First, I’m ever so slowly jumping on the Google Calendar bandwagon.
Next, New York Cares is having a Happy Hour this week. Should be a great time.
In more serious news, Brazil gets kudos for a recent decision on its HIV drug policy.
Finally, the Brazilian Fulbright commission has found it in their hearts to give me a grant. So I’ll be there working on a pretty ambitious mutlimedia human rights education curriculum on HIV/AIDS, from March to December 2008. This is incredibly exciting.
If anyone would like to employ me in the meantime, feel free to drop a line!
I’ve been reading the news a lot more over the last couple weeks, partly for work but also out of personal interest. I’ve signed for a slew of listservs and set up various RSS feeds, and I really enjoy feeling like I have a bit of a clue what’s going on in the world. A good deal of what I’m reading is used for job purposes, but there are things I’ve come across that I feel warrant discussion but for which I don’t have an appropriate venue – other than my blog.
So, here are a couple things I came across this week:
IMMIGRATION
There was an article in the New York Times today about various people who have come to the US on the guest worker program, but who have found that what was promised to them has not been delivered. Having been subjected to abusive conditions on top of a lack of work, they’re suing.
Last week, a group of Republicans at NYU staged a very distasteful game of “Catch the Illegal Immigrant,” amid protests.
HIV/AIDS
There was a lot of discussion this week about curing HIV with herbal remedies. I admittedly have some ideas about the functioning of the human body that many would consider overly new-age, but was still struck by the fact that, two days ago, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh went so far as to order a UN representative to leave the country for expressing disbelief of his claim of a cure.
And today, it was reported that clinical trials run in Zambia did not substantiate the assertion of an herbal cure, though research is ongoing.
HUMAN RIGHTS
HR is such a very big, all-encompassing term.
This week I encountered a couple things concerning LGBT rights that were particularly striking.
- First, a 72-year-old gay man was beaten to death this month in Michigan.
- Second, it seems Cuba is well ahead of US with respect to outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
And finally, last week (on Presidents’ Day) was the 65th anniversary of the order that forced 110,00 Japanese Americans into ‘internment’ camps during WWII. I had the opportunity to write about that here.
Hope the news is more cheerful next week
The spring semester starts next week – which means that I will be:
- Writing content for the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights website
- Doing new media outreach/marketing for the Opportunity Agenda
- Taking a class at the New School on web animation, flash, and auditing classes on Brazilian film and digital photography
- Working at New York Cares, in both Development and Volunteer Relations
- Redoing the Brazilian Rainbow Group website
- Camping out at the Foundation Center to figure out how to find grants, write proposals, and start an NGO
Promises to be busy, but fun!
