Speak your mind even if your voice shakes
by Debra
This is a powerful and disturbing video, especially when the children are asked to choose between a white doll and a black doll and which one is the good doll.
Color is more than skin deep for young African-American women struggling to define themselves
Kiri Davis is a young filmmaker whose high school documentary has left audiences at film festivals across the country stunned — and has re-ignited a powerful debate over race.
by Debra
That is the message that the Washington Post has for it’s readers.
The images are contained in thousands of pages of NCIS investigative documents obtained by The Washington Post. Post editors decided that most of the images are too graphic to publish…
The descriptions of some of the photos do indeed sound brutal. A brutality the people in the pictures had no choice to avoid.
The people of America have a right, indeed they have a duty, to see what transpires in their name. It is all too easy to think of war in the abstract when you do not hear the planes flying overhead. Do not feel the earth shake and the air cloud as your neighbours die. Do not wonder where you will get food and water for you family or if indeed any of you will live to need it.
Photos help to pierce through that cloud of complacency.
For more information read Media refuses to print grisly photos
Contact the Washington Post ombudsman:
Deborah Howell
202-334-7582
ombudsman@washpost.com
by Debra
I see much of what is occurring lately to be a fear response.
Can’t raise minimum wage for fear that business will suffer.
Does business not suffer when people do not have money to spend?
This is the obvious first step on the journey to the decline of capitalism. First you create an underclass, give them just a little, instill them with fear of having nothing and make them fight each other for the pittance that barely allows them to keep body and soul together. [Read more…] about “In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”
by Debra
Taking up the challenge from Accidental Deliberations.
I have lately had some issues with the party, nevertheless, to highlight the good;
We need a party which believes that human rights are the fundamental building block of democracy and any functioning society.
We need a party with a strong commitment to women’s rights, up to and including the right to reproductive choice.
We need a party that recognizes that “gay rights” are “human rights” and that who you choose to share your bed with does not make a difference.
We need a party that believes that everyone has an equal right to education, healthcare, a liveable wage.
We need a party that believes that all children have the right to good quality daycare and are willing to put their budget where their beliefs are.
We need a party that doesn’t cause an 11 year old to ask such questions as, why does that party think they should say what I can do just because I’m a girl, or why does that party keep making promises but never keeps them or what does that party stand for?
A party which instead creates comments like, I can’t wait till I’m 12 so I can become a member, how come they are the only party that comes to our door? How come the other candidates won’t talk to me just because I’m a kid?
For all the things we need to change the NDP is still the only party that really represents the values Canadians time after time identify as being important to them.
by Debra
An email has been circulating claiming to come from Jennifer Bernier, President
Abitibi-Témiscamingue NDP, it basically calls for new leadership for the NDP.
I phoned and confirmed that this was indeed sent out without her knowledge.
As is confirmed in the email shown here
You can also view the original email there.
Someone must be feeling very threatened indeed to have perpetrated such a hoax.
by Debra
Robert Cox wants to bring some professionalism to the blogosphere.
As president of the Media Bloggers Association, Cox is about to unveil new membership policies designed to help bloggers who see themselves more as journalists than freeform diarists.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that about eight per cent of American adults keep web journals, most of them personal in nature even though the most high-profile ones may be about news, politics or technology. It’s the more serious efforts that Cox is courting.
Among the planned criteria: members would have to take an online course offered by the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, covering legal issues related to blogging.
Members also could seek credentialled status by undergoing training or demonstrating other work as professional journalists. They also must agree to the organization’s ethical standards and adopt formal editorial and corrections policies. Doing so could give them the backing they need to obtain review copies of books and access to newsmakers and events, Cox said.
Of course, having credentials from Cox’s organization won’t guarantee access. The question of whether to treat bloggers as journalists has come up repeatedly at major events such as the Olympics and national political conventions.
You have to take a course, pay for memberships, and a think tank decides what passes for acceptable journalism.
Isn’t this in part what the blogosphere was trying to get away from?
Wasn’t the idea to open up an avenue where those who couldn’t afford a journalism degree could still speak to the issues of the day.
Recognition of the personal being political.
Being able to shed light on things like the recent cuts the Harper government made that the “Professional Press” doesn’t deem noteworthy.
Thoughts?
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