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The death of Margaret Thatcher has led to an outburst of celebration in the UK that has been absolutely astonishing to someone like myself, on the outside looking in. I had no idea that her policies could excite anything like these emotions so many years later. What I want to know is: Where does the [...]

Gabby Giffords

Posted by Anne on February 2nd, 2013

Gabbi Giffords’ moving speech for gun control on Jan 30 (link to her handwritten notes):

Before the shooting (speaking here after a Tea Party attack on her office, 25 March 2010):

Her recovery (great husband!):

Is privacy the new taboo?

Posted by Anne on January 26th, 2013

I’ve been online now for just over 5 years. Recently I accidentally found the first video I made of myself, where I self-consciously wondered whether the information broadcasting movement I was about to join had any relevance, or whether it was a half-witted attempt to engage in broader but seemingly disconnected discourses, as half-witted as [...]

Charles Ferguson

Posted by Anne on January 4th, 2013

I watched Inside Job the other day, the Acadamy Award winning 2010 documentary about the 2008 financial meltdown, directed by Charles Ferguson, and had a bit of a meltdown of my own. As the blurb to the posted interview with Ferguson states “the film makes the powerful case that an out-of-control [...]

If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

Posted by Anne on December 23rd, 2012

Naderev Saño, the Philippines’ lead negotiator, gives a brilliant, emotional 3 minute speech at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Doha, on 6 November 2012. It is enormously difficult to keep your chin up as a negotiator in such a slow and tedious process. But do you always have to keep your chin up? Can’t [...]

Chris Rock – Message for White Voters

Posted by Anne on November 4th, 2012

A sketch by comedian Chris Rock. By the way, it still gets me every time that a man whose mother is white and whose father is black is considered black. How racist is that?

In this debate, Obama was very good at answering questions. He listened very attentively, and then focussed coolly on individual aspects of the question, answering each in turn to showcase his position. He uses a relatively simple tactic in answering, namely to give highly structured and “signposted” answers – signposting meaning adding words and phrases [...]