Media and Culture Journal M/C Journal was founded (as "M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture") in 1998 as a place of public intellectualism analysing and critiquing the meeting of media and culture. M/C Journal is a fully blind, peer-reviewed academic journal, but is also open to submissions and responses from anyone on the Internet. We take seriously the need to move ideas outward, so that our cultural debates may have some resonance with wider political and cultural interests. Each issue is organised around a one word theme (see our past issues), and is edited by one or two guest editors with a particular interest in that theme. Vol 23, No 1 (2020): dream Edited by Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Emerald L.
Resilience: buzz word or useful concept? The currently fashionable term of ‘resilience’ is a positive antidote to the negative connotation of ‘vulnerability’ as it refers to the potential and capacities of each community. Nevertheless, the concept remains controversial. Everyone seems to have their own definition of ‘resilience’, and there is a risk that rather than bringing clarity, it will only bring confusion. In the last few years, there has been a growing number of disasters, often the consequence of “extreme climatic events”, be it violent hurricanes, large scale floods or repeated devastating droughts. In this context, integrating Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation and Poverty Reduction initiatives under one umbrella seems a timely idea, in that it seeks to counter a fragmented, project-based approach. Not all of these approaches are equally successful.
History of 'Holons' [KULeuven][PMA][PMA-projects][PMA-Holonic page][PMA-IMS/HMS page] Some 25 years ago, Arthur Koestler proposed the word "holon" [Koestler]. It is a combination from the Greek holos = whole, with the suffix on which, as in proton or neutron, suggests a particle or part. Two observations impelled Koestler to propose the word holon. The second observation, made by Koestler while analysing hierarchies and stable intermediate forms in living organisms and social organisation, is thatùalthough it is easy to identify sub-wholes or partsù'wholes' and 'parts' in an absolute sense do not exist anywhere. Koestler also establishes the link between holons and the watchmakers' parable from professor Simon. Finally, Koestler defines a holarchy as a hierarchy of self-regulating holons which function (a) as autonomous wholes in supra-ordination to their parts, (b) as dependent parts in sub- ordination to controls on higher levels, (c) in co-ordination with their local environment
IMAGINE PEACE Global Voices - Global Voices | Strengthening Governance Through Participation Urban Observatory | Viewing the Emergent City and Its People Subprime, Shadow Banking and Liquidity Shocks - Obsolete Dogma Why did relatively trivial losses in AAA mortgage bonds nearly vaporize the world economy in 2008? It seems absurd on its face. After all, despite the financial carnage in the U.S. housing market, the losses only amounted to a small proportion of global assets and GDP. The destruction of seemingly safe, cashlike assets -- and the resulting surge in the liquidity premium -- is the other part of the story. Here is Steve Randy Waldman's incisive description of this dynamic: [There was] a “giant pool of money”, specifically sovereign and institutional money, that was seeking out ultra-safe, “Triple A” investment, and sometimes agitating for yield within that category.... What type of assets made up these quasi-savings accounts? Losses and illiquidity migrated up the proverbial food chain of cashlike assets due to financial linkages and panic. Money-market funds were the next casualty. Thankfully, policymakers managed to arrest the collapse. Could it happen again?
Viomak Charity Music --> Our World Digitized: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly | MIT World Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Monitoring the economic, social and cultural rights The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by its States parties. The Committee was established under ECOSOC Resolution 1985/17 of 28 May 1985 to carry out the monitoring functions assigned to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Part IV of the Covenant. All States parties are obliged to submit regular reports to the Committee on how the rights are being implemented. In addition to the reporting procedure, the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights , which entered into force on 5th May 2013, provides the Committee competence to receive and consider communications from individuals claiming that their rights under the Covenant have been violated.
Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital by Catherine Hakim – review In a typically razor-sharp exchange of dialogue which establishes – yet again – that The Simpsons provides the most coruscating illumination of contemporary mores, Lisa says to her grade school teacher that "Good looks don't really matter", to which Ms Hoover replies: "Nonsense, that's just something ugly people tell their children." Stripping away the layers of irony from this statement we can reveal the central premise of Catherine Hakim's book, which is that not only do looks matter, but that they should matter a great deal more. Furthermore, the people who tell young people – and in particular young women – that their beauty and sex appeal are of little importance are themselves ugly, if not physically then at least morally. For, as Hakim sees it, it is an "unholy alliance" of wannabe patriarchs, religious fundamentalists and radical feminists who have – in Anglo-Saxon countries especially – acted to devalue what she terms "erotic capital". In some ways I think she's right.
World Values Survey