Viola Desmond is not Canada’s Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks became an international name when she refused to give her seat to a White person on the bus. Her refusal to move sparked the Montgomery Bus boycott, which ignited the 1960’s...
Category: Themes
Tarcisio Bertone on gays: grasping at straws
It is commonly said that the best defence is a good offence, but just because it works in football does not mean that it should be a universal strategy. Someone should mention this to Tarcisio...
Polanski’s “The Ghost”: fading genius
Adam Lang, the former British Prime Minister, shambles around under virtual house arrest in his publisher’s post-modern mansion. It’s like a bunker concreted into a Hitchcockian Island...
An Arab Renaissance against all odds? – excerpt
Pan-Arabism, which crystallised during the 50's and 60's of the last century as a quasi secular socialist movement is, by all accounts, dead. The Arab Intelligentsia has grieved and mourned for the...
“Cemetery Junction” triumphs
Reading's Cemetery Junction is a notorious bottleneck for rush hour traffic, a place where time can literally come to a halt if you don’t plan your journey with due care or attention. This is...
Tamsin Omond: Not 4 Sale, not well organized either
“There’s this thing, it’s called Government, and it’s got a hell of a lot of resources and it’s got a lot of people making very important decisions… but those people and those decisions...
Britain’s televised electoral debate: the end of politics?
This week the British public will see a theatrical spectacle that most other democratic countries have 'enjoyed' for decade: a pre-election leaders' debate. As Britain heads for the first general...
WikiLeaks and monsters
During Vietnam, we in the U.S. saw the war. We saw photographs come back that froze scenes of horror in front of our eyes. During current wars, though, we have television cameras and satellites and...
Girl power aboard the International Space Station
Though many of us did not notice, April 9, 2010 was a historic day for humankind. When the shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space Station, three women, Naoko Yamazaki, Stephanie...
Mandatory sterilization & trans men in Australia
The fight over reproductive rights keeps dragging on in the United States, but in Australia, hot-button issues like abortion and contraception are rarely a subject for public debate. In Australia,...