| |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
7:31 pm EST, Dec 26, 2004 |
"If a well-read citizenry is essential to a vibrant democracy, the decline of literary reading calls for serious action." Is the situation really so dire? Blame it on the Internet ... right? Five percent of respondents to a Gallup poll claim to have read 70 or more books during the past year. But the poll makes no distinction regarding the quality of the books read. Serious reading had always been a minority matter." Are you one of the five percent? Are you doing Serious Reading? The Lost Art of Reading |
|
The Great White Whale of the 21st Century |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
10:21 am EST, Dec 17, 2004 |
"American influence" is the great white whale of the 21st century, and Jacques Chirac is the Ahab chasing her with a three-masted schooner. Along for the ride is a crew that includes Hosni Mubarak, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Il, Kofi Annan, the Saudi royal family, Robert Mugabe, the state committee of Communist China and various others who have ordained themselves leaders for life. At night, seated around the rum keg, they talk about how they have to stop American political power, the Marines or Hollywood. The world is lucky these despots and demagogues are breaking their harpoons on this hopeless quest. Because all around them their own populations are grabbing the one American export no one can stop: raw technology. Anyone want to guess the third-most used language on the Web, behind English and Chinese? Farsi. There is no need to oversell the power of technology. What happened in Ukraine won't happen in Cairo next month. But unless Hosni Mubarak and Vladimir Putin can come up with a way to shut down every engineer and programmer in America who is inventing new ways to output/input ideas and tweaking the ones we already have, they've got a problem. Their problem -- and the promise here -- is that this stuff is moving the world's people, and fast, toward the one American product that governing elites really need to fear: free speech. "This is not about causes or organizing people. It's about us creating these tools and then simply having faith in people who use them elsewhere to do good." The Great White Whale of the 21st Century |
|
An Apple iPod for the Teacher |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
1:33 am EST, Dec 16, 2004 |
Here in Los Angeles, it isn't acceptable to be anything less than superlative, whether we're talking about a child's grades or her parents' sagging nasolabial folds. We are all about being the best, whether that requires the ministrations of a syringe-wielding dermatologist, a deft colorist or a personal trainer. If we can defy time with a credit card, a better school transcript seems like an easy fix. Let's hear it for LA! An Apple iPod for the Teacher |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
11:45 am EST, Dec 12, 2004 |
It's that time of year again. An annual compendium of ideas from A to Z. Selected ideas include: Acoustic Keyboard Eavesdropping
The Employable Liberal Arts Major
Feral Cities
Fertile Red States
Genetic Family Values
Hawkishness as Evolutionary Holdover
Kill Midlevel Terrorists
Land-Mine-Detecting Plants
The Mainstream Mash-Up
Purple-State Country Music
Wal-Mart Sovereignty Asonov says that he has heard rumors of research into the possibility of using computers to translate the humming of ink-jet printers into the actual text being printed. facture. noun. (from Latin factura action of making, from factus.) the manner in which something (as an artistic work) is made: execution. The shareholder, in their view, is a child -- fickle and hyperactive. Care for him, provide for him and, above all, keep him from the ruinous path of instant gratification. The scientists admit that there is probably no practical use for this knowledge. "It's more grass roots." It turns out that geek to geek, informal and honest, is a pretty good model. "But what are you going to do with that?" "premature professionalism" "I'd been yelling about politics for years, but no one listened to me. Then I put up a couple of animations, and everyone watches." The single most intriguing purple-state record of the year certainly belongs to Jack White, of the trendy garage-rock duo the White Stripes, and Loretta Lynn -- yes, that Loretta Lynn. The Year in Ideas |
|
Trends in Urbanization of China |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
11:41 pm EST, Dec 1, 2004 |
There is, for instance, a history of aversion to the agricultural population on the part of urban intellectuals and bureaucrats. This "closed city mentality" is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. Urban Chinese often look down on the farmers, whom they consider filthy, uneducated, and lacking in culture. Even if Chinas government tries to maintain restrictions on spatial mobility, massive rural-urban migration and city growth cannot be stopped. Trends in Urbanization of China |
|
Urban Sprawl A Danger as City Living Spreads |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
11:37 pm EST, Dec 1, 2004 |
Top Chinese advisers have warned that although rapid urbanization contributes significantly to the country's economic growth, it can also cause major "growing pains." China has entered a period of rapid urbanization, with experts predicting that 1.12 billion people - or 70 percent of the total population - will live in cities by 2050. More than 600 million Chinese people will shift from rural to urban areas in the next 50 years. By then, China will have 50 major cities, each with a population of more than 2 million, 150 large cities, 500 medium-sized cities and 1,500 small ones. At present, China has more than 660 cities and 19,000 towns and its urbanization rate stands at 36 percent. Urban Sprawl A Danger as City Living Spreads |
|
Global Progress Report 2005 |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
11:07 pm EST, Dec 1, 2004 |
The full report is available by subscription only. This is a four-page synopsis. We gauge the international communitys progress during 2004 in several categories. Specifically assessed are efforts to (1) promote democracy, (2) boost prosperity, (3) manage security threats, (4) improve quality of life, and (5) spread new technologies. The result is a decidedly mixed report. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports that a three-decade-old wave of democratization appears to have stalled. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst at Rand, finds that the war on terror is not going well. In Swaziland and four other African countries, life expectancy is less than 35 years. In Swaziland, 40 percent of those ages 15-49 are HIV positive. Do you find this compelling? Global Progress Report 2005 |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
10:24 pm EST, Dec 1, 2004 |
ask questions. seek truth. Here's a question: do you find this compelling? 'truth' |
|
RE: Why Nerds are Unpopular (Long, and worth it.) |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
6:23 pm EST, Nov 29, 2004 |
Decius wrote:
] It is wrong to show our children in high school the kind of
] indifference you'd project toward an enemy in war. These
] people are not your enemy; they are your responsibility. I don't know who suggested to you that it is a good idea to project indifference toward your enemy in war. Regardless, this is not consistent with the general advice on the matter. In fact, as was posted here on January 22, 2004, in an entry entitled "Eleven Lessons from Robert McNamara", you'll find that Lesson Number One is EMPATHIZE WITH YOUR ENEMY McNamara goes on at some length about this, both in the Errol Morris documentary "The Fog of War" (also recommended here) and in his memoirs, "In Retrospect." And more than a few scholars and commentators have explained that Sun Tzu's Lesson Number One is basically the same thing. Here are two: an article entitled "On the pedagogy of 'small wars'", published in International Affairs, volume 80, number 1 (January 2004). This is a respected journal in the field. Here, the author says that "'Knowing thy enemy' and 'knowing thyself', Sun Tzu's formula for victory, requires abandoning flattering accounts of western identity and learning to empathize with those we call terrorists." Also, the point is made explicitly in an article entitled "Bush and the Art of War", published by Intervention Magazine (with which I have no prior experience) in August 2004. Its recent articles seem to present it as a Blue magazine, although they claim to be "an ideologically eclectic group transcending the old liberal/conservative divide." According to the web site, its original Advisory Board included Peter Arnett, Daniel Ellsberg, and Studs Terkel, among others. RE: Why Nerds are Unpopular (Long, and worth it.) |
|
Ghosts, UFOs, astrology, reincarnation, and witches, oh my! |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Society |
1:50 pm EST, Nov 27, 2004 |
About a third of Americans believe in ghosts (34 percent) and an equal number in UFOs (34 percent), and about a quarter accept things like astrology (29 percent), reincarnation (25 percent) and witches (24 percent). Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they believe in reincarnation (by 14 percentage points), in astrology (by 14 points), in ghosts (by eight points) and UFOs (by five points). In case anyone was keeping score, by no means do the Reds have a monopoly on the wholesale denial of the scientific method. (Keep in mind that this poll was conducted on behalf of Fox News, though by an outside polling/research firm.) Ghosts, UFOs, astrology, reincarnation, and witches, oh my! |
|
