Is It Okay To Poop in the Wilderness? or "HOW TO SHIT IN THE WOODS; AN ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND APPROACH TO A LOST ART"1APR11

SO maybe this is gross to some, it is an issue that needs to be discussed out in the open....

You pack out your garbage out when you go camping. So why don’t you pack out your crap?

— By Dave Gilson

Ah wilderness! What better place to escape the stifling trappings of urban existence—overflowing inboxes, two-hour commutes, social-media addiction. And, of course, indoor plumbing. "Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth," the great Western author and curmudgeon Edward Abbey once exhorted car-bound city slickers. Contemplating the reasons for taking a trek down the Appalachian Trail (and aping Abbey-ish machismo), travel writer Bill Bryson mused, "I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, 'Yeah, I've shit in the woods.'"
But before you go forth and drop trou in the great outdoors, you may want to consult Kathleen Meyer's How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art. Since it was first published in 1989, it's sold more than 2.5 million copies and introduced many an outdoor enthusiast to what Meyer, a longtime river guide, calls "a skill all but lost to the bulk of the population along with the art of making soap, carding wool, and skinning buffalo." Just republished, HTSITW is packed with pro tips for going about your business (particularly pooping) in the wild as conveniently, hygienically, and unembarrassingly as possible.
Beyond tackling the practicalities of squatting and digging cat holes, HTSITW also presents a mini-manifesto on applying the Leave No Trace ethos to your bodily functions. If you're committed to minimizing your impact when you go hiking or camping, Meyer suggests, you should seriously think about treating your poop like your garbage—and that means packing it out with you. Human poop, which takes about a year to biodegrade, can be an environmental hazard. It can befoul trails and campsites, and if it's left too close to streams or watersheds, it can contaminate groundwater. Meyer maintains that human waste is a major cause of the increased prevalence of giardia in wilderness groundwater. (Not everyone shares her concerns about the diarrhea-inducing intestinal parasite, and there are differing findings on just how widespread the disease is in the backcountry and its ultimate sources.) With more than 1.7 million visitors roaming the backcountry areas of National Parks annually, there's potentially a lot of poop piling up out there.
Though it's not for the squeamish, poop-packing has been embraced by a growing number of campers and parks. Outhouses have been taken down in some wilderness areas and "Pack It Out" rules are in effect in several national parks and backcountry areas, from Denali to the Grand Tetons.
So how exactly do you take your poop with you? Meyer describes a slew of tools to assist you. There are cheap and low-tech methods, such as modified five-gallon buckets, biodegradable bags, and homemade PVC pipe Poop Tubes. And there are more sci-fi technologies, like Poo Powder, "a proprietary blend of a NASA-developed super-absorbent" that bonds with feces to form a solid, odorless block (check out the demo video here) and the SCAT Machine, a giant coin-op washer for soiled waste containers that can be found at some trailheads.
Kathleen Meyer talked more about eco-friendly wilderness evacuation from her home in Montana.

Mother Jones: Humans have been pooping au naturel for eons. Why has this suddenly become a problem in the last 30 or 40 years?
Kathleen Meyer: It's the amount of people and the amount of people going in concentrated groups up the same trails and down the same rivers. What illustrates the most is what happened in the Grand Canyon in the early 70s when whitewater rafting really started to get fashionable and it became more and more people going down a steep canyon with very few beaches. There'd be maybe 30 different people camping on the same beach every night. It became obvious to the people running the trips that that couldn't go on very long. Pretty soon you were digging up someone else's stuff to bury your own; it got pretty gross. So they were the first to understand that it needed to be packed out.
It's the same on mountain trails where people step two to three feet to the side or behind the first bush, so that area gets lots of deposits. Other people scooping up snow for water get giardia. Now mountaineers are getting into [packing out their poop] because they tend to travel the same routes up snowy mountains and leave deposits.

Dirty Words

Aqua dump: Kayakers' and surfers' practice of slipping into the ocean to relieve themselves.

Groover: Military ammo case converted into a portable toilet, often used by river runners. Name comes from the grooves it leaves in users' behinds.

Beaver fever: Giardia, a waterborne intestinal infection that's often blamed on beavers.

Frosting: Smearing poop on an exposed rock to be baked away by the sun.

FUD: Female urinary device. Portable set-up that allows women to remain standing while heeding Edward Abbey's call to "unzip your fly, piss hearty."

MJ: Is there anything appreciably different between human poop and the poop of an animal that's native to a particular ecosystem? Is a raccoon's poop more eco-friendly than the poop of a human who comes into the backcountry?
KM: That's one I get asked a lot—like, why do we have to worry about this; what about all the animals that are popping out there? One, animals don't stay right along the trail. And they also don't fly around the planet like we do and pick up some bacteria in South Africa and shit into the Colorado backcountry. We can truck around diseases really fast, whereas something in the animal kingdom would spread more slowly.
MJ: That brings us to giardia, which you talk about a lot. When I was growing up, we were told not to drink the water in the Sierras and were told giardia came from beavers and other animals. You strongly suggest that humans are partly to blame for the spread of giardia during the past few decades. Why do you think that?
KM: When I was running rivers in the early 70s, we were all drinking water out of mountain streams and none of us were getting sick. There are some people who are asymptomatic, but we couldn't have all been asymptomatic. There has been at least one study I've read where beavers managed to cleanse themselves of giardia over the winter and it was people who reintroduced it to the area in the spring. We're the ones with a brain and are supposed to be smart, so we can do something about this. I think it's our responsibility more than the beavers' to figure it out.
MJ: It seems like the verdict is out on the source of giardia. Some people are skeptical that it's as widespread as you say it is.
KM: A person could spend 30 years in the backcountry and drink from surface water and not get giardia and therefore spout that it's a myth. Giardia is not in every cup of water.
MJ: But you advocate filtering all your water when you're camping just in case.
KM: I would, because I don't relish the idea of having the green apple two-step when I'm out in the woods. Going down a river, it's just miserable! I've been sick enough in my life that I don't want to be sick if I can avoid it.
MJ: I'm curious what your preferred method for packing poop out is.
KM: For river trips, I like the bucket system that was started up by the BLM over in Oregon. The river runners use 'em, the horse packers use em, ATVers use 'em. You cover each deposit up with potting soil—though I recommend peat moss because it will start the breakdown. Then you can dump it into a trailhead vault toilet. The big problem is that you have to take it home and clean it. But we're all used to cleaning toilets; it's not much different than that.
Front page image: Ushlambad/Flickr

Dave Gilson is a senior editor at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Dave Gilson's RSS feed.

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"DAS GHETTO" "A FILM UNFINISHED" from INDEPENDENT LENS

I saw this on Independent Lens last night, it is disturbing, haunting, it is hard to describe but I really recommend it be seen, especially by kids so they can see war and hate and prejudice are real, so they can see what people can do to each other, and so they learn the lesson we have to do every thing we can to try to prevent anything like this from happening again. Click the links to go to the websites for this film.
http://video.pbs.org/video/1851728978/
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/film-unfinished/film.html

Watch the full episode. See more Independent Lens.

A Film Unfinished

Trailer (1:59)

Clip 1 (1:03)

Clip 2 (1:15)

Extra (2:31)

• The Film
• Talkback

About the Film

At the end of WWII, 60 minutes of raw film was discovered intact in an East German archive. Shot by the Nazis in Warsaw in May 1942, and labeled simply "Das Ghetto," this footage quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record of the Warsaw Ghetto.
In 1998, another reel was discovered that radically complicated the scholarly interpretation of “Das Ghetto.” The footage, in which glimpses of the Nazi filmmakers can be seen when they accidentally step into each others’ shots, makes clear the great extent to which the Reich’s propagandists staged the scenes in the unfinished film that came to be known as “Das Ghetto.”
A Film Unfinished presents the raw footage of the latter reel in its entirety, carefully noting fictionalized sequences (including a staged dinner party) falsely showing "the good life" enjoyed by Jewish urbanites. We also glimpse the filmmakers forcing some of the more prosperous Jewish inhabitants to ignore the corpses lying in the streets.
Without forcing any conclusions about what the object of the propaganda film, director Yael Hersonski offers insight into how what we believe to be definitive and historical is not always what it appears to be.

The Filmmaker

Yael Hersonski was content editor of the documentary program on Channel 10 in Israel, which won the Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary Television Program in 2004. She now directs documentary and fictional drama programs for Israeli television. A Film Unfinished is her first feature documentary film, and was made with Senior Producer Noemi Schory and Producer Itay Ken-Tor.

Has Elizabeth Warren Won Over the Banks? 6MAI11

THE appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the CFPB, and her approval by the Senate will be one of the shinning moments of the Obama administration because it will be an example of government doing what is needed for the people and the banking industry without the influence of of politics. Elizabeth Warren is nobody's puppet, she is actually committed to doing the best she possibly can for the nation. Oh that her morals and courage and commitment could be cloned!!!! From Mother Jones....

James Berglie/Zuma

Industry reps who once thought she was "akin to the Antichrist" now can't stop praising the consumer protection chief. What gives?

— By Andy Kroll

On her first day running the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Elizabeth Warren met with a group of bankers from her home state, Oklahoma. Going into that meeting, Roger Beverage, president of the Oklahoma Bankers Association, feared the havoc Warren, who had developed a reputation as a fierce consumer champion, would soon wreak upon his state's banks. He and his colleagues in the banking industry, he recalls, "had this vision that she was akin to the Antichrist."
Today, Beverage considers himself a Warren convert. He openly praises Warren—who was appointed by the White House to get the bureau up and running but has not been nominated to head it—saying she is "far and away" the most qualified person to become the bureau's permanent director. "Ms. Warren has demonstrated that she is willing to work as hard as possible for the benefit of consumers, consumers' families, and community banks," Beverage says. "She would be an outstanding director, and I have encouraged both of our US senators to look past political rhetoric and look at what the woman has done."
Beverage's reversal reflects a noticeable thaw in relations between Warren and parts of the banking industry. This week, Camden Fine, president and CEO of the influential Independent Community Bankers Association, told a gathering of 1,000 bankers that the odds Obama would nominate Warren were "better than even," later remarking to American Banker that "you would have to look favorably on a [Warren] nomination because clearly she understands our model." Frank Keating, the head of the American Bankers Association, told a reporter that the ABA would support Warren if she were confirmed as CFPB director by the Senate. And Robert Palmer, who heads the Community Bankers Association of Ohio, captured the mood of small banks when he told Bloomberg Businessweek that if Warren "leaves, and the direction changes, we're not going to be very receptive."

While Warren's nomination was too-toxic-to-touch mere months ago, the momentum of the past few weeks could be enough to convince the White House to tap her for the job. Whomever Obama picks, he'll need to do it soon: The deadline for having a permanent CFPB director in place is July 21, according to the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. But no matter who the nominee is, he or she faces massive opposition in Congress, with Republicans maneuvering to block not just Warren but any CFPB nominee if their demands to weaken the bureau are not met.
The warming to Warren is due, in large part, to a months-long outreach campaign aimed at members of the banking industry. According to calendars posted on the CFPB's website, Warren's schedule has included 150 appointments with industry officials since her first day in September—phone calls, in-person meetings, industry conference speeches, even visits to local bank branches. She's spoken with everyone from Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan to the head of the American Bankers Association to community bankers in states from Maine to Texas.
The charm offensive appears to be paying off—and at precisely the right time.
Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers Association, which represents more than 100 minority- and women-owned banks throughout the country, is another fan. He met with Warren in February and says he would support her as the nominee to run the CFPB because of her "genuine concern for protecting the rights for consumers and for her appreciation of the role banks play in the financial infrastructure of this country." Grant adds, "She's a win-win both for our industry and for the consumer if she is nominated and made permanent chief."
Paul Hickman, president and CEO of the Arizona Bankers Association, says he, too, came away impressed after he and a group of Arizona bankers and business leaders met with Warren in Washington. A former staffer for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hickman says Warren went a long way toward allaying the industry's fears of a consumer bureau run amok that would slap banks with new regulations and bury them in paperwork. "I thought Elizabeth Warren did a really good job of letting the members of that meeting know, and the business people of Arizona know, that her mission was not to somehow suppress community banks," Hickman recalls.
But for some state banking chiefs, Warren's outreach has changed their mind about her but not about the CFPB itself. George Beattie, president and CEO of the Nebraska Bankers Association, told Mother Jones last fall that, in his view, Warren simply didn't understand community banks. Today, he's more positive about Warren, noting her "better appreciation for what banks in this country do for their communities." He worries more about having a single director run the CFPB, whether that's Warren or not. Beattie says he'd prefer a panel of directors run the bureau, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, though he ultimately thinks the bureau should be scrapped altogether. "The congress has created an exceedingly strong governmental agency with little oversight," he says. "I think that's a bad thing for this country regardless of who runs it."
House Republicans agree with Beattie. On Thursday, a House financial services subcommittee passed a trio of bills that would replace the single director with a bipartisan five-person commission, give a separate council of financial regulators veto power on new regulations by the bureau, and restrict the CFPB's power until the Senate confirms Obama's nominee to be director. So, too, do Senate Republicans. Earlier this week, they sent a letter to Obama saying they'd oppose any CFPB nominee until the bureau's power was scaled back.
To be sure, huge hurdles remain between Warren and the nomination. Republicans in Congress almost universally oppose her nomination. (She has, however, earned tepid praise in the past from Senate GOPers including Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Bob Corker of Tennessee.) At this point, Senate GOPers appear to willing to do anything to undermine the CFPB and prevent a strong consumer advocate like Warren from becoming its director, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to see how GOPers' demands will be met and a nominee confirmed before the July deadline. And of course on Wall Street, she has no shortage of enemies among the nation's largest banks.
But even if Warren only wins over some bankers and not others, leaving the industry conflicted on her nomination, that could actually be a victory. "There was universal opposition to Dodd-Frank," says a person who's worked closely with Warren in the past. "There was universal opposition to Warren getting the bureau started. At the end of the day, if the banking industry is fractured on her nomination, that's just fine."

Andy Kroll is a reporter at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Email him with tips and insights at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. Follow him on Twitter here. Get Andy Kroll's RSS feed.

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What Happens When You're Buried at Sea? 9MAI11

THIS is pretty interesting, I never thought of it before, but if you have this  article from Mother Jones provides the answers.

A guest at a sea burial signs a shroud before it is placed in the ocean. Photo courtesy of New England Burials at Sea

Getting tipped overboard is just the beginning. The gory—and fascinating—science of sleeping with the fishes.

— By Dave Gilson

Last Monday, at around 11 in the morning local time, Osama Bin Laden's body dropped from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson into the Arabian Sea. According to the Pentagon, the hours-old corpse had been washed and placed in a simple white sheet in accordance with Islamic practice. It was then sealed inside a weighted bag and laid on top of a board, which was tilted until "the body slid off into the sea."
Back on land, the controversy surrounding Bin Laden's last splash was just beginning. But beneath the waves, nature was taking its course, quietly and methodically turning the world's most-wanted terrorist into fish food. You could say Osama bin Laden had received the ultimate green burial, courtesy of the United States Navy.
Obviously, the decision to consign Bin Laden to the deep was motivated by expedience rather than eco-friendliness. Seafarers from Odysseus to Ahab have long known that there's no better way to quickly be rid of a corpse than to toss it overboard. But only recently has this salty custom been rediscovered as a relatively efficient way to be laid to rest with minimal environmental impact.
"I have noticed a great increase in interest in burial at sea," says Ann Rodney, an environmental protection specialist in the New England office of the Environmental Protection Agency's ocean and coastal unit, which oversees burials in American waters. The agency doesn't have hard data on how many Americans choose sea burial, but Rodney suspects the numbers, though small, are growing. "Ten years ago, I might get one or two calls a year about it. Now I get at least one call a week."

If you're intent on going into a watery grave, you'll need to enlist someone like Brad White, a 52-year-old licensed ship captain who has been depositing bodies in the Atlantic since 2005. His company, New England Burials at Sea, based in Scituate Harbor, Massachusetts, does an average of six full-body burials a year and has 25 "pre-need" requests on the books. People who choose to be buried at sea, he says, "typically have a love for the ocean, do not want to be cremated, and prefer 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' They want to become part of the Earth again via our oceans."
To help them realize this, White offers burials that he says are not only historically authentic but environmentally sound. "About five or six years ago, someone kept asking me, 'Can you do a full body?', and I kept saying no, since I didn't want to put a casket in the ocean." He turned to nautical history for an alternative. Traditionally, 18th and 19th century American and British sailors who died at sea where wrapped in a sailcloth shroud with a few cannonballs or leg irons as ballast and then sent overboard. This inspired White to create the Atlantic Sea Burial Shroud, a canvas body bag that comes in seven colors, with your choice of piping or fringe. The shroud zips up, so there's no need for the traditional final stitch sewn through the nose—a superstitious precaution meant to rouse the comatose. For ballast, White sells custom-made 37.5-pound cannonballs. "Barbell weights work well, too," he says.

In 2007, a fishing boat off the Massachusetts coast pulled up the remains of a body that had been buried at sea six years earlier.

Besides honoring nautical tradition, White says, a shrouded body has less impact than a corpse inside a coffin—the standard for the Navy, which offers full-body burials for veterans, provided the bodies are embalmed and sealed inside a metal casket with a few holes drilled in it. White prefers not to handle embalmed bodies. "We're into clean waters and clean oceans," he says. His system is designed to be as biodegradable as possible. Grommets in the shroud "help the body sink because air comes out. And when a body decomposes, body gases come out. It also allows sea life to go in and do what sea life does. What's left after everything degrades are the cannonballs, and they make their own reef."
Plus, White adds, "A Navy ship deploys a body from 10 stories high. We have a gentle deployment system that slides the body into the ocean. It drops maybe six inches to a foot." (Bin Laden's body reportedly fell from the hangar deck of the Vinson, which is about 55 feet above the waterline.)
Beyond cost—White's full-body burial services start at $9,750—there's little stopping you from visiting Davy Jones' locker, though the EPA must be notified within 30 days of your final voyage. The agency's main concern is that once sunk, bodies stay that way. Burials must take place at least three miles offshore and in at least 600 feet of water (1,800 feet in certain areas, such as the Gulf Coast). If you use a casket, the agency recommends drilling at least six three-inch holes in it to "facilitate rapid flooding and venting of air." It also suggests adding four pounds of additional weight for every pound of body weight, which means the coffin for a 150-pound person would weigh more than 750 pounds. And to make sure coffins don't pop open when they hit the water, the EPA advises wrapping them in stainless-steel chains, gift-box style.
The only nod to clean-water standards is a requirement that all wreaths or flowers tossed in the water must be "readily decomposable in the marine environment." The EPA will get on your case if you dump formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, into a stream or lake, but it won't blink if you put a body filled with formaldehyde-based embalming fluid into the Pacific Ocean. While there is no research on the effects of sunken bodies on ocean ecosystems, Rodney says that logic suggests it's minimal. She cites the adage "dilution is the solution." In other words, it's a big ocean out there.
The rules for burial at sea are more stringent in the United Kingdom. Bodies can't be embalmed and must be clad in biodegradable material ("commensurate with modesty"); coffins must be made of softwood and may not have plastic, zinc, copper, or lead fittings. Like the EPA, British regulators are preoccupied with preventing bodies from washing up on shore or getting snagged in fishing equipment. They require coffins to be heavily weighted and drilled with 40 to 50 holes. Just in case, each body must have an ID tag locked around its neck.
Though it is rare, bodies do occasionally resurface. Last September, a fisherman came across a floating corpse, naked except for a sock, a few miles off of Florida's Atlantic coast. A brief homicide investigation revealed it belonged to a North Carolina man who'd been buried at sea a day earlier, wrapped in a plastic tarp. In 2007, a fishing boat off the Massachusetts coast pulled up the remains of a body that had been buried more than six years earlier.
Usually, the ocean does not give up the dead so easily. As he was developing his sea shroud, White did some of his own research into underwater decomposition, running trials with the bodies of various mammals. "We would use store-bought roast turkeys, chickens. Animal Control supplied us with roadkill foxes, possums, raccoons. We used a little bit of everything," he recalls. He also consulted FBI forensic experts, who informed him that after two days in the water, most bodies are "unrecognizable." White concluded that a body and a shroud on the sea floor should completely disintegrate within three to six months.
Results may vary depending on a burial spot's depth, temperature, and its abundance (or lack) of sea life. Generally, the deeper and colder the water, the slower bodies decompose. A 2008 paper in Forensic Sciences described the differing conditions of remains retrieved from two airplane crashes in more than 1,500 feet of water. A victim discovered off of Sicily 34 days after death was still fully dressed; a three-month-old body found off the southern coast of Africa had been "fully skeletonized" by "highly efficient necrophageous lyssianassids" (i.e., flesh-eating shrimp-like creatures).
Another recent study that monitored pig carcasses submerged in approximately 300 feet of water found that hungry sea critters can have rapid and dramatic effects on the dead. Observing a subject known as "Pig 1," researcher Gail Anderson wrote, "It immediately attracted a number of animals including squat lobsters, Dungeness crabs and spot shrimp. Two days after it was placed on the ocean floor, a large piece of tissue was removed from the rump…the bite mark left behind suggests that the culprit was a six-gill shark."
Gory, but that's what it means to sleep with the fishes. Capt. White speculates that Bin Laden's body has met a similar fate. Considering that the Arabian Sea is warm (right now its average temperature is in the 80s) and teeming with sharks—well, he says, "Go figure."

Dave Gilson is a senior editor at Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. Get Dave Gilson's RSS feed.

Fight the Militarization of Law Enforcement and Federal Courts, H.R. 968 from HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST 9MAI11

THIS is frightening, and as an American I should never be afraid of my government, but this scares me. In a Spring where thousands are dying in nonviolent protest and revolutions and thousands have been arrested, and hundreds disappeared, all in struggles for freedom and democracy across the Islamic world our government is seeking the authority to treat us in the same manner the despotic governments in N Africa, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf treat their own. If H.R. 968, the Detainee Security Act is passed and signed into law it will be the most violent assault on our human rights, civil rights and civil liberties in generations. I have an fbi file on me because of my politics, it was started when I was in the 9th grade, the nixon era. I have been arrested several times during and participated in many nonviolent protest against some of our governments policies. Under this law it will be possible for someone to decide the protest is a terrorist activity or supporting terrorism. I will not be intimidated and stop exercising my civil rights and liberties, but I should never, ever have to be afraid when doing so either. Click the link or header to e mail your Representative and tell them to vote against H.R. 968!

Help push back: write your member of Congress today! There's an effort underway to bring back torture and militarize law enforcement in the United States. While former Vice President Dick Cheney and other proponents of "enhanced interrogation" techniques trumpet the role of torture in the hunt for Bin Laden, Congress is considering a bill that would disrupt our counterterrorism efforts and grant huge amounts of power to the President without the necessary oversight. Write your members of Congress and urge them to oppose this bill by voting for amendments that would strip the bill's key provisions from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). H.R. 968 or The Detainee Security Act would : Give the President unfettered authority to go to war in Iran, Indonesia, and elsewhere to fight terrorists; Require local law enforcement and the FBI to turn over to military custody any terror suspects, including American citizens, captured in the United States without trial and; Make the failed experiment of Guantanamo permanent by barring federal court prosecution of prisoners held there and barring repatriation of innocent men unless ordered by a court to transfer them. This bill threatens to undermine national security by uprooting established counterterrorism tools and supplanting them with dangerous, untested, and overly-militarized procedures. The FBI and local law enforcement have successfully elicited a substantial amount of intelligence information from terrorism suspects. And our criminal justice system has a proven track record of handling terrorism in the courts, convicting over 400 terrorist suspects since 9/11. The military commissions have only convicted 6. Fight the militarization of law enforcement and federal courts! Ask your representatives to oppose the Detainee Security Act by voting for amendments to strip its key provisions from the NDAA. The United States government already has broad authority and strong tools to disrupt, detain, and prosecute international terrorists under current law. Congress should focus on strengthening established and effective counterterrorism tools, rather than expanding costly, unpopular wars and enshrining Guantanamo as a permanent fixture of second-class justice. Thanks for your help. Sincerely, C. Dixon Osburn Director, Law and Security Program

Human Rights First, 333 Seventh Avenue, 13th Floor, New York, NY 10001-5004 www.humanrightsfirst.org Join us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter

REV PEYTON'S BIG DAMN BAND "CLAP YOUR HANDS"

WAY COOL!

Family Law At The Crux Of Algerian Women's Futures 15MAI11 & House Passes "Redefining Rape" Bill, H.R. 3 4MAI11

Really, the attitudes and restrictions on women in the Islamic world aren't all that different than the attitudes and laws concerning women in this country the extreme right wing of the repiglican / tea bagger movement have imposed or are trying to impose. These people claim to be religious just like the extreme Islamist do, but real, honest consideration of their policies, attitudes, restrictions and laws do not represent the true teachings of Christianity or Islam.
by Eleanor Beardsley

Listen to the Story

Weekend Edition Sunday

[4 min 47 sec]

 

Enlarge Eleanor Beardsley/NPR An Algerian family enjoys a picnic in Tipaza, a vacation town about 40 miles from Algiers. Many Algerian women say that wearing the veil is not an issue in their emancipation; what matters is their family situation, which is influenced by a strict code that governs marriage and family life.

Algeria, which shares a border with both Tunisia and Libya, is so far just watching the upheaval across the Arab world. Most Algerians say their country is still too scarred by a decade of violence in the 1990s to endure another uprising.
Nearly every Algerian now calls that a lost decade, but no one feels it more acutely than Algerian women.

More On Algeria's Civil War

Algeria's 'Black Decade' Still Weighs Heavily

Algerians say they want change but a brutal civil war in the '90s has left them hesitant to protest.

Algeria's Violent Past Helps Keep Lid On Dissent

At the end of the 1980s, massive protests brought many political and personal freedoms to civil society in Algeria, but the gains were short-lived. With Islamists poised to win elections in 1991 and institute Shariah law, the government canceled the elections.
After that, the Algerian state battled an Islamist insurgency and nearly 200,000 people died.
During that time, women's position in society regressed, feminists say, and the country has turned more conservative. Now, women say they feel like they're waking up after a long sleep.
The Family Code
Children play in the crowded lanes of the Algiers Casbah, a hilly neighborhood of mosques and cramped houses that overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the women there are veiled; some even cover their faces.

Enlarge Eleanor Beardsley/NPR Women walk down a winding street in the Casbah in Algiers.

But the traditional quarter is also the birthplace of Algerian female emancipation. It was in the Casbah that women joined men to fight the French during the war for independence in the late 1950s.
The famous Battle of Algiers took place in the Casbah in 1957, and photos of the female martyrs hang on tea house walls.
Across town, in a more modern neighborhood, Nadia Ait Zai runs a women's association. She says Algerian men and women are equal under some laws, like the ones governing the workplace. But a special law called the family code keeps women from true emancipation.
"Algeria and Morocco still have these archaic, rigid Muslim laws that govern family life," she says. "They allow the husband to be able to unilaterally divorce his wife, and permit polygamy for the man. So it's these kinds of things that are holding us back."
Ait Zai says in real life, Algerian women take more rights than they are given on paper. The protests at the end of the 1980s brought political reform and greater freedom for everyone, especially women, with increased female literacy and employment.
But that era of hope and openness ended when the Islamist insurgency plunged the country into a brutal civil war that lasted through the 1990s. Ait Zai calls that decade a devastating setback for women.
"It was horrible because the Islamists' first targets were women," Ait Zai says. "For them, the change in society began with the total submission of women. They wanted women to stay home, wear the veil and just be procreators."
Proving Themselves In The Classroom
Ait Zai and other women say they're only just now regaining what they lost during the civil war, known as the Black Decade. While most people reject extremist Islam, society is more conservative now, says Ait Zai.
She says more women wear the veil, and most don't work outside the home. One exception is the medical profession; more than half of Algeria's doctors are women.

I see [female students'] reactions when I teach some things about our criminal code. They're revolted. They don't agree. And they show their disgust with the male students who are generally more conservative.

- Dr. Amel Abbess, a professor at an Algerian university

Dr. Amel Abbess practices forensic medicine at one of Algiers' main hospitals, and she also teaches at the local university. Abbess says Algerian society is macho, like the rest of the Mediterranean world. But she says young women are proving themselves today by excelling in their studies. Most of her female students might wear the veil, but it doesn't mean they don't stand up for their rights, she explains.
"I see their reactions when I teach some things about our criminal code. They're revolted. They don't agree. And they show their disgust with the male students who are generally more conservative," she says.
Abbess is referring to Algeria's laws that don't allow victims of rape to receive an abortion, unless the rapist is a terrorist. Abbess says that caveat was added by the government during the warped decade of the civil war.
True Emancipation
On the streets in Algiers, many women wear the veil; others don't. But Algerian women say the veil is not an issue in their emancipation — what matters is their family situation. Unlike most Algerian women her age, 40-year-old Salima Benhadid is not married and she has a paying job. Both give her a rare independence.
"The Algerian woman is always dependent on a man, especially if she doesn't work," Benhadid says. "And if she divorces, she may end up with nothing and then be dependent on her brothers or her parents. That's the real problem."
Benhadid, feminist Ait Zai and other women here say their lower status within the family is at the core of their inequality. They say true emancipation will come with work, independence and, of course, amendments to the family code.

House Passes "Redefining Rape" Bill, H.R. 3

— By Nick Baumann

| Wed May. 4, 2011 8:53 AM PDT

UPDATED: The House of Representatives passed the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" on a 251-175 vote Wednesday afternoon. The bill has been the subject of a lot of controversy over the possibility that it could redefine rape for the purposes of abortion law and force IRS agents to ask questions during audits about whether a woman who had received an abortion had been raped or was the victim of incest. However, the bill is almost certainly DOA in the Senate, which is run by Democrats and is more sympathetic to abortion rights. Even if H.R. 3 did pass the Senate, President Barack Obama has vowed to veto it.
I've been following the action live on Twitter. I'd put a Twitter widget here, but they generally aren't very good (they either show old tweets ahead of new tweets or don't refresh), so I'd encourage you to just follow me on Twitter.

If You Liked This, You Might Also Like...

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  Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad. Republicans are pushing to limit rape and incest cases eligible for government abortion funding.

• Should the FBI Redefine Rape?

• GOP Bill Would Force IRS to Conduct Abortion Audits

  Were you raped? Was it incest? And other questions the government's tax cops would have to ask women who've terminated pregnancies.

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  http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/05/house-debating-voting-redefining-rape-bill-hr-3-today?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NickBaumann+%28MoJo+Author+Feeds%3A+Nick+Baumann+|+Mother+Jones%29 

Bayous Flood As La. Residents Scramble 15MAI11 & Haley Barbour To Flood-Stricken Mississippians: You’re On Your Own 11MAI11

A flood of epic proportions, I hope this is a wake up call to the people of the area and they consider just what would be happening now if it wasn't for the federal government. The repiglicans and tea-baggers would have cut the funding for the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA, there wouldn't be the hundreds of people on duty necessary to maintain the flood control system and do their best to manage the river and the aftermath of the flood. Think this is all bunk? Consider the lack of government response in Pakistan during and after the massive Indus River floods of 2010, that is how the repiglicans and tea-baggers would handle the Mississippi River floods of 2011. Need proof, see the words of tea-bagger gop governor haley barbour to the citizens of Mississippi on 11MAI11.

by Greg Allen

Listen to the Story

Weekend Edition Sunday

[4 min 30 sec]

 

Enlarge Patrick Semansky/AP A member of the Louisiana National Guard stands guard as water diverted through the Morganza Spillway begins to fill a pasture in Morganza, La., on Saturday.

Whitewater cascaded through the gate of the Morganza Floodway in Louisiana Sunday, part of an emergency effort to save Baton Rouge and New Orleans from the rising Mississippi River. The Army Corps of Engineers opened the first gate in the spillway on Saturday, diverting waters that will flood communities along the bayous that thousands call home.
It's a historic moment; the Morganza Floodway has only been opened once before, in 1973.
Army Corps of Engineers Col. Ed Fleming says it's the first time the Corps has ever operated three floodways at once on the Mississippi. In Missouri, the Corps blew holes in levees earlier this month to open the Birds Point Floodway. That lowered the river and protected Cairo, Ill., from flooding. The Corps has also opened the Bonnet Carre spillway of New Orleans and now the Morganza Floodway. Fleming says the Morganza is being opened to keep stress off the Mississippi levees that protect Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
"We'll take approximately 10,000 cubic feet per second off the top of the Mississippi River," he says.
That's just a fraction of what the Morganza can handle. Even when the river crests in this area late next week, the Corps expects to open just a quarter of the floodgates. Fleming says the Corps will open the gates slowly — just one or two at a time — for a few reasons. One is to protect the spillway.
"The water will come out of here pretty quickly," he says. "You don't want to scour the backside of this structure. From an environmental perspective, obviously there are lots of bear and other kinds of wildlife. And we want to make sure they have the opportunity to get to higher ground. And last but most importantly, we want to make sure folks have the understanding that water's coming their way and they need to evacuate."
About 60 miles south of the Morganza spillway, the people of Butte La Rose have gotten the message. At the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church, Teddy and Michelle Wyatt, along with their friend Clo Comeaux, were stacking pews from the church on a trailer.
"We just volunteered to take everything out, to salvage what we could," they say. "The pews, the altar, the cross, you know, everything that was moveable."
Down by the levee, a group of prisoners from the St. Martin Parish jail are working to fill sandbags to protect private and public buildings. They're being supervised by Clayton Landry, with the sheriff's department. He says it's been a busy week in Butte La Rose.
"People are trying to move out, move their gear out of their homes and camps and save as much as they can," he says. "The sheriff hasn't announced a mandatory evacuation yet, but as soon as the water rises, they will announce it."
That could come in the next few days. The Corps says it will take about three days for water in the floodway to reach the southern end, near Morgan City. Then it will begin to back up throughout the Atchafalaya Basin, backflooding bayou communities that are home to as many as 25,000 people. In these communities, people aren't happy about having to fight the water, but few question the corps' decision to open the floodway.
As for Corps officials, they're cautiously optimistic that with the Morganza, plus all the other levees and floodways in their toolbox, they'll be able to handle the 2011 flood and avert a catastrophe.
But Corps Gen. Michael Walsh says it's important that hundreds of workers with the Corps and other agencies keep patrolling the levees to watch for warning signs. History, he says, shows the price of failure.
"There was an 80-mile width of water covering five states from the '27 flood. So any type of failure or any type of concern from that regard in regards to underseeping and overtopping — we're gonna be on rapidly," he says.
The Corps expects to keep the Morganza Floodway open until the Mississippi crests in Louisiana and falls below a level that's a threat to levees in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Unfortunately for people in the Atchafalaya Basin, that may be another three weeks.

Related NPR Stories

Miss. River Spillway Opens, Towns Await The Flood May 15, 2011

Haley Barbour To Flood-Stricken Mississippians: You’re On Your Own

In the past week, the Mississippi Delta has been hit hard by flooding in the Mississippi River. The rising water wiped out crops, forced families out of their homes, and caused river-front casinos to shut down, costing the government up to $13 million a month. The Associated Press reported that the damage in Memphis was estimated at $320 million, but that “the worst is yet to come, with the crest expected over the next few days.”
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) –- instead of pledging to do everything possible to help the people of his state deal with the flood -– called for the federal government to declare a flooding disaster, moved his furniture out of his lake house, and told flood-stricken families to rely on their friends to get to higher ground because the state wouldn’t help:

As the water rose, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour moved furniture out of his lake house outside Vicksburg on family land that was inundated during the 1927 flood. A week ago, he urged residents to flee low-lying areas, saying that the state wouldn’t assist the evacuations and that people should help one another secure their property and get out.

With Barbour’s staunch opposition to efforts to reduce climate pollution — which is driving the extreme flooding — it’s probably a good thing for America that he took his hat out of the ring for the presidency late last month.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/haley-barbour-on-your-own/
 

In 'Survival' Mode, Union Lashes Out At Democrats 11MAI11

THIS is a warning shot to the Democratic Party, and is a threat not without merit. It reflects the disgust of the left wing base of the party with the constant caving in to repiglican and tea-bagger demands that end up hurting the poor, the working class and the middle class. This constant giving in and kow-towing to the repiglicans and tea-baggers also sends the wrong message to the American electorate. Passing the opposition's legislation in order to get something passed, or to keep the government open raises the question of any difference between to two parties and who they are actually representing. The Democrats have less then a year to prove to the American people they are the party that is in fact representing our best interest. The budget negotiations over raising the deficit cap will provide the answer, and if it is just more "compromise" then I think the Democratic Party will find itself short of cash and campaign workers for the 2012 elections.

by Peter Overby

Listen to the Story

All Things Considered

[3 min 37 sec]

 

Enlarge Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images President Obama pats AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the back before speaking at the AFL-CIO Executive Council Meeting in Washington last August. Trumka said recently that unions need to start demanding accountability from their allies.

There's new tension in the marriage of organized labor and the Democratic Party.
Unions were already angry that Democrats in Congress haven't done more for them. And now, as Republican-controlled state legislatures take aim at labor's bargaining and political power, some union leaders say national Democrats aren't showing enough solidarity.
'Weak Friends, Or Worse'
In a little publicized but bluntly phrased speech last month, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka gave some union lawyers a dire prediction of what's ahead for organized labor.
He said the Republican assaults on unions amount to "true existential challenges," and that labor needs to demand accountability from its allies, including "Democrats who have been weak friends, or worse."
The AFL-CIO itself isn't ready to take any dramatic steps, but one public employees union is.
Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, says his union is going to stop giving contributions to federal candidates and federal party committees "for an indefinite period of time."
He says national Democrats don't stand up against the Republicans' anti-union offensive. "It's orchestrated, it's centralized, it's very disciplined," he says.
Now, Schaitberger says, the firefighters union will direct its money and energy to the states, "where we are engaged in survival."
Taking A Stand
If other unions were to follow the firefighters, congressional Democrats would be in a tough spot.
In 2010, unions gave $65 million to congressional candidates and party committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Of that money, 94 percent went to Democrats.

Related NPR Stories

Why Unions Matter To Democrats: It's Not Just Money

The real strength in the alliance, say analysts, is the political manpower that unions provide.

Union Battles: A 'National Campaign' Against Labor? Feb. 26, 2011

Labor Unions Fight For Their Right To Influence Feb. 23, 2011

This year, though, Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio have passed laws undercutting union bargaining power. A database at the National Council of State Legislatures lists more than 200 similar bills proposed by Republicans in 35 states.
Labor fights back with protests and ads. A TV spot by the firefighters union in Oklahoma says: "We're there when you need us. Now we need you. Tell politicians to do what's right."
So far, the International Association of Fire Fighters is alone in shutting out the national Democrats. But other unions share the deep frustration.
"You know, once in a while, you have to take a clear stand," says Matt McKinnon, political director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. He says members of his union are still angry that Democrats didn't pass a stronger health care bill.
But "whether we punish all Democrats over that," he says, "I don't think so."
Nowhere Else To Go?
For their part, the Democratic Party and its candidates may seem to look at unions as having bottomless pockets. But Democratic fundraiser Michael Fraioli says that's just not true.
"They have a lot of money," he says. "But as much as they have, they still have to target it."
Last year, Republican challengers took out half of Fraioli's clients in the House. But now, when asked if unions will close their checkbooks to Democrats, Fraioli says no. He predicts that the rift will heal as the 2012 races heat up.
In fact, the biggest union of all — the National Education Association — is already moving toward endorsing President Obama. And Fraioli is not the only boycott skeptic.
"Sometimes, individual unions do follow through with those threats," says Taylor Dark, a political scientist at California State University in Los Angeles. But, he says, the alienated unions usually don't stay away too long.
"Because in our two-party system, they really don't have anywhere else to go."

 

CIRCLE OF PROTECTION (A CALL FOR A MORAL BUDGET) 21APR11

SIGNATORIES of the Circle of Protection Statement to Congress and President Obama. I can't help but wonder why nobody from focus on the family, the family research council, concerned women of america, the heritage foundation, liberty university, bob jones university, just to name a few of the conservative Christian organizations that have not signed this statement since family values is supposed to be the focus of their organizations. What could be more pro family than the goals as outlined in this statement?
A Circle of Protection:
A Statement on Why We Need to
Protect Programs for the Poor
In the face of historic deficits, the nation faces unavoidable choices about how to balance needs and resources
and allocate burdens and sacrifices. These choices are economic, political—and moral.
As Christians, we believe the moral measure of the debate is how the most poor and vulnerable people fare. We
look at every budget proposal from the bottom up—how it treats those Jesus called “the least of these” (Matthew
25:45). They do not have powerful lobbies, but they have the most compelling claim on our consciences and
common resources. The Christian community has an obligation to help them be heard, to join with others to insist that programs that serve the most vulnerable in our nation and around the world are protected. We know from our experience serving hungry and homeless people that these programs meet basic human needs and protect the lives and dignity of the most vulnerable. We believe that God is calling us to pray, fast, give alms and to speak out for justice.
As Christian leaders, we are committed to fiscal responsibility and shared sacrifice. We are also committed to resist budget cuts that undermine the lives, dignity, and rights of poor and vulnerable people. Therefore, we join
with others to form a Circle of Protection around programs that meet the essential needs of hungry and poor people
at home and abroad.
1. The nation needs to substantially reduce future deficits, but not at the expense of hungry and poor people.
2. Funding focused on reducing poverty should not be cut. It should be made as effective as possible, but not cut.
3. We urge our leaders to protect and improve poverty-focused development and humanitarian assistance to promote a better, safer world.
4. National leaders must review and consider tax revenues, military spending, and entitlements in the search for
ways to share sacrifice and cut deficits.
5. A fundamental task is to create jobs and spur economic growth. Decent jobs at decent wages are the best path out
of poverty, and restoring growth is a powerful way to reduce deficits.
6. The budget debate has a central moral dimension. Christians are asking how we protect “the least of these.”
“What would Jesus cut?” “How do we share sacrifice?”
7. As believers, we turn to God with prayer and fasting, to ask for guidance as our nation makes decisions about our
priorities as a people.
8. God continues to shower our nation and the world with blessings. As Christians, we are rooted in the love of God
in Jesus Christ. Our task is to share these blessings with love and justice and with a special priority for those who
are poor.
Budgets are moral documents, and how we reduce future deficits are historic and defining moral choices. As
Christian leaders, we urge Congress and the administration to give moral priority to programs that protect the life
and dignity of poor and vulnerable people in these difficult times, our broken economy, and our wounded world.
It is the vocation and obligation of the church to speak and act on behalf of those Jesus called “the least of these.”
This is our calling, and we will strive to be faithful in carrying out this mission.
Circle of Protection Signers
April 21, 2011
Leith Anderson President National Association of Evangelicals
Dr. Carroll A. Baltimore, Sr. President Progressive National Baptist Church
David Beckmann President Bread for the World
Geoffrey Black General Minister and President United Church of Christ
Bishop Stephen E. Blaire Bishop of Stockton and
Chairman, Committee on
Domestic Justice and Human
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Bishop Charles E. Blake Presiding Bishop Church of God in Christ
Bishop Claire S. Burkat Bishop of Southeastern Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
J. Ron Byler Executive Director Mennonite Central Committee
Bishop Minerva Carcaño Bishop of the Southwest United Methodist Church
Very Rev. Thomas P. Cassidy, SCJ President Conference of Major Superiors of Men
Dale Evans US President Food for the Hungry
Daniel Garcia International Coordinator Kairos Prison Ministry International
Wes Granberg-Michaelson General Secretary Reformed Church in America
Ken Hackett President Catholic Relief Services
Ambassador Tony Hall Executive Director Alliance to End Hunger
Dick Hamm Executive Director Christian Churches Together in the USA
Bishop Mark S. Hanson Presiding Bishop Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Herman Harmelink III Ecumenical Officer International Council of Community Churches
Mitch Hescox President Evangelical Environmental Network
Bishop Howard J. Hubbard Bishop of Albany and Chairman, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Sister Mary Hughes, OP President Leadership Council of Women Religious
Joel Hunter Senior Pastor Northland: A Church Distributed
Michael Kinnamon General Secretary National Council of Churches of Christ
The Very Reverend Leonid Kiskovsky Director of External Affairs and Orthodox Church in America
Kate Kooyman Christian Reformed Church
Michael Livingston Director, Poverty Initiative National Council of Churches of Christ
Carlos Malave Associate for Ecumenical
Relationships
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
John McCullough Executive Director and CEO Church World Service
Wendy McFadden Executive Director and Church of the Brethren
A. Roy Medley General Secretary American Baptist Churches USA
Rich Nathan Senior Pastor Vineyard Columbus
Noffsinger General Secretary Church of the Brethren
Gradye Parsons Stated Clerk of the General Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Bishop Sharon Zimmerman Rader Ecumenical Officer, Council of United Methodist Church
Commissioner William A Roberts National Commander The Salvation Army
Samuel Rodriguez President National Hispanic Christian Leadership
Bishop Monroe Saunders Presiding Bishop United Church of Jesus Christ (Apostolic)
Ron Sider President Evangelicals for Social Action
Rev. Dr. Stephen Sidorak General Secretary, General United Methodist Church
Rev. Larry Snyder President Catholic Charities USA
Ervin R. Stutzman Executive Director Mennonite Church USA
Stephen J Thurston President National Baptist Convention of America
R. Lamar Vest President and CEO American Bible Society
Daniel Vestal Executive Coordinator Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
Berten A. Waggoner National Director Vineyard USA
Jim Wallis President and CEO Sojourners
Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins General Minister and President Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Rt. Rev. Elijah Williams General President The United Holy Church of America
Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner
Co-facilitator National African American Clergy Network
Jim Winkler General Secretary, General Board
of Church and Society
United Methodist Church