I just don't get it.

If a bunch of people sat in a room with the task of imagining the most f***ed-up thing they could think of, it couldn't be much worse than this:

A 13-year-old girl is raped by three men, and when her father complains to the authorities, they accuse her of adultery and sentence her to be stoned to death. She is taken to a football stadium where 1,000 people watch as she is placed in a hole in the ground and buried to her neck. Fifty men stone her, and at one point nurses are sent to check whether she is still alive. She is, so they put her back in the hole until she dies. Then a story is fabricated for the press in which she is 23 and pleads guilty to "adultery," accepting her fate, rather than pleading for her life, as she did in reality -- as if these changes of detail makes the hideous spectacle somehow excusable. Later, Amnesty International learned the factual details from witnesses to the execution. One boy was shot in a crossfire as members of the crowd attempted to assist the girl.

So, yes, this is what is happening on the mainland in Somalia.

After reading that horrible, enraging story, I needed to search for organizations that are helping women in places that hold little hope for them -- although, in the case of the organization below, not specifically Somalia, but perhaps they will include that country in the future. But it is helping women in Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Sudan, etc. It looks like a wonderful organization. I have been looking for something like this to support.

Women for Women International

Sad on so many levels...

... one being that such a thing is taking up courtroom time from cases of injustice against women that will never even be recognized or considered, much less brought to court.

Forced annulment keeps Saudi Arabian couple apart.

A good website...

... never hurts a good cause.

I was impressed with Amnesty International's anti-Guantanamo site

Tearitdown.org

Check it out; sign; pass it on, if you please.

Useful Timeline: Bill of Rights Under Bush

from MondoGlobo

Burma: Maybe it's not over yet...

But if there's going to be any hope, these guys are going to need a little bit of support.
So where are all the Superpower friends of democracy and freedom now?

Related: U.S. Policy on Burma: A Point for Semantics; Now What?

Update on the Troy Davis case

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that they are willing to hear Troy Davis' appeal to present new evidence, but he remains on death row.

Related: Another reason why the death penalty sucks.

Poems from Guantanamo

This small book, edited by Marc Falkoff, a lawyer for 17 of the detainees, is subtitled "The Detainees Speak."
But Dan Chiasson from the NYT Sunday Book Review notes that it might be better titled "The Detainees Do Not Speak" or "The Detainees Are Not Allowed to Speak," due to the Pentagon's heavy vetting of the edition.
Still, given the human drive for expression, and the circumstances under which these were written, (one of them, Falkoff says, carved into a Styrofoam cup when pen and paper were banned, one of them, a despondent claim of innocence by a prisoner who has been in solitary confinement for nearly four years and tried to kill himself 12 times) it seems worth looking at.

Bill of Rights Monument Project

Here's another cool thing I just learned about: Juggler/comedian Chris Bliss started a nonprofit corporation dedicated to installing Bill of Rights monuments (with different designs/ sculptures in each city) in each of the state capitals, and elsewhere across America.

Quote du Jour: Kim Gandy

"Decades from now, when this country finally catches up with the rest of the developed world with regard to women's rights, we will look back on the Bush presidency as a temporary detour from our long history of building democracy one right and one freedom at a time. The eight years of mis-rule by this President will be seen as a profound embarrassment that was eventually overcome. I guarantee it."

-- Kim Gandy, president of NOW, from her biweekly column, "Below the Belt"

Pat Leahy: You're funny, Al, but not haha funny.

At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice, Chairman Patrick Leahy questions Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the details regarding a Canadian citizen sent to Syria to be tortured.

GONZALES: I think General Ashcroft confirmed this publicly, that there were assurances sought that he would not be tortured from Syria.

LEAHY: Attorney General... (derisive chuckle) ... I'm sorry. I don't mean to treat this lightly. We knew damn well, if he went to Canada, he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held. He'd be investigated.

We also knew damn well, if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

You know, and I know, that has happened a number of times, in the past five years, by this country. It is a black mark on us. It has brought about the condemnation of some of our closest and best allies. They have made those comments both publicly and privately to the president of the United States and others.

And it is easy for us to sit here comfortably in this room knowing that we're not going to be sent off to another country to be tortured, to treat it as though, well, Attorney General Ashcroft says we've got assurances.

Assurances from a country that we also say, now, we can't talk to them because we can't take their word for anything?

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I...

LEAHY: I'm somewhat upset.

GONZALES: Yes, sir, I can tell. But before you get more upset, perhaps you should wait to receive the briefing...

LEAHY: How long?

GONZALES: I'm hoping that we can get you the information next week.

LEAHY: Well, Attorney General, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll meet you halfway on this. I'll wait next week for that briefing. If we don't get it, I guarantee you there will be another hearing on this issue.

Canadians have been our closest allies -- longest unguarded frontier in the world. They're justifiably upset. They're wondering what's happened to us. They're wondering what's happened to us.

Now, you know and I know, we're a country with a great, great tradition of protecting people's individual liberties and rights. You take an oath of office to do that; I take an oath of office to do that.

I believe, in my basic core nature, in that. My grandparents, when they immigrated to this country, believed that. Let us not create more terrorism around the world by telling the world that we cannot keep up to our basic standards and beliefs.

So I'll wait a week. I'll wait a week, but I won't wait more than a week for that briefing.

What do you and I have in common with detainees in Guantanamo?

Look what Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (and I thought he was one of the better ones) slipped in at the end of the last Congress:

U.S. civilians can face military trials.

After the Taliban: Women in Afghanistan

This is the most depressing article I've read in some time.

A thoughtful reminder to certain constituents...

... from someone Tan D. Nguyen, the GOP challenger to Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, denies he is in any way affiliated with:

"You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

This ABC News article notes that "In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can legally vote."

Of course, the letter was written in Spanish and only sent to constituents with suspicious-sounding names, such as a candidate for a local city council -- oops.