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Belfast is welcoming refugees with a radical new approach: speaking to them
In 2004, Belfast was rocked by a series of unprovoked racist attacks on its Filipino community, a significant proportion of whom worked in the city’s hospitals. At the time, misinformation about immigration, sensationalised by tabloids, was rife. In a population still reeling from decades of civil conflict, mistrust of minorities remained close to the surface. In response to these divisions, a large group of civil society organisations and charities gradually came together and, in 2009, started the Belfast Friendship Club, a safe space for people to meet and build relationships. It was aimed, primarily, at anyone new to the city for any reason, but also welcomed locals who now make…
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Photographer Laura Aguilar Illuminates The Lives, And Bodies, Of Queer Women Of Color
The photographs of Laura Aguilar’s nude body in the landscape are stunning. One photograph shows her slightly hunched in front of a large rock, and her body echoes its shape. There’s a slight tinge of melancholy in the photo; even though the sun shines brightly on her body, like that solitary stone, Aguilar is alone in the landscape. Aguilar’s self-portrait is a photograph that has stayed with me: Here was a Latina woman showing us her entire self. Aguilar paired the softness of flesh with the hardness of rock. She was unafraid of laying open her vulnerability and also her strength. Aguilar documented queer communities of color, but she was also…
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“No Visitors Till Noon” by Dorothy Baker
That summer, somewhere along in July, Sibyl Armstrong, who was still the wife of Rex Armstrong, formed a habit of sliding the screens together — the house was of Oriental inspiration — and then pulling the curtains over them. She wasn’t sure why she did it, particularly after she had stumbled twice over a little wicker footstool, once when it was where it belonged and once after she’d moved it. Perhaps the reason, although she did not really seek it, was that summer gloom was in her blood. Her mother kept the house back in Davenport, Iowa, where Sibyl grew up, as dark as possible in the summertime on the…
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“Memoir of a Long, Long War” by Kenneth B. Platnick
Sometimes I’d just lean back against the edge of the broken chair in which I was seated and watch her standing there in La Petite Maison in Saigon alternately laughing loudly and pouting with a mock look of disappointment. Of course, I wasn’t alone in my attentions, but I was certainly apart. Even the bartender, Tam, a small, nervous man in his fifties with a lock of graying hair bending over his narrow, wrinkled forehead, moved to the farther end of his short and dampened counter to be included in the admiring circle of acquaintances. It was never a large cluster, but it was a perpetual one, with only the…
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Homo homini lupus est: trauma and child abuse in U.S. refugee policy
Families of fathers facing deportation, community organizations, and allies, gathered outside Immigration Court at 26 Federal Plaza in NYC on June 15, 2018, to raise their voices calling for an end to deportations. Photo by Erik McGregor/Sipa USA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Four men with red-brown skin and dirt on their clothes carry an enormous dog to the vet under the noon sun of a heat advisory day. The index is 105 F and climbing, and the weather forecasters are warning of “dangerously hot weather” for at least the next few days. “Looks like heat stroke,” the receptionist shrugs, and the assistants don’t appear hopeful. An offer of Spanish translation…
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What’s the Worst a Date Can Do?
I went down to the lobby at 8 a.m. to collect my mail, and re-entering my flat, I saw that somebody had slid a letter under my door. I lifted the envelope, then engaged all three deadbolts on the door: routine, routine, routine. The creamy envelope smelled of vanilla, and the handwriting was formed of delicate yet confident curlicues. Immediately I thought this had to be a mistake, but my name was on the envelope — Eóin. I’d returned to the eighth floor by lift, which meant that the note-dropper had taken the stairs. Walking down took 52 seconds exactly. I rushed into the living room, and turned the television…
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No monopoly on David Kelly’s death: Miles Goslett responds to David Aaronovitch’s criticism
David Kelly leaving Parliament on 15 July 2003 after giving evidence to a Commons select committee. Image: Johnny Green/PA Archive/PA Images. All rights reserved. I’ve been watching with interest the debate on this website between Peter Oborne and David Aaronovitch on the subject of my recently published book about the David Kelly affair. I had not expected that An Inconvenient Death was going to generate this sort of discussion but, now that these two writers have had their say, I have been invited to add some thoughts on the matter. I was flattered that The Times devoted a page to Aaronovitch’s review of my book on 7 April – just…
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Netanyahu and Israel’s (in)security
Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of Israel Defense Forces, 7 May, 2018. JINI/Press Association. All rights reserved. The previous column in this series looked at the Israeli government’s concern that the pro-Palestinian leader of Britain's Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, might win a general election and become prime minister. Israel's worry here contrasts with an otherwise more favourable international environment, notably the strong support from Trump and Pence's White House (see "Netanyahu’s Corbyn problem", 31 August 2018). Also in the United States, pro-Israel voices buoyed by Christian Zionist enthusiasm are working hard to counter the Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions campaign. Their current priority is to have the…
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Ellen Page called out Chris Pratt for his homophobic church, and his response proves her point.
Her recent interview on “The Late Show,” where she calls out the problematic leadership in America has been watched over fifteen million times. In the interview, she says, “the vice president of America wishes that I didn’t have the love with my wife. He wanted to ban that in Indiana, he believes in conversion therapy, he has hurt LGBTQ people so badly as the governor of Indiana.” And people were there for her: So when Chris Pratt was also interviewed by Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show,” Page didn’t approve of the subject matter. Pratt discussed his “spiritual side,” as he is a member of the Zoe Church in Los…
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Avalon
Henry was in the middle of the third chorus of “Avalon” when the doorbell rang. He sighed and took his absent wife’s name in vain. He placed the clarinet back in its blue velvet case and turned off the stereo. He opened the door and muttered, “This had better be good.” The young man was thin and fidgety with oiled black hair, a gray polyester three-piece suit that looked silver in the mid-morning sunlight, and a small brown cloth bow-tie. Beside him on the stoop was a large blue suitcase. It was like he was coming for a visit. “Good morning, sir,” the young man said. He smiled widely, revealing…