Elspeth Van Veeren

Culdesac Is the First Car-Free Neighborhood and Conspiracy Theorists Hate It | The Daily Show YouTube video by The Daily Show

WATCH: Think 15-Minute City conspiracy theorists are just unhinged tin-foil hat nut jobs ranting about global overlords? Well, drop everything and watch this hard-hitting story by the @thedailyshow.com to be proven… um… #UrbanTruth

Congrats @culdesac.bsky.social

(ps, walkable cities can have cars)

216,000 now😉

➡️ join.greenparty.org.uk

Excited to say that this week I have started reading the first set of submissions to our Routledge Handbook of Gender and Secrecy, a volume I am co-editing with the terrific Natasha Mulvihill). This will be a long process, but an important milestone nevertheless. secrecyresearch.com/2025/01/30/c...

The ignorance and arrogance that underpins this journalist’s reaction and of the Trump administration. Without endorsing the Iranian position, let’s look at the historical record of USFP in relation to openly fighting postwar counter-insurgencies: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan 1 each : US 0

The Prime Minister is asked about abolishing leasehold.

He answers on management companies and ground rents that makes it really clear Labour have no intention of abolishing leasehold.

5 million people stuck paying service charges because Labour stand with property developers.

🧵Cans of Worms possibly opened by Trump's war of choice in Iran, a running list:

(not exhaustive, with the caveat that I am not an expert on the region so these are questions from a US foreign policy perspective, please add others) 1/?

Look, it took a little time for NSA Rubio to get through to SecState Rubio and coordinate the interagency here... they're doing their best!

Among the most important signs of how SCOTUS might rein in a President's claim to emergency powers is:

Chief Justice Roberts with Justices Gorsuch and Barrett on the 'major questions' doctrine.

The three express deep skepticism of claims to open-ended emergency powers:

1/

Take your silly little board and go.

I hate this grifting White House. I can’t even look up what they say about themselves without being obliged to sign up for a ‘newsletter’. 😱🤬

University of Bristol asks humanities and modern languages staff to voluntarily quit This scheme comes as part of the 'managed decline' of schools deemed less profitable to the university

Things that would be interesting to know about the current contraction of UK academic staffing (and that it would actually be super helpful if REF2029 institutional SPRE statements were required to report on) include:

What's the impact on the equality and diversity of academic staffing? 1/3

Fascism is here. 🇺🇸
CBS is dead. ☠️

More people will now see this interview Trump tried to bury than ever would have otherwise. 👀

Does that seem fair to you?

During the pandemic, I rewrote my content for online delivery, learned a whole new set of skills for remote teaching, & paid for the tech to provide the best experience to students out of my own pocket, while struggling with caring for a family & suffering from Covid. So yeah, see below.

If you're researching migration & the politics of migration, here’s a sneak peek at a new tool we’re developing: the Migration Ads Observatory. This platform tracks, analyzes, & visualizes migration-related advertising on FB & IG to reveal key trends & narratives. migration.polidashboard.org/frames

More than that, this isn’t about individual staff but about how our university leaders are failing us and putting us at risk through wilful ignorance.

Facing meltdown? Over 75% of people suffer from burnout - here’s what you need to know Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Burnout myths, busted by the experts

We need to take workplace stress and burnout fa more seriously in UKHE. The job is getting harder not easier and high levels of sustained stress damages our health (and ‘productivity’). www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Women Talking review – a stellar ensemble energises Sarah Polley’s timeless parable​ The Canadian director’s finely balanced drama about the abuse, secrets and shame of an isolated religious community boasts wonderfully nuanced performances, yet the real action lies in its knotty cent...

Followed by Sarah Polley’s brilliant Women Talking. www.theguardian.com/film/2023/fe...

The Substance review – Demi Moore is fearless in visceral feminist body horror The star plays a middle-aged TV host who signs up for a drug to generate a replicant of her younger self in Coralie Fargeat’s blood-soaked satire

Tonight’s anti-Valentine viewing, body horror The Substance. www.theguardian.com/film/2024/se...

If Matt Goodwin is serious about his concerns that women are delaying motherhood, he should demand:

- Better employment security for women
- Better maternity rights
- Better maternity pay
- Free or at least affordable childcare
- Equal pay for women
- Equal pensions for women

✨ SPIN Spotlight: Catfishing and the ocularcentric ✨

Catfishing isn’t just about false profiles — it’s how we trust what we see. Dive back into this essay from 2020 to read about how secrecy, sexuality, and visuality are intertwined in digital life

🔗 buff.ly/XOqjoO5

#Valentines #secrecyresearch

WEBINAR: Epistemic Injustice, Oppression & Ignorance: An Introduction for Social Researchers - Sign-up Page Expand your conceptual toolkit with our accessible introduction to the concepts every social researcher should know.

How does knowledge production--and the possibility of ignorance production--contribute to social injustice?

And what can social researchers with strong ethical commitments do to counteract such contributions?

Join us on Tues 24 Feb for a free webinar with our Founder & CEO, Dr Zara Bain 👇

it's deeply funny how maintaining the belief in fascism requires hiding any contrary information, and how every institution has to abase itself toward that end.

Dear God.

NEW EPSTEIN SURVIVORS AD: “3 million files still not released — stand with us. Tell AG Pam Bondi to release the files. It’s time for the truth.”

They're Coming for Our Daughters The conservative plan to shrink girls’ futures

The Heritage Foundation has released a 250-year roadmap to “save America.”

The document is a how-to guide for subjugating girls & young women: a detailed plan to push them out of college, funnel them into early marriage and motherhood, and then trap them there.
jessica.substack.com/p/theyre-com...

ICE Uses Disguises and Fake Plates for Immigration Enforcement in Minnesota A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to inquiries about whether the men were federal immigration officers. As the sweeping imm...

There are a growing number of reports of agents impersonating construction workers, delivery drivers & anti-ICE activists, heightening fears in the state.

That's deceptive & unconstitutional, because they use trickery to get around warrant & consent protections.

Good morning. The President of the United States was in the middle of the most serious child sex trafficking ring of the last quarter century.

He is referenced not a dozen times in the case files. Not 100 times. Not 1,000 times. He’s referenced 38,000 times.

Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one. Bad Bunny collaborated with UW–Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rican narratives that accompany the new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”

Not at all surprised to learn that Bad Bunny has a historical adviser. His halftime show was a reminder that our history and culture are deeply intertwined with the rest of the western hemisphere. We should think of his performance as part of #America250. #SuperBowl
news.wisc.edu/pop-star-bad...

🪙 This Wednesday we welcome Ana Flamind on Secrecy and the Politics of Transgression, and Jamie Johnson and Victoria Basham on Sense-Making at the End of Liberalism. See link for details, there are still spaces available. Do join us

📆 11 Feb | 15:00 | Online

🔗 bit.ly/3Lv5rbc

#SPINTalk #secrecy