no women applicants:

Josie Fraser notes the degree in game design at the University of Derby that received 102 applications – every last one from a man. She writes:

[I]t’s a national issue that needs to be addressed nationally, as well as consistently, starting with 5 year old kids. And we also need to address this constant type-casting of girls and women as interested in fundamentally different types of games than boys. The insistence that women only like nurturing, co-operative non-violent titles is an old chestnut that turns up again and again in these kind of articles and is probably more about reinforcing gender stereotypes than who actually plays what and when and why.

Hear hear.

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this does not surprise me, but it does interest me… not for the question of ‘why’ but for ‘why not’, not because i’m against anything, but i’m curious as to the construction of necessity in these arenas. given that some of the best people that i know in video game studies are women, why is it surprising that there are programs that have no women? i certainly wouldn’t go to the university of derby when i could go someplace more supportive.

The Observer | International | Soldier lifts lid on Camp Delta:

In an exclusive interview, Saar told The Observer that prisoners were physically assaulted by ’snatch squads’ and subjected to sexual interrogation techniques and that the Geneva Conventions were deliberately ignored by the US military. He also said that soldiers staged fake interrogations to impress visiting administration and military officials. Saar believes that the great majority of prisoners at Guantánamo have no terrorist links and little worthwhile intelligence information has emerged from the base despite its prominent role in America’s war on terror.

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it could be worse… how much worse depends on how low the current administration has set the bar… i’m not going to get a shovel and dig it out of the manure pile, that’s for sure.