The Dark Side of Literacy - Indian education reform organization Shikshantar, who aims to encourage concepts of "Swaraj", or self-rule in local education, argues that current education and literacy models do not take into account local cultures and languages and gives too much credit to the Western alphabet. They also argue that there are many serious flaws in what they describe as UNESCO's campaign of "McEducation For All".
posted on Jun 13, 2008 - View this thread

Official transgender blessings -- Kulanu -- the newly-revised manual for LGBT issues and ceremonies put out by the Union for Reform Judaism (1.5 million US Jews are Reform) now includes 2 blessings (written by a Rabbi now male) for those transitioning and who have completed the change, alongside the already existing same sex marriage liturgy and other documents and procedures. A first? (blessings text inside)
posted on Aug 9, 2007 - View this thread

The British Transform Drug Policy Foundation has recently released their 2nd guide After the War on Drugs: Tools for the debate. Described as a guide for prospective and current policy reform advocates, it enumerates the points typically brought up against reform, and offers strategies to rebut them. Somewhat of a counterpoint to the US DEA's Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization.
posted on Aug 9, 2007 - View this thread

China’s veteran voices of reform by Li Datong (李大同). Li is the former editor of Freezing Point, an influential Chinese weekly supplement to the China Youth Daily. His frequent clashes with his superiors and bold publishing stance there led to his sacking and the temporary closure of the magazine, but he now has a regular column in English at openDemocracy. Here, Li looks at how Party elders are using the pages of the journal 炎黄春秋 (Yanhuang Chunqiu "Chinese Chronicles") to promote a reform agenda quite daring in the Chinese context, making reformists hopeful about the upcoming Seventeenth National Congress of the CCP.
posted on May 19, 2007 - View this thread

Maryland joins the ranks of states attempting to thwart the electoral college. Maryland's General Assembly approved a bill [PDF] to ignore the U.S. Electoral College [official website] in presidential elections, instead awarding the state's 10 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. [via | previously on MeFi | more inside]
posted on Mar 30, 2007 - View this thread

Victorian Workhouses
I sometimes look up at the bit of blue sky
High over my head, with a tear in my eye.
Surrounded by walls that are too high to climb,
Confined like a felon without any crime...
posted on Sep 18, 2006 - View this thread

Canadian musicians protest file-sharing lawsuits. The Barenaked Ladies, Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, and many other Canadian artists have formed a coalition to protest the hard line taken by the recording industry against file-sharers, and call for copyright reform. Is there a better way to protect intellectual property rights than suing file-sharers?
posted on May 5, 2006 - View this thread

Massachusetts is about to pass a "nearly" universal health care plan. It's an ambitious and innovative piece of public policy that mixes tax incentives to insure yourself if you can afford it to direct government subsidies to health care insurers to help cover the poor. Businesses will be fined if they are not going to cover their workers. It still does not cover escalating costs or malpractice wildness. And, it still will leave 5% uncovered. Nor, is it the plan specifically endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Plan (who favor a single payer system) or the AMA (who favor much greater reform of insurance providers). Still, it's a start from making us "the only industrialized nation in the world" to not, well you know.....
posted on Apr 5, 2006 - View this thread

Great local investigative piece on the GOP's "point man on lobbying reform". (check out the video) Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)'s "charity" has spent almost half as much on "unexplained" T&E as it has given out to the needy. What's more, the treasurer of this organization is not only treasurer of his re-election campaign, but is also the the treasurer of Americans for a Republican Majority, the PAC run by Tom DeLay, who is no stranger to lobbyist scandals.
posted on Mar 10, 2006 - View this thread

Medical Malpractice Myth explores the idea that it's not litigious patients, ambulance chasing lawyers and runaway juries behind the rising costs of medical malpractice insurance. It's the increasing occurrence of medical malpractice that's driving those insurance rates up.
posted on Dec 18, 2005 - View this thread

Sunday the National Conference on Media Reform featured the first public speech by Bill Moyers since he left PBS. "I always knew Nixon would be back, again and again. I just didn’t know that this time he would ask to be Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
posted on May 16, 2005 - View this thread

Blogs contribute to political reform in Iran (New York Times): Former vice-president of Iran, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said that he learned through the Internet about the huge gap between government officials and the younger generation. "We do not understand each other and cannot have a dialogue," he said. "As government officials, we receive a lot of confidential reports about what goes on in society. But I have felt that I learned a lot more about people and the younger generation by reading their Web logs and receiving about 40 to 50 e-mails every day. This is so different than reading about society in those bulletins from behind our desks."
posted on Jan 16, 2005 - View this thread

"After the War on Drugs - Options for Control is a major new report examining the key themes in the drug policy reform debate, detailing how legal regulation of drug markets will operate, and providing a roadmap and time line for reform." It's concise and reasonable, but is this report from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Google News lookup) really "the first practical road map for a benign drug policy that must follow the collapse of drug prohibition"? ... "No countries have yet legalised any drug covered under the U.N. convention" - will anything change anytime soon?
posted on Nov 2, 2004 - View this thread

By the way, you'll earn 30% of each donation you bring in for the RNC. The people who brought you fun customized campaign posters return for an encore with an affiliate program for fundraising. Rather than relying upon real grassroots fundraising, why not just offer commissions to anyone who'd like to promote your candidate? Just how many ways can the Internet come up with to violate campaign finance law? Ready ... set ... link!
posted on Jul 7, 2004 - View this thread

Canada considers electoral reform. The Law Commission of Canada just released a report that recomended a Mixed Member Proportional system much like that one that New Zealand recently adopted. Along with the steps being taken at the federal level, the provinces are at various stages in the process. The government in Quebec has proposed a similar MMP system for the province, a commission in PEI recomended the same system, BC has convened a Citizens Assembly, Ontario now has a Democratic Renewal Secretariat, and Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are considering changes as well. For more information visit Fair Vote Canada.
posted on Apr 26, 2004 - View this thread

The Alexandria Declaration. Between March 14 and 17, 2004, intellectuals, scholars, economists and activists from around the Arab world met at the new Alexandria Library in Egypt for the Arab Reform Conference. Among the recommendations of the conference was that all Arab governments should ratify "all international conventions on the rights of women providing for the abolition of all forms of discrimination against them."
posted on Mar 29, 2004 - View this thread

Is media reform a pipe dream? Schechter: "One email I received recently asked: "What do we do when our TV and newspapers tell us lies but insist we should regard this information as truth? What do we do when the vast majority of people in our society accepts these lies as truths and ridicule us when we call these statements lies?""
posted on Jan 2, 2004 - View this thread

The Simplified Spelling Society. Finally, a cause I can really get behind. More.
posted on Jun 9, 2003 - View this thread

Is the U.S. suffocating reform in Iran? "'Despite sporadic verbal concern with the condition of human rights in Iran, the U.S. is protecting and providing clandestine support to the right-wing conservatives in Iran,' says Sayed Ali Asghar Gharavi, a member of the banned but tolerated Iran Freedom Movement (IFM), the country’s leading opposition party. 'The U.S. government in no way favors the coming to power of the reformist groups in Iran and is secretly supporting the religious conservatives.' Government insiders in Iran allege that the deal, first proffered by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, is simple: If the hard-liners quietly support the United States in Iraq, Washington will quietly support them. U.S. State Department officials declined to comment." It seems unlikely that the Bush administration would side with the mullahs, but considering the U.S.'s troubled history with Iranian democracy, it's not inconceivable. Perhaps this is why Michael Ledeen's cries of alarm aren't being heeded.
posted on Feb 6, 2003 - View this thread

Let the people decide. There's lot's of initiatives trying to push Direct Democracy, like Philadelphia II, as a solution to all of the problems inherent in the political process. A few places like Switzerland, ancient Athens, and some New England towns already have it that way. A lot of them want electronic and phone voting to pave the way. Is it possible, or was Machiavelli right to believe that politics is best left to the politicians. That's what the electoral college is for.
posted on Nov 10, 2002 - View this thread

It seems likely that we'll be hearing a lot more about tort reform, especially medical malpractice tort reform, over the next couple years. Sadly, many don't even know exactly what a tort is, let alone how the tort system works, although most have heard about individual lawsuits through the media. Conservatives tend to focus on capping damages, reigning in juries, and allowing businesses to contract out of tort liability. Liberals generally oppose these proposals, and some have a few ideas about reform as well. Of course, we could always follow the example of New Zealand and scrap the tort system altogether. Maybe the Supreme Court will give the GOP some suggestions about reform in their latest tort case.
posted on Nov 7, 2002 - View this thread

If You Want to Talk About Class Warfare... Molly Ivins gives it to 'em: Some days, you have to believe that right-wing ideologues have lost touch with reality completely. Their latest proposal to prevent future Enrons is - ta-da! - cut the capital gains tax. And exactly what does that do to prevent future Enrons? Nothing.
posted on Aug 15, 2002 - View this thread

Government admits spying on drug reform advocates. Not to be snide, but why are these people even surprised? You can't even get photocopies made these days without being ratted out.
posted on Mar 18, 2002 - View this thread

House set to vote on campaign finance reform It would be the biggest overhaul of the nation's campaign finance laws since Watergate. "We should win it," Shays, R-Conn., said Monday. "We've had the votes in the past and, frankly, I think our cause is just." Some people are against it.
posted on Feb 12, 2002 - View this thread

The No Child Left Behind Act is probably the most sweeping educational reform to pass in a long time and it seems to be pretty bipartisan in its content, it passed the Senate today and Bush will be signing it into law. Holy cow, have the politicians done something right for a change?
posted on Dec 18, 2001 - View this thread

Patient confidentiality vs. cancer research. New rules on patient confidentiality prevent "research that recognises dangerous side effects of treatments and it would prevent research that would recognise avoidable causes of diseases and death. " What is more important: 'medical progress' or 'your medical file'?
posted on May 19, 2001 - View this thread

The House has passed the bankruptcy reform bill that Clinton vetoed at the end of the last session. I'm mildly optimistic that it won't pass the Senate, given that the Democratic vote in the House was split. But should we be worried at all? At first glance, it doesn't seem like a bad idea. But so many consumer groups are against it, and it seems to benefit credit card companies while hurting individuals, so I'm inclined to think we should leave things as-is. Especially since personal bankruptcies are down and credit card issuers' profits are up. Anyone know more about this?
posted on Mar 1, 2001 - View this thread

Bezos and O'Reilly teamed up with a new approach at Patent reform. And if you can prove someone else had this idea first, they will give you $14k.
posted on Oct 19, 2000 - View this thread

Those following British politics know that there is a serious push towards reform of the House of Lords. The Royal Commission on Reform has HM Government's complete plan for reform. Also online is the current bill, House of Lords Bill.
posted on Sep 21, 1999 - View this thread