Atlanta Woman Uses Taser Gun to Help Officer in Distress

Wow, a woman actually helping the police! She is definitely a hero in our book. Her name is Tanisha Cross and she is from Atlanta, GA.

Tanisha, a 20-year-old-mother, had gotten a stun gun from her husband for Christmas last year and she sure put it to good use last Sunday!

She was with her mother in a car headed toward Wal-Mart when they saw a police officer in distress. She told her mother to pull over so they could try to help him. There were spectators all around, but no one was helping the officer whose radio had been taken away from him and he somehow was sprayed with pepper spray by the attacker. She ran to her baby's diaper bag and got out her stun gun. She asked the officer if she could help and he said "Yea". Tanisha went ahead and stunned the attacker in his arms and legs. The officer was able to regain his composure and fight back until a security guard came to help.

Tanisha mentioned that she was just doing the right thing and that she was glad that the attacker was not able to take the officer's gun!

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act - SIGNED!

President Obama just signed this morning the bill that protects everyone from pay discrimination. A BIG step for WOMEN and minorities! History has been made today.

The following information is from the White House Blog:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will restore the law to where it was before the Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Justice Ginsberg's dissent summarizes the facts of Ledbetter's complaint:

Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her retirement in 1998. For most of those years, she worked as an area manager, a position largely occupied by men. Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work. Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers with equal or less seniority. By the end of 1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236.

The Court ruled that employees subject to pay discrimination like Lilly Ledbetter must file a claim within 180 days of the employer's original decision to pay them less -- even if the employee continued to receive reduced paychecks and even if the employee did not discover the discriminatory reduction in pay until much later (check out Justice Alito's arguments in the Court's opinion). Restoring these rules means that complaints can be filed 180 days after any discriminatory paycheck.

Press Release: Is Human Isolation Causing Alaska's Rape Epidemic?

According to the FBI, Alaska's reported forcible rapes per capita were two and a half times the national average. It also mentioned that Alaska has been the leading state with this crime statistic for many years.

Indian Beach, NC January 27, 2009. It is a well-known fact that this country has a problem with rape and domestic violence incidences. With Alaska being the leader in statistics, it's no wonder that Americans are asking what could cause a state to have such high figures in sexual assault. This is also the reason why WomenOnGuard.com, a self defense products website, picked Anchorage Alaska for their monthly pepper spray donation recipient.

Susan Eaton, co-owner of the WomenOnGuard.com, stated, "For years women and men have always been extra cautious about violent crime in big cities or urban areas. This has been a topic of many discussions. If a person lives in a very populated area, they should take extra precautions. We've heard that women, especially, are at risk of being raped or sexually violated in large cities and that they should take precautionary steps to avoid becoming a victim." But Alaska does not fall into this category or assumption. Alaska's population is small and dispersed throughout a state that has more land than half the size of the continental United States. Yet rape exists in epidemic proportions in Alaska.

It is well known that men outnumber women in Alaska. This could be a factor that might determine the higher numbers in rapes or domestic violence. There are a lot of dark winter months in Alaska, which could facilitate violators to commit sexual assault without getting caught by authorities. There are also more lonely men, since men outnumber the women in Alaska. These and some other factors could be the reasons for Alaska's high sexual assault ratings.

"There is one reason, though, that might actually be the main reason for these statistics and this is the isolation of humans in Alaska", Susan stated. This is a good point; with so much vast territory people are very isolated from each other. Alaska has many small villages besides the large city of Anchorage. It has been known for years now that small towns or villages are famous for hiding crime committed by their own members. So and so is related to this person or the other and to be quiet about such things is the law in small towns. Many of these small-populated areas are very conservative and consider crimes such as domestic violence, taboo. They consider these types of acts as personal and certainly not open to public scrutiny. Many sexual assailants get away with their violent crime while the victim has to suffer and hide the truth.

WomenOnGuard.com donated pepper spray this month to Standing Together Against Rape (STAR), in Anchorage, Alaska. STAR's mission is to provide the best quality of crisis intervention, education and advocacy services to victims of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and their families and their community.

WomenOnGuard.com founders Susan Eaton and Martha Z. Martinez want to let women and men know that they can carry a self defense product, no matter where they are. Whether a person is at work, on the streets, at home, in a park, or in a taxicab… they can defend themselves with a personal non-lethal, self defense product. WomenOnGuard.com sells Mace products, pepper spray, stun guns, Taser products, personal alarms and more. Martha states, “We don’t carry guns or knives on our website. We realize that it is possible that if you are carrying a lethal weapon, it could be turned against you. In this case, it is better to be pepper sprayed or Tasered, than to be shot with a bullet from your own gun or stabbed with your own knife.”

The Importance of Property Marking

Some of you might ask what this means. Well, it means literally marking your possessions. Remember when you were a kid and you didn't want any other kid to take your toy? Most of us would place our initials on it with a scratch or a marker. Well that is what I am referring to.

There always have and always will be a thief among us and the best way to deter someone from stealing your stuff is to mark it. Burglars know that they will not be able to resell something that has been marked with an address or name. Police can better identify a stolen item if it has been marked previously by it's owner before a thief got a hold of it.

Of course the best way to mark an item from you home or office is not by using a knife, burning it or using a hammer. We are adults and can use many tools available with which we can mark our valuables. The best place to mark your belongings is obviously underneath or behind the object, so it's not in plain site. If you have an antique piece of furniture for example, you need to be careful where you mark it and if the mark will affect it's value... Marking does not only apply to interior objects, you should also consider marking your outdoor tools like lawnmowers and weed wackers. These types of items are more often stolen than interior belongings and very popular with petty thiefs.

Police say that there are two main types of property marking: the first is known as permanent marking, when you engrave or "punch" your property with your street number and postal code. The second method is making an invisible marking. This is best for antiques or valuable property that would lose value if spoiled by permanent marking. Police usually check stolen property with a special ultra-violet lamp, so an ultra-violet (UV) marking pen should be used. If you use this UV type of marking, you need to know that it will fade with time and it will need to be renewed every so often. Police actually can give you a sticker that reads, "property in this home has been marked". Or you can make one up yourself and place it by your home alarm sticker or anywhere you think would be appropriate. The bad thing about using UV markings though, is that they can be removed with special solvents that can be bought by burglars. But if they do not know the mark is there, they won't know to erase it!

Another way people are keeping track of their home or office things is by using a camera or video recorder. It's a good idea to take a picture or video of these items where they are positioned in your home or office. This will prove that they were within your personal possessions at home or in your place of work.

Lastly, we all know, of course, to keep all our receipts for proof of ownership and you can also write the serial numbers on each receipt if applicable.

National Safety Council wants to ban drivers from using cell phones, PERIOD.

The Council states that drivers using cell phones are as dangerous as drunk drivers. This is hard to believe but when you refer to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis who put these figures out, it kind of makes you think... 6 percent of all crashes are caused by cell phone use which is equivalent to 636,000 crashes, 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths each year, plus a financial cost of $43 billion! I did not know it was this bad! They also mentioned that research is finding that hands-free cell phones have not improved the crashes issue at all. As a matter of fact, hands-free cell phones gives the driver a sense of security and therefore makes them make even more cell phone calls while driving. This is a very serious problem and they aim to ban ALL cell phone use from drivers. The National Safety Council mentioned that it took many years to pass the seat belt laws and drunk driving laws. Some states passed the laws and others eventually followed. The law against cell phone use by drivers might take years but they believe their goal to stop cell phone driver crashes, will happen sooner or later.

Well I don't know if forbidding cell phone use while driving law is going to happen, especially when kids might want to contact a parent picking them up from school, etc... But ANOTHER issue lately against cell phone is something that was talked about years ago and has resurfaced, which is that they may cause brain tumors. Studies are beginning to show up where tumors are appearing near the ear of some patients that use cell phones frequently. Manufacturers have always posted in their manuals to keep cell phones a certain distance from the ear, but most people use the phones right against their ears... This is believed to be worse for children's brains, that are less developed.

Hmmm, makes you think twice before using a cell phone!

WomenOnGuard.com's New Video

The website's latest video was just posted today on YouTube. We are not professionals at making videos, but I think we did a pretty decent job! The voice over was done by Susan who is co-owner. We picked her because she has an authoritative voice. We wanted this video to be taken seriously. Personal self defense is a serious matter and that is the message we wanted the video to project. Check it out! Let us know your opinion.

Sworn in Senator despite being accused of domestic violence

Hiram Monserrate, a former police officer and councilman was sworn in Wednesday to be the new state senator in Albany, N.Y.
He is also under probation and is facing charges for assaulting his girlfriend who had to be taken to the hospital. Monserrate slashed his girlfriend's face with a piece of glass during a jealous rage which result in her needing 25 stitches! It comes to no surprise that his family was there, but of course his girlfriend was absent.

How can a man like this be taking office? I would think the women in Albany would have been up in arms and protesting his new senate position.

If he was sworn in, you have to question, what kind of people are representing us in congress?

Yesterday was a SAD day for women in general and especially for abused women.

FREE shoes anyone?

Some of you ladies would appreciate this story. It seems that commuters driving down an expressway in Miami, Florida, last Friday morning, came across thousands of new shoes laid out all over the highway! There were all kinds of shoes, all sizes and colors.

Can you imagine..? You are driving down the highway when all of sudden you see in the distance, something shining in different colors directly in front of you. As you get closer, you discover that what you are seeing are hundreds of brand spanking new beautiful fashionable shoes, thrown out there just for you to grab. You think, WOW, an opportunity to go shopping for FREE before I get to work today! Now this is the kind of Friday us girls only dream of... An opportunity to pickup some new shoes right before going out the following Saturday night.

I know I would have gotten out of my car and raked some of those babies up myself. But it wasn't too long before authorities came to push the shoes toward the curb and pick them all up. Gosh darn it! Who was the tattle tale who cell phoned the authorities about this treasure?!!!

Oh well, it turns out that the police are going to give them to a charity. So, that's a good thing too.

John Travolta's son dies in Bahamas

This incident is very sad yet even more so that it occurred close to the holidays. John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston's son, Jett Travolta, who was 16, died while having a seizure today. It appears that Jett, the eldest child of Travolta and his wife, had a history of seizures. They were having a family vacation in the Bahamas when this happened.

This summary is from a short article taken from this site.