Links - 18th January 2020 (1)

Experts Worry Active Shooter Drills In Schools Could Be Traumatic For Students - "Close to all public schools in the U.S. conducted some kind of lockdown drill in 2015-2016, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.Last year, 57% of teens told researchers they worry about a shooting happening at their school. A slightly higher percentage of parents of teenagers, 63%, fear a shooting at their child's school... Despite high-profile media coverage, school shootings with multiple victims are still rare. The overall number of students killed in shootings at schools is down from the early 1990s to about 0.15 per million in 2014-2015, according to researchers at Northeastern University. One Harvard instructor estimated the likelihood of a public school student being killed by a gun in school at about 1 in 614 million... the analogy that I use is we don't light a fire in the hallway to practice fire drills. When we're teaching stranger danger, we don't put a child on a street corner and have someone grab them and scare them. We are able to teach these things through ways where we talk them through it and then we walk them through it and they respond accordingly."
Once again, the fetish for "protecting" children harms them

Poll: Under HALF of UK students support freedom of speech - "Concerns have been raised over a 'culture of conformity' on Britain's university campuses after a poll found up to half of students fail to support free speech.There are mounting worries among many in academia that universities are turning into 'echo chambers', with students retreating to 'safe spaces' and 'no platforming' lecturers and commentators they disagree with.A new survey by think tank The Policy Exchange shows youngsters whose views don't conform with the majority of students, such as those who support Brexit, feel silenced... In the British poll published today, just four in 10 Brexit supporters said they would feel comfortable saying so in class, while nine out of ten Remainers said they were happy giving their views.Students also seemed to approve of bans of speakers those views differ from their own.In 2015, students at Cardiff University campaigned to stop Germaine Greer, the celebrated feminist thinker and author of the bestselling The Female Eunuch, from speaking there due to her perceived 'misogynistic views towards trans women'. The new study found that the greatest number of students, 44% of those poll, said Cardiff should have banned Greer from speaking. Only 35% disagreed that she should have been allowed to speak.Students had similar views on Cambridge University's decision to withdraw their offer of a fellowship for the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.He has been castigated by left-wing students after challenging rules over trans people's preferred pronouns and hitting out at political correctness.Of the British students surveyed, 41% agreed with Cambridge University's decision, while only 31% disagreed... a poll from College Pulse found that some 55 per cent of the students surveyed felt that their classmates 'should be punished' for wearing offensive costumes. The study, conducted by the Campaign for Free Speech, also found that some 51 percent of people in the US believe that the amendment - first adopted in 1791 - 'should be updated to reflect the cultural norms of today.' British students were less concerned about the possible offensiveness of costumes, with 54% disagreeing with the idea that 'universities should regulate which kinds of attire people can wear to parties in order to protect people from cultural appropriation'... 'more Leave-supporting students reported that they would not be comfortable expressing that view than Remain-supporting students estimated.'As so often, it is those who are actually in the minority who feel excluded, while those in the majority are less aware of the challenges faced. 'This supports the diagnosis that political discrimination is a danger in the UK’s universities, and that more research is required to understand how serious the problem is.'"
As always, liberals who champion "diversity" hate ideological diversity

Students turn against free speech amid ‘culture of conformity’ | News | The Times - "A higher number of women were in favour of censorship and men were more likely to support academic freedom, polling found. Gender differences had a bigger impact on attitudes than whether respondents had backed Leave or Remain in the EU referendum."

NEW SURVEY: Majority of college students self-censor, support disinvitations, don’t know hate speech is protected by First Amendment - "A new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education finds a majority of students on college campuses self-censor in class, support disinviting some guest speakers with whom they disagree, and don’t know that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment...
Most students (56 percent) support disinviting some guest speakers. Democratic students are 19 percentage points more likely than their Republican peers to agree that there are times a speaker should be disinvited.
58 percent of college students think it’s important to be part of a campus community where they are not exposed to intolerant or offensive ideas...
In class, 30 percent of students have self-censored because they thought their words would be offensive to others. A majority of students (54 percent) report self-censoring in the classroom at some point since the beginning of college...
Very liberal students are 14 percentage points more likely than their very conservative peers to feel comfortable expressing their opinions in the classroom. Additionally, 60 percent of Republican students think they should not have to walk past a protest on campus, while only 28 percent of Democratic students think the same...
a majority of students want their schools to invite a variety of guest speakers to campus (93 percent), and 64 percent report changing an attitude or opinion after listening to a guest speaker."

We Owe Our Pumpkins to Pooping Megafauna - Scientific American - "“Turns out there’s this absolutely beautiful correlation between body size and the ability to taste bitter compounds. So what we think is going on is that these are really plants adapted to a landscape with large herbivores. They evolved this bitter toxicity in order to deter small mammals who would destroy the seeds, but they’ve evolved it at just the right level where large mammals are not put off by the bitterness, and they can disperse the seeds.”... Along with dispersing seeds, mastodons, like modern elephants, probably stomped around a lot and vacuumed up vegetation—creating the sort of disturbed environments where squash plants thrive. So it was a beneficial match."

There's a Word for Today - Scientific American - "Iktsuarpok. If you’ve ever called in a pizza order and then stepped out the door a couple of times to see if the delivery guy was there yet, well, you’ve experienced iktsuarpok. It’s an Inuit word that “refers to the anticipation one feels when waiting for someone, whereby one keeps going outside to check if they have arrived.”... Other examples include the Georgian word shemomedjamo, meaning to be full but to keep eating because the food is so good; Bantu’s mbuki-mvuki, whipping off your clothes to dance; and Waldeinsamkeit—that’s a German word for the mysterious, and possibly slightly creepy, solitude you may feel when you’re in the woods by yourself... Jayus. It’s Indonesian, and it means “a joke so unfunny (or told so badly) that you just have to laugh.”"

Bonobo Mothers Supervise Their Sons' Monkey Business - Scientific American - "Some parents get overly involved in their kids’ personal lives, but bonobo mothers take this tendency to the extreme. They fix up their adult sons with a female of their choosing, and they even keep other males from getting near their future daughter-in-law. The behavior may seem overbearing, but it boosts the odds they’ll be surrounded by grandkids... “We found that males have about three times higher likelihood to sire offspring while their mom was still alive in the community.”In contrast, mothers of the closely related chimpanzees don’t chaperone their sons. In fact, male chimps are less likely to sire offspring when their moms are around. Seems that chimps prefer privacy for their monkey business."

Bonobos show their dark side - "Unlike their chimpanzee relatives, bonobos enjoy a make-love-not-war image. But a new study in Current Biology offers the first direct evidence of wild bonobos hunting and eating the young of other primate species. “These findings are particularly relevant for the discussion about male dominance and bonding, aggression and hunting – a domain that was thought to separate chimpanzees and bonobos”...
'unlike groups of chimps, in bonobo populations females enjoy a higher social status than males. “In chimpanzees, male-dominance is associated with physical violence, hunting, and meat consumption. By inference, the lack of male dominance and physical violence is often used to explain the relative absence of hunting and meat eating in bonobos. Our observations suggest that, in contrast to previous assumptions, these behaviors may persist in societies with different social relations”'"
Looks like even in animals, 'patriarchy' is a red herring

Female Bonobos Publicize Homosexual Interactions For Social Distinction - "Female bonobos, often referred to as the pygmy chimpanzees, will often publicize their homosexual interactions to other females, particularly if an “alpha female” was nearby.The latest research showed that females of this particular species will advertise their successes during sex by making copulation calls which are similar in acoustic structure as those made when mating with males, to tell other group members about the bond, especially if the sex was with a higher-ranking female."

Composers Datebook: Friday, September 13 - "On today's date in 1993, the first gala preview screening of a new film, "The Age of Innocence," based on the novel by Edith Wharton, took place at the Ziegfield Theater in Manhattan, as a benefit for the New York Historical Society. That was only appropriate, since Wharton's historical novel describes upper-class New York society of the 1870s — an age, if the film is to be believed, so emotionally repressed that the unbuttoning of a woman's glove can be a breathtakingly sensual moment."

Composers Datebook: Wednesday, April 11 - "Tate had written a poem that compared the deposed Catholic King James II to Aeneas, and constructed an allegory implying that James had been led astray by witches, the result being that he abandoned the British people, just as the legendary Trojan Prince Aeneas had abandoned Queen Dido of Carthage in order to found a new empire in Rome. Since the Catholic King James II had also fled to Rome, some have speculated that Purcell’s opera was a political allegory, commissioned by Mr. Priest’s School for Young Ladies to celebrate either the coronation or birthday of the new Protestant Queen."

Composers Datebook: Thursday, August 23 - "In 1913, the young Sergei Prokofiev traveled to Pavlovsk to appear as the soloist in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 2. The premiere occurred on today’s date that year, and the music of young firebrand composer-performer proved to be far from the standard light classical fare normally offered in Pavlovsk.  One reviewer wrote: “Prokofiev’s music left listeners frozen with fright, their hair standing on end.” Another critic wrote: “One couple stood up and ran for the exit, commenting, ‘Such music is enough to drive you crazy! What is he doing, making fun of us? We came here to enjoy ourselves. The cats at home can make music like this!’”"

Composers Datebook: Sunday, October 15 - "Britten himself preferred the "Young Person's Guide" as its official title, and regularly complained whenever the BBC tried to "upgrade" to the more scholarly "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell" when announcing the piece over the radio."

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Monday's business with Dharshini David - "‘Labour wants to increase the [minimum] wage to 10 pounds immediately. No one knows do they because this is relatively high for a minimum wage, what the impact on jobs could be’...
‘What we do know from the evidence in the UK so far, which has already had a big increase in the last few years with no effect, you know, we have the highest minimum wage in history. And we also have record employment levels. So we don't, we do know that it doesn't have the damaging effects some people say. But could there be effects at some point? Certainly, that's why we have the low pay commission, and they should carry on monitoring it’"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Russia: 30 years since the Soviet Empire - "‘Political commentator Lilia Shiftsova [sp?] believes that 30 years on Russia is trying to build a new kind of Empire.’
‘This people in the Kremlin do understand that idea of restoration of the former superpower is impossible. But they have other idea. And the idea is, to be a blackmailer, to be producer of mischief, to be the grand spoiler. To be the nightmare for the neighbors and for the outside countries. So this is the new idea of superpower and Empire’...
'This website is called Baltnews. It's aimed at ethnic Russians across the Baltic, but it's part of a news organization, which is bankrolled by the Kremlin. And what kind of stories does it put out? Well, here's one, listen to this. Among Latvians, it says, Adolf Hitler is more popular than Harry Potter. Hitler's Mein Kampf tops the readers’ book choice in Latvia. So the impression you get when you read this is that in Latvia, in an EU country, Nazi ideology is thriving. But is it really true? I'm off to investigate. My first stop is Latvia's largest bookseller where I talked to the director *name*.
‘How many copies of Mein Kampf were sold in your shop, say in 2018?’
‘None’
‘Not a single copy?
‘Not a single copy’
‘Is it not available then in the bookshops?’
‘No, it’s not available’
‘What do you think about this claim then that in Latvia Adolf Hitler is more popular than Harry Potter?’
‘It's nonsense. It's absolute fake.’
‘At Latvia’s National Library, I discover that Hitler’s book has been requested 139 times in three years. Compare that to 25,000 requests for Harry Potter books.’...
‘I tracked down a key witness. Rita runs a secondhand book website in Latvia. Baltnews had based its report on data from her online forum. Mein Kampf is available through her site, but who exactly has been clicking on it?’
‘So it's interesting that for this Mein Kampf about 70% of all the clicks are anonymous clicks… They can be fake users or internet trolls or whatever, how we call them’
‘Fake views to make fake news’"