tagged w/ Human Rights
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Children have been abused in this country all the times by agencies staff, school teachers, judges, and etc... But why? The Abusive System and Business First.
Well, it is believed that it is a fact that has to do with a dictator system that is existed in the U.S.A for so long, that caused this kind of things to happen again and again.
They have learned THE DANGER OF THIS WICKED SYSTEM again, again, and ....again, through news reports, through Lifetimes TV true story based movies, and documentaries show on TV, yet they still not changing anything in the system, and the reason is clearly simple: Business FIRST then HUMAN BEING in the U.S.A..
http://n1hc.com/article.php?story=children-abuse-by-agencies-and-teachersChildren have been abused in this country all the times by agencies staff, school... more
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1thang
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Despite the Arab League observers’ report verifying the threat that the Free Syrian Army (or the “Free Army” (FA) as critics prefer to call it in reference to the fact that many of the organisation’s members are of non-Syrian origin) the European Union responded to the clearly defensive military operation by threatening further sanctions against the Syrian people. Predictably, the NATO and GCC media, in perfect unison with the warmongering stance of their states, published unsubstantiated claims from unverifiable sources that the Syrian government was committing a massacre against Homs’ civilian population. Arab League observers in Syria Ahmed Manaï in Tunisian publication Nawaat where he stressed that the same media who accused the government of a massacre of 200 in Homs on February 4th (the day of the vote on the United Nations Security Council Resolution that if passed would have paved the way for military intervention in Syria) “were making fun of our intelligence”. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43059-how-russias-support-for-syria-is-qdefending-the-whole-world-from-fascismq-
video ----- Now we will see a service in which NATO propaganda (Al Jazeera) accuses the Syrian Army, of killing the Syrian child Sari Saoud. In the service, Al Jazeera shows the mother crying, while she embraces her child. Then you'll see the interview released by the very same woman, who reveals that the baby was not killed by the Army, but by the very same entities that the Army is fighting.Despite the Arab League observers’ report verifying the threat that the Free... more
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worrg
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CNN...
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Civil rights leader Patricia Stephens Due dies at 72
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 9:40 PM EST, Tue February 7, 2012
Dr. Patricia Stephens Due died Tuesday at age 72.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Due played a leading role in student sit-ins more than half a century ago
She and other activists were arrested at a Woolworth lunch counter
The activists spent 49 days in jail rather than pay fines
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(CNN) -- Civil rights leader Dr. Patricia Stephens Due died Tuesday at age 72, nearly 52 years after she played a leading role in student sit-ins in Tallahassee, Florida, her family said.
Due's death followed "a determined and courageous fight against cancer," her family said.
In 1960, as a 20-year-old college student and founding member of the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, Due, her sister, Priscilla, and three other Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University students were arrested for sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter.
Their decision to spend 49 days in jail rather than pay fines marked one of the first "jail-ins" during the civil rights movement, according to Johnita Due, one of the civil rights leader's three daughters and a lawyer for CNN.
During her time in jail, Due received a telegram of encouragement from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "Going to jail for a righteous cause is a badge of honor and a symbol of dignity," it said. " I assure you that your valiant witness is one of the glowing epics of our time and you are bringing all of America (to) the threshold of the world's bright tomorrows."
Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball's racial barrier, sent Due a diary so that she could record her experiences while in jail, the family said.
Due's involvement with civil rights, which included leading rallies and marches throughout Tallahassee and elsewhere, came with a price, her family said. She was arrested for protesting in Florida and New York and the FBI had built up a 400-page file on her because of her activities, according to the family.
During one incident in 1960, Due was injured by a tear gas bomb used by police. The incident left her sensitive to light, requiring that she wear dark glasses throughout her life.
Her activism also jeopardized her college education at FAMU. Due's parents feared for her safety and wanted her to focus on her college education, according to Johnita Due.
Due tried to balance school and her protests against segregation, but according to the family, FAMU administrators were ultimately pressured by Florida officials to suspend Due.
Due was allowed to re-enroll and earned her degree in 1965. "I was determined that nothing was going to stop me from getting my degree," Due later said.
In 2006, FAMU gave Due an honorary doctorate in human letters and formally acknowledged the five decades she spent as a social activist. In response, Due said then, "At our ages when entering college, we were still children and FAMU was our surrogate parent, and time after time, we were punished for our 'behavior,' and now, they are embracing us and saying, 'well done, well done.'"
Due co-authored a book in 2003 with her daughter Tananarive Due called "Freedom In The Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights." Due wanted the stories of the Florida civil rights movement and its key players to be remembered for their contributions to the fight against social injustice. According to the family, Due remarked, "Stories live forever. Story tellers don't."
The book was honored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
In 2006, The History Channel's award-winning series "Voices of Civil Rights" profiled Due.
She was recently honored by Tallahassee Mayor John R. Marks, who issued a proclamation declaring May 11, 2011, "Patricia Stephens Due Day."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott praised Due in a private letter last year recognizing her "impact as a civil rights pioneer" and commending her for her "lifetime of advocacy and commitment to achieving racial justice in America."
Scott called Due's actions "a significant moment in our country's history and ... an incredible source of inspiration still today."
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Civil rights leader Patricia Stephens Due dies at 72
By the CNN Wire... more
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February 5th, 2012
05:33 PM ET
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Crossing the plains and kicking up dirt, a new Mormon pioneer
PART ONE…
By Jessica Ravitz, CNN
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San Diego (CNN) – At a 1950s-style house nestled in a peaceful neighborhood nicknamed “Hanukkah Hill,” a smiling Buddha on the porch greets visitors – his arms raised as if to say all are welcome.
Affixed to the doorpost is a mezuzah, a decorative case holding blessings for a Jewish home. Inside, on the family’s refrigerator, hangs a magnet from the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog that says, “Jesus loves us. Who cares what you think?”
In the kitchen stands Joanna Brooks, an accidental, unofficial and admittedly unauthorized source for all things Mormon. She’s making “funeral potatoes,” a classic Mormon casserole, and heaped on the counter are the ingredients: a not-so-healthy dose of cheese, butter, sour cream, hash browns and chicken soup. Her Jewish husband strolls by, takes a look at what’s cooking, and grimaces. Bespectacled and freckled 6-year-old Rosa, standing atop a chair, proudly announces, “I’m Jewish and Mormon!”
The home and life Brooks has created is the product of a complicated journey.
She cannot separate The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from her identity any more than she can leave cheese out of funeral potatoes. But like her persecuted ancestors who braved the unforgiving plains to reach the promised land of what is now Utah, Brooks, 40, fights for her faith.
The battle has, at times, left her feeling beaten.
As a young feminist activist, she saw her beloved church excommunicate her intellectual heroes. She’s felt outrage and soul-crushing grief while watching her church mobilize against same-sex marriages. For about 10 years, she walked away.
But today a vintage postcard of a Mormon missionary boarding a plane sits on her desk to inspire. It reads, in part, “Dare to be different.”
She believes there’s room in the LDS Church for loving criticism and candid talk, that Latter-day Saints like her can not just belong but also serve – without fear of being cast out into the wilderness.
She’s staking her claim to Mormonism, writing about it for Religion Dispatches, debunking myths in national papers, speaking up on podcasts, radio shows and from stages, and offering advice in her column and blog, Ask Mormon Girl. She recently self-published her memoir, “The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories from an American Faith” and writes regularly for Feminist Mormon Housewives. Politico has named her, or specifically her Twitter account, one of the “50 Politicos to Watch.” All this while being an award-winning scholar, a published poet and, oh yeah, a department chair and professor of English and comparative literature at San Diego State University.
[Click the audio player for a Q&A with Joanna Brooks from CNN Radio's John Lisk ]
Amid Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, the “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign and the smash-hit Broadway musical “Book of Mormon,” this Obama supporter has emerged as a refreshing voice for media, hungry for frank discussion about her faith.
Her goal? To be her authentic self and humanize a tradition and people she couldn't love more.
“I just refuse to be ashamed of being Mormon,” she says. “Don’t talk about us like we’re not in the room.”
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February 5th, 2012
05:33 PM ET
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Crossing the plains and... more
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J.C. Penney stands behind Ellen DeGeneres as spokeswoman
February 3, 2012 | 5:45 pm
PHOTO:
Portia and Ellen DeGeneres
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As an openly gay couple, Portia and Ellen DeGeneres have faced plenty of challenges, but one worry they can safely put to bed is Ellen getting dropped by J.C. Penney.
The company has signaled that it is standing by DeGeneres as its spokeswoman, despite the group One Million Moms -- part of the American Family Assn. -- having launched a campaign to force J.C. Penney to end its association with DeGeneres and "remain neutral in the culture war."
In a statement Friday, J.C. Penney responded with support for the comedian, saying it "stands behind its partnership with Ellen DeGeneres."
GLAAD was understandably overjoyed with the news. A site the group had launched to show support for DeGeneres changed focus to show support for J.C. Penney over its decision. As of Friday afternoon, #StandUpForEllen had received more than 26,000 signatures.
"This week Americans spoke out in overwhelming support of LGBT people and J.C. Penney’s decision not to fire Ellen simply for who she happens to love," GLAAD spokesman Herndon Graddick said in a statement. "But while Ellen has the nation on her side, in 29 states today, Americans can still be legally fired just for being gay. Our elected officials should use this incident as yet another example of the support for legal protections for all hard working employees."
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J.C. Penney stands behind Ellen DeGeneres as spokeswoman... more
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From 1979 onwards, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s stance against the Arts and freedom of expression, resulted in Iranian cinema gaining a reputation for visual asceticism and extreme economy of expression in its storytelling.From 1979 onwards, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s stance against the Arts and... more
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How Don Cornelius became the 'pope of soul'
By John Blake and Todd Leopold, CNN
updated 4:34 PM EST, Wed February 1, 2012
Don Cornelius' impact on America went beyond music. "Soul Train" united white and black America together.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
"Soul Train" host Don Cornelius' impact on America was bigger than music
"He was an ambassador, the pope of soul," one sociologist says
Show's message was "I'm black and I'm proud," Gladys Knight says
Stars and fans praised his cool persona, boldness and cultural "tightrope" act
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PART ONE...
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(CNN) -- Don Cornelius never led a civil rights march, launched a boycott or gave a speech before a cheering crowd of protesters.
But his impact on America was as profound as virtually any civil rights leader, says Shayne Lee, a sociologist who grew up watching "Soul Train."
Cornelius' groundbreaking TV show didn't just captivate African-Americans -- it tied white and black America together in a way that had not been done before, says Lee, who teaches a course on hip-hop at the University of Houston.
"He was an ambassador, the pope of soul," Lee said. "For a lot of suburban whites living in segregated America, this was their first exposure to this exiting new world of movement and energy. He made black culture more accessible."
Cornelius, who hosted "Soul Train" for 22 of its 36 years on the air, died Tuesday. He was 75. Police reports indicate he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The suave Cornelius was known by an entire generation of African-Americans as the dapper host of "Soul Train" who signed off each show by blowing a kiss and declaring, "We wish you love, peace and souuuullll."
Most of the tributes to Cornelius that poured in following his death focused on his contribution to music. Others said his legacy was bigger than sound.
Cultural impact of 'Soul Train'
Kenny Gamble, co-founder of Philadelphia International Records, which produced the theme song for "Soul Train," says Cornelius was a great contributor to American, not just black, culture.
"Soul Train," like Apple and Coca-Cola, is an American brand, Gamble says.
"Soul Train" traditions, like dancers gathering to cheer on fellow dancers as they shimmied down a dance line, are now a part of pop culture.
"No matter where you go in this world, people are doing the 'Soul Train' dance line," he said. "What's a party without the 'Soul Train' dance line?"
Gamble still sounded stunned after hearing the news about Cornelius.
"Unbelievable," he said. "That was my man."
Singer Gladys Knight told CNN that Cornelius was an unsung hero whose show amplified the message, "I'm black and I'm proud."
"He encouraged us to be ourselves," she said. "We're going to give you this platform and you go out and do your thing."
Sociologist Lee said that message -- be black and proud -- drove the civil rights movement. And just as the civil rights movement overturned segregation, Cornelius erased cultural barriers that separated white and black Americans living apart in their own cultural cocoons.
"I see Cornelius as a civil rights activist," said Lee, author of "Erotic Revolutionaries."
"The civil rights movement changed the legal structure; Cornelius changed the cultural structure. Changing the culture can change hearts in a way that protests can't."
Cornelius first changed television.
TV had not been known as friendly terrain for African-Americans before "Soul Train." Blacks were often seen in caricatured roles -- as minstrels, servants or outlaws. They were seen through the lens of white America.
"Soul Train" changed the focus. It lifted the veil on black America and showed blacks being themselves, and not as whites imagined them, said Lee.
"The show introduced the notion that blacks were creative, we have something to offer and we're not going anywhere. And if you give us a chance, you might like some of our moves," Lee said.
Cornelius offered white America a new way to see black men, Lee says. He wasn't a sidekick or servant, nor was he angry.
"He walked a tightrope," Lee said. "If he was too in-your-face, he would have been offensive on television, or too accommodating he would have been perceived as an Uncle Tom.
"He was soooo cool."
The cool apparently wasn't an act to those who knew him and knew how he launched "Soul Train."
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CONTINUED...
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How Don Cornelius became the 'pope of soul'
By John... more
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From the article...
"Statistics are notoriously slippery, but the figures that suggest that violence has been disappearing in the United States contain a blind spot so large that to cite them uncritically, as the major papers do, is to collude in an epic con. Uncounted in the official tallies are the hundreds of thousands of crimes that take place in the country’s prison system, a vast and growing residential network whose forsaken tenants increasingly bear the brunt of America’s propensity for anger and violence.
Crime has not fallen in the United States—it’s been shifted. Just as Wall Street connived with regulators to transfer financial risk from spendthrift banks to careless home buyers, so have federal, state, and local legislatures succeeded in rerouting criminal risk away from urban centers and concentrating it in a proliferating web of hyperhells. The statistics touting the country’s crime-reduction miracle, when juxtaposed with those documenting the quantity of rape and assault that takes place each year within the correctional system, are exposed as not merely a lie, or even a damn lie—but as the single most shameful lie in American life.
From 1980 to 2007, the number of prisoners held in the United States quadrupled to 2.3 million, with an additional 5 million on probation or parole. What Ayn Rand once called the “freest, noblest country in the history of the world” is now the most incarcerated, and the second-most incarcerated country in history, just barely edged out by Stalin’s Soviet Union. We’re used to hearing about the widening chasm between the haves and have-nots; we’re less accustomed to contemplating a more fundamental gap: the abyss that separates the fortunate majority, who control their own bodies, from the luckless minority, whose bodies are controlled, and defiled, by the state.
Before this year, the federal government had never bothered to estimate the actual number of rapes that occur in prisons. Its data relied on official complaints filed by prisoners, which in recent years have averaged around 800. One such complaint was filed in 1995 by Rodney Hulin, a boy from Amarillo, Texas, who had been arrested as a 15-year-old after throwing a Molotov cocktail into a pile of garbage. The trash burned, causing about $500 worth of damage to the exterior of an adjacent house. Hulin’s prank was unimpressive, but Texas in the mid-’90s had little tolerance for teenage ruffianism; in 1994, George W. Bush had become governor, defeating Ann Richards, a popular incumbent, by depicting her as soft on crime. Hulin was charged with two counts of second-degree arson. He was a small guy—just five feet tall and 125 pounds—but he got a big sentence: eight years in adult prison.
Within a month of arriving at Clemens Unit, a temporary holding facility outside Houston for juveniles on their way to adult prison, Hulin was raped by another inmate. He asked to be moved out of harm’s way, but his request was denied, and the rapes continued. In a letter to prison authorities, he wrote, “I might die at any minute. Please sir, help me.” Help was not forthcoming: getting raped was not deemed urgent enough to meet the requirements of the prison’s emergency grievance criteria. When Hulin got his mother to complain to the prison’s warden, she was told that Hulin needed to “grow up” and “learn to deal with it.”
Hulin’s method for dealing with it was to kill himself. Ten weeks after his arrival, he was discovered dangling from the ceiling of his cell.
Hulin’s case was unusual: most prisoners who get raped do not write letters to the warden. It isn’t hard to see why: resisting an inmate who claims your body as his own, or, worse, acquiring a reputation as a “snitch,” can turn an isolated incident into months of serial gang rape. Just ask Roderick Johnson, a petty thief who was attacked by his roommate shortly after arriving at a Texas prison. Johnson asked to be transferred to a different section of the facility, and got his wish. But news of Johnson’s physical availability had spread throughout the complex—after you’re raped once, you’re marked—and he was soon enslaved by a gang. In addition to passing Johnson around among themselves, Johnson’s new overseers sold his ass and mouth to a variety of clients for $3 to $7, a competitive enough price that it resulted in multiple rapes every day for the eighteen months that Johnson spent in prison. When he went to the authorities, they laughed and told him to “fight or fuck.”
Bringing criminal charges against prison officials for failing to protect inmates is virtually impossible in the United States, but civil actions can be filed. After Johnson got out, he lodged a civil suit against six guards who he said refused to help him. In 2005, a Wichita Falls jury found in favor of the guards. In 2007, after passing a note to a clerk at a gas station that read, “I have 9 mm. Put the money in the bag,” Johnson was arrested again. This time, since Johnson was a repeat offender, he got nineteen years.
Victims in juvenile facilities, or facilities for women, have an even tougher time: usually it’s the guards, rather than the inmates, who coerce them into sex. The guards tell their victims that no one will believe them, and that complaining will only make things worse. This is sound advice: even on the rare occasions when juvenile complaints are taken seriously and allegations are substantiated, only half of confirmed abusers are referred for prosecution, only a quarter are arrested, and only 3 percent end up getting charged with a crime.
In January, prodded in part by outrage over a series of articles in the New York Review of Books, the Justice Department finally released an estimate of the prevalence of sexual abuse in penitentiaries. The reliance on filed complaints appeared to understate the problem. For 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse. After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That’s 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women.
America’s prison system is a moral catastrophe. The eerie sense of security that prevails on the streets of lower Manhattan obscures, and depends upon, a system of state-sponsored suffering as vicious and widespread as any in human history. Dismantling the system of American gulags, and holding accountable those responsible for their operation, presents the most urgent humanitarian imperative of our time...."
Read more at :
http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rateFrom the article...
"Statistics are notoriously slippery, but the figures that... more
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Los Angeles Times...
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Camilla Williams dies at 92; opera singer broke racial barriers
Camilla Williams' 1946 debut with the New York City Opera was thought to make her the first black woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company.
PHOTO:
Camilla Williams, shown at Indiana University in 1985, retired from opera in 1971 and taught at Brooklyn College, Bronx College and Queens College before arriving at Indiana. She retired from teaching in 1997.
(Indiana University Jacobs School of)
Associated Press
January 31, 2012
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Camilla Williams, believed to be the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, has died. She was 92.
Williams died Sunday at her home in Bloomington, Ind., according to her attorney, Eric Slotegraaf. She died of complications from cancer, said Alain Barker, a spokesman for the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where Williams was a professor emeritus of voice.
Williams' debut with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company and came nearly nine years before Marian Anderson became the first African American singer to appear at New York's more prestigious Metropolitan Opera.
In her City Opera debut, Williams sang what would become her signature role, Cio-Cio-San, in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly." She displayed "a vividness and subtlety unmatched by any other artist who has assayed the part here in many a year," according to a New York Times review of the performance.
She also appeared with the City Opera that season as Nedda, in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci." The next year she performed the role of Mimi, in Puccini's "La Boheme," and in 1948 she sang the title role of Verdi's "Aida."
In 1954 she appeared as Cio-Cio-San with the London Sadler's Wells Opera and that year became the first black artist to sing a major role with the Vienna State Opera.
Born Oct. 18, 1919, the daughter of a chauffeur and his wife, Williams was introduced to "Madama Butterfly," Mozart and other classical works at age 12 while growing up in Danville, Va. A Welsh voice teacher came to the segregated city to teach at a school for white girls and taught a few black girls at a private home. By that time, Williams had been singing in the choir at Danville's Calvary Baptist Church for four years.
A graduate of Virginia State College, she was teaching third grade and music in Danville schools in 1942 when she was offered a scholarship from the Philadelphia alumni association of her alma mater for vocal training in Philadelphia, where she studied under Marion Szekely-Freschl and worked as an usher in a theater.
A lifetime member of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, she performed in her hometown of Danville in 1963 to raise funds to free jailed civil rights demonstrators and sang at the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C., where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. She also sang at King's Nobel Peace Prize ceremony the next year. The Chicago Defender lauded her in 1951 for bringing democracy to opera.
In 1950 she married Charles Beavers, a fellow Danville native and a defense attorney whose clients included Malcolm X. He died in 1970. The couple did not have children.
Williams retired from opera in 1971 and taught at Brooklyn College, Bronx College and Queens College before arriving at Indiana University. She retired from teaching in 1997.
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Camilla Williams dies at 92; opera singer broke racial... more
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Afghan police: Man kills wife for giving birth to daughter instead of son
By Nematullah Sarfraz, For CNN
updated 1:41 AM EST, Tue January 31, 2012
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File photo of women near the city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, where police say a man strangled his wife for not bearing him a son.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: The mother of Sher Mohammed says her daughter-in-law committed suicide
Mohammed and his 22-year-old wife had three daughters
Police say Mohammed's mother helped beat the wife
The mother was arrested, but her son fled, authorities say
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Kunduz, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Police in the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz are looking for a man they say strangled his wife after she bore him a third child that was not a son.
Sher Mohammed, 29, married his 22-year-old wife, Storay, four years ago, police said.
The couple had three daughters, the last of whom was born three months ago, said Khanabad district police chief Sufi Habib.
After the youngest daughter was born, Mohammed blamed his wife for not being able to deliver a boy, Habib said.
"Finally on Saturday, the man, with the help of his mother, first beat the woman and then strangled her to death," the police chief said. Khanabad is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Kunduz city.
Police arrested the mother, Wali Hazrata, and detained her at the Kunduz city jail. But her son fled.
In a jailhouse interview, Hazrata said her son's wife committed suicide out of guilt.
"My son did not commit the crime," Hazrata said. "... But after three daughters, Storay herself felt guilty and committed suicide."
The report comes weeks after Afghan police said they rescued a 15-year-old girl who was locked up in the basement of her in-laws' house, starved, and had her nails pulled out.
The girl, Sahar Gul, was married off to a 30-year-old man last year. Authorities in the northern Baghlan province said the girl reportedly was tortured after she refused to submit to prostitution.
Activists say women continue to suffer in parts of Afghanistan despite overall progress since the fall of the Taliban.
In the second quarter of last year, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) registered 1,026 cases of violence against women. In 2010, 2,700 cases were recorded.
In December, gunmen attacked and sprayed an Afghan family with acid in their home after the father rejected a man's bid to marry his teenage daughter.
In another case, a 21-year-old, identified only as Gulnaz for her own protection, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after she reported that her cousin's husband had raped her.
Her plight attracted international attention when it came out that she had agreed to marry her attacker to gain her freedom and legitimize a daughter conceived in the attack.
She was eventually freed, following the president's intervention.
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OSU Football Player Asks Twitter Followers to “Show Some Hate” To An Atheist
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Hate, as an emotion, can be a very powerful motivator for both good and bad. The hatred of racism has helped propel civil rights. The hatred of sexism has helped propel women’s suffrage. When one sees hate fuel good things, it is usually hate directed at an unjust or cruel idea or social norm.
It is the hatred of the other kind that concerns most of us: hatred toward people, especially when manifested physically, such as the brutal beatings of homosexuals, lynching of black southerners during the Civil Rights era, etc. This is the type of hate that normally brings about bad things. History is certainly rife with examples.
Everyone is perfectly free to hate anyone they want. But when someone directs hate at an individual or group of people or asks others to “bring the hate” or “visit the hate” upon someone else, then one’s freedom of thought is now a physical manifestation of and subject to criticism, laws, and the appropriate consequences and repercussions associated with the physical action or manifestation.
We have a prime example of this at The Ohio State University: the difference between hating someone and bringing the hate upon someone. OSU football player Jake Russell (#21, punter) tweeted late night on January 24th, “my roommate max rouse (look him up on Facebook) is an atheist, please show him some hate.”
The tweet was deleted later on by Mr. Russell, but not before it was captured for the entire world to see Mr. Russell’s bigotry on display (see image above). Why did Mr. Russell want his 1,400+ followers to show some hate to an atheist? And what exactly does it mean to “show hate?”
Clearly concerned about the well being of Mr. Rouse, the screen capture was emailed to OSU Vice President of Student Life, Javaune Adams-Gaston. Mrs. Adams-Gaston assured American Atheists (via Greg Lammers, our Missouri State Director, who saw and reported the tweet) that the school will investigate the matter immediately. Thank you to Mrs. Adams-Gaston and The Ohio State University for not sitting idly by while this happens.
As for Mr. Russell, we hope sir that no one ever asks anyone else to show you some hate. We hope that one day you will learn the pluralism that exists at your school and in your future places of employment and residence. If anything happens to Mr. Rouse, you will be directly responsible for instigating such action and inciting someone else to violence or harassment. Mr. Russell has brought dishonor to his team and to his school. He has disgraced himself by displaying his bigotry in public. In a way we owe Mr. Russell an thank you for displaying his bigotry so we now know to be wary of him and his possible actions.
To Mr. Rouse, may we point you to The Ohio State University Students for Freethought on campus, an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance. May you find like-minded friends there, where we can practically guarantee no one will “show you some hate.”
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By Blair Scott.
OSU Football Player Asks Twitter Followers to “Show Some Hate” To An... more
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On January 11th the Israeli parliament passed an amendment to the so- called “Infiltrators Law”. This revision allows the authorities to automatically imprison asylum seekers for three years. The plan includes constructing a 10,000 person jail to house the refugees. According to Amnesty International, this puts Israel at the top of the Western World for length of imprisonment of refugees. Today Israel is home to nearly 50,000 asylum seekers from Africa, 85% of whom are from Eritrea and Sudan. The Real News' Lia Tarachansky spoke to Nic Schlagman and Johannes Bayu of the African Refugee Development Center, Ran Cohen of Physicians for Human Rights, and "Ibrahim", an Eritrean asylum seeker in Israel for ten years.On January 11th the Israeli parliament passed an amendment to the so- called... more
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A federal jury has awarded $22 million to a New Mexico man who was kept in solitary confinement for two years and forced to pull his own tooth after being arrested for drunken driving in Dona Ana County.
Civil rights attorney Matt Coyte said the jury awarded Stephen Slevin, 58, the damages Tuesday after a six-day trial in Santa Fe.
Jess Williams, spokesman for Dona Ana County, declined comment other than to say the county plans to appeal.
"We have believe we have strong legal issues to raise with the appeal," he said.
Slevin was arrested while driving through the southern New Mexico county in August 2005. He ended up in solitary confinement because he was suffering from depression and someone checked a box on a form indicating he was suicidal, Coyte said.
Slevin was given some drugs for depression but never saw a mental health professional, Coyte said. He said his client wrote letters for months seeking help, but they were ignored.
"By January 2006, his last letter goes out looking for help. Then he falls into this delirium. He was there for the next 20 months," Coyte said.
Coyte said that in May 2007, Slevin was sent to a mental health facility in Las Vegas, N.M., for two weeks but then was returned to the Dona Ana County jail and solitary confinement.
"He immediately decompensates," Coyte said. "He sends off another letter at this point asking for medical care. ... He is forced to pull his own tooth. He rocked it back and forth over a period of eight hours before he was able to pull it out of his mouth."
Slevin was finally released in June 2007, Coyte said. He was never convicted.
"He entered this facility with overt symptoms of mental depression," Coyte said. "But that's not the issue. ... He was stuck in a 6-foot-by-11-foot cell with a concrete bench for a bed. And he sat in that cell. We had documentary evidence that he didn't get out for anything — for recreation, a shower — for months at a time."
http://news.yahoo.com/nm-man-pulled-own-tooth-jail-awarded-22m-224826036.htmlALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A federal jury has awarded $22 million to a New Mexico... more
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The fungal-fantastical. Emerging from their axial homes, fungi are beginning to be understood as nutrients to the human consciousness and ecological sustainability. Paul explores mycology and compels support for your own good nature and our fungal allies. This is the first in a collaboration of Louie Schwartzberg of Blacklight films (Movingart.tv) and Paul Stamets of Fungi Perfecti (fungi.com). More to come!The fungal-fantastical. Emerging from their axial homes, fungi are beginning to be... more
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CNN...
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THE CNN FREEDOM PROJECT ENDING MODERN-DAY SLAVERY
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January 19th, 2012
12:03 PM ET
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Child slavery and chocolate: All too easy to find
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In "Chocolate's Child Slaves," CNN's David McKenzie travels into the heart of the Ivory Coast to investigate children working in the cocoa fields.
(More information and air times on CNN International.)
By David McKenzie and Brent Swails, CNN
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CLICK ON CNN LINK (at top) TO VIEW THREE VIDEOS
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Daloa, Ivory Coast (CNN) - Chocolate’s billion-dollar industry starts with workers like Abdul. He squats with a gang of a dozen harvesters on an Ivory Coast farm.
Abdul holds the yellow cocoa pod lengthwise and gives it two quick cracks, snapping it open to reveal milky white cocoa beans. He dumps the beans on a growing pile.
Abdul is 10 years old, a three-year veteran of the job.
He has never tasted chocolate.
During the course of an investigation for CNN’s Freedom Project initiative - an investigation that went deep into the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast - a team of CNN journalists found that child labor, trafficking and slavery are rife in an industry that produces some of the world’s best-known brands.
It was not supposed to be this way.
After a series of news reports surfaced in 2001 about gross violations in the cocoa industry, lawmakers in the United States put immense pressure on the industry to change.
“We felt like the public ought to know about it, and we ought to take some action to try to stop it,” said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who, together with Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, spearheaded the response. “How many people in America know that all this chocolate they are eating - candies and all of those wonderful chocolates - is being produced by terrible child labor?”
But after intense lobbying by the cocoa industry, lawmakers weren’t able to push through a law. What they got was a voluntary protocol, signed by the heads of the chocolate industry, to stop the worst forms of child labor “as a matter of urgency.” One of the key goals was to certify the cocoa trade as child-labor free.
“It was meant to achieve the end of child slave labor in cocoa fields,” Engel said.
It didn’t.
UNICEF estimates that nearly a half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast, which produces nearly 40% of the world’s supply of cocoa. The agency says hundreds of thousands of children, many of them trafficked across borders, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor.
A recent study by Tulane University says the industry’s efforts to stop child labor are “uneven” and “incomplete” and that 97% of Ivory Coast’s farmers had not been reached. But the industry’s main representative in the country disagrees with the assessment.
“I think the situation has improved exponentially,” said Rabola Kagohi, country director for the International Cocoa Initiative, the chocolate industry’s answer to fighting child labor and trafficking. “Today, the message is physically getting through.”
Kagohi works out of a basement office with one other permanent employee.
“There are some results,” he said. “I wish that you had spoken to some planters.”
None of the farmers CNN spoke to in the heart of the cocoa production region said they had ever been reached by the International Cocoa Initiative, the government or chocolate companies about child trafficking.
Children such as Abdul don’t know anything about protocols or certification. All they know is work.
When Abdul’s mother died, a stranger brought him across the border to the farm. Abdul says all he’s given is a little food, the torn clothes on his back, and an occasional tip from the farmer. Abdul is a modern child slave.
And he is not the only youngster working in his group.
Yacou insisted he is 16, but his face looks far younger.
“My mother brought me from Burkina Faso when my father died,” he said.
Scars crisscross Yacou’s legs from a machete. He can’t clear grass in the cocoa fields without cutting himself. During harvest season, he works day after day hacking the cocoa pods.
The emotional scars run much deeper.
“I wish I could go to school. I want to read and write,” he said. But Yacou hasn’t spent a single day in school, and he has no idea how to leave the farm.
“It makes me angry,” Engel said. As far as he’s concerned, the chocolate companies haven't done enough.
“They are working with us, and we are glad that they are working with us. But they could do better.”
One of the major players in the Ivory Coast cocoa trade is, not surprisingly, the Ivorian government. Although the country has cornered a vast chunk of a lucrative market, it is considered one of the world’s poorest by any measure.
But the government leadership blames politics and war for the problems in the cocoa industry.
“Thirty years of political instability caused a lot of damage to our economy generally, and to the agricultural sector particularly, and more specifically to the cocoa industry,” said Ivory Coast’s minister of agriculture, Sangafowa Coulibaly. “Unfortunately, these years have been lost.”
After an attempted coup in 2002, the country was split in half and kept from all-out civil war by the United Nations. There was protracted violence after the last disputed presidential elections, when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede.
With the new government of Alassane Ouattara in charge, the government says it can now put much-needed reforms in place.
“Things can only get better,” Coulibaly said. “The main reason is that today, the political crisis is behind us, the armed conflict is behind us.”
But many observers believe that a new government won’t make it a priority to stop slavery in the cocoa fields.
And with peace, traffickers are free to do their work again. U.N. officials told CNN that the Ivory Coast conflict actually helped slow down trafficking because people were too afraid to move across borders.
Contrary to the promises of action, CNN’s investigation could only find promises. And those promises are empty to children like Abdul and Yacou.
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Post by: CNN's Brent Swails, CNN's David McKenzie
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THE CNN FREEDOM PROJECT ENDING MODERN-DAY SLAVERY
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January 19th,... more
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Researchers Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett discuss their findings when comparing the social equality (or lack off) of nations in comparison with the effect on the quality of life of citizens living in such places.
If you need hard research to prove why a more equal society is better definitely watch this video.Researchers Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett discuss their findings when comparing... more
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An important and expected event has occurred in Libya. Resistance leaders spoke about the creation of a temporary government in Libya. People all over the world, who comprise the world community, expected this moment. Now our task is to demand that our countries' governments withdraw recognition of the NTC occupational regime because they are not the legal representatives of the Libyan nation, and to begin diplomatic relations with the real Libyan government. This government is being launched on a temporary basis until full Libyan liberation from the NATO invaders. This is because after that, People's Committees of different levels will be reinstated, and they will continue to govern Libya as it used to be prior to the invasion in February 2011. Certainly all encountered mistakes will be taken into serious consideration to prevent further causes for a new intervention. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/43050-libyan-resistance-leaders-created-a-temporary-libyan-jamahirya-government-An important and expected event has occurred in Libya. Resistance leaders spoke about... more
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worrg
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Martin Luther King, Jr. influenced my political thinking more than any other individual. I was fortunate to have worked under him on Vietnam Summer and to have been present at two of his greatest speeches, presented below. Many things have changed since those days. Northern Republicans were often progressive. Southern Democrats, aka Dixiecrats, were the biggest racists then, but they deserted the Democratic Party because of Dr. King’s successes and are now the Republican base. But both his Dream and the need for his opposition to wars of aggression remain. To celebrate his life, I have video of “I Have a Dream”, delivered in Washington Mall on August 28, 1963 and audio of “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”, delivered in New York on April 4, 1967.Martin Luther King, Jr. influenced my political thinking more than any other... more
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Few things could be more tragic to human rights in this nation than passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and/or the Protect IP Act (PIPA), introduced by several Senators from both parties. Intended originally to protect property rights to copyrighted material, they went way overboard making it impossible for content providers to protect themselves from being shut down for the smallest unintentional violation. Fortunately the Obama Administration has rejected SOPA and PIPA...Few things could be more tragic to human rights in this nation than passage of the... more
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