In a time when marriage is such a hot button issue, Keith Olbermann makes some important distinctions and contributions.  Olbermann provides us all with a critical response regarding how society should be viewing the framework of marriage.  Please give this YouTube video a watch/a listen.

Remember women this Veterans’ Day [from the chicago foundation for women's Tuesday Blast]
Because today is Veterans’ Day, we are asking Tuesday Blast readers to remember and honor the untold stories ofU.S. servicewomen from Iraq and Afghanistan-15 percent of whom experienced gender-based violence while serving, the American Public Health Association found. The study examined data from 100,000 patients at Veterans’ Administration facilities over a six-year period. It is the first research study to provide conclusive evidence that “sexual trauma”-including rape, harassment and threats of sexual violence-can make diagnoses of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other illnesses three times more likely, the Washington Post reports. (Other studies show that most perpetrators of this violence are fellow servicemen.) As one researcher says, veterans deserve “gender-informed and gender-specific health care to help combat the stigma associated with rape and sexual harassment,” according to Ms. magazine. Even as we help survivors, we must also focus on prevention strategies: Military officials at every level should set a zero-tolerance tone as well as create formal policies that deter violence against women.

Having worked with survivors of sexual assault and now working with victims of violent crimes, all of whom are applying for compensation, I have seen how the system marginalizes these victims.  Here is an article from AlterNet which talks about how “our” system does NOT provide access to women who are sexually assaulted while in the military.  Please Read.

Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on November 11, 2008, Printed on November 11, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/106307/

Editor’s note: a correction was made to this story since publication. The uncorrected version stated incorrectly that the military doesn’t cover forensic exam kits for the 20 percent of rape victims treated on military bases.

Sarah Palin’s decision not to pay for rape kits when she was mayor of Walsilla was an issue in the campaign for the White House. But allow me to introduce the large pink elephant that has been sitting quietly in the corner of the room:

At the Winter Soldier Investigation in March, Spec. Patricia McCann, who served in Iraq with the Illinois Army National Guard from 2003-4, read a memo issued to all MEDCOM commanders clarifying that “SAD kits”– which are forensic rape kits–”are not included in TRICARE coverage.” *

TRICARE, the United States Department of Defense Military Health System that covers active duty members, will only pay for rape kits if the victim is seen in a military or a VA facility.

But the Pentagon acknowledges that 80 percent of military rapes are never reported. And that 80 percent who go off-base to protect their anonymity (and/or their careers) are on their own. If a soldier is on leave, or is five-hours from the nearest VA, or if a soldier is simply delivered to the nearest hospital by the local ambulance driver, their rape kits are not covered under TRICARE. Neither are other forensic exams that might be used in domestic violence situations.

Front-line treatment shouldn’t be conditional on where a rape occurs or where the nearest treatment is available. This is not only a parity issue, but a further obstacle to treatment and justice.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, “women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq,” Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

Harman said, “The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Health Center where I met female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military, and 29 percent said they were raped during their military service.”

In July, a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing subpoenaed Kaye Whitley, director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to explain what the department is doing to stop the escalating sexual violence in the military. Her boss, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, ordered her not to appear.

Whitley was finally made available to the committee on Sept. 10, but only after having been threatened with a contempt citation.

Whitley first informed the committee that the DoD was conducting a “crusade against sexual assault.”

She then sought to reassure the committee with an accounting of all the heroic measures the Pentagon is planning to implement in the very near future.

But finally, she had to admit that in 2007 there were 2,688 sexual assaults in the military, including 1,259 reports of rape. Just 8 percent (181) of those cases were referred to courts martial, compared to a civilian prosecution rate of 40 percent. And almost half of those cases were dismissed without investigation. (And I say Whitley “had to admit” the number of cases because in 2004, Congress woke up to the fact that the DoD was blowing off the issue and required the military to make yearly reports on all matters relating to sexual assault in the Armed Forces. But those reports did not indicate either prioritizing or progress — hence the hearings.)

Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., asked the committee if anyone thought that “ordering its employees to ignore subpoenas to discuss the topic” sounded as if DoD was taking any of this seriously. “Let me be very clear. Preventing and responding to sexual assault perpetrated against our soldiers is simply much too important to be playing a game of cat and mouse.” He later told Stars and Stripes that there are only seven people on Whitley’s staff to devise and implement the military’s sexual assault program for the entire military. That number speaks for itself.

This is not news. As far back as 1995, Reuters reported that “Ninety percent of women under 50 who have served in the U.S. military and who responded to a survey report being victims of sexual harassment, and nearly one-third of the respondents of all ages say they have been raped.”

Furthermore, the Pentagon acknowledges that 80 percent of military rapes are not reported in the first place, suggesting that the actual number, if it were known, would be astronomical.

Cat-and-mouse games may sound like kid stuff, but refusing to pay for a rape kit is anything but. It implies that the victim is to blame. It does not encourage victims to come forward. And it makes it far more likely that soldiers will interpret the permissive climate as institutionally sanctioned misogyny.

In her Winter Soldier testimony, McCann noted, “The assistant secretary of defense is soliciting legislative changes to TRICARE benefits which will include these kits within covered TRICARE supplies.”

I have been in touch with the office of the assistant secretary, S. Ward Casscells, M.D. It seems that he has indeed solicited such legislation, and it is due to go into effect in December as an amendment to the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2007. The amendment contains some “background” that is worth sharing.

Currently, forensic examinations are not covered for beneficiaries in civilian health care facilities through TRICARE medical plans because TRICARE “may cost share only medically or psychologically necessary services or supplies. Forensic examinations are not conducted for medical treatment purposes, but for the preservation of evidence in any future criminal investigation and/or prosecution.”

The decision to treat rape kits as purely evidentiary, ignoring the very real medical and psychological benefits to the victim, is reprehensibly primitive thinking. Making sure that those legislative changes happen as planned would be a long overdue step out of the primal ooze that has slimed our military in the eyes of our citizens and the world.

Speaking to Palin’s decision not to pay for rape kits, the former governor of Alaska, Tony Knowles, was quoted in Palin’s hometown paper, the Frontiersman, as saying, “We would never bill the victim of a burglary for fingerprinting and photographing the crime scene, or for the cost of gathering other evidence. Nor should we bill rape victims just because the crime scene happens to be their bodies.”

When Barack Obama decides who he will appoint to head the Department of Veterans Affairs in his administration, he should consider appointing someone who also understands how important it is that women’s bodies, souls, dignity and health be taken seriously. Tammy Duckworth, who is reported to be at the top of his list, certainly has had personal experience with a health care delivery system she has called “a little bit arcane.”

Duckworth is now director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, but in 2004, she was a Blackhawk helicopter pilot in Iraq and lost both of her legs in a crash. She describes the care she received at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as “excellent,” but adds, “the comfort package I received contained men’s Jockey shorts, and the local VA hospital carried Viagra but not my birth control.”

There are currently about 1.7 million female veterans in the United States, and the Department of Defense estimates that there are about 200,000 women, 15 percent of the military, on active duty. Thirty-nine percent of those women return from Iraq or Afghanistan with mental health issues, and, for more than a third who seek VA health care, the precipitating trauma was a sexual assault.

Every VA center now screens both men and women for sexual trauma. That is an improvement. Still, Duckworth says, “I don’t think the VA mental health care system is ready for (female veterans).” It would be encouraging to see a VA director who has some understanding of how important that is to fix.

*The overwhelming indictment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and the heartbreaking devastation they have wrought on the souls of young American soldiers — are now the subject of an invaluable book edited by Aaron Glantz and issued by Haymarket Books.

Penny Coleman is the widow of a Vietnam veteran who took his own life after coming home. Her latest book, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War, was released on Memorial Day 2006. Her Web site is Flashback.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/106307/

I enjoy Alice Walker and all things critical!  Here is an open letter that she wrote to Presidenty-elect Barack Obama.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

BY ALICE WALKER | TheRoot.com

Alice Walker on expectations, responsibilities and a new reality that is almost more than the heart can bear.

AFP/Getty ImagesTYPE SIZE READ MORE FROM ELECTION NIGHT. Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people’s spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to “work with the enemy” internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

© 2008, Alice Walker

My friends, Kate & Sarah, are playing shows around the NorthEast.  Check out their site and see if you can catch a show!

www.nervousbutexcited.com

Hello lovers of folk music and the democratic system.

Election day has found us well and full of hope for real change in this country.

We have returned to Michigan for a few days to cast vote and tryout our new leaf blower but tomorrow we head off to the Northeast to play some fabulous shows and enjoy the last dwindlings of fall.

So come on out and we will sing you songs while frolicking in the falling leaves.

If you haven’t checked out our latest release homespun yet.  She is freshly voted and ready join your happy family.

{home} spun is now on itunes!
(click for it)

Cheers!

our best - as always. kate & sarah

I am cross posting the following from a colleague-friend of mine.  JC is a doctoral student at TCU.  He and I attended university together in Texas and studied theology together.  I’m happy to say that JC and I are academic partners in all things critical and all things justice oriented!  

Unfortunately, some supporters of John McCain have damaged their image along with their university. I am ashamed to be a TCU student today. Here is an email from the Vice Chancellor of TCU.

What an historical week this has been. For the first time in history an African American has been elected President of the United States. Regardless of whether one favored Barack Obama or John McCain, the significance of the election cannot be dismissed. Equally as important, citizens were called to engage in the process and more people, especially college students, were involved in both campaigns than any election year in recent history. The level of enthusiasm and commitment was laudable and encouraging for our democracy.

However, some have chosen to respond to the results of the election with actions that are racist, uncivil and harassing. You probably have seen the reports of racist behavior on the Baylor campus. At TCU there have been isolated incidents of language and actions that are racist and harassing. These acts are contrary to our values and culture. They will not be tolerated, condoned, or overlooked.

Likewise, racist actions have been reported at Baylor University.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/paper-trail/2008/11/06/election-day-turns-ugly-for-some.html

http://www.thebigdaddyweave.com/2008/11/baylor-u-students-hang-noose-light-fire.html
http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=54331
http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=39471

It is a shame that this behavior still exists among us today.