You can mail Wal-Mart here:



Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Attn: Customer Service
702 S.W. 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716

An email I got from Wal mart after doing one of those web petitions:


Date:
Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:06:50 -0600 (CST)
From:
"Walmart.com Help" Add to Address Book
To:
me
Subject:
Re: Please protect women's access to their prescriptions

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for contacting us at Walmart.com regarding women?s
prescriptions for birth control. Your comments and concerns are very
important to us as we strive to meet your needs.
Wal-Mart does not carry emergency contraceptives. Our pharmacists may
decline to fill a prescription based on personal convictions. However,
they must find another pharmacist, either at Wal-Mart or another
pharmacy, who can assist you by filling your prescription.
Again, we thank you for your comments regarding this issue.
Sincerely,

I have half a mind to join/start a snail mail letter writing campaign.

God, that was a terrible obit. She was stunning in a bikini at a 110 pounds?! and you say this like just before you mention her eating disorder?! Like half of this is about whether she got the attention of boys, or what her family did, not her herself. I guess it goes back to the old a woman is nothing except in relation to others, but how sad it is that it's in her obit.

Although I would argue about Campo's framing here,(she was already dead and gone when he wrote this- her body just lived on) he has a good point. We say oh how horrible about this case, but the woman was dead. What are we going to do about the Terris of the future? The girls who are being taught to hate their thighs, hate their hips and hate their entire bodies because they aren't slim. I will never be slim. I weigh a hundred pounds. (and am five feet tall) I have big hips and thighs. That's just how my body is made. All fat goes to hips and thighs. I will never have society's ideal body- of course dark skin nappy hair and a decidely black nose aren't society's ideal of beauty either.

We need to strengthen our young girls to make them realize that living up to that ideal isn't worth hurting themselves for. I remember when I was twelve and was annoyed by the other girls complaining about how fat they were, and when I was 14, and got a girl crush on this athletic girl because this girl was telling us about how she threw up to try to get rid of the fat in her stomach, and I didn't know what to say. But the athletic girl told her that it wasn't cool, and I felt better.

Young girls almost children were being afflicted by our society's obsession with thin womanhood almost nine years ago. What have we done to fix this in those years? Why do we have to have communities to fight against pro ana?Why are there pro mia communities? What can be done? I don't know.

Yesterday, I got a copy of The Male Body by Susan Bordo from Eagle Eye Books(support independent bookstores). I haven't read that yet, since I'm still on Lilith's Brood, which is great sci fi. However, I should take this opportunity to quote a quotable from Unbearable Weight, which was always checked out of the school library, and that I finally found in a Half Price Books in Milwaukee(props to the guy who got it down for me. much love. much love.)

"Television is..the great teacher here, our prime modeler of plastic pluralism: if one Donahue show features a feminist talking about battered wives, the next show will feature mistreated husbands... All are given equal weight by the great leveler- the frame of the television screen" (Bordo, Unbearable Weight p. 258)

Discuss. Why might all things not be equal? What are some examples you can think of? Whose interest does it serve to pretend that all things are equal?

Also, on Silver Rights, everyday bigotry gets a drubbing. A common joke I have made about this sort of thing is that a white guy could burn a cross on someone's lawn and kill a black dude, and white folks would be arguing about whether that was racist or not because he wasn't wearing his hood. (Yes, I'm not funny, but internally, the image of the white folks arguing about a hood while crosses burn is slightly funny, for reasons unbeknownst to me) It's just like, it doesn't matter about the cosmetics- the effects would be that a black man would be dead and a neighborhood would be terrorized. I had a point, but I forgot it.

Amp shows up in black folks White(?) dude hit nail on the head.

Here's a new livejournal community for angry black chicks.

Yay, priv check! I like this thread since I am sure I am a classist motherfucker. I think the whole thing about checking your privilege is basically 'not being an asshole'. They just have a fancy word for it. Like when you're showing privilege in a conversation, you're usually assuming that the benefits you have carry over to everyone ever. Like when I was a kid, I got to go to Europe, but I was totally put down by this girl who was shocked shocked that I hadn't been out of the country before. I mean, me and my parents are nice and middle class and all, but not THAT middle class... She could have checked her priv by noting that some people barely get to go out of the state let alone to Europe..

I saw some awesome looking shirts being sold at the little place outside the dining area at my school where they have vendors and stuff, so I took a flyer, and went to the website. I really like the shirts, and remember to read the message too. The FAQ was interesting from what I read. I gotta study, but support black business. Speaking of such, website building has been going on standby, but I will announce it here and on my other blog when we are having our grand opening. Although why I say 'we' when I mean 'me' is up for debate.

A useful idea for a mini activist.

An amusing look at a heart wrenching and terrible experience.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Another clue by four.

Also, go to scarleteen for accurate information about sex for teenagers. Don't let the insane people win- spread this site and accurate info today.

Clue By Four Exercise

1)Read a major magazine like Newsweek or Time. If most of a story is about white people, from a white viewpoint(like a white person talking about the situation in Iraq) or features mostly white people, mark that story as 'white', but if it's about people of color from a person of color viewpoint, or features(not just tokens, y'all. They have to be the main character) people of color, mark that a POC story. See the difference?

2) Minorities comprise about 25% of the US population. If less than 1/4th of the major characters(or even minor characters) are PoC, mark that show as 'white'. See the difference?

3)When going to class, see who is mentioned. Are there any POC mentioned at all? Probably not.

4)Read "See You When We Get There", how does the white author point out the difficulties of telling the stories of people of color? Do you think that if the teachers featured in this book were trying to get a book deal on a similar project that it'd be as easy? Bonus: What style is the author using? (hint: this probably has nothing to do with race) Double Bonus: Why do you think conservatives have the free time to bash anything that MIGHT make them think?

5)Why do you think white people want to call people niggers so much?

"Mr Phillips' comments were not aimed at black girls - GCSE results in England show that "black African" girls are scoring higher grades than "white British" boys." from this article.



And now for something completely different! TMI.
I am starting to think that not having a hairy pussy is a eurocentric beauty ideal, because man, my hair is coarse! It is actually nappier at the head level, tending to straightness on the uh..personal level, but my hair is really strong on all levels. The only place where it isn't so strong is on my legs which never get very hairy even if I spend a month with them unshaven. I am also slightly more uncomfortable with beauty standards like on areas that I personally don't think are displayed to all and sundry. I will try to be good and refrain from personal judgments of other women's sexual behavior now.

Steve Gillard comments on racial identity:
You're Norwegian, right? Let me explain something about American racial rules. It doesn't matter what shade his skin color is, there are quite a few African Americans who are as light or lighter than Jackson, some with blond hair, who are considered black.Why? Because if you have any identifiably not-white features in the US, you are not white. Your name can be Jane Smith, but if you look Asian, people will ask you if you speak English. American rules on race boil down to this: if you are not 100 percent white you are not white. If you are identifiably not white in ANY way, you are not white.No matter what Michael Jackson looks like, in America, he's as black as Chris Rock.stevegilliard 03.06.05 - 5:58 pm

I always thought it was weird that we pretend that whites are 100% white and blacks are 100% black unless it is very immediate(like parents, or maybe grand parents). What, did they think that people lived in the same country for like what? 300 years or something and didn't fark? That really strains belief. Also, this reminds me of a film made in Africa about skin bleaching and one guy had a misconception about how many black Americans lightened their skin(I believe it to be very rare. Of course, I am quite light skinned) and I think that blacks in the us are lighter than blacks in Africa, but I don't know.

Although, due to my researching skin bleaching in Africa, I want to be like what is this product for? It's like hmmm.. In my class on the psychology of beauty in Africa, a lot of things come up, and one thing that came up was skin color in India. Like a guy didn't think that they really cared, but then a girl was like I can't believe you didn't notice that. (The two were both Indians) And then he talked about how he wasn't allowed to go swimming so he wouldn't get dark, but they put a lot more emphasis on light skin for women so his sister got it a lot more. Then they talked about the respective skin tones of North and South Indians and what that might have to do. That reminded me(but I didn't say anything about it) of my room mate in Governor's School who was Indian and always made a big deal of putting on like SPF 40 sun screen. I had never been burned really, so my fool self went out there. But I still didn't burn. I'm awesome.

From Prof Kim's Blog, there's a post about liberation Christianity versus empire Christianity. I hope the right never fucks with that, but I'm sure they will. By trying to co opt positive words, they try to confuse everyone by trying to make them mean the opposite...

This is a good post about racism in Tolkien.

"The assumption is made that persons of color(because it is hardly ever noted by respondents that white women also benefit from affirmative action) who are unqualified are assisted by affirmative action...Yet, I would argue that when the same verbal 'slip' occurs repeatedly among a group of people, it amounts to more than a coincidence- it's a discursive construction that reveals something about the way whites see themselves and others" Being White by Karyn McKinney p. 155. The emphasis occurs in the original.

In chapter 5, she quotes her student's whining, and then she is rebutting it bit by bit. This book is of medium use to me because I already see whites as a group. Like their whiteness isn't invisible. However, she does a good amount of analysis and brings in some new thoughts. Although, just chapter five means that you should give this book a look.

Hugo posts about self injury. I do tend to bite myself, but unlike other self injurers, it's not conscious or premeditated. Usually I am so upset I totally forget what's going on and end up biting myself. Then I take the hand out of my mouth when I come to myself again. This makes it very pesky, because there's not anything you can put between and unlike normal people, I think I will continue to have intense emotions.

See what happens to rich whites born without consciences- they get people worried about whether their pillows in jail are fluffy enough. I mean seriously, what about all the black, Hispanics and also, I'm sure poor whites get a bit of a rough time, but not as rough as black and Hispanic people, who we are throwing in jail? I mean, they aren't all doing stuff like this guy which shows a total and complete lack of conscience,morality,etc. You could be smoking a plant or shoplifting, and still be fucked, but this guy gets oooh, he isn't comfortable in jail?

Maybe he should have thought about that before torturing and raping his victim, eh? I'm sure she's not getting "Oh, are your pillows fluffy enough?" She's being called a slut, because you know it's perfectly ok to put objects in people and gang rape them when they are unconscious if they don't live up to some imaginary standard of purity. Women- don't be fooled. That imaginary standard of purity doesn't mean it can't happen to you. Unless you are a ten year old virgin, and they can probably think of ways to say the little kid was a slut too! If we uphold this standard, we are nearly guaranteeing that we will be dismissed or ignored when we tell our stories.

So shut up with calling folks sluts and whores because they got more than you did. Yes, I admit being jealous and saying that, but I'm trying to reform and not be a jealous ass bitch just because someone else is getting more ass than me. Yes, she is getting more ass than you- but how does that make her unworthy of respect?

And men- that standard of purity is stupid- what is on your body belongs to you regardless. You control what's on your body- that's your penis, your hands, your tongue,etc,etc. It doesn't matter whether she's fucked a hundred men in a day. Keep it to yourself!

Quotes

"The cancer of fear has taken over. We have government by fear. We have a fear economy. We have a landscape of fear. We have a mass media that sells it. Any effort to reverse the spiral of fear must begin with individuals taking initiative to examine their own fears, asking whether their emotions are being manipulated, and taking bold steps to test the validity of their fears" - William Upski Wimsatt, No More Prisons, p.99

"And it is never without fear - of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, except death. And I remind myself all the time now that if I were to have been born mute or had maintained a vow of silence my whole life long for safety, I still would have suffered, and I still would die" Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, p. 43 in the essay "Transformation of Silence"

"Black and Third Works people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions"Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, p. 115

I really think I should get my own copy of Sister Outsider.