JR's 'Women Are Heroes' Takes Me Out of Cathrynn Brown's Heart of Darkness

Anne has been in a bit of a funk since writing Gang of 10 Republican NM Women Want To Jail Rape (and Incest) Victims for 3 Years If They Abort. 2% of AOC’s web traffic yesterday came in under the search term “Babylon”. If you know your Christianity at all, you know that being associated with Babylon is one step away from being viewed as the anti-Christ. FYI, Oprah is firmly entrenched in that position: an anti-Christ or friend of the devil in the words of the Rick Perry crowd. 

The Irrepressible Phyllis Schlafly

Moving from this latest attempt of the Republican party to seize control of women’s bodies to writing the first installment of an article posted later today on why America needs an Equal Rights Amendment for women more than ever, I spent much of yesterday watching Phyllis Schlafly videos.

I try to pulse the content at Anne of Carversville, moving from serious to light-hearted (a relative term with me). Moving from the Gang of 10 Republican women to why we MUST renew America’s push for an ERA, is too much negativity back to back on AOC’s front page. 

I admit that Schlafly’s words haunt me, because I believe myself to be a fairly good person with good values. When Phyllis Schlafly talks about the despicable feminists, she is talking about me. When she leads a bus tour for defeated Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin after his legitimate rape comments, she is telling all American women — including me — that Todd Akin is our guy. 

I say ‘no’, Todd Akin is NOT our guy. And Phyllis Schlafly is NOT our gal. Their unsubstantiated, fear-mongering arguments about the ideal path for American women is deadly as far as I’m concerned. 

Schlafly would have you believe that the sole focus of America’s feminists is material consumption and dominating men, but I think a thorough examination of American feminism would tell a different story.

Looking Beyond Babylon

Reflecting deeply on how to present a positive face of feminism — a set of ideals so derided by Phyllis Schlafly and the right-wing as representing nothing more than “shiny object” issues of self-absorbed me-me-me women — I met up again this morning with global graffiti artist JR and his “Women Are Heroes” project. 

A key difference between the majority of feminists and anti-equal rights for women figurehead Phyllis Schlafly is that we are globalists. Not only are we dedicated to making our own communities better here in America, but we see ourselves as part of the global human community. This perspective borders on making on traitors to the nation, in the right-wing play-book. 

In an effort to project goodness into the universe today and not the anger and fury I feel towards those 10 Republican women in New Mexico and Phyllis Schlafly in particular — I share the story of JR and his ‘Women are Heroes’ project.  Kibera is one of JR’s main focus hot spots around the globe. 

Many of our GlamTribale beads and stones come from the Kibera area in Kenya’s suburb of Nairobi. Through purchases of my jewelry, readers and friends support the young women of Kibera in a project that donates sanitary napkins to keep them in school. GlamTribale jewelry purchases also support Planned Parenthood of PA, the largest provider of women’s health care in the state.

On the Subject of Social Conservatives, There Is Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

In a weird reverse logic sort of way, I realize today that Phyllis Schlafly and company are so derisive of women like myself because calm, rational discussions about the various opportunities for women to serve and execute our civic responsibilities are absent in America. Schlafly passes judgment on my own commitments to poor women in America and around the world, because dialogue and a thorough examination of my own values counteracts her tightly-constructed vision of American feminists.

I’m reminded of Franklin D Roosevelt’s famous words “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” In looking into the hearts and souls of people like Phyllis Schlafly, the Gang of 10 in New Mexico, the entire Republican right wing, Catholic bishops and everyone who professes a direct line to God, this is my new perspective.

Direct confrontation of their heartless, derisive, war-mongering, opportunistic vision of humanity is in order, and it begins today. ~ Anne

JR’s Women Are Heroes Project

Slums of the World

‘The Places We Live’: Four Monumental Slums Typify ‘Home’ for More Than One Billion People AOC World

In 2008, for the first time in human history, more people lived in cities than in rural areas. One-third of these urban dwellers—more than one billion people—resided in slums. That number is expected to rise substantially: the United Nations forecasts that the number of slum dwellers will double to two billion people within the next 25 years. Poverty is urbanizing at breakneck speed, and there are few overarching plans to address how cities can accommodate this rapid influx of humans.

Track JR on his blog from Kabul to Japan.

Welcome to Kibera

JR visited Kibera in 2008 to take photographs of its residents. Now women of Kibera are having their Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame, thanks to his vision “Women Are Heroes”.

He returned in 2009 after the mayhem of the election riots (mayhem is putting it mildly), to plaster their portraits on train carriages and on the roofs of their houses.

By using waterproof vinyl material, he ensured his art might have a practical purpose. “The more you go to places like Kibera, the more you realise that the people don’t understand you,” he says, in his faultless, breathless English. “Food is their first need. They don’t do art just for the love of art. It has to make sense. By making their roofs rainproof, what we did made sense. They loved it. viaLondon Times

In Paris All Eyes Are On ‘Women Are Heroes’ AOC World

Feminists As Anti-Christs

Hear This Rick Perry: If Oprah Is A Harlot, I Am A Harlot, Too AOC Women

‘Rick Perry’s Army of God’, written in Sept 2009, introduces us to Tom Schlueter of Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, two pastors who not only support Rick Perry as America’s next president, but consider themselves to be prophets of God. So consumed with importance are these two men, that they consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, with a direct line to God.

Another Perry direct line to God is IHOP, as in International House of Prayer. The church was founded in 1999 by a self-trained evangelist named Mike Bickle and draws tens of thousands of worshippers to its revivals and sponsors perpetual prayer to help usher in the Final Days, writes the Houston Chronicle. 

Bickle preaches an apocalyptic Christianity that warns of the rise of a Satan-inspired religion he labels Harlot Babylon.

“I believe that one of the main pastors of the Harlot movement - it’s not the Harlot movement yet - is Oprah,” Bickle has proclaimed. “She is winsome, she is kind, she is reasonable. She is utterly deceived.”

On 40th Anniversary of Roe v Wade, 70% of Americans Support Abortion Law Decision

French Roast News

Anne is reading …

A new poll from NBC/WSJ indicates that support for Roe v. Wade is growing in America, on this 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that made abortion a private matter between a woman and her doctor. 

Seven in 10 Americans do not want the controversial decision overturned, while admitting that there are circumstances in which abortion should not be legal. 

Recognizing that the majority of Americans support abortion rights, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other social conservative groups have sought to make abortion impossible on a state by state basis by passing laws that make operating women’s health clinics that offer any tie to an abortion provider illegal. 

“I don’t need a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, an antiabortion law firm that works with state groups on local legislation. “Clinic regulations do actually challenge Roe.”

70% Americans Support Roe

A new poll from the nonpartisan Pew Research confirms a similar view about not overturning Roe v Wade among Americans. 

As the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision approaches, the public remains opposed to completely overturning the historic ruling on abortion. More than six-in-ten (63%) say they would not like to see the court completely overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, which established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Only about three-in-ten (29%) would like to see the ruling overturned. These opinions are little changed from surveys conducted 10 and 20 years ago.

Viewpoint

Whole Foods CEO Welcomes Climate Change, Warns of Fascism Mother Jones

John Mackey: I reject the premise that liberal and libertarian values are necessarily in conflict. In fact, I often self-identify as a “classical liberal.” I am pro-choice, favor legalizing gay marriages, protecting our environment, enforcing strict animal welfare protection laws (I’ve been an ethical vegan for 10 years), marijuana legalization, having a welfare safety net for our poorest or disabled citizens, and a radically reduced defense budget and military presence around the world. However, I’m also a conscious capitalist—I believe economic freedom and entrepreneurship are the best ways to end poverty, increase prosperity, and evolve humanity upward. I believe that all forms of socialism have been proven over time to result in a loss of both economic and civil liberties, with increasing poverty. The truth is that I don’t fit into a simple ideological box. I read widely on issues, try to think carefully about them, and then I make up my own mind.

Whole Foods CEO regrets comparing Obamacare to ‘fascism’ NBC News

‘John Mackey, the Kale King’ NY Times

How Whole Foods Market Innovates in Employee Health Care HBR

W Magazine February 2013 Probes Women's Rights in 'Heavenly Creature' Starring Cara Delevingne by Mikael Jansson

American fashion media is notoriously apolitical, making it rare to see editorials like ‘Heavenly Creatures’ coming out of W magazine, let alone American Vogue. For once, we have a Euro style intellectual commentary on real-life issues for American women, rather than the rah-rah aspirational you, too, can be Barbie if you only try hard enough. 

Photographer Mikael Jansson’s ‘Heavenly Creatures’ images of Cara Delevingne hit head-on the conflict between female sensuality and rights to exist as a free person within the Vatican’s perceived role of women in American society. W is about three years late, but I say welcome to the debate and for heavens sake, put some skin in the game, will you please!

Congressman Paul Ryan Introduced Personhood Bill Again

Just last week, Romney vice presidential candidate Congressman Paul Ryan introduced again the personhood bill into the House of Representatives. This bill equates model Cara Delevingne — or any woman standing in her place in these images — with a fertilized egg.

We are the same in Congressman Ryan’s eyes — and that of the entire Republican party. The rights of that one-celled egg and those of Cara Delevingne or any grown woman with three children and a loving husband are the same. They are identical ‘Heavenly Creatures’. 

At a time when America faces total gridlock in Washington and a Republican party threatening to start a global economic collapse unless they get their way on the debt ceiling crisis — which is only an action to pay for the bills that THEY passed — the Republican party is focused on taking away birth control for American women as a top priority. 

Most forms of birth control will be eliminated if Republicans succeed in overturning a 50-year-old Supreme Court decision on Griswold v. Connecticut which said American women are entitled to birth control as a basic right. Today, Republicans seek to turn back that decision at the behest of Catholic bishops and the Vatican who argue that birth control is a sin and women will go to hell for using it.

The Vatican and other right-wing groups want a theocracy in America — a fear that was paramount in the minds of the founding fathers, who banned Catholicism in 10 of the 13 original colonies. 

Former presidential candidate and Southern Baptist minister Micke Huckabee blames birth control -- which he calls abortion — as a reason for 20 innocent children dying in Newton, Conn. God is punishing America, argues Huckabee, Ryan and the entire Republican party who supports the personhood amendment. 

American Fashion Media Needs to Stand for Women

It’s time for American fashion media to take some lessons from Vogue’s in other countries, not only the edgy fashion press. American Vogue is behind Muslim country Vogue Turkey in it’s refusal to stand up for the real world of its citizens and not some glossy abstract of the perfect life. 

I’m thrilled with Edward Enninful’s styling vision and the entire ‘Heavenly Creatures’ team for taking on this topic about three years too late. Without saying a word, the images speak volumes and can’t be criticized by social conservatives.

Perhaps W agrees with the Vatican! In putting the topic out there for public consumption, Mikael Jansson strikes a neutral chord while entering the world of American women and transvaginal probes. 

I expect other controversy-avoiding fashion media to also stand for the hard-won rights of American women before we lose them all.

This attack plan is for real, people, and the assault on American women must stop. Anne

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