Here is some stuff to get angry about
May. 6th, 2011 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyYou know, in case you were feeling complacent today.
Tony Kushner, one of my favourite playwrights and deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize, was denied an honourary degree from CUNY for his views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I dunno about the whole idea of honourary degrees, to be honest, but if one is going to grant them, nuanced political opinions ought not to be the reason.
From Barbara Ehrenreich:
Lest you think that the new Conservative majority is going to be remotely moderate, check out this article on their proposed crime bill.
Okay, so if I link to a site that has hate material on it, I'm guilty of a hate crime? I link to the Toronto SUN and the National Post pretty frequently! I am so screwed.
The latest from Foxconn, the sweatshop where all of your cool gadgets are made: workers must sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives". That's because the horrible conditions in the company are so brutal that workers regularly kill themselves rather than put up with 96-hour weeks, overcrowding, and frequent humiliations. (Don't read the comments on the BoingBoing link. There are a lot of libertarian sweatshop apologists on that thread.)
So how was your day?
Tony Kushner, one of my favourite playwrights and deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize, was denied an honourary degree from CUNY for his views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. I dunno about the whole idea of honourary degrees, to be honest, but if one is going to grant them, nuanced political opinions ought not to be the reason.
From Barbara Ehrenreich:
The CUNY board's decision came after board member Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld objected to Kushner's statements about Israel, excerpts of which Wiesenfeld claims to have gleaned from various websites (Wiesenfeld's citations have been described by blogger Mitchell Plitnick as having been sourced from the notoriously reactionary pro-Israel propaganda purveyer, Camera.org). Wiesenfeld does not claim to have sought out the original sources of the statements he cites, lending credencem to the objection that he willfully has taken Kushner's comments out of context. Wiesenfeld has since argued, in an unrepentent op-ed posted on the Jewish newspaper site Algemeiner.com, that Kushner's views should be labeled anti-Semitic.
Lest you think that the new Conservative majority is going to be remotely moderate, check out this article on their proposed crime bill.
Here’s what the Library of Parliament says about the bill on its website: “Clause 5 of the bill provides that the offences of public incitement of hatred and wilful promotion of hatred may be committed by any means of communication and include making hate material available, by creating a hyperlink that directs web surfers to a website where hate material is posted, for example.”
Okay, so if I link to a site that has hate material on it, I'm guilty of a hate crime? I link to the Toronto SUN and the National Post pretty frequently! I am so screwed.
The latest from Foxconn, the sweatshop where all of your cool gadgets are made: workers must sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives". That's because the horrible conditions in the company are so brutal that workers regularly kill themselves rather than put up with 96-hour weeks, overcrowding, and frequent humiliations. (Don't read the comments on the BoingBoing link. There are a lot of libertarian sweatshop apologists on that thread.)
So how was your day?
