Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Many of the arrests are believed to stem from comments made on Facebook, Twitter and social media as the world reacted to the atrocities. They are part of a broader French crackdown on perceived hate speech, extremism and anti-Semitism amid a government push for tougher anti-terrorism measures. Anti-semitic French comedian Dieudonné was among those detained…
Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free expression, France opened a criminal investigation of a controversial French comedian for a Facebook post he wrote about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and then this morning, arrested him for that post on charges of “defending terrorism.” The comedian, Dieudonné (above), previously sought elective office in…
by Tara Culp-Ressler Posted on January 11, 2015 at 10:41 am Updated: January 12, 2015 at 2:31 pm “1 In 3 College Men In Survey Say They Would Rape A Woman If They Could Get Away With It” CREDIT: Joseph Kaczmarek/AP Images Nearly one in three college men admit they might rape a woman if they…
If she is attractive; tell your readers exactly how attractive, within the first paragraph. Speculate on whether she is attracted to you. If she has become successful and not moved to a Western country; ask why, speculate on if she realizes how attractive she is: could this be the reason why she hasn’t moved? If…
Thousands of Black Lives Mattered in Nigeria, but the World Didn’t Pay Attention As the world mourns for Paris, we must also decry Boko Haram’s violence. Local residents stand by the wreckage of a car that was blown up by suspected Boko Haram militants in Nigeria’s troubled northeastern city of Maiduguri on March 25, 2014,…
One point that, I hope, runs through a lot of my work is the use and abuse of dead moral questions. In that, I mean the tendency for political types to bring a lot of rhetorical and mental weight to bear on questions that are not politically live, in any meaningful sense. This focus is…
‘Far from being ‘sacred’, as some have claimed, freedom of speech is always contingent.’ Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP In times of crisis, those who would like us to keep just one idea in our heads at any one time are quick to the megaphones. By framing events in Manichean terms – dark versus light; good versus…
Today, in the wake of the Paris’ tragedy, some journalists, here and there, also on Gawker, try to understand what this very “different” newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, actually is. And yes, I say “is” because the newspaper itself is not dead and will be published normally next Wednesday and the weeks after that, despite the slaughter…
Over the past week, millions of people who had never heard of French magazine Charlie Hebdo have come into contact with its controversial covers and cartoons. And many have come away with questions about those cartoons, including a nagging sense that their depictions of Islam and people of color have been insensitive, or even racist….
Even Ross Douthat came out swinging yesterday in favor of the slain cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo (“The Blasphemy We Need“). Since it is difficult to find even one square inch of common ground between right and left in American politics, this ought to have come as good news. Unfortunately, Douthat’s Take is yet another of…