Helen Lewis
@helenlewis
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staff writer, @theatlantic | contact me: hlewis @theatlantic .com
Joined June 2007
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어린이날
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Pinned Tweet
The trailer for THE NEW GURUS just dropped! I apologise in advance for *that* bit. (You’ll know when you hear it.)
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The Spectator’s theatre critic has written a piece about how a female professional peer’s appearance made him so horny that he had to go pay for sex with a “buxom” Chinese woman near the train station.
Advice for scholars: next time you lecture on Kant and revolutions at “Downing” (
@DarwinCollege
) Cambridge, make sure your hair is neatly tied and that you’re not blonde. Or else your research impact will be on the
@spectator
libido section.
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The thing you have to remember about Rishi Sunak is that he couldn’t win an election against … Liz Truss.
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The idea that the Suffragettes were hard left would have been a surprise to future Conservative candidate Emmeline Pankhurst, and indeed future members of the British Union of Fascists Norah Elam and Sophia Mary Allen.
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I feel deranged watching this. Has he just not been to anywhere normal people go for 30 years? We had these in my local Tesco in the 1990s.
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Well, a lot of people should feel pretty bad now, starting with Stephen Colbert
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“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
— Margaret Atwood
Happy
#IWD
, everyone.
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Me on why we need difficult women: ‘Feminism has a particular duty to fight “the tyranny of niceness” – which is, and has always been, one of the most potent forces holding women back.’
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Above a certain follower count, your twitter feed is basically a newspaper, and I wish there was a voluntary code of conduct to reflect that. No amplifying stuff you haven't personally checked is true; and no hostile quote-tweeting random people with a handful of followers.
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The GC feminist legal fightback has been one of the most impressive political campaigns of my lifetime. Just the sheer *weight* of cases is extraordinary.
But the flip side is: what could all of those people have been doing if they hadn't had to fight so hard to speak at all?
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Just as well I don’t have grandchildren, because I have *no idea* how I would explain to them that me writing stuff like this in the 2010s was enough to have me removed from a video game, cancelled from literary festivals and included on a GLAAD list next to Rush Limbaugh.
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A few years ago, something strange happened in Tourette's clinics. The typical patient used to be a young boy aged 5-7, with simple tics such as blinking.
But now doctors were seeing something new: teenage girls with acute, explosive tic attacks. (1/7)
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Joe Lycett: Fake News is a scourge
Jordan Gray on Joe Lycett’s show: The Cass Report is “far right”
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Sorry to say that despite selling out immediately, this event has now been cancelled.
The organiser offered all kinds of compromises—a trans voice on the panel, a separate rebuttal event, even a statement disassociating the Skeptic Society from our views—but it wasn’t enough.
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If you’re wondering what the next big legal scandal might be … the Single Justice Procedure—a one-magistrate hearing designed to fast-track cases to clear the backlog—is producing alarming stories from elderly, learning-disabled and other vulnerable defendants.
A woman from County Durham with learning difficulties and depression.
Prosecuted & convicted last week in the Single Justice Procedure for not paying her TV Licence.
She's a constituent of Conservative Party chairman
@RicHolden
This is the letter she sent to the court.
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@Docstockk
If we’re going to talk about questionable academic practices, let’s maybe start with “authoring a paper with your own alter ego”. Nowhere in this paper is it made clear that Natacha Kennedy and Mark Hellen are the same person.
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To be honest, young people pretty much did “national service” recently by being shut up in halls at university, or unable to celebrate the end of school with their friends.
All to stop them spreading a virus which was very unlikely to kill them, but very dangerous to the old.
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I think the hardest thing for all of us who lived through that period will be forgiving all the people who quietly distanced themselves from us, because they were too lazy or pious to look into what we’d actually said and just wanted to be “on the right side of history.”
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I'm very sorry to hear from
@MairiTodd
that Maureen Colquhoun - the first openly gay MP, and one of my Difficult Women - died today at 92. She was brave and principled and awkward (She asked to be called "Ms" in the chamber). All women in politics owe her a great debt.
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@Dominic2306
C/ helping to elect a government where the price of admission to the cabinet was being prepared to pretend No Deal Brexit was a great idea and Boris Johnson was a good candidate for prime minister, then being upset at the calibre of ministers you had to work with
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It is very hard to reconcile this statement with the video circulating on social media which shows half a dozen officers being involved in this arrest. That seems wildly disproportionate to a) a speech offence; b) a single teenage girl exhibiting no signs of being violent.
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I wrote about the implications of the Cass Report for US debates: “If you still think that concerns about child medical transition are nothing more than a moral panic, then I have a question: What evidence would change your mind?”
Here’s a gift link:
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I think quite often about the timeline where John McDonnell was the successful candidate of the Labour left in 2015. The crucial difference between him and Jeremy Corbyn, it seems to me, is that he actually wanted to be in power.
“Yes it is, it’s a terrorist organisation”
Labour’s
@johnmcdonnellMP
says that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, after Jeremy Corbyn refused to call them a terror group when asked by
@piersmorgan
#Peston
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I hesitated about putting this section of Difficult Women on the internet, because it touches on one of the toughest times in my life. But I feel as though it might help a few people to hear it.
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Europeans should sponsor a Tucker tour of extremely basic stuff that will blow his mind. Public toilets without an inch-wide gap at the hinges. Free museums. Service included on the bill. Maternity leave.
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I found this interview with Ruth Hunt, former head of Stonewall, very hard to read—because I personally know so many people who have sacrificed so much to contradict the stances she once held, and now disowns.
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A new longread from me: what's behind the spate of white activists and academics pretending to be minorities? This is one of the wildest research journeys I have ever been on.
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So I'm a big fan of Radio 4's Great Lives, but it has always bothered me that we don't talk more about the Support Humans surrounding anyone who achieves greatness.
Here is my small attempt to remedy that, starting Wed at 11pm on Radio 4.
GREAT WIVES.
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For anyone who feels they’re drowning in misinformation about “100 studies” or “Cass rejected anything that wasn’t double-blinded”— thank you, Billy Bragg and Dawn Butler — BBC More or Less just did a great programme:
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@jonathanliew
Are changes to parkrun’s rules a trifling matter (as you argue when they disadvantage women) or evidence of a sinister global conspiracy (as you argue when they would disadvantage biological males)? You’re really going to have to pick one or the other.
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“Harry and Meghan’s documentary has the unfortunate air of a late-night message left on your ex’s voicemail, insisting that you are happy to have moved on, and are having a great life, actually.”
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@alexmassie
@holyroodmandy
The fact it’s a sceptics group does make it objectively funny as well as depressing.
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Unclear that it was a good idea for Rishi Sunak to call a press conference to showcase how tetchy he is.
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The statue here is Millicent Fawcett, who, rather notoriously, was not a Suffragette. (She was a non-violent Suffragist, which was a far bigger movement.)
The Suffragette line
📍 Gospel Oak to Barking Riverside
Map colour: Green parallel lines
The Suffragette line celebrates the working-class movement born in the East End that fought for votes for women. Barking was home to Annie Huggett, the longest surviving Suffragette.
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Have you even written an article on gender if Michael Hobbes doesn’t do an overwrought, inaccurate thread about it?
These aren’t whines, just factual statements about British politics — No Debate was a real policy, feminists were kicked out Labour, Starmer hasn’t apologised. 🤷♀️
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I don’t mean to dunk, but I find this an incredible attitude for a journalist to take. The soul of this trade is curiosity!
I’m not even sure the analogy holds up. Doctors don’t give people cough medicine without asking themselves if it could be pneumonia or lung cancer.
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Andrea Long Chu has written a piece attacking TARLs, or trans-agnostic reactionary liberals. (To my ears, this doesn’t sound as catchy as TERF, but I haven’t had it screamed at me through a megaphone by a six-foot figure in a balaclava yet.) I’ve replied:
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One of life's little ironies that Tommy Robinson effectively got Suella Braverman sacked.
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"Cancel culture" isn't inherently leftwing or rightwing. It's an atmosphere in which private companies are over-sensitive to any backlash by a small, unrepresentative group of activists. It's not real accountability, either, because it lands on individuals
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The Phoenix judgement reveals a really shocking culture of intimidation at a public institution—one I love and have studied at, the Open University—against an academic studying women in jail, an extremely marginalised group. It is core Woman’s Hour terrain.
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@jordanbpeterson
I don't hate you, and I wish you better health and happiness for the future. I'm sorry to hear what your family has been through these last few years.
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There were some incredibly good candidates for BBC political editor, but Chris Mason has smashed it so far. Apart from anything else, basically no one hates him, which is nothing short of miraculous. And his Truss interview last night was impeccable; he just gave her the rope.
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Hmm, I wonder … does misinformation ever have consequences?
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In 2018 — when Ruth Hunt led Stonewall — the charity’s head of trans inclusion Bex Stinson refused to appear in the studio on Woman’s Hour alongside me even to talk about how the debate was “toxic”.
She had to be recorded separately in case I … dunno?
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One thing I agree with Dominic Cummings on (gasp) is that political journalists too often just repeat things they are told without passing them through any kind of scepticism filter. Here’s a good example: is a woman MSP with no history of violence REALLY a safeguarding issue?
EXCLUSIVE: Green MSPs fume as turncoat MSP Ash Regan set to join their Holyrood corridor
Party has raised safeguarding concerns about the possible arrangement due to them employing transgender staff members
Some sources said Regan was testing chairs...
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This was Jo Phoenix's parliamentary evidence. This is the kind of argument that her Open University colleagues (and wider academia) wanted suppressed. Bananas.
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I feel like, with this headline, my career has peaked.
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Objectively funny to do this during Enemy of the People, a play about a man who is correct about a terrible situation but such a dick that he loses everyone’s support
Climate protesters from Extinction Rebellion disrupted tonight’s
#AnEnemyOfThePeople
show in NYC three separate times and the cast joined in to getting them out. Jeremy Strong stayed in character because dramaturgically it made sense.
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In America, the summer of 2020 was revolutionary: noble goals were being pursued, but the ground was constantly shifting, and it was unwise to end up on the wrong side of the revolutionaries. This is the story of a scapegoat:
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In the last few years, I’ve written a fair bit about “cancel culture” on the left. But the right has a mirror image problem—a reluctance to ever draw a line.
This is the story of the Spectator’s columnist for 50 years, Taki:
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It’s completely nuts to me that as a country there is simply no acknowledgment of what a sacrifice that generation made by keeping to Covid rules — with barely a complaint.
It’s a genuinely wonderful and heartwarming thing that young people wanted to protect their grandparents.
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Russell Brand is playing at being a journalist, “just asking questions” but never doing the legwork—the actual hard part of journalism—of trying to answer them.
The truth of any situation is highly unlikely to be revealed by the same dozen men going on each others’ podcasts.
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I already feel like the shift from primarily geographic communities to ones based around a common interest or identity is a *huge* shift in human behaviour. And the pandemic turned that tendency up to 11. We are seeing some of the weirder and more interesting after-effects now.
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Russell Brand lives in Britain, a place which is *currently having* a public inquiry into Covid: lockdowns, other policy and vaccines.
It has legal powers to compel witnesses. The entire point is to learn lessons for the next pandemic.
If he read the hated MSM he’d know this.
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Maybe I’m getting old, but I appreciated watching people treating the idea of governance with solemnity—and something that transcends party politics. And the empty throne made it all very poignant.
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I'm gutted about the death of Matthew Perry, a transcendentally gifted comic actor who never got to enjoy his success.
I couldn't stop myself writing about the man who made Chandler, when Chandler made me:
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For the May issue of
@TheAtlantic
, I've written about two Florida Men: Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, and how the Sunshine State became the incubator of Republican politics.
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@jessesingal
Outsiders see "on a GLAAD list" and assume you must have done something *awful*. The actual charges: I said that the trans movement had made some big, controversial claims, and expressed sympathy for those caught in the crossfire. This apparently killed 44 people.
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I wrote about Labour's shift on gender, and whether something similar could happen in America:
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Generation Z are part of a grand social experiment, the first cohort to grow up with smartphones, the first generation whose entire lives have been shaped by the demands of social-media algorithms. Tics and twitches may be their unconscious method of saying: I want out. (6/7)
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It's paperback publication day for DIFFICULT WOMEN. All the same delicious history, sarcastic footnotes and unmasking of
#MeToo
's greatest villain... but now at half the price of the hardback.
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This very sad case - a late pregnancy ended with pills, in the first lockdown - should not have resulted in a 28-month jail sentence. Where is the compassion for her three living children, who need their mum at home?
I’ll be in court today as a woman is sentenced for ending her pregnancy beyond the time limit during lockdown.
It is understood that she was not able to attend a scan, and did not know how advanced it was.
She pleaded guilty to the offence, which carries a max. life sentence.
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Pretty bold to claim that the “big change” British people want is turbocharged small state libertarianism when Labour are 20pts ahead in the polls.
Never thought I’d see former Prime Minister Liz Truss with Steve Bannon talking about how members of the economic and bureaucratic establishments are, “friendly with the Deep State.”
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Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
(It's not the "dirty story of a dirty man" but there is a very informative chapter on a 19th century princess who was also a sex researcher.)
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Anyway, I hope you will read the piece, and that it helps both young people with sudden-onset tics and their parents make sense of what can be a confusing, debilitating and alarming experience. (7/7)
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In return, Britain has completely betrayed its young people—most obviously by refusing to build enough houses to allow them to live near the places where jobs are without paying half their salary or more in rent.
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@LittleHardman
The organiser, in the face of an open letter (and presumably threats of a protest, boycott etc). Classic example of the heckler’s veto.
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@soniasodha
@runthinkwrite
It's barely a year since LGBT Labour nuked an entire event to celebrate a pioneering lesbian MP . . . rather than have me on a Zoom panel. Because of me holding views which are now basically Labour party policy!
Life comes at you fast.
LGBT+ Labour would like to apologise profoundly for the composition of the panel for our event “Remembering Maureen Colquhoun MP”. An invitation was made in error and it has been withdrawn.
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Been researching various online communities for my BBC series over the last few weeks—crypto, productivity, etc—and what keeps coming up is how profoundly people were affected by spending months stuck at home (and therefore online) in 2020.
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Loved this so much—not least how happy Tracy Chapman looks at the start.
For an artist, success is not just sales, but how much everyone who comes after you is working in your shadow. Cover versions keep a song alive.
In case you didn’t get to see it, here is the full video of Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs singing “Fast Car” at the Grammys
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News! For the last few months, I've been working on an 8-part podcast series for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. It's called THE NEW GURUS, and it's about the people promising us enlightenment in the digital world.
The story starts with this man . . .
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@lexfridman
@kanyewest
Kanye has done, what, FOUR major interviews since the Tucker Carlson one where he went full antisemitism? (Drink Champs, Cuomo, Piers Morgan, this one.) He’s been “honest” in all of them. This is ambulance-chasing masquerading as the Enlightenment.
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Look it’s not going to win any photography awards but seeing a total eclipse was incredibly cool, even through clouds.
There is a moment as it suddenly goes dark when you think, in a panic, “but what if the Sun DOESN’T come back”.
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@stuartdredge
yeah I know. Slumming it in the Dickensian miasma emanating from the Caffè Nero
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Want to take a moment to praise
@katyjon
, who really walks the walk on free speech and dialogue between different perspectives. In 2020, a venue tried to pull a panel I was chairing on Difficult Women because Julie Bindel was on it. Katy supported us and came along.
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What do you believe in? As traditional religions wane in Britain, my new BBC documentary asks if political movements are taking their place.
Has politics become "the amphetamines of the masses," as
@ESOldfield
put it?
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@MairiTodd
@LGBTLabour
@angelaeagle
Thanks Mairi. Hopefully we can commemorate Maureen's life - and her great courage - another time.
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Brace yourself, the latest misinformation from Erin Reed’s Substack (the source of a lot of recent bollocks) is that Cass has “backtracked” on her report.
Reed slightly undermines her own claims to rigour by misspelling Hilary Cass’s name throughout
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"We supported this when it was an entirely token gesture. But supporting LGBT people comes second to winning the World Cup, obviously. Come on."
And people wonder why I am so relentlessly cynical about corporate activism. Protests without costs are meaningless protests.
In joint statement, the 7 European countries who launched OneLove campaign say: "We can't put our players in a position where they could face sporting sanctions, including bookings..."
They are Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, England & Wales.
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We have taken religion, with its innate possibility for sectarian conflict, and fed it through a polarization machine. No wonder that today’s politics can feel like a wasteland of anguished ranting—and like we are in hell already.
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Jordan Peterson "gazed into the culture-war abyss, and the abyss stared right back at him."
Here's my
#longread
on how the horror of modern fame destroyed Jordan Peterson's life, and why - with his new book published today - he's come back for more.
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For Britons, it can be hard to appreciate how strong the “nothing to see here” vibes have been on the U.S. left.
@TheBARPod
did a great episode on John Oliver and Jon Stewart basically laughing at anyone who had Qs, as if they were climate change deniers
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For anyone wondering how serious it is to tweet about motives at a trial that are not being put before a jury, in 2002 the Sunday Mirror collapsed a case by publishing an interview with a father of an assault victim which claimed it was a racist attack.
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Been reading a historian’s list of FAKE HISTORY in Oppenheimer and I’m surprised in 2023 that people don’t understand that historical dramas aren’t and cannot be documentaries.
In this scene Einstein is essentially “[physicist you’ve heard of] functions as sounding board”.
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Good behind-the-scenes piece on Labour’s recent shift on gender. The role of Anne Jenkin is easily overlooked, but shouldn’t be. (It’s also easy to forget that self-ID was Tory policy as recently as the Theresa May era.)
It took female MPs from both parties to change Starmer’s stance on gender politics | Isabel Hardman
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The situation left doctors asking: is it possible to "catch" tics through social media use? And why do teenage girls seem to be particularly affected? So they looked back in time for other outbreaks of twitches and shakes. (4/7)
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In this week’s newsletter I’ve written something very nerdy, about how Keir Starmer is like a stage magician
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This is terrible news. I think about her "Royal Bodies" lecture all the time; the way she brought to Desmoulins and Robespierre to life; her essay on anorexic saints, "Some Girls Want Out"; the hideousness of the ghosts in Beyond Black. Just a phenomenal writer and thinker.
We are heartbroken at the death of our beloved author, Dame Hilary Mantel, and our thoughts are with her friends and family, especially her husband, Gerald. This is a devastating loss and we can only be grateful she left us with such a magnificent body of work.
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@buckysthoughts
I suggest you listen to this, which explains that the Newcastle-Ottawa scale was used to assess the studies *specifically because* it’s designed to judge non-randomised trials.
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@TheBARPod
It’s true that the U.S. medical associations do still support a medical model, but the number one amazing thing about science is that you don’t have to trust experts… you can check their claims against the data (or lack of it). That’s what Cass has done.
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@kittypurrzog
You have to admit there is something exquisitely funny about the most liberal American celebrities not knowing that Europe exists
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(Sorry for doing so many tweets on this minor train line update but it’s funny to me how we act like political labels are immutable and the political fights of the past are instantly translatable into modern terms.)
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In Germany, some of the most common vocalisations - such as "fliegende haie" (flying sharks) or "du bist hasslich" (you are ugly) - were the same phrases as a popular Tourette's influencer on YouTube, with his own channel and merchandise page. (2/7)
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Yes, I watched Harry and Meghan. "In this fairy tale, the prince was rescued from a terrible fate—being British—by one kiss from a beautiful Californian."
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