Gender Discrimination is a very real issues still and, surprisingly, you can get it at Walmart
The largest gender discrimination lawsuit in history is being allowed to proceed and it involves Walmart and 1 million women (see article at Forbes). In Betty Dukes vs. Walmart, Walmart, is claimed to have systematically discriminated against women in both pay and in promotions. The Daily Beast has an interesting short note on their site about one of the plaintiff’s stories, Dee Gunter, who was not only passed up for promotions she was clearly qualified for but also faced sexual harassment.
Walmart has an interesting record when it comes to how it deals with women:
- Women are only 33% of the company’s managers but comprise 65% of hourly employees
- Women were steered away from management positions into lower-level jobs without much advancement potential
- And an internal report in 1996 found “a pervasive hostility to women in management” and widespread agreement that “stereotypes limit opportunities offered to women” at the company
Discrimination against women is very real today. As long as people exist on earth, I suppose discrimination will thrive as one class or group feels that another is not worthy of equal rights. This is true even in the supposedly more egalitarian high tech sector where I work. Still, in today’s “modern” world I still have to shake my head about how common this is, whether its discrimination against trans-persons for being who they are or persecution of Christians for believing in God.
Beck's Cafe is back online thanks to the ASO Team!
Well Beck’s Cafe is back online at beckscafe.com thanks to the ever vigilant team at A Small Orange, our server host provider. While Beck’s Cafe did not suffer a DOS (denial of service) attack we do know something wicked was afoot.
On May 17th we went to open the door here at beckscafe.com and then a sentence in Chinese Kanji characters showed. It was one line. I thought that was odd but didn’t give it a second thought and tried my site again, that’s when this message came up:
Your connection to this server has been blocked in this server’s firewall
After a few tries I emailed the A Small Orange team and here we are, back in business after a couple of days. Phew! Thanks everyone for your patience! 
Beckscafe.com back online! Many thanks to ASO tech team!
Well Beck’s Cafe is back online at beckscafe.com thanks to the ever vigilent team at A Small Orange. While Beck’s Cafe did not suffer a DOS (denial of service) attack we do know something wicked was afoot.
So we’ll be blogging back at beck’s cafe now 
Thanks everyone for your patience!
Beckscafe.com hacked; Apparently hackers love our coffee
Upon opening the doors to Beck’s Cafe on Monday May 17th, our baristas, glam girls, feisty fellows and assorted jovial, coffee swilling sorts were greeted with two undecipherable sentences in Chinese! After which time the fleet of foot technical team at A Small Orange, our host provider, locked our site down to prevent something worse from happening.
Beck’s Cafe has not closed or gone off the air, but our site now reads the message,
Your connection to this server has been blocked in this server’s firewall.
Possible reasons:
- Too many failed login attempts (brute force password attack)
- Too many simultaneous connections (network/DOS attack)
- Attempting to access non-valid ports on this server (port scanning)
It looks like our cafe has faced a hack from China! So beckscafe.com is currently being “fixed” and can’t be accessed; I think whoever it was broke our front door. We’re working with the team at A Small Orange to fix things up asap!
You know, if they liked our coffee that much we’d have gladly given them a free cup!
Thanks for staying tuned in the meantime!
Transgender Rights Bill in Massachusetts Continues On with an Extended Deadline and More Support
Bay Windows has written a nice piece summarizing the current state of the Massachusetts Transgender Right Bill, “An Act Relative to Gender-based Discrimination and Hate Crimes” (S. 1687/H. 1728). It’s well worth a read to get caught up with how the bill is progressing and what supporters may want to continue to do to help. Among the latest in their article:
- Boston City Council passed a unanimous resolution supporting the transgender civil rights bill
- The Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts voice their support for the transgender civil rights bill
- A summary of what the bill’s purpose is
Click to Bay Windows coverage at their site at this link: Transgender Rights Bill receives more support, extended deadline
Of particular note for supporters of the bill is to note that it’s still in the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary and it’s been given an extension to early June 2010 for consideration. If the bill receives a favorable recommendation from the Join Committee on the Judiciary, the bill moves through the legislative process to both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and, if passed, to the Governor’s desk for approval, veto or to return it back to the legislature for changes.
