Other interesting articles.

When is sex with conjoined twins permissible?

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2018/03/oxford-uehiro-prize-in-practical-ethics-when-is-sex-with-conjoined-twins-permissible/

A fascinating overview of a subject I've always wondered about.

Rocket fuel your nightmares...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/

A comprehensive account of the sinking of the Estonia. On balance I think the Titanic sounds preferable.

What my kippah means to me...

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/289824/what-my-kippah-means-to-me

'As a butch lesbian, my yarmulke connects me to my people and myself'.

A moving story of one persons quest for belonging.

Counter images of Krzysztof Jung.

https://blokmagazine.com/counterimage-krzysztof-jungs-self-photographs/

A little offered insight into the struggle for gay liberation and the right to basic human essentials in late Communist Poland.

The truth about Bibi.

https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/291213/the-truth-about-bibi-israels-very-dispensable-man

A dispassionate analysis of one of the leading figures of our era, without the heat we fear from the usually boiling subject area.

Romania's AIDS children...

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/07/world/romania-s-aids-children-a-lifeline-lost.html

Old but informative and still shocking. I remember the orphanages, and adopted (bought? - certainly screened for desirability) orphans turning up in my class, but the focus was lost as Yugoslavia exploded.

Elsewhere there are dreadful accounts and pictures of what became of those orphans nobody wanted - rows of bones with autopsy scars, lined up sideways on the slabs. Or else now premature grandparents who were turfed out and literally brought themselves up in the sewers below Bucharest.

http://www.electro-nc.com/crl1452.shtml

Fascinating page about the CRL 1452 Lever switch, I've got one of those in my Sydcaster.

Diagnosis of depression and chronic back pain...

https://www.spine-health.com/conditions/depression/diagnosis-depression-and-chronic-back-pain-depression-questionnaire

I wonder which of my problems came first and to what extent this theory might illuminate the way. I'm absolutely sick of being in physical pain to the extent that even lying in bed at night can be agony. I'm very worried it will prematurely age me - to stave off that, I go through Egyptian Magic and Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream like they're going out of fashion, along with a caviar and seaweed based eye cream from a laboratory in San Francisco. In the mornings I like a Portuguese face wash that is mixed into a paste in its very own miniature bowl.

As discussed elsewhere I've also had to initiate a far stricter hair dying schedule and have some introductory Botox injections, primarily as pain relief for tension. I have a great newish dentist and together, shade wise, we aim for Connecticut rather than California. I can't really justify giving up smoking and sunbeds because they are virtually my only pleasures.

On my last birthday my mother gave me a nicely wrapped gift which turned out to be a  catalogue of orthopedic shoes, and another containing a packet of urinary incontinence pads. I asked her recently whatever became of my much loved Babyliss facial sauna and steam device and she said she didn't know. She probably broke it when I went to university.

Ventilator Allocation Guidelines in the state of New York.

https://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/task_force/reports_publications/docs/ventilator_guidelines.pdf

This is an absolutely fascinating read, and quite a comfort to see how extensive and careful the planning (and the weighing up of all sorts of concerns, evidence, and views) for pandemics has been, even in an environment as decentralized and profit orientated as the United States. Nothing else has calmed my sense of rising panic as well as this report.

Besides the practical, the publication contains worthy discussions (interesting in and of themselves) around political and/or professional leadership, public perception, and equitable access to resources.

"When you force anything into the darkness you make it much easier for bad things to happen, and much harder for good things to happen. The answer is not to shut down. The answer is to open up."

A interesting take, not much has changed since its publication in 2014. I could've written it myself for all it sums up my views.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/nov/01/ethical-porn-fair-trade-sex

Excellent and mature overview. I too find myself at the intersection of all kinds of discomfort, stereotypes, competing theories, and assumptions both as a proud 'liberal elite metropolitan', and as a 'xennial' who didn't grow up an online native and finds millennials cosseted and their tedious moanings quite trying, and as a feminist, one who also sees the harm done to boys and to men, both sexually and societally...

In my limited experiences of helping refugees, and far more on reflecting with friends from Bosnia and Rwanda, I would go so far as to say that males between the rough ages of 15-35 should (far from the common expectation that they should fight and/or die horribly) be prioritised as the very first demographic that should be aided to flee a war zone, on the grounds that they are by far, in the gravest and most immediate danger of a violent death. I seem to recall rather a lot of nasty stuff being said in the British press and public discourse about young men escaping Syria, which struck me as ironically ignorant in the context of them having to traverse the former Yugoslavia. As an example of what awaited them had they not fled, the mass graves of Srebrenica are a stark testament - one it would do the British no harm at all to be factually reminded of.

Most of the porn critiques I've found this afternoon have been from feminist perspectives (and almost all of those heteronormative), and I don't think that being seen or portrayed as de facto dangerous is helpful or healthy for a boy. Through work, I went to a fabulous 'safeguarding male children and teenagers' presentation and work group run by Barnardos where this point was made eloquently, as indeed was the propensity for adult female abusers to commit roughly the same numbers of offences as men, including coercive types (where they may in fact outnumber male to female cases), but to be dealt with far less harshly, if at all. Replicated all through the media and schooling and public awareness lectures, almost all based on - men do, women are done to. Therefore teenage boys never really think of themselves as being potentially a sexually vulnerable person, or feel confident to say to girls 'no'.

We'll be discussing some of these themes here at home over the next few weeks. I'll find some more age appropriate and cultural/gender diverse material.

An Entire Family Vanishes - what happened to the Salomons?

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/salomon-unsolved-murder/

A gripping and very chilling read for all with a passing interest in true/unsolved crime stories. The London underworld and the Israeli mafia collide in a quiet Californian suburb. The surviving grandmother sounds like an absolute b*****d - the kind of cold blooded, brass necked, hard faced, money grubbing behaviour I'd expect from my own nan if I was missing presumed murdered.

https://www.lauraapsitlivens.co.uk/hat-etiquette-ladies/

Addresses some questions that I've been mulling over these last few days, ever since I reverently paused on my way to the Co-op grocery store when I saw a funeral emerging from the Co-op funeral place next door.

Good to see I made the right call - although my cerise woolly hat was on the surface worn only for practical reasons, all the same it did have a huge fluffy pompom on it which tipped it back towards being a fashion accessory.

So I maintain that my decision to stop walking and bow my head, only, was the right one.

I think your response was exactly right. I say that as someone who once staggered out of a pub in the middle of the afternoon and tried to flag down the hearse at the head of a procession, having (I maintain reasonably) mistaken it front on for a cab.

A hat minefield outlined there. I didn't realise it was so complicated. My only rule with hats is this - the most enormous brim you can find, certainly extending beyond the shoulders, and get to the front row so everyone in the congregation behind can admire your choice.

I do have a red baseball cap and I'm still undecided* - felt very self-conscious out and about but couldn't take it off because I'd committed to ruined hair by that point. In the mid 2000's a tall black trilby was purchased on a whim (and equally quickly thrown out because it made me look like a Hasidic boy in drag).

*My brother also pointed out that people at a close enough distance to see a red baseball cap, but too far away to read any logo (there isn't one) might think it was a MAGA one from the Trump Tower gift shop. So that's become an additional worry over a possible second outing.

This is wonderful. MH370. Fascinating, enjoyable, packed with interesting facts, almost forensic in detail. As someone who finds the majority of conspiracy theories implausible, I appreciated the article more and more as I read it. Never attach to malice what can be explained by c*ck up, or whatever the phrase is.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/

The part describing the almost relaxing mass murder of passengers by the glow of emergency lighting, using G force and depressurization of the cabin, and the now alone pilot with hundreds of bodies strapped into the seats, flying into the sunrise and oblivion as the fuel finally ran out was particularly chilling, and yet strangely beautiful. Very haunting.

I presume his kid must've played around on the laptop when he was writing it, because in the middle it says 'the pilot was a very nasty man'. But that's my only criticism.

No hyperbole here, just the most basic facts summed up after a devastating cry of despair, and an inevitable conclusion that should shame everyone. I haven't read a better expression.

'Remember, no one is coming to save us'...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/sunday/trump-george-floyd-coronavirus.html

Underground Rome...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/04/underground-rome/376836/

Nothing to do with public transport. A compelling run through of a lesser known side to my very favourite city and the jewels to be found and experienced there.

America is facing five epic crises all at once.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/opinion/us-coronavirus-protests.html

Agree on all points, most relate to this country too.

The Art of Dying...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/the-art-of-dying

Some great observations here. The challenge of parenting as a WWII veteran - 'hints of unrelieved terror' - I believe familiar to almost all of us who knew that generation. Closeness being impossible between an artist and a critic is something I've considered often but never seen it so simply explained.

I highly recommend it to all, but particularly NJ. I don't know the others so well but I think you'd really relate to it.

I can't see the music video you said I might appreciate, because that page keeps crashing before the box becomes a video.