Bits & bobs

[electricland]

Today I ploughed through a month's worth of backed-up e-mailed tables of contents. I'm not sure it was the most productive use of my time ever, but it feels good to have them out of the way.

Things I came across along the way (I think most of these are full-text links, but if not and you want to read, let me know):

Free-Market Ideology and Environmental Degradation: The Case of Belief in Global Climate Change, from Environment and Behavior. Study conducted by researchers at UVic.

The effects of support for free-market ideology and environmental apathy were investigated to identify some bases for not believing in global climate change. A survey of community residents' (N= 185) beliefs about global climate change also assessed ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, perceived knowledge about climate change, and self-efficacy. The beliefs that global climate change is not occurring, is mainly not human caused, will also have positive consequences and that weaker intentions to undertake ameliorative actions were significantly associated with greater support for free-market ideology, greater environmental apathy, less ecocentrism, and less self-efficacy. About 40% of the variance in each belief and 56% of the variance in the behavioral intention was explained by these factors. The results suggest that the relation between support for free-market ideology and the beliefs about global climate change is mediated by environmental apathy.

One Bright Idea at a Time, from CMAJ. References a New Statesman article from October, which sadly isn't available full-text, thus:

And so the New Statesman's round-up of "10 people who will change the world" in their October 17 issue includes only one politician (Barack Obama, "potential saviour of the US Democrats") and one head of state (the modernizing Emir of Qatar). The others are folk we've never or only recently heard of: Anton Zeilinger, inventor of "quantum teleportation" and the Dalai Lama's tutor in quantum physics; Aubrey Meyer, an ex-musician who has devised an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol; Sania Mirza, India's first Muslim woman tennis star; Victoria Hale, whose non-profit pharmaceutical company is ready to put a treatment for visceral leishmaniasis into clinical trial; Mo Ibrahim, who is revolutionizing communications in Africa with mobile phones; 20-year-old social campaigner Kierra Box; Brewster Kahle, who is trying to build a digital repository of all human knowledge; Samira Makhmalbaf, a 25-year-old feminist Iranian filmmaker. What qualifies a person for admission to this top-10 list? In varying degrees: thinking out of the box, courage, recognizing an opportunity, a knack for persuasion. It isn't always "thinking big" that does it, but bringing a good little idea to a larger scale.

And finally JAMA, which has a very restrictive access policy so I couldn't read the whole thing, offered a review of A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain, which judging by its table of contents sounds like a riotous read:

Introduction: the willful organ meets fantasy surgery
The best of your property : what a boy once knew about sex
Pathologizing male sexuality : the masturbation phobia and the invention of spermatorrhea
The shadow of Parson Malthus : sexual morals from the Georgians to the Edwardians
The priests of the body : doctors and disease in an antisensual age
A source of serious mischief : William Acton and the case against the foreskin
A compromising and unpublishable mutilation : clitoridectomy and circumcision in the 1860s
One of the most grievous diseases of humanity : spermatorrhea in British medical practice
The besetting trial of our boys : finding a cure for masturbation
This unyielding tube of flesh : the rise and fall of congenital phimosis
Prevention is better than cure : sanitizing the modern body
The purity movement and the social evil : circumcision as a preventive of syphilis
The stigmata of a gentleman : circumcision and British society
Conclusion: the end of the culture of abstinence

Comments

[raithen.livejournal.com]

I was promised a concert report and I am having one of my oh fuck I left things too long moments and I have let people down moments and I could use a pick me up :).

[electricland.livejournal.com]

working on it! promise! watch this space!

and coincidentally I am also having one of those moments. I bet your "too long" isn't 3 months' worth. courage!

[raithen.livejournal.com]

actually, should have been done Oct 5th or so, so you too, have courage! and we won't discuss your "birthday" parcel. Which is quickly becoming your "late for Christmas too" parcel, which is in states of disarray in my living room....

[swestrup]

FWIW, I saw a special on Africa last year that tangentially featured Mo Ibrahim, and I was highly impressed. The man speaks over 40 languages and is working hard to improve conditions there.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Wow, very cool!

Now I want to go away and look them all up.