Wuhay – Stephen Fry is on board.
Hurry up @twitter @biz and you in charge. Shouldn’t be hard http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23477130 …
From that BBC article –
A petition calling on Twitter to add a “report abuse” button has received thousands of signatures. [Read more…]
The Independent reports that Twitter is facing a major backlash for not responding to abuse. I am pleased to hear that – Twitter has been crappy about dealing with one kind of abuse I get there, and it’s so crappy about offering ways to deal with other kinds that I didn’t even try.
A host of MPs and other leading public figures have threatened a boycott after a feminist campaigner highlighted numerous threats of rape and other violent acts being sent to her on Twitter. Caroline Criado-Perez, who finally won her fight to have prominent women represented on Britain’s bank notes this week, claimed that her complaints to the site have been ignored. [Read more…]
Criado-Perez wrote a piece for the New Statesman on the rape-threats campaign.
On Wednesday the 24 July, the Bank of England made the historic announcement that, in response to over 35,000 people signing a petition, they were confirming Jane Austen as the next historical figure on banknotes.
“this Perez one just needs a good smashing up the arse and she’ll be fine” [Read more…]
Jane Austen on £10 banknotes? Good idea. Caroline Criado-Perez’s campaign to make that happen? Good idea. Twitter campaign to bombard her with rape threats? Not a good idea. Bad idea. Shitty idea. Horrendous, terrible, stinking, crap idea.
Women ought to be able to show their heads above the parapet without being punished for it by Twitter campaigns to bombard them with rape threats. It’s that simple. [Read more…]
Wow. Desmond Tutu says – echoing Huck Finn – he would rather go to hell than to a homophobic heaven.
That’s really quite amazing (in a good way). Since he’s an archbishop, he takes those categories seriously (as Huck did). That means he would give up a lot of massively important goods for one that for him is even more important. That’s impressive. [Read more…]
Now let’s leave Turkey and head south to Morocco, where an 18-year-old girl was sentenced to three months in prison for smoking during Ramadan.
Le juge a rejeté la demande de liberté provisoire sous caution de la famille de la jeune fille. Cette dernière a expliqué qu’elle avait mal à la tête et avait besoin de fumer une cigarette pour se calmer. [Read more…]
There’s a guy in Turkey – a lawyer – who’s pissed off that heavily pregnant women go out in public, because ew, gross.
Turkish lawyer and Sufi thinker Ömer Tuğrul İnançer has sparked a public outcry after telling state television station TRT 1 that it was immoral for pregnant women with huge bellies to reveal themselves in public.
“Announcing pregnancy with a flourish of trumpets is against our civility. [They] should not wander on the streets with such bellies. First of all, it is not aesthetic,” İnançer said. [Read more…]
In my opinion, you should avoid taking two baskets when you go shopping.
Via the Facebook page of a Moroccan-French ex-Muslim –
First guy: Come on, we’re heading for the vegetables. Smart shopper: But… Second guy: Dude! Leggo my wife, yours is over there!
I just took a few recreational minutes to get on GoogleEarth and retrace part of a long walk I took in Dublin the Monday morning after the conference. Down Winetavern Street to the Liffey, along the river on the south side to the next bridge, up Lower Bridge Street up the hill and into the grounds of St Audoen’s church, along the High Street.
It’s an interesting thing to do because it digs up bits of memory that would be totally lost otherwise. I already remembered the church grounds, because I lingered there, but retracing that whole segment of the walk I recognized more nondescript places, like the big busy intersection before you get to St Audoen’s. It’s not particularly interesting, so I wouldn’t have remembered it, but “walking” GoogleEarth I did remember it. It’s an odd sensation.
Strangely enough, I didn’t get it on the part along the Liffey, between the two bridges. None of that came back in the same way. Silly memory – it grabs a dull intersection and misses the whole of the river walk. I know I went there but it’s now just narrative memory, a fact – I went down the hill from one church and up the hill to another and along the river between the two.
Memory is very peculiar.