Why do we have an historic level of inequality in this country? The economic transformations and political decisions that have diminished the American Dream.
15 August 2018
Al Jazeera: The Stasi Project: Solving the World's Biggest Puzzle
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, employees at the Ministry for State Security, or Stasi, frantically tore up hundreds of thousands of incriminating documents containing evidence of how they spied on dissidents and ordinary citizens. But before they could eliminate all evidence of their activities, citizen groups stormed into the Stasi headquarters, blocking its gates with buses and trucks and confiscating what was left of the documents.
To some degree, they were caught off-guard. "I think for a long time, Stasi employees believed that the ministry would continue to exist in another form," explains a member of the Stasi Puzzle Project. "So they didn't think their activities were over."
Countless documents were burned by the Stasi employees before their offices were overrun. However, once their route to the furnaces was physically blocked by citizen groups, they resorted to tearing up the documents in tiny scraps of paper. In doing so, they lay the foundation for what would be the Stasi Puzzle Project.
Jacobin Magazine: The Argentine Right’s Pyrrhic Victory
The Campaign for Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, an umbrella group headed by a handful of established independent activists and representatives from left and center-left organizations, has presented the IVE Bill seven times over the last thirteen years. Six times in a row it was shelved by lawmakers. This time was different. It came on the heels of a feminist revolution that has taken Argentina and the world by storm.
The proclamation of Pope Francis — an Argentinian — in 2013, and the election of conservative President Mauricio Macri in 2015, seemed to have taken abortion off the table. Then came #NiUnaMenos. The femicide of fourteen-year old Chiara Páez in 2015 prompted a group of women journalists to call for demonstrations against gender violence. An estimated two hundred thousand turned out. [...]
The truth is that the congressional debate of the IVE Bill is a product of the unbearable pressure exerted by the feminist movement. If Macri thought it could benefit him in any way, it’s backfired. He unleashed a feminist tidal wave focused primarily against his party, most of whose lawmakers oppose the bill. This generated a crisis among his base, which now holds him responsible for opening the door to legal abortion. One conservative group, for example, pasted posters all over Buenos Aires that pictured Macri with blood on his hands and read “No to Macri’s abortion law.” [...]
Unfortunately, the Campaign’s leadership adopted a mistaken triumphalist position, summed up in the slogan “abortion will be law on the 8th.” It placed excessive confidence in parliamentary negotiations, channeling efforts away from the streets and towards lobbying. The demobilizing effect was evident at the Tuesday pañuelazos, which were significantly smaller than before the June 14 vote.
CityLab: Reclaiming Riga’s Soviet Architecture
Activists in Riga already have their hands full finding new life for its disused city center buildings, where over 500 properties are officially designated as “environment degrading objects.” But that’s nothing compared to the task of upgrading the under-maintained Soviet “microrayons” (micro-districts) which currently house most of the city’s population. Convincing the Latvian capital that there are benefits to organized cooperation, with all the Soviet baggage that hangs around that notion, might be an even bigger challenge. [...]
Following the 2008 financial crisis, Free Riga—a group dedicated to mapping vacant properties, advocating for redevelopment, and mediating between city officials and property owners—saw a steady demand among unemployed Latvians for low-cost, creative spaces in the capital, which are now used for everything from beer brewing to soap making, mostly by people aged 25-45. [...]
House guardianship benefits the private owners of the properties too. By allowing the NGO to take on a property and repurposing it in ways that enrich the local community, it achieves a special public benefits status. This status offers the private owners the opportunity to save 90 percent on their property tax costs. “Property tax obligations can push owners into demolishing old buildings that are both structurally sound and of historical interest,” said Harijs Rozensteins, the private owner of Zunda Garden, a Soviet hangar occupied by Free Riga from the summer months of 2015 through 2017. Free Riga also takes care of building maintenance and security. [...]
Across Central and Eastern Europe, adjoining apartment blocks are maintained by their private owners who were sold the properties in the 1990s—a move inspired by Margaret Thatcher’s “right to buy” scheme in the U.K. Maroš describes a typical situation in these housing estates where one apartment block might be painted pink, another blue and yellow, and the third not at all, because of the difficulty in getting 60 people living in one block to agree on the improvements needed. If a consensus is reached by the homeowners association, they must then find the cheapest offer from a private contractor, then apply for a grant, and commission the work. Often this complex process is navigated by older residents.
Quartz: Teaching kids philosophy makes them smarter in math and English (March 9, 2016)
Nine- and 10-year-old children in England who participated in a philosophy class once a week over the course of a year significantly boosted their math and literacy skills, with disadvantaged students showing the most significant gains, according to a large and well-designed study (pdf). [...]
The beneficial effects of philosophy lasted for two years, with the intervention group continuing to outperform the control group long after the classes had finished. “They had been given new ways of thinking and expressing themselves,”said Kevan Collins, chief executive of the EEF. “They had been thinking with more logic and more connected ideas.” [...]
According to the EEF, 63% of British 15-year-olds achieve good results on exams, compared with 37% of disadvantaged students. The group hopes that by using evidence-based research and randomized controlled trials, schools will adopt the most effective policies to address the disparity.
Quartz: The idea of monogamy as a relationship ideal is based on flawed science (March 22, 2017)
The primacy given to monogamous unions isn’t surprising given the historically patriarchal societies that dominate the world: An economic system predicated upon handing down property from father to son is invested in certainty about paternity and on clear family lines. [...]
The researchers also point out that in relationship surveys non-monogamy is often referred to using language that isn’t neutral: Asking people about “infidelity,” or “cheating” is directive, they say; as is referring to one person as the “offended party” or the “betrayed partner”—all terms that have appeared in academic studies.
Conley, who runs the Stigmatized Sexualities Lab at the University of Michigan, has often questioned the orthodoxies of research on sexuality in relationships, and says that she has encountered resistance from other researchers, and reviewers of the papers she has published over the past years—with some responding emotionally to her raising the very concept of exploring non-monogamy. In one study, Conley found that consensually non-monogamous couples were more likely to practice safer sex than monogamous couples who were secretly cheating on their partners. One reviewer called the paper “irresponsible.” In another case, a reviewer referred to gay relationships that “deteriorate” into non-monogamy. [...]
In a final, separate study they also looked at how people reacted to researchers when those researchers were asking about non-monogamous relationships. The researchers themselves were seen as more biased when they asked questions about polyamory than when they asked about monogamy. (This was a much smaller study of 100 people recruited through Mechanical Turk, a platform on which people are paid to answer questions, so methodologically less sound than the larger study.)
Vox: A philosopher explains America’s “post-truth” problem
Things have changed, though, and people often use the metaphor of a silo. We live in information silos now. The individual is insulated from outside forces and surrounded by people who think and believe the same things he or she thinks and believes. There’s no doubt that Facebook and other social media have played a huge role in that.
There’s always been selection of news — people basically read what they want to hear and gloss over things they don’t want to hear. I don’t think that’s a new phenomenon. But it has become easier to do this, and the insidious power of things like Facebook and Twitter exaggerates it. [...]
It’s a bit like conspiracy theorists, who actually thrive on the fact that all the evidence points against their theory, because that just shows that the establishment is clever enough to conceal what’s really going on. People get attached to certain ideas and nothing will shake them. And when convictions start to live in opposition to reason or truth, that’s a very dangerous thing.
The Telegraph: No kids allowed: Is Britain becoming an anti-child society? (31 AUGUST 2017)
Elsewhere, however, it seems the tide is turning against the child-centric society that has long reigned, where parenthood is revered as a saintly calling, Mumsnet is now a feared political force and it’s hard to find a mother who isn’t a mummy blogger.
But there is a sense that people are becoming increasingly intolerant of children and their unpredictable behaviour. [...]
Several of my London friends (in their 40s and 50s, with no kids) complain that their long-held ritual of a quiet, lazy weekend pub lunch is now impossible. [...]
‘I actually think the idea of child-free flights is a brilliant one,’ says Turner. ‘It’d take the pressure off panicking parents, because you’d know that everyone who’d chosen to come on your flight was aware they’d be sharing their space with children. [...]
Yet Turner argues that some parents need to be more respectful of other’s choices – you might not mind your toddler using their cutlery as drumsticks but other diners might. ‘We should remember that not everyone has opted-in to having children in their lives,’ she says. ‘Some people just don’t like kids, and that’s fine.’
Quartz: The destruction of Ai WeiWei’s Beijing studio sends a powerful message about China’s future
Although the artist, who currently lives in Berlin, is an outspoken free speech activist, the demolition doesn’t appear to be a political act. Rather, the destruction of the studio was commercially motivated—which is what makes it a poignant symbol of the new China, home of the world’s largest shopping mall. [...]
Ga explains that he had little warning of the studio’s destiny. Just a few days before demolition crews showed up, the assistant learned that the space was targeted for destruction, and no specifics were given on exactly when that would happen. “They came and started knocking down the windows today without telling us beforehand. There’s still so much stuff inside,” according to the studio manager, who spoke while in the throes of the action, simultaneously directing a crew of movers. [...]
As for the reaction to the destructive act in Beijing, the young construction worker driving the demolition vehicle, who was not named, claims to have no particular feelings about tearing down the artist’s historic studio or the fate of Ai’s great works, The Nation reports. He admits, however, that he prefers small structures to big shopping malls. “But even if I don’t like it, I’m just an ant, what say do I have? And anyway, I don’t really know what you mean by art.”
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