Scientists weren’t the first to divide humanity along racial – and racist – lines. But for hundreds of years, racial scientists claimed to provide proof for those racist hierarchies – and some still do.
14 May 2018
BBC4 Word of Mouth: Not My Type
How do fonts change the meaning of a message? What was Comic Sans invented for? Why was Obama's first election campaign so typographically bold? And which font would make you buy one chocolate bar over another?
Michael Rosen is joined by graphic designer, author and the font of all knowledge when it comes to fonts, Sarah Hyndman, to discuss the psychology of typefaces.
Sarah is the author of 3 books, including 'Why Fonts Matter' and 'How to Draw Type and Influence people'. She is also the founder of the Type Tasting studio, which aims to change the way we think and talk about typography through interactive and sensory experiences.
The Guardian: The incontinent fury of the Brexiters who rage against everything British
The hard Brexiters have a peculiar way of expressing their patriotism. They proclaim an unsurpassed love for Britain while trashing its institutions with an unbridled hatred. The supreme court, the Bank of England and the civil service have all felt the white heat of the hard Brexiters’ incontinent rage. The BBC is another of their “enemies of the people”, as are any parliamentary colleagues who have the temerity not to subscribe to the fundamentalism of the true believers. “Traitors”, “wreckers” and “saboteurs” all.
The latest target for their furies is the House of Lords, because peers have performed their function by suggesting some changes to the withdrawal legislation. A particular focus of Brexteria is the 9th Duke of Wellington, who sits in the claret chamber thanks to the hereditary title that was bestowed on his long-dead ancestor as a reward for battling Napoleon Bonaparte. The 9th duke’s contribution was to table a successful amendment that removes the March 2019 deadline for departure from the EU. This is not such an unreasonable idea given where we have got to or, rather, not got to. [...]
On this we can agree. In a less absurd world, the 9th Duke of Wellington wouldn’t be sitting in parliament. It is beyond ridiculous and all the stations to absolutely ludicrous that you get to occupy a seat in one half of our legislature because of the military feats performed by an ancestor more than two centuries ago. You wouldn’t trust your brain to a neurosurgeon whose only qualification for the title was that his great-great-great-grandfather was a neurosurgeon. Yet Britain’s uniquely comical set-up still reserves seats in its parliament for hereditary legislators. The rest of the upper house, the “life peers”, are appointees of highly variable merit, ranging from those who have distinguished themselves in other walks of life to those who have distinguished themselves by being long-pocketed donors to political parties. [...]
The last effort was in the coalition years, when Nick Clegg, with tepid support from Mr Cameron, brought forward legislation which proposed that the Lords be replaced with an 80% elected chamber. That attempt at reform was sabotaged by a rebellion by Conservative backbenchers. And who was prominent in that revolt against democracy? Among the names were one Bernard Jenkin and one Jacob Rees-Mogg, the very same Jenkin and the very same Rees-Mogg who now fulminate against the unelected peers they previously battled to preserve. Also among the saboteurs were Nadine Dorries, Peter Bone, Steve Baker, Bill Cash and other hard Brexiters who now pose as tribunes of the people. Oh, and we shouldn’t forget that David Davis, the Brexit secretary himself, was one too, along with the Brexiter press that now bellows about the “treachery” of the upper house.
Politico: Trump team sends mixed signals to Europe
Bolton’s statement came as he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo try to amplify the reasons behind the Trump administration’s deal to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement and explain how it will work, given that the international community, other than Israel and some Arab nations, has not jumped on board with the president. Both Bolton and Pompeo have suggested they believe the great powers of Europe might eventually see the light.
Trump on Tuesday said he was going to reimpose sanctions on Iran — dealing a blow to what he called the “decaying and rotten” Iran nuclear deal. Those sanctions could involve secondary sanctions, which would penalize countries whose companies continue to trade with Iran. “Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States,” the president said. [...]
“I don’t believe we will ever be able to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again,“ James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, said on “Fareed Zakaria’s GPS.” He and fellow Zakaria guest Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, both said Trump‘s move on Iran is apt to complicate matters with North Korea.
Politico: Hold the Nobel Prize: Kim is setting a trap for Trump
The Panmunjom Declaration, issued after the late April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, feels like a Hollywood movie remake with new actors but the same tired story. North Korea has pledged on multiple occasions to not acquire nuclear weapons, beginning with the North’s accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985. In 1992, Kim’s grandfather committed to three noes: no nuclear weapons, no nuclear reprocessing and no uranium enrichment. North Korea was caught red-handed cheating multiple times on all three nuclear noes, but still received security assurances from the United States in 2005, when both sides pledged “to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together” and normalize relations. All of these efforts ended in the same place, with a different Kim breaking his promises and enjoying tangible concessions from the United States and its allies. [...]
2. Nuclear-only deals do not solve the strategic issues. Trump exited the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, because it suffered from a number of fatal flaws, including its sole focus on the nuclear issue to the exclusion of Iran’s other problems (terrorism, human rights, missiles, regional aspirations). The Trump administration is now dealing with the failure of Obama’s aspirational foreign policy, which was supposed to moderate the hard-line clerics who really run Iran. A deal with North Korea that focuses only on its nuclear program will leave Pyongyang’s military threat intact, including its missile force and chemical and biological weapons capabilities. This threat will need to be addressed, and so will the North’s proliferation and cyber activities, and its abhorrent treatment of its own citizens. While the end of the North’s nuclear program would be a major accomplishment, it will leave other challenges to be overcome.
3. Insist on the Libya model of denuclearization. The sequencing of denuclearization will show how serious North Korea is about this process. Pyongyang will likely prefer to use Kim Jong Il’s framework, where both sides participate in long, drawn-out negotiations. This would allow the North to continue its nuclear weapons program and run out the clock to the U.S. 2020 presidential election. The United States should insist instead on the Libya model for denuclearization: complete, total and near-instantaneous. This will not come cheap; Pyongyang will insist on significant U.S. concessions. But there’s another reason to push for the maximum: Iran is watching Trump’s North Korea dealings, closely, and any precedent set with Kim will be noted in Tehran.
Haaretz: Arab Gulf Nations May Be Winners as Trump Exits Iran Deal
Surging oil prices mean the big Arab countries of the Gulf — especially Saudi Arabia — look set to gain financially as well as politically from U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. [...]
Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, said Saudi Arabia’s ambitious reform program, which aims to create jobs and new industries while curbing a huge state budget deficit, could benefit. [...]
The impact on Iran’s oil exports will depend on how buyers in Asia and Europe react to U.S. sanctions, which may not be clear for months. But analysts estimate Iranian oil production could drop by between 300,000 and one million barrels per day from about 3.8 million barrels per day. [...]
The U.S. move threatens Iran with lower export income and less access to hard currency. Analysts expect oil exports to remain higher than they were before 2016, so the economy may muddle through, but banks’ problems mean a financial crisis is not impossible.
Bloomberg: Mormons' Breakup With Boy Scouts Is a Disappointment
The immediate impetus for the divorce might seem to be the decision by the Boy Scouts to rename itself “Scouts BSA” in recognition of the fact that girls may now participate in its activities. This development, however, is just part of the evolution of scouting, the most American of institutions, to reflect contemporary values of inclusion along the lines of sex, gender and sexuality. As late as 2000 the Boy Scouts won from the U.S. Supreme Court the right to exclude openly gay scout leaders. But as the gay-rights movement advanced, the Scouts’ position softened. In 2015, just after the Supreme Court’s landmark gay-marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, the Scouts officially ended this ban. The opening to girls, announced last year, similarly expresses the gradual weakening of gender binarism.
From the perspective of the LDS church, all this change was unwelcome. The Mormon church spent a century developing a close, even symbiotic relationship with scouting -- eventually it was mandatory for all boys. For Mormons, participation in the archetypically American social practice of scouting was a marker of full belonging in American social life. At the same time, scouting was a manageable symbol of cultural assimilation, because the Scouts allowed Mormon boys to belong to troops that were predominantly or exclusively Mormon. Because scouting embraces religious values in the abstract, this model worked well for both sides. Eventually, Mormons seemed to compose as much as a fifth of all Boy Scouts. [...]
For the church, the lesson is more subtle. On the one hand, by eschewing the Boy Scouts, the church is turning in on itself, rejecting one of the most powerful symbols of its hard-won mainstream American character. On the other hand, that the church is prepared to do so signals its justified confidence that the LDS church is now so thoroughly accepted as American that it can afford to give up the symbol of scouting. In a sense, this double-edged sword captures the fascinating and challenging dilemma for the church. Its influence and legitimacy have never been greater. Yet certain strands of its social conservatism risk a gradual process of remarginalization. It will take decades for this existential situation to play itself out. The scouting divorce will become a key chapter in the history of contemporary Mormonism.
Al Jazeera: Turkey targets French studies due to Quran row and reciprocity
The decision came in response to a manifesto signed by prominent French figures, calling for the removal of certain passages from the Quran, and as a reciprocal measure over the "lack of Turkish studies departments in the European country," a Turkish official told Al Jazeera. [...]
"Lack of university departments in France that teach in Turkish is another factor behind the decision. They need to form decent Turkology departments there. [...]
The open letter, published on April 22 in French newspaper Le Parisien, and signed by nearly 300 prominent French figures, said that verses of the Quran calling for the "murder and punishment of Jews, Christians and disbelievers" should be removed from the book, arguing they were "obsolete". [...]
"Have they ever read their books, the Bible? Or the Torah?" Erdogan asked, referring to the Christian and Jewish holy books, adding: "If they had read them, they probably would want to ban the Bible."
Quartz: It’s not just Trump. The US has always broken its treaties, pacts and promises
According to the US national archives, 374 treaties (pdf, p.4) signed between the US and Native American Tribes from 1772 to 1867 were ratified. Of these, many were not respected: Only one article of the Pickering Treaty, or Treaty of Canadaigua of 1794, for instance, has been observed. Many others (18 in California alone, signed during the Gold Rush) were not even ratified. These include Treaty K, or the California Treaty, which promised reservations to American Indians within the state.
The oldest treaty currently pending ratification in the Senate is an international recognition of the freedom of association and protection of the right to organize. The agreement was signed by 154 countries, including the US, and entered in full effect in 1950. However, the US never ratified it (pdf). [...]
By signing CEDAW in 1980, the US become one of 156 signatories of a landmark agreement to end gender discrimination. Shortly after signing, then-president Jimmy Carter submitted the agreement for ratification to the Senate. It’s still waiting.
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