Can you believe it's been over two months? I am still around and still reading everybody's stuff but I have just been doing more absorbing than composing. I can't really bring myself to get into twitter and facebook, at least not for posting. The format of the first one is irritating and it, like blogging, just seems like another antisocial media, more about projecting yourself onto the world than having conversations, as it seems so many people are on it for the purpose of self promotion. Personally I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with this thing after all these years. I don't really fit in with the activist or academic bloggers, and I sure as hell aren't here to try and start up a writing career(though maybe I gave some people the impression that I just really, really want an NGO job.) I'm not interested in talking about my personal life either, and you definitely will not be seeing any posting my of my family's life stories hell no.
My other issue with is with all the self promotion there tends to be a myopic approach to the presentation of the information. More: this is my prediction, my analysis turned out to be right ie look at me I am the only one clever enough to see these things. I've been getting into podcasts more lately and I like that format, and it seems to give people less room to talk past each other when they talk in real time. Though it's logistically less convenient to produce and potentially can be rill boring, but twitter isn't?
Anyways, what have I been reading. How much do you not care. Some are recent, some, not so much.
1. On Bibi's gift to Obama at their meetup.
2. Ten conceptual sins in analizing Middle East politics. Quite a lot to debate here.
3. Case study in twisting information in violence against women in the Middle East, in this case in the reporting on a UN report in Iraq. Look, domestic violence is a huge problem and Iraq definitely has its unfair share of every kind of problem in the world, especially for its women, as many of my posts attest to. Believe me, we really don't need to sensationalize this shit to tell that story, and this case is a good example of sensationalism. Outside of a few pockets, the rates of what get called honour killings in most of the Middle East don't actually differ significantly from the numbers of women murdered by their boyfriend or family in North America AFAI have read, I'm quite sorry to say. Lebanon and Jordan have about 15-20 a year, with populations of 5 and 6 million, you can do the math yourself.
4. Break.
5. Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine. Rad.
6. On Saudi Arabia's role in Iraq.
7. You already knew this right:
“Over half of what is described as aid goes to the global south in the form of loans for private sector consultancy, technical assistance or works projects and the five richest countries can get up to 90 per cent of the business,“ said Dr Bracking. "Poor countries, already up to their eyes in debt, are forced to pay it back at great cost to their citizens.
Just a reminder you don't have to wage a war to fuck people up, though it certainly helps.
8. Tell me this does not surprise you:
Readers will recall some spirited conversation with sometime National Post writer "Raphael Alexander" on the subject of Canadians vs. "Canadians." The latter are folks with the misfortune to have funny-sounding names, and who "will never be wholly Canadian because no person born abroad can ever fully understand what it is to be Canadian."
As it turns out, Canadian employers tend to agree with "Alexander" that names are important. It seems as though those "Canadians in law only" have been falling to the bottom of the hiring pile. UBC economics professor Philip Oreopoulos has prepared a working paper, released yesterday, showing conclusively that equally-qualified Canadians are unequally treated--based upon name discrimination. Young people entering the labour market are 40% more likely to be called to an interview, Oreopolous indicates, if their names are (say) "Brenda Martin" or "Bob Smith" instead of (say) "Abousfian Abdelrazik" or "Abdihakim Mohamed."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
i don't know whether this is an off-topic comment, but as to the chart of homicide victims you linked to - do you have any idea what the reason is that male victim rates since the seventies have so dramatically dropped (to a quarter of its former number)?
I wondered that myself the first time I saw it. I do remember reading another page from that website that said that the victim rates had dropped for every group except white women in that time period, not just men, but as for the reasons of the general decline I'm clueless. Esp since crime rates in general were in decline, AFAIK know.
I meant I'm not sure of the reasons why the #s for white women didn't decline, not why everyone else's did. Sorry, my brain is fried.
Post a Comment