Tag: Premium

Maureen O’Connor questions the difficulties of long-distance relationships:

A Queen’s University study recently found relationship-­satisfaction levels for long-distance and “geographically close” couples to be virtually indistinguishable on nearly all measures, including sexual satisfaction. Oddly enough, digital communication may actually be more romantic than face-to-face interaction: A study from Cornell University found that confessions made via one-on-one web chat were consistently considered more intimate than identical confessions made in person. Call it the Manti Te’o phenomenon, the tendency some people have to ignore a campus full of suitable partners in favor of the one conjured digitally.

“In real dating, nobody waits,” my friend Holly observed, which means long-distance dating is “like all those sexy-time suburban-mom books about delaying sex for made-up reasons like vampire death so there can be sexual buildup.” Forbidden love is harder to come by than it once was; in the absence of blood feuds and imprisoned princesses, the doomed romances of our time are those conducted with lovers whose affections we imagine in the silence between text messages. The only stars that cross to keep modern lovers apart are those they willingly subject themselves to—like geography.

Helen Croydon, author of Screw the Fairytale: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Sex and Love, considers long-term relationships closer to home:

What, for example, is the obsession with living under the same roof?

In my last committed relationship the most common question I encountered was: “Do you have plans to move in together?” Why anyone would voluntarily give up a peaceful breakfast with John Humphrys, happily drinking anything in the fridge direct from the carton, and trade it for morning dramas of lost shirts and a daily telephone conference about meal-planning is something I can never understand.

There are now 3.5 million people over the age of 45 living alone in the UK, an increase of more than 50 percent since the mid-1990s. Domestic conveniences like vacuum cleaners, modern compact apartments and supermarket deliveries make it all very easy. In researching my book I interviewed married couples who live apart. One couple were on the verge of separating when they rented the house next door as a trial separation. Without the domestic minutiae overshadowing their “romantic” relationship, they thrived, so they made it permanent. The wife told me in glee: “I can invite people back and have parties. I could never do that before because he’s such a miserable anti-social thing.” So common is this new trend that the Office for National Statistics has created a term for it—LAT (living apart together). It estimates there are currently two million LAT couples in the UK. More people choose to live alone because they can.

In a long and deep look at the history of national identity, fascism, and Russian imperialism in Ukraine, Timothy Snyder examines the role of nationalist parties in Ukrainian politics today:

Of course, there is some basis for concern about the far right in Ukraine. Svoboda, which was Yanukovych’s house opposition, now holds three of 20 ministerial portfolios in the current government. This overstates its electoral support, which is down to about 2 percent. Some of the people who fought the police during the revolution, although by no means a majority, were from a new group called Right Sector, some of whose members are radical nationalists. Its presidential candidate is polling at below 1 percent, and the group itself has something like 300 members. There is support for the far right in Ukraine, although less than in most members of the European Union.

A revolutionary situation always favors extremists, and watchfulness is certainly in order. It is quite striking, however, that Kiev returned to order immediately after the revolution and that the new government has taken an almost unbelievably calm stance in the face of Russian invasion. There are very real political differences of opinion in Ukraine today, but violence occurs in areas that are under the control of pro-Russian separatists. The only scenario in which Ukrainian extremists actually come to the fore is one in which Russia actually tries to invade the rest of the country. If presidential elections proceed as planned in May, then the unpopularity and weakness of the Ukrainian far right will be revealed. This is one of the reasons that Moscow opposes those elections.

Anne Applebaum argues that Ukraine needs more nationalism, not less:

Ukraine’s oligarchs—the real beneficiaries of two decades of independence—don’t necessarily feel any loyalty to their countrymen either. Some have sided with “Ukraine” or “Europe” in the current conflict, but others will side with “Russia.” Their decisions have nothing to do with the welfare of ordinary Ukrainians at all.

The result can be seen right now in eastern Ukraine. For this—Donetsk, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk—is what a land without nationalism actually looks like: corrupt, anarchic, full of rent-a-mobs and mercenaries. For the most part, the men in balaclavas who have assaulted Ukrainian state institutions under the leadership of Russian commandos are not nationalists; they are people who will do the bidding of whichever political force pays best or promises most. And although they are a small minority, the majority does not oppose them. On the contrary, the majority is watching the battle passively and seems prepared to take whichever government they get. Like my friends in L’viv, these are people who live where they do by accident, whose parents or grandparents arrived by the whim of a Soviet bureaucrat, who have no attachment to any nation or any state at all.

Thus do the tiny group of nationalists in Ukraine, whom perhaps we can now agree to call patriots, represent the country’s only hope of escaping apathy, rapacious corruption, and, eventually, dismemberment.

It’s not just Rubio who rejects climate science. Waldman looks at where all the major Republican presidential contenders stand on global warming:

Last time around, almost all the 2012 candidates had embarrassing flirtations with climate realism in their pasts. Just a few years prior, the common Republican position had been that 1) climate change is occurring, and 2) the best way to deal with it is not through heavy-handed government regulation, but by harnessing the power of free markets in a “cap and trade” system, which worked so well to reduce acid rain. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, and John Huntsman had all previously endorsed cap and trade.

But the current crop of potential nominees have purer records when it comes to climate denialism.

His bottom line is that only “one of the potential contenders (Chris Christie) seems willing to say that human activity is a significant cause of climate change.” MacGillis tackles Rubio for declining to “speak out against something that is not only threatening a home-state industry but the actual state itself“:

This would seem like something the voters of Florida might want to take note of when they encounter Rubio on the ballot in 2016—whether for reelection as a senator or as a presidential candidate. It’s hard for elected officials in Washington to show their regard for their constituents in this post-earmark era of ours, but one of the minimal requirements would seem to be making even rhetorical feints toward worrying about the permanent flooding of said constituents’ largest cities.

Good luck with that. Rubio needs to get the Christianist vote, and I’m not sure they’d be too upset if Miami Beach sank beneath the waves. Brian Merchant highlights places likely to get flooded:

99.5 percent of the population of Louisiana, as if they haven’t suffered enough, will again find themselves underwater when the seas rise 10 feet. Thirty percent of all of the homes in Florida will be submerged; that’s 5.6 million people. [Fort] Lauderdale, for one, will be nearly below the waves. Only 9 percent of New York City will have to relocate in the face of rising tides, but then, that means 700,000 people will have to find new homes—twice as many as New Orleans.

Even if you don’t live at or near sea level in one of those vulnerable areas, the crisis the rise will bring will impact you too; it will either cost heady sums to shore up the flood-walls and prepare the dikes, or chaos and misfortune will reign when a disaster—a hurricane, for instance—hits. Either way, rising seas are a hugely destabilizing force.

Jed Lewison finds that Fox News’s coverage of Obamacare has ticked down:

I mean, I guess you could argue that the only reason that Republicans are talking about Benghazi and not Obamacare is that Benghazi is the biggest scandal in American history—but only if you’re delusional. If you’re grounded in reality, the real reason couldn’t be more obvious: Even the GOP understands that repealing health care coverage for millions of Americans is a terrible campaign message, and Benghazi is a shiny object with which to distract their gullible base.

Sargent reviews recent polling on the law:

A new CNN poll illustrates the situation nicely: It finds that far more Americans want to keep Obamacare than repeal it. At the same time, only majorities of Republicans want repeal and only majorities of Republicans think the law is already a failure.

The CNN poll finds that 49 percent of Americans want to keep the law with some changes, while another 12 percent want to keep it as is — a total of 61 percent. Meanwhile, only 18 percent want to repeal and replace the law, and another 20 percent want to repeal it, full stop — a total of 38 percent.  That’s 61-38 for keeping rather than repealing the law. Among independents, that’s 55-44.

Jaime Fuller examines the same poll:

There’s another question that was asked in the CNN poll that goes a long way in explaining in how complex and mercurial opinions in Obamacare can seem. When respondents were asked whether they thought the health-care law was a success or a failure, 49 percent said it was too soon to tell. Last November, 53 percent said it was too soon to definitively say how the Affordable Care Act will be written about in the history books.

Vibram has settled a lawsuit over its barefoot shoes:

The company will put $3.75 million into an escrow account to pay out settlements to class members and will remove all claims that its products either strengthen muscles or reduce injuries—unless it comes up with proof. … Whether running barefoot is actually superior to using normal running shoes has been increasingly called into question over the last few years. While early studies showed that the barefoot style could reduce impact in areas like knees that are prone to strain, later studies found that the strain simply shifted to other parts of the leg and foot. Barefoot running is not necessarily better—just different. In response, Valerie Bezdek filed her class-action suit against Vibram in Massachusetts in March 2012.

Sarah Kliff explains the science:

Vibram has attached a laundry list of health claims to its shoes, detailed in a February 2013 legal complaint:

(1) strengthen muscles in the feet and lower
legs, (2) improve range of motion in the ankles, feet, and toes,
(3) stimulate neural function important to balance and agility,
(4) eliminate heel lift to align the spine and improve posture,
and (5) allow the foot and body to move naturally. At various
times, defendants’ website added that wearing FiveFingers would
improve proprioception and body awareness, reduce lower back pain
and injury, and generally improve foot health.

Podiatrists beg to differ. The American Podiatric Medicine Association put out a policy statement back in November 2009 — which they still stand by today — saying that “research has not yet adequately shed light on the immediate and long-term effects of this practice.”

But Fallows won’t be claiming his refund:

[A]s I shifted to Vibram shoes, I also shifted to what has been (again miraculously) a multi-year stint of injury-free running. True, my change of footwear coincided with some other injury-buffering changes: Always taking at least a day off between runs. Opting for rubberized tracks rather than hard paved roads. Stopping as soon as something started to hurt, rather than “running through” the distress; and generally acting like a senior-status wimp.

All of these amounted to a blow to the pride, perhaps—one of many as the years roll on. But, for now, through the Vibram age nothing has gone physically wrong with my running infrastructure.

Nevertheless, Peter Vigneron thinks “the market for minimalist shoes has bottomed out”:

According to the Journal, sales in that category are down 47 percent this year even as the rest of the shoe industry has grown. What for several years looked like a trend with staying power now looks pretty clearly like a fad.

That’s unfortunate, because I’m mostly convinced that minimalist shoes are in fact better than normal shoes. Why? Even though the evidence for minimalism is weak and contradictory, it’s no weaker than the evidence for traditional shoes, which are probably over-cushioned and over-supported.

Uri Friedman charts the rise of web applications that crowdsource crime reporting:

In the last three months, Guatemala has witnessed 356 homicides, 202 armed attacks, 44 illegal drug sales, 11 kidnappings, and six cases of “extortion by cell phone.” These numbers come courtesy not of Guatemalan law-enforcement but of Alertos.org, a new platform that recruits citizens to report crimes. And they’ve enlisted in the effort, using email, Twitter, Facebook, mobile apps, and text messaging to chronicle thousands of criminal activities since last year – in a country where a hobbled police force is struggling to address the fifth-highest murder rate in the world.

In recent years, police have courted cell phone-toting citizens as crime “sensors” everywhere from Washington, D.C. to the tiny Kenyan village of Lanet Umoja. But the practice has gained particular traction in Latin America, which, as the UN reported in April, has the highest rate of criminal violence on the planet (the region accounts for 8 percent of the world’s population and a third of its murders). The criminal syndicates and drug cartels behind this bloodshed have overwhelmed, crippled, and corrupted national police forces, resulting in the highest levels of impunity in the world as well. In these countries, criminals literally get away with murder, again and again. Amateur crime-mapping has emerged as a parallel law-enforcement mechanism – in part owing to the popularity of cell phones in the region.

(Screenshot of Uruguay’s new CityCop.org platform)

Charles Kenny observes that global happiness – as measured by the most recent World Values Survey – is on the rise:

Among the global sample whose data goes back to the early 1980s, the proportion saying they are rather happy or very happy climbed from 71 percent to 84 percent. In the larger sample using data from the early 2000s, the global average reporting happiness climbed from 75 percent to 83 percent.

There are unsurprising exceptions: The percentage of Egyptians who reported themselves happy nosedived from 2001 to 2012 – from 89 percent to 26 percent – as the country descended into political chaos. But only six of the 28 countries experienced declines, and many emerging economies reported considerably increasing happiness. The proportion of Russians willing to acknowledge being rather happy or very happy climbed from 47 percent to 74 percent over the decade. Respondents in China, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Peru, and Zimbabwe all reported double-digit increases as well.

He points to possible reasons why:

There are lots of good reasons why there should be a general trend toward global happiness, especially in the developing world. Low and middle income economies as a group have experienced a climb in average incomes of 130 percent since 1981. The number of children who die before the age of five has halved worldwide since 1990. Violence appears to be declining, while democracy has been on the rise.

At the same time, the link between greater reported happiness and improvements in health, income or civil rights isn’t as strong as one might expect, even in poor countries. … Brookings Institution researcher Carol Graham surveyed Afghans about their happiness and found that – with the country near the bottom of rankings on most quality-of-life measures – Afghans in 2009 said they were happier than the average respondent in Latin America had reported in 2000.