating Procedure manual on force-feeding Guantanamo Bay prisoners, which was leaked to Al-Jazeerain May. Jason Leopold describes the brutality of the procedure,
that requires them to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours… The prisoners remain this way, with a 61cm – or longer – tube snaked through their nostril until a chest X-ray, or a test dose of water, confirms it has reached their stomach.
At the end of the feeding, the prisoner is removed from the restraint chair and placed into a “dry cell” with no running water. A guard then observes the detainee for 45-60 minutes “for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting”. If the prisoner vomits he is returned to the restraint chair.
‘Your Son Caused His Own Death,’ Zimmerman Lawyer Tells Trayvon’s Mom
George Zimmerman’s lawyer, in a new low, last week badgered Trayvon Martin’s mother to say that her son had “caused his own death.”
Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother, was the first to take the stand on Friday in the ongoing trial into her son’s death that has sparked widespread questions relating to stand your ground gun laws and wider debates about endemic racism.
Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda played Fulton the tape of the 911 call from the night of the fatal confrontation between Zimmerman and Martin in which could be heard a man wailing in pain before being silenced by a gun shot.
“Ma’am that scream or yell, do you recognize that?” de la Rionda asked.
“Yes,” said Fulton. Asked who she thought it was, Fulton confirmed: “Trayvon Benjamin Martin.”
While the prosecution argues that the screams for help came from Martin, the defense is claiming they actually came from George Zimmerman.
This is important to their case because it would help them argue that Zimmerman, who had left his car contrary to advice, and who also outweighed Martin and was obviously armed, had killed Martin in self-defense.
You Won’t Believe What This Woman Said About Her 11-Year-Old Daughter After She Was Raped
“Belén,” as the media calls her, is 11-years-old. Since she was nine, she has been repeatedly raped by her mother’s boyfriend, who is 32. Belén didn’t tell anyone about the abuse because her abuser threatened that he would kill her. Her mother claims that the relationship between her boyfriend and her daughter, which started when she 9, was consensual! But Belén’s grandmother alerted the police about the crime when she saw her grandaughter was pregnant.
Yep. Belen is 14 weeks pregnant. And she lives in one of the five countries where abortion is illegal under any circumstances, with no exceptions whatsoever, even in cases of rape, incest, the safety or the life of the woman. In 1931, Chile legalized therepeutic abortions for health reasons, but the dictator Augusto Pinochet, famous for his violations of human rights and his penchant for torture, banned abortion completely in 1989. It was only in 2004 that Chile legalized divorce. And to this day, Chile lives under the dictatorship’s abortion laws.
On Monday, Belén appeared on television and said the following heartbreaking words: “It will be a like a doll that I will hold in my arms … I will love it a lot, whatever it is, even though it’s from this man who hurt me.” […]
The Two Videos That Every Woman In America Needs To See
Viral videos and the issue of women’s self-esteem don’t usually go hand in hand. But two videos that deal with the issue in very different ways are all over the internets. In one video, Dustin Hoffman breaks down as he explains how preparing for his female role in Tootsie made him realize how dismissive of conventionally unattractive women he had been for his entire life.
Once in his female makeup, Hoffman wanted to be a more attractive woman. The makeup artist told him this was as attractive as he would get. And he suddenly, for the first time ever, recognized the way he and society ignore and marginalize women who are not conventionally attractive.
katiehalper.com 