January 11, 2015
- Jacobin article “Greening Malthus” challenges that idea that family planning serves as a solution to the world’s environmental problems. “Instead of resolving environmental problems, promoting family planning to save the planet often has deleterious effects on reproductive health and rights.”
- You may have mixed feelings about Joan Didion’s writing and her near-cult status among millennials, but have you seen this new ad for Céline? Emily M. Keeler’s thoughts on this “cool girl” branding trend is worth a read. Gawker also tackles the ad with “Dear God, What Have They Done to Joan Didion, Now?”
- The Star reports on a story that GUTS also covered this week — the city of Toronto’s failure to provide a 24-hour drop-in for women and trans people, a project which has been delayed for nearly two years. “The urgency of the need is not recognized.”
- A horrifying story broke this week about a Mountie who took an Indigenous woman home from jail to “pursue a personal relationship.” The RCMP’s response to the incident has been disgustingly inadequate.
- Dissent magazine released its winter issue this week, focusing on the theme of urban activism. Among the selection of excellent articles is “Brooklyn Tenants Revolt,” a personal story by Sarah Jaffe “about tenants in one Brooklyn neighborhood who demanded a rent freeze from landlords who failed to heat their freezing apartments.”
- Graphic artist Joe Sacco considers the limits of satire in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks
- “Dear Marooned Alien Princess,” an advice column by Zahira Kelly for The New Inquiry “rearranges” and “inverts” hierarchies, so that
the radical academic who makes a career out of treating working class or racialized lives as raw material for theoretical texts suddenly looks less like a genius and more like a well-fed vampire. And a black woman despairing of the men she dates might reflect that from this new perspective they look less like unattainable Romeos and more like the threadbare best of a bunch of bad options.
- Some uplifting news: two grade 8 students from Toronto created a petition to update Ontario’s sex education classes to include teachings about “consent culture.” Their campaign has apparently caught Premier Kathleen Wynne’s attention.
- One year after Bedford, where are we now? asks Rabble.
- A review of Miranda July’s new novel, The First Bad Man.
- In November, RankandFile.ca put out a call for testimonials of sexism in the workplace. The resulting collection of stories, covering everything from sexual harassment to pay inequity, was published this week.
- A news roundup collecting articles about this week’s bomb attack on the Colorado Springs office of the NAACP.
By Tuesday night, the hashtag #NAACPBombing was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter and people were shocked and frustrated that they were just learning of such a disturbing incident and had to learn about it from Twitter so long after it happened.
Winter became a depressing yet romanticized escape for me in a way I was never told was actually quite unhealthy. For years, I found myself stifling tears and sobs in public transit, in university lectures, and then finally at my workplace. ‘I have winter depression,’ I found myself muttering under my breath. ‘It will pass soon enough.’
- Some fluff: The history of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s friendship (prep for the Golden Globes) and an overview of Taylor Swift’s savvy “girlfriend collection.”
