[Mazraq, Yemen; November 12. Image via Getty]

A dispalced Yemeni girl from Saada province carries a young boy on her shoulders at the Mazraq Internally Displaced People's (IDP) camp in northern Yemen, on November 12, 2009. An estimated 150,000 people have been displaced or affected by the conflict between Shiite Zaidi rebels and the government since 2004. The tally includes about 55,000 who have fled since the government launched an offensive against the Zaidis in the mountainous north in August 2009. AFP PHOTO/KHALED FAZAA (Photo credit should read KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images)

[Marzaq Camp, Yemen; October 19. Image via Getty]

Yemeni women carry fire wood on their backs as they walk past tents in the Marzaq camp set-up for internally displaced Yemenis in the northwestern province of Hajjah, near the Saudi Arabian border, on October 19, 2009. The UN says some 150,000 people have been displaced in northern Yemen in the past five years, including 55,000 since August 11 when armed hostilities resumed between Shiite rebels and the military. AFP PHOTO/KHALED FAZAA (Photo credit should read KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images)

The abuse reportedly started in the 1970s when the victim was only 11 and continued to the present day. The unidentified man's wife says she "never suspected" her husband was abusing their daughter. • In response to the arrest and imprisonment of a journalist in Sudan for wearing trousers, Egypt's top Islamic authority has said that he is cool with women wearing pants. However, he is not a fan of "stretch" pants, which he deems "unacceptable." • Raymond Clark III was charged with the murder of Yale grad student Annie Le today, and Le's fiance issued a statement thanking people who were involved in preparations for "a wedding that was not to be." • A 23-year-old British student who was sexually assaulted in her apartment in India broke down recently in court while the defense lawyer was questioning her. He asked her whether she bathed, and whether she drank or smoke. She said she was humiliated by his questions, and found testifying almost as traumatic as the original assault. • Perhaps unsurprisingly, a study found that if one spouse smoked or drank heavily and the other did not, the relationship was more likely to deteriorate than if both engaged in the behavior. • Yesterday the Yemeni government defended their attempts to halt child marriages in a written statement. They cited a law introduced to parliament in February that would have set the minimum marriage age at 17, but did not pass due to conservative opposition. • A report released by the CDC indicates that 1 in 3 girls aged 13-17 has received the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine. The report also notes that vaccination varies dramatically state by state, with Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi falling far behind. • A 65-year-old man named Abraham Kortotki won the $20,982 first prize at an Atlantic City casino's ladies poker tournament. Unsurprisingly, some women are miffed, especially second-place finisher Nicole Rowe, who intended to use the cash to help recover from a mastectomy. • Now that the Hofstra University freshman who had accused five men of gang-raping her recanted her statement, Amanda Hess has written am interesting piece on rape culture. A snippet: "Rape culture does not only tell men to assert ownership over whichever female body they desire. Rape culture also tells women not to claim ownership over their own bodies. Rape culture also informs women that they should not desire sex. Rape culture also tells women that saying yes makes them bad women." • Surprise, surprise: Teen birth rates are highest in the most religious states. More here, here and here. • Want to wash all this bad news from your mind? Pictures of fishing cats!

Today, Nujood lives with her family in a two room house in an impoverished suburb of Sana'a. She does not go to school, and, according to Paula Newton for CNN, she has changed from being a bubbly, happy child to a rather angry and sullen girl (although, who wouldn't after suffering so much abuse?). She sits down grudgingly for an interview, during which she laments the fact that she made her story public:

"There is no change at all since going on television. I hoped there was someone to help us, but we didn't find anyone to help us. It hasn't changed a thing. They said they were going to help me and no one has helped me. I wish I had never spoken to the media," Nujood says bitterly.

But one important thing has changed for Nujood. She is no longer married to her much older "husband," at whose hand she suffered horrible physical and emotional abuse. After a few weeks of being beaten and raped, Nujood turned to her family for help, but her parents told her that she belonged to her husband now, and so they could no longer protect her. Desperate to leave, Nujood hailed a taxi and traveled to the city's central courthouse, where she sat on a bench and demanded to see a judge. Fortunately, the judge believed Nujood's story, and granted her a divorce (under Yemen law it is legal for a 30-year-old pedophile to marry a child, but just as long as he leaves her alone until she is "mature," something we somehow doubt she gets to decide). Unfortunately, the legal system in Yemen does not punish men who have sex with 8-year-old children under the name of "marriage," and instead required Nujood's father to pay her former husband over $200 in compensation.

Nujood's story made her briefly famous, and people everywhere celebrated her victory. Her family hoped that Nujood's fame might pay off for them as well, but so far, they have received little cash for her suffering. The money that has been donated to Nujood was intended to pay for tuition at a private school, but according to Shada Nasser, the human rights lawyer who worked on her divorce, Nujood refuses to attend, and her family refuses to force her. Nasser believes that Nujood is being victimized by her family, punished for not bringing in more money.

30 years ago, Khadije Al Salame was a child bride herself. Now, Salame is a Yemeni diplomat who is working to help Nujood get her life back on track. She tells CNN, "It's good to talk about Nujood and to have her story come out, but the problem is it's too much pressure on her. She doesn't understand what's going on." It is interesting to see Salame's quote alongside an interview with Nujood, especially since she goes on to say this: "She's a little girl and we have to understand as a media people that we should leave her alone now." Although Nujood has been made into a symbol of bravery and courage, she is still just a young, confused girl. Hopefully, this will be the last interview for Nujood, at least until she is older and more in control of her life. "If we really love Nujood then we should just let her go to school and continue with her life, because education is the most important thing for her."

Child Bride's Nightmare After Divorce [CNN]

Related: 8-Year-Old In Yemen Takes Abusive 30-Year-Old Husband To Court, And Wins!, 8-Year-Old Yemeni Girl Wins Divorce From Gross Husband

• Thomas Daley, a Pennsylvanian landlord, is accused of wiretapping and secretly recording footage of his female tenants in their apartments for 20 years. • According to a new studyconducted in conjunction with Clairol Nice n' Easy, women who dye their hair feel more confident. • UC Santa Barbara has created a graduate program that will offer a MA and a PhD in feminist studies, beginning in the fall 2009 semester. • A report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that self-harm among teen girls has risen by one-third in the past eight years and is more likely to cause hospitalization. • Sally Cluley will become England's youngest pilot this weekend when she receives her Private Pilots License on her 17th birthday on Sunday. • The FDA launched a crackdown today on eye wash and papain-based eye creams that are currently not approved by the FDA. • A lesbian soldier is seeking about $800,000 in compensation after a male officer in the Royal Artillery made sexual advances on her and then told to keep quiet by other unsympathetic officers.• A town in northern Italy joins a Tel Aviv suburb in using a DNA database to fine dog owners who don't scoop their dog's poop. • Ever wanted to tear someone a new asshole but found the job physically impossible? Now you can do it! • A radiation seed implant called ballon brachytherapy can shorten radiation treatment for breast cancer and will hopefully lead more women to seek out radiation therapy. • Morocco's top body of Islamic scholars have condemned a Muslim theologian's decree that girls as young as nine can marry. •

MEGAN: Oh, hello there! How were your protests yesterday? We talked about spanking without you.

JASON: The protest was modestly-sized, but passionate. If you caught the story on Cavuto last night, I spoke to the same woman from the Mahoning Valley that he did, who was very nice in that she allowed me to ask her many silly questions, like if she was jealous of the attention John McCain gave the Georgians, and whether Cindy McCain, if she bought their tent city, would count each tent as a separate residence or if collectively, the tent city would be a single domicile.

MEGAN: Yeah, I don't normally watch Cavuto because I've normally got my head deep in my computer writing the news round-up for the end of the night, but she sounds nice!

JASON: She was very nice. So, okay, speaking of forays into the lives of working class women, we have Maureen Dowd this morning.

MEGAN: Oh, God, any segue that starts off that way normally makes me want to tear out my hair. What did she spew now?

JASON: Anna sent me a link to her column. And mind you, I usually consider someone forwarding me her columns as a type of assault. But this being Anna, I knew that it was important, dangerous work that needed to be done. So I'm reading it, and honestly? Through three paragraphs — which in Dowd-ese means "three hastily constructed sentence fragments" — she does okay. But then you get this:

"The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state. You can’t contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus. To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in “Guys and Dolls,” a poy-son could develop a cold war."

Fugue For Tinears! I mean, that's the op-ed version of being clouted with a ball peen hammer.

MEGAN: Honestly, if I wasn't wearing my glasses, I would have smacked myself upon reading that. Who says that? Who thinks that?!!

JASON: Maureen Dowd is JUST THE WORST. Murder your darlings, darling! The rhinovirus line was sufficient!

MEGAN: Well, speaking of the over-privileged...

JASON: Anyway, that fucking travesty was about Carly Fiorina. I sense that your taking it in that direction? Since we're on the subject of travesties?

MEGAN: No, actually, I wanted to talk about Lynn Forester de Rothschild, who Moe and I mocked last week for her horrendous editorial about elitism, and is now endorsing John McCain. Like, bitch went to the Democratic convention on the motherfucking platform committee, but she's endorsing John McCain this week. Because, as an elitist, she know elitism when she sees is and DESPITE WRITING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM she's going to vote for John McCain because Obama wasn't nice enough to her.

JASON: What a relief! I had thought that we might end up with Dischord Records releasing a ROTHCHILDS AGAINST ELITISM compilation disc or something! Let's talk elitism. Here's the lede from Portfolio's profile on Lynn:

"When 67-year-old British banking scion Sir Evelyn Rothschild first set eyes on 44-year-old Lynn Forester at the 1998 Bilderberg conference—the matchmaker was none other than Henry Kissinger—she was already a woman of major means."

I mean, wow. Kissinger and the Bilderberg conference come up RIGHT OFF THE BAT. So, you know going in that this is the woman who will cure us of our elitism.

MEGAN: I guess she really, really, really knows elitism. That's about the most amusingly gagable description of a meet-cute since I didn't read the New York Times wedding announcements last weekend. Also, the woman helped write the Democratic party's fucking platform, but because she's got a personal distaste for the candidate elected to represent and implement that platform, she's going to publicly support, campaign for and vote for the guy who represents and plans to implement the polar opposite.

JASON: What I see as the problem is that this person was allowed within a million miles of the Democratic party platform. They should be glad she turned into a self-lancing boil.

MEGAN: I mean, what I want to know is: what sections did she work on? I mean, obviously not the ones on energy, the environment, reproductive freedom, marriage equity, equal pay, women in the military, taxes, health care... so, what's left? Is there a section on wealthy baronesses?

MEGAN: Um, WHOA, our embassy in Yemen just got bombed. MSNBC says 16 people are dead so far. But no Americans so far.

JASON: Ten Yemeni civilians, though.

MEGAN: Well, since when did suicide bombers care about their own people? They have a political point to make about... something.

JASON: True. Reports say that snipers opened fire on the first responders, too. Another terrorist act brought to you by the people we will not go and fight.

MEGAN: That is, notably, the second attack we've faced in Yemen, in case anyone's forgotten.

JASON: There was a mortar attack on the Embassy earlier this year, as well.

MEGAN: Well, let's play newscasters and make our sad/serious faces now and quickly changes the subject back to something "sexy". Like Carly Fiorina.

JASON: Yes. We'll get a thorough dose of grandstanding from Senators McCain and Obama later.

MEGAN: And then we can talk about it again! So, let's talk about Carly Fiorina and her ego. Is it just me spending too many hours with Republicans, or do you recall a lot of times hearing that we needed someone to run this country more like a business? Like, say, Mitt Romney.

JASON: One of the hallmark arguments the GOP has made, IN MY LIFETIME, was that the U.S. of A. COULD BE RUN LIKE A BUSINESS!!!

MEGAN: Just not, apparently, with McCain or Palin at the helm.

JASON: Really? Should Carly Fucking Fiorina be lecturing ANYONE on how to run a business?

MEGAN: Hey, I am happy to let her spout off again McCain and Palin. Let's not stop her, please? She knows a lot, from personal experiences, about the kind of people that shouldn't be CEOs.

JASON: Yesterday, Andrea Mitchell was basically taunting her about her own golden parachute, even as John McCain is vowing to end the practice. (And don't ask me how the federal government achieves THAT.) And she said that with her it was different!

MEGAN: Well, of course hers was different.

JASON: ...that her severance package was decided for her, put to a vote. And that constituted real reform! Two things on this.

One: Yes, Carly. I am sure that there was a vocal faction of Hewlett Packard decision makers who were like: "You know what? We need to consider not giving her all these millions of dollars. Because we need to send a clear message to shareholders that we hired an incompetent woman to run this company. THAT WILL WORK."

Two: The process Fiorina describes is commonplace! That's how these golden parachutes get strapped to these morons' backs. These disgraced CEOs aren't, you know, actually PLUNDERING THEIR COMPANIES COFFERS WITH A SCIMITAR CLENCHED IN THEIR TEETH.

MEGAN: Also, it's all super-clubby up in there.

JASON: Not that John McCain could stop that, either! He had an ad up, exclaiming ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! And then three hours later, the government bails out AIG.

MEGAN: Last night, I seriously turned off the computer and TV, took a short nap and went to dinner and by the time I got there, the entire bar was watching the news of the AIG bailout — and I don't even live in NY! And it's not like golden parachutes aren't "voted" on, but they're "voted" on in the same way that North Koreans "vote" for Kim Jong Il.

JASON: Right! Minus the exciting visual of those adorable goosestepping lady soldiers! AND THEY ARE ADORABLE! I want to SQUEEZE those crazy ladies! Who says intractable fascism can't have a Cute Overload aspect to it?

MEGAN: I never did understand why dictatorships continue to allow goosestepping to remain alive.

JASON: Could you imagine having, like, a three-inch tall brigade of North Korean lady soldiers skipping all around your apartment. I would be like, OMGZ THAT IS TEH CUTENESS.

MEGAN: I think they should be at least 10 inches.

JASON: Jeezy creezy! Is the Dow already down 209 points today??

MEGAN: I love, by the way, that the NYSE was opened today by "Emeritus Senior Living." Where John McCain would retire, if he didn't have the right to die, senile and crapping his pants, in office. Sidenote: Bob Casey is on MSNBC right now and, um, man needs to wax that unibrow.

JASON: You know, credit John McCain. He has, to my knowledge, never crapped his pants. Yesterday, Carly crapped hers twice on national teevee.

MEGAN: See, I prefer to think of that sort of appearance as vomiting up the bile from her soul.

JASON: You won't be seeing her on teevee for a while, either.

MEGAN: Well, my days will no doubt be burdened by that.

JASON: More time for Empress Nancy Pfotenhauer. And Tucker Bounds! And now the Lady de Rothschild!

cMOE: Dude I don't want to forget this so I'm just showing you now. From Dick Morris's column on how McCain can beat Obama:

If the GOP nominee were Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, independents and Democrats might not vote Republican even if they became convinced that Obama is some kind of sleeper agent sent to charm and conquer our democracy.

MOE: um no kidding!
MEGAN: Why doesn't Dick Morris go back to sucking prostitutes' toes and leave the rest of us alone. Have you seen his teeth? He ain't stopped sucking stanky feet yet.

MOE: So there is too much to write about today but anyway Iran is still building a nuclear program, treaties be damned and we can't do anything about it, Burma is still letting its people die and Asian governments won't do anything about it, Hugo Chavez is supporting FARC and by any standard probably now qualifies for our state sponsors of terror list but we probably shouldn't give him the satisfaction, and now they're saying it's the end of American Superpower. For realz?!
MEGAN: Wait, wait! The NY Times is reporting this morning that Myanmar/Burma is going to let ASEAN help. I'm skeptical but maybe they actually will?

MOE: Ah, so their "soft approach" did work!

In a clear departure from the usually secretive style of the military junta, state television in Myanmar on Sunday showed video of the leader, Senior General Than Shwe, touring a refugee camp, checking supplies, patting the heads of babies and shaking hands with survivors. Some of the cyclone victims, surrounded by neat rows of blue tents, clasped their hands and bowed as the general and other senior military officials walked by.

MOE:

"Are we going to continue to cover the earthquake?" the Guangzhou-based reporter asked in an instant message to his editor, a day after China's deadliest earthquake in three decades struck Sichuan province."Of course," replied the editor, surnamed Yang. "Why not?"
Then, the reporter said, he forwarded to his boss the text of the latest edict from the propaganda department of the Communist Party Central Committee, ordering domestic news media not to send any more journalists to Sichuan.
Yang wrote back, "If everyone pays no attention to this, then it won't really be a ban."

MEGAN: Oh, she's probably still under house arrest. Like the regime wants to allow her ot be showed doing good work?
MOE: 40 years of mind control, propaganda, a string of incomprehensible, and incomprehensibly destructive political campaigns combined with severe rationing and poverty followed by 15 years of steady marginal increases in living standards and the appearance of openness will...do that to a citizenry!

MOE: I guess we should talk about how the crowd that showed up for Obama was like 1/8 the population of Portland? And maybe we should talk about how tiny his advance for Dreams From My Father was?
MOE: Oh and how a place as shit poor as Yemen manages to hide a guy with a $5 million price on his head. And also we should talk about oil prices. And McCain's continued purge of his aides who love lobbyists, which is getting like New York politicos with whores. And Anthony Shahid's fucking depressing story on Lebanon.

MEGAN: Ok, well, I can speak to the continued purge of lobbyists. Because there's one guy who isn't getting out. He's McCain's Mark Penn only potentially slightly less stupid. He's practically consolidating power in the campaign by getting rid of the other guys with lobbying ties, so that in November-January when clients are looking for someone with a good relationship to McCain that hasn't been accused of fucking him, he's the only one left. It's all very wonderfully Machiavellian.

MEGAN: Also, I think it's fair to say that Republican lobbyists understand the least about why people think they're shills out to destroy America and don't love McCain that much anyway, so it probably never occurred to anyone that it might be a teeny tiny problem to the electorate that the guy writing McCain's energy policy was an active lobbyist for energy companies. Because, hey, that's how this Administration has run things for 8 years anyway.
9:15 AM
MEGAN: As for the Yemen thing, it's actually a little funny because here, more and more people are tipping off their neighbors to pay their electric bills and shit and the economy goes into the toilet. So either the Yemenis are more loyal, or we're just that more desperate? Either way, my position has always been that I would totally turn in criminals for money, which is probably why my friends are all nerdy-upstanding types. One year at college there was a $1200 reward for a serial fire alarm puller and I was dying to know who it was because that was like, half of the money I'd make all semester otherwise.

MOE: Which reminds me of a point that I hope that Obama can make fairly. Re the "eight more years" thing. I think anyone who goes out of his way to say that a McCain administration would be "another eight years of the same" is doing a disservice to history. I think it's safe to say it would be historically impossible for another Administration to match this administration's singleminded dedication to the pursuit the interests of such a tiny group of corrupt people in all blatant disregard of democracy. I think we would be ill-advised to cheapen George W. Bush's "Worst President Ever" stain that way. No matter what happens in the general election January 20 will be a relatively good day for this country.
MOE: And regarding Yemen, I think it's safe to say we are less desperate.

MOE: And don't let me forget to bring up this fucking depressing story on the end of the era of cooperation between First and Third World countries that SOMEHOW begat the Green Revolution on the basis of a basic shared interest in the end of human suffering and not ADM profit margins.
MEGAN: Um, I don't thing McCain will be bad in the same way, but I think he's spent the last 8 years selling his soul to the Rovian devils in order to secure the nomination, and that doesn't make me particularly happy. There won't be a ton of turnover in terms of the kinds of people in middle management and shit because they're all working on his campaign and will be "owed"
MOE: This is pretty stark.

Adjusted for inflation, the World Bank cut its agricultural lending to $2 billion in 2004 from $7.7 billion in 1980.

MOE: Well, but what does McCain need with the Rovian devils now? Karl Rove is dispensing him free advice via his various punditry positions now.
MOE: There is just something that chills me about the "eight more years" refrain.

MEGAN: Well, and let's not forget that part of the problem with the IRRI's budget and people not working there is the fact that they were a proponent of biotechnology to get certain properties out of rice (salinity resistance, vitamins) that simply could not be bred in by convention means, and they were shit on by the world and the environmental movement, targeted for eco-terrorism and a lot of their developed-world money dried up over it, even though the Gold Rice project could've had serious benefits for the malnourished people of the world. I kept waiting for the article to mention that and it didn't.
MOE: Fuckin ecoterrorists. Anyway here we see shades of the pharmaceutical industry.

The insect is not a new problem. In the 1960s, the rice institute, nestled between jungle and the bustling town of Los Ba os, pioneered ways to help farmers grow two and even three crops a season, instead of one.

MOE: You talk to guys who develop drugs at pharmaceutical companies and they think it's absolutely shameful that if they want a drug to come to market these days they have to go to work on the next generation of lipitor or abilify or the drug that finally cures metabolic syndrome when there are still so many infectious diseases to be cured. At one point there was a Nature article suggesting the industry establish a non-profit pharmaceutical company to address diseases whose cures would not be money makers. The same should go for agriculture, you'd think. I don't really understand why all the philanthropy targeted at making life-improving technology more available to the third world seems to focus on hand-cranked laptops and stuff like that.

MEGAN: I think it's because a lot of philanthropy is corporate, it's designed to make companies look good to their consumers and stock holders, but those decisions are made by people within the company. So, of course that's the kind of corporate philanthropy they would engage in. And the pharmaceutical companies will pay tons of money to run those Prescription Partnership for America commercials and send out the buses and take a hit on giving medicines to a small subset of people who can't afford it rather than risk price controls, and they'll give away some AIDS medications in developing countries to keep patent rights.
9:35 AM
MEGAN: And Monsanto will spend millions of dollars spraying RoundUp on farmers fields to see if they're cheating on licensing rather than donating to the IRRI or developing drought-resistant wheat or something.
MEGAN: And everyone will give Bill Gates $1 million to research a cure for malaria or AIDS or whatever and claim that they're doing great shit and then go back to making money.
MEGAN: Anyway, if we're going to take today to be depressed about injustice, how about if you're taking medical marijuana while waiting for a transplant, you're pretty much not eligible for the transplant anymore?
MOE: Well I actually have a better answer to my own question that is not QUITE as cynical. The culture of Silicon Valley and the rapidness of the wealth creation that's happened there, the "open source-ness" of ideals, the existence of Microsoft monopolistic practices as a sort of anti-standard...the newness...the fact that the scientists in the case of the technology industry WERE the business founders and ARE the wealth holders...this swirl of factors makes electrical engineers and software engineers more idealistic and philanthropic I think. Whereas in pharmaceuticals and agriculture a lot of the scientific talent is still being managed by corporate shareholder-driven assholes because the barriers to entry are so much higher.
MEGAN: So, geeks think computers really can save the world, and everyone else is just faking it like I said? I'd buy that in moderation.
MOE: The thing is that: there are certain classes of people you might to run their businesses more ethically, less greedily...more thoughtfully...Hasidic-founded Kosher agriprocessing plants are no longer among them. (Did you read this story?) (Holy shit.)

MEGAN: I would be more surprised and outraged that this Administration is targeting illegal immigrants for arrest and deportation and doing virtually nothing to the management that hires them if I hadn't been living in this country for 30 years, probably.
MEGAN: And/or hadn't read that series in the WaPo last week about how unethically and illegally we treat supposedly-illegal immigrants while in custody.
MOE: And on that note I'll leave you with this from George Packer's New Yorker piece on conservatism:

MOE:

Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—"A little raw for today," he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading "Dividing the Democrats." Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in "the Old Roosevelt Coalition," it recommended that the White House "exacerbate the ideological division" between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon's policies; highlight "the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party"; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare.

Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. "Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country," Buchanan wrote. "We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention." Such gambits, he added, could "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."

Urine unites us. Everybody pisses, everyone shits. Philadelphia, like Yemen, smells like piss in a lot of corners. Piss smell is what happens when people are too poor to piss into elaborate sewage systems that eventually carry the scent to some far-off neighborhood you hope you never get stuck in traffic in. I do not feel superior for living in a country where my exposure to the smell of human waste is tied to the frequency of my own bowel movements; to the contrary, my general sense has long been, "I am someone who deserves to smell human waste everywhere I go," but I do not, and I cannot help but feel bad for people who do, and even worse for people forced to drink said piss, like the Lost Boys of Sudan I read about in that Eggers book, and in turn, bad for feeling bad about that, because maybe they don't know any better. For all I know they have been smelling piss on every street corner for so long that they would actually prefer it to, say, Glade, but it's part of my long-held set of assumptions about the species that the smells of piss and shit and period blood are fundamentally unpleasant to the olfactory senses of most people, probably because Evolution wanted to remind us not to eat that stuff and also, maybe, remind us that our proverbial shit proverbially stinks, which is sort of the essence of humanism.

Now, if humanism is the foundation of your worldview, and I try to make it mine, you are bothered by suffering and pain. An eight-year-old gets sold into arranged marriage to a 30-year-old child molester by a father gone crazy and desperate from the humiliation of losing his job and that bothers you. You learn that this is actually not so uncommon an occurrence and that is sad. Maybe, despite the fact that you don't take your blog that seriously, that you don't have time for a thorough examination of the Whole Story, you'd rather call attention to this thing than that thing. You're pretty sure the big thing fucking everything up is poverty, and that maybe reminding people that, you know, most of the problems dividing us as humans, perpetuating tribalism over pluralism and war over peace and anger and (oh my!) bitterness over the freedom to laugh in the streets are rooted in that. So you try to remind people to take the plutocracy to task for that. And you try to remind people that this stuff is too complex to leave to the blogiverse, that there are nuances and subtleties and that the same politician lobbying to free young girls from sex slavery in the name of God led an effort to get all concerts banned from the country in the name of God, and that the singer who defied Al Qaeda threats to come play her concert anyway credits that same God with protecting her, that God is unpredictable that way, and maybe one day we can all learn to laugh together about the funny little misunderstandings and misinterpretations that make us hate one another, but only if a few of us do like the "Yemenista" and try to understand it all a little better.

On the way, we will learn each other's prejudices and stereotypes, societal phenomena, uppers of choice, sexual proclivities, whatev. Maybe we'll shed light on them or "perpetuate" them or however you'd judge it, in letters and writings and blog posts. But of the most disturbing things about our own exchanges with Racialicious and some of these other blogs is the sense that they are standing by, waiting to catch us being insensitive. One said Jezebel had a history of "fucking up racially" by, I think, acknowledging or poking fun at cultural and ethnic stereotypes.

But are stereotypes the problem? Only if your assumption is that Yemenis oppress women — or black men get sent to prison more often, or women get raped more often or white humor bloggers are invariably irreversibly incapable of empathy — because on some level one group is inherently, irredeemably inferior to another. And if that's your assumption, you know, fuck you, don't read this blog. Because the point of it is not to preach some dogma but to start discussions, discussions that will hopefully involve a few decent penis jokes but also lead to conversations that enhance our understanding of one another, and understanding is really only a legitimate goal if you think other humans are capable of independent thought. And if you don't think that after reading about Nojoud Nasser, well...God willing I hope you change your mind.

Mocking A Culture, Mocking A Friend [Racialicious]

• Slut Machine took one for the team and Intern Betty filmed her getting a colonic. Crappy hour indeed.
  
• Speaking of Crap: If Aliza Shvarts smears her uterine lining all over Boot Barn and no one is around to see it, did it really happen?
  
• We learned why mommy's face no longer moves.
  
• The kind of mommy who reads Baby Couture!
  
• Paul Janka + Tyra = Our pop cultural worlds colliding

• We met Sarah, an American journalist in Yemen. She misses booze.
• The American economy through the lens of hand jobs and Dov Charney: a treatise.
• The conspiracy against curls must be stopped.
• Even though Mark Ronson might be off the market, get your ass effects out on the town this weekend! It's been a doozy of a week.

So. First things first! How the hell did you wind up in Yemen? And are you scared of Al Qaeda?
I am trying to think of how to best sum it up... I worked as a fashion editor in NYC for about 6 years and when 9/11 happened, I started wondering about Islam and why people hated the U.S. so much — I was not into interna'tl politics at ALL at that time — so I started studying Arabic and eventually left my job at the magazine I was working for (Good Housekeeping) and went to Cairo for 3 months. When I came back, I entered a grad program for journalism and tried to keep up with my Arabic study. So last summer I came to Yemen to do some intensive language courses and loved it before I finished my masters in Dec, I heard about an opportunity with the Yemen Times and I decided to take the job so I moved here for one year, beginning in January.

Ok, as for the evacuations: There have been a number of attacks on foreigners here starting last summer in July. Things were calm for a while but then recently there was a mortar attack on the US Embassy in the capital (Sana'a), and then about a week or so later, there was an attack on a residential facility that mainly housed oil workers and supposedly some diplomatic staff. After the residence attack, the US Embassy ordered all non-emergency staff to leave Yemen. Actually, many MANY people think that there will be a civil war here soon. It is kind of terrorism's last frontier- the gov't has a very shaky hold on power and there is now fighting going on in the North, the South and some central areas. Also, our gov't and the Yemeni gov't are having lots of problems right now since all the people that have been released from Guantanamo have been asked to sign papers saying that they will not carry out terrorist activities anymore. Obviously this ain't going over so well with in the States and now with the recent two attacks, the US is even more angry. So the rest of us Americans here are kind of waiting for our government to evacuate US any day now.

So does the United States think the ex-Guantanamo guys somehow spearheaded the recent attacks? Because Yemen has always been 1. somewhat out of control and 2. Al Qaeda friendly right? (I know 2 hijackers were apparently Yemeni, though they may have been Saudi born.) And...fuck. Tell me about where you worked in New York, and whether you miss it, and now that you're being evacuated and dodging mortarfire etc. etc. would you still tell anyone bored and unfulfilled at a fashion magazine to get the fuck out of New York and learn about the real world while they can?

Ha! Well, I still have lots of friends in that fashion-y/beauty world. But I find this a million times more fulfilling for sure. I think my daily life is a lot less 'sexy' than you might think, seriously! As for Al-Q, they have taken credit for all the attacks. And they are not only active but VERY popular here.

Really? But Yemen always seemed SO GLAMOROUS.

SUPER glam, let me tell you!

Do you chew qat? I've always wanted to chew that.

I am so impressed you know about it! I have, but I hate. And I hate what it does to this country.

Well it is really poor, right? Has the media interviewed a lot of the Guantanamo guys or are they allowed to talk?

Well, the ones that were released have kind of disappeared. but I think a few of them have spoke to media. Mostly Arabic-language sources though. The ones still at Gitmo are completely sealed off, cant even talk to their families. I talk to their lawyers pretty often though, since that's one of my beats

Is there oil there? Why is it so undeveloped? I have no concept of Yemen's history. But their oppression of women kind of makes you question all those theories about how rich natural resources are bad for economic diversification/women. Maybe just, women are screwed no matter what the natural resource situation?

Nutshell: it was a divided country until 1990 with a socialist-USSR-aligned south. and a religious, super poor north. Almost none of the country has oil but that hasn't stopped people from trying to dig. It is still REALLY divided in spirit. The British ruled the south until 1962 but mainly their economy is their paltry oil supply and qat which is sad.

Well I would buy some qat. is it legal here?

It is in fact not legal in the US and there was a big QAT ring (who knew?) that was busted last year in Dec! But that doesn't mean you can't try it anyway. It is also chewed in Ethiopia and Somalia and I think a few other countries as well. But it seriously is gross and tastes like hell, plus the high is not good. It's like being on a super-coffee high, and lots of people feel crazy/depressed afterwards. it makes you talk a lot (what I hear cocaine is like)

Ah, that's what I "hear" cocaine is like. So.... one thing I have been fascinated by is why Yemen doesn't seem to be in the news here more often. You have TERROR, after all.

Well, it's kind of a black hole. People don't know a lot about it and it's poor as all hell. It's like how our media covers Africa in a way. And things have been active lately but they were quiet for some years. I think it has to do with the government and Al-Qaeda trying to show people that the government is weak. There are always protests going on here and I thought I was going to be ambushed at one of the for the Gitmo (current) detainees. Some of the guys there were like, "You are Satan."

How are your living conditions? Do you live with other foreigners or in a university dorm or something? How much do you get paid and what is there to spend money on? What's it like to be a woman?

I get paid less than $500/month, but my rent in Yemen is SUPER low. There are a couple nice things to buy here, but not many. Yemen is great in lots of ways and that is def one of them. Some of the not so great ways include the BEYOND-limited rights of women here. I am talking about no cell phone talking in the street, okay, no TALKING in the street period for women...no laughing for women. No laughing! Yo have to wear full-body coverage at all times, but foreigners don't need to cover their hair.

No talking in the street, no laughing...what if you just went into the middle of the street and laid a really loud fart? Do you get caned for laughing, like in Singapore for graffiti?

Well, if you were Yemeni, your whole family would probably disown you because you disgraced them or some like bullshit. I have to go though, I'm meeting a friend for dinner and women aren't supposed to be out after sunset. But it will cost less than two dollars!

Mr. Dahaba is a leading advocate of the poor and disenfranchised and proponent of sharia law who, just two months ago, backed the attempt to scare Syrian chanteuse Asala Nasry from performing in the country on the basis of Yemen's new fatwa on all concerts. After being threatened with the "same fate as Benazir Bhutto" by the local Al Qaeda branch, Ms. Nasry came anyway, saying, you know, if she can hack it in Algeria she can hack it in Yemen. What with God to protect her and all. And he did.

Parliament Refuses To Legislate Minimum Age For Marriage [Yemen Times]
Concert Became Courageous Manifestation Against Terrorism [Freemuse]

• We were so into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and their Yearning For Zion Ranch, where girls in their early teens get married off to gross molesty old men with multiple other wives, none of whom are allowed to wear red because that's Jesus' color.
  
• Are those teens better, or worse off than the brave 8-year-old Yemeni girl name Nojoud Muhammed Nasser who was married off by her crazy homeless father, but has now successfully filed for divorce.
  
• A study in contrasts: the marriage of Nojoud Muhammed Nasser versus the insane Southern belles of MTV's True Life who call themselves "old maids" at age 24.

• OMG I almost forgot about that Australian father and daughter who fuck and have babies. Oh ew.
• Can't some people just have a nice, normal wedding that doesn't involve incest, polygamy, statutory rape, fake boobs or Botox?
• Mommablogger Dooce appears to be a fairly reasonable person whose wedding probably didn't involve any of those things.
• Karl Lagerfeld hates Dooce's kid, though. Actually he hates all children. And also fat people!
• You know who probably had kind of shitty moms? Those horrid teenage cheerleader bitches who beat the living hell out of their friend and may now face life in prison.
• So make a bonfire out of Cosmo's "Sexy" issue, and rip off that bandanna you've been wearing. Let it all hang out this weekend!

I can only hope the newspaper can monetize some of that traffic and get reporter Hamed Thabet a raise.

Noujoud Nasser's is not an unusual case in Yemen, where poor people — and most are poor — often sell their kids to old pervs to make ends meet; in Nasser's case her dad went a little crazy after losing his job as a garbage truck driver and being forced to beg for a living. But Nasser is the first minor to go to court herself to ask for a divorce; her family members didn't dare. Nasser's husband and dad have both been arrested — though the dad has since been released — which may be why Yemen isn't the worst place to be a woman, though it does rank 138th out of 140 on a list of Best to Worst places to be a mother. (Niger and Sierra Leone are worse.)

In other Yemeni news, a branch of Al Qaeda took credit for bombing an expatriate compound in the capital city of Sanaa, so ambassador Tom Krajeski evacuated the nonessential staff.

For the First Time In Yemen, Eight Year Old Girl Asks For Divorce [Yemen Times]
Related: Early Marriage Hampering Country's Development
Earlier: The Ground Rules For Wifebeating, Brought To You By The Yemen Times

According to them, women should complain to the courts about any type of violence against them. Likewise, should fathers and brothers complain to police if their daughters or sisters violate moral, Islamic or social norms?

Well we found this in a "counterpoint" to a column he wrote last fall about whether men and women have equal "right" to be jealous:

One day, I argued with a Christian friend about jealousy. He told me that in their Bible there is nothing called jealousy, because it is regarded as a bad feature, bringing many problems. He justified that if there was confidence between husbands and wives, there would be no need for jealousy at all. I think, that dear friend, has a difficulty to differentiate between jealousy and suspicion.
Hence, we can say, a little of 'soft' jealousy isn't a danger. Instead, as it is known, jealousy is related with love. I mean, wherever love exists, jealousy also exists. In my opinion, moreover, it is an evidence of love.

Op-Ed Columnist: Domestic Violence Is Necessary [Mediabistro]