Drive Sisters Drive!

Drive Sisters Drive!

It is well into Friday June 17th in Saudi Arabia as I write this and women there are demonstrating their ability and right to drive.  That is right. Drive. A car.  Women's voting rights are restricted there.  Similarly it is forbidden for women to drive.   They've been arrested.  Watch the You Tube video for which  Manal al-Sharif  was arrested when she uploaded it.  The video is of  her driving and talking about the about the driving ban and her feelings of hope that women were volunteering to join the Saudi Women Driving Campaign.

In the Washington D.C. women drove around the Saudi Embassy, encircling it,  in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday to show their support. My favorite support action thus far is the protest in Kiev where topless members of FEMEN demonstrated in front of the Saudi Embassy.

To follow what is going on use Twitter hashtags #women2drive #W2drive

Some have already reported success without problems, but one report's link to an image of a woman driving has already gone "empty."  The world is watching!   And commenting.    And supporting!!!

Drive sisters, drive!!!

Behaviors Are Illegal, NOT People!

Fercryingoutloud folks,  please, please, please stop using the word illegal to describe people.  People engage in illegal activities.   Behaviors are what  are declared legal or illegal, not individual people.  What a person does can be ruled to be illegal.   But to characterize a person in his or her entirety as "illegal" is not only demeaning and disrespectful to all humanity; it shows an inability to speak coherently.   A person is never declared illegal.  One's personhood is not illegal.  A person cannot be banned from the human species because he or she doesn't pass some sort of personhood test.


People may be working without the proper paperwork but they are not illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, and so on.


Maybe this distinction will be lost upon most Arizonans, we do have the worst educational system in the country.    Maybe only the second worst.   In any case, I wish we would stop thinking we have to be 48th in everything we do just because we were the 48th State.