Les Liens du... Jeudi!

Current and stale affairs, hot and cold takes: -

• Ruth Graham (Slate), The 2017 college grad who got attacked by a horde of YA authors had no idea what she was getting into
  
• Alison Flood (Guardian UK), War of words breaks out after YA novelist's fans go after critical reader.
  
• Mey Rude (Out.com), Gay poet's books cancelled over sexy instagram pictures. I'm really intrigued here about the fact that the press asked *female* authors how they felt about being colleagues with this thirst-trap posting man, and then presented that as the inviolable argument in defence of their choice. Kline (the poet) protests that male colleagues would not be asked to pass judgement on a female poet like that - which is true, but I think it rather likely that other women's comfort would also be weaponised against the hypothetical thirst-trap-posting woman.
  
• Michelle Inman and Elizabeth Byrne (ABC News), Federal police carried out raids to seize draft memoir written by mysterious Canberra prisoner. The man is conviced of 'secret Commonwealth offences'.
  
• Warwick McFayden (SMH), What would I know about hellfire, I'm just a koala:
  

  One of you says the fire is a judgment from God. He, Israel Folau, says this land is full of a wickedness that goes against his truths. The droughts, the fires, they are the spears of his power that strike at the heart of darkness. Now, I am fearful of locusts. Though perhaps locusts should also be fearful. The wrath of his God is indiscriminate. It is random, and thus being so, strikes at all creatures, great and small. It is not just fires, but actions of men and women, all must be razed to ground zero, smouldering, scorched, until the one true way to his ideal is met.
  I carry his words like a chain around my emaciated neck. The dead carry his words on their bones.

  
  

Useful Information

• Amy Solovay (The Spruce Crafts), Learn the 10 most popular crochet stitch patterns. I've been teaching myself seed stitch.
  

Longer political and/or climate science pieces

• Hannah Ryan and Gina Rushton (Buzzfeed AU), Leaders of Australia's "Time's Up" movement made promises they couldn't keep. The entire NOW movement thing is... a hot mess.
  
• Katharine Murphy (Guardian AU), This is what it looks like when your government sells out the climate for votes.
  
• Maguire, Bozin and Mortimer (Conversation AU), Domestic violence will spike in the bushfire aftermath and governments can no longer ignore it. The stats don't surprise me, but the fact that there are international policy guidelines on "gender responsive policy" to this kind of thing, which Australia is ignoring, *is* new to me.
  
• Rochelle Einboden (Conversation AU), The problem with child protection isn't the money, it's the system itself:
  

  Sometimes families were offered community-based support through a voluntary program (called ChildFIRST). But according to the report, what the program offered was “inadequate to meet the complexity of issues identified” by families and, in many cases, ChildFIRST reported them back to child protection.
  The commissioner describes this as a “referral roundabout”. While the report looked at Victoria only, these issues are nation-wide. And this isn’t just happening in Australia – a 2014 report in Canada showed a similar problem.
  How is it possible child protection in two different jurisdictions have made the same mistakes?
  My research shows these are not mistakes. The inaction these kids experience is a systematic ignoring, set up by the child protection model. And that’s why the commissioner’s recommendation to increase resources won’t fix it.

  
  

Longer cultural / historical / scientific / other

• Emily Temple (LitHub), The 10 best translated novels of the decade. They have a bunch of other top 10s (each with runners up and almost-rans), but this was imho the most interesting.
  
• Susan Davis (Conversation AU), Making sense of menopausal hormone therapy means understanding the benefits as well as the risks.
  
• Fabienne Cazallis (Conversation EU, 2017), The women who don't know they're autistic. Not really new symptom news, but interesting for the specific French perspective.
  
• Wendy O'Brien (Conversation AU, 2017), Royal Commission sheds light on another uncomfortable truth: harmful sexual behaviour in children.
  
• Michael McDowell (Conversation AU, 2017), New autism diagnosis guidelines miss the mark on how best to help children with developmental problems. This appears to be talking about the same guidelines Andrew Whitehouse was talking about in this piece I linked to last week.
  
• Alison Poulton (Conversation AU, 2017), ADHD: claims we're diagnosing immature behaviour make it worse for those affected:
  

  For any child with ADHD, the age when they can no longer manage will depend on the balance of their personal characteristics and pressures and expectations of their environmental circumstances.
  An intellectually able child who can finish their work quickly and easily in the early years of school can find the effect of their ADHD only becomes a problem later. Conversely, a child with ADHD who is in a class with predominantly older children is likely to struggle academically and socially at a younger age.
  Contrary to popular opinion, parents are often reluctant to start their child on stimulant medication. They may be afraid others will criticise them, particularly people who deny the validity of ADHD.
  Denying a child’s difficulties are due to diagnosable ADHD means another explanation is necessary. The child may be blamed for being lazy or the parents, particularly the mother, blamed for being “too soft” on discipline.

  
  
• Tom Cox (Guardian UK, 2013), My Dad and the toad that lives in his shoe:
  

  For many people, being summoned by a parent and asked "CAN I HAVE A WORD?" might be the prelude for a sombre revelation or intervention. For me, when I arrive at Mum and Dad's house, it is almost always a prelude to being shown a bizarre example of the quirks of the natural world. As well as the toad living in his shoe, other WORDs my dad has had with me in the past couple of years have involved showing me a set of terrifyingly human-looking teeth he dug up in the garden, a remarkably phallic stain left on the kitchen ceiling in the wake of a burst water pipe, a pretty wasp's nest in his shed and an unusually large and bendy courgette. In 2011, after asking "TOM, CAN I HAVE A WORD?", he led me to the flagstone upon which, the previous day, a heron that he had come to view as his nemesis had dropped the lifeless body of one the carp from his garden pond. It was hard to know what to say, but I sensed from the chalk outline he'd drawn in the exact shape of the fish's body that he was taking the loss hard.

  
  
• Michael Dulaney (ABC Feirce Girls), Mary Ann Bugg: the Aboriginal bushranger estranged from Australian folklore. Bugg was Captain Thunderbolt's partner, scout, informant, and literacy tutor, among other things, and may have lived a lot longer than previously supposed.