The Guardian has more on the rivers of blood in Dhaka yesterday.

Poor drainage in the city makes flooding a regular fact of Dhaka life. But the problem is rarely illustrated as vividly as it was on Tuesday, after thousands of sheep, goats and cows were slaughtered.

One of the two holiest events in the Muslim calendar, Eid al-Adha commemorates the willingness of the prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son at God’s request.

You know, that’s a terrible thing to commemorate. One, there’s the willingness to murder the child, and two, there’s the elevation of blind (and indeed horrific) obedience. It’s an abomination.

Authorities in Dhaka said they had established hundreds of designated sacrifice spots in the run-up to

Yassmin Abdel-Magied tells us why it was so important for her to walk out on Lionel Shriver’s talk.

As I stood up, my heart began to race. I could feel the eyes of the hundreds of audience members on my back: questioning, querying, judging.

I turned to face the crowd, lifted up my chin and walked down the main aisle, my pace deliberate. “Look back into the audience,” a friend had texted me moments earlier, “and let them see your face.”

The faces around me blurred. As my heels thudded against they grey plastic of the flooring, harmonising with the beat of the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my mind was blank save for one question.

“How is this

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The Guardian too is reporting on the criticism of the Science Museum’s pink and blue brains exhibit, and wording it more sharply than Pink News did.

The Science Museum in London is facing criticism for a “junk science” exhibit that asks visitors to test whether they have a blue or pink brain.

…

Prof Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, an expert on the teenage brain at University College London who has been advising the Science Museum, said the exhibit in its current form was “out of date, to say the least”.

She added: “I saw it recently and was pretty shocked by the misleading message, which doesn’t correspond to the scientific evidence.”

Prof Gina Rippon, of the University of Aston, said: “The

The London Abused Women’s Centre [that’s London, Ontario] posted on Facebook Monday morning:

London Abused Women’s Centre withdraws support of the 2016 Take Back the Night

The London Abused Women’s Centre is withdrawing from the Take Back the Night march on September 15, 2016. We are withdrawing because we cannot tolerate an environment that condones violence against women.

Four days prior to Take Back the Night, the Women’s Events Committee posted a request on Facebook for consultation on possibly having a pole-fitness group attend the Take Back the Night gathering. This does not allow proper time for community feedback. Moreover, the consultation was framed in a way where pole-fitness was stated to be “body-positive” and “empowering.” No alternative

The Guardian published Shriver’s talk (uh oh will they get in trouble now?).

I’m afraid the bramble of thorny issues that cluster around “identity politics” has got all too interesting, particularly for people pursuing the occupation I share with many gathered in this hall: fiction writing. Taken to their logical conclusion, ideologies recently come into vogue challenge our right to write fiction at all…

…

The author of Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University who for the record is white, defines cultural appropriation as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorised use of another culture’s dance, dress,

It’s been raining in Dhaka, and it’s Eid, so the streets are full of rainwater mixed with blood and animal waste.

The holy Eid-ul-Azha, the second largest religious festival of Muslims, is being celebrated in Dhaka and elsewhere across the country amid light to moderate rains in the capital and at different places in the country.

The continuous downpour has caused waterlogging at different areas in the capital, resulting in the animal blood and wastes being spread in the water, submerging the streets.

Bulbul Ahsan posted some photos he took:

Not good.

 … Read the rest

Pop culture interlude.

Well phooey. I only just discovered The Great British Bake Off last fall, and now they’re leaving the BBC for Channel 4, plus the two presenters are leaving as a result, and I liked them.

Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc will step down as hosts of The Great British Bake Off when it moves to Channel 4.

The duo have fronted the show since it began on BBC Two in 2010, alongside judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.

They said in a statement: “We made no secret of our desire for the show to remain where it was… we’re not going with the dough.”

…

The statement continued: “The BBC nurtured the show from its infancy

The gall of that man.

With Clinton resting, Trump launched some of his sharpest attacks yet against her. He said in a speech Monday in Baltimore that her “deplorables” comment “disqualifies” her from being president — and that if she does not retract it, “I don’t see how she can credibly campaign any further.”

That disqualifies her – that one word, said one time – but the constant repetition of “Pocahontas” doesn’t disqualify  him? “Mexicans are rapists” doesn’t? “Blood from her wherever” doesn’t? The bankruptcies don’t? The unpaid contractors don’t? The unpaid workers don’t?

Meanwhile, over the weekend the very right-wing governor of Kentucky said some things:

When conservative Christians gathered in Washington, DC, this past weekend for

A moment at a protest march against same-sex marriage in Ceyela, Mexico.

“At first I thought the child was only playing,” says photographer and journalist Manuel Rodriquez, who captured the exact moment a 12-year-old boy leapt in front of a crowd of 11,000 people protesting the proposed same-sex marriage law in Mexico.

Talking to Regeneración, Rodriquez explains that when he asked the anonymous boy what he was doing, the child responded, “I have an uncle who is gay. And I hate that people hate.”