The Global Sociology Blog

Via Pierre Haski over at the always excellent Rue 89, the cover of Time Magazine (does anyone still read that, except in doctors’ waiting rooms?): I don’t know what is scarier: the hoodie, the masked face, the sports outfit, the burning car or THE RED!! Sarcasm aside, if you really want to make the case [...]

Another great episode of Al-Jazeera’s People and Power on human trafficking from Nigeria into Italy and the subsequent Mafia wars between Italian mafia and Nigerian criminal organizations: As this Guardian article notes, it is a familiar story: “Illegal immigrants first came to Castel Volturno from Nigeria in the 1980s to work on the tomato farms [...]

That would be Saskia Sassen and Richard Sennett in the New York Times: “Mr. Cameron was good at selling people on the idea of cutting costs, but he has failed to make the case for what and how to cut: efforts to increase university fees, to overhaul the National Health Service, to reduce the military [...]

Thanks to my colleague Mike for mentioning this series to me. It is excellent (there will soon come a time where Al-Jazeera is the only news network worth watching). The four videos in the series are not for the faint of heart, though. Lions: Heroes: Brothers: Ghosts:

So, everybody seems to be discussing this: As Atrios notes, “BBC News keeps bringing people on to ask them why the rioting in London is happening, and when they try to answer the question and provide an explanation (with any validity or not, who knows) the newscasters chastise them for justifying the violence.” It is [...]

Here: “These are not hunger or bread riots. These are riots of defective and disqualified consumers. Revolutions are not staple products of social inequality; but minefields are. Minefields are areas filled with randomly scattered explosives: one can be pretty sure that some of them, some time, will explode – but one can’t say with any [...]

Cue London Calling references: But let us not play clueless here. Things have been brewing for a while in England. Remember the Vodaphone protests? Or the anti-university fees protests? So, whatever the initial reason for the uprising in Tottenham, it is clear that many of the countries where austerity policies are being imposed from above [...]

Peter Pan RIP, from their album, Pilgrims Progress:

(Via) It is impossible not to find these photographs haunting: See also Peter Hugo’s Permanent Error on what happens to our discarded electronics.

Via the excellent Cartoon Movement (are you following them yet?):

In one neat cartoon: Sounds about right.

The Guardian has another great visualization of the evolution of newspaper production in the United States. Head on over there and play with the thing. Below are just a few highlights. 1707 – The first newspapers: 1808 – Early Republic and moving West: 1833 – Technology helps 1860s, the telegraph, gold rush and more Western [...]

No, seriously: Let’s see: “Two weeks later, at the next gathering of finance ministers, he had overseen passage of a €28bn (£24.4bn) fiscal plan of spending cuts and tax increases and a law accelerating implementation of the measures, and he had kickstarted the biggest privatisation drive in western history. “We are in the midst of [...]

I had heard of the practice of taking away the children of political opponents and have them adopted into more “suitable” families during the military dictatorship in Argentina. But, as this episode of Al-Jazeera’s excellent program, People and Power, shows that the same thing was taking place in another fascist dictatorship, Franco’s Spain. It is [...]

From their new album, Sky Full of Holes, Richie and Ruben: I love me some power pop.