Les Liens du ... Mardi?

[highlyeccentric]

Short pieces, current affairs, hot takes:

• Toronto Star, Courts are out of touch on doctors and sexual assaults.
  
• Liz Duck-Chong (The Pedestrian), Transphobic 'anti-PC pack' proves conservatives actually don't give a fuck about kids.
  

Good News:

• CBC Canada reports that A class of trainee guide dogs attended a performance of Billy Elliot at the Stratford Festival. I'd never thought about this aspect, but guide dogs need to be trained for a wide range of likely experiences, and I love that this training centre consider 'attending the theatre' a crucial part of the training process.
  

Longer pieces - essay, memoir, natural history, other

• Ting, Palmer and Scott (ABC news), Rich school, poor school: Australia's great education divide. It is a national travesty that the likes of my high school have freakin' private drama theatres while suburban public schools are scrounging for one-off grants to replace chairs.
  
• Alex Agnosti (The Conversation AU Curious Kids), Why don't people fall out of bed when they're sleeping.
  
• Jill Stark (The Saturday Paper), Queer Lives at Risk. Switchboard Victoria, an LGBTQIA helpline, has seen a spike in suicides by its own volunteers, apparently bowed under by the weight of community grief and the abusive messages the helpline has been fielding.
  
• Giovanni Tiso (New Humanist), With Religious Fervour: a really solid appraisal of the careers of the leading New Athiests of the turn of the century.
  
• Louis C. Charland (Centre for the History of Emotions site), Why science needs 'passion'.
  

  In general, situating the historical study of “passion” under the general rubric of “emotion” does not pose major problems. In many cases, older usages of the term “passion” can, with appropriate provisions, even be rendered using the term “emotion,” a common practice. However, there is at least one particular context where this practice proves to be misleading. This is the case where both the terms “passion” and “emotion” and their associated concepts are intended as distinct, but mutually complementary, posits in an overall theory of the affective domain. There are in fact several pivotal milestones in the history of affective terms and concepts where this occurs. In such cases, rendering the term “passion” as “emotion” is misleading.

  
  Not quite sure I agree with Charland's reading of the emotinality (or not) of 'passion', but it's interesting.
  
• The Lily News, adapted from a WaPo piece: This Kenyan chess prodigy cannot travel because she has no birth certificate. TL;DR, she was born at home, and is raised by her grandmother, both very common things in Kenya, and her grandmother is unable to prove to the beaurocracy everything they want proven in order to issue a birth certificate.
  
• Teddy Cook of ACON (Guardian AU), Trans people just want to live a fulfilling life: our mere existence shouldn't threaten you. I have... some instinctive bristling at Cook's conciliatory tone here ('we're not interested in unravelling the seemingly fragile threads that hold society together'. Okay then, I guess that's the cis queer project now. News that surprises no one, ACON are highly institutionalised these days).\
  
• Shaun Hampton (The West Australian, 6 June): Claremont serial killings: trial to be delayed until November. I hadn't heard of this case until it came up on Twitter but it's... interesting, in that the judge has forbidden the prosecution to submit more evidence. The judge seems to feel that the continuing stream of additional evidence is damaging the accused's right to actually stand trial (?).
  
• Fiona Blackwood (ABC news), Same-sex couples dealing with IVF treatment process 'set up for heterosexuals'.
  
• Patrick Strudwick (Buzzfeed UK), This is why men are still meeting for sex in public toilets. (Note, content includes police brutality and sexual assault of minors) Really interesting, and answered many questions I have had about how toilet beats work. (Strudwick is wrong, however, that what is are called 'cottages' in the UK are called 'beats' in Australia. Beats are a range of places, not just toilets. And I have the impression you don't just call x location 'a beat', it's a beat spot or a beat location or it's on the beat or part of the beat or something like that. It's been a looong time since I read that Honi Soit article on the Sydney beat scene, though, so I could be wrong.)
  

Comments

[samskeyti]

There is the most fabulous assistance dog who goes to Sydney Opera House to see the ballet, wearing a big satin bow. It peers into the orchestra pit and is a very attentive audience member. ♥

[highlyeccentric]

Thank you for this important Good Dog news.