Wednesday, 2 September 2015

Links 2/9/15 compact version

Speechless: 
Discrimination on the basis of religion is specifically prohibited under European law—which is one of the reasons people fleeing sectarian conflicts in places like Syria seek asylum there in the first place. 
Quartz: These European countries are willing to accept some migrants—but only if they’re Christian, August 30, 2015
Which Germany will prevail? The Germany of racist chants from the roadside? The Germany of rioters and drunken rock-throwers? "Dark Germany," as President Joachim Gauck calls it? Or will it be the new, bright Germany, represented by the young policeman with his roots in Afghanistan? Will Western Europe ultimately prefer to allow the refugees to die in trucks rather than to open the door to the desperate? Or will Germany rejoice in helping and in allowing the refugees to take part in the unbelievable prosperity that the republic has enjoyed in recent decades? 
Spiegel Online: Dark Germany, Bright Germany: Which Side Will Prevail Under Strain of Refugees?August 31, 2015




Vox on the historical reason of why American public transport is a disaster: it's not just suburban sprawl.

Al Jazeera on the ties between Hollywood and the Pentagon. 
Suid coined the phrase “mutual exploitation” when he first stumbled onto the U.S. military-Hollywood connection. “I was teaching the history of the Vietnam War, and I couldn’t explain how we got into Vietnam. I could give the facts, the dates, but I couldn’t explain why,” he recalled. “And when I was getting my film degrees it suddenly occurred to me that people in the U.S. had never seen the U.S. lose a war, and when [President] Johnson said we can go into Vietnam and win, they believed him because they’d seen 50 years of war movies that were positive.” 
Al Jazeera: Hollywood and the Pentagon: A relationship of mutual exploitation, July 29, 2015
The Best Parts of the new Joan Didion biography.

No comments: