Anna
This was news to me (the German history, not the “old as love itself” part). And fascinating: “although same-sex love is as old as love itself, the public discourse around it, and the political movement to win rights for it, arose in Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”
Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant’s response to Obama’s SOTU speech: Where was he when it mattered?
Recent polling found that most wealthy Americans believe “poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return.” As Charles M. Blow writes in the NYT, this impression is way off base, not to mention offensive and callous. Being poor is not just not easy. Institutional and structural barriers (e.g., bank fees, balance requirements, credit requirements, housing deposits, police targeting, regressive taxes, predatory lending, and check cashing) make being poor really expensive.
And the cover story in latest MacLean’s Magazine: Canada’s racism problem (at its worst in Winnipeg).
Serena
Oof. I’d be laughing more if this weren’t so true.