“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” -MLK, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? In high school and college, I participated in many a service activity, but they left me dissatisfied. I was interested [...]
MLK Day
16
January
January
the interrupters
19
October
October
“You can judge, but that’s not what we do in science.” -Gary Slutkin, M.D., CeaseFire Executive Director, Professor of Epidemiology and International Health at University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health A few weeks ago I saw the documentary The Interrupters (trailer below) at Nashville’s independent movie theater, The Belcourt. The documentary [...]
Wangari Maathai
26
September
September
I am forever grateful that Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who founded the Green Belt Movement, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004; not only because she was so deserving but because it led me to become aware of her extraordinary life. She died yesterday at 71, but her legacy does and will live on. [...]
350
22
September
September
Today I was minding my own business on Facebook when I accidentally found out that Bill McKibben was to speak at Vanderbilt this evening at 5pm. I was pretty sure I’d heard him on NPR and liked what he had to say, so I shot an email to my resident environmental activist expert for more [...]
filosofia
31
August
August
Last week, Feministing posted this article about women studying and working in academic philosophy, and it struck a chord in me. I had to forward the link to a few high school friends, see, because at our high school we were lucky enough to have access to a logic course and a philosophy course [...]
“pro-life state” failure
30
May
May
Last Tuesday, May 24, the Louisiana House Health and Welfare Committee voted 10-2 to pass HB 587, Rep. “Johnny” LaBruzzo’s abortion ban bill, out of committee. This is completely unsurprising, though the vote could have been a little closer if a couple of absent representatives sympathetic to the opposition’s cause had shown up. GROSS [...]
national seashore
20
April
April
On April 15, 2010, I sent DB the following email: This beach campground has been closed since Ivan in 2004, and now it’s open. We must go there this spring/summer!! Five days later, exactly one year ago, well, you know what happened. Two months later, oil hit that same beach. I didn’t fly in an [...]
why it is about abortion
8
April
April
True, legislators and reporters should be clear and correct in what they say and report. But here’s why the women’s health care argument is about abortion: lots of us believe women’s health care includes family planning services that must include access to safe and legal abortion. Even considering the facts, for many people, the 3% [...]
so (pro)choice
28
February
February
I walked for choice on Saturday. Because the organizers had prepared lots of extra signs for the event, almost everyone had one to wave. Mine said in big, blue block letters: SAFE LEGAL RARE (Classic.) At one point I walked next to a guy about my age, also a Vandy grad student. From San Diego, [...]
mardi gras ballers
17
February
February
As I was working on my hat for last weekend’s Spanish Town ball, I sat at the bar sipping on some Saturday morning orange juice. I was constructing an oil derrick replica to sit atop my handmade hat, while pink cutouts of a pelican, a magnolia and the state of Louisiana sat to the side [...]