reading
Nhận định soi kèo Derby County vs Reading lúc 02h45 ngày 13/3/2024
Soi kèo Châu Á Derby County vs Reading
Thống kê soi kèo Derby County vs Reading cho thấy, Derby County đang có thành tích thi đấu khá ổn định. Minh chứng là, họ đã giành chiến thắng sau 2 trận gần nhất. Trong khi Reading lại thi đấu thiếu ấn tượng, khi mà trong 5 trận trước đó, họ đã phải nhận 3 thất bại. Do đó, Derby County đang được các chuyên gia đánh giá cao hơn trong trận này.
>> Lịch thi đấu bóng đá 24h <<
Derby County sẽ có thêm sự tự tin trong cuộc chạm trán này, khi mà họ chơi trên sân nhà. Nhất là khi, phong độ sân nhà của họ cũng đang có được sự ổn định. Với việc giành 3 chiến thắng sau 5 trận gần nhất. Thêm vào đó, Derby County thường chơi tốt mỗi khi tiếp đón các vị khách Reading trên sân nhà. Khi mà trong 4 trận gần nhất, họ đã giành được 3 chiến thắng.
Soi kèo Derby County vs Reading
Chủ nhà, Derby County đang là cửa đặt an toàn gần đây. khi mà họ đã giành 3 chiến thắng sau 5 trận kèo gần nhất. Trong khi Reading lại đang không có được thành tích kèo ấn tượng. Với việc họ đã trắng tay 3/5 trận kèo gần nhất. Do đó, với việc chấp 0.75 bàn trước đối thủ, các chuyên gia đang đánh giá Derby County sẽ là lựa chọn an toàn hơn.
Chọn: Derby County
Soi kèo tài xỉu Derby County vs Reading
Các chuyên gia đang kỳ vọng vào một trận đấu xuất hiện nhiều bàn thắng. Khi mà những trận đấu của Derby County đang có tỷ lệ nổ Tài cao hơn. Theo thống kê từ trang kèo bong da truc tuyen cho thấy, trong 4 lần ra quân gần nhất đều đã nổ Tài. Thêm vào đó, những trận đấu của Reading cũng thường nổ Tài. Với việc có 4 trong 5 trận gần nhất đã nổ Tài.
Chọn: Tài cả trận
Tỷ lệ kèo Derby County vs Reading
Soi kèo hiệp 1 Derby County vs Reading
Trước trận đấu này, Derby County thường nhập cuộc khá chủ động. Khi mà có sau 3 trận gần nhất, họ đều ghi được bàn trong hiệp 1. Trong khi Reading lại đang chơi phòng ngự không tốt. Với việc có 2/3 trận gần nhất, họ để thủng lưới trong 45 phút đầu tiên. Do đó, cơ hội thắng kèo hiệp 1 trận này của Derby County vẫn là khả quan hơn.
Chọn Derby County thắng kèo hiệp 1
>> Bảng Tỷ lệ kèo bóng đá hôm nay <<
Đội hình dự kiến Derby County vs Reading
Derby County: Vickers; Wilson, Nelson, Cashin, Elder; Mendez-Laing, Bird, Hourihane, Barkhuizen; John-Jules, Collins
Reading: Button; Dorsett, Abbey, Holmes, Yiadom; Mukairu, Wing, Craig, Azeez; Knibbs, Smith
Dự đoán tỷ số trận đấu Derby County vs Reading
2-1 (Chọn Derby County, chọn Tài cả trận)
The post Nhận định soi kèo Derby County vs Reading lúc 02h45 ngày 13/3/2024 appeared first on XoilacTV.
Nhận định soi kèo Derby County vs Reading lúc 02h45 ngày 13/3/2024
Soi kèo Châu Á Derby County vs Reading
Thống kê soi kèo Derby County vs Reading cho thấy, Derby County đang có thành tích thi đấu khá ổn định. Minh chứng là, họ đã giành chiến thắng sau 2 trận gần nhất. Trong khi Reading lại thi đấu thiếu ấn tượng, khi mà trong 5 trận trước đó, họ đã phải nhận 3 thất bại. Do đó, Derby County đang được các chuyên gia đánh giá cao hơn trong trận này.
>> Lịch thi đấu bóng đá 24h <<
Derby County sẽ có thêm sự tự tin trong cuộc chạm trán này, khi mà họ chơi trên sân nhà. Nhất là khi, phong độ sân nhà của họ cũng đang có được sự ổn định. Với việc giành 3 chiến thắng sau 5 trận gần nhất. Thêm vào đó, Derby County thường chơi tốt mỗi khi tiếp đón các vị khách Reading trên sân nhà. Khi mà trong 4 trận gần nhất, họ đã giành được 3 chiến thắng.
Soi kèo Derby County vs Reading
Chủ nhà, Derby County đang là cửa đặt an toàn gần đây. khi mà họ đã giành 3 chiến thắng sau 5 trận kèo gần nhất. Trong khi Reading lại đang không có được thành tích kèo ấn tượng. Với việc họ đã trắng tay 3/5 trận kèo gần nhất. Do đó, với việc chấp 0.75 bàn trước đối thủ, các chuyên gia đang đánh giá Derby County sẽ là lựa chọn an toàn hơn.
Chọn: Derby County
Soi kèo tài xỉu Derby County vs Reading
Các chuyên gia đang kỳ vọng vào một trận đấu xuất hiện nhiều bàn thắng. Khi mà những trận đấu của Derby County đang có tỷ lệ nổ Tài cao hơn. Theo thống kê từ trang kèo bong da truc tuyen cho thấy, trong 4 lần ra quân gần nhất đều đã nổ Tài. Thêm vào đó, những trận đấu của Reading cũng thường nổ Tài. Với việc có 4 trong 5 trận gần nhất đã nổ Tài.
Chọn: Tài cả trận
Tỷ lệ kèo Derby County vs Reading
Soi kèo hiệp 1 Derby County vs Reading
Trước trận đấu này, Derby County thường nhập cuộc khá chủ động. Khi mà có sau 3 trận gần nhất, họ đều ghi được bàn trong hiệp 1. Trong khi Reading lại đang chơi phòng ngự không tốt. Với việc có 2/3 trận gần nhất, họ để thủng lưới trong 45 phút đầu tiên. Do đó, cơ hội thắng kèo hiệp 1 trận này của Derby County vẫn là khả quan hơn.
Chọn Derby County thắng kèo hiệp 1
>> Bảng Tỷ lệ kèo bóng đá hôm nay <<
Đội hình dự kiến Derby County vs Reading
Derby County: Vickers; Wilson, Nelson, Cashin, Elder; Mendez-Laing, Bird, Hourihane, Barkhuizen; John-Jules, Collins
Reading: Button; Dorsett, Abbey, Holmes, Yiadom; Mukairu, Wing, Craig, Azeez; Knibbs, Smith
Dự đoán tỷ số trận đấu Derby County vs Reading
2-1 (Chọn Derby County, chọn Tài cả trận)
The post Nhận định soi kèo Derby County vs Reading lúc 02h45 ngày 13/3/2024 appeared first on XoilacTV.
Are Your Students Doing The Reading?
And if they’re not, what can be done to get them to do it? Or is that the wrong way to think about it?
[Note: This was originally posted on February 16, 2024, 9:04am, but was lost when a problem on February 17th, 2024 required the site to be reset. I’m reposting it on February 18th with its original publication date, but I’m sorry to report that the comments, many of which contained helpful suggestions, may have been lost; I’m looking into the matter.]
These questions come up in response to a recent piece by Adam Kotsko (North Central College) at Slate. He writes about the “diffuse confluence of forces that are depriving students of the skills needed to meaningfully engage” with books:
As a college educator, I am confronted daily with the results of that conspiracy-without-conspirators. I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch. For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation—sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts. (No human being can read 30 pages of Hegel in one sitting, for example.) Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding. Even smart and motivated students struggle to do more with written texts than extract decontextualized take-aways. Considerable class time is taken up simply establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument—skills I used to be able to take for granted.
Kotsko anticipates one kind of reaction to this complaint:
Hasn’t every generation felt that the younger cohort is going to hell in a handbasket? Haven’t professors always complained that educators at earlier levels are not adequately equipping their students? And haven’t students from time immemorial skipped the readings?
He reassures himself with the thought that other academics agree with him and that he is “not simply indulging in intergenerational grousing.” That’s not a good response, because the intergenerational divide is not as relevant as the divide between academics and non-academics (i.e., nearly all of their students): professors were not, and are not, normal.
Still, I’m a professor, too, and despite my anti-declinist sentiments and worries about my own cognitive biases, I can’t help but agree that students do not seem as able or willing to actually do the reading, and as able or willing to put in the work to try to understand it, as they have in the past (though I probably don’t think the decline is as steep as Kotsko thinks it is).
Kotsko identifies smartphones and pandemic lockdowns as among the culprits responsible for poor student reading, but acknowledges we “can’t go back in time” and undo their effects. Nor does he offer any solutions in this article.
Are there any solutions? What can we do? What should we do? What do you do?
Related:
“How Do You Teach Your Students to Read”
“The Point and Selection of Readings in Introductory Philosophy Courses”
“Why Students Aren’t Reading”
The post Are Your Students Doing The Reading? first appeared on Daily Nous.
State of Mind
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
I have been slowly replacing the rotten timbers on our front veranda. Broken Hill summer is making the work hot and cooking my brain. It has been especially warm in the afternoons. Yesterday I escaped to the couch with the swampy cooling the house and watched Gurdjieff in Armenia.
I have been re-reading Meetings With Remarkable Men by Gurdijieff. This book was an early inspiration for me to go traveling.
YouTube also turned up an old (1979) film version of Meetings With Remarkable Men which I’ve not watched yet.
I enjoy Gurdijieff’s stories but his mystical philosophy gets a bit stretched. His allusions to great hand-wavy mysteries are just onanistic subjective truth. The book is better taken as just stories with a pinch of myth. Perhaps he was a victim of his ‘truth’-seeking audience. Intelligence is overrated.
The best bookshops in the Dodecanese Islands, Greece
In this bookshop guide, Angeliki Tzampazi takes us to three of the Dodecanese Islands in Greece, Rhodes, Pátmos and Astypalea, and highlights some of their best independent bookshops. If you have bookshops you’d like to recommend in a particular city, further information about contributing follows this article.
Makris Bookshop, Rhodes
In classical history, Rhodes was a maritime power and the site of the Colossus of Rhodes, which was dedicated to the sun god Helios. The island was famous as a centre of painting and sculpture and had a noted school of eclectic oratory at which Julius Caesar was a student. The Crusader Knights of Rhodes (Knights of Malta) acquired Rhodes in the 13th century and built the ‘Old City’, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. Ottoman Turks came to power in the early 16th century, influencing the island with Islamic religious architecture. In 1912 Rhodes was taken from Turkey by Italy, who were eager to build the ‘New City’. The Germans occupied the island from 1943 to 1945. Under the Allied peace treaty with Italy in 1947, the island was awarded to Greece.
If you’re visiting Rhodes, Makris (located at Geor. Mavrou 5, Rodos, no social media) is a unique bookshop, though it is well-known among Rhodians. The shop has no social media or website, but word of mouth is enough to make it a popular and beloved destination. Since 1957, the source of its success and committed customers has been the importance the owners place on interpersonal relations and the its intergenerational continuity; it is now it is run by the godson of the founder, Georgios Makris. Visitors can find little gems in the bookshelves and rare editions of books, and a few of the books are old enough that you can still see the pricing in Greek drachma (the currency Greece had before swapping to the euro in 2001); but don’t worry, you’ll pay in euros. During the final two years of high school (which are preparatory for national exams to enter university), my dad used to shop every Saturday at the local farmers’ market, and I would visit Makris, exploring and discovering new fiction and poetry. We still repeat this ritual when I’m at home: a comforting reminder that some things remain unchanged.
Windmill Library, Astypalea
According to Greek mythology, Astypalea and Europe were the daughters of Finikos and Perimidis. A mosaic from the 1st to 2nd centuries CE at the Archaeological Museum of Gaziantep, symbolises the union of Poseidon, god of the sea, with Astypalea. During the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 BCE), Astypalea was an important naval base of Ptolemy of Egypt and remained as such until the Roman period. The castle of Saint John, one of the most famous attractions, was built during the Byzantine years. The Venetians occupied the island from 1207 to 1269 and later on the sovereignty of Astypalea passed on to the noble Querini family of Venice, who had a great influence on the island.
Astypalea’s Windmill lending library (located at Epar.Od. Livadia-Vathis, no social media) is a must-see for any book-loving visitor to the island. The collection is made up of foreign-language books donated by public institutions, tourists and other visitors, residents and students. The library is run by by volunteers including Stella, a wonderful lady who teaches in both Astypalea’s college and high school. She is the main custodian of the lending library and volunteers much of her time assisting visitors with books. If you happen to visit Astypalea, don’t miss this the opportunity to visit Windmill!
Koukoumavla, Pátmos
Compared to neighbouring islands, Pátmos received scant mention by ancient writers. Under the Romans it was a place for exiles, the most noted of whom was Saint John the Apostle, author of the Fourth Gospel and the Book of Revelation, who, according to tradition was sent there about 95 CE. Most of the island’s inhabitants live in the elevated town of Khóra (Pátmos) in the south and in the harbour village of Skála in the island’s centre. The monastery, cave, and town of Khóra were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999.
Koukoumavla Artshop+Books, located in Khóra, is an alternative bookstore and art shop in the island of Pátmos. Its colourful bookshelves, green walls, black-and-white flooring and handmade decorations make you feel that you have stepped into Alice in Wonderland. Instead, you are entering the world of owner Despina, who has evidently put so much love and creativity into the space and makes everyone feel welcomed. Visitors can find little treasures such as second-hand and new books. It’s a bookstore that kids as well as adults can enjoy – we all deserve to let the imagination of our inner child free, and Koukoumavla can certainly assist in that!
Note: This bookshop guide gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Banner Image Credit:George Papapostolou on Shutterstock
Text Image Credit: Angeliki Tzampazi
Do you know a place with great bookshops? If there’s a city or town with bookshops that you think other students and academics should visit, then this is your chance to tell us all about it.
As part of a regular feature on LSE Review of Books, we’re asking academics and students to recommend their favourite three or four bookshops in a particular city, with the aim of building an exciting online series for our book-loving community of readers the world over.
Bookshops could be academic, alternative, multilingual, hobby-based, secret or underground institutions, second-hand outlets or connected to a university. We’d like to cover all world regions too and are particularly keen to feature cities outside of Europe and North America.
If something comes to mind, we’re looking for a brief introduction about the city and around 150 words per bookshop, detailing why each one is a must-see. Our editorial team can then find suitable photos and links to accompany the piece, though you’re welcome to supply these too. We only ask that you focus on just one city or region, and three or four bookshops within it.
Email us if you’d like to contribute: lsereviewofbooks@lse.ac.uk
Paddington
Waiting for my train
I’m sat here at Costa Coffee in Paddington waiting for the 10:30 to Totnes.
I walked a good few miles yesterday exploring the back-alleys, greenways, footpaths and canal paths from Muswell Hill through Hornsey and down along the Regent Canal. I just love walking in London or any city of culture and contrasts. Once I started to wain in the arvo I took a break in Manchester Square and had a look at the Wallace collection. I remembered stumbling across it about 30 odd years ago back when I was a lazy art student.
Mayfair, like much of London was festooned with union jacks and coronation shite. I really dislike Mayfair. Wall to wall with moronic object shops for the ultra-rich. A ridiculous Ferrari, matt-black with huge rhinestone tyres blatted their engine up to the back bumper of another car. I suspect any damage or injuries they caused would be blamed on the victim. That soured my mood a little. King Charles the turd and his rich prick hangers-on can go hang.
Daunt bookshop on Marylebone High St restored my faith in humanity and I picked out a Susan Coopers Greenwitch. It is never too late to finish reading the Dark is Rising Sequence. That’ll keep me distracted on the train to Totnes which I really should go catch …
Nameless Book
Bicycles I have loved
During the early 90s I read a biographical account by a young man who journeyed around the world on his bicycle. Like all my favourite books I gave it away at some point and have regretted it ever since. I cannot remember the name of the book or the author. The author was possibly a Canadian french speaking chap who had written the book in english. Travelling alone he developed a deep relationship with his bicycle. He of course named the bike, I forget what. The book had a few scratchy line drawings illustrating particular aspects of his bicycle. In one of the ‘stans he had an encounter with bandits on camels shooting ancient rifles.
Years ago I trawled the internet with what I could remember of the book. I found the author living in the french countryside. I thought I would send him a letter to confirm if he was one and the same. I didn’t and I regret it. I just had another look but can no longer find him, nor a clue to the name of the book.
Books, like bicycles, are like old friends. I miss them and regret their loss.
Sunday, 4 September 2022 - 3:56pm
This fortnight, I have been mostly reading:
- The Frontman of Empire: How Bono’s “Activism” Serves the Powerful — Alan Macleod at MintPress News:
Since his first major foray into activism at the 1984 Live Aid concert (where much of the money raised reportedly went to buy weapons for the Ethiopian military), Bono has become an almost ubiquitous face in the halls of power, being invited to speak at a host of elite events on poverty, including the Munich Security Conference, the G8 summit, the World Bank and at the World Economic Forum. There, he is usually treated as the voice of Africa and an intellectual and moral powerhouse helping to solve the world’s most pressing humanitarian problems. Yet critics would say that, far from helping the poor and challenging power, he has instead bolstered it. As Browne wrote: “Bono has been, more often than not, amplifying elite discourses, advocating ineffective solutions, patronizing the poor, and kissing the arses of the rich and powerful. He has been generating and reproducing ways of seeing the developing world, especially Africa, that are no more than a slick mix of traditional missionary and commercial colonialism, in which the poor world exists as a task for the rich world to complete.”
- Uvalde Police Didn’t Move to Save Lives Because That’s Not What Police Do — Natasha Lennard at the Intercept:
The behavior of the police at Robb Elementary is only shocking if you are committed to a mythic notion of what policing entails. The “thin blue line” does not, as reactionary narratives would have it, separate society from violent chaos. This has never been what police do, since the birth of municipal policing in slave patrols and colonial counterinsurgencies. The “thin blue line” instead separates those empowered by the state to uphold racial capitalism with violence, and to do so with impunity. It is disgusting, not shocking, that police officers would sooner harass and handcuff parents — parents begging them to save their children from a massacre — than they would run in and put themselves in the line of fire. What is striking, though, is how inconceivable it is to so many people that policing is not, in fact, what they’ve been told it is by the police themselves, by those in power, and by the mainstream culture built around those mutually reinforcing myths.
- Via Bruce Sterling:
- AUKUS is not about defending Australia but a possible US attack on China — Mike Gilligan in Pearls and Irritations:
Where might it end? John Lander, former Australian ambassador to Iran and Deputy Ambassador to China, offers professional insights. He sees the Wolfawitz doctrine of 1992 as still influencing US security policy– its aim being to prevent any national power becoming a challenge to US. He argues that the “US has defined China as its principal threat and is working on the strategy of denial so as to instigate a war between Taiwan and China. Arm Taiwan to the hilt, conduct a vilification campaign against China to make it the aggressor in the eyes of the world, encourage Taiwan to separate itself from China and thus instigate a war”. That’s a big call, by an astute observer. Nuclear escalation by an aggrieved, thwarted China could not be ruled out. The US would probably judge it had no choice but to respond in kind. But could the battle be confined to tactical nuclear weapons which merely vaporise aircraft carriers? US planners might not be deterred by China’s strategic nuclear arsenal – outnumbered as it is and lacking the layered countermeasures of the US. Yet let’s not forget that China could obliterate Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in a salvo before breakfast, and still have plenty to take its chances with the US. Why should Australia deploy submarines to fight China for Taiwan? It is not required by the ANZUS treaty. We do not see Taiwan as a nation state. Nor does any respected nation. Taiwan was and remains in international law a province of China. It is not geo-strategically important to us. We have no evidence that China has plans to attack Australia. Nor has China the conventional capability to do so. Evidence does exist that China is growing its own defences, centred on its vulnerability to nuclear decapitation by the US. And its maritime forces including power projection are growing. That is largely explained by a frail base, its focus on Taiwan, claims to adjacent seas, long vital sea lanes and longstanding issues with neighbours including Japan. It is frivolous to give weight to speculation beyond sober intelligence of the China military reality. Yet our government is on the path to joining a fight with China in China’s waters seven thousand kilometres away. For a US objective of global primacy essentially.
- Elon Musk Is Not a Renegade Outsider – He’s a Massive Pentagon Contractor — Alan Macleod, who is apparently on a bit of a myth-busting bender at MintPress News:
From its origins in 2002, SpaceX has always been extremely close to the national security state, particularly the CIA. Perhaps the most crucial link is Mike Griffin, who, at the time, was the president and COO of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-funded venture capital firm that seeks to nurture and sponsor new companies that will work with the CIA and other security services, equipping them with cutting edge technology. The “Q” in its name is a reference to “Q” from the James Bond series – a creative inventor who supplies the spy with the latest in futuristic tech. Griffin was with Musk virtually from day one, accompanying him to Russia in February 2002, where they attempted to purchase cut-price intercontinental ballistic missiles to start Musk’s business. Musk felt that he could substantially undercut opponents by using second-hand material and off-the-shelf components for launches. The attempt failed, but the trip cemented a lasting partnership between the pair, with Griffin going to war for Musk, consistently backing him as a potential “Henry Ford” of the rocket industry. Three years later, Griffin would become head of NASA and later would hold a senior post at the Department of Defense. While at NASA, Griffin brought Musk in for meetings and secured SpaceX’s big break. In 2006, NASA awarded the company a $396 million rocket development contract – a remarkable “gamble” in Griffin’s words, especially as it had never launched a rocket before. As National Geographic put it, SpaceX, “never would have gotten to where it is today without NASA.” And Griffin was essential to this development. Still, by 2008, SpaceX was again in dire straits, with Musk unable to make payroll. The company was saved by an unexpected $1.6 billion NASA contract for commercial cargo services. Thus, from its earliest days, SpaceX was nurtured by government agencies that saw the company as a potentially important source of technology.
- Non Sequitur — by Wiley Miller:
- Privatising Your Ancestors — Mihail Evans at Tribune:
Ancestry.com want your family photos. They want you to upload them to their website so others tracing their family history can have highly prized images to add to the family trees created from searching historical records. But once they are on their system, they will be charging others to access them without offering you anything. They are effectively hoping to privatise the family albums of the nation, just another field ripe for monetisation. This is the obvious next step for what is, in effect, Big Genealogy. In the last decade or so, almost wholly unremarked, they have already privatised swathes of the public records of the UK. This has largely happened as a result of austerity, when cash-strapped local authorities pressed to digitise have done so on the cheap by handing over the contents of county record offices, built up over centuries, to these massive multinationals.
- Anti-Trans Bills Are Driving a New Moral Panic — Claire Potter in Public Seminar:
Over the weekend, I learned that Republican legislators in that state have jammed through H.B. 151, a bill that imagines a shocking, new attack on women’s right to privacy. […] And here is the creepy part. H.B. 151 permits any person to identify an athlete (this would be a female athlete, of course) as potentially being trans. The accusation would result in immediately pulling that athlete from competition and forcing her to submit to a visual examination of her genitals, as well as a pelvic exam to determine that she has ovaries and a uterus. Should this exam be inconclusive, that girl would be forced to take a chromosome test and have her testosterone level measured. If that girl is deemed not female for any reason—and there are many biological and chromosomal variations even among those who present as, and believe themselves to be, gender normative—her team would have to forfeit any competition she played in. […] In other words, the same GOP that doesn’t want girls to have sex at all is totally fine with children and teenagers having their clitorises measured, enduring a stranger’s fingers forcibly probing their vaginas, and being publicly humiliated in front of the entire school should any genetic or physical attribute appear to be “not normal.”
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal — by Zach Weinersmith:
Sunday, 14 August 2022 - 8:17pm
This week, I have been mostly reading:
- Breakfast with the Panthers — Suzanne Cope in Aeon:
Starting in 1969, and for several years afterwards, in church basements and community centre kitchens in cities and towns around the United States, thousands of kids sat around a table every school day morning, eating hot breakfast served by the young adults of the Black Panther Party. At each seat there was a plate and utensil setting, a cup and a napkin. The children learned to use their fork and knife properly, eating eggs and grits and bacon and toast, washed down by juice or milk or hot chocolate – whatever local businesses had donated that week. The Panthers – most of them in their late teens and early 20s, and about two-thirds of them women – had arrived at these community kitchens before dawn to prepare this hot meal for the children, serving them and then checking homework, and giving PE (political education) lessons.
- The Most American Thing That Has Ever Happened — Caitlin Johnstone:
The Biden administration has asked top Democrats to decouple the federal government’s Covid relief spending package from its much larger bill for funding of the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, because one of those two things is too controversial and contentious to pass quickly. Guess which one.
- Tom the Dancing Bug — by Ruben Bolling:
- How America’s Evangelicals Turned Themselves Into an Anti-Abortion Machine — James Risen at the Intercept:
No one who looked at Francis Schaeffer in the late 1970s would have figured him for a fundamentalist preacher. […] Yet by the late 1970s, Schaeffer had emerged as the intellectual driving force behind the political mobilization of Protestant evangelicals across the United States. Barely recognized outside evangelical circles, Schaeffer was nonetheless the man who first made evangelicals care about politics — and specifically about abortion. When the Supreme Court legalized abortion in its landmark Roe v. Wade decision in January 1973, Protestant evangelicals did not protest. At the time, evangelicals were not yet politically involved on any major issue. But just a few short years later, they were at the forefront of what became a four-decade conservative assault on Roe v. Wade, a bitter campaign that now appears to be on the brink of success, thanks in no small measure to Schaeffer’s efforts.
- Psaki Joins The Dems’ Corporate Career Pipeline — Julia Rock
at the Lever:
The skills required to act as a press secretary in corporate Democratic presidencies — saying little of substance, committing to nothing, dispensing snark and scoffs, and never even accidentally challenging power — appear to carry over well to playing pundit on MSNBC, the corporate network that serves as the Democratic Party’s de-facto propaganda outfit. Psaki’s Democratic predecessors have taken similar paths, leaving their press secretary posts to defend corporate Democrats and big business on cable news spots. In fact, every single press secretary of the Clinton and Obama administrations eventually cut out the middleman and went to work directly in corporate PR — ranging from managing crisis communications for the scandal-plagued NFL to setting up Amazon’s vast lobbying and public relations shop. This ongoing history of Democratic presidential flacks becoming corporate lackeys and mouthpieces is proof that when the Jen Psakis of the world are standing behind the dais in the West Wing and dodging questions about campaign promises to cancel student debt or institute a $15 minimum wage, they aren’t just speaking for the president. They are also auditioning for their future corporate employers.
- xkcd — by Randall Monroe:
- Conservative parents take aim at library apps meant to expand access to books — David Ingram at NBC News:
E-reader apps that became lifelines for students during the pandemic are now in the crossfire of a culture war raging over books in schools and public libraries. In several states, apps and the companies that run them have been targeted by conservative parents who have pushed schools and public libraries to shut down their digital programs, which let users download and read books on their smartphones, tablets and laptops. […] The apps often market themselves to schools and libraries as a way to quickly diversify their digital shelves, especially after racial justice protests in spring 2020 drew attention to the lack of diversity in many traditional institutions. But convenience is a double-edged sword. In years past, parents might not have been able to find out what’s in a library collection, giving students a certain measure of freedom to roam the stacks. Now, they can easily search digital collections for books with content they object to and ask school administrators to censor or limit access with a few mouse clicks. “The terrifying thing is that they can be censored with the flip of a switch, without due process, without evaluating the substance of the claims,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association.
- “The Squad” Doesn’t Exist Outside Of Social Media — Caitlin Johnstone:
“I’ve avoided the term, but ‘Fraud Squad’ feels pretty apt,” journalist Aaron Maté tweeted of the House vote. “Challenging the military industrial complex is leftism 101. The Squad just voted to give it another $40 billion via the Ukraine proxy war. So, insofar as they claim to be a leftist contingent, how are they not a fraud?” The best assessment I’ve ever read about the clique of House Democrats comprised of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman comes from Columbia University’s Anthony Zenkus, who made the following observation: “The Squad doesn’t exist. They have never used their power as a bloc to push for votes on progressive legislation or to block regressive legislation. They are not protesting on the Capitol steps or outside the White House. They are a media creation and a brand who won’t disrupt status quo.” That’s it right there. “The Squad” has no real existence outside of the media, particularly social media. It’s a glorified online PR campaign for the Democratic Party, one which only came about because the party’s gerontocratic leaders are too senile to use Twitter and Instagram.
- Dinosaur Comics — by Ryan North:
- The Right’s Creeping Pro-Natalist Rhetoric on Abortion and Trans Health Care — Schuyler Mitchell in the Intercept:
While it’s ridiculous to equate reproductive or gender-affirming health care with forced sterilization, Republicans have been able to comfortably weaponize this language in part due to the progressive movement’s own dark history with eugenics. During the early 20th century, scores of Black, Indigenous, and Puerto Rican women were forcibly sterilized at the hands of the state. Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger supported eugenics and espoused birth control as a tool for demographic control. “Part of what’s so outrageous is the true vulnerability that people face when it comes to their bodily autonomy is real. It’s just being weaponized against them through false pretense,” said Jules Gill-Peterson, an associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins and the author of “Histories of the Transgender Child.” “We see how much residue is left there, and how many sparks are available for people to weaponize those histories. They can sort of substitute the reality.” There’s another layer to the right’s eugenics rhetoric: Various nationalist authoritarian regimes throughout history have employed pro-natalist or “positive eugenics” methods in attempts to combat the demographic threat of declining birthrates. In 1925, Mussolini launched an aggressive domestic policy known as “Battle for Births,” which banned abortion, restricted access to contraception, and incentivized reproduction via tax breaks and welfare benefits. […] Similar events played out in Nazi Germany: Abortion and contraception were banned, traditional gender roles were reimposed, and economic benefits were awarded to women who focused on homemaking. These policies were explicitly tied to the belief in the superiority of the Aryan race; promoting the expansion of the white population went hand in hand with the compulsory sterilization and genocide of those deemed racially inferior. It’s worth noting that these authoritarian approaches to population goals emerged in the period following World War I into World II, when unprecedented mass casualties had fomented a growing anxiety about birthrates worldwide. In the wake of over 6 million deaths globally from Covid-19, it might not be a coincidence that fertility panic has crept into the current wave of Republican legislation. Today the endgame of constructing a “traditional,” white, Christian nation is an undercurrent in much of the right’s rhetoric.
- The Shovel’s definitive profile of Anthony Albanese:
He joined the Labor Party as a student, and then went off to get some life experience in the real world, trying his hand at all sorts of different jobs within varying arms of the Labor Party. After winning pre-selection for the seat of Grayndler in 1996, his first federal election was a closely-fought battle against the No Aircraft Noise Party (NAN), a single-issue party who fundamentally misunderstands how aircraft work. In the first Rudd Government, Albanese was given the position of ‘Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Regional Development and Local Government and Leader of the House of Representatives’. It was later revealed that Albanese had used his contacts in the union movement to negotiate a salary that was directly tied to the number of letters in his job title.
- Health Data — xkcd by Randall Munroe:
- Laugh at Tucker Carlson’s Tanning Testicles Doc All You Want, But the Bulging Muscles and Potent Sperm Imagery is a Fascist Dream — Annika Brockschmidt at Religion Dispatches:
This trailer for Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s new documentary The End of Men has drawn a lot of mockery online—especially when it became clear that the device covering the genitals isn’t a glowing Covid test, but that the naked man standing on a pile of stones is in fact bathing his testicles in UV light—a process, that according to macho fitness influencers, is supposed to increase the sperm count. […] At first glance, the video may seem ridiculous, but it actually offers a chilling glimpse into the ideology of America’s increasingly radicalizing Right. In right-wing ideology—and most notably in fascism—gender roles are inherently political, as numerous historians and other humanities scholars have shown. The historian Michael Hatt writes: “The stability of masculinity depends upon the visibility of the male body; to be learned or consolidated, masculinity requires an exchange between men.” Not only are the depictions of idealized, militant masculinity important propaganda tools for fascists, they also provide viewers with a deep insight into their thinking. Fascism requires a perpetual state of war. This doesn’t have to be a real war—instead, a narrative is built in which the “real” people are threatened from the outside. These enemies are painted as both incredibly powerful, but also as despicable and degenerate. According to this understanding, in order to counter this constant threat fascism needs men—physically strong men, who are not only able to throw large car tires around, but who also deter their opponents through their overpowering physique. The relationship between masculinity and force is crucial: Fascism, as historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes, “links masculinity to the performance of violent acts.”
- On Bush’s Freudian Confession — Caitlin Johnstone:
While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any American in general and Bush in particular), the 43rd president made the following comment: “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.” And then it got even better. After correcting himself with a nervous chuckle, Bush broke the tension in the empire-loyal crowd with the words, “Iraq too. Anyway.” He then quipped that he is 75 years old, leaning harder on his “Aw shucks gee willikers I’m such a goofball” persona than he ever has in his entire life. And Bush’s audience laughed. They thought it was great. A president who launched an illegal invasion that killed upwards of a million people (probably way upwards) openly confessing to doing what every news outlet in the western world has spent the last three months shrieking its lungs out about Putin doing was hilarious to them. There are not enough shoes in the universe to respond to this correctly.
- Calvin and Hobbes — by Bill Watterson:
Sunday, 7 August 2022 - 9:57pm
This fortnight, I have been mostly working, but when I did get to the pub, I read:
- The Fed’s Interest Rate Hike: Salt In The Wound? — John T. Harvey in Forbes:
Here’s the situation. We all know well that inflation is accelerating and that we are facing rates we haven’t seen since the OPEC oil embargo. Fair enough, the Fed has that right. And they are correct to worry that people are hurting from this. But Fed’s solution is nonsensical. They are raising interest rates in the hopes that this will reduce the overall level of economic activity and, once people don’t have as much money to spend, “They expect that to cool demand for goods and services, helping to ease price inflation.” Stop for a second and assume that those pushing this policy don’t have “PhD” after their names. Imagine instead that someone on a street corner is yelling to anyone passing by, “Listen to me, people! Prices are rising and we are all hurting! Demand that your government lower your incomes today!” You’d rush by as quickly as possible, avoiding eye contact and keeping one hand on your wallet. What an idiot: help people afford to put food on the table by depriving them of income? Insanity. […] Nothing in our current scenario suggests that lowering the level of economic activity in the U.S. would be helpful. It is true in a very strict (and bizarre) sense that throwing the economy into recession would lower the prices of gas and food, and therefore overall inflation, since we wouldn’t be able to afford to buy as much. But unless a 10% decline in our incomes led to a >10% decline in their prices, it will actually make us worse off than we were when we started. And as the demand for gas and food is very price inelastic (i.e., we can’t do without them and so we won’t be able to cut back that much), any fall in our incomes will definitely not be matched by a like or better fall in prices. Absolutely, positively not.
- As the Forde report shows, Labour’s right wing is the source of its problems — Ryan Coogan:
After the release of the Forde report last week, you can probably see why other parties don’t tend to make a lot of room for people who are directly opposed to their stated goals. According to the report, Labour officials worked against the interests of their own party in order to undermine its then-leader Jeremy Corbyn and the party’s left wing as a whole, going so far as to divert campaign resources away from winnable seats and towards candidates who were anti-Corbyn. […] The report also confirms that claims of antisemitism against Corbyn were weaponised by his internal enemies in order to create an air of moral panic around the prospect of his leadership; a fact that few will find surprising considering that the right immediately stopped pretending to care about Jewish people five minutes after Corbyn was out the door. […] The fact that people within his own party were terrified of him begs the question: which part of supporting the working class did they disagree with? Which part of Corbyn being on the right side of virtually every social issue for the past seven decades had them lighting the warning beacons of Gondor? How is being terrified of social progress not only a socially acceptable political position to hold in this country but seemingly its default? The real horror of this entire affair is the fact that those factions – the ones that believed it absolutely crucial to attack their own leader in the midst of Brexit chaos and the gradual rise of fascism in the West – won decisively. They are the Labour Party now.
- Via Bruce Sterling:
- ‘Like a public shaming’: a night with the eco-activists deflating SUV tires — Oliver Milman in the Guardian profiles the Tyre Extinguishers:
On a searingly hot night in New York City, a group of mask-wearing activists grasping bags of lentils set out to stage the biggest blitzkrieg yet upon a new target for climate campaigners in the US – the tires of SUVs. The group – a mixture of ages and genders – split up as midnight approached, heading down the streets of the Upper East Side, lined by some of the most expensive apartments in the world and a gleaming parade of high-end, parked SUVs. This type of vehicle is the second largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions over the past decade. The Tyre Extinguishers, as they call themselves, furtively hand around bags of lentils ahead of their raid (the legumes are jammed into a tire valve to release its air slowly overnight) and size up their quarry.
- The ‘sadmin’ after my mother’s death was hard enough – then I encountered Vodafone — George Monbiot in the Guardian:
Vodafone continued to charge my dad for a contract that should have ended the day my mum died. Eventually my sister told a call handler she intended to stop the direct debit. He replied: “Do what you like, but you’ll be in breach of contract.” She stopped it anyway, and posted a letter to Vodafone HQ (there was no other means of contacting the company) informing it. Without warning, Vodafone passed the matter to a debt collection agency, which started pursuing my dad for the £33 bill it deemed my mum to have incurred since she died. The agents rang my dad’s landline repeatedly, every time insisting on speaking to him. His carer refused. Had my dad not been shielded, these calls would have inflicted immense distress. […] A fortnight ago, more than four months after my mother’s death, I belatedly snapped, and described our experience in a Twitter thread. My intention was to shame Vodafone into action. I got more than I bargained for. Immediately, the responses started pouring in: first dozens, then hundreds of people sharing similar and sometimes even worse experiences when trying to cancel accounts with Vodafone, especially the accounts of people who had died or whose capacity had diminished. They reported, while in the depths of grief, the same nastiness and lack of sympathy. They reported an insistence on questioning vulnerable and confused elderly people. They described months, in some cases years, of failure to cancel such contracts.
- This Modern World — by Tom Tomorrow:
- The Dollar System in a Multi-Polar World — James K. Galbraith for INET brilliantly spells out what seems bleeding obvious only after it's been spelled out:
A tentative conclusion is that the dollar-based financial system, with the euro acting as a junior partner, is likely to survive for now. But there will be a significant non-dollar, non-eurozone carved out for those countries considered adversaries by the United States and the European Union, of which Russia is by far the present leading example – and for their trading partners. China will act as a bridge between the two systems – the fixed-point of multi-polarity. Should similar harsh decisions be taken with respect to China, then a true split of the world into mutually-isolated blocs, akin to the coldest years of the Cold War, would become a possibility. However the consequences for the Western economies in their current state of dependence on Eurasian resources and Chinese production capacity would be exceptionally dire, so it seems unlikely (though who knows?) that policy-makers in the West would push matters that far. In the present crisis, political leaders in the West have been under the most extreme pressure to wield powers that they do not have, in order to display a resolve that they may not feel. Their reactions must be judged through the prism of this pressure and the requirements of political survival. They have, so far, managed to refrain from taking fatal military risks, while deploying the full force of information-war assets, and concentrating on a sanctions regime that is part of a well-worn toolkit, demonstrably more costly in the Russian case to its designers than to its target. […] Can the United States survive the rise of a multi-polar world? The question is absurd: of course it can. But not without a political upheaval, spurred by inflation and recession and a falling stock market in the short term and eventually by demands for a realistic strategy consonant with the actual global balance of power. The ultimate threat is not to the living possibilities of the country so much as to its political elites, based as they are on global financial rents and domestic arms contracts.