Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.

• My "concerns" about asylum seekers

– “I’d like to see a policy that recognises that people coming from violent places need help to settle here, including mental health assistance. I’d like to see a policy that recognises that where, within our borders, these people are settled matters. They need to be settled in places with appropriate facilities, other people from the same background, social support services targeted at their particular circumstances and sufficient infrastructure to not be putting further stresses on already overcrowded places. All of these things need to be created when they don’t exist. Investment in the start of their new life here works for everyone. People who have already been persecuted beyond my understanding get the help they need and deserve, and they are able, in turn, to contribute to our society as they regain their strengths and their lives.”

• Welcome to Outrage World

– “Let’s talk more when we can be accused of something less akin to ‘cattiness’, otherwise we feminist bloggers in Outrage World might just be on to something.”

• Apparently compassion is just PC nonesense

– “To pretend that political correctness is currently preventing an ‘honest debate’ in this country is deeply dishonest. Currently talk-back radio is full of people expressing their view that “boat people should be sent back.” There is also a bloody good reason why many of these views are not considered to be ‘political correct’: they are founded on a xenophobic feeling of “us” v “them” and contain more than a little racism to boot.”

• The routing of the Left

– “Debates about schooling are frequently headline news. But these debates are pretty much sensationalist hysteria, often centred around claims that schoolchildren are becoming more and more illiterate, violent or vulnerable. Cue punitive Government responses: increased testing in schools, hand-wringing about ‘lost childhoods’, and proposals for ‘intervening’ in children’s lives earlier. Both the questioning in the ‘debate’ about children’s education, and any answers, are framed in exclusively right-wing terms.”

Categories: linkfest

Tags: Read-ems