The Global Sociology Blog

We’re all money launderers now: Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor | World news | The Observer via kwout

It is on the heels of reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-Sided that I decided to read Karen Cerulo‘s Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning The Worst. In the book, Cerulo tackles what she calls positive asymmetry, that is, our inability to envision the worst and the consequences of constantly imagining and evaluating best case [...]

For those of you who remember my review of – and multiple posts on – Loïc Wacquant’s Punishing The Poor, this will seem a perfect illustration. As you remember, Wacquant’s thesis is that the neoliberal state, as it loses power on the economic and social fronts as a result of neoliberal policies it embraced, reasserts [...]

(In French, but very detailed and insightful as to the amounts of environmental resources – especially water – that go in the production of cans of classic coke) L’objet du jour : la canette de Coca-Cola, par Terra Eco – LeMonde.fr via kwout Bottom line: that ecological footprint is HEAVY! Do read the whole thing [...]

A very good article in the Guardian regarding gender and color stereotyping. Saussure and Levi-Strauss established long ago that signifiers are arbitrary, hence the variability: The power of pink | From the Guardian | The Guardian via kwout If I remember correctly, blue used to be the color of the Virgin Mary whereas pink was [...]

Via Graphic Sociology (click on the image for humongous version),

“On the DVD boxed set of MTV’s Pimp My Ride, season two, there reads a compelling tag line: “there are to wheels too worthless, no ride too ragged. There is no ride unpimpable!” In this statement of egalitarian optimism comes a promise of reclamation and renewal for a plurality of ratty, tattered, and decrepit bodies. [...]

This Why, Tiger? Why, bankers? Why? Because they can | Zoe Williams | Comment is free | The Guardian via kwout reminded me of this, that is, a blog post where I used Denis Colombi’s starting point on traders as exempt from social norms that the rest of us are expected to follow. In other [...]

“As soon as one observes the formation and operation of real markets, it becomes obvious that none of [their] dynamism is possible without deep involvement by entrepreneurs, managers, workers, firms, and governments. The people who run firms have to conceptualize opportunities, figure out ways to exploit them, and motivate others to help attain those ends. [...]

Via Deanna Summers. A snippet: The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters | Cracked.com via kwout Listen to the song, “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face”… Go read the whole thing for more consternation and I am sure you can add a few more jewels. That’s what we socialize our [...]

Over at the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer has a fairly detailed post about the degree of confidence Americans have for some major institutions: Everyday Sociology Blog: Losing Confidence: Americans and Social Institutions via kwout And while the decline is pretty steady for the media, it is irregular for executive branch, ebbing and flowing depending [...]

So, I just received my copy of Stephen King‘s latest novel, a 1,000-pages long brick that I manipulated the wrong way, and now, I have pulled a muscle in my neck/shoulder. I should sue! Anyhoo, in the meantime, go read a couple of really good posts. First, Brooke Harrington, over at Economic Sociology: Money for [...]

Welcome to www.keepsociologyatbirmingham.com via kwout

It is a fairly long report but well worth it and with a great slideshow. The Children of Sodom and Gomorrah: How Europe’s Discarded Computers Are Poisoning Africa’s Kids – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International via kwout

Believe it or not, this is the first book by John Scalzi I have ever read. I figured I had to start somewhere since he is now one of the heavyweights of the scifi world. I have to say that Agent to the Stars had me at “We have seen The Blob  and it is [...]