This list covers the week of January 7 - 14. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.
This installment has one entry from before the period. It has been integrated into the post.
1) Relax, Ontario’s minimum wage increase will not lead to massive job losses
Vanmala Subramaniam, Vice
The overwhelmingly alarmist rhetoric regarding Ontario’s recent minimum wage increase is due largely to a misinterpretation of basic facts, say two prominent Canadian bank economists.
Read the full article.
2) Labour council flooded with complaints about responses to minimum wage laws
Elizabeth Payne, The Ottawa Citizen
Forty eight hours after setting up a hotline for workers, the Ottawa and District Labour Council said Sunday it had already heard complaints about more than 20 Ottawa businesses potentially acting as what it calls “corporate bullies” in response to new Ontario minimum wage laws.
Read the fill article.
3) TIM HORTONS BREW-HAHA SHOWS HOW THE FAST-FOOD INDUSTRY DOESN’T GET PR, ECONOMICS 101, OR WHAT CANADIANS THINK
David Climenhaga, Alberta Politics
Having quite possibly won the next Ontario general election for Premier Kathleen Wynne and her admittedly long-in-the-tooth Liberal government, the association of perpetually infuriated rogue Tim Hortons franchisees half-heartedly tried to walk back last week’s plan to beat the crap out of their employees because the government had raised the minimum wage in the province to $14 an hour.
Read the full article.
Roll out your rights! Stand with Tim Hortons workers! To reach a UFCW Canada organizer please contact our toll-free number at 1.866.977.0772 or visit www.ufcw.ca/join
4) BDS Blacklist: Sadly, Now Might Be the Time for Jews to Boycott Israel
Mira Sucharov, Haaretz
The entry blacklist means Israel is effectively turning the screws in the prison of occupation a few notches tighter, as it continues to inch away from its self-declared commitment to being a democracy.
Read the full article.
5) So much for 'happily ever after': Sears pensioners stagger under stress of cuts
Meghan McCabe, CBC News
Ron Husk pulls onto the parking lot of Home Depot in St. John's, backs his car in, and totters into another day of his part-time job as a greeter, lunch pail in hand.
Read the full article.
6) Disgust Follows Pictures of Seinfeld at 'Anti-Terror Fantasy Camp' in Occupied West Bank
John Queally, Common Dreams
American actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld became the target of ire among Palestinian rights advocates worldwide on Monday after it was revealed he recently visited an "anti-terrorist training camp" located inside an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank.
Read the full article.
7) 'Outrageous': Demanding Pay Raises for Educators Over Superintendent, Teacher Pushed to Ground and Arrested
Julia Conley, Common Dreams
A middle school language arts teacher was handcuffed and pushed to the ground in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana on Monday night after being removed from a school board meeting for questioning her district's decision to give its superintendent a raise while teachers' salaries remain stagnant and class sizes soar.
Read the full article.
8) Why Europe’s wars of religion put 40,000 ‘witches’ to a terrible death
Jamie Doward, The Guardian
It was a terrifying phenomenon that continues to cast a shadow over certain parts of Europe even today. The great age of witch trials, which ran between 1550 and 1700, fascinates and repels in equal measure. Over the course of a century and a half, 80,000 people were tried for witchcraft and half of them were executed, often burned alive.
Read the full article.
9) Men of Hollywood, spare us your ‘solidarity’ and actually speak up, for once in your over-privileged lives
Hadley Freeman, The Guardian
A-list men tore up the sartorial rulebook and wore black tuxes to the Golden Globes to show their support for the women’s protest? Not enough, guys. Not enough
Read the full article.
10) Catherine Deneuve, let me explain why #metoo is nothing like a witch-hunt
Van Badham, The Guardian
There is nothing puritanical about the belief that sexual liberty is the right to determine your sexual behaviour without coercion.
Read the full article.
11) I Made the Pizza Cinnamon Rolls from Mario Batali’s Sexual Misconduct Apology Letter
Geraldine DeRuiter, The Everywhereist
Last night, I made cinnamon rolls. I’m not a huge fan of cinnamon rolls, per se, but this recipe was included in Mario Batali’s sexual misconduct apology letter, and so I feel compelled to make them. Batali is not the first powerful man to request forgiveness for “inappropriate actions” towards his coworkers and employees. He is not the most high profile, and he is ostensibly not even the worst offender. But he is the only one who included a recipe.
Read the full article.
12) I’m not here for celebrity culture, but I am here for Oprah
Meghan Murphy, Feminist Current
I don’t want a celebrity-driven, Hollywood-centric movement. I don’t want a movement that fails to address race and class. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want women who are actresses, who have money, or who are “celebrities” to speak out and to declare solidarity with other women. It certainly doesn’t mean I don’t want a woman like Oprah, who is powerful, who has changed lives, and who, on Sunday, used that power to speak about real women and real women’s lives — women who have historically been silenced. This was — and is — an important moment. Not everything needs to be torn apart in order to advertise progressive credibility. Sometimes good things and powerful moments can be celebrated — and this is one of those times.
Read the full article.
13) The Lefty Critique of #TimesUp Is Tired and Self-Defeating
Rinku Sen, The Nation
This year’s Golden Globes were the best kind of anomaly, as women artists and activists took it over with #TimesUp, signaling an end to silence and inaction on sexual harassment and abuse. All the women wore black; men sported #TimesUp pins. Seven celebrity actors took women activists of color as their dates to raise the visibility of particular industries and communities. The campaign has raised more than $16 million for a legal defense fund. Several winners spoke to the issue (though none of them were men), and the night ended with Oprah Winfrey’s focused and moving acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Read the full article.
13) Imagine cities that shelter people, not war
Azeezah Kanji, The Toronto Star
After weeks of protest and a petition signed by tens of thousands of people, Toronto Mayor John Tory reversed his refusal to ask that the Moss Park Armoury be opened as an emergency homeless shelter: temporarily transfiguring an edifice of war into a space of refuge.
Read the full article.
14) Venezuelan Communists Urge Radical Solutions to Current Crisis
Communist Party of Venezula
The Communist Party warns Venezuela could be headed towards a social explosion if the Maduro government fails to take decisive steps to improve the conditions of working people.
Read the full statement.
15) Jeremy Corbyn is about to transform the Labour party – again
Richard Power Sayeed, The Independent
Not many people will have noticed the news, reported on Monday morning just as Theresa May’s ill-fated reshuffle began, that Jeremy Corbyn has set up a “community campaign unit”, a small but growing department in his office that will focus on organising with communities and groups of employees, helping them to campaign on local and workplace issues.
Read the full article.
16) 'He took every penny I made,' human trafficking survivor says
Kate Dubinski, CBC News
A survivor of human trafficking now speaks to other women and teenagers in high schools about the risks.
Read the full article.
17) What's the Deal with Men's Rights Activists and Asian Fetishes?
Alia Marsha, Vice
There are plenty of men out there who think Asian women represent some kind of super patriarchal vision of a mate—a woman who is both subservient and hyper-sexual. And until we address that problem, there will be plenty of other men like Bond, and scores of fans willing to pay good money to learn how they too can fly to Asia and pick up women. Sigh.
Read the full article.
18) Women still earn 25% less as Canada slips down global rankings
Anna Maria Tremonti, The Current
Women working full-time in Canada earn 74.2 cents for every dollar that full-time male workers made.
Read the transcript/listen to the segment.
19) US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads
Julian Borger, The Guardian
The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review.
Read the full article.
20) Ahed Tamimi Offers Israelis a Lesson Worthy of Gandhi
Jonathon Cook, Counterpunch
Ahed and Nabi Saleh have shown that popular unarmed resistance – if it is to discomfort Israel and the world – cannot afford to be passive or polite. It must be fearless, antagonistic and disruptive.
Most of all, it must hold up a mirror to the oppressor. Ahed has exposed the gun-wielding bully lurking in the soul of too many Israelis. That is a lesson worthy of Gandhi or Mandela.
Read the full article.
21) Dutch Reporters Stun Trump’s Ambassador By Pressing Him to Admit He Lied About “No-Go Zones”
Robert Mackey, The Intercept
WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS who routinely allow the president of the United States to repeat false claims unchallenged should study the footage of how their Dutch counterparts greeted Donald Trump’s new ambassador to the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Read the full article.
22) US ambassador to The Hague apologizes for making Muslim remarks after denial
John Henley, The Guardian
Pete Hoekstra says statements about Muslim migrants in the Netherlands were ‘simply wrong’ after last month telling a TV interviewer they were ‘fake news’.
Read the full article.
23) PRIVATE PRISON CONTINUES TO SEND ICE DETAINEES TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR REFUSING VOLUNTARY LABOR
Spencer Woodman, The Intercept
OFFICIALS AT A privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in rural Georgia locked an immigrant detainee in solitary confinement last November as punishment for encouraging fellow detainees to stop working in a labor program that ICE says is strictly voluntary.
Read the full article.
24) Tim Hortons locations hit by protests over wage clawbacks
Sara Mojtehedzadeh & Alex McKeen, The Toronto Star
Labour activists converged Wednesday on Tim Hortons restaurants to protest pay and benefit clawbacks pegged to the recent hike in Ontario’s minimum wage.
Read the full article.
25) Tim Hortons workers in Dundas lose paid breaks, Timbits after minimum wage hike
Kelly Bennett, CBC News
Marianela Quinlan's 15-year-old child used to be able to sample a free donut or Timbit when working at a Tim Hortons in Dundas.
But in the wake of the province's higher minimum wage requirement, that perk is gone – along with her child's two paid, 15-minute breaks for every eight-hour shift. They've been replaced by a 30-minute unpaid lunch break.
Read the full article.
26) New mom Serena Williams had to talk her hospital staff through saving her life
Annalisa Merelli, Quartz
Indeed, even Serena Williams, whose body, as her husband correctly notes, “is one of the greatest things on this planet,” is just another black woman when it comes to being heard in the maternity ward—and when it comes to being dismissed.
Read the full article.
27) ANC Delegate, Commune Leader Assassinated in Venezuela
Lucas Koerner, Venezuela Analysis
Two Chavista leaders have been murdered in the past four days in what could prove to be a new round of political violence.
Read the full article.
28) Israeli Minister on Gaza Rocket Fire: The Time Has Come for Dead Palestinians
Haaretz
Minister Uri Ariel said Wednesday that there needs to be more dead and wounded Palestinians in Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip.
Read the full article.
29) Israeli Minister Dubs African Migrants 'Sanitary Nuisance,' Calls for Death Sentence for Fake News
Haaretz
Communications Minister Ayoub Kara sparks controversy as he calls for death for propagators of fake news and speaks out against African migrants as Israel launches deportation plan.
Read the full article.
30) The UN just called Donald Trump racist
Tom Embury-Dennis, The Independent
Donald Trump's reported remark branding Haiti, El Salvador and unspecified African nations as "s***hole countries" has been branded racist by a UN human rights official.
Read the full article.
31) If authoritarianism is looming in the US, how come Donald Trump looks so weak?
Corey Robin, The Guardian
There’s little doubt that Trump’s regime is a cause for concern. But fears about authoritarianism in the US ignore political realities.
Read the full article.
See also: Ontario Minimum Wage, Black Mirror, Woody Allen and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List December 31 - January 7
See also: Ahed Tamimi, Poverty in America, the Arctic and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List December 24 - 31
Haaretz (and the like): bias and hate
ReplyDeleteHaaretz twisted language, especially on racism: slaps it on cultural divisions or on safety but not on Arab Muslim racist attacks
The "competitive" tantrum trend among hard Israeli left to utter the "racism" terminology has been for some time.
They are ever so loud on isolated cases of violent attacks against Arabs which we all condemn, of course.
Yet, they are silent on every weekly attacks by racist Arabs targeting Jewish civilians (at times travelling for miles far away from own Arab town...). Of course, it's Arab Muslim terrorism but it's also anti-Jewish ethnic racism and religious bigotry.
Yet, will term any Israeli security measure as "racist." As if it's "not" saving lives, what it is really about.
Will minimize Arab Islamic Palestinian use of its own population as human shields (at least since 1980 by Arafat), and Israeli attempts to evacuate before an anti terror operation.
Will maximize, exaggerate any claim of abuse.
Incidentally, with all the heavily funded anti-Israel groups inside Israel. Why isn't there any even as much as a 'peace' movement on the Arab Palestinian side, Hamas' Gaza or Fatah's Ramallah?
If one specific community wants to keep its unique education, they immediately cry "racism".
They are silent on every Israeli court case that favors Arab vs Jew. But ever so loud on any partial-discriminatory incident. Despite the fact, it is rather ultra-orthodox who feel most all out discriminated against, mainly prompted by anti-Religious hatred campaign by hard left like Haaretz - actually.
These supposed "peacenicks", these same hypocrites, incite against, demonize Haredi ultra Orthodox conscientious objectors who refuse to serve in IDF draft in Israeli army.
It might very well be that at the beginning of "it's racism" rant, years ago, it was less meaning it, and more intented to shock, especially Jews, more sensitive, being victims, past and present of bigotry. But it has since become a "normal" language to utter it wherever, if for only that they 'can' float it. There is zero check on it.
The decades routinely vilification of Jews isn't just mere irresponsible. It surpassed that level long ago.
Haaretz and the like, are not just biased. But hate mongers.