Arizona

Good Friday! Make it even better with this roundup of news from around the web.

• The Writer's Guild of America West has released its 2011-2012 staffing brief, which reveals, among other things, how many women and people of color were hired that year to write the TV shows we all love so much. ThinkProgress breaks down the report and lists the shows that hired neither—and, hey, Californication, I'm so not surprised to see you on that list. [ThinkProgress]

• In related news, Ann Friedman asks cable-news fave Chris Hayes how his show got to be so refreshingly diverse. His answer? “We just would look at the board and say, ‘We already have too many white men. We can’t have more.’ Really, that was it." [Columbia Journalism Review]

• Everything you need to know about the recently passed Arizona Senate bill that would allow business to determine which bathrooms transgendered people may use. [BuzzFeed]

• Should elementary and middle schools be training students to attack and subdue school shooters? According to Mother Jones, some already are. But as one skeptic notes, "You can't get a group of middle-school kids to simultaneously agree on chicken nuggets or pizza in the cafeteria for lunch, much less make a split-second decision to start throwing items at an armed intruder." [Mother Jones]

• In further North-Dakota-is-the-Worst news, a state congressman freaked out at a state coalition membership meeting about VAWA provisions for victims of violence committed by non-native people against natives, saying that he'd like to "Wring the Tribal council’s neck and slam them against the wall.” The director for Spirit Lake Victim's Assistance was on the receiving end of the tirade. [Last Real Indians]

• Rick Ross rhymes about drugging and raping a woman on a new single by rapper Rocko, a fact that fellow rappers and music critics are likely to ignore, charges Jamilah Lemieux at Ebony.com. She's half right, but there's been encouraging pushback beyond the industry, with a Change.org petition asking Ross to apologize for glorifying rape, and another urging Reebok to drop Ross as a spokesman. [Ebony, Change.org, UltraViolet]

• At Tiger Beatdown, Flavia Dzodan explains why she's had just about enough of Jon Hamm's penis. [Tiger Beatdown]

• Finally, if you live in the Bay Area, mark your calendars for what looks like an awesome evening celebrating the work of Valerie Solanas, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of her death. The event is hosted by Michelle Tea, with readers and performances by Kirk Read, Cheryl Dunye, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and many more. [Facebook]

What'd we miss? Let us know in the comments, and happy weekend.

If the "Women's Health and Safety Act," which defines pregnancy as beginning two weeks prior to conception, didn't freak you out four months ago, maybe this news will: On Thursday, Arizona Governor (and on-the-record Douchebag) Jan Brewer signed the bill. Stay douche-y, Brewer!


You look pregnant to me.

Straight from the "people still do this?" department, the Governing Board of the Tucson Unified School District responded to pressure from creepy Arizona Tea Party officials by dismantling the district's Mexican-American Studies program, and last week they announced they were preventing many of the books from being used in school curricula. Among the authors banned are Leslie Marmon Silko, Paolo Freire, Rodolfo Acuña and William Shakespeare. The state's war on ethnic studies speaks to a larger battle that seeks to silence the voices and histories of the large Chicano population in Arizona.

We've all heard about the continuous saga of human rights violations in Arizona, from legalizing racial profiling, to eliminating ethnic studies, to preventing anyone with an "accent" from teaching English (read: anyone who doesn't sound like an old white man from the eastern/northern states since I'm pretty sure we ALL have accents) and this extremely racist, oppressive, colonial, and cultural genocide list goes on.

What's been happening in Arizona is horrific on so many levels to so many people and communities – but it has really had me reflecting. When do certain issues get considered "feminist" and when do they not? And when do they require a real feminist response in action?

I am a major fangirl for Linda Ronstadt for many reasons. Great music? Check. Awesome style that I try to copy? Check. Songs available at Karaoke bars? Check. Political activist, feminist, and defender of civil liberties? Check and check.


Freedom and pretty hair for all!

To back me up on that last point, the Christian Science Monitor has this story to share today: "Linda Ronstadt joins group filing suit against Arizona law." Awww yeah. That's right, Ronstadt (and others, but I'm a fangirl, remember?) is suing Arizona for their new bullshit immigration law. She is so awesome. For more ass kicking, read on to see Ronstadt take on Robin Quivers in the name of Mexican-American women!

Last year authorities arrested expectant mother Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant, and charged her with using someone else’s identity to work. After the incarcerated Mendiola-Martinez delivered a baby boy Dec. 21 via C-section at Maricopa Medical Center in Arizona, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed and not allowed to nurse her baby, New America Media (NAM) reports. Moreover, when guards escorted her out of the hospital in shackles, no one told her the whereabouts of her son.