How Are Companies Fined for Workplace Deaths? (by TheYoungTurks)
More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country’s north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday.
The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left unconscious.
Malawi’s president vows to repeal gay ban
President Joyce Banda declared Friday she wants to repeal Malawi’s laws against homosexual acts, going against a trend in Africa in which gays are being increasingly singled out for prosecution.
Banda, who assumed the presidency in April when her predecessor died, made the announcement in her first state of the nation address.
“Indecency and unnatural acts laws shall be repealed,” she said. But repealing a law requires a parliamentary vote, and it is unclear how much political support Banda would have for sweeping changes in this impoverished and conservative nation in southern Africa.
(click-through for full story)
This is AWESOME. I was in Malawi in 2007, and reading one of their major newspapers, homosexuality was listed as one of the top 5 threats to the country. I was SO excited to see President Banda be elected - she is a trailblazer!
“I will never be cut”: Kenyan girls fight back against genital mutilation.
(via Guardian.co.uk)
Today’s Editorial based on news articles reprinted in Sallie’s paper.li publication, “Sexually Significant News and Views”
“Female circumcision” is an inaccurate and misleading term that downplays the far greater scope of what is done to females, compared to removal of a male’s foreskin.
Male circumcision is NOT comparable to the complete removal of a woman’s clitoris and often also her labia (sometimes scraped out with a broken bottle) possibly followed by sewing up her vagina.
Two weeks ago, two men were arrested after undercover investigators from the Sunday Times filmed medical professionals in the UK offering to perform female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls as young as ten. They have denied any wrongdoing, but it is estimated that 100,000 women living in the UK have survived FGM, with a further 22,000 girls under 16 at risk. I spoke to Nimco Ali from the Bristol-based organisation Daughters of Eve about her work to eradicate this harmful practice and support survivors of FGM.
Croatia: PM Zoran Milanovic Moves To Recognize Same-Sex Partnerships
Queerty reports:
According to Yahoo! News, Milanovic told reporters: “We are talking about registered partnerships, which is a somewhat higher standard than what we have now.”
Zoran Milanovic, the Prime Minister of Croatia, has stated his Social Democratic Party is aiming to recognize same-sex marriages unions, fulfilling a campaign promise made in December.
He reminded them that it was part of his party’s campaign: “That was our program. I hope that the people of Croatia accept it, it’s simply a form of social empathy and decency and expanding freedom.”
The conservative opposition party has vowed to fight Milanovic on the issue. The Gay Pride Parade goes down in June in Croatia’s second largest city, Split. In the past, the parade has been met with violent opposition, owing to the country’s very strong Catholic roots.
Man Lives on cliff and talks down suicide jumpers for last 50 years
Meet the Australian Who’s Saved 160 People from Suicide
Don Ritchie lives across the street from the most famous suicide spot in Australia: A cliff known as “The Gap.” Most people would move, but Ritchie’s stayed for almost 50 years—saving an estimated 160 people from suicide.So what’s his big secret? Ritchie wakes up every morning and looks out the window for “anyone standing alone too close to the precipice.” If he sees someone who looks like they might be contemplating a jump, he walks over and… strikes up a conversation.
He just gives them a warm smile, asks if they’d like to talk and invites them back to his house for tea. Sometimes, they join him.“I’m offering them an alternative, really,” Ritchie says. “I always act in a friendly manner. I smile.”
Ritchie’s house might be the worst real estate ever. One person a week commits suicide at the “the Gap,” the cliff he lives across from. It’s protected only by a small, one-meter fence, despite its legendary reputation as a suicide spot dating back to the 1800s.
But the former life insurance salesman says he doesn’t feel “burdened” by the fact that people are always contemplating jumping to their deaths outside his house. In fact, he and his wife Moya see it as a blessing: “I think, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that we live here and we can help people?’”
Ritchie, who basically sounds like the nicest guy in the entire world, is 84, and has spent much of the last year battling cancer. But, as you might expect for a dude who’s managed to live across from a fucked-up, tragic place, and not become a casualty himself, he’s optimistic: “I imagine somebody else will come along and do what I’ve been doing.” I hope so.
This is unbelievable. This man is such a hero.
Noisy Jelly: Gelatin Achieves Powers of Sound
What if your musical instrument were gelatinous? Edible?
“Noisy Jelly” is the latest project to imagine that scenario. Thanks to the capacitive quality of gelatin, you can mix up a set of colored instruments that jiggle when you touch them.
Check out the terrific video:
Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.
It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.
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EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS. Depression is not a synonym for being sad or having a bad day/bad week. It’s not a PHASE. It’s not a CHOICE. It’s not LAZINESS. spread the word guys. (via general-grievous) (via veganlove) |
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