Links - 19th August 2017 (1)

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Richard III - "'Within a few days of becoming Prime Minister Winston Churchill sank the French fleet with massive loss of life. Do you think if he had been empathetic and conscientious we would have won World War II?... I think I'd feel a bit happier not being led by someone empathetic and conscientious you know if for example Mr Putin becomes a difficulty to us...
She seems to make a division, division between the past and the future and there is no such division you know. We are just in a point of time. So basically her view seemed to be it was perfect alright to have ruthless people in the past because we needed them in the past but in the future we didn't need ruthless people we want people with soft skills and empathy and so on. And I think that is a dangerous that point of view because we don't know what the future holds but to judge by the past it's likely to hold a very large numbers of dangers and it seems to me that we've done pretty well by having some of these people, some of whom may have been quite close to being psychopathic but they've turned out to be people who could defend our values at times when-...
[On celebrities] I think they are the jesters of modern society. They provide vast amounts of entertainment. The people who hound them ruthlessly, who are the tabloid press would of course be immensely disappointed, not to say put out of business if these people didn't have these exotic private lives to be hounded"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Moral imagination and migration - "For me the issue is the way that those two people make an extraordinary logical leap between identifying a problem which is deeply emotionally awful and a solution which is let everyone into Britain. I don't understand the leap between those two things. Why can we not experience the emotion and then have a rational debate about what to do about those people that could include for instance, refugees safe zones around their country, spending more money on their countries, dispersing across Europe. Why is it that particularly here in Britain it feels, we always jump on to: and let everyone in...
'Eritrea is a giant concentration camp. Somalia is a total mess. Everybody in those countries could, have a you know a reasonably justified fear of prosecution. They all might qualify as asylum seekers. I mean would you have more?'
'Absolutely. So here's the thing. I think when, the point at which I think that we can't or people think that they can't take any more, I think is the point where we fail. Our moral imagination has failed. Our capacity has failed. I don't prize it, I don't say this is absolutely fine. I think we should, we must, it's like how much you give to charity. When people ask me how much to give to charity, I go: give as much as you can, give until it hurts and then give a bit more and I think that's the number of people we should have in this country'
'When it comes to empathy, I find this example useful. A father is sailing with his son and his son's friend. The boat capsizes. The father can only save one of them. Who does he save? If he saves the stranger he is an amazing humanitarian because he's put his son aside and he saves someone he didn't even know. But he's a bad father. And the same goes for nation states... It is understood when we elect MPs or we elect governments it is understood they will act primarily in our interests... it will be a pretty odd democratic government if it said: let in everyone at the cost of the welfare of their own people...
If we do allow in another hundred thousand will there not be another hundred thousand encouraged to set sail? Will we not then be responsible for the next five thousand who drown in the Mediterranean because we have given them the impression that if they can just make it to France or Italy they will be admitted to the United Kingdom?"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, The Work Ethic - "'The protestant work ethic is a big mistake by Max Weber. In in the heart of Protestantism is the belief that we are saved by grace and not by works and Max Weber was making a sociological point but absolutely not a theological point'...
Anyone who's read any Greek philosophy or any philosophy indeed or ever listened to a piece of music or read a novel or read poetry will know that idleness is the source of all culture and all that's good because idleness leads to a sort of loosening of the creative juices. They start to flow when you're resting, when you're going in between wakefulness and sleep. Idlesness is also called contemplation. It's called prayer. It's called reflection. It was valued by the ancient Greeks, it was valued by the Romans. The Romans had the word otium for leisure"

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Islamic Terrorism - "Should we change our foreign policy then? Tell you what, we need to the kids who apologizing and apologists for ISIS. I mean I wish I'd read a few books on foreign policy. I mean a lot of them don't know anything about the history of the Middle East. They've got absolutely no interest. They talk about the ummah, but then they sound like kind of identity politics kids at uni just like a feminists or something moaning about the-...
We should have more confidence in Western liberal values. The thing is is that I think he slightly underestimated how under assault they were and not from ISIS. That's my problem, I mean. You know if you kind of talk to me when you go and talk to a lot of young people and say you know they're the ones who'll sort of say oh well we know we've made terrible errors, we've got to compromise. You know who believes in progress anymore? These aren't, you know, Muslim kids. It's got nothing to do with religion. Guess what? They're members of the Green Party or something. Sort of say we've got to curtail our free speech you'll find out that they're feminist. So it seems to me that there's a major assault on all of the gains of western society"
If terrorists not knowing a lot about Islam means terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, terrorists not knowing about the history of the Middle East means terrorism has nothing to do with the Crusades, Sykes–Picot etc

Word of the Day: Acronym | Merriam-Webster - "When acronym first entered English, some usage commentators decreed that it should refer to combinations of initial letters that were pronounced as if they were whole words (such as radar and scuba), differentiated from an initialism, which is spoken by pronouncing the component letters (as in FBI and CEO). These days, however, that distinction is largely lost, and acronym is a common label for both types of abbreviation."

Original Recipe | This American Life - "The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. Locked in a vault in Atlanta. Supposedly unreplicable. But we think we may have found the original recipe. And to see if the formula actually might be Coke, we made a batch. Or, anyway, we asked the folks at Jones Soda and Sovereign Flavors to whip up some up, to see if it tastes like Coke"

The Legend of the Chanel Logo's Double C - "The explanation that Chanel (the modern company) and biographer Justine Picardie subscribe to is that the answer can be found at the Chapel of Aubazine, a Cistercian monastery and abbey that also housed an orphanage where Chanel spent the latter half of her childhood."

The History of the Condom - "In ancient Egypt, historians believed people used a linen sheath around the penis as protection against troublesome insects and tropical diseases. To prevent infection, the Chinese wrapped oiled silk paper around the penis, while the Japanese used leather and tortoiseshell sheaths. During this time period, using materials made from animal parts was very common. The Romans developed condoms made of goats' bladders."

Faut-il mettre un accent sur les majuscules ? - "En imprimerie on a longtemps utilisé des caractères de plomb à taille fixe. Toutes la majuscules avient la même taille. Si on accentuait ces capitales alors leur hauteur aurait été supérieure. Pour la réduire il aurait fallu graver des caractères spéciaux pour les capitales accentuées afin de réduire leur hauteur pour leur ajouter au-dessus l’accent. Solution trop complexe et surtout peut-être trop coûteuse. De plus les machines à composer ayant été le plus souvent d’origine anglo-saxonne il n’était pas prévu de mettre des accents sur les capitales."

Evolution, Accelerated - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "If you knew that your potential mate was of high likelihood of developing early dementia, you might think twice before getting married. Phenotypes are for hookups but genotype is forever. So the technology for that is here now. It could be used in fertility clinics. It could be used on dating apps, where people could put their genetic profile linked from 23andme to OKCupid."

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, Turning a Blind Eye and the Law - "Apparently there's still a law on the statute book dating back to the Middle Ages that all males over fourteen should do a minimum of two hours a week with a longbow in front of a vicar too. The police seem a bit slack on following up on this which is hardly surprising but then they seem increasingly reluctant to enforce a whole raft of more modern laws which raises more serious questions. Many forces it seems have effectively stopped taking shoplifters to court. Most are largely turning a blind eye to people using cannabis. Prosecutions for using a mobile while driving have halved in five years and they've already singled they haven't the time or the manpower to enforce the new law against smoking with a child in the car...
Recently a theft allegation was taken up by the police of a daughter who used one perfume puff of her mother's perfume. Another case where an element of theft was investigated by the police by someone who mowed someone else's lawn by accident and there was theft of the grass"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Finsbury Park attack: How can different religions work together? - "'Some of the interfaith work not only avoided the difficult conversations that were needed but it also provided an unchallenged platform or legitimacy to those whose views and values actually undermined cohesion. It's the argument that you're trying, all trying so hard to be inclusive that you end up with a rather soft feeling initiative.'
'I completely agree and tea and samosas does not only not do the job sometimes it acts as a smoke screen. And what we need to do and is starting to happen are real, tough conversations. Conversations around Israel-Palestine. Conversations around British values. Conversations around conspiracy theories'"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Wednesday's business with Dominic O'Connell - "People were very enthused by price comparison websites until they found out the technology was being used not to give them necessarily the best price but the one that the people who set up the website have been incentivised to provide"

TV ads 'have little effect' on children - "Television advertising has little influence on children's real desire for consumer products and cannot provoke irresistible pester power against parents, according to new research. After analysing 20 international studies on children as consumers, Adrian Furnham, professor of psychology at University College, London, said there was no evidence to support calls for stricter controls on the advertising of sweets, toys, music and other goods aimed at children... "When children are as young as three they can tell ads from programmes and by the time they are seven they realise that advertisements can mislead," he said. "Television advertisements are far less intrusive upon children's lives than is imagined. German data shows children between three and 13 spend only 1.4% of their waking time watching television advertisements... The evidence showed authoritative parenting styles - laying down rules and expectations, but explaining decisions and valuing the child's point of view - were more likely to nurture responsibility in children. This was better than authoritarian or permissive parenting styles. "Agreeing rules about pocket money and what it should and should not pay for helps turn children into responsible consumers. Banning advertising delays a child's understanding and decision making""

Singapore is falling behind Hong Kong, just do the math - "People in Hong Kong on average have US$29,000 each a year to spend on themselves while Singaporeans have only US$19,000, and the margin is growing rapidly in Hong Kong’s favour."

BBC Radio 4 - Our Man in the Middle East, Part 3: Retreat to the Mountains - "[On non intervention post Gulf War I] 'Mr George Bush is reponsible for all this. He could destroy Saddam and his army but he don't try. All this because he don't want Kurdish and Shia to be leader in era. To run Iraq. Kuwait is one million. We are five million. Saddam Hussein bombing bomber helicopters destroyed us. Why? We are human!'"
America is evil if they intervene. America is evil if they don't intervene. Maybe non-intervention also radicalises Middle Easterners into becoming terrorists

BBC Radio 4 - Our Man in the Middle East, Part 4: Jerusalem - "Jews had prayed for a return to Jerusalem since the temple was destroyed and by building on top of its ruins, Abdul Malik sent them a message - that history had moved on. He had one for Christians too, inscribed around the top of the arches that support the Dome. Sternly, a verse from the Koran pointed out errors in their beliefs. It tells how god could only be one god. He couldn't be split into a trinity as Christians believed, and he could never have a son...
I was filming near the Western Wall when a woman stopped with her own peace plan... 'The only hope for Jerusalem is you take God and move him somewhere else'"

BBC Radio 4 - Our Man in the Middle East, Part 9: A Blunt Instrument - "The regime - the tiger - could without a doubt have done more. It used money to rebuild palaces that could have been spent on food and medicines. But sanctions were a blunt instrument. Twenty years on they're still seen as a way of exerting pressure short of all out war. But since Iraq in the nineties the UN, the US and the European Union have tried to target sanctions. The Syrian leadership for example has been heavily sanctioned so far without any noticeable effect"

BBC Radio 4 - Our Man in the Middle East, Part 13: The Unravelling - "I used to go jogging in the early mornings in Baghdad. People looked at me as if I was mad. In most of the Middle East it is not dignified for a grown man to run down the street like a child. But it wasn't dangerous or difficult. I never felt unsafe alone on the streets of Baghdad in my sports gear. That was during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The thing about brutal police states is that there's very little violent crime unless someone gets ordered to do it"

New Christopher Nolan WWII Movie 'Dunkirk' Portrays White People as White, Runs Afoul of Diversity Police - "It used to be that high-profile Hollywood World War II movies got called out for taking liberties with the facts. These days, they’re getting in trouble for being too historically accurate."

USA Today Complains About Lack of 'Women' and 'No Lead Actors of Color' in Movie 'Dunkirk' - "Complaining about the lack of women and minority actors in a movie about Dunkirk is like complaining about the lack of Sinatra music in Straight Outta Compton or wondering why cancer failed to get equal time in Philadelphia or hectoring Hollywood over the omission of realistic sex scenes in the Toy Story trilogy."

Why Does Hollywood Get World War II So Wrong? - "Some movies have altered perceptions of the war itself. Historian W. Patrick Lang has pointed out how the story of the Pacific War has been twisted over the decades to become what is essentially a PR success for the U.S. Marine Corps. After WWII, General George C. Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff, had in mind a plan to trim the Marines back to little more than a small naval landing force, naval prison guards, detachments on board capital ships and the like. The Marines were saved from that fate by John Wayne’s movie Sands of Iwo Jima. “This film made such an impression on the collective American mind that a massive reduction in marine force structure became impossible,” argues Lang. There is no mainstream postwar Hollywood epic centered on the Philippines Campaign of 1944-45 in which about 300,000 Japanese soldiers died, probably because virtually no Marines took part in the Philippine campaign. Overall, black-and-white movies were more accurate than recent ones, as there were more people alive in those days to rebuke producers and studios if they weren’t, and they also hired veterans as consultants. One of the greatest color movies of WWII, Patton, was co-produced by no less a figure than Frank McCarthy, who had been military secretary to General Marshall."

The joy of hate-watching - "“Today’s media culture is one of constant mockery and cynicism and evaluation,” Joli Jensen says. “Social media has made us all creators, in a sense, so we feel like we have more of a right to be snotty about someone not doing it as well as we think they should. We feel more entitled to judge and critique.” If only we knew how close our hate is to love."

A man helped a lost toddler find her parents, police say. He was smeared online as a predator and fled town. - The Washington Post - "A man trying to help a lost toddler find her parents was misidentified as a kidnapper on social media over the weekend, according to police in Lakeland, Fla., prompting him to leave town in fear for his safety and the safety of his family. The man was also punched by the child’s father who told local media that he “thought he was trying to take my daughter” and “wanted to kill him.” The whole episode prompted the Lakeland Police Department to warn citizens to “be careful about what you post on social media so as not to victimize an innocent person … Before posting information on matters such as this, we encourage people to identify the source and the validity of such claims before sharing them”... The father made no apologies for his actions but told The Post, “All that matters is that my daughter is home safely.”"
Ahh, the moral panic about "protecting children". Now in future fewer people (or men, anyway) are going to help lost children and more children will suffer

Sex offenders including paedophiles should be allowed to adopt, Theresa May told - "Helen Reece, a reader in law at the London School of Economics, called on Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to relax rules which automatically ban sex offenders from caring for children, saying that this could breach their human rights. In an article in the respected Child and Family Law Quarterly, Miss Reece suggested that reoffending rates were not high among sex criminals, adding: “despite growing public concern over paedophilia, the numbers of child sex murders are very low”... Individuals are placed on the “Barred List” and banned from working with youngsters or vulnerable adults if they are convicted of a sexual or violent offence, or one involving the mistreatment of a child. Miss Reece criticised the rules for leading all sex offenders to be “tarred with the same brush,” saying that while “careful screening” was “important,” the issuing of a “blanket ban” violated the rights of criminals who wanted to adopt or work with young people. She highlighted the case of a grandfather with a conviction for having sex with a 15-year-old dating back to when he was 29, who was refused permission to adopt his own grandchildren... Comparing sex offenders to cohabiting couples, she suggested that if blanket bans on the former were allowed, it would make sense to bar those who were not married from adopting because parents who were wed were less likely to separate with harmful consequences for the child. She also highlighted the case of four nurses who recently won a High Court challenge after being barred for having convictions. One of the nurses was banned over a police caution for leaving her own children alone in their home... A Home Office spokesman said: “It is safe to say that the vetting review will not be considering allowing paedophiles to adopt. It wouldn’t exactly go down well with the public"
It is better that 1,000 children have no parents than one is at risk of being abused