Open Letters

Msogynism

Geez! What the hell are they thinking of? Imagine your employer penalizing you if you got pregnant. I wonder which high profile woman is going take this on?

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military commander in northern Iraq defended on Tuesday a new policy imposing strict penalties, including possible jail time, for troops who become pregnant or get other soldiers pregnant.

"In this 22,000-soldier task force, I need every soldier I've got, especially since we are facing a drawdown of forces during our mission," Major General Tony Cucolo, who commands U.S. soldiers in northern Iraq, said in a statement.

Cucolo's new directive, issued last month when he took command, lays out a long list of activities that could lead to court martial or criminal charges, from gambling to stealing historical artifacts, and applies only to his command.

The clause about pregnancy has garnered the most attention, affecting seven soldiers under Cucolo's command, according to military spokesman Major Jeff Allen. The command includes 1,682 female soldiers, Allen said.

There are some 115,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, a number set to drop to about 50,000 by the end of August next year as the U.S. military ends combat operations. Under a deal with Iraq, a full withdrawal of U.S. troops is due by the end of 2011.

U.S. Central Command rules do not prohibit "sexual contact between consenting, single servicemembers."

"I wanted to encourage my soldiers to think before they acted, and understand their behavior and actions have consequences -- all of their behavior.

Story here

via www.reuters.com

B-Schools

In 1999 just about everyone I knew was an aspiring MBA graduate. Back then I lived in Philadelphia and Wharton Business School was THE school everyone wanted to attend. All conversations would somehow end up to Wharton. At the time I wasn’t sure if the corporate environment was where I wanted spend the rest of my career. I remember expressing that concern with a friend and was quickly reminded that I would not move into a leadership position as well as get paid what I was deserved if I didn’t get that MBA. I was so frustrated and depressed because at the time my personal objectives were different from what was expected of me as a corporate gal, and getting that MBA would only serve to appease some corporation I had no interest committing to. Well long story short, I switched field and moved in a direction that I am completely happy with. Today I am in business for myself, and I do see the need for an MBA (not necessarily from Wharton), but it isn’t for a company but for me and the direction of where I see my business in the next 10 years. The problem I had back then, was it sold to you as the ticket to success and without it your career would flat line and you’d be doomed forever in middle management.

 

This morning I came across this article in The Economist “The end of the affair" (the decline of MBA will cut off bullshit at its source).

The love affair with business started in the 1980s and has grown into a mighty passion backed not just by money but by glamour and class. In 2009 the money ran out, but the mood was one of such chaos and confusion that it was hard to tell what was going on underneath. In 2010 it will become clear that the class and glamour are draining away from business too. It will be the end of the affair: business will be cool no longer.

Throughout this affair the business schools played the role of cupid. First, they made the study of business into an (almost) respectable academic discipline. More importantly, they made it socially acceptable, something even the poshest person could aspire to. What do the brightest and poshest students at Oxford and Harvard want to study? Business.

But in 2010, for the second year running, tens of thousands of overqualified MBAs will emerge with nowhere exciting to go. A very few will land jobs in investment banking, but those who want grand jobs in big companies or consultancies will be disappointed. Increasingly they will go crawling back to their old employers to do pretty much whatever they were doing before for pretty much the same money. As the efficacy of a business school is measured according to the salary one gets when one finishes, both students and employers will question whether it is really worth the $160,000 that a top MBA costs.

This is not going to be a little recessionary dip. It will be a more fundamental reappraisal. The magical myth of the MBA has for some time left the facts behind. In future, those who stump up will do so because they want to learn the skills, not because they think they are buying entry into a cool and exclusive club.

Read the rest of the story here

via www.economist.com

You see if I had followed everyone then, I wouldn't have switched careers much less find something that I love to do. I would be older and much less likely to take the risk of a career switch. I would be committed to some organization and dreading downsizing or merger at every turn (that's how I ended making a lifestyle change anyway). I know I would still be unhappy because I was very miserable then. I never bought the bullshit, however now I will pursue it  a decade later BECAUSE I want to learn the skills and its beneficial for moi and no one else.

Why am I not surprised?

As we peel back the layers of the onion, we are finding out more about the stupid governance of the last administration. Below is an article about a man who conned us into fear. Unbelievable!

Remember the ugly feeling you used to get in the pit of your stomach after 9/11 every time a new video message from Osama bin Laden or his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared on TV? One reason we became conditioned to dread these spectral broadcasts was that the government itself told us to be frightened: Bush administration officials quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, spread word that the bin Laden videos, which usually made their way to the outside world via the Arabic satellite news channel Al-Jazeera, could contain secret messages to Qaeda "sleeper cells," signaling them to proceed with long-planned attacks against American targets. If you think back carefully, no American official ever produced convincing proof that the videos actually contained hidden messages from bin Laden. But nobody ever conclusively demonstrated that they didn't.

Now, however, Aram Roston, a former network-news investigative producer and biographer of Iraqi political manipulator Ahmed Chalabi, reports that some of the Bush administration's paranoia about hidden terrorist messages was the work of a con man. According to a long article Roston has just published in Playboy, at least some of the government's concern about the alleged secret Al-Jazeera messages was the product of a sales job by a now-bankrupt "self-proclaimed scientist" who managed to get the government to pay him for computer software that he claimed could unravel hidden "bar codes" embedded in Al-Jazeera's broadcast signal.......

.........Sooner or later, most if not all of the agencies that he was dealing with concluded that Montgomery, who had no real training in cryptography or computer science, was peddling bunk, and they terminated his contracts. The CIA, which felt compelled, like much of the rest of the government in the wake of 9/11, to take a serious look at any possible sources, however outlandish, for intelligence on forthcoming attacks (particularly plots against airliners), didn't take too long to conclude that Montgomery's science was dubious.

Read the rest of the story here

Just knock me over with a feather!

In Sickness and In Health

I started this blog in 2007 and haven’t been very good at regular posting. So last month I pondered whether I should keep blogging and made a commitment to write something every day for December, and at the end of the '09 if I was able to achieve 75% of my goal then I would continue for 2010.

 Today I am lying in bed riddled with a nasty cold and very reluctant to move for a glass of water, but I grabbed my computer to make a feeble attempt. So I would like to highlight an essay written on blog I came across just now “BroadSnark”  (yes I'm still strong enough to read.) This writer did an excellent job at explaining the craziness that has infiltrated our society. You know the crazy “tea baggers” who scream "socialism, fascism, marxism" at ever opportunity they have to smear the current administration.

"There is a certain segment of the American population that really believes in the American foundational myths.  They identify with them.  They believe that America was built by a handful of white, Christian, men with exceptional morals.  Their America is the country that showed the world democracy, saved the Jews in World War II, and tore down the Berlin wall.

These people have always fought changes to their mythology.  They have always resented those of us who pushed to complicate those myths with the realities of slavery, Native American genocide, imperial war in the Philippines, invasions of Latin American countries, and secret arms deals.---------When Americans vote for a president, they want to see that heroic version of themselves looking back at them.  They want to see that free cowboy of the mythology.  No matter how poor or exploited white people were, they could always take subconscious comfort in the fact that, when they looked at the highest power in the land, they saw an idealized version of themselves"

And then came Barack Obama.

Pop.

Read the rest of this brilliant essay here.

via www.broadsnark.com

Duck Berlusconi! Duck!

Instead of this

He should have done this!

Now This Is A Stretch

Anyone who knows me well can verify that I am the least likely person to find “hidden racism”, “hidden sexism”, “or hidden any ism”. I don’t have my head in the sand; I’m just the kind of person who was raised to shake it off and “plug through” whatever my perception of the situation was (Thanks Mommy!). However as I mature I become more aware of subliminal messages that I find uncomfortable and sometime very offensive. I recently came across post on one of the blogs I read that was commenting on the picture of the most recent Golf Digest  Magazine. Take a look at it.

 This is one heck of a subliminal message!

  

You can cry racism and whole bunch of other isms, some will come to its defense, and the debate will have no end and that's not the point I'm trying to make here. However you cannot ignore what the image implies. I refused to comment or write anything about the Tiger Woods debacle since it was thrusted in our psyche last month. Simply because to me Tiger is just an athlete; that’s it! He is a magnificent Golfer and no one can take that away from him, no matter how he chooses to conduct his personal affairs. His personal life, however repulsed and disgusted we are by it, is between him and his family. It being covered ad nauseam in the media (every fraaking night for the past 2 weeks) goes beyond the pale when there are so many other relevant issues that concerns our country that we should be discussing.

Here is an image of Tiger who was idolized and fell from public grace hovering over another man (POTUS) that is currently idolized worldwide. The title of one the articles featured in the Magazine to the left of the image “10 Tips Obama can take from Tiger”. Really?

Let me set this article straight…. the only tips that President Obama can learn from Tiger is a few golf tips… nothing more. President Obama is a much older man with a lot more experience than Woods and up until now has shown us that he can exercise good judgment in areas of his private life. What in the world could whipper snapper Woods teach him about that huh?

 The Gall! How dare them? Who the hell do these people think they are to suggest that President Obama (a highly educated JD, Associate Professor and Leader) needs teaching and must learn from all people, Tiger Woods (an athlete)? There is no substantive comparison between these two men no matter how hard they try. And placing an Obama/Woods image during a time when Woods is in a scandalous mess is desperately trying to liken and defame the other by association!  Are they for real? This in my opinion Golf Digest is STRETCHING IT! What would be the purpose of placing this image here asshats?

 This is the kind of stuff that pisses me off!

Weed!

Marijuana, ganja, sensi, pot, wisdom weed, grass, herb, reefa, (you name it) … a possible treatment   for Autism.

 

Some families have found marijuana (mmj) to be nothing short of miraculous. Some of the symptoms MMJ has ameliorated include anxiety--even severe anxiety--aggression, panic disorder, generalized rage, tantrums, property destruction and self-injurious behavior.

 

Side note: This is not the first time I have heard similar stories about marijuana effects on people with brain disorders. I knew someone who suffered from bi-polar disorder II who told me that of all the medication prescribed to him, marijuana was the only thing that seemed to calm his racing thoughts. I thought that it was druggie talk, but a decade later… and there might be something to it. Note also that MMJ doesn’t have the side effects like some medications that affect the liver and kidneys.

 

I’m thinking I might just head back home to Jamaica and start farming. That’s how I’ll make my millions to pass on to future mini me’s. There’s already family land, all I need is seeds and I’ll figure the rest out.

 

Dang… Weed?

 

Shyte!

 

Weed?

Tweezers ARE Dangerous

I still need to remove my shoes, I can’t carry tweezers that I use for wayward facial hair and my shampoo, moisturizer and toner must be in itsy bitsy tiny bottles enough for no more that two days.  It’s an inconvenience when I go through airport security but I do it, because The Homeland Security Department states that its protocol and it will keep us safer. But seeing my toes when I remove my shoes gives the same false sense of security knowing that the aircraft seat cushions can be used as flotation devices after crashing into the ocean from 30, 000 feet.

 When shit like below happens and I question Homeland Security  Department procedures above.

Well Deserved

President Barack Hussein Obama has been awarded the 2009  Nobel Peace Prize. Congratulations to him and its well deserved. Can't wait to hear what his haters have to say about this--- you know the ones who have been encouraging the weaker minds to buy guns because there is going to be a revolution. Yes, the same bloviaters who have hijacked the airwaves both the radio and television, stoking the ignorant among us to scream "I want my country back!" The minions who wave offensively racist posters of him as a monkey or other nasty caricatures.

Yes what do you have to say for yourselves today?

"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

Read the reset of the story here

The Forgotten Continent

Is the world paying attention to what's happening in Guinea, Africa? 

"They were raping women publicly," opposition activist Mouctar Diallon said in an interview with French radio station RFI, adding that he had witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts during Monday's protests."

The Guinean Organization for Defense of Human Rights has reported over 157 people killed and more than 1,200 wounded. There has been no intervention to quell this uprising from the European Union or the USA, and France has suspended all military ties with Guinea. Why are these African countries forgotten? Recent history has shown the horrors of many wars throughout various African countries and it seems as if the world has once again turned a blind eye to what's going on. Rwanda's massacre wasn't long ago, regardless of the news report, Congo is far from stable and oh and let us not forget Darfur. 

Captain Moussa  Dadis Camara an army captain, seized power after the death of Guinea's long time leader  Lasana Conte last December, he promised democracy but has shown erratic behavior and very little power since. Announcing recently, that he intends to run for President has created these riots. He has little or no control over his military stating that " .....it's difficult to control soldiers when there was tension in the country"

Camara dude, you are the military and don't tell me that a woman who attends a protest ends up with a rifle in her vagina! Doesn't  this scream inhumane and outrageous to you? And I am left to believe that leaders within EU think this is ok too.

"The military is going into districts, looting goods and raping women," Mamadi Kaba, the head of the Guinean branch of the African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), told AFP......A doctor at a government hospital in Conakry said his wards looked like "a butchery"."

PEOPLE WE HAVE ANOTHER NEGLECTED AFRICAN COUNTRY ON OUR HANDS AND THIS WILL LATER CAUSE US EMBARRASSMENT AS THEY ALWAYS DO!

Read story here