- My sister’s excellent post about claiming the dole:
42 minutes into the telephone interview, he seemed to register defeat. Apparently I was going to pursue my claim and insist on going forward to the next stage of Benefit Crystal Maze, no matter how many questions they asked me. My next step was an interview (what had I just done? A flirtation over cocktails?) at my local Job Centre Plus, which was… long pause… Stratford.
- Hilary and Stephen Rose on Darwin and evolutionary psychology, in New Left Review:
Few of these debates within evolutionary theory have been permitted to hinder the spread of the evolutionary metaphor far outside its biological domains, above all in the repeated attempts to at least tame and limit—and at worst to eradicate—the social in theorizing humanity, and thus to biologize the human condition. Two instantly recognizable icons have hugely increased the attractiveness of these claims. The double helix and the multicoloured brain within a human skull adorn adverts, book jackets and sober articles in upmarket magazines. Sequencing the human genome made gene talk into a fashionable trope, from car advertisements to politics. Good design is apparently ‘in the DNA’ of the BMW, just as family values are, according to David Cameron, built into the DNA of the Conservative Party.
- Gabriel Ash, Emily Katz Kashawi, Mich Levy and Sara Kershnar on Jewish challenges to Zionism in the US, at Electronic Intifada:
Overcoming Zionist ideas and practice is crucial, first and foremost, because of the impact of its institutionalized racism and colonialism on the people of Palestine and the broader region. This impact manifests in the demand for political, legal and economic power for Jews and European people and cultures over indigenous people and cultures.
- Étienne Balibar on the end of the European project:
In its current form, under the influence of the dominant social forces, the European construction may have produced some degree of institutional harmonisation, and generalised some fundamental rights, which is not negligible, but, contrary to the stated goals, it has not produced a convergent evolution of national economies, a zone of shared prosperity. Some countries are dominant, others are dominated. The peoples of Europe may not have antagonistic interests, but the nations increasingly do.
Blue stockings 