Women's Rights: Jamie Leigh Jones

This woman has guts. She really does. She's taken a horrible experience and turned it into a blazing fight for justice. I look at her sweet little face and think, if I was her father, brother, husband, boyfriend? Some KBR employees would be sitting around wondering what happened to their gonads.

You know who else has guts? Our newest Senator, Al Franken. Watch him kick KBR's lawyer's ass nine ways to Sunday.

Minnesota, you did the right thing by giving us this wonderful guy. He comes to his committees and hearings PREPARED. He reads everything. And he's sharp as a tack.



Go, Senator Al!

Now I see why the Rethuglicans were so terrified of letting him into the Senate. He does not mealymouth around.

So, Minnesota, all y'all gotta do now is get rid of that batshit-crazy Bachmann and we're, like, on, yaknow?

Damn, he rocks. DiBernardo's going to take a week or two to dislodge that pointy boot from his ass. Serves him right too.

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Women's Rights: Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein

Well, well, well. It appears that the Sudanese courts have weaseled out of facing up to courageous feminist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein. Ms. al-Hussein was arrested some time ago at a cafe in the city of Khartoum for offending against laws regulating women's clothing. She was wearing loose trousers and a tunic, with a scarf covering her hair. Pretty indecent, huh?

Some ten other women who were arrested with her accepted their sentence of a whipping. Not Ms. al-Hussein. She resigned her position at the UN, thereby forfeiting any political protection she might otherwise be able to claim, and openly stated she would rather take 40,000 lashes than the 40 to which she might have been sentenced if the courts could show her from where their authority to punish women for this supposed crime was derived. She claims that the Qur'an does not sanction the dress she wore, that her clothing was within the bounds of what constitutes modest dress, and that the law, as it is written, is vague and overbroad, constituting discrimination against women who can be arrested and punished under it at the discretion of those paid to enforce such law.

She printed invitations to the foreign and local press to attend her trial and promised that, if sentenced to a whipping, she would send out invitations to that event as well.

Sudan's syariah courts have responded by fining her instead of delivering the promised whipping. Although they have not, of course, responded to her challenge to show wherefrom their authority to whip women such as herself was derived.

Ms. al-Hussein has said that she will not pay the 500-pound ($200) fine, preferring to go to jail for a month instead.

What a woman! Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, you are an inspiration! Women of Sudan, take heart. As long as you have people like Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein among you, you can fight those beardy old mullahs who spend too much time minding other people's business and not enough minding their own. And you can win! Women of America, it's time to let the home-grown Talebangelists know that you won't accept their restrictions on your rights!

And just remember, folks: Religion makes you FUCKING CRAZY~!

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Women's Rights: Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein

If you haven't heard of Lubna Ahmed al-Hussain, you need to.

Ms. Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein is a Sudanese journalist who, until recently, also worked for the United Nations. Why does she no longer work for the U.N., you ask?

Because recently, Ms. al-Hussein was enjoying herself in the company of other women like herself at a restaurant in Khartoum when some 20 or 30 policemen arrested her, and twelve of her compatriots, for the crime of — wearing trousers. Ms. al-Ahmed decided to fight this ridiculous charge, and, when the U.N. moved to protect her as an employee, she resigned her U.N. post to fight it on her own.

Brave does not begin to describe this woman. She faces a whipping — 40 lashes — for her "crime." To demonstrate her commitment to her cause — defying this application of the law as "un-Islamic" and not deriving from the underlying authority for Shari'a law, the Quran — Ms. al-Hussein wore the exact same outfit she was wearing at her arrest to her court hearing. The charges against her, FTA:

[A]rticle 152 of the Sudanese criminal law of 1991 [provides that] women [...] wearing clothes that causes “public uneasiness” [or] a “threat to the Sudanese society values and virtues[...]” [are] subject to 40 lashes in public

The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) is calling on all NGOs working on human rights issues to get involved.

Ms. al-Hussein plans to fight the charges all the way to the Constitutional Court, if necessary, she says, adding that her plan is to get rid of Article 152, which is more stringently enforced against women, and constitutes an invidious form of discrimination. Ms. al-Hussein has said she is willing to endure 40,000 lashes to fight this discriminatory law.

Some of the other women arrested with her have decided not to fight the charges, and accepted their whipping quietly. Not Ms. al-Hussein. She has printed invitations for the press and human rights activists to witness her trial, and plans to print invitations to the whipping if she loses her court case.

Ms. al-Hussein's bravery has inspired demonstrations by her supporters, according to al-Jazeera. Sudanese police have used tear-gas to disperse her protestors, and the court in which she was to be tried has postponed her case while they verify whether she has legal immunity from prosecution due to her status as an employee of the U.N. Ms. al-Hussein has called this "an attempt to delay the case," since she resigned from the U.N. before the trial specifically to renounce any immunity. FTA:

"If some people refer to the sharia to justify flagellating women because of what they wear, then let them show me which Quranic verses or hadith [sayings of the Prophet Mohammed] say so. I haven't found them," she said.

Two paws up from La Casa de Los Gatos, Ms. al-Hussein! We hope you win your case and get this foolish law repealed.

Note: Sharia law is only applied in the Muslim north of Sudan. The southern part of the country consists mainly of animists and Christians, and the Islamic legal framework does not apply there.

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Kiran Bedi: Yes Madam, Sir

Here's a movie I'd like to see:



Want to know more about this fabulous woman? Go to Wikipedia here.

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Activism: Sisters Doin' It For Themselves

and their community. Bambi Gaddist is a determined AIDS activist in her community of Columbia, in South Carolina. For the past 20 years, she's been working on the AIDS issue, running a mobile testing center. Founder of the South Carolina AIDS/HIV, Gaddist has brought free confidential HIV testing to people throughout South Carolina.

Gaddist says the face of AIDS has changed since the mid-1980s, when she helped run one of the first grass-roots AIDS awareness campaigns in Columbia, South Carolina, while pursuing her doctorate in public health.

"In the '80s, HIV was seen as a gay, white male disease," Gaddist said. "Here in South Carolina, it became an African-American disease."

In 2006, African-Americans accounted for 76 percent of the new AIDS cases diagnosed in South Carolina, and the state ranked ninth in the nation for those living with the disease, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

What a woman! She plans to keep fighting against the web of ignorance and shame that helps the spread of AIDS. Says Gaddist:

"When it's my time, I want my obituary to say that I have made a difference for someone and that I saved somebody's life."

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