I forgot to do this last week. Today I’m cat sitting and since I’m a crazy cat lady (without a cat of my own), I’d rather snuggle with the little fur ball than being in front of the computer. So, here’s what you should read when I’m not writing:
Killing an innocent man
An opinion piece in the Denver Post written by Ray Krone, an exonerated former death row prisoner. I should say I’m a hard line death penalty opponent. For the state to kill people to send the message that killing is wrong… it doesn’t add up for me (BTW, similarly, I’m also dead against corporal punishment for children: “no, you can’t smack your brother - now come here so I can smack you” - this kind of reasoning is boggles my mind. But what do I know, I’m just a bleeding heart liberal sissy born and raised in a country where corporal punishment against children has been illegal for almost 30 years. And yet our society has not fallen to pieces, no matter what the scaremongers will tell you. Anyway, this was off topic, but read mr. Krones piece!)
Freedom’s just another word. Contemporary slavery in Mauritania (from CBC News):
The night of Aug. 8, 2007, seemed like a night for celebration in Mauritania, a vast desert country on Africa’s northwest coast.
Radio, television and newspapers all proclaimed the end of slavery. Slave-owning was criminalized, and overnight, half a million people — a fifth of the country’s population — were officially freed from bondage.
But there was a problem. Those half-million newly free people didn’t own radios. They didn’t own televisions. They can’t read either. And the news — if they heard it — meant little anyway.
In Mauritania, despite good intentions and high-minded words, slavery is still thriving, as it has for 800 years. It is just taking new forms.
Dark-skinned men, women and children known as Haratine carry out orders under the threat of being beaten. They work as labourers and shepherds, as servants and cooks, as nursemaids and security guards. They are penniless and uneducated. Their masters are pale-skinned, Arab-speaking Moors.
The relationship is ancient, confusing and deeply entrenched, and it defines much of what goes on in this iron-rich, sandy country. Even the most modern and sophisticated of Mauritanians is caught in the tangled web.
Emotional? Probably. Praying? Sweet Whomever-the-Hell-is-Listening, Yes.
A guestpost at Shakesville by MouthyB, whose oldest daughter has just told her she is “at least bi”. This is a beautiful and powerful piece, and I wish this was the reaction of all parents who find out that their child is not a heterosexual. The comments are well worth reading too.
Raped and silenced in the barracks (AlterNet):
About how Pentagon and the US military fails to protect the troops from sexual abuse, an has created a system which:
puts victims on the defense, grants immunity to assailants and, in the end, puts rape survivors who have the courage to speak out, in even greater danger than if they had just accepted the abuse as collateral damage in their military careers.
Sorry to start off the weekend on such a depressing note, but this stuff is important.
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