Category: Media and Culture,

Flake to denounce Trump media attacks as Stalinist in Senate speech

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Sen. Jeff Flake is planning to slam President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press on the Senate floor this week in a speech that will compare the president’s use of the term “enemy of the people” to describe the media to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

“When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him ‘fake news,’ it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press,” Flake, R-Ariz., will say, according to excerpts of the speech provided to NBC News.

via Flake to denounce Trump media attacks as Stalinist in Senate speech – NBC News

hmmmmm

Margaret Atwood asks, “Am I a bad feminist?”

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn’t get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. Stars fell from the skies. This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake-up call. But what next? The legal system can be fixed, or our society could dispose of it. Institutions, corporations and workplaces can houseclean, or they can expect more stars to fall, and also a lot of asteroids.

If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? Who will be the new power brokers? It won’t be the Bad Feminists like me. We are acceptable neither to Right nor to Left. In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.

…A war among women, as opposed to a war on women, is always pleasing to those who do not wish women well. This is a very important moment. I hope it will not be squandered.

Am I a bad feminist? – The Globe and Mail

I hope not but I wouldn’t hold your breath, Margaret.

‘The difficulty is the point’: teaching spoon-fed students how to really read

On By peanutgallerynhIn Education,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

If you are reading this essay, you’re a reader. You probably know this sentence, and if you don’t, you are comfortable with interpreting it. You can hear a character beginning to form: its romantic, optimistic, nostalgic voice; a voice yearning for simplicity; probably, in its deliberate imitation of a child’s singsong, the voice of a woman, a mother. You know it might take a few pages to learn just who this woman is. You’re skilled in this sort of patience.

But if you have never read anything more difficult than a Harry Potter book, how are you meant to proceed?

Well, there is only one way to go on, as I tell students – and that is to go on. This is the first and greatest difficulty they face. There’s no reason for them to continue reading. There is so much else to read that is shorter, and not just aimed at them, but, in the case of their Facebook feed, tuned to their experience. Marketed to them. Why would they bother reading something that was neither for them nor about them?

… “Some students want Nietzsche in the same way that they want a hamburger; they fail to grasp – and the logic of the consumer system encourages this misapprehension – that the indigestibility, the difficulty is Nietzsche.”

…many of his students are in a state that he calls “depressive hedonia … an inability to do anything else except pursue pleasure”. I’m not trying to give my students pleasure, or make them enjoy themselves. I’m trying to show them how critical engagement with literature enables critical engagement with living. I’m trying to interrupt what Fisher calls “the constant flow of sugary gratification on demand”. And finally, I’m trying to help them pass that literacy test.

‘The difficulty is the point’: teaching spoon-fed students how to really read | Books | The Guardian

hmmm

A woman’s choice – sexual favours or lose her home

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

…By the time the inquiry concluded, 71 additional women came forward with complaints deemed credible by the justice department. In December 2014, the DOJ filed a federal lawsuit against Four-County.

……Every year, hundreds of state and federal civil lawsuits are filed against landlords, property owners, building superintendents and maintenance workers alleging persistent, pervasive sexual harassment and misconduct, covering everything from sexual remarks to rape. This includes so-called “quid pro quo” sexual harassment, wherein the perpetrator demands sex in exchange for rent or repairs.

…The Laurinburg case illustrates a larger point of concern – housing authorities and agencies who disburse federal housing benefits are not obligated to record or report the number of harassment complaints they receive each year.

… There has never been a comprehensive national survey of tenants to track the frequency of sexual harassment in housing, or to determine where or to whom it occurs most often. Most advocates and experts believe poor women and women of colour are disproportionately affected, though that is based mainly on experiential evidence and a single, 30-year-old study. Advocates say victims who are undocumented or who do not speak English are also easy targets, as are women fleeing domestic violence.

…The BBC filed a Freedom of Information Act request in May of 2016 for HUD complaints of sexual harassment going back to 2010, in the hope of parsing out any trends. A year and a half later, the request has yet to be met.

…The BBC requested data from state civil and human rights agencies and found many cannot easily report how many of their housing cases involve allegations of sexual harassment each year. Of the state agencies that did provide that information, the number of cases per year were in single or low-two-digit numbers. California was the exception, recording dozens of complaints each year, including 159 complaints in 2015.

Lawsuits brought in the private housing market can be settled in complete secrecy, since defendants often demand confidentiality agreements, not unlike the nondisclosure agreements Harvey Weinstein reportedly used to keep women from speaking publicly.

A woman’s choice – sexual favours or lose her home – BBC News

Sign…

 

Inmates Can’t Receive Donated Books Anymore, They Have to Buy Them

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The selection is limited. And expensive.

…When there were five vendors, 77 books were available for purchase and 24 of the titles were coloring books.

Inmates Can’t Receive Donated Books Anymore, They Have to Buy Them – WNYC News – WNYC

Sigh….

Let’s just be honest here, as a society we have given up on reforming individuals and chosen to incarcerate as many people as possible for as long as possible in conditions that guarantee recidivism and exclusion from opportunities for change and reform so that a select few can make an ungodly amount of money from the system.

Facebook to overhaul news feed to focus on friends and family, Zuckerberg says

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,Leave a comment

“I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page.

“By making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable,” he wrote. “And if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term too.”

 

Facebook to overhaul news feed to focus on friends and family, Zuckerberg says – CBS News

hmmmm