Jewelz & Foolz 2012: The Day After International Women’s Day.

I spend most of my International Women’s Days focused on second and third world women, as that is where the greatest struggle is.  This year I found myself thinking of first world women as well as first world American men have been trying to pass laws to force women to have probes inserted into our vaginas against our will?!?!? Even writing that sentence just now does not make it feel any more believable?!?

Were you kind to women yesterday?  This being the day after International Women’s Day this is my fourth annual naming of Jewelz & Foolz.  My first three postings can be found here:

2011: Jewelz & Foolz March 2011

2010: Jewelz & Foolz March 2010

2009: Jewelz & Foolz March 2009

So, what are you ask?

Both are groups of men. The former, Jewelz , are men who I would like to share a glass of wine, a beer or a cocktail with today, pick their brains, get to know their hearts and maybe flirt with them, just for one day, on the day after International Women’s Day.

Then there are Foolz, not the harmless kind, but instead men who’s judgment at the present time makes them not good for womankind.

And yes, for the majority of people, sociopaths excluded, Foolz can become Jewelz and vice versa.

In this fourth annual offering of my Jewelz and Foolz column, I offer 31 Jewelz and 10 Foolz for your consideration (in no particular order) .

 

The Fukushima Fifty

In the days immediately following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan it was estimated that fifty faceless souls were working in the damaged nuclear plant.  While I imagine the number of exposed Fukushima Daiichi workers has far exceeded fifty by now(given radiation exposure limits) and I am only assuming given gender norms in Japan that the workers are all men, I think they are unspeakably brave souls so I had to mention them.

President Barack Obama

For bringing the troops home from Iraq, sending US troops to Uganda to hopefully help bring Joseph Kony to justice, axing the proposed pipeline route through Nebraska, finding Osama bin Laden, making me laugh when you said we had asked Iran for our drone back and going into Libya, in the spirit of R2P.

Alexei Navalny

For your anti-corruption work in Russia which desperately needs an Arab Spring.  Despite Vladimir Putin's return after election fraud, I do not believe he will be in charge six years from bow.  Social media will make his life difficult.  His sins will not be as easily hidden this time around and the economy will bite him in the ass.  Maybe you will be in the government six years from now?

Stephen Colbert

For “Stephen Colbert’s” brilliant interviews of his guests.

 

 

 

 

 

Ali Ferzat

For your talented and courageous cartoons in Syria.   Last August, Mr. Ferzat was attacked by some of Bashir al-Assad’s thugs including the breaking of this talented cartoonists hands.

I wish you well Sir and I pray for a free Syria!

 

The Father of Randy Phillips

US soldier Randy Phillips came out to his dad on You Tube and his father responded with love. 

I still love you and I always will.  No matter what. … I am very proud of you …I will always love you.

 

Tony Dovolani

For being a fabulously supportive pro dance partner when Chynna Phillips lost track of the choreography and completely panicked on live TV.

 

Ty Burrell and Danny Zuker

   For making me laugh on February 29.2012 with your portrayal of Phil Dunphy and your writing of Modern Family’s Leap Day episode.  It concerned a female topic matter that I did not think would make me laugh…and you did.  I even rewound Phil’s emotional meltdown on my DVR (yes, I now finally own one and as I feared record way too much TV)  to laugh a second time.  (PS.  I am a new viewer.  No, I have not been living under a rock)

Nick Dorken

For pulling an unconscious man from a burning vehicle in Fort Myers after it had jumped the curb and crashed into a light pole knocking the driver unconscious.  Nick, a firefighter, was on holiday in Florida with his wife and daughter and is from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Mehmet Oz

For standing up to the FDA on the arsenic issue and for trying to educate and empower the masses, a day at a time, about their bodies and their health.

 

“Leave Her Alone” Guy

For protecting me from being ??mugged a week ago.  I was walking in a reasonable area reasonably late at night and suddenly I heard this guy yell “Leave her alone!”

I turned and realized he was looking at me!!  I turned the other direction and by that time there was a guy standing RIGHT NEXT to me, like as close as your boyfriend would…when he is about to kiss you close!!  My guess, after the fact was he was an active drug addict AND just a bad guy.  I tried to remain completely calm and pretend I was not afraid. When I casually stepped back in the direction I had come from he stepped the forfeited distance right next to me again.

My protector had called from inside his car.  He was now stepping out of it.   I just casually walked onto the road as if I knew the guy in the car.  Scary dude left not too long after.  My white knight asked if I was okay.  I thanked him and left after catching my breath.  I was a little shaken so I forgot to ask him his name.  He drove a beautiful black sporty looking car.  If I was a guy, I might know what kind of car it was…but I do not.  Thank you again “Leave Her Alone! Guy”.

Anna Hazare

For his anticorruption CRUSADE in 2011  in an attempt to gain a powerful anti-corruption watchdog for India.

 

 

 

Steven O' Riordan

For his documentary The Forgotten Maggies.

The documentary focuses on the human rights violations of the Magdalene Laundries including how the Irish State and Church kept these women against their will.  These laundries continued until 1996!! This film was launched at the Galway Film Festival in 2009.  Time to speak up Minister of Justice Alan Shatter!

Survivor Vid: Magdalene Laundries Survivors Together Campaign

David Andrews

For reminding all of us to look beyond the label of disabled because hidden talent can live in the places we fail to look and for teaching us that a disabled life is just as valuable as an abled life.  If I was near Germantown High School outside of Memphis Tennessee I would come see your Red Devils play.

 

Heniz Ward

For the way he partnered Kim Johnston during their Monday May 16, 2011 Argentine Tango performance after her frightening neck injury the previous Friday. As a long time dancer myself, I felt sick to my stomach when I saw her injury.  And as a woman, may I say that the emotion he displayed after the fact showed his heart to be one of a very sexy man.

Todd Allen

For foreclosing on a branch of Bank of America in Florida after the branch foreclosed on a couple who did not have a mortgage with them (the couple in question had paid cash to buy their house from Bank of America). You are a rock star!

Garet Hill

                                                     For founding the National Kidney Registry.  The brother of one of my best friends is dying of kidney disease and waiting for a  transplant.  It is not looking good.

 

 

Latif Hyderi

For fighting for justice and speaking the truth against his niece Tooba Yahya Mohammad, her husband Mohammad Shafia and their son Hamed which helped convict the three of dishonour killing three of Tooba Yahya’s daughters (Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia) and her husband’s first wife (Rona Amir Mohammad) in Kingston, ON, Canada .  Sadly family and friends have ostracized this hero in response. 

No matter what they think — even if they consider me an enemy — I tell the truth and nothing else.

My duty was to oppose the crime and stand up for reality. In that, I have God with me and I felt it was right.

Sir, you did the right thing.  What they did was Haraam!

 

Robert Casteel

For protecting his son and obtaining a temporary restraining order against a child in his son’s 4th grade class who brought a knife to school pulled it on his son and threatened to get him after school. 

If we dealt with children who need support when they are younger and their problems are smaller, we would be much better off as a society.

 

SEAL Team 6

                                  For bringing aid worker Jessica Buchanan home safely.

 

 

Mark Lindquist

For being a Joplin Tornado hero when he rushed to try and save three disabled adults in the group home where he worked.  The 200 mph winds carried him a city block left him impaled in rubble and in a coma.  Sacrificing your own safety for that of three disabled adults was selfless and brave.  You are a hero Sir.  

Sandor Feher

For helping crying children into their lifejackets aboard the Costa Concordia before returning to his cabin to get his prized violin.  Mr. Feher, a Hungarian violinist, was the first identified victim of the cruise ship disaster.

Mr. Feher, those children’s mothers are grateful.

Thomas G. Slama

For championing, as President of The Infectious Diseases Society of America, the fight for DESPARATELY needed new antibiotics.

 

 

John McCain

For calling for action in Syria. 

 

 

 

 

By no rational calculation should this uprising against Assad still be going on. The Syrian people are outmatched. They are outgunned. They are lacking for food, and water, and other basic needs. They are confronting a regime whose disregard for human dignity and capacity for sheer savagery is limitless. For an entire year, the Syrian people have faced death, and those unspeakable things worse than death, and still they have not given up. Still they take to the streets to protest peacefully for justice. Still they carry on their fight. And they do so on behalf of many of the same universal values we share, and many of the same interests as well.

These people are our allies. They want many of the same things we do. They have expanded the boundaries of what everyone thought was possible in Syria. They have earned our respect, and now they need our support to finish what they started. The Syrian people deserve to succeed, and shame on us if we fail to help them.

You are right Sir and I pray the international community forgoes the usual non-action and excuses on Syria

 

Paolo Macchiarini

For the world’s first successful transplantation of a synthetic tissue engineered windpipe coated with stem cells.  This surgery will tremendously impact patients in dire need of organ transplants.

Warren Buffet

For calling out the inherent unfairness of his paying  lower tax rate than his secretary.  For giving us the Warren Buffet Rule and for endorsing the Buffet Rule Bill or the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012. The bill would turn the principle behind the Buffett Rule into a rule of the U.S. tax code, requiring that all households with incomes above $1 million pay at least a 30 percent minimum tax rate.

 

Steve Moore

For sueing Todd Bertuzzi for the head assault that knocked him unconscious, broke vertebrae and ended his career… in his rookie year.  Bertuzzi should have faced criminal charges.  This civil case will finally go before the court in the Fall of 2012, over eight years after the assault .  Hockey has dirty laundry that needs aired and no one seems to have the balls to air it, let alone fix it.  Head injuries both youth and adult are an increasingly important topic.  Please don't settle.  This case needs to play out for the good of hockey in the long run.

 

Chris Powell

                                                                                                       For helping the obese and morbidly obese which takes special skills and heart.

 

 

 

 

Thompson Egbo-Egbo

For his Thompson T. Egbo-Egbo Arts Foundation that offers children of all social and economic circumstances the opportunity to experience the benefits of music.

 

 

Paul Martin

For using his power as a former Prime Minster to fight for equal funding for aboriginal students.

 

 

And then there were:

 

George W. Bush

For the Iraq War.  For 4,487 American soldier deaths. For 32,226 wounded American soldiers.  For $712 billion dollars spent.  For 105,000 to 115,000  Iraqi deaths.

 

Dr. Robert Nelson

For the way he treated Diane Sawyer when she asked him a reasonable and very important question about the overprescribing of antipsychotic meds to foster children.   According to experts, there is no evidence to support the concurrent use of five or more psychotropic drugs in adults or children so why are hundreds of both foster and nonfoster children in the five selected states Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas on such a drug regimen? Given that your job centers on the highest ethical standards surrounding children and medicine, I would not have expected that from you.

Mark Zuckerberg

Sage…just you just call a 27 year old multi-billionaire a fool.  Yes.  Yes, I did.

For saying:

That will be a fight we take on at some point

when he told a reporter at an education summit that he is determined to challenge the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act because it prohibits Facebook from signing up children under 13 without parental approval.

Children cannot cognitively understand what they would be consenting to so they should not have a digital tattoo.  If you one day succeed in doing that you will be engaging in abuse of power.

Donald Trump

  For sacrificing his credibility by publicly announcing he was a Birther.

 

 

 

 

 

Arnold Swachenergger

For cheating on your wife with a member of her household staff, fathering a child with her and lying to your wife about it for 10 years… and presumably not being a father to your own child.

 

Fred Alexander

For, as Chairman of the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board, deciding to essentially shut down all school libraries and lay off staff.  Seriously Dude?!?

 

Mike Gallagher

                                                                                                    For calling maternity leave a racket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Francesco Schettino

For abandoning his ship the Costa Concordia near the island of Giglio last August after it struck a reef and capsized.

 

 

Noel Biderman

                                                                                                    For his “Did your wife SCARE you last night” add campaign on his pro-adultery dating site.

 

 

 

Grover Nordquist

For the bad public policy of never raising taxes that is his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge".

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Jobs

                                  For the world of “i”!

Thank you Sir!

 

 

Jack Layton

For his brilliant political campaign that propelled him into Leader of the Official Opposition. 

 

 

Who are presently your ?

Sage Spencer

_______________________________________

Note: This blog entry was originally posted in March 2012 but it seems to have disappeared sometime on March 9.2013. 

Maybe I messed up when blogging a few days ago.  I am posting it again.