BBC4 Thinking Allowed: Good neighbours, The connection between sport and domestic abuse

Good Neighbours and the democracy of everyday life. Our neighbours do small favours and greet us on the street. They also, on occasion, startle us with noises at night and even betray us to the authorities. Laurie Taylor talks to Nancy Rosenblum, the Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government at Harvard University, about her study into our many and varied encounters with the people 'next door' - from suburbia to popular culture; in peaceful times & during disasters and across time and culture. They're joined by Graham Crow, Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh.

Also, the connection between sporting events and violence against women. Jodie Swallow, Post Graduate Research Student at Chester University, discusses her research into women's experience of domestic abuse in the context of the FIFA World Cup and the Six Nations Rugby Union Tournament.

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Online Library of Liberty: New Playing Cards for the French Republic (1793-94)

This is a playing card from a charming collection of new designs for a deck which were issued during the French Revolution (1793-94). They were designed by moderate liberal republican supporters of the revolution (which included people such as the Marquis de Condorcet) who believed in the rule of law, free markets, the equality of women under the law, and the emancipation of slaves. As they said in their pamphlet they wanted to reinforce the principles of the revolution in such everyday items as playing cards, since the traditional designs had face or "court" cards depicting Kings, Queens, and Jacks who were the beneficiaries of the old privileged political order which had just been overthrown. It seemed obvious to them that a new design even for such mundaine things as playing cards was required under the Republic to reflect the new principles of government and which "the love of liberty demands". Here we show "The Spirit of Peace" (equivalent to the Queen of Clubs) which the designers explain as follows: ""Peace" is seated on an ancient seat and is holding in one hand the roll of the laws, in his other hand is the fasces signifying concord and on which is written the word "Union". Lying near him are a cornucopia and a plowshare; an olive branch which he is holding in his right hand shows its influence and justifies the word "Prosperity" which is placed next to him." An intriguing aspect of the designs was the important role which they gave to economic liberty: the Spirit of Peace" has as his motto "prosperity"; the "Spirit of Commerce" has for his "wealth"; and the "Liberty of the Professions" has "industry". Thus fully one quarter of the face cards deals with one or another aspect of economic freedom.

This guide will provide high resolution images of the new designs, a translation of some of the explanatory descriptions which accompanied them, and some commentary on the meaning and significance of these images.

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Big Think: Liberal vs. Conservative: A Neuroscientific Analysis with Gail Saltz

What the difference in brain structure between liberals and conservatives? And where do our political convictions come from: rational deliberation, or biological determinism? Psychiatrist Gail Saltz explains.

Nerdwriter1: How Brexit Snuck Up On Everyone

Jacobin Magazine: Italy’s Stranded Migrants

Ali arrived in Italy in 2008, when he was sixteen. Immediately, he applied for asylum, a process that took two years. During this time, he was advised to stay in a state-run refugee camp, which offered neither Italian-language courses nor integration programs that could help him find employment after receiving his documents. With nothing to do, Ali got bored and left.

Today, eight years later and still unemployed, Ali says everything he has, he’s earned on his own. The national reception system, he tells me in the nearly fluent Italian he picked up while working small gigs, pushes refugees to fend for themselves with predictably mixed results. [...]

Ali’s story is fairly common among those seeking asylum in Italy. A recent study by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) found that more than ten thousand refugees live in abandoned spaces, handmade shacks, or camping tents throughout the country — and that’s an improvement over last year. [...]

The Italian government does provide shelter for asylum-seekers. But the demand often outpaces the spaces available in state institutions. In 2015, nearly 154,000 people arrived in Italy, while less than 97,000 beds were offered throughout the country. [...]

The Italian government is failing in another respect: preventing extreme exploitation. “20 percent of Italy’s GDP comes from the black market,” says Giovanni Abbate, a project manager for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Italy. “And much of this is based on underpaid migrant labor.”

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The Atlantic: Trust in Government Is Collapsing Around the World

But Richard Edelman, the head of the communications marketing firm Edelman, sees something more significant in the change: proof of a new “world of self-reference” that, once you notice it, helps explain everything from Donald Trump’s appeal to Britain’s vote to exit the European Union. Elites used to possess outsized influence and authority, Edelman notes, but now they only have a monopoly on authority. Influence largely rests with the broader population. People trust their peers much more than they trust their political leaders or news organizations. [...]

This is part of a larger divide that has been opening up between “mass populations” and “informed publics” (Edelman defined the latter group as those who have a college degree, regularly consume news media, and are in the top 25 percent of household income for their age group in a given country). The 2008 financial crisis, he argued, produced widespread suspicion that elites only act in their own interests, not those of the people, and that elites don’t necessarily have access to better information than the rest of the population does. The sluggish, unequal recovery from that crisis—the wealthy bouncing back while many others struggle with stagnant incomes—has only increased the skepticism. [...]

“Between the top 25 percent of income earners and the bottom 25 percent of income earners, there’s a 31-point gap in trust in institutions in the United States,” he added. “Donald Trump comes right out of that statistic.”

The gap persists across countries facing varying degrees of economic difficulty: It’s 29 points in France, 26 points in Brazil, and 22 points in India.

Donald Trump’s message may be a response to this collapse of trust in government, but it also might further undermine that trust. Writing in Foreign Policy, the journalist Valentina Pasquali pointed out that, like Trump, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi mercilessly trashed the media, the judiciary, and political parties. The upshot: During his time in office, voter-turnout rates and public trust in Italian institutions plummeted. “Today,” Pasquali wrote, “Italy’s voters remain as apathetic and embittered as ever.”

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Quartz: Brexiters who argued they’d be more “free” didn’t really understand the philosophy of freedom

In a blog post for the London School of Economics on the subject, Papazoglou explains how the 20th-century philosopher Isaiah Berlin set out two forms of liberty: negative freedom and positive freedom. Negative freedom is the freedom from external constraints, while positive freedom is the freedom to do things according to your will. And in arguing the UK should leave the EU, campaigners disproportionately emphasized negative freedoms.

“As a member of the EU, I may give up the right to control my borders in terms of EU citizens,” says Papazoglou. “But then my citizens also gain the freedom to travel and work in a lot of countries.” [...]

Papazaglou also argues that the notion of the EU imposing undemocratic edicts on the UK is false. In fact, he says, the EU is a highly democratic institution, and arguably embodies a more nuanced version of democracy than the EU referendum itself—in which slim majority vote on a referendum has the power to effect the course of a country for the foreseeable future. [...]

Though a philosophical discussion of freedom might seem too abstract for day-to-day politics, Papazoglou points out that much of the debate around whether the UK should remain in the EU was focused on abstract ideas such as democracy, sovereignty, and freedom, not just practical considerations. And so, if the UK was to make a decision about its standing in the world based on a concept of freedom, there should at least have been a nuanced discussion of what freedom is.

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CityLab: How Oakland Defeated Coal

Because of this coalition—working under the banner of No Coal in Oakland—the city took a historic vote on June 27 to ban coal, following the lead of cities such as Portland, Oregon. Had the deal gone through, millions of tons of coal would have been stored at the port terminal annually, and Oakland would have become the largest coal-export city on the West Coast. It also would have increased Oakland’s culpability in contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate change. [...]

Still, it was monumental that any labor reps took part in the protest, let alone that they played a leading role. The blue-green alliance formed in recent years among labor and environmentalists has not been ironclad. The AFL-CIO would not join climate change activists in their protests against the Keystone XL pipeline, worried about the jobs it might cost its members. And while the AFL-CIO did pledge to help billionaire Tom Steyer’s political efforts in fighting climate change earlier this year, eight major building-trade unions fired an angry letter at AFL-CIO president Richard Trumpka for doing so. [...]

The Oakland fight against coal expanded well beyond labor, though. A number of traditionally non-green social justice groups stepped up for this fight. A teach-in held at the local SEIU headquarters last December was emblematic of this. There, a variety of activists came out to speak on a multitude of issues—gentrification, displacement, and the fight for a minimum wage of $15 among them—tying it all to the need to keep coal out of Oakland. It wasn’t just a display of intersectionality; it was a constellation of forces converging. [...]

“Yeah, most of the environmentalists were white, and the the other side tried to say that those white people don’t understand our struggle, and that they were just trying to gentrify West Oakland,” says Muhammad. “But I was like, ‘Wait, I’m black, and [coal pollution] affects black people, too. I don’t want to be breathing that stuff, or work in that stuff. So don’t try to say that only Caucasians are concerned about this.’ Most of my local union is black, and we got a problem with it too.”

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Mental Floss: The Ozone Layer Hole Over Antarctica Is Healing

In the last 200 years, we human beings have inflicted staggering amounts of violence and destruction on our home planet. The prognosis seems grim. But every so often, we see a glimmer of hope. The latest? Researchers in the Antarctic report that a tear in the ozone layer above the continent is showing signs of healing. They published their findings in the journal Science. [...]

Apparently, the ban is working. Studies over the last 10 years have suggested that the ozone layer has begun to patch itself up in certain places, and the latest research in Antarctica bears that out.

Lead author Susan Solomon is an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She and her colleagues have been monitoring the Antarctic ozone hole for years, looking at its area, height, and chemical profile. They now report that, from 2000 to 2015, the size of hole has shrunk by millions of square miles. 

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The Guardian: Europe can’t rescue Britain. It’s too busy trying to save itself

Imagining that Britain’s European partners will produce concessions to facilitate a U-turn is wishful thinking – the EU is too weak and too rattled by populist forces to be able to make that kind of manoeuvre without setting itself on a course to self-destruction. The EU will prefer to ensure its own survival as a project rather than risk suicide by handing Britain unprecedented exemptions from its founding principles, such as freedom of movement. [...]

The logic of those who believe Brexit is a slogan rather than a reality has rested on two observations: first, there has been the reminder that in the past other EU countries held referendums whose outcomes were later corrected; second, there is the belief that because EU partners are supposedly so desperate to keep Britain in the club, they will come around and start preparing a new offer, especially on the immigration issue, which would make a British reversal much less difficult than it is now. [...]

It’s true that no European government wanted Brexit, nor ever wished it would materialise. But there is a difference between not wanting something to happen and being able to prevent it. Freedom of movement is a structural pillar of Europe. Weakening it to any greater extent than was offered to Britain earlier this year (to no effect) would trigger a time-bomb from which the European project would not recover.

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Business Insider: China is building the world's largest city — and it already has more people than South Korea

For the past decade, China has been on a mission to build the world's biggest city by combining a number of large cities into one giant megacity.

With a current population of roughly 57 million housed inside a 15,000-square-mile perimeter, the Pearl River Delta is a region roughly the size of West Virginia but with 30 times more people. [...]

Each city's population ranges from nearly 2 million to more than 14 million, which, by 2030, China hopes to unite into an all-powerful megacity with an economic output around $2 trillion.

Whether that's feasible is still a mystery, but it's one the country is set on solving.

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