There are just 2 weeks left to get your ticket to the Autistic Mental Health Conference we are holding on August 16th! This conference will explore the mental health and wellbeing of Autistic people with a special focus on systemic issues that impact us. Here are some of the talks you will hear at the Autistic Mental Health Conference!
There are still three more talk titles to ge announced so watch this space! We will also be joined by: The conference will be introduced by Emma Dalmayne of Autistic Inclusive Meets We would love to see you in person, but you can also attend online! Your speakers will be:
I am really excited to have these fantastic speakers coming to join us and share a wealth of academic and lived experience with us. This really is a conference that can help anyone with an interest in Autistic people's lives and rights. Recordings will be available for all ticket holders after the event. Links to the online participation will be sent out via eventbrite 24-48 hours prior to the event. So, please don't miss out, come and join us for what could be one of the most interesting Autistic-led conferences of the year. You're currently a free subscriber to David Gray-Hammond. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Tuesday, 5 August 2025
Less Than 2 Weeks Left Until Autistic Mental Health Conference!
Monday, 4 August 2025
Israel has been starving Gaza since 2007, at least
Israel has been starving Gaza since 2007, at leastThe best way to defeat your enemies is to starve them, and their children
If you think the starvation of Gazans is a new evil, think again. It has been going on since at least 2007. That is when Hamas took control of Gaza. They won the elections of 2006, but then fought a short civil war against Fatah, a rival Palestinian political group. Do not for a moment think that Israel was an innocent bystander. Israel supported Hamas, as a counterfoil to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Israel also expressly approved Hamas receiving financial aid from Qatar. It saved Israel money. Now that Hamas was in power, Israel created a 1000km long security buffer zone, and instituted a tight blockade. Egypt joined them, by blockading the southern border. The buffer meant that 29% of Palestinian farmland was rendered useless, and any houses or villages, any schools or medical clinics, any civilian infrastructure, was destroyed and bulldozed. Any Palestinian entering the buffer zone was liable to be killed, on sight. This was the beginning of the starvation regime.The Israel Defence Force (IDF) then began enforcing a rule that anything which could be considered “dual use” was not permitted into Gaza. Dual use meant anything which could concievably be used in a civil, and or a military, way. This of course meant items like fertilizers, concrete, copper wiring, pipes. These were all important in managing and maintaining Gaza’s power system, which led to its eventual energy failures, to the point that cooking and refrigeration became non-functional. Food related essentials; part of the plan, I suggest. They also blocked canned food, on the basis that it had two possible uses. The dual use rule meant that 85% of materials for maintaining water infrastructure were restricted. 70% of water, sanitation and hygiene related materials were blocked. By 2019, four years before Hamas made its barbaric attack on Israel, 97% of Gaza’s fresh water was unsuitable for human consumption. Source: Think Global Health This has led to water contamination being the largest cause of infant mortality. Not the death of random adults, some of whom might be seen as a threat to Israel, but infants, dying from preventable diseases. My question is: If I know this, and the United Nations knows it, and anyone who cares to inquire knows it, and it is commonly known among Israel’s political class, why is it still happening? To infants? Having cut off fresh water, sanitation, devestated almost a third of the farmland within Gaza, where to for food? Israel has complete control of the mediterranean coast. In 2009, after another Israeli invasion into Gaza, Israel restricted fishing to 3 nautical miles from shore, which led to a 47% drop in the fish catch. They also use their dual use rule to restrict fishing, by only allowing the use of small marine motors, so the fishers are doubly restricted to waters close to shore. These waters are now over-fished, often contaminated with sewage, and unable to sustain human life. Before the outbreak of war in 2023, two thirds of Gazans were dependent on food aid. Within two months of the war beginning, by December 2023, Gazans made up 80% of people worldwide who were suffering “catastrophic hunger”. So this goes directly to the actions of the Netanyahu government, and the explicit orders of Yoav Gallant, the then Defence Minister, who instigated a “complete siege” of Gaza. He vowed he would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel. Gallant in name, cruel and vicious in nature. So the catastrophe continues. Governments worldwide condemn Israel’s policy of starving the Palestinians, and then do absolutely nothing about it. Many countries are still providing arms and or parts for the upkeep of Israel’s war machine, while the entire population slowly and agonisingly dies from hunger. Even the so-called ‘stable genius’ in the White House recognises starving children when he sees them. He seems to be stuck between wanting the people to be given food aid, while continuing to supply the ammunition for their murder as they queue for food. One day we will look back on this episode in history, and discover that we all failed them, because we did not recognise the seriousness of the crisis, and we did not ‘storm the barricades’ and force our governments to act. It feels that the political leaders of the present time have shown themselves to be totally lacking in decency and moral strength. We need to re-design the system, if this bunch is the best we can elect. After the crisis is resolved, with either many more deaths, or hopefully not too many more, Netanyahu and Gallant, Joe Biden, and the Hamas leaders have got to account for their actions. There is still a possibility that Trump, for whatever reason, might decide to demand a finish to the conflict. But if he doesn’t intervene, he should stand beside Biden, accused of idly standing by, while Israel engaged in an obvious genocide.
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Extractivist Enterprise and International Organizations, 1919-1989
Workshop and PublicationEuropean University Institute, Florence 24 April 2026 Organizers: Glenda Sluga (EUI), Alanna O’Malley (Erasmus University), Jayita Sarkar (Glasgow) Corporate actors have played a hidden yet highly influential role in shaping the global order, often securing their interests in international organizations, such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. Extractive industries, which focus on natural resources such as oil, gas, minerals, and metals, including rare earths, were the bedrock of capitalism in the long twentieth century. How did they exert their influence within, through and against international organizations? What tools did they adopt to attain their goals at global metropoles such as Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Geneva, New York, and Santiago? Who challenged their efforts and who supported them and how? What effects did formal decolonization have on the role of extractive enterprise in these global spaces? Businesses, banks, lobbyists, experts, advisors, activists, investors, engineers, geologists, cartographers and even mercenaries comprise the complex ecosystem of finance and mercantile capitalism that make up the world of extractive enterprise. Historically, these actors have at times worked hand in glove with international organizations, shaping policies and guiding investments in development programs, while at other moments, they have resisted or undermined the League or the UN’s efforts to regulate their activities. We regard the different and thus far often obscured ways in which corporate influence was wielded within, through and against the League and UN systems, particularly in the areas of economic development, state-building, and environmental degradation in recently decolonized areas, as an important and underexplored subject of inquiry in new histories of capitalism. This small workshop invites proposals for short papers (4,000-5,000 words with notes) on extractive industries and international organizations over the long twentieth century for publication in a forum. Papers that connect the nineteenth century to the 1970s and 1980s are encouraged. Papers that investigate the economic ideas that corporate actors introduced, the political agency they exerted and the structures that they established, which shaped the global economic and political order through the League and UN systems, are also particularly welcome. We are also interested in explorations of the landscape in which these actors were embedded, from boardrooms to mining markets, and of political effects on the development of post-colonial states and the processes of decolonisation. The workshop will be focused on sharing papers and developing the forum’s ideas. Participants will peer review each other’s work and will be offered a short time to defend their paper following organized comments from 2 designated reviewers. The intention is to produce a publication with a very short turnaround time. Paper proposals with abstracts are due by Monday, 6 October 2025. We aim to have a quick turnaround of acceptances, and contributors will be given the option to revise accepted abstracts by Monday, 1 December 2025. Full paper drafts will be due by Friday, 28 February 2026. Travel and accommodation funding is pending, with priority given to early career scholars. Applicants are encouraged to seek some contribution to these costs separately. Please send proposals to siobhan.smith@eui.eu You're currently a free subscriber to Organizational History Network. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Dear Reader, To read this week's post, click here: https://teachingtenets.wordpress.com/2025/07/02/aphorism-24-take-care-of-your-teach...
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A slightly unconventional guide to your first time ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ...
