Posts filed under “Books”
Like a man
Exhaustion and gloom pressed on him more and more heavily. Did he want someone to talk it over with? Or someone to complain to? Or just someone to have a heart-to-heart talk with, who might perhaps even show him a little pity? Of course he had read and heard that pity is a humiliating feeling: […]
Native Tongue
In Native Tongue, women in a patriarchal society develop a new language, with new words to express new concepts, and teach it to their daughters in order to free themselves. In our society, oppressed groups also develop new language, though not quite so dramatically. Things like vocal fry, uptalk, “like.” When they use their altered […]
Good chronic pain and illness management
I’ve warned you off potentially bad chronic pain management programs and asked you to join a project improving a widely used program in North America. But if you’re looking for help right now, that isn’t very useful. So, here are a couple resources for the here and now: Not all official chronic pain/illness management programs […]
The bigger the crime, the less time
In 1969, there were 502 convictions for tax fraud. Such cases, called “white-collar crimes,” usually involve people with a good deal of money. Of those convicted, 20 percent ended up in jail. The fraud averaged $190,000 per case; the sentences averaged seven months. That same year, for burglary and auto theft (crimes of the poor) […]
Everyone but the rich white dudes knows what’s up
In May 1967, the Pentagon historians write: “McNaughton was also very deeply concerned about the breadth and intensity of public unrest and dissatisfaction with the [Vietnam] war … especially with young people, the underprivileged, the intelligentsia and the women.” 1967. From Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States
Divide and conquor
Racism, always a national fact, not just a southern one, emerged in northern cities, as the federal government made concessions to poor blacks in a way that pitted them against poor whites for resources made scarce by the system. Blacks, freed from slavery to take their place under capitalism, had long been forced into conflict […]
Lessons Sheryl Sandberg hasn’t learned
Another black woman, Margaret Wright, said she was not fighting for equality with men if it meant equality in the world of killing, the world of competition. “I don’t want to compete on no damned exploitative level. I don’t want to exploit nobody. . . . I want the right to be black and me. […]