Photo by Melany Rochester

By Andrea Loewen
@ms.andreajoy

This Month’s Action:

“The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.”
-Susan Sontag

It’s a new year! This year, let’s all commit to one simple act that can help make the world a little more positive: for every bad news story we share, share one good news story as well. For every example of evil, oppression, and violence, let’s share an example of goodness, resistance, and love. We can’t spend our lives pretending the darkness isn’t there, and neither can we live, or fight, if we don’t remember the good as well.

This Month’s Reading:

WTF List (Keeping Up With the News):

Lack of Progress on Climate Change is Putting Canadians’ Health At Risk: Not to mention the fact that global carbon emissions rose by 3% last year.

An Undocumented Immigrant Has Been Making Trump’s Bed for Years: The man who wants to put up a wall has hired and benefitted from the work of a number of undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, a seven-year-old girl being held at the border died over the holidays.

Towards a Better Biblical Understanding of Gender, Sex, and the Patriarchy: The Anglican Church has officially joined other denominations (Baptist and Presbyterian) in affirming the equality and dignity of transgendered persons.

BC Votes to Keep First-Past-the-Post Electoral System: Once again, BC voted to keep status quo. Sigh.

Ontario’s Indigenous Culture Fund and Arts Council Budgets Are Slashed: It’s not surprising, but it’s disappointing. Even though these two items made up about .5% of the budget, they were cut to balance the deficit.

99 Good News Stories That Happened in 2018: It can seem like the entire year was trash, and while a lot of terrible things did happen, there was some good, too. Here’s another roundup of good news from CNN.

Action Inspo and Instructionals:

Let these alternate guides and examples of resistance inspire you!

Let’s Cheer the Workers at Google Who Are Holding Their Bosses to Account: They are trying to hold Google executives to the ethics the company claims to hold. Yes!

Climate Change is Stealing Our Children’s Futures: Not some future, hypothetical children. The children currently being born, right now. Greta Thunberg drives the point home.

Hundreds Attend Guerilla, Activist-Led Tour of Looted Artifacts in the British Museum: They called it a “stolen goods tour” of the museum and it sounds glorious.

Born to Protest: Dr. Pauli Murray is an African American civil rights lawyer who has done some incredible work, and we should all know her name.

Cards Against Humanity Stops the Wall: This is what you can do when you have lots of money AND your ethics in the right place.

Women Outraged by Baylor Frat Deal Go After Judge: When a young man was charged $400 for committing rape, a lot of us got our rage on. Some women got their petition on as well.

Analysis, Opinion, and Enrichment:

These will help you better understand how what’s feeding the madness and expose you to perspectives different from your own (regardless of their direct connection to Trump’s madness).

Diary of a Fossil Fuel Lobby-Watcher at the UN Climate Conference: The inside scoop of… depressingly little change.

Climate Change: Where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help: The number one thing any individual can do is eat less meat and animal products.

Native Knowledge: What Ecologists Are Learning from Indigenous People: Ecologists are starting to turn to the expertise of Indigenous populations to gain a better understanding of our changing climate. Imagine if settlers had listened to them in the first place.

Before Reconciliation is Possible, Canadians Must Admit the Truth: Right now 40% of Canadians believe that the treaties with Indigenous people have been properly respected by Canada.
All the Douchebags of 2018: Bitch Magazine shares regular Douchebag Decrees to call out people in power who are hurting us all. Here’s a roundup for the year.

Andrea Loewen is a writer, theatre-maker, and choreographer in Vancouver, BC. She writes for a variety of online publications, including Loose Lips Magazine and Vancouver Presents, as well as her own site, The Receptionist Blog. Her first book, Feeling Better: A Field Guide to Liking Yourself is set to release in February of 2019.  www.andrealoewen.com