Western Rebellion December 7, 2006

We have to give them that [Western] culture, knowing that it will spoil them and that they will lose their own culture… BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Teen rebellion – a Western export? I was surprised to see this article among the top five BBC News stories, because it deals with an issue I [...]

When Children are Fought Over… November 29, 2006

12-Year-old girl must return to Scotland “I think Molly is going to be quite scared and confused. I just want to tell her that it is all going to be okay – it’s all going to work out.” BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Highlands and Islands | Court victory for Misbah’s mother     [...]

The Great Divide November 21, 2006

We fear going to the market. We fear going to work. We fear stepping out onto the street. Even at home we sit in fear. BBC NEWS | Middle East | Displaced Iraqis: Shia family’s story I hate using these terms, and I hate saying ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia‘. BBC NEWS | Middle East | Displaced [...]

The Truth about the Minimum Wage November 15, 2006

    In her revealing book, Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich explores the inside story of existing on the minimum wage.  In order to discover the realities of the low-wage lifestyle, she took some months out of her White-collar journalistic life to actually try it out.  Essentially, she experienced what [...]

Child Soldiers November 14, 2006

Elements in the Sri Lankan military are helping a breakaway rebel faction to abduct children as soldiers to fight Tamil Tiger rebels BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sri Lanka youth ‘seized to fight’     This article puts forward the claim that Sri Lankan government troops assisted the “breakaway rebel faction” led by Col Karuna [...]

Captives of Desire November 9, 2006

    In her piece Hunger as Ideology, Susan Bordo explores the notion of ‘thin-female attractiveness’.  Rather than focusing on the widely discussed topic of the modern woman’s tendency to equate beauty with thinness, she looks deeper for the causes and psychological implications of this obsession, identifying the problem as a “long-standing, devastating ideology that has [...]

Tampering with Life November 6, 2006

UK scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by fusing human DNA with cow eggs.Researchers from Newcastle University and Kings College, London, have asked the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority for a three-year licence.The hybrid human-bovine embryos would be used for stem cell research and would not be allowed to develop for more than [...]

Class Identity and the Politics of Dissent: A Commentary November 2, 2006

    In this excerpt Julie Lindquist shares her experience of the “working class” as seen in the Smokehouse neighborhood bar.  Here she observes the conversation of the patrons, in particular the arguments of Jack, a garrulous regular.  Through writing about Jack, she raises an interesting point: argument can be used as a “performance…that allow[s] Smokehousers [...]

Blocking out Illegal Immigrants October 31, 2006

Mexican officials have opposed the fence, with outgoing President Vicente Fox calling it “shameful” and likening it to the Berlin Wall.About 10 million Mexicans are thought to live in the US, some four million of them illegally. BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush signs Mexico fence into law     On Thursday, October 26, President Bush [...]

The Scholarship Boy October 26, 2006

“Scholarship boy: good student, troubled son.” This quote encapsulates the dilemma that Rodriguez explores through his piece, The Achievement of Desire.  In it he tells how he discarded his heritage and the Mexican culture of his parents for the pursuit of an education.  Through examining his own development, he gives us a glimpse of what [...]