Today is a day to remember all of the many thousands of soldiers who chose to defend their country since the Revolutionary War. Some chose and some were drafted. Some gave a few years and some gave all they had…they gave their lives. Thank you seems inadequate but as a pacifist those words and my respect for your choices is all I have. I will continue to work for peace and harmony in the world; you did not fight nor die in vain.
Today was a busy day for me. I am much better just tired. We went to the Light Center and you go into a dome like building and in a dome shaped room. Lights and music are used for healing. This is one of their prayers.
God is all-powerful Light and Love. God is peace and harmony. God is true prosperity and perfect abundance. God is energy. God is Divine order and Divine right action. God is freedom and justice. God is wisdom, inspiration, and Divine guidance. God is Divine intelligence and Divine mind. God is truth. God is true forgiveness and loving release. God is joy. God is life. All those things that God is. All nations and peoples of Planet Earth are filled and surrounded with God’s all-powerful Light and Love. All peoples, governments, institutions, and organizations of the world are Divinely inspired to create world peace and prosperity. Divine order and harmony, freedom and justice are established of all on Planet Earth. Government officials, diplomats, and negotiators are God in action, acting to the highest good of all. Civil servants, legislators, judges, and citizens are God in action. Scientists, industrialists, and bankers are God in action. International relations are filled with Light and Love. Government spending and taxation are filled with Light and Love. The financial and business worlds are filled with Light and Love. Commerce and the world money supply are filled with Light and Love. All communications and the media filled with Light and Love. Science, technology, energy supplies, medicine, and agriculture are filled with Light and Love. The Earth environment, flora and fauna are filled with Light and Love. Together, we all work from our God center to create a new world of peace, prosperity and harmony.
Thank you, God
Whether we our praying for our own healing, for another’s healing or for our leaders, remember to prayer for Mother Earth always.
Namaste
Barbara
Married at 3, divorced at 7: Two Ethiopian girls tell their stories
“I was really young on my wedding day. And I didn’t know we’d have sex that night. I thought my husband would wait for me to grow up, that he would wait for the right time.” ~ Selenat ~
For girls like Selenat, who got married when she was 13, child marriage marks the beginning of frequent and unprotected sex which often leads to an early and risky first pregnancy.
“At first we just slept. But the groomsmen kept on bugging my husband until he had to wake me up. That’s when it all happened. I didn’t really know what was going on because I was very small.
“The groomsmen and the entire family were so excited that I was a virgin that my pain, my screaming — that was the whole point of the marriage.” ~ Selenat ~
In the last decade 58 million girls in developing countries — that’s 1 in 3 — have been married before they were 18.
Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of early marriage in sub-Saharan Africa. In the Amhara region — where Selenat lives — the average age is 14.7 years.
Meet Bayush. She got married when she was 3.
Bayush lives about an hour’s drive from Selenat’s village. She explains that girls need to stay in education “no matter what”. And she’s right. Research suggests that education may be the single most important factor in reducing early and forced marriage.
“I was very young when I got married. I don’t remember much. I remember people coming around with cattle and saying they were mine. But I didn’t really know what was going on.” ~ Bayush ~
Bayush continued to live with her mum and dad after the wedding and her husband and new family visited for events. She was due to move in with her husband when she was about 8 or 9-years-old, but at the age of 7, Bayush asked to go to school.
It was this request that led to the end of her marriage. Bayush’s father refused to send her to school but her brother intervened — he offered to pay the school fees if Bayush could stay in the family home. Eventually, Bayush’s father agreed. Bayush’s relationship with her husband ended.
“Now my dad supports me, he’s on my side. He says that he would have ruined my life if he’d insisted I stay married.” ~ Bayush ~
Bayush also received support from the UK aid funded Finote Hiwot (which means “pathway to life”) programme.
“Finote Hiwot has helped me to stay in school with exercise books and pens and the different materials I need to complete my education.” ~Bayush~
The programme — which is helping at least 37,500 adolescent girls, and indirectly many more — also runs community discussions about early marriage in Bayush’s village. These conversations ultimately bring behavioural change which provides the tipping point to end the practice.
Bayush often goes to the meetings and felt empowered to speak to her uncle, who was going to marry off her cousin.
“I told my uncle what I’ve learnt through Finote Hiwot. I explained how he’d become a better person if he sent his daughter to school. I also told him that his daughter is brilliant and he decided not to marry her off. I feel so proud of what I’ve done.
“Today I dream about completing my education and becoming a doctor to help people. I feel I have a responsibility to do that.” ~ Bayush ~
This story was originally published on Medium by the UK Department for International Development. Click here to find out more about how the Department for International Development is taking action to address early and forced marriage in a range of countries including Bangladesh, Nepal, Zambia, Uganda and Ethiopia.
As a pacifist, I don’t want any of this; I’ve always been a pacifist and I’m sure I will die a pacifist. As a feminist, however, I support a woman’s right to choose what do with her life, and that includes military service.
What disturbs me about women in the military isn’t that they want to go and serve their country, or that they want to be able to fight for their country; it is the fact that sex, once again, is being used as an excuse for harassment, molestation and rape.
For thousands of years, males — i.e. Adam and all non-feminist men after — have used the excuse “she made me do it”. There is not a legitimate reason, ever, to sexual molest, rape, attack or violate a woman. In actuality, these things have to do with power and control, not with sex.
The military is the American bastion of male power and control. The good old boys are going to have to suck it up and get a grip on themselves; they need to realize that the only thing they have legitimate power and control over is themselves, and begin to act accordingly.
The United States military wrongfully discharges rape survivors while routinely avoiding punishing the accused rapist, according to a report published Thursday from Human Rights Watch.
The report details the accounts of several members of the armed forces being discharged for “personality disorders,” after being drugged and assaulted, including Juliet Simmons, Diana Gonzalez and Amy Quinn.
At times, the 270 members of the military interviewed said they were accused of lying about their rape, while other times being told to stand at attention for six to eight hours a day as punishment for making the ordeal an issue to begin with, as in Amy Quinn’s case.
The organization’s detailed analysis of some of the military’s rape cases was immediately denied by the military, which, in an email to CNN, accused HRW of not actually reviewing service records. As HRW notes, however, the military has been forced to provide several of the records they analyzed as public records.
“All too often superior officers choose to expeditiously discharge sexual assault victims rather than support their recovery and help them keep their position,” the report notes. “Very few sexual assault survivors we spoke to managed to stay in service.”
Full report available at: https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/05/19/booted/lack-recourse-wrongfully-discharged-us-military-rape-survivors
Joan has been a guest blogger before on IdealisticRebel and she has just had a new book of poetry published. It’s called Fluency. Joannie and I have been friends forever, the kind of friends who last a lifetime. When her book came out she sent me a copy, and I read it cover to cover. Immediately, there was one poem in particular which I found to be very powerful and very moving, which I wanted to share with each of you. If I hadn’t gotten so sick with the deep bronchitis, I would have gotten this to you earlier. I’m still on medication and have doctor appointments coming up to handle this, and my blogging will be sporadic for while yet, but I just couldn’t wait any longer to share Joan’s words with you.
Joan and her lovely husband Paul have retired and are moving to be closer to their daughter and granddaughter. Joan has been through a great deal in life’s trauma’s, and she has been and remains a glowing light for what can be accomplished when you look up after you survive trauma in your life, and still retain your inner strength and beauty.
Here is one of my earlier photographs of her. We used to go on Sunday mornings to the beach and have breakfast, and play volleyball. I would leave and go home to shower an put on my nurse’s uniform while my friends stayed on to play.
Joan is also a wonderful musician and a classically trained vocalist, and often sings with her husband Paul Esiert as Fire and Ice, in and around Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.
Here are her words
Jing-o is the Name-o
Greasy dago Guinea wop
Spaghetti bender Mafioso
Class, let’s see if Joan can talk while sitting on her hands
Let’s listen to her sandals go wop, wop, wop
as the dagos go by
Look at that dago nose
John Metzger and David Duke grand idiot dragons
and wizards of the KKK – the jury’s still out on the eye-talians
they’re not really white
Back in the day Warren’s Eastside fathers warned their daughters
not to go past the railroad tracks
to the West End where all those dagos live
the Ghetto in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains
10% of 1st and 2nd generations Italian-Americans
served in WW II
Italian-American soldiers suffered
the highest number of casualties
Burning crosses
Murders in the fine Italian New Jersey farmlands
The Man can’t have the wops working the soil
better than he does
All Italians are the mafia
Did ya hear the one about the dago and the…
or the wop and the…
Those shady Southern Italians with their beady eyes
and black hair
I’m not racist, but…
Nigger lover
She must be Italian
Hey lady, the stork gave you the wrong baby
Are you a hooker?
What a sham, Mr and Mrs Papalia
Joan’s such a beautiful girl
Mrs. Papalia, disown your daughter
Did ya hear the one about the nigger and the…
Did ya hear the one about the coon and the…
She’s the one that married the colored boy
Joan’s invited to the party but not him
I feel bad for the children
Them babies should be put in a burlap bag
and down in the river
The apartment’s already been rented
I can’t babysit for you anymore
Retail security watching every move
Glass ceilings
An EMT’s failed drowning rescue — Dead?
Who cares – one less nigger around.
Amadou Dialo: New York City
killed by 41 shots in a doorway
reaching for his wallet
White hoods and robes in upscale Amherst, NY
Jasper, Texas
Ferguson, Missouri
Charlotte, North Carolina
Ocala, Florida
(How much time you got?)
Ninth Ward, New Orleans – Hurricane Katrina
LWB Living while black
LWM Living while Middle Eastern
while Indian
while Hispanic
while Jewish
while Asian
while Muslim
while hoodied
while LGBT
while fat
while female
Living while whatever you are that they aren’t
(How much time have you got?)
I’m not prejudiced, but….
–Joan Papalia Eisert
from Fluency, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions
Hi, All
It’s The Sister, again with a quick update on our dear Rebel
She got a bit worse yesterday, so we made a quick trip to the lovely ER at Park Ridge Medical Center (I’m not kidding: lovely facility, wonderful staff!)
Turns out what we thought was just a nasty virus has turned into Deep Bronchitis. She’s on antibiotics and steroids to clear it all out, but is (understandably) under the weather in a fairly major way right now
Hopefully, by this time next week, she’ll be back to her regular self!
Thanks for your patience.
Amy
One of the schoolgirls whose abduction triggered the #BringBackOurGirls campaign has been located after more than two years in captivity, activists and military officials said Wednesday.
The mass kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram from the Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014 ignited an international outcry. The ensuing #BringBackOurGirls campaign was backed by the likes of Michelle Obama, while the U.S. and other countries sent military assistance.
A handful of the kidnapped girls managed to escape early on but most were never found.
However on Wednesday the Nigerian Army and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign group said that one of the remaining captives, a 19-year-old with a 4-month-old baby, was rescued by pro-government vigilantes on the edge of Nigeria’s Sambisa Forest, a Boko Haram hideout.
Alongside her, the Civilian JTF detained a “suspected Boko Haram terrorist” named Mohammed Hayatu, who claimed to be her “husband,” according to a statement from Nigerian Army spokesman Col. Sani Usman.
Boko Haram fighters are known to have forced their kidnap victims into marriage, rape, and conscription as suicide bombers, according to Amnesty International and others.
A picture released by the Nigerian Army purporting to show Mohammed Hayatu, who it identified as a suspected Boko Haram “terrorist” and so-called “husband” of a rescued member of the kidnapped Chibok girls. Nigerian Army
A picture released by the Nigerian Army purporting to show Mohammed Hayatu, who it identified as a suspected Boko Haram “terrorist” and so-called “husband” of a rescued member of the kidnapped Chibok girls. Nigerian Army
The precise details of how the young woman was recovered by the militiamen was immediately unclear. The military initially gave a different name for the young woman, before correcting themselves.
“This is a major, major breakthrough — this is the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for,” Bukky Shonibare, one of the strategic team members of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, told NBC News. Her group also gave details of the rescue that were consistent with the military’s updated account.
The young woman was taken to a military base in the town of Damboa before being brought to her mother and her former high-school head teacher — both of whom positively confirmed her identify, according to Shonibare.
The activists are “100 percent sure that this was one of the Chibok girls,” Shonibare added.
The teenager, Hayatu and the baby were all taken to the regional capital of Maiduguri for medical attention and screening, the military said.
According to Shonibare’s account, the girl said the rest of the Chibok girls were in the Sambisa Forest, contradicting previous suggestions that the group had been split up and taken abroad.
“At some points we heard they were in four different camps,” she said. “Now this girl is saying all of them are in Sambisa … It’s just 24 hours since [ she was found], so we need to, as the days go by, get more information from her to get an assessment of how many are there.”
Members of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign embrace each other at a sit-out in Abuja, Nigeria
Members of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign embrace each other at a sit-out in Abuja, Nigeria, on May 18, 2016, after hearing that a Nigerian teenager kidnapped by Boko Haram more than two years ago was rescued. Afolabi Sotunde / Reuters
John Campbell, the former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, told NBC News: “If the positive ID by the mother and the head teacher checks out, it would seem that she really is one of the Chibok girls. The question is whether it does check out.”
He added: “I would want to talk to the mother and head teacher rather than a military spokesman who, as far as I’m concerned, as limited credibility.”
While the Chibok Girls drew the most international attention, an estimated 2,000-plus women and girls have been abducted during Boko Haram’s violent campaign in Nigeria. Chibok may not even be the largest group to be kidnapped, with Human Rights Watch reporting that some 400 people were taken from the town of Damasak last year.
The army gave details of a large-scale operation against Boko Haram on Tuesday — the day the young woman was reportedly found — in Sambisa forest.
The military said troops killed 15 Boko Haram fighters after coming under heavy fire in the area of Alafa.
Troops also rescued 41 hostages — mainly women and children, the military added in a statement.
While Nigeria’s government has publicly touted an aggressive campaign to beat back Boko Haram, its failure to find the girls has drawn criticism.
The news comes one day after the president’s wife, Aisha Buhari, presented “symbolic” checks to the mothers of the missing girls.
Editor’s note: The name of the young woman has been removed from this story as it was not clear whether she consented to her identity being released.
Hi, everyone. It’s The Sister
So sorry that our dear Rebel has not posted lately; really, it’s all my fault, because I got sick week before last, and now Rebel has it.
It’s a nasty virus, and she’s having a hard time shaking it, but she’s resting.
She’s on the mend and will back with you soon.
Thanks for your patience.
Namaste,
Amy
Thank you. Hugs, Barbara
There is no other
Like a caring mother
Forever endearing
Endless caring
What would life be
Without foundation of love
Of the family ❤️
*
Dedicated to all of the wonderful, loving, thoughtful, caring and faithful mothers across the globe… You are deeply appreciated ❤️
“Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”
—Naomi Wolf
My English grandmother, Caroline, would put it in her own way. “Girl, you have a bloody tongue in your head, use it.” I did and I continue to do so. There has always been a price but it was the advice that probably saved my emotional life. We had high tea and I played bingo with her and her lady friends. I never lost and it was years until I realized they let me win. She also had a closet with a box of toys in it for us to play with. I could walk under her dining room table. Today, I tell my own grandchildren to speak their truth, I always let them win at games and there is always a box of toys.
My grandparents came over on the boat through Nova Scotia from London with 5 children and one on the way. I think she was brave and good and she loved me. I still miss her.
My grandmother Marie was the center of my life. She was Croatian. She sewed dresses, even wedding dresses, by hand. All those little tiny stitches by hand. She kept the cleanest house I have ever seen. I can’t sew. It makes me a nervous wreck. I spent summers with her and my grandpa in Cleveland when I was young and I was very happy there with them. I learned to be a good person from them and to have good manners and to love the Cleveland Indians. I was 16 when Grandma Marie died and I was inconsolable. The sunshine left my world and I miss her still.
A Word to the Wise
Sometimes, with age comes wisdom. These pioneering women were wise with skills and experience, and they were often able to share with us their intuition, nurturing, compassion, and personal truths. Often this occurred in a simple act of relating a story, teaching a lesson or modeling.
Words brought hope and encouragement. The special way a loving grandparent spoke a child’s name was soothing. Some words, sacred phrases, or secular advice conjured healing for spiritual or physical wounds. Other words became cues for listening well; what followed might change a life forever. For one granddaughter, a grandmother’s words taught her to appreciate everyday activities for their simple truths and wise instruction.
Bone of my Bones
“Families will not be broken.
Curse and expel them, send their children wandering,
drown them in floods and fires,
and old women will make songs out of all these sorrows
and sing them on mild evenings.”
—Marilynne Robinson
My grandmothers were my oracles, my wise women and nothing ever shook their love for me. I was not always an easy child. I hated hypocrisy and spoke up about it. I hated injustice and that was good for a rant. I am a survivor of child abuse. My mother was my abuser. My grandmothers were the center of my universe and the anchor in my turbulent seas. They listened as I poured out my pain and fear and anger. Their love kept me alive and going forward. I needed to tell people so that grandmothers know how vital they are to their grandchildren. I have nine grandchildren. They are the sun and moon, the celestial music to me. I am so lucky to have them in my life. If you have read my about page, you know the many things I have done in my life. Being a grandmother is the most important and the most fulfilling.
To all of my readers and friends who are mothers, aunts, or grandmothers, know you are the tree of life in the world of your little ones. It is a position of honor so celebrate this high honor.
Namaste,
Barbara
The Tree of Life
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