School District Of Burnaby Gay-Positive Policy

students protesting in support of the draft

Hundreds of students and parents gathered in protest on May 24th in front of the Burnaby school district's monthly board meeting. The school district is drafting a pro-gay policy to introduce learning materials into classrooms, to educate students on the LGBTQ community, and to introduce rules to specifically protect the LGBTQ population. This draft policy known as policy 5.45 it is not an anti homophobia policy, it is a pro LGBTQ policy.You can read this draft policy here .

I would like to start off by saying that there are a lot of good points in this policy. Anything that helps protect the rights of students and teachers is a good thing. However, protection for minority groups is already worked into the school code of conduct. A policy like this is only going to estrange this specific minority from the rest. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. If the school district puts this policy into effect are they saying that the LGBTQ population is more important than the other minorities. What is next? The school district is going to have to introduce policies to support nerds and kids with glasses too.

Response to an important question

In a social justice class about a month ago the class was asked to write a response to the following question "Why is it that people are more likely to respond to the indiscriminate killings of animals than to the indiscriminate killing of people?" Here is my response to this question.



It is easier for people to look past the real issues in the world. People don't want to hear about child poverty, child labor camps, genocide and war. They would rather focus their attention on abandoned puppies and baby seals. Don't get me wrong, animal conservation is an important to a degree, but it is not important enough to distract people from the real, serious world issues. It is appalling and disgusting to think that someone would value the life of an animal more than that of a human. On a worldly scale, the slaughter of dogs, cats and other animals is completely insignificant. Next time you think about donating to the SPCA, DON'T! Donate to people who are actually in need.

Egypt deprives residents of internet

When the Egyptian government realized that internet sites like facebook and twitter were being used to coordinate protests in Cairo, they ordered the shutdown of all ISP's (internet service providers) within the country. It took only four days for the Egyptian people to be entirely cutoff from the net. The ability for people to peacefully protest is a right and can not be infringed upon by the Egyptian government. The internet is a service that people pay for, and should not be allowed to be cut off so easily. This ridiculous attempt by the Egyptian government to silence people is only causing the people of the middle eastern country to become more and more angry. 

When a government tries to limit free speech it immediately becomes a social justice issue. What concerns me the most is the willingness of Egyptian ISP's to cut off internet to their customers. When Hosni Mubarak (current Egyptian president) is kicked out of office, I hope he can provide a reasonable explanation to why he thinks he can take away the rights of the Egyptian people.

30 years in power causes Egyptian unrest

Egyptian protesters clash with riot police

In the past week the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been the subject of riots and protest by the Egyptian people. The protesters are demanding a new government, for one that will represent the people.




So why did hundreds of thousands of Egyptians start protesting all of a sudden? In the nearby country Tunisia, a man lit himself on fire because it was impossible for him to find work. This sparked massive protests in Tunisia and the Tunisian government was overthrown. Egyptians were inspired by the Tuniasian protests and decided to take action against the oppressive Egyptian government.

The current President of Egypt (Hosni Mubarak) is 82 years of age and has been in power for 30 years. It is not possible for one man to be in complete control of a country for 30 years and still retain the interests of the people. The Egyptians will keep protesting and fighting against the government until the President steps down. As of today despite the army shutting down the trains, over one million Egyptians march to overthrow the President.

It is completely ridiculous that one man has been in power for 30 years. He is not longer looking to the interests of the people, he only cares for his own self preservation. I sincerely hope that the Egyptian President is brought to justice and that democracy will be brought to Egypt.

Hundreds killed by human stampede in Cambodia

people panicking during the stampede

Massive crowds gather every year for one of Cambodia's main events. The water Festival. On the final day of the water festival a large group of people overcrowded a bridge, it is unknown as to what caused the panic.



All of a sudden people were desperately trying to get off the bridge, people who tripped and fell were trampled and killed. An estimated 340 people were killed and 410 people injured. This is truly a tragic event not only for the people of Cambodia, but for the families of foreigners who were killed.
When countries hold an event that attracts thousands upon thousands of people to a small area, the local government should be responsible for the safety and security of these people. In this case, Cambodia should have put measures in place to protect the festival goers from piling up on bottlenecks such as bridges. I am not exactly sure how this could have been accomplished. Instead of spending loads of money on identifying dead bodies, they should spend their money on preventative measures.

Chinese woman sentenced to a year in prison for a tweet

Ten days after posting a tweet to her twitter account Cheng Jianping was sentenced without trial to be sent to a labour camp for one year. Cheng was participating in a low level of online activism against Japanese products. Essentially this woman has been imprisoned for posting a single tweet of less than 20 characters.

First of all, I already disagree with China's censorship laws which limit freedom of speech. But the imprisonment of a Chinese woman over one tweet by Chinese authorities is completely ridiculous and despicable. This is a social Justice issue in two main ways. One, this woman has been imprisoned unlawfully and without trial. Two, the Chinese government is censoring it's citizens beyond a remotely reasonable amount. For the sake of this woman I hope that this story receives lots of media attention outside of China.

US Soldier accused of esiponage for bringing light to cilivian killings in iraq

Apache helicopter in Iraq

      In 2007 a video of an American Apache helicopter gunning down 12 civilians including 1 journalist and 2 children was leaked to the public via wikileaks. Recently US army specialist Bradley Manning has recently been charged and accused of releasing the video.



Under the espionage act, he could face up to 50 - 70 years in a federal prison. He has already spent 2 months in a prison in Baghdad, two months after the video's publication.

It would be ridiculous for the US government to send this soldier to jail for releasing this video. What is shown in the video is despicable. Even I could tell that these civilians were not carrying weapons. If I was Manning I would have done the same thing and released the video. There are 12 innocent dead men killed for no reason other than one of them was carrying a camera. The real criminals are the helicopter gunners who took the shots that killed these men. If the US government wants justice, they should charge the gunners with 12 counts of manslaughter. For the sake of the families that are affected by the shooting I hope the case against Mannings does not stand up in court.