What the world is reading

“Four years ago this week,a young and inspirational senator who promised to turn history’s page swept the Iowa caucuses and began his irresistible rise to the White House,” writes E J Donnie Jr about Barack Obama. As attention is now focussed on contests in Iowa and New Hampshire that will help determine which Republican will face Obama in November’s presidential polls,Donnie assesses the year ahead for Obama,who must seek re-election. Donnie says Obama’s biggest problem is not the daunting list of difficulties,like the continuing sluggishness of the economy,the vitiated political culture of Washington,the anxiety over America’s future power and prosperity—most Americans still believe that Obama inherited rather than caused the economic turmoil. But he warns,“A president who won election with 52.9 per cent of the vote does not have a lot of margin. He needs to worry not just about issues but also about the spirit and morale of his supporters.”

The Guardian

Sexism in the tabloid press

Laurie Penny begins by giving the example of Charlotte Church,labelled by the tabloids as a child star with the “voice of an angel” who became a “fallen angel”. She then suggests that sexism is so consistent a feature of the culture of media in Britain that it has become easy to overlook,like the whine of an alarm that has sounded for so long you’ve learned to ignore it. But,according to Penny,in recent years,feminist groups have taken issue with symptoms of this sickness,from campaigns against the digital airbrushing of already skeletal fashion models,to trying to get tabloid journalists to stop writing reports that place the blame for rape squarely on the victim’s attitude,skirt length or Facebook profile. “Sexism is the dirty oil in the engine,the juice that makes the whole shuddering sleaze-machine run smoothly. The eyes that are drawn to the topless teenager on page three skim lightly over page two,where propagandists on the Murdoch dollar peddle torrid justifications for the waging of wars and the slashing of public sector jobs and call it news,” she concludes.

The Daily Beast

Celebrity gossip is making us stupid

“Bread and circuses were what Romans leaders used to subdue citizens for hundreds of years before their civilisation’s fall. We have celebrity gossip,” begins John Avlon. And it’s making us stupid,argues Avlon. The problem is not with the entertainment industry but with the parasitic industries that pop up around it,especially reality TV,which offers the promise of fame without the bother of talent or hard work.

The Guardian

A guide to the buzzwords of 2011

The year 2011 was a hectic one,says Charlie Brooker,so hectic it required its own language. Phrases such as “Lulzsec”,“phone hacking” and “Wendi Deng” suddenly became common currency. Want a handy cut-out-and-keep handbook explaining what all this stuff means? There’s Brooker. He defines the term “Sock Puppet” as internet sock puppets,i.e.,people pretending to be someone else on the internet,like the inspirational Syrian lesbian blogger,Amina Arraf,who is a 40-year-old student from the University of Edinburgh. Brooker defines “Arab Spring” as furious Arabs marching in the streets against the despised dictatorial leaders. Brooker also defines “Higgs Boson” and concludes by defining the Brooker Gap,“the mysterious phenomenon by which I shift from ignorance to enlightenment,and then back to ignorance.”