Obama's prayer

A written prayer that Barack Obama left this week in the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, asks God to guide him and guard his family, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

"Lord _ Protect my family and me," reads the note published in the Maariv daily. "Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

More below.

The paper's decision to make the note public drew fire. The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, said publishing the note intruded in Obama's relationship with God.

"The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them," he told Army Radio. The publication "damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," he said.

Will Native American women finally get equal protection under the law?

Right now Native American women on reservations are 3 times as likely to be raped as a white woman. Due to an insanely complex series of jurisdictional issues, limited law enforcement, minimal political will and racism, perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence against Native American women often commit their crimes with impunity, knowing they will likely never face prosecution. All of this was documented in sickening detail last year by Amnesty International's report Maze of Injustice

Today, Senator Byron Dorgan introduced the Tribal Law and Order Act in the Senate.

The legislation is designed to boost law enforcement efforts by providing tools to tribal justice officials to fight crime in their own communities, improving coordination between law enforcement agencies, and increasing accountability standards.

Will this legislation stop the violence?

This title is not an exaggeration or misstatement, although I really wish it were. I did not go to Netroots Nation to learn that it was possible to rape a woman, right here in the United States and walk away with absolutely no consequences to the rapist. But that’s what I learned in a panel discussion on Friday morning.

Come over the fold and I’ll tell you exactly how this happens – and you can take an action, a small first step towards ending this nightmare.

In last night's Tea Time, some of you expressed interest in my thesis. I have also received an occasional email from people interested in it as well. So I decided to learn how to do something new today...

Remember Pretty Bird Woman House(PBWH)? The Lakota Sioux women’s shelter the progressive netroots raised $87,000 to buy them a new house when their old one was destroyed by arson? Many of you expressed an admiration for PBWH Director, Georgia LittleShield – a woman who had managed PBWH through threats of closure due to lack of funds, burglary, threats of violence and even arson. She faces down rapists in court, convinces hostile police to enforce domestic violence laws, literally enters homes to rescue battered women.

Georgia LittleShield is coming to Netroots Nation to tell you about life is like for women and children on an Indian reservation in one of the poorest parts of the country. She’s here to tell you how you – the netroots – can help change things. And Georgia isn’t coming alone. She’s bringing her posse.

In 2007, the progressive Netroots reached out to a tiny women's shelter on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. Pretty Bird Woman House, named for a Sioux woman who was raped and murdered, faced closure. Lack of funds crippled their ability to function and staff labored without pay. Then, they lost their home to extreme vandalism and arson.

Over 2,000 individual members of the netroots raised in excess of $100,000 to keep Pretty Woman Bird House open, functioning with paid staff, and in the end, bought a new house for PBWH to carry out their mission.

But PBWH is just the tip of the iceberg. Native American women are subject to much higher levels of sexual and domestic violence than any other women in the United States. Come join us on Friday, July 18th 9:00am for: Examining the Maze of Injustice: Our Nation's Failure to Protect Indigenous Women From Violence . This panel will explore what can be done to ensure equal protection under the law for Native American women and the role the Netroots can play in combating these injustices.

So I was leafing through an essay at the library tonight, trying to decide whether to take out this book on von Balthasar's theology. The topic of the essay was Mary, Peter, Christ, and the Church. I'm leafing through the section on various ways that Mary typifies the church, and come across this phrase, "Mary's humble Yes."

And it makes me want to throw up.

Am I the only one?

This is an Action Diary. Just like with Pretty Bird Woman House, I'm hoping that when you are done reading you will be moved to take action to help others. While you certainly can give financially, that's probably not what would help the most. A list of action items can be found at the end of the diary and if you have any suggestions we have overlooked, please include that suggestion in the comments.

You've heard the story; promising young teenager in a on trip in a foreign country goes missing. Parents are frantic to find out something, anything. Despite initially instituting a search, foreign officials eventually wind up treating the case in a dismissive manner. Members of congress take up the cause. Finally, the worst is confirmed.  

Natalee Holloway, right?

Wrong. This young woman you have never heard of is Phylicia Moore.

Five years ago this month, I began a mystical journey.  The journey was into me and my own truth.  It is ongoing.  The tradition by which I am making this journey is considered by many to be patriarchal but truly it has appeared to me to be without dogma, only an intent to understand myself.

I am a feminist.  I say that proudly no matter how many people try to smear feminism.  It comes from a deep and painful truth within and a journey that started with that truth then forgot that truth in order to survive then returned to that truth.

First, a disclaimer...I would very much prefer not to overhear other people's conversations at the gym. I try to go at least twice a week, three times if I'm lucky, and what I want to do is get in the pool and move. I'm not much of a swimmer, but I used to take water aerobics classes, and now I just go to the pool when I have the opportunity and do "freestyle water aerobics for one". I don't ask for much--I just want my own little spot near a wall where I can just do my thing and tune everybody else out. If conditions are right, that's where I can do some of my best creative thinking. But if people within earshot are having a conversation, then conditions are most definitely not right, and I can't tune them out no matter how hard I try. I have just got to get myself a waterproof MP3 player or something.

Anyway, yesterday, despite my best efforts not to, I overheard most of a conversation about Super Tuesday and the prospect of a woman president.

I guess it's not enough to take nursing babies from their immigrant mothers - causing at least one baby to be hospitalized for dehydration. Nor do concentration camps for immigrant families, such at the T. Don Hutto prison just north of Austin Texas, sate our need to punish those terrible brown people who mow our lawns, fix our cars, bus our tables and occasionally have the nerve to ask to be treated like human beings.

Now our government is rethinking the Violence Against Women Act visas:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is re-examining a longtime policy to let immigrant spouses remain here when their abusive U.S. citizen or permanent-resident spouses refuse to help them obtain legal status.

Revoking these visas will have a devastating impact on real people - families in particular:

(Ana Bertha Arellano) was granted a Violence Against Women Act visa and a work permit so she could support herself and her children by working legally. She started her own business and got health insurance through her janitor job, and based on that success used her temporary visa to petition, without her husband, for permanent residency – a green card.

When Arellano applied six months ago, she felt optimistic... Today, Arellano's fear is approaching panic. With the new policy pending, her green-card request has been put on hold at the Sacramento office of Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of Homeland Security.

Play by the rules, become a contributing member of society and this is the reward you get. Immigrant women have always been more vulnerable to abuse and sex slavery - language and cultural barriers effectively isolate them from the support systems and social services that could help. The last thing we need is for Homeland Security to reinterpret the Violence Against Women Act.

The good news is that some Dems are on the case: Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Sen. Ted Kennedy have written to the Citizenship Service to remind them that that they do not have the authority to rewrite the law.

Hard to believe we were once the shining city on the hill, isn't it?

I'm not aware of any specific organization taking action on this but you can thank Rep. Lofgren here and Senator Kennedy here. Also, the New Sanctuary Movement, who have been linked to by Street Prophets user Interfaith Immigration Coalition looks promising if you want to follow up on this.

h/t to TPM Muckraker. For great background on immigration, see Orincus.

Promoted by Rain

In October, Betsy Campisi, a volunteer on the last Pretty Bird Woman House fundraising drive called Georgia Little Shield, the shelter director to check in. After all, after the previous May fundraiser, things looked great - Pretty Bird Woman House had a building, funding from the Netroots until a grant kicked in in... things were going well. But when Betsy spoke to Georgia she heard grim news.

Our shelter was burned down. They stole everything. Then they burnt it down.

Betsy asked; how much to buy a new house with a security system? The answer: $70,000. Worse, all the grants Pretty Bird Woman House depended on required a physical building to use as a shelter. They needed the money FAST. It seemed so unlikely back in October that it could even be done...

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and just hope that the net is there to catch you. This time there was no net. But you wonderful people... you wove that net even as everything was falling off the edge. You wove the net out of blog posts and $5 donations, out of human love and compassion.