Hate crimes, sadly, are not something new

I'm going to warn you right now -- this is sad. I encourage you to watch, though, because it is really powerful. And I promise you that I am looking for some uplifting news to post later today, because although I want to give as much attention as I can to victims of violence, I also know they wouldn't want us to stop living and laughing. So watch this, and then step outside in the sunshine for a few minutes and look at the sky. (Thank god my co-worker brought her puppies to work today!) Take a deep breath, and do something to stop the madness.



h/t to Mid-Life Clarity for the video.

Coming soon to a home near you: Guns

Guns. I've never shot one. I don't understand the appeal of holding one, having one, shooting one. All I know is they are destroying lives throughout America. In the past 2 weeks I have read about the shootings of a young gay teen in California, an entire family in Maryland shot by their 15-year old son while they slept, and 21 shot with 6 dead in a classroom at Northern Illinois University.

I know there are other stories, too. Lives are ended daily in inner cities across this country, from Baltimore to Detroit to L.A. You may wonder where these guns are coming from, and the sad news is that guns are extremely easy to buy in America. Disturbingly so. From the AP:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The online gun dealer who sold a weapon to the Virginia Tech shooter said it was an unnerving coincidence that he also sold handgun accessories to the man who killed five students at Northern Illinois University.

Another website run by Thompson's company, www.thegunstore.com, also sold a Walther .22-caliber handgun to Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in April on the Virginia Tech campus before killing himself.

"I'm still blown away by the coincidences," Thompson said Friday. "I'm shaking. I can't believe somebody would order from us again and do this."

Coincidences? Is he kidding? As long as guns are available like this, we will continue to see these "coincidences" again and again. I don't want to hear any more citizens or especially politicians twisting the Second Amendment for their own purposes. The right to bear arms was written into the Constitution so that a young nation could have a "well regulated militia" for protection and security of the nation — not so that you could go target shooting with a Glock 9 mm handgun.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is working to demand stronger gun laws. We have got to get together on this as a nation before our youngsters feel the only way to to solve their problems is with a gun.

Abuse of women in Iraq: "democracy" means doing whatever you want to them

There is an alarming story in the Guardian this morning about the current state of women in Iraq. Despite George Bush's claims that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has brought "new rights and new hopes to women," women in Iraq live a life of brutality and death.

[S]ince the 2003 invasion, advances that took 50 years to establish are crumbling away. In much of the country, women can only now move around with a male escort. Rape is committed habitually by all the main armed groups, including those linked to the government. Women are being murdered throughout Iraq in unprecedented numbers.

So-called "honor killings" have risen dramatically. Because there is no state government to regulate the safety of women, cultural and religious factions have taken it upon them selves to enforce rules as they see fit:

In October the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (Unami) expressed serious concern over the rising incidence of so-called honour crimes in Iraqi Kurdistan, confirming that 255 women had been killed in just the first six months of 2007, three-quarters of them by burning. An earlier Unami report cited 366 burns cases in Dohuk in 2006, up from 289 the year before, although most were not fatal. In Irbil, the emergency management centre had reported 576 burns cases since 2003, resulting in 358 deaths.

The Iraqi penal code prescribes leniency for those who commit such crimes for "honourable motives", enabling some of the men involved to get off with no more than a fine.

[A] man from Kirkuk ... accused his sister of adultery. "When we asked him why he wanted to kill his sister, he said, 'Because it is now a democracy in Iraq'. He thought that democracy meant he could do whatever he wanted." But the man's stupidity hid an important point: under the new system of government developing in Iraq, family disputes are increasingly settled not in state courts but by local tribal or religious authorities.

We keep hearing from this administration that violence is down in Iraq. Just a week ago, General Petraeus seemed guardedly optimistic about the situation in Iraq, saying that there is improvement, although there is still a great deal of danger still. The drumbeat from the White House, however, is still "stay the course" (although I haven't heard that phrase in a while, have you? In fact, I think the trend has been: "Mission accomplished," Stay the course," and now "Guarded optimism.").

So while those in office and those running for office would tell us that things are improving Iraq, I remind them of the words of Abigail Adams: Remember the ladies.

UPDATE: From Human Rights Watch, more background on the deterioration of women's lives in Iraq since U.S. involvement there:

Historically, Iraqi women and girls have enjoyed relatively more rights than many of their counterparts in the Middle East. The Iraqi Provisional Constitution (drafted in 1970) formally guaranteed equal rights to women and other laws specifically ensured their right to vote, attend school, run for political office, and own property. Yet, since the 1991 Gulf War, the position of women within Iraqi society has deteriorated rapidly. Women and girls were disproportionately affected by the economic consequences of the U.N. sanctions, and lacked access to food, health care, and education. These effects were compounded by changes in the law that restricted women's mobility and access to the formal sector in an effort to ensure jobs to men and appease conservative religious and tribal groups.

And from the Washington Post recently:

Before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, was known for its mixed population and night life. Now, in some areas, red graffiti threatens any woman who wears makeup and appears with her hair uncovered: "Your makeup and your decision to forgo the headscarf will bring you death."

Khalaf said bodies have been found in garbage dumps with bullet holes, decapitated or otherwise mutilated with a sheet of paper nearby saying, "she was killed for adultery," or "she was killed for violating Islamic teachings." In September, the headless bodies of a woman and her 6-year-old son were among those found, he said. A total of 40 deaths were reported this year.

Guns in America: Why?

In the last couple of days I heard two shocking stories of innocent people being shot. The first, of course, being the 19-year-old who shot 8 people with an AK-47 in an Omaha shopping mall. The other story, which hasn't gotten as much press, is about an 8-year-old girl who was shot when she tried to protect her mother from the mother's ex-boyfriend.

These are very different circumstances: in one we have a depressed, angry young man who steals his stepfather's assault rifle and goes on a shooting rampage. In the other situation, domestic violence rears its ugly head again, as a little girl sees her mother get shot twice and then jumps in front of her to protect her from further harm. Unfazed, the ex-boyfriend fired six shots into the little girl, critically injuring her.

The common thread in these stories: guns.

Why does anyone need to have an AK-47 ? Or, for that matter, a 9mm semi automatic pistol like the one used by the gunman in Detroit? There is no reason to have these guns! I know the argument that citizens should have guns for "protection" but I would like to see a study showing how many times a crime has been averted because a victim had a gun. I've never heard of such a study, so if you know of one please let me know.

I have however, seen studies here, here, and here, for example, that show that guns kept in the home are much more likely to be used to kill innocent people than to ever be used in self-defense. From the Brady Campaign:

A gun kept in the home is 22 times more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting, a criminal assault or homicide, or an attempted or completed suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

So I ask you: why ?