Oakland Businesses: if you want business to improve, support the movement.

If you feel that you're employees and/or business are being adversely effected by the Occupy Oakland movement send a representative to their nightly general assembly on Broadway and 14th Street in downtown Oakland. Voice your concerns and take notes. Be part of the process and help find solutions.

One suggestion is ask Occupy Oakland to publish the names of businesses who are supporting protests with signs and donations in their Twitter feed and Facebook pages. My guess is that businesses who are willing to publicly support the movement with signage in their windows and announcements on their websites will find more customers than they know what to do with. Go down to the encampment, bring donations and you will find allies, supporters, and lifelong customers. http://sanfrancisco.grubstreet.com/2011/11/camino_closed_today_in_support.html

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The Medusa Myth

Since I decided to go as Medusa this year for Halloween, I thought I should brush up on my Greek myths and not just rely on my memories of the 1981, stop-motion-tastic film Clash of the Titans . In Ovid's rendition, this symbol of female power was once a beautiful, virginal priestess, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," in the temple of Athena. When Poseidon decides he will have her, he "ravishes" (i.e. rapes) her as she prays in temple in front of the altar of Athena. The goddess Athena punishes Medusa's transgression by causing snakes to grow out of her head, tearing their way through her scalp to take the place of her much admired hair. Athena gives Medusa boar's tusks and turns her skin to scales. (The myth doesn't mention how Athena takes vengeance on Poseidon.) After this torturous transformation Medusa is banished to the island of Cristhene, off the coast of Ethiopia in the Red Sea. In exile she is pursued as she ...

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her body politik

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