It’s the weekend, so chew on these links:

• From the Favelas.
• The Making of a Mole on the US-Mexico Border.
• How College Classes Encourage Cheating.
• Time for a Bechdel Test for African Characters? On Newsroom‘s Africa Episode.
• A List of Things That Teenage Girls Have Done.
• America’s Misbehaving Prosecutors and the System That Protects Them.
• On Civil Forfeiture.
• The Hot New Silicon Valley Destination: African Charity Camp.
• David Graeber, “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs”:

How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way … to ensure that rage is directly precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems to be a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish…

• The Growing Anger of the Merely, Barely Middle Class.
• Unpaid Interns Aren’t Protected Against Sexual Harassment.
• The Myth of “Opting Out.“
• Power, Mickey Mouse, and the Infantilization of Women.
• Reality Pawns: The New Money TV.
• The Magical World Where McDonald’s Pays $15/Hour? Australia.
• Fifteen Years After the Nairobi Bombing; How We All Became Children of Terrorism.
• Face It: Privacy is Dead.
• Africa’s Drinking Problem:

Africa has a drinking problem. It is the new darling of multinational beverage companies looking to drive profits in an increasingly booze-saturated world. The continent has the perfect emerging market conditions: a relatively small amount of commercial alcohol is being consumed; there is a rising middle class with disposable income; a huge market of young people is about to come of age; and there is an informal “moonshine” sector, up to 4 times the size of the commercial market, that governments would like to control.

But Africa is in no shape to cope with an influx of alcohol. Primary healthcare providers aren’t equipped to deal with the health effects. There is little or no recourse for irresponsible acts like driving while intoxicated. Chronic corruption means every new control measure is an opportunity for police to solicit bribes. While average per capita consumption figures (excluding South Africa) are very low, Africa has the highest proportion of binge drinkers in the world: 25% of those who drink, drink too much, according to the World Health Organization. Beverage companies dismiss that figure as poorly-sourced, and certainly the problem is under-researched.

• At Swarthmore and Other Colleges, Sexual Assault is a Persistent and Often Mishandled Problem.
• WalMart Doesn’t Create Jobs.
• The District on Cape Town’s Fringe.
• On Housesitting.
• What’s the Matter with Indiana?
• How We Lost Yemen.
• Everything You Know About Immigration is Wrong:

According to Massey, the rise of America’s large undocumented population is a direct result of the militarization of the border. While undocumented workers once traveled back and forth from Mexico with relative ease, after the border was garrisoned, immigrants from Mexico crossed the border and stayed.

“Migrants quite rationally responded to the increased costs and risks by minimizing the number of times they crossed the border,” Massey wrote in his 2007 paper “Understanding America’s Immigration ‘Crisis.’” “But they achieved this goal not by remaining in Mexico and abandoning their intention to migrate to the U.S., but by hunkering down and staying once they had run the gauntlet at the border and made it to their final destination.”

The data support Massey’s thesis: In 1980, 46 percent of undocumented Mexican migrants returned to Mexico within 12 months. By 2007, that was down to 7 percent. As a result, the permanent undocumented population exploded.