Archive for January, 2005
Monday, January 31st, 2005
There seem to me to be two reasons for opposing female genital mutilation (FGM). The first relates to the physical dangers related to the practice. The second relates to the political and cultural role of FGM, the way in which such outward control of the body reinforces social hierarchies ...
Posted in Society and culture | Comments Off on FGM and male circumcision
Monday, January 31st, 2005
The At What Cost? domain expired today, and the other organisers and myself decided earlier this month not to renew it at this point, as the campaign is currently in a low-activity mode and does not have a pressing need for the 'catchy' public contact point. The At What Cost ...
Posted in Electronic Voting | Comments Off on AWC campaign administrivia
Monday, January 31st, 2005
In this edition of Alternative Media Notes I talk about the challenges DAB poses for community radio, drawing on the Irish experience, and also briefly about plans for the Flirt FM 10th anniversary celebration - including playing an excerpt from a Flirt FM session I recorded with the Great Western ...
Posted in Alternative Media, Flirt FM, Media regulation, Radio | Comments Off on New Alternative Media Notes
Saturday, January 29th, 2005
Flirt FM will have been on air for ten years this coming September, and we're making plans to celebrate. For those who are or have been involved make sure you check out the Flirt FM alumni page. Contact me to sign up to the (low-volume) alumni list, and let us ...
Posted in Flirt FM | Comments Off on Flirt FM 10 year plans
Saturday, January 29th, 2005
For those subscribing to the AMN or Media analysis feeds: I am deprecating those feeds, and intend to remove them in the near future. The content previously available through those feeds will now be available on the general funferal RSS 2.0 feed - please update your subscription. For the moment ...
Posted in Meta | Comments Off on Updating RSS feeds
Saturday, January 29th, 2005
Zeichenzug has a post considering what defences exist for advertising to children. He nails it pretty well, but I thought I'd add something I'd observed in the Irish debate.
Essentially, the strongest argument is, indeed, that exposure to advertising may help to build some skills. However, in the Irish context it ...
Posted in Corporate media | Comments Off on Defending advertising to children
Friday, January 28th, 2005
I've launched the new version of the site, and hope it meets with approval (if there are obvious flaws be sure to let me know). Apart from the new colour scheme - which reflects calls for a cleaner, more minimalist, approach - I've trimmed the site a little, removing some ...
Posted in Meta | Comments Off on New site layout and design
Thursday, January 27th, 2005
Those of you who read funferal through a browser can't have helped noticing the layout changes. It's actually part of a rewrite that accidentally got released into the wild when I overwrote the existing 'live' stylesheet with the draft I was working on.
I think I've cleaned up most of the ...
Posted in Meta | Comments Off on New site design – still in draft format
Thursday, January 27th, 2005
This is priceless. They've eventually established Irish ancestry for George Bush and it turns out that it's Strongbow and Dermot MacMorrough. For those who don't know, Strongbow was the Norman who originally invaded Ireland in 1169, and MacMorrough was the Irish chieftain who invited him in - thus, setting the ...
Posted in Trivia | Comments Off on Bush’s Irish link
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
Yet another country is following the lead of Ireland in restricting smoking in public places:Cuba, the home of the cigar, is to ban smoking in public places. From February 6th smoking will not be allowed in offices, shops, cinemas and buses. More than half of all adults in ...
Posted in Tobacco and drugs | Comments Off on Another smoking ban