gun control

Happy Thursday everyone! Here’s some news to start your day:  

• Do you want to "change the world" and "save women?" You might want to read this article first. On the hubris of Harvard’s recent Policy Task Force offering recommendations to India in the wake of the New Delhi gang rape (and the dearth of cultural competency in transnational work in general)  [Kafila]
• The unequivocally awesome Amy Goodman talks about her career in journalism and holding the powers that be accountable in the new AOL/PBS series "Makers: Women Who Make America Series" [AOL/PBS]
  It appears that Bob Beckel from Fox News has been living under a rock. Click here (if it’s not too upsetting) to see him earnestly ask "when's the last time you heard about rape on a college campus?" during Tuesday's Fox News roundtable. [Huffington Post]
• Did you know 77 million people in the US use libraries to access the Internet annually? Read about Latoya Peterson’s research on internet accessibility and bridging the digital divide. [PBS]
• Murder case reveals chilling statistics on domestic violence in South Africa. [The New Yorker]
• Readings for the revolution: check out this newly released website and book on creative activism, action design principles, case studies, and theoretical frameworks. [Beautiful Trouble]
• Submit your misogynistic lyrics here! You know you love to hate them. Trigger warning: this tumblr contains (lots of) content regarding sexual violence. [Misogynistic Lyrics That Aren’t Rap]
• How white creators use colorblindness as a risk management strategy, and why that’s messed up.[ThinkProgress]
• Not all news is bad news: recent poll suggests support for gun control could rally women to vote in the next midterm elections. [Talking Points Memo]

That's all for today folks. Stay tuned.

I drink. I like to drink. I do it for a lot of reasons and I'm glad I have the right to do it. (The right to drink was actually never taken away from the public, but we'll get to that in a minute.)

I also grew up in a family in which some people abused alcohol. Most of the details of that, I'll refrain from making your business, as they involve folks who haven't consented to be written about here. The point is, I am under no illusion that drinking is only a personal and private choice. And not just in cases where people drink and get behind the wheels of cars, beat or sexually assault their parnters or children or die too young of cirhhosis of the liver because they drank too much: the subtler effects of drinking on human behavior affect the drinker's work and relationships, and these can ripple outward. Anyone who's ever lost a job due to a single, unproductive, hungover morning, or had a friendship go south after one boozy night, knows what I'm talking about. (I broke my foot earlier this year in a bike accident after riding home with a couple of cocktails in my system. It cost me the part-time job I was using to supplement freelance work, and that affected my finances, and my financial status has affected my relationships with my friends. Heck, so has my reduced mobility, an ongoing thing I am still getting used to. So, drunks – and users of other intoxicants – can we agree that “I'm only hurting myself” is not necessarily the right way of talking about these things?)

Some of the negative effects of drinking – particularly the subtle ones – are, I think, best managed in privacy. Break a wine glass? Sweep it up, go to Ikea or the thrift store and get some more. Find out you're pregnant following a boozy one-night stand? Do what you think is best. From that perspective I've been sympathetic to the NRA's rhetoric about responsible, educated gun ownership. I think there is such a thing; I really do. Just as I think there is such a thing as responsible, educated alcohol consumption.