Thanks Marty
Happy IWD all.
No thanks to mandatory Vaccines. I have to agree with Barbara and Indy on this one.
I heard a talk radio show on
www.cooasttocoastam.com and a woman doctor was speaking out about the dangers of vaccines. I thought it was very informative and well done.
On a side note received word about a Canadian documentary on Women in Guatemala....
A Canadian filmmaker is hoping to spark a campaign of international pressure against the government of Guatemala with a new film about the murders of women and girls in that country.
Giselle Portenier's film Killer's Paradise, a co-production of the National Film Board of Canada and the BBC, gets its North American premiere Thursday in Toronto on International Women's Day.
Women and children talk about the murder of their loved ones in scene from the film Killer's Paradise by Giselle Portenier.
(National Film Board/Rodrigo Apt/Canadian Press)
The film tells the story of several rape-murders in Guatemala and highlights how that country's culture is contributing to a sky-high murder rate. There were 665 women murdered in Guatemala in 2005 - 10 times the rate in Britain - and no one was charged for any of the crimes. "The very first case of 2007 was a seven-year-old girl sent to the store by her mother to buy diapers - she was raped, murdered and beheaded, and her body was left in full sight," Portenier said in an interview with CBC Television. "There is a culture of impunity in Guatemala."
The film opens with the murder of a young mother as she walked down the street with her children, and her husband's stunned reaction as he said, "It is the fashion in this country, in this day and age, to kill women." Killer's Paradise goes on to document several other horrific rape-murders, all of them unsolved. Police and government authorities refuse to investigate, to take DNA samples or to prosecute those involved, Portenier shows in the film.
The high levels of violence against women are in part a legacy of Guatemala's decades-long civil war, but also a peril of its macho culture, she said. "They were taught to see women as the enemy; it was a deliberate strategy by the military to rape, torture and kill women, and no one was brought to justice for any of that," she said, adding that she expects nothing will change without international pressure. Portenier met with the Guatemalan president during the filming, but he left the interview without addressing her concerns.
"There is such a culture of indifference. They just don't care very much," she said. Portenier is a filmmaker and journalist who has created hard-hitting human rights documentaries such as Murder in Purdah and Israel's Secret Weapon. Human rights worker Norma Cruz, grieving father-turned-activist Jorge Velasquez and aspiring lawyer Maria Elena Peralta, whose sister was murdered, are part of a panel that will discuss the issue at the premiere.
Amnesty International is kicking off a letter-writing campaign in conjunction with the documentary.
AmbergrisCaye.com 
