Posts from ‘March, 2009’

Earlier this month, a Chicago-area sheriff’s office sued Craigslist claiming that the website facilitates prostitution through its “Erotic Services” section which Sheriff Tom Dart claims to be “one the largest sources of prostitution in the country”.  The Cook County Sheriff’s Department is asking a federal judge to both force the site to close the offending [...]

Birtukan Mideksa is currently being held in Kaliti Prison, in Ethiopia. Remember her name, Birtukan Midekas, and remember Kaliti Prison. There will be a test on prison geography and another on prisoners, with special attention to women prisoners. Women prisoners aren’t only in prison, however. Consider Mitmita. She’s an Ethiopian human rights activist. Mitmita is [...]

Have you watched any mainstream news—CNN especially—in the past few days? Turn on the tv and you will see insanely histrionic coverage of the U.S.-Mexico border and the “drug war”: “narco killers”; “worst free trade imaginable”; “narco terrorists using guns most likely bought in the U.S.” And guess what they are NOT talking about: women (except for the the [...]

The stage glows with shades of blue, the glitter ball casts a thousand stars … 
She walks in tall and svelte, her eyes dancing
Her passion and enthusiasm is infectious
Her delivery is tight, on par with top music acts in the Southern African region, and indeed the world.
Her style is influenced by the great Afro jazz singers.
The [...]

“Look” she said to me, pointing to the multi-coloured powder paint that had fallen onto the tarmac, “the rainbow fell on the floor.”  She stood there, eyes wide, hands on her hips, her oversized school uniform making her look smaller than her 6 years. 
Then, I watched her skip away, satchel in tow, to the school [...]

9 March 2009 
In an unprecedented move in Harare last week women cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and Members of Parliament (MPs), from across party lines, gathered over lunch.  They gathered to celebrate the women who contested the March 2008 elections and to continue the process of building and strengthening a cross party women’s alliance in Parliament [...]

As someone who lives in deepest Southeast DC (Alabama Avenue and Stanton Road), I’m living in an area where the global collapse of capitalism has stalled gentrification. Of course, in my predominantly African American neighborhood, it wasn’t called that. My new neighbors are participating in “revitalization,” which has meant the literal razing of the old [...]

At 6.50am today, International Women’s Day, I joined hundreds of women all around Harare in search of a river. 
The search took me down the beautiful tree lined Josiah Tongogara Avenue, past what Zimbabweans now know as the hanging tree.  The tree where Mbuya Nehanda, a spiritual medium and revolutionary war heroine of Zimbabwe’s first [...]

In Harare now, some say heaven can be found in the middle class suburbs of Arundel, Borrowdale and the Avenues. This heaven comes in the form of Spar supermarket and the queues of people waiting to get through the metal gates are long.  After all, “Spar is good for you”!
Once inside you would be forgiven [...]

In 2004, then D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams announced a plan to build a brand new baseball stadium around Half and O Streets SE to house the newly purchased Montreal Expos. The land chosen for the new baseball stadium was home to one of the largest conglomerations of gay bars and clubs in the city including [...]