The good rule of thumb here is: 1) Most pre-modern complex agrarian societies had some form of slavery, often a range of forms of unfreedom and 2) These were almost invariably horrifyingly brutal.
Rachel Strohm
@rachelstrohm.bsky.social
👩💻Head of Strategic Initiatives @ Lead Exposure Elimination Project 📍London / Chicago / Nairobi 🌐 http://rachelstrohm.com
I think 'comparative atrocities' is not generally a useful game to play, but there is absolutely nothing about ancient Mediterranean slavery that softens it, except folks noting that poverty in antiquity was *also* so miserable as to reduce the delta in standard of living (also a strained argument).
This is worth amplifying (also this podcast is rad), that Roman slavery was, y'know, slavery. In fact, all slavery is horrifying, but the broader 'Mediterranean' slavery tradition (which is also, by the by, the ancestor of Atlantic slavery) is one of the *more extreme* such traditions.
Claire E. Aubin@ceaubin.com · last wk.Next time someone tries to tell you that Roman slavery was different or better than other forms of slavery, tell them to listen to last week’s episode of @thisguysucked.com and/or buy Emma’s book.
“Why is Sudan forgotten?” Is it really? Forgetting is unintentional, but neglect is a political choice. And neglect is what we see in #Sudan. Excellent opinion piece. We must do better: www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2026...
Three minutes on Sudan
Forgetting is unintentional, but neglect is a political choice. And neglect is what we see in Sudan.
thenewhumanitarian.org
Credit to the UK government when it works: we applied for our daughter's passport on Monday and it arrived at our house <48 hours later. Genuinely stunned at this!
wild way to frame one of the most aggressively anti-trans bathroom bans in the developed world
Equality and Human Rights Commission@equalityhumanright.bsky.social · 11h agoOur code of practice for services, public functions and associations comes into force today. It provides practical guidance on how the Equality Act 2010 applies to services, public functions and associations. Find out more: https://ow.ly/alIf50Zwrkx
🚨 BREAKING We are supporting a legal challenge to the Code of Practice. And we need your help. Join us in fighting back 👇
We’re supporting a legal challenge against the code of practice | Good Law Project
The government’s transphobic statutory guidance is now up and running – we’re fighting back
goodlaw.social
One reason why even a relatively small region like "West-Central Africa" cannot be considered a single Culture Area or Cultural Sphere is the sheer size of Africa Imagine a study of "Western culture" that includes everything from Portugal to Belarus to Turkey Yet that's just two African states
NEW: CBP is shopping for a contractor to track down people the US has deported to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala and collect unpaid immigration fines — debts that can top $1.8 million a person.
U.S. Border Patrol wants a contractor to track down deported people abroad and collect their immigration fines
The agency gave bidders three business days to compete for a first-of-its-kind contract to collect fines from people it has deported to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
projectsaltbox.com
“Weizman shows how Israel’s invasion of Gaza included an intentional, systematic plan of destroying the conditions for Palestinian life and rebuilding the land into something available for Israeli resettlement.” I review Eyal Weizman’s new book @foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com/2026/08/04/g...
The Architecture of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
A new book describes the destruction of Palestinian life street by street.
foreignpolicy.com
“Last year’s ceasefire allowed Israeli forces to retain control of 53% of Gaza initially, before eventually withdrawing. But Israel has instead expanded its control. Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed on Sunday that the Israeli-held area had reached 60% to 70%” www.reuters.com/world/middle...
After deadly day, Gazans say Trump's touting of plan jars with grim reality
Palestinians in Gaza said on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump's touting of a deal aimed at disarming Hamas and ending the war was out of touch with their worsening reality, after Israel killed...
reuters.com
Truly startling - across swathes of England and Wales, dozens weather stations recorded ZERO rainfall in July, for the first time in their history www.newscientist.com/article/2583...
Parts of the UK endure first ever month without any rain | New Scientist
For the first time since records began, there was no rain at all for parts of southern England and Wales in July, in a “truly exceptional” month of heat and sunshine
newscientist.com
Basically the height of caricature at this point: Israel is demanding that as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas, it be allowed to continue attacking Gaza.
Burnham's 'pragmatic' approach to North Sea oil hasn't come out of nowhere As @steveclimate.bsky.social & @bankfieldbecky.bsky.social recently showed: "narratives of 'pragmatism' are used by politicians to protect a fragile political consensus, to promote incremental rather than...
VA Gov. Abigail Spanberger just restored voting rights for 66,000 people (!!) with past felony convictions. In November, VA voters will decide whether to change this process so voting rights can be restored automatically, not up to the governor's discretion. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
Virginia Gov. Spanberger has restored voting rights for 66,000 people with past felony convictions
The volume presents a dramatic reversal of prior Gov. Glenn Youngkin's tenure, when he restored less than 10,000 voter's rights during his entire four-year term.
democracydocket.com
Cuba's national electric grid collapses, plunging island into darkness reut.rs/4fKWwgK
Cuba's national electric grid collapses, plunging island into darkness
Cuba's national electricity grid collapsed late on Sunday, the state-owned national electric utility said, plunging the island of about 10 million people into darkness as blackouts are becoming ever more frequent.
reut.rs
A Phoenix man from Egypt has spent the last three months confined in a decommissioned hotel in Equatorial Guinea, after ICE deported him there without warning. @tucson.com tucson.com/news/local/b...
Arizona man languishes in African hotel after third-country deportation
A 30-year-old man, Ahmed Soliman, is confined in a decommissioned hotel in Equatorial Guinea after being deported there by ICE without warning. He faces the threat of return to Egypt, where he may fac...
tucson.com
Really important new paper on lead: HALF of global exposure may be coming from FOOD www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
The Great Climate Insurance Collapse is beginning before our eyes. How does it happen? Gradually, and then all at once. Buckle up. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...
E&E News: Climate change is turning parts of Europe into an insurance nightmare
The European Central Bank and EU insurance regulators have called on Brussels to set up an EU-level reinsurance scheme and a public natural disaster fund.
subscriber.politicopro.com
From today, EU citizens have a legal right to know when they're talking to a bot or looking at a deepfake, backed by fines of up to €15m. Thanks to Brexit, we're missing out on this protection.
digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu
"Kew Gardens has had a weather station since 1871. This July was, based on third party analysis of Met Office data collected at the site, the first calendar month on record where no rainfall was measured at Kew."
London's first month without rain
Plus: There's nowhere to bury the dead • London wants to keep its money • When will it stop being so damn hot • Who is to blame for turning off the air conditioning in the tower block?
londoncentric.media
Target Practice | Fascinating read that completes and historicises what @972mag.com and others have already revealed
Target Practice | Sophia Goodfriend | The New York Review of Books
In April 2024 international news sources circulated a video of a talk delivered by a senior Israeli military official during a tech conference at Tel Aviv
nybooks.com
Ecuadorian prosecutor Alexandra Bravo was fatally shot on June 14 by a hitman. Bravo had been investigating U.S. strikes on three Ecuadorian boats in which 36 passengers survived, many of them recounting alleged torture by American gunmen in U.S. military uniforms aboard a U.S.-flagged patrol ship.
“Zero Accountability”: Ecuadorian Prosecutor Assassinated While Investigating U.S. Boat Strikes
U.S. boat strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed at least 221 people since September, while the Trump administration has provided no evidence linking the vessels or their passeng...
democracynow.org
This paper shows that immigration enforcement can _increase_ crime. Undocumented immigrants already have the lowest crime rate, but tough-on-immigration policy makes immigrants less likely to report crime. So immigration enforcement worsens the problem it was ostensibly meant to solve
The White Masks of Gabon: “Foreign” symbolism in Traditional African sculpture. www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-white-...
The White Masks of Gabon: “Foreign” symbolism in Traditional African sculpture.
Among the most refined works of African art are the distinctive white masks of southern Gabon in Central Africa.
africanhistoryextra.com
Cincinnati has developed a Climate Migration Readiness Plan to absorb as many as 525,000 newcomers by 2050. It calls for building much denser housing, expanding public transit and decreasing the city’s reliance on fossil fuels.
A City With a Plan (Gift Article)
Cincinnati wants to take in people fleeing climate disasters. Plus, the latest on fires in Europe.
nytimes.com
10-day average Hormuz-exiting oil flow has fallen below 3 MMbpd. That's down ~80% from late June's peak of more than 15 MMbpd. Feels silly to say five months into this, but that's not enough oil.
It's shocking that after less than 3 months this outbreak has grown bigger than an outbreak that ran for almost 2 years. A big part of the explanation is what researchers have uncovered about what happened in Mongbwalu in the months before the epidemic was declared: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪
EXCLUSIVE: Congo’s Ebola epidemic started at least 4 months before it was detected
A remote mining town gripped by fear saw hundreds of suspected cases before the government declared an outbreak, report says
science.org