Monthly Archives: May 2007

freight train

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elizabeth cotten (with pete seeger as fan) – watch the whole thing:

and more songs and stories here and here. and here.

… Cotten was born in Carrboro, North Carolina to a musical family; her parents were George Nevills and Louise Price Nevills. Elizabeth was the youngest of five children. She began writing music while toying around with her older siblings’ instruments, sometimes having to sneak into her older brother’s room to lay the hidden guitar across her lap and play. After more tinkering with these instruments she began playing the guitar upside down, since she was left-handed. This position required her to play the bass lines with her fingers, and the melody with her thumb. Her signature, alternating bass style is known as “Cotten Picking”. By age 8 she was playing songs, and after scraping together some money she bought her own guitar, which she named “Stella”.

She possessed the remarkable ability to play a song exactly after hearing it only once. By her early teens she was writing her own songs, one of which, “Freight Train”, would go on to be one of her most recognized. …

thanks to catalin for the heads up

protest against the selling of “rapist doll”

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Amazon.com and other stores are currently selling a “toy” called “The Rapist No. 1 Doll,” modeled after a character in the new Tarantino/Rodriguez film Grindhouse, which is a torture porn film that shows graphic male sexual violence and sexualised torture against women. [more on the rising popularity of “gornos” here]

For details on how to send protests to the companies, see this post; as mentioned there:

The availability of the so-called toy Rapist Number One … demonstrates so clearly the links between the prevalence of rape and sexually violent films and pornography. The purchaser of the toy will not necessarily commit rape, but his acquisition legitimates rape. His action, and the availability of this toy, sustains a culture in which rape and sexual violence are not taken seriously; in which sexual violence is normalised and legitimated. We may not have the empirical evidence which clearly shows that watching violent porn makes someone commit rape, but the fact that this film has spawned this sort of merchandise, sold as a “toy”, should tell us all we need to know about the harmful nature of this sort of material.

Rape Crisis England and Wales
Rape Crisis Network Europe
RAINN

update: Amazon.com and youbuynow.com are no longer selling the doll.

When told that I will cancel my account because after their initial response to my complaint (response which was all along the lines of “our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking”), I

*don’t* feel like my concern has been addressed and I don’t agree that Amazon needs to ‘represent a wide spectrum of opinions on a variety of topics’ when that ‘topic’ is normalizing rape. It’s not a freedom of expression matter, rape is a crime and material that promotes it discriminates against people, like material that promoted pedophilia would, for instance – and you wouldn’t invoke the same excuse for selling pedophilia promoting items, would you?

Amazon.com says they’re “very sorry if offering the Grind House Rapist doll offended you in any way, shape, or form. Let me assure you that Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts and customer feedback provides us an opportunity for improvement. … we are no longer offering this product for sale in our catalog”; however, Amazon.co.uk still lists the doll – they have renamed it but you can still search for it under “rapist.”

And You buy now expresses the “hope that our apology for any rudeness [from customer service representatives who reacted inappropriately to complaints, suggesting rape isn’t a “real problem with actual, quantifiable effects on society”] and the removal of the action figure will satisfy those that we offended” but makes sure to stress the fact that the intent of the doll was misinterpreted by those who felt it was promoting rape.

As we know, “Whatever you do, don’t figure out that it’s systematic.”

petition against honor killings

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SIGN the International Campaign against killings and stoning of women in Kurdistan petition:

To: Kurdistan Regional Government

Condemn the brutal stoning to death of Doa – a young girl whose only crime was to fall in love

Doa was stoned to death in the centre of the town of Bashiqa in front of hundreds of people and the authorities did not prevent this crime from happening. On the contrary, they were present and paving the way for this horrific crime to be carried out. [moreover, onlookers captured it on video; and the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization site has more on how Islamist groups are trying to capitalize on the murder]

Doa was a 17 year old girl from a family of Yazidi faith; she was snatched from her house by some Yazidi men who discovered that she was in love with a Muslim Arab man and had visited him. They stoned her to death in public on 7th April 2007 in the town of Bashiqa.

It is known that women in Kurdistan and Iraq are oppressed. The few rights they do have are very limited and in most cases they are treated as sub-humans.

Killings, suicide, and violence against women are an every day occurrence in this region. Although a crime of this nature is very new to Kurdistan, this is an indication that such crimes against women are now tolerated. Doa’s killers are still free.

The government’s failure to protect women, and enforce laws against criminals, has created a situation where thousands of women become victims of so called “honour killings”. Violence has risen as result of patriarchal and religious traditions.

We strongly condemn this barbaric act, and call upon all human rights and women’s rights organisations, political parties, and activists in Kurdistan and globally to condemn this crime.
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