Can you imagine how difficult it must be to be transgender in prison? The prison system is a terrible place to be; it’s full of injustice already. And according to Ashley Diamond, it’s even worse for people who are transgender.

Recently, The New York Times featured Diamond’s  frustrating, strong, and sad story about how she’s been/being treated in a Georgia prison. None of the horrible facts of her story are surprising, but that doesn’t make this story any harder to read or report.

Diamond has lived as a woman since she was an adolescent in Rome, Georgia. Before entering the prison system, she had been taking hormones for 17 years.

Diamond was sent to prison in March 2012 for various charges, such as burglary (her main charge), petty criminality, and ultimately, convictions of escape and obstruction of justice. (The last few charges are murky. Diamond and the police have conflicting stories concerning how she incurred those charges.) Ultimately, Diamond could be in prison until November 2023.

Since her first day in prison, Diamond has been defeminized. When she arrived in the Georgia prison, she was “ordered to strip alongside male inmates.” Since the 36-year-old woman entered prison, she has had to deal with the following abuse:

She has been denied her hormone treatment: Luckily, Diamond and other trans inmates recently got a bit of good news about hormone treatment. According to the Time, “Ms. Diamond and, through her, all transgender inmates won the unexpected support of the Justice Department, which intervened on her behalf in the federal lawsuit she filed against Georgia corrections officials in February.”

She has been raped “at least seven times” by inmates.

She has been called a “he-she thing” by prison officials.

She has been put in solitary confinement for “pretending to be a woman.”

All this news has come to light after Diamond filed a lawsuit. Her lawsuit requests the following:

“…Ms. Diamond asks the court to direct prison officials to provide her hormone therapy, to allow her to express her female identity through “grooming, pronoun use and dress,” and to provide her safer housing. She also seeks broader changes in policy and practice.”

I’m saddened that Diamond had to file a lawsuit to just get basic human rights. She should be able to “be” without consequence.

Read more about Diamond’s story here.

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Image: Michael Coghlan

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High-end dining just got a lot higher.

Just when you think going out to eat is losing its magic, these 10 oddly themed restaurants push the envelope and really get you your money’s worth. For some of them, food is secondary to the ambiance, or not even part of the picture. For others, the tastes of the menu items are piqued by the complementary atmosphere. Whatever you’re into – cats, ninjas, or handcuffs – a few of these restaurants are sure to make it to your bucket list.

Yellow Treehouse Café, New Zealand

The Yellow Treehouse offers a unique setting that channels the excitement of your tree-climbing days. Patrons of the restaurant dine in an illuminated pod-shaped structure perched 10-meters high in a Redwood tree. The pod can hold 30 guests at one time. As for the food, it stays grounded – all dishes are fresh, seasonal, and adapt to clients’ needs.

Cabbages & Condoms, Bangkok

As its namesake suggests, the food at Cabbages & Condoms is “guaranteed not to cause pregnancy.” The restaurant was created to support the Population and Community Development Association, an organization that provides sex/AIDS education and awareness. The garden restaurant is an introduction to Thai food – in only the safest way possible – and instead of mint favors on your way out, you’re given a box of condoms.

Calico Cat Café, Tokyo

Imagine going to a café that only serves cat food, but there’s a chance that it’s too crowded to get a seat. The Calico Cat Café in Tokyo is just that popular. The café caters to your love for coddling and feeding cats sans the commitment. Patrons are asked to sanitize their hands and remove their shoes upon entering and to abide by set rules: do not hold or stroke a cat if it resists you, do not wake a napping cat, do not hold cats with scarves around their necks (they are too young), and do not bring cat nip or cat food to the café. For $9 per adorable hour, the café is a bargain. Only, you’ll leave hungry.

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, Maldives

The magical Ithaa Undersea Restaurant is the first of its kind in the world. The restaurant is located 5 meters (16 feet) under water off the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island and serves contemporary Asian-inspired European cuisine. The restaurant is encased in R-Cast acrylic and can host 14 people at one time, offering a 270° panoramic underwater view.

Unsicht-Bar, Cologne and Berlin

Heighten your other senses by taking away one very important one: sight. The Unsicht-Bar, with locations in Cologne and Berlin in Germany, uses the dark to strip patrons of their vision and take them on a culinary adventure that requires they focus more on taste, temperature, texture and smell. All light is forbidden, including that coming from watches and cellphones. The restaurant’s waiters are also either blind or visually impaired. The food, which is described enigmatically to leave an element of surprise, is served in a context-appropriate manner, avoiding a confusion of flavors or a potential mess. The flavors are simple, but profound in that they are enjoyed in an entirely new way – without visual prejudgment.

Ninja New York, New York City

Japanese cuisine just got more interesting. At Ninja New York, diners are wowed, and often at the edge of their seats, with ninjas jumping around, pop rocks on sushi rolls, smoke machine action, magicians, and an overall festive and upbeat atmosphere. The restaurant’s décor aspires to mimic a ninja village from the feudal days, providing patrons with a sense of what it was like back when.

Chill Out, Dubai

As if Dubai has not enough marvels as is, the city offers a unique way to, well, chill out. Chill Out is an architecturally fascinating refrigerator lounge with special lighting and design works that highlight the innovativeness of the frozen structures. Before entering the bar, Patrons are offered thermal clothing – parka, shoes, and gloves – and are then led to the Eskimo oasis. A complimentary mocktail or hot chocolate welcomes you.

Devil Island Prison Restaurant, China

This restaurant was initially conceptualized to scare people from a life of crime. Upon entering this restaurant, patrons are allocated a number, photographed, fingerprinted, and optionally handcuffed. The interior of the restaurant is designed after a prison, with sliding jail doors, metal floors, and rusty iron bars. Patrons dine in a prison cell and are served by waiters dressed in black-and-white striped inmate uniforms. Food includes fried, coffin-shaped bread.

Dinner In The Sky, Worldwide

Suspended 50-meters high by a crane, diners at Dinner in the Sky can host an event practically anywhere. The table is equipped with 22 seats, one chef, one waiter, and one entertainer. Dinner in the Sky operates in more than 15 countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The event can be hosted for up to 8 hours, with the time fragmented – people can come and go at whatever interval of time. As for a bathroom break, have no fear, the crane will lower for relief without interrupting the experience for more than a few minutes.

Marton Theme Restaurant, Taiwan

Originally serving chocolate ice cream in toilet-shaped containers, Marton Theme Restaurant has certainly gained quite the fanfare over the years. There are now Marton restaurants across Taiwan and the company has recently changed the name of its restaurants to “Modern Toilet Restaurant,” all of which offer a full menu that can be enjoyed whilst sitting atop a toilet.

Images: Jeremiah Ro, Meredith P., Carsten Lorenzten, Karendotcom127, Wonder Bus Tours Dubai, Smart Travelers

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A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

1 in 10: number of American inmates who claim to have experienced sexual assault from guards or other inmates while incarcerated

50%: Female farmworkers who reported sexual harassment and assault in a recent Human Rights Watch report

12: new age of admission to the Ottawa Science and Technology Museum’s Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition after numerous complaints, up from 6

3: number of weeks before her marriage a Florida teacher at a Christian elementary school conceived. She is currently suing the school after being fired for engaging in premarital sex.

5: days a British couple in Dubai was held in custody after being arrested for allegedly having sex in the back of a cab

70%: Odds that Raven-Symone is currently in a lesbian relationship, due to entirely unscientific and unsubstantiated reports

The post Sex by Numbers: Big Legal Troubles appeared first on EcoSalon.

In a time of financial, social and ecological challenges, there’s no excuse for the War on Drugs.

Unless you’re a Central-American druglord or have a vested financial interest in the privatized prison complex, you likely agree that the U.S. “War on Drugs” is an unequivocal failure. Since the early ’70s, the federal government has funneled a staggering one trillion dollars into stamping out the drug trade, but by all accounts, the black market for banned substances flourishes, fresh blood spills in brutal trafficking conflicts, and jails burst at the seams with nonviolent offenders.

What if the U.S. decriminalized drugs and put an end to this unwinnable war? In what ways could we usefully redistribute the inconceivable amount of money that would suddenly be freed up? I’m a writer, not a wonk, but my proposals are no more far-fetched than the existing (and embarrassing) status quo. And top narcotics experts agree. From safer streets to healthier people to greener cities, I’d like to offer seven things our tax dollars could do instead of funding the War on Drugs:

1. Treat Addiction as a Public Health Issue.

Tobacco and alcohol are two of the world’s most addictive and deadly substances. The damage to personal and community health far surpasses that of any illicit drug. And yet, the U.S. already tried banning alcohol. Remember Prohibition? It didn’t work. In fact, when alcohol was pushed underground, its profits shot through the roof. Why is it that we still employ prohibition on other substances if it doesn’t work? Instead of criminalizing people strung-out on crack, why not make an investment in public health to cure and rehabilitate our population, rather than further degrading sick people by putting them into a violent, isolating prison system? The Bureau of Prisons reports that the annual cost for treatment from a drug court costs as little as $900, while locking somebody up in a Federal prison runs a hefty $25,000. What would you rather your tax dollars fund?

2. Super-Maximum Skate Parks.

With the mass release of approximately 400,000 drug offenders from America’s federal and state penitentiaries, these facilities would suddenly be empty of inmates. It wouldn’t make sense to let these concrete structures go to waste, so why not transform them into indoor skate-parks? The rails, ramps, and runways come pre-installed. Instead of locking up rebellious youth, let them skate, which can actually reduce crime rates among at-risk kids by providing them with a constructive outlet and bonding opportunities. And, while you’re at it, issue an open invitation for all the graffiti artists to decorate.

3. Mobilize a Green Army.

Currently, we have a $10 billion army executing the drug war. Why not repurpose these forces as an army that’s mobilized to fight the environmental crisis? All the prison guards, border guards, and drug-enforcement agents could be conscripted; these jobs could also be opportunities for rehabilitated addicts to reintegrate into the workforce. Our green service men and women could be doing positive work to “protect our country” as an eco-development mega-army. Instead of buying automatic-weapons and Hummers to battle drug gangs, we could purchase supplies to install solar panels, low-flush toilets, and motion-sensitive light-fixtures. We could build massive wind-turbine fields and organic, permaculture farms. We could construct inner-city urban gardens that produce fresh fruits and vegetables for low-income communities.

4. Get off Your Ass & Groove.

A nation is only as healthy as its body politic. Today, the American people suffer from an epidemic of lifestyle diseases: diabetes, cancer, obesity, heart disease, and more. Our culture is one of too much cheap food and too little physical activity. Instead of throwing good money after bad into the futile war on drugs, what if we were instead creating health-based infrastructures that would promote lifelong wellness? Bike-secure causeways along primary traffic lanes, free bike-share programs to encourage alternative transportation, modern gymnasium facilities within walking distance of major neighborhoods, outdoor swimming pools, public dance halls with free tango lessons, on-site office yoga classes. Too bad we don’t have enough money to implement these sorts of programs; our government is too busy spending hundreds of millions to crop-dust coca farms in Columbia with carcinogenic herbicides.

5. Oxycotin Obstruction.

Prescription drugs like Oxycotin and Vicodin kill more people than all illegal drugs combined. The New York Times reports that legal pharmaceuticals kill three times as many people as illegal drugs. Pharmacies across the country are instituting heavy security to protect their supply (and employees), from desperate, violent addicts. Maybe we could use some drug war loot to create a national registry for prescription drugs, so that people can’t go “doctor shopping?” In many states, there’s no system for stopping an addict from visiting multiple doctors who prescribe multiple prescriptions, which the patient in turn sells on the street for $80 per pill, or else just ingests with abandon until he overdoses. Right now, Governor Jeb Bush is blocking prescription-drug registries in Florida because he thinks they cost too much and are an invasion of privacy. I wonder if political contributions from pharmaceutical companies have anything to do with this?

6. Meditation Mandates.

Imagine for a moment an overcrowded, notoriously violent correctional facility just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. It is filled with rapists, murderers, and other perpetrators of brutal, vicious crimes. The facility is so violence-riddled that an ongoing lawsuit claims conditions here are so dangerous they violate prisoners’ constitutional rights. Wouldn’t you be surprised if one of the inmates here, a man serving life without parole, exudes calm, saying that he claims responsibility for his crime and has cultivated inner peace? He’s not alone. A novel, in-prison intervention program in San Francisco is transforming lives from the inside out through Buddhist group meditation practice hosted several times a week. As a result of this pilot, another life-without-parole inmate says, “I had a lot of anger issues, and this has given me a way to deal with it.” This model could be instituted on a broad scale in prisons and schools for a wide swath of at-risk populations, helping people cultivate self control, while reducing violence and the lure to self-medicate.

7. Fabric of Society.

Public pensions, health care, bridges, education, state parks, clean water. We should restore funding for all that stuff we’re cutting that’s essential for a functioning society. Why haven’t we heard anything about cutting drug war funds? Why is it we talk about getting rid of NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood, the NEA, and food stamps before calling to attention the exponentially more money wasted on drug enforcement? Currently, the biggest cash-crop in our country (cannabis), goes untaxed, while the fourth-largest cause for imprisonment is marijuana-related. Why are we letting drug lords reap the profits rather than funding our public schools with the proceeds? As Prohibition and current conditions demonstrate, people will continue to use, so why not let them do so to a useful, civic-minded end?

Image: sochacki.info

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