Rutger Bregman became a social media sensation after his onstage tirade at the gathered elite in Davos this year. His call for higher taxes, open borders and a shorter working week captured the imaginations of millions who viewed the speech online. But can his utopian ideas be translated into realistic policy changes? Plus: J Oliver Conroy on David Buckel, a year on from the climate protester’s death in New York
16 April 2019
Ministry Of Ideas: Progressive Souls
Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the us for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursuit of a more just and sustainable society.
Foreign Affairs: Have Turkey’s Elections Produced a Challenger to Erdogan?
Imamoglu and his rival, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, have both declared themselves Istanbul’s mayor-elect. Less than 0.2 percent of the more than eight million votes cast separates them. A recount has entered its second week, and anxiety is mounting within the opposition over whether the AKP will relinquish its quarter-century hold on Istanbul should the final tally confirm Imamoglu’s victory. [...]
Before the election, Imamoglu was a largely unknown district mayor of a far-flung Istanbul suburb. His campaign addressed everyday grievances, such as traffic congestion and job creation. Since the vote, he has shown a tougher side, holding impromptu press conferences to accuse the AKP of “acting like they’ve had their toys taken away,” although he has also tried to project a sense of normalcy to reassure a nervous public. [...]
Despite Erdogan’s theatrics, many voters went ahead and punished the AKP for policies that have unleashed soaring inflation and unemployment. Although Imamoglu refrained from attacking Erdogan, who remains Turkey’s most popular politician, he hammered a ruling elite ensconced in “their palaces” while “Istanbul is in a spiral of hunger, poverty, and unemployment.” Largely ignored by the media, Imamoglu took to Facebook to livestream visits to street markets, where he hugged fans and politely engaged AKP supporters who refused to shake his hand.
Pious voters have long shunned the centrist CHP, repelled by its rigidly secularist ideology and stodgy, elitist image. But nominating Imamoglu, a practicing Muslim who scheduled time on the campaign trail to attend Friday prayers, allowed the CHP, humbled by so many years in the political wilderness, to broaden its appeal. It last ran Ankara and Istanbul in the 1970s, and has been in the opposition in parliament since then as well.
SciShow: 6 Mysterious Ancient Outbreaks
Epidemiologists are always trying to get one step ahead of the next big outbreak - and often the best clues we have come from outbreaks of the past.
The Guardian: Fears of 'white decline' show how a minor dent to domination can be catastrophic for some
Images of Asians, Indigenous people, Arabs, and black people dominating, exploiting, and enslaving white Europeans abound throughout the history of colonialism. This is so even at the height of the “classical” European colonial venture when colonialists were, relatively speaking, most secure about their entitlements and their transnational supremacy.
As Stephen Arata, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, has pointed out, such narratives of “colonial reversal” where the “civilized” world is on the point of being overrun by “primitive” forces, and where the colonisers become colonised and the exploiters become exploited, were frequent in late-Victorian popular fiction in Britain. Arata argues that these discourses of reversal intensified when the empire was in crisis. [...]
Indeed, novels moved by an imaginary wherein the plant and animal world “reclaim” the human domain of the built environment abound. And in much the same way as with the colonial fantasies of reversal, humans have ended up imagining worlds where we are ruled by the very animals we have dominated. Planet of the Apes is the most obvious example of this imaginary circulating in popular culture. In his novel 2007 the Australian naturalist Robyn Williams (2001) also takes us into a world where a more generalised process of reversal is under way: whales sink Japanese whaling vessels, pelicans occupy Heathrow airpot, cows invade Tullamarine airport in Melbourne, Amazonian pythons attacking developers’ bulldozers, etc.
Quartz: The urban farming ‘revolution’ has a fatal flaw
They focused on New York City, where CEA has dramatically increased in the last decade. Looking at 10 farms that produce roof- and indoor-grown vegetables at commercial scales, they investigated how much food the farms are producing, who it’s reaching, and how much space is available to expand CEA into.
They found that the biggest of these 10 commercial farms is around a third of an acre in size. Most are on roofs spread across New York City, and some are inside buildings and shipping containers. Mainly, these farms are producing impressive amounts of leafy greens such as lettuce, and herbs; some also produce fish. [...]
Furthermore, the predominantly grown foods—such as lettuce—aren’t of great nutritional value for the urban population, especially those threatened by food insecurity. Most produce from CEAs is sold at a premium, something that partly reflects the cost of the real estate used to grow the food. Consequently, that produce is typically grown for high-end food stores and restaurants, meaning it’s unlikely to reach low-income urban populations who need it most.
The Atlantic: Photos: The Devastation of Notre Dame Cathedral
Earlier today, smoke was observed billowing from the landmark Notre Dame Cathedral, in central Paris; it was undergoing renovation work. The smoke grew and was followed by flames, which consumed the roof and caused the central spire of the cathedral to collapse. The gothic cathedral is visited by millions of tourists and locals every year. Authorities report no injuries or deaths at the moment, and have tentatively linked the fire to the renovations, which were due to have been completed in 2022. Below, some images of the disaster, and a handful of images from inside Notre Dame before the fire.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)