Westerners are quick to denounce customs in, say, the Muslim world that they perceive as limiting women. But in Germany, despite its vaunted modernity, a traditional perception of motherhood lingers. The half-day school system survived feudalism, the rise and demise of Hitler’s mother cult, the women’s movement of the 1970s and reunification with East Germany. [...] [Posted: 18 Jan 2010]
Lots of men go to prostitutes so they can do things to them that real women would not put up with. How’s that for some gender stereotyping, sex negativity and straight up misogyny? From Why men use prostitutes in the Guardian. Jezebel has some more insightful commentary about this piece. The full report Men Who [...] [Posted: 15 Jan 2010]
I first heard the story of the pact in late 2003. Protests against President Bertrand Aristide were rocking the small town of Petit-Goâve where I was volunteering for an international non-profit. My Haitian roommates explained that Aristide, as a poor Catholic priest, was involved in Voudou and had used the more violent lwa to build [...] [Posted: 15 Jan 2010]
Aid often conforms to needs of U.S. campaign donors over the needs of Haitian victims. Food aid, for example, reduces stockpiles of excess, subsidized U.S. corn better than it fights hunger. It sometimes even increases hunger in Haiti by undermining otherwise sustainable local farmers. When farmers cannot sell their grain because Uncle Sam is giving [...] [Posted: 14 Jan 2010]
This won’t be an earthquake post, although I think you should donate to Doctors Without Borders, Yéle Haiti, or the World Food Programme (all secular charities). Instead, this post is about Haiti and its relationship to the United States. A few items for your reading pleasure: UPDATE 2: Naomi Klein says beware of Haiti being [...] [Posted: 13 Jan 2010]
If Privacy Icons become widely adopted (and I think Mozilla is in a unique position to help make that happen) then the correlation of good companies using the icons and bad companies not using the icons becomes rather strong. If a privacy policy doesn’t include any icons it’s synonymous with that policy making no guarantees [...] [Posted: 13 Jan 2010]
People were getting tired of seeing things they loved go away. A lot of people felt powerless to change that, and all of a sudden we were presenting them with an opportunity to help fix it, and our readers literally helped save Paste. Paste magazine co-owner Josh Jackson in Back in Black in Audience Development. [...] [Posted: 13 Jan 2010]
Across the Chinese blogosphere, debate has focused on the parallels between the movie’s story and recent incidents in China, prompting some to wonder if Cameron’s film might be intended as an attack on the Chinese government. Others have rallied behind the film, arguing that it has raised public awareness of the unfairness of China’s eminent [...] [Posted: 12 Jan 2010]
From the Washington Post: Fifth and finally, al-Qaeda is covetously seeking recruits from non-Muslim countries who can be easily deployed for attacks in the West. The group’s leaders see people like these — especially converts to Islam whose appearances and names would not arouse the same scrutiny that persons from Islamic countries might — as [...] [Posted: 10 Jan 2010]
My relationship with The Intended is the first time I have ever been in a relationship with a man whose self-interest is not in direct conflict with looking out for my best interests. — What I said to myself just now. I am incredibly thankful that JT is in my life because he genuinely cares [...] [Posted: 8 Jan 2010]