Current mood:	enraged
Current music:	Face Up and Sing - Ani DiFranco

Bitches and Hos - Uncut
The most useful thing I learned in music history 201 was that you can often identify cultural trends by observing what people are legislating against. In that vein, every time I feel the backhand of a civil smackdown (as with defense of marriage amendments, etc.) I try to take it as evidence of hope that the times they are a-changing and that such enacted bigotries are the last hurrah of a terrified and increasingly failing majority trying to preserve the comfort of its formerly presumed hegemony.

Sometimes though, I just want to curl up with a bottle of wine and a Sweet Honey in the Rock CD and wish alternately for a new incarnation of MLK, Gandhi or Hothead Paisan.

For todays trends in misogyny:

"Don't worry your pretty little head dear; We don't need no stinking foreign badges. We had nothing to do with it and we've got everything covered."

"The incident was not terror related." I dunno, as a woman I find it equally predictable and terrifying.

Tired of only having a 1 in 4 chance of being abused? Move to Central or South America instead and more than double your odds!

(See the link at the end for the 1994 wonderfully well-intentioned and totally toothless Declaration des Droits des Femmes).

...and while I should be happy for things like this I am so freaking tired of being the marked category separate from the default of 'human'.

I am grappling so hard for the silver lining my fingers are raw and pulpy. What I will take from it is this:

• I will continually strive never to fall into complacency.


• I will pursue my newest and most fervent long-term ambition to help develop and promote the adoption of integrated peace & conflict resolution / tolerance / communications curricula for all educational levels.


• I will petition NOW, RAINN, Emily's List, HRC and the ACLU to start lobbying for rape and domestic abuse as hate crimes.