The Release Of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 5th, 2014

Good morning!

Donna: Thanks for being the one to bring this up. That was the one area that I was not in agreement with, with the writer Zaron Burnett. I was HOPEing a man would say it, (yeah right.) but leave it up to a woman to broach the topic.

PS: My apologies to my readers and to Zaron Burnett for not posting Burnett as the name of the writer. Some of you may have thought it was Lewis. The writer of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Rape Culture” is Zaron Burnett. I have added his name to the write.

Owen: I HOPE you’re right but considering the amount of negative comments I am not counting on it.

Ismael: Thank you!

Brittany: My thoughts exactly. If you didn’t think it was that bad, you do now. HOPEfully it will inspire women to get it together.

Raymond: I couldn’t even read past your second paragraph and there is no point since like most men you are more concerned about yourself and could care less about women. The point is “men” rape, women do not. It is men raping women and men raping men. Men are doing the horrific act, not women. So forgive me if I have no sympathy for what men do to men. I’m only concerned about what men do to women. If you don’t like men raping men, then talk to the men.

Robert: Right on. Well stated.

Jason: Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Social Butterfly: More like it is “too right on.” It has been said before not in these exact words, “Men’s worst fear is that they will be yelled at, laughed at, or embarrassed…women fear being killed,” but you get the point.

Ruth: Yes, it can be depressing but let’s HOPE it is more motivating, and once the shock of the comments is over, women will woman up.

David, Ira: You both called it. They fell right into. No doubt it is embarrassing. But are you both embarrassed enough to do something?

Michael: Be my guest and do the kicking. I’ll be here applauding and cheering you on. And if you’re shoes get worn out, I’ll buy you another pair. Deal?

Jacob: I hear ya. Why not address your question to the men? Maybe they’ll respond to you, and we’ll all learn the answer. If it weren’t for women they wouldn’t exist but they seem to have selective amnesia when it comes to knowing how they arrived here.

Bill: Oh yeah. That’s exactly what they are saying. But like Adolfo said, “What do you expect from men who have only thought of themselves all their lives?”

It’s time for women to think only of ourselves and other women. To woman up, get out from under men, and get into office. It’s really simple. We have the majority vote…we could have the power. We just have to come together and take it.

Ladies: Are you with me?

Now…onto today’s write. Let’s switch it up a bit shall we?

From Think Progress:

Not Left Behind

What You Need To Know About The Release Of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

On Saturday, President Barack Obama announced the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the last remaining American prisoner in Afghanistan, in exchange for five Taliban-linked militants imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. The right-wing has attempted to transform the issue into a criticism of the Commander-in-Chief. The details around Sgt. Bergdahl are murky — he may have been a deserter, and the Pentagon is reviewing claims that U.S. soldiers died while attempting to rescue him. His father has roundly criticized the War in Afghanistan. But Think Progress has been covering the developing story, and we’ve pulled together five key posts that cover what you need to know:

Obama Blasts Critics On Bergdahl Release. On Tuesday, President Obama defended his administration’s decision to bring home U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl from Taliban captivity. “The United States has always had a pretty sacred rule, and that is: we don’t leave our men or women in uniform behind,” Obama said at a press conference while in Warsaw, Poland. “Regardless of the circumstances, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop.”

Why The Five Taliban Detainees Had To Be Released Soon, No Matter What. When wars end, prisoners taken custody must be released. These five Guantanamo detainees were almost all members of the Taliban, according to the biographies of the five detainees that the Afghan Analysts Network compiled in 2012. None were facing charges in either military or civilian courts for their actions. It remains an open question whether the end of U.S. involvement in the armed conflict in Afghanistan requires that all Guantanamo detainees must be released. But there is no doubt that Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan must be released because the armed conflict against the Taliban will be over.

Former Bush Official Blasts GOP On Bergdahl: Bush Would Have Done The Same Thing. A former Bush administration official broke with Republicans on Tuesday to defend President Obama’s prisoner exchange, arguing that since “the war in Afghanistan is winding down,” the United States would be required to return prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay back to Afghanistan. “I don’t see how these particular Taliban officials could ever have been tried in the southern district of New York,” John Bellinger, who served as an adviser to President George W. Bush explained during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday.

Lawmakers Change Their Minds After Demanding ‘Every Effort’ Be Made To Free Bergdahl In the clearest contradiction, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in February that he “would be inclined to support” “an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man,” like the one Taliban officials had offered in 2012. He has since labeled Obama’s deal “ill-founded” and a “mistake.”

Fox Contributor Says Bowe Bergdahl’s Dad Claimed The White House For Islam. Fox News contributor and former GOP congressman Allen West believes he has uncovered a nefarious plot by recently rescued American POW Bowe Bergdahl’s father to claim the White House for Islam. This is a great example of the pipeline of crazy anti-Muslim claims and conspiracy theories described in the 2011 the Center for American Progress report Fear, Inc: The Islamophobia Network in America: “Experts” like Clare Lopez provide highly questionable analysis to uninformed pundits like Allen West, who then pass this information on to their credulous audiences.

BOTTOM LINE: When a war ends, the United States does not leave its men and women in uniform behind. Regardless of the details surrounding the case, an American soldier held in captivity by enemy combatants has returned to U.S soil. That’s a good thing.

*****

Readers: If you want to hear more, Rachel Maddow had a good segment about this as well on her show. Here it is for your perusal. Start at the beginning if you want to hear Maddow’s lead up to it, which I think is worth a watch. But if you’re short on time and want to get to the meat of it, start ay 8:00.

Right wing organizes bashing of American POW

Rachel Maddow reports on the passion and outrage with which the American right is objecting to the return of American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, rejecting the longstanding American principle of leaving no soldier behind.

******

What’s on your mind? Blog me.

Peace & love….

Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

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“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Posted in Human Rights and Equality, Political Powwow | 46 Comments »

Will Facial Recognition Lead To Face Off?

Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 4th, 2014

Good morning!

From The New York Times.

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.

The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its effort have not previously been disclosed.

The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, left, who tried to bomb an airplane, and Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square. The attempts prompted more image gathering.CreditReuters; U.S. Marshals Service, via Associated Press

“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” noted a 2010 document.

One N.S.A. PowerPoint presentation from 2011, for example, displays several photographs of an unidentified man — sometimes bearded, other times clean-shaven — in different settings, along with more than two dozen data points about him. These include whether he was on the Transportation Security Administration no-fly list, his passport and visa status, known associates or suspected terrorist ties, and comments made about him by informants to American intelligence agencies.

It is not clear how many people around the world, and how many Americans, might have been caught up in the effort. Neither federal privacy laws nor the nation’s surveillance laws provide specific protections for facial images. Given the N.S.A.’s foreign intelligence mission, much of the imagery would involve people overseas whose data was scooped up through cable taps, Internet hubs and satellite transmissions.

Because the agency considers images a form of communications content, the N.S.A. would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans collected through its surveillance programs, just as it must to read their emails or eavesdrop on their phone conversations, according to an N.S.A. spokeswoman. Cross-border communications in which an American might be emailing or texting an image to someone targeted by the agency overseas could be excepted.

Civil-liberties advocates and other critics are concerned that the power of the improving technology, used by government and industry, could erode privacy. “Facial recognition can be very invasive,” said Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher on facial recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University. “There are still technical limitations on it, but the computational power keeps growing, and the databases keep growing, and the algorithms keep improving.”

State and local law enforcement agencies are relying on a wide range of databases of facial imagery, including driver’s licenses and Facebook, to identify suspects. The F.B.I. is developing what it calls its “next generation identification” project to combine its automated fingerprint identification system with facial imagery and other biometric data.

The State Department has what several outside experts say could be the largest facial imagery database in the federal government, storing hundreds of millions of photographs of American passport holders and foreign visa applicants. And the Department of Homeland Security is funding pilot projects at police departments around the country to match suspects against faces in a crowd.

The N.S.A., though, is unique in its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.

“We would not be doing our job if we didn’t seek ways to continuously improve the precision of signals intelligence activities — aiming to counteract the efforts of valid foreign intelligence targets to disguise themselves or conceal plans to harm the United States and its allies,” said Vanee M. Vines, the agency spokeswoman.

She added that the N.S.A. did not have access to photographs in state databases of driver’s licenses or to passport photos of Americans, while declining to say whether the agency had access to the State Department database of photos of foreign visa applicants. She also declined to say whether the N.S.A. collected facial imagery of Americans from Facebook and other social media through means other than communications intercepts.

“The government and the private sector are both investing billions of dollars into face recognition” research and development, said Jennifer Lynch, a lawyer and expert on facial recognition and privacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. “The government leads the way in developing huge face recognition databases, while the private sector leads in accurately identifying people under challenging conditions.”

Ms. Lynch said a handful of recent court decisions could lead to new constitutional protections for the privacy of sensitive face recognition data. But she added that the law was still unclear and that Washington was operating largely in a legal vacuum.

Laura Donohue, the director of the Center on National Security and the Law at Georgetown Law School, agreed. “There are very few limits on this,” she said.

Identity Intelligence: Image Is Everything

An excerpt of a document obtained by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor with the National Security Agency, referring to the agency’s use of images in intelligence gathering.

Congress has largely ignored the issue. “Unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data,” said Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, in a letter in December to the head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is now studying possible standards for commercial, but not governmental, use.

Facial recognition technology can still be a clumsy tool. It has difficulty matching low-resolution images, and photographs of people’s faces taken from the side or angles can be impossible to match against mug shots or other head-on photographs.

Dalila B. Megherbi, an expert on facial recognition technology at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, explained that “when pictures come in different angles, different resolutions, that all affects the facial recognition algorithms in the software.”

That can lead to errors, the documents show. A 2011 PowerPoint showed one example when Tundra Freeze, the N.S.A.’s main in-house facial recognition program, was asked to identify photos matching the image of a bearded young man with dark hair. The document says the program returned 42 results, and displays several that were obviously false hits, including one of a middle-age man.

Similarly, another 2011 N.S.A. document reported that a facial recognition system was queried with a photograph of Osama bin Laden. Among the search results were photos of four other bearded men with only slight resemblances to Bin Laden.

But the technology is powerful. One 2011 PowerPoint showed how the software matched a bald young man, shown posing with another man in front of a water park, with another photo where he has a full head of hair, wears different clothes and is at a different location.

It is not clear how many images the agency has acquired. The N.S.A. does not collect facial imagery through its bulk metadata collection programs, including that involving Americans’ domestic phone records, authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, according to Ms. Vines.

The N.S.A. has accelerated its use of facial recognition technology under the Obama administration, the documents show, intensifying its efforts after two intended attacks on Americans that jarred the White House. The first was the case of the so-called underwear bomber, in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, tried to trigger a bomb hidden in his underwear while flying to Detroit on Christmas in 2009. Just a few months later, in May 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American, attempted a car bombing in Times Square.

The agency’s use of facial recognition technology goes far beyond one program previously reported by The Guardian, which disclosed that the N.S.A. and its British counterpart, General Communications Headquarters, have jointly intercepted webcam images, including sexually explicit material, from Yahoo users.

The N.S.A. achieved a technical breakthrough in 2010 when analysts first matched images collected separately in two databases — one in a huge N.S.A. database code-named Pinwale, and another in the government’s main terrorist watch list database, known as Tide — according to N.S.A. documents. That ability to cross-reference images has led to an explosion of analytical uses inside the agency. The agency has created teams of “identity intelligence” analysts who work to combine the facial images with other records about individuals to develop comprehensive portraits of intelligence targets.

The agency has developed sophisticated ways to integrate facial recognition programs with a wide range of other databases. It intercepts video teleconferences to obtain facial imagery, gathers airline passenger data and collects photographs from national identity card databases created by foreign countries, the documents show. They also note that the N.S.A. was attempting to gain access to such databases in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The documents suggest that the agency has considered getting access to iris scans through its phone and email surveillance programs. But asked whether the agency is now doing so, officials declined to comment. The documents also indicate that the N.S.A. collects iris scans of foreigners through other means.

In addition, the agency was working with the C.I.A. and the State Department on a program called Pisces, collecting biometric data on border crossings from a wide range of countries.

One of the N.S.A.’s broadest efforts to obtain facial images is a program called Wellspring, which strips out images from emails and other communications, and displays those that might contain passport images. In addition to in-house programs, the N.S.A. relies in part on commercially available facial recognition technology, including from PittPatt, a small company owned by Google, the documents show.

The N.S.A. can now compare spy satellite photographs with intercepted personal photographs taken outdoors to determine the location. One document shows what appear to be vacation photographs of several men standing near a small waterfront dock in 2011. It matches their surroundings to a spy satellite image of the same dock taken about the same time, located at what the document describes as a militant training facility in Pakistan.

*****

Thoughts? Blog me.

A Girl Says, Anonymous: Happy you liked it. I thought it was a good read too. Now…let’s see if it has any legs.

Peace out.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments »

A Gentleman’s Guide To Rape Culture

Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 3rd, 2014

Good morning!

A Girl says: Yes, many men do look the other way when a man is abusing a woman. And yes, there are exceptions, but, as I stated, I am not counting on men changing. I am counting on the women to step up and woman up.

That being said, since you posted about this rock star, Aaron Lewis, being an exception, (Bravo to Lewis for standing up and calling out the sick pieces of shit) I’m going to run with what you said about men only listen to other men, and post this write that I found the other day while surfing the net, written by Zaron Burnett, and HOPE that men will read and heed this man’s advice.

A Gentleman’s Guide To Rape Culture

by Zaron Burnett

If you are a man, you are part of rape culture. I know … that sounds rough. You’re not a rapist, necessarily. But you do perpetuate the attitudes and behaviors commonly referred to as rape culture.

You may be thinking, “Now, hold up, Zaron! You don’t know me, homey! I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you say I’m some sorta fan of rape. That’s not me, man!”

I totally know how you feel. That was pretty much exactly my response when someone told me I was a part of rape culture. It sounds horrible. But just imagine moving through the world, always afraid you could be raped. That’s even worse! Rape culture sucks for everyone involved. But don’t get hung up on the terminology. Don’t concentrate on the words that offend you and ignore what they’re pointing to — the words “rape culture” aren’t the problem. The reality they describe is the problem.

Men are the primary agents and sustainers of rape culture.

Rape isn’t exclusively committed by men. Women aren’t the only victims — men rape men, women rape men — but what makes rape a men’s problem, our problem, is the fact that men commit 99% of reported rapes.

How are you part of rape culture? Well, I hate to say it, but it’s because you’re a man.

When I cross a parking lot at night and see a woman ahead of me, I do whatever I feel is appropriate to make her aware of me so that a) I don’t startle her b) she has time to make herself feel safe/comfortable and c) if it’s possible, I can approach in a way that’s clearly friendly, in order to let her know I’m not a threat. I do this because I’m a man.

Basically, I acknowledge every woman I meet on the street, or in an elevator, or in a stairway, or wherever, in a way that indicates she’s safe. I want her to feel just as comfortable as if I weren’t there. I accept that any woman I encounter in public doesn’t know me, and thus, all she sees is a man — one who is suddenly near her. I have to keep in mind her sense of space and that my presence might make her feel vulnerable. That’s the key factor — vulnerability.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t spend much of my life feeling vulnerable. I’ve come to learn that women spend most of their social lives with ever-present, unavoidable feelings of vulnerability. Stop and think about that. Imagine always feeling like you could be at risk, like you were living with glass skin.

As modern men we must seek out danger. We choose adventures and extreme sports in order to feel like we’re in jeopardy. We make games of our vulnerability. That’s how differently men see the world from women. (Obviously, stated with full acknowledgment that there’s a vibrant community of extreme athletes that are women, who regularly risk their safety as well. However, women don’t need to engage in adrenalin sports to feel at-risk.)

Now, I stand about a finger of tequila under six feet. I work out and would say I’m in decent shape, which means when I’m out alone at night, I rarely ever fear for my safety. Many men know exactly what I mean. Most women have no idea what that feels like — to go wherever you want in the world, at any time of day or night, and feel you won’t have a problem. In fact, many women have the exact opposite experience.

A woman must consider where she is going, what time of day it is, what time she will arrive at her destination and what time she will leave her destination, what day of the week is it, if she will be left alone at any point … the considerations go on and on because they are far more numerous than you or I can imagine. Honestly, I can’t conceive of having to think that much about what I need to do to protect myself at any given moment in my life. I relish the freedom of getting up and going, day or night, rain or shine, Westside or downtown. As men we can enjoy this particular extreme luxury of movement and freedom of choice. In order to understand rape culture, remember this is a freedom that at least half the population doesn’t enjoy.

That’s why I go out of my way to use clear body language and act in a way that helps minimize a woman’s fear and any related feelings. I recommend you do the same. It’s seriously, like, the least any man can do in public to make women feel more comfortable in the world we share. Just be considerate of her and her space.

You may think it’s unfair that we have to counteract and adjust ourselves for the ill behavior of other men. You know what? You’re right. It is unfair. Is that the fault of women? Or is it the fault of the men who act abysmally and make the rest of us look bad? If issues of fairness bother you, get mad at the men who make you and your actions appear questionable.

Because when it comes to assessing a man, whatever one man is capable of, a woman must presume you are capable of. Unfortunately, that means all men must be judged by our worst example. If you think that sort of stereotyping is bullshit, how do you treat a snake you come across in the wild?

…You treat it like a snake, right? Well, that’s not stereotyping, that’s acknowledging an animal for what it’s capable of doing and the harm it can inflict. Simple rules of the jungle, man. Since you are a man, women must treat you as such.

The completely reasonable and understandable fear of men is your responsibility. You didn’t create it. But you also didn’t build the freeways either. Some of the things you inherit from society are cool and some of them are rape culture.

Since no woman can accurately judge you or your intentions on sight, you are assumed to be like all other men. 73% of the time a woman knows her rapist. Now, if she can’t trust and accurately assess the intentions of men she knows, how can you expect her to ever feel that she can accurately assess you, a complete stranger? Rape prevention is not just about women teaching women how not to get raped — it’s about men not committing rape.

Rape prevention is about the fact that a man must understand that saying “no” doesn’t mean “yes,” that when a woman is too drunk/drugged to respond that doesn’t mean “yes,” that being in a relationship doesn’t mean “yes.” Rather than focus on how women can avoid rape, or how rape culture makes an innocent man feel suspect, our focus should be: how do we, as men, stop rapes from occurring, and how do we dismantle the structures that dismiss it and change the attitudes that tolerate it?

Since you are a part of it, you ought to know what rape culture is.

According to Marshall University’s Women’s Center website:

Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.

When a woman first told me I was part of rape culture, I wanted to disagree for obvious reasons. Like many of you I wanted to say, “Whoa, that ain’t me.” Instead, I listened. Later, I approached a writer I respect. I asked her to write an article with me, wherein she’d explain rape culture to me and to male readers. She stopped returning my emails.

At first, I was annoyed. Then as it became clear she wasn’t going to respond at all, I actually got mad. Luckily, I’ve learned one shouldn’t immediately respond when they feel flashes of anger. Thunder is impressive but it’s the rain that nourishes life. So I let that storm pass and thought about it. I took a walk. They seem to jangle my best thoughts loose.

Blocks from my house, in front of a car wash it dawned on me. If rape culture is so important to me I needed to find out for my self what it is. No woman owes me her time just because I want to know about something she inherently understands. No woman should feel she has to explain rape culture to me just because I want to know what it is. No woman owes me shit. I saw how my desire for a woman to satisfy me ran deep. Even my curiosity, a trait that always made me proud, was marred with the same sort of male-centric presumption that fuels rape culture. I expected to be satisfied. That attitude is the problem. I started reading and kept reading until I understood rape culture and my part in it.

Here’s a bullet-point list of examples of rape culture.

· Blaming the victim (“She asked for it!”)

· Trivializing sexual assault (“Boys will be boys!”)

· Sexually explicit jokes

· Tolerance of sexual harassment

· Inflating false rape report statistics

· Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history

· Gratuitous gendered violence in movies and television

· Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive

· Defining “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive

· Pressure on men to “score”

· Pressure on women to not appear “cold”

· Assuming only promiscuous women get raped

· Assuming that men don’t get raped or that only “weak” men get raped

· Refusing to take rape accusations seriously

· Teaching women to avoid getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape

You’ll quickly find that rape culture plays a central role in all the social dynamics of our time. It’s at the heart of all our personal interactions. It’s part of all our social, societal and environmental struggles. Rape culture is not just about sex. It is the product of a generalized attitude of male supremacy. Sexual violence is one expression of that attitude. Again, don’t let the terminology spook you. Don’t get hung up on the term “male supremacy.” The term isn’t the problem. The problem is that rape culture hurts everyone involved. Antiquated patriarchal notions of society make it difficult for men to come forward as rape victims just as much as they foster a desire for a man to be seen as powerful and sexually aggressive. Men shouldn’t feel threatened or attacked when women point out rape culture — they’re telling us about our common enemy. We ought to listen.

Now that you know what it is, what can you do about rape culture?

· Avoid using language that objectifies or degrades women

· Speak out if you hear someone else making an offensive joke or trivializing rape

· If a friend says she has been raped, take her seriously and be supportive

· Think critically about the media’s messages about women, men, relationships, and violence

· Be respectful of others’ physical space even in casual situations

· Always communicate with sexual partners and do not assume consent

· Define your own manhood or womanhood. Do not let stereotypes shape your actions.

What else can you do about rape culture when you experience it IRL?

1. Men can confront men.

No one is suggesting violence. In fact, that’s what we’re looking to avoid. But sometimes, a man needs to confront another man or a group of men in a situation. When I’m out in public and I see a man hassling a woman, I stop for a moment. I make sure the woman sees me. I want her to know I’m fully aware of what’s happening. I wait for a moment for a clear indication from her of whether she needs help. Sometimes, the couple will continue right on fighting like I’m just a hickory tree. Other times, the woman will make it clear she’d like backup and I approach the situation. I’ve never had to get violent. Usually, my presence alone makes the guy leave if he’s a stranger, or explain himself if they’re familiar. It changes the dynamic. That’s why I always stop when I see a woman getting hassled in public. For any reason. I make sure any woman, in what could become a violent situation, one I may or may not be correctly assessing, feels that she has the opportunity to signal to me if she needs assistance. I’m a big brother to a sister so that response is practically instinctual.

But, I don’t limit this to women. I’ve also done this for two men who were clearly in a lovers’ spat. Whenever you see a situation spiraling out of control, and especially if someone is crying for help or being attacked, you should confront the situation. You don’t need to “break it up.” But engage, get involved, take down pertinent information, alert authorities, call the police. Do something.

2. Men can correct men.

If you hear a guy say some jacked-up slurs in front of you and there’s no one from that particular community around to be offended, you can still say something. This is also true when you hear misogynistic language. Speak up. Tell your friend or co-worker that rape jokes are bullshit and you won’t tolerate them.

Trust me you won’t lose your “man card.” If you’re older than nineteen and you’re still worried about your man card, you don’t understand what respectable masculinity is about, anyway. It’s not about cultish approval from others — it’s about being “your own man” and doing the right thing. You might be surprised by how many other men will respect you for doing what they wanted to but didn’t. I’ve heard it plenty. I’m not some social justice cop, but I have and will argue with whole roomfuls of men. Later on, some dudes will approach me and say how much they respected what I did. I always tell them it gets easier to speak up every time you do it. I promise you that’s true.

No one is suggesting you go around policing everybody. I don’t make it my business to make sure everyone live by my yardstick. No one needs you telling them what you think about every little thing they say and whether it meets your criteria for social awareness. But when some dude says some foul shit, and you know it — we all hear those jokes — you can let the dude know his rape joke or his “she’s a whore” analogy didn’t play.

3. Men can make other men STFU.

Let’s say, you’re in a group of men, and one of your friends starts hollering at a girl — tell him to knock it the fuck off. You won’t be a punk for speaking up for the woman. As long as you don’t try to score points with her for “defending her,” you won’t be white-knighting it either. You’re just doing the right thing. No one needs some sexist clown hollering at her because the dude popped a mental woody. Cat-calling is one of the worst advertisements for male sexuality there is. Those assholes make us all look like complete tools. You get that, right? We need to cut that shit out.

Working construction is when I learned to speak up to a group of men. You have to do it. Mostly, you do it because you want to respect yourself. Otherwise, you’re another pathetic man that allows a guy to mistreat a woman in your presence. When a guy cat-calls a woman and you don’t say something, he just treated her like a cheaply degraded sex object for his satisfaction and he turned you into the punk-ass that’s willing to allow him to mistreat a woman in your presence … while you say nothing.

What would your grandfather think if he saw you in that moment? Would he be proud of you? Are you proud of yourself? Male pride is good for something — use it to be your better self. Don’t be that silent punk that goes along with the crowd to get along with the crowd. Speak up when someone cat-calls a woman in front of you. Tell them to shut the fuck up. As a man, you have power. Use it. Men respect conviction.

4. It’s our job to have standards for ourselves, and thus, for all men.

You may think, “Zaron, man, lighten up, brother. Cat-calling is not that big a deal. Aren’t we making a mountain out of a molehill? Some women like it.” You may be right. Maybe some women do like it. That doesn’t matter. I like to speed. My cousin likes to smoke pot in public. Neither of us gets to do what we like. That’s just how it goes sometimes when you’re a member of a society. If you find that woman who likes to be cat-called, go for it, just do it behind closed doors. When you’re in public, respect the physical and mental space of others.

Don’t limit yourself to being a man. Be a mensch. Be a human being.

When something like #YesAllWomen occurs in our cultural conversation and women the world over are out there sharing their experiences, their trauma, their stories and their personal views, as men, we don’t need to enter that conversation. In that moment, all we need to do is listen, and reflect, and let their words change our perspective. Our job is to ask ourselves how we can do better.

*****

Readers: What do you think? Will Burnett’s words inspire men? Blog me.

PS: It is Primary Election Voting day. I’m counting on all of you getting out there and doing your duty.

Peace out.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Posted in Health & Well Being, Human Rights and Equality, Journeys within | 84 Comments »

Repealing Obamacare = Repealing Veterans Health Care

Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 2nd, 2014

Good morning!

Well it certainly has been a Monday morning.

I was watching this topic on the Rachel Maddow show this past Friday night. For all that our military women and men have done for our country, their lack of getting health care is inexcusable.

From Think Progress.

Scandals

What Conservatives Should Do If They Are Really Concerned About Veterans Health Care

The scandal at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs over long wait times to receive health care and fraudulent reporting by hospital administrators is a serious problem that needs to be addressed immediately. Yesterday, a preliminary report from the VA Inspector General confirmed many of the initial problems, finding that:

a) at least 1,700 veterans waiting for care were purposely withheld from the official electronic wait list because administrators knew they could not receive care within a 14-day period that was the goal;

b) at the Phoenix VA hospital at the center of the controversy, the average wait time for an initial primary care appointment was in fact 115 days, and not 24 days as reported by the Phoenix hospital;

c) there were multiple paper wait lists used to track patients in addition to the electronic wait list that were invisible to federal oversight.

Other reports coming out indicate that “cooking the books” is a much broader problemwithin the VA.

Secretary Eric Shinseki has called the findings “reprehensible” and is “not waiting to set things straight.” In fact, Shinseki, a disabled Vietnam veteran who served in the Army for 38 years, has fought an uphill battle to reform the VA bureaucracy in a number of ways, according to experts at the Center for American Progress. But that hasn’t stopped numerous elected officials from calling for his resignation, including, at last count, 74 Republican members of Congress.

We all agree that veterans deserve the best possible care. But if conservatives were truly outraged at the prospect of veterans not receiving the health care they deserve, there’s another step they could take right now to expand coverage to not just thousands, but hundreds of thousands of veterans, and almost 5 million Americans overall. Instead, they are standing directly in the way.

There are over a quarter million uninsured veterans in states that are currently refusing to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. These veterans are not receiving delayed care, they aren’t receiving any care at all. While many people assume that all veterans have health benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs, as of 2013 only two-thirds were eligible and just one-third were enrolled. The map below shows a state-by-state breakdown of those affected:

Conservative legislators have been quick to condemn the VA’s actions, but that hasn’t stopped them from voting again and again to repeal the Affordable Care Act that expands coverage to millions of people, including veterans. And it hasn’t stopped them from defending state lawmakers who continue to refuse to expand Medicaid under the ACA and deny coverage to veterans and millions of other Americans.

BOTTOM LINE: The scandal at the VA is serious, and those at fault should be held accountable. But those who would repeal the Affordable Care Act are at the heart of another scandal: over 250,000 veterans in 24 states have no access to care at all because of conservative lawmakers’ refusal to expand Medicaid.

*****

Readers: So what else is new with the right? They are most always trying to stand in the way and take away. Thoughts?

Blog me.

Connie, Wanda, Janet, Irene, Jackie, Helen: Exactly. I like all of you, do not give a damn about the “why men do what they do.” All I care about is putting women in office that will legislate laws, and women on the bench that will put men away for the things that they do to harm women and try to take away our rights. Men will change when the laws no longer allow them to get away with their atrocities. Let’s make sure our voices are heard by voting women into office that will be our voices.

Zelda, Debra: Thanks for the sweet kudos.

Karen: Thanks for making your comment the first time on such an important topic. I appreciate your candid and professional opinion from all of your many years in practice. I cannot argue with anything you said. I too HOPE that my efforts, along with all of the other women, will wake women up. We certainly need big change in women’s attitudes and actions to make a big difference in how we are going to live our lives.

Patricia: Yes, we have to plan not to get raped or assaulted. The operative word here is “plan.” Every time I get ready to go out, whether I am taking Lucy for a walk or getting into my car to take a drive, I make sure to “plan” and bring what I need, “just in case.” When I walk to my car in a parking lot or get into an elevator where I am the only woman, I am aware of my surrounding. I am “planning” in my head what I may need to do, “just in case.” It is no way for a woman to have to live. And no man, no matter how many red high heels he walks in to support women, will understand how we as women feel. That is why it is up to us to change.

Joyce: I am so disappointed when I hear stories such as your of women not supporting women and using the excuse that “men will be men.” Ugh. So infuriating. My suggestion is that if you aren’t getting the help from your female superiors, is to go higher until you do get help. And I would let them (your superiors) know that you will not put up with this behavior anymore, and you are going to seek help from higher places if they are not going to help you. Getting harassed, is unacceptable. Having to deal with this every day is just unconscionable and so not good for your self-esteem, quality of life, etc.

Do you have a counselor at your work? I would check out that avenue. Perhaps other women in your department are getting harassed too and are afraid to speak up. I would do a little investigating and see if you can pair up with others who are experiencing the same harassment. There is power in numbers. I realize the job market is not easy but if you continue to not get help, you might want to start looking. Good luck.

Erica: I am sorry that you had to experience rape and then on top of that, feel that you can’t get help from your local authorities. I know how isolated you must feel. That is why it is so important that we women help each other out. We should not have to experience such an atrocity and feel that we have no recourse because we don’t have a system that supports us…because we don’t feel we can get justice against the perp who did this. Until women really support each other and the right women are voted in, we are going to feel helpless in many situations.

That is why it is very empowering for us when we take away the blame from the men and put it on ourselves. It means that we don’t have to feel powerless HOPEing men will change for us, because men won’t change. Instead, all we have to do is change. And we can if we women all come together.

Ok Readers: Now I need to end. Your turn. Thanks for being here with me.

Peace out.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Posted in Health & Well Being, Political Powwow | 20 Comments »

Sunday Brief

Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 1st, 2014

Good morning!

From Think Progress:

5-5-5

5 Important News Stories On 5 Issues In 5 Charts

Catch up on the news of the week with our run-down of five key stories, each described with its own chart or map:

1. No, Taking Away Unemployment Benefits Doesn’t Make People Get Jobs. At the end of December, Republicans in Congress refused to join Democrats to pass a law extending unemployment insurance for nearly 1.3 million Americans. After already losing almost $5 billion in economic activity, new research makes the case that we need to extend this important lifeline. A study in Illinois found that more than four in five unemployed people who lost benefits were still jobless two months later. Another demonstrates the challenge the long-term unemployed face in this recovery: just 22 percent of those who ended up unemployed for six months or longer during the 2008 recession found steady, full-time work by the beginning of 2013. And finally, new analysis shows that for those whose benefits disappeared in December, only about a quarter had found jobs as of March–about the same success rate as when the program was still in effect. Roughly another one in four and dropped out of the labor force altogether.

ui_5.22

2. A Woman With Perfect Grades Is Worth The Same As A Man With A 2.0 Average.Researchers at the University of Miami found that high school GPA is a strong predictor of income in adulthood. But perhaps the more dramatic finding was just how big a gap there is between men and women who earn the same grades. In fact, a woman who earns perfect grades goes on to earn roughly the same as a man with a 2.0 GPA:

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

3. The Poorest Americans Are Still Locked Out Of The Affordable Care Act. Many of the most vulnerable Americans are locked out of health reform because they live in states that have rejected Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion. More than 70 percent of those people live in just 11 southern states, and 35 percent of them live within the borders of five. Despite the overwhelming need, GOP lawmakers there continue to resist cooperating with health reform at any cost.

medicaid opt out

4. The World Quickly Stopped Caring About The Kidnapped Nigerian Girls. It’s a common assumption that interest in news stories, barring any major new developments, tends to fade over time. But there is perhaps no better example than that of the nearly 300 young girls kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria. This tragic story, which rose to international attention and mushroomed over social media with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, has disappeared from international interest as fast as it arrived. A search on Google Trends over the last 90 days illustrates the point:

nigeria

5. Marriage Equality Keeps Spreading, And Spreading, And Spreading. Pennsylvania became the 19th state in the union to allow same-sex marriage on Wednesday, after Gov. Tom Corbett (R) declined to appeal Tuesday’s court ruling that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Federal judge John E. Jones, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his decision: “We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.” Rick Santorum, the prominent anti-gay Republican who as a Pennsylvania Senator recommended Judge Jones to the court, hasstayed mum on the issue. The state is just the latest domino to fall as courts across the country, in red states and blue states, invalidate marriage bans.

lgbt_marry2014

Readers: Pick your fave of the five and blog me. Happy Sunday!

Peace out.

Gratefully your blog host,

michelle

Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Posted in Health & Well Being, Love, Sex & Relationships | 35 Comments »

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What Conservatives Should Do If They Are Really Concerned About Veterans Health Care