antiminke

Oh, dear, Daily Mail

In an article with the headline, 'Male fans of BBC newsreader Jane Hill, brace yourself for disappointment' (though possibly originally titled like the filename, BBC-newsreader-Jane-Hill-comes-gay.html), the Daily Mail is classy on so many levels.

Brace yourself for disappointment? As if a Daily Mail reader ever had a chance anyway!

I know it's the silly season, but repeating snippets from an in-house magazine is a poor excuse for news, even if you can make mentioning a partner into an OUTING STORY.

The comments are typically Daily Mail, though there was this moment of sense: "Funny that when a heterosexual talks of their partner it's 'making conversation' yet when a gay person does the same it's considered 'ramming it down people's throats'."

Reasons not to use eBookers

Well, I say 'reasons' but I've only got one and a bit, though they're enough that I'll never use eBookers again - they don't appear to pass on meal requests. And they don't respond to customer queries, so I've no explanation as to why, or even if they could have blamed the airline for the stuff-up.

Since eBookers never responded to my comment, I might as well post it here:

Dear ebookers,

I wish to make a complaint about your service. I recently flew long-haul on tickets booked with you, yet the airline I flew with had no record of my special meal request. This may sound like a relatively minor issue, but the thought of facing another eight hour flight without food is enough to stop me using ebookers again.

I'm just glad it wasn't a flight to Australia. If you're also vegetarian, or need to make special meal requests for any other reason, you might want to give eBookers a miss. The prices are pretty much the same across all those cross-search sites anyway.

[This is in no way a random post made up from a random old email I found while doing some tidying. Ahem.]

Women start to disappear - photoshopping to blame

Ok, a slightly melodramatic headline for fashion fuss about advertising and models, but to an extent, it's true - women are shrinking before our eyes. This time it's not actually about too-skinny models - they don't need them to be too-skinny anymore now they can shrink them in Photoshop.

The article, Image of ultra-thin Ralph Lauren model sparks outrage, also provoked a warning on mis-using copyright law to silence criticism: "Copyright law doesn't give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings".

The Liberal Democrats want to ban altered images for content aimed at teenagers, and I agree. As reported in the Independent:

The party is calling for a ban on the use of altered or enhanced pictures on publicity material aimed at the under-16s as part of a wider drive to boost the self-esteem of young girls. It also wants the introduction of new rules insisting that advertisements aimed at adults disclose how much images have been airbrushed or digitally enhanced.

"Ms Swinson, who led a party review of women's policy, told The Independent: "The focus on women's appearance has really got out of hand. No one really has perfect skin, perfect hair and a perfect figure but women and young girls increasingly feel that nothing less than thin and perfect will do.""

Having been a teenage girl, I say 'media literacy' training won't do it - the images are powerful even when you know how they've been made.

The politics of travel (it's not what you think)

'WH Smith's exclusive travel book deal with Penguin to go ahead despite outcry from writers', apparently because the OFT doesn't have the resources to investigate the deal? That's ridiculous. And what are Penguin thinking - can they only sell travel books if there's no competition?

The Guardian:

The Office of Fair Trading has decided against investigating WH Smith's deal to stock only Penguin's overseas guides at its travel stores. The deal caused an outcry from travel writers, including Michael Palin, when it was announced in June.

Under the agreement, brands such as Lonely Planet, Time Out and Bradt are not stocked in 265 of WH Smith's 459 travel shops, with only Penguin's Rough Guides and Eyewitness imprints on display.

Victorian government #fail - 'Government bows to religious right'

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Rob Hulls will today announce a controversial compromise struck with the state's religious groups that will allow them to continue to discriminate against gays and lesbians, single mothers and people who hold different spiritual beliefs.

In a move that has delighted religious groups but angered gay activists and discrimination experts, Mr Hulls will protect the right of hundreds of church-run organisations - including schools, hospitals and welfare services - to refuse to employ or provide services to people who they believe may undermine their beliefs.

Under the deal, Mr Hulls will allow church groups to continue discriminating on the grounds of sex, sexuality, marital and parental status and gender identity. But they will be unable to discriminate on the basis of race, disability, age, physical features, political beliefs or activity, or breastfeeding.

The decision has dismayed groups that argued that the review was a chance to eliminate entrenched discrimination in Victoria, which has more exemptions to its equal opportunity law than any other state.

Leading discrimination law expert Professor Margaret Thornton said it was a win for fundamentalist religious groups. ''In terms of a person's private life ... their sexual preference or marital status really has nothing to do with their ability to perform a job. Being able to discriminate on marital status is particularly absurd. It is really out of date. It really amounts to the policing of women because the focus is on single mothers, not on men.''

From The Age, Government bows to religious right.

The problem with trashy magazines

Some excerpts on how weekly/tabloid magazines create their stories below, but it's worth reading the whole Guardian piece on The Brangelina industry.

Of course, from a traditional perspective on the nature of reality, there were problems with these stories. ... "These weeklies no longer have any interest in actual reporting," Aniston's publicist, Stephen Huvane, told me via email. Richard Spencer, the editor-in-chief of In Touch, insists that all his stories are double-sourced. But maybe these disagreements over journalistic ethics miss the point. The weeklies are their own world, with their own rules. Their priority is to keep the rollercoaster of a star's life - romance, betrayal, marriage, separation, reunion - moving as quickly as possible. Real facts play a role, but not always a leading one. "A tabloid version of a fact isn't exactly a lie," is how one editor at a prominent celebrity weekly puts it. "But it isn't the truth. You know what I mean?"

...

...the verifiable facts will only take you so far. Fuelled by panic over falling magazine circulations, the challenges posed by blogs and a desensitised readership hungry for authentic emotion, the storyline of Brad, Angelina and Jennifer has achieved escape velocity. It seems, somehow, to exist independently of its real-life protagonists, even as it draws on the facts of their lives. And its inner workings - the web of relationships between stars, publicists, editors, paparazzi, "insider" sources and bloggers - show the machinery of modern fame operating at its most combative, absurd and intense.

The frenetic state of today's celebrity news industry stems from one inescapable fact: the lives of real people - even people as volatile and wealthy as A-list movie stars - simply don't unfold fast enough to meet the appetite for information about them. Weekly magazines need weekly scoops, and preferably scoops different enough to distinguish them from their rivals. Sales of celebrity magazines are plummeting (newsstand sales in the US fell 11% in the second half of last year, and the situation in the UK is similar, though Grazia is an exception) but the decline seems only to have increased the desperation for exclusives.

...

Editorial meetings at celebrity magazines, therefore, may not always resemble those elsewhere. "You build the story around an emotion," says a celebrity weekly editor, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "What's happening with poor Jen this week? Well, John Mayer's seeing someone else, and for a woman of her age, that must be awful ... So you construct a narrative of what a woman her age may be feeling." Stories may start with nothing more than a set of photographs: Aniston looking happy, or sad - or happy one moment and sad the next, since if you take multiple shots of anyone, with a fast shutter speed, you can capture a range of expressions. "The question is: how can we construct a story around a set of emotions that our readers are going to relate to? It can come from a genuine tip, or a photo. Or it can come out of our ass."

jezebel.com also asks, 'As The Tabloid Wars Heat Up, Do We All Lose?'.

Gordon Brown made me cry - in a good way

It was the final two lines to the petition about Alan Turing that did it:

"So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

More:

The Prime Minister has released a statement on the Second World War code-breaker, Alan Turing, recognising the "appalling" way he was treated for being gay.

Alan Turing, a mathematician most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes, was convicted of 'gross indecency' in 1952 and sentenced to chemical castration.

Gordon Brown's statement came in response to a petition posted on the Number 10 website which has received thousands of signatures in recent months.

Treatment of Alan Turing was "appalling" - PM

No 'fair go' for UK immigrants

But I guess 'a fair go' is an Australian value, not a British one, so I should probably jettison the expectation that life is fair if I want to stay in the UK.

From the Times Online: Anti-war migrants could damage citizenship hopes

There would also be a new two-stage test before a migrant is awarded a passport. The existing test in which a person must know English and the practicalities of life in Britain would be bolstered by an examination on UK history, its constitution and government.

Previously, they didn't ask migrants to know history or politics that a British person wouldn't know, because it wasn't fair. So why is it ok now? I don't know a single UK citizen that passed the 'Life in the UK' test, and that's only the existing test.

But fair

It has been suggested that migrants who took part in anti-war demonstrations could jeopardise their chances of qualifying for citizenship.

...

When it was pointed out that demonstrating was not illegal, Mr Woolas suggested that an applicant could also lose points not just for breaking the law but for engaging in certain activities that were legal.

He was asked: "Are you effectively saying to people who want to have a British passport, 'You can have one, and when you've got one you can demonstrate as much as you like, but until then don't'?"

Mr Woolas replied: "In essence, yes. In essence, we are saying that the test that applies to the citizen should be broader than the test that applies to the person who wants to be a citizen. I think that's a fair point of view, to say that if you want to come to our country and settle, you should show that adherence.

How is that fair? Did they change the meaning of 'fair' when I wasn't looking?

In the same article, the Lib Dems are quoted as saying:

"With the proposal that people could be barred for unpatriotic behaviour, it looks as if the Government wants to play the thought police. But there should be no question of barring people because they criticise government policy. Democratic values must come first."

The most depressing thing is that otherwise there's very little real opposition to it. And there's no recognition of the fact that legal non-EU immigrants are being punished because the government can't stop legal immigrants from the EU (who can claim benefits and might end up costing the country money, unlike non-EU immigrants who bring net wealth to the country), and can't reach illegal immigrants.

The Wall Street Journal did at least present a commonsense point about it all:

Some industries have complained about the increased restrictions. Both Britain's catering industry and its powerful banking sector have said that tightened immigration rules have made it harder for them to attract global talent and fill jobs that can't be filled through local hires.

The points-based system was also criticized this weekend in a report by a committee of U.K. lawmakers, who said it gives undue priority to factors such as qualifications and ignores ability or experience.

Kill your television

Cos this is seriously creepy: The televised revolution: how the TV set watches you:

By 2011, Sky says it will be able to deliver directed advertising ("Smart TV") by using viewers' set-top boxes to insert commercials targeted to them individually. "All the boxes with a particular profile will take a decision and play a particular advert," Thexton says. "It could be regional, it may link to demographics and age range. The viewer isn't aware of being targeted."

...

Smart TV adds a whole other dimension. "What we'd really like to do is match your digital media consumption - the websites you visit, the TV programmes you watch, the radio stations you listen to - to your shopping behaviour," Humby says.

Linked-in media data is the dream. "If I knew your whole transaction profile - restaurants, travel, fashion - that could be immensely powerful," adds Humby. "You'd need a consent-based model, but you'd understand every aspect of a person's life. The credit-card data tells you how they live generally, the supermarket data tells you their motivations, the media data tells you how to talk to them. If you have those three things, you're in marketing nirvana."

Ick, ick, ick.

Australian government recognises the power of language

Interesting:

Although it was difficult to change language, it could be done if the country's political and community leaders made an effort to use different words, Mr Dellal said.

"Language reflects attitudes. "If people change their language, it will filter through (to behaviour)."

For context, it's an article in The Age, Labor wages war on language of terrorism, and it starts:

Nearly eight years after the September 11 attacks, the Federal Government is reviewing the official language used to discuss terrorism.

"Experience has shown that the language used to describe terrorism can be counter-productive," Attorney-General Robert McClelland said.

"Certain words have the potential to glorify terrorism and terrorists, while others can cause anxiety among Australians and create divisions within and between communities."

Of particular concern to the Government are phrases that specifically link religion to terrorism, such as "jihad" and "Islamic extremists". The "war on terrorism" as well as its more American-style cousin, "the war on terror", are also in the Government's sights.

Clive James: 'Still looking for the western feminists'

I'm still digesting this (because really I'm meant to be studying right now), particularly the challenge to western feminists.

Democracy is the best chance for women. Or if that sounds too naive, too pro-western perhaps, then let's put it this way. The absence of democracy is seldom good news for women. Or, to get down to bedrock, if women can't vote for women, then they haven't got many weapons to fight with when they seek justice.

My own view, which I'm ready to hear contested, is that this is the main reason why some feminists in the west have been so slow to get behind those women in the world's all too numerous tyrannies who have to risk their lives to say anything.

It's just too clear a proof that men have a natural advantage when it comes to the application of violence. When you say that women have little chance against men if it comes to a physical battle, you are conceding that there really might be an intractable difference between the genders after all.

Ideological feminists in the West were for a long time reluctant to concede this, because they preferred to believe that there was no real difference, and that all female handicaps were imposed by social stereotyping that could be reversed by argument. But this belief was really possible only in a society where the powers of argument had a preponderance over the powers of violence.

And since many western feminists are still convinced that the social stereotyping of the West is the product of fundamental flaws within liberal democracy itself, they have a tendency to believe that undemocratic societies are somehow valuable in the opposition they offer to the free countries which the feminists are so keen to characterise as not free enough.

I have to pick my words carefully here, because this is the touchiest theme I have ever tackled in these broadcasts, but I do think it's high time to say that if feminist ideologists find liberal democracy unfriendly, they might consider that the absence of liberal democracy is a lot less friendly still.

Helping to give me courage, here, finally, is that quite a lot of women are already saying it. But they tend not to be western pundits. They tend to be women out there, in the thick of a real battle not just an argument. Why their bravery doesn't shame more of our feminist pundits I hesitate to say. It certainly shames me.

...

Last year the excellent Australian feminist journalist Pamela Bone finally died of cancer, but while she was still fighting it she published, in 2005, in response to what she regarded as the thunderous silence that had greeted the stand taken by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an article called "Where are the western feminists?" What Pamela Bone meant was, that she was amazed why so many of her colleagues couldn't see, or didn't want to see, that democracy was the best hope for women.

Are his theories about why western feminists haven't done more for others right? I suspect some of it is to do with a failure to get to grips with cultural relativism, perhaps a fear of the shadow of colonialism. But who knows?

I didn't realise comments broke when I upgraded the backend software a while ago, but hopefully I'll fix that next weekend. In the meantime, if you have comments (or a source for the original article, "Where are the western feminists?" by Pamela Bone, presumably published in The Age newspaper) I'd love to hear them on twitter - @antiminke.

Update - I found it, as 'The silence of the feminists', Pamela Bone, The Age, Feb 2005:

The great silence by left-leaning Western feminists, and other large parts of the left, to human rights abuses carried out in the name of Islam is, to see it as its kindest, caused by an overdeveloped sense of tolerance or cultural relativism. But it is also part of the new anti-Americanism. Look at American Christian fundamentalism, they say.

Dislike of George Bush's foreign policy has led to an automatic support of those perceived to be his enemies. Paradoxically, this leaves the left defending people who hold beliefs that condone what the left has long fought against: misogyny, homophobia, capital punishment, suppression of freedom of speech. The recent reaffirmation by Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie has been met by virtual silence; as has the torture and murder in Iraq of a man who would be presumed to be one of the left's own - Hadi Salih, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The hard left these days is soft on fascism, or at least Islamofascism.

The religious right in America would, if it could, wind back access to abortion and some other women's rights. But as far as I am aware, no Christian fundamentalist in the US has suggested banning women from driving cars, or travelling without their husbands' permission, or forcing them to cover their faces. Contrary to popular opinion, one is not the same as the other.

It does not take a lot of courage for people living in Western democracies to criticise aspects of their culture that need criticising (indeed, it sometimes takes more courage to defend the culture). It takes a great deal of courage for people living in totalitarian states to speak out against the injustices done in the name of their religion or culture. The problem with politely ignoring abuses of human rights because "it's their culture" is that it lets down the brave liberals and democrats and human rights defenders who are trying to change things that so badly need to change for the welfare of women and men in their own communities and in the world.

'The UN has let down the world's women. Now let's put that right'

Stephen Lewis writes in the Independent: The UN has let down the world's women. Now let's put that right

I have had I have had the privilege of working for 25 years internationally, including being Canada's UN representative in the 1980s. The most lamentable and heart-breaking dimension of multilateralism I have seen is the absence of any serious focus on gender throughout the UN system.

...

For me, the struggle for gender equality has become the most important struggle on the planet; the continuing marginalisation of 52 per cent of the world's population is simply unacceptable. So we're now engaged in an effort to create a new international agency for women, a fascinating undertaking that I hope will engage Parliamentarians in the House of Commons and House of Lords because of the UK's extraordinary influence in the multilateral system.

...

Everyone knows what's happening in these areas about women's vulnerability but there is never a consistent voice to bring it to the attention of the world community, to continue to hammer it home, to demand action from government. So the emergence and creation of a women's agency I think would be a Godsend internationally and would overcome the record of the United Nations on gender.

If you're in the UK, you can write to your MP to ask them to support an to call on the UN General Assembly to 'back the reforms that will create a UN Agency for Women with the resources, authority and mandate to unlock women's potential'.

Burlesque co-opted, straightened out

The Guardian on 'Burlesque laid bare':

Contemporary burlesque has ceased to be subversive; it is now just another part of our own modern, sexed-up "culture of consolation". Tired of fighting for equal pay, reproductive freedom and the right to walk down a dark street without fear, tired of being judged for what we look like rather than what we do, today's young women can be forgiven for wanting to play with the small amount of power we have. But stripping of any kind can only offer passive, cringing empowerment at best. The sexual power-play of burlesque strikes no great blows for feminism. All it does is make us feel, for the space of a three-minute striptease, a little bit better about the hand we've been dealt.

This article has neatly nailed some of my issues with burlesque - not the empowering, home-made, subversive burlesque I first discovered, that took lived experience, inverted, challenged it and held it up for inspection, much as a really good drag king does - but the stone-cold unsexiness of the cold, dead eyes of Dita Von Teese.

'Climate change displacement has begun - but hardly anyone has noticed'

Monbiot in the Guardian, today:

Two weeks ago a momentous event occurred: the beginning of the world's first evacuation of an entire people as a result of manmade global warming. It has been marked so far by one blog post for the Ecologist and an article in the Solomon Times*. Where is everyone?

...

Their numbers might be small, but this is the event that foreshadows the likely mass displacement of people from coastal cities and low-lying regions as a result of rising sea levels. The disaster has begun, but so far hardly anyone has noticed.

Climate change is real, it's happening now - but we can still prevent it. Do your bit at home, but also hassle companies and governments to sort it out.

More on 'going vegetarian to save the planet'

A useful summary from the Guardian, presumably prompted by Ghent's going vegetarian on Thursdays. (Yay Ghent). Can vegetarians save the world?

The breakthrough came in 2006 when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a study, Livestock's Long Shadow, showing that the livestock industry is responsible for a staggering 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is only the beginning of the story. In 2008, Brazil announced that in the 12 months to July it had lost 12,000 sq km (3m acres) of the Amazon rainforest, mainly to cattle ranchers and soy producers supplying European markets with animal feed. There is water scarcity in large parts of the world, yet livestock-rearing can use up to 200 times more water a kilogram (2.2lbs) of meat produced than is used in growing wheat. Given the volatile global food prices, it seems foolhardy to divert 1.2bn tonnes of fodder - including cereals - to fuel global meat consumption, which has increased by more than two and half times since 1970.

...

In September 2008, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a vegetarian himself, called on people to take personal responsibility for the impacts of their consumption.

"Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there," he said. "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity."

So that should knock the 'but vegetarians eat soy and soy is evil' thing on the head - most of that soy goes for animal feed.

I do tend to assume that vegetarians try to eat local and seasonal where possible - I read one piece that said simply going veggie isn't the answer - well, der. Hopefully people smart enough to change their lifestyle to try and reduce the effects of human-created climate change will also read up and check the air miles of their fruit and veg.

The perspective of a 'food historian' is useful.

Towards the end of the 18th century, two consecutive bad harvests in Europe created shortages. There was a huge public clamour for the wealthy to cut down on their meat consumption in order to leave more grain for the poor. The idea that meat was a cruel profligacy became current, and led Percy Bysshe Shelley to declare that the carnivorous rich literally monopolised land and food by taking more of it than they needed. "The use of animal flesh," he said, "directly militates with this equality of the rights of man."

I haven't forgotten about you!

Y'know, just in case you thought I had. I've just been really really busy with other things. Summer soon come, and then I'll be back to ranting away.

Yay Ghent! Vegetarian on Thursdays

As reported by the BBC, etc.

Belgian city plans 'veggie' days

The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".

Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.

I've never been to Ghent. I'm definitely going to go now, and I guess I'd better make it a long weekend so I can be there on a Thursday. And I guess it'll be easy to find something vegetarian to eat when I'm there. The Guardian reports:

Every restaurant in the city is to guarantee a vegetarian dish on the menu, with some going fully vegetarian every Thursday. From September, the city's schools are to make a meat-free meal the "default" option every Thursday, although parents can insist on meat for their children. At least one hospital wants to join in.

Police "sabotaging" rape inquiries?

I could get incredibly angry about this, but I guess at least the fact that it's come out means it's being addressed. From the Guardian:

One of Britain's most prolific sexual predators was allowed to remain free to drug, rape and assault more than 100 women over six years after police repeatedly failed to respond to the complaints of his victims.

...

Police were last night bracing themselves for more women to come forward. They have received 85 complaints so far and believe that over his 13-year career as a London taxi driver he could have drugged and attacked more than 100 female passengers.

The watershed case has exposed serious failings in the way police treat allegations of rape and sexual assault and comes despite years of high-profile policies and promises to improve rape conviction rates that stick at less than 6%.

Campaigners said the details of how police failed to apprehend Worboys for six years, despite receiving numerous complaints from women, exposed the fact that frontline officers remained sexist, dismissive of allegations of sexual assaults and ultimately guilty of "sabotaging" rape inquiries.

...

Scotland Yard announced that after reviewing the case there will be a fundamental change in the way rape and serious sexual assaults are investigated. In future the investigation of all rapes will come under the control of a centralised unit and no longer be run by local borough commanders.

Homophobia is gay, the video

If you can't be bothered reading reports, this is a nice video summary.

The state of popular culture in the UK - 'Is Al Murray's gay Nazi homophobic?'

Is Al Murray's gay Nazi homophobic?:

Insulting gay stereotypes are back in vogue in comedy, decades after properly being consigned to their graves alongside shabby and derogatory portrayals of other minorities. ... Gays aren't getting bashed physically, but verbally the onslaught is unremitting. "Stop being so gay." "That's a bit gay mate." "Don't be such a poof." All these crop up on chat shows and comedies with a knowing laugh. ... Just as it is on the school playground and just as it has been sanctioned by the BBC with presenters such as Chris Moyles and Jeremy Clarkson, "gay" has become an acceptable insult, and one we are all being invited to laugh along with. If we don't, we're accused of being "politically correct": a neat way to silence your critics.

There's the usual rash of anti-PC brigade rubbish in the comments section but there are also some really good comments: "It may be postmodern for "gay" to mean rubbish AND homosexual, but gay people no longer have a word to describe themselves which doesn't have a negative connotation. This is a triumph of homophobia."

I've been thinking about a guerrilla 'homophobia is gay' campaign, with stickers with QR tags that yield a summary of research that shows '80 percent of men who are homophobic have secret homosexual feelings', but I'm not sure how well it would work out there. I've found asking homophobes hassling me in real life whether they're one of the 80% has been effective in the past, but maybe that's just because they're not used to being challenged. Whaddya reckon?

"In Prof. Adams's test, homophobic men who said they were exclusively heterosexual were shown gay sex videos. Four out of five became sexually aroused by the homoerotic imagery, as recorded by a penile circumference measuring device (a plethysmograph)." (Source for quote, original reference 'Is Homophobia associated with Homosexual Arousal?', U.S. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, (1996, Vol. 105, no. 3, pp. 440-445)).