The Joy of Six 1583

The New World warns that Rupert Lowe is coming for your parents: "Lowe’s success exemplifies how Facebook has weaponised the anxieties and concerns of millions of Britons to drive its increasingly older, isolated users into unreality."

"Monday’s judgment ... means that unless the client agrees to release the material, those private conversations are now beyond the regulator’s reach. This is particularly bad news for the SRA’s ongoing attempts to tackle SLAPPs, the abusive legal actions used by the rich and powerful to shut down scrutiny." Nathaniel Peutherer analyses a judicial ruling that threatens efforts to curb Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

"He has no visible tattoos, no shaven head, no black overcoat or jackboots. No hood, no Confederate flag and no Nazi images appear in the background as he sits in front of a screen for a recent Zoom interview. Instead, the soft-spoken Christian school teacher and pastor of ... sporting a neatly trimmed beard, was dressed in a charcoal suit and sat in front of a fish tank that seemed straight off the set of Pixar’s Finding Nemo. Then he began talking about Jews." Bob Smietana watches the rise of America's Jim Crow theobros.

Sarah Ward explains trauma-informed care in schools: "Strict zero-tolerance approaches to behaviour are not in line with the ethos of trauma-informed care and practice. It can encourage the interpretation of certain behaviour as defiance rather than distress."

"We also have another appearance by James Wentworth Day, who was quite appalling on the previous release and doesn't really add much beyond being a handy reactionary-for-hire to add 'balance', a broadcasting illusion we can now see in action 70 years ago." Discontinued Notes reviews a selection of TV programmes presented by Daniel Farson in the late 50s and early 60s that focuses on social change.

Katherine Alejandra Cross watches Network (1976). Are we all mad as hell now?

The Joy of Six 1553

Michael Savage reports that journalists are self-censoring their reporting on right-wing protests, Donald Trump's administration and trans issues because of growing concerns about their personal safety.

"The magazine’s extensive output about Islam emerges from a coherent ideological viewpoint. Muslims are invaders. They don’t belong in this country. They don’t share our values and they threaten our public spaces. Any civic engagement by Muslims in Britain is suspect and should be resisted." Peter Oborne itemises the Spectator's rabid Islamophobia.

 Alistair Jones on the reorganisation of local government in Leicestershire: "Rutland is deemed too small to be a cost-effective council (although, personally, I remain unconvinced). Similarly, although more contentiously, the population argument was likely to see some expansion of the Leicester City Council boundaries. The question was going to be: how far? And now we know. There will be a significantly enlarged city council, and the remainder of the county and Rutland will form a single unitary authority."

In the latest move to censor US school libraries, one district is considering getting rid of them altogether. Erin Reed reports from Clay County in Florida.

"Both detectives were created or at least popularized by women; both possessed a typically female kind of intelligence that was easy to miss or dismiss. But the women who made them lived entirely different relationships to ownership and credit, and those relationships come through in the characters themselves." As the early Miss Marple and Nancy Drew novels are entering the public domain, Ellen O’Connell Whittet asks what comes next for the characters.

Rob Bagchi recalls the Joe Mercer's short, sunny spell as England's caretaker manager in 1974: "He gave them a blueprint for renovation that was disastrously ignored when the caution and anxiety he had temporarily banished returned with a vengeance."