Archive for Non-violence

I was locked inside College Park for an hour this afternoon after rioters smashed the windows there.  There were about 200 frustrated and fearful people with me, including some cranky children and a tearful young teen who just wanted to get home.  What the perpetrators accomplished was to anger a lot of people and justify the massive police presence that until this point had just seemed like an embarrassing exaggeration.     Read more »

This evening I attended the launch of Canada’s climate calendar.  It’s an interactive tool you can see online which compares Canada’s per-capita emissions with those of other countries in the world.  It is horrifying.     Read more »

I have been watching in horror as events have been unfolding in Thailand.  The world should have insisted that the Thai government exercise restraint as tensions escalated over the weekend.  It is outrageous to respond to a largely peaceful protest by sending in the army to break it up.  Instead we stood by as dozens of civilians were gunned down.     Read more »

I watched Avatar with my family on New Year’s Day and highly recommend it.  One of my friends described it as a futuristic Pocahontas story that ends well for the natives.  He also found it amusing that the substance for which mankind was willing to lay waste to the beautiful moon of Pandora was called unobtainium.  Spoilers ahead.     Read more »

I’ll be participating in the Second Annual Danforth Multifaith Peace Walk and urge everyone to join me.  The walk begins at Glen Rhodes United Church and continues past the Danforth Jewish Circle, the Pakistani Community Centre and the Madina Masjid on Danforth to celebrate the newly renovated space, ending at Eastminster United Church.

Women are asked to wear a head scarf inside the Madina Masjid.

Second Annual Danforth Multifaith Peace Walk
Sunday, 2009 October 4, 1 pm
Glen Rhodes United Church, 1470 Gerrard St E

The United Nations’ International Day of Peace is a global holiday when individuals, communities, nations and governments highlight efforts to end conflict and promote peace.  Green Party candidates celebrated this event at C’est What in Toronto.

Green Party candidates from all over Toronto and the GTA spoke out on peace at this event.     Read more »

In a recent post, George Monbiot suggests diverting military spending to addressing the much more serious threats facing the world.  One area in which we could redirect the energy of our armed forces could be to retrofit existing housing stock which is incapable of keeping us warm without fossil fuels from which we should be weaning ourselves.     Read more »

Here’s today’s press release from the Green Party of Canada regarding the coup in Honduras:     Read more »

In late March 1964, my parents went to visit the newly unveiled Brazilian capital of Brasilia.  My mom, pregnant with me, returned to Uberlândia, where my father’s family lived, to their great relief.  Brazil had just suffered the military overthrow of their elected government, and my mom and dad, seeing the sights in the capital city, hadn’t even noticed.

Like the recent military coup in Honduras, Brazil’s coup was bloodless.  But it ushered in twenty years of political repression, journalistic censorship, disappearances, a pattern of torture, and even amid a time of burgeoning economic growth known as the “Brazilian miracle”, a rise in infant mortality, the collapse of the education system and the polarization of society into a small group of ultra-rich and a huge class of desperately poor.  The Brazil that I came to know as a teenager was a Brazil teeming with urban poor clustered in shantytowns of unimaginable squalor.     Read more »

Explaining my introductory postcard: “Ban handguns and help youth avoid being drawn into crime”     Read more »

As a young woman, I heard the story of the Danish people wearing armbands marking them as Jews in solidarity with the Jewish people when their country was occupied by Nazis.  It turns out this detail is false.  Danish Jews were saved through the courage of their countrymen, primarily because a transport to neutral Sweden was arranged, not because Danish non-Jews also wore yellow stars.  But I find it inspiring to think of facing injustice by insisting on imposing the same limitations on yourself as those suffered by the people you are fighting for.  It is a powerful image.     Read more »

The Ralph Thornton Community Centre, Ryerson University and the South Riverdale Community Health Centre are presenting a community safety forum for South Riverdale residents.

Safety in Riverdale Community Forum
Thursday, 2009 May 28 6:30-9pm
Ralph Thornton Centre
765 Queen Street East (east of Broadview)

RSVP Joanne Fisher at 416-392-6810 ext. 231

Yesterday, the Sri Lankan government celebrated the defeat of the rebel Tamil Tiger group.  Today, it is showing how hollow any hopes for a lasting peace are.     Read more »

Amnesty International Group 164 annual auction
Wednesday 2009 May 6, 5:30 pm
Granite Brewery
245 Eglinton Ave East at Mount Pleasant
416 322-0723
$10, free beer, all proceeds to Amnesty International’s human rights work

My Amnesty International group, which meets on the first Tuesday evening of every month right on the Danforth in St. Barnabas’s Church, is holding its annual auction.  I invite everyone to come.     Read more »