now this is a government that puts people over profit

so i've talked before about some of my concerns with the pharmaceutical companies... i was about to leave for work this morning when a headline caught my eye that i had to write about. Thailand has figured out how to be able to better provide affordable or no-cost drugs for HIV and heart conditions.

a (literal and figurative) dangerous (not so recent) trend

60 Minutes reported last week on 'stop snitchin'', you can watch a bit of the report, among other video clips, if you're interested. This discussion goes back to a previous post of mine... and, actually, a 30 page paper I wrote in graduate school (though the paper I wrote was specifically about immigrants and crime reporting). But really, what incentive is there to report crime? And what about for people who have no reason to trust the police will help them? Is this self-destructive, self-protective or a little bit of both?

ramblings and thoughts about the Virginia Tech shootings

i'm sad that we live in a world where a fatal 'domestic dispute' on a college campus is no cause for alarm. A white student named Emily and a black student named Ryan were shot... domestic dispute or not... this is cause for alarm. Regardless, there was no way they could have expected or assumed that the campus needed to be shut down... and I'm not at all saying that it should have been. I've just been irritated that every news report I hear says the police thought it was "just a domestic dispute" over and over again. Like shrug, another day at the office. Any violence should be a cause for alarm in my world... I've discovered over the past few days that there were other issues at play. My pal wrote a bit about this issue and with her permission, I'm pasting it here:

I think, actually, that their decision is more a reflection of information they have based on what has been, and not on the changing nature of our culture. What happened yesterday was an anomaly of what we have known. But it is not nearly such an anomaly of what we are becoming - placed in context of the overall level of violence in our culture - mobility, access to guns, stress, entitlement, rage, a completely meritless war, warped construction of masculinity laced with violence that depends on the oppression of women for the roots of its construction, the most powerful man in the world blatantly acting in irrational, disrespectful, and oppressive ways, AND the continuing hate against women that entitles men to express their rage by using all of the means that are now at their finger tips.

In addition, it turns out that another reason they didn't respond was this "person of interest", a man they were questioning (Emily's boyfriend) as a possible suspect... because Emily's roommate had divulged that he (the boyfriend, named Karl Thornhill) had guns and that she had gone with him recently to a shooting range.

i'm overwhelmed with the ache I feel for everyone that has been affected directly or indirectly by this... the victims, their families, the survivors, other students that no longer feel safe at their schools, every person who feels sick to their stomach or ache in their heart about this tragedy. And yes, believe it or not, I even feel ache for Cho Seung-Hui.

i'm angry that the media continues to miss or discuss how so many school shootings (a) are often directed against girls or women and (b) could have be prevented. This is an opportunity - but it's not used as such.

Notice I wrote, 'directed against girls or women'... not because of girls or women. Day before yesterday, an Australian paper started their article about the shootings with a picture of 18 year-old Emily Jane Hilscher, the first victim, and printed "THIS is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US history." Um, hold the phone (as my grandma used to say). WHAT? She sparked it? I just noticed that the paper has noted the negative reaction to the author's language. They insist they were not trying to blame Emily for being shot. The problem is this is what always happens. Her skirt was too short, what was she doing out at that time of night, etc. Even though, Cho Seung-Hui wrote a note that said "you caused me to do this" - it was not in fact caused by anyone or anything but Cho Seung-Hui and more so, the US's addiction to violence. And also, to be clear, this is the worst school shooting in history... not the worst shooting in history (as some have asserted)... ask the native people.

Ok, so the last time I checked, each individual is responsible for his or her own actions. I believe that a person who takes responsibility or holds him or herself accountable for his or her actions is the standard we should set, is how we should socialize our children. Say a lamp falls off of a table, every child within 10 feet of the lamp yells "I didn't do it!" We need to raise our children to say, "it was me, I'm sorry, I'll clean it up". And as adults, we need to acknowledge the accountability and have fair and consistent consequences. But we don't. We raise our children to blame one another. Then are children grow up with the guilt and shame of believing things completely out of their control were their fault (parent's divorce, sibling's sexual abuse, their own sexual abuse, a pet's death... you get the point).

Boys are allowed to be angry, not sad - and never to cry. Boys are allowed and sometimes expected (in the US) to externalize their anger with violence... whereas girls, aren't allowed to be angry and since they have every reason to be pissed off as hell, they tend to internalize their anger (which manifests in the form of eating disorders, self-mutilation, low self-esteem, etc.).

But then when an angry young man (not originally from the US) is responsible for the worst shooting in history, we have to find out why? Why would this man do this? He had a history of stalking women, was suicidal at times and was sent to counseling. His writing tutor was so afraid of him she had an assistant with her when she tutored him.

Another article I ran across, shed a little more light on some of the warning signs. One of his professors, sassy poet Nikki Giovanni, said of his violent writings:

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of
his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk
and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy.
It was the meanness - I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people - it
was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including
taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to
class, and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken
out of her class, saying she would quit if he was not removed.

His fellow students were "waiting for him to do something":

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former
classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an
AOL Web site.

"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't
have even thought of."

He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry
about whether he could be a school shooter."

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to
hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But
when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying,
bawling."

Something tells me that there's a reason his writings were "like a nightmare". Something tells me his life was a nightmare to him, a nightmare he wanted to end. It's awful that he had to create a nightmare to end his own.

So Ms. Cambio, a.k.a. Ms. Violence Prevention? What have you got for us? What is the answer?

Well, my gut tells me this could have been prevented. Even though he was hospitalized at one point, and obviously was potentially dealing with some major mental illnesses, he did not get the help he needed. (oh right, boys aren't supposed to get help, especially not from a therapist) It's hard for anyone, especially someone that's extremely troubled, to establish enough trust in a short period of time to have therapy actually be helpful. As a country we need to be more proactive and less reactive when it comes to violence. I don't want getting onto a university campus to become akin to getting on an airplane. But, of course, I don't want anything like this to ever happen again. Where's the middle ground?

If I had the time and the energy, I'd like to analyze all of these school shootings sites listed on the school violence resource center website and see if we can glean any potential prevention points. Maybe they've done that already. Anyone looking for a dissertation topic?

All I know is, we need more violence prevention programs (if you want to know of some good programs to donate to, let me know), and fewer guns. Please. The early shootings, even before Columbine, should have inspired some change... and by change, I'm not talking about more security, metal detectors or banning black trench coats. Why does it have to come to this? Please, please, please let me see a world, in my lifetime, where prevention is made a priority. For our children, for our grandchildren, for ourselves.

men ending violence in high heels

i'm not really about awareness months, as i believe we should be aware and talking about these issues every month. However, this morning, as part of my new job (uh.. the job that has made it nearly impossible for me to keep blogging every day), I participated in an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes. Today was a cold and rainy day but still a lot of people came out to walk and we received many donations and pledges - money that will support organizations (like mine) that are working to end violence. As part of the event, men don a pair of high heel shoes and literally walk a mile in them. There will be walks all month throughout the country, check if your city is doing one. The walk came out of the United Gender Movement and the International Men's March to stop Rape, Sexual Assault and Gender Violence. This movement is looking for ways to include men in the movement to end violence against women. Too often people working in the field of domestic and sexual violence are all women.

There are a lot of organizations that are men actively working to end violence, including Generation Five, One in Four (previously called No More), Men Ending Rape, Men Stopping Violence, A Call to Men, and several more. I commend the men involved in these (and other like-minded) organizations. Violence can't end without it (and while it gets good publicity, walking in high heels isn't enough...)

So if you want to be part of the movement, contact a local anti-violence agency and inquire about volunteering. If you live in the US, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center has a list of state coalitions - or you can check the list posted on the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website. Some states have joint sexual & domestic violence coalitions, while others have coalitions specific to each issue. Either site is a good place to start to find a local place. If you can't volunteer, make a donation -- every little bit helps.

Ok... stepping off my soapbox now. Oh wait, isn't that what blogs are for?

global warming is great! when you have access to air conditioning...

A report released today by the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (a UN Panel) has proclaimed that poor people will be hurt most by global warming, aka climate change. Hmmm... that's weird. It never works out that the people with the least power to change something are the most affected...

The report states that:

• Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases.
• A global assessment of data since 1970 has shown it is likely that anthropogenic warming has had a discernible influence on many physical and biological systems.
• Other effects of regional climate changes on natural and human environments are emerging, although many are difficult to discern due to adaptation and non-climatic drivers.
  

Check out the interactive map on the BBC website.


PS. If you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth... uh, you should -- no matter what you think about Mr. Gore.

nine million children would vote if they could

if you haven't heard already, there is a ten year-old running for President of the United States. Ok, so not really but check out the website anyway. The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) has started this campaign to increase awareness about the nine million children in the U.S. without health insurance and to encourage people to contact Congress about the All Healthy Children Act (H.R. 1688) which would insure children and pregnant women.

i'm all about creative ways to get people's attention and respect the CDF but since I just got back from facilitating a training about positive youth development, i'm a little annoyed by the tokenism. That didn't stop me from signing the petition though... and not just because my mom's maiden name is Flynn. (errr... can we think of a new name for that besides maiden? her pre-marriage name? her original name? her natural name? any suggestions out there?)

random aside: i had a bumper sticker at one point that I bought at a CDF conference (about 8 years ago) that said something like "I vote because kid's can't" -- i need to find that again.

mexico lindo

so, i'm a tease, aren't i? five minutes ago i posted that my blog entries were going to decrease then i turned around and posted another. just trying to keep you on your toes.

i wanna live in mexico again. our neighbors to the south are becoming more progressive as the U.S. is becoming regressive recessive more conservative with some of its social policies. Not only did Mexico City pass a civil union law in November but they are likely to legalize abortion soon. Though

he country's antiabortion activists pushed back last week by introducing a bill that would charge women who have illegal abortions with a one-to-three-year prison sentence -- already they face a sentence of six months to a year. (There had better be a clause in the bill for an increase in prison funding, though -- conservative estimates project that 110,000 or so women each year have illegal abortions in the country.) (read more)

I like the parenthetical comment. I couldn't have said it better.

Mexico has impressed me when I was there in 2002, 2003 and 2004. I attended the Pride March in 2002 and 2004 and also in 2004 I attended a convention for the 10th anniversary of the Catholics for Choice group. I also had the opportunity to attend HIV prevention conferences and other activist events with CETLALIC, the school I attended and volunteered with. None of the people I met, got to know and talked with could have ever imagined that such laws would have been passed in their lifetime... they hoped and hoped and hoped though. I'm so happy for Mexico... and my friends there.

un cafecito por favor

Well folks, I started my new job today, which might change how often I will be able to post... though my blog posts will decrease a little... my coffee intake will definitely increase. Therefore I have coffee on the brain.

I've been attempting to drink both fair-trade and organic coffee as often as possible ever since I read a little more about the process... particularly when I read A Cafecito Story by Julia Alvarez. Since I'm short on time this evening, I'm going to be totally lame and post a link to an article that caught my eye this evening. The article is from salon.com and talks about a recent USDA ruling that changed the requirements for organic certification that will potentially affect our access to organic coffee, among other organic goods...