Month: February 2014

Vaughan Bell highlights a study finding that “taking revenge is rare, but when it happens, it is not only remarkably unsatisfying but counter-productive in terms of dispelling the desire for retribution”:

Empirical research by Crombag, Rassin, and Horselenberg (2003) showed that most people do not actually take revenge but merely have thoughts, feelings, and fantasies about it (see also Crombag, 2003). … [T]he group of people who took revenge even after a period of time still struggled with more vengeful feelings than the people who did not take revenge. Although 58% experienced satisfaction and 16% experienced triumph, only 19% reported their vengeful feelings to be completely gone, compared with 40% of the people who did not take revenge.

This year, women’s ski jumping debuts as an official Olympic sport.  Tony Manfred notes that the “gender disparity that exists in some other sports doesn’t in exist ski jumping”:

Let’s use this season’s World Cup event in Lillehammer as an example. The men and women both jumped on the same hill on the same day in the same conditions. The men, on average, were slightly better than women in both the distance metric and the style metric. But the difference is so small as to make the two groups fairly comparable. In addition, several female jumpers outscored the majority of male jumpers. On average, the top-20 male finishers were only a little bit better than the top-20 female finishers. The men jumped 0.85 meters further, earned 2.35 more style points from the judges, and scored 6.18 more points than their female counterparts overall.

Ian Crouch suggests that such competitive male and female scoring could lead to more mixed-gender events at future Olympics:

Why shouldn’t there be mixed curling or bobsled teams? The Summer Games already have men and women competing against each other in the equestrian events; why not reintegrate some sailing events (which fielded mixed-gender teams until 1988, when women’s categories were added) or else add team golf, archery, or shooting? Such events would not only be fresh and entertaining spectacles but an expression of the “principle of equality of men and women” as demanded in the Olympic Charter.

Amanda Schaffer provides details on the rise of whooping cough in the US:

Early on, the whooping-cough vaccine was considered an unambiguous success story. Over time, though, scientists—as well as crusading vaccine skeptics—raised concerns about the shots’ side effects, which could include high fever and, occasionally, seizures. In the late nineteen-nineties, the U.S. switched to a new formulation, made not from dead, whole cells of bacteria (as the original had been) but from selected components of the bug that would trigger an immune response more safely. Unfortunately, though, the effectiveness of the updated vaccine waned far faster than the old version had, and faster than researchers had expected. This is probably the main reason that whooping cough has surged recently in older children: those who received the newer vaccine as babies became vulnerable again as the doses that they received between ages four and six, and the boosters that they received between eleven and twelve, wore off. (Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children undoubtedly make the problem worse.)

Higher levels of circulating disease, including among people who had received the shots, meant that the bacteria may have had, in essence, a chance to sniff around.

Previous Dish on the subject here, here, and here.

A reader with 20 years of development experience urges us to expand the terms of the debate:

The fact is, Bill Gates and William Easterly are both right – to a point. In health, aid has made enormous difference on many fronts, not least of all HIV. The rapid resurgence of drug-resistant TB is incredibly scary, and aid’s role is essential. That said, you can find lots of waste and programs that don’t improve things, at least for very long.

Still, the debate really misses the point. This is a rich time in the development world, where people are asking very hard questions about what works and doesn’t work, rather than merely defending aid money. There are, of course, the randomnistas using randomized controlled trials to test whether development projects have caused quantifiable change. And thinkers like Owen Barder are among many promoting complex, adaptive approaches to projects (based on the evolutionary idea that each community/organism succeeds by trial and error and making adaptations suitable for its circumstances) in reaction to linear, command-and-control,”best practices” (logframe) approaches of aid donors. Others are looking at whether just giving cash to poor people is effective, and under what circumstances. I‘m just scratching the surface, but the “Is aid good or bad?” debate is stale.

For the short documentary Pockets, director James Lees asked Londoners to reveal their cargo to the camera. Natalie Rose Obank praises the film’s style:

The sound edit … plays quite a nice part to the film. The music itself is quite light-hearted but noticeable. It creates an atmosphere for the audiences, just as to the setting of the work – where these people are, just out on a street. The background atmos track is plain and simple, this doesn’t distract the view from the main purpose of the film, which is what each person in the shot presents. In the edit, I noticed that throughout, the interviews don’t always show a full face, but focus on a particular feature of that person (if it’s important) sometimes it would jump cut from a standard documentary set up and then only show the side of a face. … [I]t almost gives the audience a surprise as the styles of shots change. It keeps the film interesting throughout and also promotes people’s individuality.

(Hat tip: Aeon Film)

Phoebe Day Danziger reflects on terminating a pregnancy because her unborn son had severe medical problems. She writes, “it was clear to me that what we were dealing with was choosing an end-of-life care plan for our son”: