How do you fight for human rights?
Human rights and international obligations are inevitably subordinate to what matters most to politicians: votes. Here’s me in The Monthly ranting about how to bridge the gap between politics and principle.
(via fromtheintersection)
WA anti-protest laws shake the core of our legal system
WA’s proposed anti-protest laws casually abandon one of the bedrock principles of our legal system, write Sunili Govinnage and Nick Duff.
I was lucky enough to chat to a great bunch of writers the other week during the Digital Writers Festival about “free speech” in the Asia-Pacific:
When it comes to freedom of speech, just how much is too much and how much is too little? Should we redefine freedom of expression or is it fine just the way it is? What is the role of censorship in an age where almost everyone is connected to each other and everyone has access — as well as the ability — to create content?
Cheers and thanks to André Dao, Eleanor Jackson and Ross Tapsell for the great discussion!
(via fromtheintersection)
“ I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the front upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.”
(via fromtheintersection)
“ I became interested in pop culture as part of the conscious discovery to find what constitutes being “American”. When I’m talking about these figures, I’m never really talking about them, I’m talking about us.”
15 Yoga Poses to Help You Detox After Crying Your Face Off For 3 Hours
Sometimes you want a blog post to just give you the answers. To help you actually DO you “to do” list and clear your chakras and be happy and inflammation-free.
There’s a listicle/magazine/book/app for everything. Yoga. Productivity. Uncluttering. Mindfulness. Green fucking turmeric flavoured smoothies. Everything you need to be a better person who deserves to be in this world.
Years of depression, lots of therapy, being raised a Buddhist and a love of Bridget Jone’s Diary and a mother who is a proper actual sciencey medical doctor qualified to do acupuncture and regularly does deity offerings has led me to be very open to “self-help” style books/magazines/blogs and now podcasts and apps.
I am unashamed by the fact that “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” helped me to be a extremely highly effective teenager with fricking amazing exam results and a colour coded homework timetable.
But 15 years later, having just spent a nonsensical amount of money I don’t have on an “online” yoga “course” that spammed my email inbox for 30 days reminding me to be kind to myself, even though I already have a lifetime subscription to an online yoga site with video classes I have never take, I realised no blog post will help me to get to where I want to go.
No podcast will help me be mindful.
No task management app will actually get me organised.
No ad for probiotic tea on that yoga blog will ever direct me to inner peace (or help with bloating).
Because none of that shit will get me away from the darkness in my head that is always going to be a part of me no matter what, despite how good I know my life can be.
Believe it or not, I have never been in a better place in my life. I have every iota possible of purpose happening right now and the future is bright.
But everything still sucks and I am miserable because that’s just how I see the world.
And it took me getting a daily reminder of how broke I am delivered by email to make me throw my hands up with the air like I just don’t care and decide that need to stop striving to make things better. Because I know that it won’t be. Because that is life. Because (here’s a free piece of Buddhist wisdom!) life is suffering.
That might be depressing but it is also amazingly freeing. Because know that helps one to remember that we DO NOT NEED TO KEEP TRYING TO FIX THINGS.
We don’t – we just have to live. That’s it. Maybe we can eat better or exercise more or knit. But we don’t have to fix anything (unless it is completely fucking broken in which case take serious actual medical advice, not whacky guru bullshit from some blog).
Here’s my new manifesto: I am done with the Wellbeing Industrial Complex. I am done with Yoga Journal and Zen Habits and Oprah & Deepak’s Magical Meditation Waste of 21 Hours Of Your Life Extravaganza.
One of my besties has this great joke about “amethyst hippies” who waft crystals around to fix everything, but you know who the real enemy is? Amethyst capitalists. Because at least the hippies will give you a bowl of lentils at Govindas.
Mostly I am pissed off with myself for being sucked into all of this. I remember my younger brother, who is younger than me, laughing at me for paying $2.50 for a meditation app since Buddha would probably come back from nirvana to remind everyone meditation is supposed to be free.
I just need to be mindful of the fact I cannot meditate and that those Lululemon pants will not help me get on the damn yoga mat every day. I might come to it one day, when I feel like it, but fuck you, Yoga Journal and your goddamn stupid ads: we are never, ever, ever getting back together.
When a law student uses the word “penultimate” or says they’re “excited by the opportunity”
See also: “I’d like to do legal aid with refugees in Indonesia so can I volunteer with you for 2 weeks? Maybe 3. I really want to be a human rights lawyer but I have to get back in time for Law Firm Clerkship Interviews.”