n the faculty dining room at the California State University where I teach, a Mexican-American woman places the thin slice of turkey on the bread to make my sandwich. The stress lines that radiate down from her high cheekbones twitch as she tells me politely that she’s fine. One of her sons is in Afghanistan, she reports. The other will leave tomorrow for Iraq. “I pray every day,” she says, smearing the mayonnaise on the other slice of bread.

Dear Jack,

I see that you have lined up with Harper (and Martin) behind the brutal (and stupid) Yankee practice of minimum sentences for crimes involving guns (and what next?). The right-wing editors of the Globe condemned you all on January 13 for pandering to law ‘n’ order hysteria. Are you not embarrassed? I suppose not. A social democrat has gotta do what a social democrat has gotta do. And a naive, unrealistic, soft-on-crime small-c communist has gotta write you this Dear Jack letter. Don’t bother answering, I know you’re very busy trying to win as many seats as possible at any cost, and I know what you’ve gotta say.

Over the past century, International Women’s Day has evolved from radical protests for women’s political, economic and social rights to a day for celebrating women’s achievements. In Canada, nowadays, it is not unusual for organizations to cheer prominent women who have reached the heights of success in such areas as sports, volunteerism and business. Has International Women’s Day become merely a time to reflect on how far (some) women have come?

There are 125 million people who are displaced in this world. Who are these people? Where are they from? And what are the causes of their displacement?

Twenty-five years ago Canada signed the most comprehensive human-rights treaty on women’s rights, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). This was an enormous accomplishment for women around the globe who had worked for many decades to establish a human-rights treaty that specifically addressed the persistent and systemic discrimination against women.

In December, 2005, indigenous Asian communities from the most marginalized scapes took to the streets to reclaim their livelihoods and eco-culture, redefining food sovereignty and environmental space for themselves. The resistance from the peripheral grounds against the Sixth Ministerial Conference (MC6) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was the essence of decentralized grassroots small movements.

In your recent book, New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military-Industrial Complex, you state, “Never, in the almost three decades that I have been campaigning against the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear power have I felt that the world is in so much danger.” What kind of risks are we currently facing?

Listen. Women are speaking across the land, and around the world. We want to be safe. We want our sisters to be safe. We expect justice in our communities. Will anybody listen?

Okay, here’s the ugly truth. I refused to vote in the federal election. I turned my back on my ballot. I skipped the whole thing. When all was said and done, it felt like the only responsible thing to do.

I always learn something from going on right-wing U.S. talk shows like Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox. Once he introduced me as a columnist for “a left-wing Canadian newspaper.” I said I hated to use the pittance of time I was given between his long diatribes to defend the Globe & Mail. But I couldn’t let what he had just said stand: the Globe is in fact a conservative, business paper. He scoffed: “It’s a secular paper!” That’s what I mean by learning something. Alongside Afghanistan under the Taliban and the Iran of the mullahs, the U.S. is that rare nation that defines the left-right political spectrum in terms of the secular and the religious.