Sometimes I love – like SERIOUSLY – love the copy and paste function.

The Most Influential Women in Media is based on money, fame, audience and power. Money is determined by an estimation of earnings from approximately July 2008 to July 2009. Audience is determined by average Nielsen Media Research numbers for television ratings and net traffic for the past 12 months. Fame and influence is determined by overall mentions on Factiva and by social media outreach, or the amount of followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN MEDIA IS BASED ON MONEY, FAME, AUDIENCE, AND POWER.

Minus the “audience” bit, I could have SWORN I read something back in my younger years about basing anything on money, fame, and power usually leads you down the wrong path.

I think Utne’s list of 50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World is actually much more refreshing, uplifting, and real.

Let’s start a fresh list; a list of people who actually think women of the world MATTER and actually WORK for little or no money.

Who do YOU think are the most influential women in media?

Let me know who and why and perhaps I’ll write a rebuttal, with a link, to Forbes telling them to kiss my big, round pregnant belly.
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update

I just spent 30 minutes writing an update and now it’s gone. In a nutshell, I wanted to hat tip Joan Kelly (first in comments) who helped me clarify my original point. I do not think income runs parallel to sincerity in one’s work. I meant that I wanted to recognize women who do back-breaking work and are barely scraping by with their families. I agree with JK – most of the influential women in my life are sacrificing and trading one good for another to make ends meet to buy groceries.

How do WE define “influential” people in our lives?

Freedom and Independence…

how different that looks for all of us, no?

Melissa Roxas’ Press Conference: Statement by Melissa Roxas from Habi Arts on Vimeo.

Melissa Roxas is a Filipina US citizen. With family in Quezon City, she went to the Philippines to do research as a health volunteer for her writing project.

She is a writer. An activist. She was combining her commitment to human rights and social justice with her writing. It led her home to the Philippines where on May 19, 2009 she was captured and tortured for 6 days before being released.

In a press conference, she describes the abduction and torture she was subject to from the Philippine military.

Roxas is the first known US citizen to be abducted and tortured in the Philippines during the Obama administration and is seeking justice. The Arroyo presidency in the Philippines has overseen several hundred kidnapping, disappearances, torture, murder, and rape of activists, students, scholars, and educators in the name of the military which is funded by US dollars.

One year ago, I was with my family in Quezon City. I was doing research at local universities and non-profits to better understand the sexual violence against Filipino women in the Philippines. In my time there, the threat of abduction or torture was a far fear from my mind because, as everyone pointed out, I am a US citizen and, therefore, untouchable.

Roxas is the living proof that no one is untouchable and citizenship protects no one. Not even when you are doing research for a writing project. It does not protect you from beatings, being suffocated, tortured, blindfolded, or psychologically tortured.

There are no words to describe these on-going human rights violations in the Philippines. It is happening here, there, and no matter where you are, what your name is, violence, it seems, is only a knock on the door away from your house.

On a personal note, I am more than stunned by her account of what happened. Even as I write this, I don’t quite know what to write except that her story needs to be told and spread far and wide. There is no way to describe the horror of what she went through. What I can do, what you can, at the very least, is listen and be informed.

This the face of human rights. This is the face of feminism. This if the front line of writers, volunteers, educators, and dreamers who want a world of peace and are willing to go to the ends of the earth to understand the reality of others. Melissa Roxas is the face.

I normally don’t post alerts or campaigns on my blog, but this is unspeakably important.

As a pregnant womyn, the story of Cirila Baltazar Cruz is unbearable. The past three months have altered my perspective. Standing at the threshold of a new unfolding of responsibility, love, fear, and acceptance has been a journey of unbelievable difficulty. The fact that this – illegal adoption from immigrants – is happening REPEATEDLY is unthinkably barbaric. IT’S TIME TO ACT. Write a letter to the folks at the bottom of this email. FORWARD THIS WIDELY. Repost on your blog. The denial of basic rights, the denial of a mother’s rights is taking on new monstrous faces and it’s enraging. I cannot imagine what this mother must be feeling. Perhaps I do not want to imagine what she’s feeling and getting this story out, getting this atrocity to the public to ACT and REACT with calls and letters is the least I can do as a womyn of color, an expecting mother, as a daughter of immigrant parents.

Don’t just read – MOVE.

h/t to Flip Flopping Joy

Request for Action from the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA):

Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English, as her native language is Chatino, an Indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico that is spoken by some 50,000 people.

The hospital provided her with an “interpreter” who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital’s interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.

The hospital’s social worker reported “evidence” of abuse and neglect based on the following:

* The “baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;”
* The “mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula.” (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
* “She does not speak English which puts baby in danger.”

Ms. Baltazar Cruz’s baby was snatched from her after birth at the hospital and given to an affluent attorney couple from the posh Ocean Springs who cannot have children.

The authorities made no effort to locate an interpreter in her native tongue. MIRA located an interpreter who is fluent in Chatino in Los Angeles CA and has interviewed the mother extensively with the interpreters help. The mother has been accused of being poor and not being able to provide for this child. No one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.

Meanwhile, there is word in the Gulf Coast community that the “parents to be,” have already had a baby shower celebrating the “blessed arrival” of this STOLEN child!

PLEASE MAKE CALLS & WRITE LETTERS DEMANDING THE SAFE RETURN OF BABY & REUNITE WITH HER MOTHER

If you believe this is unjust and outrageous and goes against all moral and religious beliefs and values, please call or write to the presiding Judge and the MS Department of Human Services to STOP this ILLEGAL ADOPTION! Stealing US born babies from immigrant parents is a growing epidemic in the United States. Many Latino parents have lost their children this way!

Honorable Judge Sharon Sigalas
Youth Justice Court of Jackson County
4903 Telephone Rd.
Pascagoula, MS 39567
(228)762-7370

Children’s Justice Act Program
MS Dept. of Human Services
750 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202
Call (601)359-4499 and ask for Barbara Proctor

For more information please call MIRA at: (601) 968-5182

MIRA Organizing Coordinator
Victoria Cintra at (228) 234-1697 or Organizer Socorro Leos at(228) 731-0831

I stand with her

because she’s committed to marginalized communities
because she hasn’t forgotten where she’s from
because she was raised by a single mother and rocked Princeton and Yale