The year my mother was born, 1917, American women did not have the right to vote. Three years later her mother cast her ballot in tiny Inman, Nebraska. On March 14, 2013 I voted in British Columbia’s provincial election because…
#668 – Proud to vote
Politics
#650 Indian village plants trees when a girl is born
One village in India not only welcomes girl babies. It plants trees and starts a fund for each of them. The village of Piplantri is in Rajasthan, in northwestern India, a state where women’s lives are precarious. Child marriage is…
#570 Bolivia’s Mother Earth Law
Last November I tucked the news of Bolivia’s “Law of Mother Earth and Integral Development for Living Well” into my hope files. Unfortunately, I also tucked it into the back of my memory. So I’m grateful to my dear friend…
#566 Giving voice to women in Afghanistan
This writing project guards the anonymity of its authors. They are identified only by a first name, but the stories these women tell give voice to some of the most silenced people in the world, the women of Afghanistan. The…
#549 Nature thrives in the Korean DMZ
Except for a South Korean rice village at its western end, the Korean Demilitarized Zone is an unpopulated, 4-km wide buffer zone separating the two Koreas. It was never intended to be an experiment in re-establishing diversity, but that is…
#548 Giant dandelion to clear land mines
Land mines are one of the horrifying legacies of modern warfare. Clearing them is dangerous and costly. Afghani-born brothers Massoud and Mahmoud Hassani have invented a low-cost solution. The Mine Kafon (“kafondan” means “something that explodes” in Dari) costs only…
#547 The Gulabi Gang
The Gulabi Gang has had enough, and they are fighting back. Violence against women in India is common and usually unpunished. It has taken the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old Indian student to stir protests around the country. The…
#546 Freedom to Marry
Marriage equality is the theme running through all of these stories from Freedom to Marry. Richard Adrian Dorr and John Mace (video below) met at the Julliard School of Music in 1948. It was love at first sight. After more…
#538 Adbusters tweaks powerful noses
Adbusters has been tweaking the noses of corporations, media and marketers since 1989. Joe Chemo, Big Mac Attack and Absolut Craze are three of its well-known anti-ad campaigns. If you have heard of Buy Nothing Day or Digital Detox Week,…
#490 Clowning for love
Michael Dahl was right to think I’d find a big dose of hope in this confrontation, and I appreciate the tip. The scene was a white supremacist rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on November 10, 2012. A small group of…
