South Sudan faces worsening crisis
The situation for the people of South Sudan is getting worse according to the United Nations.
Aid organisations are warning that the country is facing a humanitarian emergency.
Al Jazeera’s Anna Cavell reports from South Sudan.
(this post was reblogged from jesuisperdu)
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Donnie: Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?
Frank: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
Frank: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
(Source: imdb.com)
Give Komen the Pink Slip: Five Ways to Support Women’s Health for All
Rescinding the Planned Parenthood funding implies that the only women who deserve to receive breast cancer screenings are those who can afford a private doctor. Three million women and men visited Planned Parenthood last year. Over the past five years, Susan G. Komen allowed the health centers to provide nearly 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals.
If you’re pissed off, show it with your dollars—even if you can only part with a few of them. And afterwards, be sure to tell the Komen Foundation where your money went.
Donate to Planned Parenthood. The obvious choice is to compensate for what Planned Parenthood has lost. The organization received $680,000 from Susan G. Komen last year alone, and virtually every dollar was used for breast exams. That leaves a gaping hole in their funding. Help fill it here (and make sure to mark it “for breast cancer screenings”).
Support a breast cancer organization with some integrity. Not every organization will sell out women’s health to please anti-abortion rights legislators. Some anti-cancer advocacy groups make their feminist messages explicit and central. Breast Cancer Action, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and the Women’s Community Cancer Project are three that have genuinely feminist roots.
Help the women the Komen Foundation has ignored. Awareness isn’t enough—some women just can’t afford breast cancer screenings. Women of color and poor women will be hurt most by the foundation’s decision. Donating to places like the African American Breast Cancer Alliance or Black Women’s Health Imperative will help these women get the medical attention they need.
Prop up a pro-choice, pro-woman organization. A strike against Planned Parenthood is a strike against women’s health in general. If breast cancer is too specific a cause for you, donate to a women-centered organization that provides crucial sex and health information, like Our Bodies, Ourselves or the National Women’s Health Network.
Support your local women’s clinic. Planned Parenthood is the most ubiquitous group of health clinics in the country, but there are other local women’s health clinics that provide breast exams, and they’re likely struggling even more. Places like the Chicago Women’s Health Center or the Cedar River Clinics could really use some cash, too. Or donate to your local abortion fund—access to a safe abortion may be more of a political lightning rod than breast cancer screenings, but it’s no less essential.
(this post was reblogged from luckyshirt)
(Source: Wikipedia)
Born in Mexico, a young man came to the United States of America with his mother at the age of 2. In the eight grade, the poverty under which he lived was so extreme that he felt compelled to drop out and help his mother. At the age of 14, he joined a gang and lived on the streets. The young man eventually went back to high school but he quickly dropped out. A lot happened in between these years but after his best friend was gunned down in a gang fight, he had a stark realization. The young man soon met a great teacher who went out of her way to help him out. He eventually went to college, gained a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley [Cal Pride!], wrote two books and became an award winning professor. Would you believe me if I told you that this isn’t the plotline to a Hollywood film?
Well it’s not the plotline. This is the man who is the focus of PBS NewsHour’s One Man’s Journey From Gang Member to Academia
Victor Rios says he has lived two lifetimes. In his first, he was a gang member, juvenile delinquent and high school dropout. Today, he’s a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who studies at-risk youth.
I was discussing the work of Prof. Rios over the weekend at the U.S.E.U. retreat at the University of California at Santa Cruz. One of the students at the retreat is currently working towards his Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Rios. This guy is the real deal, I highly recommend his work and I urge you to watch this.
Planned Parenthood took to Twitter yesterday urging supporters to donate in light of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to halt funding for the group.
Planned Parenthood raised at least $650,000. Keep it going.
Atlantic Sturgeon now listed as Endangered
Atlantic sturgeon, one of the most expensive and imperiled fish in the world, finally gets protection under the Endangered Species Act. NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced a final decision to list five distinct population segments (DPS) of Atlantic sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act.
Once plentiful, sturgeon populations in the U.S. and across the world have plummeted since humans targeted them for their caviar.
“Atlantic sturgeon have been teetering on the brink of extinction since they were severely depleted by fishing in the late 1800s,” said Ellen K. Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University.
Sam, the Rhesus monkey, after his ride in the Little Joe-2 (LJ-2) spacecraft
A U.S. Navy destroyer safely recovered Sam after he experienced three minutes of weightlessness during the flight. Animals were often used during test flights for Project Mercury to help determine the effects of spaceflight and weightlessness on humans. LJ-2 was one in a series of flights that led up to the human orbital flights of NASA’s Project Mercury program. The Little Joe rocket booster was developed as a cheaper, smaller, and more functional alternative to the Redstone rockets. Little Joe could be produced at one-fifth the cost of Redstone rockets and still have enough power to carry a capsule payload. Seven unmanned Little Joe rockets were launched from Wallops Island, Virginia from August 1959 to April 1961.
