Links - 10th September 2019 (1)

120 years after Philippine independence from Spain, Hispanic influence remains - "In his book, “The Latinos of Asia: How Filipinos are Breaking the Rules of Race,” sociologist Dr. Anthony C. Ocampo explores how Filipino Americans, while classified as Asian by the U.S. Census Bureau, share traits with Latino culture because of the Philippines’ history of Spanish colonialism. He suggests that the concept of ethnic and racial identity is a social construct, which means human beings create these identities... “The Spanish colonial period in the Philippines lasted longer than that of a lot of countries in Latin America, including Mexico,” Ocampo said. “You can’t just forget the three-and-a-half century Spanish influence in the Philippines.”... “When you go to the the Philippines or Filipino households in the U.S., you can see the influence of Catholicism in the form of saints, crosses and statues,” Ocampo said. “The Spanish colonial period left these marks on Filipino culture—residues that last even today. You have things like religion, our last names, and everyday words in Tagalog and other Philippine dialects.”... Ocampo said that when he has spoken with other Filipino Americans about their experiences growing up, plenty of them talk about how many of them often subconsciously gravitated toward Latino spaces."

Free all nipples - "Forget #FreeTheNipple – there’s a new boob-centred campaign in town. Naked protesters took to the streets outside Facebook HQ last week to launch #WeTheNipple, a new campaign from the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) that is putting pressure on Facebook and Instagram to ‘allow photographic artistic nudity’... the NCAC campaign seems to centre around a very specific type of nipple, one that belongs to a certain kind of woman. In a letter to Facebook’s head of global policy management, the NCAC acknowledged that Facebook can’t just allow any old nudity. The problem, apparently, is that the current ‘nudity ban’ is ‘punishing for photographers’ and it particularly ‘harms artists whose work focuses on their own bodies, including queer and gender-nonconforming artists’.This isn’t a campaign against censorship of the female body – it’s a campaign to free up artists’ and influencers’ ability to promote their woke work. The NCAC goes so far as to ask Facebook bosses to be the ones who decide what constitutes an artistic display of nipples... Anti-censorship protesters bemoan the fact that celebrities like Rihanna have had their nipple shots removed from Instagram but they don’t make the same defence of Lucy from Bournemouth who might want to sell topless pics online. The issue of women’s breasts has been colonised by middle-class creatives. If you’re protesting against climate change or the closing down of a local arts centre or the Tory government, apparently getting naked and sharing pics online is all good. If you’re an attractive young millennial with a big following, and you use hashtags like #bodypositivity, #freethenipple, #everybodyisbeautiful, then your nipples are good and proper and permissible. And if you’re breastfeeding and your doting husband takes a close-up shot of your nipples, that is allowed too. But Page 3 girls? Young working-class women taking glamour shots? That is bad. Those nipples must be covered up"

Instagram popular lake in Russia harmful to visitors - "Dubbed the ‘Siberian Seychelles’, many photos on the photo sharing app show scantily clad models striking a pose near the water’s edge.In an area that barely reaches 20C in summer, the photos appear almost too good to be true – and they are.Authorities are warning visitors to stay clear of the water due to its high content of waste from a nearby power plant, The Siberian Times reported.Its name directly translates as Lake Ash Dump, with the electric blue waters a product of a chemical reaction as ash is pumped into the lake by the plant under the ownership of the Siberian Generating Company."

The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz - "The script scoffs at the idea that power and prosperity come to those who merit them, even when it is dealing with Dorothy herself. She kills one Wicked Witch by crash-landing a house on her, and kills another (Margaret Hamilton) by splashing her with water. In both cases, the killings are accidents, the results of pure chance rather than Dorothy’s bravery or virtue"

Eastern countries far more optimistic than their Western partners - "People living in developing countries are more optimistic than those in the Western world, according to a survey conducted by YouGov.Just two of the 17 countries YouGov surveyed had more than one out of five people thinking the world was getting better, while the majority had more than half of their people thinking it was getting worse... France is the world's most pessimistic country, with 81 per cent of its internet users saying the world is getting worse. Just three per cent thought it was improving"

The Incels Getting Extreme Plastic Surgery to Become ‘Chads’
The article suggests that he should refuse to treat incels. Yet if a doctor refuses to perform abortions, that is "denying healthcare" and wrong

The wrong man: the Facebook friend request that led to three years in jail - "Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe was the victim of what has become one of Italy’s most notorious cases of mistaken identity. Detained in May 2016, he was accused by prosecutors in Palermo of being one of the world’s most sought-after human traffickers, Medhanie Yehdego Mered, aka the General. While the real smuggler lived it up in Africa, Berhe, who had earned his living milking cows and working occasionally as a carpenter, faced up to 14 years in jail.His ordeal began when a Facebook friend request he had speculatively sent to Mered’s wife, finding her attractive, led investigators to conclude he was the smuggler operating under a new identity... Berhe, a refugee from Eritrea, was drinking coffee in a bar on the outskirts of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, when six police officers pulled a hood over his head, took him away and forced him on to a flight to Rome.  His arrest, after an investigation spanning two continents and five countries, was presented to the media as a triumph for a new anti-trafficking strategy. The suspect was touted as the “Al Capone of the desert” and the first human smuggler to be extradited from Africa"

Systemic Systems of Institutionalizationalism - Posts - "Saying that gender isn't a binary because of intersec people is like saying humans aren't bipedal because some people are born without legs"
Comments: ""How many fingers does a person have?"
"Well, we used to think only ten but we now know that with polydactylism and even other issues that the answer is as varied from zero all the up to over a dozen. That's why we're trying to end the stigma created by diginormativity.""

The Dearth of Conservatives in Academic Philosophy - "It is strange, for instance, how rarely philosophers agree about a wide range of thorny philosophical problems, and yet they appear to be unified on a range of complex issues that divide the American public roughly in half. Why are there so few political conservatives in philosophy? Some hypotheses stand out immediately. One may notice that philosophy requires a critical attitude that sits uncomfortably with the characteristically conservative respect for authority. As a profession, philosophy also does not offer career prospects that risk-averse conservatives may value higher than their more idealistic liberal counterparts. Lastly, as Peter K. Jonason has shown, openness to ideas and experience—the philosophical character trait par excellence—is associated with political liberalism, not conservatism... given that roughly half of the American population has conservative political views, most of whom are taxpayers who fund institutions of higher learning, and some of whom attend such institutions (or pay for their children to), such persons are either subsidizing views they disagree with, or being undereducated by a faculty that does not take their moral viewpoint seriously. Consequently, conservative persons in the general population, who may crave intellectual support for (or at least discussion of) their views, may then look to more disreputable, dishonest, and disgraceful sources in this new age of decentralized information, political extremism, and “fake news.” (This point was made by Steven Pinker in a discussion of “Is Political Correctness Why Trump Won?” Unsurprisingly, he was vilified as “alt-right” for pointing this out.)"

Indonesian man, 26, marries English lady, 21, sends Internet in Indonesia into overdrive - "Indonesian social media is broken.This was after news made the rounds that a 26-year-old man from Magelang, Indonesia married a 21-year-old woman from Manchester, England... Indonesian media have identified the couple’s separate Instagram accounts as Karna Radheya and Polly Alexandria Robinson"

Belgian PM resigns after UN migrant pact row results in no confidence motion - "Some nations have openly opposed it, while many others, including Belgium, witnessed widespread protests of their citizens against it. The US, which was the first to openly oppose the pact, said the agreement was “dead even before it's been signed.”Although the text is not legally binding and is regarded as more of a declaration, the pact is worded in a way that encourages domestic courts and authorities to consider it when making decisions based on interpretations of their laws.Such provisions have prompted Austria, Hungary, Israel and several other countries to reject the pact. Critics claim that the deal is inadequate for managing global migration flows and might negatively affect their national immigration policies."

Mystic Tamil on Twitter - "Tamils in Malaysia and Singapore: "I wish the Chinese would stop stereotyping Indians"
Meanwhile the fookers India:"
Presumably since China is richer than India, Indians doing bad yellowface is punching up and thus good

Outrage in Malaysia as Zakir Naik suggests Chinese expulsion - "Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik has ignited outrage in Malaysia after suggesting the expulsion of its ethnic Chinese minorities, even as the country's cabinet mulls the possibility of cancelling his permanent residency... He drew a huge public outcry for his recent comment that Hindus in the Southeast Asian country had "100 times more rights" than the Muslim minority in India, and that they support the "prime minister of India and not the prime minister of Malaysia"... Naik also took aim at the country’s Chinese community, when addressing calls for him to leave the country, saying the ethnic minority should leave first as they were "guests" of Malaysia.  "You know, someone called me a guest. So I said, before me, the Chinese were the guests. If you want the new guest to go first, ask the old guest to go back".. Malaysian state news agency Bernama also quoted Prime Minister Mahathir as saying late on Tuesday that Naik cannot be sent back to India for "fear of being killed" there."If any [other] country wants to have him, they are welcome," he said, according to Bernama.In 2016, India banned Naik's foundation after allegations were made that it was promoting religious division in the country, allegations that the preacher has denied."
Meanwhile in Singapore you have the Malay supremacist claiming local born Chinese are immigrants/guests, too

RedMart on Lazada: One Month On, Was It the Right Move to Merge RedMart with Lazada? - "It has been slightly over a month since RedMart moved to Lazada. And it has also been the exact same amount of time since I last ordered with RedMart.Considering that I used to order a batch of groceries for my household every week, this has been a major lifestyle change for me. And it seems like I’m not alone.Several friends and colleagues that I’ve asked also stopped ordering from RedMart, and apparently, their parents too... In an article titled “Bye RedMart app”, which is enough to send me to tears, AsiaOne reported that before RedMart merged with Lazada, 7 in 10 people who buy their groceries online already do so on RedMart."

WhyQ for hawker food in CBD? Start-up does it for you - "They hail from India, but fell so deeply in love with local hawker fare that they ditched their banking jobs to start a hawker-food delivery business... Orders must be from nearby hawker centres... This is how they can keep delivery fees low, at S$1.50 per order. There is also no minimum order. Start-ups that previously ventured into this space have bitten the dust due to exorbitant delivery fees that may easily double the cost of lunch.