One year after Ghomeshi watershed moment, the labour of healing still falls on women

The Guardian recently published a widely circulated piece about women and emotional labour, in which Rose Hackman poses an important question: is the question of women's emotional work the next frontier of feminist activism?

As Hackman acknowledges, this is not really a new question or a new frontier at all: after all, American sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term more than 30 years ago in her 1983 book The Managed Heart. However, there is significant renewed interest in emotional or affective labour, particularly as social media creates an entirely new sphere of emotional engagement -- one that can blur the lines between personal and professional lives, where many women are often demanded to be constantly on the clock, and in which they often face virulent and constant abuse and harassment.

Don't Reward Corporations for Donating Food Waste, Critic Says

The federal government should refuse to give a tax break to corporations that donate waste food to charity, says retired University of British Columbia social work professor Graham Riches.

"They're being offered a carrot, when perhaps they should be offered a stick," said Riches, an editor of the book First World Hunger Revisited and a long-time critic of food charity.

The National Zero Waste Council -- an organization whose membership includes local governments, businesses and non-profits -- wants municipal governments to pass motions urging the Canadian government to create a tax incentive "for food producers, suppliers and retailers to donate unsold edible food."

Pacific Trade Deal Will Test Trudeau's Resolve

Justin Trudeau has proven to be much more bold in his first couple of weeks than almost anyone imagined. Unlike Jean Chrétien and his 1993 election Red Book, Trudeau actually seems to be intent on keeping many of his promises.

Most importantly he has done what no other premier or prime minister in my memory has ever done. He has put numerous people in ministries who actually have a passion for their portfolios: a doctor in charge in health care, a potato farmer in charge of agriculture, an Aboriginal former treaty commissioner in justice, a former CIDA staff person in charge of international development. Prime ministers who want to exercise executive control don't do this. Trudeau, it seems, genuinely wants to run a government by cabinet.

IN THE END, CANADA DID CUT AND RUN

There's a new mood in the nation's capital, one of hope and expectation that newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will magically eliminate all the woes created by nine years of Stephen Harper.

Even at the traditionally sombre ceremonies leading up to Remembrance Day, renewed optimism can be sensed among the veterans' organizations that have been battling government bureaucracy to secure improved benefits.

Terrorizing Students: The Criminalization of Children in the US Police State

Violence has become the problem of the 21st century. This claim is indebted to W. E. B. Dubois' much quoted notion that "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of color line."[1] For Du Bois, racism was one of the most pressing problems of the time and could not be understood outside of the gross inequities of wealth, power, opportunity and access. What he did not anticipate was the degree to which the violent character of racism would come to define the 21st century on a national and global level. What he described as a ruthless ideology and attitude of racist hostility would later mutate in the new millennium into a raw display of police brutality and state terrorism, camouflaged under the guise of an alleged post-racial society.

The Hidden and Deadly Bias of Class

White working-class voters have been a key building block of the Republican coalition since the rise of the Reagan Democrats 35 years ago. You would think that the party’s presidential candidates would want to respond to the heartbreaking crisis these Americans are facing.

Two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, issued a study last week that should push what the writers Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb called the “hidden injuries of class” to the center of our political conversation. Deaton and Case found that the death rates for whites 45 to 54 who never attended college increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people between 1999 and 2014. They unearthed a startling rise in suicides as well as diseases related to alcohol and drugs.

 Ben Carson Is As Wrong About Wage Hikes as He Was About the Pyramids

Of course Dr. Ben Carson was wrong when he claimed in the fourth Republican presidential debate that “Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.”

The Pulitzer Prize–winning analysts at PolitiFact rated that statement “false”—with no qualifiers or wiggle words like “mostly.”

Minimum-wage hikes are not always associated with immediate spikes in employment; especially in recessionary moments. But PolitiFact notes that “[of the] five minimum wage hikes that occurred when a recovery was under way, joblessness declined four of those times.”

Utah judge orders baby taken away from married lesbian foster parents

Utah state child welfare officials on Wednesday were wrangling with a ruling by a juvenile court judge who ordered a baby to be taken from lesbian foster parents and instead placed with a heterosexual couple, saying it was for the child’s wellbeing.

Judge Scott Johansen’s order on Tuesday raised concerns at the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, said agency spokeswoman Ashley Sumner.

Rich Nations Subsidize Fossil Fuels Four Times More Than Renewables

The G20 countries spend almost four times as much to prop up fossil fuel production as they do to subsidize renewable energy, calling into question their commitment to halting climate change, a think tank said on Thursday

The G20 spent an average $78 billion on national subsidies delivered through direct spending and tax breaks in 2013 and 2014, according to a report from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) on Thursday.

Hack Reveals Prison Phone Company Recorded Attorney-Client Calls

Whenever a prisoner makes a phone call, that call is recorded. Prison phone giant Securus Technologies says on its website that it makes an exception for calls from inmates to their lawyers.

Yet The Intercept reported Wednesday that a massive hack, compromising over 70 million calls in 37 states over two and a half years, shows that Securus is not only recording attorney-client calls, but that the company's "secure" recording and storage systems are, in fact, porous.