Dear Madhu ji,
I was very excited when I learned you were coming to Ahmedabad and I was honoured that you expressed interest in possibly meeting with me.
I was sitting with a journalist friend when I read your Tweet about visiting Ahmedabad and he told me you are a “pioneering feminist who did ground breaking work.” He also told me that in 2005 you signed a very strong petition calling for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s dismissal because of Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. He also added that you have been very vocal on behalf of Kashmiri Pandits. After I witnessed the Gujarat riots in 2002, I returned to the United States—where I was born and raised—and I gave lectures for six months about the violence I saw. In each lecture, an audience member would inevitably shout...
Politics
Dear folks,
You guys are good. Real good. You are truly a force on World Wide Web and I tip my hat to you.
That's based on my first hand experience of your work regarding our CNBC Republican candidate debate. After the debate, we put up a poll on our Web site asking who readers thought won the debate. You guys flooded it.
Now these Internet polls are admittedly unscientific and subject to hacking. In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question.
So there was our after-debate poll. The numbers grew ... 7,000-plus votes after a couple of hours ... and Ron Paul was at 75%.
Now Paul is a fine...
3,950
Dear Tony Abbott,
It’s been a year since I last wrote to you. I was very angry back then, but you’ll be pleased to hear that this letter is not being written in anger, but has much more of a triumphant tone than my previous correspondence. The reason for this turn in my mood has everything to do with the reversal in your political fortunes over the previous 12 months.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, you are incredibly unpopular. Looking back at my grievances with you in the past, I can see that much of my frustration about your behaviour was born from the fact that you were so obviously getting away with being a complete wanker while still managing to be elected Prime Minister of Australia. No matter how much I tried to tell people just how dangerous a prospect you were as a PM, and no...
3,823
Dear David,
I want to first congratulate you on the campaign you ran. You gave it your all, and did well in the debates. I was deeply disappointed in the result that Labour got on September 20th – but I’m sure no-one feels it more personally than you do. It is in your response since that result that I have to disagree with you.
In the last leadership contest, I supported Grant Robertson, and I intend to again this time. However, once you won, I gave you my full support. I was one of the key organisers of the 2013 conference in Christchurch, which was your first big event as leader. I volunteered on the Christchurch East by-election campaign, including a couple of times when I was your driver for the day. I enjoyed talking with you in a personal capacity, away from the spin and the...
3,636
Dear J.K. Rowling,
I was saddened to read your blog post about your reasons for supporting the Better Together campaign. I was dismayed to read your fears that a minority of nationalists will consider you ‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view. Yes, there are extreme views on either side of the debate, but they are in the minority.
It is healthy for any democracy that the great literary figures of a nation feel able to express their views with such clarity. People such as yourself hold influence across our society and your words have brought hope and joy to children and adults not just here but across the world. I hope your expression here allows others, especially more women, to feel able to engage constructively in our debate.
It is not my intention here to rebut your...
3,506
Dear Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
My name is Rebekah Gregory. We don't really know each other and never will. But over the last two years, I have seen your face not only in pictures, but in almost every one of my nightmares. Moments before the first blast, your stupid backpack even brushed up against my arm, but I doubt you remember because I am no one to you. A complete stranger. And although I was merely just a blip on your radar, (someone that happened to be standing 3 feet from your designated "good spot" for a bomb), you have been so much more to me. Because you have undoubtedly been my source of fear since April 15th, 2013. (After all, you are one of the men responsible for nearly taking my child, and for the permanent image embedded in my brain of watching someone die.) Up until now, I...
4,028
Two thoughts:
Dispersed power protects society.
Informed Consent protects all of us...
4,267
Dear President Putin,
On behalf of millions of Americans and Canadians who are concerned about the seemingly unstoppable spread of homosexuality in our countries and internationally, I wish to respectfully express my heartfelt gratitude that your nation has take a firm and unequivocal stand against this scourge by banning homosexualist propaganda in Russia. You have set an example of moral leadership that has shamed the governments of Western Europe and North America and inspired the peoples of the world. Already Lithuania, Moldova, Hungary and the Ukraine have begun to follow your principled example, and you have engendered real hope in the international pro-family movement that this destructive and degrading sexual agenda might finally begin to be brought to a halt across the globe...
3,505
Dear UK Parliament and Science and Technology Committee,
I am writing to you about your deliberations on “mitochondrial donation” (also known as 3-parent technology) intended for the purpose of preventing heritable mitochondrial disorders. I am concerned about the Department of Health’s recent draft regulations that would allow 3-parent experiments to go forward and the possibility that the UK Parliament may vote to allow it.
This experimental technology has a noble goal, but in my opinion there are too many unanswered questions and risks that remain to allow it to proceed at this time. In fact, I believe that moving forward with it would most likely be a tragic mistake for the UK.
Who am I and why do I oppose this technology?
I am a stem cell and developmental biology...
3,248
Glace Bay Snow Crab Club
THIS IS HOW THEY DO BUSINESS IN GLACE BAY, NOVA SCOTIA.
My Proposal for a $2,000,000 Snow Crab License (Scotia-Fundy Region) was ignored by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia because of political discrimination. http://pgfraser.blogspot.ca
"You're right Paul, politics has no place in the decision making process at DFO"
This statement was quoted to me in person, from a high profile member of parliament.
2 - $2,000,000 Snow Crab Licenses given out to Fishermen (neighbours) from Glace Bay, Cape Breton both connected to politics.
2 - $2,000,000 Snow Crab Licenses were to be shared with the "Groundfish Dependent Fishermen" and the "Glace Bay Fishermen's Association."
1 - $2,000,000 Snow Crab License holder is the former...
4,260