The great difference between blood or organ donation and gamete donation is the fact that reproductive cells are linked to the sexuality of donors and recipients. The symbolic value of reproductive cells isn’t exactly the same for a kidney. Oocytes donation is not [medically] harmless. An oocyte is not only an object, but also a proof of love, of friendship that binds volunteer donor to a couple. A donation expects a counter-gift otherwise a debt remains. [pp 29sq]

The Faster Times is a collective of great journalists who have come together to try something new. As we launch this July, we will have more than a hundred correspondents in over 20 countries. We have someone on the ground in Kenya and someone else reporting from Lebanon. Our arts section will cover not just film and books, but also theater and dance and photography. We will launch with seven writers on books alone. These writers are not “citizen journalists” but among the most accomplished and recognized names in their respective fields.

severity of drug laws around the world have virtually no relation to the drug use of the population

Launched in 2008 by James Bridle, Bookkake is a technology-led publisher of transgressive literature. Using a revolutionary combination of print-on-demand technologies and the web as platform for direct distribution and conversation, Bookkake proved that it is possible for small publishers to operate globally and in direct competition with far larger operations, with extremely low start-up costs and overheads.

[Part 4] Curtis is revealing a basic truism about all documentary photography, perhaps all photography. Does it document what it claims to document? Dorothea Lange took multiple images of the “migrant mother.” She may have asked her to stand in a particular way. She may have asked her two children to hide their faces. [Lange’s account follows] //// The real complaint with the cow skull is not that it was moved. Who cares? It was that it was photographed, printed and published in such a way that encouraged the viewer to make unwarranted inferences. And they felt manipulated, tricked, deceived. [Part 5] People don’t disapprove of lying, they disapprove of ineffective lying. They disapprove of people caught lying.//// Photographs may be taken — but we are also taken in by them. [Part 7]