BBC4 In Our Time: The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian collections of spells which were intended to help the recently deceased navigate the underworld. They flourished under the New Kingdom from C16th BC until the end of the Ptolemaic era in C1st BC, and drew on much earlier traditions from the walls of pyramids and on coffin cases. Almost 200 spells survive, though no one collection contains all of them, and one of the best known surrounds the weighing of the heart, the gods' final judgement of the deceased's life.

With

John Taylor Curator at the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum

Kate Spence Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at Cambridge University and Fellow of Emmanuel College and

Richard Parkinson Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford and Fellow of the Queen's College

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BBC4 In Our Time: Rosa Luxemburg

Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), 'Red Rosa', who was born in Poland under the Russian Empire and became one of the leading revolutionaries in an age of revolution. She was jailed for agitation and for her campaign against the Great War which, she argued, pitted workers against each other for the sake of capitalism. With Karl Liebknecht and other radicals, she founded the Spartacus League in the hope of ending the war through revolution. She founded the German Communist Party with Liebknecht; with the violence that followed the German Revolution of 1918, her opponents condemned her as Bloody Rosa. She and Liebknecht were seen as ringleaders in the Spartacus Revolt of 1919 and, on 15th January 1919, the Freikorps militia arrested and murdered them. While Luxemburg has faced opposition for her actions and ideas from many quarters, she went on to become an iconic figure in East Germany under the Cold War and a focal point for opposition to the Soviet-backed leadership.

With

Jacqueline Rose Co-Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck, University of London

Mark Jones Irish Research Council fellow at the Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin

and Nadine Rossol Senior lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Essex

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The School of Life: Good Enough Is Good Enough

TED Talk: Changing the Way We Think About Consensual Non-monogamy | Nirel Marofsky

In this talk, Nirel highlights a number of convincing reasons why polyamory should be a more widely considered option - this includes its emphasis on transparent communication, compersion, diffusion of economic (and other) responsibilities, and importance of autonomy. From this, NIrel will argue that we need to change our definition of 'relationship' to include polyamory and other forms of consensual non-monogamy.

Nirel Marofsky is a student at the University of British Columbia, in the Cognitive Systems program.

Vox: Why Philadelphia has thousands of murals

If you visit Philadelphia, in addition to seeing the Liberty Bell, you’ll spot one of the thousands of murals in the city. That leads to a natural question: Why does Philly have so many murals?

The city’s unique public art program is the answer, as the above video shows. Mural Arts Philadelphia is a unique organization that mobilizes public and private funds to drive a very tenacious group of artists and administrators to cover the city in murals. Started in the 1980s as an anti-graffiti initiative, it’s since become a public art dynamo that serves as a model for cities around the world.

But the structure of the group is only part of the reason Philadelphia has all those murals — their benefits provide another answer. The wall art is a formidable tool in the fight against urban blight, and it also draws tourists to different parts of the city. Murals can also transform the lives of people who paint them: Mural Arts Philadelphia has programs for schools, prisons, ex-convicts, and people recovering from substance abuse issues, all of which have been shown to improve outcomes.

All those social goods complement the aesthetic benefit. Philadelphia has figured out how to transform chipped brick and concrete into a canvas. That can transform a city, too, one wall at a time.

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Vintage Everyday: Rarely-Seen Colorized Photos of Everyday Life in Qing Dynasty-Republic of China in the mid-late 19th Century

The Qing dynasty , officially the Great Qing, also called the Empire of the Great Qing, or the Manchu dynasty, was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the territorial base for the modern Chinese state.

Here are some colorized photos that show everyday life of the Quing dynasty in the mid-late 19 century.

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Quartz: The Western world has never been so rich—and it’s making us miserable

In the US, polls show that two-thirds of people think the country is on the wrong track. Brexit, and the general rise of far-right populists in Europe, suggest that a dissatisfaction with the status quo is a transatlantic phenomenon. It’s no wonder that people around the world are reporting higher levels of anxiety and depression. [...]

The explanation that it’s all about economic hardship doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Many Trump and Brexit voters have decent earnings. Trump even won a larger share of white college graduates than his opponent. These voters yearn for change despite the fact that, in may ways, things have never been better. Across the income spectrum, we live longer lives (with opioid addicts a notable exception) and have more leisure time than before. It’s true that income growth has been stagnant for the lower and middle classes, but economists argue that it’s what those incomes buy that matters—and thanks to globalization and technological advances, our incomes buy a wider and better array of goods and services than we could have imagined 20 years ago. [...]

In some ways, people in rich countries have never known more stability. Wealthy countries offer safety nets that have some holes but do a fairly good job of protecting most people from extreme hardship. For most of human history, a bad economy was accompanied by famines or plagues. If you live in a rich country, these risks are pretty much eliminated because of the social safety net. But people still may feel acute risk if they worry about falling down a few rungs on the economic ladder. The fact that the risk of the devastating calamities common in past has subsided offers little comfort. The human brain is often less concerned with extremely bad but remote possibilities than with more probable, near-term risks.

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The Conversation: The unbearable whiteness of cycling

In London, a city where a third of the population identifies as black, Asian and minority ethnic, 86% of male cyclists and 94% of female cyclists are white – and two thirds of all cyclists are male.

Despite the former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s strategy to improve the demographics of cycling, it still maintains a very much white, male, middle class constituency. [...]

The Chigago Tribune newspaper reviewed police statistics on the number of biking tickets issued by the police in the city. And the review showed that more than twice as many tickets are being written in African-American communities than in white or Latino areas. These tickets are often given out for minor offences, such as cycling on the pavements, but in some cases cyclists have ended up being arrested. [...]

The significance of “race” and white privilege is not only an issue for British cycling and its mass participation goals, but also for the international governing body for cycling –  the UCI – whose Cycling for All Manifesto has not yet considered these subtle differences in how black riders experience cycling.

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The Guardian: Stick or switch? The way voters are swapping parties suggests a big Tory win

More than half (57%) of voters currently plan to vote the same way as they did in 2015. However what is more interesting is the differences between the parties when it comes to Stickers, Switchers and Undecideds.

Only about half of people who chose Labour, Ukip or the Liberal Democrats in 2015 plan on sticking with that party this time, while the rest have either moved party or are still undecided at this stage.

In sharp contrast, the Conservatives are holding on to a far higher proportion of their vote. More than three-quarters (77%) of their 2015 voters say they will vote for the party again this time around. [...]

Among those that wanted to remain in the EU last June and have since switched who they plan to vote for, 43% have moved to the Liberal Democrats. These remain Switchers are generally coming from Labour and the Greens, with a smaller number moving from the Conservatives. [...]

Labour has seen a dramatic drop in its vote share as it has been losing both remain and leave voters to other parties.

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