CBC wrote a great story about the case where a woman who wears a Niqab is fighting to be allowed to wear it while testifying against the men who sexually assaulted her. The story presents at least seven different perspectives on the case. Each of the perspectives is motivated by a different goal or priority, from religious freedoms, to criminal justice, to women’s rights, to the accused’s rights. It’s a good reminder that every story has many different sides.
Today I came across Doris Lessing’s Nobel acceptance speech. She spoke about writing and poverty and the many places in Africa where the two cross. Here is a piece:
This links improbably with a fact: I was brought up in what was virtually a mud hut, thatched. This kind of house has been built always, everywhere there are reeds or grass, suitable mud, poles for walls. Saxon England for example. The one I was brought up in had four rooms, one beside another, and it was full of books. Not only did my parents take books from England to Africa, but my mother ordered books by post from England for her children. Books arrived in great brown paper parcels, and they were the joy of my young life. A mud hut, but full of books.
Even today I get letters from people living in a village that might not have electricity or running water, just like our family in our elongated mud hut. “I shall be a writer too,” they say, “because I’ve the same kind of house you lived in.”
But here is the difficulty, no?
Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books.
The full text is available at the Nobel site.
Did you know that the oil rig that burned in the Gulf of Mexico was insured for twice what it was worth so that the company that owned it made money when it burned down?
More interesting background on the oil spill is available on Alternet.
A couple years back I ranted about the nonsense that was used to sell wheatgrass in local health food store, and about the poor understanding of human health that often prevails in those places. Now, a study by Athabasca University has found that advice received in health food stores is supported poorly or not at all by science 88% of the time.
One of Canada’s dirty “secrets” is that our mining industry is responsible for environmental and human rights abuses around the world. Companies like INCO and Barrick are operating mines that are polluting land and taking away people’s livelihoods. In many cases, people who organize against these mines face violence and, sometimes, death.
Usually, the national government of a country receive significant revenue from the mine and allows and often supports mining even though the local people are strongly opposed. However, there’s some good news from the Pakistani province of Balochistan, where Barrick Gold has just been told to leave at the end of an exploration contract. For once, the national government is listening to the local people. You can follow the destruction that Barrick is causing in other parts of the world at protestbarrick.net and find out more about the Canadian mining industry at miningwatch.ca.
