The Great Schlep

The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

palin's witchhunting pastor problem (or why harry potter should not travel to kenya)

palin's pastor problem

Pastor Thomas Muthee, who Sarah Palin credited with "awesome prayers" that helped her become the Alaska Governor, once led a witch hunt in Kenya. Figuratively, you may be wondering. Nope. Unfortunately not. In 2005 Muthee led an actual, old school, Salem-style witch hunt.

in related news: why harry potter should NOT travel to kenya

From Reuters (5/22/08) - NAIROBI - A mob has burned to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft in an area of west Kenya where traditional beliefs run deep, police said on Wednesday. "Their houses were torched. Eight women and three men suspected of being witches died," Kenya's deputy police spokesman Charles Owino said...

Traditional African beliefs, Christianity and Islam co-exist peacefully in Kenya. But there is widespread suspicion of sorcery, particularly in west Kenya, which has a long tradition of witch doctors and faith healers. Owino said almost all the victims were elderly Kenyans, aged between 70 and 90, although one was nearer 40.

In 1993, eight elderly people from Kisii were also accused of witchcraft and burned to death in their huts by a mob.

yikes. i guess no one does expect the spanish inquisition.

olbermann's take

a reminder to women about why we should vote

Remember how women got the vote

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 helpless women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder...

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized.  And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave.  That didn't make her crazy.  

The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

via houston independent media center

              alice paul, suffragette leader                                            lucy burns, 1913

click here for more information on these amazing suffragettes and others in the national woman’s party, 1910-1920