Vox: Junot Díaz on political art and the immigrant as Sauron

By white supremacy, we don’t mean people with hoods. We mean the ideological hegemonic system that operates transnationally, globally, etc., etc. Immediately, you’re a figure that is going to signal for people inside the status quo world that you’re a political entity, you’re a political configuration, because you’re just automatically not status quo.

Today, it always seems that we’re in a perpetual moment of crisis. The great gift of the neoliberal order is that we are perpetually in a state of emergency. The state of emergency is the default. And that’s incredibly helpful for our utterly corrupt and debauched elites. It’s wonderful that we’re always thinking apocalyptically and thinking as if time and spaces of deliberation are against us. [...]

I love how people draw the lines of ideals on the backs of immigrants. And in this way, many people on the left are aligned with people on the right. Where the right has drawn a line across their values — a distinct line that the right has drawn on the backs of immigrants — many folks on the left are doing the same old bullshit. And they’re like, "Oh, I have to stand on my principles." I notice how your principles help in furthering this ideology of fucking up immigrant communities. [...]

For me, when I was living in that kind of environment, where I was being taught not to see, where I was being taught, "Don’t see that this country wants to practice racism but wants to pretend it doesn’t exist. Don’t see that this country lives absolutely on immigrants but wants to hate them and say they’re lazy. Don’t see these things" — what was useful for me is that when I would read science fiction and fantasy, they would provide me a parallax view. Because I was acquiring the blindness. You’re seeing it as it’s coming on to you, but it’s coming on to you. You’re acquiring it even as you’re realizing the danger of it.

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Quartz: Why we’re better off with fewer friends

Not true. The growth in the number of our friends has actually been accompanied with an increase in social isolation, as Sherry Turkle describes. We are more connected, yet more alone. It turns out that there is a correlation between Facebook use and loneliness. The very highest users of Facebook tend to feel less satisfied with life and are less happy. One study found that Facebook usage worsens mood, whereas using the internet for the same period of time did not. I must emphasize that the research on Facebook and other forms of social media is not universally negative; it can usefully serve as a way to reinforce real-world relationships. In addition, it appears that it is not Facebook that makes you lonely, but that lonely people use Facebook more. However, what is striking is that the research into our connection to more people than ever before is not universally positive—it’s not even close. This stands in stark contrast to the general research on the critical value of relationships on all aspects of well-being. [...]

Unfortunately, in the US and elsewhere it seems we’re going down the popularity route, instead of building close relationships. In 1985, a survey asked people about how many friends they had discussed important matters with. The most common answer was three, with 59% of people having three or more confidants. In 2004, the most common answer to this question was zero. Yet close friends and confidents are hugely valuable. One study suggested the benefit, from a health and happiness perspective, of having a good friend who you see every day is equivalent to an extra $100,000 on your income!

I like to link Kasser’s work with the brilliant research into primates by Robin Dunbar where he estimated the maximum size of social groupings in apes as well as humans, based on the size of their brain. It turns out the maximum number of relationships humans can manage is 150. This has become known as Dunbar’s number. What is less widely known is that his research showed other numbers too. For example, he found people tend to have five people closest to them, then the next level of closeness involves 15 people, then 50, then 150. Nearly all the well-being benefits from relationships don’t come from the 500 Facebook friends, or even the 150 or the 50. They come from the 15. Quality time spent with your 15 closest friends and family will have a direct impact on your happiness, health and longevity (and theirs too). As Ed Diener and Martin Seligman found from an analysis of very happy people, the thing that united them was strong ties to close friends and family and a commitment to spending real face time with them.

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Alternet: Realizing You’re a Lesbian in Midlife: What Coming Out Late Really Means

Joe Kort, a psychotherapist specializing in gay affirmation therapy, writes, “Society allows girls to touch each other, hug and kiss each other, even dance together. But boys learn, early on, not to touch each other or risk being labeled ‘queer.’” For women, being affectionate isn’t an instant introduction to homosexuality. And that means it can take a while to weave through the complex relationships they form with those of the same sex.

Feminist poet Adrienne Rich goes so far as to argue that every female experience exists along the so-called “lesbian continuum.” Regina reintroduced that idea during our interview, saying, “Women bond very quickly, in ways that men do not. Within moments, we're hearing each other’s life stories.” [...]

For a long time, Evie had a hard time defining herself as a lesbian. “I didn't feel good in the straight world, and I didn't really feel like I belonged in the queer world. It was like trying to stick a square peg in a round hole.”

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The Guardian: Women to go on strike in Poland in protest at planned abortion law

Poland already has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, with terminations legally permitted only when the life of the foetus is under threat, when there is a grave threat to the health of the mother, and in the instance that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

Were the proposed ban to be enacted, all terminations would be criminalised, with women punishable with up to five years in prison. Doctors found to have assisted with a termination would also be liable for prosecution and a prison term.

Critics say that would mean that even a woman who suffers a miscarriage could be under criminal suspicion, and that doctors might be put off conducting even routine procedures on pregnant women for fear of being accused of facilitating a termination.

Although a ban has received public support from elements of the Catholic church and Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS), neither initiated the proposals. They were drafted by hardline conservative advocacy group Ordo Iuris and submitted by the Stop Abortion coalition as a “citizens’ initiative” – a petition considered by parliament once it has received more than 100,000 signatures. [...]

But it is the perceived cruelty of the proposed abortion ban that has united what has long been a relatively marginal feminist movement with many self-identified Roman Catholics and those who support the existing “compromise” – shorthand for the legislation passed in 1993 that regulates abortion to this day.

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Independent: Pope calls gender theory a 'global war' on marriage and family

Pope Francis has warned gender theory is part of a "global war" against traditional marriage and the family.

"You mentioned a great enemy of marriage: gender theory," the Pope said, in response to a question at a meeting of Catholics in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia on Saturday.

He continued: "Today, there is a global war out to destroy marriage."

Not with weapons but with ideas... we have to defend ourselves from ideological colonization." [...]

"Marriage is the most beautiful thing that God has created," he said, adding that the bible says God created man and woman to become one flesh in apparent reference to homosexuality.

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The Guardian: Colombia referendum rejects peace deal with Farc guerrillas

Colombians have rejected a peace deal to end 52 years of war with Farc guerrillas, throwing the country into confusion about its future.

With counting completed from 98% of polling stations, the no vote led with 50.23% to 49.76%, a difference of 61,000 votes. [...]

Polls before the vote predicted yes would win with a comfortable 66% share. Santos had been confident of a yes result and said during the campaign that he did not have a plan B and that Colombia would return to war if the no vote won. His opponents, led by former president Alvaro Uribe, said a win for their side would be a mandate for the government and rebels to negotiate a “better agreement”. [...]

Fernando Giraldo, a political analyst, said the fact that both the government and guerrilla reiterated their commitment to peace was a good sign but the future was unclear. “The plebiscite laid everything out in black and white and now we’re stuck in a grey area,” he said. [...]

In the days before the vote, Farc commanders rushed to make a round of public apologies to their victims in an attempt to boost support for the yes vote. On Thursday, chief rebel negotiator Iván Márquez presented the community of Bojayá, Chocó, where the 2002 bombing of a church killed 119 people, with a new crucifix. At a similar event on Friday in Apartadó, Antioquia, the site of a 1994 Farc massacre of 35 people, Márquez said it “never should have happened”.

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NBC News: Germany's Populist Right-Wing AfD Party Draws Comparison to Nazis

While the AfD has been celebrating election gains — it is on the verge of becoming Germany's third-strongest political force, according to recent polls — it has been battling the label of an extremist party over its anti-Islam stance and a number of controversies surrounding some of its members.

Last week, it came under renewed criticism for providing a home to politicians who support far-right ideologies.

Kay Nerstheimer, an AfD candidate for Berlin's state parliament, reportedly called Syrian refugees "disgusting worms" on his Facebook page and was once a member of the far-right German Defense League. Meanwhile, magazine Stern reported that local AfD politician Rudolf Mueller had been selling banned Nazi paraphernalia at his antique shop in the state of Saarland. [...]

Under its slogan "courage for the truth," the AfD has been able to mobilize disaffected non-voters, swing voters and people who "no longer feel represented by the long-established parties in Germany," Patzelt explained.

Merkel's Christian Democrats have neglected to integrate right-wing conservatives into their party, leaving many voters "politically homeless," Patzelt said. [...]

The historic city of Dresden has already experienced an economic set-back, blamed partly on massive anti-Islam and anti-foreigner PEGIDA demonstrations that have shaken the baroque tourist destination. According to CNBC, domestic visitor numbers were down 3.7 percent year on year in the period of January to July 2016, based on overnight stays in the city.

"The xenophobic remarks and incidents damaged the good reputation of the city and especially impacted domestic travel behavior," Bettina Bunge, head of Dresden Marketing, DMG, said in a statement.

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Vox: Spain's government has been dysfunctional for 9 months — and the country's getting by fine

That’s because there is no Spanish government — or more precisely, there’s only a caretaker government with tightly limited powers. Two national elections since last December have produced parliaments so fragmented that Spain’s bickering political parties haven’t been able to agree on a prime minister.

The conservative Popular Party got the most votes in both the December and June ballots, but fell far short of a majority. Appalled by a series of corruption scandals involving the Popular Party, the opposition in parliament has refused to reelect the party’s leader, Mariano Rajoy, who had served as prime minister from 2011 to 2015. [...]

The Spanish economy's 3 percent expansion has been propelled by frisky consumers and strong tourism. But it’s also getting a boost, strangely, from the lack of leadership at the top.

That’s because the political vacuum has provided Spain with cover for widely exceeding deficit targets set by the European Commission, which polices policy in the eurozone but has refrained from penalizing Spain. “Not having a government in the present situation has prevented the commission from being tough on austerity, and this has been good news for Spain,” says Paul De Grauwe, a professor at the London School of Economics. [...]

One thing Spaniards are indignant about is paying for a parliament that isn’t getting its work done. One Madrid resident recently launched a Change.org petition calling for legislators’ salaries to be docked until they elect a prime minister. The “No Government — No Pay” petition noted that this year’s two deadlocked legislatures have received around €30 million (about $33.5 million) in pay, as well as extras, like €600,000 (about $672,000) in travel expenses. A member of the lower house earns about €60,000 (about $67,000) a year. So far, 141,000 people have signed the petition.

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