Links - 7th April 2019 (2)

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, After Party: A Look Back - "‘Do you think that food helps people communicate about death in a way?’
‘Absolutely. I think that it's hard to know what to say. And I even feel that now, I feel I'm pretty well acquainted with grief. And yet, when I hear about someone losing someone that they're close to, my first reaction is like, oh, shoot, what do I say? And I think food says the bottom line thing, the most important thing, which is: I care about you. And when you provide food for someone, you're telling them that you see that they're in a hard spot, and you want to help them continue to heal. But you don't necessarily have to have the words for that. A pan of lasagna brought to someone's door can say potentially a lot more, and maybe even can say something more accurately than the words that you might write in a sympathy card.’"

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Uncut: Butchers Talk Chop - "‘I feel like everyone that worked for us was at some point vegetarian, because they actually care about where their food comes from. And I think that's one of the things that attracts them to the craft. And they want to know more. So part of our mission is supporting, you know, sustainable and regenerative farms that actually raise animals correctly and move them throughout the day. It's much, much, much better for the soil, and it can actually help combat climate change. So we definitely encourage our customers to eat less meat, just higher quality meat.’"

The Causal Effects of Father Absence - "The literature on father absence is frequently criticized for its use of cross-sectional data and methods that fail to take account of possible omitted variable bias and reverse causality. We review studies that have responded to this critique by employing a variety of innovative research designs to identify the causal effect of father absence, including studies using lagged dependent variable models, growth curve models, individual fixed effects models, sibling fixed effects models, natural experiments, and propensity score matching models. Our assessment is that studies using more rigorous designs continue to find negative effects of father absence on offspring well-being, although the magnitude of these effects is smaller than what is found using traditional cross-sectional designs. The evidence is strongest and most consistent for outcomes such as high school graduation, children's social-emotional adjustment, and adult mental health."
In response to the feminist claim that divorce is good for children because better divorced parents than an unhappy marriage

Parental Predivorce Relations and Offspring Postdivorce Well‐Being - "we find that the dissolution of low‐conflict marriages appears to have negative effects on offspring's lives, whereas the dissolution of high‐conflict marriages appears to have beneficial effects. The dissolution of low‐conflict marriages is associated with the quality of children's intimate relationships, social support from friends and relatives, and general psychological well‐being. The 2nd study considers how parents in low‐conflict marriages that end in divorce differ from other parents before divorce. We find that low‐conflict parents who divorce are less integrated into the community, have fewer impediments to divorce, have more favorable attitudes toward divorce, are more predisposed to engage in risky behavior, and are less likely to have experienced a parental divorce."
Even if you agree divorce might be better in some instances, making divorce easy will lead to net harm to children

Feminism has destabilized the American family - "Recent studies about the effects of fatherlessness have revealed that the rise of single-parent (which usually means mother-only) families has had even worse consequences for boys than for girls. Father absence in African-American homes leads to more mental-health and behavioral problems for boys, according to an MIT study by two economists looking at brothers and sisters born in Florida between 1992 and 2002. “Growing up in a single-parent home appears to significantly decrease the probability of college attendance for boys but has no similar effect for girls.” They found other worrisome effects, too. “Fatherless boys are less ambitious, less hopeful and more likely to get into trouble at school than fatherless girls.”Everything is connected. When more boys are growing up without fathers, there are fewer young men who become the kind of adults women want to marry — educated, employed, non-drug-abusing and not involved with the criminal-justice system. Without the grounding of marriage, men become disconnected from society. Some 22 percent of prime-age men (25 to 54) are not working or looking for work. Unmarried men are over-represented in this group. By contrast, married men with only high-school diplomas are much more likely to be employed than unmarried men with some college or an associate’s degree."

Magpie swooping season dates 2018: Attacks have started early - "“Public service announcement — Magpie swooping season has started!” they tweeted, putting fear into the heart of every Australian on Twitter.They issued the announcement in response to a Sydney resident tweeting about his real life angry birds moment... Usually male magpies swoop only during mating season in spring due to a huge increase in testosterone where they basically become over protective dads."

The Horrors of Socialized Medicine: A first hand experience - "The bill for the ER visit?... US$80.00
Eighty. American. Dollars.
Out of pocket. Full cost. No discounts. No insurance.
At one of the best hospitals in Taiwan.
And if I had NHI, it would have been a fraction of that.
This could have easily cost me hundreds or even thousands in the US without insurance. But here in Taiwan I was able to receive speedy, quality care comparable to what I would have gotten in a US hospital for relatively small amount of money.
Given this experience, I no longer have a reason to fear or hesitate getting care in Taiwan should I ever need it.
America, it's time to stop making excuses."

Top universities will need to accept fewer middle class students to meet diversity targets, regulator admits - "Top universities will need to accept fewer middle class students in order to meet diversity targets, the Office for Students has admitted. Russell Group institutions must "eliminate" the gap in admissions between wealthier students and their less well-off peers within 20 years, according to targets published by the universities watchdog... The social mobility charity has championed the use of “contextual admissions”, where students from poor backgrounds are given places at top universities based on lower A-level offers than their well-off peers"
The easiest way to achieve equality is to make everyone equally miserable

Vandals attack Gen. William C. Lee statue - "A Dunn landmark has sadly become a part of the recent backlash over statues honoring Confederate War veterans — and wrongly.The statue of U.S. Army Gen. William C. Lee was vandalized sometime around 10 p.m. Thursday, and the action has many people, both residents and non-residents, up in arms.“Someone doused the statue with a flammable liquid and set it on fire,” said William C. Lee Airborne Museum Curator Mark Johnson. “They placed a container on the base of the statue and it scorched the side of it.”The act of vandalism has the museum baffled why anyone could ever misidentify Gen. William C. Lee for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.“I just find it amazing that someone would think that Gen. Lee from World War II would be the target of damage to a stone statue,” Mr. Johnson said. “It’s just unbelievable somebody would think that’s the thing to do.”... When you take a look at the statue of Gen. William C. Lee and compare it to a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, it’s obvious the two are completely dissimilar and look completely different.“Complete different generation, complete different war, complete different everything,” Mr. Johnson said. “Everything is different.”"

Weapons Manufacturer BAE Systems Condemns Violence, Embraces 'Diversity' - "BAE Systems, the military weapons manufacturer which sells weapons to Saudi Arabia, virtue-signaled its “ethical principles” and support for “cultural diversity” this week, declaring that diversity is the company’s “strength” and that it condemns “racism” and “violence.”... “Thank you…[checks notes]…BAE Systems for condemning violence,” joked one user, while another added, “Yes the ethical principles of BAE systems, bomb brown people in foreign countries, just not here.”... BAE Systems will be the primary sponsor of Gay Pride in Surrey, England, in August."

Here's What Happened When an Alaskan City Took Fluoride Out of Their Drinking Water - "By taking the fluoride out of the water supply… the trade-off for that is children are going to experience one additional caries procedure per year, at a ballpark (cost) of US$300 more per child"

Florida Teacher Fired for Giving Zeros to Students Who Don't Turn in Their Work - "Diane Tirado has been a teacher for years. Most recently, she was an eighth-grade history teacher at Westgate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie, Florida.Diane recently gave her students two weeks to complete an Explorer notebook project, but several students simply didn’t hand it in. Since there was zero work done, Diane gave them zeros.She got fired for it."

2 young Yishun Park hawkers uncertain about their future. People just aren’t visiting the hawker centre. - "Hawkers at YPHC also have other grouses, such as an app that gives diners 10 per cent off whatever they order — that, of course, eats into their profits — and the 50-cent tray return deposit (brought down from S$1 after the hawkers complained) that they argue dissuades customers from eating there.Mark and Jack both agree, though, that these are peripheral to the central issue of there being too few diners at the hawker centre... Over at Our Tampines Hub hawker centre, the issue they faced wasn’t location but financially unsustainable operating hours — tenants were previously contractually obliged to stay open round the clock.The hawker centre is operated by OTMH, the social enterprise arm of Kopitiam.According to Minister for the Environment & Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli, this was an arrangement requested by the residents in Tampines.However, reality panned out differently. The hawker centre saw very few customers in the early hours of the morning... Seetoh also recently pointed out that the low foot traffic at many new hawker centres is the result of being placed in what he describes as “less-than-favourable sites in far-flung locations already well-served by private coffeeshops and food courts”... Providing some suggestions he had to tackle this, Seetoh also argues that the hawker centre should be treated like a public amenity akin to “government hospitals, schools and even police centres” and not be given to “private players” who are more conscious about profits."