Somalia

I am thinking about Somalia. I watched two old documentaries about Somalia from the 1960s: The Parching Winds of Somalia and another one that I can't locate right now...a nice one about a Somali nomad boy and his way of life. The documentaries were made available for viewing on Bartamaha.com, a Somali website that provides Somali news, videos, etc in English, so I am assuming if they were approved by the Somalis who created this website that a certain percentage of Somalis (at least, perhaps the ones living in the United States) would approve of them as true history as well. I think the regime changes and wars that they had endured changed some of their old time culture, and I am sure that the refugees who are here in the States who lived during the "good times" have some nostalgia for those older more peaceful times.

Even in the more peaceful times, most Somalis lived a life that would be very hard by Western standards, but according to these documentaries they seemed very happy to live this life. Even those living in the Somali cities had a much different lifestyle in more peaceful days than what they have now...in the 1960s, for example, they had an incredibly strong feminist movement--even supported by some men--which was fighting against forced cliterectomies for girls. I don't know if the Somali women are still fighting against it in their own communities; I know that women like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and films such as Wustenblume (Desert Flower) are educating the world about this issue...

In any case, the more I learn about Somalia, the more I want to learn, to better understand my neighbors here in St. Cloud.

LGBT Folks: Backbone of America

If my partner dies, because we could never file as a couple on federal taxes, my Social Security payment would be affected. I would not receive the extra payment that widows and widowers normally receive from the federal government. Watch this video and see what I mean.

This is not propaganda. This is the honest truth. We pay more tax than anyone, and then get nothing when we become too old to work and outlive our partners.

BTW--folks who lose their partners as war casualties will not get extra government payments either.

This is why straight folks should know every single LGBT person serving alongside them in the military. They should hear firsthand how we pay double to be citizens, and serve with honor, for no reward. They should know that we are the slaves of this system, and the economic backbone of America, and this should come to an end.

Pagans Now Welcome in the Air Force

"Earth religions" get worship area at Air Force Academy

Why not? Appeal to the special Wotan clan of white supremacists and pagan folks who normally aren't military joiners to make the military seem like a friendly place for pagans. Think long and hard before you sign those papers!

Maybe We Aren't Ready for Gays in the Military

Here is a big problem in the US military that no one is talking about:

One third of female veterans of the US military have been raped by male soldiers within their own units, and 71% of post-traumatic stress disorder cases reported by female veterans of the US military involve sexual assault committed by male soldiers within their own units.

No one talks about this, because the government wants to encourage young women to serve in the military just as much as men, especially during this time when we need young soldiers.

If women aren't safe in the US military, and very little has been done to address this, then how are openly LGBT servicepeople going to have safety in their own unit in the military?

LibraryThing

am gathering data on LibraryThing users who have joined LibraryThing groups. According to the website, there are 900,000 LibraryThing users around the world, but based on the numbers that I am adding up right now, not everyone has chosen to join a special group to discuss books or other topics.

Counting up the number of people who could fit neatly into different categories is also a challenge, as some can be counted in more than one category. For example, if someone is a member of a Hogwarts LibraryThing group, they could be counted in the Childrens/YA category, the fantasy category, the single-author fan category, and the fiction category, so categorizing LibraryThing folks is not always an exact, obvious science. Not only that, but a member of one LibraryThing group could potentially belong to other groups; I can only count them once, though.

Martin Luther King Day

As today is Martin Luther King Day, here are a few words from the man in relation to race and humanity. I would like to believe that when King uses the word "man", he speaks for all human beings. I also am going to interpret the use of "God" here as the network of Nature, circle of life, the image of our ancestors, the strength of our DNA that has been passed down to us from the generations that have survived...we all must play our part to keep the Earth turning, to keep human civilization alive...this is what we all have in common, and why we have to work together in achieving that goal, to strengthen and improve human civilization.

Deeply rooted in our religious heritage is the conviction that every man is an heir of dignity and worth. Our Judeo-Christian tradition refers to this inherent dignity of man in the Biblical term "in the image of God". The image of God is universally shared in equal proportions by all men...Every human being has etched in his personality the indelible stamp of the Creator. Every man must be respected because God loves him. The worth of an individual does not lie in the measure of his intellect, his racial origin or social position. Human worth lies in relatedness to God. An individual has value because he has value to God. Whenever this is recognized, "whiteness" and "blackness" pass away as determinants in a relationship and "son" and "brother" are substituted.
(Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, 1967)

CALL FOR FILM REVIEWS AND ARTICLES: JURA GENTIUM CINEMA

The online journal "Jura Gentium Cinema" (www.jgcinema.org) is seeking film reviews (between 500 and 1000 words) and articles (3,000-7,000 words) for a special issue on Jewish film.

As the Jura Gentium is a center devoted to the study of international law and global politics, the films addressed in this issue should address at least one aspect of this broad field and how it relates to Jewish people, culture, history, or religion anywhere in the world. Acceptable topics would also include documentaries about or film interpretations of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, the Jew as "other", Jewish identity, culture clashes among Jews of different ethnicities/cultures/nationalities, minorities within the Jewish community, relationships between Israelis/Palestinians, the kosher food industry, Jewish geography, the Israeli movie industry, and the Israeli film fund.

Film reviews should be informative and evaluative, without being dismissive; that is, the reviewer should find some value in the work being reviewed.

For examples of previous publications, please go to our website www.jgcinema.org. For questions regarding submissions for this issue, please contact Rachel Wexelbaum at rswexelbaum@stcloudstate.edu .

Deadline for submissions is March 1, 2010.