Haaretz: Lesbian Love Out, Prostitution In: How Israel Censored Erotic Literature in the 1960s

“The phenomenon reflects the crisis of values in Israeli society at that time and the moral panic accompanying it,” observes Prof. Oded Heilbronner, a historian at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan. [...]

Archival documents from this era show that national institutions held contradictory and confusing positions about the subject question – ranging from the desire to allow a degree of freedom and avoid inessential prohibitions, to the fear of the undesirable moral influence of pornographic literature and the damage it was liable cause. [...]

But when Prof. Heilbronner examined the list of books the committee reviewed, he had trouble discerning any consistent logic behind its decisions and found that it had actually approved many pornographic books for publication. In part, this was because alongside the pornography they depicted messages in the content that “suited the views of some of parts of the establishment,” he notes.  [...]

The Committee to Combat Obscene Literature was dissolved in 1967, and a year later the Committee on the Matter of Pornographic Publications was created under the aegis of the Justice Ministry. It took a relatively liberal approach to the phenomenon, and even ruled that it is impossible to prove the claim that pornography has a negative influence or to discern any connection between exposure to lewd materials and corruption of public morals. Moreover, it wrote that psychiatrists and psychoanalysts have found that pornographic literature “has a positive role in relieving urges that otherwise could have led to perverted and even criminal activity.”

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Jacobin Magazine: The End of Armenia’s Old Regime

With a population of a little under 3 million and an economy entirely reliant on favorable trade with its larger neighbors and remittances from abroad, Armenia has been incredibly vulnerable to the shifting winds of the global economy. With the arrival of the worldwide recession in 2008, the country was hit exceptionally hard. On paper, the recovery began two years later, with GDP growth back in the black by 2010 and further growth from then on (reaching a high of 7.5 percent for 2017). But this “recovery” was not felt by the vast majority of Armenian people. Unemployment actually increased from 16 percent to 17 percent during the last decade and roughly one-third of the population remains below the poverty line. [...]

The revolt that came to engulf Armenia in 2018 was born from the ripples of the bloody consolidation of Republican Party rule in 2008. That year, the country’s opposition — a loose coalition of middle-class urbanites, a handful of oligarchs, and members of the ruling elite that had been deposed in 1998 — coalesced around the controversial figure of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia’s first postcommunist president. Likely inspired by Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Ter-Petrosyan ran for president and when, as expected, he was defeated in a blatantly rigged election, he called on his supporters to come out into the streets. But his daring attempt to repeat history was met with overwhelming state force. When the dust settled, eight protesters and two police officers were dead, Ter-Petrosyan was under house arrest, and the Republican Party was unquestionably the only dominant political force in the country — having crushed or co-opted any formerly disloyal elites. Yet this victory came at a cost. The fratricidal bloodshed and the ensuing financial crisis meant that the HHK came to rule through managed coercion mixed with societal apathy, while outside the halls of power a new extra-parliamentary opposition began to develop. [...]

The first successful civic initiative was small. Led by a group of young environmentalists in 2012, it was organized around an occupation — a couple hundred strong at its peak — that successfully blocked the slated conversion of a major park in central Yerevan into a trade zone for shops. The following year an even bigger mobilization, organized by a coalition of groups, arose in response to the Yerevan municipality declaring a 50 percent increase in public transport fares. This time thousands of Yerevan’s citizens joined the protest and the attendant fare boycott, refusing to pay anything above the standard price. And once again, the government backed down. [...]

While the attempts to bar government buildings met with near universal failure — security forces were always nearby — the road blocks were another story. The choice of roads to be blocked was not planned in advance and was up to protesters’ self-organization, which added an element of unpredictability and surprise for which the authorities had not prepared. Security forces, likely with previous occupation-style protests in mind, had hunkered down, setting up barricades lined with phalanxes of riot police, barbed wire, and water cannons in the city’s key locations. They had prepared for a siege, a frontal assault, a proverbial storming of the Bastille. Instead, they found themselves forced to play authoritarian whack-a-mole, furtively trying to find and dismantle dozens of tiny, shifting, yet effective roadblocks throughout the city center.    

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The Atlantic: The Supreme Court’s Green Light to Discriminate

Roberts’s approach to the question of prejudice was perhaps best articulated in his 2007 opinion striking down school-desegregation plans that consider race, in which he wrote that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” As long as there is no clear evidence of an intent to discriminate, Roberts argued, discrimination has not taken place, no matter how obvious the impact. But if you acknowledge that a group is being discriminated against and extend it protections or benefits in the process of trying to address that discrimination, that is the real racism. Roberts’s jurisprudence puts into the polite language of the law the belief that accusations of prejudice are worse than prejudice itself.

That philosophy, that addressing bigotry is worse than bigotry, has reached its natural conclusion in Roberts’s opinion upholding President Trump’s travel ban targeting travelers from several mostly Muslim countries. As Roberts acknowledges in his opinion, Trump made no secret of his animus towards Muslims during the campaign, including vowing to ban Muslims from the country entirely, saying “Islam hates us,” and that America has problems “with Muslims coming into the country.” Nevertheless, Roberts argues, because the order itself doesn’t mention Islam, the president’s remarks about the travel ban, and his express intent in imposing it, can be safely ignored. [...]

Roberts’s logic is baffling. The chief justice argues that since it discriminates against some Muslims, rather than against every Muslim, the order is not motivated by hostility against Muslims. But the order was expressly motivated by anti-Muslim prejudice, and so it enshrines in law official disapproval of a particular religion. Like all other discriminatory policies, once implemented, it directly affects a fraction of the group it targets, while adopting official condemnation of that group. And few deliberately racist policies in American history have lacked for an explanation of why such laws were in the public interest, and many were said to be necessary for public safety.

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Social Europe: Austria’s Right-Wing Government At Six Months: What’s The Record So Far?

Last year, not only the FPÖ, but also the ÖVP put restrictive positions on immigration and integration at the centre of its electoral campaign. The parties of the left proved unable to respond effectively – the Social Democrats (SPÖ) lost the chancellorship, while the Greens were voted out of parliament completely. The ÖVP and FPÖ agreed on a coalition agreement that focuses on liberal economic policies and measures to reduce immigration. The two parties did not have a tough time finding common ground – quite different from some other recent instances of government formation in Western Europe. [...]

As expected, both parties continued to keep the issues of immigration and integration salient. In some instances, this focus was directly linked to welfare state measures. For example, the coalition agreed to lower minimal social security for individuals with limited or no German language skills. Moreover, parents who work in Austria will soon receive family allowances that are dependent on the living costs in their children’s places of residence. For many Eastern European citizens working in Austria this will lead to a substantial decrease in their disposable income. The government also reduced funding for integration measures. In addition, the ÖVP and FPÖ decided to shut down seven mosques which were accused of being close to ‘radical’ political Islam, and announced plans to ban children from wearing head scarves in kindergarten and elementary school.

Beyond immigration and integration, the ratification of CETA, an economic agreement between the EU and Canada, has been a surprisingly salient issue in Austrian politics. Even though the FPÖ had vehemently opposed the treaty while in opposition, in government the party voted in favour of ratification. What the FPÖ could push through instead was a stop to a smoking ban in restaurants, which had already been agreed on by the previous SPÖ/ÖVP coalition. The government also, at least temporarily, stopped a programme targeting the long-term unemployed above the age of 50. The coalition also agreed on an expansion of the state’s capacity for online surveillance – even though months before the last election, the FPÖ had compared similar proposals to Erich Mielke’s Ministry for State Security, the Stasi, in the German Democratic Republic. [...]

After six months in charge, poll numbers indicate stability for the new government. Currently, Austria’s three biggest parties remain close to their election results from last year. The ÖVP is ahead, with more than 30 percent, while the SPÖ and FPÖ are close to each other, in most survey clearly below 30 percent. The individual politician who enjoys the greatest public trust is chancellor Kurz.

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Spiegel: 'The Very People Who Voted for Trump Will Suffer'

Summers: The president is certainly not right in the way he is doing it. There is not much in the historical records to suggest that these kinds of bluster and threats will be effective. It is an extraordinarily negative achievement of our economic diplomacy that we have our traditional allies being more sympathetic to China than to us because we are sanctioning them.  

DER SPIEGEL: China holds U.S. treasury bills, notes and bonds that are worth more than a trillion dollars. Is that a weapon Beijing will use for retaliatory measures?

Summers: Never say never. But taking steps that would drive the value of the dollar down would be enormously costly for the Chinese, given their large external position in dollar assets. The result would be perhaps a more competitive dollar relative to the euro, which many in the U.S. would see as an advantage. Therefore, I do not expect China to sell dollar assets as a source of leverage. [...]

Summers: Many corporations in America are appalled by some aspects of the administration's policy. It is quite extraordinary for CEOs like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan or Satya Nadella of Microsoft to speak out with respect to our migration policy. The president lacks a reservoir of credibility with major business leaders. President Trump's business advisory council had to disband because of the resignation of CEOs. It is unprecedented. Business leaders fear that this blundering approach will lead to retaliation against them and favoritism by China toward its European and Japanese competitors. And no one is looking to have its input prices substantially increased as it will be done by steel and aluminum tariffs. [...]

Summers: The route forward toward increased integration may not proceed rapidly and there surely will be hiccups and crises, but the EU will be intact. The whole question of immigration is extremely vexed. If the idea of more European integration is taken to be synonymous with very weak national border controls, it is not likely to be politically acceptable in many countries. In general, the prospect of the EU staying together looks better than it did a year ago. The lack of U.S. leadership raises the pressure on the Europeans to cooperate, and that keeps the union going.

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The Atlantic: Uneasy Riders: Trump’s War on Harley

A year later, the realities of global economics and the president’s trade policies have resulted in a very different message from Trump. Three of his five trade-related tweets Tuesday morning mentioned Harley. But the company’s announcement, which was made Monday in a regulatory filing, was partly due to the trade dispute Trump himself sparked earlier this month. When the Trump administration announced levies on European steel and aluminum imports, the European Union responded with retaliatory measures—in Harley’s case, the company said EU tariffs would add more than $2,000, on average, to the cost of each a motorcycle exported to Europe. And yet the deeper reason for Harley’s decision is that, despite the presidential imprimatur of a storied “Aura” about the brand, Harley, and indeed most other motorcycle makers, have seen steadily declining sales. Europe had offered Harley a rare bit of good news.  

Until the tariffs. The EU’s retaliatory tariffs, which are worth $3.2 billion, specifically targeted bourbon, peanut butter, and Harley’s motorcycles, among other things—items that are, not coincidentally, made in Republican-controlled districts of the United States. Making its motorcycles in Europe would allow Harley to avoid the tariffs incurred through export and keep the profit it earns on each motorcycle sold. But tariffs aside, there are deeper forces driving Harley’s long term reorientation, one chief among them: evolving consumer tastes.  [...]

All of this, however, doesn’t change a larger truth about Harley-Davidson, in general, and the motorcycle industry, in particular. Young people are simply not buying motorcycles the way Baby Boomers did. Plenty of reasons have been cited for this, including rising student debt and the loss of motorcycling’s allure, but the development, and Trump’s response to it, is part of a broader pattern. The president sees the offshoring of jobs as having resulted in the hollowing out of the American middle class, and blames unfair trade for what has befallen the American worker. But he’s using trade tools to respond to trends that may actually have little to do with trade at all.

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Quartz: Brits who hate London are nearly twice as likely to oppose multiculturalism

That’s according to a recent survey by pollster YouGov, which showed that those with unfavorable views of Britain’s capital are almost twice as likely to believe multiculturalism has had a negative impact on the UK. The survey found this to be true across the country and with the sentiment being especially strong among anti-Londoners who live in the city.

Overall, 45% of Brits have a favorable view of London, while 28% have an unfavorable view of the capital. The further north you go in the UK, the more unfavorable the views are of the capital city. Tyne and Wear, Scotland, and South Yorkshire really dislike London. Perhaps unsurprisingly, along with London itself, the areas closest to the capital, such as the Surrey and East Anglia, had the most favorable views.

Living in London boosted people’s opinions of the city. While 43% of pro-Londoners lived in the city at some point, only 23% of anti-Londoners have ever resided in the capital.

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Quartz: We may have answered the Fermi Paradox: We are alone in the universe

In a paper submitted to the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London (it appeared online this month on the pre-publication site arXiv), the researchers write that there is “a substantial ex ante probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe,” and we shouldn’t be surprised if we fail to detect any signs of it. In other words, there is no need to speculate about the fate of aliens. It’s likely they’ve never existed, they assert in the paper, titled “Dissolving the Fermi Paradox.” [...]

When they did, the researchers found that the possibility we’re alone in the galaxy is far higher than presumed given the truly gargantuan number of possible home planets. The authors assert that the chance humanity stands alone among intelligent civilizations in our galaxy is 53%–99.6%, and across the observable universe is 39%–85%.

Since the Fermi “paradox” exists only if we are confident alien civilizations are out there, this uncertainty suggests we may just be the lucky ones—thus, there is no such paradox. “We should not actually be all that surprised to see an empty galaxy,” the authors write. But don’t give up entirely. The Drake equation, at best, merely gives us a way to formalize what is still unknowable. It’s a big universe.

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Deutsche Welle: Turks in Germany praise 'our leader' after two-thirds vote for Erdogan

Nearly two-thirds of votes cast by the Turkish community in Germany went to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday's election, far more than the support he averaged in Turkey, according to initial results. [...]

"Let's face it: The celebrating German-Turkish Erdogan supporters not only celebrate their autocrat, but also express their rejection of our liberal democracy. Like the AfD. We must worry about this," he wrote on Twitter, referring to the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD). [...]

Erdogan had 65.7 percent of the vote in Germany with 80 percent of votes counted, compared to a projected 52.6 percent in Turkey.

Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) had 56.3 support among the Turkish community in Germany, versus 42.5 percent in Turkey.

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