I am extremely thrilled with the genuine heart and actions of Ms. Judd as well as those who are selfless enough to take on the injustices around the world. However, I have a question to pose that may not be received well …………… Have any of you seen the cover of New Yorker Magazine today? How can we ever come together as a global community when we are inundated with visual messages of hate and fear-mongering from National Media Outlets?

A particularly visual and beautiful entry. Devastatingly sad. I keep reading on this site about all these cultures of women that I knew tiny bits about before coming to wow. I think I’m going to start giving money to one of the global women’s groups. anyone know which ones are solidly legit?

oh and has anyone from wow noticed all the spam from the sex site morons? where’s our delete-ing person?

Kelly, I am with you. We need to find legit global women’s groups to which we can contribute. What distresses me the most is the brutality these women have to endure.I thank our creator, also, that I wasn’t born in that horrible place on earth. Again, as in Iran, many women will have to die before the women can rise up and take these cultures of women to a brighter future. I want to help.

Physical security is the basis for all other human rights. Until you have people who are willing to enforce the rule of law - nothing will change. Russia and China, on the UN security counsel, have vetoed action in Zimbabwe. Chaos in Sudan and Zimbabwe WORKS for China and Russia. They gain more power with more chaos in these areas. McCain wants to create a League of Democracies, where tyrant states like Syria won’t be allowed on sensitive committees to veto constructive plans. Without moral agents in charge, the chaos will continue. As much as I admire Ashley Judd for telling this story, what will change now when the organizational forces are resistant to the very changes she and the rest of us want? As always, not much, and the women and children suffer the most. We have to pull the rug out from under the regimes and the enablers at the UN that make the rule of law impossible. There are forces and organizations willing to do this, but the UN will not allow them to steal the limelight, and embarrass the UN with their effectiveness. Civilization has always had this problem - when the corrupt rule, the weak suffer. The UN is a major enabler of tyrannical governments.

When an entry from Ashley Judd’s diaries appears here, I want to take some time to read and digest it thoroughly. Sometimes that means waiting several days or a week. But the wait is important. Of the many pieces of information that struck me in Ashley’s latest entry, two stood out. First, that the epidemic of rape, which began as a weapon of war, has now become a cultural norm. And, second, that the programs that are attempting to help control the spread of malaria are about to run out of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets. As the NGOs struggle with these challenges, for the most part the First World stands idly by, paying little attention to destruction of whole peoples, through heinous criminal acts or by debilitating disease. I can’t imagine what life is like for a woman in these circumstances, and for that I am ashamed. Once again, Ashley, thank you for confronting us with descriptions, images and facts that should be seared into our consciousnesses and must cause us to take whatever action we can.