The Daily Jot

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

THIS JUST IN! JUST DO NOTHING!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O CAMPAIGNED PROMISING TO END DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL. WHAT HE COULDN'T OR WOULDN'T DO, FEDERAL JUDGE VIRGINA A. PHILLIPS DID.

NOW ALL BARRY O HAS TO DO, IN ORDER TO KEEP HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE, IS DO NOTHING.

JUST DO NOTHING.

HE'S PROVEN TO BE SO VERY GOOD AT THAT.

SO WHY THE HELL DOES MR. DO-NOTHING SUDDENLY HAVE RUMORS ABOUT A PEP IN HIS STEP?

BARRY O, JUST DO NOTHING.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Alsumaria TV reported yesterday that the Adan school in northern Baghdad was one of the areas where cancer is breaking out at alarming rates and that the cancer is traced "to Dijla water pollution caused by wastes." Today they report that breast cancer cases remain high. Wastes in water again? Breast Cancer Society of Iraq [PDF format warning] surveyed Iraqi women and found that only 21% of conducted a self-exam for lumps. Last July, Democracy Now! (link has text, audio and video) addressed the rising cases of cancer in Falluja:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Patrick, I'd like to ask you about this whole other issue of the report on -- by Chris Busby and some other epidemiologists about the situation in Fallujah and the enormous increases in leukemias and cancers in Fallujah after the US soldiers' attack on that city. Could you talk about that?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Sure. I think what's significant, very significant, about this study is that it confirms lots of anecdotal evidence that there had been a serious increase in cancer, in babies being born deformed, I mean, sometimes with --grotesquely so, babies -- you know, a baby girl born with two heads, you know, people born without limbs, then a whole range of cancers increased enormously. That this was -- when I was in Fallujah, doctors would talk about this, but, you know one couldn't -- one could write about this, but one couldn't really prove it from anecdotal evidence. Now this is a study, a scientific study, based on interviews with 4,800 people, which gives -- proves that this was in fact happening and is happening. And, of course, it took -- you know, it has taken place so much later than the siege of Fallujah, when it was heavily bombarded in 2004 by the US military, because previously, you know, Fallujah is such a dangerous place to this day, difficult to carry out a survey, but it's been finally done, and the results are pretty extraordinary.

AMY GOODMAN: What were the various weapons that were used in the bombing of Fallujah in 2004?

PATRICK COCKBURN: Well, primarily, it was sort of, you know, artillery and bombing. Initially it was denied that white phosphorus had been used, but later this was confirmed. I think one shouldn't lose sight of the fact, in this case, that before one thinks about was depleted uranium used and other things, that just simply the use of high -- large quantities of high explosives in a city filled with civilians and people packed into houses -- often you find, you know, whole families living in one room -- was, in itself, going to create, lead to very, very high civilian casualties. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the increase in cancers and so forth, and the suspicion that maybe depleted uranium, maybe some other weapon, which we don't know about -- this is not my speculation, but of one of the professors who carried out the study -- might have been employed in Fallujah, and that would be an explanation for results which parallel, in fact exceed, the illnesses subsequently suffered by survivors of Hiroshima.

The study referred to is by Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi and is [PDF format warning] entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009" (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health). The study, published this summer, was not on a topic that had just been noted. In 2005, James Cogan (WSWS) was reporting that Iraqi doctors were finding an increase in both birth defects and cancers:

The statistics point to the long-term consequences of depleted uranium contamination. Munitions containing an estimated 300 tonnes of DU were unleashed by coalition forces in southern Iraq in 1991. A decade after the war, DU shell holes are still 1,000 times more radioactive than the normal level of background radiation. The surrounding areas are still 100 times more radioactive. Experts surmise that fine uranium dust has been spread by the wind, contaminating swathes of the surrounding region, including Basra, which is some 200 kilometres away from sites where large numbers of DU shells were fired.

Also in 2005, November 8, 2005, Democracy Now! aired "U.S. Broadcast Exclusive - "Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre" on the U.S. Use of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs." Global Research reported at the start of this year:

Dr Ahmad Hardan, who served as a special scientific adviser to the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, says that there is scientific evidence linking depleted uranium to cancer and birth defects. He told Al Jazeera English [3], "Children with congenital anomalies are subjected to karyotyping and chromosomal studies with complete genetic back-grounding and clinical assessment. Family and obstetrical histories are taken too. These international studies have produced ample evidence to show that depleted uranium has disastrous consequences."

Iraqi doctors say cancer cases increased after both the 1991 war and the 2003 invasion. Abdulhaq Al-Ani, author of "Uranium in Iraq" told Al Jazeera English [4] that the incubation period for depleted uranium is five to six years, which is consistent with the spike in cancer rates in 1996-1997 and 2008-2009.

Iraqis have had to endure a great deal throughout the illegal war, especially Iraqi children who were rendered orphans at a higher rate than in most countries. Dr. Souad N. al-Azzawi outlined some of what they had to endure earlier this year at Global Research:

* Direct killing during the military invasion operations where civilians were targeted directly. Additional casualties amongst children have resulted from unexploded ordinances along military engagement routes.

* The direct killing and abuse of children during American troop raids on civilian areas like Fallujah, Haditha, Mahmodia, Telafer, Anbar, Mosul, and most of the other Iraqi cities[17]. The Massacre of the children in Haditha in 2005 is a good example of "collateral damage" among civilians.

* Daily car bombs casualties, explosion of buildings and other terrorist attacks on civilians.

* Detention and torture of Iraqi children in American and Iraqi governmental prisons. While in detention, the children are being brutalized, raped, and tortured. American guards videotaped these brutal crimes in Abu Graib and other prisons.

* Poverty due to economic collapse and corruption caused acute malnutrition among Iraqi children. As was reported by Oxfam in July 2007, up to eight million Iraqis required immediate emergency aid, with nearly half the population living in "absolute poverty".

* Starving whole cities as collective punishment by blocking the delivery of food, aid, and sustenance before raiding them increased the suffering of the young children and added more casualties among them.

* Microbial pollution and lack of sanitation including drinking water shortages for up to 70% of the population caused the death of "one in eight Iraqi children" before their fifth birthday. Death of young children in Iraq has been attributed to water borne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, etc .

* Contaminating and exposing other heavily populated cities to chemically toxic and radioactive ammunitions. Weapons like cluster bombs, Napalm, white phosphorous, and Depleted Uranium all caused drastic increases of cancer incidences, deformations in children, multiple malignancies and child leukemia. Children in areas like Basrah, Baghdad, Nasriya, Samawa, Fallujah, Dewania and other cities have been having multifold increases of such diseases. Over 24% of all children born in Fallujah in October 2009 had birth defects.The Minister of Environment in Iraq called upon the international community to help Iraqi authorities in facing the huge increase of cancer cases in Iraq.

Iraqi children make up nearly 39% of Iraq's population and the country's median age is 20.4 years. Think of all the children have endured and you won't be at all surprised by Felicity Arbuthnot's report at Global Research:

I thought again of the Iraqi child, whose parents had a beautiful garden, who showed a friend and I her drawing book, before the invasion. One picture had an abundance of flowers, carefully colored, in numerous hues, on the side were American soldiers - shooting at the flowers. "Why are the soldiers shooting the flowers?" We asked. "Because Americans hate flowers", she replied solemnly. It was a deeply saddening moment, that she represented so many children, who saw American as representing only wrath, fear and deprivation. She knew nothing of those Americans who had worked tirelessly to reverse the situation. If she has survived, she will be a young adult. She is unlikely to have changed her views.

Meanwhile at Michael Moore's site, Iraq War veteran Ethan McCord posts videos that were shot in Iraq, videos of detainee abuse and he notes, "I want to point out, first hand, that these soldiers are doing EXACTLY as they ahve been trained. I'm not trying to excuse their behavior, but simply pointing out that this is a systemic problem." In one of the videos (the second one posted), two US service members sit on a bench with a bound Iraqi between them. The Iraqi male is blinded via goggles. The whiney voiced US soldier with no sense of rhythm attempts to start Sublime's "Santeria" off: "I don't practice Santeria, I ain't got no crystal ball" while the one with "EMERSON" listed on his uniform touches the prisoner in a 'familiar' manner and rests his hand on him as he presses his mouth against the Iraqi man's ear and tries to sing the second line but comes up with, "Oh I had a million dollars but I, I spend it all." "EMERSON" then screams loudly in the Iraqi man's ear. ["I'd, I'd spend it all" is the second line as written by the late Bradley Nowell.]

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

THIS JUST IN! BARRY'S PRIORITIES!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O IS WORKING HARD! IN FACT, HE'LL SPEND 8 OF THE NEXT 13 DAYS . . . .

AT THE WHITE HOUSE WORKING ON UNEMPLOYMENT ISSUES?

WRONGO!

HE'LL SPEND IT ON THE ROAD! RAISING MONEY FOR DEMOCRATS! HE'LL WORK FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY! IF NOT FOR THE COUNTRY!

IN OTHER NEWS, THE WHITE HOUSE LIFTED THE BAN ON . . . .

GAYS SERVING IN THE MILITARY?

NO! FOR THAT, THEY NEED A YEAR-LONG STUDY! TO LIFT THE BAN ON OFFSHORE DRILLING, THEY NEED NO STUDY!

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Well look who crawled out from under his rock, Pockmarks On His Soul Tom Hayden. Tom's suddenly interested in wars again which can only mean one thing: Bob Woodward's new book will be one of the top five best sellers of the year. So Tom shows up at The Nation to write, "Only public opinion and a forceful Congressional bloc can accelerate Obama's slow transition out of Afghanistan." What a brave and helpful little soul. Is there a rest home for useless? Tom wants to show up and immediately cast himself in a leadership role (Boomer White Male Entitlement) and tell us all how the Afghanistan War can be stopped . . . but note how he says nothing about the ongoing Iraq War. That's because the old fool had plenty of advice there and none of that worked out either. In fact, people did what Tom Hayden told them to do, they mobilized opinion against the Iraq War (actually they did that before Tom started saying it needed to be done), they gave Democrats both houses of Congress and the White House. Yet the Iraq War goes on. And instead of apologizing -- let alone calling out the elected Democrats -- Tom Hayden thinks he can brush it all under a rug, pretend like the Iraq War doesn't stil go on and tell us how it's going to be? Tom Hayden sit your ass down. No one needs to hear from you, Pock Marks. No one.

Your bravado is embarrassing. Your silence on Iraq shameful. Just sit your tired ass down because no one needed to hear from you since those who can't take accountability cannot be trusted.

The Washington Post is currently doing an unofficial survey, "The Cost of War: Are Americans disconnected from the country's wars?" Obviously, Tom Hayden is.

And while "Tom Hayden Democrats" (Barack's slur if Tom-Tom has a problem with it) express selective outrage about selective wars, libertarian Brian Irving (Nolan Chart) speaks with Libertarian presidential candidate R. Lee Wrights who states, "Most Americans are untouched by the war, other than having to endure invasions of their civil liberties when they try to get on an airplane. During the Vietnam war, the anti-war movement was galvanized by the images of death and destruction on their television screens. Sadly, today Americans are either numb or indifferent to very similar images coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan."

Numb or indifferent? Tom Hayden's the latter. Completely indifferent. By their actions, they will reveal themselves; by their lies, you will know them.

Doubt it? To grasp the truth on Tom, we need to turn to Bradley Manning. Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. This month, the military charged Manning. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning has been convicted in the public square despite the fact that he's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, he has made no public statements. Manning is now in Virginia, under military lock and key and still not allowed to speak to the press. The Bradley Manning Support Network notes that today is day 139 of imprisonment for Bradley. They recap the video he is charged with releasing:

The video, available at www.collateralmurder.com, shows Americans shooting and killing 11 individuals who do not return fire. Two of those killed were Reuters' employees, including 22 year old Reuters' photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and his driver, 40 year old Saeed Chmagh.

The video includes an audio recording of the internal commentary by the American soldiers before, during and after the shooting. The soldiers repeatedly request and are granted permission to open fire, encourage one another and joke about the dead and dying civilians. (Full transcript available here)

A total of 11 adults were killed. Two children, passengers in a van that arrived on the scene after the first bout of gunfire had ceased, were seriously injured when the Apache helicopter opened fire on their van.

In 2007, Reuters called for an investigation into the attack. In response, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad stated: "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force."

Read the Army's report on the death's of two Reuter's employees and the wounding of the two children.

There was no investigation of the nine other deaths.

No charges have been filed against the American soldiers in the Apache helicopter who shot and killed the civilians in the video.

A slaughter in Iraq, captured on video is released and where's the leader of the "Tom Hayden Democrats"? Penning a piece of garbage for The Nation entitled "Despite WikiLeaks Revelations, Congress Votes for War Funding" (July 28, 2010). By their actions, you will know them; by their LIES, they will reveal themselves. In that column -- linked to, read it an see -- Tom-Tom bemoans a Congressional vote.

Never was the case so weak for throwing another $33 billion into the Afghanistan sinkhole, but that's what a defensive US Congress did anyway on Tuesday evening. The vote was 308-114, with Republicans supplying most of the prowar votes.

Let's fact check the whore. New York Times, Carl Hulse and Jackie Calme reporting on that House vote the day it went down, "The House on Tuesday approved and sent to President Obama an overdue measure to pay for combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq [. . .]". Get it? The moneys went to fund the ongoing was in Iraq and Afghanistan but the whore Tom Hayden deliberately lied to Nation readers. Deliberately? Read the entire damn article and watch Tom Hayden take one Iraq detail after another and transpose it to Afghanistan. For example, read this section and try not to laugh at Tom for being such a transparent whore:

The Pentagon also is seeking to muzzle and imprison the American Private First Class Bradley Manning, 22, charged with downloading the documents and sending them to Assange.

What was Bradley charged with? Chris McGreal (Guardian) reported:

A US army intelligence analyst was today charged with leaking a highly classified video of American forces killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad and secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

Private Bradley Manning, who had a top-secret security clearance, has been held in military custody in Kuwait since his arrest in Iraq in May over the video, which caused great embarrassment to the US military establishment. It showed an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency. The air crew is heard falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead. WikiLeaks gave the video the title Collateral Murder.

R. Lee Wrights stated, "Most Americans are untouched by the war, other than having to endure invasions of their civil liberties when they try to get on an airplane. During the Vietnam war, the anti-war movement was galvanized by the images of death and destruction on their television screens. Sadly, today Americans are either numb or indifferent to very similar images coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan." What happens with WikLeaks? Video of an Iraqi slaughter is ignored by Tom Hayden in real time and then, three months later, he uses revisionary tactics to make it about Afghanistan.

That's disgusting and it dishonors the Iraqi dead. Tom Hayden's filth needs to be called out, not published by The Nation magazine. Look it, we all get it. Tired and ugly Tom whored for Barack like no one else in 2007 and 2008. He trashed bi-racials in order to do so (that 2008 'joke' was offensive and he's very lucky that only California papers picked up on it), he trashed the truth. Tom-Tom was forever going to hold Barack's feet to the fire but never did. He did manage to threaten violence in Denver if Barack didn't get the nomination -- poor Tom-Tom, that's the same video footage that features him FORCING his female assistant to stand in front of the camera and twirl around to show how 'pretty' she is, always the sexual harasser -- and he did manage to pimp the lie that Barack would pull all US troops out of Iraq ten months after being sworn in. None of that came to pass, now did it? So the little whore tries to ignore Iraq instead of taking accountability.

As the cry goes: No accountability, no justice. It's past time that faux activists like Tom Hayden were called out. A sexual aggressor who makes his young female assistant 'pose' for news cameras should have been more than in 2008 but he got a pass. Now he gets a pass for taking the pain and suffering of Iraqis and transposing it on Afghanistan. Tom Hayden is the reason that the Iraq War continues -- the inability of those opposed to the wars to hold people like him accountable, to let them continue to think they're 'leading lights' of the peace movement, to refuse to shout him down. Until the movement finds the strength to check Tom, it's not going anywhere. But he will continue to attempt to play the face of the movement before the cameras.

The Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation's Jeff Stack demonstrates (at the Columbia Tribune) that straight talk isn't impossible:

We should promptly and completely end the U.S. occupations/wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and immediately end the drone attacks in central Asia, recognizing these as good first steps toward making our nation and world safer, healthier and more stable economically.

Nine years ago last Thursday, the United States initiated war in Afghanistan with its bombing campaign, now morphed into an occupation in the midst of a civil war. Congress abdicated its constitutional charge the following year on Oct. 10, 2003, "authorizing" President George W. Bush to invade Iraq -- home to, not coincidentally, then the world's second-largest known oil reserves.

The toll from these U.S. interventions is staggering. More than a million Iraqis have been killed (300,000 by U.S. troops, the rest through sectarian violence), according to the British medical journal Lancet. Tens of thousands of Afghans have died.

THIS JUST IN! HE'S BAKED!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

DRONE ATTACKS, ILLEGAL WARS, CLAIMING THE RIGHT TO EXECUTE ANYONE WITHOUT TRIAL . . . IT WAS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O HAD THE BOOK THROWN AT HIM BUT WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED IT WOULD BE AT A PUBLIC EVENT AND NOT IN A COURT OF LAW?

APPEARING IN PHILLY AND DEMONSTRATING WHAT THE EARLY ON-SET OF GINGIVITIS LOOKS LIKE, BARRY O HAD A BOOK HURLED HIM AND IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 'SCARY' -- AT LEAST ON THE 'SOMEONE THREW A SHOE AT BULLY BOY BUSH!' METER -- IF BARRY HAD EVEN NOTICED. BUT APPARENTLY L.L. ISN'T THE ONLY STARLET INDULGING IN MIND ALTERING DRUGS.

BARRY O WAS ALSO TREATED TO A MALE STREAKER LEADING HIM TO INSIST TO ONE HANDLER, "MAN, THIS STUFF IS KILLER. I HAVEN'T BEEN BAKED LIKE THIS SINCE HONOLULU."

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Everyone scrambles to shore up support and the political stalemate continues. Jason Ditz (Antiwar.com) reports, "As the Obama Administration applies growing pressure to all sides to accept a unity government with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (the favorite candidate for both the US and Iranian governments) retaining his position, it seems increasingly the other blocs are falling in line."

March 7th, Iraq concluded Parliamentary elections. The Guardian's editorial board noted last month, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality." 163 seats are needed to form the executive government (prime minister and council of ministers). When no single slate wins 163 seats (or possibly higher -- 163 is the number today but the Parliament added seats this election and, in four more years, they may add more which could increase the number of seats needed to form the executive government), power-sharing coalitions must be formed with other slates, parties and/or individual candidates. (Eight Parliament seats were awarded, for example, to minority candidates who represent various religious minorities in Iraq.) Ayad Allawi is the head of Iraqiya which won 91 seats in the Parliament making it the biggest seat holder. Second place went to State Of Law which Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister, heads. They won 89 seats. Nouri made a big show of lodging complaints and issuing allegations to distract and delay the certification of the initial results while he formed a power-sharing coalition with third place winner Iraqi National Alliance -- this coalition still does not give them 163 seats. They are claiming they have the right to form the government. In 2005, Iraq took four months and seven days to pick a prime minister. It's seven months and four days and counting.

Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) observes, "For outsiders, it may be difficult to fathom the idea of a political stalemate crippling a government for most of the year, destabilizing a fragile state and raising fears of new strife. But Iraq's ruthless history helps explain the psychodrama behind the seemingly endless negotiations that could drag on until early next year." Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers (New York Times) report, "The delay has affected much of the American strategy in Iraq, including trade deals and talks over what, if any, military role the United States will have after a deadline to remove the remaining 50,000 American troops by the end of 2011. The Sadrists vehemently oppose any longtime American military relationship with Iraq."

Meanwhile Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) reports that two Sunni groups not affiliated with the non-sectarian Iraqiya -- Tawafuq Party and United Iraq -- which control 10 seats have formed their own coalition and announced that yesterday. They're attempting to translate their 10 seats into some sort of influence at the bargaining table. One Shi'ite group not yet rushing into Nouri's embrace is the Islamic Supreme Council and their leader Ammar Al Hakim. Alsumaria TV reports, "Melkert conveyed the General Assembly and the Security Council interest in Iraq and their call to make progress in government formation talks. UN Chief representative stressed the necessity to engage all parties in the new government."

Shootings?

In today's violence, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports, "Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms stormed at least four houses, pulled the residents outside and shot them -- killing four, police in Baghdad said." Reuters adds that the 4 were Sahwa and that two more were injured. Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the assailants attempted to assassinate six; however, after they left, it turned out that two were still alive and are now "in critical condition." Reuters notes a Falluja home invasion in which 1 police officer (it was his house invaded) was killed.

Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing injured four people, another Baghdad sticky bombing targeted the photographer of Sunni and former Speaker of Parliament Mahmoud al-Mashhadani -- the former Speaker of Parliament and left the photographer injured, a Falluja sticky bombing claimed the life of 1 person and wounded the man's wife, a Falluja roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 police officer and left two more wounded, a third Falluja roadside bombing wounded one police officer and a Kirkuk roadside bombing wounded a doctor and destroyed an ambulance.

Reuters notes a Baghdad roadside bombing injured the Ministry of the Interior's head of evidence Maj Gen Abdul Munim Saeed and his driver, a Falluja home invasion in which 1 police officer (it was his house invaded) was killed, a Qaim roadside bombing which injured four police officers, a Kirkuk roadside bombing which injured one doctor and an Abu Ghraib roadside bombing which injured eight people (including one Iraqi soldier).

In the US, Gloria Feldt has a new book and is engaging int:

[. . .] an online discussion about women and power as presented in Gloria Feldt's new book, No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power.

In No Excuses, Feldt asserts that today nobody is keeping women from parity -- except themselves. Combining extensive research, her personal experience as former CEO and president of the Planned Parenthood Federation, and interviews with dozens of women politicians, business owners, and activists, Feldt concludes that the doors of opportunity are open; however at the rate women are leading the way through the doors, it will take 70 years to reach parity with their male counterparts.

Feldt gives women 9 Ways to overcome the external and internal barriers keeping them from their own power and leadership. No Excuses has nine chapters, each organized around a specific power tool that will help women change the way they think -- and the way they act -- so they can lead unlimited lives.

Starting today, October 11, join Gloria Feldt for 9 Ways in 9 Weeks: a conversation about how you can apply the power tools in No Excuses to your own life. Feldt will share interviews with amazing and inspiring women as well as her thoughts and links to resources. Each week a different power tool will be posted, topics will be presented, and discussion will take place.

Please visit at http://gloriafeldt.com/9ways to join the conversation. You can also visit Gloria Feldt's fan page on Facebook to stay up-to-date on No Excuses and the 9 Ways. Please contact me if you are interested in reviewing the book, interviewing Gloria Feldt, or have any additional questions.

I have not read 9 Ways in 9 Weeks. I'm sure it's a thought provoking read because Gloria's always been someone to toss things around and come at it from many different angles. I look forward to reading the book -- and hope to this week -- but I need to note that there are systematic barriers to women's progress. We certainly saw that in 2008 with the near uniform attacks on Hillary Clinton -- a time when White men repeatedly urged African-American males to take pride in bi-racial Barack but attacked women of all races who took pride in Hillary's run. Gloria knows that and wrote strongly about that in real time. It's also true that we can be our own worst enemies. We are in the majority. Why haven't we seized control? Why do we continue begging for our rights? In all the attacks on Hillary, in all that sexism that spewed in 2008 -- sexism that also rendered Cynthia McKinney invisible and allowed for some of the most vile things in the world to be said about Sarah Palin -- in all the attempts to badger and batter women into what a bunch of White males thought should happen, no one bothered to note that we don't have equal rights. All the talk about voting and blah blah -- Emma Goldman appears more and more correct about how little suffrage would actually matter -- concealed the fact that women do not legally have equality in this country. The Equal Rights Amendment did not pass, there's never been a serious effort to restart the drive for it (immediately after the failure of it, the decision was made to go the route of the courts). I don't know that Gloria does or doesn't acknowledge the systematic oppression in her book -- my guess would be not in any great detail because that's not what it sounds like her focus is -- but I'm sure it's a book that will haunt and one worthy of a serious and pro-longed conversation. I look forward to reading it and hope to finish it by the end of the week.