An article in Saturday’s Guardian newspaper offers a sad reflection on 21st Century values.

Looking at what assets rose the most in value during the first nine years of the century (the ‘noughties’), they discovered that the big winners were fine wine and cigarettes.

A case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 which would have cost you £2,613 at the beginning of 2000 (already a disturbingly large amount of money for 12 bottles of wine), sold at the end of October this year for £25,500, an increase of 876%.

And shares in British American Tobacco, whose brands include Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall mall rose over the decade by 454% with Imperial Tobacco – makers of West, Gauloises and Rizla - not far behind with an increase of 400%.

Although this was the decade that saw smoking outlawed in public places in the UK such as cafes, bars and workplaces, these two made their vast profits partly by exploiting lucrative new markets such as Nigeria and Pakistan.

So it seems that producing wine for the obscenely rich or peddling a proven cancer-producing drug to poor people in developing countries is the best way to increase your wealth.

How very, very sad.

From the 1986-2006 cohort of students who entered first year of primary school in 1986: 27% did not finish primary school; 55.8% did not finish junior high school; 75.5 did not finish senior high school.  (ESR, World Bank, 2007)

Only 7 % of student who finished school came from the poorest 20% of the population. Only 1% of university students came from the bottom 20%.

70% of all university students came from the top 20% wealth-wise.

According to a study in Yogyakarta region: 52% of the costs of running a primary school/madrasah ibtidaiyah and 47% of running a junior high school are still borne directly by families.

see: http://cetak.kompas.com/read/xml/2009/11/26/02554734/kaum.kaya.dan.pendidikan.nasional

Just recieved this email to my inbox from LGBT NOISE about the views of esteemed senator Jim Walsh:

Recently, NOISE supporter Christina Murphy spoke with Senator Jim Walsh about gay rights, equality and civil marriage. It was a real eye-opener – she learned that some elected representatives, despite being paid to represent the welfare of all their constituents, prefer to push views that belong more in 1909 than 2009.

Here’s a flavour of what she learned:

Senator Walsh believes…

…that he should be able to call gay people ‘FAIRIES’;

…that women working outside the home are causing the breakdown of the family and psychological problems in young people;

…that the gay community should realise they simply DO NOT NEED marriage. They only want it because it’s what other people have. It’s just consumerism, a fad – a bit like an iPhone!

These are the views of someone who will get to decide if YOU should be treated as an equal, a human being and a citizen with the full suite of civil rights. Remember, as second-class partnership comes up for debate, that Senator Walsh doesn’t even think that gay people should get THOSE basic protections!

Go to www.lgbtNOISE.ie to read the report of one woman’s shocking conversation with the Senator.

Do you think his views are defensible?

If it makes you angry, spread this film far and wide.

If you disagree with Senator Walsh,  LET HIM KNOW – let ALL your elected representatives know!

The message is simple:

EQUALITY NOW!

CIVIL MARRIAGE NOW!
www.lgbtNOISE.ie

I don’t really know where to even start with this one….

I think maybe with the first point. Fairies. Sure why wouldn’t he call us faries…After all, I know all I do on a regular day is get up, adjust my wings and prance around Dublin…. Seriously Jim Walsh?! It’s 2009….

As for the women outside the home thing, I wonder is he married? His poor wife if so, spending her life chained to her kitchen sink, so as not to contribute to the breakdown of society… I love how he thinks that working mums are causing the psychological problems of their children. Let’s hope he never becomes a psychologist. “Dr, I’m depressed”. “IT’S YOUR MOTHERS FAULT!! Go say ten decades of the rosary and get out of my office!!”

Jim, I don’t have an iphone…. I actively refuse to follow fads. I want to get married and have kids someday. Somehow, I don’t think an iphone will change this. If iphones are the solution to inequality, then you’d think that sales of it in Ireland would have skyrocketed from day one!!

Stupid prick.

Again, I cannot stress enough how important it is to contact your TDs and senators and let them know what you want, tell them you want full equality. Get them to stand up on December 3rd and point out the flaws in the Bill. Get them to ignore the nutjobs and fight for your rights. Go in person, write an letter, type an email, make a phonecall. Do something.

Also available as ที่รวยก็รวยเหลือล้น ที่จนก็จนเหลือหลาย

Sanitsuda Ekachai in the Bangkok Post (26 November 2009) reproduces some data on inequality that comesfrom a presentation by economist Pasuk Phongpaichit:

- The top 20% own 69% of the country’s assets while the bottom 20% own only 1%.

- 42% of bank savings money comes from only 70,000 bank accounts holding more than 10 million baht. They make up only 0.09% of all bank accounts in the country. In other words, less than 1% of the people own nearly half of the country’s savings.

- Among the farming families, nearly 20% of them are landless, or about 811,871 families, while 1-1.5 million farming families are tenants or struggling with insufficient land.

- 10% of land owners own more than 100 rai each, while the rest 90% own one rai or less.

- On income distribution, the top 20% enjoy more than 50% of the gross domestic product while the bottom 20% only 4%.

- The average income of the bottom 20% is the same as the poverty line at 1,443 baht per month.

- The gap between the richest and poorest family is 13 times, higher than all our neighbouring countries.

No points for guessing who is the richest and who probably owns more land than anyone else in the country while paying no personal income tax.  It can also be noted that income and wealth inequality usually coincide with inequalities in political power.

Really, CBS? I can’t believe that I was glad you decided to put Lambert on The Early Show when GMA canceled his spot!

The ironic thing is, CBS aired the Britney/Madonna kiss with no censorship at all (and in fact, I never saw any censorship from that kiss ever). But Lambert’s same-sex kiss needs to be censored? Is it the fact that you know he’s actually gay? Is that the problem? Or do more people have an issue with two men kissing, as opposed to two women? Probably both things rings true – although no one will admit it.

After Elton has the whole story here.

Today marks the first day of the Commit ▪ Act ▪ Demand: We CAN End Violence Against Women! activist movement. So, why the 16 days?

November 25, 2009 marks the launch of the 19th international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign – an annual campaign that runs from International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women through International Human Rights Day. (emphasis mine)

Over the next 16 days, I’m going to try and highlight the violence that women face around the world. If you’re interested in this endeavor, please visit the website and find out what some actions are that you can take to contribute to this movement and to the end of violence against women.

Yes..it is the year of reckoning when China and India will supposedly ‘catch-up’ with the US and Uk! Or at least according to Dr. Rossling!!

Listen to this fascinating TED Talk by this doctor-cum-intellectual who has plotted the per capita income of countries against time since 1858..even if a bit naive from an economist’s standpoint (eg: no mention of the Great Depression in 1930s, no mention of World War II + economic performance can’t just be measured by per capita income)..the graph however is splendidly done even within its limited scope!

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_asia_s_rise_how_and_when.html

An article in Saturday’s Guardian newspaper offers a sad reflection on 21st Century values.

Looking at what assets rose the most in value during the first nine years of the century (the ‘noughties’), they discovered that the big winners were fine wine and cigarettes.

A case of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 which would have cost you £2,613 at the beginning of 2000 (already a disturbingly large amount of money for 12 bottles of wine), sold at the end of October this year for £25,500, an increase of 876%.

And shares in British American Tobacco, whose brands include Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall mall rose over the decade by 454% with Imperial Tobacco – makers of West, Gauloises and Rizla - not far behind with an increase of 400%.

Although this was the decade that saw smoking outlawed in public places in the UK such as cafes, bars and workplaces, these two made their vast profits partly by exploiting lucrative new markets such as Nigeria and Pakistan.

So it seems that producing wine for the obscenely rich or peddling a proven cancer-producing drug to poor people in developing countries is the best way to increase your wealth.

How very, very sad.

Well, about everyone in the whole universe knows by now that Adam Lambert shared a kiss with one of his male bandmates, as well as simulated fellatio with a male dancer. I wanted to put up the video, but it seems as though the video has been taken down everywhere…so I will share a picture instead!

Needless to say, this shocked most of the population and over 1,500 people formally complained about this. Clearly, homophobia is rampant (not that you needed to remind me, but maybe some other people needed reminding?) Is what Lambert decided to do in his performance really threatening? Does it really do any harm? No. Actually, it doesn’t at all. And I can say without any doubt, that if a woman had been in Lambert’s place, no one would really care. Even if it were only women taking part in this performance, therefore it still being all same-sex, people wouldn’t have cared as much. But men aren’t supposed to act the way that Lambert did. He doesn’t fit the mold of hegemonic masculinity, so people are freaking out.

However, because of all this shock and all the complaints, ABC canceled Lambert’s spot on Good Morning America. People are pretty up in roar about it and this issue is taking over Twitter (hence the #ShameOnYouABC). Instead, he’s going to be appearing on The Early Show on CBS. The good thing about all of this is that Lambert is standing by his performance.

“You know honestly, if I offended some people… it’s apples and oranges. I’m not an artist that does things for every single person,” he told Access Hollywood after the show Sunday night. “I believe in artistic freedom and expression, I believe in honoring the lyrics of a song, and those lyrics aren’t really for everybody either.”

I’m glad he’s sticking to his guns, because we alllll know this is actually about his sexual orientation, as opposed to his actual performance.

Yesterday, Ashley Milne-Tyte profiled how some hospitals are applying good social science to improve health care for non-white patients. In one study, researchers found:

“Cambodian women are far less likely to breastfeed than other new mothers in American hospitals. Cambodian tradition says new mothers should eat specific hot foods after the baby’s born. American hospital food doesn’t fit the bill. So many Cambodian women don’t breastfeed. In one study hospital staff devised a new, Cambodian menu. Breastfeeding tripled.”

You can listen to the complete report here.

Introduction:

Let us imagine a city. Enough jobs have been created that the labor market is tight, wages are rising, and increased consumption fuels a thriving economy. Enormous amounts of affordable housing have been built, despite the unending flow of people into the city. Does this city work? Does it fulfill the hopes of the “new urbanists”?

Not necessarily. Because the city I have described is the New York of the Five Points, or Dickins’ London, or Detroit on June 20th 1943 or Los Angeles on August 11, 1965. Making the city work goes far beyond the concrete reality of real estate and employment – there are a vast number of services that have to work for a city to be livable.

And to understand why this is, we have to understand the political and social movement known as “municipal socialism.”

History:

One of many books that every progressive should read is Daniel Rodger’s Atlantic Crossings, a history of the early progressive movement as a trans-atlantic conversation between American and European reformers confronting corporate capitalism and its social consequences. One of the reasons why American reformers were driven to attempt a total reconstruction of economic life was that when they encountered the European city, they felt an unaccustomed feeling of inferiority at how advanced European civic reform had gone. Beginning in Britain in the 1840s, urban social reformers horrified at the unhealthy and dangerous state of water, sanitation, and public health had been forced to confront the reality of private waterworks, garbage collectors, ice companies, and hospitals who saw no profit in meeting the needs of the working classes. In the face of cholera and influenza, the industrial giants of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool, and London were forced to break the taboos of laissez-faire and provided public services to the masses.

American reformers returning from Europe came back with visions of public water companies and sewers in cities in which one in eight had access to running water, public gas and ice companies to deal with the depths of winter and the unbearable heat of the summer, public subways and streetcars to replace the anarchy of competing private firms who would rather cut off entire sections of the city than allow rivals access to a permanent market, and public housing to replace  the overstuffed and dilapidated tenements.

More importantly, they brought with them an understanding of the city as a “web of mutual dependency,” where daily survival relied upon farms and factories whose goods came to the city through the labor of sailors and longshoremen, railroad workers and teamsters and flowed through a massive network of retailers, shopkeepers, and salesmen to satisfy the needs of the people. Even in a capitalist system, the maintenance of this delicate machine was the charge of the city itself: public markets where consumers could be sure of fair dealing thanks to public inspectors and licenses; public roads, docks, train stations, and warehouses where goods could be moved and stored; and public fire, police, and public heath services to keep the public safe.

Through a series of grueling political battles that lasted from the 1880s through the 1930s and 40s, generations of progressive activists established the principle that we cannot allow the necessities of urban life to be left to the mercies of the market. It is hardly a coincidence that  we began de-regulating utilities and privatizing government in the 1970s at the same time that the cities began to decline – cities need public and regulated services to prosper.

Rebuilding Public Services:

If “new urbanism” is to actually make the city once more a functioning organism, one of the elements of constructing the “new urbanism” must be the re-publicization of services.

Electricity, Water, Climate Control, and Garbage Services:

These services have two things in common: first, they are very much necessities, and second, at the same time they are also public goods. Garbage services, for example, benefit both the individual (who gets a home that is clean and healthful) and the community (who are protected from the “great stench” that once characterized urban life, and the epidemic diseases that made it so precarious). Water is a human necessity for life, but it also benefits the community in that it allows people to cook and clean in their own homes, which aids in sanitation and public health. By the way, if the emphasis on cleanliness and disease strikes you as a bit odd, consider the ease by which epidemic diseases swept the great cities of the 19th century and then imagine the scale by which similar diseases would speed through cities that are ten times larger and where people can travel from country to county in a few hours.

Climate control is normally somewhat marginal in terms of human survival – except at the extremes. In the middle of winter, people do get sick and a smaller number die from extreme cold, especially the young and the infirm. Likewise, in major heatwaves, we also see that the elderly and infirm often succumb to heat stroke and similar conditions. Beyond the extremes, however, there is the issue of “livability.” Given how densely-developed cities function as “heat islands,” and similarly how canyonization can amplify the effects of high winds, having some kind of climate control is important for keeping urban residents happy in close quarters. There is a reason why major urban riots in the 20th century were most frequent in the summer – extreme temperatures can have a catalyzing effect on existing tensions.

In terms of making a city livable, the immediate purpose is to make these services both abundant and affordable – without sacrificing the long-term goal of making cities more sustainable when it comes to power, water, and waste disposal. Given the extremely mixed results of privatization of utilities, especially in regards to equitable distribution of goods and the impact this has on class inequalities in quality of life, one strategy that the “new urbanism” movement should support is the re-publicization of basic services, especially models that combine decentralized production (rooftop solar panels) with public “yardstick” utilities to create both competition with private corporations and outlets for new strategies in the sustainable production of services.

Mass Transit:

Mass transit is something of a given when it comes to municipal socialism – spatially, a city is essentially a network that allow people to move between different buildings and open spaces. Beyond just saying “mass transit is good,” there is a larger point that needs to be made: contrary to the conventional wisdom that “there’s no Republican or Democratic way to fill a pot hole,” there are different ways to make mass transportation work. Choosing between highways and subways, or between more car lanes or more bike lanes, or between systems that privilege ex-urban commuters over intra-urban commuters have both practical and ideological consequences.

In most American cities, there is a disparity between how we treat roads and how we treat public transit – roads are generally free to the user (with the obvious exception of tolls, but these are rather rare) but funded by the public via taxes or bonds, whereas public transit is viewed as a service that the user pays for at the point of use. If we are to make mass transit the hallmark of new urbanism, one mental change that has to happen is a rethinking of public transit as something that should be made cheap, if not free – because the city has a vested interest in making it more attractive than low-density methods of transportation. To that end, establishing free passes for the elderly and working poor families, as well as subsidized passes for regular commuters should be a standard part of the new urbanist toolbox, especially because such programs also act as a mechanism of wealth redistribution that can nurture a “bell-curve” city.

Free Higher Education, The Arts, and Wireless Broadband:

Here, we move from the realm of practical necessity to what once was called “the civilizing arts.” Free higher education is not a necessity – but it a public good that both ensures the social mobility necessary for preserving the “bell-curve” of a healthy democratic society and the robust economic development and the intellectual and cultural innovation that are the hallmarks of a great city, and its true justification as a social organization. Likewise, creating a vibrant artistic nexus where talented people can gather and collaborate both provides additional routes for upward mobility, and allows the city to develop its own voice and its own conscious identity. Wireless broadband is a newer entry onto this list, but the potential benefits of freeing up communication, business startups, and facilitating political mobilization are too strong not to include it.

Together, these items help to incubate the base elements for a true, Deweyian democracy, a city that can think, and debate, and act collectively. They’re not sufficient – you need political and social organization before you can really have a self-directing city – but they do create the raw material of experts, ideas, means of communication, and so on that the organizing process relies upon.

Conclusion:

The role of “municipal socialism” in creating the new, livable city ultimately comes down to the very origins of urban life. Civilization began in the cities, with the creation of an agricultural surplus that allowed for the seperation of a population from the all-consuming task of acquiring food. Civilization in this sense begins by transcending necessity.

To this end, the livable city must be one in which people spend as little time and resources on the basic necessities of life as possible, and thus can devote themselves to the progress of society.

It’s no secret that income inequality has been on the rise in the United States over the past generation. But it has been increasing in most other affluent countries too. This is not a product of cuts in taxes or social programs; it’s due mainly to rising inequality of market income.

Suppose we think it would be good for countries to try to maintain or move toward relatively low levels of inequality, something akin to the levels in contemporary Denmark or Sweden. What is the best way to do that?

My attempt at an answer is in the September-October issue of Challenge.

Modern life is perhaps conspiring to make us fat, suggest Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in ‘The Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better’ (www.landmarkonthenet.com). In the past the rich were fat and the poor were thin, but in developed countries these patterns are now reversed, they add.

A study cited in the book is of the World Health Organisation, which found the steeping of social gradient as rates of obesity have increased. “By the early 1990s obesity was more common among poorer women, compared to richer women, in all 26 countries, and among poorer men in all except five.”

The sudden rapid increase in obesity in many societies cannot be explained by genetic factors, the authors aver. “People often point to the changes in cost, ease of preparation and availability of energy-dense foods, to the spread of fast-food restaurants, the development of the microwave, and the decline in cooking skills. Others point to the decline in physical activity, both at work and in leisure time, increasing car use and the reduction in physical education programmes in schools.”

But the real culprit may be income inequality, the book postulates. Scatter diagrams that plot income inequality on the x-axis and per cent obese on the y, show a preponderance of obesity, both among adults and children, in the more unequal US states.

Calorie intake and exercise are only part of the story, note Wilkinson and Pickett. “People with a long history of stress seem to respond to food in different ways from people who are not stressed. Their bodies respond by depositing fat particularly round the middle, in the abdomen, rather than lower down on hips and thighs.” Quite alarmingly, people who accumulate fat around the middle are at particularly high risk of obesity-associated illnesses.

Apart from the addition of weight in the worst places, stress can cause us to increase our food intake and change our food choices, a pattern known as stress-eating or eating for comfort, the authors report. “In experiments with rats, when the animals are stressed they eat more sugar and fat… In a study in Finland, people whose eating was driven by stress ate sausages, hamburgers, pizza and chocolate, and drank more alcohol than other people.”

Scientists are starting to understand how comfort eating may be a way we cope with particular changes in our physiology when we are chronically stressed, changes that go with feelings of anxiety, the authors inform. “Recent research suggests that food stimulates the brains of chronic over-eaters in just the same ways that drugs stimulate the brains of addicts.”

A chapter titled ‘Building the future’ forecasts that the proportion of the population feeling they could trust others might rise by 75 per cent in the US, if only the country’s inequality were reduced to something like the average of the four most equal of the rich countries (Japan, Norway, Sweden and Finland).

The authors foresee, then, matching improvements in the quality of community life; “rates of mental illness and obesity might similarly each be cut by almost two-thirds, teenage birth rates could be more than halved, prison populations might be reduced by 75 per cent, and people could live longer while working the equivalent of two months less per year.”

Trade between countries can be good for the societies, or bad.

William Bernstein, author of A Splendid Exchange, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about inequality.

Bernstein is worried about it; Roberts is not. Bernstein argues that inequality is damaging to the health of low-status people and hurts the health of the economy. Roberts challenges Bernstein’s empirical evidence. It’s a lively conversation on the economics of status, productivity and the progressivity of taxes.

Bernstein on Inequality | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

MP3 audio

These days I was at a very interesting congress on child soldiers in Colombia’s capital Bogotá. One of the nice things was that some of the speakers were from other countries that are at war and that live(d) atrocities very much like those that the Colombian people had/have to suffer as well.There were two former child soldiers from Africa, one from Uganda and one from Sudan. They explained the circumstances of war and the attitude of the government – for example that the Ugandan government doesn’t want to stap fighting against the terrifying Lord’s Resistance Army although there is pressure to negotiate (what’s new?). I couldn’t help thinking of what I have often thought.

Colombians are so convinced that their war is the most horrible of all wars and the most unresolvable etc etc and no one is able to understand it, except the Colombians themselves. I think that’s why it never stops. They should look at experiences abroad, go there and talk to governments and NGO’s and learn, and especially be aware that their war  is as stupid and cruel as other wars. And that the reason is the same in Uganda, in Sudan, in Liberia, in Sierra Leone and in Congo and in Colombia: inequality and lack of opportunities for the poor. Whose children are by the way therefore easily recruited as child soldiers.

17 wars are raging on at the moment, a Unicef representative said, in which child soldiers are fighting.

Ok Social Justice Class… you had to know this was coming.   After our debates and discussion about our school system and whether it offers equality to all groups, I thought a blog assignment would be an ideal way to get all of our feelings heard.I am very interested in seeing your views on this topic.

There are two files I want you to download and examine. These files compare all graduating students across the province in terms of male/female, first nations/aboriginal, french immersion, special needs etc…

To understand the statistics, examine the page with the tables and they are listed by Number of potential students graduating in that group, number who actually graduation, and percentage of graduating students in that group. The percentage of graduating students of that group is what I want you to focus on…

Link 1: Entire province statistics:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reports/pdfs/graduation/prov.pdf

Link 2: Langley Secondary School:

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reports/pdfs/graduation/03535019.pdf

Do the statistics surprise you? Think about our discussion over the past week, does the statistics support one side? Does this change your mind?

Now for the assignment:

Do you think our education system offers equal opportunities and the potential for success for all groups?

Give an explanation of why there is such a difference between drop out rates of some groups (aboriginal) vs. others (french immersion) for example.

Conduct research on this topic. Find information and newspaper articles that discusses these topics. Support your side and provide references to the information your find and write about on your blog. Read and comment on another blog from our class.

Here is a start: Click here

Living in central Ohio, I was so glad to hear that the Southwestern school district finally passed their levy so that they could have things like sports and a band. Then I heard that some people in my family were bitching about it.

They don’t have kids. Well, let me clarify. My cousin is basically an old maid that got stuck buying houses and living with her widowed mother. She’s dated a few men, but I’ve always met them a month in at things like Drum and Bugle Corp competitions… which pretty much self explains why she is at least 40 years old and will never succeed in getting married. Do I feel sorry for her? Yes, but I also know she brings so much of it on to herself. She has never not lived with her mother, she gained a bunch of weight, joined Weight Watchers and gave up because her mother was anything but supportive.

But even throughout her miserable life, I know she had at least a few years of glory. I know because I hear the stories about her twirling and being in marching band. But how quickly we all forget…

She has no kids and therefore voted against passing the school levy. She must have also forgot that it effects her property value and that real kids lives are effected by this. It also really hurts my feelings that they don’t remember me and what I want to do when making these decisions.

This is all, of course, secondary, to the fact that it shouldn’t be up for question that people vote on whether or not they want to support a school system. It was found to be unconstitutional over 10 years ago, but the legislature has taken no action and it’s upsetting to me. Richer neighborhoods get better schools and poorer areas get worse schools.

But if you are a voter, I hope that you take time to remember your extracurricular activities from high school and consider that maybe kids today would like the same opportunities.

PS Down 27 lbs. <3

So, going on from my previous post about the “Men Against Violence Against Women” panel discussion, I just wanted to mention some other things that stuck out for me.

1. What is a woman’s role?
So, although it is clear that men must take responsibility for this issue, there is still an important role that women play, and have been playing for many, many years. Resistance. Women have been resisting violence against them for a long time and women must continue to play this part. Our resistance is extremely important. But now, since we’ve been resisting for years, it is time for men to respond to this resistance!

2. Safe spaces for men
New safe spaces need to be created for men to discuss these things. These safe spaces need to be places that men can come and grow and learn how to have an emotional life, outside of just having anger. This will bring together a collective of men who believe the same things and will be able to fight against violence against women.

3. Live the way you believe
Finally, what I want to end with is something that one panelist said. “Live the way you believe”. This is the first step in action. This means that everyone can act. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you believe certain things, live it out. Do not be silent. Your silence will condone this violence (or whatever other issue it may be). You CAN help this situation, no matter how helpless you may feel. It doesn’t have to be some huge act. Small acts everyday will build into a great movement, and actually be a part of a movement that is already happening. I hope that you feel a little inspired to at least try something!

Last night, I had the great experience of attending an all men’s panel discussion, provided by my university’s Anti-Violence Network. The panel was entitled “Men Against Violence Against Women”. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first showed up, but it turned out to be a great discussion and some awesome points were brought up, that I want to highlight here.

1. Men need to acknowledge hegemonic masculinity
One speaker went over the basic hegemonic masculinity in our North American culture. This means strong, invulnerable, emotionless, silent, and angry (with anger really being the only emotion allowed). Homophobia is also a part of this. Men aren’t allowed to be feminine in any way, because the traditional man is supposed to be everything opposite of femininity. All of these things open up the pathway to violence, because women and homosexuals are “othered” or dehumanized; therefore, men feel that they CAN be violent.

2. There needs to be a new conception of masculinity
There needs to be a positive conception of being a man, which will make for better partnerships with everyone (women, other men, and children). Men need to reconceptualize strength. Strength can be something that is good, and not used for harm. Also, there needs to be insight within this new masculinity. Openness, self-reflection and self-awareness are necessary for this new masculinity.

3. Men must take responsibility
Many times, men are excused from their violence, or have some form of excuse for their violence. One of these excuses is that it’s a man or boys “nature” to be violent. But we were reminded again tonight that nothing is biological about violence! But another important point was that men who are not violent against women must also take responsibility. These non-violent men must not be silent. They must tell other men and boys that violence against women is not acceptable. Without these men leading other men and boys, this issue is NOT going to go away.

4. Action must be taken
One panelist discussed how there is too much damn research. We all KNOW that there is a problem, and we can continue paying for research to be done, but it’s not doing anything about the problem! We need to move on from identifying the problem. It is now time to seriously act. We must be examples to the younger generation. We must tell others that this issue is not acceptable. However you can act against this issue, you have to do it!

There were some other really awesome things discussed, which I’m going to save for a later post, since I don’t want this post to go on forever. I will just say that it was simply refreshing to hear men discuss this issue and not pat themselves on the back for having this panel in the first place. You know, that self-congratulatory thing? Not cool! So, it was awesome not seeing that. More discussions like this need to happen, because ultimately, this is an issue that only men can get rid of.

Lack of updates these past two weeks due to my relocation to India, where I shall be for the next four months. I will be interning with The Indian Express, a mid-sized daily newspaper, and living in Hyderabad, at the heart of the subcontinent.

India is a maze, a warren, a crazy mosaic of languages and cultures. And also, apparently, economic conditions. Nowhere else, save perhaps for China, can one so easily view rich and poor, privileged and deprived, hungry and satiated, living side by side, literally on top of one another. The inequality here is so stark as to astound a visitor from the “developed” world, and one needs only to open their eyes to see it.

This is not, of course, to say that America is any paragon of social equality. Indeed, the inequality one finds in America (the top 1% of American earners reap more than 66% of income gains) roughly compares to its Indian counterpart – but devices were put in place long ago to mask this, such that you would have to go back sixty or seventy years to see the kind of open poverty one views today in India.

Aravind Adiga, in his excellent novel The White Tiger, remarked that there were, in fact, two Indias: rich and poor, urban and rural, light and dark. But that betrays, I think, an anthropogenic love for duality. Would it not be more accurate to say there are tens of Indias, thousands, millions? There is still the Anglo-India, kow-towing to all things western, obsessed with “progress”, “advancement”; there is political India, where millionaires sit drinking tea served by “houseboys”, making pious speeches to one another about “the poor” while ensuring their houseboys don’t go anywhere; there is old India, whose fading citizens still carry dim memories of the British Raj, whom the rapid development of the past decades has left in utter confusion. And there is young India, comprising more than a quarter of the population, born after 1980, already in a world light-years from that of their parents. Beset by ceaseless advertisements and consumerism on one hand, and the receding puritanism of their parents on the other, their confusion is the confusion India faces today. Does not every one of India’s 250 + dialects confer its own reality, its own India? And then: do the myriad cities, each variegated in a manner so far removed from American homogeniety, not confer their own Indias? One more India we cannot forget, one which is growing more powerful and ruthless by the day: Corporate India.

Overpopulation is the defining issue of our day, and nowhere does it strike one so forcefully as India. When one steps out into the swirling chaos of the streets, when one stands admidst the teeming masses with faces so much like your own, when one looks down from a rooftop at the quivering mass of thousands, tens of thousands, it strikes: Can there truly be so many? And: What do all these people do? How do they survive?

Badly, as it turns out. My cousin informed me that 60% of India’s population lives hand-to-mouth, on less than 1,000 calories per day. “You could hardly call that living!” she exclaimed. And yet somehow it is. Confronted by the magnitude of the population problem, which is truly that of the whole world, one has no choice but to shut it out of his mind. Doing so, of course, is much easier in the West, where the density has not yet reached critical mass, but even in India, where one must live with it daily, one finds a curious detachment. Not that they don’t realize the problem; indeed, when brought up it is usually met with a disapproving shake of the head and cluck of the tongue, but invariably a shrug and some noises to the effect that “there is nothing to be done.”

Perhaps of a sense of powerlessness, then, one is able to look out the window at the roadways choked with 15 types of vehicle, the cars and motorcycles viciously competing for inches of space, the clouds of blue smoke that never quite disperse, or the thousands, tens of thousands of faces seen once and forgotten with a mere shrug. They have grown accustomed to it, so to speak, and I can already feel myself growing accustomed as well.

Some months ago I was listening to a discussion on radio. An economist was required in an atmosphere of good humour to admit that he might not be impartial, that he might have an interest, that his views might be conditioned by personal circumstances. The suspicion? Well, that was the source of the humour. He had to come clean on his relationship to Mary O’Rourke, the popular Fianna Fáil politician; he admitted to being her nephew! Perhaps this was going too far but it is generally commendable that people who take part in public discussion be open and explicit about possible determinants of their views. We consider it normal, for example, to ask a member of a TV studio audience who offers an opinion, if he or she is a member of a political party. There is however one, glaring, secretive exception.

The topic which dominates political discussion in Ireland today is incomes policy, how much people can be paid in these straitened times. This breaks down into two themes: reducing wages to competitive levels and reducing public sector pay to reflect a greatly reduced tax take.

Many of those targeted for pay cuts say that they cannot afford any further reduction in pay. Most of those talking in the media about policy enjoy salaries that are multiples of the average wage. Unlike party membership or having a political auntie, salary is kept secret or not considered a possible determinant of argument, a vested interest. There has always been a quiet and polite reluctance to divulge or discuss a person’s income, the matter being considered strictly private. The history of political communication, democratization and progress itself can be traced through issues being dragged out of the private realm into the light of politics. It is time that public debate took another intrusive step.

Consider how newspapers frequently place a person’s age in brackets or how TV identifies, describes and classifies a contributor with an informative caption under their picture. Now, consider a debate about pay in which contributors’ incomes appeared in brackets and in captions. If Josephine Bloggs, Economist with A, Professor of B, Economics Editor at C, Director of D or CEO of E, appeared to argue pay policy with her salary clearly shown, a more open, honest debate could take place.