Sunday musings

Great article by Antonia Zerbisias about Ottawa's approach to women and the request (I did not hear about this anywhere else) for as she says:

Funding for more than 20 established organizations that have helped women make great strides has been yanked by Status of Women Canada.

Nobody has explained the cuts.

That’s why, next Wednesday, both current minister Rona Ambrose and former minister Helena Guergis have been summoned to a special meeting of the House of Common’s Standing Committee on the Status of Women to explain their funding decisions and criteria.

“The committee does not believe that it has the data it requires to assess whether the department is funding appropriately according to its mandate,” says committee chair Hedy Fry, who was SWC minister in the Chretien government.

Women's groups cuts, equality for women cut as a goal and nobody to do the explaining. . . thank you to the committee for trying to bring some light to this . . .

Zerbisias provides further info about the cuts and what is being funded - bibles, bible colleges - this is scary changes to policy:

Consider the silence from the Conservatives on continued funding by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which helps women and girls in 174 countries.

Meanwhile, CIDA announced $357,146 for the Prince Albert, Sask.-based Chakam School of the Bible Inc. to build a school in Sudan.

Then there’s the $495,600 CIDA grant to Wycliffe Bible Translators of Calgary, which works so that aboriginal people in far-flung corners of the world can read the scriptures in their native languages.

“It’s okay to translate the Bible,” says Demers. “But there are aboriginal women here who are dying.”

In fact, adds Demers, groups seeking CIDA funding are being told to leave the phrase “gender equity” out of their grant applications.

______________________________________________________________

Also thinking about Gaza today and the flotilla of ships on their way to hopefully break the seige of Gaza. See this article on Al Jazeera . . . Imagine 1.5 million people trapped in a prison strip of land, with no employment, not enough calories and no way to "escape" and no where to escape to. . . I cannot understand why there is not a huge outcry about Israel's policy of collective punishment of all of the people of Gaza. This piece says in part:

Ultimately Israel is faced with two questions: does it continue its policy of collective punishment and prevent the flotilla from entering Gaza until Gazans succumb to Israeli demands? Or does it allow the aid to enter and attempt to demonstrate to the world that Israel does in fact respect human rights?

Unfortunately neither of these options bode well for the Israelis, option one for the obvious public outcry that will spill out as a result of 800 people stranded in the water. And although option two would be smarter from a public relations perspective, it would be an indirect admission by Israel that its policy of collective punishment and continued siege is flawed, not to mention illegal.

It seems Israel only has a few days left before it is to make up its mind on what could be one of its toughest tests yet. And it is posing these questions that make the Freedom Flotilla so significant.

I have been and supporting the International BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, boycotting Chapters and MEC (formal boycott's although I am not sure that I agree with the decision to boycott MEC) and informally products made in Israel and O Solo Mio shoes since about half their stock id from Israel. See this new article about the success of the Cultural BDS movement.

__________________________________________________________________

Also musing this morning, about Internet privacy and whether to stay on Facebook. I have started blogging more (here - www.musingsfromtheshore.blogspot.com), tweeting, (ma_mchugh) and emailing people so that I am not so dependent on facebook. I feel like if I remove myself entirely from FB I am going to miss out on knowing about events and even keeping up to date with news outside the mainstream. . . but I do not want to be participating in the data mining (I am not too worried about my own data - go ahead and try to use my Palestinian Solidarity or feminist rants to sell me something personally!) as I am a large FB user - posting and reading other's posts more than once a day.

Lots of links to thoughtful discussion on FB and its challenges and also on Google, who are in trouble for collecting our data though they say they have not used it. I am in kind of future shock especially on what info corporations have on me - the issue is articulated in the Times Online:

Facebook’s privacy policy is now 5,830 words long, more than the US Constitution. “Our online selves are not just stuff for databases, they are part of us. Facebook has no real respect for its customers,” said Milan.

So far the charge has been led by the technorati. Danah Boyd, a Microsoft researcher and top tech blogger, wrote: “The battle that is under way is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It’s a battle over choice and informed consent. It’s unfolding because people are being duped, tricked, coerced and confused into doing things where they don’t understand the consequences.

“Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is unfair. It gives users the illusion of choice and hides the details from them ‘for their own good’.”

Other influential techies, including Cory Doctorow, co-editor of the weblog Boing Boing, have already quit Facebook. More worryingly for the firm, the controversy is getting increasing attention in Washington DC.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic), an advocacy group, has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook changes that have meant more information is made public by default and also shared automatically with other websites.

Lots of other discussions about this. I am looking at torproject.org and chi.mp as replacements although not entirely, of course - they do different things. . . - and of course this blog which will allow me to only post once a day to FB - until I decide whether to get out entirely.

Another interesting article can be found on the Economist site - yup everyone is now worried. . .

As the Economist says:

Facebook’s problem is more fundamental. True, the social network has some of the most extensive privacy controls on the web, but these have now become so complex—and are tweaked so often—that even privacy experts find them bamboozling. The company also has a powerful incentive to push people into revealing more information. Facebook generates most of its revenue from targeted advertisements based on users’ demography and interests, so the more data users share publicly the more money it can mint from ads. It may well be betting that users are now so hooked that they are unlikely to revolt against a gradual loosening of privacy safeguards.

The worst thing is Facebook’s underlying prejudice against privacy. Sign up and it assumes you want to share as much data as possible; if not, you have to change the settings, which can be a fiddly business. The presumption should be exactly the opposite: the default should be tight privacy controls, which users may then loosen if they choose. If Facebook fails to simplify and improve its privacy policy, it will justly risk the wrath of regulators—and many more Facebook suicides.

______________________________________________________________

Lastly I was very impressed with an article on Racism in Nova Scotia found in the Globe and Mail this weekend. . .

Picture from the Globe and mail article linked above. . .