Author: mara.ahmed

The National Equality March – the birth of a new civil rights movement for LGBT people in the U.S.

Time Magazine: 200,000 Attend The Gay March: Will a New Generation’s Protests Be Heard? Full article.

something worth checking out.

Columbus’ stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.”

The whole terminology has changed,” said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. “You don’t hear people using the world ‘discovery’ anymore like they used to. ‘Columbus discovers America.’ Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?” Full article.

Indian governments and the people they represent are requesting that the federal government bring about a National Holiday for Native Americans to be celebrated by all citizens of America and people around the world.

This holiday would pay tribute to Indian Tribal Leaders to include Alaskan Leaders and Hawaiian Leaders. This holiday would also pay tribute to those that endured the world’s longest holocaust and most costly in human lives.

Sign petition here.

“The cost of my freedom, I am told, is eternal vigilance. I live in the richest country in the world, the nation which monopolizes over a fourth of the earth’s resources, and am still imprisoned when exercising my so-called freedom of speech. I’m to believe, instead, that our freedom depends on using the U.S. military and contracted mercenaries as super-Vigilantes in Afghanistan’s impoverished provinces, targeting the loosely connected, oftentimes illiterate and highly unskilled network of the Taliban. U.S. military strategy commands soldiers to enter villages, raid homes, take prisoners, maim, wound and kill targeted “bad guys”, possibly along with their families, and destroy all opportunity for a collective livelihood and security in Afghanistan. What’s more, thousands of people are stranded in IDP camps, homeless and barefoot and uncertain as to why the U.S. ever invaded their land in the first place. Is this the price of my freedom?” (Jerica Arents). Full article.

“Celebrating Columbus Is Blasphemy. Celebrate October 12 as Indigenous People’s Day. Maybe we Eurocentric folks can begin to register the extent of harm we have even done to ourselves after our genocide of the Native peoples. This mindset has boomerang energy – it returns, sooner or later, to the inflictor, often with ever more ferocity.” (Brian S Wilson). Full article.

When I saw this morning’s top New York Times headline — “Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize” — I had the same immediate reaction which I’m certain many others had: this was some kind of bizarre Onion gag that got accidentally transposed onto the wrong website, that it was just some sort of strange joke someone was playing. Upon further reflection, that isn’t all that far from the reaction I still have. Full article.

“US troops are occupying two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan. For all the talk, US soldiers remain in Iraq, and their bases are likely to stay there for some time. And the war in Afghanistan continues unabated, with President Obama actually sending in more troops. More people are being killed, both Afghans and NATO soldiers. The war has been expanded into Pakistan. So this is a sort of odd, though not surprising, choice by the Nobel Prize Committee.

They tend to take rhetoric very seriously. And though they deny it, we know that in 1938 they couldn’t decide whether to give the prize to Hitler or to Gandhi. And finally, they gave it to the Nansen International Office of Refugees, which was a much better choice. It would be worth their while thinking that perhaps they should have a self-denying ordinance. They shouldn’t give the prize to serving heads of state.” (Tariq Ali). Full interview.

“As horrible as the police brutality was on October 7th these actions are small compared to what people of color experience from the police everyday in the city of Rochester and minuscule compared to what the Afghani people have had to suffer for 8 years by U.S. military bombing and occupation.” Full article.

three letters: LOL!!!

OSLO – The announcement drew gasps of surprise and cries of too much, too soon. Yet President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday because the judges found his promise of disarmament and diplomacy too good to ignore. Full article.