SCANTIES AND KNICKERS AND PANTIES… OH MY…!
0600 by Jeff Hess[Update—1246—This from Sweetness & Light: The manoeuvre is a calculated insult to the junta and its leader, General Than Shwe. Superstitious junta members believe that any contact with female undergarments—clean or dirty—will sap them of their power, said Jackie Pollack, a member of the Lanna Action for Burma Committee.
“Not only are they brutal, but they are also very superstitious. They believe that touching a woman”s pants or sarong will make them lose their strength,” Ms Pollack told Guardian Unlimited.]
Others simply died. Of how many places in the World can this be said? Are there too many to comprehend? Do our minds seize and go blank because no human can grasp the immensity of the horror? Rabbi Tarfon (in Pirke Avot 2:16) teaches: It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work; yet, you are not free to desist from it. Don”t turn away.
Since the administration of President George Bush has shown the effectiveness of women’s panties in breaking the will of fanatics, this protest from Southeast Asian women is ingenious.
Women in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies in a culturally insulting gesture of protest against the recent brutal crackdown there, a campaign supporter said Friday.
“It’s an extremely strong message in Burmese and in all Southeast Asian culture,” said Liz Hilton, who supports an activist group that launched the “Panties for Peace” drive earlier this week.
The group, Lanna Action for Burma, says the country’s superstitious generals, especially junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, also believe that contact with women’s underwear saps them of power.
To widespread international condemnation, the military in Myanmar, also known as Burma, crushed mass anti-regime demonstrations recently and continues to hunt down and imprison those who took part.
Hilton said women in Thailand, Australia, Singapore, England and other European countries have started sending or delivering their underwear to Myanmar missions following informal coordination among activist organizations and individuals.
“You can post, deliver or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy any day from today. Send early, send often!” the Lanna Action for Burma Web site urges.
Here in the United States, send those panties to:
General Than Shwe
Union of Myanmar Embassy
2300 S Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
And just for fun, here’s some more contact information:
Phone: 202.332.9044, 332.9045 and 332.9049
Fax: 202.332.9046
Email: thuriya@aol.com
(My gawd, I never realized how backward the Junta is; it uses AOL?)
Come on ladies; bury the bastards under intimate fabrics!
This is a chance to see if anybody out there is actually reading Have Coffee Will Write.
Tomorrow I’m going to set up a collection box on my table at the Lee Road Phoenix to collect panties to ship to the embassy in Washington. I’ll be there most of the day starting at 7 a.m.
I’ll box everything up and ship them off on Monday morning.
Stop by and donate.
[Update—0723—The following bloggers have picked up the meme. Thank you very much.
Jill Miller Zimon: Help Burma: send panties for Junta panty raid and Think globally, act locally: panty raid in Myanmar
Sherry Chandler: Panties for Peace
Molly Danzinger: try these on for size, you bastards
Kathie Bracy: Panties for Peace — Let’s go, ladies!
Attention bloggers, if you do pick up the meme, please drop me an email since Technorati and trackbacks can be slow at times.]
My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. 
I’m doing my best to stay on top of events in 
I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is 
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: 
In a few weeks 
