Links - 19th February 2020 (1)

About Us | ICHIRAN - "ICHIRAN created the “Five Originals,” five revolutionary elements of tonkotsu ramen.
1. Original Spicy Red Sauce
2. Aromatic Tonkotsu Broth
3. Solo Dining Booth
4. Order Form
5. Kae-Dama Ordering System"

Perth city centre 'It's ok to be white' stickers condemned - "Scotland's deputy first minister has condemned the appearance of stickers bearing the slogan "It's ok to be white" in Perth city centre... John Swinney, who is also MSP for Perthshire North, said the "atrocious" stickers had "no place in Perth or any other part of our country."  Police Scotland said it was "currently looking into the matter."  Posting on Twitter, Mr Swinney said: "We must stand together to resist this unacceptable material."... Local group Perth Against Racism said it has been contacted by local people who said the appearance of the stickers had made them feel unsafe.  One person told the group: "I am certainly worried now for my daughters who are not white but are from Perth.  "It's sickening and disgusting to know that people think like this.""
Anti-white racism moves across the pond
So much for white fragility

Giuliani-Style 'Shadow' Diplomacy: Par for the Course for U.S. Presidents - "Rudolph Giuliani didn’t hide the fact that he was investigating whether Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Yet most media have treated Giuliani’s efforts as sneaky and suspect because he acted at the personal behest of the president and not as an official representative of the bureaucracy. The New York Times, for example, claimed Giuliani was conducting “a shadow foreign policy campaign.” In fact, presidents since George Washington have turned to individuals without formal government positions to pursue foreign policy interests and objectives. Private citizens, often acting as special envoys, have helped negotiate issues ranging from trade to war. While critics deride such efforts as “back-door,” “secret,” or “shadow” undertakings, many presidents have found it useful to dispatch people they trust, who can think and operate outside the constraints of official channels in handling delicate matters."

What Growing Up Privileged Taught Me About Being Malay - "any who judge you by your privilege is just as bad as any who judge the impoverished for being impoverished. To say that a problem is invalid because you can smell hints of upper class and therefore deem it inherently invalid is moral relativism and in general moral relativism stinks doo doo... When I answer their questions in English, and I mean grammatically correct, no-Malay-accent English, I think they see me as arrogant, like I can’t stoop down to their level to speak ‘normally’. I wish me speaking in English and them in Malay and both of us understanding each other would work. But it doesn’t. It’s like I’m not one of them... my cards aren’t gained, they’re swapped. Every Chinese friend I make is a family member ostracised. Ever article read, a conversation with a family member I won’t be having. Bukan seerti-seiras. It’s not commensurate... when I go to their house and I eat their food on their Ikea dining table, I think: I can’t pretend that we are as similar as families are supposed to be. I have more in common with my German neighbour who moved here than with my own aunties and uncles. I feel uncomfortable sitting in the homes of my relatives because they know I’m used to amenities they could never provide me. I see it in their faces when they serve me food on plastic plates... I don’t think my parents would be comfortable knowing how fully ‘Chinesed’ I am. Don’t you think your parents not being comfortable with your identity rings too many bells from too many gay movies? I don’t go home to a family where I suddenly belong again. My extended family never grew up with that ‘only Malay kid in class’ starter pack. I can’t talk to them about the things I normally think about: the shows I watch, hobbies I partake in, issues I care about or facts or news I just learnt. The cultural sphere that encircles every one of my extended family members shares no overlap with mine. None. It’s a Venn Diagram with no common middle, a mathematical concept which I have actually tried to bring up in conversation with abysmal results."

Tushar Ismail - "It’s an interesting world we live in. A young, probably new, writer writes - in an admittedly torturously clunky way, reminiscent of a B- GP essay, - about how the luck of his birth into wealth has alienated him from his family and his culture... we have a revered local playwright participating in the public condemnation of that writer. A playwright whose works, deservedly, are considered part of local literary canon. A playwright whose words young art-makers hang onto because his reputation and influence seem larger than life. Someone whom many fear contradicting lest it spell a quiet death of their careers. The playwright who might as well be judge, jury, and executioner in the court of public opinion.This playwright condemns the writer to the braying of the crowd. And not even with any sense of dignity, resorting at the very end to some low-hanging name-calling.This playwright who, with all his privilege, finds the time to write a Facebook post about how an Uber/Grab/Taxi driver’s mispronunciation of his name hit him with the force of all that his race and culture have suffered through time. A playwright who has privilege that many of us in the arts can’t even dream of smelling, and yet finds a way to leverage his victimhood instead.For shame, Alfian, you would lecture Chinese people over how they are privileged and how they should be aware of and use their privilege to provide a platform for the less privileged. And when an opportunity arose where you could have used your platform, your voice, your privilege to create a better conversation or even a teachable moment, what did you do? You used it for the likes, the shares, and the applause from the crowd.This has become about two writers. But at least one of them is aware of the privilege he possesses.It’s amusing that you’re still described online as some sort enfant terrible, when almost everything you’ve done has revealed you to be a run-of-the-mill populist."
Racism is a good way to become popular

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Marcus Samuelsson: My life in five dishes - "‘[Swedish meatballs] are just a very simple pork and beef, or pork, beef and veal, but any type of meat that you have left over, but you do need the pork because that's the best fat content. Little bit of bread crumbs, onions, and I like to always have water and with a little bit of oil right next to me just like that... when you have little bit of water and oil mixed in your hand, you can roll them in a much better way. So they don't stick.’
‘And is there anything particularly Swedish about the ingredients or the way you're making it?’
‘It speaks to me, freedom from a completely different time. What people don't understand or know, speak about poverty to me, because it's not somebody grinding some beautiful meat. It is whatever meat you have leftover at home. Everybody has some type of bread crumbs left at home. And people had access to an egg. Root vegetable was always available. Some stone fruit, pear or apples [for] the sweetness, they have to pick a number serve. So that's the cucumber. And we always had some type of a pork product laying around. So for me it’s really rustic poverty in the most delicious way. Most things we like comes out of poverty… I always like to sear them in a mix between oil and butter. Oil is really there for the heat and the butter is really there for the flavor. And all of this can be used up, in our gravy so you have a little bit of stock. It could be any stock'… ‘You’re adding some maple syrup to the gravy there’
‘Sweetness is very much part of Swedish cooking too... Way back that pork was cured. So super salty. So the sweetness sets, you know, balances that’"

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Can you have your plate and eat it? - "‘Making packaging from food materials is not without its challenges. Like, how quickly do you really want a wrapper to biodegrade? Not so fast that it substantially reduces a product’s shelf life, perhaps. That could create even more food waste, which sort of defeats the point. And you wouldn't want this to happen:’
‘If you go on holiday. And you have some milk in the fridge and the packet is biodegrading with the milk in it and you come back and you've got a massive pool of stinky milk in your fridge because the package has already disappeared, not ideal. The responsibility really then is on the consumer to be on top of their food times and how that works. Or that we develop technology of a fridge or a storage unit that knows that and somehow gets rid of it for us.’…
When it comes to packaging that's not only made out of food ingredients, but actually designed to be eaten, there are other challenges too...
‘What do we do about the fact that people have touched it? And I think that's why it's perfect for fast food because it's coming from the person that's serving it, who’ll be wearing gloves to the person who's eating, who doesn't mind that they personally have touched it anyway’
‘But it doesn't work with shelf products does it?’
‘Very difficult with shelf products, unless they are then of course put in another package. So it's the edible packet of something or other that's then in a box.’
‘Do you think that the consumer does want to eat the wrapping? I mean it interferes with a dish, right? You've eaten your burger? Do you really want to eat something else that tastes quite bland like some of these products probably do. It's adding calories, isn't it? It's changing the flavor of a dish.’
‘That's the big concern is that if you are having a drink, and then you're being asked to eat the bottle of the drink’
‘Just sounds exhausting’
‘Just a lot of eating going on. And you might be thirsty but not hungry. So what do you do with the edible membrane and you throw it away? But where do you throw it away? Because if you are thinking about compostability, are there special bins that you are going to put around places that have like a worming, little worm farm, so they can eat. Know, what happens if it doesn't go there? Do we start to create the bubonic plague you know, where we suddenly, our roads are full of decomposting food matter?’
The plate I ate earlier was made out of wheat bran, a byproduct of milling which is sometimes thrown away... this and the fact it decomposes quickly and won’t clog up landfill are what matters. The plates being edible, she says is simply a marketing tool. Each plate has 193 calories in it
‘And that's why we are not encouraging people to eat the plate. If you eat one plate, it's 100 grams of pure starch. You know it will have effect on your body. I don't think it will be really wise’...
‘In case you've been wondering what happens when you use a bowl made of wheat bran to eat your soup’
‘You have like 20 minutes to eat it. Otherwise it starts to leak. With different types of sauces it's not a huge problem. Of course after 30 minutes, one hour it starts to be soggy and the parts of the wheat bran go into the food’"

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Can palm oil be sustainable? - "‘Why did palm oil become so popular?’
‘In the first place, it's odorless, it's very stable, it's resistant to high temperatures. And because the oil palm is such a productive crop, you're able to sell it very cheaply… It depends on what kind of foodstuffs you're talking about. But for things like peanut butter or chocolate spread, it  gives you that smooth, creamy consistency that a lot of consumers like’…
‘Palm oil might well be the world's most popular vegetable oil, but it's also the most controversial. Critics have a long list of complaints that ranged from destroying rain forests, leaving orang utans stranded or worse dead to stealing indigenous land and human rights abuses. And yet, many see it as a tool to lift people out of poverty. The debate has become incredibly polarized.’… ‘Yet WWF isn't calling for a boycott.’
‘No, there's never a simple answer to all these questions. Fundamentally states need to develop. So we want to see a balanced approach to whereas agriculture and whereas forestry, and palm oil is a super crop, it has extremely high yield. And it lasts for 25 years as a single plant. So if you boycott, you would have to replace the oil palm plantations with another crop, which is less high yielding, which means you need a bigger area for the same volume of palm oil’
‘Glyn’s not wrong. Studies show that palm oil accounts for 35% of the world's edible oil market, but only takes up 6% of the land use for oil crops. If we were to switch to an alternative like sunflower, we'd need at least five and a half times more land to produce the same amount. So experts like Glyn feel there's only one solution: ensure it's grown in a way that's fair to farmers, and that doesn't cause any harm to the environment. And that's what the northeastern corner of Borneo is trying to achieve. In a world first, the local government of Sabah wants to ensure all their palm oil is produced sustainably, and they want to do it by 2025. It's an ambitious goal but not without its financial incentives. Malaysia is having to compete with countries like Indonesia, who’ve ramped up their production in recent years. And as a result, the price of palm oil here has nearly halved in the last decade. The hope is that by doing this, it will reposition Malaysia and give this valuable commodity a unique selling point... whilst many large plantations are already on board, a lot of smallholders are not’...
‘We know Unilever uses RSPO certified palm oil. And yet, I can't see your label anywhere on these products. And I wondered, why’
‘Our members have requested the option to either put it on the pack or put it on their website as a corporate messaging. And in this case, they've obviously chosen not to put it on pack. And the reason is, if you look at the pack, there's lots of messages on it, and lots of ingredients. So if they were to label it, they would label maybe sustainable peanut or sustainable eggs, rather than having people focus that there's palm oil in it. And palm oil has a negative impression for many people. So a lot of companies are trying to downplay the fact that they have palm oil in their product.’...
‘Doesn’t that just not kind of defeat the object? Because as a consumer, I don't want to go on a website.’"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Monday's business with Dominic O'Connell - "Fraudulent returns in fashion are probably less than 2%. I think there's a misconception about fraud vs say serial returners. Serial returners can actually turn out to be the most profitable customers, because they're returning so much over time that they actually get to understand their size, fit and shape"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Tuesday's business with Dominic O'Connell - "'Facebook and Google enjoy the lion's share of online ads because of their immense reach, and their ability to deliver exactly the kinds of viewers, readers that the advertisers want, but all that falls to pieces if those readers don't actually exist. Facebook's own numbers suggest that 11% of all its accounts are fake'...
'They do break numbers down into duplicate accounts and false accounts which are slightly different and that all presupposes that they're accurately making estimates. Once a year Facebook provides estimates in their securities filings. And those numbers tend to go up over time, which either means there are more duplicates and false accounts, or they're just getting better at identifying that'
‘I think people will be surprised at how easy it is to get fake accounts, the Financial Times just did a little bit of work, where it showed that you could buy 50 fake accounts for $25. These things are easy to get.’…
‘How many people have have a Facebook account for their cat. You know, how many people, you know, people who unfortunately have passed away and didn't alert Facebook that you know, the person has passed away, and those are still included in the user numbers.’"