Jennie Lamere is the brain behind Twivo. She’s 18-years-old and a girl. She developed the program for TVnext Hack—a national coding competition, or “hackathon” held in Boston last month. Lamere took first place among 80 hackers including grown, experienced businessmen in the T.V. and tech industries. She was the only person to develop a program solo and the only girl to compete.

The gaping gender discrepancy in tech jobs is pretty apparent. But is Lamere testament to a new trend that sees women at the fore?

A recent study that looked at jobs in the tech sector debunked the idea that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Instead it found payment was gender neutral.

Thing is, women still make less than men (on average $87,500 versus $95,900). But once you control for education and experience that difference disappears. People with the same skill levels—regardless of gender—earn the same kind of money.

But men and women don’t seem to hold the same kind of jobs. And the ones women fill happen to pay less than the ones men fill. A Forbes article reported on the study saying, “IT management, the fourth-most-common job held by men, pays an average of $123,000, higher than any of the other jobs men hold, and well more than the jobs held by women. For women, the fourth-most-popular job, quality assurance tester, pays just $71,000.”

The study also found women in the field have less education and experience than men.

So why the discrepancy?

Maybe it’s that women don’t want a part of the boys’-club culture surrounding tech jobs. Infiltrating male-dominated positions can be intimidating for a woman—or plain unappealing. Barbara MacDonald, co-founder of Willett Inc. told the Globe and Mail: “Women are inherently social, so they may view a tech start-up as being non-social – a bunch of guys in a basement sitting in front of a computer all day and all night eating day-old pizza.” Uh—no thanks!

In a survey released last month, Elance, an online job marketplace, asked 7,000 people why so few women hold tech jobs. Respondents agreed that lack of female role models was the biggest barrier.

And it’s true.

Only six of the top 100 tech companies in the States have female CEOs. And the 50 fastest growing tech jobs in Canada have just 14 females executives.

It’s a cyclical dilemma—women don’t pursue tech jobs because other women don’t hold tech positions. Fortunately, it’s a cycle that’s bound to break.

Organizations like Girls Who Code and CanWIT are giving women resources and support to enter and excel in tech jobs. And it’s not just important for women—it’s important for everyone. Blocking out perspective from 50 percent of the population limits ideas and collaboration—it stifles the creative process and potential for innovation.

I’m not saying science and tech jobs are the be-all, end-all to success in this world. As a woman, I’m no more proud of Sheryl Sandberg for presiding over Facebook than of Anne-Marie McIntyre for raising five thankless kids (love you, Mom!). Just so long as women have the right tools to take on whatever jobs they want.

What makes Jennie Lamere an exception—what let her dominate a room full of tech-savvy men—is that she had those tools. Her dad, a seasoned hacker, took her to her first hackathon three years ago and she’s been to five since. That’s an opportunity most girls, or any high schoolers, never get.

Now, thanks to ladies like Lamere, women are seeing they do in fact have a place in the technological sphere and will eventually shrink the gender gap. And as Rachel Sklar, co-founder of Change The Ratio said, “In the meantime, I am stoked to use Jennie’s invention to enjoy Mad Men at my own pace.”

The Force Four Entertainment-produced series, called “Border Security: Canada’s Front Line” is currently on season two and has not yet been cancelled. Thankfully, though, the common sense of others won out in regards to one particularly exploitative episode.

The filming of a March 13 Vancouver construction site raid and the arrests of eight migrant workers will not air as part of the series. Also, there are now restrictions on where cameras are allowed. Filming is done away from the border and kept on the inland enforcement of those with “serious criminality.”

A memo from CBSA cites, “negative public response may continue,” as the reason for the episode’s cancellation. Such negative public response includes: Amnesty International, BC Civil Liberties Association, LeadNow, Council of Canadians, No One Is Illegal and the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), all of which have spoken out against the series, and wish for its cancellation. Thompson’s petition on change.org has over 24,000 signatures and an open letter addressed “To Force Four Entertainment, Shaw Media, Global BC, National Geographic, Canadian Border Services Agency, and all other producers, financiers, and broadcasters of Border Security: Canada’s Front Line,” has garnered 250 signatures from media professionals.

Diana Thompson, wife to Tulio Renan Hernandez , a worker who has been deported to Honduras told the activist group No One is Illegal: “We all feel extremely relieved by the news and are grateful to everyone who spoke out. We want this episode and the whole show cancelled.”

Picture from Diana Thompson's Change.org petition

The show, which follows CBSA, has been criticized for exploiting the confusion and language barriers of people. Or as the Border Security site says, “From confused visitors to phony immigrants.” National Geographic gets more dramatic while describing this trashy TV, “Passengers react in a variety of unpredictable ways—they lie, argue, play the victim, plead ignorance and even threaten legal action.  But they are no match for the investigative tactics of the CBSA officers.  After all, the law is on their side.”

Concerns about the show regard harming not only the dignity of fellow human beings but in some cases putting them further in harm’s way. A letter addressed to Toews from the CBA explains that those seeking refuge for themselves and their family may be endangered further, having their faces filmed for television. The letter also says what many are worried about: “We question whether those foreign nationals participating in the filming can be considered to have provided free and informed consent.”

Though people are asked to sign a waiver, they are filmed first, then asked while they are detained. Language barriers, confusion and fear that not signing will affect their release factor before signing.

Force Four Entertainment released a statement after the raid, saying they were being mis-characterized and that the show was not exploitative tabloid television but a documentary about the CBSA. However the letter originally sent to Toews for approval wasn’t trumpeting education but sensationalism calling the project a, “documentary-style reality television series.” The letter, fit for Tory propaganda continues, “It would be a valuable opportunity to promote important messages about Canada’s commitment to border security to give profile to the agency as a professional and effective law enforcement organization.” And so the show was approved and funded by our federal government.

Josh Patterson, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association also appealed to Parliament Hill at a Vancouver news conference in March, “The federal government must respect the rights of every person it deals with, regardless of their immigration status.”

The show airs Mondays at 8 and 8:30 on the National Geographic Channel. For now.

facebook.com/pages/MAY-DAY-Global

Montreal Anti-Capitalism Convergence rallied demonstrators across from Montreal’s city hall. The group planned to denounce corporate corruption and protest its way to the super fancy, super elite club—357c—the meeting spot that was popular among businessmen and politicians conspiring in the Quebec construction scandal. But police derailed the plan, arresting 447 protesters on the way to the club and slapping them each with a $637 fine for unlawful assembly. Most people were arrested for wearing hoodies, scarves, or masks—violating Quebec’s bylaw P-6.

Toronto The city hosted all your civil disobedience classics—rallies, speeches, drum circles, and of course, a mandatory dance segment. In Little Norway Park, protesters supported Porter Airlines employees striking for better pay and safer work conditions.

Outside Loblaw’s on Queen Street, the wrath of at least 1,200 protesters  forced Joe Fresh to shut down early on Wednesday. The company is recently black listed by labour activists for selling garments made in the Bangladesh factory that collapsed last week.

By May Day’s end, just three people were arrested for re-Occupying Alexandria Park, because what’s a protest without police doing their job, right?

Seattle What started as a peaceful demonstration for workers’ and immigration rights turned into a full-on violent feud. Police set off “flash bangs” and pepper sprayed the crowd after protesters pelted cops with rocks and bottles. Seventeen people were arrested. This is the second year in a row Seattle got aggressive on May Day. Last year, protesters smashed the Niketown and American Apparel storefronts. Check out the video of this year’s May Day bedlam.

Havana, Cuba photo: facebook.com/pages/MAY-DAY-Global

Hava Hundreds of thousands (just check out that photo!) of Cubans rallied in Revolution Square on Wednesday. Many people wore red and held posters of Hugo Chavez, paying tribute to the late Venezuelan leader, Cuba’s “best friend.”

Jakarta Tens of thousands demonstrated in Indonesia’s capital Wednesday. The country is in the midst of an economic boom, growing by about six percent annually. But low income workers aren’t seeing the evidence. Protesters in Jakarta demanded higher minimum wages—a promise the government keeps retracting. Right now, May Day isn’t officially a holiday in Indonesia, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised Wednesday that next year it will be. Meanwhile, Minister Dahlan Iskan joined in on the protest, who, by the way, is running for president in 2014—shall we say…politicking?

Dhaka In the Bangladesh city where a clothing factory collapsed last week, and estimated 10,000 protesters demanded the death penalty for the man who owned the building and for those who ran the factory. The Guardian posted this video of the demonstrations:

Istanbul Taksim Square, a massive pedestrian street in Turkey’s cultural capital, is a hub for protest on any given day. But activists of all causes banded together on Wednesday with not so peaceful results. Some busses and ferries were shut down to block more protesters from reaching the square and 22,000 police trolled the streets to maintain order. Check out this video and see how they did:

Screen capture from MissRepresentation.org

Earlier this month Disney stores pulled sexist Avengers girls’ T-shirts with slogans like “I need a hero” and “I only kiss heroes” off the shelves. The boys’ shirts reading, “Be a hero” remained. These old clichés were quickly called out on the internet. The message to boys that they need to be tough, the notion that girls need saving, and the idea that only heterosexual females want to kiss a hero. These messages did not go over well. And rightfully so.

Over 1,000 tweets about the shirt were sent with the hash tag NotBuyingIt, made by feminist and media watchdog organization Miss Representation, named after Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s popular documentary. Nearly 8,000 people signed the group’s petition over the shirt.

The NotBuyingIt hash tag is used when people find a type of media sexist. Go Daddy commercials, for instance, have earned top place with the most #notbuyingit tweets ever at 7,829. Miss Representation is currently campaigning on Indiegogo to raise money for a new app. (Pssst … This Magazine also has an Indiegogo campaign to check out.) The app, also named Not Buying It, will allow users to upload media they find sexist, or inspiring, to share with peers and the companies involved. It will also track and share the geographic locations getting the most attention and the areas where people are speaking out the most. Canada’s center for digital and media literacy, Media Smarts, reports people living in urban centres see up to 5,000 ads a day (Find out the mediums they list here). This app will offer the chance to use media in a positive way when faced with offensive marketing.

Apps geared to the ethical consumer aren’t new. In fact, they have a witty moniker: Apptivism.

The Not For Sale Campaign released the Free2Work mobile application. It was first released a couple years ago in time for the holiday season. A consumer can scan a bar code while shopping to see which company makes the product. They can then view the company’s ratings, based on the organization’s evaluations, on transparency, policies, monitoring, and worker’s rights.

The Good Shopping Guide app, by The Ethical Company Organisation, has information on over 700 famous brands, organized into seven categories: food and drink, health and beauty, travel, energy, fashion, home and office, and money. Included are ethical ratings and in-depth reports on each company.

Shoppers in Europe have Barcoo. Users can scan a barcode to find information such as sustainability, nutritional information and a seasonal vegetables list.

Games have also entered the scene. The Apptivist Studio’s slogan is, “Game for change.” It released its first game, Minke Rescue, where players must survive as Minke Whales living in the “harsh” Antarctic Ocean and dodging whaling ships.  The game sells for $2, sixty cents of which goes to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Applications can have a more narrowed focus. Vegans and vegetarians can find a wide variety of helpful tools in iTunes. PETA and Ethical Bean Coffee, among other groups, have also gotten in on the fun.

Last year half of Canadian cell phone users were using smart phones and Rogers research found 68 per cent were buying and using apps. An eMarketer 2012 forecast predicts 14 million Canadians will be smartphone users by next year.

Last month, the power of #notbuyingit forced Amazon UK to take down offensive shirts reading, Keep Calm and Rape a lot and Keep Calm and Hit Her, under 24 hours. Go Daddy received 7,000 Not Buying It tweets during the Super Bowl.

So now when those villainous Angry Birds pigs have pushed you over the edge, or you’re bored of zombiefy-ing pictures of your cat, your app prowess can be used to make informed, ethical, shopping decisions.

Turns out the developing country has Canada beat when it comes to certain gender rights.

Here—and in most of the world—official identification cards (like passports and birth certificates) have only “male” and “female” options. When a trans person goes to vote, for example, they have to register as one or the other gender. Without doctor’s affidavits confirming gender reassignment surgery, this usually means registering as the gender that matches their genitalia at birth—not the one they identify as. But even with gender reassignment procedures, some people don’t strictly identify as either male or female—and yet, they are forced to choose one or the other. Last spring, Passport Canada reviewed the option to include a gender “X” or for people to opt-out of specifying their gender altogether. But so far, nothing has changed.

In 2011, a Pakistani Supreme Court allowed people to identify as a “third gender” on national identification cards. This gave the trans community voting power. Before legislation passed, transgender people could technically vote and run for office, but only if they registered as the gender they were anatomically born as. This is an understandablyunacceptable requirement for trans people—one most were, rightly, unwilling to comply with. Now candidates can run openly as transgender—a huge victory for the LGBT community and also one voters in trans’ constituencies are embracing.

Media coverage of Pakistan’s campaign shows positive support for trans candidates. There’s something relatable with the candidates—a shared hardship between them and voters—many of whom are poor and underrepresented by government. Brindiya Rana, leader of the Gender Interactive Alliance and candidate in the upcoming election, ran away from home at age 14 when her family didn’t except her as a transgender woman. She spent time on the street before turning to activism and politics. One woman in Rana’s constituency has put her support this way: “We believe that being poor like us, she may understand our issues better.”

Yes, transgender people are valued in Pakistani culture, but acceptance isn’t exactly built on equality. Trans women are hired as dancers at celebrations like weddings, where they face groping men. Blessing babies is considered another acceptable role for trans men and women because, in Pakistan, they’re considered underprivileged, and apparently the less fortunate have special connections with God. Mostly, though, as is the sad case in the rest of the world,  transgender people face harassment and abuse; many in Pakistan wind up as beggars or as prostitutes.

Now with the right to vote and run for office, the transgender community has a new avenue of opportunity—one that does not enslave them to predetermined, often degrading roles. They can vote for a leader who represents their interests, or even be that leader.

From a Canadian perspective, this may seem progressive. But transgender people running for office is nothing new. Sarah Brown has been a Cambridge City Councillor in Britain since 2010. And in Japan, Aya Kamikawa has been in office since 2003. She was re-elected in 2007, placing second out of 71 candidates in Tokyo’s most populous district. And there are dozens more trans politicians around the world.

Canada, with less success, has also had trans political hopefuls. In 2011, Chrisitin Milloy ran in the Mississauga–Brampton South riding as the first openly trans candidate in a provincial election. In 2007, activist and lawyer Micheline Anne Montreuil was a federal NDP nominee for the Quebec-City riding. She was dropped from the campaign, however, for being too confrontational in interviews. But Montreuil says it was because of her gender identity. Either way, at the time dumping her based on gender (or anything for that matter) would have been legal, because—until the transgender rights bill passed last month—there was no legislation protecting trans people from discrimination.

Although the bill only passed with a measly 53 percent support, it’s nice to see Canada (finally) recognizing that being transgender is not a “reasonable limit” to the Charter of Rights and Freedom—it’s not a free pass for discrimination. It’s not anywhere near enough, though. We must go further and take some cues from Pakistan, Nepal, India, and Australia (among others) with “third gender” rights. Let people represent themselves and welcome everyone—regardless of gender identity—into politics. It’s simple really. All it takes is putting to practice this theory we have about equal rights for all Canadians.

Picture by Blake Emrys

When the Holocaust ended almost 70 years ago, and we said it would never happen again. Yet, there have been six genocides since then. The systematic murders in Darfur are ongoing, and the country’s government won’t address them. Many groups have been founded to tackle genocide in the past 15 years—such as United to End Genocide, Genocide Watch, and Genocide Prevention Program—all with the intent to halt any potential genocides.

And now, there’s a new genocide prevention group that’s been getting some well-deserved buzz. The Toronto-based NGO, Sentinel Project, uses its website and other technology to keep track of early warning signs of genocides. What makes it so revolutionary is its interactive hate-speech documenting website, Hatebase, that launched this past March.

The database is made up of slurs regarding ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class and gender, including information on what country and language they were said in. Anyone can sign up and input overheard name-calling in their area, or search the categorized lists. The point of all this is to discover any hate speech trends per area and address them before violence strikes. As outlined in the eight stages of genocide by Genocide Watch, mass murder begins with classification and symbolization. Classification is distinguishing “us from them” and symbolization is the name-calling we’re talking about here. The ultra-scary next step is dehumanization—denying that those they nickname are even human at all.

Scrolling through Hatebase lists, I’ve learned new words that will never cross my lips. However, I can unfortunately see some of this language easily added to other people’s repertoire. Just look at what happened to Urban Dictionary. What was once a website for teenage slang definitions has now been taken over by made-up (and often sexist) user-written slurs.

Twitter has had a sharp increase of  “hate-spewing hashtags and handles” this year, according to the annual report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a racism history museum. For further proof, visit the Alberta-based website No Homophobes. Any time the words “gay”, “faggot”, “dyke”, or “no homo” are posted on Twitter, it automatically pops up on the site. It even shows the stats. Last week, “faggot” was tweeted 395,087 times. The site urges us to consider how often we use hurtful language without thinking. It’s an effective, albeit depressing, reality check.

Hate speech at that stage does not a genocide make, but as those at Sentinel Project know all too well, this is where it can start. Offensive material can be reported on the social networking sites themselves. Every post and picture on Facebook carries with it an option to report it to an FB team who removes it. Where to report Twitter abuse is more or less hidden in the settings section. “Reporting” the instances of hate speech is what Hatebase does too. So where does it go from there?

First, it draws upon themes. Hatebase has noticed that those of the Baha’i religion in Iran are increasingly being shunned from society, for example. It also fears the apparent ethnic rivalry in Kenya could escalate into genocide. With this information, it can try to prevent attacks by “countering websites that incite hatred, using mobile phones networks to document abuses and warn threatened communities, and employing GPS technology to guide targeted people to safe areas.” The organization is not without limitations, as it lacks the tools to physically intervene, but it’s a start.

Referring back to the eight stages of genocide, the last stage is denial. After a genocide has taken place, the perpetrators always attempt to cover up any evidence. But Western denial could be labelled as one of the first steps of genocide. Countries with the power to stop ongoing genocides often don’t. As far as the Sentinel Project is concerned, if catching the warning signs can save a life, it’s worth it.

Theoretically, the treaty will stop the free-flow of weapons to human rights abusers, with hopes of reducing the number of people (about 2,000) who die every day from arms violence.

Photo: facebook.com/ControlArms

The ATT is a huge victory for human rights groups Oxfam and Amnesty International, which, for the past two decades, have been lobbying for arms regulation. Desperately, they’ve been feeding us stats such as, “every year, we produce two bullets for every person on the planet”, and “bananas and MP3s are more tightly regulated by international laws than weapons”.

The push for regulation really gained momentum in 2003 when a group of Nobel Peace Laureates backed the effort.

So when 154 of 193 UN states voted yes for the treaty, benevolent leaders and humanitarians everywhere rejoiced. Amnesty tweeted (after a series of anticipatory updates): “We did it! 20 years of work for the Global #ArmsTready pays off.”

Well, not yet, it hasn’t.

For sure regulating the deadliest business in the world is a good thing, but first, a few factors have to line up.

Before the treaty is even ratified, 50 countries have to pass legislation in their own states agreeing to play by the rules.

The other problem, as you may have guessed, is that some of the top weapons exporters aren’t interested in regulating the trade. China and Russia, both among the “big six” arms exporters, didn’t show up to vote. We can bet neither will adopt the treaty, which is bad news, seeing as both are big dealers to the bloodiest conflicts in recent history. Russia, for example, is the top supplier to Syria, where anywhere from 62,000 to 120,000 have been killed in conflict since March 2011.

The idea, though, is that the arms trade treaty would prevent future disasters like Syria. That is, if all goes as planned.

At this point, exactly how the UN will keep weapons away from corruption is vague. The rules state that governments can’t ship arms if there’s a “substantial risk” of human rights violations or if shipment would provoke instability, hamper development, or support organized crime or terrorism. Governments will report details of their weapons trading to an “implementation support unit”—a watchdog of sorts—meant to keep governments in check via … penalties? fines? The enforcement method is yet (if ever) to be defined.

Although I’m not as optimistic as many treaty advocates, I won’t say the ATT is completely useless—it’s not. By documenting how governments trade arms—to whom and how many—we can red flag weapons that make their way to war lords. It creates boundaries between the black market and legitimate trading, which is essential for catching illicit dealers.

Sure the treaty is riddled with loopholes, but it sets international standards. Violating the standards could shame a country, hurt their reputation, and ostracize them from the global community. Is the treaty enough to stop genocide and instability? No. But it’s more than we’ve ever had.

But happiness day wasn’t just about getting your grin on. The idea is to recognize happiness and well-being as valuable measures of growth.

Most of the world measures growth and development through gross domestic product, where increase in GDP means progress. The problem is a lot of terrible things inflate GDP. Like oil spills and wars.

As the prime minister of Bhutan, Jigme Thinley, said:

Economic growth is mistakenly seen as synonymous with well-being. The faster we cut down forests and haul in fish stocks to extinction, the more GDP grows. Even crime, war, sickness and natural disasters make GDP grow, simply because these ills cause money to be spent … We need to rethink our entire growth-based economy so that we can thrive more effectively on our own resources in harmony with nature. We do not need to accept as inevitable a world of impending climate chaos and financial collapse.

In Bhutan, a small country on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, happiness defines progress. It’s the only country where gross national happiness (GNH) replaces GDP. Bhutan’s happiness index measures factors such as cultural preservation, environmental quality, physical and psychological health, and good governance. These values are entrenched in the country’s policies with mandates that require the country to be carbon neutral and leave 60 percent of the land covered in forest. School enrollment for Bhutanese children is 100 percent, and export logging is banned.

The idea is to reduce needs to match the available resources; to strive for happiness rather than material gains. But when you’re constantly trying to maximize your resources—a la Western capitalism—your needs (or wants) increase in parallel. To fulfill our insatiable neediness, we increase our goods and services. This is what we call “growing the economy”.

For years, renegade economists have challenged this type of progress. Jeff Rubin, among others, predicted an “end of growth” economy and called for a “holistic” economic approach that factors in well-being. These economists were mostly ignored until the stock markets crashed and natural disasters became a first world problem. Clearly we’re doing something wrong.

So last April, the UN discussed “new economic paradigm” inspired by Bhutan’s gross national happiness initiative. Three months later, the UN declared March 20 International Day of Happiness, recognizing the importance of well-being in public policy.

The trouble is: how do we measure happiness? Subjective happiness is easy. Just measure someone’s general life satisfaction through surveys and questionnaires. The trickier measure, objective happiness, looks at more universal ideals presumably linked to well-being, like health levels, crime rates, literacy and life expectancy.

There’s no consensus on how policy-makers can apply well-being scores to economics or even how being happier can help the economy. The good news is people are talking about it—reminding each other that happiness is really the only important thing in life. And not just happiness for ourselves but for other people and future generations.

Photo: http://www.facebook.com/canadianmuseumforhumanrights

The exhibit pays tribute to the struggle for gay rights, but it is also intended to “normalize” LGBT relationships for people who are perhaps a little homophobic.

For the most part, the LGBT community supports the exhibit but lots of people would rather keep their experience private. As Chad Smith from the Rainbow Resource Centre in Winnipeg told Global News, “There’s still a lot of fear around homophobia and discrimination. While this is important, not everyone wants to be too visible.”

I can’t wait for that day we say “wtf were we thinking? Why was same-sex marriage even an issue?” Sure, a lot of us already believe this, but the truth is plenty of Canadians are still homophobic.

On March 3, the Quebec government launched (another) campaign to foster LGBT tolerance by showing sexual diversity in everyday scenarios.

This idea of “normalizing” LGBT people is, on the one hand, very funny to me. Funny because it means people need to be convinced that being gay doesn’t mean you live in bizarre-o world. Unfortunately, lots of people need to be reminded of that. So on the other hand I think the campaign is kind of effective. The basic message is right; it’s not (shouldn’t be) weird for LGBT couples to show affection and tenderness.

And the ads are pretty “vanilla” as one person commented, so if they make you uncomfortable, I’m sorry, but you have a problem.

At least it’s a start though. Call me an optimist but I don’t think people’s attitudes are fixed on stuff like this—exposure has a lot to do with beliefs.  Many people aren’t gay and not everyone has gay friends. For those people who don’t interact with the LGBT community ever, these ads really could help change their attitudes.

Same with the museum. Showing people that same-sex couples are just as normal or fucked up as any straight couple may really be eye-opening for some people.

It may also remind them that in the ’60s people went to jail for being gay, and that it’s been just eight years since gay marriage was legal nation-wide. And it just may help curb social discrimination which is still very real. (Think about it; how many “casual” gay jokes do you hear or read every day?) I think displaying the struggles of fellow human-beings  in a museum is a step in the right direction, towards putting homophobia in our past.

Photo: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Girls-Gone-Wild-franchise

With more than $16 million in debt and just $50,000 in assets, Girls Gone Wild is officially bankrupt. Finally, right?

Girls Gone Wild and its founder, Joe Francis, got famous in the late 90s for preying on some of society’s most vulnerable—drunk, barely-legal college girls and late-night, hedonist infomercial viewers. Francis made a fortune selling soft-core porn videos exposing loud, wasted, spring-breakers flashing their boobs for the prompting camera man.

Throughout his C-list stardom, Francis made himself out as a real misogynist sketch-bag. He’s been in the spotlight for promoting and filming under-age girls having sex, he’s done jail time for child abuse and misdemeanor prostitution, and he once assaulted a journalist, pinning her down against a car outside a Vegas night club.

He’s been sued by dozens of women for using their exposed images in videos, infomercials and on box covers without permission. And he’s gotten away with it for years.

But could this finally be the end of an embarrassing, drawn-out era?

Francis has been racking up a $10.3 million gambling debt with Wynn Casino and Resort in Las Vegas. On a February 2007 trip, he gambled away $2 million without paying it. When the owner, Steve Wynn, tried to collect the money, Francis publicly attacked him saying, “Wynn threatened to kill me. He said he would hit me in the back of the head with a shovel and bury me in a hole in the desert.” Wynn got a $19 million judgement against Francis for defamation.

But it was Wynn’s latest lawsuit against Francis that ended it for Girls Gone Wild.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the lawsuit:

“Francis has effectively evaded meaningful collection by making it appear that he has virtually no income or assets, despite his publicly lavish lifestyle,” Wynn attorneys said in the lawsuit. “Wynn has confirmed what it has long suspected, namely that Francis has avoided Wynn’s collection efforts by, among other things, not taking any income and using accounts held by various entities that do business under his ‘Girls Gone Wild’ brand to pay all his personal expenses.”

So, filing for bankruptcy will block Wynn from collecting the scant GGW assets. And it means the company (presumably) cannot survive.

To be honest, I’m surprised it ended this way. I mean, the Girls Gone Wild target audience likely switched to the internet a good, what, ten years ago? And although Francis and co. moved their infomercials from the small screen to the inter-web in 2008 (a little behind the curve, don’t ya think?), there’s just so much better bad porn out there to compete with.

Worth celebrating more than the end for Girls Gone Wild (if GGW was still even a thing), though, is seeing Joe Francis finally defeated—and just as vulnerable as his unpaid “porn stars” and as washed-up as his informercials.