[BLOG] Some Monday links

[rfmcdonald]

• 80 Beats lets us know that tractor beams of some sort may be possible.


• Bag News Notes features the photography of Danny Ghitis, who catalogues quotidian life in the small Polish city of Oscwiecim.


• At Border Thinking, Laura Agustin is skeptical that new high-tech passport and border controls in Nigeria will limit unsanctioned migration.


• The Discoblog reports on a species that turns out to have seven sexes as opposed to our two.


• Eastern Approaches reports on the Hungarian government's decision to let the Communist secret police archives be dispersed, making it next to impossible to maintain a single history.


• At Extraordinary Observations, Rob Pitingolo makes the point that bike racks at airports aren't for passengers so much as they are for workers.


• Geocurrent Events reports on distinctive cultures in the North Africa desert, with reports of the Ibadhi Muslim Berbers of southern Algeria's Mzab Oasis opposing the government and the Libya's relatively pro-Gaddafi Saharan Fezzan with its unviable irrigation-driven agriculture.


• The Global Sociology Blog reports on Spanish sociology Manuel Castells' evaluation of Egypt's shutdown of Internet access during the protests: costly, incomplete, and ultimately not encompassing nearly enough media to be effective.


• The Grumpy Sociologist positively reviews a film dealing with the integration and other issues in Rosengard, a heavily immigrant-populated neighbourhood of Sweden's southern city of Malmo. Competition over scarce resources--within the neighbourhood, in wider Sweden--is key to explain social issues.


• Language Hat blogs about the complications of dubbing The Simpsons in Québec, where the efforts to produce a dubbed version saleable in Francophone Europe (doomed to fail because of French policies, thanks feorag) lead to the production of local versions lacking local characteristics.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Charli Carpenter points out that a new United Nations study pointing to common sexual violence against men in conflict zones also lends itself to pointing out that many women inflict sexual violence themselves.


• Progressive Download's John Farrell notes a prominent Southern Baptist leader's statement that opposing same-sex marriage is going to look as bad as opposing interracial marriage and points out that the leader's distaste for science that doesn't back him up isn't going to help.


• At The Search, Douglas Todd introduces his readers to the interesting former Roman Catholic bishop of Victoria Remi de Roo, known for his theological iconoclasm.


• Torontoist points out that the downtown Urban Affairs Library was closed down by the Toronto Public Library service only because it had to be.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little engages critically with the myth that mass education engenders social mobility, pointing out that it can as readily reproduce existing social networks as creating new ones.