Child Marriage in Bangladesh

Bangladesh - On July 13, 07 50 young girls took to the streets of Sathkira to protest the marriage of their 13-year old classmate, Habiba Sultana. These saavy girls not only marched for Sultana, they also filed a formal police complaint which resulted in Sultana’s father, who had betrothed his young daughter to a 23-year old neighbor, signing a legal document preventing him from allowing Habiba to marry until she turns 18. (Source: Daily Star)

In Bangladesh & several overpopulated & underdeveloped countries, child marriage is a harsh result of extreme poverty & overwhelmingly stark economic conditions. With 50% of Bangladesh’s population living on less than one dollar a day, parents feel pressured to ease financial stress by lessening the number of mouths to feed. Currently in Bangladesh, 40% of girls are married by the age of 15 & 60% are mothers by 19. The legal marrying age for females is 21 & for males, 18.

With little knowledge of their bodies, understanding of their responsibilities as a wife & often abused by their in-laws (commonly for her parents inability to pay the full dowry), the girls are usually removed from school & forced into a life of domestic bondage. The ICRW (International Center for Research on Women) states that child brides are much more likely to contract HIV than women in their 20s. This is a result of their new husbands being older, having more previous sex partners & the girls “inability to negotiate fidelity & condom use.” Then of course there is the issue of child pregnancy. For females aged 15-19, death during childbirth is the number one cause of death. In developing countries, many girls die from hemorrhage, obstructed childbirth & obstetric fistula. In case you are wondering what obstetric fistula is – this is a new phrase for me too, here goes: Obstetric fistula is when a hole occurs either between the vagina & the rectum or the bladder & the vagina. The result is an inability to control the flow of urine or feces. That’s right everyone, those two beautiful holes turn into one & you can’t turn off the poo or the pee. Those jailbait jokes aren’t quite so funny anymore, huh?

Other countries with high child marriage rates:

Afghanistan, India, Niger, & the Republic of Congo.

Who’s got the facts & who’s trying to help:

http://www.crin.org, (Child Rights Information Network) http://www.endfistula.org/(self-explanatory)
http://www.icrw.org, (International Center for Research on Women)
http://www.unicef.org (Project Kishori Abhijan)

Are You My...Mammy?

(Left to Right: Mattie Michael, Sethe, Sofia)

Forbes Magazine estimates that Oprah Winfrey has a net worth upwards of $1 billion. With a television show, magazine and her own network, there’s no question that Ms. Winfrey has an undeniable media influence. Additionally, Winfrey is acutely aware of her influence, as the following PowerPoint, which was taken from her own Harpo Interactive site, shows. Direct your attention to slide 11 of 19 you’ll see that Oprah knows her target demographic.

Facts are facts, and any reader with a functioning IQ can see that most of the people who fit the characteristics of the aforementioned demographic are middle-aged white women. This is a good business practice and Oprah should not be faulted for it. Why not market toward a demographic with an incredible amount of disposable personal income? The bigger question is, if Oprah knows her target demographic so well, why would she continue to choose movie roles that depict her as a slave, mammy or in a subordinate domestic role? Oprah has shown she is concerned about the image of women, and the negative stereotypes portrayed to the African-American community through some rap music. But, isn’t it more destructive and disturbing to continually choose culturally demeaning movie roles when you know that the majority of your loyal viewing audience consists of upwardly mobile, middle aged white women? Do the math and you’ll see that six out of eight of Oprah’s major movie roles fall into this category.

The Mammy Roles...

1. The Color Purple - Sofia (1985)
2. Native Son - Mrs. Thomas (1986)
3. The Women of Brewster Place - Mattie Michael (1989)*also served as executive producer
4. There Are No Children Here - LaJoe Rivers (1993)
5. Before Women Had Wings - Zora Williams (1997)*also served as producer
6. Beloved - Sethe (1998)

The Non-Mammy Roles...

1. Ellen - The Therapist (1997)
2. Ocean's Thirteen (2007)*appeared as herself

Why does the world hate the US? (in less than 50 secs)

Have you ever wondered why the world hates the US?

Understanding a Fragmented Iraq

In spite of the ear numbing word Iraq invading your everyday news source - I challenge you to think about the people of Iraq. The constant struggle over legislative power, wealth (oil control) and U.S. support is crucial, and there are many different cultural populations that are vying for it ---- not to mention the neighboring countries that would like their piece.

To understand this cultural divide in the time of "liberation", I propose an analogy:

What if Mexico liberated Southern California? Here you have a white-controlled area where the majority is Hispanic. Throw in another minority (African Americans) in the mix who have constantly been at war with the Hispanics, and oppressed by the whites. What would happen?

Whites would strive to keep their control, and even though they are the smallest in population they have the most resources. Hispanics would claim So. Cal. is rightfully their land, and that the whites stole it from them. Their populational majority would help push this argument. African Americans also have a large community and would not want it to be controlled by the whites (oppression) or the Hispanics (feudal). They would want nothing to do with either group.

In order to understand the correlation you must take it from a cultural divide view - do not take into account all of the other pluralities that would accompany that particular situation as that is a blog in itself --- there are more than two sides/issues to every story.

Moving forward, population differences are not always founded in melanin. Religion is another divider, and there are many more that subsequently form groups.

It is one's inherent means for a survival to belong to a group. In order for there to be a group there has to be another that is different. Basically for there to be an "us", it seems, there must be a "them". In the Iraq of the moment, that need to define by differences seems to be prevalent.

I raise these set of questions to you:
What groups do you belong to?
Do you dislike a certain group because of their beliefs -- and then question why can't we all get along? I personally am guilty of that oxymoronism.

As a resource to find a human perspective on this divide between Iraq's Shia, Sunni and Kurdish population I personally suggest you watch James Longley's Iraq in Fragments. This film is NOT how the United States is destroying Iraq. It is instead a portrait of the human side of Iraq. The trailer can be found below.

U know.

Stuff to think about.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4315024059102108031

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/JFK_JR/jj.html

A plea for the U.S cable news:

Please stop the useless debating between news 'EXPERTS' about every single subject!! What happened to just telling the news and letting us decide what we want to think about it. I am sick and tired of seeing two 'experts debate both sides of the issues'. Especially when it deals about subjects that have more than two sides or just plainly do not need to be furthered discussed into detail because there are no more details.

For example if a child is kidnapped in small town America, all you need to inform us about is when it happened, where it happened and how we can help. End of story. I don't need NANCY 'the scary southern witch' Grace to interview two lawyers in other sides of the country so they can repeat the already stated facts again and again in different words, while showing a 'live shot' of an empty street. If you are going into further detail about a story don't do it just fill up airtime. Do a real unbiased investigation.
Another example of useless waste-of time debating is when a network finds two 'experts' to discuss a 'controversial' issue, ( which 99% of the time has to do with sex or race). Most real controversial issues do NOT have two sides, they have many many more. And please STOP branding these debates with bullshit marketing slogans that use any of the words: Ultimate,Face off, Head to Head. Stop simplifying every issue to two extreme sides, its not only not fair to your audience but it is also DISINGENUOUS.
Unfortunately nothing is going to change anytime soon. Is it maybe because if they try to just report the news, stuff like THIS will happen?


-Jose Jimenez

An Inconvenient Proof (repost)

Ask your local bartender for a beverage made with Ethanol (180-proof grain alcohol) and you'll probably end the night doing some drunk dialing or praying to the porcelain gods. Ask a good chemist to denature it by adding methanol, isopropanol or a few other chemicals, then mix it with normal gasoline and you'll end up with E-85 Ethanol Fuel. Issue 1032 of the latest Rolling Stone features Jeff Goodell's thought-provoking article about America's endorsement of E-85 made from corn. If you can't manage to get through the editorial staff gushing over Sean Kingston and the horrid shot of Axl Rose in a pair of assless leather chaps (pause), then you can visit the links below:



Goodell's Rolling Stone Article

How Dwayne Andreas and the ADM lobby

In the interest of journalistic transparency, notice that Chevron and ADM are partial sponsors of the PBS program NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Look closely at the banner here

The Energy Act of 2005

Welcome to The Taint

Readers:

In a day in age where presidential polyps and socialites' incarcerations are the "headlines" picked by the regular news media, we at The Ranting Taint strive to provide a platform for the analysis of the newsworthy events and actions that occur everyday but do not get their deserved attention.

The subject matter covered in the Taint varies as much as your iTunes playlist, but we strive to challenge the reader to think and question with a dash of humor, slice of opinion, cupful of social consciouness blended with independent studies, and whatever else the receipe requires.

So we welcome and invite you along on this little excursion we like to call The Rainting Taint.

Enjoy!

Fingers & Elected Officials

I was using my index finger to scratch my head, wondering exactly what elected officials do. It seems that they were quick to point their index fingers and blame every Middle Eastern/Arab they could find after September 11. Next thing you know, ALL OF THEM (except Russ Feingold) got the itchy trigger finger and took away my damn civil liberties. So, today I extend a middle finger to each elected official who has yet to vote to completely repeal the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, because it seems they have too much time on their collective hands to deal with the issues of their constituency. So just what are our elected officials doing?

If you live in Memphis they could be lobbying hard to get Justin Timberlake or The World's Biggest Fish recognized (see above clip).

Or they could just be pissed that half of their favorite baseball players are struggling to make it through another hot summer with "'Roid Rage."

If baseball's not their cup of tea, maybe they're engaged in diplomatic talks with China...for a 7-foot power forward.

Then again they could be trying to protect capitalism as we know it by blocking the XM/Sirius merger...so they can pursue a more lucrative deal for the team they happen to own.

If you're a gearhead, fear not. Your elected official could just be M.I.A. because they can't figure out how to get an iPhone on their Verizon account.

If any or all of this comes as news to you, I suggest you use the index finger nearest to the right button on your mouse and do some clicking. Then you might want to use your other nine digits and shoot a letter or e-mail to your elected official. If you don't, there's a very good chance that you have your opposable finger (commonly referred to as a thumb) in your a...ahh, you get the point. In closing, I offer the index and middle finger-PEACE.

What We Don't Know Won't Hurt Us, But It Still Hurts

Torture exists. America tortures.

Americans don't want to know, because "what we don't know won't hurt us." The fact of the matter is that it still hurts...maybe not us directly.

If we don't look or attempt to "know", it will hurt America's ill-fated reputation internationally and Americans alike by association.

The revelations of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and more recently at Guantánamo were shocking to most Americans. And those who condemned the treatment of prisoners abroad have focused on U.S. military procedures and abuses of executive powers in the war on terror, or, more specifically, on the now-famous White House legal counsel memos on the acceptable limits of torture.

Vanderbilt's own Colin Dayan argues in her new book The Story of Cruel and Unusual that anyone who has followed U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment would recognize the prisoners' treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo as a natural extension of the language of our courts and practices in U.S. prisons. In fact, it was no coincidence that White House +legal counsel referred to a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s in making its case for torture.

The Eighth Amendment outlaws cruel and unusual punishment, but, as Dayan explains, a series of Supreme Court rulings has increasingly narrowed the definition of “cruel and unusual.” According to these precedents, a prisoner is protected only from an actual sentence designed to cause excessive pain, or from wanton, deliberate cruelty—from an act, that is, designed specifically to cause pain, and with the infliction of pain as its primary purpose. Any other kind of mistreatment, even if it is clearly cruel, is permitted as long as it is deemed necessary for security, confinement or the enactment of a legal punishment. It’s OK, therefore, to shackle women inmates during childbirth, subject a condemned prisoner to multiple execution attempts, or psychologically cripple offenders through perpetual solitary confinement—all practices currently permitted in the U.S. penal system.

Dayan argues that these precedents—particularly the Supreme Court’s insistence on harmful intent as a measure of culpability—created the framework for the infamous “torture memos” of 2002, in which the Bush administration sought to define the limits for lawful abuse of terror detainees. In effect, says Dayan, the memos declare that an interrogator cannot be held responsible “if he had a ‘good faith belief’ that whatever he did would not result in mutilation or death. The results—a mutilated, blind, or dead body—get defined away by the vain search for intent.” In other words, almost anything short of overt sadism or premeditated murder would not meet the legal standard for abuse. Such reasoning may be repulsive by any sensible ethical standard, but according to Dayan it is firmly grounded in American law.

I just thought you should know.