Have you ever heard of the island of Saipan? It is an American territory in the pacific, where I had never heard of it until an email arrived from Walt Goodridge, who offered me two ebooks to review. One tells the story of a Chinese woman working in textile factories in Saipan.
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Christy's Houseful of Chaos politics » Christy's Houseful of Chaos: the complicated problem of sweatshops
Have you ever heard of the island of Saipan? It is an American territory in the pacific, which as a Canadian I had never heard of it until an email arrived from Walt Goodridge, who offered me two ebooks to review. One tells the story of a Chinese woman working in textile
Continue readingChristy's Houseful of Chaos politics » Christy's Houseful of Chaos: Developing the political will to end poverty
I had the opportunity to attend a meeting hosted by Poverty Free Ontario. There were about a hundred attendants listening to presentations and discussing how we can work to get the messages out that we cannot ignore the situations faced by those living in poverty. It was a long day
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: Developing the political will to end poverty
I had the opportunity to attend a meeting hosted by Poverty Free Ontario. There were about a hundred attendants listening to presentations and discussing how we can work to get the messages out that we cannot ignore the situations faced by those living in poverty. It was a long day
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: confidentiality agreements and power imbalances
One of the many things that makes me uncomfortable with the way our laws work is the abundance and acceptance of confidentiality rules. I’m thinking about things like clauses in employment contracts that prohibit the employee from talking with their coworkers about how much they earn. This allows employers to
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: an open-letter about social assistance in Ontario
The other day I sent off a bunch of handwritten letters. They varied depending on whom I wrote them to. The one to the Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath, went like this. Dear Ms. Horwath, Though I am not personally on Ontario Works, I have many conversations with those who
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: is there such a thing as a neutral education system?
I love it when similar or related ideas appear in several parts of my life at once. There’s been a number of things that come together to make me think again about education and the question of whether an education system can be neutral. I write about this as someone
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: writing letters to politicians
My days seem a strange mix of tobogganing with the kids, cooking, reading to them, helping them with schoolwork and trying every day to understand the world around me and how I can be an influence in it. I feel very muddled. I haven’t been reading any books the past week
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: What is social assistance really about anyway?
A few days ago I had a conversation with a woman on Ontario Works (welfare). She described what she goes through in order to get emergency dental care. She has to go first to her worker and a funding card. Then she goes to try to find a dentist that will
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: work: both paid and unpaid
One Model of How Things Work I’m thinking today about work, both productive work like building houses or caring for sick people, and less productive work like packaging bad mortgages for resale or designing marketing strategies for cigarettes. I’m thinking about this because I’ve read a number of comments recently
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: A Response to Anthony Sowan’s Rant Against #IdleNoMore
The following is my response to Anthony Sowan’s rant against the #idlenomore movement. One big mistake within that rant is the idea that this is about preservation of culture. It is about preservation of political rights. If a person marries outside the tribe their children will have a different claim to
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: Interacting with those we disagree with
What do you do with people you don’t agree with? Do you agree to keep quiet about the topics you disagree on? Do you cut them out of your life? Or keep them in your life but with a mental note not to take seriously any of their opinions? Do
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: blogging about blogging
“Writers deserve to get paid for their work” says a popular blogger in defense of putting her blog behind a paywall. The arguments and comments made by her fans and detractors alike fascinate me because they touch on several important issues such as what work is and what we use
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: thoughts after a visit to the social assistence offices
I went last week with some friends into the Ontario Disability Support Program office (ODSP) and the Ontario Works (OW) office. It was my first time being in the building. I was struck by the difference between the carpeted and better furnished ODSP office and the bare floored empty waiting
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: vaccines and the selling of fear.
I read an article today about a family in New Zealand where a young boy came down with tetanus. His father is speaking out about their decision not to vaccinate, admitting that it was the wrong decision and hoping to spare others the pain they have had to suffer. The
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: Is there a way to "fight our own government"
I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a regular feature on my blog, a weekly post about the facebook memes (maybe Meme-y Monday) that I end up seeing, going through and trying to discuss the ideas behind them in more detail like I did the picture of babies who
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: Cast of Stones: Book Review & Author Interview
A Cast of Stones by Patrick W. Carr is a strangely dark story. I saw it advertised as a “Epic Medieval Saga Fantasy” and that it was published by Bethany House, a Christian publisher, and I got curious. What does Christian medieval fantasy look like? So I signed up for the book tour
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: my thoughts on Paved With Good Intentions: Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism
I’m getting ready to return the book Paved With Good Intentions: Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism by Kikolas Barry-Shaw and Dru Oja Jay back to the friend who lent it to me, but I want to make a few notes about ideas I found interesting. I know a different friend who
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: Homemade Marble Maze Ideas
One of the things I find fun is building marble mazes. There’s something kind of silly about them, but I enjoy them. We have a couple of sets of store-bought mazes. One is plastic, the other wood. They’re both fun and the kids and I use them, but that doesn’t
Continue readingAnother Step to Take: Relational bullying, aggression and being nice
Before I wrote the post on bullying (almost a month ago) I had borrowed from the library two books about bullying, but then because life got busy, I didn’t start reading them until a few days ago. Now I’m partly through both books. One makes me feel very uncomfortable, and
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