4. After this, they were each given a bronze ticket with their name and village (deme) on it. The best-preserved ones are from graves - the Athenians took their jury service deathly seriously. #justtheticket

5. Jurors hoping to get assigned to a case would turn up at the courts in the morning. Their tickets would be inserted into the slots of an allotment machine and marbles would be fed into a tube down the side. If a white marble came out for your row, you were in. #marbles

6. But wait! After this you needed to be randomly assigned to a court by picking an acorn with a letter on it out of basket. When you went into the courts a slave handed you a coloured staff, and you went to the court with the same colour over the entrance. #acorns

🚨 Scathing report from the SADC observation mission on the Tanzanian elections, mentions "police firing arms" on election day. "A very low voter turnout in all polling stations observed. Some polling centres did not have voters at all", far from the official 31M voters announced

Interesting response from VUW to my OIA request into the decision to disestablish my position. First they extend the response period by a further 25 working days on the last day possible. Then they withhold a great deal of information about the decision on various grounds.

A spreadsheet detailing VUW's calculations about various programmes' financial contributions, student numbers, and reputation/impact was withheld by them on the basis that

releasing it might undermine individuals' privacy, that it might unreasonably prejudice their commercial position, and/or that it might undermine the 'free and frank expression of opinions' by public employees.

Obviously, VUW could simply have redacted any individuals' names. Sending us a file with info most of which was openly discussed at the university clearly wouldn't prejudice the uni's commercial position. And it's hard to see how it would hamper public employees' discussions!

Going to be very hard for Tanzania to clean up the stench. Now we get mentioned every time an African country kills its own people in an election. -Highlight from The Economist.

By the end of the 5th century BC, Athens was undoubtedly an imperial power. But the way the Athenian Empire developed was highly unusual if not unique. I explain in the latest post on my ‘Owl of Athena’ Substack: substack.com/home/post/p-17…

Michael A. Arouet amazon.co.uk/Making-Democra…

#BBCAfricaEye investigates the wave of enforced disappearances surrounding Tanzania’s 2025 presidential election – with claims of attempted silencing of government critics, powerful testimony of severe maltreatment...and the high-ranking official whose name kept coming up.

Andrea Vance says the continued use of X by politicians is a form of ‘tacit approval’ of the abuse material allegedly being made using Grok on the platform. That statement is as unhinged as it is stupid. She might want to first ask some questions about her own organisation

❌ Telegram has officially been blocked in Russia, the decision was made by Roskomnadzor 🔐 The blocking has already begun. 📈 Data from the Downdetector service shows that the number of user complaints about Telegram failures is growing. 📲 Main complaints: messages are not

We've talked a lot on this podcast about threats to free speech in the Anglosphere (esp. at universities), so this was a good chance to talk about the much worse suppression of speech that is ongoing in countries like Turkey

Forced consummation of marriages, a traditional practice on the Polynesian island of Tikopia (at least according to NZ anthropologist Raymond Firth, writing in 1936)

I enjoyed talking to James Kierstead on why the University of Sussex is challenging the Office for Students in court and what it could mean for the future of academic freedom in the UK. youtu.be/hPsqYw8IUTA?si…

Audio-only version of the podcast I did recently with Free Kiwis! on the Sussex vs OfS case: buzzsprout.com/1578358/episod…

Our foreign correspondent James Kierstead spoke to Abhishek Saha about Office for Students vs. University of Sussex, a case that's key to the future of academic freedom in the UK. youtube.com/watch?v=hPsqYw…

We sent this letter 10 months ago. Since then, instead of acknowledging mistakes, Sussex has chosen to litigate aggressively. That conduct is itself part of the lesson: universities cannot be trusted to self-regulate on protecting free speech and academic freedom.