A falsehood and two realities

The following are excerpts of blogs from Postmedia News and other sources.

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You do not choose to be straight or gay; it chooses

you, posted Thursday by Patrick Strudwick The last few days have witnessed such a spectacular self-harming incident for gay people that I can only assume the homophobes of Britain and America are doing a celebratory jig.

Cynthia Nixon, the Sex and the City actress who was married to a man and is engaged to a woman, told the

New York Times she chose to be gay. “I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

I care not what shape her lesbianism takes. This is about us – gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people – and it is about them: bigots. It is about Philip Parker, the bullied, gay, 14-year-old from Tennessee, who committed suicide on the weekend leaving a note that said, “Please help me mom.” And about Rev. O’neil Dozier, the new chairman of Rick Santorum’s Florida campaign, who reportedly said that homosexuality is “so nasty and disgusting that it makes God want to vomit.”

Across the world, homophobic narrative contains the following central thread: homosexuality is a phase, a choice and a sickness that can be cured. This is why teenagers (in the U.K.) have been subject to “exorcisms.” This is why kids in America get forcibly taken to gay “cure” clinics. This is why lesbians in South Africa and Jamaica and any number of other countries are “correctively” raped. And this is why homosexuality is illegal in 84 countries. It is deemed merely a behaviour, like stealing, that one can stop. Nixon’s words not only feed this rhetoric, they give it legitimacy ... A-list endorsement. Patrick Strudwick is a columnist for Gay Times whose work also appears in The Independent. Read the entire post at http:// blogs. independent. co. uk

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Apple doesn’t think you care about Chinese labour

ers. They’re right, posted Thursday by Matt Gurney The New York Times has published a long piece on working conditions inside the contractors that manufacture the parts for Apple’s high-tech gizmos (and puts them together, too). It’s an eye-opener, but not really surprising — it turns out being a labourer in China involves long hours, low pay, uncomfortable working conditions and even occasional industrial disasters.

Particularly damning are comments by an unnamed Apple executive who essentially shrugs off the concerns by saying, in effect, that to sell the products it does for the prices they do, lousy working conditions are necessary … and that people care more about shiny new iphones than they do blown up Chinese labourers. What makes these comments especially unfortunate is that the executive is almost certainly right.

The Times is clear that the problems aren’t limited to Apple — most electronics manufacturers either assemble their products in China, or procure the parts there. It’s essentially a necessity. And these companies, Apple included, have developed codes of conduct for contractors, and even the contractors that supply the contractors. Violators can be subjected to fines, withheld payments, and even, in theory, the cancellation of a contract. But the article makes clear that that never happens, and probably couldn’t. ... Any disruption will hurt the Western electronics giant as much as the small contractor. Mutual dependency, in other words, and while Apple has its code of conduct for its contractors, it also can’t do very much.

Matt Gurney is a columnist and editor at the National Post. Read the entire post at

http:// fullcomment. nationalpost. com

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Jekyll-and-hyde India, posted Thursday by Jug Suraiya

India boasts that in the next few decades it will outstrip Japan to become the third-largest economy in the world. India also boasts of being a cultural and spiritual superpower, with a civilization going back some 4,000 years. India boasts nuclear capability, the world’s third-largest standing army, and technical know-how that makes it a rival to California’s Silicon Valley. So far, so very good. Dr. Jekyll, through and through.

But India also has another face, another persona. A recent report reveals that India is one of the hungriest countries in the world, ranking 67th out of 80 countries on the Global Hunger Index. Two hundred and thirty million Indians daily suffer from want of food. In terms of malnutrition, India is worse off than Pakistan, Nepal, Sudan or North Korea.

Describing chronic and widespread child malnutrition as a “national shame,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has warned that the country cannot hope for a “healthy future,” when this generation of physically- and mentally-impaired children takes over as “farmers, teachers, data operators, artisans and service providers.”

The prime minister’s concern would seem to be a case of too little, too late. ... Dr. Jekyll has been supplanted by Mr. Hyde, and with a vengeance. Jug Suraiya is an associate editor at the Times of India. Read the entire post at http:// blogs. timesofindia. indiatimes. com