Raising the alarm on authoritarian rule c/o Life&Arts FT

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I can think for myself!  Yes.   But, are you allowed to think?	EVERYBODY         TO KENMURE STREET^
My Undesirable Friends: Part 1	Mr Nobody against Putin

^It's a bit more 'local' - I think!

 

My source: Nicolas Rapold, Raising the alarm on authoritarian rule. Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 28-29 March 2026, p.12.

Previously: 'power' : 'politics' : 'authoritarian'

Global cost of silencing science BMJ ...

Editorials

Global cost of silencing science

BMJ 2025; 390 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1370 (Published 10 July 2025)Cite this as: BMJ 2025;390:r1370

'Public trust in scientific integrity is eroded by the politicisation of institutions under Donald Trump’s US presidency. The implications extend far beyond American borders, striking at the core of how scientific knowledge is produced, disseminated, and trusted worldwide.

Recent directives seek to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, cut federal funding to critical health research agencies, and restrict references to gender, race, and climate science in official documentation. Scientific staff at federal agencies face mounting pressure to comply with politically motivated communication policies. Such institutional interference not only distorts scientific findings—it undermines the principles of transparency and editorial independence outlined in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations.1 As members of ICMJE we feel compelled to speak out.

The ICMJE underscores that “editors should preserve the integrity of the scientific record by critically evaluating manuscripts free from undue influence and without compromising scholarly values.”1 Yet, under the current administration, several US federal science agencies require pre-approval for external publications—a direct contravention of these editorial standards.2 This climate of control stifles open inquiry and discourages evidence based discourse, particularly when scientific conclusions diverge from political narratives.'
...

'Independent scientific communication is equally under threat. Increasing pressure on government researchers to avoid controversial topics or reframe findings to suit political narratives creates an institutional chilling effect. Self-censorship born of fear may be more damaging than overt censorship. Researchers, particularly early career scientists and those from under-represented backgrounds, may choose to abandon public communication or controversial areas of inquiry altogether. This trend further narrows the scope of scientific innovation, limits the range of perspectives reflected in research agendas, and ultimately harms health.'
...

'This is a call for science grounded in ethical principles and dedicated to the service of humanity. Scientific research, especially in medicine and public health, is inherently intertwined with social justice. Silencing DEI initiatives, censoring climate science, and delegitimising minority researchers is not neutrality—it is complicity in perpetuating harm.'
...

Footnotes

This article is being jointly published by The BMJ, Deutsches Ärtzeblatt, Journal of Korean Medical Science, Lancet, La Tunisie Médicale, Medwave, and New Zealand Medical Journal.

References

1. ↵
   International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Recommendations. 2025. https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
2. ↵
   Bush V. Science—the Endless Frontier. 75th anniversary edition. National Science Foundation, 1980. https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-04/EndlessFrontier75th_w.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.r1370

My source: https://x.com/bmj_latest/status/1944478436489134350

Theatre - the best way to learn ...

Pardon me, while I stay local - in Liverpool . . . 

I've always been interested in drama since school days (aged 13-14) and playing Francis Nurse in Arthur Miller's Crucible. Recent reading (inc. Theatre of the Absurd, The Shifting Point), see 'drama' - with more to follow) encouraged me to find out more. As a community mental health nurse on a visit, I've sometimes thought of this script being written as we engage with each other. Framed within  interpersonal skills and the society 'outside', there's a sense in which a screenplay is also writ large. 

The fact of whether the session is therapeutic, progressive, person-centred, structured, ethical, purposeful, has tea and custard creams ... is the drama of course.

In a way the creators of formal psychotherapies are playwrights - directors:

After all, they keep producing 'original' therapy manuals, don't they?

In the new year I noticed a community message about a theatre group Valley Theatre Group, planning a 'Living Newspaper' for a drama festival that took place last month. There is another performance next month in Liverpool, as per the edited message below:

People have been asking what’s going on and when for our Hope Street performances June 6-8^th. So here’s the details.

We start each evening with the play about a 1930s Socialist Theatre group, “Unity”. (Cast: Peter Merrill, Ted Grant, Steve Donegan, Meggan Pye, Day Sheehan and Donna Lauder)

Then, on Friday 6 June, in the second half, we have our first Living Newspaper. This is the one that has most of the sketches submitted by outside writers and developed at the workshops. Then on Saturday 7th, second half, we have the Leverhulme group (The one that won the award at the festival) with their Living Newspaper. Finally, on Sunday 8^th, in the second half, we have the last of the Living Newspapers, the one with slightly longer pieces like Scouse Man. This final one also has an original sketch from a 1930s Living Newspaper, the Munich Pact.

Tickets are on sale at the Hope Street Theatre website (link below) and from Ticket Quarter. Please come along and try to get other people along as well.  It'll be a good night's theatre! 

Thanks for all your support. The WTM team

Ticket link:  www.hopestreettheatre.com

Phone: 0344 561 0622

Patriot

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	Patriot by Alexei Navalny

Source: Various

'Slugfields Luxury Prison' c/o Isabel Rock - artist

"In November 2022, I spent a month on remand at HMP Bronzefield for my part in the Just Stop Oil protests on the M25. I was happy to go to prison for something I know is morally right. Drawing in prison became my saviour against the monotony. I rarely draw from life anymore, but we were given a little notebook in our 'welcome' bags of grey tracksuits, pastel pants and toothbrush." p.19.

"This drawing is Slugfields Luxury Prison, (152×120cm) the institutional blue doors, plastic chairs, toilet in the corner and the panoptican architecture mirror that of Bronzefields. It's not quite finished yet, but it's been a cathartic experience to draw some of my thoughts on prison life and incarceration by the state." Instagram (and image source).

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	Slugfields Luxury Prison, (152×120cm) by Isabel Rock

Rock, I., 'Drawn Behind Bars' PRINTMAKING TODAY, Autumn 2023, Cello Press Ltd. Volume 32, Issue 127, p.19-21.

With thanks to Isabel Rock.

Book: Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

'I' - 'Individual' 'self' 'person'
a Would-Be Citizen

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dyad/couple family GROUP community culture
society population

Let all the people go and be who they can be to the benefit of each other

Tahir Hamut Izgil, Joshua L. Freeman (Translator)

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night
A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide

My source:
Yang, Y. A city under siege, Books. Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 9-10 September 2023, p.11.

Book cover: Penguin Books.

Committing Ecocide to Hodges' model ...

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Psychological -  "Shock of the NewS" Anxiety Eco-anxiety - Climate anxiety Anti-natalism Polly

No planet B Where Might We Find Ecologically Intact Communities? How much of Earth's land is ecologically intact, in a pre-industrial and pristine state? The answer: 3% [Plumptre, et al.]. ECOCIDE NATURE ...

Higgins 'conscientious protector' civil disobience "Such a law would not only seek retribution and deterrence but also draw moral red lines." civil society

... CRIMES AGAINST Environmental activism GENOCIDE ECOCIDE - as law? "I will leave the last word to Polly Higgins, a barrister who gave up a career in corporate law to become one of the most effective backers for criminalising ecocide. As she wrote in 2013, 'For now, in law outside of wartime, it is not a crime to cause mass destruction or loss of ecosystems. Our world has normalised... ecocide'." p.24.

"Like laws for crimes against peace, an ecocide law would trace its roots to wartime atrocities, in this case the annihilation of forests in South-East Asia, first by the UK's Royal Air Force during the guerrilla war known as the Malayan Emergency and later by the US Air Force in the Vietnam war. In 1970, the destruction inspired Arthur Galston, a plant biologist at Yale University whose PhD had led to development of agent orange, to coin the word 'ecocide'." p.24.

Plumptre AJ, Baisero D, Belote RT, Vázquez-Domínguez E, Faurby S, Jȩdrzejewski W, Kiara H, Kühl H, Benítez-López A, Luna-Aranguré C, Voigt M, Wich S, Wint W, Gallego-Zamorano J and Boyd C (2021) Where Might We Find Ecologically Intact Communities? Front. For. Glob. Change 4:626635. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2021.626635

My sources:

Lawton, G. (2021) Crimes Against Nature, New Scientist, 250: 3333. p.24.

Obituaries. Polly Higgins. Register, The Times. May 2, 2019. p.53.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/polly-higgins-obituary-92z6zd3ps

See also:

Eradicating Ecocide (2010).

Earth is Our Business (2012).

C+nto

"The female body is a political space."

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My - MIND C+nto	My - Body
& Othered Poems Art / Arts :: [Counter] Culture Othered Minds :: Othered Bodies	C+anto

Joelle Taylor. C+nto & Othered Poems. Saqi Books. April 2021 Paperback 128pp 9781908906489

In health, education, in work: We are all - Four Loom Weavers

"The author Michael Morpurgo (War Horse, Private Peaceful) explores the ways in which folk songs have reflected timeless human experiences, both in the past and today. 

Michael Morpurgo

With help from singers, songwriters and other passionate experts, Michael admires the indelible stories within classic songs that deal with migration, war, protest and love. Over the four themed episodes, Michael considers the locations and historical contexts that gave rise to much-loved traditional songs, and finds out how the same topics are inspiring new folk songs in the 2020s.

In the second episode, Michael considers a song of protest: Four Loom Weaver. 

With Professor Lawrence Goldman, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Nancy Kerr, Karine Polwart, Nicola Kearey, Ian Carter, Blair Dunlop and Ashley Hutchings." BBC Radio 4

Michael Morpurgo's Folk Journeys

"Many Lancashire folk, can give personal testimony of relative having worked in such a role.

My maternal grandmother was a four loom cotton weaver until the mill, where she worked, in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, was closed and relocated to India in the 1920s approx. Mill workers worked their way up to four looms which were rented from the mill. Four was the maximum so my nan told me, so a four loom weaver was an indication of the level of attainment in the industry. So I think the title is probably correct and not a corruption of a poor loom weaver.

Will Lever, Malpas, Cheshire" Wikipedia

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Creative symbols ...

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!

"One group of protestors printed the Friedmann equation, which governs the expansion of the universe - the name sounds like the words "freed man". Another protestor held up an exclamation mark on a red background: the sign on WeChat when a message can't be delivered." p.23.

 

My source:
World, Evading censors. The creative symbols of dissent, The Guardian, 30 November 2022, p.23.

Image: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Astro/fried.html

Hodges' model as a template: blank 'paper'.

"Being Horizontal: Vulnerability, Interdependence and Resistance" c/o Confabulations

The title of this event last week struck a cord ...

For those who missed "Being Horizontal: Vulnerability, Interdependence and Resistance" last week - which touched on topics as diverse as austerity, invisibility, repetition and rhythm - a recording of the live event is available until 24th February: https://t.co/WnGFdmkMqF

— Confabulations (@con_fabulations) February 13, 2022

 

From the website with some additions:

 

"Being Horizontal: Vulnerability, Interdependence and Resistance"

  Self - INDIVIDUAL - Person

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Community - Group - Population

sleep* ('in dreams') (found) un-consciousness (beware - risk?) intent non-verbal psychoanalysis patient personal vulnerability	gravity collapse position - posture horizontal - vertical human body, form 3D mobility, movement above - below look up/down angle - inclination clinical positions 'other' positions - sex birth, rest, deceased reclined nude "recline -
The 'games that people play', especially those seeking / in power. social customs dance - history - culture social hierarchies	is often associated with feminised and/or racialised powerlessness." fallen soldier (civilian?) choice*: of position look up/down to "Deliberately assuming a horizontal position in front of others can also, as the complex works grouped in this project reveal, challenge, subvert, and politicise dynamics of vulnerability and power."

 

The vast majority of the global population ...

(epigenetics!) conception - infant - PERSON - child - adult - elder
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families - communities - GROUP - nations - international - planetary

Changing by the artist Alisa Singer
"As we witness our planet transforming around us we watch, listen, measure … respond."

anxiety mood distress	water crops land atmosphere weather oceans extreme heat
... already know it is - "CODE RED" for humanity	COP 26 Political leadership

 

My source: Various today. https://www.ipcc.ch/

Art: https://www.alisasingerart.com/galleries

Seeing red ... the colour of social progress and justice ...?

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	Toya Sarno Jordan / Reuters

Photograph: Toya Sarno Jordan / Reuters - Seeing red A member of a feminist collective paints the helmet of a riot police officer during a protest against gender and police violence in Mexico City. More than 1,000 Mexican women were murdered because of their gender last year, and there was also a rise in sexual harassment and assault by police.

World News, The Daily Telegraph [UK], 13 November 2020, p.17.

http://www.toyasarnojordan.com/

Photo: https://uk.reuters.com/news/picture/top-photos-of-the-day-idUKRTX898PP

c/o RCN: Nursing Emotions, Art and History

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My source: RCN as per main link.

Image original (please do see the original - which I have quartered here):
https://www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-events/blogs/emotions-and-the-art-of-nursing-stained-glass

I remember an article in an issue of 'Computer Arts' many years ago on creating stained glass images, the example included fish I think?

Anti-Dwelling Box (or Boxes?)

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HOUSING	HOUSING
HOUSING	Anti-Dwelling Box (1972) by Kiko Mozuna

"There are postmodernist houses and sci-fi houses - I particularly like Kiko Mozuna's bright yellow Anti-Dwelling Box (1972), in which nests of boxes sit inside each other like a surreal puzzle." p.13.

The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945: Barbican, March 23-June 25 2017.

My source:
Heathcote, E. (2017) The home reinvented, FT Weekend, House&Home, 18-19 March, pp.12-13.

Photo c/o: http://erinwilliamsondesign.com/design-crisis/the-antidwelling-box

Protest is multicontextual, multidisciplinary...

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei: NEVER SORRY

Ai Weiwei: Royal Academy

Image: © Ai Weiwei

Original image:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/laletracalma/15689985038/in/photostream/

Disobedient Objects

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personal ethics	objects
social justice

The Victoria and Albert Museum 26 July 2014 – 1 February 2015
Disobedient Objects:
From Suffragette teapots to protest robots, this exhibition is the first to examine the powerful role of objects in movements for social change. It demonstrates how political activism drives a wealth of design ingenuity and collective creativity that defy standard definitions of art and design.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibitions/disobedient-objects/

Image source: Inflatable cobblestone, action of Eclectic Electric Collective in cooperation with Enmedio collective during the General Strike in Barcelona 2012.
© Oriana Eliçabe/Enmedio.info