Category: economic issues

This is the best paper on feminist glaciology I have ever read

Posted on

Seriously. What an analysis.
But why would such a paper be required. I mean, what’s the benefit here?

Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.

But ice is just ice, right?

Ha! No!

Many armchair glaciologists make this assumption, creating and perpetuating the oversimplification and misinterpretation of ice as frozen water. And yet, St. Germain, LeGuin, Khan, and many others – from Roni Horn (2009) to Pauline Couture (2005) – approach glaciers from distant and varied disciplinary and artistic spaces compared with glaciologists or even anthropologists studying human-glacier interactions:

…their voices should not simply be disregarded, overshadowed by Western science, or, worse, relegated from policy contexts where, in fact, the human experience with ice matters greatly.
These alternative representations from the visual and literary arts do more than simply offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on the cryosphere. Instead, they reveal entirely different approaches, interactions, relationships, perceptions, values, emotions, knowledges, and ways of knowing and interacting with dynamic environments.
They decenter the natural sciences, disrupt masculinity, deconstruct embedded power structures, depart from homogenous and masculinist narratives about glaciers, and empower and incorporate different ways of seeing, interacting, and representing glaciers – all key goals of feminist glaciology.

Indeed.

The full paper Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research by Carey et al. is here for you to read and enjoy.

So, we now know that ice isn’t just ice: that’s just “the way in which colonial, military, and geopolitical domination co-constitute glaciological knowledge”. Well done.

Meanwhile, NIH funding for bioscience research is lower than it was back in 2001.
Just saying.

There’s a lesson here…

Posted on

I’ve enthused about Getwine on the blog before, most notably here and here.

For those of you who missed those posts or have simply forgotten what I wrote about, here’s what Getwine says Getwine is:

GETWINE is a South African Wine Portal which allows you to easily buy superb South African wine online and have it delivered to your door.

What they don’t say in that tagline is that those wines are often heavily (or more) discounted. This puts really good wine into the occasionally desperate clutches of us normal people.

But not just us normal people. Abnormal people as well:

Fullscreen capture 2016-03-03 085526 AM.bmp

Yes, that’s a Getwine delivery going to a motor yacht on the Waterfront. The motor yacht in question is the Vava II. I’m not saying that it’s fancy or anything, but it’s owned by Swiss-Italian biotech entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli and cost £100,000,000. OK, it is fancy. There, I said it.

I’m no expert, but I’d wager that Ernesto wouldn’t exactly struggle to buy basically any South African wine (or vineyard) he wanted. He could even check the grapes out in person by using the helicopter that sits atop his big boat.

But no, Ernesto (or his people) chose to buy discounted wine from Getwine.

Firstly, let’s not for a moment suggest that this isn’t a big vote of confidence in Getwine’s offerings and service. And big congratulations to them. Local boyz dun good.
I’m guessing that Ernesto picked up some hints and tips from a local blog and simply went from there.

But secondly, is this an example of how people with lots of money (and Ernesto does have an awful lot of money), get and keep lots of money? By not splurging on the simple things in life, when there’s an equally good – and more reasonably priced – alternative. (Obviously, I don’t count his 97 metre long yacht in this “no splurge” category.)

Is there a lesson for us financially mere mortals here? I think that there probably is.
And will we listen? No. Of course not.

Allegedly, Vava II is on her way to somewhere that’s not Cape Town at some point today. You can live the Playboy lifestyle vicariously through Ernesto via Marinetraffic by following Vava II’s progress here.

UPDATE: See the comment below by Getwine with all the details.

UK travel costs

Posted on

I’m booking train tickets for a lightning quick visit to the UK, post the Cast In Steel 2016 visit to Bergen in May. And they’re expensive.

Of course, everything is expensive when you look at the tragic state of the South African Rand, but travel – especially train travel in the UK – is stupidly, near prohibitively, expensive.

But what are you supposed to do? You can’t walk.
Last time, with Mrs 6000 and the kids with me, it made more financial sense to hire a car and drive up the M1. And that’s 260km with petrol costing R24 an litre. Still pricey. But with just me going, that option seems less financially viable this time around.

It’s not just me though. Infamously, last month (as infamous as something that recent can be, anyway), Jordon Cox, aka “The Coupon Kid” travelled from Sheffield to Essex via Berlin – included a day out in the German capital – and still saved money.

flight2    flight1

Although his money-saving achievement was somewhat overlooked by The Guardian whose main concern was that it wasn’t environmentally friendly. Missing the point, much?

And then there was this, with the argument around football ticket pricing becoming a bigger and bigger thing:

footycost

And yes, maybe Mr Tyneside_Blades (if that is his real name) could choose a cheaper (and almost certainly far more enjoyable) hobby than watching Sheffield United, but saying that is merely employing Guardianesque diversion tactics. (Incidentally, someone had a go at that here, and was summarily defeated.)

The point here (again) is the comparison between travel to/from Essex/near London and travel to/from Germany.

So I looked, but I couldn’t find a suitable route via Germany. *sad face*

I did find one via Dublin though.
And here’s my maths (no, I don’t have time for stadium tours or a ham and cheese toastie):

Fullscreen capture 2016-02-08 111033 AM.bmp

My plane from Bergen arrives at LHR, so that’s my starting point for either journey. I don’t get to leave the airport at Dublin, so I won’t spend anything at the Guinness Brewery, and my Dad will pick me up from station or airport, so that bit is for his account, (but ok, for the record it’s basically 5 miles to the station and 25 miles to the airport).

A few other points:
Yes, this includes all taxes, and a minimum of 20kg luggage allowance for the planes. Heavy.
Yes, I have to allow about 3½ hours for the train journey, while the flights would take about 6 hours. Time.
Yes, the train would be more environmentally friendly. Smoky.
No, despite the graphics above, I’m not expecting to travel by Pullman Coaches or Boeing 747 on these journeys. Inaccuracy.

I probably won’t end up doing this, but the point is that I could. And it simply doesn’t make sense that I could.

I’m not really sure who to complain to about the whole thing though, so I just wrote a blog post.

Thanks for reading it.

F Cancer

Posted on

As the news broke that another talented performer had died this week, twitter was again full of sadness, anecdotes, video clips and personal memories. As before, aside from the obvious link of the individual involved, another fairly common denominator of these tweets was the hashtag #FuckCancer. And yes, as an expression of anger that someone else whose performances had given many of us fond memories and is no longer around to give us more of them, it works.

But that’s all it does. Maybe that’s all you wanted it to do, and if so, I have no problem with that. Most of us have been touched by this despicable condition in some way or other, and it’s very rarely – if ever – any sort of positive experience. So I’m not here to tell you how you should be managing your grief, rage, disappointment or any other emotion. S’not my job.

I will say, though, that I can quite easily foresee a situation in which we will continue to see the #FuckCancer hashtag twenty or thirty years down the line as the next generation of talent (yes, it does exist) also succumbs to cancer. Because using a hashtag this week isn’t going to make any difference to our fight against this heinous group of diseases.

I recognise that times are hard right now – especially economically, and especially in South Africa, where some (or more) of my readers reside. But (and I also recognise that this next sentence requires a bit of a stretch), if you felt strongly enough to express your anger is hashtag form, maybe you want to take it one step further and donate some money towards making a difference.

Now, I’m not here to tell you how to manage your pounds, rands, dollars or any other currency. S’not my job.
But I’ll just leave these links here, and if you genuinely do want to #FuckCancer, maybe you might want to click on them and do more than just share a symbol and ten letters.

Cansa (South Africa)
Cancer Research UK (er… UK)
Cancer Research Institute (USA)

Have a great day.

Worst no age restriction ever

Posted on

We were looking at getting some tickets for a local version of a popular Broadway show called Vocal Harmonisation in the Precipitation (or something similar). Our younger child is particularly keen to go along.

But… is this show suitable for a seven year old? Quick – to the website, Batman!
Where we found this:
image

“No under 5s. No age restriction.”

Apart from under 5s, I presume?

It turns out that firstly, going to the theatre is DAMN EXPENSIVE (no wonder it’s dying the death), and secondly, the direct contradiction above is far from the most confusing thing in the terms and conditions, which have forty-seven different pricing options, depending on seat position, age, status, height, beagle ownership and “whether the wind be in the East, my boy”. Oh, and also depending on whether you automatically pronounced that last one in a pirate’s accent.

On a more serious note, the website also describes those in the first few rows of the stalls as being in danger of getting wet, during the show’s “Big Number” (from where it takes its name). I’d like to know just how much water is used in this sequence, please, given that the local outrage athletes and killjoys got Slide The City cancelled for exactly the same spurious reasons.

Ah yes. Remember those halcyon pre-#NeneFired days when arguing over recycled non-potable water was the biggest concern we had?

What we wouldn’t give to go back to them now, hey?