Notices by Emeritus Prof Christopher May (chrismayla6@zirk.us)

I have today reached 6k followers

Thank you to you all for being interested in what I have to say... thanks also to all of those of you who have responded to posts & with whom I have had some great conversations.

Also a big shout to all of you who've spotted typos & let me know, the edit function here has saved me so often.

As someone who ran screaming from X/Twitter a few years ago I really value this community & salute you all for making this the place it is.

#Mastodon #politics #economics

As someone whose never got on with open offices I endorse this message.

#workers #OfficeLife #gender #neurodivergent

As Hind Elhinnawy observes:

'If the world can tolerate the Taliban’s abuses, Iraq’s restrictive laws & the US restrictions on abortion access, it reveals the fragility of women’s & girls’ rights globally, and how easy it is to take them away'!

Feminism's work is never done & any idea that once rights have been won they don't need continually defending against (mostly) male political attack is very much mistaken.

Patriarchy never rests!

#feminism #gender #HumanRights

https://theconversation.com/how-womens-basic-rights-and-freedoms-are-being-eroded-all-over-the-world-243302

Picture of the week.... for obvious reasons

#Trump #democracy #Global
#Art

An LP a day - for no other reason than I love my records - No.41

Miles Davis. Kind of Blue

There is a really good reason this is the biggest selling jazz album ever. Its both accessible (and at the time) groundbreaking; bringing modal jazz to the mainstream. Just brilliant!

Strandout tracks:
All Bues - from the swirling piano intro, a fabulously atmospheric groove;
So What - often covered, but never bettered.

But really all five tracks are genius by Davis & his stellar band.

#music #jazz

An LP a day - for no other reason than I love my records - No.29

Sade. Diamond Life

If yesterday's LP was the sound of NY in the early 1960's, Sade's debut was the sound of mid-80s London. Her sophisticated jazz-soul could be heard everywhere & reflected the return of the cool to the city's music scene - I loved it.

Standout tracks:

Smooth Operator - always a fave at DJ nights
Your love is king - the Sade shuffle exemplified
Why can't we live together - Timmy Thomas' classic remade

#music

Meanwhile.... leafing through a exhibition catalogue for a Berthe Morisot show, from some decades ago, I came across this lovely little watercolour sketch.

Painted in 1880 while you can see cows when you know it comes from a series of watercolours of that subject.... on its own it really shows how the impressionists were already moving well towards abstraction in the work in the C19th.

In this it sort of pre-figures work by Joan Mitchell & other American abstract artists.

#art #painting

A theme is emerging:

After the #fossilfuels friendly #COP28 was engineered to be short on firm commitments & long on pious #oil industry-friendly 'aspirations'... the news that #COP29 in #Baku will be chaired by (another) oil industry veteran, should finally put paid to the idea that we can expect a radical & accelerated #greentransition through this process.

Time ran out a while back to follow the oil industry's gradualism - our political generation is just fiddling while the planet burns!

Good morning.

Before today starts why not take the chance to read @RichardJMurphy piece for @BylinesEast on why it makes more #political sense to increase #taxes on the incomes of the rich rather than try to introduce a #wealthtax.

Revising taxes on income requires pragmatic adjustments to #taxation which is far easier than trying to introduce a new form of wealth tax.

If you already follow Murphy this will be no surprise, but it you don't this is a necessary read!

https://eastangliabylines.co.uk/theres-plenty-of-money-its-just-that-the-very-rich-have-got-it-all/

Can (voluntary) #carboncredits play a role in moves to combat the #clinatecrisis?

Well, not really - just one more scam that is unravelling when it meets reality;

Carbon credits now look more like #greenwashing than a plausible #environmental strategy!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/24/carbon-credit-speculators-could-lose-billions-as-offsets-deemed-worthless-aoe

If you buy a lot of (perhaps too many) #books but also want to give money to #Oxfam, I can really recommend their on-line bookshop - I use it a lot & always check there before looking elsewhere for a second-hand book. The site is well-organised, easy to search & use, and you are helping people across the world (even as you indulge your guilty habit of buying yet more books).

Have a look, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/category/donated?N=1129593664&Nf=&Ns=product.creationDate|1&Nr=AND(product.active:1,NOT(sku.listPrice:0.000000))&No=0&pscid=ps_ggl_Brand&gclid=Cj0KCQjwho-lBhC_ARIsAMpgModVnJoFuOZ_sC6QemzWe686G8gA2JmREIszgZ1y-q9YyvUFE8OHedwaAv2dEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&Ntk=&Nrpp=30

I'm thinking of writing a piece for @NWBylines on some key misunderstandings of what critics often refer to as #neoliberalism

likely something about:

1. their need to 'construct' markets;
2. their interest in re-regulation not deregulation;
3. the corporation not the individual being seen as the key economic actor...

It seems to me the throwing around of the insult 'neoliberal' miss-understands (and in a sense therefore misses the detail of) its problematic character...

should I write it?

Two centuries of #bankfailures in a single chart... and the extraordinary period of stability between 1950 & 1970.

Whatever #bankers may claim about the 'problem' of regulation & the hand of the state, as @RichardJMurphy pointed out this morning - this is the period where Kenynsianism shaped public policy & delivered financial stability...

If you wanted an illustration of why #capitalism works best when it is regulated carefully, this would be it.