activism

Although she always claimed her birthday was May 1st--International Worker's Day, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was born on August 1st, 1837 (although she also claimed to be born years earlier, in part to maintain her grandmotherly public persona).

Another Bitch podcast ready for your aural consumption! Like the Action issue, this podcast speaks broadly to the theme: Annie Leonard on the big deal with cap and trade, what Lady Gaga has to do with labor unions, and one feminist film buff who loves action movies (and thinks that Judi Dench should be in more of them!) Plus, music by Brooklyn duo Buke and Gass, whose debut full-length album Riposte is due out September 14th from Brassland records. Stream it below, subscribe on iTunes or RSS, or download it! Podcast script and links after the jump!



Transcript (PDF)

Want to know the story behind the Story of Stuff? In this interview, Annie Leonard talks about how the original Story of Stuff came about, how she got into activism, the backlash she got for covering cap and trade from within the environmental movement, and why its important for celebrity activists to push the envelope. Check out The Story of Stuff website on the truth about cap and trade, bottled water, and cosmetics. Transcript

Anyone who spends time on the web has seen the words FAIL splashed across pictures of cats with their heads stuck in empty cans or dogs dressed by their humans as Oompa Loompas. Don't get us wrong, those can be pretty funny. But you know what's even better? Making the digital bombast of FAIL less associated with the minor humiliations of pets, and more so with the project of media reform -- which just may involve a more pointed, and meaningful, kind of humilation. 

 

Since we're already piling up the posts about both mothers and pregnancy, now seems like a good time to issue a call to action on an issue that doesn't usually come up when we talk about reproductive rights: home birth.

The 2007 documentary The Business of Being Born was, for many women (and men) an eye-opening look at the increasing medicalization of birth in America and a compelling illustration of the way midwife-assisted home birth can be a powerful alternative to the standard hosptial delivery. The film—which was produced by home-birth advocate Ricki Lake—along with books like Jennifer Block's powerful and well-researched Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, brought the subject of home birth out of the fringes and into the mainstream. Soon enough, home birth was a hot topic in the pages of the New York Times, Ricki Lake and BoBB director Abby Epstein's book Your Best Birth was published, celebrities like Cindy Crawford, Demi Moore, and Lisa Bonet were testifying to their own home-birth experiences, and birthing tubs were flying off the Internet's virtual shelves.

Writing history is a radical act. I’m going to say it again. Writing history is a radical act. The process by which historians choose to deify, demonize, or emulate individuals and events is a malleable and contentious undertaking. As I’m sure you savvy readers out there know—with this retelling comes power. Sure, narratives can be retold, historical ‘facts’ reformulated, and legacies reclaimed. But whose voices get heard? Which versions get told? Who gets remembered and why? (For far too long ‘our’ Nation’s history consisted overwhelmingly of the male, pale, and stale variety.)

As the American calendar rolls around to another historically-dubious holiday, it's comforting to know you can celebrate the righteous kind of history year-round with People's History posters from Just Seeds. At four bucks a pop, you can afford to load up on your favorite activists, or give them as presents to remind folks of the heroes that History-with-a-capital-H (not to mention present-day media) tends to conveniently forget. Click through for more posters...

The 411 Initiative for Change and Plan Canada are touring Canada to screen a new documentary film for students in middle and high school that features exceptional girls and women who have a desire to create social change and inspire others to make a difference as well. But is that all it does?

Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America is a wake up call for the queer rights movement. Y'all listen good, ya hear?

Doris Walker worked throughout her life protecting and defending leftist causes and activists. She participated as an activist and legal counsel throughout almost every major America progressive social movement in the twentieth century, from denouncing Jim Crow laws and McCarthyism, to being a labor lawyer and labor organizer, to helping to successfully acquit Angela Davis, and even challenging the Bush Administration's invasion of Afghanistan in Iraq.