Links - 9th August 2016

This Video Mocking Journalist Who Claimed AR-15 Gave Him PTSD is Going Viral

European Patriarch Meme: Kelsea Akelseaaamarieee - "kelsea @kelseaaamarieee
The Senate approved a bill to require women to register for the draft
1 the draft should be outlawed
2 l DONT WANT EQUAL RIGHTS LIKE THIS"
Ahh... feminism

'Footman' exposes Tupperware secret of the Queen's table - "In an effort to justify a photograph of a breakfast table laid for the Queen and Prince Philip, Parry explained: "It looks innocent, but I could have been a terrorist with plenty of time to poison it." Of rather more surprise will be the fact that the royal cornflakes and porridge oats were present on the table in Tupperware containers."

The Last Kingdom and Agincourt | Podcast | History Extra - "There's been a whole sort of revisionist thing recently. Which try to make out that the Vikings were actually some sort of peace-loving vegans. Which is equally totally nonsense... in many ways they're very similar to the Saxons. You could say that the whole of the period between the end of the Roman Occupation and 1066 is a period of Germanic-Scandinavian invasions of Britain"

The battle of Jutland and 1950s domestic dangers | Podcast | History Extra - "Liberating the woman from her drudgery... Hotpoint calls one of its washing machine you know The Liberator. There's this sense that women are having opportunities for freedom and so processed food becomes associated with that"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, 60th Anniversary Special - "One of the issues that comes up quite often that I frequently get asked is: is it more dangerous for female foreign correspondents than for men. And I think it's a really important question because on the whole I don't think that it is and I think that there is a sort of moral panic about this. There was a particular time in Egypt where there were some very nasty sexual assaults of women in Tahrir Square. Both journalist and activists as well. But I don't think that there's any empirical research that says it's more dangerous as a woman to be a foreign correspondent than to be a soldier or a firefighter or any other profession that we might choose...
The Israeli waiter is a living, alas living, living testimonial to the inapplicability of Milton's line that 'they also serve who only stand and wait'. The Israeli waiter stands and waits. Presumably for the end of the working day. He doesn't serve. Or at least he tries to avoid it...
'Humour, light touches, joy. Foreign news journalism tends not to do that stuff'
'I think there's quite a good reason for that. Because often people try it and it doesn't really work and I think tere's something about the tone of that broadcast itself. It's very patrician and kind of slightly sneery tone about other people which I think you have to be really careful of and I think one thing that has really changed. It's no longer a case of you have a middle class middle aged white man going abroad and pointing at people growing mangoes on trees and kind of finding that entertaining'...
I did a piece... about rediscovering the only grand piano in Gaza. What I found partly in the reaction was many people liked it exactly for the reason that it was personalising, humanising. But there was quite an assault from both sides as we know in that very very controversial Israel-Palestine, saying that by humanising, I depoliticised and that was wrong...
You can't be objective about genocide. It's not on the one hand, you know, the victims are good, on the other hand they're bad."

The invention that stops girls missing school every month - BBC News - "And then the answer that I somehow found saddest of all: "Do your mothers help you?" Their heads shake again: "No," says Benku's friend. "My mother asked my aunt to explain everything to me when I got my first period." Another girl was given an old chitenge and a lesson in what to do by a neighbour. A third was sent to her grandmother's for a week... girls often don't leave the house while they're bleeding"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, The Cupboard is Bare - "Xinjiang was a paradise until 2008, he continues. But since the terrorist attacks began, it's been so hard to live here. We're constantly stopped by the Chinese police, who go through our text messages to see if we have any symbols of independence or Islam in our phones. Their searches can last for hours. He shows me his second, secret mobile phone with a wink. They mainly look through our phones for corrupt reasons, he says. If they find anything they take you straight to jail and your family will have to pay big sums of money to get you out. Ali looks at my fairly short and tidy beard and adds, if I had a beard like that, they would take me to prison"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Drama for Dilma - "[On Norway] They gaze down on you glassy-eyed in every home. The ancestors, as far back as photography goes. Here are my grandparents, I'm told, my great grandparents, and the further we go down the line of stern, shoulder-to-shoulder couples, the longer the husbands' beards become... [This] led the Czech president to compare Norwegian social workers to Nazis. Partly this is just crude nationalism - don't you dare take a kid which is at least half ours. But it's not just that. These stories hit a particular nerve in former Communist countries, where many feel that the state tried to destroy the family as the main building block of society, partly by insisting that the authorities, not parents, were ultimately responsible for children's welfare. We overthrew that tyranny, protestors are saying, don't you - in the old democracies of the West now voluntarily submit to it. Children belong to parents - not the state...
When women do get into positions of power they're often accused of pulling up the ladder behind them and abandoning the concerns of the other women who got them into office...
[On Malawi] One parent of a 13 year old girl with HIV tells me that he simply doesn't know how to keep her safe from predators after she was abused by two men over different periods. One lured her to his home and then paid her 50 Kwacha, some 6 pence. Another threatened to slit her throat if she told anyone. He gave her 7 macadamia nuts...
Chief *something* has also managed to outlaw a practice called kusasa fumbi or cleansing. This, she says, involves girls as young as 7 being sent to camps and taught how to please men. It usually ends with the girls being forced to have sex with the teacher or, back at home, being forced to go with a so-called hyena. An older man who comes to the house to take the girl's virginity or make women pregnant...
[On Germany] If the nation that's always been at the forefront of tourism has passed the point of peak wanderlust, other countries will suffer. The traditional trade arrangement has been the Germans make plenty of money exporting great cars then they export themselves on foreign holidays to spend that cash. Now, they plan to spend more time at home with their Schlossies."

King Richard's Return, Imprisonment and Ransom - "Disguised as a Templar knight, or possibly as a merchant, Richard headed north into the heart of Europe, making for safe territory controlled by his brother-in-law Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. However, after an icy, gruelling, dangerous journey on poor roads, the King was apprehended by Duke Leopold of Austria’s men. It was only a few days before Christmas, the weather was awful and the King was apparently sheltering in a ‘disreputable house’ or brothel in the outskirts of Vienna. Some stories suggest that it was his aristocratic habit of demanding roast chicken for dinner, rather than humbler fare, that led to his discovery; other tales say that it was his companions’ practice of calling him ‘Sire’ that somehow gave away his royal identity.

Affirmative Consent Is Still Confusing to College Students - "Fifty-four percent believed that nodding in agreement constituted consent, but 40 percent thought it did not, and 3 percent said it depended on the situation. Forty-seven percent of respondents believed that a person taking off their own clothes showed consent, while 49 percent did not. And 40 percent believed getting a condom showed consent, but 54 percent did not... As for affirmative consent—a standard adopted by some college campuses across the country—83 percent of students had heard of it and 69 percent felt it was very or at least somewhat realistic. About three in ten students thought it was the best standard for determining whether sexual activity was consensual while 42 percent preferred a “no means no” standard, and 23 percent thought there wasn’t rmuch difference.
Even college students can't agree on what constitutes affirmative consent, and more think it's a bad than good idea. Non-college students are undoubtedly even more opposed to it. I guess most people are rapists

The Incest Argument & Same-Sex Marriage - "Reflecting on incestuous marriage has, interestingly enough, given me some sympathy for people who have reflected on same-sex marriage and believe that there is something wrong about it. After all, I am against incestuous marriage and thinking of it makes me feel ill. However, I am at a loss for a truly compelling moral argument against it that would not also apply to non-related couples"

German ethics council calls for incest between siblings to be legalised by Government - "“They feel their fundamental freedoms have been violated and are forced into secrecy or to deny their love. “The Ethics Council has been told of cases where half-siblings did not grow up together and have only met in their adult lives”... In a statement outlining its recommendations, the Ethics Council said the law against incest “put couples in a tragic situation”. “The majority of the German Ethics Council is of the opinion that it is not appropriate for a criminal law to preserve a social taboo,” it added."

Incest a 'fundamental right', German committee says - Telegraph - "The Council said it based its recommendation on extensive research, in which it found many incestuous couples are forced to live in secret. In one case, it found a woman was being blackmailed by her father and ex-husband, who threatened to depive her of access to her children unless she ended a new relationship with her half-brother."

Incest Is 'Taboo' but Shouldn't Be Illegal, German Experts Say - "In its 90-page analysis [link in German], the council concluded that "the right of adult siblings to sexual self-determination in a consensual relationship weighs heavier in these cases than the abstract good of the family." It added that “neither the consequences for the family nor the possibility for descendants from such incestuous relationships can justify a ban under criminal law.” The panel's members include experts in "scientific, medical, theological, ethical, social, economic and legal concerns.""
The 90 page report is in German

Dangerous Love: German High Court Takes a Look at Incest - "Some 2-4 percent of the population have "incestuous experiences", according to an estimate by the Freiburg-based Max Planck Institute. There are fewer than 10 convictions for incestuous sex in Germany per year."

Do Women Really Want Equality? - "Another concern is how the merging of more traditionally feminine and masculine roles in women and men will affect gender identity and relationship success. The question remains whether or not women would still find their stay-at-home partner as attractive than if he were their stay-at-work partner. Thus far, it appears this kind of man, often referred to as a “beta male,” turns women off. For example, psychologist Lori Gottlieb found the risk of divorce is lowest when the husband earns 60 percent of the income and the wife does 60 percent of the housework, and women report higher levels of sexual satisfaction when there is a more traditional division of chores... Being a man and a stay-at-home partner is not seen as valuable and does not communicate alpha male behavior, which many women are attracted to. Indeed, even as women become more financially independent, they want an older and wealthier male partner... more often men have to pay their own way. The trend of parents spending more on their sons’ education in the 1970s not only equalized in the 1990s, but was reversed by the late 2000s; parents now spend about 25 percent more money on their daughter’s education than their son’s. In addition, there are plenty of scholarships offered to people of all sexes and ethnicities, but more scholarships — both academic and athletic — are offered exclusively to women than to men. For example, on scholarships.com — one of the most popular sites on which to find and apply for scholarships in the US — women’s scholarships outnumbered men’s four to one... You know what’s worse than catcalling? No one ever asking you out. Never feeling desirable. Always having to take the initiative sexually and getting rejected most of the time. One of the luxuries of being a woman is that we don’t have to ask for affirmative consent because we don’t have to take the initiative and therefore are not held responsible or accountable for anything that happens. Sure I am smaller and more physically vulnerable, but at any point I can accuse any man of saying something sexist or touching me in an inappropriate way and he could lose his job and family. He is guilty until proven innocent. Even if he’s found innocent, I would face no repercussions. Ultimately, if we actually wanted equality we would be asking men what life is really like for them. Because as long as male roles are limited, female roles will be limited, too. If we actually wanted equality, we would be talking about equal responsibilities alongside equal rights; we would be having honest conversations around biological differences and attraction. Until we do these things, we will find ourselves in a continual gridlock, complaining about such trivial things as manspreading and wondering why we can’t have it all while mistakenly believing men do"

Episode 28: “Christmas Pudding with Arsenic Sauce” - "Lee spent more time in meetings with British politicians, lobbying for support and seeking to build friendships and alliances, than he did meeting with his own delegation. Lee clearly had his own agenda, which was to promote himself to the British as a viable future collaborator, and to dispel any idea that he was a tool of the communists... The man who inherited the 1959 constitution, Lee Kuan Yew, would use the Internal Security Council as cover to detain his political opponents without trial while blaming it the British and Federation governments.

Episode 30: Pah Mata - "The Council subsequently dissolved the Singapore Farmers' Association and Singapore Wooden House Dwellers’ Association on 1 November... Lee Kuan Yew had stabbed a knife into the back of his allies. His message to the British was clear. He was saying that yes, my colleagues, the PAP left-wing are communists. And I am working with them, yes. Why? because I would rather support communists than colonialists. So I will fight you. But the moment colonialism ends, I will fight the communists. Therefore, you should hand me all the power of government, and then leave."