Ever since medical doctors such as John D'Arcy first began to appear on television screens, be heard on radio and be quoted in the print commenting on social, economic and political aspects of Australian life it became apparent that medicalisation of the media and everyday life was well underway in Australia.

All behaviour commonly thought of as unacceptable (and even some behaviours previously falling within 'normal' ranges) quickly became defined as some form of deviance, psychopathology or physical illness. Nevermore so than when applied to those without a large measure of social or political power ie., children and the poor, which had previously only suffered under moral labels such as "lazy" and "bad".
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Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. (This one’s a bumper edition.) What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.

• Dear Hollywood, there’s this thing called sexual harassment

– “I’ve heard Hollywood wasn’t considered subject to those rules when it came to casting – you obviously can’t cast a Latina to play Abraham Lincoln. Fair enough, except almost every role was being written for a white man – roles that could just as easily have been written for Latinas if Hollywood weren’t so heavily invested in stereotypes.”

– “One of the things that’s been really exciting to me is that as the push to use transcripts and image descriptions has developed, networks of volunteers to handle transcription and image description have arisen.” Read more »

Government Overreach Edition – Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. What did I miss? Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.

• The Government campaign against researchers who dared question income management

– “efforts by Minister Macklin and colleagues to undermine a study from the Menzies School of Health Research that casts doubts on the benefits claimed for income management in NT Aboriginal communities.”

– “A recent legal case in Melbourne, combined with the increased likelihood of an Abbott prime ministership, has resurrected fears about young people’s medical privacy.”

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Why is it that people who belong to certain long-established religions want to rule the world?
Here they are - at it again. And don't be fooled by the picture or the plea.
What this European group is really after in the long-term is for all ISPs around the world to keep records of every website you visit, page you open and image you download - then hand info it over to government on demand.

Of course they're not the only ones busily trying to create easily identifiable cyber profiles where none existed before. Read more »