A male Cowbird (Molothrus ater). I’m always conflicted about Cowbirds, because they are brood parasites and I’m never happy to see a large amount of them hanging about. Click for full size.
Images © C. Ford.
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Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
A male Cowbird (Molothrus ater). I’m always conflicted about Cowbirds, because they are brood parasites and I’m never happy to see a large amount of them hanging about. Click for full size.
Images © C. Ford.
Supporters of Planned Parenthood (EPG_EuroPhotoGraphics / Shutterstock.com)
Missouri, again. Anyone surprised? I am so sick of these sanctimonious idiots insisting on sticking their nose into every uterus on the planet, looking to punish women people for having the nerve to think they are full, autonomous human beings. Sanctity of life my arse.
Senators in Missouri are moving to hold the president of a St Louis-area Planned Parenthood affiliate in contempt of court – under threat of jail time – for refusing to submit private medical documents.
The move comes after the state general assembly’s committee on the sanctity of life subpoenaed documents from Mary Kogut, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, in an investigation into her organization.
[…]
A lawyer responded on behalf of Planned Parenthood that the committee did not have the authority to subpoena these documents, and that handing them over would violate federal privacy law.
Despite these legal objections, the Missouri senate will begin a hearing Tuesday to introduce a bill determining whether Kogut should be found in contempt.
Kogut now faces a potential indictment on contempt charges. If charged, she faces up to 10 days of jail time as well as a fine of $300 for, as the subpoena itself states, is the right of the general assembly to “punish”.
YES!
Chase Iron Eyes, courtesy of Last Real Indians.
TRAHANT REPORTS – Chase Iron Eyes will officially announce his candidacy for Congress today at the North Dakota Democratic Convention.
“I’m running for Congress out of necessity,” he told Prairie Public Radio Thursday night. “I take a look around and I see that our government is broken, and I feel responsible to do my part to try and fix this on behalf of North Dakota.”
Iron Eyes is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, a founder of Last Real Indians, and an attorney for the Lakota People’s Law Project.
Iron Eyes, 38, is challenging U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer, a Republican.
Cramer made news by opposing provisions in the Violence Against Women Act that recognized tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians. In a 2013 post published on Last Real Indians, Melissa Merrick, a Spirit Lake tribal advocate for victims, told about an encounter with the congressman. “Cramer began what turned out to be roughly 20 minutes verbal attacks directed at me and meant for all Native people,” she wrote “Cramer stated that indeed he did vote yes on the Violence Against Women Act, but he did not agree with the tribal provisions and that he was sure they would be overturned in the Supreme Court.”
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/04/03/chase-iron-eyes-runs-north-dakota-out-necessity-164009
Donations to Lakota People’s Law Project would be greatly appreciated.
Nicole Willis, Confederated Tribes of Umatilla member
On March 21, the day after coordinating Bernie Sanders’ meeting with tribal leaders in Washington state, Nicole Willis, Confederated Tribes of Umatilla member, received the news she had been hired by his campaign as the National Tribal Outreach Director. She is the Sanders campaign’s first and only full-time Native American staff member.
“Senator Sanders and his campaign are deeply committed to elevating the issues of Native American communities,” Arturo Carmona, the National Deputy Political Director told ICTMN. “The hiring of Nicole as our National Tribal Outreach Director is just one more way for the campaign to seriously engage not only politically but also by elevating the strongest policy agenda of any presidential candidate. Nicole was one of the strategists who drove the Obama model of tribal outreach and we are now taking that to a whole new level with this campaign. Bernie 2016 is setting a new standard for campaigning in Indian country.”
Sanders has at least recognized there are indigenous people in this country. A few more stories:
American Indian leaders in Vancouver meet with Sen. Bernie Sanders at the first stop of the Democratic presidential candidate’s push towards Friday’s Democratic caucus. Pictured from left are, Becky Archibald, Roben White and Sanders. White is gifting Sanders with a Pendleton blanket, ledger art, and a necklace for his wife, Jane Sanders.
Bernie Sanders Expands Native Inclusion.
Photo courtesy of Nicole Willis and the Bernie Sanders Campaign:
Bernie Sanders meeting with Yakama Nation tribal members
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, center, and Tara Houska, left, during a Keep It In The Ground Act press conference in Washington, D.C. on November 4, 2015. On Tuesday, Houska was appointed to the position of Courtesy Jeff Malet, dailysignal.com.
Tara Houska, Ojibwe, Named Native American Advisor to Bernie Sanders.
Courtesy Whitehouse.gov Franklin Pierce was a staunch believer in Manifest Destiny and the acquisition of land, he took office in 1853 with his eye on Alaska, Hawaii and Cuba.
Franklin Pierce: Fierce Protector of White Settlers in ‘Indian Territory’
Editor’s note: Voters this year will elect the 45th president of the United States. This is the 14th in a series of 44 stories exploring past presidents’ attitudes toward Native Americans, challenges and triumphs regarding tribes, and the federal laws and Indian policies enacted during their terms in office.
[…] Also in 1854, Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, organizing the Kansas and Nebraska territories—comprising parts of present-day Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming—and opening them to white settlers. The bill paved the way for a transcontinental railroad joining Chicago with California.
The biggest obstacle to the railroad, however, was more than 10,000 members of the Kickapoo, Delaware, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Kansas, Ottawa, Wyandot and Osage tribes. These residents had rights to the land guaranteed by treaties, yet the federal government was already chipping away at them. […]
Thanks to Ice Swimmer. I miss the sea something fierce, it’s always good to see photos. Click for full size.
Bladderwrack and reed debris. © Ice Swimmer
Sailing in Xmas. © Ice Swimmer
Sun low over Toolonlahti. © Ice Swimmer
Sunset from Merisatama. © Ice Swimmer
Sunset from Siltasaari Hels. © Ice Swimmer
Thanks to Ice Swimmer for these gorgeous images. Click for full size.
Fog and ice reflections. © Ice Swimmer
Hietaniemi cemetary in fog. © Ice Swimmer
Midsummer night fog and light. © Ice Swimmer
Otsolahti fog in Midsummer. © Ice Swimmer
Peter Churcher has a new series out, Rear Balcony, well worth seeing, in person, if you can. It will be at Michael Reid Galleries Berlin, 8th – 30th April 2016. You can some of his earlier work here.
Four Self-portraits in a Bunch of Balloons 2014, 162 x 130 cm.
it’s going to be ages before anything is growing here. Sigh. Click for full size.
Tiger Lily, © C. Ford.
Ted and Rafael Cruz: Like Frightening Father, Like Scary Son.
Extremist antigay preacher Rafael Cruz groomed his son for the presidency since the age of 9 — and now Ted Cruz is ready to put his father’s hateful views into practice. (AP Photo)
Ted Cruz is bad enough all on his own. If Cruz is elected, however, it will be a two-for-one deal. The devil and hellfire Daddy Cruz goes right with him.
If you follow politics at all, you probably know Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz’s major issue stances — he’s anti-LGBT equality, anti-abortion rights, a proponent of free-market economics and an aggressive foreign policy.
But to really kow Cruz’s worldview, it’s important to know his father, mentor, and top campaign surrogate, 76-year-old Rev. Rafael Cruz.
“Rafael Cruz is an extremist,” Chuck Smith, CEO of Equality Texas, tells The Advocate. “He is the senator’s role model. Rafael Cruz spoke at the World Congress of Families event in Utah with a gay-bashing lineup of hateful speakers, and he is Ted’s surrogate traveling across the country on the campaign trail bashing gay people. Like father, like son.”
And the elder Cruz, who hit the campaign trail extensively in Ted’s successful run for U.S. senator from Texas in 2012 and is doing so now in his presidential effort, says the things his son — or almost any politician — can’t get away with.
[…]
Among Rafael Cruz’s other antigay greatest hits: At the World Congress of Families event last November, he said gay people want to legalize pedophilia, starting with an effort to strike down age-of-consent laws. Indeed, he has frequently described LGBT people as sexual predators. He has also said marriage equality is part of a government plot to “destroy the concept of God” and establish socialism in the United States.
[…]
The lack of distance between father and son shows how dangerous a Ted Cruz presidency would be, Smith tells The Advocate. He “lets his father say all the fiery gay-bashing rhetoric, but Ted Cruz will implement that rhetoric in his policies and appointments,” Smith says. “He is the worst candidate in the race, and I have no doubt he will discriminate against gay and transgender people all over the United States if he is elected president.”
A brief round up of the amazingly stupid and awful…
Rally to keep the Confederate flag flying (Mashable/Twitter)
Mississippi governor Phil Bryant recently proclaimed April to be Confederate Heritage Month , adding an official flourish to a longstanding tradition in his state and several others. April, he wrote in the proclamation, is “the month in which the Confederate States began and ended a four-year struggle”.
Bryant’s proclamation does not mention the central cause of the struggle – slavery – but instead announces the month as a chance to “gain insight from our mistakes and successes” and to “earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage and our opportunities which lie before us”. It also sets aside 25 April as “Confederate Memorial Day”.
Beata Szydło supports the motion to ban abortion. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock
The Polish prime minister, Beata Szydło, said she backs moves towards a total ban on abortion, in a sign the nationalist government may be set to turn its attention to the nuclear family.
A campaign against abortion is due to be launched this Sunday in the country’s Roman Catholic churches. Priests have been asked to read out a letter from the bishops’ conference calling for Poland’s existing, limited abortion rights to be scrapped.
Naeila El Shatir considers her cat Sherry to be part of the family. (CBC)
Thanks to Tim Gueguen for the heads up. Naeila El Shatir, a Syrian refugee, was very happy to be going to Canada, but she also had a great need to ensure another refugee made it with her, her cat Sherry.
“This cat suffered as we suffered in the war. He was always afraid,” she explained. “He spent a very difficult time with us. He always looked at me to ask, ‘When will all of this end?'”
[…]
For El Shatir, who counseled refugee children with psychosocial issues, taking care of Sherry became a form of therapy and a way of honouring her sister’s memory.
In February, El Shatir and her elderly mother were accepted as government-sponsored refugees in Canada, but pets were not allowed.
“There is no chance,” El Shatir said. “There is a big list of what you can bring and can’t bring. I can’t bring cats or plants.”
El Shatir was torn over whether to leave Sherry behind. In the end, she entrusted Sherry with her brother who promised to complete the extensive medical screening and paper work required to ship a cat to Canada.
[…]
“I thank Canada, its people, its government for giving the Syrian people a chance to restart our lives again. To have a chance to live in a normal way and a safe way. Also for giving my cat another chance to live.”
There seems to be a prevailing sense that any refugee should be damn glad to be out of a bad situation, who cares if they are treated like human beings floating about. It’s good to see there are people who do understand how difficult it is for refugees, and something like a beloved pet can make all the difference to a person, especially one who has been subjected to ongoing trauma. You Canadians are serious nice.
