Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) help people worldwide where the need is greatest, delivering emergency medical aid to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from health care. MSF teams have tended to patients, assisted in births, and provided access to medical care for hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise have gone without […]
Month: December 2016
Fifteen
One of the best bits about the festive season is the winter feast – gorging on chocolate and christmas pud, stodgy spuds, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes to build up some fat that we will lament in January, but that will keep us warm in the cold months ahead. For some, the reality is […]
Fourteen
Regarding LGBTQIA+ civil rights, the Western Hemisphere has come a long way over the past several decades. No more section 28, no more guaranteed sackings after coming out, families are more likely than ever to support their children, and celebrities can come out as gay or trans without risking their careers on a scale once […]
Thirteen
Imagine the outrage we would feel if a group of youths blocked off a small dog’s escape routes and chased it on bikes with much larger dogs baying for its blood. When the dogs catch up with the smaller dog, they tear it apart, unless one of the kids shoots it first. We would, quite […]
Twelve
So since we have had a save the tree’s advent window, it only seems appropriate that we do a window for the animals that call woodlands their home. By protecting the environment and habitat of these wild animals, we can help them survive and thrive as us humans encroach ever further into their spaces. As […]
Brian Pollitt
Brian Pollitt worked in Cuba from 1963-68 as Technical Director of the Commission of Social Studies, carrying out rural surveys and appraising the socio-economic conditions of the Cuban peasantry. Subsequently, he carried out frequent periods of fieldwork, focussing on the economic and social history of modern Cuba with special reference to the sugar economy. From […]
Eleven
Trees are an absolute essential to human well being. They aren’t just pretty, trees supply us with oxygen, keep our cities cool in summer, absorb pollution, act as a wind break to keep us warmer in winter, help reduce soil erosion and reduce noise. Yet Scotland has just 4% of its indigenous tree population left. […]
Ten
The United States, with the consent of the United Kingdom as laid down in the Quebec Agreement, dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, during the final stage of World War II. The two bombings killed at least 129,000 people, and devastated the cities. […]
Tracks of my Years
This piece originally appeared on Neil’s blog A loaded gun wont set you free…” -Lyrics in the context of my growing up in Northern Ireland that had meaning beyond the meaning Ian Curtis perhaps intended. As a young man I was continually questioning all that was going on around me. Growing up in a mid-Ulster […]
Bits of Kids
This piece originally appeared on Neil’s blog We drank our tins of Satzenbrau shivering on the school roof looking across the streetlit mid-Ulster valley that was my hometown of Banbridge. Another Friday night without a care. Out of the six of us, I was the only one working. The others were all still in High […]