Category: Human Rights

  • Older White Guys Bonding

    _____         Older White Guys Bonding I took a short walk about an hour ago, to get some stamps and lottery tickets. Just before reaching the first store, I run into an older white guy. We both say Hi. He does a double take and says, “Hey, do you have a brother […]

  • Art Judges Economy, Not Vice Versa

    _____             Art Judges Economy, Not Vice Versa         Part of the ideal in creating an economy is to figure out how to optimize growth and production and decrease scarcity, while at the same time distributing goods in beneficial ways. Furthermore, with the absence of tyranny, everyone […]

  • Posing Aemilia Lanyer (as Shakespeare; as his Dark Lady; and as she posed)

    ______     ______   Aemilia Lanyer (1569-1645), was born in London to Baptista Bassano and his possibly common-law wife Margaret Johnson. At age 23, the then Aemilia Bassano married her cousin Alphonso Lanyer, supposedly after becoming pregnant by Henry Carey, Lord Hudson. She had two children, a son Henry and a daughter Odillya, who […]

  • Life and Death from Beijing: a Poetry Sequence by Luisetta Mudie and Dreamer Fei

    ~~~~~     Editor’s note: The title of this post derives from one of the most important memoirs of the last century, Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, which came out in 1987.   She recounts in that book her imprisonment by the Red Guard during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Politically speaking, […]

  • Today is World Samina Malik Day: Terrorize your lyrics

    _____     A reminder about December 6th, World Samina Malik Day. It is after 11:00pm here on East Coast USA, which means that it is already December 6th in half the world. I greet you in freedom, and with poetic license to do so–for now. Yet, this is the day Samina will be sentenced […]

  • Taslima Nasreen: Women’s Rights vs the Holy Hell

    _____ Taslima Nasreen, International Women’s Day, March 8, 2007, Women’s Rights, the Veil and Islamic and Religious Laws _____ Taslima Nasreen or Nasrin was born in Mymensingh in what then was known as East Pakistan. Read more about this poet, writer, physician, radical feminist, human rights activist, and secular humanist here: Family Security Matters: Taslima […]

  • Sources say writer and journalist Fessehaye “Joshua” Yohannes has died in detention

    Complete story: Reporters Without Borders: Sources say writer and journalist Fessehaye “Joshua” Yohannes has died in detention Excerpts: “Credible Eritrean sources in Asmara and abroad have told Reporters Without Borders that poet and playwright Fessehaye “Joshua” Yohannes, who was a journalist with the now-banned weekly Setit, died in detention on 11 January.” [He had been […]