Thursday, April 29, 2010
400-408 – • Fox News (4/29/2010) EXCLUSIVE: U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women's Rights.
Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
// Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.
As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.
"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.
The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."
• Newscare (4/28/2010) Women With Suntans Will Be Arrested, Iran Police Chief Warns.
• Fox News (4/29/2010) Since When Is Iran a Champion For Women's Rights?
Among other Iranian qualifications to serve in a leadership role in advancing the rights of women, is the country's criminal code, which includes punishments like burying women from the waist down and stoning them to death for adultery.
The 2009 U.S. State Department report on Iran outlines other highlights of Iran's women's rights credentials. For instance, "spousal rape is not illegal" and when it comes to any other kind of rape "most rape victims did not report the crime to authorities because they feared…punishment for having been raped…Four male witnesses or three men and two women are required for conviction. A woman or man found making a false accusation of rape is subject to 80 lashes."
Other features of Iran's legal system, according to the State Department, include: "a man may escape punishment for killing a wife caught in the act of adultery if he is certain she was a consenting partner….[I]n 2008, 50 honor killings were reported during a seven-month period…" In general, "the testimony of two women is equal to that of one man." Moreover, "a woman has the right to divorce only if her husband signs a contract granting that right, cannot provide for his family, or is a drug addict, insane, or impotent. A husband was not required to cite a reason for divorcing his wife."
413-423 – • ABC News (4/29/2010) Will Immigration Law Cost Arizona All-Star Game?
• Daily News (4/28/2010) Mayor Bloomberg slams Arizona's anti-immigrant law: 'We are committing national suicide'.
• Frank Pastore, Consider Mexico: Ironic Isn't It?
As we hold our national discussion on illegal immigration, I've been struck by so many interesting ironies. To listen to some, America is unloving, lacking in compassion, and unwilling to extend the rights we enjoy here to visitors from foreign lands. Yet, when you actually do look at the rights those foreign lands extend to their own immigrants, both legal and illegal, a different picture comes into focus all together.
Consider Mexico.
According to Articles 9 and 33 of the Mexican Constitution, non-citizens do not have two First Amendment rights we take for granted here in America and that we extend to even those who enter our country illegally, namely the freedoms of assembly and speech.
For example, should a group of Americans legally visiting Mexico choose to march down the street expressing their displeasure at President Felipe Calderon, or perhaps hold banners that promote changing Mexican immigration policy, those Americans would be violating Mexican law.
Moreover, according to Article 33, those Americans could not only be jailed, but could be immediately deported without any right to due process. No trial. No hearing. No explanation at all. Express political speech in Mexico as a non-citizen and find yourself deported. For, as Article 33 states, "Foreigners may not, in any manner, involve themselves in the political affairs of the country."
Ironic, isn't it, that the very same expressions of political speech we see committed by Mexican citizens in the United States are the very same expressions forbidden to American citizens in Mexico?
And note, this refers not to illegal immigrants to Mexico, but to every non-citizen, even vacationing Americans.
Furthermore, according to Articles 27 and 32 of the Mexican Constitution, Americans in Mexico do not have equal property rights nor equal employment rights to that of Mexican citizens. Article 32 states, "Mexicans will be preferred to foreigners in equality of circumstances, for all classes of concessions and all employment, duties, or commissions of government for which the quality of citizenship is not indispensable."
I take this to mean that should I choose to vacation in Mexico for an extended period, and seek to earn a little spending money waiting on tables, that I would not have the same employment rights as a Mexican citizen. And, should I be in the country illegally, I would have no rights at all.
Ironic, isn't it, that some of the same voices that are demanding "equal rights" in this country, are from a country that doesn't extend "equal rights" to its own visitors?
In Mexico, they too have an illegal immigration problem. The illegals are from Central America. Columnist Gustavo Arellano has quipped, "Central Americans are the Mexicans of Mexico."
Furthermore, illegals in Mexico are guilty of not merely entering the country illegally, but of remaining in the country illegally too. Simply by being in Mexico illegally one commits a felony, a crime punishable by up to 2 years in prison. And, all immigration laws are enforced by not only the local authorities, but even by the Mexican military. Think of it. Discussions of doing the very same thing here in America are met with such outrage.
Perhaps Ginsberg is right. Perhaps we should encourage the members of the Supreme Court to look a little more closely at foreign law.
Ironic isn't it?
• Andrew McCarthy (4/29/2010) Illegal Aliens: Law and Sovereignty in Arizona. Obama sides with the lawless over besieged citizens.
• Michelle Malkin (4/28/2010) How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens.
428-437 – Bill and Pam Farrel, are international speakers, relationship specialists and authors of over 30 books including their best-selling Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti, and they're now out with the teen version entitled Guys Are Waffles, Girls Are Spaghetti. They're practical, personal, and pretty humorous too – and, they are the real deal. Happily married for 30 years, with three kids, and like the rest of us, they have to juggle family, friendships, and fun with making a living. They've got books, cd's, and videos, along with a bunch of free relationship resources, at their website billandpam.org (800-810-4449). Today, with Mother's Day coming up on May 9th, we talk about how to select a gift that will encourage her, even if she is toxic or unhealthy. First, find out if she's into any collections and add to it. Second, does she have any sayings or mottos? If so, do something neat with those. Third, ask her friends what she would like. And, don't forget the other mother-figures in your life. Write her a letter telling her how she has influenced, improved, and invested in your life. She'll cry.
443-452 – Bill and Pam Farrel
458-508 – Dr. Dave White, senior pastor of Northpark Community Church (northpark.com) in Valencia, talks about being real, celebrityism, and being authentic and vulnerable.
512-523 – Dr. Dave White
TH 524 – [2:00] Don Rohde (818) 262-2092. For the past 38 years, Don has been a sales manager at Galpin, the #1 volume Ford dealer in the world for the past 20 consecutive years. Galpin has been family-owned and operated for the past 59 years, and 90% of their business is repeat or referral. Galpin offers Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, Honda, Mazda, Saturn, Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin. Located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley at Roscoe and the 405.
528-538 – Dr. Peter Jones, director of the truthXchange (truthxchange.com), reaches college and university students who've embraced the new – which is actually ancient – pagan spirituality of gnosticism. We aren't becoming increasingly secular and naturalistic, but more pagan and gnostic in Western culture. We are embracing "one-ism" over "two-ism," or homocosmology over heterocosmology (i.e., same over different). He lays it all out in his latest On Global Wizardry: Techniques of Pagan Spirituality and a Christian Response (2010). His forthcoming book is entitled The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back.
• Peter is holding the X-Change Conference (thexchangeconference.com) at the Rock Church in San Diego on June 17-18-19 with Francis Chan, Mark Driscoll, and Kevin Deyoung.
539 – [2:00] "The Money Guys" – Robert Micone and Bill O'Connor from Applied Financial Planning at 866-SEEK-COUNSEL, that's 866-733-5268 (SeekCounsel.com).
544-554 – Dr. Peter Jones
558-608 – Ralph Winter, producer of such mega-hits Star Trek, the X-Men Series, Fantastic Four, and Left Behind, and currently working on The Screwtape Letters, is speaking at this Saturday's Biola Media Conference at CBS Studios. Register at biolamedia.com or get tickets at the door. Ralph talks about the real opportunities Christians now have in Hollywood, if you're excellent at your craft. And, he challenges young filmmakers to step up and produce a great piece of work that can be played at their church, maybe even a stewardship movie that in ten minutes, can emotionally move the audience. That's the kind of thing that impresses him. He says only about 2% of the scripts he reads are even viable. Hence, we need more great scripts, which means we need more talented young people entering the arts. The best way to prepare to work in Hollywood? Get a great liberal arts education and engage in the great themes of the human condition. And, he says to the Christian community, don't spend so much time answering questions people aren't asking, but simply ask better questions of them.
612-623 – Ralph Winter
628-638 – • Associated Press (4/29/2010) Police tell parents son is dead – but he's not. How has God been alive in your life lately?
644-652 – Calls
• Los Angeles Times (4/27/2010) Santa Clara County votes to remove toys from salty, high-calorie fast-food kids' meals.
• ABC News (4/29/2010) Oklahoma Abortion Law: No Exceptions, Even Rape.
(1:51) OK Abortion Law. (Kim Jackson reporting for KTUL TV in East Tulsa, Oklahoma @ 4/29/2010)
