Stop Violence Against Native American Women in the US

I heard about this issue on NPR's All Things Considered on April 24. I was appalled to learn about the level of sexual assault experienced by American Indian and Alaska Native women and the lack of protection and due process that these indigenous women, as all women, deserve.

Federal government studies have consistently shown that American Indian and Alaska Native women experience much higher levels of sexual violence than other women in the United States. According to the US Department of Justice, more than 1 in 3 American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped during their lifetime. Indigenous women are being denied protection and there is a systematic failure to punish those responsible for these crimes. - Amnesty International

Please Take Action Now!

numb

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Numb, that's how I'm feeling this week as the bad news piles up:
- 4/16, VT massacre, 33 dead
- 4/18, highest death toll in Iraq, 233 dead
- 4/19, supreme court decision to ban a medical procedure called intact dilation and extraction
- 4/20, the guy in front of me at a stop light casually tossing a lit cigarette out the window

Father, forgive us, for we do not know what we are doing.

more on the side effects of numbness here

to my code monkey

awesome technology

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth have come up with a truly awesome use of technology. Get a mind-blowing perspective of the crisis in Darfur using google earth. You'll need to go to the ushmm to download a Darfur layer for google earth. Google has updated the satellite imagery for this area, along with providing icons that identify destroyed villages, displaced persons and multimedia content to tell individual stories.

The actual satellite imagery is pretty detailed as well.

The satellite imagery of Darfur and Chad was taken between 2003 through 2006, some imagery shows what the village looked like before the attack. In other cases, villages may have been rebuilt by returnees or occupied by others. - ushmm.org

The image above is of the Abu Shouk camp, which was just what it looks like, a tent city in the middle of a desert.

As violence in this part of the remote region of western Sudan increases again, there is an expectation at Abu Shouk—and across Darfur—that no one will be heading back to their villages any time soon. In the face of that reality, the camp has undergone a slow transformation from a settlement of plastic-covered shelters hastily constructed with branches, to a community that has many of the trappings of permanence—and home. - oxfamamerica.org

perspective

As I was stumbling upon some sites tonight, I found the future of our world: a small glimpse into a timeline of epic scale. Then I stumbled upon what must have been the Dogwood Festival fireworks blinking outside my 2nd story window. I love watching fireworks. Not a big fan of hearing them, so seeing them from a distance works for me. My favorite are the ones launched high in the sky, bursting into a large globe with the ends twinkling out on the way down. The timeline music provided the perfect background. The timeline info provided an interesting perspective. Our existence is so fleeting. Is humanity going to continue to burn hot and fast and explosive leading to the inevitable grand finale?

deep thoughts or bedtime?

stumbled upon

As if I need another online addiction, but StumbleUpon is too cool.

feeling trapped?

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3 more days

Julie @ emerging women asked for easter reflections. I didn't have an easter reflection until I heard Three More Days by Ray Lamontagne today.

Easter came and went and I didn't feel it. Maybe it was the unusually cold weather and the boy searching for Easter eggs in the snow. Maybe it's the Easter bunny, I mean how does he fit into Holy Week? Maybe it was the pms. Maybe it's because I'm stuck on Good Friday. Good Friday? What is up with that name? What kind of greeting card society are we living in?

The origin of the term Good is not clear. Some say it is from "God's Friday" (Gottes Freitag); others maintain that it is from the German Gute Freitag, and not specially English. Sometimes, too, the day was called Long Friday by the Anglo-Saxons; so today in Denmark. - www.newadvent.org

But I digress. I'm stuck on Friday. I'm still waiting. I know what's been promised, but 3 more days can seem like an eternity. It's like that when you first fall in love with someone and you can't bear to be apart 3 hours let alone 3 days. It's like that when tragedy strikes or when you are waiting for test results or waiting for a call. Three more days could drive you insane. Three more days could convince you that you were imagining things. It could send you spiraling into depression or encourage you to pretend a thing never happened or lead you to discount promises made. Three more days and you could be acting like "it" never happened. I'm going to try not to do that. I'm going to try to wait and study and pray and be a wife & mother and be part of a community and not act like "it" never happened.

Three more days
Girl you know I will be coming home to ya darling
Three more days
Girl you know I will be coming home to ya darling
I know it's wrong to be so far from home
I know it's wrong to leave you so alone
I've just got to getcha this good job done
So I can bring it on home to you
So I can bring it on home to you
- Ray Lamontagne

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. - Matthew 12:40

Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." - John 2:19

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. - Matthew 16:21

"Sir, we remember what that liar said while he was still alive. He claimed that in three days he would come back from death. So please order the tomb to be carefully guarded for three days." - Matthew 27:63-64

"We had hoped that he would be the one to set Israel free! But it has already been three days since all this happened." - Luke 24:21

music that doesn't suck - part I

This post was inspired by flagrantdisregard's 50 songs for kids AND their parents (or 50 songs for kids that aren’t utter crap). We're always looking for music to listen to with the boy. Between the music Tom & I listen to, the boy has inherited some pretty eclectic tastes, here's a sampling of some of his favorites:

Ants Marching by DMB
Channel Z by the B52's
Help by the Beatles
Hot by Smashmouth
Peaches by President's of the United States of America
Shark Attack by Split Endz
Soun tha mi Primor Amor by Kinky
The City by Los Lobos
The Tale of Mr. Morton by Skee Lo
Underground by Tom Waits

other music that doesn't suck
- the boy practicing piano & the original music he creates
- the boy and Tom working on songs together (got to get a recording of it)
- we've been fans of 91.9 since moving to C-ville, I mean who can argue with commercial-free radio that plays such a wide variety of musical styles
- we're also now fans of 106.1, love the music, love the my corner playlists (mine was played a few weeks ago), love that they actually identify title & artist for every song they play, hope the commercials don't get too annoying (wasn't pleased with the tequila commercial)
- I like using pandora.com to "discover" bands I've never heard of before, but apparently internet radio is in jeopardy because of new royalty rules (that would suck)
- I've tried listening to spiritfm, because I must admit that I do like a good praise song, but I just can't handle the lack of diversity. I like the Christian music created by Ken Hymes, find some recordings here
- Praise Night at Peace, it's an open mic format that's fun for the whole family, they even got me up singing and I can't carry a tune (okay, that probably did suck ;)