All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Buckminster Fuller’s Chilling Domes – Stuart McMillen comics

Exactly 75 summers ago, Buckminster Fuller accidentally discovered a self-air conditioning house. How did he do it? Comic about passive cooling.

Source: Buckminster Fuller’s Chilling Domes – Stuart McMillen comics

Erdoğan is on a lonely path to ruin. Will he take Turkey down with him? | Simon Tisdall

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At odds with the US, Europe, his Arab neighbours and potentially Russia, too, the president is also increasingly unpopular at home

For a reputed “strongman”, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems unusually nervous these days. A bombastic speech last week marking the third anniversary of a failed military putsch could not conceal his insecurity. He says he is using his sweeping powers as executive president to build a “new Turkey”. But it appears the old one is tiring of him fast.

“The 15th of July was an attempt to subject our nation to slavery,” Erdoğan declared. “But as much as we will never stop protecting our freedom and our future, those who lay traps for us will never cease their efforts.” It was a typical pitch, blending nationalism with scare stories of secret foes, foreign and domestic.

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Laura Muir cruises to 1500m victory at Anniversary Games | Sport | The Guardian

“It may have looked easy, but it wasn’t,” Muir said afterwards. “I didn’t realise I ran a 57-second last lap and I’m so, so happy about that. The girls are really strong and I know that my advantage is in that kick, so I just sat in there and tried to take it easy. It was all about winning today and I did that.

Source: Laura Muir cruises to 1500m victory at Anniversary Games | Sport | The Guardian

School District Threatens Foster Care on Parents in Lunch Debt – “Level 21 in Hell” for the letter writer and some boardmembers.

The school district is trying to collect a little over $22,000 in lunch debt, in a county where 14 percent of families live below the poverty line and where the school district “qualifies for enough money to provide free lunches to all students for the upcoming school year,” per WNEP.

Source: School District Threatens Foster Care on Parents in Lunch Debt

How dare a woman breastfeed her baby on a plane! She might offend the bigots | Nell Frizzell

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When Dutch airline KLM says it may ask nursing mothers to cover themselves if passengers object, misogyny is winning

Well, I for one welcome the news: as of this week, anybody asked to cover up while breastfeeding on a KLM flight can now walk, bare-breasted, across the plane, milk firing into the air, their baby howling at their shoulder, and immediately hand that screaming, hungry, suffering child to the person who made the complaint, who must then look after that baby for the entirety of the journey while the previously breastfeeding passenger lies back, watches a film, reads their book, has a glass of wine or enjoys a much-needed nap.

Because, my friends, that is precisely what I would do if someone asked me to cover myself while breastfeeding. This week, the Dutch airline KLM garnered a lactic tonne of deserved criticism after it put out a tweet stating that “to ensure that all our passengers of all backgrounds feel comfortable on board, we may request a mother to cover herself while breastfeeding, should other passengers be offended by this”. This was itself a response to one customer’s complaint, posted on Facebook, that she had been asked by a flight attendant to cover herself with a blanket – you know, like an actual fire – while breastfeeding her baby because someone else on the plane had complained.

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Donald Trump is the archetypal far-right charismatic leader. But his magic won’t last | Paul Jackson | Opinion | The Guardian

The appeal of Trump will ultimately be dimmed by his own failures to achieve his mission, which is ridiculous and unattainable. This will lead his supporters to lose interest, when he can no longer appear as the magician figure they thought he was. We are not at this point yet, though, and it is difficult to known how long his “magic” will last and what further damage will result.

Source: Donald Trump is the archetypal far-right charismatic leader. But his magic won’t last | Paul Jackson | Opinion | The Guardian