Category: Stuff (Page 4 of 5)

Haven’t been able to do a lot reading this week. I’m taking part in the annual NaNoWriMo madness. This is a competition where participants are expected to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. For people like me that means completing a 50,000 word first draft. More accomplished writers might be able to manage more than a rough draft but I certainly don’t want to do anymore than get that draft done.

The problem I have with first drafts is that I can’t switch off that part of my brain that imagines it being read. A first draft should be for the writer alone. This ridiculous deadline makes it easier for me to ignore my worries about unfleshed out ideas, poor grammar, plot holes and weird inconsistencies.

I’m four days in and still full of enthusiasm. I just hope that enthusiasm lasts.

Again there are US presidential election and Brexit nonsense to read. Thank Gandalf the election will be over by next week. No doubt all the news will end then. I’ve also included a piece about pensions. It’s a bit right wing in tone but the issue remains important. Especially for someone like me as I can’t help thinking it will have all fallen apart by the time I’m due to retire, even if I have to wait until I’m 70.

Finally do please consider checking out my one and only completed novel over on Amazon.

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“And the principle means the tabloids used to obtain this result was the “endless xenophobic nudges of its immigration coverage.” Of course these newspapers will say they were just expressing their readers fears, but when they are reduced to making up stories to encourage this fear any claim to innocence becomes very hollow. Fueling anti-immigration feeling was their version of a southern strategy, and Brexit saw its culmination.” Brexit and neoliberalism

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“Demonology aside, most conservatives and Republicans—and yes, many non-conservatives and non-Republicans—will recognize many of the factual predicates of the critiques of Hillary Clinton’s methods and character. The Clintons sold access to a present secretary of state and a potential future president in pursuit of personal wealth. Hillary Clinton does indeed seem a suspicious and vindictive personality. For sure, a President Clinton will want to spend and regulate even more than the Obama administration has done. Like Henny Youngman, however, the voter must always ask: compared to what?” The Conservative Case for Voting for Clinton

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“Geraldine “Jerry” Emmett, 102, was born before the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and lived through the women’s suffrage movement. She’s a Democrat and now lives in Arizona.” Arizona woman born before women’s suffrage votes for Clinton

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“Contemporary sexism is mainly ambivalent in nature. We often hold both positive (benevolent) and negative (hostile) attitudes to women (and men). Hostile sexism involves old-fashioned and overt negativity towards women, whereby they are perceived as wanting to control men. It reflects beliefs that men should have more power than women, that women may use their sexuality to benefit from men’s higher status and that women are less competent than men.” Why do so many women oppose feminism? A psychologist explains

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“When I visit high schools with my novels, I always encourage teenage girls to call themselves feminists because I believe all girls need feminism. They need it to safeguard the rights they already have and those inequalities still not fought. I have always been a feminist, but it’s from feminists that I’ve faced my harshest criticisms.” Call yourself a feminist?

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“I am a veteran of 3 Caesarean Sections. When I read the phrase “grievous assault”, my blood ran cold and my uterus contracted because that’s how I felt. Assaulted. I was not too posh or too old to push. During my first labour I was told that if I didn’t push the baby out by 5.30pm the doctor was going to come in and give me a section.  I was lying on a bed strapped to a heart monitor with a clock ticking down the next 30 minutes. I was tired, drugged and scared and was in no state to make a stand.  I consented to a section.” Papa Don’t Preach, Repeal the 8th

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“The plot line of the episode is not tied to anything in the history of Beverly’s character. Nor does it depend on her being a doctor or a woman. In theory, any of the major characters could have been the star of this episode. But it is not at all a coincidence that it is Beverly — a woman, a healer, a mother, and Picard’s occasional love interest — who lives out this story.” Star Trek’s Feminist Statement: Believe Women

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“Prof O’Malley-Dunlop says the law should set out clearly the circumstances where consent cannot be given. This would include cases where the complainant was asleep or otherwise unconscious, or too affected by alcohol or drugs to freely agree to sexual activity; while Anne Sexton says a YouTube video, Tea Consent, makes a comical but accurate analogy between making someone a cup of tea and having sex with them.” It’s time to talk about consent

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“The bizarre attack on Max Mosley – the third spread Pendlebury has penned about him this year – was motivated by the former Formula One bosses’ support for Impress, the new press regulatory body. Pendlebury did not mention that the pre-war owner of the Daily Mail, Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, was so excited by the BUF that he personally wrote a full-page editorial headlined ‘ ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’ in January 1934.” Revealed: The Extent of the Daily Mail’s Support for the British Union of Fascists

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“Demographic aging is the social and economic equivalent of climate change: it is a problem that we all know must be addressed, but which we would rather leave for future generations to solve. The impulse to put things off for a later day is understandable, given current economic and political troubles; but when it comes to public pensions, procrastination comes at a high cost – even more so than in the case of global warming.” The Creeping Public-Pension Debacle

To my great surprise I managed to avoid any articles on the car crash that is Trump this week. Though I did read a bit about Brexit, which is a car crash of the same economically marginalised, post-factual and nativist stripe. It is depressing to be already one of those nostalgic types who mourns for a time when things were less stupid.

But there are vampires so at least I’m topical.

As ever, feel free to subscribe to my blog and perhaps take a look at some of my fiction over on Amazon.

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“Britain did not become a different country on 24 June. It did not overnight get taken over by xenophobes and racists and the ignorant. Rather people, and views, that many liberals, and many within the elite, were able previously to ignore, they no longer could.” i want my country back

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“Labour and the Conservatives have always positioned themselves in accordance with the country’s social divisions: Labour for the workers, Tories for the businesspeople. The EU referendum confirmed that this logic no longer applies. Labour has largely split in two: an urban left-wing liberal middle class that voted against Brexit on the one hand and an independent worker class that was in favor of leaving the EU on the other. The Tories, meanwhile, is made up of nationally patriotic EU opponents as well as business-oriented globalists.” Searching for the True Britain

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“Experts had never seen a glacier move like Kolka before. It seemed like the icy equivalent of a pyroclastic flow of hot gas and rock that gushed out of Vesuvius and flattened Pompeii. Most incredibly of all, Kolka had achieved high speeds on a surface that was inclined an average of only six degrees above the horizontal.” When Glaciers Transform Into Deadly 150-mph Avalanches

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“Today, cooking helps us make meat easier to eat and digest, but Lieberman thinks our ancestors started eating meat long before they learned how to roast it. There’s evidence that our early ancestors—upright apes called hominins—were regularly eating meat as far back as 2.5 million years ago, but cooking doesn’t seem to become common until 500,000 years ago” How sliced meat drove human evolution

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“They found that when people were dishonest, activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala—the hub of emotional processing and arousal—changed. With each scenario, the more dishonestly the participant advised his partner, the less activated the amygdala was on the fMRI. That may be because lying triggers emotional arousal and activates the amygdala, but with each additional lie, the arousal and conflict of telling an untruth diminishes, making it easier to lie.” The Fascinating Reason Why Liars Keep On Lying

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“Discreetly nestled away on the first floor of Colchester hospital is a bedroom with a full-width forest mural on the wall, a double-bed with purple floral duvet and a rocking chair in the corner. It is a room where parents spend time with their dead baby.” The bereavement midwife: Is this the saddest job in England?

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“I have bitten my nails for as long as I remember. My fingertips are a state. These stubs won’t score frenzied red tracks down your back. They can barely feel anymore. I think I’ve eaten the very nerves, like vermin cutting through encased wire.” SKINPICKER

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“And yet, as is often the case when it comes to the web, reality is not quite that black and white. As a female football fan myself, I feel lucky that my own encounters with overt sexism online have been few and far between. What I have seen plenty of, however, are deeply knowledgeable, funny and passionate football fans — who also just happen to be women.” How the web is helping women to find their voice in football

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“A New Big Bad: There have been a lot of big, bad threats in all corners of the globe on Game of Thrones for the past six seasons, but the show is now winding down, we assume, to a single major conflict. This means that while all the heroes are likely amassing and readying themselves for battle on one side (see above), the threats will likely be winnowed down to one. And, sorry to say, there’s no way a scheming Lannister is the true big boss of Game of Thrones.Rumor has it there’s a big battle coming, and Cersei will probably be on the wrong side of it. What does that mean for Jaime? We can only guess.” The Game of Thrones Endgame Is Nearer than We Thought

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“Working with the conservative estimate that vampires only need to feed once a month, Efthimiou and Gandhi looked at population stats and concluded that vampires would eliminate humans within three years. Put simply, they said, “vampires cannot exist, since their existence contradicts the existence of human beings.” (They also threw in a bit of sass: “Apparently, whomever devised the vampire legend had failed his college algebra and philosophy courses.”)” Here’s How Long it Would Take for Vampires to Annihilate Humanity

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.

Feel free to subscribe and if you’d like to read some of my fiction please find me on Amazon.

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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

It’s Saturday and the sun is shining down here in Kerry. Hard to feel bad on a beautiful day like this. Then I remember this is the world of Brexit and Trump. Yep, another week of trying to deal with a planet that appears to have lost its mind.

I’ve decided to concentrate on the aspect of Brexit that matters most, sport. OK, maybe doesn’t matter most but these two articles on one aspect of one particular sport is very interesting. I can only imagine the innumerable other issues that Brexit will throw up.

The Trump article is by another Christian publication that slams him as unsuitable for high office. I know it’s looking increasingly unlikely that he’ll win but we should never forget the disgusting forces he unleashed will be used by a future politician who will be able to sell himself better.

I hope you enjoy the links and as ever, consider subscribing and/or heading over to Amazon to check out some of my fiction.

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“But not all evangelical Christians—in fact, alas, most evangelical Christians, judging by the polls—have shown the same critical judgment when it comes to the Republican nominee. True, when given a choice, primary voters who claimed evangelical faith largely chose other candidates. But since his nomination, Donald Trump has been able to count on “the evangelicals” (in his words) for a great deal of support.” Speak Truth to Trump

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“Moderator: I mean should a woman be able to get an abortion after viability, say at 28 weeks or even up to their due date?” “Do you support abortion on demand?” How Hillary Clinton should answer this question

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“The Premier League’s top academies are preparing for life after Brexit. England’s big clubs currently benefit from the European Union’s exception to Fifa’s Article 19, which allows them to sign 16 year olds from Europe, instead of having to wait until the player turns 18. But after the news that the government will be pursuing a ‘hard Brexit’ from the European Union, clubs fear that these days are numbered.” Premier League academies fear losing out on future Hector Bellerins after Brexit vote raises transfer fears

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“Basically, a player who cost €50 million in June would have cost an English club £38.4m. On Tuesday, that same €50m guy would have set a Premier League club back £45.9m.” Premier League shouldn’t be too affected by falling exchange rates

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“The study, which took place over the course of about 6 years, focused on behavioral changes in baby monkeys when they were given vaccines. The study’s findings appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and to the surprise of no one (except science-denying loons), there was no link between vaccines and autism.” Anti-vaxxer group furious after study they funded debunks vaccine-autism link

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“The HPV vaccine saves lives, but as with all vaccination there’s sadly plenty of scaremongering and misinformation – and this can cost lives. In this video, I try to explain why HPV vaccination matters, and why the misconceptions and fears aroud it simply don’t stack up.” The HPV vaccine – untangling the sound and fury

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“I have no doubt that you are tough, and I bet your immune system is something to be very proud of. But the fact is, an estimated 5 percent to 20 percent of the United States population gets the flu each year, Dr. Bresee said. The fact that you’ve never gotten the flu is no indication that you won’t get it in the future. You’re essentially rolling the dice anew each year, and there’s a decent chance you’re eventually gonna get a bad roll.” Let’s Talk a Millennial Into Getting a Flu Shot

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“This sort of total solution promises to assemble the pieces of the jigsaw at one stroke. It is therefore perennially attractive to the type of intelligence that is always looking for ever-more complex ways to stop thinking. This is immediately discernible from the testimonies of ex-believers of one sort or another. The discovery of a complete ideology provides “an answer to every question”, as Arthur Koestler put it when describing the “light which poured in all directions” when he embraced communism.” Islamic State’s absolutism has antecedents in 20th Century communism and fascism

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“A galaxy can be thought of as a factory that produces stars from cold gas, with some galaxies being more productive than others. Therefore, what roughly defines the evolutionary parameters of a galaxy is the rate of star formation, stellar mass, and gas content.” Using oxygen as a tracer of galactic evolution

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“In water alone, when cooling sets in, the long chains snap back into their helix structure so rapidly that there’s no time for the matching process with the shorter chains. That snapping shut, which happens in both RNA and DNA, is called “strand inhibition,” and in living cells, enzymes solve the problem of keeping the long chains apart while gene strands duplicate.” Was the secret spice in primal gene soup a thickener?

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“The question of what Lewis thought he was doing is not quite the same question as “What prompted him to write?” On this, there are various theories. Some biographers, including A N Wilson in his brilliant and contentious study of 1990, have made much of the fact that Lewis began work on The Lion at a time in his life when multiple stresses, personal and intellectual, were driving him back towards a long-lost world of childhood imagination where matters did not have to be settled by constant conflict.” Why did C S Lewis write the Chronicles of Narnia?

To my chagrin I still find myself reading a lot about the Trumpnado across the water. I keep telling myself to ignore it but he stubbornly remains in the race. This is the world we now live in, a place where someone has truly awful as Trump can be a contender for most powerful person on the planet. I don’t think I can write dystopia anymore. We’re already there. Though perhaps his rise to prominence may inspire a burst of utopian literature. Reality has never been so important to re-imagine and/or escape.

There are also a couple of articles on cultural appropriation. One day I’ll have to write something myself on the topic. Of course as a straight white man who likes to write about elves, maybe I don’t need to write about it. But then again my favourite food is Britishified Indian food and my favourite music is the blues, as practiced by the original black artists and as interpreted by Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac.

I hope you enjoy some of the articles and do please consider subscribing to future posts. And finally, as an indie-author (which sounds way cooler than it is) I’m supposed to make regular references to my published works. This is a collection of science-fiction and fantasy  stories I wrote last year. As the name suggests, Death and Duty, the overarching theme is death and duty.

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“The Trump campaign has tapped into this disaffection, and portrayed its candidate as the ‘anti-political’ solution to the failings of liberal democracy. In the first Presidential debate, Trump disparaged politicians no less than ten times and repeatedly held ‘Secretary Clinton and other politicians’ responsible for all of the nation’s problems.” Donald Trump’s White House bid raises major questions about the future of democracy

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“This is the point. Donald Trump lies. All the time. He doesn’t just stretch the truth in the way most politicians do: selectively citing facts that make them look good, deliberately omitting ones that make them look bad, overstating or understating the probable impact of the campaign promises they make.” Donald Trump lies. All the time.

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“I thought I would come home with my blood boiling, ready to fight tyranny. But I didn’t. I came home tired. I’ve spent every day since on the verge of sleepwalking. For awhile I thought it was physical exhaustion, but it wasn’t. It was moral exhaustion. And it hasn’t let up.” HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

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“While “Star Trek” hasn’t always been overtly political, it’s a franchise that was built on a philosophy of humanism, inclusiveness, equality, and an idealistic vision for a peaceful future.” 70 members of Star Trek’s cast and crew just wrote an epic anti-Trump letter.

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“Obviously people who don’t support and won’t vote for Clinton cite a variety of objections, some better than others. But some people clearly view Clinton’s persistent polling lead—Trump’s inability to overtake her in polling averages—as a kind of liberation.” There Is Only One Message for Voters to Send in This Election

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“Compelling data for sure, but Presidents often have to deal with Congress and the Supreme Court … which is why President George W. Bush’s tenure is so informative. Under Bush, Republicans controlled the House and Senate, and 2/3 of the Supreme Court. Bush had sky-high public approval following 9-11, and he and Congressional Republicans owed their 2004 re-election to the overwhelming support from church-going evangelicals and Catholics. And what did Republicans do to overturn Roe or in any meaningful way limit abortion? Nothing.” Hillary Clinton Is the Best Choice for Voters Against Abortion

“She offered a grotesque misrepresentation of what Shriver had said. But on one point Abdel-Magied was accurate. Shriver thinks writers should write what they want. Abdel-Magied thinks they shouldn’t. Unless you are a black African woman, you should not write about black African women unless you grant them copy approval.” The Dead End Of Identity Politics

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My tenth weekly links and today I’m focusing a bit on the Trump debacle in the US. I’ve been trying to ignore it but every week I find myself reading more. I even stayed up to watch the road-crash that was the debate. I just can’t get my head around his continued success. I’ve read a few things about the white working-class feeling left behind but hoping for relief from a narcissistic billionaire must be a self harming mistake.

There is also a short piece about calling oneself a writer. I’ve always struggled with calling myself a writer. It is in my Twitter profile but every time I notice it I feel like a bit of an impostor. But other than white male it is the only label I feel comfortable with. Try squaring that circle. No doubt writing a critically acclaimed best seller would sort that out. Any day now.

I hope you enjoy and do consider subscribing to this blog. Also, have a look at my stories on Amazon.

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“It is time for others who are still undecided, and perhaps hoping for some dramatic change in our politics and governance, to take a hard look and see Mr. Trump for who he is. They have an obligation to scrutinize his supposed virtues as a refreshing counterpolitician.” Why Donald Trump Should Not Be President

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“Just six weeks after he dropped out – and more than a month before Cruz would dramatically snub the nominee at the Republican National Convention – the senator quietly began renting his vast donor email file to his former rival, pocketing at least tens of thousands of dollars, and more likely hundreds of thousands, that can be used to bankroll the Texan’s own political future.” Cruz profited off Trump well before endorsing him

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“If that was the plan, he didn’t have the self-control to pull it off; perhaps he didn’t even try. And in the end, the tens of millions of people who ultimately tuned in were given a stark view of Trump’s deep – many would say disqualifying – flaws.” Trump stumped in first debate with Clinton – will it cost him?

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“The Sharps’ story is a reminder that in the last great refugee crisis, in the 1930s and ’40s, the United States denied visas to most Jews. We feared the economic burden and worried that their ranks might include spies. It was the Nazis who committed genocide, but the U.S. and other countries also bear moral responsibility for refusing to help desperate people.” Would You Hide a Jew From the Nazis?

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“I am a softball player. That is an undeniable part of my identity. For a long time, it seemed like the only part. Yes, I have always loved reading and writing, but like many writers, I possessed the disinclination to call myself one—as though I had not yet earned the title.” Who Am I?

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“Security sources told the BBC’s Spotlight that by 1994 a majority of the seven-person IRA army council were effectively compromised because of their proximity to high-level agents. An even higher proportion of loyalist paramilitaries may have been agents of the security forces.” The dirty war behind the Good Friday agreement

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“The history of scientific publishing is long and noble, designed to uphold standards in the pursuit of truth, but this 200+-year-old tradition is woefully unfit for purpose in the 21st century. There are more journals than ever before, spawning at an alarming rate like so many academic tribbles.” Science is broken. Here’s how to fix it

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“All of the dogs showed a stronger neural activation for the reward stimuli compared to the stimulus that signaled no reward, and their responses covered a broad range. Four of the dogs showed a particularly strong activation for the stimulus that signaled praise from their owners. Nine of the dogs showed similar neural activation for both the praise stimulus and the food stimulus. And two of the dogs consistently showed more activation when shown the stimulus for food.” A dog’s dilemma: Do canine’s prefer praise or food?

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“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like your brain wants you to be happy. You may feel guilty or shameful. Why? Believe it or not, guilt and shame activate the brain’s reward center.” A neuroscience researcher reveals 4 rituals that will make you happier

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“But sometimes lionesses grow a mane and even behave a bit like males. However, until now, reports of such maned lionesses have been extremely rare and largely anecdotal. We knew they existed, but little about how they behave.” Five wild lionesses grow a mane and start acting like males

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“This is not a desire exclusive to the queer reader, but one felt deeply by all manner of marginalized audiences, from female to Black, Asian to Latinx, Muslim, disabled, gender nonbinary, and every intersection you can imagine.” Exclusive Interview: Greg Rucka on Queer Narrative and WONDER WOMAN

Another week, another list of links. Not as many as usual this week as I’ve been immersed in a good book, ‘The Rise And Fall of the Third Reich‘ and trying to write my column for The Kerryman. Usually the column takes a minimal amount of time, but this one got a little frustrating as I kept going off on tangents. In a 560 word column, tangents are not your friend.

I included a link about Robust Moral Realism. I like to read pieces on philosophy. I rarely understand what I’ve read but I can usually get enough to grasp the broad outlines. This is one of those cases. I still found it fascinating.

There’s also link to a series of posts by Liam Daly, an artist from Dublin. It’s about a cycling tour, he did, of America. I love his paintings and you can find examples of his work here. I regularly buy greeting card versions of his work. They are just beautiful.

I also got to include, for the first time, something by Ta-Nehisi Coates. When I grow up I want to be able to write as well as he does.

Enjoy the articles and do please consider subscribing to this blog.

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“Two things are worth noting about this triptych of beliefs. The first is that the commitment to non-naturalism comes with a significant cost. Killoren calls it the ‘non-naturalist’s handicap’. If non-naturalism is true, then it means that ‘moral facts do not play a contributory role in the best explanation of any natural facts’.” Is Robust Moral Realism a kind of Religious Belief?

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“In 1996 I flew to America with my bike, and then proceeded to cycle across it. First though, I had to negotiate my way past Immigration Controls in Boston. This is an excerpt from the first entry in the journal of my cycle across America. Part 01 continues the story, and so on until the end.” Cycling Across America — Part 00: Introduction*

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“Of course, we then have to figure out what to do not only with ourselves but with one another. Just as a lottery cheque does not free the winner from the shackles of the human condition, all-purpose machine intelligence will not magically allow us all to get along.” A world without work is coming – it could be utopia or it could be hell

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“Successful adults are usually strong-willed and stubborn and have an unwavering sense of purpose from which they refuse to be sidetracked, and yet, all too often, these are the characteristics that our teachers and our families and our communities will attempt to control when we are young because it makes their lives easier.” Pretence as an art form results in women accepting ill-treatment by others

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“In any referendum over separation, the “independence” side appeals to the patriotic heart. The thinking of the Leave side is magical. It plucks at a dimly remembered but glorified past (that was never as good as nostalgia makes it), and offers a future that is imaginary. TheBrexiteers are the dog that caught the bus: they hadn’t thought what to do next.” A Brexit post-mortem: 17 takeaways for a fallen David Cameron

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“I would fantasize constantly about my own death, like it was a movie I couldn’t wait to see. Would my family honor a request for a religion-free funeral? Probably not.” This is how I stopped myself from committing suicide

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“One way of reporting on Clinton’s statement is to weigh its political cost, ask what it means for her campaign, or attempt to predict how it might affect her performance among certain groups. This path is in line with the current imperatives of political reporting and, at least for the moment, seems to be the direction of coverage. But there is another line of reporting that could be pursued—Was Hillary Clinton being truthful or not?” Hillary Clinton Was Politically Incorrect, but She Wasn’t Wrong About Trump’s Supporters

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“What’s often forgotten, however, is that Nirvana and Pearl Jam were feminist through and through. As the years go by, their very public attacks against sexism in the early 90s look even more remarkable than they did at the time.” When Nirvana and Pearl Jam Stood Up for Feminism

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“It is said that all too often we don’t think enough, or even at all. In the modern world, so the story goes, we are akin to Descartes’s brutes. Does writing really kill deep and original thinking?” Writing Thoughtfully In Unthinking Times

Hello and welcome to my eighth weekly list of links that have grabbed my attention. This week I am including three pieces about the same topic, cultural appropriation. The author Lionel Shriver gave a speech about the right of fiction writers to write whatever and whoever they wish. This caused consternation. Her entire speech is included. And I’ve included an article that attacks this assertion and one that agrees with it. I’m not sure where I stand on this. I write fiction and regard myself as ‘entitled’ to write without constraint. Yet I am aware that my entitlement is tied up with my privilege.

I’ve also included an article that analyses a game between Man United and Man City. I love when a football game is broken down into its constituent parts. A good game merits such attention and increasingly there are people who are willing to do it. And do it well.

And of course I couldn’t allow the 50th anniversary of Star Trek go unmentioned.

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“But what does this have to do with writing fiction? The moral of the sombrero scandals is clear: you’re not supposed to try on other people’s hats. Yet that’s what we’re paid to do, isn’t it? Step into other people’s shoes, and try on their hats.” Lionel Shriver’s full speech: ‘I hope the concept of cultural appropriation is a passing fad’

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“So what did happen? What did Shriver say in her keynote that could drive a woman who has heard every slur under the sun to discard social convention and make such an obviously political exit?” As Lionel Shriver made light of identity, I had no choice but to walk out on her

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“The issues that Shriver raised are a matter of debate and contention. What is striking about much of the criticism, though, is the sense not that Shriver is mistaken in her beliefs, but that she should not have said what she said, and that what she said was in some way a personal attack on all minoprity or non-Western writers.” who is appropriating what?

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“He continued with a midfield duo of Marouane Fellaini and Paul Pogba, a combination that was repeatedly exposed throughout the first half. Pogba, in particular, gave an incredibly indisciplined midfield display, positioning himself as if he were playing in a midfield trio, the system he is accustomed to. He was often caught ahead of the ball at turnovers, which left Fellaini isolated in front of the defence.” Pep Guardiola wins tactical battle with José Mourinho in Manchester derby

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“Welcome back to the new school year, maybe a new class and a new set of parents. As a parent, I want to get on with all the school staff. I value the school as a community that helps me to educate and raise my children.” 8 tips to be a better school principal… from a parent

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“Writing in plain English allows your message to reach as many people as possible. Clear writing can also avoid misunderstandings, that may have serious consequences. This is particularly important when the information communicated is about legal rights and responsibilities.”  What Is Plain English And Why Is It Important For Human Rights?

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“Some 50,000 asylum seekers and migrants remain stuck in Greece amid a recent spike in arrivals on the Greek islands since the failed military coup in Turkey in July. But the EU commission remains intent on getting Greece to start accepting returns from other member states before the end of the year.” One year after launch, EU fails on relocation

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“True, there aren’t many efforts to pretend that Donald Trump is a paragon of honesty. But it’s hard to escape the impression that he’s being graded on a curve. If he manages to read from a TelePrompter without going off script, he’s being presidential.” Hillary Clinton Gets Gored

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“Traditionalist revivalism tends to evoke three types of responses. One is fascination. Michel Foucault’s embarrassing embrace of Iran’s Islamic revolution is a prime example. Another, typical of revolutionary Marxists and scientistic atheists, is militant rejection of religion as such. A third is more nuanced, advocating neither reckless romanticism nor blanket rejection but critical engagement.” Confronting Religious Revivalism

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“In a world and society where religion seems to be more divisive than uniting lately, Koffman is diligently trying to turn that tide. Her personal interpretation of Judaism is about inclusion, advocacy, and speaking out against injustice, not about shame or imposed limitations, which seems pretty hard to argue with.” This Feminist Rabbi Is Dismantling The Abortion Vs. Religion Debate

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“Star Trek was born out of the era of John F Kennedy, the space race, a well-educated middle class and a sense in America that anything was possible.” Star Trek’s 50-year mission: to shine a light on the best of humankind

Another week of things that the twitterverse pushed me to read that I’m glad I read. This week I’ve read articles that cover Trump and his nonsense, the struggle of abortion providers in the US and Deep Space Nine. I’ve also been reading a lot about Mother Teresa who was canonised this week. There are few figures as divisive as Mother Teresa and I say that in a paragraph that includes Donald trump. But the highlight is that DS9 article about Garak. Now that’s a man I’d vote for president and sainthood. Mostly because he’d know if I didn’t.

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“Donald Trump is a prominent subject among white nationalists on Twitter. According to the study, white nationalist users are “heavily invested” in the Republican’s candidacy. Tweets mentioned Mr Trump more than other popular topics among the groups.” White nationalist movement growing much faster than Isis on Twitter, study finds

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“If we could engineer things just right, only allowing in those who have skills that are lacking in the U.S. workforce or who seek to fill the professions for which we have shortages, we could add immigrants and make the country richer, and no American would have to lose a job or get a cut in pay.” THE TRUMP IMMIGRATION IDEA THAT ALMOST MAKES SENSE

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“There are, however, two groups of people who really do commit crime, especially violent crime, at wildly different rates: Men and women.” A modest proposal: Trump has it all wrong — to prevent crime, we need to do some “extreme vetting” of men

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“If she wins on 8 November, Clinton will be the most disliked president-elect ever. And that is a small ‘if’, thanks to the epic anti-popularity of Trump (he scores a whopping 44 per cent on the unfavourableometer) and the self-destructing beast that is the Republican party in 2016.”  The power of Hillary hate

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“Curious, I inquired how many were history majors. Of the 24 honors students in the seminar, there were none. English? Philosophy? Fine arts? Only one. How was this possible? I asked. Almost in unison, half a dozen replied: “Our parents wouldn’t let us.” Meet the parents who won’t let their children study literature

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“Since 1996, the prices of food and housing have increased by close to 60 percent, faster than the pace of inflation. Costs of health care and child care have more than doubled. The prices of textbooks and higher education nearly tripled.” The things we really need are getting more expensive. Other stuff is getting cheaper. Why?

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“Both the Teamsters and the UFCW have organized dozens of marijuana-related businesses in several states, with contracts that guarantee everything from pension plans to tuition reimbursement for employees and their offspring.” High times: How will budtenders and trimmigrants fare if pot is legalized?

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“Mid-20th century phenomena, such as carbon dioxide emissions, rising sea levels, the global mass extinction of species and deforestation, have ended the Holocene epoch, the scientists said. The Anthropocene would be defined geologically by the effects of nuclear bomb tests, plastic pollution, concrete and more, according to scientists.” Scientists Say a New Geological Epoch Called the Anthropocene Is Here

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“She sees patients who are uninsured, and when they can’t afford the medicines she wants to prescribe, she figures out another treatment plan. What she doesn’t do at the hospital is perform abortions. Only two clinics in Utah have found their way through the maze of restrictive laws that govern abortion care in the state—and so, to do that part of her work, Torres spends a Saturday each month at one of them, helping people end their pregnancies.” What Is It Like to Be an Abortion Provider in an Anti-Choice State?

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“The proceedings took significant steps toward restoring the radical pacifist message of the Gospels that had been largely abandoned when the Emperor Constantine, in the fourth century, adopted Christianity as the official doctrine of the Roman empire — turning the church of the persecuted into the church of the persecutors, as historian of Christianity Hans Küng described the transformation.” Burkini Bans, New Atheism and State Worship: Noam Chomsky on Religion in Politics

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“There is simply no excuse for an institution run by the Catholic church to lack basic hygiene and to be reusing syringes, or for a hospital for the dying run by an arm of a very wealthy organisation to fail to provide pain relief, and for this state of affairs to be carrying on for years.”  Not exactly Mother Teresa

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“At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as “homes for the dying” by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care.” Mother Teresa: Anything but a saint…

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“To say that little hearts were now appearing in my eyes would be something of an understatement. You need to imagine roughly a million hearts and about a thousand arrows fired by a whole company of Cupids. You have to imagine orchestral swell. I’d met Garak.” All True, Especially the Lies—Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Cardassia

Another week and I’m still reading about the burkini ban. I’ve managed to write a little something on it but I doubt I’ll ever fully resolve my own thoughts on the topic. And perhaps this white man should find something more important to concern himself with.  A valid observation, but I doubt I’ll manage that anytime soon.

I have also been trying to read a bit about what has motivated so many people to support Trump. I want to dismiss him as a contemptible fascist, a mere Brexiter on a larger scale, but he is immensely popular. What have I missed in the world that I can’t comprehend this terrifying phenomenon? It is a theme I will probably be returning to often.

I hope you find my choices this week interesting and please consider subscribing to my blog so I don’t have to beat you over the head on twitter about it.

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“We live in a materialistic society where people are very shallow and conscious about their appearance. I choose to dress this way because it gives me freedom. I don’t have to worry about strange men looking at my figure, desiring me in a sexual way or people commenting on the way I look and judging my looks or talking about my clothes.” Why we wear the burkini: five women on dressing modestly at the beach

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“If you can’t take me seriously because I drape a piece of cloth over my head then the problem is with you, not me. If you are surprised that I’m able to articulate myself well enough despite a cloth over my head, the problem is with you, not me.” I wear a headscarf and I don’t need to be saved from anything — except white feminism

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“For almost 40 years, globally-oriented white elites used their money, power and influence to encourage mass immigration of cheap labor, overseas outsourcing and also the construction of an expanding system of racial preferences in education and employment. Working and lower middle-class whites bore the brunt of these policies that pitted them against minorities.” Why are so many white men angry?

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“When the financial crash hit Ireland, decades of hard work appeared to be ready to unravel as unemployment soared. Subsequently, Ireland’s  government scrambled to secure the future of Irish banks and cut funding of social programs, including  unemployment and child benefits.” The next phase of Brexit: Will Ireland succumb next?

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“Dildos are a particularly apt implement for an anti–campus carry demonstration, and not just because they share space with guns as stand-ins for human penises. Texas lawmakers have long been more scared of dildos than they are of guns—the sale of sex toys was illegal in the state until 2008.” The Anti-Gun Dildo Campaign Has Finally Begun at the University of Texas

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“Almost no one seems to be aware that even if the U.S. were a perfect country today, it would be bizarre to expect African-American players to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Why? Because it literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans.” Colin Kaepernick Is Righter Than You Know: The National Anthem Is a Celebration of Slavery

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“In classical antiquity the Greek and Latin ancestors of the English word grammar were used in reference not only to the study of language but also to the study of literature. In the medieval period, Latin grammatica and its outcomes in other languages were extended to include learning in general.” The History of ‘Glamour’

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“Humans are the most voracious consumers planet Earth has ever seen. With our land-use, hunting and other exploitative activities, we are now directly impacting three-quarters of the Earth’s land surface.”  New map shows alarming growth of the human footprint

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“I definitely don’t want any woman to feel ashamed of having an abortion, but nor do I want anyone to feel pressured to do so – by their partner, their employer, their parents. All these things happen here, and in other countries. I can think of actual examples, but I can’t tell you about them.” Pro choice and pro life?

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“Conscientious objection is the refusal by a healthcare practitioner to provide a certain medical service, for example an abortion or medical assistance in dying, because it conflicts with the practitioner’s moral views. Aim of the workshop was to discuss the ethical and legal aspects of conscientious objection in healthcare, in view of proposing some guidelines for the regulation of conscientious objection in healthcare in the future.” CONSENSUS STATEMENT ON CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IN HEALTHCARE

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“I looked up and held his eye for a moment, the smile lighting my face. “She probably stuck it the same place I would if two macho guys were on my trail.” Everyone turned to me and waited expectantly. I looked from face to face, and then back to Striker. “I’d put it in the place every girl knows a man would overlook—the bottom of her tampon box.” I spooned more stew into my mouth.” EDC Tampons: How to Save Your Character’s Life