Drop Charges Against Saudi Woman Arrested for Driving a Car

The most controversial YouTube clip in Saudi Arabia this week doesn't feature obscenity, violence, or sex. It's an 8-minute video of a woman driving a car.

Technically, Manal al-Sharif didn't do anything wrong. She has a valid U.S. driver's license, recognized in Saudi Arabia, and she had her brother's permission as well as her brother himself beside her as her requisite accompanying male relative.

Yet Saudi police arrested and imprisoned Manal for eight days for defying a long-standing ban against women driving.

That's why Saudi women activists have created an urgent Change.org petition to demand that King Abdullah and the Saudi royal family drop charges against Manal. They describe the petition as “a call for solidarity with Saudi women’s rights.”

Click here to add your name to their petition.

In Saudi Arabia, women cannot vote, hold property, or even open a bank account alone. Most institutions are segregated by sex, with unequal access for women—in other words, gender apartheid.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world in which women cannot drive. Additional prohibitions against taking buses, riding bikes (can you even imagine??), and appearing in public alone essentially rule out independent travel for women.

For Manal, as a divorced, working mother, restrictions on travel create an immense burden. Her male relatives can't drive her daily, but private drivers cost an unaffordable $300-400 per month. Taxis are scarce, and drivers frequently exploit and harass female passengers.

Manal’s act of protest is part of a historic campaign encouraging Saudi women to begin driving en masse on June 17. Click here to join the petition to have charges against her dropped and bolster her efforts.

Without significant support, Manal may face harsh penalties. Saudi cleric and government leader Sheik Ghazi al-Shemri is calling for Manal to "be flogged in the women's marketplace as a model and a lesson."

Leading Saudi women's activists tell us that placing international pressure on King Abdullah is critical to ensuring Manal's safety -- and to galvanizing the June 17 movement.

Click here to add your name to this petition urging King Abdullah to drop these unjust charges against Manal al-Sharif:

http://www.change.org/petitions/drop-charges-against-saudi-woman-arrested-for-driving-a-car/

Thanks for taking action,

teabelly

First White House Roundtable with Young Latter-day Saints

this link will take you to a blog posting (on exponent) of the event by one of the participants.

below is cut and pasted from the WH blog (click here to see the original posting)

Posted by Paul Monteiro on June 01, 2011 at 09:45 AM EDT

On May 16th, Kal Penn and I hosted a youth roundtable with about 20 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our conversation touched on issues of top concern including ways to expand volunteerism, LGBTQ equality, and the relationship between the federal government and the Church. While admittedly a small group, it was a reminder of the variety of viewpoints that can exist in any large organization.

One of the participants in the roundtable was Kristine Haglund of Boston. She’s currently the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and maintains a popular blog, “By Common Consent.” Below she shares her thoughts about the roundtable:

“Have I Done Any Good In the World Today?” A popular Mormon song reminds members of the church that service and charity are fundamental duties of believers. One doesn’t have to look too far to find reports of Mormons visibly engaged in civic projects in their bright yellow shirts. Mormons are well-known for being highly organized, cheerful helpers in disaster relief and civic projects. They are also well-known for being politically conservative. An unlikely group for a meeting with the White House Office of Public Engagement, perhaps.

But there we were, about a dozen young (and young-ish) Mormons, talking about the kinds of civic engagement that could be the basis of collaboration with public agencies and other religious groups. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that young Mormons mostly care about the same issues as other young Americans: jobs, health care, the cost of higher education, the deployment of American troops overseas, GLBTQ rights, and the environment.

Although these concerns are shared with other young people, there are some peculiar valances for Mormons—since Mormons generally marry younger and have more children than the general population, they worry about having jobs that can support a family, rather than just a single person through their 20s and early 30s. They are more likely to be tuned into education issues than their peers, since they are likely to have children in public schools.

Another family-related issue that is especially salient for young Mormons is GLBTQ rights. Because of the Mormon Church’s very public stance on same sex marriage, young Mormons are more polarized over this issue than their peers. It’s important to know, though, that there is a wide range of opinions on the topic, even among believing and engaged young Latter-day Saints.

Another area of divergent opinion is on immigration issues—the Church has taken a fairly progressive position, and publicly articulated the principles that inform their stance. Nonetheless, significant numbers of conservative Mormons have dissented from the leadership, just as liberal Mormons did over California’s Proposition 8.

This diversity among Mormons belies the commonly-held stereotype of efficient, obedient, and uniformly conservative religionists. It was exciting to think about ways that working together on social issues where we have common ground can start to dilute that stereotype while, more importantly, building healthy families and the kinds of caring and connected communities we all want to live in.

Paul Monteiro is Deputy Associate Director for the Office of Public Engagement.

ending the stigma surrounding hiv & aids

if you didn't get a chance to watch the webcast live, you can watch it here:

my big moment is near the end where i sneak joshua the questions . . . under the table.

it was a beautiful experience for me. at the end, when the tapes quit rolling the whole room erupted in thunderous applause. it might sound out there to say, but it felt like there were way more voices than just the 10 of us in the room. i had this vision of all of those people who died because of stigma cheering with us. i hope this really is part of the beginning of a new dawn concerning this disease (and really all the other stigmatized diseases eg, mental illness)

Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse

The following was originally posted on CDC Public Health Matters Blog on May 16th, 2011 by Ali S. Khan.

There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.

A Brief History of Zombies
We’ve all seen at least one movie about flesh-eating zombies taking over (my personal favorite isResident Evil), but where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much? The word zombie comes from Haitian and New Orleans voodoo origins. Although its meaning has changed slightly over the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the undead. Through ancient voodoo and folk-lore traditions, shows like the Walking Dead were born.

A couple dressed as zombies - Danny Zucco and Sandy Olsson from the movie Grease walking in the annual Toronto Zombie Walk.

In movies, shows, and literature, zombies are often depicted as being created by an infectious virus, which is passed on via bites and contact with bodily fluids. Harvard psychiatrist Steven Scholzman wrote a (fictional) medical paper on the zombies presented in Night of the Living Dead and refers to the condition as Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome caused by an infectious agent. The Zombie Survival Guide identifies the cause of zombies as a virus called solanum. Other zombie origins shown in films include radiation from a destroyed NASA Venus probe (as in Night of the Living Dead), as well as mutations of existing conditions such as prions, mad-cow disease, measles and rabies.

The rise of zombies in pop culture has given credence to the idea that a zombie apocalypse could happen. In such a scenario zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way. The proliferation of this idea has led many people to wonder “How do I prepare for a zombie apocalypse?”

Well, we’re here to answer that question for you, and hopefully share a few tips about preparing for realemergencies too!

Better Safe than Sorry

Some of the supplies for your emergency kit.

So what do you need to do before zombies…or hurricanes or pandemics for example, actually happen? First of all, you should have an emergency kit in your house. This includes things like water, food, and other supplies to get you through the first couple of days before you can locate a zombie-free refugee camp (or in the event of a natural disaster, it will buy you some time until you are able to make your way to an evacuation shelter or utility lines are restored). Below are a few items you should include in your kit, for a full list visit the CDC Emergency page.

• Water (1 gallon per person per day)
• Food (stock up on non-perishable items that you eat regularly)
• Medications (this includes prescription and non-prescription meds)
• Tools and Supplies (utility knife, duct tape, battery powered radio, etc.)
• Sanitation and Hygiene (household bleach, soap, towels, etc.)
• Clothing and Bedding (a change of clothes for each family member and blankets)
• Important documents (copies of your driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate to name a few)
• First Aid supplies (although you’re a goner if a zombie bites you, you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you might get during a tornado or hurricane)

Once you’ve made your emergency kit, you should sit down with your family and come up with anemergency plan. This includes where you would go and who you would call if zombies started appearing outside your door step. You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake, or other emergency.

Family members meeting by their mailbox. You should pick two meeting places, one close to your home and one farther away.
1. Identify the types of emergencies that are possible in your area. Besides a zombie apocalypse, this may include floods, tornadoes, or earthquakes. If you are unsure contact your local Red Cross chapter for more information.
2. Pick a meeting place for your family to regroup in case zombies invade your home…or your town evacuates because of a hurricane. Pick one place right outside your home for sudden emergencies and one place outside of your neighborhood in case you are unable to return home right away.
3. Identify your emergency contacts. Make a list of local contacts like the police, fire department, and your local zombie response team. Also identify an out-of-state contact that you can call during an emergency to let the rest of your family know you are ok.
4. Plan your evacuation route. When zombies are hungry they won’t stop until they get food (i.e., brains), which means you need to get out of town fast! Plan where you would go and multiple routes you would take ahead of time so that the flesh eaters don’t have a chance! This is also helpful when natural disasters strike and you have to take shelter fast.

Never Fear – CDC is Ready

Get a Kit, Make a Plan, Be Prepared

If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It’s likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated. Not only would scientists be working to identify the cause and cure of the zombie outbreak, but CDC and other federal agencies would send medical teams and first responders to help those in affected areas (I will be volunteering the young nameless disease detectives for the field work).

To learn more about what CDC does to prepare for and respond to emergencies of all kinds, visit:
http://emergency.cdc.gov/cdc/orgs_progs.asp

To learn more about how you can prepare for and stay safe during an emergency visit:
http://emergency.cdc.gov/

To download a badge like the one above that you can add to your social networking profile, blog, website, or email signature visit:
http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies.asp

horse herpes outbreak forces rodeo queens to ride stick ponies

favorite quotes:

"it's kinna weeird, but you can't rilly halp that the disease is goin 'round"

"an it'll give you 'xperience fir, you know things, if you happen to have a prollin' like this later in life, you already have the experience of riding a stick horse"

man, sometimes i forget what utah was like. it reminds me of this song.

ENJOY!

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