I'm leaving for Afrika Burn later this morning, so this will be the last post for another week or so...
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Heh. Furious 7 is basically a live-action remake of Cars
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Huh. I know its a day late, but here's the actual history of the use of "420" as a code for cannabis
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You know, I'm sure foreigners living in South Africa *are* disproportionately represented amongst drug dealers. When selling an internationally traded product, it helps to have international connections, whether those products are electronic goods or mind altering substances. Many foreigners also aren't granted permission to work, and so have to rely on black market sources of income.
Anyway, what's wrong with being a drug dealer? Most drug dealers are genuinely trying to help their customers get access to a quality product, often under very difficult conditions and at some risk to themselves. People want their product, and they are supplying it. I'd be much more scathing about alcohol firms in this country, who have been exploiting South Africans for generations and more-or-less exemplify the term "white monopoly capital". Alcohol also contributes far more to violence and public health problems than any illegal drugs do.
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Inheritance taxes seem to me like a very silly idea. 1) Even when they work well, they are extremely arbitrary - the effective rate a given estate will pay will basically depend how often its inheritors die. 2) There are many ways around them and, because it's a huge amount of money levied for one specific event, a lot of effort can be concentrated into avoidance and evasion. I'm also not sure why intragenerational concentrations of wealth should be considered blameless relative to intergenerational ones. Rather just levy an annual tax on wealth, at a rate that will steadily erode large fortunes, unless they are invested extremely (and consistently) wisely.
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Now this I did not know. Early in his career, Hendrik Verwoed was a highly respected academic and actually something of a liberal. He argued that "There are no biological differences among the big race groups". It was only later that he was drawn into the orbit of Afrikaner nationalism and became the terrible human being that we all know from the history books.
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This is so fucked up I cannot even. Indian couple come to the UK for a holiday for *10 days* end up getting detained for *2 months*. Husband dies in detention (no doubt of a highly preventable illness), wife still not allowed to leave.
We can talk about immigration reform in abstract terms all we like, but we shouldn't lose sight of the basic fact that the people who have designed and administer this system lack even the faintest modicum of human decency. Until they are removed from office and the institutions they have constructed are laid to waste, there will not be justice.
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"But sex work has another gloss. It’s said that these people don’t actually want their rights; the management who will profit from the industry is just whipping them up.
But in the US the very organisations that represent either the porn industry or strip club industry are advancing positions that are the opposite of what the [sex worker rights movement] is advancing. So it just doesn't hold up. The businesses are not advocating for decriminalisation, and the majority of sex workers are. They are advocating for a business model that allows them to continue to have dominance over the industry, which is legalisation, which is what keeps them in business." Red Pepper
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"In 2014, at least 40,000 Syrians crossed the Mediterranean to seek asylum in European countries via Italy. But approximately 35,000 Eritreans also made the voyage... Young Eritreans are fleeing mandatory and indefinite military conscription and imprisonment and torture for political organizing; there are also reports of growing famine. Yet in sharp contrast to the coverage of Syrian refugees, the Western English-language media has barely registered the escalating Eritrean refugee crisis." Africa is a Country
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This relates to some of what I said the other day, how as I white South African, I feel more included in the national project than migrants from elsewhere in Africa. This is despite my status as an oppressor and, frankly, the differences in culture and lifestyle that separate me from most other South Africans. Could it be that it is *precisely* my status as an oppressor that connects me to the national project?
"South Africans may not always like each other across so-called racial lines, but they have a kinship that is based on their connection to the apartheid project. Outsiders – those who didn't go through the torture of the regime – are juxtaposed against insiders. In other words foreigners are foreign precisely because they can not understand the pain of apartheid, because most South Africans now claim to have been victims of the system. Whether white or black, the trauma of living through apartheid is seen as such a defining experience that it becomes exclusionary; it has made a nation of us."
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This is totally on point, drawing the connection between the explicit, street-level violence of xenophobic attacks and the violence meted out more insidiously in the form of visa regulations and border controls. It's the same ideology, just different methods, and the South African government is complicit.
"I was here during the last “hunting season”. The difference, this time, is the emergence of the rudiments of an “ideology”. We now have the semblance of a discourse aimed at justifying the atrocities"
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Women understand #wrongtowork
"The way women respond to price changes is much closer to the ideal of economic rationality. In particular, women tend to drop out of the labor force when it no longer makes “economic” sense for them to be working. Men, for reasons that are not difficult to imagine, tend to keep on working regardless of how the numbers come out—as a matter of principle, one is inclined to suggest."
From "Economics Without Illusions: Debunking the Myths of Modern Capitalism", by Joseph Heath
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"It is also important to note that the Swedish welfare state has achieved greater equality of income than was ever achieved under Soviet communism. That’s worth repeating for emphasis: Swedish capitalism is more egalitarian than Soviet communism." ibid
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Reducing the length of copyright protection is obviously a good policy, people. Maybe 14 years after publication is too short, but 70 years *after the author's death* is far, far too long.
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"When we have statistics on homeless youth, that forty percent of homeless youth are queer, and we know that homeless youth are particularly vulnerable to trading sex for what they need to survive, and don’t have a lot of control. That’s not a problem of scary men, that’s a problem of: Where else are these kids supposed to sleep? What else are they supposed to do? It’s so much more appealing to say that it’s men’s demand for young people to have sex with, rather than to look closer to home: Why don’t you want that queer youth shelter in your neighborhood? Or: why is our mayor prioritizing this level of mass surveillance in New York, rather than creating shelter beds for young people who are very vulnerable?" The Awl
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"Remember all those cold war movies where nuclear missile crews are frantically dialing in the secret codes sent by the White House to launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles? Well, for two decades, all the Minuteman nuclear missiles in the US used the same eight-digit numeric passcode to enable their warheads: 00000000." Ars Technica
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I mean, this seems ridiculous (and possibly harmful to the actual kids concerned), but it's an obvious consequence of a genuine shortage. If you don't want parents to drill their kids to get into quality schools, build more quality schools (and maybe make sure there are paths to success other than attending the right schools.
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Good little review of the problems with housing policy in the UK. Short version: planning regulations are far too restrictive, and are most restrictive in areas with highest demand for housing (i.e. London and the Southeast). This is largely because vested interests have far too much power to limit the construction of new housing, including by influencing the regulatory climate.
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Ordinary Europeans are generally much nicer people than you'd think based on the sorts of leaders they elect, and the policies instituted by those leaders.
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Obviously I got the wrong genes...
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There's quite a lot of the author's own interpretation going into this reading. What do people think?
"If “The Second Sex” can’t be squared with the life, we are reduced to the final, depressing theory that the pact [between Beauvoir and Sartre] was just the traditional sexist arrangement—in which the man sleeps around and the woman nobly “accepts” the situation—on philosophical stilts. Sartre was the classic womanizer, and Beauvoir was the classic enabler."
>>><<<
Heh. Furious 7 is basically a live-action remake of Cars
>>><<<
Huh. I know its a day late, but here's the actual history of the use of "420" as a code for cannabis
>>><<<
You know, I'm sure foreigners living in South Africa *are* disproportionately represented amongst drug dealers. When selling an internationally traded product, it helps to have international connections, whether those products are electronic goods or mind altering substances. Many foreigners also aren't granted permission to work, and so have to rely on black market sources of income.
Anyway, what's wrong with being a drug dealer? Most drug dealers are genuinely trying to help their customers get access to a quality product, often under very difficult conditions and at some risk to themselves. People want their product, and they are supplying it. I'd be much more scathing about alcohol firms in this country, who have been exploiting South Africans for generations and more-or-less exemplify the term "white monopoly capital". Alcohol also contributes far more to violence and public health problems than any illegal drugs do.
>>><<<
Inheritance taxes seem to me like a very silly idea. 1) Even when they work well, they are extremely arbitrary - the effective rate a given estate will pay will basically depend how often its inheritors die. 2) There are many ways around them and, because it's a huge amount of money levied for one specific event, a lot of effort can be concentrated into avoidance and evasion. I'm also not sure why intragenerational concentrations of wealth should be considered blameless relative to intergenerational ones. Rather just levy an annual tax on wealth, at a rate that will steadily erode large fortunes, unless they are invested extremely (and consistently) wisely.
>>><<<
Now this I did not know. Early in his career, Hendrik Verwoed was a highly respected academic and actually something of a liberal. He argued that "There are no biological differences among the big race groups". It was only later that he was drawn into the orbit of Afrikaner nationalism and became the terrible human being that we all know from the history books.
>>><<<
This is so fucked up I cannot even. Indian couple come to the UK for a holiday for *10 days* end up getting detained for *2 months*. Husband dies in detention (no doubt of a highly preventable illness), wife still not allowed to leave.
We can talk about immigration reform in abstract terms all we like, but we shouldn't lose sight of the basic fact that the people who have designed and administer this system lack even the faintest modicum of human decency. Until they are removed from office and the institutions they have constructed are laid to waste, there will not be justice.
>>><<<
"But sex work has another gloss. It’s said that these people don’t actually want their rights; the management who will profit from the industry is just whipping them up.
But in the US the very organisations that represent either the porn industry or strip club industry are advancing positions that are the opposite of what the [sex worker rights movement] is advancing. So it just doesn't hold up. The businesses are not advocating for decriminalisation, and the majority of sex workers are. They are advocating for a business model that allows them to continue to have dominance over the industry, which is legalisation, which is what keeps them in business." Red Pepper
>>><<<
"In 2014, at least 40,000 Syrians crossed the Mediterranean to seek asylum in European countries via Italy. But approximately 35,000 Eritreans also made the voyage... Young Eritreans are fleeing mandatory and indefinite military conscription and imprisonment and torture for political organizing; there are also reports of growing famine. Yet in sharp contrast to the coverage of Syrian refugees, the Western English-language media has barely registered the escalating Eritrean refugee crisis." Africa is a Country
>>><<<
This relates to some of what I said the other day, how as I white South African, I feel more included in the national project than migrants from elsewhere in Africa. This is despite my status as an oppressor and, frankly, the differences in culture and lifestyle that separate me from most other South Africans. Could it be that it is *precisely* my status as an oppressor that connects me to the national project?
"South Africans may not always like each other across so-called racial lines, but they have a kinship that is based on their connection to the apartheid project. Outsiders – those who didn't go through the torture of the regime – are juxtaposed against insiders. In other words foreigners are foreign precisely because they can not understand the pain of apartheid, because most South Africans now claim to have been victims of the system. Whether white or black, the trauma of living through apartheid is seen as such a defining experience that it becomes exclusionary; it has made a nation of us."
>>><<<
This is totally on point, drawing the connection between the explicit, street-level violence of xenophobic attacks and the violence meted out more insidiously in the form of visa regulations and border controls. It's the same ideology, just different methods, and the South African government is complicit.
"I was here during the last “hunting season”. The difference, this time, is the emergence of the rudiments of an “ideology”. We now have the semblance of a discourse aimed at justifying the atrocities"
>>><<<
Women understand #wrongtowork
"The way women respond to price changes is much closer to the ideal of economic rationality. In particular, women tend to drop out of the labor force when it no longer makes “economic” sense for them to be working. Men, for reasons that are not difficult to imagine, tend to keep on working regardless of how the numbers come out—as a matter of principle, one is inclined to suggest."
From "Economics Without Illusions: Debunking the Myths of Modern Capitalism", by Joseph Heath
>>><<<
"It is also important to note that the Swedish welfare state has achieved greater equality of income than was ever achieved under Soviet communism. That’s worth repeating for emphasis: Swedish capitalism is more egalitarian than Soviet communism." ibid
>>><<<
Reducing the length of copyright protection is obviously a good policy, people. Maybe 14 years after publication is too short, but 70 years *after the author's death* is far, far too long.
>>><<<
"When we have statistics on homeless youth, that forty percent of homeless youth are queer, and we know that homeless youth are particularly vulnerable to trading sex for what they need to survive, and don’t have a lot of control. That’s not a problem of scary men, that’s a problem of: Where else are these kids supposed to sleep? What else are they supposed to do? It’s so much more appealing to say that it’s men’s demand for young people to have sex with, rather than to look closer to home: Why don’t you want that queer youth shelter in your neighborhood? Or: why is our mayor prioritizing this level of mass surveillance in New York, rather than creating shelter beds for young people who are very vulnerable?" The Awl
>>><<<
"Remember all those cold war movies where nuclear missile crews are frantically dialing in the secret codes sent by the White House to launch nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles? Well, for two decades, all the Minuteman nuclear missiles in the US used the same eight-digit numeric passcode to enable their warheads: 00000000." Ars Technica
>>><<<
I mean, this seems ridiculous (and possibly harmful to the actual kids concerned), but it's an obvious consequence of a genuine shortage. If you don't want parents to drill their kids to get into quality schools, build more quality schools (and maybe make sure there are paths to success other than attending the right schools.
>>><<<
Good little review of the problems with housing policy in the UK. Short version: planning regulations are far too restrictive, and are most restrictive in areas with highest demand for housing (i.e. London and the Southeast). This is largely because vested interests have far too much power to limit the construction of new housing, including by influencing the regulatory climate.
>>><<<
Ordinary Europeans are generally much nicer people than you'd think based on the sorts of leaders they elect, and the policies instituted by those leaders.
>>><<<
Obviously I got the wrong genes...
>>><<<
There's quite a lot of the author's own interpretation going into this reading. What do people think?
"If “The Second Sex” can’t be squared with the life, we are reduced to the final, depressing theory that the pact [between Beauvoir and Sartre] was just the traditional sexist arrangement—in which the man sleeps around and the woman nobly “accepts” the situation—on philosophical stilts. Sartre was the classic womanizer, and Beauvoir was the classic enabler."
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