China's Single, Successful 'Leftover Women' Pressured to Marry As Concubines & Sex Trafficking Skyrocket

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China’s Single, Successful ‘Leftover Women’ Pressured to Marry As Concubines & Sex Trafficking Skyrocket

I will share more advice to Chinese women by their government at the end of photographer Stockton Johnson’s beautiful editorial ‘Romantic Pastel’, starring Tian Yi for Vogue China January 2013.Yi Guo has styled a gorgeous tableau of spring romanticism to feed the aspirations of China’s growing class of professional women.

New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Next Act

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New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Next Act

New York Magazine profiles Michael Bloomberg in-depth, as the New York major prepares for a new life out of political office. The centrist operating in a world where moderates almost have no place is determined that in his new role, money and expertise will constitute a “truly massive influence”.

Chicago mayor Rob Emmanuel — who is himself the beneficiary of a Bloomberg-financed swat team dedicated to streamlining city government bureaucracies — says of the mayor who knows best “He has passions on gun control, immigration, and climate change.”

We learn that Bloomberg was quietly offered a job as head of the World Bank, as Robert Zoellick prepared to step down.  In March, a journalist asked the mayor:

“How likely is it that you’d buy the New York Times?”

“It’s not for sale,” Bloomberg shot back. “And why would I want to buy the Times?”

The Naked Truth by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Germany June 2012

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The Naked Truth by Peter Lindbergh for Vogue Germay June 2012

Note | Nudity Just last night I was in a FB group on women’s issues. Someone gifted us a banner, in fact installed it without discussion, and first one woman and then others said “these images don’t look like anyone in this room. We’re not 15 and flawless. We’re 50 and fabulous!”

The June issue of Vogue Germany presents ‘The Naked Truth’ featuring Nadja Aurermann, Toni Garrn, Luca Gajdus, Julia Drews, Katrin Thormann, Karine Krawczuk, Donata Wenders, Hanna Wahmer, Christiane Arp and Nina Hoss lensed for real by Peter Lindbergh. Styled by Christiane Arp, the images inspire in their beauty and honesty.

This editorial gives me a chance to share my applause and support for the decision by all 19 international editors of Vogue magazine to ban models from their pages who “appear to have an eating disorder” and are younger than 16. The editors are also committed to improving conditions for models, including that they are paid for their work.

Bishop Walker Nickless Calls Contraception Mandate A Plot By The Devil

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Among the guests on the Family Research Council’s anti-contraception coverage webcast held last week was Walker Nickless, the Bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City, who warned that the contraception mandate was literally a plot by the Devil to undermine morality and that Christians “have to stand up and violently oppose this” in order to avoid being overtaken by Darkness.

The Bishop’s comments ignore the large number of prominent Catholic organizations, universities and hospital organization led by Catholic priests and nuns who support the Obama compromise on contraception. But they align perfectly with the Vatican’s exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth, a man who says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession in 25 years. In March 2010, Father Amorth proclaimed that “the Devil is a work inside the Vatican.”

Time will tell whether today’s spectacle of today’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s hearing on President Obama’s recent contraception mandate will be an Anita Hill moment, writes Politico.

“I think it is an Anita Hill comparison,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who staged a walkout of Democratic women in protest of the chairman’s decision not to seat a minority female witness at the start of the hearing. “I hope it will be just as galvanizing.”

Witch-Burning Steilneset Memorial by Peter Zumthor & Louise Bourgeois

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Witch-Burning Steilneset Memorial by Peter Zumthor & Louise Bourgeois

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor and the late French-born artist Louise Bourgeoise collaborated in the hauntingly beautiful and poetic Steilneset Memorial in Vardø, Norway, an arresting memorial to 91 people, 77 women and 14 men, who were burned at the stake here in the 17th century for the crime of witchcraft.

Sturla J. Stalsett, general secretary of the Vardø Church City Mission, pointed out during the opening ceremonies presided over by Her Majesty Queen Sonja of Norway, that the memorial is meant to remind us of the ongoing danger of collectively creating scapegoats. If historical circumstances seem peculiar now, the intent behind the work addresses larger moral claims.

Angelina Jolie | Alexei Hay | Marie Claire US January 2011 | 'Angelina Unstoppable'

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Angelina Jolie | Alexei Hay | Marie Claire US January 2011 | ‘Angelina Unstoppable’

Angelina Jolie appears in perhaps the most beautiful, spontaneous, authentic images of her ever snapped. That’s a mouthful and goodness knows, I haven’t studies all her photo shoots. But this one, styled by Alison Edmond for Marie Claire US, January 2012 issue is a delight. How trite; it’s smashing! With hair by Colin Jamison and makeup by Toni G, Angelina glows as one of our most favorite Smart Sensuality women, an inspirational icon for us all.

‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’

These gorgeous images are an escape today, two days after Angelina’s directorial debut ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’ opened in New York and LA.

I’m a little confused reading the reviews. Wiki reports that they are evenly mixed but mostly reports the criticisms. Reading the lead paper reviews, it seems that 90 percent are written by men.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf l Leymah Gbowee l Tawakkol Karman l Nobel Peace Prize 2011

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2011 Nobel Peace Prize winners Tawakkol Karman of Yemen (l), Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee (c) and Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Image by John McConnico/AP

Arise! Will Young Women Join Anita Hill, Gloria Steinem & Eve Ensler in the Republican War on Women?

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Anne here, very excited to be on my way to New York. Have my press credentials & laptop for ‘live’ blogging from the media pool. Simply can’t believe that I will be in the media room w/Gloria Steinem, Eve Ensler, Anita Hill and all these great women who have fought so hard for women’s rights.

It’s perfect timing, as the Republicans pass a 7th bill that says pregnant women having a miscarriage — who are already distraught over their health emergencies — can die in the emergency rooms of American hospitals.

Our nation no longer has an obligation to save its women, say the Republicans.

20 Yrs After Clarence Thomas Hearing, Anita Hill Is 'Reimagining Equality'

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20 Yrs After Clarence Thomas Hearing, Anita Hill Is 'Reimagining Equality'

Anita Hill has a new book ‘Reimagining Equality’. A series of talks and seminars focused on the anniversary of the Clarence Thomas hearings for supreme court justice have returned Hill to the soft flow of the limelight, if not the harsh glow of cameras confronting her during her testimony about her experiences dealing with Thomas as his subordinate at the Education Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The hearings also changed the trajectory of Hill’s life. The questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee, then a panel of white men, was “hurtful,” she said, and she does not believe a white woman would have met the same reception. But she also said she does not regret her involvement.

Anita Hill will be delivering the keynote address at New York’s Hunter College Oct. 15 conference ‘Sex, Power, and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later.’

Many women like myself who watched the Anita Hill interrogation in horror — by a panel of only white men — were stunned by their questions and know that the Daily Beast article is not an exaggeration.