personal political

girlistic: fashion

This past issue of Girlistic magazine looks impressive - enough reading to fill a couple of hours, about feminism and fashion.

bangladesh: climate change speaking tour

Bangladesh is one of the countries that will be most dramatically affected by climate change. A one metre sea level rise is expected to affect between 25-50 percent of the population, or up to 70 million people. Much of southern Bangladesh is already experiencing water-logging and salinity problems.

Despite this, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is considering funding what will be one of the largest coal mines on earth in northern Bangladesh.

skin

I'm sometimes told that I have good skin for my age. What people mean by that is that I'm relatively unlined and unwrinkled. But that's just an accident of facial geography - the placement of bones, features, etc, hasn't created any deep lines.

But beneath the surface - and increasingly on the surface - my skin isn't 'good'. It's damaged, from a typical sunburnt Australian childhood of the 1960s-70s (and typical unaware early adulthood in the sun). And this week I was diagnosed with my first skin cancer. I'm sure it won't be my last.

blog for human rights

Cross-posted at LP

It’s Bloggers Unite for Human Rights Day. Here’s a quick focus on two blogs/bloggers:

- Burmese Bloggers Without Borders is an independent voice reaching out to the rest of the world. In March they highlighted the case of two Rangoon journalists who were imprisoned. Amnesty International has also taken up the case of Thet Zin and Sein Win Maung.

- Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer has been in prison for over a year now, for writing about political repression, religious extremism and discrimination against women. Amnesty is also working for his release.

books i haven't read

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicise the ones you started but didn’t finish.

(Most of the other bloggers I've seen do this have bolded a great many more books than me. I feel as if I read all the time but somehow I haven't managed to read mainstream books.)

children

When I first heard about this (and whenever I hear news of other accidents involving groups of young people), I breathed a sigh of relief that my own child isn't old enough to be out in the world on his own. It is indeed "every parent's worst nightmare".

sprout convert

All my life I have considered sprouts boring. I never bought them, I never sprouted them and I never asked for them in food (eg sandwiches).

boys today

In an article about IQ, I came across this:

Another study by the British psychologist Michael Shayer, of King's College, University of London, that looked at tests concerned with volume and heaviness, showed a marked reversal in geometric reasoning. In 2003 children of almost 12 years did as well as eight- or nine-year-olds in 1976. The biggest drop was in the performance of boys.

Shayer believes that boys today are less inclined to develop the 'differential play patterns' that previously accounted for their advantage over girls. In short, they have grown less prepared to explore further afield, to go beyond the comfort zone of their controlled environments. 'Presumably,' says Shayer, 'because they were looking at bloody computer games.'

Flynn thinks that computers can help with abstract cognitive skills, but, he warns, there is a price. 'They don't read, the little bastards,' he says of young people today. 'And I don't consider someone educated unless they can read Tolstoy or Plato.'

a joke

"I'm going to tell you a joke that's a bit sick", he announced in a rush. As I was making some food at the time, I assumed it would concern bodily functions. Not exactly...

stuff

Long time no blog, etc, etc.