Since I was a young girl I believed I lived in a world where my gender made no difference whatsoever.  I was raised to see myself as a person whose worth was measured by my deeds, my achievements and my failures.

As I grew older I continued to see the world through this lens.  As a someone who attended a girls only private school those teachings were re-enforced.  The subject of whether or not I was in anyway less capable or deserving than my male counterparts was so unheard of that it didn’t even bear mentioning.

While studying history I learnt about the long fight for women’s rights and their battle to be seen as equal in our society but to me that was all it was History.  Even at university where I was introduced to a much deeper appreciation of the legacy that those who have come before us let…

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/global-wealth-inequality_us_56991defe4b0ce4964242e09

I was reading this when a pop-up ad appeared for OXFAM that said education is the answer for the world’s poorest people.

Back to my roots.

Been reading Edward Said. Culture and Imperialism. And his brilliant work The Politics of Dispossession.
Back to Paulo Frieri and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Educate the ‘educated’, where is the leadership? Hiding in the arm of the neo-liberal tool of the ultra rich and powerful.
“The oppressor elaborates his theory of action without the people, for he stands against them. Nor can the people- as long as they are crushed and oppressed, internalising the image of the oppressor- construct by themseves the theory of their liberating action. Only in the encounter of the people with revolutionary leaders – in their communion, in their praxis- can this theory be built.”

Yesterday I received an email telling me that Linda Cassidy Lewis’ book Forever  had been selected for publication by Kindle Press.  I had read the opening pages and so nominated the book for publication.  As a thank those of us who nominated Linda’s book are to receive a free copy prior to publication.

Of course I immediately went over to her blog to congratulate her.   And I read her latest post.

And I saw that she too had a tea set, somewhat like mine but I suggest hers is from an earlier time.

Linda’s tea set

And what a beautiful tea set it is.

Linda comments in her blog post “Pictured above is the beautiful tea set for one that a sister-in-law sent me during my recovery from surgery last year. This year, I want to make it a habit to sit quietly once a day and…

We had arrived at Bulli Beach on Friday, the 6th of December 2013, at one in the afternoon. Amazingly, up to Saturday night all the food that we had brought from home, was sufficient for every meal in our cabin up until Sunday morning the 8th, when we had to check out. Saturday night, however, we decided to go out for a meal.

Ruby’s Cafe was close to our Tourist Park. They had special music on that night and tables had to be booked. In passing early in the evening we noticed a lot of people already occupying all the outside tables. We went on past the playground towards the Bulli Beach Cafe.

Looking at the playground in passing I thought of little Lucas straight away. When we had seen Ebony and Lucas on Thursday, the 5th of December, for Monika’s birthday, we mentioned to Ebony that we had booked…

A little Communist, Notmsparker, in Poland in April of 1980.

What happened in Europe in the late 1980s – the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of communism in Poland, perestroika in the former Soviet Union as well as the collapse of a whole social and political system east of the Iron Curtain – had immense consequences not only of political and economic but also of very personal nature.

Suddenly your world was no longer there. All of a sudden, none of the rules you lived by or traditions you followed mattered. It was by all means a good and welcome change but also one which, as always, came at a price.

For those born in those lost countries, even today, it is quite painful to be confronted with often negative and disparaging comments about what life in Eastern Europe before 1989 must have been like. “Grey” is the…

Groups Issue Warning: Pro-Corporate TPP Could Kill the Internet