Monday, September 16, 2013

Monday Snippets: Fall yet?

The temps have been dropping round these parts and I'm hoping for an actual season, as opposed to the day or so we got of spring this year.

About that new program...

Twenty two fucking percent of borrowers are unable to repay. That number attached to this new loan program would be shocking if it wasn't almost exactly the same as the overall default rate for student loan borrowers.

And yet we're to blame for the awful economy, bootstraps, etc.



My favorite is number 4. This whole list makes me want to dive into a international dictionary for an afternoon. And I say this as an English major frequently lost for words.



Family leave, student repayment, health care...all things the US could be so much better at.


A new interview with Edwidge Danticat (aka one of my favorite writers)

I had that experience with Krik? Krak! I made some of the stories into radio plays in Creole and they become totally different. More alive in some way. More immediate. In the epigraph to Drown, Junot Diaz uses a quote from a Cuban poet, Gustavo PĂ©rez Firmat—“The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you.” This is the dilemma of the immigrant writer. If I’d lived in Haiti my whole life, I’d be writing these things in Creole. But these stories I am writing now are coming through me as a person who, though I travel to Haiti often, has lived in the U.S. for more than three decades now.

Often when you’re an immigrant writing in English, people think it’s primarily a commercial choice. But for many of us, it’s a choice that rises out of the circumstances of our lives. These are the tools I have at my disposal, based on my experiences. It’s a constant debate, not just in my community but in other communities as well. Where do you belong?



A thoughtful and much appreciated view of the so-called work/life balance battles.

I hope that regardless of how our lives and our family change over the years ahead, this is what I remember: how to be grateful.


The bad news is that gender inequities in lifetime wages and time allocation have roots in how we reward children for work they do at home. Childhood scripts continue to lay the groundwork for making domestic work less valued, for prioritizing men’s careers over women’s, for a persistent workforce sex segregation, and for an enduring wage gap. All because of who dries the dishes and takes out the trash.



A twitter friend linked to this and it's a great read on anti-racism work.

Because while we fight tooth and nail to make powerful change to systems of oppression, we need to ensure that if people who benefit from these systems are not actively acting in solidarity, at least they aren’t in the way.

And this is primarily the work of other people of privilege.

It’s time for us to call our people in.


Well over half of the states in the country are directly funding “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs), right-wing groups that pose as nonpartisan health clinics while advocating for an anti-abortion agenda. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, 34 states currently have policies that funnel money toward CPCs:



Pardon me, I just threw up on my keyboard.

This is no small matter we’re dealing with here. Is a degree worth the loss of your daughter’s purity, dignity, and soul?

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