Another week of stuff I’ve been reading. If there’s a theme it’s the burkini. It has sparked a debate which has several sides and that is at once nonsensical and deeply important. I’ve been trying to write something about it but it is proving difficult as it is so multifaceted. Below is a sample of some of the articles that are informing my thoughts on the subject.

There is an interesting article about how many words we know. This is a link to the test mentioned in that article. I got 86%. Do please tell me if you do less well. I don’t want to know if you did better.

There are also articles about identity, alcohol and more about identity.

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“Some civil-liberties groups within France have tried—but so far failed—to get the burkini ban overturned in the courts.” Why the French keep trying to ban Islamic body wear

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“It got me thinking because when I was a girl I missed out on sport – we didn’t participate in anything because we chose to be modest, but for my niece I wanted to find something that would adapt to the Australian lifestyle and western clothing but at the same time fulfil the needs of a Muslim girl.” I created the burkini to give women freedom, not to take it away

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“For me, however, it triggers painful memories of another struggle by women in the Muslim world who were stripped of the right to make their own choice on the matter.” The Right Not To Wear A Burkini

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“In Algeria, the French mission civilisatrice understood the hijab, or haik, as oppressive, and unveiling as a central tenet of women’s emancipation; ironically the result was that the veil became a symbol of nationalist defiance…” Your fascination with Muslim women’s bodies has a long misogynistic history

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“There is some danger that Argentines may use Kissinger’s laudatory statements as justification for hardening their human rights stance.” DOES HENRY KISSINGER HAVE A CONSCIENCE

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“How many words do we know? It turns out that even language experts and researchers have a tough time estimating this.” Most adults know more than 42,000 words

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“For instance, people who believe in climate change were far more likely to perceive the increasing violence of storms than those who did not.” Hurricanes are worse, but experience, gender and politics determine if you believe it

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“Bad news – regular alcohol use has the effect of getting the body to produce MORE stress hormones. More! Most notably cortisol (the ‘death hormone’, not to freak you out or anything).” A scientific look at de-stressing/self medicating with alcohol (drinking at home)

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“The highest proportion of immigrants to the UK in 2015 hailed from India; for Norway, it’s Poland; and for Austria and Switzerland, it’s neighbouring Germany. Most of the Republic of Ireland’s foreign-born population comes from the UK.” 4 maps that will change how you see migration in Europe

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“Then on Tuesday night the BBC went bananas. At 10 o’clock we were denied important news – of Anjem Choudary’s conviction, of swingeing tax fines and of possible “special status” for Britain outside the EU. Instead we had to sit for an hour and a half, waiting for three minutes of BBC pandemonium as British cyclists yet again pedalled fast.” This Olympics hysteria shows that Britain has turned Soviet

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“If you can’t explain your ideal to a fairly intelligent 12-year-old, it’s probably your own fault. What we need is a narrative that speaks to millions of ordinary people. It all starts with reclaiming the language of progress.” The left needs fresh ideas and a new language if it’s to win again

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“However, while post Brexit debate has understandably concentrated mainly on the economic consequences of leaving the EU, from a Northern Irish perspective the greatest impact is likely to be much less tangible and, potentially, much more damaging.” Identity in post-Brexit Northern Ireland

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“Nature and animals play a big part of my everyday life; I live in rural West Cork on a farm next to the sea, and I also grow my own vegetables and catch my own fish. This is a dream come true for me and it helps me getlots of exercise and fresh air in between my writing sessions. It provides balance.” Finding Your Special Place: Writing in Nature by ER Murray

Another week of having my brain slightly improved by other people providing links to articles that I found so interesting I had to share them with you. This week I’ve even managed to include something by a conservative. Now he’s critical of Trump so I can’t pat myself on the back for being all that diverse in my reading. I wonder what I’ll read when Trump loses in November? There’s a piece about polyamory too, so I suppose that can count as an antidote to the conservative one.

And as I always strive to be topical I included one about the Olympics.

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“The simple answer is that these people–my people–are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time.  Donald Trump at least tries.” Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People

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“Money+votes = winning elections. Right now Trump doesn’t have nearly enough of either without big help from Republican Party resources and infrastructure.” Yes, the Republican Party could leave Donald Trump high and dry to save itself

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“But great wealth flowing from mines or wells allows a despotic government to grow rich — extremely rich — while ignoring the people’s development and repressing their political freedoms.” Why Do We Still Buy Oil From Thugs?

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“Today, Twitter is a well-known hunting ground for women and people of color, who are targeted by neo-Nazis, racists, misogynists, and trolls, often just for showing up.” “A Honeypot For Assholes”: Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure To Stop Harassment

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“Except, he’s not really heroic. He’s dragged kicking and screaming through heroics. Practically the only thing he ever does that’s heroic is not shoot first in that bar (see what I did there?). Let’s be clear. Han fights for himself first, and then everyone else. EVEN LEIA.” HAN SOLO: NOT THE ROMANCE HERO YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

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“Trying to imagine someone else’s reality, without removing yourself from the comforts of your own, breeds arrogance, not understanding.” Have a Little Empathy | If You’re Frightened By Feminism, You’re Seeing an Invisible Threat

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“Even if you previously granted consent, if you lose the ability to revoke that consent, from that moment on, there is no consent. And if someone takes that control over your consent from you, or ignores that you have lost your control over your consent, that is rape.” An Essay On Consent, From A Woman Who Hosts Huge Sex Parties

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“Having been polyamorous for almost a decade, I spend a good deal of time explaining what it all means. When I told my editor that I wanted to write about polyamory, she adjusted her monocle, puffed on her pipe and said, “In my day, young lady, we just called it shagging around.” So I consider it my duty to her and the rest of the unenlightened to explain what’s different about how the kids are doing it these days.” For many in my fearful, frustrated generation, “having it all” means opting out of monogamy

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“We all know this. We do. We don’t need numbers to see that, like everywhere in our society, marginalisation of black people is still a huge problem in publishing … The entire system is built to benefit whiteness – and to ignore that is to bury your head in the flaming garbage heap of history.” Black science fiction writers face ‘universal’ racism, study finds

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“The Classical era (c.480-323 BCE) of Greece was a time of increased status mixing among Olympic athletes as males from elite families competed alongside farmers. However, slaves were still kept out and the equestrian events added in the 7th century still remained largely the purview of the elites, much as it is today.” Yes, Ancient Olympic Athletes Had Sponsorship Deals, Too

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“Such is the life of the Greenland shark—a 5-meter-long predator that may live more than 400 years, according to a new study, making it the longest lived vertebrate by at least a century.” Greenland shark may live 400 years, smashing longevity record

On many occasions I will turn to my wife to show her an interesting article I’ve just read. Invariably I will think it’s brand new information that everyone needs to know right now. And just as invariably she will ask when it was published. Often the article will be months, even years, old. I haven’t gotten out of the habit of not noticing the date. Some of the articles I’m linking to this week are a few months old. But Twitter is great for recycling old pieces that I think have dated well.

One of the links, about the myth of Irish slaves, is part one of a series that is, as of now, up to six. It’s a wonderfully detailed piece of research. It’s well worth your time.

The rest are a mix of abortion articles, science, philosophy and writing. Enjoy.

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“There are few topics in modern discourse quite as divisive, as fraught with misunderstanding and as rooted in deeply-held conviction as abortion.” A scientist weighs up the five main anti-abortion arguments

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“The loss of these possible futures is bad. It makes the killing of a fetus wrong. This is Don Marquis’s argument against abortion. It is one of the best arguments against abortion which does not rest on theological premises.” Abortion, embryo destruction and the future of value argument

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“In interviews with 27 physicians with a variety of personal religious beliefs, the researchers found that these directives frequently infringed on a doctor’s conscience, forcing them to offer less than the best standard of medical care.” It’s a sin: Women’s lives at risk thanks to holier-than-thou Catholic Hospitals

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“Before the woman lost consciousness she was asked again about the document she had signed on admission saying no blood under any circumstances. This wasn’t hypothetical, she would die. She said, “No blood.” Those were her last words.” What we can learn from Jehovah’s Witnesses about obstetrical violence and autonomy during pregnancy

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“In 1915, you would have been hard pressed to find a physicist who believed that time slows down under gravitational force. Yet this is entailed by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, first published that year. It was lucky for Einstein, and for the progress of science, that Dr Gilbert’s proposed prohibition on scientific dissent was not then in force.” Intellectual orthodoxy is a bigger threat than climate change

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“To put this in perspective, the first living organisms emerged on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago. Since then, there have been five mass extinctions — dubbed the “Big Five” — the last of which killed off the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. Today, as a result of ecosystem fragmentation, overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction and global warming, we’re in the early stages of the sixth extinction.” It’s Not Alarmist: Trump and the Republican Party Could Destroy the World

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“This is something I’ve been wondering recently. It’s one thing to disbelieve a study because there are problems with the methods used. But is it scientifically valid to judge a study by its results alone, even if you don’t know of any methodological flaws?” I Just Don’t Believe Those Results

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“There are plenty of things that make it possible for humans to live in large groups and pack into cities. New building techniques and materials, for instance, allow construction of high-rise buildings; plumbing delivers clean, fresh water and sewage systems that help to prevent diseases. One factor, however, is rarely included on the list: having one or more gods.” Religion as social unifier

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“Is the Kobayashi Maru a good test of leadership, and of the ethical decision-making that’s a part of it? And what should we make of the fact that Kirk seems to have “beat” the test by cheating?” The Philosophy of Star Trek: The Kobayashi Maru, No-Win Scenarios, And Ethical Leadership

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“Whatever one thinks of the activities of groups like the I.R.A. or the P.L.O., those activities were governed by certain norms and contained a rational kernel. It is the arbitrariness of jihadist violence and its disregard for moral bounds that make it terrifying.” These Days of Rage

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“Those that promote the meme of Irish perpetual hereditary chattel slavery use a variety of images entirely unrelated to indentured servitude to accompany their anti-history. I examined a selection of them.” Debunking the imagery of the “Irish slaves” meme

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“Since the right-wing Law and Justice party seized power in the autumn of 2015 on a familiar wave of anti-immigrant bile and Brussels bashing, Poland has moved to ignore its past as a way of coming to terms with its present.” Poland should face up to its anti-Semitic past

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“On the one hand, so much inexperienced writing suffers from generalities. The writer is urged to be specific, particular, concrete. At the same time, when the inexperienced writer gives the reader detail on character, clothing, settings, and actions, he tends to give us a surfeit, robbing the reader of one of the great pleasures of reading, exercising the imagination.” Less Is More When It Comes To Setting

Another week of articles gleaned mostly from the Twitterverse.  There’s a lot wrong with Twitter but there’s no way I would be exposed to such a range of interesting articles without it. This week’s links include such diverse topics as Lord of the Rings, the evolution of language, research into hunter gatherer societies and abortion.

One day I’d like to not read about abortion, but while it remains illegal in so many countries, including my own, I’ll have to keep reading about it and speaking about it.

(I’ve also, just now, decided that for Weekly Links posts I am going to always use photographs I’ve taken myself. And they will be selfies. If I think of more rules I’ll let you know.)

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“There is a growing dissatisfaction with the established political parties. One of the great changes in recent political history has been the erosion of the old ideological divisions that characterized politics for a long time.”  on brexit, borders, being offensive (but not being in a hollywood movie)

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“What we would today call cash assistance for the differently abled could in a different era permissibly have been called welfare for cripples. The terms welfare and crippled sound somewhere between loaded and abusive today, and yet once were considered civil by educated, sensitive people.” Euphemise this

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“Long before the advent of social media, human social networks were built around sharing a much more essential commodity: food. Now, researchers reporting on the food sharing networks of two contemporary groups of hunter-gatherers in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 21 provide new insight into fundamental nature of human social organization.” What hunter-gatherers can tell us about fundamental human social networks

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“Merely asking the question about spousal income led to enormous shifts in men’s preferences in the upcoming presidential election.” Even the Thought of Earning Less than Their Wives Changes How Men Behave

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 “I would counsel people to pray for healing. That’s dangerous. That’s harmful. People die from that. And I acted irresponsibly with my health, because I knew that God was going to take care of me.” The fundamentalist Christian preacher who became an atheist

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“What do you do when people adhering to a faith or ideology insist that others with different convictions submit themselves to taboos outside sacred places?” Why I Published Cartoons of Muhammad and Don’t Regret It

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“Populism is when courting popularity becomes an ideological goal in itself, through the advocacy of policies which over-simplify the world. These policies usually also scapegoat and dehumanize some people, while flattering others, as well as distorting truth, and making promises which are either vague (“I’ll make you safe”) or the keeping of which would only spawn new evils (“We’ll deport them all”, “Our sole priority will be our own country” and so on).” Where does humanism stand at a time of crisis?

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“We were granted leave that afternoon to bring a legal challenge and it felt like we had won the first round of what I was sure would be a long-running battle against the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and the State.” Tomás Heneghan on his High Court case: Why was I shaming the family? Why was my sex life being opened up to public scrutiny?

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“Her book, My Life on the Road, opens with a dedication to the doctor who performed her abortion in 1957, when it was illegal to do so without health reasons. He asked her to promise that she would do what she wanted with her life. “I’ve done the best I could with my life,” she writes.” ‘You can’t control the flesh of a person. That’s called slavery’

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“A month and a half after L. C. submitted the request for an abortion, but the medical board of the hospital denied her the procedure, saying that her life was not in danger, without mentioning the danger to her mental health.” PERU: ABORTION GUIDELINES ESTABLISHED AFTER 90-YEAR DELAY

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“Clinics in some states must provide them with medically inaccurate information on the risks of abortion. After all that, women often cannot have an abortion without waiting an additional one to three days, depending on the state.” Fertility clinics destroy embryos all the time. Why aren’t conservatives after them?

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“Behold the King’s daughter, fairest among maidens. Lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as a Keith Urban concert. No wonder a handsome foreigner was smitten when he saw her. And his love didn’t go unrequited. This is how the Tale of Beren and Luthien begins in The Silmarillion. Boom! See that misdirection? You thought it was some Snow White shit, but it wasn’t. I mean, it is that, but it’s also Tolkien.” Snow White Is A LOTR Sequel: A Mind-Blowing Theory

One of my ambitions for this reconditioned blog is to give a weekly summary of what I’ve been reading. It will be mostly articles, columns and blog posts that I’ve stumbled upon in the Twitterverse, but I may occasionally mention a book.

Every link in this post will be to pieces I wholly or mostly agree with. I do inhabit a bit of an ideological bubble. I’m going to have to try reading things I don’t agree with more often. Even if it’s just to confirm why I disagree with something.

If this week has any themes, it’s the issues of abortion in Ireland and the dystopia being heralded by Brexit and the rise of Trump. But there’s science and writing too.

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“A Dublin doctor has spoken of the trauma of returning the foetal remains of her baby from England after Ireland’s near total ban on abortions forced her to travel to Liverpool to terminate her pregnancy.”  ‘My baby in a box’: Irish GP tells of trauma of travelling to UK for abortion

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“They also lifted a photograph of Tara and photoshopped her t-shirt to read “ABORTED My Only Child.” The anti-choice argument is lost. Hence the dirty tricks

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“We were told that every woman who had an abortion was racked with remorse for the rest of their lives. We were told lies. And we believed them.” I knew I would be vilified if I started to talk about other women in crisis pregnancies

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“The mural is a loud, proud statement of support for repealing the 8th amendment, an amendment passed in 1983 following a referendum on abortion rights, that equates the right to life of the mother with that of the unborn” #repealthe8th – who owns public space?

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“It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals.” History tells us what may happen next with Brexit & Trump

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“An idea can start far outside the political mainstream – flat taxes, abolish the IRS, more guns in schools, building a beautiful wall and making Mexico pay – but once it has been stated and argued for, framed and restated, it becomes thinkable.” Brexit Blues

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“Student Leave voters report how, in light of recent events, they would change their vote if they could.” Brexit: For every one student who voted Leave, six voted Remain, new analysis finds

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“The distributors of the anti-vaccination film Vaxxed have sent a cease-and-desist letter to an Irish advocate for autistic people who’s been speaking out against the movie.” Distributors of Anti-Vax Film Are Trying to Keep an Autistic Rights Advocate From Criticizing It

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“Many thousands of years ago, on a chilly African night, a group of people gather around a fire in a cave. Using the flames, they cook their food, fashion new weapons, and warm themselves. But where there’s fire, there’s also smoke, and the smoke is giving the huddled humans a wretched cough. And in their inflamed airways, a microbe that normally lives in the soil is taking hold, changing, evolving into something new.” Was Tuberculosis Born Out of Fire?

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“If a boy is to become a man among the Etoro people of New Guinea, he must ingest the semen of an elder member of the tribe, via ritualised fellatio. The same belief is held by the nearby Kaluli. But in their case, the ceremonies require the semen to be delivered via the initiate’s anus, not his mouth. The Etoro despise the Kaluli’s practice, finding it disgusting and unnatural.” Spot the WEIRDo

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“It struck me then how long it has been since I heard a child talk about Harry Potter. Over the last ten years or so, nearly all the conversations I’ve had on the subject have been with adults – many of them fans, many of them passionate.” Harry Potter and the Adult Appropriation

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“The way I see it, all good writers have the ability to share feelings and experiences with others through imagining what it would be like to be somebody else.” Storytelling: An Exercise In Empathy