En la Red- In the Net ..4a semana de mayo

ESPAÑOL

El trabajo es un infierno: historias de la clase obrera de nuestros días
por Michael D. Yates* Sin Permiso Traducción de María Julia Bertomeu - Los economistas nunca dicen demasiadas cosas sobre el trabajo. Hablan de oferta y demanda de trabajo, pero tienen poco que decir sobre la naturaleza del trabajo que realizamos. Como la mayoría de los comentaristas en los medios de comunicación, parecen creer que las economías modernas exigen un trabajo cada vez más calificado, ejecutable por trabajadores formados en sitios limpios y tranquilos, en un ambiente en el que las decisiones las toman, de consuno, trabajadores y directivos. Pero no hay que llamarse a engaño. En el mundo actual, una abrumadora mayoría de los trabajadores realizan trabajos duros y peligrosos, y cada minuto de su faena pone en riesgo la salud de sus cuerpos y de sus mentes.

* Michael D. Yates es editor asociado de la veterana revista socialista norteamericana Monthly Review. Su libro más reciente es:In and Out of the Working Class.

Crítica del libro "La bolchevique enamorada", de la revolucionaria rusa Alexandra Kollontai
Amores y desamores contra el heroico y trágico telón de fondo de la revolución rusa .

Andrea D’Atri
Mi amigo vio el libro que apoyé sobre la mesa y preguntó de qué trataba.
–Es una novela de Alexandra Kollontai que acabo de leer y me pareció buenísima.
–¿Y cómo termina? ¿Al final, la protagonista se casa? –ironizó mi amigo sobre el título que llamaba su atención, demasiado romántico para lo que suponía podía escribir Kollontai.
–¡No! –le dije, redoblando su ironía- esta novela tiene un final feliz.
La novela que tenía sobre la mesa era La bolchevique enamorada, la única de Alexandra Kollontai quien, antes y después de esta experiencia literaria, se dedicó a escribir casi exclusivamente –con excepción de algunos relatos cortos - artículos y folletos de propaganda. Quizás a esa escasa trayectoria se deban el tono duro de sus diálogos, la austeridad de recursos en la descripción de personajes y escenarios y la falta de pretensiones de su estilo. Como señala Jacqueline Heinen respecto de sus relatos cortos, y que bien puede atribuirse también a esta novela, “podemos irritarnos en más de una ocasión por el vocabulario empleado, la tonalidad a veces algo necia de ciertas escenas, pero ello no quiere decir que las lectoras de fines del siglo XX no se sientan muy afectadas por los problemas de fondo que plantea Kollontai a propósito del amor y de la vida de la pareja.”

DESDE SEMLAC:

Perú Neumonía y no gripe AH1N1 es la verdadera epidemia

Mientras las autoridades de salud, y de otros sectores, concentran su atención en el vertiginoso ascenso de casos confirmados de gripe AH1N1 en Lima y en Arequipa, en las zonas alto andinas han muerto alrededor de noventa menores de cinco años en lo que va del año, no por la nueva epidemia, sino por una combinación fatal de pobreza y gripes mal cuidadas que devienen en neumonía. La cifra de los niños fallecidos se incrementa día a día, a medida que nuevos reportes desde remotos poblados andinos son transmitidos por las estaciones radiales, que se han convertido en el principal medio para dar a conocer la situación de los poblados rurales y marginales del interior del país. Así, hasta el momento de escribir esta información (domingo 24) se había confirmado la muerte de 27 menores en las zonas altas de Puno, 15 en Cusco, 12 en Huánuco, 35 en Arequipa y uno en el departamento de Cerro de Pasco, en los Andes centrales. En total son 133 las personas fallecidas por neumonía entre enero y mayo en las zonas andinas, confirmó el Ministerio de Salud.

México
Virus A (H1N1) hace rememorar la influenza española de 1918
Para una niña de siete años, la palabra muerte no tenía mucho significado, recuerda doña Josefina al rememorar la influenza española que azotó a México en 1918. Pero sí le preocupaba perder a su madre y a su padre, sobre todo cuando la primera resultó afectada por la enfermedad. Doña Josefina nació en el Grullo, Jalisco, en junio de 1911, hija de un campesino y una ama de casa que también se dedicaba a la labor agrícola. Recuerda que durante la epidemia de gripe española, como se le conoció en su momento, el gobierno mandaba enterrar vivas a las personas contagiadas. Familias enteras quedaron sepultadas; sus casas y el resto de sus pertenencias eran quemadas para evitar la propagación del mal. Nadie protestaba, ya que en ese entonces las órdenes del gobierno no se discutían, rememora. Cuando su madre enfermó, Josefina tenía un gran temor de perderla y también a su padre, pero una prima radicada en Unión de Tula le dijo que con baños de creolina y manteca se erradicaba la enfermedad; su madre fue sometida a ese tratamiento y se curó. La señora vivió hasta los 91 años, ya para entonces vivían en Guadalajara.

Uruguay
Mario Benedetti, un hombre sin laberintos
Al sepelio de Mario Benedetti le faltó poesía y música para conjurar el dolor. Apenas una bandada de loros impertinentes, salidos de cipreses entre tumbas, logró quebrar el silencio profundo de cientos de uruguayos, hombres y mujeres de todas las edades, que el 19 de mayo, en un día soleado y tibio, acompañaron al poeta hasta el Panteón Nacional, en el Cementerio Central. Él ya lo había presagiado en su poema "Por qué será": "¿Por qué será que si decido morir nadie me cree? ¿Por qué será que los pájaros cantan después de los entierros memorables?" El suyo lo fue, porque cada uno de los presentes cargó con su pena. No era cualquiera el que había quedado encerrado, a sus 88 años, en un féretro lustroso y pasaba delante suyo cargado en andas. Era el amigo, el compañero de trayectoria, el hermano elegido, el que prestó su voz a los que declararon amor a través de sus poemas, a los que se sintieron identificados con sus denuncias o sus principios de izquierda inclaudicables; era el "hombre entero y sin laberintos", como lo definió en declaraciones públicas el cantautor Daniel Viglietti con su cara llorosa y su voz entrecortada.

Colombia
Gobierno capitalino por inclusión de género en Objetivos del Milenio
Con el fin de diseñar políticas públicas con impacto general y tendientes a cumplir con los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio (ODM), el gobierno de la capital colombiana tomó la decisión de generar una metodología que incluya a las mujeres en todos los ODM. En septiembre de 2000, los principales líderes mundiales emitieron, en la sede de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) de Nueva York, la Declaración del Milenio constituida por ocho compromisos sociales, llamados los Objetivos del Desarrollo del Milenio. Los ODM, cuyo plazo de cumplimiento vence en 2015, se proponen metas en los temas de erradicación de la pobreza extrema y el hambre, la educación universal primaria, la igualdad entre géneros, la mortalidad de los menores, la salud materna, la lucha contra el VIH-sida, el desarrollo sostenible y el fomento de una asociación mundial para el desarrollo. Después de casi 10 años de esfuerzos y a poco más de cinco del plazo límite, los ODM están lejos de cumplirse en su totalidad. Por ello, en 2008, los líderes mundiales se volvieron a reunir, a instancias de la ONU, para renovar el compromiso y hacer un llamado a establecer planes concretos y medidas prácticas para alcanzar tales propósitos en 2015.

Bolivia
La familia también discrimina la homosexualidad
"Soy gay y vivo con mi pareja hace un año, pero mi familia piensa que somos amigos"; "soy lesbiana y cuando mis padres se enteraron me echaron de la casa". Esas frases se insertan en los textos de cuñas radiales emitidas en frecuencias locales en Bolivia, patrocinadas por organizaciones no gubernamentales que buscan sensibilizar a la población acerca de que la homosexualidad es discriminada en el núcleo familiar. "Mis padres y hermanos son homofóbicos. Desde que era pequeño me dijeron que los niños no lloran porque, si lo hacen, son mujercitas; que un hombre es fuerte, es un macho y no un mariquita (homosexual)", comenta a SEMlac Carlos, tras sus anteojos graduados y con el pelo rizado. El joven agrega que, cuando descubrió que tanto los hombres como las mujeres le atraían, un terrible dilema se le vino encima. En opinión del psicólogo Pablo Castrillo, el núcleo familiar es determinante en el desarrollo integral del ser humano. Desde pequeños, vamos formando nuestros pilares afectivos en torno a los padres, principalmente, comentó a SEMlac. "No podía decirle a mi familia lo que me pasaba, fue complicado y hasta ahora lo es. Delante de ellos tengo que soportar charlas donde se ataca a un homosexual o lesbiana y siento que me atacan a mí, pero debo callar y guardar mi elección sexual como un secreto, porque sería terrible si se enteraran", relata Carlos.

Cuba
Educación popular para prevenir la violencia
La metodología de la educación popular es atractiva, deshinibidora y permite la construcción colectiva de saberes, por lo que se convierte en una herramienta útil para abordar temas de violencia en las comunidades, fue la evaluación de los participantes en el segundo taller Prevención de la Violencia de Género en las Familias. Organizado por el Grupo de Estudios sobre Familia, del Centro de Investigaciones Psicológicas y Sociológicas (CIPS), con el auspicio de Oxfam, esta es la segunda experiencia, de cinco previstas para entrenar a actores sociales, vinculados con la prevención y el enfrentamiento de la violencia de género en familias y comunidades. Tras una semana de aprendizajes, cerca de una veintena de personas, provenientes de talleres de transformación integral de barrios, instituciones de la salud pública, iglesias cristianas y proyectos comunitarios, entre otros espacios, dedicaron la última jornada del taller a evaluar la metodología que luego emplearán en su trabajo cotidiano. "Este método permite la aceptación de las diferencias, el trabajo en equipo, la integración del grupo y propicia un clima de confianza y afectividad", fue la opinión de la mitad del grupo, que se dividió en dos para la realización del ejercicio.

Cuba
Ciencia, un espacio desafiante para las mujeres
Aunque las estadísticas indican una creciente participación de las cubanas en el mundo de la ciencia, todavía pervive cierta segregación horizontal y vertical, con desventajas para ellas, según diversos estudios parciales. Si bien su presencia es mayoritaria en las aulas universitarias y entre la fuerza técnica y profesional, no se destacan por igual en todas las ramas ni suelen tener tampoco una representación notable entre los grados científicos más altos y los puestos directivos, incluso en las especialidades donde más ejercen. "Ellas representan 66 por ciento en la rama científica y apenas 15 por ciento entre las que dirigen", precisó Lourdes Fernández, profesora de la Facultad de Psicología de la Universidad de La Habana. A este tema dedicó una de sus sesiones el VII Taller Internacional Mujeres en el siglo XXI que, convocado por la Cátedra de la Mujer de la Universidad de La Habana y la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, tuvo por sede a la capital cubana, del 18 al 22 de mayo. Repartidas entre las responsabilidades de la vida familiar y los rigores de su profesión, como casi todas las trabajadoras, técnicas y profesionales de esta isla caribeña, las mujeres de la ciencia se ven obligadas al doble de esfuerzo para que se les reconozca tanto como a sus colegas del sexo masculino.

ENGLISH

Abu Ghraib Abuse Photos 'Show Rape' -
Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.

by Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank Published on May 28, 2009 by The Telegraph/UK - At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President's attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.

Student and mother will challenge billionaire Bloomberg for mayor
Socialist will announce her campaign at May 23 conference in Harlem - Frances Villar*, a 26-year-old mother of two and City University of New York student, will challenge New York City’s richest man in the 2009 New York Citymayoral race. Villar will run on the Socialism and Liberation ticket.
"In the middle of the worst economic crisis our country has seen in decades, New York City deserves a candidate that speaks in the name of poor and working people, not for the billionaires,” Villar announced.
“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle—not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.”
Villar is a student leader who has worked tirelessly against the city's and state’s efforts to make CUNY students pay for the budget crisis. She is the president of her building’s tenants association. She has organized against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and againstthe occupation of Palestine.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004. The PSL fielded presidential candidates Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear in the 2008 elections, and were on the ballot in 12 states, including New York.
Villar will formally announce her campaign at a Saturday, May 23 PSL Public Conference under the banner, “Billionaires, your time is up—and we don’t just mean Bloomberg.”
Villar and campaign representatives will be available to speak to the press after the announcement. Call for appointments.
* Frances Villar, Senator and Senate Parliamentarian of Bronx Community College Student Government, Vice Chair for Legislative Affairs for University Student Senate of City University of New York (CUNY)
Watch it! Frances Villar, PSL, NYC Mayoral Candidate

Equal Rights for Men - by Jody Casten for Trees of the Mind, May 27, 2009 - There are many, many ways I can think of that women are not yet equal to men. We still only make a fraction of what men do on a per-dollar basis. (76 cents I believe?) We are not allowed into full combat in the military. We are judged on our ability to be mothers and housekeepers before our ability to do our jobs. All of that is real and I am the last person to say there aren’t a million other reasons that women have not yet attained equal status with men.
However, I have a bone to pick with my female counterparts. Feminism is all about each woman having the right to choose her own path. We should be allowed to do whatever we want in this life and not be judged by society’s arbitrary sex roles, right? Absolutely.
What about men? Do they enjoy this right?

On Sotomayor, Some Abortion Rights Backers Are Uneasy - By Charlie Savage for The New York Times, May 28, 2009 - WASHINGTON — In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether the Constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion. But when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she has reached outcomes in some cases that were favorable to abortion opponents.
Now, some abortion rights advocates are quietly expressing unease that Judge Sotomayor may not be a reliable vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision. In a letter, Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, urged supporters to press senators to demand that Judge Sotomayor reveal her views on privacy rights before any confirmation vote.
“Discussion about Roe v. Wade will — and must — be part of this nomination process,” Ms. Keenan wrote. “As you know, choice hangs in the balance on the Supreme Court as the last two major choice-related cases were decided by a 5-to-4 margin.”

Abortion Rights Backers Get Reassurances on Nominee - By Robert Barnes and Michael D. Shear for Washington Post , May 29, 2009 - The White House scrambled yesterday to assuage worries from liberal groups about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's scant record on abortion rights, delivering strong but vague assurances that the Supreme Court nominee agrees with President Obama's belief in constitutional protections for a woman's right to the procedure.
Facing concerns about the issue from supporters rather than detractors, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama did not ask Sotomayor specifically about abortion rights during their interview. But Gibbs indicated that the White House is nonetheless sure she agrees with the constitutional underpinnings of Roe v. Wade, which 36 years ago provided abortion rights nationwide.
"In their discussions, they talked about the theory of constitutional interpretation, generally, including her views on unenumerated rights in the Constitution and the theory of settled law," Gibbs said. "He left very comfortable with her interpretation of the Constitution being similar to that of his."

Obama Nominee Sonia Sotomayor Poised to Become First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice - President Obama has nominated federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, putting her in line to become the country's first Hispanic justice. The fifty-four-year-old Sotomayor is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who raised her in a public housing project in the Bronx. We host a roundtable with Marjorie Cohn of the National Lawyers Guild; attorney and SCOTUS Blog founder Tom Goldstein; Cesar Perales, general counsel of Latino Justice; and Juan Manuel Garcia-Passalacqua, an independent political analyst who knows Sotomayor personally.
Listen/Watch/Read: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/27/obama_nominee_sonia_sotomayor_would_become

Hiding Behind The Skirts Of Women - by Jodie Evans*, Published on Thursday, May 21, 2009 by CommonDreams.org - For eight years, many Americans have justified the war in Afghanistan as a moral battle to "protect" Afghan women. But Afghan women tell another story: more U.S. war will bear them more suffering.
Three decades of foreign occupation -- with little sign of ending -- have led to the complete collapse of more than a century of progress in Afghanistan for women's rights, which reached their peak in the 1970s. Occupation destroyed Afghan public services and created incredible poverty, a perfect void of power ready to be filled by the Taliban (encouraged by the U.S. to counter Soviet influence). Many Afghan women say the collapse poses a greater threat to women's lives: 87 percent are illiterate, 1,600 out of every 100,000 mothers die while giving birth or of related complications, and 1 and 3 women experience psychological, emotional or physical abuse.
Since the 2001 invasion, despite rhetoric of "saving" Afghan women, U.S. policies put in place did not do so. Meanwhile, this week, Congress is debating a $84.2 billion war funding bill that designates only 10 percent of the funds for development assistance -- the rest goes to military efforts. If the United States really cared about the women and children of Afghanistan, it would fund real needs-health care, education, food security- and minimize spending on weapons systems and combat troops. Gen. Petraeus himself outlined a counter-insurgency doctrine of 80 percent non-military and 20 percent military, and told the Associated Press earlier this year that "you don't kill or capture your way out of an industrial-strength insurgency."

* Jodie Evans, a co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, has been a community, social and political organizer for the last 30 years.

CODEPINK is launching a new multimedia campaign, "Women Under War Speak Out," a series of video, audio and written interviews with leading international women activists and policymakers to highlight the affects of war on women, and the promote the voices of women from countries under occupations.

FROM THE PROGRESS REPORT: Stephen Green, a former U.S. soldier, was sentenced to life in prison yesterday for "raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her, her parents and a younger sister in Iraq." One resident of the town where the crime took place said in response, "I'm happy because at least other American soldiers will see this and think twice before doing acts like this again."

An international abortion underground - by Lynn Harris for Salon.com, May 21, 2009, -We know all too well that women travel to neighboring states for abortions made unavailable -- due to excess of laws or shortage of clinics -- in their own. Some of us, or our mothers, might know someone (or "know someone") who, pre-Roe, actually had to leave the country, heading to Mexico, Sweden, Japan or Puerto Rico for a "vacation" that wasn't.

Drinking from Plastic Bottles 'Increases Exposure to Gender-Bending Chemical' - by Murray Wardrop, Published on Friday, May 22, 2009 by The Telegraph/UK - Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that polycarbonate containers release the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) into liquid stored in them.
BPA has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.
New research by Harvard School of Public Health found that participants who drank for a week from polycarbonate bottles showed a two-thirds increase of BPA in their urine.
Experts warned that babies are at greater risk, because heating baby bottles increases the amount of BPA released, and the chemical is potentially more harmful to infants.

Windows Into Gaza - by Salena Tramel*, Published on Friday, May 22, 2009 by CommonDreams.org - Two years ago, I lived and worked in the West Bank. My time there was certainly a window to understanding the occupation, but one that I could open and shut at my own convenience. Because of that, I never really understood. I could go to the beach in Israel while my Palestinian friends had never seen the sea. I promised myself that I would not go, but one hot summer day got the better of me. The idea of swimming in the turquoise Mediterranean waters was so appealing that I disappeared one Friday to join my Israeli friends in Tel Aviv. I returned to work the next day three shades darker to which my colleague promptly replied without a hint of jealously in his voice, "Go again next weekend, but this time do it for me."

* Salena Tramel is the Program Coordinator for the Middle East and Haiti at Grassroots International and an independent writer. She is returning to Gaza this week to follow up on reporting and documentation.

Palin Takes Principled Stand Against Energy Efficiency - By Rachel Morris | for Mother Jones, May 22, 2009 - Sarah Palin stood firm against wasteful government spending today, rejecting $28.6 million dollars in stimulus funds. "Alaskans and our communities have a long history of independence and opposing many mandates from Washington, D.C, " she proclaimed. Well, Alaska has already accepted about $930 million in other stimulus money, so what was the program that Palin found so pernicious? It turns out that this money would have gone to energy efficiency—weatherizing homes against the bitter cold, that kind of thing.
Alaska, of course, is quite a chilly place, and its inhabitants pay the highest energy costs in the nation. The money will now probably flow to other states instead— Palin was the only governor in the country to reject energy efficiency funds. But as shivering Alaskans worry about their electricity bills this winter, they can at least take comfort in the fact that Palin is keeping her relationship with the GOP base toasty warm.

GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS

California Supreme Court Upholds Same-Sex Marriage Ban - By Ashley Surdin for Washington Post, May 26, 2009 - Los Angeles, May 26 -- The California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved constitutional amendment Tuesday that bans same-sex marriage in the state.
The court said, however, that those couples who wed in the state under an earlier opinion from the court, will be considered married.
The ruling comes after three months of deliberation and nearly a year after the court struck down state laws that similarly banned such marriages. Then, the court ruled that the laws were unconstitutional and that the unions were a "basic civil right." This time, factoring in a successful Nov. 4 ballot measure that defines marriage as a union "between a man and a woman" in the state's constitution, which trumps state laws, the court revealed its hesitancy to override the will of the people.

From The Progress Report - May 26, 2009 - Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons (R) has vetoed a domestic partners bill to give gay couples some of the same rights enjoyed by those who are married. Gibbons said, "I believe that because the voters have determined that the rights of marriage should apply only to married couples, only the voters should determine whether those rights should equally apply to domestic partners."

Gay Marriage Advocates Likely to Seek Another Ballot Vote After California Supreme Court Upholds Prop 8 - Thousands have taken to the streets in California and states across the country after Tuesday's decision by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8, a ballot measure that bans gay marriage. The court's decision does preserve the 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place last year during the few months that gay marriage was legal in California. We get reaction from Bryan Wildenthal, the first openly gay law professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law. He married his partner last year.
Listen/Watch/Read:http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/27/gay_marriage_advocates_to_seek_another

Bush v. Gore Foes Join to Fight Gay Marriage Ban - By Jesse Mckinley for The New York Times, May 28, 2009, San Francisco — The David and Ted show is back in business.
Eight and a half years after their epic partisan battle over the fate of the 2000 presidential election, the lawyers David Boies and Theodore B. Olson appeared on the same team on Wednesday as co-counsel in a federal lawsuit that has nothing to do with hanging chads, butterfly ballots or Electoral College votes.
Their mutual goal: overturning Proposition 8, California’s freshly affirmed ban on same-sex marriage. It is a fight that jolted many gay rights advocates — and irritated more than a few — but that Mr. Boies and Mr. Olson said was important enough to, temporarily at least, set aside their political differences.

Group Aims to Block D.C. Marriage Bill
Same-Sex Union Foes Seek Referendum - By Tim Craig for Washington Post, May 28, 2009 - A coalition of ministers and same-sex marriage opponents formally requested a citywide referendum yesterday to block the District from recognizing gay marriages performed in other jurisdictions, setting the stage for a heated legal and political battle over the issue this summer.
In paperwork filed with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, the group Stand 4 Marriage D.C. said it wants to begin the process of collecting about 21,000 signatures needed to overturn the bill that the D.C. Council overwhelmingly approved this month recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. That bill is tentatively scheduled to take effect in July.
The referendum effort is a preemptive strike designed to slow plans by several council members to take up a separate bill this year to allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the District.

Related articles: Gay Marriage Fuels Debate Among D.C. Democrats

• Maine and N.H. Move to Expand Gay Rights

We're here! We're queer! We're... in Iraq? - by Judy Berman for Salon.com , May 22, 2009 - Openly gay soldiers may be banned from serving in Iraq, but that hasn't stopped another American government group stationed in the country from celebrating Pride Month (which customarily happens in June) a few days early. As Al Kamen of the Washington Post reports, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad will throw its "first-ever Gay Pride Theme Party" next Friday. An e-mail invitation invites employees to "Come celebrate the start of Summer with color...and in costume!...Dress in drag or as a gay icon. All are welcome...Prizes will be awarded for two contests: Best Dressed Gay Icon and Best Lip Synch Performance."

La Cage aux Democrats - By Frank Rich for The New York Times, May 24, 2009 - The most potent word in our new president’s lexicon — change — has been heard much less since his inspiring campaign gave way to the hard realities of governing. But on Tuesday night, the irresistible Obama brand made an unexpected and pointed cameo appearance on America’s most popular television show, “American Idol.” In the talent competition’s climactic faceoff, the song picked for one of the two finalists, Adam Lambert, was Sam Cooke’s soul classic, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
Cooke recorded it in January 1964. Some four months earlier he had been arrested when trying to check into a whites-only motel in Shreveport, La. “It’s been a long, long time coming,” goes the lyric. “But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will.” Cooke, who was killed later that same year in a shooting at another motel, in Los Angeles, didn’t live to see his song turn into a civil rights anthem. He could not have imagined how many changes were gonna come, including the election of an African-American president who ran on change some 44 years later.

Clinton to Extend Benefits to Gay Partners
Draft Memo Outlines New Foreign Service Policies for All Unmarried Couples - By Glenn Kessler for Washington Post, Monday, May 25, 2009 - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will soon announce that the partners of gay U.S. diplomats are eligible for many benefits currently denied them and allowed to spouses of heterosexual diplomats, according to lawmakers and others advocating the change.
The Bush administration had resisted efforts to treat same-sex partners the same as spouses. Thus those partners were denied a wide array of benefits, such as paid travel to and from overseas posts, shipments of household effects, visas and diplomatic passports, emergency travel to visit ill or injured partners, and evacuation in case of a security emergency or medical necessity.

HUMAN RIGHTS
Oil Industry Braces for Trial on Rights Abuses - By Jad Mouawad for The New York Times , May 22, 2009 - Fourteen years after the execution of the Nigerian author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa by Nigeria’s former military regime, Royal Dutch Shell will appear before a federal court in New York to answer charges of crimes against humanity in connection with his death.
The trial, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, will examine allegations that Shell sought the aid of the former Nigerian regime in silencing Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a vociferous critic, in addition to paying soldiers who carried out human rights abuses in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta where it operated.
Shell strongly denies the charges.
But the trial is the latest in a series of cases aimed at some of the world’s biggest oil companies, asserting misdeeds in developing countries where they were once seen as unassailable. Oil companies are being sued on charges of environmental damage, collusion with repressive governments and contributing to human rights abuses, among others.
Chevron, for example, could face up to $27 billion in liability in Ecuador for pollution of the jungle.
Exxon Mobil is being sued by Indonesian villagers from the province of Aceh who allege human rights violations committed by soldiers hired to guard a natural gas plant.

Nigeria Violence and Oil -From Common Dreams, May 22 2009- Washington - - Limited human-rights and press reports indicate a substantial escalation of violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta region in Nigeria. Amnesty International reports: "Hundreds of people are feared dead. ... Thousands have fled their communities and are unable to return to their homes."
JOEL BISINA - Currently in the U.S. (until June 1), Bisina is founder of Niger Delta Professionals for Development. He said today: "The continuous raids by the Nigerian military on villages and communities populated by innocent civilians [do] not justify their claim that they are trying to purge the region of so-called militants. ... We need to ensure not only humanitarian access to the region, but full and free access by the media to ensure accurate reporting of the situation."
Bisina is prominently featured in the new documentary "Sweet Crude."
LAURA LIVOTI - Founder of Justice in Nigeria Now, Livoti said today: "We are calling for an immediate ceasefire and monitored independent third-party negotiations to seek a permanent solution to the inequities that are the root cause of the problems in the Niger Delta. ...
"Chevron and Shell have made record profits in recent years from the region. Yet the oil-rich Niger Delta remains impoverished, with no schools, no health facilities or basic infrastructure."
DAPHNE WYSHAM - Wysham, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, said today: "Due to the media blockout, Americans may not realize that a rise in the price of gas at the pump is related to bloodshed in the Niger Delta."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Uncle Sam's Human Lab Rats - By Bruce Falconer for Mother Jones, May 18, 2009 - Their stories are a staple of conspiracy culture: broken men, suffering hallucinations and near-total amnesia, who say they are victims of secret government mind-control experiments. Think Liev Schreiber in The Manchurian Candidate or Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. Journalists are a favorite target for the paranoid delusions of this population. So is Gordon Erspamer—and the San Francisco lawyer's latest case isn't helping him to fend off the tinfoil-hat crowd. He has filed suit against the CIA and the US Army on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America and six former American soldiers who claim they are the real thing: survivors of classified government tests conducted at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland between 1950 and 1975. "I get a lot of calls," he says. "There are a lot of crazy people out there who think that somebody from Mars is controlling their behavior via radio waves." But when it comes to Edgewood, "I'm finding that more and more of those stories are true!"

Do CIA Cables Show Doctors Monitoring Torture? - by Sheri Fink. Published on May 28, 2009 by ProPublica (A version of this story was published on [1] [1]Salon [1] [1].) - Evidence is emerging that medical personnel monitored the medical effects of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah, the al-Qaida operative who was, according to government reports, subjected to the near-drowning at least 83 times in August 2002.
The new information comes from descriptions of cables, classified as top secret and relating to the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, that were transmitted from a Central Intelligence Agency field station to the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters nearly every day between Aug. 1 and Aug. 18 that year.
The descriptions of the cables (here [2] [2] and here [3] [3]) reveal that a daily "medical update" and "behavioral comments" along with status and threat updates were sent to CIA headquarters throughout that period. On five occasions between Aug. 4 and Aug. 9, an additional cable was sent containing "medical information" along with such information as the strategies for interrogation sessions, raw intelligence, the use of interrogation techniques to elicit information, and the reactions to those techniques. The fact that medical information was included in these cables hints that Abu Zubaydah was medically monitored during or after being subjected to those techniques. Both professional organizations and human rights groups have rejected as unethical any monitoring role for medical personnel.