"“The British government seems oblivious to the fact that the world is in the grip of the greatest refugee crisis since the second world war. People fleeing atrocities will not stop coming if we stop throwing them life-rings; boarding a rickety boat in Libya will remain a seemingly rational decision if you’re running for your life and your country is in flames. The only outcome of withdrawing help will be to witness more people needlessly and shamefully dying on Europe’s doorstep." Guardian
>>><<<
"Iain Duncan Smith has denied setting staff targets for sanctioning benefits claimants; but this paper has found evidence, not only of targets but even league tables for job centres to compete against each other in keeping claimants away from their money." Guardian
>>><<<
"Last Wednesday, a massive feminist strike paralyzed the streets of Barcelona, with thousands of women and their allies shutting down traffic and the subways, spray-painting feminist slogans all over city walls and occupying the offices of powerful political and economic institutions." MIC
>>><<<
"The transitional GDR government, in desperate need of foreign currency, eventually overcame moral reservations on 4 January 1990, ordering the [Berlin Wall's] dismantlement and granting the “commercial use of complete segments”. With a grim stroke of historical irony, border guards were made to protect the wall from acts of vandalism." Guardian
>>><<<
"The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide." Guardian
>>><<<
"It was 10:02 AM local time when the sound emerged from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was heard 1,300 miles away in the Andaman and Nicobar islands (“extraordinary sounds were heard, as of guns firing”); 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and Western Australia (“a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a north-westerly direction”); and even 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius* (“coming from the eastward, like the distant roar of heavy guns.”1) In all, it was heard by people in over 50 different geographical locations, together spanning an area covering a thirteenth of the globe." Nautilus
>>><<<
"A groundbreaking Home Office report which concluded that tougher enforcement of drug laws does not lead to lower levels of drug use was “suppressed” by the Conservatives, a Liberal Democrat minister has said." Guardian
>>><<<
This guy is my new hero.
"I think it's complete bullshit that the internet is making us dumber. I think the internet is making us smarter. There's this new morality built around guilt and shame in the digital age." Vice
>>><<<
"It is deeply disturbing that a hundred years on from 1914, we can only mark this terrible war as a national tragedy. Nationalism – the 19th-century invention of nations as an ideal, as romantic unions of blood and patriotism – caused the great war. What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims? The crowds come to remember – but we should not be remembering only our own. " Guardian
>>><<<
"So how can we counter this shameless use of World War I to re-militarise the present? By celebrating and commemorating those who, in their foresight, opposed or questioned the industrial slaughter of World War I. These included women’s activists, Christians and political radicals who strove to recapture visions of a unified and pacific Europe – as well as the many workers who went on strike and soldiers who mutinied." No Glory
>>><<<
I linked to this via Medium, but that summary was poorly written and confusing. The actual article is much better, and provides some food for thought. I like the argument about GMO technology making monoculture more likely, not sure about other specific arguments. arxiv
>>><<<
Surprise, surprise. Support for UKIP is inversely correlated with immigration in any given area. So all those people loudly complaining about immigrants have likely never even met one. City AM
>>><<<
I'm just gonna leave this here... Onion
>>><<<
"Basically Rob Bliss is a rich white guy with a vested interest in portraying poor black men as the sole perpetrators of street harassment... A white guy takes the oppression of women and uses it as a tool to further the oppression of people of colour. #NYCcatcallvideo" Storify
>>><<<
"Teaching children anatomically correct terms, age-appropriately... promotes positive body image, self confidence, and parent-child communication; discourages perpetrators; and, in the event of abuse, helps children and adults navigate the disclosure and forensic interview process." Atlantic
>>><<<
Fellow white people: it's not OK to wear Day of the Dead-style makeup for Halloween. Yes, it looks cool, but it's not ours.
"I’m learning my history and my place through the colonizers children. They are teaching me that my way of seeing the world can only be justified and deemed safe on white skin. If not worn by you, it’s just another savage “Aztec” practice. Somehow this tradition of honoring those who have passed from this world survived 500 years of colonization and genocide, but not a couple generations of blind white privilege." Black Girl Dangerous
>>><<<
"When consumed, those old-school hallucinogens could cause assorted unpleasantnesses—including nausea, vomiting, and skin irritation. What people realized, though, was that absorbing them through the skin could lead to hallucinations that arrived without the unsavory side effects. And the most receptive areas of the body for that absorption were the sweat glands of the armpits ... and the mucus membranes of the genitals.
So people used their developing pharmacological knowledge to produce drug-laden balms—or, yep, "witch's brews." And to distribute those salves with maximum effectiveness, these crafty hallucinators borrowed a technology from the home: a broom. Specifically, the handle of the broom. And then ... you get the idea." Atlantic
>>><<<
"In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not to the people they work among. They’re what botanists would call an indicator species. It’s almost as though the greater the devastation caused by neoliberalism, the greater the outbreak of NGOs. Nothing illustrates this more poignantly than the phenomenon of the U.S. preparing to invade a country and simultaneously readying NGOs to go in and clean up the devastation. In order make sure their funding is not jeopardized and that the governments of the countries they work in will allow them to function, NGOs have to present their work in a shallow framework, more or less shorn of a political or historical context." Massalijn
>>><<<
I'll just bang that old drum again, aided by Yglesias and Krugman: the world economy needs debt forgiveness, either directly through debt restructuring, or indirectly through much higher inflation.
>>><<<
Until reading this, I was shamefully unaware of the situation in West Papua, which, unlike Timor-Leste, remains under Indonesian occupation. Jacobin
>>><<<
I've heard this analysis from other people. Having no personal experience to draw on, I'd be very happy to hear opinions...
"For all men, harassment of women has more to do with establishing power than it does sexual interest; they do it to control space, both public (the very street you both walk on) and personal (a woman’s self-set boundaries). Men of color catcall vocally and visibly on the sidewalk because they have to—not that there’s ever excuse for harassment. They need the “Sexy!” and “Smile!” to create the illusion of dominance in shared public spaces that social constructs and institutional racism have never afforded them control over." Slate
>>><<<
"Just as opponents of reproductive self-determination rely heavily on the images of babies murdered by their mothers in an attempt to shame women seeking abortions, those that oppose sex work use the specter of trafficked young women to condemn any movement seeking to decriminalize sexual labor." Jacobin
>>><<<
This is actually quite good.
"if we avoid mysticism, and assert simply that there must come a time when there is relative abundance, compared to the scarcity that has driven all previous economic models, then Marx is saying the same thing as John Maynard Keynes said in the 1930s: one day there will be enough goods to go around and the “economic problem” will be solved." Guardian
>>><<<
"Iain Duncan Smith has denied setting staff targets for sanctioning benefits claimants; but this paper has found evidence, not only of targets but even league tables for job centres to compete against each other in keeping claimants away from their money." Guardian
>>><<<
"Last Wednesday, a massive feminist strike paralyzed the streets of Barcelona, with thousands of women and their allies shutting down traffic and the subways, spray-painting feminist slogans all over city walls and occupying the offices of powerful political and economic institutions." MIC
>>><<<
"The transitional GDR government, in desperate need of foreign currency, eventually overcame moral reservations on 4 January 1990, ordering the [Berlin Wall's] dismantlement and granting the “commercial use of complete segments”. With a grim stroke of historical irony, border guards were made to protect the wall from acts of vandalism." Guardian
>>><<<
"The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide." Guardian
>>><<<
"It was 10:02 AM local time when the sound emerged from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was heard 1,300 miles away in the Andaman and Nicobar islands (“extraordinary sounds were heard, as of guns firing”); 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and Western Australia (“a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a north-westerly direction”); and even 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius* (“coming from the eastward, like the distant roar of heavy guns.”1) In all, it was heard by people in over 50 different geographical locations, together spanning an area covering a thirteenth of the globe." Nautilus
>>><<<
"A groundbreaking Home Office report which concluded that tougher enforcement of drug laws does not lead to lower levels of drug use was “suppressed” by the Conservatives, a Liberal Democrat minister has said." Guardian
>>><<<
This guy is my new hero.
"I think it's complete bullshit that the internet is making us dumber. I think the internet is making us smarter. There's this new morality built around guilt and shame in the digital age." Vice
>>><<<
"It is deeply disturbing that a hundred years on from 1914, we can only mark this terrible war as a national tragedy. Nationalism – the 19th-century invention of nations as an ideal, as romantic unions of blood and patriotism – caused the great war. What does it say about Britain in 2014 that we still narrowly remember our own dead and do not mourn the German or French or Russian victims? The crowds come to remember – but we should not be remembering only our own. " Guardian
>>><<<
"So how can we counter this shameless use of World War I to re-militarise the present? By celebrating and commemorating those who, in their foresight, opposed or questioned the industrial slaughter of World War I. These included women’s activists, Christians and political radicals who strove to recapture visions of a unified and pacific Europe – as well as the many workers who went on strike and soldiers who mutinied." No Glory
>>><<<
I linked to this via Medium, but that summary was poorly written and confusing. The actual article is much better, and provides some food for thought. I like the argument about GMO technology making monoculture more likely, not sure about other specific arguments. arxiv
>>><<<
Surprise, surprise. Support for UKIP is inversely correlated with immigration in any given area. So all those people loudly complaining about immigrants have likely never even met one. City AM
>>><<<
I'm just gonna leave this here... Onion
>>><<<
"Basically Rob Bliss is a rich white guy with a vested interest in portraying poor black men as the sole perpetrators of street harassment... A white guy takes the oppression of women and uses it as a tool to further the oppression of people of colour. #NYCcatcallvideo" Storify
>>><<<
"Teaching children anatomically correct terms, age-appropriately... promotes positive body image, self confidence, and parent-child communication; discourages perpetrators; and, in the event of abuse, helps children and adults navigate the disclosure and forensic interview process." Atlantic
>>><<<
Fellow white people: it's not OK to wear Day of the Dead-style makeup for Halloween. Yes, it looks cool, but it's not ours.
"I’m learning my history and my place through the colonizers children. They are teaching me that my way of seeing the world can only be justified and deemed safe on white skin. If not worn by you, it’s just another savage “Aztec” practice. Somehow this tradition of honoring those who have passed from this world survived 500 years of colonization and genocide, but not a couple generations of blind white privilege." Black Girl Dangerous
>>><<<
"When consumed, those old-school hallucinogens could cause assorted unpleasantnesses—including nausea, vomiting, and skin irritation. What people realized, though, was that absorbing them through the skin could lead to hallucinations that arrived without the unsavory side effects. And the most receptive areas of the body for that absorption were the sweat glands of the armpits ... and the mucus membranes of the genitals.
So people used their developing pharmacological knowledge to produce drug-laden balms—or, yep, "witch's brews." And to distribute those salves with maximum effectiveness, these crafty hallucinators borrowed a technology from the home: a broom. Specifically, the handle of the broom. And then ... you get the idea." Atlantic
>>><<<
"In the long run, NGOs are accountable to their funders, not to the people they work among. They’re what botanists would call an indicator species. It’s almost as though the greater the devastation caused by neoliberalism, the greater the outbreak of NGOs. Nothing illustrates this more poignantly than the phenomenon of the U.S. preparing to invade a country and simultaneously readying NGOs to go in and clean up the devastation. In order make sure their funding is not jeopardized and that the governments of the countries they work in will allow them to function, NGOs have to present their work in a shallow framework, more or less shorn of a political or historical context." Massalijn
>>><<<
I'll just bang that old drum again, aided by Yglesias and Krugman: the world economy needs debt forgiveness, either directly through debt restructuring, or indirectly through much higher inflation.
>>><<<
Until reading this, I was shamefully unaware of the situation in West Papua, which, unlike Timor-Leste, remains under Indonesian occupation. Jacobin
>>><<<
I've heard this analysis from other people. Having no personal experience to draw on, I'd be very happy to hear opinions...
"For all men, harassment of women has more to do with establishing power than it does sexual interest; they do it to control space, both public (the very street you both walk on) and personal (a woman’s self-set boundaries). Men of color catcall vocally and visibly on the sidewalk because they have to—not that there’s ever excuse for harassment. They need the “Sexy!” and “Smile!” to create the illusion of dominance in shared public spaces that social constructs and institutional racism have never afforded them control over." Slate
>>><<<
"Just as opponents of reproductive self-determination rely heavily on the images of babies murdered by their mothers in an attempt to shame women seeking abortions, those that oppose sex work use the specter of trafficked young women to condemn any movement seeking to decriminalize sexual labor." Jacobin
>>><<<
This is actually quite good.
"if we avoid mysticism, and assert simply that there must come a time when there is relative abundance, compared to the scarcity that has driven all previous economic models, then Marx is saying the same thing as John Maynard Keynes said in the 1930s: one day there will be enough goods to go around and the “economic problem” will be solved." Guardian
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