Friday, July 26, 2002

Jimmy Breslin, in Newsday's Aroused by the Thrill Of Arrested Censorship, quotes Dr. Susan Block, whose Los Angeles sex therapy show, "Sex for Wisdom," has been censored on a TV station owned by the Rigas family's Adelphia Communications: Why, we had a show on handcuffs two weeks ago, and they wouldn't run it, Susan Block said. She said to her assistant, David Brando, Do you think they understand bondage now? 12:28:51 PM    comment []

The Salon Interview: Mary Robinson: The outgoing U.N. high commissioner for human rights talks about running afoul of the Bush administration over Israel and the Palestinians, ending the "cycle of impunity" and standing up to bullies. By Ian Williams [Salon] When I started back in September of 1997, I was quite taken aback by how many leaders of developing countries told me: Don't you know human rights is just a Western stick to beat us with? It is politicized, nothing to do with real concern about human rights. You know, there was an element of truth in that, and so I found it necessary to find, first of all, the true agenda of human rights at the international level. That is to be strong in civil liberties, in the protection and promotion of civil and political rights, and strong in the protection and promotion of economic, social and cultural rights, and to fulfill the express vision and mandate of the establishment of the high commissioner's office, which was to seek consensus on the right to development. That's an individual and a collective right, the right of the people to gain the full flower of their human rights. And that led to more linkage being made by leaders of developing countries between human rights and economic and social development. They began to realize that if you got your human rights right, you accelerated human development, economic development ... What is very clear is that human rights need protection at national and local level, and therefore unless there is more attention to strengthening human rights, and law and administration of justice at national level, then we are not really going to make great progress. 11:59:37 AM    comment []