gorillas in the midst

i just stumbled upon this video looking for something else. and when i watched the video i remembered the power of this experience and thought i'd blog about it now, since then i didn't have a blog . . .

this is video i took in 2006-ish. i had been working in rwanda and stayed over a weekend (before heading to kenya) to visit the sousa gorilla family. the sousa family was the family diane fossey studied.

Fossey was found murdered in the bedroom of her cabin in Virunga Mountains, Rwanda on December 26, 1985. The last entry in her diary read:

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future

i will never forget being there. rwanda was amazing in and of it self . . . this is a link to a blog i wrote after my second time in rwanda . . . there is a powerful sense of forgiveness and hope.

anyway, here i am being chased by a gorilla . . . i had been watching and taking photos of them. they were transfixing. they would look at you and it would feel like they were looking in your soul. the babies played and fought and needed codling. the old lady's sat around grooming each other. and the teen age boys tried to be the alpha male.

i was watching one too closely. i'd been told not to make eye contact because it can be threatening . . . but i couldn't help myself . . . and one of the teen boys got a little crush on me (or something). i must have accidently hit record when i was running away from the gorilla. he reached out and touched my back . . . which was CRAZY but the guides him and he ran away (they had tranquilizer guns if they needed them). . . i think about it now and it is crazy scary. but you can see in this, i have a high tolerance for adrenaline.

i kept messing up and saying gorillas in the midst (instead of in the mist), hence the title. they were actually in my midst, which was one of the coolest things ever!

al queda's plan to exploit weak US gun laws

this seriously freaks me out!

this is the al queda spokesman, on the short list to replace bin Laden, in a chilling video calling on jihadists in america to exploit loopholes in american gun laws to create terror in our country . . . as if we need more terror here . . . seriously, we have got to change these laws. he claims, gaps in our guns laws are a “golden opportunity” to claim more american lives.

i joined a group called at FixGunChecks.org which was started by a group of mayors in the US who want to see the gun laws in our country changed.

they are advocating for two critical changes:

• Get all of the names of people who should be prohibited from buying guns into the background check system.
• Require a background check for every gun sale in America

even if you are a gun rights advocate, these seem pretty reasonable. i have family members who are ardent gun right fighters, but even they agree that people with schizophrenia or with a criminal record of violence shouldn't be allowed to purchase guns (let alone, automatic weapons).

please check out this site and sign your name . . . i'm not sure what signing our name really does, but hopefully it is meaningful in some way. for more information about how this group is trying to close these loopholes, check out fixgunchecks.org/background-checks

strong is beautiful

this is a great campaign! i wonder how many female athletes it will inspire. will it change female tennis for the better by attracting so many more women to the game? will it inspire a new LARGE generation of women that play sports? will this have impact on america's obesity epidemic? if playing a sport is sexy, not being rail thin, will it change things?

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.