A divorced woman who had an affair was stoned to death in southern Somalia. Her lover will get 100 lashes.

Sharia law as interpreted here says that divorced women who take lovers are committing adultery, as are their lovers.

This is female genocide, taken a life at a time, as Islamicist rule spreads. What next? Plastic bags? They already have distinguishing dress down pat.

edited to add:

And yet, if this information is right, women are particularly vulnerable and placed to effect change as the climate changes.

"women in developing countries did a larger share of farming and had less access to income-earning opportunities.

They also managed households and cared for families, which limited their chances of moving around and increased 'their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters'. "

If women in Islam lose opportunities for education and are kept to their homes, beaten and bullied by their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, how will they prepare for change? Who will be blamed when meals run short, and who will go hungry while men eat?

And how do we help them?

According to CNN, Oxford University's Queens College has established a scholarship in the name of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death was broadcast around the world. She was shot by security forces in Iran during the June demonstrations against the Ahmedinejad sweep of the election when she got out of her car. A British citizen established the scholarship for Persian students, and the Iranians are sorely bent out of shape.

(Does the government seriously believe all these accusations of backstage plotting and maneuverage on the behalf of the European powers, do you suppose? Is it so unthinkable to them that their own young people hate what they have created? Or do they think the youngsters they have raised are so easily manipulated?)

In the meantime, to the creator of the Neda Agha-Soltan scholarship, I say, Good on you! Thank you for giving us something positive with her name on it!

Publishers Weekly has issued its list of the ten best adult books for 2009 (they get ARCs, Advanced Readers Copies, so they have seen the "important" books of the year as judged by the important people of publishing). And o my stars and garters, have they raised themselves up a fuss. You see, if you look at that list, the authors are all men.

WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) is claiming bias, as are quite a few other writers and readers. PW is saying they judged fairly and freely, "without political correctness."

The response is coming now just from WILLA. Britain's Guardian reported it; The New York Times is inviting its readers to post their ideas on which books they think should have made the list. Salon, of course, has an edgier take, including this wonderful quote: Comments on P.W.'s Web site likened the list to "a flier tacked to the wall at a men's club".

I actually like Laura Miller's Salon article very much. It's well thought out, intelligent, and rational. And it's informative.

For my own part, my feeling is, why is anyone surprised? Look at the high school and college required reading lists (unless they are for women's literature or world literature or for alternate schools). They are dominated by White Males (except for Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, the rest are dead before the turn of the 20th century). Look at what's considered valuable in literary publications, and who is considered "great" in literary classes. Look at the writers who are given face and page time in journals all over the world, even when it's not about a writing-based issue. The majority are men.

The bias is an old one. Historically women have been relegated to "women's issues" (said Bryon and Shelley, patting Mary Shelley on the head--girls writing "science"!) revolving around relationships, house, church, and community. We don't write about war, the death of the soul, the future of society and the morality of man (yes, it's still said "of man"). We don't write about the Big Issues. We write improving children's books, sweet little books about family, or torrid and hysterical romances. We don't write about war which sweeps over a devastated landscape (take that, Margaret Mitchell!), or the Hero's Journey, or striving for A New Tomorrow. So it has always been in publishing, and so it is in the literary community.

( Read more )

PW did a children's list which I liked better. I'll post about that on my fan journal later today.

I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, Margeret Atwood, or any of the other highly admired female literary writers referred to as "great."

My prayers, hopes, and sorrow for you and your losses.

Sometimes it feels like the world is spinning crazy.

This sucks.

Big-time.

I don't understand. Why can't people vote like this is a free country? I don't tell anyone else how to marry, worship, or raise their children. Why can't other people extend that same right to other human beings? You don't force your way of life on me; I don't force your way of life on you. quid pro quo; everyone ends the same.

And they're using officially sanctioned protests as cover to stage their own, "We're still here and we're still angry" protests, according to the BBC. The most recent round of protests, broken up by tear gas and batons, came during an officially sanctioned protest to mark the 30th anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the American embassy.

Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent, gives this analysis of the protest-counter-protest strategy:

With all opposition protests banned in Iran, members of the opposition are using official government demonstrations to get their message across.

Last month, they hijacked the annual Quds Day protests, organised by the government in support of the Palestinians. There have been reports of protests at other public gatherings, such football matches.

The demonstrations have been met by an increasingly strong turnout from the police and the pro-government Basij militia. That has prevented the opposition from gathering together in any one major rally, as they managed to do immediately after the election.

The fact that the protests are continuing at all despite intense government pressure shows the depth of anger over the disputed presidential election and against the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. If the protests continue, the government's next step may be to arrest key opposition leaders.

My admiration for the Iranian opposition movement is more intense than ever. They know what they risk, but they protest anyway. They known they defy the ruling theological government, which has acted mercilessly in the past, claiming to cut them off from God, and yet they insist on pursuing their idea of a secular state, and a fair one.

Today's Election Day, and you have a big one on your plates: Question 1.

It would be very nice for the GLBT folks and those of us who care about them if Maine votes a resounding NO! on this one, but vote in any case. It's not just the every-four-year votes that decide the fate of Americans.

If you aren't registered: you can register at the polls in Maine.



cross-posed to fan lj

Grumps of the world, we are vindicated by an Australian study that says grumping is good for us! So there, all you "turn that frown upside down" people! ;-)

According to Professor Joe Forgas of the University of New South Wales, grumpy folk are better at decision making and are less gullible. (Weirdly, the study also found that wet, grey days seem to improve memory, while sunny days make us more forgetful. Hm.)

It's out! It's out, THE DRAGON BOOK, with a Unicorn Chronicles story by Bruce Coville, and stories from Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple, Peter Beagle, Gregory McGuire, Diana Gabaldon, Garth Nix, and others! Mine is a Tortall story, centered around Daine's dragon Kitten/Skysong and Numair's horse Spots. Daine and Numair appear, as well as Emperor Kaddar (very briefly).

New Books! New books! Yay!

(Off to watch "So You Think You Can Dance"!)




edited to add: cross-posted to fan journal

From Iran: roughly one-third of the Iranian parliament is demanding the prosecution of Mousavi, one of Ahmedinejad's liberal opponents, according to the BBC. Two top opposition officials on trial recently received jail sentences/

Roman Polanski, baby raper, was refused bail. I wonder why?

I hadn't realized how hard Las Vegas was hit by the recession. Everywhere on the way in I saw housing developments that had ben halted in mid-construction, and not picked up again. After months out in the weather, the developments' investors bankrupt or at least too broke to finish, they'll have to be torn down. One of the librarians I've been talking to told me the public school system lost 3000 kids this last year due to people moving and to "reverse migration," people returning to Mexico. 8-(

The Rainbow Mountains are as stunning as ever, though.

Hooray! I had picked up THE NINTH DAUGHTER by Barbara Hamilton, a mystery set in the American colonial era featuring Abigail Adams as the detective, in the hopes of having an engaging read for my upcoming trip to Las Vegas. As usual, I set out to read the first ten or twenty pages, and quickly realized I had a winner.

I also loved the lush descriptions of the things a woman would notice, like fabric and china--on of my favorite aspects of Hambly's work. Then I picked up the writer's acute observation of the varied classes of people available in that corner of Boston, something that I love about Hambly's writing. (Her depiction of the makeup of life in New Orleans is my favorite part of the Benjamin January mysteries, and that's said even though I love the characters.) But it was when the writer described Sam Adams's voice as being deep and rich, one that could make any story fascinating, even if he described a fight between the household cats, that I sat up and said, "That's Hambly!"

I hurriedly checked the copyright page. No, it wasn't in Barbara Hambly's name--but the company that holds the copyright is named "Moon Horse," which is the name of Jenny Waynest's horse in DRAGONSBANE. I was positive.

Then, of course, I checked Barbara Hambly's website, and found her post that NINTH DAUGHTER is indeed authored by her under a pseudonym.

But I'm still pleased that I figured it out myself, and I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of it--to seeing some of my favorite historical characters as Hambly paints them. I love the way she gives characters dimension and humor, the way she paints a complete society as she tells the story, her sense of humor, and her honest way with history.

::doin mah Snoopy dance::

Al Franken, our newest Senator and legal comedian, introduced a law to the Senate making it illegal for any company contracting with the federal government to require its employees to sign a document agreeing not to sue the company should they be raped while they worked for that company.

No, I'm not joking. He really had to come up with a bill because Halliburton really had this document ready for women to sign before they would employ the women. Tim spent a lot of time last night explaining to me why a woman might look at a document like that, which at the very least implies another woman has been raped while under this company's employment in such a way that she thought it justified to sue the company for complicity in her rape, and still sign the paper and take the job. Since he really worked very hard at his explanation, I'm going to let him continue to believe he showed me how there would be a woman who would look at that document, sign it, and go to work.

Moving on from my mental block, behind which I stand shrieking and beating my fists on it, we come to: Al Franken creates the bill and takes it to the Senate. He says, "Here is this infamous company practice; they are as much as setting up the defense that a woman agreed to rape; they are denying her the right to legal recourse, this is nuts." 68 Senators agreed that this was the right bill to pass.

30 Senators, all Republican, voted to allow companies not just to wink at rape, but to give it a legal shield. Thirty men, most of them husbands and fathers.

It's doubtful you'll have heard about this. As the Buzzflash editors point out, the mainstream media, instead of covering that story, chose instead to go after ACORN. Yeah, you know, the organization that empowers poor people and allows them to take part in their own futures. Because one outstation of the organization fouled up (and because Obama seems pretty much bullet proof), Congress pulled their funding. See, poor people shouldn't have money, because some people (::coughGoldman Sachs AIGcough::) might mishandle it, so you have to defund the entire organization (because you can't attack Obama, so get one of the popular groups that supported him (::coughnotBankofAmericaFreddieMaccough::). Poor people having power in the political ring? Crush them. Crush them like you crush those women who complain about being raped by their fellow employees. Don't they know they're hired as "comfort troops"?

I've been reading a lot about women under Islam. Then I come back to shit like this, and think maybe the biggest differences are our clothes and the lie that we're more free.

Yeah, I know they have it a lot worse. They really do. But reading stories like this, and the back-up information (because really, BuzzFlash is a progressive polemical outfit and should be checked), makes me feel weak and dirty.

For some of us, it's harder than others. Take the women and girls of the Swat Valley. The Taliban threatened them, then they blew up their schools. Now the people have the valley back, and one girls' school, at least, is operational. Kind of. As is the women's institute across town. But the others are not.

And how long will this school remain open? With the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, more and more Islamic men are forcing their women under the veil, into women's quarters. Some women are so constricted in their lives that they develop skin trouble because they never take in any sunlight, and their bones soften from lack of exercise. Their men do everything outside the house, including grocery shopping. The girls are pulled out of secondary school, if they're allowed to rise so far.

What is going to happen to this school, its teachers, and its girls? What is going to happen to other such schools?

I don't want any more Afghans killed, since we can't fix heat-seeking missiles to target only Taliban. (But I can't even be comfortable in my hate for them, because there are other Islamicists just as bad.) I don't want us to tear up their country any more than we have; I'd like to see those people farming what they can, watching their herds, and trying to find some way to fit with the western world and the eastern world that doesn't grind them to paste between them.

I would like our girls and boys to stop coming home in boxes from Afghanistan and Iraq.

What I would like is for us to help to build up the infrastructure, to help the Afghani people build themselves up to a functional nation and to have schools, roads, energy, and ways to employ the water resources they have. A well fed nation is less vulnerable to fanatics.

And I would like to see a generation of little girls grow safely to womanhood able to read, do mathematics, and run businesses/attend university. I would like to see a generation of teachers greet the next generation of schoolgirls without being raped, beaten, or killed. I would like to see the next generation of mothers pass things down to their daughters that do not include shame, defeat, and illiteracy.

But I'm a fantasy writer.

Here's the letter my New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand and MoveOn are asking supporters to send around--I would rather post it here:

The military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is an unfair, outdated measure that violates the civil rights of some of our bravest, most heroic men and women.

That’s why I am so proud to support Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has been working with her colleagues in the Senate and activists across the country to overturn this unfair policy. Today, there is great news: We have convinced Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, to hold the first Senate hearings on repealing DADT this Fall.

We have to prepare for these hearings, so Sen. Gillibrand has launched a nationwide call to action. I was eager to stand with her to show that this country is ready to repeal DADT. Please join us.

Click here to help end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

As someone who has had friends, family, and fans in the military, and friends, family, and fans who are GLBT, I want this so bad it makes my fingernails hurt. Tim is of the same mind. So, I know, do many of you. It's time to kick this deadly piece of injustice in the teeth.

He said this:

"Finally, it sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's peoples."

From the Washington Post. It could be the award is not for what Obama has done, but for what the Academy hopes he can achieve or must not do. Interesting idea, no?

Or, as Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic Monthly puts it, "Maybe the Nobel Committee has just slapped the cuffs on Obama."

I like to think the Prize was awarded to him because Obama aggressively sent himself and his top people out around the world to restore the identity of the U.S. as a diplomatic negotiator, not a global thug; that he has taken steps to halt torture, entered the U.S. in a long-overdue campaign for cleaner energy standards (one that has had the international community on our asses for years), put his foot down about further use of torture, started the closure of Guantanamo and the withdrawal from Iraq (though both have proved more difficult than he had hoped), and recommenced the funding of medical care in the developing world (dropped by Bush wherever clinics offered abortion).

This wrinkle, however, is something worth studying on.

I found out last night he's giving the money to charity. I'll bet that hurt, when he had to be thinking of the girls' college funds and of ACORN.

cross-posted to my fan journal

Sarah Beth Durst (INTO THE WILD, OUT OF THE WILD) has a new book out today, which I got to read in manuscript form. It's called ICE, and it's a retelling of the Polar Bear King.

Cassie has been raised on the ice, and she is planning to become an ice scientist, like her dad and her friends, and her vanished mother. And then she meets the bear. The Bear, the Polar Bear King, who tells her that her mother is alive, held captive by his enemies, and that he will save her if Cassie becomes his wife.

Here begins Cassie's great adventure, one that takes her across the tundra and the waters of the north, into the great ice castle with its wonders, into the bed of a man she never sees by daylight, only the bear. She learns from him how there are creatures who protect the denizens and the places of the world, spirit rulers like him who are fighting and dying to save their charges. And she learns love for the husband she betrays. Now she must find him and save her mother, dealing with the mysterious inhabitants of her husband's world and a destination that is on no maps at all.

I loved it. I spent the whole time I read it wrapped up in a blanket; it made me feel so cold! My muscles ached when Cassie's did, and I think any reader will be caught up in the unbearable tension of the last third of ICE!

Remember this summer, when a country club in Huntingdon, near Philadelphia, kicked out a group of black day camp kids? Their claim was that they had mis-scheduled two other day camps that day and the area was dangerously crowded; one mother heard a woman ask what these black kids were doing there. I could have sworn I posted on it, but I can't find the post. I was livid--you don't do this to kids.

There was a ruckus. The club denied any kind of racial bias as they canceled the day camp's membership. The camp was offered another place to swim by several other pools in the area, but they did take it to court. And Tyler Perry, bless his heart, offered to take the kids to Disney World.

Today the club was found to be at faultby a state panel, on racist grounds. The ruling was made on the basis of the club's e-mails, according to the story. They're going to appeal, of course.

I hope they get hammered. Into the GROUND.

It's a day late, but nevertheless, my good wishes for Rosh Hashanah are still heartfelt.

Here's to all good things in your New Year!

So now my spouse-creature is mad at me. I've been reading--well, let's just say it's not my usual run of YA and fantasy titles of late. And I've been telling him bits that I've been reading, because I always do that. I did it when I was reading military history, samurai movies, serial murder research, Civil War histories and biographies. Why should now be different? Well, now he's mad at me.

Come on, Tammy, you say. With you, that's never enough information. What in God's name are you telling him about?

I just finished Ayaan Hirsi Ali's biography, INFIDEL. She's a Somali by birth, grew up living mostly there and in Kenya, educated in Islamic schools, got her female circumcision with the rest of the girls of her family, grew to faith with the Islamic Brotherhood but kept asking those questions (if equality for men, why not for women? I've asked that one myself). She finally bailed from an arranged marriage to a Canadian Muslim to Holland, where she became a doctor of political science, translator, member of Parliament representing race issues, and subject of threats on her life for her frank speech on the lives of women in Islam and on her help for the women and girls who came to Holland looking for asylum. Amazing book. Amazing woman.

ON KILLING by Lt. Col. David Grossman. Most men in war don't try to kill the enemy. I bet you never knew that, did you? Grossman combines a lot of studies and a lot of written and verbal accounts from soldiers about the emotional toll of killing in war, the causes of post traumatic stress disorder, and the kinds of soldier who are prone to it and those who are not. He also discusses how more modern types of training have made men more efficient killers--and more likely to collapse under the stress of battle.

A CRIME SO MONSTROUS by E. Benjamin Skinner. Two entries down from this one, a book about modern day slavery by a man who stars with child buying in Haiti and moves on to the mess that is the slave trade in Sudan, as the Muslim north, in its long war against the nativist/Christian south, kills two birds with one stone by having the militias scoop up the women and children of the villages they destroy for sale as slaves. There are also unpleasant stories about so-called "aid agencies."

FORSAKEN FEMALES: The Global Brutalization of Women by Andrea Parrot & Nina Cummings. I haven't actually started this one yet, but I did look at the pictures. I didn't know there were varieties of female circumcision. Frankly, the idea in general makes me want to hurl.

So my Spouse-creature and I were fighting about him being all wound up lately and he tells me it's partly because I'm sharing parts of these books with him, and it's really upsetting him. I used to feel liberated, talking to him, because I could talk to him about war and serial killers and he wouldn't screech at me like my female friends. Well, my friend Raq actually got into some of the serial killer stuff with me, and some of the war stuff, though she wasn't as big on troop movements and supply trains as Tim and me.

So here I am, retrograded to college and adolescence, where if I breathe a word of my reading, I'll get the high-pitched "I can't believe you're reading that! Don't tell me about it!" And people will say I'm sick.

Am I sick? How do you find out what's interesting if you don't grub in the dark corners? This is rhetorical, by the way. I'm assuming most of you are sitting there with your hair standing straight up.

It may not be your creative process, but it's mine. It's just the way I roll, I guess.