Real Issues In Our World Today
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withadon Sniper Island
This Is Also All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: On the heels of recent Humane Society undercover investigations into chicken cruelty, pig cruelty, and Tennessee walking horse cruelty, a Mercy For Animals hidden-camera operation at a livestock auction in L.A. has revealed “an ongoing pattern of cruelty, egregious violence, and severe neglect,” including:
- “Downed” animals — those too sick or injured to even stand or walk on their own — being left to slowly suffer and die without food, water or veterinary care.
- Sick, injured and dying animals being kicked, pushed and dragged into transport trucks to be sold and slaughtered for human consumption.
- Workers throwing, beating, stomping on and kicking animals in the face and body.
- Baby goats being carelessly picked up by their necks and then kicked or tossed around.
- Workers grabbing, dragging and throwing animals by their heads, necks, ears, horns, tails, and legs.
- Birds stuffed into bags and goats, sheep and other animals overcrowded into small pens, forcing animals to stand on and even trample each other.
After reviewing the footage, Temple Grandin, Ph.D., an animal welfare advisor to the USDA, wrote: “The handling was very rough and kicking animals is not acceptable. If this auction had been a federally inspected meat packing plant, they would have suspended inspection and shut them down.”
MFA’s exposé has prompted a further investigation by law enforcement, and seven employees and the auction’s owner have been charged with a total of 21 counts of animal cruelty. The case is ongoing.
(Heads up — footage is graphic.)
[thanks, kat!]
Because this was good.
Because I am a PROUD LIBERAL.
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
(via projectqueer)
LGBTQ* Intersex Documentaries You Should Keep On Your Radar
INTERSEXION
(Following text from the documentary’s website:)
The first question any new parent asks… “Is it a boy or a girl?”
What if it’s neither?1 in 2,000 babies is born with genitalia so ambiguous that the doctors cannot easily answer this question.
In this groundbreaking documentary, intersex individuals reveal the secrets of their unconventional lives – and how they have navigated their way through this strictly male/female world, when they fit somewhere in between.
(Quicktime/Video Link HERE, supplied by Tiger Howard Devore, PhD.)
(via withadon)
“The reason why this is relevant to the campaign is that my opponent, Governor Romney, his main calling card for why he thinks he should be president is his business experience. He’s not going out there touting his experience in Massachusetts. He’s saying, I’m a business guy, and I know how to fix it, and this is his business.
But when you’re President, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off, and how are we paying for their retraining. Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so they can attract new businesses. Your job as President is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody’s paying their fair share, that allows us then to invest in science, and technology, and infrastructure, all of which are going to help us grow.”
— President Barack Obama, in response to a question about whether Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is relevant to the 2012 campaign
The real tell? The President also said this about Romney’s Vulture Capitalist record:
“This is not a distraction. This is what this campaign is going to be about.”
You bet your ass it will be about Romney’s record at Bain — and his 47th-in-the-nation job creation record while Massachusetts Governor — no matter how much his paid propagandists shriek, “Distraction!”
Smh, they do that about everything they are uncomfortable talking about. Like woman’s rights, birth control, abortion…
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
NATO Air Strike In Libya Killed 72 Civilians Including 24 Children and 20 Women
NATO air strikes killed 72 civilians in Libya last year, Human Rights Watch said on Monday, accusing the western alliance of failing to acknowledge the scope of collateral damage it caused during the campaign that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi.
In a report based on investigations at bombing sites during and after the conflict, the New York-based HRW said NATO strikes killed 20 women and 24 children. It called on the alliance to compensate civilian victims and investigate attacks that may have been unlawful.
“Attacks are allowed only on military targets, and serious questions remain in some incidents about what exactly NATO forces were striking,” Fred Abrahams, special adviser at HRW, said in a statement.
The report claims to be the most extensive investigation to date of civilian casualties from NATO’s air campaign and presents a higher death toll estimate than a March paper by Amnesty International which documented 55 civilian deaths, including 16 children and 14 women.
History, GIFed.
…is this…legit…
On July 1 the interest rate on federally subsidized Stafford Loans will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent if Congress doesn’t act. Though this rate hike will have devastating consequences on more than 7 million students nationwide who currently hold a Stafford Loan, change will hit students of color especially hard.
The facts below show how students of color depend on financial aid to finance their college education and how they are uniquely impacted by student debt.
1. Students are having trouble paying back their college loans. Studies show that only 37 percent of students are able to repay their loans on time. Students of color are more likely to depend on financial aid to attend college and have higher trends of student debt.
2. For the first time, student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt in the United States. Student college loan debt is now higher than all credit card debtin the country put together. Nationwide, student debt is at $867 billion compared to credit card debt at $704 billion.
3. People of color, particularly African Americans, are graduating with more student debt. African American students in particular are graduating withmuch more debt than white students. A 2010 study by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center found that student loan debt levels of $30,500 or higher were more common among 27 percent of black bachelor’s degree recipients compared to 16 percent of their white counterparts.
4. Youth unemployment (ages 16 to 24) is higher for people of color, making student debt a significant financial burden. Youth unemployment is highest among youth of color, with rates for African American youth at 30 percent and Latino youth at 20 percent, compared to the white youth unemployment rate of 16 percent.
5. Students of color rely on other forms of financial aid, such as Pell Grants, which are also facing significant cuts. Students who will lose eligibility or be cut from the Pell Grant program—a means of access to higher education and social opportunity for low-income families—will likely turn to loans to make up the difference.At a majority of historically black colleges and universities in particular, two-thirds or more of all enrolled students receive Pell Grants, with more than 90 percent of students receiving these grants at eight such institutions of higher learning.
6. While educational attainment increases among Latinos, the achievement gap continues. From 2001 to 2011 the number of Latinos with a bachelor’s degree or higher education increased 80 percent from 2.1 million to 3.8 million. But there’s still an achievement gap: By 2012 only 14 percent of all U.S. Latinos over the age of 25 had bachelor’s degrees, compared to 34 percent of whites. A 2009 Pew Hispanic Center survey found the most common reason for the gap was pressure to support their families financially, forcing them to choose between college and their families. This means that low-interest-rate loans are that much more important to Latino youth in completing their college careers.
7. More students of color are taking out private loans, exposing them to more financial risk. There was an approximate 16 percent increase and 12 percentincrease among black and Hispanic students, respectively, that took out private loans, from the 2003–04 to 2007–08 school years. While federal loans have lower interest rates than private loans, doubling the rate will bring the two closer together, making students of color more vulnerable to defaulting on their loans.
8. Students of color are more likely to enroll in for-profit schools, which currently account for nearly half of student loan defaults. For-profit colleges and universities tend to have higher tuition, increased dropout rates, and insurmountable debt for students. This puts economic and academic barriers on students of color, making it more difficult for them to graduate.
9. Students of color with higher student debt are left with fewer options.Deferments and forbearances often provide short-term debt relief, but the interest on the loans may accrue and capitalize during the forbearance or deferment period, making the loans more expensive in the long term.
10. Student debt hinders students of color from homeownership. Past-due payments hinder borrowers due to lower credit scores and having their wages used for loan repayment.According to the Federal Reserve, fewer young people are getting mortgages—just 9 percent of 29-to-34-year-olds got a first-time mortgage from 2009 to 2011, compared to 17 percent in 2001.
Allowing Stafford Loan interest rates to double would make the cost of college skyrocket—the cost of college for those relying on Stafford Loans would increase by 20 percent. Given that students of color are more likely to rely on financial aid to finance their college education and graduate with higher student debt, increasing these interest rates would disproportionately impact them. We need to focus on making college more affordable, particularly at a time when students need a good education to be competitive in the international economy.
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
This is absolutely terrifying. Just look at it, it is so real and astonishing. You need to reblog this. I don’t care if you’re used to reblogging orange, teenage girls with vans on. I don’t care if you’re used to reblogging vintage or photography. This is real. You can even see the fury in his eyes. The tense muscles in between his fingers. The heavy breathing.
reblog this. NOW.
in all seriousness though
(via if-you-could-be-anywhere)
[TW: Homophobia]
I Want To Know What It’s Like
Powerful shit <3
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Whistleblowing Wednesday: Children As Young As Six Harvest 25 Percent of U.S. Crops
Knowing the farmer who grows your food has become an important tenet of the modern food movement, but precious little attention is paid to the people who actually pick the crops or “process” the chickens or fillet the fish. U Roberto Romano’s poignant film, The Harvest/La Cosecha (2011), being screened across the country for Farmworker Awareness Week (March 24-29), informs us that nearly 500,000 children as young as six harvest up to 25 percent of all crops in the United States.
What’s illegal in most countries is permitted here. Child migrant labor has been documented in the 48 contiguous states. Seasonal work originates in the southernmost states in late winter where it is warm and migrates north as the weather changes. Every few weeks as families move, children leave school and friends behind. If you’ve had onions (Texas), cucumbers (Ohio or Michigan), peppers (Tennessee), grapes (California), mushrooms (Pennsylvania), beets (Minnesota), or cherries (Washington), you’ve probably eaten food harvested by children.
This isn’t a slavery issue, or an immigration issue per se. What’s remarkable is that most of the migrant child farmworkers are American citizens trying to help their families. This is a poverty issue and it gets to the heart of what we, as consumers, see as the “right price” to pay for food.
Children earn about $1,000 per year for working an average of 30 hours a week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. When you consider that the average annual pay for a migrant family of four is $12,500-$14,500, it’s apparent why some families feel they have no choice but to bring their children into the fields with them. Half of these kids will not graduate from high school because they’re always moving around, perpetuating the cycle of poverty that caused them to be day laborers in the first place.
The Invisible War - Trailer
“Military women are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy in fire”
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