Children of Heaven.

"I think that the manifestation of our culture in terms of our identity is absolutely crucial." Former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin

Children of Heaven is a 1997 Iranian film by Majid Majidi. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.



Thoughts and prayers.

#iranelection.

Over the weekend as total chaos broke out in Iran one wouldn't have known anything about it if they weren't on the tubes. As E.D Kain writes,

if I wasn’t online, an avid blogger and reader of blogs, and if I didn’t frequent the New York Times, I wouldn’t know a damn thing about the phenomenon in Iran. It would feel like just any other story from the “crazy Middle East.” I wouldn’t have seen images of the streets of green-clad protestors. I wouldn’t have seen the beatings or the fires or read the twitter feeds or the first hand accounts. I wouldn’t have seen the youtube videos. And lest it be forgotten, the news most people receive if they receive any at all is from their televisions.

This utter and complete failure of the MSM did not escape those of us connected as we literally watched the horrors and chaos coming from Iran right before our eyes.

Twitter users were posting “#CNNfail” on thousands of tweets Saturday night saying that their coverage of important news like the Iranian elections were downplayed by the cable network.
Here are some of those tweets:

clickmomukhamo: OMG! Major developments in Iran yet CNN isn’t breaking into Larry King who’s interviewing some bikers! #cnnfail

lifeonqueen: CNN is screwing the pooch on this one - top story on web is Six Flags bankruptcy not Iran. Way to miss history CNN #CNNfail

geoffeighinger: RT @Elektracutie They should quit the news and just do travel brochures. #cnnfail

ivanlasso: RT @dabloguiman: COVER IRAN NOW!!!! @CNN @CNNbrk @CNNWORLD #iranelection #CNNFAIL pls RT

Many American Twitter users praised British and other international news outlets for covering the Iranian election aftermath of riots and civil unrest. The “#cnnfail” tag was the third most tweeted topic on the microblogging network Saturday night. The “#iremember” tag and “#Iranelections” tags were first and second respectively.

Which has been leading some to ask - “Is Iran the end of the MSM?” The answer is probably no right now - but as Kain notes:

We are witnessing two revolutions here – one, the “green revolution” in Iran which may or may not be a success, and the other the technology and news information revolution. We are witnessing the unwitting suicide and slow death of the news media as we know it, as they cave to ratings and apathy rather than getting out there and covering a real story, as they aid and abbet the numbing and dumbing down of the American people.

Well put. Oh and don't forget your hashtags.

Getting Out of the Gutter.

Amidst a climate of war, global warming, skyrocketing deficits, whopping trade imbalances, gas gouging, corporate corruption, a burst housing market bubble, illegal government spying, rampant corruption, torture, war atrocities, racism, marriage inequality a crumbling infrastructure, Bin Laden, failing schools, loss of competitiveness, war profiteering, a shrinking middle class, health care crisis and more... some Republicans have more than lost their way. They have gone so far astray that it may too late to turn back.



In light of recent events, Paul Krugman notes that right-wing hate has become a serious threat:

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

Stoked by bigotry, religious intolerance, willful ignorance, and belligerent nationalism have turned many on the right into mean and hateful ideologues. The cultural and intellectual 'wars' are furthered by demagogues ranting about the evils of liberalism, the welfare state and those who would seek to remove god from their society. Michael Rowe observes the party-split in, "Death at the Holocaust Museum and the Degradation of the American Dialogue."

The difference between John McCain and Sarah Palin became clearest to me in the middle of the campaign last summer.

At a town hall meeting, McCain was confronted by an elderly woman who told McCain that she was a supporter of his because Obama was "an Arab." McCain was clearly uncomfortable, and it was patently obvious why. It had nothing to do with McCain's feelings about Arabs. It had to do with an old-school Republican accidentally moving the rock, and coming face to face with what actually lived beneath it. He recognized that the woman was making an unambiguously racist statement about his opponent, and he was mortified to be asked to answer it. Even though McCain famously and horribly bungled his answer ("No ma'am, he isn't. He's a decent family man.") I knew when he meant. He was addressing the intended racial slur and disavowing it, however badly.

In that moment, I felt deeply for my Republican friends who, on some level, must also be experiencing the embarrassment and discontent of recognizing that their party had been hijacked by racists and religious fanatics who derided education and achievement as "elitist."

But the alarms about just how bad things are even being rung by some 'conservatives.' Joe Scarborough, former Replubican Member of Congress and talk-show host on the Today Show:

I don't know if it was the death of the old Republican party. Maybe the next election will be the death of the old Republican party. Are Republicans going to wake up? Are they going to realize that not only do they need Dick Cheneys in the party, but they need Colin Powells in the party? They need to expand--I mean we should want everybody in the party that we can get and not have a harsh ideological test. That's what I talk about in the book. We all run around talking about Reagan, Reagan, we've got to be more like Reagan. Well, we've got Reagan's ideology down, smaller government, less taxes, but we forget Reagan's temperament. We have to have a better temperament. We can't be shrill. We can find the middle of America. Ronald Reagan, everybody's quoting Ronald Reagan. Palin was quoting Ronald Reagan --

Rowe explains just how poisoned the discourse has become:

There was a time when intellectual honesty was not considered unpatriotic; when compassion for, and understanding of, your fellow man was a sign of strength, not weakness. There was a time when the phrase Have you no shame? meant something, and the First Amendment was not used as toilet paper to wipe up the excremental verbal degradation of vulnerable segments of the American population. A time when it was expected that citizens would understand the difference between free speech and irresponsible speech. Somewhere along the line, a cancerous segment of American popular culture and media cunningly exploited the long-standing, honorable American "cowboy" motif and mentality. They grafted cruelty, divisiveness, and ignorance to it, making the two appear indistinguishable, and natural allies. And they are neither, or at least ought not to be.

There is no Environmental Protection Agency to measure hate pollution in national dialogue, and no mechanism in place to warn us when the poisonous rage spewed into the national consciousness by shock-jocks, poisonous television pundits, megachurch leaders, and oh-so-subtle politicians, has reached dangerously toxic levels.

Much like the other crazed political parties of the historic past, many Republicans seem determined to assign subhuman status to a large group of their own citizenry. Perhaps a starting point for the 'conservatives' wanting to get out of the gutter would be to stop casting your lot once and for all with the same ignorant, racist fools whose complete lack of ability to think either critically or rationally, have damned near turned your party in the crumbling and dangerous ruin that it has become.

James Von Brunn: Freeper.

The gunman that murdered Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC was a right-wing extremist and Freeper. As ThinkProgress notes:

A white supremacist born in 1920. Brunn has been approvingly cited on Stormfront, a national white supremacist website. He is apparently the author of a tract called, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” which his website describes as “a new, hard-hitting exposé of the JEW CONSPIRACY to destroy the White gene-pool.” Brunn, a WWII veteran, also wrote a screed on President Obama’s citizenship that was re-posted to popular right-wing message board Free Republic:

Obama is missing!
DN.no (Nowegian Forum) ^ | December 2, 2008 | James W. von Brunn
Posted on December 2, 2008 3:40:03 PM GMT-05:00 by wannabegeek


Obama is missing!

The American People Demand to Know:

WHO SENT YOU???

Obama has lived for 48 years without leaving any footprints -- none! There is no Obama documentation -- no records -- no paper trail -- none -- this is no accident. It is being done on purpose with Media help - but to serve whom & why???

MISSING-HIDDEN DOCUMENTS:

Original, vault copy of Certificate of Live Birth in the USA -- Not Released (1 version hidden in Hawaii, Original found in Kenya)

Certificate of Live Birth -- Released - Proven Counterfeit (www.ObamaFiles.com)

Obama/Dunham marriage license -- Not released

Soetoro/Dunham marriage license -- Not released

Soetoro adoption records -- Not released

Fransiskus Assisi School School application -- Not Released

Punahou School records -- Not released

Selective Service Registration -- Released - Proven Counterfeit

Occidental College records -- Not released

Passport (Pakistan) -- Not released

Columbia College records -- Not released

Columbia thesis -- Not released

Harvard College records -- Not released

Harvard Law Review articles -- None (maybe 1, Not Signed)

Baptism certificate -- None

Medical records -- Not released

Illinois State Senate records -- None (Locked up to prohibit public view

Illinois State Senate schedule -- Lost (All other Illinois state senators' records are intact)

Law practice client list -- Not released

University of Chicago scholarly articles -- None

WHY DON'T WE SEE ONE WORD OF THIS IN ANY OF THE MEDIA?

Love him or hate him, we all remember how the press went to great lengths to find out every move that President Bush made ... finally unable to come up with anything factual, so they created it! When their accusations were proven empty, they refused to retract one word of the fraud they perpetrated on the American people.

Dan Rather lost his job over fraudulent documents, because common people like you & me reached out and ripped CBS to pieces. They couldn't stand the loss of sponsors OR viewers!

The same Media went to great lengths to scandalize & destroy Sarah Palin. She maintains a 91% approval rating among voters from all parties, thanks to the Internet and investigative journalists who don't work for the mainstream media.

NOW ------- The Supreme Court has scheduled a Conference for Dec 5th about Obama's

U. S. Citizenship. STILL, not a word about any of this from the Media. If it were not for the Internet and talk radio, American citizens would become the servants of a dishonest & conspiratorial Media.

THINK ABOUT IT. IT DIDN'T USED TO BE THIS WAY! How much longer are we going to sit on our hands & say not a word?

AND DON'T THINK THE MEDIA SIMPLY DOESN'T KNOW - THEY ARE GETTING POUNDED WITH EMAILS ABOUT IT!!!

Obama could not get a simple security clearance with the information the government has on him ---- NOBODY COULD!

NOW he is privy to every top secret America has!

What is going on??? WHERE ARE THE GOOD PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY - ARE YOU OUT THERE???

Submitted by: James W. von Brunn

The above post was scrubbed from the Free Republic site and then mysteriously reappeared shortly ago.

Facebook and Holocaust Denial.

Controversy has been reignited after it emerged that the Facebook has refused to close groups that promote Holocaust denial. Although the social networking site's position in this matter is not new, this story has seemingly gained some traction recently in the media.

Perhaps one of the loudest voices opposing the corporate line is Brian Cuban who is leading the charge to get Facebook to remove these groups. After a story from Chris Matyszczyk of CNET covered Cuban on this issue, it drew an official response from Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt:

The bottom line is that, of course, we abhor Nazi ideals and find Holocaust denial repulsive and ignorant. However, we believe people have a right to discuss these ideas and we want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed. Of course, we have some limits.

Then Schnitt in a recent interview with CNN said:

"It's a difficult decision to make. We have a lot of internal debate and we bring in experts to talk about it," Schnitt said. "Just being offensive or objectionable doesn't get it taken off Facebook. We want it [the site] to be a place where people can discuss all kinds of ideas, including controversial ones.

Cuban responded in an open letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

The Holocaust Denial movement is nothing more than a pretext to allow the preaching of hatred against Jews and to recruit other like minded individuals to do the same. Allowing these groups to flourish on Facebook under the guise of “open discussion” does nothing more than help spread their message of hate. Is this the kind of open discussion that Facebook wants to encourage? Is this really where you want to draw your line?

It is undisputed that as a collective , Holocaust Deniers are overwhelmingly antisemitic. One cannot be separated from the other. They use a fringe, discredited historical theory as a pretext and rallying point to perpetrate and promote their message of hate using Facebook as recruiting ground. By allowing these groups whether they number 1 or 1000, Facebook is not promoting open discussion of a controversial issue. It is promoting and encouraging hatred towards ethnic and religious groups, nothing more.

By claiming open discussion as the rationale for allowing these groups to exist, Facebook is playing games with semantics. Facebook is taking form over substance to protect their imaginary subjective corporate line in the sand they have drawn.

Some have also argued that Facebook picks and chooses which groups are being removed 'setting a subjective standard' and that "there is no First Amendment right to free speech in the private realm." They note that Facebook bans pictures of breastfeeding mothers because of nudity, yet isn't prepared to stand against closing groups that are illegal in at least 13 countries. It is also interesting to note that while it was reported that Facebook took down the group HoloHoax, that appears to be inaccurate.

The Guardian breaks it down:

But perhaps the argument is really about where Facebook puts it priorities. Given that the company runs a 150-strong team of so-called "porn cops" to patrol for risque images - profiled at length recently in Newsweek - why does it feel that hate speech isn't worth the same amount of trouble?

The battle for corporate interests versus social responsibility has begun.

How did 100,000,000 women go missing?

(cross-posted at kickin it with cg)

Obama's speech in Cairo this week was brilliant and the warmth with which he was received was a wonder to behold. However some were disappointed with the length and breadth in which the President touched on human rights and specifically women's rights. Responding to Obama's reference to the hijab in his speech, Peter Doau asks:

Is that a joke?

With women being stoned, raped, abused, battered, mutilated, and slaughtered on a daily basis across the globe, violence that is so often perpetrated in the name of religion, the most our president can speak about is protecting their right to wear the hijab? I would have been much more heartened if the preponderance of the speech had been about how in the 21st century, we CANNOT tolerate the pervasive abuse of our mothers and sisters and daughters.

To be fair, later in the speech Obama did delve further into this:

The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that people live their dreams.

Which brings us to a sad and startling picture of gender discrimination in the developing world. Researchers Siwan Anderson (University of Britsh Columbia) and Debraj Ray (New York University) recently co-authored a paper titled, Missing Women: Age and Disease. In it, they postulate that the ratio of women to men in developing regions and in some cultures is suspiciously below the global average.

The term "missing women" was coined in 1990, by Indian economist Amartya Sen, in the The New York Review of Books where he calculated that in parts of Asia and Africa 100 million women who should be alive are not because of unequal access to medical care, food and social services. Sen postulated that these with these excess deaths: women were "missing" above and beyond natural mortality rates, compared to their male counterparts.

The fate of women is quite different in most of Asia and North Africa. In these places the failure to give women medical care similar to what men get and to provide them with comparable food and social services results in fewer women surviving than would be the case if they had equal care. In India, for example, except in the period immediately following birth, the death rate is higher for women than for men fairly consistently in all age groups until the late thirties. This relates to higher rates of disease from which women suffer, and ultimately to the relative neglect of females, especially in health care and medical attention.[2] Similar neglect of women vis-à-vis men can be seen also in many other parts of the world. The result is a lower proportion of women than would be the case if they had equal care--in most of Asia and North Africa, and to a lesser extent Latin America.

Sen went on to explain that in the world boys outnumber girls at birth, but in countries where women and men receive equal care, women have proved hardier and more resistant to disease, and thus live longer. In most of Asia and North Africa, however, he found that women die with startlingly higher frequency than in other parts of the world. Sen's research caused a sensation in academic circles when it was originally published in 1990.
Building on this data and focusing on figures from China, India and sub-Saharan Africa for the year 2000, what Anderson and Ray found out flew in the face of existing literature and commonly held beliefs about the missing women phenomenon.

"Previously, people had thought that they (the missing women) were all at the very early stages of life, prenatal or just after, so before four years old," Anderson says. "But what we found is that the majority are actually later." Female infanticide has been endemic in India and China for some time, which she says led researchers to assume that it was the source of all the missing women. But the truth is much more complicated.
Once the researchers broke down the numbers by age group, they found that the majority of excess female deaths came later in life: 66% in India, 55% in China and 83% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Using data gathered primarily from the World Bank, the United Nations and the World Health Organization, the researchers admits that getting the figures can be a huge challenge. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, many deaths go undocumented, and in India, it is virtually impossible to know how many "unintentional" deaths are actually dowry killings, because they are not accurately reported to the authorities.
One of their colleagues in the economics department at the University of British Columbia says this finding is striking, and points the way for future research and advocacy.
"Why would there be excess mortality of, let's say, 45-year-old women versus 45-year-old men?" asks economics professor Kevin Milligan. "And what they find is ... they have the same set of diseases, they just seem to die more frequently. The explanation that seems most consistent with that is differential access to health care. And so that's a really striking finding."

While they believe that lack of health care is likely a big part of the problem, there also believe that there numerous cultural and social factors that play a factor and can be difficult to narrow down. In their "elementary accounting exercise", Anderson and Ray began to plot the causes of excess death in 2000 by age group, and produced some striking numbers.

- 600,000 missing women each year from HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa.

- In China, suicide explains well over 100,000 missing women each year..

- In India fire-related death is a leading cause of missing women due to injuries (over 100,000 each year).

Dowry prices have not dropped off with improvements in education in India either. Instead, they have gotten worse, with educated brides and their families willing to pay even more for high-quality grooms. These dowry payments can be six times a family's annual wealth - an excruciating price, especially for poor villagers. The implications of this hefty sum trickle down to the first moments of a child's life. While conducting recent field work in India, villagers were asked about selective abortions and found them open about the fact that they use ultrasound to determine the baby's gender and help them decide whether or not to keep it.

"They see no other options, they really cannot afford to have a daughter."

Future research will delve deeper, seeking answers to questions such as: How often are men given mosquito nets to protect themselves from malaria, but not women? How many women die because they are not taken to the hospital when they are sick?

Most wouldn't argue that there is far more to gender equality than merely promoting education - inheritance rights, fair divorce settlements, freedom from family-imposed marriage, from culturally approved violence, from deeply held traditions of female subservience.

While Obama's speech was a start, clearly there is much work to do.

What Planet Is He On?

On the way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia the New York Times is reporting that President Obama told Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, that the "United States also could be considered as 'one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.'"

This comment, predictably, has set off some controversy. Case in point is Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch, who asks "what planet is he on?" Answers Mark Leon Goldberg,

I'm guessing "earth." Because according to the Pew Research Center, there are an estimated 2.35 million Muslims in Amerca. This means that if the United States were a member of the 57 nation Organization of the Islamic Conferences it would rank, in terms of Muslim population, above Albania, Kuwait, Brunei, Benin, Togo, Djbouti, Suriname, Gabon, Gambia, Guyana, Guinea-Bissau, Comoros, Qatar, Lebanon, and the Maldives.

Obama went on to say:

“What I want to do is to create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States, but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy, to discuss the framework for what’s happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran, and also how we view the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians,”

snip

“I think the most important thing I want to tell young people is that, regardless of your faith, those who build as opposed to those who destroy I think leave a lasting legacy, not only for themselves but also for their nations. And the impulse towards destruction as opposed to how can we study science and mathematics and restore the incredible scientific and knowledge — the output that came about during centuries of Islamic culture.

After 8 years of clumsy buffoonery - I guess this is what real diplomatic efforts look like.

Nowhere To Turn.

Physicians for Human Rights, in partnership with the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, has published a report documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence experienced by women who fled attacks on their villages in Darfur and are now refugees in neighboring Chad.

The report -- titled "Nowhere To Turn: Failure To Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women" corroborates women’s accounts of rape and other crimes against humanity that they have experienced in Darfur, as well as rape and deprivations of basic needs in refugee camps in Chad. Based on interviews with female refugees living in Chad's Farchana refugee camp, the report calls for "vigorous prosecution of rape as a war crime."

"Many Darfuri women refugees live in a nightmare of memories of past trauma compounded by the constant threat of sexual violence around the camps now," said said Susannah Sirkin,, the physician group's deputy director.

"Women who report being raped are stigmatized, and remain trapped in places of perpetual insecurity. There's no one to stop the rapes, no one to turn to for justice for past or ongoing crimes, and little psycho-social support to address their prolonged and unimaginable traumas."

Dr. Sondra Crosby, a Physicians for Human Rights consultant and expert in refugee trauma, said "the atmosphere of intimidation was palpable as we listened to women describing their profound suffering and fear, and their yearning to return safely and with dignity to their former lives."

Of those refugees interviewed, "32 reported instances of confirmed or highly probable rape" -- 17 in Darfur and 15 in Chad, the group said. "Among the instances of rape reported in Chad, the vast majority (10 of 11 confirmed reports) occurred when women left the camps to gather firewood." And just over half of the 88 women interviewed -- 46 of them -- live in fear of sexual assaults around the refugee camp.

The group supports the issuing of International Criminal Court warrants against the Sudanese perpetrators, calls for "legal reforms in Chad to end impunity for sexual violence," and for "effective psychosocial support to survivors." Further it said increased protections are needed by police and peacekeepers, including "effective firewood patrols."

See the photos included in the report.