Les Enfants X - The Sous X Law

From the Independent:

The rights of a child to know its parents are written into international law, but in France that doesn't mean very much.

Here is one of the few countries in Europe where children can be born without officially having any parents. The result is generations of Les Enfants X, and enough sorrow to fill the Seine.

The roots of the tradition of women having the right to give birth in secret lie deep in French history. The practice was codified during the Revolution, which introduced the principle that abandoned infants would become charges of the state, or pupilles de l'état.

For most of its history, the law has been aimed at shielding the mothers of illegitimate children, and at discouraging infanticide, abortion and the use of any sort of contraceptive practice.

Farewell Cha Cha

From Christian Post:

Annette Charles, best known for her role as Cha Cha DiGregorio in “Grease,” has died at the age of 63. Her death comes just two months after “Grease” star Jeff Conaway died of an overdose at the age of 60.

Charles’s character Cha Cha was girlfriend of the T-Birds rival gang The Scorpions. Conaway’s character Kenickie was second in command to leader of the T-Birds Danny Zuko, played by John Travolta.

In a move to spark jealousy, Conaway’s character Kenicki takes Charles’s character Cha Cha to Rydell High’s school dance. Charles most memorable scene, however, was her sultry dance with co-star Travolta.

In addition to her role in “Grease,” Charles appeared on various television shows throughout the 1970’s and 80’s, including “The Mod Squad”, “Bonanza”, “Magnum P.I.”, “Baranby Jones”, “The Incredible Hulk”, and "The Bionic Woman.”

Real Downton Abbey

From the Mail Online:

To the young men who lay in their hospital beds, badly wounded, burned and traumatised by the horror of the trenches, she appeared almost like an angel.

Dressed in nurse’s whites, petite and strikingly beautiful, Almina tenderly cared for the Army officers and pilots, solicitously smoothing their bed covers, cleaning and dressing their wounds, and giving orders to the nurses under her command.

But this was no ordinary military hospital — and she was no ordinary matron. In fact, she had no medical training at all.

But Almina, the Countess of Carnarvon and chatelaine of Highclere Castle in Hampshire, was not one to be deflected by such details...

But even Oscar-winning scriptwriter Julian Fellowes would be hard-pressed to surpass the familial intrigues and suppressed scandals of the Carnarvons, the castle’s actual inhabitants, at the time that the new series is set.

At the heart of these events was the beautiful, charismatic — but mercurial — Almina, whose immense wealth subsidised the castle’s upkeep. It had been her idea to turn Highclere into a wartime hospital, but sadly Almina’s extravagance was ultimately to be her undoing.

The Missing 400 Roswell Women

From 11 Alive:

This is the 150th year since the beginning of the American Civil War. So much conflict history surrounds Atlanta and North Georgia.

Just down the road from a myriad of strip shopping centers in Atlanta and Roswell is a story of unimaginable suffering.

The Allenbrook residence in Roswell, owned by the family of Roswell King, served as the home of the Ivy Woolen Mills Superintendant.

In 1864, the mills were churning out 191,000 yards of cloth and 30,000 yards of "Roswell grey" uniforms made by hundreds of white and black women.

General Sherman ordered General Gerrard to arrest the 400 women and their 300 children and charge them with treason, he said " let them foot it."

The Union soldiers rounded up the southern women and quarantined them in Roswell's Square until early August. Then they marched with children in tow 10 miles to Marietta.

In Cobb County, women and children were put on railcars shipped north of the Ohio River with nine days of rations and dumped.

Many died, many were never seen again.

A Quiet Revolution

Review by Abbas Jaffer is Associate Editor of Altmuslimah:

The question of what Muslim women’s veiling means in America is a highly politicized, often antagonistic debate on television and in the public sphere. Provocative coverage has appeared innumerable times, including a NPR feature as well as a New York Times piece earlier this year. Altmuslimah has also published a number of articles, including “The politics of fashion,” and a series about women who have chosen to take off the veil (Part 1, Part 2). More recent journalistic and academic discussions have certainly been more nuanced and multifaceted than they previously were.

Leila Ahmed’s A Quiet Revolution is both an important and thought-provoking look at the rising visibility of veiling amongst Muslim women. What lies within is a history of the veil and its political meanings from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Ahmed consciously confronts some of her own preconceptions about what this phenomenon means, how wearing hijab rose to prominence amongst Muslim women in mid-century Egypt, and the ways in which this movement traveled and developed in the United States.

Instead of finding a history of modern veiling that reconciled with her previous thought, Leila Ahmed readily admits complicating her view upon undertaking research for this book.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf - Obstacles in Liberia

From Voice of America:

Liberian voters made history five years ago by electing Africa's first female president. But as Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf runs for re-election, voters will find few female candidates on ballots for other posts.

Liberia's Elections Commission is encouraging more women to run for elected office in a country where they make up less than 15 percent of the legislature.

Elections Commission trainers have met with women across Liberia about standing as party candidates for local and national office. Elections Commission chairman James Fromayan says the first obstacle is often political parties themselves.

“We try the best we can to appeal to political parties to begin with at the regular meetings with those parties to encourage women participation in the party at the executive committee level," he said. "You can't have an executive committee of sometimes 30 persons and just about two women. That is just not proper.”

Lifting The Veil of the Forbidden City

From Xinhuanet:

Beijing's Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, is steeped in history, dreams and tears, which are perfectly reflected in Ah! The Forbidden City.

Li Shaobai's photos and Jiang Guofang's paintings, in the book published in English by the Foreign Languages Press, are both easy on the eye and provide food for though

Painter Jiang, meanwhile, tries to revive the lives of the former inhabitants of the Forbidden City on canvas, getting into the minds of these historical figures.

Jiang also has an eye for pretty palace women, including the empress, concubines and princesses. Although they dressed in gorgeous clothes and ate delicious food, they were spiritually bereft. With so many women serving one man, few of them had the chance to be with the emperor. Their rooms were often empty and perhaps the high walls and deep courtyards were like gilded cages to them.

Female Afghan Police Officers

From Bloomberg:

The U.S. is helping recruit and train thousands of women for Afghanistan’s police and army, even as officials seek a peace agreement that might return some power to their former tormentors, the Taliban.

Some 1,200 women serve in Afghanistan’s national police and 320 in the army. More than 50 have graduated from the military’s officer candidate school and another course is under way. Four female second lieutenants from the army arrived in the U.S. last month to train as helicopter pilots.

This increasing return of women into Afghanistan’s leadership and security forces is at risk as the Obama administration steps up its drive for a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban to speed the U.S. military exit.

Patricia Longinette

From St Louis Today:

Before Patricia Longinette joined in 1951, the St. Louis Police Department was a man's world.

The department had been hiring "policewomen" since 1916. But they weren't allowed to carry a gun or badge or make arrests.

Mrs. Longinette — then Patricia Murphy — and six other women who graduated from the Police Academy with her became the first female officers with the same authority as men.

Patricia Longinette died Tuesday (Aug. 2, 2011) at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur after a respiratory illness. She was 81 and had lived in Bridgeton.

She was one of the first female officers assigned to the traffic and vice divisions.

The old Globe-Democrat ran a feature story on Mrs. Longinette under the headline: "She carries a gun, but she's just another working girl." One photo showed her vacuuming the rug in her home.

She married a police officer and retired from the department in 1959 after having three children. She later had a fourth child, was divorced and took up teaching. She retired from the old All Souls Catholic School in Overland in 1993 and kept in touch with the surviving members of that first class of women.