2,501 Migrants: A Journey, a documentary film by Yolanda Cruz, looks at global migration through the eyes of Oaxacan artist, Alejandro Santiago. Available on DVD September 14.

Charlene Strong promotes marriage equality in the documentary “For My Wife”
In 2006, Charlene Strong lost her wife of 10 years, Kate Fleming, in a flash flood accident in Seattle, Washington. At the time of Kate’s hospitalization, Charlene was denied the basic right to be by her partner’s side, and was refused dignity and respect following Kate’s passing, as the funeral director dismissed Charlene’s existence in funeral preparations.
Here she is in a clip for the US Census Bureau, telling her story and how the 2010 Census could help gays and lesbians.
Watch and Read …

ARESNIC IN WATER POISONED 77 MILLION BANGLADESHIS
Originally posted on: Jun 20, 2010
DHAKA — Up to 77 million Bangladeshis have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from contaminated drinking water, and even low-level exposure to the poison is not risk-free, The Lancet medical journal reported.
Over the past decade, more than 20 percent of deaths recorded in a study that monitored nearly 12,000 people in the Araihazar district of the capital Dhaka appear to have been caused by arsenic-tainted well water.
By some estimates, between 35 and 77 million people in Bangladesh …

Checking In…Yolanda Cruz

July 20, 2010
This month we check in with the Native Program.  In May of this year, Bird Runningwater, director of Sundance Institute’s Native & Indigenous Program gathered a group of four fellows and three advisors in the beautiful lands of the Mescalero-Apache people in New Mexico.
Bird explains the lab in this way: “In Apache we refer to life’s journey as Nda’i bijuuł sia’, which speaks to “life’s living circle.”  The Native Program at Sundance Institute is also a part of a circle: one that begins with a filmmaker’s own point …

Yolanda Cruz: Reel Chatino Women Have Nerve
By: Olga García Echeverría
I’m not really sure if real women have to have curves (I know some flacas who are pretty chingonas), but in my opinion female filmmakers, especially indigenous female filmmakers like Yolanda Cruz, have to have a lot of nerve.
Film, afterall, has traditionally been a male-dominated field, and when we consider the historical representations of indigenous people in the media, such as the stereotypical savage or the noble indian, we can appreciate the challenges faced by contemporary filmmakers like Cruz.
Yolanda, though, isn’t …

By: Associated Press
August 11th
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in the capital, though its decision does not force those states to begin marrying gay couples in their territory.
In a 9-2 decision, the tribunal cited an article of the constitution requiring states to recognize legal contracts drawn up elsewhere.
It did not specify what degree of recognition must be granted to same-sex couples.
Read On.

My Fellow Conservatives, Think Carefully About Your Opposition to Gay Marriage
By Margaret Hoover
Published August 10, 2010
As a conservative Republican representing the next generation of attitudes towards gays and lesbians, I encouraged the readers of FoxNews.com last January to take a careful look at the arguments and evidence in the Prop 8 trial, Perry v. Schwarzenegger.
The case was presented by a constitutional conservative, Ted Olson, who helped found the Federalist Society, successfully argued Bush v. Gore to the Supreme Court (among fifty-five other cases), and was George W. Bush’s Solicitor General. Working with …

10 August 2010
The American Bar Association, the nation’s leading legal organization, today passed the following resolution:
“RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges state, territorial, and tribal governments to eliminate all of their legal barriers to civil marriage between two persons of the same sex who are otherwise eligible to marry.”
“With this action, the American Bar Association has affirmed the principles upon which this nation was founded—that every American is vested with certain inalienable rights and that all Americans are created equal,” said Chad Griffin, Board President of the American Foundation …

Is There Really a “Fight” for Gay Marriage?
By Vanessa Carmichael
August 9th, 2010
Celebration is indeed in order. The health of our society, our democracy, hinges on equality, not just for some but for all. However, the ink isn’t even dry on Judge Walker’s decision to undo the wrong passed by California voters and already we’re onto how weak Obama and Democrats are on gay marriage.
Obama may have brought this one on himself. There was really no need to rain on the gay marriage parade with a statement about not supporting gay …

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WATER WARS:
WHEN DROUGHT, FLOOD AND GREED COLLIDE

The Struggle ‘With’ Water and ‘For’ Water Is The Next Big Global Crisis

Available on DVD August 31, 2010
————————————————————————————————————————————————
LOS ANGELES (July 2010) – On July 28th, the United Nations General Assembly declared for the first time that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. This was a historic vote meant to improve quality of life for the nearly one billion people who lack clean drinking water, and the over two-and-a-half billion people who do not …