by Esther Epp-Tiessen We had gathered in Ottawa – eight MCC staff, along with 30 students and young adults from across the country – for our annual MCC Canada student seminar. The topic of the seminar was “Gender, peace and conflict: Exploring the intersection.” One of our guest speakers was Senator Mobina Jaffer.  Jaffer has been active in promoting the Women, Peace and Security agenda for many years and she spoke about that work for several minutes. Then she asked permission to go “off topic.” She wanted to discuss what was really on her heart. And what was on her […]

Put your proverbial blindfolds on for a minute and ponder the contrast of two movies. Movie A impressed critics enough to earn a cumulative score of 83 on Metacritic and scored two Golden Globe nominations. By contrast, Movie B annoyed critics, earning a paltry score of 40 on Metacritic and earning two nominations for the Razzies, which serve as the anti-Oscars and dole out awards for the worst movies and performances of the year. There always seems to be a movie that racks up nominations but goes home empty-handed. Okay, blindfolds off. Movie A? 20th Century Women. Movie B? Suicide […]

By Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach As I read through the U.S. president’s executive orders on immigrants and refugees, I was immediately struck by the overall framing: immigrants and refugees are security threats to be feared, not human beings to be welcomed. The order stopping the refugee program opens with the obligation to “protect the American people from terrorist attacks,” although the three-judge panel that halted the order noted that there is no evidence that anyone from “the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States.” The order on border security says that undocumented immigrants “present […]

By Michelle Sinclair Longtime readers of Media Matters might remember my love of Korean dramas (self-contained 16-24 episode TV shows), and a recent series was so much fun I wanted to revisit the topic. Don’t be turned away by the silly-sounding title. Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo is a delight from beginning to end, subverting clichés and mining comedy from some of the most relatable parts of growing up. The title is a play on a piece of Korean culture, applying the word “fairy” to a female star of any stripe. For example, the South Korean women’s figure skating champion Kim […]

Filmmaker Mike Mills’s last film, Beginners (2010), was about his father, who came out as gay at the age of 75. The film 20th Century Women, which is set in Santa Barbara, California, in 1979, is about Mills’s mother (his father is completely absent and apparently long out of the picture). Mills is represented by 15-year-old Jamie (played by Lucas Jade Zumann), who lives in a large house with his mother, Dorothea (played by Annette Bening), and her two boarders: William (Billy Crudup), the handyman and a former hippie, and Abbie (Greta Gerwig), who is recovering from cancer treatments. Jamie’s […]

Katie Gingerich, 24, (Waterloo, Ont.), is using her passion for peace to positively impact young students. Katie is director of The Ripple Effect Education (TREE), a peace-education initiative that integrates conflict resolution and social-justice concepts into social studies curriculum in elementary school classrooms. During the course of six lessons that take place over six consecutive weeks, TREE facilitators teach students how to recognize conflict and resolve it peacefully. Facilitators use discussion, brainstorming sessions and hands-on activities, with the goal of having youth leave their classrooms with demonstrable conflict-resolution skills and an awareness of justice issues locally and globally. The program […]

Welcoming immigrants and refugees Tammy Alexander, Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office Last week, President Trump signed three executive orders on immigration – one increasing border security and calling for the construction of a wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border, another aimed at increasing deportations and other enforcement actions and a third temporarily suspending the refugee program and barring people from certain majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. All three paint a picture of immigrants as threats, criminals and a burden on society – when, in truth, immigrants contribute much to our communities, commit crimes at lower rates than their […]

The space race is on. Sputnik has orbited and the Russians are in the lead. Hidden Figures tells this based-on-a-true-story in the predictable ways of a triumphal movie. We meet the three African American heroines stranded next to a broken-down car on their way to work at NASA. The challenge of this day is to actually get there, as the car just won’t start. A police officer shows up, and they use his concern for America in the space contest to get past his initial prejudice. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe, also in recently reviewed Moonlight) uses a similar tactic earlier […]

by Jennifer Wiebe, director of MCC Canada’s Ottawa office Rumour has it that Canada’s federal budget may come down sooner rather than later. Civil society organizations are hoping to see some positive policy signals when the budget is tabled—from more money committed to international development, to the establishment of a federal ombudsperson for the extractives sector (the minerals, oil and gas industry). Establishing an ombudsperson with the power to investigate Canadian mining companies implicated in wrongdoing abroad is something experts have urged the government to implement since 2007. Liberals supported the idea of an ombudsperson while they were in Opposition […]

It’s open season. Not duck season, not deer season. It’s awards season, and you don’t even need a permit to collect your bounty. The next month will bring not only the most prestigious film and music award shows but also some lesser-known—but perhaps more interesting—award shows. By the way, my opening you just read was terrible. Dreadful. Hokey. But it could have easily been an introduction at an awards show. The Golden Globes ushered in 2017 awards season two weeks ago, and the next month will bring not only the most prestigious film and music award shows but also some […]