democracynow summary (may 8, 2007):
Iraq's infant mortality rate has soared by 150 percent since 1990 according to a new report by the charity Save the Children. One in eight Iraqi children now die of disease or violence before the age of five. In 2005 alone, 122,000 Iraqi children died before reaching their fifth birthday. Save the Children said Iraq's child-survival ranking is now the lowest in the world.
(...) The New York Times is reporting, the U.S. oil company Chevron is preparing to pay up to $30 million in fines for illegally paying kickbacks to Saddam Hussein for access to Iraq's oil before the U.S. invasion in 2003. The penalty, which is still being negotiated, would be the largest so far in the United States in connection with investigations of companies involved in the oil-for-food scandal. It appears Chevron began paying Iraq kickbacks in August 2000. At the time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a member of Chevron's board and led its public policy committee, which oversaw areas of potential political concerns for the company.
(...) In Los Angeles, two high-ranking police department commanders have been reassigned over their role in the police department's violent crushing of a lawful immigrants rights rally last week. Police dressed in riot gear fired 240 rounds of rubber bullets and tear gas. Officers were seen on video clubbing protesters and journalists with batons. Overall 10 people – including seven journalists -- were taken to hospitals with injuries. On Sunday LA Police Chief William Bratton took 60 members of the police department's elite Metropolitan Division's B Platoon off the street.
(...) Investigative reporter Tim Shorrock of Salon.com has revealed that former CIA Director George Tenet has made at least $2.3 million since he left the agency by working for four corporations that are directly profiting from the so-called war on terror and the war in Iraq. Tenet did not disclose any of his corporate ties in his new book "At the Center of the Storm." Tenet sits on the board of directors of L-1 Identity Solutions, a major supplier of biometric identification software used by the U.S. to monitor terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tenet is also a member of an advisory board for Analysis Corporation which is designing terrorist watch lists for the government. Tenet also serves on the boards of two other government contractors, Guidance Software and Kinetic.
(...) A new report from Amnesty International has revealed that Native American women are more than two and a half times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the United States in general. Studies show that one in three Native American women will be raped during their lifetime. Amnesty said many rape cases are never prosecuted because there is confusion regarding tribal and county jurisdiction. It is estimated that 86 percent of rapes against Native women are committed by non-Native men, but tribal councils have no jurisdiction over non-Native offenders even if the crime takes place on tribal lands.

feminism and rape:
I walked along my university corridor last week and was drawn to a poster on the wall; it consisted of a woman with a beer in her hand looking a little worse for wear. Behind her an aggressive looking male towered above. The caption read: “Are you making yourself vulnerable?”.
(...) In addition, what message is this sending out to men? They are constantly portrayed as would be perpetrators of violence, with supposedly no control over their actions.
(...) Women should dress appropriately, we should be careful about where we leave our drinks. We must make sure we get into a properly licensed cab. What about the actual perpetrators? What is happening to them?
(...) Isn’t it about time that we saw more advertisements and campaigns aimed at the perpetrators of violence and more work done to prevent, predominantly men, growing up assuming they can have this control over women? During 2004/5 there were 13,322 reported rapes of women to the police, two thirds of these don’t go any further than the police stage (www.rapecrisis.org.uk/stats) . The worrying statistics of late is that its estimated for every rape that occurs only 1% are convicted because so little are reported in the first place and of that few only a minority go on to conviction.

feminism, and not the backlash:
Crack open Susan Faludi's classic on the backlash against feminism in the 80s, and you'll see variations of that argument in every aspect of the backlash pressure. From the fashion industry to the right wing noise machine's arguments about "natural" gender roles, Faludi detailed how proponents of the backlash endlessly argued that women are supposedly happier being more feminine and helpless, happier at home with babies, and happier without being in the male world of the rat race. The argument that women feel more empowered shaking their ass in lingerie than in drawing that man-sized paycheck in the male-dominated rat race only differs from the 80s backlash on the surface. And yet it gets mistaken for "third wave feminism" all the time.
(...) [Liz Funk] characterized the freedom to go to clubs and drink as damaging and risky for women, particularly in terms of rape. The story left the same impression drawn by Laura Sessions Stepp, that the seeming gains of feminism have actually managed to hurt young women.
(...) By realistic measures, though, feminism has been anything but a tragedy for young women. Because of feminist gains, young women now make up more than half of the students in college. The gains are reflected in law and medical schools, which are also half female now. Girls' athletics have grown exponentially since the 70s because of Title IX. The worry over young women and sex is somewhat misplaced as well, especially considering the decline in teenage pregnancies throughout the 90s, a decline that was attributable to increased contraceptive use, a huge feminist goal.
(...) The notion that college age women are wasting their potential somehow by acting like nothing more than sex objects is paralleled neatly by the notion that the kindergarten set of girls that are supposedly rejecting their feminist parents in order to embrace the fluffy princess phenomenon, pushed mostly by the Disney company. In fact, the princess marketing has something of a "gotcha" element to it, as if the miles of pink and lace present an irresistible temptation for the inner delicate flowers of young girls. The more likely story is that the relentless drumbeat of marketing the Princess line has made girls feel that they're missing out if they aren't a part of it.
(...) The grown-up version of Disney's Princess line is the TV show "The Pussycat Dolls," where the symbol of belonging is not a pink lace princess dress, but a feather boa. Granted, the Pussycat Dolls are highly sexualized, but the marketing push is the same as the Princess line, the story being one about how women and girls find themselves irresistibly drawn away from participation in the real world and towards feminine accoutrements and being on display rather than being active. And these messages are coming, as they always have, from marketers that are more interested in protecting male privilege and making money than everything else. The co-option of words like "empowering" from feminists should be taken for what it is, a backlash wolf in feminist sheep clothing.

military rapes and other problems that need our outrage (nader):
(...) The evidence she amassed included a report in 2003, funded by the Department of Defense (DOD), which declared that nearly one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans seeking health care through the V.A. said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Of that group, 37 percent said they were raped multiple times, and 14 percent reported they were gang-raped.
(...) All those groups and civil rights leaders who conquered and ended the Don Imus media empire should ask themselves what have they done in any sustained manner, given their power and media access, about the brutality of racism by commercial interests in the urban ghettos. Deaths, injuries, disease and loss of livelihood are a daily occurrence, apart from raw street crime and drugs. Little children seriously poisoned by lead, asbestos and other toxics. Whole neighborhoods redlined without adequate corporate police protection. Predatory lending, predatory interest rates, marketing shoddy products and contaminated food proliferate.