Sunday Reading

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, August 18th, 2013 - 4 comments
Categories: interweb - Tags:

My semi-regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring).  This week: capitalism, fraud, Guantanamo, the internet, Geek Week and a naked-rights hiker.

Ben Jennings 15.8.2013
The Guardian’s take on students receiving their university entrances in the UK – the problems look identical here.

On the Guardian they also discuss that our economic model is not invincible – and we need trade unions to break it. And at The Atlantic, it’s everything you know about fraud is wrong – the private sector has it every bit as much as the public, and it’s managers and outsiders who commit the fraud, not generally the users – not ‘welfare queens’.

John Grisham heard that Guantanamo detainees were asking for his books, so he decided to find out about them – and what he found horrified him. He highlights the case of Nabil Hadjarab.

Sticking with books, former UK Labour Deputy Leader details the book that changed him from tribal to ideologically Labour – R H Tawney’s Equality. The parable of the Frog and the Tadpoles and his turning the tired old argument that equality is inimical to individual freedom on its head is certainly worth reading.

On a different sort of reading – internet comments – there is a study on how they can’t be trusted, as they can be lead.  People like already popular comments.  It seems we all just want to fit in.

Except for the trolls.  Tim Dunlop looks at how the word troll is being captured to stifle debate and practice hypocrisy – especially by the powerful.

Also not trying to fit in is the UK’s “Naked Rambler” (rambler is a walker in British).  There’s a good profile on him at the Guardian. Perfectly sane, he has spent much of the last 7 years in prison as he protests the right to be naked. Although the public are almost uniformly positive when they see him, he keeps being arrested to protect the public from seeing him…  He has lost his own freedom through standing up for it.

And finally – a week ago was YouTube Geek Week – so here’s The World is Amazing in 60 facts to celebrate:

(It takes just 2 cows 24 hours to fill a bath with sh!t!)

4 comments on “Sunday Reading ”

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  2. Greywarbler 2
    18 August 2013 at 6:59 pm

    I wouldn’t want to be presented with a naked male or female adult as I went about my life. I can’t see how it could be regarded as being of no consequence. Clothed or unclothed, there are protocols in every society. And what you wear or don’t or how you paint your body provides visual signals of status, intention, etc. The Naked Plumber might be a provocative and interesting name for a tradesman say. but would make women think of men who smell their undies when alone in a room.

    • Murray Olsen 2.1
      19 August 2013 at 3:53 pm

      I love the fact that our world has people like the naked rambler in it. It’d be bloody boring otherwise.

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