The OB Media Rundown for 3/7/12

Women Who Took the Pill Had an 8 Percent Higher Income by Age 50

In short, women on the pill are better able to get degrees, choose their occupation, and enter (and leave) the workforce when they want, which in turn gives them better footing with men in terms of commanding wages. “Our estimates imply that the pill can account for 10 percent of the convergence [of] the gender gap in the 1980s and 30 percent in the 1990s,” write the researchers.

http://tinyurl.com/6v5r4vq

Occupiers mic-check Israeli ambassador at AIPAC conference

Shortly after the people’s mic began, the crowd of AIPAC attendees reacted forcefully. Some of them climbed over chairs to reach the demonstrators, and one of the disruptors, Rick Colbath-Hess, was violently yanked down to the floor by his necktie. After the mic-check, Laura Kacere of Occupy DC and Ridgely Fuller of CODEPINK and Occupy Boston both stood on top of chairs and chanted “Don’t bomb Iran!” The AIPAC crowd responded by singing the Israeli national anthem, led by Representative Ros-Lehtinen, and the activists were eventually escorted out.

http://tinyurl.com/6m8rdf7

Privacy Mom Leads Collegiate Nation Against All Tracking

As part of its Occupy Privacy campaign on college campuses, Collegiate Nation announced today that it is promoting the message that college students should not have their youthful transgressions, photos or thoughts stored forever on data bases belonging to companies whose first loyalty is to advertisers, data miners and data brokers.

“Tracking those within our society who are most vulnerable, valuable and likely to make youthful mistakes is not only unethical but cruel,” stated Evelyn Castillo-Bach, the founder of Collegiate Nation — also known as GoCNCN.com

http://tinyurl.com/83glhcl


Occupy Spirit Spreads From Wall Street To Oil Conference

The energy world’s own version of Davos, being held in Houston, is attracting its own version of the anti-Davos movement as well. With a live pig.

The attendance of some of the globe’s top energy executives – including Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Rex Tillerson and Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Peter Voser – at the IHS CERA Week energy conference became a good opportunity for a local group, Good Jobs Great Houston, to raise their voice across the fancy hotel where the conclave is held. In addition to the live pig, there were several people in pig costumes, supposed to represent the top 1%.

http://tinyurl.com/854osja

Letter to the editor: Protesters have good cause to rise up

In mayor Daily’s Chicago, in Iran and Syria, during the American Civil Rights Movement, and in general, during any brutal police or military crackdown – the explanations of any dictator or autocrat, in any land, are always the same. The fault lies at the feet of outside agitators, people who cross state lines to incite riots, enemy agents and now on dirty hippies and anarchists – anyone but those who really wield the power.

http://tinyurl.com/7b5ry5a

Unruly Occupiers kicked out of Athens-Clarke commission meeting

Several Occupy Athens members were removed from an Athens-Clarke Commission meeting Tuesday night after starting a chant against a proposed Walmart development near downtown.

At the end of the meeting, when constituents are allowed to take the podium to speak on any topic, protestor Lauren Farmer started a “mic check,” a method of communicating with large groups without amplification where the crowd repeats each line a speaker says so everyone can hear.

http://tinyurl.com/75eck62

San Diego Women to Rally Against Attacks on International Women’s Day – March 8th

Women from all over San Diego County will rally in front of the US Federal Courthouse in San Diego on Thursday, March 8th,  to support women’s rights to contraception on International Women’s Day. The rally will be held from noon to 1pm, and the Courthouse is located at 940 Front Street, in downtown San Diego.

The rally will address a number of recent attacks on a woman’s right to contraception and family planning:

The San Diego event is co-sponsored by Women Occupy San Diego and Planned Parenthood.

http://tinyurl.com/7hmtkle

Police Review Board meeting involves testimony of Nov. 9 protest at UC Berkeley

Videos and verbal testimony from the Nov. 9 Occupy Cal protests were presented to the UC Berkeley Police Review Board by UCPD representatives and advocates for student and faculty protesters Monday night.
At the public meeting, participants had the opportunity to explain to the board – which will eventually make  recommendations to the campus administration regarding future responses to campus protests – their differing understandings of what occurred on Sproul Plaza on the day of the protest. Three hours into the meeting, Jesse Choper, chair of the board and campus law professor, called to reconvene at 5 p.m. Tuesday to continue hearing testimony.

http://tinyurl.com/75n3okg

L.A. Mom Deported After Protesting Foreclosure of Home

Activists from Occupy Fights Foreclosures are holding a candlelight vigil Tuesday night for Blanca Cardenas, the 37-year-old mother of a baby girl, who was deported last week. Cardenas was arrested by Los Angeles police officers Feb. 22 for trespassing, while she and her husband were protesting the foreclosure of their former home. Although she posted bail, she was held in jail for one week and then deported to Mexico on Feb. 29 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Cardenas is the mother of a 19-month-old girl and a 14-year-old son who are both U.S. citizens. Her husband is also a U.S. citizen.

http://tinyurl.com/7orsz5l

Same-sex couple is first couple to marry at Occupy DC

Marina Brown and Laura Potter, two long-time members of the Occupy DC encampment, tied the knot under a statue of General James McPherson in front of a crowd of about 30 fellow occupiers and attendees on Saturday. The couple, who has been together 15 years, was “the first couple (and, inherently, the first same-sex couple) to be married at Occupy DC.”

http://tinyurl.com/7vpsnxg

Occupy Atlanta fighting to save Decatur home

Occupy Atlanta is fighting to save a Decatur family’s home.

The group is fighting to save the home of 62-year-old Christine Frazer, who was foreclosed on in Oct. 2011 when she couldn’t pay her mortgage. Occupy Atlanta said Frazer, along with four generations of her family are being threatened with eviction from the place they have called home since 1994.

http://tinyurl.com/7dd35qv

Protests As Columbia College Plans To Raise Tuition, Weighs Cutting Programs [Il]

Students and faculty at Columbia College are protesting plans to raise tuition, as the school also weighs cutting some programs and restructuring some academic departments, according to published reports.

The Columbia Chronicle reported that numerous protest groups gathered outside Columbia College Monday to protest “the direction in which the college is moving.” Among the groups protesting are members of the part-time Columbia faculty union P-Fac, as well as the Columbia staff union and an Occupy group dedicated to Columbia College, the Chronicle reported.

http://tinyurl.com/88ptesz