Drive-by News; Now with Obituary

[liz_marcs]

New Edit:

via entrenous88 and zandra_x

For those of you who don't know yet, cindershadow died several days ago of cancer, a mere three weeks after she had been diagnosed. You can find additional details here and here.

I'll never forget the birthday gift cindershadow gave me in the form of this post here. I was speechless when I read it and I still remain speechless in reading it again. She has done the same for numerous other fanfic writers on LJ by gently pointing them to people who had caught her eye.

She will be missed.

Please leave a comment on cindershadow's last LJ entry so her friends and family can read them.


***

via the_red_shoes:

You might remember this March story about President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Cecilia Fire Thunder deciding to defy the South Dakota ban on abortion and allowing Planned Parenthood to put a clinic on reservation lands.

The tribal council last week responded by banning all abortions from the reservation and suspending Fire Thunder for unauthorized political activity. An impeachment hearing is to be held by the end of this month.

Strangely enough, despite the ban and Fire Thunder's upcoming hearing, a group of reservation women — inspired by Fire Thunder's earlier anouncement — are pushing ahead with building a women's reproductive health clinic called Sacred Choices near Fire Thunder's home town. According to reports, they've already signed the articles of incorporation. As for whether they will offer abortion services, they will go along follow what voters decide when they vote on repealing the state abortion ban in November.

***

Larry Johnson of No Quarter has been blogging about his recent visit to Haditha.

In case you're wondering about Larry's bonafides, he's a former CIA agent and worked in counter terrorism for the U.S. State Department. He now works as a consultant on international criminal enterprises in the private sector. He's neither a dove nor what you'd call a liberal. Personally, I find his insights very interesting and his entries on Haditha are well worth a look.

***

In Boston, Macy's chickened out when anti-gay marriage group MassResistance pitched a fit over two guys standing around in their bathing suits next to the Pride Week legend and removed the mannequins from the display but left the listing for the Pride Week events up.

Here is the offending display that had MassResistance clutching their pearls:

Ummm, as someone who walked by a Filene's Department store (Pronounced FI-lean's if you're a working class schmuck like me; pronounced fih-LEEN's if you're puttin' on the high class airs) on a daily basis as a kid, that sure looks like, oh, just about every single mannequin display I ever saw.

OMIGAWDFILENESHAZCURRUPTEDMEEEEEE! I was staring at gay mannequins all those years and...and...*sob* This explains EVERYTHING!

Ahem.

Anyway, Macy's spineless move has ensured that the well-dressed men of Boston will be very much going elsewhere for their clothing needs.

And the people of Boston did what the people of Boston are bound to do: Call bullshit on Macy's.

The general mood of the Boston Globe chatboards seem to be running heavily in against both Macy's and MassResistance: If you guys were still Filene's, you would've told these mooks to shove it up their asses. Then you would've put up three more Pride Week windows just to piss 'em off.

Let's just say the Boston Globe chat board kept me entertained for a few a hours.