Children target corner shops to buy vapes because of lax ID checks, academic says
Study finds children are twice as likely to go to small shops to buy vapes than they were in 2019
Err, the modern world has become so detatched from reality that it requires an academic to tell us this? Or academia has become so that an academic thinks we need to be told this?
In his talk, which was well received by activists around the world, Chávez never mentioned the new project of building socialism with the commune as “its basic cell” that he had kickstarted that summer, but the fact is that the project of communal socialism that was emerging in Venezuela at that time is precisely the kind of system change that could save the climate and the Earth System more generally.
Yes, yes, Chris Gilbert is.
Gimp in the crowd is much ado about nothing, says Globe theatre
A man in a latex outfit was allowed to roam the venue while children were present
That gimp suits are used sexually is one thing. But they also cover all the bits of a body that needs to be covered in public and with kiddies around. So, why wouldn’t we allow someone to wear a gimp suit in public?
In and of themselves they’re no more sexual that a wetsuit. And while the idea of being able to prosecute surfers for being indecent in public has it’s attractions it would be going that bit too far.
On Thursday, at a conference for the Black sorority Delta Sigma Theta, Harris condemned the updated education standards as “revisionist history”.
“Just yesterday in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery,” the vice-president said. “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.”
Advocacy groups have denounced the Florida curriculum changes for providing a sanitized version of history.
No, that’s not what the new Florida Black History guidelines actually say. There is not a repetition of the old claim that Blacks, by being now Chrsitians in the US, were better off than unchristians in benighted Africa. Sure, it’s possible to claim at the extreme that some were – being a slave on a cotton plantation (less so a sugar one) might well be a better life outcome than being ceremonially eviscerated outside the court of the King of Dahomey.
But that isn’t the claim made. Rather, from the source:
Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural
work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing,
transportation).
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be
applied for their personal benefit.
Some slaves with such skills were indeed allowed to sell their labour for their own benefit. As under Roman slave codes of course.
Personally I think they were a bit silly putting this in there because it would so obviosuly be picked up on to try to discredit the entire syllabus. But there we are.
I also think that they would have found something to use to try to discredit that syllabus. Because it actually tries to get slavery right, which is against that current insistence that chattel slavery was uniquely American, a founding institution, or even a defining feature. Slavery lasted longer in the South than in many other places, true. But other than that it was pretty much business as usual. Which the syllabus trie to point out:
6-8 African American History Strand
SS.68.AA.1 Understand the causes, courses and consequences of the slave trade in
the colonies.
SS.68.AA.1.1
Identify Afro-Eurasian trade routes and methods prior to the development of
the Atlantic slave trade.
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slavery was utilized in Asian, European and African cultures.
Clarification 2: Instruction includes the similarities and differences between serfdom and slavery.
Clarification 3: Instruction includes the use of maps to identify trade routes.
SS.68.AA.1.2
Describe the contact of European explorers with systematic slave trading in
Africa.
SS.68.AA.1.3
Examine the evolution of the labor force in the use of indentured servitude
contracts.
6
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes the comparative treatment of indentured servants of European and
African extraction.
Clarification 2: Instruction includes the transition from an indentured to a slave-based economy.
SS.68.AA.1.4 Describe the history and evolution of slave codes.
Benchmark Clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes judicial and legislative actions concerning slavery.
SS.68.AA.1.5
Analyze slave revolts that happened in early colonial America and how
political leaders reacted (e.g., 1712 revolt in New York City, Stono Rebellion
[1739]).
SS.68.AA.1.6
Examine the service and sacrifice of African patriots during the Revolutionary
Era (e.g., Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, James Armistead Lafayette, 1st
Rhode Island Regiment).
That’s all pretty good (as is much of the rest of it in fact) but it’s against eh disctates of 1619 and so on. Therefore the whole thing must be attacked on whatever pretext.
Now, myself, I’d insist on telling the story of Anthony Johnson. A slave bought in Angola, freed into a indenture contract on arrival in 1621 (? date is not wholly known) and by late 1630s free, with own land and own indentured labourers. One of whom, a black from Afcia, he sued in order to keep for life. That’s the conversion from indenture to chattel lavery, right there in that case.
So, chattel slavery of blacks (he did not try that one with any white indentured) was invented by, first imposed by, an African ex-slave upon Africans. That is, an African practice imposed by an African upon Africans.
Now wouldn’t telling everybody that – true story – really put the cat amongst the pigeons?
But no. The new Florida history guide does not say that slaves benefitted from slavery. Read it for yourself.
BBC ‘only wants to feature working-class people if they’re miserable’
Former South Bank Show host claims that people from his background are under-represented in the media
That Lord Bragg describes himself as working class is cute. But don’t we want the BBC to reflect the real and objective reality? That under late stage capitalism the working class are immiserated?
“I’m not sure who gets to decide what ‘normal’ is in terms of a fantasy,” says Ericka Hart, MEd, sex educator and black queer femme activist. “But I will say white supremacy has put so many parameters on our imaginations that not feeling wrong when we think beyond vanilla hetero sex takes some unlearning. As long as the fantasy is consensual—freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic, and specific—it can be carried out.”
The reason we don’t all dream of the really tufty squirrel suit is white supremacy?
Disney’s Little Mermaid flops in China amid racist backlash over casting
Because theory says only white folks are racist. Therefore it must be true that only white folk are racist.
It’s well known – well, well known outside anti-trans circles – that trans people were targeted by the Nazis; the famous book-burning photograph that pretty much everybody in the world has seen was taken in 1933 when Nazi thugs looted the Institute of Sexology and burnt its research into trans and gender non-conforming people. However, like most people aware of this I thought that trans people were targeted not so much because they were trans, but because as far as the Nazis were concerned trans and gay were the same thing.
That’s partly true, but not wholly true. It turns out that some trans people were indeed targeted, and murdered, simply because they were trans.
This horrifying piece in The Conversation is about how scholars are uncovering more details about how trans people were treated by the Nazis. It isn’t a fun read.
The author of a 1938 book on “the problem of transvestitism” wrote that before Hitler was in power, there was not much that could be done about transgender people, but that now, in Nazi Germany, they could be put in concentration camps or subjected to forced castration. That was good, he believed, because the “asocial mindset” of trans people and their supposedly frequent “criminal activity … justifies draconian measures by the state.”
There are some very clear parallels with present-day anti-trans activism and politicians, and not just because Neo-Nazis keep turning up at anti-trans rallies.
Nazis: If you wear dresses we’ll cut your bollocks off.
Modern day: Do what you like yourself but don’t cut the bollocks off kiddies.
What do you mean you can’t see that this makes us Nazis?
Cram them into a shoebox: that’s Britain’s new anti-migrant strategy – and it won’t work
Enver Solomon
Given that’s what the British upper middle classes do to their own proles – we buildthe smallest new housing in Europe after all, 76 m2 per household – why shouldn’t migrants get the same treatment?
Have I mentioned that I despise planners?
Children as young as 12 can consent to trans-affirming medical interventions, Scotland’s social care watchdog has told bodies responsible for looking after the country’s most vulnerable young people.
No, they can’t. The reason folk that young aren’t allowed to fuck is because they don’t know what sex is.
Where’s that roll of piano wire gone?
Black Californians could get $1.2m each in reparations
Don’t be ridiculous, we all know that’s simply not going to happen.
A Pew Research poll showed that 77 per cent of black Americans and 18 per cent of whites backed reparations.
That’s hardly surprising but it’s also why it’s not going to happen.
As a billionaire king is crowned, he urges us to do some charity work. Welcome to Britain
Frances Ryan
So, lessee. We could take all the money off that rich bloke. That’s £15 each.
Or, we could all, all 67 million of us, go out and do a little bit of charitable work. A bit of direct taking care of the less fortunate around us.
Hmm, so which is going to make Britain a better place? The nicking, or the getting up off our own arses?
Yes, I do know that Ms. Ryan will spin her wheels rather than stand up here but the point remains even with the colloquialism. We wish to make the world a better place, Great, so what’s the best method? Us making it better of instead just nicking a bit off someone else?
Ms Ribiero-Addy asked: “Will he do what Bernie Grant asked all those years ago, what I have asked, and what countless others have asked since, and offer a full and meaningful apology for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, and commit to reparatory justice?”
No.
Long answer
Fuck no.
A report by Debt Justice said private investors who bought the bonds of Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Suriname and Zambia when they were first issued would stand to make $20bn if they were paid in full. If the bonds were bought at current depressed prices and still paid in full, private creditors would profit by $30bn.
So, why would those people buy the bonds in the first place – lend money that is – if they didn’t think there was going to be a profit in it in the first place?
If the local politicians just get to steal it without any comeback at all then nothing will be lent in the first place, will it?
Heidi Chow, executive director of Debt Justice, said: “Private lenders are having their cake and eating it. They’ve already profited from charging premium interest rates to cover their risk and now that countries cannot afford to pay, they also want to profit from full payment.
Idiot, if they don’t get their money back then they don’t make a profit, do they?
So, food’s really expensive now – according to the Food Foundation.
From a PR email:
with vegetables and fresh food now too expensive and frozen food being the only affordable option.
Jesus, they’re against Bird’s Eye now. But OK, food’s expensive. So, what should we do about this?
Encourage retailers to pay the Real Living Wage, making it easier for people to afford the food they need
The solution is to increase the costs of food retailers.
These people are fucking insane, aren’t they?
I have asked them whether they actually mean this – if they reply I’ll let you know
And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.
Sure there were. Who do you think the Barbary pirates were taking off to Africa?
Half of LGBT+ young adults in UK are estranged from a relative, survey finds
Somewhere near 100% of young adults are estranged from one relative or another, no? It’s a part of the growing up process.
What happens when a Black enclave is built by Big Oil
A century after the oil industry attracted Black families to Beaumont, Texas, residents are left battling a climate, housing, and health crisis.
Note what they’re saying. The refinery was built first, folk moved to live near it.
Oil helped attract Black residents to the city in the early 20th century, ushering in a new level of economic stability, but now it’s left a majority-Black community captured under its reign.
….
She’s been scared of the refinery since her family first moved to her home when she was just three years old.
Wacist, innit?
Have I got that right?
I was addicted to betting on football – a ban on ads on the front of shirts is nowhere near enough
James Grimes
Yes, yes, I think I have.