Tiny Tips (2011)

The Tiny Tips column from the May 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever wonder what $60,000 jeans feel like? You’ll never know. Because you didn’t buy that $60,000 pair of Levis 501s from 1890 — the most paid for a pair of jeans, ever. Here are the most expensive items ever sold — the record-setting car, baseball card, toy, and even tooth:

(Dead Link)

#    #    #    #

UK Uncut doesn’t have leaders, hierarchy, a PR firm or funders, yet in six months it has changed the face of British politics:

(Dead Link)

#    #    #    #

"The state that infamously hosted the Scopes Monkey Trial more than 85 years ago is at it again. Yesterday Tennessee’s General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill that would make it easier for public schools to teach creationism. The bill would require educators to “assist teachers to find effective ways to present the science curriculum as it addresses scientific controversies.”

It lists four “controversies” ripe for pedagogical tinkering: biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning. “This is part of a long held creationist strategy,” says Steven Newton, policy director for the National Center for Science Education. “By doing everything except mention the Bible, they are attacking evolution without the theology.”

(Link)

#    #    #    #

In a PPP poll released Thursday, a 46% plurality of registered Republican voters said they thought interracial marriage was not just wrong, but that it should be illegal. 40% said interracial marriage should be legal:

(Link)

#    #    #    #

A 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl, Hena, allegedly was ambushed when she went to an outdoor toilet, gagged, beaten and raped by an older man in her village (who was actually her cousin). They were caught by the wife of the alleged rapist, and the wife then beat Hena up. An imam at a local mosque issued a fatwa saying that Hena was guilty of adultery and must be punished, and a village makeshift court sentenced Hena to 100  lashes in a public whipping:

Her last words were protestations of innocence. An excellent CNN blog post, based on interviews with family members, says that the parents “had no choice but to mind the imam’s order. They watched as the whip broke the skin of their youngest child and she fell unconscious to the ground.” Hena collapsed after 70 lashes and was taken to the hospital. She died a week later, by some accounts because of internal bleeding and a general loss of blood. The doctors recorded her death as a suicide. (Women and girls who are raped are typically expected to commit suicide, to spare everyone the embarrassment of an honor crime)

(Dead Link)