The People Spoke…and We Listened

Last night, I was lucky enough to be part of the audience for a taping of a segment for “The People Speak,” a new production based on historian and social activist Howard Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States. An impressive cast of actors, writers, and musicians are involved with the project, which [...]

Holiday Gifts? Buy Women for Women

Here’s a holiday gift suggestions for those of you who are still shopping — check out Women for Women International’s bazaar, which sells crafts made bywomen survivors of war.
For those of you who don’t know, Women for Women is an award-winning nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lot of women in war-torn countries.
You can sponsor [...]

November 23 is Buy Nothing Day!

Come all ye fair and tender shoppers
Be careful how you spend your dough
It’s like a puddle after a rainstorm
It first appears, then there’s no more
Tralala, it’s Buy Nothing Day! If you’re in the US or Canada, that is; in other countries it’s November 24. Buy Nothing Day was founded in 1992 to help us think [...]

Panties for peace

If you’ve already told the Postal Regulatory Commission you won’t stand for a sellout to big media (and if you haven’t yet, there’s still time to weigh in before their hearings on Tuesday, October 30), perhaps you’re feeling a little bored, a little blue.
Happily, there’s a cure for such listlessness, and it even involves the [...]

Safe Sex, Indian Style

This video on safe sex and condom usage is from Nrityanjali Academy, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.
I have to say, I wish Americans would let condoms be this friendly…

Post office: another chance for small journals!

I’ve written before about the U.S. Post Office’s misguided (read: guided by TimeWarner) plot to raise postage sky-high for small periodicals and simultaneously lower it for huge ones. The Postal Regulatory Commission voted to put these new rules in effect on July 15; a massive petition effort has caused them to hold hearings on the [...]

Ms. Magazine Turns 35

I have a love/hate relationship with anniversary issues, particularly when they are celebrated in quarterly ones like Ms. Magazine. The issue quickly diverts from present day feminist politics to a historic trajectory of where we’ve come and where the heck we’re going. A who’s who list is cultivated to show the breadth of feminist leaders—which [...]

Great cause, bad taste

There is a fantastic benefit the dames at LUPEC Boston have created this September: a number of area bars and restaurants are donating the proceeds from a specific woman-themed cocktail to Jane Doe, Inc, the MA Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. So naturally, when Julia, Janell, Joanna and I met up after work [...]

A Great Loss – Author Grace Paley Dies

It saddened me greatly to hear that Grace Paley, a talented writer and social activist who championed women and anti-war movements among other things, died yesterday at her home in Vermont at the age of 84.
Ms. Paley’s short stories, for which she won much acclaim, focused on women’s lives – not glamorous portrayals of the [...]

Farm Bill/Fat Bill and Hurrah for India

A few headlines for social justice…

Are farm subsidies causing obesity? Yes. US farm subsidies mostly go to big corporate farms that grow corn, making unhealthy food cheaper. Kim O’Donnell of the Washington Post suggests that we subsidize fruits and vegetables. Sounds like a good idea to me. I know, Nancy Pelosi already signed off on [...]