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The US state of Connecticut has abolished the death penalty! This amazing and wonderful news is brought to you by Amnesty International, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and lawmakers who listen to reason. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty joins with the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty and its allies in applauding Governor Dannell P. Malloy for signing legislation to repeal the death penalty in his state. The momentum in this country is toward ending the death penalty. With Governor Malloy’s leadership in Connecticut, we now have five states that have abandoned the death penalty in five years. The numbers of new death sentences and executions are down and there is a growing body of evidence exposing the death penalty system as failed public policy. We look forward to more states across the country joining the list of those without capital punishment in the coming years. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has been a

You've probably heard about the pineapple. Eighth-graders in New York State recently took a standardized test (Canadian translation: students in grade eight wrote an exam) where they were asked about a talking pineapple. The Daily News broke the story. Students across the state are still scratching their heads over an absurd state test question about a talking pineapple. The puzzler on the eighth-grade reading exam stumped even educators and has critics saying the tests, which are becoming more high stakes, are flawed. “I think it’s weird that they put such a silly question on a state test. What were they thinking?” said Bruce Turley, 14, an eighth-grader at Lower Manhattan Community Middle School. “I thought it was a little strange, but I just answered it as best as I could,” said his classmate Tyree Furman, 14. “You just have to give it your best answer. These are important tests.” In the story, a take-off on Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare, a talking pineapple cha

This story on the impossibly high cost of so-called zero tolerance laws reminds me of the breed-specific legislation (anti-pitbull laws) plaguing Ontario. Reacting to media-created public hysteria, legislators create laws that are inhumane and injustice. I say so-called zero tolerance because something tells me the Wall Street boys who abuse Adderall and cocaine do not get the same treatment as the Latino grandmother with a joint in her purse. This is well worth reading, both as a plea to repeal these insane laws, and as a cautionary tale to other jurisdictions who might want to institute these policies. That's right, Stephen Harper, we're looking at you. This is also what happens when a city elects a prosecutor for a mayor. There is no proof that the zero-tolerance policing adopted by New York and other cities in the 1990’s had anything to do with the decline in violent crime across the nation. Crime also dropped in jurisdictions that did not use the approach. Millions of pe

Two great books - both children's classics, and both simply great books for any reader - had milestone birthdays this year. A Wrinkle In Time , which I've blogged about before , is now 50 years old. And Charlotte's Web , one of my top-five favourite books of all time, turns 60. This adaptation from an upcoming book by Michael Sims tells the story of how E. B. White came to write about a pig, a spider, a barn, and a girl named Fern. Inevitably, though, the morality of farming troubled White, especially his betrayal of a pig’s trust when he suddenly turned from provider to executioner. In the fall of 1947, a pig he had planned to slaughter became ill, and White labored heroically but failed to save its life, a sad farce he immortalized in his 1948 essay “Death of a Pig.” In his animal-populated imagination, however, the pig lived on. White began to envision stories in which the poor animal’s life might be endangered — only this time it would survive. Often in his barn White

I have a bunch of links I want to share, and no real post for any of them. I think readers don't like linkathons, so I'm putting each link in a separate post. Coincidentally, many are from the same source, so kudos to the The New York Times for an abundance of interesting reading during my work weekend. * * * * Say hello to Hawkcam 2012! For the second year, the Times is streaming live from the nest of a red-tailed hawk, where little fuzzy roundheads are peeping about. Watch live streaming video from nytnestcam at livestream.com I love birds of prey, and I love urban creatures, so I double-love the hawks who make their homes among us. There's a hawk nest outside the Steelworkers Hall in Toronto, so we frequently see hawks from the window of the War Resisters Support Campaign office. We once watched a hawk devour its dinner, probably a rat. It was kind of amazing thing to see, right outside the window. You can also follow the New York city hawks at the hawkcam blog .

Pete Fornatale, a pioneer of rock radio, died this week at the too-young age of 66. I learned so much from Pete! Like many people, I especially loved his Sunday morning "Mixed Bag". From The New York Times : Mr. Fornatale was at the forefront of the FM revolution , along with WNEW-FM colleagues like Scott Muni, Rosko, Vin Scelsa, Dennis Elsas, Jonathan Schwartz and Alison Steele (who called herself “the Nightbird”). They played long versions of songs, and sometimes entire albums, and talked to their audiences in a conversational tone very different from the hard-sell approach of their AM counterparts. WNEW-FM may have been the most influential experimenter. When the station dropped rock music for talk radio in 1999, Billboard called it “a legend, affecting and inspiring people throughout the industry.” Mr. Fornatale (pronounced forn-a-TELL) had actually beaten WNEW to the punch. As a sophomore at Fordham University in 1964, he persuaded the school’s Jesuit leaders to let him

So the first hour of debate on the not-so-stealth abortion motion did not go well for Mr. Woodworth. The Opposition parties came out strongly in favour of the 21st century and rationality. And as you know, only one Conservative other than Woodworth spoke - Gordon O'Connor (Carleton-Mississippi Mills and Conservative whip) - and he demolished the bill. But O'Connor disagreed, saying "the ultimate intention of this motion is to restrict abortions at some development stage in Canada." If the legal definition of when a person is considered a human being is changed, and a fetus is then considered a human being then homicide laws would apply, and abortion, as a consequence, would be considered homicide, O'Connor said. He was the only other Conservative MP to speak during the debate, and he urged everyone to reject his colleague's motion whenever it comes to a vote. O'Connor said abortion is a serious decision for women to make and he wants all women to contin

I've just returned from a lovely brief trip to New York City and points nearby. Apologies to friends who I didn't notify that I was coming in; I was in dire need of less running around and more downtime. I had excellent quality time with my mother and siblings, enjoyed a few really good meals, walked through Central Park and around the Upper West Side, had a gabfest with NN, and took in an exhibit by myself, my preferred mode of museuming. If you're in the New York area, I highly recommend "The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant Garde" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . I hadn't been to the Met since moving to Canada, and it never disappoints. I highly recommend this exhibit. If you enjoyed Woody Allen's "Midnight In Paris," you'll especially want to see this. I witnessed two little New York moments, one in a coffee shop and the other on the subway. Sitting near me as I had a cup of tea in a coffee shop were two women.

When does life begin? Perhaps this is a question for philosophers, or theologians. Perhaps it is a question for scientists. It is not a question for Parliamentarians. It is not a question for government. There are many different kinds of life. There are non-human animals. Some of these are eaten as food, others are members of the human family. All are forms of life. There is plant life all around us. Plants are alive. Most people can kill a plant without giving it a second thought. A fetus is alive. That's pretty obvious. It's a type of life form. A human fetus has the potential to become a human life, but in its fetal state, is not yet a human life. It is part of the body of its mother. And because a human fetus is part of the body of its mother, the mother of that fetus can decide what to do with the fetus, just as she decides what to do with the rest of her body. When a baby is born, it legally becomes a person, and so has certain very limited rights under the law. This is

As I read news stories, read blogs, skim headlines, one question keeps coming to my mind, over and over. What are people supposed to do? Income insecurity Wages have been slashed or have been stagnant for years. Corporations continue to eliminate jobs, forcing the survivors to work much harder for the same (or lower) salaries, while the unlucky into a job market that is more like an empty larder. Jobs that were once full-time and included benefits have been transformed into part-time jobs or contract work, with lower pay, no benefits and no security. Good jobs are scarce and getting scarcer all the time. We can't all work in retail. Those who manage to get themselves through university and beyond, hoping for more meaningful employment, are burdened with debt for decades. For those unable to work or unable to find decent employment, social assistance is more difficult to access. For those who do qualify, it provides a level of support that cannot rightfully be called subsistence. Wh

More to come, much more, so much more that I haven't been able to post coherently about this because I have so much to say. So while I struggle with my inarticulate rage, make sure your MP knows exactly how you feel about this and exactly what you will do if she or he votes in favour of the Woodworth motion. Go here for tools to help you speak out against this freakshow. Go here to submit memes, images, and ideas. And most of all, do not under any circumstances make the mistake of taking for granted the legal right to terminate a pregnancy. Pledge to do all you can to prevent Canada from sliding down that slippery slope.

One year ago today, we adopted Diego. I had just gotten home from my spring New York visit. Allan and I had been looking at dogs online, and had decided Diego was our guy. I called Toronto Animal Services to ask about him, thinking we would go there in the next few days. But of course they can't hold dogs for potential adopters, and I was worried someone else would scoop him up. I didn't unpack or even go upstairs! We put Tala in the car and drove straight there. From the moment we brought him home, Diego was a member of our family, as if he had always lived with us. Diego and Tala were instant buddies, and are now deeply attached to each other. Diego is one of the happiest, friendliest dogs you'll ever meet. He's a little too friendly at times - the only thing our big boy can be faulted for is exuberance. But when his happiness gets the better of him and he jumps up to say hello, he just raises himself up in front of you and kisses your face. This is a great trick for

One hundred years ago today, April 20, 1912, Fenway Park opened to the public. The Boston Red Sox have played their home games there ever since. Fenway is the oldest Major League Ballpark still in use. Until the 1990s, it was one of a trio of historic parks still used for major-league play, along with Chicago's Wrigley Field and Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Now only Fenway and Wrigley have that distinction. Fenway is my favourite park, and always has been - long before I ever could imagine switching sides in the historic rivalry to become a Red Sox fan. I've been to 22* Major League parks - one more than Allan , a fact that continues to rankle him - and none of them even come close to Fenway. The first time I saw a game there, despite having seen games played in Boston on TV for decades, I was awe-struck. Brick! The wall! The manual scoreboard! I remember asking Allan about the scoreboard, as if I had never heard of it. He was puzzled. "You know about this. The announcers tal

We love you, Levon.

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Council of Canadians' investigation into election fraud has uncovered yet more damning evidence that the Harper Government TM did not win its so-called majority government through democratic or legitimate means. The Council of Canadians today released two of the documents it intends to present as evidence in support of applications by individual citizens seeking to overturn federal election results in seven ridings. “Contrary to claims by the Conservative lawyer that our legal challenge is ‘frivolous’ and a ‘publicity stunt,’ this evidence shows that voters were deliberately misled,” says Garry Neil, Executive Director of the Council of Canadians. “We believe that Canadians were wrongfully denied their right to vote, and this affected the outcome of the election in these seven ridings. That is why we are asking the Court to throw out these election results.” The first document is a sworn affidavit from Annette Desgagné, a former Responsive

When Dalton McGuinty appointed a banker to assess the province's budget priorities, he got exactly what he expected: a recommendation to cut jobs and shred public services, while leaving corporate tax cuts intact. The proposed budget cuts will affect every aspect of our lives: health care, child care, education, pensions. The Ontario budget promises to destroy what's left of the social safety net, while the banking industry - the people who created the financial crisis - walk off rich and happy. Billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts could be used to create jobs and ensure basic survival for people in need. This Saturday, April 21, Ontarians will come together to tell McGuinty that this is not a strategy for economic recovery. We need jobs. We need social services. And corporations and banks must pay their fair share. WHEN: Saturday, April 21, 3:00 to 5:00 WHERE: Queen's Park, Toronto WHY: Demand prosperity, not austerity! To find transportation near you, contact a union

Thanks to Jere .

The writing part of my brain appears to be on vacation. It didn't request time off; it doesn't have to. It's the boss. I have a pile of topics I'd like to write about, but Writing Brain is off in the woods somewhere, recovering from academia. So what is the rest of me doing, besides working two jobs? There's baseball, of course. I've already dived into my spring and summer reading. I have the usual humongous spring list of chores and errands, all the things that pile up while I'm in school. I'm also spending far too much time on my latest obsession, digital jigsaw puzzles . I plan to return to the War Resisters Support Campaign , at least for the summer. I've been marginally active in the Campaign via email, but I haven't been able to attend meetings for a long time, and I really miss it. None of that explains why I'm not writing. But I've noticed that every year after school ends, I'm eager to get back to blogging, but I can't. N

Those of you who don't follow baseball - which I assume is most of you - might never have heard of Ozzie Guillen before this week, or maybe don't know his name now. Guillen is a Major League Baseball manager and a former player, a guy who is often described by the euphemism "colourful". A guy about whom people say, "You know Ozzie, he's not afraid to speak his mind," in a Don Cherry kind of way. Last week, Guillen spoke his mind, and it cost him a five-day suspension from his job as manager of the Miami Marlins. What utterance could carry such a price tag? He dared to say something complimentary about Fidel Castro. In an interview with Time magazine , Guillen is reported to have said: I love Fidel Castro. I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that [expletive] is still here. For this, Guillen almost lost his job, but was spared unemployment, getting away with a suspension, retr

This story -- A Montreal university student was detained at the U.S. border, held for several hours, interrogated, had his personal belongings searched and saw his computer confiscated for more than a week. What caught the authorities’ attention? His doctoral research on Islamic studies, he says. In a case that has attracted media attention in the U.S., Pascal Abidor has become embroiled in a drawn-out legal battle with the American government – and a poster child for civil-rights advocates defending the right to privacy and due process. Mr. Abidor, a 28-year-old American and French dual citizen, was returning by train to Brooklyn in May, 2010, when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent stopped him at the border in Champlain, N.Y. ... -- reminded me of my own detention at the border , now 2-1/2 years ago, and the several "secondary inspections" and shorter detentions that followed. I ended up re-reading that post - "the gray area": in which i am detained, hara

This is one of the most iconic photos in sports history: the Olympics, 1968, Mexico City. As the Star Spangled Banner begins to play, gold-medal winner Tommie Smith and bronze-medal winner John Carlos, each wearing a single black glove, raise their fists in a black-power salute. Peter Norman, the silver medal winner from Australia, wears a badge in support of their gesture. This moment of silent protest rocked the world. The social revolution - often referred to as the "turmoil" - of 1968 broke through the sanitized, apolitical facade, forcing the public to notice and react. From The Guardian : Anticipating some kind of protest was afoot, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had sent Jesse Owens to talk them out of it. (Owens's four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin themselves held great symbolic significance, given Hitler's belief in Aryan supremacy.) Carlos's mind was made up. When he and Smith struck their pose, Carlos feared the worst. Look at

I am absolutely gaga over Roku. This was exactly the missing piece we needed. And it all started with getting rid of Rogers cable. In February, I asked for help with my movie-season problem. We had been getting special treatment from Zip, but once that ended, Zip became useless again. I knew there had to be a better way. It's the 21st Century, for crissakes. Why can't we get on-demand baseball, movies, and whatever else we want to watch? First world problems? Absolutely! But that's where I live. In the past, no suggestions really worked for us. We couldn't get rid of cable TV, because we needed it to watch baseball. We couldn't watch baseball online, because we had a cap on our bandwidth usage. (And because of our work schedules, we had to subscribe to baseball through cable and internet!) I didn't want to watch movies via Netflix only on computer. I didn't want to buy a gaming system just to watch movies. Nothing was quite right. And then, everything came

The US Congress and its corporate partners want the right of warrantless spying on every internet user, anywhere in the world. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would give corporations the right to collect information on our online activities and share it with the US government, without notifying us that we're being spied on, and with total immunity to lawsuits. And it would all be perfectly legal. Lovely, isn't it, what the law can do for those who control it. Massive public outcry stopped SOPA. Massive public outcry stopped PIPA. Now it's time to do the same for CISPA. For those of us outside the US, Avaaz has become a leading mechanism for international protest. Click here to sign the Avaaz petition to stop CISPA. For more info on CISPA, see these stories: Digital Journal: Move over SOPA & PIPA: Here comes CISPA — Internet censorship Wired: Internet SOPA/PIPA Revolt: Don’t Declare Victory Yet