Via the Global Mail, this is a cartoon-illustrated account by an ex-guard of working in one of Australia’s migration detention centres. This is very tough to read, but worse not to know.
immigration
Media Circus: Election Announcement Edition
A Federal election in September, violence in Egypt and Syria, Obama proposes immigration reforms and appoints John Kerry his new Secretary of State, deaths and damage are being tallied in Tasmanian/Victorian fires and Queensland floods. What has piqued your sociopolitical media interests lately? Please share your bouquets and brickbats.
Media Circus: Island prisons
Disgusted. As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis elsewhere, on any current sociopolitical issue.
Hands up who thinks these (and other) prejudices are over
“Virginity tests for immigrants ‘reflected dark age prejudices’ of 1970s Britain”
Femmostroppo Reader – October 19, 2010
Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed.What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.
Elections and volunteering
what I’m particularly interested in is GetUp!’s call for volunteer activists to be part of GetTogethers aiming to coordinate local action within their electorates, focussing on 3 main issues for the 2010 Federal election
QFT: Waleed Aly on what really drives the population debate
…so much of this “population” debate is really about the crap nature of services and infrastructure in the outer suburbs of our cities
Asylum Seeker Fact Sheet and Myth Buster
Helen posted a link to a fact sheet from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in one of the LP comment threads. The fact sheet is in PDF format, making it un-indexable by search engines and inaccessible to some readers with disabilities, so I have transcribed it below.
Quote Of The Day: Julian Burnside
“at the current rate of arrivals it would take about 20 years to fill the MCG with boat people”
That Ms. Cover
As no doubt the editors hoped, this cover for Ms. Magazine’s Special Inaugural Issue has generated a lot of controversy. Many feminists feel that Obama’s feminist credentials are not nearly as strong as they could be, while the cover has generated an escalation in panic-mongering and shrill we-told-you-so’s from the religious right plus a great deal more snark about Obamessianic visions and rainbow unicorns from the neocon right.
Hoyden About Town 