Six of the Best 16

1. It's a good idea to try fighting an election if you fancy yourself as a bit of n political theorist. You have to articulate your ideas to other people and, if you get elected, grapple with a succession of problems that are not of your choosing. Mark Reckons gives his experience of fighting (and coming second in) a couple of by-elections in Bracknell.


2. Peter Black continues his admirable crusade against the cull of Badgers in North Pembrokeshire. "Following the public meeting in Newport, Pembrokeshire where I discovered that the Welsh Governemnt are funding extra police officers in the cull area for the five years that they will be shooting badgers I tabled a question seeking more information."


3. Good stuff from Brendan O'Neill on reason.com: "The weaponization of classical music speaks volumes about the British elite’s authoritarianism and cultural backwardness. They’re so desperate to control youth—but from a distance, without actually having to engage with them—that they will film their every move, fire high-pitched noises in their ears, shine lights in their eyes, and bombard them with Mozart. And they have so little faith in young people’s intellectual abilities, in their capacity and their willingness to engage with humanity’s highest forms of art, that they imagine Beethoven and Mozart and others will be repugnant to young ears. Of course, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."


4. Stump Lane has February's Carnival of the Liberals - a selection in the best of (largely American) Liberal blogging from the last month.


5. "Imagine you're a mega-rich Russian breeder with a brat to civilise - how could you fast-track it into an English public school such as Eton or Stowe for all the global advantages that money can buy?" Madame Arcati has the answer.


6. Random Blowe reviews Barbara Ehrenreich's Smile or Die - "Urging patients to ‘stay positive’ went far beyond usefully helping patients to cope with the stress of their illness. Instead it placed an expectation and additional burden on them to constantly monitor their emotions, based on a completely unscientific belief that survival itself hinges on ‘attitude’."