Links - 21st July 2019 (2)

What Chinese corner-cutting reveals about modernity - "In our apartment in central Beijing, we fight a daily rearguard action against entropy. The mirror on my wardrobe came off its hinges six months ago and is now propped up against the wall, one of many furnishing casualties. Each of our light fittings takes a different bulb, and a quarter of them are permanently broken. In the bedroom, the ceiling-high air-conditioning unit runs its moisture through a hole knocked in the wall, stuffed with an old cloth to avoid leakage, while the balcony door, its sealant rotted, has a towel handy to block the rain when it pours through... The apartment is five years old. By Chinese standards, it’s far better than the average... My time in China has taught me the pleasure and value of craftsmanship, simply because it’s so rare. To see somebody doing a job well, not just for its own reward, but for the satisfaction of good work, thrills my heart... the prevailing attitude is chabuduo, or ‘close enough’. It’s a phrase you’ll hear with grating regularity, one that speaks to a job 70 per cent done, a plan sketched out but never completed, a gauge unchecked or a socket put in the wrong size. Chabuduo is the corrosive opposite of the impulse towards craftmanship, the desire, as the sociologist Richard Sennett writes in The Craftsman (2008), ‘to reject muddling through, to reject the job just good enough’. Chabuduo implies that to put any more time or effort into a piece of work would be the act of a fool. China is the land of the cut corner, of ‘good enough for government work’... You don’t have a proper cold-storage chain to send vaccines? Well, stick some ice in the parcels and put them in the post. Chabuduo, and children cough to death. Why take the sludge to a disposal site? Just pile it up here, where everyone else has been putting it. Chabuduo, and 91 people are crushed by a landslide in Guangdong. Separate out the dangerous materials? What does it matter, just stick that nitrate over there. Chabuduo, and a fireball goes up in Tianjin, north China’s chief port, incinerating 173 people. ‘There’s a Tianjin-level explosion every month,’ a staff member at a national-level work-safety programme told me, asking for anonymity. ‘But mostly they happen in places that nobody cares about.’... Why is China caught in this trap? In most industries here, vital feedback loops are severed. To understand how to make things, you have to use them. Ford’s workers in the US drove their own cars, and Western builders dwelt, or hoped to dwell, in homes like the ones they made. But the migrants lining factory belts in Guangdong make knick-knacks for US households thousands of miles away. The men and women who build China’s houses will never live in them... The opacity of Chinese companies means it’s often hard to pin down the blame for even cataclysmic failure; the maker’s marks once inscribed on every brick in a city’s walls have been replaced with the mirages of holding companies and shell enterprises. Local governments fearful of higher unemployment and lower GDP work assiduously to shield their favoured businesses from any consequences for their actions."

Vincent Kelly Pollard, Jitney, jeepney, and dypni - " "Jeepney" derives from "jeep" and "knee". Immediately after World War II, those two words combined to describe the face-to-face seating of Filipino passengers in refurbished American military "jeeps," each of them enhanced with individualized externalized artistry.Jitney, on the other hand, refers to a particular kind of taxicab once prominent in African-American neighborhoods in urban areas like Chicago"

The Hunting Ground: A closer look at the influential documentary reveals the filmmakers put advocacy ahead of accuracy. - "[Kamilah] Willingham’s story is not an illustration of a sexual predator allowed to run loose by self-interested administrators. The record shows that what happened that night was precisely the kind of spontaneous, drunken encounter that administrators who deal with campus sexual assault accusations say is typical. (The filmmakers, who favor David Lisak’s poorly substantiated position that our college campuses are rife with serial rapists, reject the suggestion that such encounters are the source of many sexual assault allegations.) Nor is Willingham’s story an example of official indifference. Harvard did not ignore her complaints; the school thoroughly investigated them. And because of her allegations, the law school education of her alleged assailant has been halted for the past four years... The filmmakers present what happened between Kamilah Willingham and Brandon Winston as a terrifying warning to female college students and their parents, and a call to arms to government officials and college administrators. They offer the case as prima facie evidence that draconian regulations, laws, and punishments are required to end what they say is a scourge of sexual violence. But there is another story, which the filmmakers do not tell. It’s a story in which Willingham’s accusations are taken seriously and Winston’s actions are thoroughly investigated, first by Harvard University and later by the Middlesex County district attorney’s office. It’s a story in which neither the school nor the legal system finds that a rape occurred, and in which Willingham’s credibility is called seriously into question. It’s a story of an ambiguous sexual encounter among young adults that almost destroyed the life of the accused, a young black man with no previous record of criminal behavior. It’s a story that demonstrates how deeply the filmmakers’ politics colored their presentation of the facts—and how deeply flawed their influential film is as a result... Toward the end of The Hunting Ground, a graphic announces: “A grand jury in Boston indicted Kamilah’s accused assailant with two counts of sexual assault.” What the filmmakers don’t explain is that the grand jury charges stemmed from Winston’s touching of KF. The grand jury declined to indict him on any charges concerning Willingham. She appeared at his trial not as a victim but as a witness... There was no mention during the five-day trial of Winston drugging anyone’s drinks, a key accusation Willingham makes in The Hunting Ground"

New Research Reveals Boys Are More Sensitive Than Girls - "In another blow to the genderless brigade, Dr. Allan N. Schore concluded the following facts from a boatload of research:
Boys mature slower physically, socially, and linguistically.
Stress-regulating brain circuitries mature slower in boys prenatally, perinatally, and postnatally.
Boys are affected more negatively by early environmental stress, inside and outside the womb, than are girls. Girls have more built-in mechanisms that foster resiliency against stress."

Drone Over a Middle Ages Festival Taken Down by A Spear - "The participant, clad in the appropriate attire to make the entire encounter all the better, ignoring the mock battle everyone else was focused on, quickly grabbed a spear and rushed towards the drone. He took just one small step and heaved, taking it down like a true marksman.Now the makers of this video were kind enough to put the drone kill shot right at the start, and also included a slowed down close up at the end, but if you are interested in what a Russian Middle Ages festival looks like then watch the rest of it too"

MDMA is now proven to help those with trauma – so let’s decriminalise it and put it back in the medicine cabinet - "When MDMA (later known as ecstasy) was discovered by Shulgin in the 1950s, he noted that it had very special properties of calmness, clarity and empathy that set it apart from the many other chemically related amphetamine-like drugs. He then told this to his wife, who was a psychotherapist and who agreed and suggested that these properties were ideal as a medicinal adjunct to psychotherapy... All was well until the MDMA was recruited by the rave scene as a “dance drug” and renamed ecstasy. This led to a backlash from the media who hated the idea of young people becoming ecstatic, and developed a campaign of moral panic to get it banned. Horror stories of brain damage were invented and the few deaths massively publicised in relation to the harms of MDMA compared with other drugs such as alcohol. This campaign worked and ecstasy was banned across the globe at the end of the 1980s, despite eloquent and compelling protestations from the many therapists that had used it and patients who had benefited... just two psychotherapy sessions with MDMA as part of a psychological treatment course can massively improve PTSD – often resulting in a full recovery in patients who had to that point been resistant to other conventional forms of treatment such as the SSRI antidepressant medicines and cognitive behaviour therapy.In light of these successes we have begun to treat people who have become alcohol dependent with MDMA in an attempt to deaden the mental pain of prior traumas. Such individuals are very common, indeed the norm, in alcohol treatment services and have a massively high failure rate with conventional abstinence-based treatments"

Why Eggs Are a Killer Weight Loss Food - "Eggs rank high on the Satiety Index scale, which means they may help you feel fuller for longer. High-protein foods, like eggs, may also help you snack less between meals... The thermic effect of food is the energy required by the body to metabolize foods, and is higher for protein than for fat or carbs... Eating eggs for breakfast may increase your feeling of fullness and make you automatically eat fewer calories, for up to 36 hours... Eggs are inexpensive, available almost everywhere and can be prepared in a matter of minutes."

Are eggs bad for your health again? - "Helen Bond, a dietitian for the British Dietetic Association, says the overwhelming scientific consensus is the cholesterol in eggs has little effect on our heart health.“It has been firmly established it is not dietary cholesterol that causes blood cholesterol levels to rise but eating a lot of foods high in saturated fats; not eggs but butter, fatty meat products and cheese,” says Bond, who likes to fry eggs “guilt-free” on the top of her AGA cooker so she doesn’t need to use any fat... “Eggs are one of the rare food sources that contain lutein, a carotenoid with anti-inflammatory properties that is very important for eye health and is linked to the prevention of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness. And they contain high levels of cysteine, an amino acid that is important for breaking down acetaldehyde, the toxic compound produced when alcohol is consumed and is responsible for many hangover symptoms.“Eating eggs is the best thing to do after a heavy night out.”... University of Sydney nutrition scientists reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that putting people on a high-egg diet (12 eggs a week) or a low-egg diet (less than two a week) made no difference to their cardiovascular risk markers. Even people with type 2 diabetes suffered no adverse effects in terms of inflammation and glucose levels from eating a diet high in eggs... the post-workout muscle-building response in people who ate whole eggs after a weight-training session was 40 per cent greater than in those who ate the same amount of protein from just egg whites... Blood samples of middle-aged men who regularly ate eggs correlated with the blood profiles of men who avoided type 2 diabetes.There may be gender differ­ences"

Four-day week: trial finds lower stress and increased productivity - "The founder of one of the first big companies to switch to a four-day working week has called on others to follow, claiming it has resulted in a 20% rise in productivity, appeared to have helped increase profits and improved staff wellbeing.Analysis of one of the biggest trials yet of the four-day working week has revealed no fall in output, reduced stress and increased staff engagement, fuelling hopes that a better work-life balance for millions could be in sight... Smaller companies experimenting with the four-day week have found performance has been better in the first few weeks as excitement about the project took hold, before falling slightly."

Women Needed a Magazine that Doesn't Lie to Them. So I Started One - "All the publications mentioned in her Jezebel article—The Hairpin, The Toast, Bust, Bitch, xoJane, Autostraddle, Refinery29, AfterEllen and Jezebel itself—push a liberal, feminist message. The same is true of older outlets such as Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour and Allure. Go ahead and find me a single successful, mainstream women’s lifestyle-and-culture publication that doesn’t regularly exhibit a bias against conservative points of view... For decades, magazines have sold women countless lies about sex, emotional fulfillment and health issues—usually under the guise of “empowerment.” They prey on women’s insecurities by normalizing unhealthy extremes (first it was borderline anorexia, now it’s obesity). They encourage casual sex and lie to readers about its emotional ramifications. They tell women they’ll be unhappy with a husband and kids but fulfilled working for a male boss at a big corporation. They laud celebrities who aren’t good role models, turned Hillary Clinton into an object of worship, and attack or ignore women who don’t share their views... “What if there were a conservative Cosmo?”From that question, Evie Magazine was born. She’s an online publication covering health, beauty, fashion, relationships, career and culture. Her mission is to empower, educate and entertain young women with content that celebrates femininity, encourages virtue, and offers a more honest perspective than they get elsewhere. She’s Classier than Cosmo, Sexier than Refinery29, and Smarter than Bustle... Is Evie “feminist”? That depends on your definition of feminism. The reality is, modern feminism in its doctrinaire form isn’t popular. Many women realize that, at its core, progressive third-wave feminism can express itself as a form of self-hatred: a rejection of our feminine beauty, unique gifts and the natural role we play in our communities. In effect, it seeks to turn first-rate women into second-rate men. Paradoxically, this movement also is suffused with negative and condescending attitudes toward masculinity, whereas Evie readers love their men, and are thankful for the protection and sacrifice that men often have been called upon to deliver throughout history... Is Evie “feminist”? That depends on your definition of feminism. The reality is, modern feminism in its doctrinaire form isn’t popular. Many women realize that, at its core, progressive third-wave feminism can express itself as a form of self-hatred: a rejection of our feminine beauty, unique gifts and the natural role we play in our communities. In effect, it seeks to turn first-rate women into second-rate men. Paradoxically, this movement also is suffused with negative and condescending attitudes toward masculinity, whereas Evie readers love their men, and are thankful for the protection and sacrifice that men often have been called upon to deliver throughout history... Women often are told sweet-sounding adages like, “you’re perfect just the way you are!” But those sentiments often aren’t truthful, and discourage self-improvement."