James5

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Christian Lechelt and Hans Weishäupl have a fascinating art project called Faces of Evil. They collected photos from a range of cities and used them to assemble the faces of dictators. “A multitude of faces of active and passive accomplices stand behind the face of every dictator.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

It seems that Roche has stopped their research into HIV drugs. Though not directly linking it to the compulsory licensing/IP issues, one can’t help but wonder if it’s related. Elizabeth Pisani is right about the need for public funding/ownership of these drugs. Governments already subsidise a lot of pharmaceutical research, we need to rethink the incentives for making drugs for things like HIV and diseases that disproportionally effect the poor.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Uwem Akpan has had a series of stories published in the New Yorker, all of the much worth a read. This one on a couple of street kids and communion, real stood out for me. Fear gripped my heart—fear that some churchwarden would be incensed by their sacrilege and, as in the church of my youth, drag them outside by the ear; fear that the priest would deny them at the last moment; fear that I might never risk as much for the Body of Christ.

Popularity: 4% [?]

So some people think that less monogamy means safer sex for everyone. I’m not convinved. Good quote from the comments: You could just as easily rewrite that to say: “if each of those promiscuous husbands were willing to take on one fewer extramarital partner” and prove that less sex is safer sex.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Roger Alford at Opinio Juris posts on the IOC restricting ‘political speech’ at Beijing. I’m still really doubtful about all these calls to ‘keep politics out of sport’. The comments have some good takes on calls to boycott too.

Popularity: 3% [?]