Arts & Culture

• “Service: When Women Come Marching Home,” a new documentary, chronicles the stories of eight military women, including their struggles with sexual assaults and serious wounds and the challenges of returning from war to family life.
• Film shows challenges of female veterans
• Military Sexual Assaults Spike Despite Efforts To Combat Epidemic

Hal Bernton, Seattle (WA) Times

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From left, Angela Arellano, a veteran from Tumwater; Alfie Alvarado-Ramos, first female director of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs; Marcia Rock, New York-based co-producer of documentary “Service: When Women Come Marching Home;” and Bridget Cantrell, a post-traumatic-stress-disorder specialist from Bellingham. Erika Schultz / Seattle (WA) Times 

In 1992, Angela Arellano, then a 19-year-old Marine based in Okinawa, told military police that a noncommissioned officer had raped her after an evening spent watching a football game on television.

The investigation did not result in a prosecution. Instead, Arellano was accused of lying and disciplined for an after-hours violation.

“They said he was an outstanding Marine and I was trying to smear his good reputation,” recalls Arellano of Tumwater, Thurston County. “I was given two weeks of restrictions, two weeks of extra duty and two months of reduced pay.”

Full story…

Related:

Film shows challenges of female veterans, Tom Wilemon, The Tennessean

• Sue Downes, who served as a driver and gunner in Afghanistan, had both legs amputated below the knee after her Humvee hit landmines in 2005.
• Stand with anti-war veteran Mike Prysner against right-wing attacks!

Military Sexual Assaults Spike Despite Efforts To Combat Epidemic, Molly O'Toole, Huffington Post

• The report released Tuesday by Defense's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) follows the Sunday arrest of Lt. Col Jeffrey Krusinski, head of the Air Force SAPRO program, under allegations of sexual assault of a woman.
• Film shows challenges of female veterans

Americans Against the Tea Party

Special Project | The War on Children: Week of May 5, 2013

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Related:

Special Project | The War on Children: Week of May 5, 2013, David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

• The United States is one of the few countries in the world that puts children in supermax prisons, tries them as adults, incarcerates them for exceptionally long periods of time, defines them as super predators, pepper sprays them for engaging in peaceful protests, and, in an echo of the discourse of the war on terror, describes them as 'teenage time bombs.' 
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• The Cable News Network as equivalent to Attention Deficit Disorder >OR< CNN=A.D.D.
• Beautiful World
• On Military Drones (and tearing them to pieces)

Misty Rowan, Evergreene Digest

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April 6, 2012 | Misty Rowan is a poet/activist from Minneapolis who believes art and activism are essentially the same thing. She read these three poems at the MPAC-sponsored Anti-Drone rally on April 6 to great acclaim.

She is a member of the Anti War Committee (.org) and she won the VERVE grant for spoken word poetry in 2012. You can check out her poetry at missteatree.com.

Here's a sample from one of her poems in this collection: On Military Drones (and tearing them to pieces).

We are the purveyors of death and atrocity in these parts of the world

and then you wonder why they hate us  ???

So you tell me, who is the real terrorist? Rebel with a gun or the  

smiling politician? Whatever gets the job done, and these days

the job is as easily done as the push of a button

by some pimple faced kid in a bunker in Nevada, somewhere. 

Did you know that the controls for these drones are compatible with 

a Play Station? This is not a coincidence. 

They are spoon-feeding this to your kids, so I suggest you get acquainted. 

Because drones are the future of warfare that already is.

More of Misty Rowan's poetry...

Reviewed by Steven V. Roberts, Truthdig

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Apr 18, 2013 | The cover photo for “Color Blind” shows an integrated baseball team, five white players and six blacks. One of the whites casually rests his hand on the shoulder of a black teammate. But the “B” on their caps does not stand for Boston or even Brooklyn. They played in Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, and the photo dates to 1935, 12 years before Jackie Robinson started dismantling baseball’s racial barriers.

As told by Tom Dunkel, the story of how this team came to be—and won the national semipro championship—makes a delightful read. Baseball has deep roots in the dusty plains of the Dakotas. Gen. George Custer was based at Ft. Lincoln, just outside Bismarck, before losing a decisive road game to Sitting Bull and his Sioux All-Stars at the Little Big Horn in 1876. One of the 268 soldiers to die that day was Pvt. William Davis, third baseman for the post baseball team.

Full story...