Feature
The artist formerly known as News Writer
So you want to know why News Writer is now Nunzia Rider. Or maybe you don’t. You know I’m gonna tell you anyway, so either keep reading or check out one of the other great posts here at AWOP until I’m done.
See, once upon a time, a little girl was born in the foothills of Appalachia. That’s to mean, not in the actual Appalachian mountains, but in the foothills at their base, which is no less Appalachia than the mountains themselves.
This little girl never did quite fit in. No need to go into detail. Suffice it to say she just didn’t see the world the way her fellow Appalachians did. Maybe it was because she learned to read at 3, or maybe she was changeling. Nobody knows why, it just was.
[continue reading...] - No Comments » - Previously in FeatureEvery online presence that invites comment needs a few rules. We have some too. But before we get to those, there's a couple of other things you should know. Each of our six channels is run by a contributing editor who posts him or herself and may or may not invite other contributors to post from time to time. But it's the editor's spot. If you think you should be posting on one of our channels, contact the editor. Each editor runs things a little differently. Lori Hahn hosts Thoughts from a Lezzymom on the GLBTQ page; News Writer keeps a running log of other blog posts she finds interesting. All of the unique programming is located in each channel's sidebar.
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That's about it. Off to the rules of engagement.
Politics
GOP Vs Mainstream America: DKos poll pulls the mask off the village idiotsOn Tuesday, the Daily Kos published a new Research 2000 study showing the current state of belief in the GOP. Though the results aren’t anything new — indeed, the study just puts hard numbers to everything we already thought we knew about the right wing — the data also show, in sharp detail, just how far to the right the GOP has been dragged by its right wing…and how far out of step they are with the rest of America as a result.
The data also show that Frank Schaeffer was more than fair in characterizing these people as America’s “village idiots.” For one thing, they really are a bitterly small minority. Last week, I laid out some numbers of my own, which showed that the conservative movement as it’s currently constituted only represents the views of about 25 to 30 percent of Americans. (And, historically, that’s about as big as conservative movements ever get in the US — though it’s plenty big enough to do some real damage.) Furthermore, according to a Washington Post/ABC News polldone last October, only about 20 percent of Americans currently identify as Republican, which is a 40-year low. There’s nothing about our current GOP that can be supportably described as “mainstream.”
No Comments » [continue reading...]Fearless History
‘Tea Party’ movement totters and fails The idea that regular, everyday citizens can stand up to the government and say “enough is enough” is the cornerstone of a democracy. Unless, of course, it’s not the “everyday citizens” who get the limelight and drive the movement.
Witness the recent “Tea Party” movement madness that swept the country — coincidentally? — after the inauguration of the country’s first non-white president. Such parties were rife with misspelled signage, vitriolic accusations of “socialism” and “the end of America” and peopled by what at least appeared to be everyday citizens tired of the government (both Democrat and Republican) which was squandering their tax money and listening only to the elite who could afford $1,000/plate dinners.
No Comments » [continue reading...]Environment
Arctic climate changing fast This post is syndicated from Environmental News Network.
Climate change is transforming the Arctic environment faster than expected and accelerating the disappearance of sea ice, scientists said on Friday in giving their early findings from the biggest-ever study of Canada’s changing north.
The research project involved more than 370 scientists from 27 countries who collectively spent 15 months, starting in June 2007, aboard a research vessel above the Arctic Circle. It marked the first time a ship has stayed mobile in Canada’s high Arctic for an entire winter.
GLBTQ
It Will Come“Every NOW is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come.”
–Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
My partner and I recently saw A Single Man, fashion designer-cum-film director Tom Ford’s visually rich adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood classic 1964 novel. It presents “a day in the life” of a gay middle-aged college professor who mourns for his lover, whose tragic death has nearly paralyzed him from living until the day on which the story begins.
4 comments [continue reading...]International
Congo Refugees Using Entrepreneurial Skills in Rwanda Camp He was an 18-year-old orphan when he crossed the border into Rwanda as a refugee, fleeing the violence that had overtaken the Congo.
But no one could guess it watching Dieudonne Tuyisenge work from behind his sewing machine. In 1996, he arrived at a refugee camp near the Rwandan town of Kibuye, sitting across a lake that borders the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A refugee given sanctuary by a country still recovering from the 1994 genocide, Tuyisenge had to subsist on meagre food rations from the United Nations.
Yet today, his shop is stocked with food, cookware, soap, handbags, clothing and other miscellaneous items for sale.
He has no higher education, no access to a formal banking system and no transportation. Nevertheless, Tuyisenge has an entrepreneur’s acumen, importing supplies from Kibuye to sell in the camp and reinvesting profit to purchase another sewing machine…
No Comments » [continue reading...]Progressive Living
Labels be gone I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all these labels that are being bandied about: fringe left, lunatic liberals, those darn Progressives, etc.
I, like you, am an individual and I, like you, defy all labels.
That’s why I scratch my head when pundits and government representatives talk about issues as if they’re only about the labeled groups behind them. As if the issues are simply liberal or Progressive and the conversation stops there. It has become a way to neatly derail debate and dismiss issues before they can be addressed. It’s a tactic and it sucks.
What makes me a liberal and what makes me a Progressive? As I sit here in my apartment, with my comfy Afghan shoes and Target corduroys, with my cleanly shaved and washed body (finally!) and my Mac. Alone by choice. Straight by who knows what genetic mishap. I sit here aware of a greater force than me – within me and all around me and within all those I happen upon – that can enlighten me if I listen, yet I am also fervently against organized religions. All of these and much more define who I am. So, what am I? Simply a liberal? Simply a Progressive?
No Comments » [continue reading...]
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