Links, Saturday 25th October

The commitment to economic austerity in Europe and (to a lesser extent) North America is truly dumbfounding. Governments racked up truly massive debts to end the Great Depression, and much of that was essentially wasted on armaments rather than productive infrastructure, education and so on. With bond yields as low as they are, rich countries could and should spend much more. Guardian

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The author of this piece strikes me as ever do slightly self-satisfied (like, why do to the effort of defending hipsters?), but it nevertheless strikes the nail on the head with this sentence.

"The douchebag is someone — overwhelmingly white, rich, heterosexual males — who insist upon, nay, demand their white male privilege in every possible set and setting." Medium

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"The reason typos get through isn’t because we’re stupid or careless, it’s because what we’re doing is actually very smart" Wired

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Good article about an experimental treatment for teenagers and young adults thought to be at risk for schizophrenia. The evidence for it is unclear, but I think it's good that it attacks the artificial distinction between "psychological" and "organic" causes of mental illness. All mental illness is exacerbated, to on degree or another, by stressful situations, and giving people the tools to deal with these situations is always valuable. NPR

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The struggle continues. Guardian

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We shouldn't celebrate anyone being sent to prison, but I'm *almost* prepared to make an exception in this case. Guardian

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Here's a suggestion: how about we allow the *enforcement* of laws but criminalise the *making* of laws. That will target the real villains. Guardian

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Yep.

"Academics dress badly because we are so fulfilled in our work." Guardian

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So many LOLs. Existential Comics

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Some good guidance about how not to use oppressive language relating to sex work (though it still talks about 'sex trafficking' as if that concept isn't problematic in its own right). See Laura Augustin on this)

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“Lena Dunham can take off her clothes on HBO and it’s considered empowering, but Beyoncé wears a provocative outfit, and it is not OK for her to do that. It is a total double standard.” PSMAG

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Part of the explanation for why women are so under-represented in computer science and technology...

"In the 1990s, researcher Jane Margolis interviewed hundreds of computer science students at Carnegie Mellon University, which had one of the top programs in the country. She found that families were much more likely to buy computers for boys than for girls — even when their girls were really interested in computers.

This was a big deal when those kids got to college. As personal computers became more common, computer science professors increasingly assumed that their students had grown up playing with computers at home." NPR

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[TW: violence, whorephobia]

It's good this guy is seeing some consequences. Times Live

However... Remember that this other guy *murdered* an *actual* sex worker and so far hasn't suffered any professional consequences whatsoever. So let's all think about how our society distinguishes "worthy" from "unworthy" victims. Daily Maverick

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"While the cat possesses the characteristics of a good hunter it is useful, “but as long as it does it remains incompletely domesticated.” Heretics, too, in a transferred sense, are not completely domesticated, since by challenging orthodox thought and roaming freely hither and thither in their interpretation of religious beliefs they resemble the bestiary definition of wildness. As symbolic animals,them, cats may be the heretical animal par excellence." Medievalists

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[TW: discussion of (fictional) child sexual abuse]

This exposes just how incoherent our thinking about paedophilia has become. This guy hasn't hurt anyone or encouraged harm to anyone. There's not even any evidence that looking at simulated images makes a person more likely to offend later. And so what if it did? Drinking alcohol makes people more likely to be violent, and that's legal. He is being convicted purely because we find his sexual desires distasteful. Can we please have a serious, scientifically informed discussion about how paedophilic impulses should be treated and managed? Gazette

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This is disheartening. The success of the Google car has been seriously overstated, and it looks like we are quite some way from a useful autonomous car. Slate

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"During his research for his doctorate he observed the [criminalisation of clients] being used to target migrant sex workers, and said that the law had been used as a way to deport migrants.

He also said: "Clients are reluctant to leave their contact details, so sex workers are inviting men into their apartments that are completely untraceable."" BBC

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"Academic systems more or less everywhere rely at least to some extent on the existence of a supply of “outsiders” ready to forgo wages and employment security in exchange for the prospect of uncertain security, prestige, freedom and reasonably high salaries that tenured positions entail."

This is pronounced in academia, but also in lots of other industries. Media and NGOs come to mind... LSE

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"Lebanon has welcomed 1,600,000 refugees [from Syria], swelling its population by 36%. While at last count the UK had only resettled 54." Syria Campaign

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"It’s a strange and incredibly demoralizing time to be a black person in American media. The words “racist and “racism” have cynically become clickbait, all while various newsrooms are claiming that they want to hire more writers and reporters and editors of color, but don’t." New Republic

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"Working recently with the London Borough of Southwark, it was interesting to hear how they saw road-warrior cyclists roaring through the area as a hindrance to their plans for developing a bicycle-friendly corner of the city." Guardian

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"Pornhub’s Lesbian category is the leading favorite among the ladies, with Gay (male) following close at second place. The Gay category only falls into 7th place for men" Pornhub

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"Moyna, 39, had lost most of her belongings when she fled her home after the July attack that local residents and human rights experts allege were perpetrated by the ruling party activists. "They had threatened to burn the entire brothel with our families inside," she said." Yahoo

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Probably quixotic, but more power to them.

"We call on UCT to put its principles of justice where its mouth is, and to pledge to take animal suffering off the menu at university functions. Nor should the perpetuation of animal misery and death be outsourced to other campus vendors." UCT Monday Paper

Thoughts on reading Fukukaya's "Political Order and Political Decay"

I'm currently reading Francis Fukuyama's "Political Order and Political Decay" (Amazon)

Much to chew over, and I think all policy makers in South Africa should read it. For Fukuyama, "political order" refers primarily to a state that is able to enact goals effectively, but also does so on an impersonal basis, by reference to general political principles. In contrast, a state is "patrimonial" insofar as people are able to gain access to state resources by way of personal connections to state officials.

However, Fukuyama distinguishes two kinds of patrimonial states, one of which is considerably more harmful than the other. Under a patronage state, the state is treated as an outgrowth of the ruler's household, and state resources are dispensed to friends and family, all of whom come to comprise a relatively small elite class. This sort of organisation is what we normally mean when we think of political "corruption". In contrast, under a clientilist state, there is mass participation in politics, and resources are dispensed to entire *classes* of favoured people, often delineated on ethnic grounds or other markers of social identity. Fukuyama argues that clientilism is often the first step in creating an inclusive impersonal state, as it leads to some degree of accountability for elites. It is often the means by which formerly excluded classes come to make their needs known on a mass scale. One example is the inclusion of non-Anglophone, non-Protestant immigrants in the US, who were able to challenge existing power structures via participation in clientilist urban political "machines".

Relating to South Africa, it is clear that Apartheid was a form of clientilism - the National Party government was able to gain support for its political programme by preferentially handing out state resources firstly to Afrikaners and then all white South Africans. (There were also, as is well documented, more overtly corrupt patronage relationships happening at the same time.) Given full democracy, it is now possible to create a state machinery that operates along fully impersonal lines. However, it seems that the old, white, elite is continuing to shut out new, black, entrants. I think this is what Steven Friedman is getting at when he talks about the frustrations of middle class black people who are sick of racist exclusion at the hands of the existing white business elite. To the extent that frustration builds, there will be increasing pressure for clientilistic political programmes, i.e. the use of BEE and other measures to direct resources preferentially towards black people.

That's not to say that we can't make a case for BEE on the principled grounds of redress for past injustice. The worry is that the debate becomes thought of as a naked competition for resources between different groups. Given the realities of South African's demography, BEE will still happen, but it will increasingly come to resemble a clientilistic distribution of goodies rather than an impersonal process. This is already going on to the extent that political connections count for something in the award of tenders and so on. This process is in some ways necessary to break the hold of the existing elite, but if we do it on this basis, we'll find it increasingly hard to 'put the genie back in the bottle' and build impersonal institutions. Obviously, it's up to the government to apply BEE criteria personally, but I also think a lot of the onus is on the existing white elite to get fully on board with BEE and collaborate in creating inclusive institutions as soon as possible.

There's also a lot that could be said about elite patronage networks around Zuma and other ANC higher-ups, but that's a slightly different story...

Links, Sunday 19th October

"The Gauteng conference confirms that becoming middle class does not make black people here less impatient for racial change — if anything, it makes them less happy because they expected their skills and assets to free them from race prejudice and they feel they haven’t. And so one unheard message from the conference is that the growth of a black middle class does not make our racial divide go away — on the contrary, it sharpens it." Business Day

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Group that politicians want to 'help' overwhelmingly rejects the proposed 'help'. Politicians will no doubt press on, demonstrating exactly how little they cared about said group's actual interests and opinions in the first place...

"A Department of Justice commissioned survey has found that only 2% of women and men working in the local sex industry are in favour of the so-called “Swedish model”, which targets consumers rather than workers in the sex trade." Guardian

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This says it all, really.

"In Cape Town, the DA-led municipality unequivocally condemns the mass appropriation of land by the poor and the ANC quietly supports them. In contrast, in Durban, the ANC-led municipality responds harshly to any occupation, whereas the DA condemns the actions of the city as brutal and illegal." M&G

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This is something y'all need to see. Carceral feminist cat

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Relatedly and more seriously...

"Casting policing and prisons as the solution to domestic violence both justifies increases to police and prison budgets and diverts attention from the cuts to programs that enable survivors to escape, such as shelters, public housing, and welfare. And finally, positioning police and prisons as the principal antidote discourages seeking other responses, including community interventions and long-term organizing." Jacobin

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I'm looking for insightful opinions about Eastern Europe. My instinctive sympathies lie with the anti-Russian camp, as articulated here, but then these are complicated by the presence of far-right elements in the recent Ukrainian revolution (though I've never heard any satisfactory reply to the question of exactly how influential they are). Add to this the fact that everyone involved is still hashing out disputes that go back to WW2 (or before), and I don't know what to think! Slate

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"Careerism has its own moralism, serving as an anesthetic against competing moral claims. Particularly in the United States, where ambition is a civic duty and worldly success a prerequisite of citizenship, enlightened anglers of their own interest can easily be convinced that they are doing not only the smart thing, but also the right thing." Jacobin

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"Officers said they were further relieved after discovering the man had a petty theft charge on his record, ensuring they were 100 percent off the hook." The Onion

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This is what "anti-trafficking" means in reality. Women being arrested, held against their will and often subjected to forced labour. The irony is that Westerners who are so concerned about "exploitation" in the sex industry end up forcing women into the far more exploitative garment industry (and then buying the resulting cheap clothes).

[TW: for police violence] Vice

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[TW: assault, whorephobia]

This happens to actual sex workers every day, and we never hear about it. Because they're quite rightly scared to report it to the police, or because it was the police who did it, or because the newspapers don't care to publish stories about "unworthy" victims. Just saying.

"A Kenilworth swimming school owner and well-known cyclist was arrested this week after he allegedly beat up a middle-aged domestic worker in broad daylight – without the two ever having met or even exchanged a single word – then excused his behaviour by saying he had believed she was a prostitute." IOL

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Really fascinating video showing the position of the Milky Way within a larger galactic "supercluster" Nature

Links, Thursday 16th October

"A sense of superiority, left over from apartheid, fuels this misplaced sense of being democracy’s victim. If you conceived of the possibility you might not be the best, other responses to failure beyond shock will open up. Apartheid’s beneficiaries aren’t yet in that head-space." IOL

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"These days you often hear people say things like "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product." There is something to this, but the Tirole-Rochet paper shows that this same dynamic exists in a variety of industries. Any time the market is two-sided you are both the customer and the product simultaneously. That's true whether the platform owner is charging you or not." Vox

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"A decade ago, Leith Residents Association was organising against the women who worked in the tolerance zone by forming vigilante gangs and going out and threatening the women with baseball bats. The tolerance zone was closed due to this local campaign, leading to a huge spike in violence against street-based sex workers perpetrated by men posing as clients." Glasgow Sex Worker

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"The truck driver shows his passport then the officers ask for the passengers’ passports. The driver replies, reaches for his wallet and takes out R100. The officer refuses.”These people paid you more than this”, he says. He is offered R200 and lets us through." Groundup

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Journalism is so weird: he "risks a row". Why not just say "Here's David Cameon with a bunch of people in blackface. They're dicks; he's a dick."? Guardian

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Little slice of life piece about the market for prefab shacks in Cape Town. M&G

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These actually are rather good ideas. Cracked

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[TW: sexual assault]

"If we didn’t put ourselves in dangerous situations, we never go anywhere. Ever. Because we don’t know who’s a threat. We can’t tell. It could be the old dude in the bank or the suit on the bus. It could be the hobo with a shank or the coworker after hours or the men who ambushed me on my own block. Can’t be sure. Never totally sure." Medium

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The overall message of this is pretty obvious - it's not the progressivity of the tax system so much as the entire fiscal apparatus (i.e. including expenditures) that should be relevant to the left wing. Vox

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This is kind of terrifying. For the record, I have nothing against private property developers, in principle. They certainly *could* play a role in increasing and improving the housing supply. But we've now reached a point where new construction is sufficiently constrained - by zoning restrictions and anti-development bias, by the demise of new social housing, by speculative incentives to leave land undeveloped, - that there is essentially a fixed amount available, and councils have enormous incentives simply to transfer it from the poor to the rich. Guardian

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Raging, despairing criticism of the JSC and of South African institutions generally.

"What does a woman have to do in this country to be treated as a human being and humanely?" Times Live

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A nice little video concisely stating the evidence for evolution, focussing on the whales and dolphins. Youtube

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An inheritance tax actually seems like a terrible idea compared to an annual wealth tax. A tax applied only once a generation, and a high rate, offers both strong incentives and relatively easy options for evasion. I also don't see why someone who dies with all their wealth intact ought to be taxed more heavily than someone who gives it away to their relatives piecemeal over the course of their life. The latter is arguably a greater contributor to inequality anyway, since the children of rich people tend to become rich well before their parents die. Jacobin

Links, Monday 13th October

I'm pinning my colours to the wall. This sort of nostalgic NIMBYism is the purest of bullshit. Are people seriously arguing that maintaining an utterly obsolete piece of industrial equipment is a more valuable use of this land than new homes? In a city with some of the highest rents in the world? Why are we even hearing the opinion of a dude who directly profits from the area's post-industrial chic as opposed to, say, prospective tenants?

"Jordan Gross owns Oval Space which overlooks the gas holders. He told Time Out: “Not only are the gas works an iconic part of Oval Space but they’re also an iconic part of the whole area. Replacing them with soulless cookie cutter apartments of the kind that are blighting our whole city would be a travesty.”" Dalstonist

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“thanks to the militarization and expansion of the ‘border’ region, 197 million Americans now live within the jurisdiction of US Customs and Border Patrol” Jacobin


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The clitoris and the penis side-by-side. From here

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"It’s not that sex work isn’t sexist (or oppressive in all the regular ways). It’s just not special. Thinking that sex work is by nature sexist–and that the rest of the world isn’t, or that in the rest of the world, women can resist sexism but not sex workers–is based in contempt for sex workers." Born Whore

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"One of the most fascinating stories that emerged from the Indian Ocean region, which included Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, was that India had African rulers, notables and chief ministers. This was not the case with African diaspora in any other place..." Scroll

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A brief history of the "umbrella movement" in Hong Kong. Financial Times

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Good article on a project to help young women and girls who are often engaged in 'survival' sex work. Notice that at no point does it suggest that criminalising transactional sex will help them. What they need is an alternative means of securing basic necessities. Voice of Africa

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"The report found that many women and girls do not attend clinics until the latter stages of pregnancy because they have been led to believe an HIV test is compulsory. In the report, some women who did attend clinics described how their HIV status could be revealed through negligence, inconsiderate processes and even workplace gossip." Guardian

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"One of the hardest parts of coming to grips with the depth and breadth of the patriarchy is recognizing that there are no exceptions. Maybe you didn’t, personally, do anything wrong, but you were still born into a power structure that gave you unjust rewards. The system — whether it’s the patriarchy or white supremacy or capitalism — does not offer special exemptions for individuals with good intentions. And that should make you mad: The fact is that even though you know better, and are truly a male feminist, you’re still stuck being the bad guy. You can’t opt out of the privileges you inherited at birth. Or, as my (male) feminist friend once put it, “I’m not one of the good ones and neither are you and neither is anyone, FYI.”" NY Mag

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".. the biggest problem with the consent between Ana and Christian [in 50 Shades of Grey] is that it doesn’t exist in the rest of the relationship, only in relation to sex. Christian never hears Ana’s clear ‘no’ about him buying her gifts, following her on holiday, and getting involved in her work. Also both characters continually attempt to pressure, persuade or cajole the other into being what they want them to be: a submissive in Ana’s case, and a loving husband in Christian’s case. This is despite both stating very clearly that this is not what they want, several times over." Rewriting the Rules

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"It was not just anarchists but young Italian factory workers – complete with their sideburns – who first expressed the idea that liberation involves a fight against work itself. Today what the Italian autonomists said rhetorically in the 1970s has become reality: the whole of society is a factory. The struggle for social justice takes place no longer just amid lines of machinery, but in places such as the Focus E15 occupation by single mums and the Sex Worker Open University projects in London and Glasgow." Guardian

Links, Thursday 9th October

"This solidarity in workplace misery is by no means unique to PhD students, or indeed to the HE sector, and we might tend to look on such interactions with colleagues – not to mention the many and various uncritical representations of workplace misery in popular culture, the relentless drudgery of office work being a particular favourite – as harmless, even comforting and supportive. But these exchanges are just one example of the normalisation of anxiety and unhappiness in the workplace. Moreover, not only is this psychological distress normalised, it is valorised – rendered desirable because it becomes a benchmark against which to measure achievement." The Column

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Very good, nuanced piece.

"until we stop pretending that getting high is inherently bad – that drugs can never be brilliant, can never enhance human experience for the better – how can we properly deal with people whose lives have been made worse by drugs?" Guardian

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"When their lawsuit was filed, Hobby Lobby's 401(k) plan had more than $73 million invested in mutual funds with holdings in companies such as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (makers of morning-after pills and IUDs), Pfizer and AstraZeneca (which both produce drugs used to induce abortions), and even Aetna and Humana (health insurance companies that cover various methods of abortion). For a company so offended by the thought of giving its employees access to contraceptives that aren't related to abortions, they sure are comfortable collecting a ton of money from actual abortions."Cracked

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"In France during the years before the revolution of 1789, a book “existed by virtue of the king’s pleasure; it was a product of the royal ‘grace’. . . . The book was a quality product; it had a royal sanction; and in dispensing that sanction, the censors vouched for its general excellence. Censorship was not simply a matter of purging heresies. It was positive — a royal endorsement of the book and an official invitation to read it.” Thus, the relationship between author and censor was as much collaborative as adversarial." Washington Post

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"No matter what law is passed on the niqab, it will not stop me from wearing it. I don’t want to be controlled and told what I can and can not wear: that is oppression." Guardian

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"In a startling and unexpected move, on Monday the Supreme Court refused to review seven gay marriage cases from five different states. That decision effectively legalized gay marriage in those five states—Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin—almost immediately. But within the next few weeks, the court’s move will likely bring gay marriage to six more states—meaning that, without actually ruling on the topic, the justices will have brought marriage equality to 11 states in one fell swoop." Slate

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Pretty legit advice. Robot Hugs

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LOL 

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Some insight into the nitty-gritty of corruption in US politics. Cracked

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"People often say that same-sex marriage now is like interracial marriage in the 60s. But in terms of public opinion, same-sex marriage now is like interracial marriage in the 90s, when it had already been legal nationwide for 30 years." XKCD

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"Having driven out agents of the Assad regime in 2011, and despite the hostility of almost all of its neighbours, Rojava has not only maintained its independence, but is a remarkable democratic experiment. Popular assemblies have been created as the ultimate decision-making bodies, councils selected with careful ethnic balance (in each municipality, for instance, the top three officers have to include one Kurd, one Arab and one Assyrian or Armenian Christian, and at least one of the three has to be a woman), there are women’s and youth councils, and, in a remarkable echo of the armed Mujeres Libres (Free Women) of Spain, a feminist army, the “YJA Star” militia (the “Union of Free Women”, the star here referring to the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar), that has carried out a large proportion of the combat operations against the forces of Islamic State." Guardian

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"I do not expect or accept the treatment by some in the queer community that femmes need to be tamed and controlled.

I am disturbed by what I see as a virtual absence of femme-feminist awareness in discussions around masculine of center identities.

Is there a fetishization of some forms of masculinity within the queer community?

Is there a privileging of masculinity in queer spaces?

Why is it that femmes are seen to be less radical than butch or masculine of center women?" Feminist Wire

Links, Monday 6th October

This is important. Pay attention.

"Thousands of Hong Kong citizens protested across the city on Monday, blocking roads and prompting the closure of banks and schools, as they stepped up their calls for democracy." Guardian

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"There are a growing number of studies that look at people's widening definition of what constitutes sex. What they all show, and this is the same for whatever subgroup – gay or straight, across all territories – people are more likely to say that oral sex is sex, that any genital contact is sex. We've definitely been aware of an increase in other types of non-vaginal intercourse. There's been a real rise in heterosexual anal sex … the message that comes through is that there's been a genuine widening of people's repertoire." Guardian

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"When I interviewed the Abu Said family in the southern city of Rafah, I found more evidence of the wanton targeting of Palestinian civilians who spoke Hebrew. Nineteen-year-old Mahmoud Abu Said told me when Israeli soldiers arrived at his family’s home on the city’s eastern outskirts, they immediately inquired if anyone spoke Hebrew. When his father, Abdul Hadi Abu Said, answered in the affirmative, they shot him in the chest (he miraculously survived).

In Khuza’a, just east of Khan Younis, where the most grisly massacres of the war occurred, numerous witnesses told me about a similar incident in which Israeli soldiers gathered male residents in the center of town and asked if anyone spoke Hebrew. I was told by these multiple witnesses that when a middle-aged man stepped forward and answered that he did, he was shot in the chest and killed. These atrocities form a chilling pattern" Alternet

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"It is simply too early to tell which direction these protests will go. Although early indications suggest that thousands of residents began joining the students in protest on Sunday, it's not clear if this will grow significantly larger, as is probably necessary to force change, or will fizzle out under police pressure. However it resolves, though, this is a potentially decisive moment for Hong Kong and the uncertainty that has hung over its future ever since 1997." Vox

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"We call this the “polygamy hypocrisy gap” ; and the biggest gap among the countries surveyed is Swaziland, where the divergence was nearly 30 percentage points—94.1% of married Swazi men say they are monogamous, but just 66% of married women say they are not sharing their husbands, suggesting that nearly three in ten married Swazi men are “secretly polygamous”." M&G Africa

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"I have never met a white person who decided to take on anti-racism work because of the negative effects of racism on white people. Literally, never. And I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who genuinely supports feminist ideals because of the ways they benefit men first. If I did know people like this, I wouldn’t like them. I’d question why the often brutal oppression of people of color and women and especially women of color wasn’t enough to get them interested, but having an epiphany about the ways men and/or white people are kinda also hurt by these constructs because “something something society and also men should be able to cry, too” made them jump right on board." Black Girl Dangerous

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[TW: Graphic descriptions of sexual violence]

"Her study Male Rape and Human Rights notes incidents of male sexual violence as a weapon of wartime or political aggression in countries such as Chile, Greece, Croatia, Iran, Kuwait, the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia." Guardian

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Very soon Bruges will boast an underground pipeline carrying beer...

"Instead of making the three-mile drive in one of dozens of tankers that traverse town each day, the award-winning beer will flow through a 1.8-mile polyethylene pipeline, making the trip in 15 to 20 minutes. The pipeline will move 6,000 liters of beer every hour," Slate

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As always, Cracked has a talent for ruining interesting source material with gratuitous use of the word "crazy" and its cognates, but this is nevertheless worth a read (listen to the audio of a Khoisan "click language" speaker!) Cracked

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"Nutt ... says the justification for banning LSD and hallucinogens was a "concoction of lies" about their health impacts, combined with a denial of their potential as research tools and treatments." Guardian

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"Fukuyama cites figures showing the worldwide middle class expanding from 1.8 billion people in 2009 to a projected 4.9 billion in 2030. As their incomes rise, he argues, they demand rule of law to protect their property and then demand political participation to safeguard their social standing. They do so not just to defend their economic interests but also for moral reasons. Beyond a certain level of status and income, people become insulted when authoritarian systems of rule treat them as disobedient children." Atlantic

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This is probably the stupidest argument I've seen in a long time. Yes, human error can cause problems when automation fails. But there probably would have been lots more human error if there had been less automation!

"Carr takes a look at two commercial airline crashes in 2009 that cost the lives of nearly 300 people. Both were blamed on pilot error. Each highly automated plane had experienced a significant but manageable malfunction. But each flight crew had reacted in exactly the wrong way — as if they’d forgotten how to fly. Excessive reliance on automation may have taken a deadly toll." Boston Globe

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Guardian piece on the porn industry in Britain. Predictably, they get many more quotes from Object and other such hand-wringers than they do from actual performers.

Links, Monday 29th September

"In almost every region of the world where secular governments have been established with a goal of separating religion and politics, a counter-cultural movement has developed in response, determined to bring religion back into public life. What we call “fundamentalism” has always existed in a symbiotic relationship with a secularisation that is experienced as cruel, violent and invasive." Guardian

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"the South African job market still reflects our racialised, gendered and economic exploitative past. White men and white women still have it good in South Africa, and as a group, they have the smallest chance of being unemployed." Daily Maverick

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"Washington’s rate of violent crime against whites is lower than the national average. White skin is quite literally a protection from harm. But it doesn’t insulate your property values. That requires extra vigilance. The fact is, these [black] boys have much more to fear from the whites living alongside them. We can leverage state violence against them — we can call the cops. On message boards, police officers urge gentrifiers to report any “suspicious activity,” which includes legal activity such as walking, talking and standing. Smoking weed in the alley? Call the cops. A group of teenagers talking loudly? Call the cops. Litter? Call the cops, just whatever you do, don’t actually approach people! State repression is the solution to all problems." Jacobin

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Another piece involving Jane Jacobs and gentrification...

"Jacobs and other neighborhood activists advocated for cities that welcomed pedestrians with a mix of commercial and residential uses in each neighborhood. Her advocacy probably saved many American cities from turning into mini-Metropolises pulsing with highways, but neighborhood preservation ultimately spawned its own kinds of problems. The ideal Jacobsian neighborhoods didn’t benefit everyone—sometimes they gentrified, and locals were pushed out in favor of wealthier transplants." Slate

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"I don’t dispute that Oxford produces world-class thinkers, but it also churns out world-class bullshitters." Spectators

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Woohoo!

"From the early hours of Saturday 12 September, the ‘Night Tube’ service will begin, transporting London travellers around some parts of the network through the night on Fridays and Saturdays, ending the night bus woes of many." Londonist

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A basic introduction to the idea of a universal basic income Vox

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"Pity porn is the depiction of sex workers as victims lacking in agency, as if we are incapable of speaking for ourselves, as if we are in need of rescue or rehabilitation. This is a view that fundamentally denies our autonomy over our own bodies, seeks to undermine sex workers’ struggles to have our human rights recognised, and places non sex workers’ voices as more important in dialogues about our lives and our rights. This is unacceptable." Guardian

Links, Sunday 28th September

"Lt. Col. Kakar was a high profile policewoman who fought for women’s rights and against extremism and terrorism until she was assassinated on her way to work at a Kandahar police station.

Ms Slezic says her memory has been “desecrated” by Britain First and the Australian Palmer United senator Jacqui Lambie, who shared Britain First’s post on her Facebook wall." Independent

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" if [we] were gathering around just one demand today, one thing that we could ask for with one voice, it would be a global carbon tax, with revenues redistributed directly back to people through a global universal basic income." Jacobin

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So cute. <3 Pink News

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A suggestion for devolution of the UK at the regional level. Restless Realist

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An interesting rundown of experiments in plant growth conducted under microgravity conditions. Slate

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The best way to make money is to... have money. 

"although Gates has given an astounding $38 billion to his charitable foundation, thanks to Larson, he's getting richer faster than he give his money away." Slate

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Huh

"[Star Trek] Into Darkness looks an awful lot like an allegory for the worldview of 9/11 "Truthers," who believe that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the American government to justify an invasion of the Middle East... Before we get into the details, keep this in mind: this movie -- which is about a space terrorist being used as an excuse to further a secret space military agenda (in space) -- was co-written by Roberto Orci, who's espoused Truther sentiments on Twitter" Cracked

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"These studies strongly suggest that the media fixation on covert drink spiking with a pill or powder is misplaced, and that such acts are vanishingly rare. They show that it is alcohol we should be wary of." Guardian

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"turn your gaze to a flat on an abandoned council estate in east London. Thanks to a group of self-taught, radicalised women, real political action is happening there. We should support it." Guardian

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"This is the Oranjezicht City Farm, which stands on part of what was the farm belonging to the biggest slave owner in the Cape Colonies, Pieter van Breda, a man who quite possibly, as this was the custom of the time, would have forced himself sexually on his female slaves.

This is unremarked in Oranjezicht City Farm’s own literature. The website’s mention of his offspring Michiel van Breda’s private orchestra is treated with a Victorian flutter, rendering it charmingly old-timey without baring the fact that this orchestra was comprised of imprisoned slaves who had been roughly torn from Asia, Madagascar, Mozambique, southern Tanzania and the east African coast, as well as the Khoe and San from the supposed hinterlands beyond the ­Liesbeek River in the Cape." City Press

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"even after you account for education, age, income, and foreign birth, lighter-skinned Latinos and Asians are more likely to identify and vote Republican than their darker-skinned counterparts." Slate

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The Conservative Party opposes human rights. What a surprise. Guardian

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This comes from a very "how can we improve our profits" angle, but wage transparency is basically a radical cause. If some people earn more than others, they should be able to publicly justify that difference, or take a pay cut. Slate

Links, Sunday 21st September

Some questionable language in this article, including a truly WTF title, but nevertheless an interesting brief history of the sex trade in Johannesburg. City Press

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"Assume $90 trillion is likely to be spent on infrastructure anyway over the next 15 years, and it would take only an additional $4 trillion to rapidly scale up climate-friendly alternatives. The biggest issue is, at current rates, an additional $9 trillion would be spent in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry over the same time span—a gross misallocation of funds if we’re serious about tackling global warming." Slate

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“it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” Slate

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"It’s weird that no one worries about the implications of hitting children on a body part that is culturally and biologically sexual. After all, the spankings I so “repulsively” enjoy are physically identical to the spankings that 81 percent of American parents and hundreds of U.S. school districts inflict or condone." Slate

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"Studies report that doubling the number of cyclists results in a one-third reduction in the number of car-bike collisions." Vancourier

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When the Bolshevik's captured the Tsar's Winter Palace during the 1917 revolution, citizens access to the Palace wine cellars resulted in such civil disorder that the new authorities felt the need to impose martial law. Cracked

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There'll be many more people in the world by the end of the century. Lots of challenges, lots of opportunities.

"A ground-breaking analysis released on Thursday shows there is a 70% chance that the number of people on the planet will rise continuously from 7bn today to 11bn in 2100." Guardian

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Yet another drive for nuclear power in South Africa, just as small-scale renewable generation is starting to become more economical. smh Amabhungane

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"to say Sex Work is not Sex Trafficking is to reify the current trafficking narrative, accepting that it refers to something real and bad that must be fought against... It throws under the bus all migrants, documented or not, who don’t much like selling sex and don’t call themselves sex workers but don’t want to be saved or deported." Laura Augustin

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An argument for the social function of science fiction.

"Good SF supplies a plausible, fully thought-out picture of an alternate reality in which some sort of compelling innovation has taken place. A good SF universe has a coherence and internal logic that makes sense to scientists and engineers." WPI

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You still base your life around what your invisible friend tells you to do, so maybe let's not start throwing stones...

"I have a PhD in Islamic studies from Oxford University, unlike my opponents who went to some donkey college in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia." BBC

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Most news outlets LOVE portraying cyclists as dangerous maniacs. Case in point, this London newspaper has seen fit to report on a traffic incident that happened in New York. Not only that, they've seen fit to publish a picture of the cyclist, even though he hasn't been charged with anything. I'm sure they were partly prompted in this decision by the fact that he is black and wears his hair in dreads. They way they've reported it sets out to imply that he is at fault without any factual basis: "It was unclear whether or not he had ignored a red traffic light." They also make much of the fact that he was not in the cycle lane, despite the fact that this is perfectly legal. Metro (via donotlink)

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This is what happens when you try to make fair and scientifically objective decisions on the basis of something - gender - that is neither fair nor scientific. MIC

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Wowzers, did you know that "Not being a willing sexual partner with your spouse" is a form of infidelity? FamilyShare

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"There is by now evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety." Mother Jones

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Wowzers, videos of people doing ordinary things from the perspective of an MRI scanner. Youtube

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"strikingly, 75 percent of Ebola victims are women, people who do much of the care work throughout Africa and the rest of the world." Slate

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""It's an aspect of my feminism," she says. "We spend so much time taking care of ourselves in ways that men don't, because of the beauty standards that society has for women... it's a total inequality. That's one small reason why I say; 'fine, essentially, y'all set this up, therefore you are going to pay for it!'."

Who? "The men, obviously," she smiles. And how are they going to pay for it? "In cash. I take their money. Of all the people who are living and working in this capitalist patriarchy, sex workers are winning. We have good strategy. People say it cheapens the experience," she laughs. "No, it doesn't, it makes it more expensive." Independent

Links, Wednesday 17th September

It's worth pointing out that it's not inherently dangerous (or even expensive) to travel between North Africa and Europe - lot's of middle class Europeans do it for their holidays. The reason tragedies like this occur is that European immigration and border policies make it impossible to migrate legally, or even migrate *illegally* but in a safe way. These policies place desperate migrants into the hands of people traffickers who are unable to guarantee safety at best, and are dangerous criminals at worst.

"About 500 migrants are feared to have drowned after the boat carrying them from Egypt to Malta was apparently rammed and deliberately sunk by people-traffickers, an intergovernmental group has said." Guardian

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What does it say about the state of Israeli democracy that soldiers who blow the whistle on illegal activities carried out by the IDF are themselves threatened with criminal sanction?

"Forty-three Israeli military intelligence reservists who signed a letter refusing to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories have been denounced as criminal by defence minister Moshe Ya'alon, as the country's political and military leadership turned its fire on the refuseniks." Guardian

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So apparently it's still standard in the US military to refer to enemy-controlled territory as "Indian Country"... Jacobin

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"compared with white families, black families place an even greater emphasis on following the rules and obeying authority. Given the disproportionate consequences black youth face for their transgressions, this differential is hardly surprising. Yet the disseminators of this lie persist, attempting to convince the nation that African Americans are (“culturally, not biologically!” they hasten to add) simply unable to assess even the most brutally obvious consequences of their actions on their lives." Jacobin

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Not a perfect article, but it does illustrate the harms caused by legalisation (as opposed to proper decriminalisation) of sex work, and how often legalisation is driven by the desire of middle-class residents to "clean up" an area as opposed to actually helping sex workers.

""We used to have so-called '10-euro hotels' in Vienna — small, self-organized establishments close to the street walker's patch where sex workers could take clients and 20 minutes cost €10," Knappik said. "The fee was paid by the customer, rooms had showers and bathrooms, and the situation was generally safe because other sex workers were present."

The solution in his eyes is not to install wooden carports in the outskirts, but to let sex workers return to those downtown locations where they have been working safely for decades. "We are against centralization and ghettoization," Knappik said. "Street prostitution was made impossible in 2011 and now we are offered a 10 percent improvement. We want to go back to the start. The women have to be able to stand in front of the love hotels downtown."" Vice

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If anyone needs an insight into South African road etiquette...

“The light turned green and they were still crossing. He didn’t hoot or nudge them gently with his bumper. Thank goodness that the Metrobus driver behind him mounted the pavement and drove around him, scattering the pedestrians. Of course, the bus wiped out and took out some other cars but I managed to shoot through the intersection before the police cordoned off the road. Otherwise I would have missed my yoga class.” ZA News

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"The average price of a London home is now up to £514,000 — $833,000 at current exchange rates — which is clearly far more than the cost of constructing a decent place for a family to live. Under the circumstances, you'd think there would be a huge opportunity here, with tons and tons of new-built flats under construction in London and selling for £400,000 a piece and the city's population booming. But it doesn't happen because of planning and zoning restrictions. The dynamic leaves the city with a few signature prestige projects like the Shard under way in London, but nothing like the kind of mass construction of mid-rise middle class housing that there's robust market demand for." Vox

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I'll get to writing, just as soon as I've finished reading this... Atlantic

Links, Tuesday 16th September

We know our place, we do. *touches forelock*

"Live television coverage of a speech by Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC, was cut off this morning minutes after she had warned of a return to a “Downton Abbey” society –  for a newsflash announcing that the Duchess of Cambridge is expecting her second child." Indepedent

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"A 2002 study conducted by researchers at the University of New Mexico and published in the journal Addiction showed that motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy and naltrexone, which are often used together, are far more effective in stopping or reducing drug and alcohol use than the faith-and-abstinence-based model of A.A. and other “TSF” — for 12-step facilitation — programs. Results of an updated study have not yet been released." NY Times

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A handy little infographic about contraceptive methods NY Times

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"It looks like it would almost be better for government to hire all those non-ferrous metal [aluminium] workers, pay them their current salaries for doing nothing, and shut down that sector entirely. Easier than building another Medupi." Rolling Alpha

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"conflicts that in Sweden or Japan would be solved through quiet consultations between interested parties in the bureaucracy are fought out through formal litigation in the U.S. court system. This has a number of unfortunate consequences for public administration, leading to a process characterized, in Farhang’s words, by “uncertainty, procedural complexity, redundancy, lack of finality, high transaction costs.” By keeping enforcement out of the bureaucracy, it also makes the system far less accountable." Foreign Affairs

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This is some really serious shit. The UN and donor countries generally need to get on the case.

"In a worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the [ebola] outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014." Wired

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What do people think of this argument?

"But to reduce this as an opposition to black wealth is a mistake. It ignores that there exists a special relationship between us, the common black folk, and the black owners of capital.

We celebrate black success because we expected liberation for one would be liberation for all. Those are the terms under which the struggle was waged. But when political freedom came, it became a case of every person for themselves. Black politicians declared that they did not struggle to be poor and black capitalists proclaimed it was their turn to eat, abandoning previously held notions of a collective struggle." City Press

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A little bit about what it's actually like to have schizophrenia... Cracked

Links, Friday 12th Sept

"If you write about the history of slavery, you become used to the pattern: No matter how many accounts you cite from ex-slaves, people often say they need more information before they can accept what former cotton pickers say about how cotton picking worked." Guardian

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"In his recent biography on Biko, Xolela Mangcu recalls that in Ginsburg in the1980s, "UDF crowds would in their hundreds go and sing in front of Steve Biko's house: U-Steve Biko, I-CIA – alleging Steve had worked for the CIA."... Others have paid the price for this over the last ten years too: the Landless Peoples’ Movement, the Anti-Privatization Forum, Treatment Action Campaign, Abahlali baseMjondolo, Unemployed People's Movement, and the striking mineworkers of Marikana have all been labelled tools of imperialism." Groundup

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"After four years of painstaking effort, and by using a magnetometer, a ground-penetrating radar (GPR), and a 3D laser scanner, archaeologists have shown that Stonehenge was once a sprawling complex that extended for miles." iO9

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This says it all, really.

"The woman at the centre of the Supreme Court case which overturned the country's prostitution laws has been thrown out of a Senate hearing studying a proposed replacement law." cp24

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A better review.

"On the eve of the civil war, property rights in stolen labor were more valuable than all the industrial capital in the United States put together. Per capita wealth among the white population was highest in the most slave-intensive states. And slavery-fueled politicians were eying further expansion of slave agriculture both into the American southwest and into Cuba and other portions of Latin America.

[Baptist's] point is that this system was not an aberration pitted against the rising world of Victorian capitalism. Instead, it was an integral element of the emerging order. Follow the free market thread from the customer to the shop to the factory to the textile supplier and you'd find forced labor on land confiscated violently from its indigenous inhabitants." Vox

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"According to SWEAT, fear of baby snatching had been reported by a number of sex workers who were mothers. However, these fears were not directed at pimps, but at police and social workers ‘who take away kids because they feel that a sex worker is an unfit mother’" ZAM

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"The signatories include officers, former instructors and senior NCOs from the country’s equivalent of America’s NSA or Britain’s GCHQ, known as Unit 8200 – or in Hebrew as Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim.

They allege that the “all-encompassing” intelligence the unit gathers on Palestinians – much of it concerning innocent people – is used for “political persecution” and to create divisions in Palestinian society." Guardian

Links, Tuesday 9th Sept

"Movies tend to portray those hand signals as the key to a stealthy night operation, but hand signals generally aren't visible at night. However, hand signals are great when your ears get ruined by tinnitus:

"Yeah, those cool hand signals you see in movies? They aren't to make us stealthier during assaults or whatever -- they're because combat deafens people," Jerry says." Cracked

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"While the inability for same-sex couples to marry has pushed many to label themselves “second-class citizens”, I find it difficult to completely sympathize with their plight – and the money they’ve spent to end it – when so many LGBT youth are living and dying in the streets everyday with no end in sight." Guardian

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"In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist." NY Times

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"With the condescension of posterity, it’s easy to dismiss the British colonists in Van Diemen’s Land as monsters, genocidal racists carrying out atrocities for reasons unfathomable to liberal-minded folk of the twenty-first century. Yet, precisely as Israeli officials explained the assault on Gaza as a defensive reaction to Hamas’ rockets, the Tasmanian settlers saw themselves as victims, driven to violence by the terror inflicted by the natives." Jacobin

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Another awesome policy which I'm sure will continue to be discussed right up until election day and then die a quiet, mysterious death.

"Personal possession of all drugs should be decriminalised, the Liberal Democrats announced today." Politics.co.uk

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"Market cap to GDP (Buffet’s favorite measure of market valuation) now stands at roughly double it’s pre-bubble mean, second only to the dot com bubble (a level reached once in recorded history and now less than 20% away)." Monkey Mind

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"The videos also show that police claims they used lethal force as a last resort are clearly false... In fact, the jets of water are shown to be aimed towards the rear of the lead group, pushing them towards the waiting line of Tactical Response cops armed with R5 rifles. Around the same time, stun grenades also go off towards the rear of the protesters. In effect, the miners are clearly seen to run away from these non-lethal attacks towards the TRT." Daily Maverick

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Does anyone else notice an issue out of place here...?

"As part of the frontbench team of the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, Malhotra will work on issues including sexual violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, trafficking and prostitution." Guardian

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"In the past two months, five sex workers have been murdered in Cape Town. Three of the victims were under 26. Advocacy organisations partly blame the continued criminalization of sex work." Groundup

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Wooohoo!

"Key populations are considered the most at risk for HIV infection and transmission, and are often discriminated against by communities and by health-care workers.

The new clinic - run by the NGO, TB/HIV Care Association in partnership with Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) - provides screening for diseases, HIV and Aids testing, sexually transmitted infections, and offers counselling and viral check-ups among other services." IOL

Links, Sunday 7th September

Yikes, WTF Economist? Vox (The full article, preceded by an apology, is available here )

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I have not heard of them before, but the London Black Revolutionary Socialists, but they are doing good work. Be aware.

"Since they got their hands on the documents – which the Mail reckoned must have come from a Home Office mole – the Black Revs and other activists have been tearing up and down the country, using UKBA’s own intelligence to inform the identified businesses that they might want to disappear for a couple of weeks, and what their legal rights are in the event of a raid." Vice

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"Rivers often zinged herself too, but isn't that also a form of woman-bashing? Indeed, it seems Rivers' shrewdness was in recognizing a patriarchal appetite for misogynistic humor -- and exploiting it." Huff Post

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Excellent acronym, guys.

"OGOD’s chairperson, Hans Pietersen told News24 that he is taking two ministers and six schools to task for using taxpayers’ money to suppress the scientific teaching of evolution, and for religious coercion and abuse of learners’ rights." News24

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"Far from expressing penitence, the anonymous prostitute accused the reformers of rank hypocrisy. “You the pious, the moral, the respectable, as you call yourselves … why stand you on your eminence shouting that we should be ashamed of ourselves? What have we to be ashamed of, we who do not know what shame is?”" Laura Augustin

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This guy sounds like kind of a dick himself, but... Seriously, a service entrance to a camp at Burning Man?! David Kiss

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"we should think about the way that sexual labour is connected to the unpaid, underpaid, and exploited work that women–and to a much lesser, but still important extent, men–perform in order to sustain the global capitalist economy. And instead of trying to divorce prostitution from work, we should think instead about the ways that our own demand for licit goods and services is entangled with the illicit and sexual economy, and the ways in which we are complicit in the much wider exploitation of labour."

Notches

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"Boars accustomed to crate breeding at a young age were more compliant about entering the crate when they were older. An aged boar unaccustomed to the crate might violently resist, circumstances, in turn, that ruined hog erections." Notches

Links, Friday 5th Sept

This dude is cool.

"There's one [a supernova] that happened in 2008: we detected this really weak gamma-ray burst, but what was crazy about it was that it was visible with the naked eye, even though it came from the other side of the universe, 4 or 5 billion light years away. There are no other galaxies, even ones immediately adjacent to us, that are bright enough to see with the naked eye--except for Andromeda, which is pretty faint. And this thing was lit up, shining so bright you could see it across the universe. We worked out at one point it was outshining a good 10 or 15% of the rest of the universe combined, for some definition of words in that sentence. If that thing happened anywhere in our galaxy, it could have sterilized the Earth's surface." Rolling Stone

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"Part of the reason why the family built the Labia Theatre, the Mail & Guardian recorded a few years ago, was out of gratitude to the South African government at not detaining them during World War II." Daily Maverick

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A smart guy saying a smart thing.

"Sweden’s international influence is not well-deserved, since the law has been demonstrably detrimental in terms of exacerbating the harms that can be associated with sex work, detrimentally impacting service provision and harm reduction, increasing stigma and social exclusion, and I also emphasise that the law has failed to reduce levels of sex work, which was the principal aim of the legislation. So, the law has failed to achieve its goal, and it’s been hugely damaging." Ruth Jacobs

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[TW: suicide]

"Suicidal tendencies are transitory," said Dr Shekhar Saxena, director of the department of mental health and substance abuse at the WHO and an author of the report. "People who have an intense desire to commit suicide grab the nearest possible means. If you can restrict their access even for a few hours, you can save a lot of lives. People think about it and talk to people and decide not to do it." Guardian

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"What they refer to as “the council” are trying to change a policy that has been around since the horse-and-cart days. At the moment, the crew can go home whenever they finish their work. This means that they can work as hard as they want, and often get to travel home around two o’clock. For some who travel far, like Redewaan James, whose home is in Mitchell’s Plain and who wakes up at four-thirty each morning, this is precious time." Daily Maverick

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[TW: sex while unconscious]

This is how strong the hold of heteropatriarchal monogamy is in our society: This dude's wife hates having sex with him so much she'd rather be unconscious when it happens. And this advice columnist thinks that this is a *totally legit solution*. smh Slate

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"This case highlights the same well-known and extensively documented problems that can lead to false arrests and convictions: Police who are incentivized to find any suspect quickly, rather than the right one carefully; false confessions elicited after improper questioning; exculpatory evidence never turned over; the prosecution of vulnerable, mentally ill, or very young suspects in ways that take advantage of their innocence rather than protecting it; prosecutorial zeal that has far more to do with the pursuit of victories than the pursuit of truth; and a death penalty appeals system that treats this entire screwed-up process of investigation and conviction as both conclusive and unreviewable." Slate

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A bit more context to the Ferguson situation:

"Some of the towns in St. Louis County can derive 40 percent or more of their annual revenue from the petty fines and fees collected by their municipal courts. A majority of these fines are for traffic offenses, but they can also include fines for fare-hopping on MetroLink (St. Louis’s light rail system), loud music and other noise ordinance violations, zoning violations for uncut grass or unkempt property, violations of occupancy permit restrictions, trespassing, wearing “saggy pants,” business license violations and vague infractions such as “disturbing the peace” or “affray” that give police officers a great deal of discretion to look for other violations.... There’s also a widely held sentiment that the police spend far more time looking for petty offenses that produce fines than they do keeping these communities safe." Washington Post

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A good summary of the most research research on behavioural factors relating to HIV transmission. Bottom line: the contribution of "sugar daddy" relationships, multiple concurrent relationships and "reckless" behaviour in people who know their positive status to overall transmission are considerably oversold. O'Neil Institute

Links, Wednesday 3rd September

Never forget: while left-wing religious fundamentalists are okay on some issues, any commitment they have to human rights is basically accidental. Irish Times

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This in the context where many countries still require forced sterilisation or other unwanted medical interventions before a person is allowed to formally transition.

"Unlike in most of the countries that allow new gender recognition, trans people in Denmark now do not even need a medical expert statement, but can simply self-determine. There are still restrictions – the minimum age is 18, and there is a six-month waiting period before the person has to reconfirm their wish to have their gender legally changed – but the law seems to be moving in the right direction." Guardian

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What does it say about me that I sort of resent having to give credit to Nick Clegg for doing a good thing?

"The major new initiative, first announced by Nick Clegg in 2013, will see every five to seven-year-old at England’s 16,500 primary schools eligible for free dinners." Guardian

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Huh

"Your science teacher was wrong. Not about genetics as a concept -- that's pretty solid -- but about tongue rolling being an example of it. As early as the 1950s, studies had already been done that showed rolling your tongue isn't a trait passed down from your parents. It's something you learn." Cracked

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"In March 1985, Wales and Lesotho established the world’s first nation-to-nation twinning." M&G

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"The long-running attempts to break into high-profile users' accounts could explain how photos from as long ago as December 2011 – two months after Apple launched iCloud – could appear in the lists of files held by some group members." Guardian

Links, Monday 1st September

"The Commission of Inquiry into Policing in Khayelitsha has identified “serious, overlapping (policing) inefficiencies”. These include a lack of regular patrols, unanswered phones at police stations, poor detective work, wide-spread vigilante killings and policing based on “chance and luck” and not on “intelligence”." Groundup

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"I have regrets, of course. Nobody's saying we were saints. But in the whole time I was smuggling pot, I never saw a gun until those DEA agents knocked on my door. And no one died bringing that weed to America until the law came down on Steve [a cop who killed himself when he was indicted]." Cracked

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[TW: sexual violence]

This whole story is absolute horrible, and demonstrates how the police and universities continue effectively to condone rape by reinforcing impunity. Medium

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"or her book Just One of the Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality, sociologist Kristen Schilt interviewed dozens of FTM (female to male) transgender individuals. One subject noted that when he expresses an opinion, everyone in a meeting now writes it down. Another noted, "When I was a woman, no matter how many facts I had, people were like, “Are you sure about that?’ It’s so strange not to have to defend your positions." When they suggested women for promotions, other men said, “Oh! I hadn’t thought about her”—they were able to promote women because their advice was taken more seriously. Personality traits that had been viewed negatively when they were women were now seen as positives. “I used to be considered aggressive,” said one subject. “Now I'm considered 'take charge.' People say, ‘I love your take-charge attitude.’"" New Republic

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"The treated monkeys were exposed to a lethal level of Ebola before receiving three doses of ZMapp starting three, four and five days after infection. The treatment reversed their symptoms including excessive bleeding, rashes, and liver damage. Three weeks after they were infected, no trace of the virus could be detected in the infected animals' blood." Guardian

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Well shit.

"Lesotho Prime Minister Tom Thabane confirmed on Saturday that the military had seized power in a coup and that he had fled to neighbouring South Africa in fear of his life." M&G

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"...research has generally shown that the strongest predictor of an accident isn't speeding, but variance from the average speed of traffic — and a car going five miles per hour slower than the surrounding traffic has a greater chance of causing an accident than one going five miles per hour faster than it." Vox

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"South Africa’s schools are a hostile environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex pupils, said gender activists this week. Because these LGBTI pupils do not conform to prescribed male and female gender roles, they get assaulted and bullied. A fifth have attempted suicide and a fifth have been raped or sexually assaulted, according to research." M&G

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"With rare exceptions, like the business meeting you wanted an excuse to miss, passengers are never happy to have their flight cancelled. But it may be good for you to have someone else’s flight cancelled. In particular, strategically cancelling a small number of flights and inconveniencing a small number of passengers can prevent delays and other hassles for a far larger number of passengers." New Republic

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:(

"China has endorsed a framework for the first direct election in Hong Kong in two years, but stopped short of allowing citizens of the special administrative region from directly nominating candidates, which activists have been demanding." Al Jazeera

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"The first woman I "healed" just had a cold. Like a lot of people who agree to stand up in front of a congregation and talk about their illness, she had a thing for exaggeration. That's one of the first things you learn about faith healing -- you're not the only one operating a con." Cracked