2019 – Bridge Agents

CUTTING FOOD AID PROMOTES HUNGER, NOT WORK

December 22, 2019 Bridge Agents

U.S. (OW) — You may have heard about the Trump administration’s latest attack on very poor Americans: a punitive new restriction that will cut SNAP benefits for 688,000 people. SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is our country’s most popular and effective nutrition assistance program. Growing up, my family got food stamps — and oh, I hated it. I hated standing in line at the grocery store, knowing we’d be paying with coupons that would brand us as “poor” to anyone who noticed. And yet I loved the fact that we had food….

Confidence Game: On Bernie Sanders and the State of U.S. Electoral Integrity

December 1, 2019 Bridge Agents

US (PT) “Voting is the most preciousright of every citizen, and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of ourvoting process.” -Former Secretary of State HillaryRodham Clinton, in reference to the Election Reform Bill (2005) when she wasserving as a U.S. Senator for New York State Itʼs hard not to laugh when we consider exactly how well the U.S. ranks in electoralintegrity among other industrialized nations. But itʼs one of those laughs weembrace because the bitter truth of it leaves desperation thick in the air. Thispsychological response to…

Anti-Rape Devices May Have Their Uses, but They Don’t Address the Ultimate Problem

October 4, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – Crime prevention initiatives targeting sexual violence are by no means new. But as technology advances and costs decrease, we are seeing an abundance of digital and technological strategies emerge. Last month, an invisible anti-groping stamp sold out within an hour of its launch in Japan. The stamp can be used by victims to mark someone who gropes them on public transport. This mark can only be seen when a black light (that comes with the device) is cast over it. But we need to ask: are…

Connecting With Centuries-Old Stories About Women’s Painful Struggles

October 3, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – This is an edited extract from a chapter in the recently published “Teaching for Change”. In 2016 female students at South Africa’s universities started the #EndRapeCulture campaign to mobilise against the pervasive culture of sexual violence on the different campuses. In Stellenbosch the campaign was marked by two striking occasions. One evening in April 2016, the fire alarms went off at 2am across the Stellenbosch University campus. This was to signal the message that the student community would no longer be silent about their fellow students…

Misrepresentations Regarding Soviet/US Roles in WWII and the Cold War

October 2, 2019 Bridge Agents

INTRODUCTION The Soviet Union contributed more than did any other nation to the defeats of Germany and Japan in World War II, but America and Britain together defeated Italy. Many prominent Western ‘historians’ white-out the Soviet roles in defeating Hitler and especially Hirohito, and they overstate the importance of America’s victories to the ultimate outcome, and ignore or underplay Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s strong rejection and repudiation of Winston Churchill’s imperialistic agenda, not only for a continuation of empires, but for a continued postwar exploitation of colonies, as being acceptable goals…

Misogyny, Male Rage and the Words Men Use to Describe Greta Thunberg

October 1, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – Detractors have dismissed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg – a Nobel Prize nominee – as mentally ill, hysterical and a millennial weirdo after she pleaded with world officials last week to address the climate crisis. Here, two researchers explain the stereotypical labels deployed by critics to undermine Thunberg’s call to action, which the activist herself has described as “too loud for people to handle”. Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Greta Thunberg obviously scares some men silly. The bullying of the teenager…

Not Convinced on the Need for Urgent Climate Action? Here’s What Happens to Our Planet Between 1.5°C and 2°C of Global Warming

September 27, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (Conversation) – Many numbers are bandied around in climate emergency discussions. Of them, 1.5°C is perhaps the most important. At the Paris Agreement in 2015, governments agreed to limit global warming to well below 2°C and to aim for 1.5°C. By 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the UN body tasked with relaying the science of climate breakdown to the world – had made worryingly clear in a special report how much graver the consequences of the higher number would be. Together with the University of…

When Does The Line Get Crossed?

September 20, 2019 Bridge Agents

“Come writers and criticsWho prophesize with your penAnd keep your eyes wideThe chance won’t come againAnd don’t speak too soonFor the wheel’s still in spinAnd there’s no tellin’ whoThat it’s namin’For the loser nowWill be later to winFor the times they are a-changin’”- Bob DylanOn Our Cultural Zeitgeist, Civil Disobedience, and How to be anEffective Dissident “It is to Madame Justice that I dedicate this concerto, in honor ofthe holiday that she seems to have taken from these parts, and inrecognition of the impostor that stands in her stead.”- V…

New Report Details 10 ‘Critical Transitions’ to Tackle the Climate Crisis and Feed the World

September 18, 2019 Bridge Agents

World Wide (CD) – The ways humanity produces and consumes food cause up to 30 percent of planet-warming emissions, generate widespread malnutrition, and perpetuate poverty and inequality—but a new report released Monday claims that 10 global transformations over the next decade could help the international community tackle the climate crisis and feed over nine billion people. The report, Growing Better: 10 Critical Transitions to Transform Food and Land Use (pdf), comes from the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU), which launched in 2017 to bring together organizations representing key actors—from business and civil…

How Useful is the “Unemployment Rate”? Five Humans Who Don’t “Count”

September 17, 2019 Bridge Agents

United States (FEE) – The official “unemployment rate” in the US is nearing historic lows, according to a recent announcement. For young readers, especially, this may come as a surprise. You may see your friends and family struggling to find enough well-paying work to make ends meet, and you may have personally experienced the frustration of wanting a job but not finding one. Your experience may not be as out of the ordinary as the official numbers indicate. The “unemployment rate” is the result of assumptions and calculations by the…