No one mentions

No one on the tv has yet mentioned that James Brown was arrested for domestic abuse:

James Brown
Arrests: 8
Convictions: 3
Time served: 5 years, 4 days

1. The Godfather of Soul, at the tender age of 15, was arrested for stealing clothes out of cars. Young Brown was sentenced to 8 years of which he served 3 years and a day.

2. In 1978, Brown sat in jail for 3 days after he defied a court order to stay in the U.S. while authorities looked into his radio stations' dealings.

3. Brown was arrested in 1986 for operating a vehicle without proof of insurance and backing his van into a car. He was fined $25.

4. Later in 1986, Brown was arrested for allegedly speeding and attempting to elude officers.

5. In 1987 Brown was hauled in for assault with intent to kill when he allegedly beat his wife with a pipe and shot into her car. Adrienne Brown stated at the time, "I want him to seek help because he's a good man. I know he loves me, and I know it's a sickness. I feel this marriage is worth saving. I love him." Charges were dropped.

6. Brown led police on a two-state car chase back and forth across the Georgia-South Carolina border in September 1988. When he was finally apprehended in a Georgia housing project, Brown was charged with assault, carrying an unlicensed pistol, and carrying a deadly weapon at a public gathering. Additionally, the South Carolina police, who had blown out Brown's two front tires during the chase, charged him with assaulting a police officer and several other traffic violations. Brown was sentenced to 6 years in prison, of which he served 2, and he remains on probation for aggravated assault and failing to stop his car for a police officer. "I aggravated them and they assaulted me," said Brown at the time of the charge.

7. The following day, Brown was arrested again for allegedly driving while intoxicated and improper road movement. His 2 years in jail covered this infraction as well.

8. Brown was again arrested in 1995, after allegedly battering his wife. The singer, taken in by Aiken, South Carolina, authorities, denied the charges. Adrienne Brown, who died recently after routine surgery, also denied the most recent abuse, stating, "This has been a total mistake. James is not responsible for this accident." She claimed that she accidentally hit a mirror. Charges were dropped.

This comes from http://www.caderbooks.com/exmugs.html, and I checked it out.

I Got So Excited

NYT had an article about a woman. (personal note: it is not common to read anything about women in the NYT. Usually I find these women only after they have died. Note the last bunch of blogs.) It was about a woman named Mary Meagher, who died on Dec 9th. Let me quote from it..

But what was indisputably real was her eye for talent. Her clients, mostly lesser-known playwrights and directors when she first began working with them, included Douglas Carter Beane, Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, Matthew Penn, Brad Anderson, Alison Maclean, Mr. Brokaw and Mr. Silver, a group of artists she promoted with religious fervor.
“She was sort of the picker of hothouse orchids,” said the writer Jon Robin Baitz, who knew her but was not represented by her.
It was not her negotiating that set her apart; it was her conviction that her writers and directors, these artists on the periphery, deserved a place in the marketplace. She persuaded them of their as-yet-unrecognized gifts, and then made sure the recognition came. She was, as Mr. Beane, put it, “an enthusiast.” (Characters in several of Mr. Beane’s plays, including the agent in “The Little Dog Laughed,” now on Broadway, were partly inspired by Ms. Meagher.)
But as tireless as Ms. Meagher was in convincing her artists of their worth, her friends said, she could never do so for herself. She drank with abandon. Her personal life, her health and her finances she treated with a reckless neglect, all along maintaining a wit and charisma that enthralled almost anyone who came in contact with her.

(personal note: What really grabbed my attention that the picture you see of her (she is on the left, Douglas Carter Beane is on the right) was the only one of her in the article. There were 3 more images, all of white men. Who's death was it? )

links to feminist news

I get so tired reading mainstream news. I bet you do, too.

Here are some alternatives:

Alternet
Bitch Magazine
Bust
CHILL Magazine
Clamour Magazine
ColorLines
Daily Feminist News
IndyBay Women's News
INTHEFRAY Magazine
In These Times
Feminista!
Feministing
Ms. Magazine
Salon
The Scholar and Feminist Online
Tint Magazine
truthout
UN Women Watch
WireTap
Women's eNews
Women's Media Center

this list is thanks to feministing.com

I keep reading this blog: pandagon

Who was Ruth Bernhard?

Hailed by Ansel Adams as "the greatest photographer of the nude," Ruth Bernhard died this week.
The NYT said that her goal was to "reveal sculptural mass and the dominating spirit." She was 101 years old. She was part of Group f/64 (personal comment: I never heard about Ruth in my photography classes. Maybe because she photographed nudes. Imogen Cunningham was mentioned, and we were always shown pictures of lillies.). One of her most famous and repeated quotes was "I always said 'yes' to everything." She also is quoted "My nudes are ideals of my own feelings about being a woman, not an expression of erotic power, or a love object."

wikipedia has an extensive bio. photography west has wonderful images.

Who was Barbara Loden?

She made an independent film in 1970 (also have seen '71 given as the date of this film) called "Wanda" "about a desperate woman from the Appalachian coal country (played by Ms. Loden) who gets mixed up with a petty crook..."(nyt 12/21/06) . She was born in Marion, NC, so she knew what she was talking about. She died in 1980, married to Elia Kazan. She was an actress ("Splendor in the Grass" eg.), as well as a producer and director of "Wanda".
Her name was in the NYT because Parlour Pictures just found and released "Wanda".

Female Troubles for Wildlife Raise Human Worries

This was in Womens e-news
By Molly M. Ginty
Across the U.S., female animals exposed to toxic chemicals are suffering from a flurry of health problems. As scientists examine the impact of environmental pollution, some are pondering what the results may mean to female humans.

In California, female sea lions are spontaneously aborting their fetuses.
In the Great Lakes area, mother gulls are sharing nests and raising eggs together because their male partners have forgotten how to parent.
In upstate New York, female frogs have as much testosterone in their bodies as males.

Scientists say these aberrations all share a common link: exposure to toxic chemicals called "endocrine disruptors," which pollute the air, soil and water.

So, what are "endocrine disruptors"? Just what you think. If you want more info check out this link. (personal comment: Now, I was horrified when I started reading all of this, but had second thoughts when I read this:)

In addition to harming female animals, endocrine disruptors can cause the "feminization" of males. In Arizona, these chemicals have shrunken the gonads of largemouth bass and common carp. In the Midwest, they have spurred male waterfowl to grow female organs. In Washington, D.C., they have caused male fish to produce eggs.

Ever Heard of Margaret Spelling?

"We cannot prepare students for the global economy if we don't get them to grade level first."

— Secretary Margaret Spellings

This is the quote ed.gov shows next to her picture. (personal comment: the global economy is the focus of education?) I got turned on (personal comment: off) to her from an article in the NYT today, 12/18/06. It was about an animated bunny named Baxter.

Children first came to know Buster Baxter, the animated bunny who is the show's star, as the best friend of Arthur, the animated aardvark who is the title character of another PBS series. But most adults probably first heard of Buster in January 2005, midway into the show's first season, when word got out that an episode about maple sugaring, called "Sugartime!", would feature children in a Vermont family with 2 moms.

Guess what our Secretary of Ed did.... wrote to the head of PBS this

Many parents would not want their children exposed to the lifestyles exposed in this episode.

Well, it is time for the second season, and the producers of the program got extreme flack from the previous season. This year they have only 10 episodes, compared to 40 from the year before. However. ..... they will produce shows, according to PBS, that deal with touchy issues like Iraq . (Personal comment: what do you bet that all of the shows will have no opinions and will look a bit like propaganda? Does it surprise you that she graduated from the University of Houston with a bachelor's degree in political science. Why wouldn't we have someone who is familiar with education? And she followed George to Washington. Yuck.)
Here is another link to find out more about Spelling.

Women Lose Ground in Iraq

The title comes from the Washington Post (and I got it from TrouthOut).

For much of the 20th century, and under various leaders, Iraq was one of the most progressive Middle Eastern countries in its treatment of women, who were encouraged to go to school and enter the workforce. Saddam Hussein's Baath Party espoused a secular Arab nationalism that advocated women's full participation in society. But years of (personal comment: Bush's ...) war changed that.
(personal comment: This next part sounds familiar ... Afghanistan?) In the days after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many women were hopeful that they would enjoy greater parity with men. President Bush said that increasing women's rights was essential to creating a new, democratic Iraq.
But interviews with 16 Iraqi women, ranging in age from 21 to 52, show that much of that postwar hope is gone. The younger women say they fear being snatched on their way to school and wonder whether their college degrees will mean anything in the new Iraq. The older women, proud of their education and careers, are watching their independence slip away. (personal comment: That brings back the images in Handmaids Tail, again.)

Handmaid's Tale

"Pentagon is asked to investigate video"

That was the headline in today's NYT. A tiny headline and a tiny paragraph that was attributed to tne AP.

A group that supports religious freedom in the military (Personal question: isn't that part of separation of church and state, therefore the us gov is that group?) asked the pentagon to investigate a promotional video featuring active-duty military officers praising an evangelical Christian group..... (Personal comment: this is a scary website. Be warned.) Christian Embassy, the evangelical group that produced the video, said it had the Defense Department's permission to do so. Much of the (Personal comment: this is a scary video. Be warned.)video, which features four generals and three colonels in uniform, was recorded inside the Pentagon.

I kept having flashbacks to the emotional state I was in after reading The Handmaid's Tail. The video is from the christian embassy website. It is called christian embassy dc. There is also a christian embassy un, but this one is an .org. The it looks like they are under the umbrella of crusade.org.
On an army site I found this quote

"The Pentagon Chaplain’s Office also sponsors the Christian Embassy Bible Study Groups:
Disclaimer: The only authorized Bible & Faith Study Groups in the Pentagon Reservation are those that have coordinated with the Pentagon Chaplain’s Office and received sponsorship.
For the latest Bible Study Schedule, please visit the Christian Embassy Web Site"

This is a link to that video

women and equality

Feminist Daily News Wire
December 8, 2006

A report by the United Nations (UN) has found that the current state of women's disempowerment in Arab countries is a hindrance to the success and prosperity of Arab countries as a whole. (personal comment: DUH) The Arab Human Development Report calls for guarantees of lifelong protection from physical and mental abuse and the end of female illiteracy in Arab states by 2015, reports Reuters. While Arab women have equal status under international law, they are not encouraged to develop their talents and abilities as equal partners with men (personal comment: that really limits women, to think they can only become equal partners with men.), according to the UN press release. The report also argues that social, political, and economic factors (personal question: did the author of this forget religion?) hinder equal access to job opportunities, healthcare, and education for women.

The report notes that some Arab states have made progressive changes for women, yet too many barriers still impede women from being equal to men. (personal question: should that be our goal? equal to men? I believe that we are equal now, but do not have equal opportunities maily cuz of the laws that were written by men) "Human development requires more than economic growth alone. The fight against poverty is not a campaign of charity – it is a mission of empowerment. This is especially true as regards women, given that, of the world's one billion poorest people, three-fifths are women and girls," UN Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis said. (personal question: who is this Kemal?*) "Full participation and empowerment of women, as citizens, as producers, as mothers and sisters, will be a source of strength for Arab nations and will allow the Arab world to reach greater prosperity, greater influence and higher levels of human development."

LEARN MORE Read an excerpt from the "Arab Human Development Report: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World" online

*Well, he is part Turkish, went to Princeton and worked for the world bank. Why am I hesitant to belive him when he talks about women?

Who was Anna Klumpke?

There was a short blurb in the NYT a few months ago, from a gossipy column of 80 years ago. "Tounges are wagging about the strange path of Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, the Boston portraitist, who arrived in France to paint Rosa Bonheur, whose work she admired...."
To the right is the portrait of Rosa Bonheur done by Klumpke.
This is what I found about Klumke and Bonheur:

As a girl, Anna had been given a "Rosa" doll, which had been styled after the French animal painter Rosa Bonheur, who was so famous at the time that dolls were made in her image. So from early childhood, Anna was fascinated and inspired by Bonheur. Intent on painting the great artist's portrait, on October 15, 1889, under the pretext of being the interpreter to a horse dealer, she met Rosa Bonheur. The two soon resided together at Bonheur's estate in Fontainebleau until the death of Bonheur in 1899. Klumpke was named as the sole heir to Bonheur's estate, and she oversaw the sale of Bonheur's collected works in 1900. She founded the Rosa Bonheur prize at the Société des Artistes Français, and organized the Rosa Bonheur museum at the Fontainebleau palace.

She was a meticulous diarist. In 1908, she published a biography of Bonheur, Sa Vie Son Oeuvre, based on her own diary and Bonheur's letters, sketches and other writings. In the book, which was only published in English in 1998, Klumpke tells the story of Bonheur's life and relates how she met Bonheur, how they fell in love and how she became her official portraitist and companion. Following Bonheur's death, Anna divided her time between France, Boston and San Francisco, finally settling in San Francisco in the 1930s. In 1940, at the age of 84, Anna Klumpke published her own autobiography,Memoirs of an Artist. Anna Klumpke died in 1942 at the age of 86 years in her native San Francisco. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Elizabeth_Klumpke

In Woody Creek

I am just getting land legs after settling in Woody Creek. I am going to be paying more attention to this blog. Not that anyone but me reads it.
The picture on the left shows one of my recent surprises. After a blizzard the weather turned very cold, and parts of the bottom of the river froze.


The picture to the right is from my morning walk.
Enough about me and I.
This week lets catch up on women and events .