Raging Grannies on CBS

A quick PSA on charity and the Haitian earthquake

Give, and please.

Americans are tenacious defenders of the notion that charity can somehow replace justice. This does not make us particularly popular around the world, but it does make us notably generous when the lightening bolt of sudden tragedy unleashes from the sky and strikes down at one unfortunate spot or another on the surface of this tragedy-rife everyday planet. Now is not a particularly opportune time to quibble about what caused greater morbidity and mortality: the shaking of the earth, or the entrenched poverty of a nation put down by years of colonialism, post-colonialism, and rank racism that makes the difference between a seven-point-something earthquake in California that typically causes the death of a few hundred and a similarly scaled shaker in Haiti that causes the death of a tens of thousands. Now is just the time to open the wallet and give.

So, a quick PSA on the topic of giving at times like these: every time an earth-shaking tragedy strikes (9/11, the Boxing Day tsunami, Katrina, this earthquake), involved NGOs open up their fundraising drives for specific donations to the cause. And donations pour in for that cause alone. Everyone wants to imagine their ten dollars going to that specific Haitian orphan, that particular New York firefighter, that exact stranded family on a New Orleans roof. It's noble. It helps the cause. It brings in the cash.

I am here to beg you, please, when you give a donation, to whomever you give: check that box that says “wherever most needed.” Every time disaster of this nature strikes, people rush to give to the specific cause, and NGOs like the Red Cross (with its internal and international branches) see their coffers empty out of donations to the causes that continue day and night regardless of what’s happening in Haiti: everyday floods and fires on US soil, the ongoing catastrophe in Darfur, routine training of citizens and providers in basic and advanced life support. These things do not stop because Haiti got hit; but the donations do. The Red Cross got crucified in the press after 9/11 for diverting an excess of funds from well-meaning people from direct 9/11 causes into programs that suffered because of the diversion of routine donations into the 9/11 fund; these programs continued to be vital regardless of what happened in New York that day, just as they continue to be vital no matter what happened in Haiti this week.

Please, please imagine that your donation is going where it is needed. Some will go to Haiti. Some will go to Darfur. Some will go to the family down the street who will be sheltered by the Red Cross when their house burns in the middle of the night. It’s all good, ya know.

Also? If you’re thinking of donating, please put Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health at the top of your list. PIH has been doing ground-breaking grassroots health care in Haiti for a couple of decades now (particularly around complex long-term HIV and TB care), and they are probably the best equipped NGO to understand the landscape of need on the ground in Port-au-Prince and the highlands. They aren’t as flashy or known as the Red Cross, but they are among the best at pulling communities together to the task at hand. And an immense, terrible task it will be in these coming months.

Cross-posted from my infrequently-updated blog, Loose Chicks Sink Ships.

Vaccines: They Work!

Toronto Women's Bookstore in Trouble

Dear TWB community,

The Toronto Women's Bookstore is in crisis and we need your help!

Independent businesses and bookstores have been closing their doors this year, and after 36 years it is possible that we will have to do the same if we are not able to raise enough money to survive. TWB is one of the only remaining non-...profit feminist bookstores in North America, but despite all of the events, courses, workshops, community resources and additional services we offer, the fact that we are a store means that we do not receive any outside funding and rely entirely on sales and the support of our customers to stay in business.

Over the past few years, our sales have not been enough to sustain us and this is why we are coming to you, our community, for help. If every one of you donated $10 we would raise enough to keep going for 3 months, $20 each would keep us in business for 6 months, and $30 each would be enough for us to keep our doors open, hopefully for good. All donations will go directly towards covering the bookstore's costs, and are a part of a larger plan of action and structural change to make the business sustainable in the current economy.

In the past, when feminist bookstores were closing down all across North
America, the support of the community is what kept TWB alive. You are the reason that we are still here today, and we believe that with your help we can once again work together to save this organization where so many of us as readers, writers, feminists, artists, and activists have found a home.

You can make donations over the phone, on our website
www.womensbookstore.com, or in person at the store. Unfortunately, as a non-profit store we are not eligible for charitable status and cannot offer tax receipts.

You can also help by spreading the word to your friends and community,
contacting us if you know of any funding we might be eligible for, promoting this fundraising drive in your paper or on your blog, website or radio show, organizing your own save the bookstore fundraisers or just passing the hat at your holiday parties, giving a TWB donation as a gift, and of course, coming in and bringing all your friends to the store for some holiday shopping!

Thank you all for your support,
The Toronto Women's Bookstore Board, Staff & Volunteers

RIP Kim Hak Soon Halmoni

Today the memorial service for Kim Hak Soon Halmoni, the first of the survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery to come out publicly with her story in 1991, was held in South Korea. Kim Hak Soon Halmoni took the leap of faith required to come forth and share her story on TV all those years ago, thus laying the foundations for the international movement of support for the former "comfort women" throughout Asia. Each Wednesday, former "comfort women" and organizations that support them have been protesting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, but are still waiting for official recognition from the Japanese government.

Yesterday, sadly, one of the few surviving former South Korean "comfort women", Kim Ok-seon Halmoni, passed away. The survivors are elderly, and they don't have much time left to hear the long awaited official apology from the Japanese government. To learn more about the former "comfort women" click here: www.houseofsharing.org

You can write your comments to the Japanese government about the need to apologize officially to the vicitms of wartime sexual slavery by submitting a message on the Japanese government website here: https://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment_ssl.html

THEN and NOW...

Approximately 200,000 women were trafficked into military sexual slavery by Japan between 1932 and 1945. Talking to the survivors in South Korea, hearing the stories of how they survived between 1945 and when the movement of support started in the 1990s, it is clear how difficult life was, dealing with their physical and psychological trauma, in many cases abandoned in foreign countries with no means of support.

TODAY in South Korea, Filipina victims of sex trafficking are facing similar hardships as they attempt to rebuild their lives after being deceitfully recruited as singers and then being forced into prostitution by "promoters" and club owners, usually around US military bases. Their reasons for coming to Korea---to earn money to support children and family at home---remain, and DURAEBANG , "My Sister's Place" Shelter, is assisting them with legal support, vocational training to help them find other jobs, and providing a safe and supportive space for their healing.

Today, in honor of Kim Hak Soon Halmoni, Kim Ok Seon Halmoni, and the thousands of other known and unknown victims and survivors of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, please make a donation, as small or large as you can afford, to help Filipina women dealing with very similar trauma TODAY in South Korea. Any funds you donate for this campaign will go directly to DURAEBANG where they will be used to support the shelter and Filipina women going through legal procedures against their traffickers. Please help them make a stand and get the help they need now---it's time we put a stop to trafficking and sexual exploitation!

For more information, see our FB event page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=name&id=608405075#/event.php?eid=209298802385&ref=mf


To send a donation by PAYPAL, you can do so with a direct link housed on our website: www.lilayoga.com/donate/

To send a donation within Korea, you can make a direct bank transfer to:
Bank: KB Bank (Kookmin Unhaeng)
Account #: 368102-01-146063
Name: ANGELA LYTLE


This fundrasier is being coordinated by members of the International Outreach Team of the House of Sharing, in collaboration with Lila Yoga. If you wish to know more information about us, please feel free to get in touch.

RAWA Video

UN Webcast for CEDAW

Global CEDAW 30th Anniversary Celebration Event
Event Type: Special Day or Anniversary
Date: 03.12.09
Time: 15:00–17:00 (GMT-0500)
Location: United Nations, New York – ECOSOC Chamber, UN Headquarters, New York, NY

On 3rd December 2009, the United Nations will hold a global celebration for the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The event will bring together speakers from around the world who will share examples of how the Convention has been used to implement women’s human rights and achieve gender equality in their country. Participants will hear how CEDAW has been applied to law, policy and judicial decisions, heralding and securing greater human rights for women and girls. Attendees will also learn how the Optional Protocol to the Convention—which celebrates its 10th year in 2009—has succeeded to raise awareness about the Convention and bring justice to individual women.

These examples, plus opening remarks by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a live performance from Sarah Jones, will inspire attendees, including member states, non-governmental organizations, women’s rights activists and the United Nations system alike to increase their efforts to implement the Convention in their home countries and through the work of their organizations.

Due to space restrictions, the event is by invitation only. However, the celebration will be webcast live on UN webcast: http://www.un.org/webcast/.

For more details, visit the website.

Sponsored by: A working group of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE), composed of OHCHR and UNIFEM (co-chairs), UNICEF, UN-DAW, UNDP and UNFPA.

Contact: Jessica Hughes,, +1 917 484 8080

Payback

"Without memory, there is no debt. Put another way: without story, there is no debt. A story is a string of actions occurring over time-one damn thing after another, as we glibly say in creative writing classes-and debt happens as a result of actoins occurring over time. Therefore, any debt involves a plot line: how you got into debt, what you did, said, and thought while you were in there, and then-depending on whether the ending is to be happy or sad-how you got out of debt, or else who you got further and further into it until you cebame overwhelmed by it, and sank from view."

Margaret Atwood is the kind of writer who makes me want to read more - not just more of her own writing, though certainly I intend to eventually read all she's written, but she also makes me want to read everything there is out there. Her breadth of knowledge and aquaintance with other texts is always astounding. In addition to writting incredible books, I'll never forget her wonderful sense of humour and fascinating talks - living in Edinburgh was a treat for a bookworm like me.

""He solemnly conjured me, I remember, to take warning by his fate; to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a -year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twety pounds one he would be miserable." Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

"Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" is one of the CBC Massey Lectures. Inagerated in 1961 to provide a forum on radio where major contemporary thinkers could address important issues of our time, Atwood's series of lectures are from 2008. People often tell me I'm impossible to buy books for because I've read or bought so many of the ones I want that they can't determine what I wouldn't have. For future reference (mom), since the local English bookstores don't carry the Massey Lectures series and I've only read three (the other two were "The Truth About Stories" by Thomas King and "Race Against Time" by Stephen Lewis), so they are always a safe bet. All three have been incredibly fascinating books.

""In my part of the world we have a ritual interchange that goes like this:
First person: "Lovely weather we're having."
Second person: "We'll pay for it later."
My part of the world being Canada, where there is a great deal of weather, we always do pay for it later. One person has commented, "That's not Canadian, it's just Presbyterian." Nevertheless, it's a widespread saying among us."

In the first chapter, Atwood talks about the origins of a sense of fairness, balance, and justice - concepts that may go back beyond humanity - apparently monkeys also get upset if when they have been taught that they can trade pebbles for cucumber slices and then one of them gets a far more covetted grape. She goes on to examine, in Chapter Two, the connection between debt and sin and between debtor and creditor, both of whom have been considered sinful at different times in history. The third chapter looks at the use of debt in plots and the symbolisms of mills and millers, who were thought of as cheats and Devil-like characters as the Industiral Revolution and capitalism marched on through the nineteenth century. She concludes the chapter with an old Greek saying, that the mills of the Gods grind slowly but they grind very small (thouroughly). Chapter Five looks at what happens when it comes time to payup: debtor's prisons, loan-sharks, liquidating creditors, rebelling against unfair taxes, and blood-soaked revenge. The final chapter is a rewrite of the Scrooge story, reframing it to look at the debt we owe to the environment, which we destroy, and those in the developing world, whose labor we profit off of.

"By making amends then, Scrooge is paying a moral debt. To whom does he owe this debt, and why? In Dicken's view, he owes it to his fellow man: he's been on the take from other people all his life-that's where his fortune has come from-but he's never given anything back. By being a creditor of such magnitude in the financial sense, he himslef has become a debtor in the moral sense, and it's this realization that's at the core of his transformation. Money isn't the only thing that must flow and circulate in order to have value: good turns and gifts must also flow and circule-just as they do among chimpanzees-for any social system to remain in balance."

Pointing towards an empty space

Tonight, I snuggled with my four year-old in bed to read his good-night story. His choice was one of the many books based on the movie Cars*. As we listed and described the various characters, I was struck once again by how few female characters are in that movie. Few as in one. Sally, the sports car who “turns heads”. Sigh, Pixar**. Cars wasn’t sexist enough? You had to make the spin-offs worse? Ok. It was time to living up to my values and start discussing these things with my kid.

Me: Hey, that’s not right! (flipping through the pages)
Kid: What’s not right?
Me: Out of all these cars, Sally’s the only girl!
Kid: Yeah, that’s right. Sally’s the girl.
Me: But… at your school, there are lots of boys and girls. And your teachers are both boys and girls. So where are the rest of the girls in Radiator Springs?
Kid: There ARE more girls there. They should have made the movie longer.

It would be easier to address sexism in children’s stories if the characters actually said “girls don’t like to race” or “boys don’t like to cook”. Kids get the concept of what’s fair or not and don’t like to be told that a toy or activity is off-limits. Oh yes, they can empathize with that! Instead, they’re shown only a few female characters, who just happen to fill the stereotyped roles of mother, love interest or helper/moral compass. I’ve seen the quick leap to Pixar’s defense, demanding to know if want all movies to have an equal number of male and female characters, who must have an equal number of lines. Of course not (and I hate that straw man too - he’s such a jerk!). The problem is the population, the entire set of movies that has such narrow and stereotyped roles. When each new movie comes out, though, I can’t point to the population, just to one more example. It’s also not good enough to deflect criticism by saying “But it’s a great movie! Toy Story is a classic!” Dude. Would I be concerned if only bad art was sexist?

*Pixar, I love most of your movies, but you are sorely testing my patience with the vast quantities of shitty kids’ merchandise from that Cars movie.

** Ok, Pixar, serious points off for that one.

Duraebang - Anti-Trafficking Group in Korea

HELPING VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING BECOME SURVIVORS: DURAEBANG

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

Check out the FB event page at: http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=209298802385&index=1

This December, as we count down to the winter solstice, holidays of hope and a bright new year, Lila Yoga has partnered up with the House of Sharing International Outreach Team to raise funds for Duraebang, “My Sister’s Place,” an NGO that supports women trafficked into prostitution around US military bases in South Korea. Please make a donation on behalf of yourself, or as a gift for a loved one, that will go directly towards helping women victims of trafficking start their lives anew.

We are specifically raising funds to support their newest shelter, opened in July of 2009, that provides a safe haven, legal and logistical assistance to Filipino women trafficked into Korea.

For more information on the shelter and trafficking in Korea, visit: http://www.lilayoga.com/duraebang

The shelter is in need of financial assistance, as are the individual women who are staying there. All funds raised by January 1st will be passed directly to Duraebang—50% will go to running the shelter, and the remaining 50% will be given directly to the women residing in the shelter.

Please give what you can, and please invite your friends and family to do the same. This holiday season we can make a real difference for gender equality by supporting women victims of trafficking.

**If you wish to make a donation on behalf of someone else as a holiday gift, you can request a commemorative electronic certificate in her/his name marking your donation. If you wish to pursue this option, please include the information in an email after you make your donation and I will email it to you directly!**

If you are in Korea, you can donate by direct bank transfer to the following account:

Bank: KB Bank (Kookmin Unhaeng)
Account #: 368102-01-146063
Name: ANGELA LYTLE

If you are international or prefer to use Paypal, you will find a live link to donate through paypal on our website at: http://www.lilayoga.com/donate

Please email us at parvati@lilayoga.com when you make your donation, with your name and donation amount, and let me know if you’d like a commemorative certificate (electronic through email) if you are donating on behalf of someone else. I will be handling all donations directly, with the clearance of Duraebang, and giving them the total at the end of the donation period. Information about all monies raised and given to Duraebang will be made available on January 1st, 2010 on our website at www.lilayoga.com/duraebang

For more information on Duraebang, see their website at: (http://www.durebang.org/htm/esub1-2.htm)

Better a filler post than NO post, which is what I contributed on Saturday. Since the previous Saturday's post was me whining about mastitis, I guess I have officially been suffering from Boob Issues for a week. It seems to be getting better now.

But nobody cares about my boobs (except the baby). So to switch to another topic entirely - check out this crazy ass interview. My head is still reeling. As someone says in the comments, let's hope that some of our homegrown fundies watch this and realize what jackasses they sound like to the rest of the world.

Feminist Trappings

Yes, yes. It's a filler post. This is what adorns my walls - a couple of cards I picked up at the Toronto Women's Bookstore and things I've ripped out of magazines - mostly Bitch and Bust, but all kinds of random things I've bought over the past couple of years. What isn't pictured here is the Hot Priests of Rome calender, but it didn't seem to fit quite as well.