Tragedy Yes, Crime No

Several months ago, I walked out of Trader Joe's at the same time as a woman who was coming out with her child - still seated in the basket. There is a ramp from the parking lot near the entrance of the store. There are always plants and other items displayed outside. In a split second, this woman let go of the cart to look at something on the display and, while I am sure she didn't realize it, the cart with her child began to roll into the parking lot. Cars usually are driving slowly because the mall is too crowded but there are impatient hot rodders interspersed. I saw the cart rolling at the same time the mother did and she caught it before it was in the path of traffic. But I saw the look of embarrassment and panic on her face and realized just how quickly things can happen without any deliberate negligence or abject carelessness. It was just something that happened and, at least that time with that mother, nothing bad came of it.

This story happened in San Jose not far from where I live. Once I heard about it on the news, I couldn't bring myself to listen to it again or look at newspapers where it was plastered. Tragic as this was, I hope the young mother gets some justice and some peace of mind.

The babysitter charged in the November death of a toddler on South San Jose train tracks again postponed entering a plea Thursday amid indications that the prosecutor and her attorney are getting closer to an out-of-court settlement.

Katrina Hatton, 21, is scheduled to return to court at 2 p.m. Friday.

Attorneys involved in the case said that settlement talks are ongoing. Judge Jerome Nadler indicated he wanted to hear from the toddler's family before a settlement. He is expected to receive a probation report soon.

Supervising Deputy District Attorney Dan Nishigaya said he would like to see the case resolved short of a trial.

``What we're focusing on is getting her to accept responsibility,'' he said.

Hatton is charged with a felony child endangerment charge.

On the morning of Nov. 21, Hatton walked 2-year-old Alexander Arriaga and his 4-year-old brother, Elijah, across the train tracks at an illegal but commonly used crossing near Blossom Hill Road and Monterey Highway. She told the boys to stay off the tracks while she turned back for the stroller carrying her own baby daughter, but Alexander followed her and was struck and killed by an oncoming Amtrak train.

The boys' mother, Nicole Wilson, did not know Hatton. She had asked her friend Tiffany Ball to watch the boys while she went to work. But Ball and Hatton were friends, and when Ball had to leave, the boys remained in Hatton's care. Ball was not charged in the case.

Hatton's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Craig Kennedy, said he's comfortable with his client receiving probation, but not comfortable with any additional jail time for her.

Alexander's death spotlighted the plight of young mothers struggling to hold down jobs and knit together a system of care for their children. Wilson was at a job orientation at Toys 'R Us on the morning her son was killed. Ball worked at the McDonald's on Monterey Highway, and Hatton was on her way to apply for a job there when she walked the boys across the tracks.

Again, as we have people fighting against contraception, a woman's right to choose and men bailing out of paying child support, we have to consider the lives of children after they are born. The pro-life movement ends at birth while millions of children are born to poor, mothers with few options for daycare or the means to adequately raise their children. This woman was going to apply for a job at McDonald's with three children in tow. The victim was the child of another young, working mother who was strapped for babysitters. I think it was criminal to charge this woman with a crime. Albeit devastating, it was an accident caused by a temporary lapse in judgement. This, or something similar, could happen to even the best of mothers who have access to everything they need. I hope they free this woman so that she can reunite with her own children and family.

Hiding Under A Rickshaw

These stories are just hideous and the reason why the far right's movement to remove women's rights is so crucial. We cannot revert back to a society like this:

I just got an e-mail from Women for Afghan Women directing readers to a heartbreaking-then-inspiring article by Yahoo's award-winning Kevin Sites. Taking a page from Nicholas Kristof's playbook, Sites shares the story of a 12-year-old Afghan girl named Gulsoma who, married off at age 4 (not a typo) when her widowed mother's second husband decided he didn't want her, endured seven years of truly surreal abuse at the hands of her 'husband's' family. (The faint of heart may wish to do some judicious skimming through the middle of Sites' article.) She crawled away one night after being beaten and threatened with death if a missing wristwatch did not turn up, and was taken immediately to a hospital when she was found hiding under a rickshaw. While her family denied abusing her, a neighbor corroborated Gulsoma's story and the police eventually arrested her 'husband' and father-in-law. Gulsoma wound up in an orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. Her entire body is scarred, the top of her head bald where she was scalded.

She says she still shivers involuntarily at sundown, a learned reaction from being forced to sleep outside in the cold desert night. And she's still afraid that her 'family' will come for her.

All Over The World

Rape just seems to be commmon place.

At least 15 schoolgirls in Kenya were raped during a night-time protest march in the central district of Nyeri.

Hundreds of pupils had stormed out of school in the middle of the night to go to the district commissioner's office to demand better conditions.

The BBC's Wanyama wa Chebusiri in Nyeri says three of those attacked are critically ill in hospital.

The victims say as they were marching a gang of local villagers attacked them, raping at least 15 girls in turn.

'Unfortunately their screams could have been confused with the excited shouts of protesters,' a student on the march told Kenya's East African Standard newspaper.

Our correspondent says almost 700 Kanguburi Girls High School pupils chose to make the 10-15km walk at night to disguise their identities.

Police say they are investigating the matter, but no arrests have been made.

The school's headmistress spent much of Monday in an emergency meeting with local education authorities, our reporter says.

So I guess these girls shouldn't have been marching at night, right?

But Everyone Who Gets Pregnant Should Have Children?

There is a certain level of desperation any number of us can reach but poor women with children are often the victims and perpetrators of some heinous acts.

A woman confronted a neighbor accused of sexually assaulting her 7-year-old son and threatened to call police, but then accepted $600 in hush money and let the man molest the boy again, authorities said.

The 30-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with capital sexual battery and child abuse. The neighbor, Nicholas Quiles, 48, has been charged with capital sexual battery. Both are being held without bail. The alleged sexual assaults happened the first two weeks of February, Lt. Jeffrey Harrington said. The boy told his 11-year-old sister that Quiles did "bad things to him," the girl told detectives. An anonymous tip led investigators to the neighbor and mother. The boy, his sister and their toddler brother were removed from their home, Harrington said. There is no evidence so far that the other children were sexually abused, he said. "There are definitely oddities to this case," Harrington said. "I hope we never have to investigate anything like this again."

I just don't even know what to say ...

Latino Supremists! Wow!

Leave it to Michele Maglalang Malkin to come up with with BS like this. I find it quite ironic that "Miss I'm so glad I'm in America and married me a white man so I bash every other immigrant who isn't as lucky as me" has sunk to yet another new low to prove her worthiness of citizenship.

In her March 29 nationally syndicated column, right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin referred to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and California Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante -- both Democrats -- as "Latino supremacists." Malkin's column dealt with the recent demonstrations in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities against the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in December 2005. Malkin characterized the protests as "militant racism" marked by "virulent anti-American hatred."

From Malkin's March 29 column:

Apologists are quick to argue that Latino supremacists are just a small fringe faction of the pro-illegal immigration movement (never mind that their ranks include former and current Hispanic politicians from L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to former California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante).

The Ship Goes Down With The Captain?

In the Girl Scouts, one of our favorite camp songs was The Titanic. I think the song is pretty sick now but we'd turned it into quite the little ditty. The one verse that stuck in my mind as valid was:

"Oh, The Captain Stood on deck with a tear in his eye
as he waved at the lifeboats as they sailed him goodbye
But, he thought he made a slip
so he went down with the ship
It was sad when the great ship went down ..."


SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

3. The President is seen universally as the face of the Republican Party. We are now brand W. Republicans. The following chart shows the extremely close correlation between the President's image and overall ratings of the party.

President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. Attacking the President is counter productive for all Republicans, not just the candidates launching the attacks. If he drops, we all drop.

Ken Melhman and the rest of the Bush administration have lost their danged minds! Bush will blame everybody and their mama instead of taking credit for his failures but he expects the entire party to drown with his incompetent behind?

... the absolute and unmitigated gall!

Rubber Stamp Congress!

Man! There was a side show in Congress today! But I think they made their point!

Don't Start None, Won't Be None

I guess I shouldn't be condoning violence but in addition to a very deadly look, I think my reflexes might have caused me to punch this guy too!

Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) punched a U.S. Capitol Police officer today after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector.

Members are not required to pass through metal detectors and the officer, manning a position at Longworth House Office Building, apparently did not recognize McKinney and didn't see her Member pin.

The officer called out 'Ma'am, Ma'am,' in an attempt to stop her.

When the officer caught up to McKinney, he grabbed her by the arm.

McKinney pulled her arm away, swung around, cell phone in hand, and punched the officer square in the chest, according to the witness.

McKinney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

He's lucky she didn't punch him in the face!

Pretty Pathetic

They really do rely on the average American being dirt stupid! This clown who hopes to replace the imprisoned Duke Cunningham, but a picture of Turkey on his site and claimed it was Iraq!

How far will critics of media coverage of the Iraq war go to prove reporters are wrongly focusing on the negative?

One answer came this week, in a shocking if amusing episode featuring one Howard Kaloogian, a leading Republican running for the seat in Congress recently vacated by indicted Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

He posted on the official Web site for his campaign a picture taken in "downtown Baghdad," he said, during his visit to the city, which supposedly indicated that the media was wrong about the level of violence in the city. "We took this photo of downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq," he wrote. "Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it - in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort to fight terrorism."

But the blogosphere quickly smelled a rat. The photo featured people who didn’t seem dressed quite right for Iraq, and signs and billboards that looked off, too. In the now-familiar pattern, the ace detective work leaped from obscure blogs to the well-known (Talking Points Memo, Eschaton, Attytood, more), and back again, as eagle-eyed experts proposed alternative locales, with Turkey a likely suspect.

In less than a day, it was over. "Jem6X" at the popular DailyKos blog confirmed the street scene was in Istanbul, not Baghdad.

Tipped off by someone who recognized the actual intersection in Istanbul, Jem went through online photo galleries and in a matter of minutes today found a snap taken by a "Faruk" that lined up with the "Baghdad" photo in numerous conclusive ways. Game, set, and match to the blogosphere.

Aren't any of the people who support these folks embarrased that politicians think they are morons?

That Damned Saddam!

Last week the media was to blame for the continued and escalating violence in Iraq. Now it's the long captured and on trial Saddam Hussein who was supposedly despised by the majority of the country.

President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government.

In his third speech this month to bolster public support for the war, Bush worked to counter critics who say the U.S. presence in the wartorn nation is fueling the insurgency.

Bush said that Saddam was a tyrant and used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power, and that as a result, deep tensions persist to this day.

enemies of a free Iraq are employing the same tactics Saddam used, killing and terrorizing the Iraqi people in an effort to foment sectarian division," Bush said.

At what point do we just strip this man naked and parade him through the country as the buffoon that he is. I watch Washington Journal on C-Span every morning so I know there are still some needle brained folks who still believe this clown and I guess this is for them. But these mind games they keep playing with the mindless are beyond irritating. Who's fault will it be next week?

Funny

But true!

'New Rule: Nobody can use the phrase 'our greatest problem' anymore unless you're talking about global warming. President Bush has been saying we're in a war on terror, and now I get it. He's not saying 'terror,' he's saying 'terra' as in 'terra firma,' as in the Earth. George Bush is an alien sent here to destroy the Earth! I know it sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when Tom Cruise explained it to me last week.'
---Bill Maher


'Here now a list of requirements for Dick Cheney's `downtime suite'...Cheney wants bottled water, decaffeinated coffee. He wants his lights on. He wants the temperature at 68 degrees, the TV's must be tuned to Fox news. I was thinking, 'My God, I wish they would have put this much preparation into the Iraq War.''
---David Letterman


'We're now down to the final four. Not college basketball. The number of people who still think President Bush is doing a good job.'
---Jay Leno


'Ummm...well, uh...I wasn't prepared for that one.'
---Cobra II co-author Michael Gordon, responding to Jon Stewart's question, 'After the fall of Baghdad, what did [Bush and the neocons] get right?' on The Daily Show


'The President's mother, Barbara Bush, donated tax-deductible money to the Katrina Relief after the flood. And now we find out that it was with specific instructions that the money be spent for educational software owned by her son Neil. Because who can forget those tragic images of the poor black people on rooftops in New Orleans holding up signs that said, 'Send Educational Software'?'
---Bill Maher

Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game

Oh my! I agree with Jesse Jackson this time (I often agree but he just works my nerves). This whole immigrant debate is really bringing out the worst in people - of all races. My issue is that, once again, poor people are being scape goated and blamed because they are the path of least resistance. Our borders are porous and people come flooding in because they have every reason and opportunity to do so. Big business created and continues to feed this gigantic problem. But I will not participate in blaming yet another group of poor brown people.

When employers brought slaves to America, few objected as long as they were prepared to work without wages and without rights. When they began to demand equal rights, all hell broke loose. No one minded when Mexican farm workers came to pick the crops, do the lawns, clean the houses. When they started to demand the right to citizenship, to vote, to organize -- the furor started.

American workers are sensibly worried that the flood of immigrant labor will bring lower wages as part of the global race to the bottom. But their complaint is with employers who prefer undocumented workers whom they can exploit without complaint, and with federal and state authorities who turn a blind eye to that exploitation.

There is no way anyone is going to locate, arrest, detain and ship millions of undocumented workers out of America. Our choice is whether we want to maintain permanently a large underclass of undocumented workers that can be easily exploited by cynical employers, and slurred by callous politicians -- or whether we want to fulfill America's promise by providing them with a road to citizenship, benefitting from their willingness to work, pay taxes and contribute.

How do we stop our country from being overrun by impoverished immigrants if we offer them pathways to citizenship? There is only one way -- and it is not mentioned in this debate. We passed a treaty called NAFTA with Mexico and Canada that guaranteed rights to employers and investors but not to workers. The results have been catastrophic. Wages in Mexico, the United States and Canada have fallen. Mexico now exports more cars to the United States than the United States exports to the world -- all made by U.S. companies benefitting from cheap labor in Mexico. And U.S. food exports have displaced millions of poor Mexican peasants and driven them from their communities. They don't come to the United States because they want to leave their homes. They come desperate for work.

Slave labor built this country and big business never got over the bloody taste that "free money" bought. So, they have a new way to exploit human beings. No American would work for sub-standard wages and sub-human treatment. All of this outrage at illegals "breaking the law" is misdirected as they are just in the dirty game they have to play to to feed their families. I don't hate them for playing. But I do hate the game.


Technorati Tags: immigration, Mexican

Sue Them Blind

This is the story, a previous gang rape, that I just couldn't bring myself to post. As if the heinous assault wasn't bad enough, the parents and the defense attorney for the culprits (who taped themselves committing this act) exhibited a level of misogyny that was worse than the actual criminals.

A pending civil action in California may establish a new legal precedent, holding defense attorneys and their investigators civilly liable for the emotional damage they inflict on sexual assault victims while preparing their client's defense.

Jane Doe was 16 years old when she was sexually assaulted by Greg Haidl, Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, all 17, as she lay unconscious on a pool table. Haidl videotaped the incident, during which Jane Doe was violated with a variety of objects, including a pool cue, a lighted cigarette and a Snapple bottle. During the criminal action, Joseph Cavallo and other lawyers for the defense cast the victim as an aspiring porn star who had submitted to the boys' actions voluntarily. Doe was also vigorously cross-examined regarding her sexual past. The defense's efforts to smear her reputation and credibility failed. The three young men were convicted of sexual assault, and are currently serving time.

Now 20, Jane Doe has brought a civil action against the three, and named Haidl's father, a wealthy former assistant sheriff in Orange County, as a codefendant. Doe alleges that Haidl's father should have been aware of the parties, which featured drugs and alcohol, that were held in his Corona del Mar home, where the assault occurred. In an unprecedented legal move, the $26 million case also names Haidl's defense attorney, Cavallo, and his two investigators, John Warren and Shawn Smigel, for their actions in causing the plaintiff extreme emotional distress.

We can point fingers at the level of oppression and maltreatment of women in other countries but we have a definite culture of disrespect and disregard for women as something other than pieces of meat right here in America and it absolutely has to stop!

This story is just repulsive.

Nope! Not Civil War

And people want good news! The attacks are getting worse and seem to be fully organized to target specific people.

Gunmen dressed in police uniforms have attacked a trading company in Baghdad, killing at least eight Iraqi employees.

The gunmen stormed the al-Ibtikar Trade Contracting Co in the capital's western Mansour district at 0815 (0515 GMT) and opened fire, police said.

The motive of the attack was not clear, as the gunmen did not take any money.

There have been a series of robberies and attacks on shops and businesses in Baghdad in the past week.

On Tuesday, nine people working at a foreign exchange and an electronics shop were kidnapped.

Sixteen employees of another trading company in Mansour were abducted the day before.

What's going on if it isn't civil war? Read more here
and here!

Now It's A Crime

Had the ratio of girls to boys not become so skewed, would this be a crime?

A doctor in India and his assistant have been sentenced to two years in prison for revealing the sex of a fetus and then agreeing to abort it.

This is the first time medical professionals have been jailed in such a case.

Under Indian laws, ultrasound tests on a pregnant woman to determine the gender of the foetus are illegal.

It has been estimated that 10m female feotuses may have been terminated in India in the past 20 years.

Dr Anil Sabani and Kartar Singh were caught in a sting operation in the northern state of Haryana.

Government officials sent in three pregnant women as decoy patients to find out if the clinic would carry out abortions based on sex selection.

Audio and video evidence showed the doctor telling one woman that tests had revealed that she was carrying a 'female fetus and it would be taken care of'.

A cultural preference for sons over daughters has skewed India's sex ratio.

But convictions are rare due to lax and corrupt officials and the slow judicial system.

The government brought in laws 12 years ago to stop the practice of aborting female fetuses.

I would apologize for sounding cynical and am glad that women are no longer to abort babies soley based on gender but, honestly, if this weren't about a pussy shortage for the men who are now coming of age, would this practice have been stopped and criminalized?

Lacrosse Update. Not Good

I guess the difference, these days, is that these types of things are being reported. I am, though, tired of hearing about gang rapes.

Then there is the men's lacrosse team. In as ugly a story as is likely to be reported in college sports this year, a black exotic dancer says she was beaten, strangled, and raped at a party hosted at a house rented by the three Duke lacrosse captains. The woman, who says she was told she'd be dancing for a few men at a bachelor party, told police she fought fiercely against her attackers, losing four fingernails in the process.

Initially, the lacrosse team denied it all. It was all overblown, they said, although they did admit hiring a dancer and doing some drinking. The drinking was certainly no surprise. The Winston-Salem Journal reported this week that 15 of the 47 players on the team had previous misdemeanor chargers 'stemming from drunken and disruptive behavior.'' In fact, police have reportedly been called to the house four times since September.

And then the police found four red, polished, broken fingernails at the house.

Suddenly this began to look a little more serious. As one of the local papers pointed out, a first degree rape conviction carries a prison term, at least 16 years for someone with no prior convictions. Slowly, slowly, the university began to react. The athletic director announced that the team, which was considered a contender for the national championship when the season began, would forfeit two games.

Although the players still stonewalled, refusing to talk to police and hiring attorneys who claimed that the DNA tests the police ordered were 'mammothly unconstitutional,'' the students on campus weren't buying it. There were three days of campus protests, including a candlelight vigil last Saturday night.

On Tuesday, there was finally a change. The captains announced that they had decided not to play another game until, in the words of the school president, 'a clearer resolution of the legal situation,'' is reached. This sounds like one last attempt to take the high ground. They suspended themselves until this can be straightened out.

But if they really wanted to resurrect their image they'd cooperate with the police. Instead, since the team provided so little information, police took DNA samples from virtually everyone on the roster. The players had better hope their sample doesn't turn up anything suspicious. Police also said that if a rape is proved, there was the possibility that bystanders might be charged on the grounds that they could have stopped the incident but did nothing.

The DNA tests are due back next week. There is no telling what they will reveal, but we do know a few things: One, the police say they are fairly certain a rape occurred; two, news reports indicate police were able to collect compelling physical evidence from the woman when she sought medical care; and finally, we know the community and the student body are up in arms and expect action.

Even if we take race out of it, and Lord knows I think that there are a lot of white men who think of black women as sub-human (as did their great grandfathers), this must stop! This isn't about women, how they dress, what they do for a living or how late they stay out at night. It is about men who absolutely, positively do not have respect for women. Period! Violence towards women seems to be escalating in society, and despite education and campaigns to tell young men that "no means no" there seems to be a segment of men who don't seem to think that they will get caught or punished for their barbaric behavior. Are these "gangs" of men human beings or are they packs of dogs?

This Is Sorry

So do people just not understand how babies are conceived and how chromosomes play into gender selection? How are these people going to name a girl child "Sorry" because biology, not human intervention or fault, presented them with a girl? This is just as backwards as those men who think that a woman's body somehow creates boys or girls in the birth canal and blames them when a boy doesn't come out. I'm sorry for Sorry.

In many Asian cultures, begetting a female child is the biggest curse a family can endure.

Aapni Dhikri Ro Hak blog talks about families where they named their daughters 'Maafi', literally meaning 'Sorry', as a act of requesting forgiveness from God.

She is Maafi. Maafi in Hindi means 'Sorry'. She is the fourth girl born to her parents. They were so detested after Maafi's birth that they sought forgiveness from God. That is why they chose to name their fourth girl child 'Maafi'. Sorry God, no more daughters please."

It would be one thing if this only happened in poor, impoverished, uneducated communities. There are so-called informed people walking around today talking about "my wife gave me a son" as though she had something to do with it. Morons!

Do These People Have Parents?

I was totally sputtering when trying to yell at the radio while listening to this on NPR last week. I mean I could feel steam coming out of my ears and total gibberish was coming out of my mouth because I couldn't form words! What kind of monsterous and hideous hospital (and employees) would do something like this?

For many months, Los Angeles city officials have complained that regional hospitals are dropping off their indigent patients in the city's tough Skid Row area. On Wednesday, officials at a homeless shelter released a videotape that allegedly catches one hospital in the act. The incident has become part of an ongoing investigation that could result in criminal or civil penalties.

Security cameras outside the Union Rescue Mission, the city's largest homeless shelter, show a taxi pulling a U-turn in front of the building. Several seconds later, an elderly woman in a hospital gown shuffles into view. She appears to have only hospital socks on her feet, and walks in the street for a while before turning back to the mission entrance.

Mission worker Regina Chambers met the woman outside, later identified as Carol Reyes, a homeless resident of the city of Gardena, a dozen miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

'When I first approached her, she was very disoriented, didn't know where she was or what she was doing,' Chambers says. 'All she knew is that she had been to a hospital.'

It was later determined that Reyes was released from the Kaiser Permanente hospital in the city of Bellflower, 16 miles southeast of the mission.

They say that you can judge a society by the way it treats its young and elderly. I think if you add poor to that (and many times the young and old fall into this category as well) you have a perfect picture of the kind of country America is. I just cannot get this out of my mind!

In the broadcast, they commented on how the Kaiser spokesperson looked "stricken." Well, she should have looked stricken and been stricken. There is absoultely no excuse for dumping a sick, old woman out on the street in a hospital gown and no shoes! I don't think I could even work for any institution that did things like that. I wonder which attendent called the cab and gave them the address of the mission? I wonder who would put a patient out on the street with no clothes? What kind of human beings go along with this? How can someone accept a check from a place like that?

Everybody Loves Mammy!

Growing up in a black neighborhood and being tiny was almost like being an outcast at times. I had/have skinny legs, was quite flat chested, still don't have an "African" booty or thick hips. In fact, Brick House was the jam when I was in high school and while dancing to it at a party, the guy I was dancing with decided to change the words to "she's a midget house." I laughed myself silly because I definitely was far from being stacked like a brick house.

Being "thick" or "healthy" was a good thing. Being a skinny mini wasn't. So, the obsession with thin that many white women have and the body image issues that go along with that just was not the thing that black girls worried about. Being smart and/or talented had far more value than looks or weight and, truly, unless one had very fair skin and long, straight(er) hair, you knew that you weren't considered pretty or attractive outside of the black community anyway.

So, this accusation that American Idol has a double-standard for fat black women has some validity but not for the reasons these white DJs think. Black Americans, though this is changing, have always had a different standard for what is attractive and acceptable. White people, too, because blacks don't fit the typical "American" standard of beauty, tend to look beyond weight because a) there is no f'ability factor involved so appearance is less of an issue b) there is still a level of comfort with fat black women as a stereotype and what I call a "mammy fixation" - and that is unconscious racism. I think these guys are off base because it is white America's need for their women to look like boobs on a stick while the beauty of black women isn't noticed unless they are stick thin and look like Halle Berry or some other bi-racial woman.

They really need to check themselves - and perhaps history. The fact that heavy white women have to be Roseanne Barr in order to get ahead is a cultural norm that white America created, not any double standard that benefits black people!

It’s no secret that black folks, in general, do not equate beauty with being rail thin. But is the country more likely to embrace obese African Americans than overweight whites?

According to TMZ.com, two disc jockeys at Los Angeles radio station KROQ raised the question using "American Idol" contestant Mandisa as an example. On Friday morning’s Kevin and Bean Show, the jocks, both white, wondered if the powerhouse singer would’ve made it to the Top 10 if she were a hefty white girl.

'It's fascinating that she can be a front runner and look like she does, yet there's no way 'Whitey' shows up at 280 [lbs.] and gets in the Top 10. It's not even possible,' said Bean.

The hosts, along with co-hosts Ralph Garman and Lisa May, felt that fat white "Idol" hopefuls were quick to get a "no" from the judges, while blacks packing extra pounds were more likely to be considered.

'What is the double standard?,' they asked. 'Why is it acceptable for the African-American contestants -- and we're not just talking about 'American Idol'-- in all the world, you can be big and black and be considered sexy and no one's trying to get you to lose any weight... yet the big white guy all of a sudden is a pariah?'

Portly "Idol" winner Ruben Studdard was cited as an example of the double standard.

Callers, for the most part, agreed with the hosts. One female listener said that America is 'used to seeing white skinny women,' adding, 'Black women are celebrated for their curves.'

Another caller, however, wasn’t comfortable with the notion of a double standard, stating that a singer’s excess weight may be given a pass because the fat, somehow, "supports that voice." The caller cited Aretha Franklin and Fats Domino as examples of obese singers whose vocal chords were supported by the extra layers.

I don't think that a fat white woman could have become Oprah. She wouldn't have had the encouragement or the confidence to pursue it. But whose fault is that?

An Incompetent Chickenhawk

Too Funny!

Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr. called for pulling out American troops from Iraq Monday and blasted President George W. Bush as an 'incompetent chickenhawk.'

'President Bush took this country to war by choice, not because we had to fight but because he wanted a fight,' Clay said, according to a text of the speech he gave Monday at St. Louis Community College at Meramec in Kirkwood.

Noting the billions of dollars spent on the war and the 2,000-plus death toll of U.S. soldiers, Clay, D-St. Louis, said the sacrifice of American lives 'is not being shared equally' and asked why Bush's twin daughters had not enlisted.


'I have a question for President Bush,' said Clay, who voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq. 'If you really believe that the war that you started in Iraq is a fight to defeat terrorism and to defend our freedoms, why haven't your girls enlisted?'

Let's guess that his girls are just as incompetent too!

Would This Be Considered Abortion?

This story is just freaky!

Surgeons operated on a 2-month-old Pakistani girl Tuesday to remove two fetuses that had grown inside her while she was still in her mother's womb, a doctor said.

The infant, who was identified only as Nazia, was in critical condition following the two-hour operation at The Children's Hospital at Pakistan Institute of Medical Science in the capital, Islamabad, said Zaheer Abbasi, head of pediatric surgery at the hospital.

Abbasi, the chief doctor who led the operation, said the case was the first he was aware of in Pakistan of fetus-in-fetu, where a fetus has grown inside another in the womb.

'It is extremely rare to have two fetuses being discovered inside another,' Abbasi told The Associated Press, adding that he did not know what caused the medical abnormality. 'Basically, it's a case of triplets, but two of the siblings grew in the other.'

The baby comes from Abbotabad, about 30 miles north of Islamabad. She is the fifth child of a woman in her 30s, who was at the hospital to be with her daughter. Her father works in the Arabian Gulf.

Abbasi said surgeons removed the two partially grown fetuses, totaling about two pounds, that had died at about 4 months.

Other fetus-in-fetu cases have been reported elsewhere in the world. A report in a June 2000 issue of the U.S. journal Pediatrics called such occurrences rare and estimated their rate at about 1 per 500,000 births.

Vile and Nasty!

This is why there is a need for abortion on demand.

A 55-year-old Lawrenceville man has been charged with raping and impregnating his 16-year-old daughter, and with raping his 19-year-old mentally disabled stepdaughter.

Police said Early Arnold Connelly was charged with two counts of rape and two counts of incest. Police do not yet consider him a fugitive, though they think he is aware of the charges against him and has been "actively avoiding the police."

Early Arnold Connelly is also accused of raping his mentally disabled stepdaughter.

Connelly, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 252 pounds, is believed to have purchased a bright blue 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser on Saturday. The car has a Carmax "drive-out" tag, according to police.

The matter became a case for the Special Victims Unit of the Gwinnett Police Department after Connelly's estranged wife took their 16-year-old daughter to a hospital. After tests confirmed the girl's pregnancy, she stated that she had been sexually assaulted by her father, according to GPD spokesman Cpl. Darren Moloney.

The investigation revealed that Connelly may have also molested his stepdaughter and that the abuse had been going on for several years, Moloney said. In 2002, Connelly was charged with battery, but Moloney said the disposition of that charge was not available.

The 19-year-old is not pregnant, but she is both mentally and physically disabled.

Neither of the victims shares Connelly's last name, Moloney said. The mother and father separated about four months ago, he said.

He's not considered a fugitive? Why?

Blank Stare, Crickets Chirping

Uh, yeah ...

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to face trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday.

Taylor vanished Monday night from his villa in the southern town of Calabar, the government said. Last week, Nigeria's government agreed - under pressure from the U.S. and others - to surrender him to stand before a U.N. tribunal on charges related to civil war in Liberia's neighbor, Sierra Leone. President Olusegun Obasanjo was to travel to the United States this week for a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday.

A government statement said Obasanjo was creating a panel to investigate Taylor's disappearance on Monday night. The statement raised the possibility he might have been abducted, but did not elaborate.

Nigerian presidential spokesman Oluremi Oyo said members of Taylor's Nigerian security detail had been arrested.

The presidential statement offered no details on how Taylor's disappearance was discovered or whether he was being hunted. Nigeria's Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that dozens of people who had been living with Taylor in the villa in a walled government compound had left Monday and were flying to Lagos en route to an unknown destination.

Giving My Black Card Back

Sometimes ... Whew!

Don't these people need Jesus or something? ... And why was this on the news?

Giving To The Greedy, Not To The Needy

What was even the point of this? Why give a donation then specify that it has to go directly to your son's company?

Former first lady Barbara Bush gave relief money to a hurricane relief fund on the condition that it be spent to buy educational software from her son Neil's company.---'It's strange that the former first lady would want to do this. If her son's having a rough time of it, couldn't she write him a check?' said Daniel Borochoff, founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based charity watchdog group. 'Maybe she isn't aware that people could frown upon this.'

Does anybody get that this family is a stingy, greedy, lot of thieves who believe that poor people want and deserve to be poor? What was the purpose of this donation (duh, tax write off)? I'm so over these people!

Total Smackdown!

Bush and Cheney have become so dependent on the presumed stupidity of the average American. Last week, their strategy was to blame the press for reporting all of the bad news in Iraq. We've lost more members of the press in three years in Iraq than during the entire Vietnam War. It is down right insulting to blame them as messengers of bad news when security is so bad that trying to report any news means risking their lives. Lara Logan of CBS totally drove home the absurdity of Bushco's claims.

LOGAN: Well, who says things aren't falling apart in Iraq? I mean, what you didn't see on your screens this week was all the unidentified bodies that have been turning up, all the allegations here of militias that are really controlling the security forces.

What about all the American soldiers that died this week that you didn't see on our screens? I mean, we've reported on reconstruction stories over and over again…I mean, I really resent the fact that people say that we're not reflecting the true picture here. That's totally unfair and it's really unfounded.

...Our own editors back in New York are asking us the same things. They read the same comments. You know, are there positive stories? Can't you find them? You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.

Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked. I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country….So how it is that security issues should not then dominate the media coverage coming out of here ...

You'd have to have one dull and narrow mind to think that reporters were deliberately reporting only negative news. They report what they see all day and every day and probably leave some things out as they would inflame the rest of the Arab world. As I told a debater on one of my yahoo groups, "I don't care about us rebuilding a school or hospital we blew up, or about rescuing a bloody child whose family we killed or about a bunch of dirty little kids running behind soldiers begging for candy that they don't need because they don't have adequate dental care."

It is sad, sad, sad that this administration has absolutely no other rationale for or defense of their failures other than to blame the media.

They Were A Good Christian Family

Gosh! How often do we hear that when some of the most heinous crimes are committed? I hate to be so cynical but extreme religiosity generally means extreme demons. We knew this woman was going to be charged. The question is why she did it? I say it was long term spousal abuse. We'll have to see as the story unfolds.

A minister's wife was charged Friday with shooting her husband to death in the parsonage in a crime that shocked the congregation and shattered the couple's happy and loving image.

Mary Winkler, 32, was arrested on murder charges and confessed to the slaying after fleeing to Alabama in the family's minivan with the couple's three young daughters, authorities said.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent John Mehr said authorities know the motive for the killing, but he would not disclose it. When asked whether police believed the motive was infidelity, Mehr said no. But he would not comment when asked whether Mary Winkler had accused her husband of abuse. Court papers offered no hint of a motive.

Her husband of 10 years, Matthew Winkler, a popular and charismatic 31-year-old preacher at a fundamentalist Christian church, was found dead in a bedroom at the couple's home Wednesday night in Selmer, a town of about 4,600 in western Tennessee.

Mehr said that the couple's daughters were at the house when their father was shot and that authorities had found the weapon used to kill him. Mehr would not give any further details.

Judy Woodlee, a member of a church in McMinnville where Matthew Winkler had been a youth minister before moving to Selmer, said Mary Winkler's arrest was a shock.

'They were a good Christian family. They always seemed happy,' she said.

I feel bad for the kids and I hope that it was just abuse against her and not any kind of sexual abuse with those little girls - though, that is enough to make even the most docile mother kill. I know I'd have a hard time not killing him a few times if that were the case.

In My Best Gomer Voice

Sur-prise! Sur-prise!

The analysis, much of which is based on findings of a major poll carried out last summer by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press, found that a strong plurality of 50 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe that Islam 'is more likely than others to encourage violence among its believers', while only about a third of mainline Protestants and Catholics accepted that view.

It also found that attitudes towards Muslim-Americans and Islam tended to be affected by four key factors -- education, age, knowledge of Islam and personal acquaintance with Muslims.

...