Writer/director Pawo Choyning Dorji’s heartfelt Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom will charm the pants off of you – or, rather, the robes off of you. Because this captivating feature was shot mostly in the hard-to-get-to Kingdom of Bhutan, a Buddhist nation of less than 1 million inhabitants straddling the Eastern Himalayas between India and the Tibet region of the People’s Republic of China. Indeed, Lunana was largely lensed on location in the actual village of that same name, a remote, tiny hamlet, which translated into English Lunana means: “The Dark Valley.” Minus electricity, let alone Internet connectivity and cell receptivity, Dorji’s crew had to shoot on location there using solar power batteries.

A public relations and marketing campaign called FL4ALL announced itself in a full-page ad in the New York Times on August 3, 2021. It represents a dangerous fiction and threat to students and unsuspecting “hard working citizens,” to repeat its promotional language. The campaign’s actions follow what I declared in my 1979 book, The Literacy Myth, the exaggerated importance of literacy by itself, taken out of context. To borrow terms from the field of literacy studies, “reading” the advertisement as “written” is revealing. 

Let’s look at the text. It misrepresents both literacy and economics, and is a danger to the population this corporate coalition claims to serve. 

First, no reputable person says or writes “FL” for “financial literacy.” Perhaps for a football league. Second, only marketers and business corporations seeking to derive financial profits would consider promoting a flawed slogan like “FL4ALL.” In corrupting well-established public civil rights movements, such sloganeering is a shameful misappropriation. The ad proclaims that “financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation.”

49 years ago today, the Supreme Court recognized the constitutional right to abortion in America.

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, abortion won’t immediately become illegal. Anyone who can take time off of work and fly to California will have no problem getting reproductive healthcare. But Black and poor women will be first and worst impacted by the decision. Studies have found that Black women already have more vulnerable access to abortion, and that injustice leads to worse birth outcomes as well [1].  

Black women are the most educated women in America, and yet they remain the most likely to die during childbirth and the least likely to access appropriate reproductive care. Our sisters at Black Women’s Health Imperative and Power to Decide are working to change that. Can you make a donation directly to them to recognize Roe’s anniversary?

According to B’Telsem, for Palestinians, this was the deadliest year since 2014.

There are no statistics that can measure the pain and sorrow of their family members and friends of these victims of violence on both sides of this conflict.  What follows is just a snapshot of the human rights violations in 2021, and suggestions for actions that we can take to help bring an end to the violence for the benefit of all people in the region. 

Statistics from the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs for 2021 (OCHA oPt)

Palestinian deaths - West Bank 82 (including 15 children); Gaza 264 (including 67 children)

Palestinian injuries - 17,895

Israeli deaths - 16 (including 2 children)

Israeli injuries - 158

Source:  https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties.