April 12, 2013 | When McCraig and Miles Warren tried to claim their first-class seats on a US Airways flight, an employee told them to first change into more appropriate attire, according to a federal discrimination lawsuit filed Wednesday. A ticket counter employee repeatedly told the Warrens, who are both black, that their jeans, hooded sweatshirts and baseball caps violated an alleged first-class dress code. As the complaint states: Doe employee informed plaintiffs that it was US Airways policy that everyone in first class is required to wear slacks, button up shirts and no baseball caps. Doe employee demanded plaintiffs to change from jeans into slacks, a button-up shirt and told plaintiffs to remove their baseball caps. The Warrens reportedly headed to the restroom where Miles conferred to a white passenger, Michael Heffernan, that he was worried he’d miss his flight because of his apparent dress-code violation. So, imagine Miles’ surprise when he saw Mr. Heffernan and a friend sitting in first-class, wearing almost the exact same outfits that barred the Warrens from sitting in their seats—jeans and hoodies. Andrew Christie, a spokesperson for US Airways told AlterNet, “We’ve received the complaint and are currently reviewing it.
Iron? No. Barbaric? Yes. She hated feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women’s movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a prime minister could actually be female. But because of Thatcher, there will never again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening that particular door for other women, she closed it Thatcher will only be fondly remembered by sentimentalists who did not suffer under her leadership, but the majority of British working people have forgotten her already, and the people of Argentina will be celebrating her death. As a matter of recorded fact, Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity. MORRISSEY.
Singer Morrissey’s Scathing Letter to the Public About Margaret Thatcher: “A Terror Without an Atom of Humanity” | Alternet (via aboriginalpressnews)
Note: I don’t think it will be “never”, but it may take several generations because of status quo gender perceptions and oppression. With all the atrocities and terror spread by male presidents and prime ministers, people are still “voting” for males in such roles.
Gender plays no part in my book. I happen to be a woman. Do I want that door? Do I want “leadership”? Do I want “domination” (except as agreed-upon roleplay in a “bedroom”)? Nope. I am all for “dominion” tho.
(via aboriginalpressnews)
Monsanto Company: Tell The Truth About Pesticide-Resistant "Superworms"!
An agricultural giant called the Monsanto Company has risen to the top of the corporate food chains thanks to their genetically modified corn and soybean sees, seeds bred to withstand and even produce their own herbicides and pesticides.
But in the decades since they’ve appeared on the scene, two more things have sprung up: a new crop of “superweeds” that have evolved to resist our chemicals, and root worms that have become insecticide-resistant “superworms,” both of which are set to swarm the Midwest in the coming year.
Rather than come clean, Monsanto has been covering their tracks, working to market their corn as fresh produce and spending millions to kill California’s Prop 37 requirement to label their corn and soybeans as genetically modified products.
The FDA still doesn’t require safety studies for Monsanto’s new strains, they’re designing food to produce dangerous chemicals, and these same chemicals have been breeding superworms that will devastate the landscape in the decades to come.
Don’t stay silent. Please, join us in calling on Monsanto to stop fighting Prop 37 in California, and spread this information on the danger of genetically engineered crops to as many friends as you can.
It’s time we knew what’s in the food we’re eating and the crops these companies are growing. Stop the superworm swarm: Join us in calling for greater transparency at the Monsanto Company!
(Please click the headline to sign the petition.)
(via deadwicked)
Suddenly, NYPD Doesn’t Love Surveillance Anymore #OpBigBrother
Law enforcement agencies monitor our most basic acts. But try assigning them a watchdog and they resist with fury.
[…]
From these examples we learn what tattooing meant for these women. They were seen as not only more beautiful, but also possessing emotional and physical fortitude to endure pain and hardship, including the pain of childbirth. A woman’s tattooing was an affirmation of her strength and inherent spiritual power, procreative endowment, and as a form of clothing, an enhancement of beauty and a proclamation of her status. Finally, the tattoos were a form of recognition that allowed the soul of a woman to pass into the afterlife and join the glorious chain of her ancestors.
-Lane Wilcken, Filipino Tatoos: Ancient to Modern
(via aboriginalpressnews)
Comfort Women II
To follow up on my previous post, this is an article written by Mariko Oi from Tokyo, Japan on the ignorance of the main Japanese populace of the existence of comfort women.
Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia.
…
I also remember wondering why we couldn’t go straight to that period if it [the period of WWII] was so important, instead of wasting time on the Pleistocene epoch.
When we did finally get there, it turned out only 19 of the book’s 357 pages dealt with events between 1931 and 1945.
More details from the article:
- 200,000 women in territories occupied by Japan during WWII estimated to have been forced into become sex slaves for troops, or “comfort women”
- In 1993 Japan acknowledged use of wartime brothels
- In 2007 Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was forced to apologise after casting doubt on the existence of comfort women
This is the problem with male dominated societies, they don’t like to admit to the horrible things they do to women in order to assert their manhood. And after a while, denial becomes mistrust and then true belief that the bad things they did never happened.
(via aboriginalpressnews)
One of my facebook friends posted this.
Seriously?
I am getting so sick and tired of people ragging on those who have foodstamps….
Filling out that application is fucking degrading as shit.
Do you think people who use foodstamps tote that fact around like a badge of honour? You think most of them go to the grocery store and don’t worry about what people will think or say?
Well they fucking do. I know at least five people who either have had to be on, or are still on, foodstamps. I have spent time looking into the matter pretty thoroughly, I’ve even filled out the application myself just to see what questions are asked.This idea that people on foodstamps don’t deserve the help, and are wasting the help? That’s crap. That’s society trying to get you to not think about and care when we have a massive homeless population in the US, and an insane amount of people who are under the poverty line. (Our national poverty line, not necessarily the global poverty line).
It’s easy to not give a shit about those in need, about those who are struggling.
It’s really fucking easy to post “hilarious” pictures on facebook to perpetuate the notion that people don’t deserve the very little help that we as a nation are giving them.
It is less easy to take a second and think about what you’re doing, and those that you are brushing off as low-life, lazy bums who are to blame for their current state.
Check your privilege.
(via aboriginalpressnews)
Manifestation en solidarité avec les Algonquins / Protest in solidarity with the Algonquins #Montreal
[When] Thursday, April 4, 2013 [Time] 2:00pm in EDT
[Where] Bureaux de PF Résolu / Resolute’s office - 111, rue Duke, Montréal
Depuis des décennies, l’industrie forestière coupe massivement dans la réserve faunique La Vérendrye et ailleurs sur le territoire algonquin. Les Algonquins qui vivent de la forêt voient leur mode de vie traditionnel disparaître en même temps qu’elle. Elle leur procure nourriture, médecine et éducation, en plus d’être essentielle à la pratique de leur spiritualité. L’été dernier, des familles algonquines se sont levées pour tenter de faire cesser les coupes à blanc sur le territoire absolument vital de …
... on the Planetary Work Machine! Work to live, not live to work!
