November 2009
1 post
3 tags
Wedding rings should be about love
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe has brutally seized control of his country’s diamond fields and is using the profits from our precious wedding rings and jewelry to finance a vicious political militia. The group of countries that regulate the global diamond trade are right now meeting in Namibia to decide whether to suspend Mugabe and stop him selling his blood diamonds on the world...
October 2009
15 posts
2 tags
Going Vegetarian is Crucial to Saving the Planet
People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
Direct emissions of methane from cows and...
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Amanda Little: Eight Reasons for Hope on Climate...
Saturday’s International Day of Climate Action gave us overwhelming evidence of hope at a time of widespread despair on global warming.
Last month, scientists predicted a 6.3 degree rise in average temperatures — higher than previously estimated — by the end of this century, even if the strongest pollution-reduction targets proposed by the world’s leaders go into effect....
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Feminists Love Mutilated Women?
Yesterday, the English Observer belatedly picked up an article written for the September issue of Standpoint magazine by Jessica Mann, a reviewer who covers crime fiction for the Literary Review. In it, Mann criticizes the genre for revelling in the brutalization of women, and writes that “however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more of them will be...
Back to Google News Canadian position prompts...
OTTAWA — The government’s push to abandon much of the Kyoto protocol prompted dozens of developing countries to walk out on Canada’s address during recent climate talks in Thailand, The Canadian Press has learned.
The mass walkout came after the Canadian delegation suggested replacing the Kyoto Protocol with an entirely new global-warming pact, according to one of the negotiators and...
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Emma Ruby-Sachs: The Big Gay Speech Obama Should...
This Saturday, President Obama will be the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Campaign’s big New York fundraiser. As the largest gay rights fundraiser in the U.S., it’s a big deal to score a personality like the President. But his presence has many members of the LGBT community worried. Here’s a guy who has done virtually nothing for gay rights since his election. What can he...
5 tags
No Sanctions for Massacre and Rape?
A bloody massacre in Guinea could undermine peace across West Africa. Sign the call for targeted sanctions on the Guinean junta and let’s raise a popular outcry worldwide against this crackdown:
Last week, over 150 civilians were killed when the military opened fire on a peaceful pro-democracy rally in the West African country of Guinea. Women were raped and people were bayoneted on the...
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Pope Warns that Materialism is the "Spiritual...
Pope Benedict has warned that a form of colonialism continues to blight Africa.
Opening a three-week synod of African bishops, he said political colonialism was over.
But he said the developed world continued to export materialism - which he called “toxic spiritual rubbish” - to the continent.
Almost 200 bishops from 53 African states have gathered to discuss how the Catholic Church...
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Poverty In Canada: Still a Huge Problem →
Poverty rates in Canada, especially among children and the working-age population, are among the worst of 17 leading developed countries, according to the Conference Board’s annual ranking on Society indicators. With more than 12 per cent of the working-age population living in poverty, Canada’s D grade places it 15th out of 17 countries – ahead of only Japan and the United States. More than one...
4 tags
11219.) I have always hated hearing stories about...
blogsecret:
their first kiss, their first time having sex… you know, those firsts that are supposed to make you smile? My first kiss was from a guy who tried to rape me. My first time having sex was from a guy who raped me. I want a first that I can smile about like my friends do. I want a first that I want to remember.
Your first time falling for someone who won’t rape you, who will repect...
2 tags
I'm your biggest fan.
abbyjean:
dyfl:
Lady Gaga’s aesthetic project is to act out celebrity as a form of total impulse-control loss. Her entire raison d’etre is to do literally whatever pops into her head, no matter how ridiculous it is, in front of as many people as possible. She’s acting out the essence of what celebrity has boiled down to: unbridled self-interest with the expectation of a smiling audience who...
femininity: damned if you do, damned if you don’t →
robot-heart-politics:
gauntlet:
As a woman you can eschew or embrace femininity, but you will be rewarded and punished in equal amounts no matter which option you choose. You can never win.
If you’re a woman who only drinks wine and who loves to talk about clothes and needlepoint, men will view you with contempt for being a wimpy wussy girly girl. If you’re a woman who drinks beer and loves...
September 2009
54 posts
3 tags
Birth Control Pills: Just like any Other... →
You may have seen the ads on television. A young, attractive woman at a party with her friends begins speaking directly to the camera about some “misinformation seen in previous ads” for Yaz and Yasmin, two of the most popular oral contraceptives on the market.
The drugs have come under fire for causing blood clots. Although this is a risk with any birth control pill, health advocates and women...
3 tags
Women and hidden unemployment →
usydwomenscollective:
The present state of public policy has disturbing implications for women and their life-long economic security.
6 tags
Canada: We're Better than You
PITTSBURGH — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, appearing to forget that his countrymen are generally known for their modesty, declared on Friday that his nation was the envy of the world.
Harper, usually a fairly wooden performer, seized on a routine question at a news conference and used it to deliver an impassioned defense of his 33-million strong nation and how well it has coped with the...
“But what I have concluded over the years is that talent is universal, but...”
– Hilary Clinton (via Shakesville) (via gauntlet)
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100 People Pushed into Poverty Every Minute →
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Clinton: Investing in Girls and Women
President Clinton opened the second day of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting by reciting damning statistics about women’s economic marginalization, including that only 30% of the world’s workforce is made up of women. Women do 66% of world’s work, make only 10% of world’s income, and own only 1% world’s property. He said investing in women “can...
From Atlanta Hotels, Tons of Soap Headed to Africa →
caraobrien:
From Global Atlanta, excerpt:
A common practice in the United States that probably goes unnoticed by most people completely baffled Derreck Kayongo.
He arrived in the U.S. from Africa 15 years ago and was staying at a hotel in Philadelphia, when he noticed that the cleaning crew would replace the bathroom soap each day, even if the bars were only slightly used.
“I called my Dad...
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on...”
– Kurt Vonnegut (loveyourchaos) (via mahala) (via birthdayface) (via xenializ) (via robot-heart-politics)
“It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so...”
– Anne Frank (via robot-heart) (via loveandzombies)
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Rape Now Taking the Form of Genocide →
3 tags
“[Aid agencies] have to give unconditional debt relief. This is the fault of...”
– Paul Collier. The Bottom Billion, p.184
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Why is there so much food and still so much... →
The answers are complex and involve everything from American farm politics and African corruption to war, poverty, climate change and drought, which is now the single most common cause of food shortages on the planet.
“Carrie Prejean said God chose her to give that answer at the pageant this year...”
– Bill Maher (via soupsoup) (via apsies)
2 tags
Biodiversity Key to Reducign Poverty
Ottawa sends body bags to Manitoba reserves →
igather:
Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba are horrified that some of the reserves hardest hit by swine flu in the spring have received dozens of body bags from Health Canada.
The body bags — which were sent to the remote northern reserves of Wasagamack and God’s River First Nation — came in a shipment of hand sanitizers and face masks.
Grand Chief David HarperGrand Chief David Harper, who...
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Global Poverty Expected to Surge →
The global recession is expected to push 89 million more people into extreme poverty by the end of 2010, the World Bank said Wednesday as it called on the leaders of the 20 largest economies to engage in “responsible globalization.”
Although economic data show that the worst recession of the post-World War II era might have ended in the United States, and global trade has begun to...
4 tags
Millennium Challenge Corporation Grants Senegal...
By Fid Thompson Dakar 16 September 2009
The U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation and the government of Senegal Wednesday signed a five-year $540 million grant to reduce poverty in the West African nation. The grant will focus on road rehabilitation and food security initiatives in two of the poorest regions of Senegal.
“The funding itself will be invested in...
3 tags
Dirty Dancing...A masterpeice of Feminism? →
“I was 13 years old when my mom took my little sister and me to see Dirty Dancing on a hot August afternoon in 1987. Years later, my mom would admit that she was slightly horrified to realise she’d taken her two young daughters to a movie that she thought was about dancing, but was really about class, feminism, sex, rape and abortion. If she gave any indication of her squirming...
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Uruguay approves Latin America's first gay... →
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“As a Christian, my preference for this economic and social equality has nothing...”
– Thanks Glenn Beck - This ‘Socialism’ Sounds Great! (via azspot) (via think4yourself) (via apsies)
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Women in Fairytales: Sleeping Beauty
the-activista:
usydwomenscollective: little-mumbles:
“Woman, if you look for her, has a strong chance of always being found in one position: in bed. In bed and asleep - “laid (out).” She is always to be found on or in a bed: Sleeping Beauty is lifted from her bed by a man because, as we all know, women don’t wake up by themselves: man has to intervene, you understand. She is lifted up by the...
4 tags
the conversation about rihanna and chris brown
usydwomenscollective:
abbyjean:
Ever since the abuse occurred, the media has been fixating on Brown and Rihanna, intent on interpreting each and every one of their actions in light of what they say about Brown’s abuse of Rihanna, or about Rihanna’s recovery from said abuse, or about domestic abuse in general. Nowadays, they’re less important to us as pop stars than as the means by which we...
4 tags
Environement to Round off GDP as Measure of...
September 12, 2009
At a time when Europe struggles to emerge from economic recession, the European Union vows to create indicators for its well-being that go beyond calculating the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The European Commission said Tuesday that it will propose in 2010 a pilot environmental index that complements GDP as a measure of progress by gauging water use and pollution, greenhouse...
Sad, Quiet Anniversary at Dawson
There are no official events taking place at Dawson College tomorrow to mark the third anniversary of the shooting that took the life of first-year student Anastasia De Sousa. However, the gate at 4011 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. will be open for people leaving flowers at the foot of the tree planted in De Sousa’s memory. The college said the flowering almond tree will be the...
2 tags
2.6 Million More Americans are Living in Poverty →
A new comprehensive economic survey shows that the recession has plunged 2.6 million more Americans into poverty, wiped out the household income gains of an entire decade and pushed the number of people without health insurance up to 46.3 million.
3 tags
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Make 10% of Ocean a No-Go Zone, Says Cousteau
Fabien Cousteau says the oceans can recover, but policies need to be enforced. He also cautiously favors aquaculture.
All he asks is 10 percent.
In order to help revive the world’s oceans, one of the initial steps should be to make around 10 percent of them zones free from human activity, according to aquatic environmentalist Fabien Cousteau.
“We need to make 10 percent of our...