Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts

Sunday, October 30, 2011

GIRLTOPIA! (Los Angeles)

Wisdom Quarterly
Convention Center overwhelmed by Girltopia (Wisdom Quarterly/Amber Dorrian).

LOS ANGELES, California - The Convention Center was overwhelmed by Girl Scouts, Brownies, Webelos, feminists, and moms, moms, moms as a fierce snowstorm -- brought on very early as a result of global climate chaos -- ruins Halloween weekend trick or treating for the Northeast United States. The storm has knocked out power to 2.7 million, snarled air and highway travel, and dumped more than 2 feet of snow in a some spots as it slowly moves north. The solar-powered Convention Center hums along as officials warned it could be days before many on the East Coast see electricity restored. And under those warm florescent lights, GIRLTOPIA is flourishing in sunny SoCal, not far from the central Occupy protest, next door to The Green Fest. It was sold out. Buy tickets early for next time.


Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Can girls actually rock? (video)

Wisdom Quarterly
(Lailathephotographer/Laila Iravani/Palliard/Flickr)

Portland's Girl Rock Camp is in its tenth year
(OregonLive.com)
Fabi Reyna played rock 'n' roll for four years before she made it into the spotlight. But it wasn't a lack of talent that kept her from it -- it was boys.

Attending music camps as a child in her hometown of Austin, Reyna was often forced to play back-up guitar for boys her age. When she was, on a rare occasion, given the chance to play lead guitar, she says boys would get so mad they would sometimes cry. And once, when she was 12, a boy told her that her gender prevented her from being a good musician.


Mini-summer session called Rock Camp Studio has
the girls working with their instructors and bands.


Reyna says she timidly backed down from the insult. But she came to Portland the next summer, in 2006, to attend the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls, and her perspective changed: She realized being female didn't mean she couldn't rock out.

"I was like, 'Yeah, what am I doing listening to dudes and holding myself back?'" says Reyna, now 19. Now she lives in Portland and tours with two bands -- Fabi and Sexhair -- and runs a record label, Talking Helps Records, with two friends. This week, Reyna will attribute much of her success to girls rock camp when she performs at a ceremony in honor of the organization's 10th anniversary. More

Juliette V solo of Pink Floyd's "Great Gig in the Sky"


So simple even a kid (Taylor) can master rock


Even a toddler (Zoe) can learn and perform by 7.


But judgments focus on looks over talent for females.

Empowering the Women of Asia (photos)

The Asia Foundation, Seven (Wisdom Quarterly)

Asia Foundation : Multimedia : Empowering the Women of Asia

In recent decades, Asia has experienced transformative economic growth and reform. And women have made significant advances in gender equity, political participation, and personal security.
  • An unprecedented number of women ran in Afghanistan's recent parliamentary elections.
  • Nepal's prime minister declared 2010 the "year to combat gender-based violence."
  • The Philippines now ranks 9th among nearly 200 countries in gender equity.
But challenges remain: Women still make up the majority of [the world and] Asia's low-skilled and highly vulnerable workforce. Many Asian countries are both the primary sources and destinations for the victims of trafficking. Others remain trapped in a cycle of illiteracy, poverty, or ill health, lacking the means to raise themselves and their families out of it.
  • The Asia Foundation's Women's Empowerment Program seeks to identify change agents, create new political and economic opportunities for women, build constituencies for reform, develop leaders, increases women's rights, and ensure their personal security. More
  • JOBS: Work for the Asia Foundation

All are dear. Let light join our voices.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Preparing for the SAT Monster (video)

()

It's never too early/late to study, to practice, or to take it again. Here is quick, practical SAT advice. Check out all of BrightStorm's helpful tools and tips for the SAT. And remember, according to Wisdom Quarterly, only girls really understand higher level math. If only more would study and enjoy it at a lower level.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Buddha was enlightened, not sexist

Ven. Anālayo Bhikkhu (Buddhist monk) in a letter to the nun Ayya Tathāloka
() In the fifth year after his enlightenment, the Buddha spent the rainy season in Kutagarasala. It is the abbey where he most frequently stayed while visiting the great city of Vaishali. It was here that his stepmother, Mahapajapati Gotami, was ordained as the first Buddhist nun, creating the Bhikkhuni Sangha. (To visit: 1upindia.com)

Gender Discrimination and the Pali Canon

...In the case of the attitude towards women, we find contradictory positions and thus a lack of consistency in the Pāli canon [the oldest extant redaction of the Buddha's teachings].

One example is the account of the founding of the Order of Nuns.4 According to the "Great Final Nirvana Discourse" (Mahāparinibbāna Sutta), soon after his awakening the Buddha proclaimed that he would not pass away until he had nun disciples who are wise and learned.5

From this it would follow that right from the outset he wanted and intended to have an Order of Nuns. This impression is further supported by a closer perusal of the Pāli canon, which shows recurrent references to the importance of having four assemblies of disciples (monks and nuns and male and female lay followers) and to the significant contribution made by nuns to the prosperity and success of the Buddha's dispensation.

These passages stand in contrast to the impression created by the account of the foundation of the Order of Nuns, which reads as if the Buddha did not want to allow women to go forth.6

A comparative study of this account in the different collections of Disciplinary Rules (Vinayas), mainly extant in Chinese, shows clear signs of later additions and thus makes it probable that it does not accurately reflect the Buddha's attitude.

Another example would be a pair of discourses in the Collection of Numerical Discourses (Aṅguttara-nikāya) that compare women to black snakes -- as both are dirty, smelly, and betray friends, and so on.7

Would it be reasonable and coherent for an awakened teacher to make such derogatory remarks about women?

That enlightened teacher, according to other discourses, had nun-disciples that had reached full awakening and thus total freedom from any defilement,8 who according to the same discourse collection proclaimed various nuns and lay women as outstanding in qualities like deep concentration and profound wisdom,9 and who apparently placed such trust in women that he (in a twin monastic regulation found in all Vinayas) sanctioned acting on a trustworthy laywoman's report about a monk's breach of the rules?10

The comparison of women to snakes recurs in two parallel versions -- one in the Tibetan Vinaya, where a similar remark is headed by the qualification "some" (i.e., "some women are..."11) and another in a late text in Uighur [a language in China], where this remark is not made by the Buddha, but rather by some Sakyan youths.12 More plus footnotes

Monday, June 13, 2011

Russian female rapists turn table on men



Russian woman on trial for raping 10 men
A young Russian woman, a devoted collector of horror films and spiders, is on trial for sedating and raping ten men. The police were shocked that 32-year-old Valeria K., a quiet good-looking woman from the city of Tambov, was the mysterious rapist who abused ten local men after poisoning them with Clonidine, Life.ru reports....

Female hairdresser turns male robber into sex slave
A young hairdresser in Kaluga, Central Russia, locked a robber who tried to steal her money in the basement of the beauty salon. After that, she has brutally raped her hostage for three days. A court in Kaluga has filed criminal charges against both of them, the Russian website Newsru.com reports. The robber, who has not been named, burst into the salon armed with shotgun at about 17.00 on March 14. He demanded money. There were two hairdressers and one client in the salon at the time. One of hairdressers, who was studying judo and taekwondo, disabled the robber with a smashing body blow. Then she carried the unlucky robber to the basement and bound him with a hairdryer cord....

Russian Navy has released new data on UFOs
The former chief commander of the Soviet Navy has revealed information on UFOs that until recently had been secret. The Soviet Navy had so many encounters with mysterious objects raising from or diving into the ocean that...

Friday, May 13, 2011

World Today: Girls Become Sex Abusers

Wisdom Quarterly


In another sign of the impending apocalypse (that on the one hand shortens human lifespan but on the other hand "lifts the veil"), females are increasing on the abuser end of sexual misconduct. Long the domain of those in power, as females gain in status and privilege, they are increasingly prone to the pitfalls of social power.

It is not that males are more abusive by nature. They are filled with ideas of privilege, given a sense that they have a birthright by virtue of our sex, the right to exercise power and control, which usually stems from fear or insecurity. What are we afraid of? Intimacy, loss of control... What are females trying to gain through abuse? Safety, control, satisfaction...


The truth about cats and dogs: "The hurt hurt." Those abused often become abusive.

Sex differences are not fixed traits. They are mutable states. Even if one is a certain way from birth, the cause may be traced back to prior lives and habits. We condition our future in the same way. Those actions we will and carry out become habits and character traits, not by nature but by careless repetition.

How else would one explain the choices made by these young Midwestern teens?

Teen Girls Accused of Sexually Abusing Special Needs Boy

April Kutcha, 16, to be tried as adult

VALPARAISO, Indiana (KTLA.com) - A 16-year old girl will be tried as an adult after she and another teenager allegedly held a special needs boy against his will and sexually assaulted him.

The prosecutor's office filed four felony charges against 16-year-old April Kuchta including criminal confinement, sexual battery, and intimidation in connection with the attack.

The second suspect, a 14-year old girl, will be tried as a juvenile.

Investigators say Kuchta and the other teenager lured a developmentally disabled 17-year-old to come to Kuchta's home where they handcuffed him and jabbed him repeatedly with a knife.

According to court records, the victim told police that they recorded him on a cell phone doing and saying things against his will and Kuchta touched him sexually.

After leaving him handcuffed and covered with a blanket for two hours, the girls allegedly invited others over to witness the incident, according to local TV station WBBM. Kuchta is being held in Porter County Jail without bond. Source
Of course, the matter is not limited to teens. Sexual molestation by female adults is increasing or more widely reported, particularly in schools. That women would behave the same as men have traditionally behaved should come as no surprise -- unless we think the actions stem from traits rather than states. As women find themselves wielding powers, privileges, and discretionary income customarily confined to men, we should perhaps expect to see more not fewer stories like this:

Politician’s Wife Jailed for Mother-Daughter “Sex Triangle” with 13-Year-Old Boy
Wishididntknow.com


(Daily Mail, April 10, 2011) The middle-aged wife of an Arizona politician has been jailed for 13 years for a three year affair with a teenage boy.

Susan Brock began grooming the boy with presents such as an Xbox when he was just 11 years old.

The mother-of-three began having sex with the teen when he was 13 years old, and their affair continued until he was 17 years as she attempted to mold him into her "toyboy" [boy-toy] lover.

At the same time as she was sleeping with the teenager, her 18 year old daughter was also having sex with the boy. ["Like mother like daughter," we'll someday be saying.]

Rachel Brock will go on trial later this year but is likely to get a lesser sentence on her underage sex charges.

The mother-daughter sex triangle was revealed as Brock, 49, was jailed after pleading guilty to three counts of attempted sexual conduct.

Brock wept in court as she apologized for her behavior, which is said to have left her victim, now aged 17, suffering from "inescapable depression."

Her husband Fulton, who filed for divorce after his wife’s arrest on sex charges, is Supervisor in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Prosecutors had said church-going Brock was a predatory mom who had picked out the son of a family friend to satisfy her sexual desires.

She began molesting the boy when he was 14 years old with encounters often taking place in her Lexus car and at her home in Chandler, Arizona.

The [formerly] dark-haired homemaker also helped the teen have sex with his girlfriend and even supplied them with a "sex kit" including condoms. Brock’s three year affair came to light after her teen lover’s girlfriend told his parents.

Brock had been charged with 15 counts of abusing the teen, but under a plea deal reached in January pleaded guilty to three lesser charges. More
  • An apocalypse (Greek, apokálypsis, "lifting of the veil" or "revelation") is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of humankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, that is, the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the famous but apocryphal Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament or Christian "Bible."

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Math genius explains $1M prize refusal


ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (UPI) - Grigory Perelman, the Russian math whiz who solved a century-old problem, said he refused a $1 million prize because he knows "how to control the universe."

Perelman, 43, of St. Petersburg told the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda he had no reason to accept the $1 million prize the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachussetts, offered him in 2010 for proving the Poincare conjecture, RIA Novosti reported Friday.

"Emptiness is everywhere and it can be calculated, which gives us a great opportunity... I know how to control the universe. So tell me, why should I run for a million?" Perelman said. More


Why study mathematics? (science.kukuchew.com)