I really wish I could share this article with a former politics lecturer of mine. An unreconstructed Stalinist, with a Hemingway bandana and jeans that belonged to another age, I tried to give him apoplexy by writing an essay asserting that Marx was an anarchist, but didn’t succeeed – he just marked it down. (I tend to still believe Marx was an anarchist, actually, although the fact that he was a politician who often wrote for the moment means you can find almost anything you want in his theoretical positions…) But on that lecturer, I’m sure this would have given him the shakes:

“I would have loved to have lived in Manchester in the 1840s,” says Schofield, “and possibly to have met Engels, who sounds a lovely man, even though he rode with the Cheshire hunt. Marx sounds like a lazy fat man who took Engels’ money and his best ideas.”

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In the weird and wonderful medical category, scientists seriously think that hookworm might cure asthma and hayfever. Human trials have started, after the scientists tried out the treatment on themselves.
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If the whole Danish cartoon controversy is getting you down, read The Religious Policeman’s take on it. It has the virtues of being funny, and if Belgium finds itself the next boycott target, you’ll know why …
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Finally, a small piece of good news: feminist fair-trade co-ops for women coffee growers in Peru.

In order for a woman to join the co-op, she must show that her own name is on the deed to the land she works. Since the coffee income is greater with the Cafe Femenino fair-trade program–the women make about 17 cents more per pound, or about 30 percent more than the average coffee farmer–it benefits the whole family, a persuasive argument for the husbands to cede land to their wives.
Latorre also sees to it that the money generated by Cafe Femenino is given directly to the female farmer. Another portion–the income from the two-cents-per-pound surcharge–is devoted to the co-op, for all the women to determine how it will be spent.
Cafe Femenino sent its first shipment in August 2004. Those 19,000 pounds of coffee brought in $27,000 to the women’s co-op. The first year’s extra income has been invested in coffee production, but the psychological effects of the higher income are already rippling through the communities. Now women are meeting together independently to talk business, and the men are not preventing them from doing so.

First up importantly, the first Radical Women of Color Carnival is up now on Reappropriate … Among the items that particularly appealed to me were an insider view on women and the Koran, a critique of the Pocahontas myth, and, within the carnival itself, an horrific account of the fate of “comfort women” at the hands of the Japanese army.

Secondly, don’t forget, you’ve got about three hours to get in your nomination for guaranteed consideration for the next Carnival of Feminists, which will be up on Gendergeek on Wednesday. (But if you missed the deadline and have a great post anyway by all means shoot off an email to emma AT gendergeek DOT org.)

From the wonderful 18th-century email list, Jim Chevallier posts on new resources on Gallica. I’m just going to quote directly, since I’m not feeling up to searching the French tonight:

The earlier volumes [of Journals Des Savants] also show a sneering contempt for anyone who deviates from Catholic orthodoxy, nicely typified by an index entry on abbesses (1703) who “ont voulu se mesler de confesser” – literally, “wanted to get mixed up with confession” or “wanted to involve themselves with confession”, but with a strong nuance of “stick their noses into” confession. The article itself –
review of a larger work (661) – tells of abbesses who either asked to confess their own nuns and were refused or simply went ahead and did it and even appeared in the pulpit, “but Pope Innocent III found this feminine zeal quite ridiculous” and ordered his bishops to stop it.

The story behind the cartoons. As I’ve said before, I think it is a pity no British newspaper has had the guts to print the cartoons, and as my commenter “Clanger” said, Jack Straw’s comments are a disgrace. (And so much for America, “Land of Free Speech” – NOT. If the Christian God or any other religious figure is fair game, as they are, why should Islam be any different?

Religions are ideologies – in my opinion immensely harmful and destructive ideologies – and they certainly don’t deserve any special legal protection, or indeed to be allowed to intimidate media outlets into censoring themselves.

As ever, Matthew Parris says it beautifully, when referring to the Straw theory:

The approach is tempting. It avoids hurt. But it overlooks, in the evolution of belief, the key role played by mockery. Many faiths and ideologies achieve and maintain their predominance partly through fear. They, of course, would call it “respect”. But whatever you call it, it intimidates. The reverence, the awe — even the dread — that their gods, their KGB or their priesthoods demand and inspire among the laity are vital to the authority they wield.
Against reverence and awe the best argument is sometimes not logic, but mockery. Structures of oppression that may not be susceptible to rational debate may in the end yield to derision. When people see that a priest, rabbi, imam or uniformed official may be giggled at without lightning striking the impertinent, arguments may be won on a deeper level than logic.

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Not Big Brother, but “Big Society”. Everyone is watching everyone else – on webcams, on “community” screens …
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But is the Big Julie in trouble? I’ve got witnesses to my saying when she was signed that Julie Burchill wouldn’t ‘fit’ at The Times. It seems I was right, which is a pity, because on her good days she’s an excellent columnist.
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It is a rightwing piece that comes to the conclusion that polarisation in America is bad because it damages its ability to fight wars, but nontheless this argument that the claim of increased polarisation in American politics is true has some interesting data.

Ideologically, an even greater dividing line than undergraduate education is postgraduate education. People who have proceeded beyond college seem to be very different from those who stop with a high-school or college diploma. Thus, about a sixth of all voters describe themselves as liberals, but the figure for those with a postgraduate degree is well over a quarter. In mid-2004, about half of all voters trusted George Bush; less than a third of those with a postgraduate education did. In November of the same year, when over half of all college graduates voted for Bush, well over half of the smaller cohort who had done postgraduate work voted for Kerry. According to the Pew Center for Research on the People and the Press, more than half of all Democrats with a postgraduate education supported the antiwar candidacy of Howard Dean.
The effect of postgraduate education is reinforced by being in a profession. Between 1900 and 1960, write John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira in The Emerging Democratic Majority (2002), professionals voted pretty much the same way as business managers; by 1988, the former began supporting Democrats while the latter supported Republicans. On the other hand, the effect of postgraduate education seems to outweigh the effect of affluence. For most voters, including college graduates, having higher incomes means becoming more conservative; not so for those with a postgraduate education, whose liberal predilections are immune to the wealth effect.

So if you could improve American education …

But I was left berefit – no internet! – when my greyhound Champ, while trying to scratch his way through the doorframe, managed to sever the telephone cable.

Not a total disaster, since I needed to get BT around to sort out a tangle of cables across the floor anyway, and I now have phone sockets in more sensible places.

As for the separation anxiety problem, I’ve decided to try “crate therapy” and the living room is now mostly occupied by said crate – large enough for him to turn around comfortably. The idea is that this is his “safe” space, where he’ll be fed and feel comfortable. Not working yet, but it is early days.

I did this on advice from an Islington dog trainer recommended by the Beaumont Animal Hospital. And after two days of frantic, unanswered calling to the Battersea Dogs’ Home so-called animal behaviour line, which I’m convinced doesn’t actually exist. I left four increasingly frantic messages on the answer phone, since no one ever seems to actually answer calls, and never received a response. I understand Battersea is a charity, but it shouldn’t advertise a service that doesn’t exist. (Particularly since this certainly contributed to my stress levels, and could easily have led me to give up and return Champ.)

If you live in Hackney, Islington or Camden and have dog behaviour problems I’d strongly recommend this guy (who talked to me, and arranged a crate for me, without charging for his time). I won’t post his details for fear of his being swamped, but if you need them, email me and I’ll pass them on.