Urgent Alert: Call on Senate to pass International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2009

Subject: Urgent Alert: Call on Senate to pass International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2009
Reply-To: Equality Now <info@equalitynow.org>

EQUALITY NOW
URGENT ALERT: UNITED STATES
23 November 2009

EQUALITY NOW CALLS ON THE UNITED STATES SENATE TO PASS THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTING GIRLS BY PREVENTING CHILD MARRIAGE ACT OF 2009

In November 2009, Equality Now issued Women’s Action 34.1 highlighting the case of Fawziya Abdullah Youssef who was married by her father to a 25-year-old man at age 11 and died in childbirth a year later after 3 days of painful labor and a stillbirth.  The Action calls on the Government of Yemen to enforce the minimum age of marriage of 18 years in Yemen.

Also, in June 2009, Equality Now issued a News Alert calling on the Government of Saudi Arabia to annul the marriage of 10-year-old Amneh Mohamed Sharahili to a 25-year-old man and urging the Saudi King to issue an edict banning all child marriages.

The severe negative physical, emotional, psychological, educational and sexual implications of child marriage on girls are well-documented.  Such marriages violate the human rights of girls by excluding them from decisions regarding the timing of marriage and choice of spouse.  The health-related impact of early marriage and pregnancy, according to the United Nations, includes increased risks of HIV infection, death in labor, septic abortion, stillbirths, pregnancy-induced hypertension, puerperal sepsis and obstetric fistula.  Early marriage also jeopardizes girls’ right to formal education, which ends upon marriage.  International research has shown that married girls have few social connections, restricted mobility, limited control over resources and little or no power in their new households, and that domestic violence is common in child marriages.  Equality Now continues to call on its network to urge the Yemeni and Saudi governments, respectively, to ban child marriage.

In June 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the State Department Reauthorization Bill which included major provisions of the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2009 (H.R. 2103) (the “Act”).  This landmark legislation recognizes that child marriage is an obstacle to United States’ development efforts, and investments in improving women’s and girls’ education, health, economic and legal status are needed to prevent this harmful practice.  It authorizes U.S. foreign assistance programs to prevent child marriage and provide educational and economic opportunities for girls around the world for fiscal years 2010 through 2014.  The U.S. Senate must also include similar provisions from the Act (S. 987) into its version of the State Department Reauthorization Bill, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will introduce as early as this week.

As a part of efforts to curb child marriage in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, Equality Now urges its Women’s Action Network members in the United States to call upon their U.S. Senators to cosponsor the Act (S. 987) and urge members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ensure that provisions from the Act are included in the Senate version of the State Department Reauthorization Bill. Click here to find your Senators’ contact information. Click here to see a list of Senate Foreign Relations Committee members.

Please keep Equality Now updated on your work and send copies of any replies you receive to: info@equalitynow.org

Sample letter
[add address of Senator]

Dear

I am writing to express my deep concern about the prevalence of child marriage in a number of countries around the world and the severe negative physical, emotional, psychological, educational and sexual implications of such marriage on girls.  Child marriages violate the human rights of girls by excluding them from decisions regarding the timing of marriage and choice of spouse.  Health-related impacts of early marriage and pregnancy according to the United Nations include higher risks of HIV infection, death in labor, septic abortion, still births, pregnancy-induced hypertension, puerperal sepsis and obstetric fistula.  Early marriage also jeopardizes girls’ right to formal education, which ends upon marriage.  Moreover, international research has shown that married girls have few social connections, restricted mobility, limited control over resources and little or no power in their new households, and that domestic violence is common in child marriages.

I am aware that provisions from the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2009 (H.R. 2103 and S. 987) (the “Act”), which authorizes U.S. foreign assistance programs to prevent child marriage and provides educational and economic opportunities for girls around the world, were passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on 10 June 2009 as part of the State Department Reauthorization Bill. As a Senator, I urge you to cosponsor the Act (S. 987) and ensure that provisions from the Act are included in the Senate version of the State Department Reauthorization Bill. Please take action on this issue so that efforts to eradicate child marriages, which undermine our government’s efforts to empower women around the world, can be expanded and girls around the world are given a better chance to realize their potential.

I thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely

Posted via email from nypinta's posterous

Feed the puppies!

Quote of the day: "Happiness is a warm puppy." ~Charles M. Schulz

Song of the day: none

State of mind: Baffled

Date: 11/23/09

Day 23.

This was sent to me by a friend and I couldn't resist posting it. Especially after a local news story about some hunters finding a beagle in the woods that had it's face and front paws wrapped in duct tape and had been left in a garbage bag for possibly two weeks with only a hole for it's nose so it could breath, or about the asshole (and I hate that word, but it is the most apt) that kicked a puppy to death in Pittsburg because he was upset he was going to miss the beginning of the football game because he had to walk the dog. How can people do that? What the hell is wrong with someone that they think it's OK to be maliciously cruel to an animal?

So, I need to do at least this small thing. Just because kicking that asshat in Pittsburgh is "against the law". Whatever.

Hi, all you animal lovers. This is pretty simple... Please ask ten friends to each ask a further ten today!

The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily so they can meet their quota of getting FREE FOOD donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It takes less than a minute (about 15 seconds) to go to their site and click on the purple box 'fund food for animals for free'. This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Please pass it along to people you know.
The Animal Rescue Site

AGAIN, PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS!

Show quote of the day: "People don't disappear off the face of the Earth."
"Sure they do. Quantum physics, alien abduction, Schrödinger's cat... One minute you're getting a hot dog in the park, the next you're fighting off Sleestaks on the farside of a dimensional rift!"

Rossum vs FOX

Quote of the day: "It's weird... you know the end of something great is coming, but you want to hold on, just for one more second, just so it can hurt a little more." ~Unknown (at least by me.)

Song of the day: Somebody to Love by Queen (aka "The Happy Feet" song)

State of mind: bummed

Date: 11/15/09

Day 15. Post... whatever.

I heard the news a few days ago but have been pretending I didn't just for a little while, but I have to face facts: Dollhouse has been cancelled by FOX. Surprise! Ok, not really that much of a shock. Despite cancellation, (which I think is weird that they announced it in the middle of the November sweeps hiatus when it wasn't even on), they are going to be airing all 13 episodes of this season. So. There's that.

As is the case with most things these days, I read about it on twitter, then went to Whedonesque.com for confirmation and saw that Joss himself had posted about the news.

Hmm. Apparently my news is not news.

I don't have a lot to say. I'm extremely proud of the people I've worked with: my star, my staff, my cast, my crew. I feel the show is getting better pretty much every week, and I think you'll agree in the coming months. I'm grateful that we got to put it on, and then come back and put it on again.

I'm off to pursue internet ventures/binge drinking. Possibly that relaxation thing I've read so much about. By the time the last episode airs, you'll know what my next project is. But for now there's a lot of work still to be done, and disappointment to bear.

Thank you all for your support, your patience, your excellent adverts. See you again. -j.

Now, I'm not going to get all pissy and complain that the show was 'too smart' for the American audience. For one, I don't think most people are really all that dumb. (Despite what I say A LOT while driving.) I think the reason so many shows succeed that don't require that much thinking is that most people, even the clever ones, don't want to think while watching TV. It's supposed to be relaxing, so they choose shows that do the thinking for them. Of course, there are always exceptions to that rule because it can't be all prat falls and reality TV all the time or the brain starts to hurt... but in Dollhouse's case, it seemed that what the show was and how it was advertised were not compatible. So outside the Whedon fandom, those that were looking for another eye candy spy action show were disappointed, (except the eye candy part of course), and anyone that was looking for the next thinking show thought Dollhouse was nothing but girl fights and shoot outs. So, the audience FOX got was turned off by the moral ambiguity and those that might have appreciated it never found it. Well, there's always DVD.

But since everyone knows it has an end date, why not give it a try if you haven't already? It comes back on December 4th and the last episode airs on January 22nd. With only two half seasons, that isn't much of a commitment. (If you need a widget to remind you when it comes back, try here.) The previous episodes are available on Hulu.com or on iTunes, and I'm sure the previous season is at your local DVD rental store, which should include the never aired episode Epitaph One. (Warning, that link has spoilers included.) But the real reason you should give the show a chance is because it attracted the kinds of people that could do this kind of work: whyiwatch.com
How can someone that talented be wrong about a show, huh?
And look at the promo she made:


Now THAT is how the show should have been marketed. Not sure how it would have effected the ratings but FOX would have at least gotten the correct audience.

And now there is a fan created viral campaign online with clues and videos spread all over the net. I won't give them all away, but here are a few to start you off: ditchthetech.com,@tombness on twitter, Wipethefuture.com, and Spectrin.com.

Show quote of the day: "Ooh, I could eat that word. Or a crisp."

10 Useless Deaths in Fiction

Quote of the day: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." ~Bertrand Russell

Song of the day: Straight Out of Line by Godsmack

State of mind: in denial

Date: 11/11/09

A long time back io9 had a list of the 10 Most Wasted or Lame Deaths in sci fi. So of course, I decided to make my own list. I am going to exapand the criteria a bit to both Sci Fi and Fantasy, just because I can.

Let's start with the slightly annoying and move on to deaths that to this day make me want to pull my hair out:

1)Cyclops- X-Men 3. He was kind of a waste of celluloid so I wasn't so upset, except that it was pointless. What reason did Phoenix aka Jean Grey have to smelt him?

2)Mace Windu- Star Wars: Ep III. On one hand it did take an awful lot to kill him. On the other why can Anakin soar from thousands of feet in the air through traffic and land himself safely onto a moving vehicle, yet Mace couldn't?

3)Data- Star Trek: Nemisis. Brain the size of a planet and he can't get off a ship before it goes boom. Wait... am I confusing my robots again?

4)D'Argo- Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. It wasn't that he sacrificed his life for his friends. It was the cliched way he did it. Farscape was all about tacking worn and weary Sci Fi plot devices and turning them on their head but then they kill D'Argo off in the most overdone war story way possible. D'Argo deserved better.

5)Dr Carson Beckett- Stargate Atlantis. Because they kept bringing him back.

6)Colin/Quinn- just because it looked so lame since the actors playing them quit/were fired the season before so the show runners were forced to resort to showing a guy that was vaguely the size of Quinn waving his friends through the vortex and that was the last you saw of them... except, no! They bring in a new guy that is an alternate world Quinn, but he's stupid! Was that supposed to be an insult aimed at Jerry O'connell? Childish. Also, why didn't the geniuses use the actress that played an alternate Quinn in season 3? No need to explain why she looks different since it's already been established.

7)Connor Macleod- Highlander: Endgame. Never happened. Duncan was hallucinating.

8)Marcus Cole- Babylon 5. His death would have had meaning except the person he gave his life for didn't return for the 5th season and that made his death moot. Which was a pity because Marcus Cole was one of my favorite human characters on that show. He was full of delight and sarcasm, both of which was sorely missed in the last season.

9)Wier. Wier again. Wier 2.0- Stargate Atlantis. Not only did they kill her, they killed her Replicator clone, then killed another actress playing her as yet another Replicator clone.

10)Padme- Star Wars: Ep III. Death by heartbreak? I can't believe they wrote off her character as if she was too weak to deal with the fact she married a psycho that helped take over the galaxy; especially since she was voted Queen when she was just 14 years old and now has two children that will be left alone in that now very dangerous galaxy. What the hell does Lucas have against women that he writes one that is supposed to be so strong and extraordinary yet they can't even be counted on to take care of their own children when they are needed the most?

Show quote of the day: "I think your face is going to catch fire."

Freak of nature?

Quote of the day: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." ~Charles Darwin

Song of the day: Undecided by Ella Fitzgerald

State of mind: muddled

Date: November 10th, 2009

Day 10! I am falling behind but still chugging along...

As stated, I am unwell. I thought it was a head cold, but now I am not so sure. No sniffles, or chest congestion. All I have is a sore, swollen throat and a headache that radiates down my back. I am suspicious that it might be due to my wisdom teeth that I have not yet had taken out. My dentist had recommended they be pulled a little over a year ago because they came in funny and he was concerned about possible decay because even with my fastidious oral hygiene, the odd angels would make them impossible to keep clean. Was that bullshit to get me to authorize an unnecessary procedure? I don't think so. And now I'm thinking that my weird wisdom teeth are making me prone to infections in the throat. This is the second time I've felt like this in little over three months. In September I came back from NYC with a sore throat too. Also, I've had strep throat twice in the past year- the last time being the worst case I've ever had.
How does this make me a freak of nature? It's the number of wisdom teeth I have. Three.
I may have mentioned the story my dentist told me about more kids being born with less wisdom teeth as they are less often necessary to replace missing teeth- which is their function. He gave credit to better oral hygene and advanced in dentistry.
I mentioned that on twitter and was challenged on it and although I dont think that it's a huge deal, I feel the need to clarify in more than 140 characters, but don't feel like spamming everyone's twitter feed with my tooth ramblings.
1) I did not mean to imply that my dentist was right. Just that he said it.
2) I know nothing about genetics.
Even still, it makes a kind of sense to me. I have no idea if a change in humans could be so quick, but it seems plausible that some alterations would happen due to environent. I have no idea if that's how changes happen at all. But in my overviewing brain, it makes sense. The Earth wasn't built for us, we were built for it. And if at one time we were all the same, from the same place (Africa) then why are we so different now? We moved to different locations with different environents. It's the reason I see as to why people with ancestors from the colder climates are furry as hell. (I'm a lot Irish, so I know.) Why people have certain skin tones depending on the amount of sunlight there is. Even eye color could be attributed to where the human was when it first appeared.
But from what I gathered by the comment to me was that evolution happens because those with favorable traits survive while those without don't and the survivors pass it on. (I might be interpreting that totally wrong BTW. Again, I know nothing about genetics.) But I have to wonder, where did the trait come into exsistence in order to be deemed by sucessful human survival to be the good trait to pass on? Something had to have happened that triggered it, right?so why not flouride in the water or good brushing habits?
Either way, after work tomorrow I have to drop off some books to the library and plan to pick up a few to answer the question, because now it's bugging me.
Besides, the real point I was trying to make on twitter was just that I'm a freak. On that I suspect we all agree.

Show quote of the day: "When they blew up the Death Star with thousands of Stormtroopers on it, they knew they were people?"
"It was called a 'Death Star', sweetie. They knew what they were getting into."

Sicko

Quote of the day: "One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains it's original dimensions." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Song of the day: Pig by NIN

State of mind: muddled

Date: November 9th, 2009 (Carl Sagan's B-day.)

Great. I'm sick. I was fine yesterday but I woke up sick today. My head ached so much even my teeth hurt. My teeth!
So I took the advice of every newscast on illness and stayed home. Then I took a long nap and spent the rest of the day in battle with whatever it is that is making my throat hurt and my bones ache.
What exactly is the point to the common cold? Or the flu? What is it that makes us sick and why bother?
Most things on this planet in the natural world at least has a function on the food chain and in our ecosystem. Except sore throats and headaches. It's not going to kill me, so it's not Mother Nature culling the herd. So, WTF?
I bet all colds and flues and other non life threatening illnesses are an alien conspiricy. Just wait. You'll see.

*cough cough*

They'll show up with some fancy schmancy cure all and we'll be so happy and trust them and love them and then BAM, they'll steal all our chocolate or the moon or something.

Show quote of the day: "I'm wearing my teeth kicking heels."

Top Ten TV Moments

Quote of the day: "Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground." ~Teddy Roosevelt

Song of the day: Vicarious by Tool

State of mind: chagrined

Date: November 7th, 2009 (Carl Sagan Day!)

Day 7! Post 4.

TV. I love it. I watch too much of it. As a child of the 70s, it was my babysitter, my teacher, and my friend. This might explain why to this day I still believe in my heart of hearts that all my problems could be solved by a team of mercenaries in a black van and a fully equipped tool shed or that whenever I am counting I think to myself after every number, "ah-ha-ha!"

So when I saw an article on TV Guide asking the online community what their top ten TV moments were of the past decade, I thought I could come up with twice that amount easy.

I couldn't. And that bothers me. An entire decade of dedicated television viewing and I had trouble completing a list of ten things that were worthy enough to be put on a list for a blog? That makes me wonder just what am I doing with my time that I couldn't be doing other, possible more memorable things. Piano lessons? Travel? But both would require money... Volunteer work? Reading... oh wait. I do a lot of that too. Can I come up with a top ten list of awesome moments from the books I read over the past decade? Yeah, I think I could.

Anyhow... I did eventually come up with at least ten moments and despite my sudden crisis of whatever you want to call it, I am now posting it for your viewing pleasure.

This list isn't in any particular order, and not all of the moments would be considered happy ones. They asked for memorable and unfortunately sucky things count.

1) 9/11. That day and the weeks after of news coverage. I pretty much spent all my waking hours in front of the TV scanning channels from CNN, to MSNBC, to BBCA, to Discovery, to the local channels. I was mesmerized by the sheer magnitude of the event and I think it took that long for my brain to really take it all in. What an odd surreal time that was.

2) Election night, 2008. I'll admit, I had something in my eye. I spent that night hoping from my computer to in front of my TV. I really wish I had been out that night at the many gathering places folks go to watch TV together. (They're called bars.)

3) President Bartlett curses God on The West Wing. Awesome show, awesome episode.

4) Torchwood: Children of Earth. That show ripped my heart out, then kicked it around with steal toe boots.

5) The Prom, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gets me every time! I know on a lot of peoples lists, the episode where her mother passes away from a brain aneurysm is a memorable, and gut wrenching moment, but when her fellow classmates acknowledge en masse that she is protecting them from things they don't even want to contemplate, I just want to hug my TV.

6) Serenity rises- The Train Job. Alright, I'll admit it, on Firefly the first thing I fell in love with was the ship. And of all the horrible moments in the movie, I recall cursing out a certain word smith the most in my head when Serenity was coming apart during Wash's miraculous landing on Mr. Universe's base. I thought things like, "He's killing Serenity! That bastard!!". Then the rest of the movie just kind of happened to me. (Good stuff.)

7) The X-Prize. I watched the documentary of the race for the X-Prize and the moment that gets me the most is when the team that designed the winning ship was going to launch for the second time and they came out of the hanger to an empty vista and some were down thinking that no one wanted to see this historical moment played out, and then they all came around the corner of a building to see thousands of people, most of whom had driven all night, just to be there and when the crowd saw them they burst into roarous cheers. I think that alone speaks for itself as to whether or not their is interest by people here on Earth to go elsewhere. Out there. Now.

8) Supernatural: Dean goes to Hell. I didn't particularly enjoy the fact that Dean went to Hell, but I thought it was pretty gutsy of the show runners to send one half of the shows heroic duo to the ultimate place of suffering. The consequences of that event are still being played out, and I am enjoying the ride. If you aren't watching this show, get thee to Netflix pronto.

9) Castle dresses up as Mal for Halloween. No other show that I can think of, besides maybe Supernatural, are the writers are having so much fun adding in moments for a particularly loyal segment of the fanbase. They know a lot of the people watching the show came to it as fans of Nathan Fillion and Firefly. But there have been nods to shows other cast members were a part of previous as well. And they do it all without compromising the integrity of the story, which is a neat trick.

10) Spirit Rover sends back photos from Mars. We sent a remote control car to another planet. That speaks for itself.

So, that's it. That's the sum of the coolest moments for me from the last decade.

I so need a hobby.

**Edit** I didn't include the tragic loss of the Shuttle Columbia because I heard about it from my mother when I was still in bed and I was too heartbroke to bother watching any footage on TV about it. So, I can't include it as a memorable moment I experience through TV. It was just a crappy memorable moment from life.

Show quote of the day: "Tell me the truth. When you came up with this plan, you were watching Scooby Doo."