Slot machines are everywhere in Finland. Some 80% of Finns gamble at least once every year, and Finland ranks fourth in the world in terms of per capita spending on gambling.
To find out how gambling became so widespread and accepted in Finland, I dug into the history. The report can be read at Yle News: “Gambling in Finland: From vice to national virtue”
An audio piece I made on the same topic can be heard on Yle’s All Points North podcast here starting around 20:20.
The “Ban the Box” movement is pushing public and private employers to refrain from asking about criminal records until later in the hiring process. It’s an increasingly popular policy within the criminal justice reform movement, and I recently reported on it for The New Republic.
“Ban the Box” is getting bipartisan support:
[S]upport for Ban the Box spans the ideological spectrum. Georgia’s Republican governor is responsible for his state’s ban, while companies like Koch Industries and Walmart have voluntarily removed criminal history questions from their job applications.
The numbers indicate that the policy works. But it’s about more than jobs:
While these studies are good at showing concrete effects of these policies, the Ban the Box movement should be seen as part of a larger effort to humanize those with prior convictions. “It’s a deeply stigmatized population,” said Michelle Rodriguez, a senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project (NELP). “The criminal record has been used to basically dehumanize a population and to treat them as less than deserving of human dignity and respect.”
I recently wrote a five-article series for Colombia Reports on understanding the armed conflict in Colombia. Each article examined a different aspect of the dynamics of Colombian history and society which have played some role in the current violence between the leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries, and the armed forces.
Among the causes, I examined the history of political exclusion, inequality, and the weak/corrupt state institutions.
Other factors which have aggravated the situation have been drug trafficking and international actors, including the United States and multinational corporations.
On Wednesday afternoon, I attended some panel discussions hosted by the Premio Gabriel García Márquez de Periodismo, a yearly festival that celebrates Spanish-language journalism. The list of panelists included Jon Lee Anderson of The New Yorker, whose work I started following after I read his biography of Che Guevara. He’s a seasoned journalist who has covered Latin American politics for decades, writing profiles of people like Fidel Castro, Augusto Pinochet, the King of Spain, and Gabo himself. He’s also covered conflicts around the world in Africa and the Middle East, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Given his experience in the region, I wanted to get his take on US decision to strike ISIS in Iraq and Syria. He was in a bit of a rush, but was kind enough to give me a short interview after the panel discussion. Here’s what he said: Continue reading
This is an opinion piece I wrote for The Bogota Post on the effects of the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia. You can read it here (bottom of page 8).
The day before Colombia’s presidential elections, Muftah published a piece I wrote about the scandals that hit the two front-runners during the weeks leading up to the vote.
Muftah has been a site devoted exclusively to analysis of the Middle East/MENA region and recently revamped their website. When the new site launched, they also announced they would be expanding their geographical range to include all other regions of the world. This was their first piece on Latin America.
In stark contrast to the chaos and violence that has engulfed Arab Spring countries like Syria, Egypt, and Libya, Yemen is a place that has seen comparatively little political violence since the start of its uprising in 2011. Several Western commentators have pointed to its National Dialogue Conference, a six-month meeting among stakeholders from across the political spectrum, as a potential model to be emulated in the wider Arab world. Yemenis themselves seem to be more skeptical, pointing out that chances are slim that the delegates will be able to solve any of Yemen’s political and economic problems, even if direct violence is avoided. With enormous obstacles in place, even cautious optimism towards the NDC may be unwarranted.
This is the opening to a piece I wrote which was recently posted on Aslan Media.
Coincidentally, an interview with Farea al-Muslimi (whom I quote in my piece) was posted on the site a few days after mine. Though the interview was about drones, he commented on the political transition of Yemen and his words demonstrate well the point I was trying to make on the problems with the NDC: “It was a deal imposed by the GCC and the west, which ended up excluding a huge segment of the Yemeni population.”
The last month of “The Great Escape” (mid-November to mid-December) hasn’t made it on my blog yet. Not sure if any of it will. I zipped through Croatia, made a slight detour into Bosnia/Hercegovina (my second), before heading up through Slovenia, eastern Italy, Austria, and finally Germany. Much of December can be summed up in two words: Christmas markets. They were really the highlight of this part of Europe. When snow and the cold weather get you down, nothin’ like a hot mug of mulled wine and beautiful Christmas lights hung above the various food and beverage booths to cheer you up.
All of these pictures, as I’ve said before, were taken with my 2mp camera on my iPod touch. Though I’ve now upgraded, I’m glad to have been able to take all these pictures with such a small device. Another post will be dedicated to some thoughts on what I’ve learned about packing on this trip.
Christmas market in Graz, Austria
A blazing drink in Munich
A Christmas market in Munich’s main square
Munich in B&W
The walk home
Surreal. I can just sit and stare at this place.
Tirana, the capital of Albania, is currently experiencing some inclement weather. Because of this, and the fact that it is dark after 4 pm, I am staying inside my hostel and not exploring the city. But the weather looks like it will be opening up tomorrow.
I spent the last two days in a city known as Elbasan, a mid-sized city with not a lot to offer when it comes to standard tourist attractions, but much if you want to see how normal Albanians live. It was my first stop in Albania, and I’m glad I chose it. A few Peace Corps volunteers are living there, and I was able to couchsurf with one. I’ve been in the “Balkans” for a few weeks now, but I just recently realized that while this word can often be interchanged with “the former Yugoslavia,” this is not always the case. The “Balkans” refers to the mountain range and, as some Croatians and Serbs told me, a certain mentality. But while Slovenia what part of Yugoslavia, it is not considered to be a Balkan state. Albania is the opposite. Though it is a Balkan state, it turns out it was actually an independent (and fairly isolated) communist dictatorship up until the early nineties.
Albania has a noticeably different feel than the former Yugoslavia (which is why my first impression of it was good – “Something new!”), and it took just a quick Google search to find out why. Its people and language are not slavic and, like the now de facto independent state of Kosovo, its inhabitants are mostly Muslim (as are Bosniaks, who make up 48% of Bosnia/Herzegovnia), though in practice very secular like most former communist states. It is also poorer than the rest of the Balkans. The food seems to be quite similar because of the Ottoman influence (example: burek). They also drink a similar homemade alcohol called raki (rakija in the slavic version). I still know very little about the country, but am slowly getting a feel for it and hope to learn more in the next few days. Unfortunately, that is all the time I am able to spend here.
Joel Gillin 