The February Just Posts

Welcome to the February Just Posts, the parenting blogosphere's roundup of writing on social justice issues. The Just Posts are sponsored be me and my better half, Jen of One Plus Two. New this month: the Just Posts will also be featured as part of the Whole Mom Webzine edited by Andrea McDowell. Yipee!!



Each month, Jen and I kick off this linky love list by talking a bit about social justice causes near and dear to our hearts--don't forget to pop over and see what Jen has served up. As for me, today I need to state with much chagrin that you are getting a 2 for 1 special. You see, I was simply going to link to one of my favourite web sites in the world and leave it at that. The site is called PapaInk and until very recently it was a beautiful, not-for-profit, curated gallery of children's art. Words cannot do justice to how wonderful this site was/is. PapaInk featured art that was joyous, art that was skilled, and the glorious juvenilia of artists who went on to become famous, but there were also collections that could evoke such horror and pathos that at times I thought my heart would break just looking at the images. You see, PapaInk always devoted space to children's art from times and regions of intense trauma: art from the Holocaust, from Bosnia, from 9-11 and from the Rwandan genocide to name a few. Nothing in the West--no newspapers, no academic tomes, no documentaries, no NOTHING--could speak more to the need for global change than these images. Click on this link to see what I mean.

This morning I was all set to pop a link into this post. It was then that I discovered that the site's server is now "Forbidden." What happened? I wish I knew. I googled high and low to find out but there were no notices, no press releases, and no word of mouth rumours. I visited this site just last month; now it has simply disappeared. Maybe the site is down temporarily (she hoped naively): a little restructuring and it will be up next week. Maybe it has shifted to a cost-recovery licensing platform (she grasped at straws knowing that if it had there would be a welcome mat and VISA machine). Maybe (she thought realistically) this is just another example of a not-for-profit going under with no money to stay and less money to plot a feasible, long-term exit strategy.

Maybe I am just paranoid. But the thing is this. I am a librarian. I see this kind of thing all the time. Valuable information simply disappears. Too often such information originates as government publications or through government funded not-for-profits. This is public information that was out there one day that just up and disappears the next. Our tax dollars go towards projects designed for the public interest and, suddenly, with no warning these projects become for-fee services or they simply disappear. We pride ourselves on living in strong democracies here in the West, and yet we are silent witness to the erosion of so many of rights and freedoms that democracy should entail--like a public record that is kept public.

Tonight I give thanks to the powers that be for libraries, for digital archives, and, specifically, for the Internet Archive. Without libraries always lobbying in the interests of public information so much would be lost, especially now that we live in a digital age. What gets written here and published on the internet is so fleeting and so vulnerable. But thanks to the Internet Archive this digital universe need not be as ethereal as a dream. At the Internet Archive you will find a snapshot of PapaInk from a year ago. Have a look at the collection called Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda. Think about Darfur, the Child Soldiers of Uganda, Iraq... Try not to cry.

Speaking of tears and bearing witness, this month's collection of Just Post links is astonishing in its depth and breadth. From accounts of the child soldiers of Uganda to urban poverty to the fight for equitable and universal access to childcare, this list is a diamond mine. Please read all the posts if you can. Please comment and begin the conversations necessary to bring about change.

Julie, The Ravin' Picture Maven decided to devote the entire month of February to social justice issues. Always the polite host, she has whipped up a tray of canapés in the form of a table of contents post. Go sample, please. The viddles are a might tasty. Might we recommend Imprisoned Children or Think it's your body, your choice? Think Again.

Mouse once again has given us a full calendar with her Global Warming Wednesday: Pulling our Heads out of the Sand; Valentine's Edition; Mouse the Vampire Slayer; and Polar Opposites

But wait, there's more:
Mouse (again) with: On marriage
Slouching Mom with They Never Expected This
Amber with Happy looooove day
Deb with Connectedness
Chani with Social Justice: on-line safety
Jill with commentary
Andrea with Mrs. Jellyby
Ann with Playing with Fire
Danigirl with Code Blue for Daycare
Jess with Cary and Isaac Through Time and Space
Hel with i dream a better future
Antique Mommy with Good Nurse, Bad Nurse
Jory DesJardins of Pause with On Dying Well
Cinnamon Gurl with Langa Means Sun and Looking Closely
Random Acts of Sass with Never Will I Leave You; Never Will I Forsake You
KC at Where's My Cape with How Does your Garden Grow
Alice at And She Wrote with several posts all linked with the tag About Human Rights
Green Parenting with 10 Reasons Why Our Protests Against the Iraq War Weren't Inconsequential
Joy with It's Still Tits Though
Alejna at Collecting Tokens with grammaticality judgements

Those who listened:
Susanne at Creative Mother Thinking
Mary G.
Mouse at The Mouse's Nest
Alejna at collecting tokens
KC at wheres my cape
Kari at katronika
Kiki at sticking to the point
Kat at mama tulip
Andrea at athena dreaming
Mad at Under the Mad Hat
Jen at one plus two

Please join us again next month. Pull up a chair at the table by writing a social justice post yourself and telling us about it or by nominating another post you have read.