Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Silence is the Enemy


I have the feeds of a few blogs on my desktop. One of them that I have frequently cited here is intersection, co-authored by Chris Mooney (journalist) and Sheril Kirshenbaum (marine biologist). The subject of the blog has always been the action at the intersection of science and politics. This week, Sheril has started a new project called Silence is the Enemy and that takes it beyond the original scope, but for very good reasons.

Kirshenbaum reveals a bit about her own past and takes up the cause of standing up to violence against women. In particular, she references such actions as the mutilations of women such as breast beating and the use of rape as a standard practice of warfare and subjugation. In this regard, I would call attention to Lynn Sherr's story on the women of Liberia that aired as part of PBS's World Focus several weeks ago. Kirshenbaum includes the forced marriage of very young girls to older men as "legalized rape."

There is no freedom unless all are free. There is no justice unless all are honored. All of Kirshenbaum's revenue from this month's ad sales at intersection will be donated to Doctor's Without Borders to continue their work. I don't have any ads on this blog. So, I ask all of you who would want to support Sheril's effort to go to intersection, read her entry and click through to one of the ads placed there. It is the least that you can do.

If you don't like the idea of using the advertisement mechanism this way, consider making a donation directly to Doctors Without Borders.



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