“Women are not making it up when they say they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” said Stephanie Shields, the psychology professor who conducted the study. “If you don’t express any emotion, you’re seen as not human, like Mr. Spock on ‘Star Trek,’” she said. “But too much crying, or the wrong kind, and you’re labeled as overemotional, out of control, and possibly irrational.”
[...]
“When men express anger they gain status, but when women express anger they lose status,” Yale social psychologist Victoria Brescoll, who conducted three experiments on how people perceive female anger, said in an interview.
- The crying game: male vs female tears - Yahoo! News

I’m so angry I could cry. Damn you, feelings!

Over the past week there have been countless demonstrations around the world is support of freedom and democracy in Burma. Even in the virtual world of Second Life there has been a red t-shirt campaign and a "human chain" action to bring people together, spread the word, and show support for the people of Burma. On Flickr you can see many more pictures of this innovative action as well as photos from demonstrations around the world calling for peace and justice in Burma.

Our colleagues at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship have been hard at work and have a lot of information to share including this list of Burma events around the U.S. and the world, a collection of statements from Buddhist communities in support of their brethren in Burma, and most importantly an updated list of what we can do to support the people marching for democracy in Burma.

BPF's action page includes this harrowing first-person account of events:

We just got phone call with our sister living in Yangon about a few hours ago. We saw on BBC world, saying that 200 monks were arrested. The true picture is far worse. For one instance, the monastery at an obscure neighborhood of Yangon, called Ngwe Kyar Yan (on Wei-za-yan-tar Road, Yangon) had been raided early this morning.

A troop of lone-tein (riot police comprised of paid thugs) protected by the military trucks, raided the monastery with 200 studying monks. They systematically ordered all the monks to line up and banged and crushed each one's head against the brick wall of the monastery. One by one, the peaceful, non resisting monks, fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Then, they tore off the red robes and threw them all in the military trucks (like rice bags) and took the bodies away.

The head monk of the monastery, was tied up in the middle of the monastery, tortured , bludgeoned, and later died the same day, today. Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the monastery, warded off by troops with bayoneted rifles, unable to help their helpless monks being slaughtered inside the monastery. Their every try to forge ahead was met with the bayonets.

When all is done, only 10 out of 200 remained alive, hiding in the monastery. Blood stained everywhere on the walls and floors of the monastery.

Please tell your audience of the full extent of the fate of the monks please please !!!!!!!!!!!!
'Arrested' is not enough expression. They have been bludgeoned to death !!!!!!

- BPF / Monks March in Burma

President Bush commuted the sentence of former aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case. Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been announced.
- Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence - washingtonpost.com

It’s the definition of impunity.

Tags: libby, scooter+libby, bush, GOP, corruption, cheney, christofascism, criminals, impunity

I suggest he look up my friends at Democracy South as well as other grassroots activists who have been working on this issue for many years.

Tags: lessig, creativecommons, freeculture, politics, integrity, corruption, democracy, democracysouth

The current use of ground forces in Iraq represents a complete misuse of the all-volunteer military…

If the United States is going to have a significant component of its ground forces in Iraq over the next five, 10, 15 or 30 years, then the responsible course is for the president and those supporting this open-ended and escalated presence in Iraq to call for reinstating the draft.
- Experts: Force increases may not be enough - Military News, Marine Corps News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports - Marine Corps Times

And…

Korb had two suggestions beyond the draft, both controversial. One would be to drop the military’s prohibition on openly homosexual people serving in the military.

“Over the past 10 years, more than 10,000 personnel have been discharged as a result of this policy, including 800 with skills deemed mission critical, such as pilots, combat engineers and linguists,” he said.

Second, Korb would drop gender restrictions on some direct-combat occupations.

“The idea that women who possess the requisite mental and physical skills should somehow be protected from the dangers of combat fails to acknowledge the reality of the modern battlefield and the role women are already playing in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Korb said.

Tags: iraq, war, draft, bush, christofascism, occupation, military

Tags: abortion, choice, saveroe, christofascism

When she declared of a congressman, “If his I.Q. slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day,” many readers were appalled, and several advertisers boycotted the paper. In her defense, her editors rented billboards that read: “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”
- Molly Ivins Is Dead at 62; Writer Skewered Politicians - New York Times

Tags: moly+ivins, texas+observer, texan, columnist, journalist, rip, progressive

Give it up for liberals: they managed to find the one way left to make traditional protests even more ineffectual and embarrassing. Have ‘em on the internet!
- ‘Second Life’ War Protest Ensures Continued Occupation of Iraq For Next 1,000 Years - Wonkette

Unfortunately, this post wasn’t nearly as funny as most Wonkette entries, but it’s a start. I see we’ve caused them to create a new category for politics in Second Life, so we’re clearly having some kind of impact,

Here’s Rik’s machinima video with music by Sweet Honey in the Rock. I understand a longer video may be in the works.

After blogging about who I thought should be Time's "person of the Year," I was a little disappointed with their announcement that "you" (in other words: everyone) was the winner.  It felt like a cop-out.  But the fact is, it's also true.

Time says:

It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

It's nice to see that the mainstream media is beginning to accept that not only have they been forced to release their strangle-hold on information, but that this transformation may be a good thing.  This is exactly what network-centric advocacy is all about.  The Internet has been a vital key in creating the infrastructure to allow groups of people to effectively collaborate around their own individual priorities.

The Time article is actually quite good, and they also highlight 15 people who typify "you."  One of the examples is Lane Hudson, who I had the pleasure of meeting at RootsCampDC a few weeks ago.  Lane's StopSexualPredators blog single handedly forced the Mark Foley isue into the blogosphere and then the media and then, finally, to Capitol Hill.  Not only did Rep. Foley resign his seat, exposing the repugnant behavior of the Republican chair of the House Congressional Missing and Exploited Children Caucus was a major blow to the right's "family values" image and gave the Democrats much-needed momentum in their campaign to take back Congress.

Lane was fired from his job at the Human Rights Campaign when his role was revealed, and he's got a new blog called News for the Left.  Let's show the power of the network to reward leadership like his and give him a hand. 

Tags: time, manoftheyear, personoftehyear, 2006, markfoley, lanehudson, stopsexualpredators, network-centric

33% Hugo Chavez
22% Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
12% Nancy Pelosi
10% The YouTube Guys
8% George W. Bush
8% Al Gore
5% Condoleezza Rice
2% Kim Jong Il

I voted for Pelosi thinking Chavez didn’t have a chance, but I was way wrong!

Tags: time, manoftheyear, personoftheyear, nancypelosi, hugochavez, 2006