Over the next few weeks, starting tomorrow (December 1st), we shall be padding out our normal blogging during the xmasolstichanukkwanzaa etc increased-social-obligations period with some reposts of older articles from the first years of this blog.
Culture
The milieu through which we swim
Cardinal George Pell, humbug
He’s at it again: Faithless are coarse, uncaring and without purpose, says Cardinal Pell. Most of it’s typical tosh. We’re all utterly miserable hedonists, apparently. He even goes Godwin on us:
Quicklink: PETA does it again
Unbefuckinglievable.
Femmostroppo Reader November 27, 2010
Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed-reader. What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.
The UN General Assembly this week voted to allow LGBT people to be executed without cause
Seriously.
I have no words.
Signal Boost: Do Your Own Homework, Please
After the umpteenth email over the last few months that uses almost exactly the same words, I have written An Open Letter to US College Students over at FF101.
2010 Andrew Olle Media Lecture – Alan Rusbridger
Rusbridger examines the common comparison made between the digital publishing revolution and the Gutenberg press publishing revolution in terms of rewriting the landscape for the dissemination of information, analysis and opinion, and concludes that the digital publishing revolution is a far more profound change to our intellectual landscape because…
Dissecting the trivial
Quick fact about women in the news: apparently, women feature in only about a fifth of the world’s news headlines and just ten percent of all news stories. (My guess is that if you took celebrities out of the media monitoring survey you could probably halve that number again for how often women make the news).
And when women finally make the news in what capacity do we make it?
Video: Learning Gender from Ads for Toys
These ads not only market toys to children but it also promotes and encourages gender specific values that are very limiting to boys and girls in different ways. The values and skills promoted in these commercials can play a critical role in the socalization of youth and their development of emotional expression, conflict resolution, the confidence to pursue various careers and the ability to maintain healthy relationships as adults.
Cyclists riding safely and legally, motorists driving less so
Drivers were at fault in 87 per cent of incidents with cyclists and most did not realise they had behaved in a reckless or unsafe manner,
Hoyden About Town 