For people to sit back and say it’s not going on, they’ve got their head in the sand. The greatest frustration is that there is so much power and organisation behind the scenes that police don’t have the powers to be able to go in and seize documents and have them disclose things to us.
ethics & philosophy
ideals, breaches, disappointments and inspirations
Toxic culture in university colleges
A 2009 post from Mary (almost exactly three years ago) is getting a lot of hits today, and I’m deducing that it’s because of searching on St Johns college at the University of Sydney due to this SMH story: Culture of anarchy at a college in crisis.
Argument is the human condition, but public argument is not (until the Internet arrived)
A fascinating long post from Clay Shirky on the information age’s transformation of the media landscape, via @Colvinius who referenced it as part of his 2012 Andrew Olle Media Lecture.
Fallacy Watch: No True Klansman
I may have contributed to a new term for a rhetorical ploy we see more and more. Here’s how it happened – I’m rather proud of this coinage, but wonder whether we may be reinventing the fallacious wheel. Is there an already apt term in rhetorical jargon?
Lazy vicious marginalisation from Vagenda at New Statesman
My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.
~ Flavia Dzodan, on Tiger Beatdown 2011/10/10
Are you noting a distinct lack of attribution there from Vagenda, for an ‘oft-quoted phrase’ which is easily googled as to its source?
As if that wasn’t bad enough, here’s what happened next:
Privacy, anonymity, pseudonymity, outing, accountability: where are the boundaries?
There are competing ethical imperatives, and there’s a balance to be found. It is basic courtesy to respect a pseudonym or some in-confidence knowledge about a person generally, but should that expected courtesy take precedence over the protection of other people from harm which could be avoided if they knew what you know?
Helpful Hint of The Day: being *on the internet*
A Handy Test for Reddit Users: Are You on the Internet Right Now?
International Day of the Girl
I missed posting this yesterday, but I want to raise my bloggy hand to join the call for protecting the right of girls around the world to education. I want to honour Malala Yousufzai and her two schoolmates who were also shot while trying to shield her from assassins.
Today in nodding furiously: what do you mean when you say you’re entitled to your opinion?
If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial. But…
Today in rape culture: nobody wanted to think it of funny old Jimmy
It was right out there, in plain view, and nobody wanted to see.