The Global Sociology Blog

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A great lady is dead. Most people are probably not familiar with her and it’s a damn shame! The Guardian has a good obituary:

"Ruth Cardoso, who has died aged 77, was a leading Brazilian anthropologist and former first lady renowned for her pioneering work with the poor. Despite her prominent public position, she was [...]

Via Context Crawler, this article in the UK Times discusses the rise of therapeutic education and its consequences: "kindergarchy – a new (affluent) world order in which children rule."

"Anyone with children at primary school will instantly get the picture: no child’s existence is complete without “circle time”, or “show and tell” sessions at which they [...]

So, there is this skeptic guy, Robert Lancaster, who has a website where he documents the vileness of Sylvia Browne. Browne’s fans keep emailing him that if only he met her, he would truly believe that she is a psychic. So, he decides to attend one of her shows in Las Vegas. Hilarity ensues, and [...]

Via the Guardian, the surveillance society is going global:

"A comprehensive transatlantic pact clearing the way for the unprecedented supply of private data on European citizens to the American authorities is to be promoted by France in support of the US-driven campaign to combat terrorism and transnational crime.
The French government is expected to use its six-month [...]

Via Context Crawler, comes this article from the Washington Post, by Shankar Vedantam on happiness surveys. We take it for granted, and it is supported by surveys, that people tend to be happier when their economic situation is more secure and overall better. That is fairly uncontroversial. And right now, the economy stinks, gas prices [...]

Looks like she was right (not that I had much doubt about that)… check out this item from the Guardian regarding the relationship between social stigma and HIV prevalence:

"HIV infection rates are rising around the globe because many governments do not want to help high risk groups such as drug users, prostitutes and gay men, [...]

Here’s to people getting their comeuppance. Enslaving others is one of the most heinous crimes that I can think of. Via the BBC:

"A wealthy New York woman has been sentenced to 11 years in jail for keeping two Indonesian women as slaves. Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 46, and her husband Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, kept them [...]

Organized crime has gone global. That is an accepted fact but it makes life for national anti-mafia services miserable. Going global has done for organized crime what it has done for transnational corporations: it has made these groups more powerful, more flexible; it has given them a greater reach into markets they did not yet [...]

Louise Arbour, outgoing UN High Commissioner on Human Rights , give an interview to Le Monde as she takes stock of the current state of human rights around the world.
Every time human rights are mentioned in conversation or even academic meetings, the objection always comes up that human rights are a Western creation that [...]

Parts one, two and three.
The highlight of the session "Women Confront Globalization" was the screening of a rough cut of the film Poto Mitan – Haitian Women, Pillars of the World Economy, directed by Renee Bergan (she is also the founder of Renegade Pictures ) and she co-presented it with anthropologist Mark Schuller of UC [...]

Via The New York Times:
"11-Year-Old Victim to Be Allowed Abortion"
Yup, this is a story out of Romania and it is truly horrifying:

"The government has ruled that a pregnant 11-year-old who was raped by a relative can have an abortion in Romania. Twenty Christian Orthodox church groups have threatened to press charges if the government allows [...]

High gas prices, home foreclosures may be squeezing people in the United States and Europe (in major parts of the Global South, feeling the big time crunch is a chronic condition), but not everybody is hurting. According to the BBC, there are now more global millionaires:

"The number of people worth more than US$1m (£507,000) rose [...]

Will there be no end to the evils of socialized medicine in that Commie hellhole that the US should have invaded long ago??!! via the Guardian:

"Cuba has approved what is believed to be the world’s first registered lung cancer vaccine and is offering it to Cuban and foreign patients in its hospitals.
The therapeutic vaccine CimaVax [...]