BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By DAVID CRARY Joseph Rocha reported being cruelly hazed by Navy colleagues. Katherine Miller resigned from West Point halfway through, weary of concealing her sexual orientation. David Hall was outed by a fellow Air Force cadet and booted from the career he loved. The exits from military service were wrenching consequences of "don't ask, don't tell," the policy prohibiting gay and lesbian personnel from being open about their sexuality. Yet Hall, Rocha and Miller savored military duty and now — with "don't ask, don't tell" heading toward oblivion — they want to return. Rocha, 24, was in Washington on Wednesday, watching euphorically as President Barack Obama signed the bill clearing the way for repeal of the 17-year-old policy. Obama encouraged those who were discharged to re-enlist, and Rocha said he hopes to do just that by enrolling in the Marine Corps' Officer Candidates School in Quantico, Va. "I had a rough childhood, and th...

By James Dao Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small Palestinian town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist. But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., started having second thoughts about his military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim , he told relatives in Virginia. He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan. “He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him o...

(Written by Maria De Santis of the Women’s Justice Center, Santa Rosa, CA) There’s a seemingly simple little exercise we’ve done dozens of times at workshops on violence against women. The usual responses, however, are anything but simple. They’re confounding and cause for concern. Recently we repeated the exercise with a conference room full of 70 social workers, advocates, therapists, and mental health workers. “Why don’t some domestic violence victims leave the relationship,” we ask? “Call out the reasons!” The answers, as always, come fast and freely. “Because she doesn’t think she can make it on her own.” “Not enough money to feed the children.” “She feels obligated to her marital vows.” “It’s learned helplessness.” “She doesn’t believe she deserves better.” “She doesn’t know where to go.” “She wants the children to have a father.” etc. I jot down the familiar list until the group exhausts their thoughts. And there, again, is the enigma. How, at this date, with this group, - with...

FAT BIAS WORSE FOR WOMEN It only takes a modest weight gain for a woman to experience weight discrimination, but men can gain far more weight before experiencing similar bias , a new study shows. The notion that society is less tolerant of weight gain in women than men is just one of the findings suggested by a new report from the Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University, published this month in the International Journal of Obesity. For the study, researchers documented the prevalence of self-reported weight discrimination and compared it to experiences of discrimination based on race and gender among a nationally representative sample of adults ages 25 to 74. The data was obtained from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States. Overall, the study showed that weight discrimination, particularly against women, is as common as racial discrimination. But the researchers also identified the amount of weight gain that triggers a discriminatory backl...

I am going to follow the lead of one of my blogging heroes, Uppity Woman. .. and cross post Iowa Hawk 's powerful piece about the "anal exam" the MSM is giving Joe The Plumber. We all need to stand up and let the MSM vultures know: First, a pre-emptive apology for the intentional non-humor to follow. I promise that all future non-humor will be strictly unintentional. We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear. Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house w...

"What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man." — Hillel (ca. 50 BCE-10 CE) Are you for or against a blogging code of conduct and why? I am open to all arguments though I am leaning toward "for" a code of conduct right now. Though I have been accused of hate speech, I don't condone it, I don't condone lashon hara and I don't condone anything not backed up by fact. And even then it needs to be said tactfully or done for the right reasons. We live in a world of blog-voyeurs these days where anyone can say anything and pretty much get away with it. Ethics of Reciprocity are bent, twisted and spun to the needs of the verbal pornographer or harrasser, in my opinion What are your views? SOME RECENT STORIES I FEEL HIGHLIGHT THE NEED FOR A BLOGGING CODE OF CONDUCT: HARRASSED ONLINE! ORTHOMOM SUED BY GREENBAUM SET UP BY HER BOYFRIEND ON MATCH.COM DEATH THREATS AGAINST BLOGGERS NOT PROTECTED SPEECH CHEATER HUSBAND SETS UP GIRLFRIEND TO BE RAPED MAN CHARG...