I know ‘thirteen’ is just another number but I cannot entirely escape 42 years of socialisation. So it manages to get two sentences that it so doesn’t deserve. Anyway, another week, another collection of articles that have caught my attention. Articles that have made the slightest of slight dents in the mountain of my ignorance.
The first two pieces I read today and coincidentally (there’s no such thing as luck, honestly) cover similar territory. Difficult territory for this white, straight, able bodied man who fancies himself to be a writer. I made an effort this year to read as many books written by women as by men. The reading part isn’t actually an effort, it’s the remembering to choose female writers. Fortunately, as I prefer fantasy and science fiction, I have several quality women writers to choose from. As for people of colour and members of the LGBTQ community I have just begun that search..
As usual there is a slew of Trump stuff. Thank Gandalf we are in the final straight of that clown show. And there is a mix of science and philosophy that I don’t always understand but still feel better for having read them.
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“Stefanie Preissner, the show’s writer, has created something that is raw and relevant and laugh-out-loud hilarious. However when I was scrolling through my Twitter feed, it became clear to me that not everyone agreed and all too often, the criticism levelled at the programme seemed to be gendered.” Do men just instinctively dislike movies and TV shows that star women?
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“The problem is predominantly two-fold: lack of diverse representation in fictional characters and lack of diverse representation amongst successful (and by this I mean traditionally published or writers/directors/etc of film and TV) content creators. In this way, the silencing of diverse voices is happening at both ends. It is a dangerous cycle of oppression.” Ingrained prejudice: How do we change our defaults?
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“Some believe that many of those who support Donald Trump do so because of ignorance — basically they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand. When Trump tells them that crime is skyrocketing in the United States, or that the economy is the worst it’s ever been, they simply take his word for it.” The Psychology Behind Donald Trump’s Unwavering Support
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“Earned media typically dwarfs paid media in a campaign. The big difference between Mr. Trump and other candidates is that he is far better than any other candidate — maybe than any candidate ever — at earning media.” $2 Billion Worth of Free Media for Donald Trump
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“Clinton’s successful execution of this strategy has been, fittingly, the product of traits that she’s often criticized for: her caution, her overpreparation, her blandness. And her particular ability to goad Trump and blunt the effectiveness of his political style has been inextricable from her gender. The result has been a political achievement of awesome dimensions, but one that Clinton gets scarce credit for because it looks like something Trump is doing, rather than something she is doing — which is, of course, the point.” Hillary Clinton’s 3 debate performances left the Trump campaign in ruins
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“Politicians are too afraid to speak out against the EU referendum result because they’re scared they’ll be accused of undermining democracy. And sensible journalists are also mostly too afraid to speak out, lest they’re accused of being in a middle-class, out-of-touch establishment bubble – which most of them obviously are anyway.” The Brexit vote wasn’t democracy in action. It was populist ignorance on a grand scale.
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“These findings directly refute the argument that women are particularly conflicted about having abortions — an assumption that has led to the proliferation of GOP-sponsored laws requiring ultrasounds, additional counseling visits, and extended waiting periods intended to help women make a difficult decision.” Science says women are quite certain about having an abortion
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“Some women cannot travel and are forced to carry a fetus to term. In one of the most shocking and high profile cases in Ireland, a refugee known only as Miss Y arrived in the country to claim asylum in March 2014. A week later, she found out that she was pregnant and requested that she travel overseas for an abortion. She stated that the baby was conceived due to rape and became suicidal. She was refused. In August, after a protracted hunger strike in a maternity hospital, a baby boy was delivered prematurely through cesarean section.” ‘How Do You Bring a Body Home?’: The Woman Forced to Carry an Unviable Pregnancy
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“For Smith, natural liberty was not an axiom. He made exceptions to it and acknowledged that he was doing so. Still, it is his main principle, and the burden of proof is on those who would contravene it.” The Origin of ‘Liberalism’
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“After a lengthy phone conversation with her headteacher last year, we were given the choice to take her out of the Bible sessions and sit her in a classroom where she could colour in or play with any other kids who had been removed. Knowing our daughter would be utterly mortified to be excluded in such a way, and would see it as a punishment, we opted to let her stay with the rest of her class and see where it took her.” Motherhood: Striving for a broader church
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“Consequentialism is the moral theory that we are obligated to do whatever would have the best consequences. If that entails great sacrifice, then great sacrifice is what consequentialism demands we undertake. Since Schindler could have done more, he should have.” Being moral means you can never do enough
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“The capuchins make the fragments unintentionally while bashing rocks into dust, the researchers find. Some scientists say that the results call into question whether some stone tools have been incorrectly attributed to hominins — including 3.3-million-year-old artefacts from Kenya that are the oldest on record.” Monkey ‘tools’ raise questions over human archaeological record
