The attack on reproductive rights in the United States is likely to heat up in 2012, and we have an early entrant in the race to the bottom in the form of a court decision that went through on Friday, ordering the immediate enforcement of a mandatory sonogram law in Texas. More specifically: The law, […]
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
People are heading to the polls in New Hampshire today, kicking off the official primary cycle in the United States. This year, a lot of eyes are on tactics used to prevent people from voting, particularly targeting low-income communities of colour and nonwhite people. There’s a laundry list of voter suppression tools that are getting […]
One of the most insidious and commonly repeated tropes about mental illness is that people can bootstrap their way out of it; they just need to ‘try harder’ and ‘stop moaning’ and they’ll magically get better, even if this defies all known knowledge of neurochemistry, human emotion, and psychiatry. There’s tremendous pressure on people with […]
Monday, December 26, 2011
A recent legal decision has important implications for disabled immigration detainees.
Monday, December 19, 2011
I want to expand a bit on Flavia’s recent post discussing the Foxnewsification of the Internet and ideas about ‘all points of view being valuable’ and needing to be aired on blogs. Discussions like this inevitably bring up cries of ‘free speech’ from people who apparently don’t understand how free speech works; as was pointed […]
Monday, December 12, 2011
TLC has a new reality show running called All-American Muslim, following the lives of several Muslim households in Dearborn, Michigan. The critical response has mostly pointed out how bland and ordinary it is; gosh, Muslim families really are just like everyone else! In an era where reality shows are mostly about flashy displays of wealth […]
This marks the second week of a conference in Durban to discuss climate change, a topic that remains contentious on the global stage. There’s considerable tension between Western nations and the Global South on the subject, and this time, African leaders came prepared, pledging to ‘speak with one voice‘ at the meeting. Many people in […]
Monday, November 28, 2011
On Friday, Flavia reminded readers of the problems with the limited reach of anti-violence campaigns, which tend to focus on specific populations, and discussed the #16days campaign intended to highlight numerous perspectives on gender-based violence. She touched upon one area of conversations about violence against women that tends to be neglected: Discussions about the intersections […]
Monday, November 21, 2011
NPR has an ongoing series wittily called ‘Living Large‘ which is supposed to be about obesity in the US. Now, I am an NPR listener from way back. I have fond memories of childhood with All Things Considered on in the background while my father and I cooked dinner, or waking up to listen to […]
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Free the Slaves estimates that 27 million people worldwide are enslaved. Many are bonded labourers, enslaved to work off debts which can grow over time and may be passed between generations. Others are forced labourers, compelled to work under threat, unable to receive access to basic workplace protections, and unpaid. They are all around us, […]