Howard French worries that American misperceptions of the situation in Africa are giving the Chinese a big advantage:
I have spent the last few years working on a book about China’s relationship with the continent, and could not have been more struck by the differences in attitude in the United States and China toward Africa. More than a million Chinese have moved to Africa in the last decade, largely because they see the continent as an arena of almost limitless opportunity. … Americans, meanwhile, despite their far deeper historical associations with the continent, including 13 percent of the population that traces its ancestry to Africa, cling to deeply engrained attitudes toward this part of the world, as a place of war, of misery, of strife, etc.
He lays the blame primarily on the press:
[T]he American media are long overdue for a re-set in terms of the ways they habitually frame African coverage. This should start with a repudiation of the way that African events are denied specificity. Things are routinely said to take place “in Africa,” or “across Africa” instead of in actual countries or places with real names. The eternal pretext is to “make it easier” for the reader, who can’t be bothered with too many unfamiliar names. This kind of factual looseness, though, is not practiced toward any other part of the world, and bespeaks a casual and persistent ghettoization of Africa.
Another example of this is the fact that virtually no American news organization offers business coverage of Africa. Return on investment in Africa is among the highest in the world. Trade with each region of the continent is booming. And recently, big U.S. companies like Walmart, IBM and Google, to name the most prominent examples, have been expanding their presence in Africa. But because the media speaks mainly in terms of conflict and aid, the general public has no perception of the growing opportunities on the continent, unlike the large numbers of Chinese newcomers.
(Photo: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang speaks with Zambia’s President Michael Sata during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on April 10, 2013. By Yoshsuke Mizuno – Pool/Getty Images)
Now that the “maker movement” of 3-D printers and laser cutters is in full swing, Clive Thompson wants to see a “fixer movement” catch up:
In the 20th century, U.S. firms aggressively promoted planned obsolescence, designing things to break. Buying new was our patriotic duty: “We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace,” marketer Victor Lebow wrote in 1955. … Today e-waste has become one of the fastest-growing categories of refuse. We chucked out 2.4 million tons of it in 2010 and recycled just 27 percent. And “recycling” often means shipping electronics overseas, where the toxic parts pollute developing countries. It’s a mess. A fixer movement could break this century-old system. …
[T]he ecosytem for fixing has never been better. YouTube has plenty of how-to-fix-it videos; sites like iFixit sell parts and post repair guides for tech new and old. Better yet, the advent of cheap 3-D printers makes new types of repairs possible. In Chicago, Ally Brisbin runs a repair night at her cafè9 and says, “My boyfriend brings in his MakerBot, so if you need a part he can print it.”
Alan Jacobs has also noticed the decline in repair that followed the tech boom:
Thompson focuses on repairing and restoring electronics, especially computers — but he begins by talking about a toaster oven. Maybe that’s where we should start, those of us who’d like to be better fixers: with mechanical things, machines that are electrically simple — or barely electrical at all, like lawn mowers. But as Thompson notes, to do any of this is to work against the grain of modern manufacturing culture. Consider what the electronification of automobile engines has done to the great American tradition of tinkering under the hood. Repair has become unAmerican.
Brazilian readers continue to inform us on the situation as good as any blogger:
I live in Sao Paulo and here are some photos I took last night. One thing of note for your readers is that, as usual, the media is focusing on the violence of the protests. The vast, vast majority of the protesters are not violent at all. In fact, a common chant of the protesters is “Sem Violencia,” or without violence. Take a look at the photo that says “Violência é a tarifa” (violence is the fare). Reuters cropped the photo so it only showed the word “Violência,” and then selected largely photos of protesters doing mischief and burning things. Oh well, confirming our ideas about “dangerous Latin America” always sells ad space. Never mind trying to figure out what a place like Brazil is really about.
The protests are more than just calling for a 9 cents (US) fare reduction. Brazil has a lot of very serious problems that need to be addressed. But at times during the protests I have been to, I don’t know … while I’m delighted to see everyone out on the streets (especially on Mondaynight), I couldn’t shake the feeling of worry. Where’s the plan? You can’t just hold up a sign that says “End corruption.” Who wants corruption? Who doesn’t want better schools? The call for reducing the transport fares is a good start, I suppose, but 9 cents does not really fix the problem. What about the fact that the system needs to be expanded further?
I guess I am worried that the government will cave on this fare hike and then say, nope, sorry no money to improve schools. No money to improve health care. Of course, this response is ridiculous, as they have plenty of money. It’s just being directed into the politicians’ pockets.
Another:
I may be biased, but this reader is uninformed. They’re right that Dilma herself is not the issue here. Where they’re wrong is that this is just people feeling the economic squeeze. Things have not gotten that bad here economically, at least not yet. And they definitely haven’t tanked on the level that Argentina has recently. No, the point is corruption. The point is that it doesn’t seem to matter who the president is because nothing ever gets done.
There are two long-term problems here that are inspiring most of this.
The first is that despite being the world’s sixth largest economy, and having higher tax rates than most of the developed world, the money simply seems to disappear. Brazil has famously received tons of money to build stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup next year. The Brazilian government proudly announced renovations of Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro – the largest stadium in the world – as well as plans to build state-of-the-art new stadiums for the event. It’s since been announced that most of these projects will be NOT ready in time. And not only will they not even be ready on time, but the metro line extensions, the highway expansions, and all of the other promised infrastructure to relieve up to four hours of commuting some Brazilians suffer through each day – none of it is getting done any time soon.
Some Brazilian publications have dug into these projects and found – you guessed it – insanely errant spending. Invoices for 500 new gates for a stadium that only needs ten. Paying tens of thousands of Reais for bathroom mirrors that should only cost a few hundred. Somewhere along the way, a lot of money is ending up in someone’s pocket.
The second ongoing issue here is the cash-for-votes corruption that went on under the previous administration, or as it’s called here, mensalão. Back in December, 25 high-ranking politicians and government officials were found guilty by the supreme court of money-laundering, fraud, and using government funds inappropriately.
Well, of course, these 25 officials aren’t actually serving any time. In fact, the government is pushing through PEC 37, a notorious bill that basically removes all investigative powers of the district attorneys and puts it in the hands of the Federal Policia, who are famously corrupt here. This is akin to Nixon getting caught for Watergate and instead of resigning, pushing through a constitutional amendment to remove the impeaching powers of Congress.
As for Bolsa Familia, yes, it has raised many people out of poverty here. But it’s by no means universally celebrated. In fact, in my time here it’s the most contentious and divisive political issue I’ve heard Brazilians speak of. As a gringo, I don’t pretend to come down on one side or the other. Some say it saved millions of lives. Other say that it’s free money to poor people for not working and is pulling the economy down. From what I can tell, it’s probably done a lot of good but it’s not sustainable and is causing as many economic problems as it solves.
Look, I’m no economist, but tell me if this makes any sense. You have a country with a massive poor and unemployed population. You also have a country with a terrible lack of infrastructure. What is the OBVIOUS SOLUTION HERE? Pay the poor people to build the infrastructure. Ta-da! You now have a thriving and functioning economy. Yet, the government gives money to the poor people whether they work or not, they tax the middle class to high heaven and pocket tons of the money while providing no new infrastructure. You would be pissed too.
And finally, for the record, let’s not all trip over each other talking about how important football/the World Cup is for Brazilian pride. Brazilians have known this was going to be a disaster since Day One. I arrived here a year and a half ago, have been all over the country, and everywhere I go, every Brazilian has told me this was a disaster waiting to happen. I’ve honestly met more Brazilians who are considering leaving the country for the World Cup than ones who are going to try to go. They knew this was coming. All of them. From my girlfriend’s CEO all the way down to the janitor at my gym, they all knew this was going to happen, just perhaps not this soon or not on such a scale.
There were more protests in Rio and São Paulo [on Tuesday] night. Monday’s was very peaceful here in São Paulo, but last night the police came out and started exploding tear gas to disperse everyone. There’s another big protest scheduled for Saturday that looks to draw 100k+ here in SP again. I imagine there will be a lot more between now and then as well.
By the way, here is a beautiful video a professional photographer made of the events in Rio:
Elijah Solomon Hurwitz talks with drone pilots about the monotony of their work:
Though strikes on suspected terrorists and the resultingcivilian casualties get the headlines, the lion’s share of remote piloting consists of quieter, more shadowy work: hour after hour of ISR—intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Sitting in ergonomic chairs in ground control stations—essentially souped-up shipping containers—RPA operators coordinate with ground intel to identify human targets, then track them with high-powered zoom lenses and sophisticated sensors. (A nine-camera sensor nicknamed Gorgon Stare is capable of streaming full video with enough resolution to discern facial expressions.)
“It might be little things like a group of kids throwing rocks at goats, or at each other, or an old man startled by a barking dog,” says Mike. “You get a sense of daily life. I’ve been on the same shift for a month and you learn the patterns. Like, I’ll know at 5 a.m. this guy is gonna go outside and take a shit. I’ve seen a lot of dudes take shits.”
Sascha-Dominik Bachmann considers the moral aspects of drone warfare:
Keith Shurtleff, the US Army Chaplain and military ethics teacher, aptly summarized this concern “that as war becomes safer and easier, as soldiers are removed from the horrors of war and see the enemy not as humans but as blips on a screen, there is very real danger of losing the deterrent that such horrors provide.”
At lunch with my closest high school friend today, Larkin’s poetry came up. He’s not a chap prone to strong emotion and yet he told me the poems had such an emotional effect on him he couldn’t even drive near Chichester without welling up in tears at the very thought of “An Arundel Tomb“. His father, on the other hand, brushed Larkin off as rubbish for the longest time until the poet’s last poem was published – after a long period of silence – and he accidentally read it. It was Aubade. His father was stunned. “That’s how I feel every morning,” he said.
The most popular post of the day was about whether Millennial voters give a damn about PRISM. The second most popular was a dissection of the most horrifying piece of crap written by a politician since … well probably last week, but still. The most popular post of the last three months remains my screed against one of Peggy Noonan’s columns.
Michael O’Loughlin tours DePaul, the nation’s largest Catholic university and the first to offer a minor in gay and lesbian studies:
Part of the reason in creating the minor was to explore challenging subjects in an academic setting, explained the Rev. James Halstead, the chair of DePaul’s religious studies department. A priest for more than 36 years, Halstead said that the president’s office asked that the minor include a religious, philosophical, or ethical component.
Halstead believes that Catholic universities are precisely the places where great moral questions should be debated. “The obligation of a teacher is to maintain a classroom ethos and atmosphere in which all points of views can be respectfully heard,” he said. Students may dismiss the bishops’ teaching on homosexuality as erroneous, but his job as a professor, he said, involves offering an explanation of texts, not indoctrinating his students.
When I asked what he thought about the critics who questioned DePaul’s Catholic identity because of the minor and various LGBT student groups, Halstead lamented …. “To measure the Catholic identity of a university by asking if it has a LGBT program or not, Jesus, help us all. Do people really think that’s at the heart of Catholic Christianity? To me, it’s just not.”
Instead, he wishes that Catholic schools were judged on how well students answer the “deep questions” such as where they come from and what it means to be human, all in the search for truth. “Truth really is a process of emerging, in goodness and beauty, friendship and love,” he said. “Rational people can figure this stuff out. Reason, enriched by faith, is going to reveal truth.”
O’Loughlin also gets a great quote from another Catholic academic and priest, Paul Crowley:
What the world really needs to hear, and what we so deeply need to hear, is a message of loving mercy and inclusion, rather than judgment. The language of “objective disorder” has proved to be very problematic, to say the least. On one level, all that LGBT people in the Catholic Church are asking for is an affirmation of who they are as human beings, people whom God loves. If you say anything like this in church, people come up to you and say, ‘Thank you Father for being so courageous!’ Well, it’s not courageous, it’s just the Gospel!
I remember going to Notre Dame for the first ever talk there about homosexuality in its history.
The LGBT group was not allowed to put up posters or publicly advertize the event, and when they did, the group was abolished by the faculty. A broader student body had to sponsor the talk. But it was one of the more riveting evenings of my life: the auditorium so full they had to add another one with a video feed. I spoke about natural law arguments about homosexuality and based my critique on agreement with that church doctrine arguendo. The place jumped at the chance to discuss this; a couple of priests even came out in the question-and-answer session. No one was uncivil; no one was attacking the church. I felt and feel I am defending the church when I point out that its doctrines on homosexuality make no sense on their own terms or are uniquely designed to target one group in society in ways the church would never do with any other. We have ceased to be Christians on this issue. Or rather stopped believing in the core notion best summed up by: “In essential things, unity. In doubtful things, liberty. In all things, charity.”
I believe in dialogue – not yelling – on this. And one of the greatest injuries inflicted on the church by the last Pope was his shutting down of even any discourse on the subject – and several others. The most intellectual of Popes enforced anti-intellectualism with a relentlessness that bordered on hysteria. I hope that’s over now – because reason can help faith and can bring the whole church family closer together. And that combination – of faith and reason – is what keeps Catholicism alive.
A white lion roars in a cage at a house where more than 200 live wild animals including 14 white lions were discovered last week, on the outskirts of Bangkok on June 19, 2013. Police said the lions were believed to have been brought into the country using permits for sales to zoos, but instead offered to private buyers. Thailand has a reputation as a hub of international wildlife smuggling to feed strong demand in Asia for unusual pets and traditional medicines made from animal parts. By Christophe Archambault/AFP/Getty Images.
Eric Morath calls attention to the first time that the medical cost index has posted a monthly decline since 1975:
The effects of the federal health care overhaul — the Affordable Care Act that passed in 2010 —and constrained government payments to doctors and hospitals seems to be trickling down to consumers, both those directly purchasing insurance plans and those buying drugs and treatments. “The slowing of healthcare inflation right now seems to be driven by onset of new policies,” said Alec Phillips, a Goldman Sachs economist who follows health care trends. “That is probably going to be a temporary factor.” In the coming year, the next phase of the health care overhaul will expand coverage and increase subsidy payments and could, in turn, push medical costs back up, Mr. Phillips said.
[M]edical inflation has been outrunning overall inflation by about 1.5 percentage points ever since the 1950s, and, roughly speaking, that’s still the case. There’s been a bit of a slowdown over the past decade, but only a bit.
Laurie McGinley examines a report that “concludes that if present trends continue Medicare savings will be $1 trillion more in the next 10 years than the savings projected by the Congressional Budget Office in May”:
The changes, Al Dobson said in an interview, are the result of marketplace pressures and the Affordable Care Act, which set new penalties for hospital readmissions, and included bundled payments and other incentives for hospitals and doctors to find ways to cut costs without hurting patients.
But why assume present trends will continue? For one thing, won’t the aging of the Baby Boomers drive up Medicare spending? The answer Dobson argues, is counter-intuitive: At least for the next several years, Baby Boomers will be the youngest people on Medicare, a positive trend, cost-wise. That gives the nation a “respite,” he contends, to figure out how to handle needed entitlements changes. “We have 10 years to figure this baby out,” he says. “If we don’t, it could be pretty messy.”
Tim Fernholz, meanwhile, profiles a firm that thinks keeping healthcare costs in check could be as simple as a little more transparency:
Castlight [is] a big data firm that launched a service to help big employers, from companies like Safeway to the state of Indiana, cut health insurance costs. Castlight uses each employer’s historical data on insurance claims and payments to develop price and quality comparisons for local health-care providers, from physicians to pharmacists. That data is provided to people on the insurance plan, who use web and mobile apps to find the best combination of cost and quality for their needs. That can mean big savings if the cost of a procedure like a colonoscopy varies by as much as a factor of seven. Right now, 4 million people use Castlight’s service, and the company is set to grow. But it can do better, according to its CEO and co-founder, Dr. Giovanni Colella, if it gets more data from the government.
“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail,
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?
Will you, wo’n’t you, will you, wo’n’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, wo’n’t you, will you, wo’n’t you, wo’n’t you join the dance?
“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”
But the snail replied, “Too far, too far!”, and gave a look askance—
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied.
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France.
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, wo’n’t you, will you, wo’n’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, wo’n’t you, will you, wo’n’t you, wo’n’t you join the dance?”
Richard Restak describes how the brain processes jokes:
All humor involves playing with what linguists call scripts (also referred to as frames). Basically, scripts are hypotheses about the world and how it works based on our previous life experiences. Consider what happens when a friend suggests meeting at a restaurant. Instantaneously our brains configure a scenario involving waiters or waitresses, menus, a sequence of eatables set out in order from appetizer to dessert, followed by a bill and the computation of a tip. This process, highly compressed and applicable to almost any kind of restaurant, works largely outside conscious awareness. And because our scripts are so generalized and compressed, we tend to make unwarranted assumptions based on them. Humor takes advantage of this tendency.
Consider, for example, almost any joke from stand-up comedian Steven Wright, known for his ironic, deadpan delivery:
—I saw a bank that said “24 Hour Banking,” but I didn’t have that much time.
—I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included. So I had to buy them again.
—I washed a sock. Then I put it in the dryer. When I took it out it was gone.
—I went into a store and asked the clerk if there was anything I could put under my coasters. He asked why I wanted to do that. I told him I wanted to make sure my coasters weren’t scratching my table.
In each of these examples, everyday activities are given a different spin by forcing the listener to modify standard scripts about them. Indeed, the process of reacting to and appreciating humor begins with the activation of a script in the brain’s temporal lobes. It is the brain’s frontal lobes that make sense of the discrepancy between the script and the situation described by the joke or illustrated by the cartoon.
This ability is unique to our species. Though apes can engage in play and tease each other by initiating false alarm calls accompanied by laughter, they cannot shift back and forth between multiple mental interpretations of a situation. Only we can do this because—thanks to the larger size of our frontal lobes compared with other species—we are the only creatures that possess a highly evolved working memory, which by creating and storing scripts allows us to appreciate sophisticated and subtle forms of humor. Neuroscientists often compare working memory to mental juggling. To appreciate a cartoon or a joke, you have to keep in mind at least two possible scenarios: your initial assumptions, created and stored over a lifetime in the temporal lobes, along with the alternative explanations that are worked out with the aid of the frontal lobes.
Speaking of standup, Patton Oswalt reflected recently on some of its most contentious aspects:
The comedians I’ve known who joke about rape—and genocide, racism, serial killers, drug addiction, and everything else in the Dark Subjects Suitcase—tend to be, internally and in action, anti-violence, anti-bigotry, and decidedly anti-rape. It’s their way—at least, it’s definitely my way—of dealing with the fact that all of this shittiness exists in the world. It’s one of the ways I try to reduce the power and horror those subjects hold for me. And since I’ve been a comedian longer than any of the people who blogged or wrote essays or argued about this, I was secure in thinking my point of view was right. That “rape culture” was an illusion, that the examples of comedians telling “rape jokes” in which the victim was the punchline were exceptions that proved the rule. I’venever wanted to rape anyone. No one I know has ever expressed a desireto rape anyone. My viewpoint must be right. Right?
I had that same knee-jerk reaction when the whole Daniel Tosh incident went down. Again, only looking at it from my experience. And my experience, as a comedian, made me instantly defend him. I still do, up to a point. Here’s why: He was at an open mic. Trying out a new joke. A joke about rape. A horrible subject but, like with all horrible subjects, the first thing a comedian will subconsciously think is, “Does a funny approach exist with which to approach this topic?” He tried, and it didn’t go well. I’ve done the same thing, with all sorts of topics. Can I examine something that horrifies me and reduce the horror of it with humor? It’s a foolish reflex and all comedians have it.
Who doesn’t want better schools? The call for reducing the transport fares is a good start, I suppose, but 9 cents does not really fix the problem. What about the fact that the system needs to be expanded further?
