An introduction

This is a semi-public place to dump text too flimsy to even become a blog post. I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you have a lot of time to waste. You'd be better off at my livejournal. I also have another blog, and write most of the French journal summaries at the Eurozine Review.

Why do I clutter up the internet with this stuff at all? Mainly because I'm trying to get into the habit of displaying as much as possible of what I'm doing in public. Also, Blogger is a decent interface for a notebook

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Muslim-bashing

The inane, paranoid meme that Europe is about to be overrun by evil Muslims has somehow managed to burst out of the right-wing cul-de-sac in which it deserves to be confined, and spreading tentacles far more dangerously than is its purported target.
Of the resistance against obnoxious stupidity, this dissection of a recent book on the subject has deservedly got a lot of links. But the one I'm really enjoying is this article from the Guardian. It steps back slightly from the neverending claims and counter-claims, and gets a better view of the whole picture:


Ordinary Muslims in Europe, who suffer from the demoralisation caused by living as perennial objects of suspicion and contempt, are far from thinking of themselves as a politically powerful, or even cohesive, community, not to speak of conquerors of Europe. So what explains the rash of bestsellers with histrionic titles - While Europe Slept, America Alone, The Last Days of Europe?


It also raises a historical angle on the French veil debate which I hadn't previously been aware of:


The veil, fixed in the 19th century by the French as a symbol of Islam's primitive backwardness, was used to justify the brutal pacification of north African Muslims and to exclude them from full citizenship.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Attacking the poor in Sao Paulo

Jim Jay has an impressively wide reading list; he's always pointing out interesting articles I'd never have found otherwise.
A recent link from Jim Jay's impressively wide reading-list: violent slum clearance in an area of Sao Paulo called 'Capao Redondo'*.

This kind of thing is doubtless happening all the time; there's a general bubble that I almost always ignore. I only notice it now because I'm midway through Mike Davis' book 'planet of slums'. Davis does a particularly good job of taking slum settlement and clearances out of the falsely clear-cut world of legal vs. illegal, and pointing out the nexus of power and money -- tolerance of 'illegal' slums either because they are inevitable (the people have nowhere else to go) or even because squatters help prepare land which can then be developed privately.

*Not knowing anything about Brazil, I'm flummoxed the details. Wikipedia claims the population of Capåo Redondo as 300,000, but the eviction seems to be only of a far smaller area within that.

No embargo

Embargoes in journalism are dying, according to Owni -- various outlets including the Wall Street Journal have decided to ignore them. Blame internet-time.
danah, unfair but funny:

Best that I can tell, most universities are fundamentally real estate barons who gain public credibility by offering higher education

[incidentally, I was impressed to see danah's blog turn up on [French] Books magazine's list of essential reading about the internet, alongside much more established/institutionalized sources. Increased my respect for them, even if they did capitalize her name]

Friday, August 28, 2009

Digital rights and the German elections

It's good that Berlin's annual Freiheit statt Angst (freedom not fear) demonstration falls just a couple of weeks before the election; I can only hope it pushes digital rights onto the agenda. Here is a comparison of the various party positions on privacy &c. Unsurprisingly the pirate party comes out best, followed by Die Linke and Die Grüne -- none of them likely to make it into any ruling coalition, alas.

It'd be nice if the Piratenpartei could manage an upset comparable to what the Swedes pulled off in the European elections. I can't imagine it happening although, as with the growth of environmentalism into a broad political philosophy, it's not inconceivable that the pirates could become a serious political force over the years.

The worst way to follow German elections

Incidentally, twitter tags for the German elections: #wahl09, #btw09, #bundestagswahl. Doubt I'll be following them; I've repeatedly tried to gather information from twitter, and always found the signal-to-noise ratio atrocious. But perhaps I'll recant; if so, here are the links.

German elections

Germany has federal elections next month; polls are here. In accordance with this year's European theme of a centre-left utterly unable to take advantage of the economic crisis, the SPD are steadily losing support. Consequently the entire left-wing is on the back foot. The Left and the Greens aren't making up much ground -- and even if they were, it wouldn't affect the electoral maths. The only coalition able to challenge the CDU/FPD would be one uniting the SPD, Die Linke and Die Grüne. Many SPD leaders refuse to contemplate a coalition with Die Linke, seeing them as unreformed East German communists without any place in a democratic Germany. Some strands within Die Linke are equally reluctant to serve in such a coalition. A coalition isn't impossible -- but the SPD would probably prefer a few more uneventful years of Grand Coalition, rather than risking tearing it apart for the sake of an even more diverse coalition. The other outside possibility, an SPD/Green/FPD coalition, seems pretty implausible given the steady rightward movement of the FPD since the 80s. It could happen if the CDU somehow made themselves obnoxious partners, but that's outstandingly unlikely with compromise-loving Merkel at the helm.

There are things to be excited about in this election, but the national picture isn't one of them. While I'd love to see the CDU/CSU lose their 10+ point lead over the SDP, it seems pretty unlikely. The Greens and the Left might make some small gains, but the polls don't show any staggering motion. So, despite this being the federal election, I'm somewhat more interested to watch the changes at a local level, observing which parties are improving their machines. More on that -- well, when I can get round to writing about it. So, possibly never.

Liberal Conspiracy � Climate Camp: Watching the Watchers

Laurie dismisses Climate Camp as being overly concerned with self-image. Or at least that's how a bunch of irritated LibCon commenters see it, and manage a rousing defence of CC in the comments. Possibly there's a more interesting point being made about the Spectacle -- but if so, it's very well hidden

Thursday, August 27, 2009