Police Campaign on Genital Mutilation

Here’s a report from the BBC about the Metropolitan Police’s new Campaign to counteract female genital mutilation. They are offering a £20,000 reward for information which leads to a convictions for female genital mutilation. Apparently, they’ve timed the campaign to coincide with the school summer holidays since this is the time when it happens most – they suggest as many as 7000 girls in the U.K. are at risk.

Update On ‘Rape’ Ban

Update, from Shakesville, on our earlier post regarding a courtoom ban on the use of words like ‘rape’ in a rape trial.

The accuser, Tory Bowen, has refused to sign an order agreeing not to use these words. In her own words:

And then I’m pausing three seconds because I don’t know if it’s a word that will lead to a mistrial or me being jailed or held in contempt. It’s frightening. That’s not something a victim should go through.

Bold Gender Claims

From Michael Scherer at Salon:

In the Democratic presidential pack, the leading man is a woman and the leading woman is a man.

Some interesting attributions of gender and race going on in this campaign. See also Debra Dickerson’s Salon article:

Barack Obama would be the great black hope in the next presidential race — if he were actually black.

And Gary Kamiya’s reply:

Obama is black — he just isn’t “black.”

Of course, back in the last millenium we had the claim that Bill Clinton was the first black president. How long before an article on the Clintons as a gay interracial couple?