Dystopia or Hope?
A century ago, novelist and muckraker Upton Sinclair weighed in on the political debate of his day with a play that predicted worldwide devastation when a radioactive element causes a deadly explosion.
My Summer at an Indian Call Center
Every month, thousands of Indians leave their Himalayan tribes and coastal fishing towns to seek work in business process outsourcing, which includes customer service, sales, and anything else foreign corporations hire Indians to do.
How to survive the age of distraction
Source: The Independent
Read a book with your laptop thrumming. It can feel like trying to read in the middle of a party where everyone is shouting
In the 20th century, all the nightmare-novels of the future imagined that books would be burnt. In the 21st century, our dystopias imagine a world where books are forgotten. To pluck just one, Gary Steynghart’s novel Super Sad True Love Story describes a world where everybody is obsessed with their electronic Apparat – an even more omnivorous i-Phone with a flickering stream of shopping and reality shows and porn – and have somehow come to believe that the few remaining unread paper books let off a rank smell. The book on the book, it suggests, is closing.
Sexual Violence Against Women in the US Military: The Search for Truth and Justice
An investigation into the alleged suicide of US Army Private Lavena Johnson points to a larger story of sexual violence against women in the military.
Taking the Fight to the Ballot Box: Video Report on Wisconsin’s Recall Election Primaries
As voter Bill Schlewey said "Wisconsinites are known fighters and this is another fight we're not going to go down easy on."
Colombia’s Gold Rush
Source: Fault Lines, Al Jazeera
Gold fever is sweeping across South America. Nowhere is it more lethal than in Colombia, where the gold rush has become a new axle in Colombia’s civil war.
Turf wars are erupting between paramilitaries and leftist rebel groups who are fighting to take control of mining regions. It is fuelling an old ideological conflict that has displaced thousands of people.
Helicopter raids by the Colombian army on small community mining collectives have become commonplace and the Colombian government is accused of targeting poor workers to protect big business interests and committing human rights violations with impunity.