depressing graph of the day

the u.s. has a higher percentage of torture supporters than china:

(click for bigger version)

china ↔ africa

evan osnos, the new yorker’s reporter in china, files a story from guangzhou, where there is a large sub-population of african laborers:

the men who live and work there paint a picture of a bitter way of life, a limbo fraught with fragile potential. China had shimmered with just enough opportunity to lure them over, but business proved difficult and unreliable. Moreover, they had trouble getting long-term visas. As a result, many of them have overstayed their visas and spent months or years dodging police (or, even more difficult, trying to get back to Africa without paying Chinese immigration fines, which they cannot afford, for overstaying their visas)… Last week, that tension boiled over. When a rumor spread that a Nigerian had died jumping out a window to elude police, a hundred or so African traders mounted a protest outside the Kongquan police station. It is virtually unheard of for foreigners to protest in China, and this was a small, angry, but peaceful affair.

this struck a disturbing but not discordant tone with a piece i heard on bbc radio last night:

China needs Africa’s mineral resources like oil, copper, zinc, and cobalt to help fuel its industrial expansion. Some African countries need China’s investment to provide financial support for their economies. But critics claim that Chinese companies exploit the African nations they do business with. There have been riots over poor working conditions and rock-bottom wages at Chinese-owned mines and factories. Now the government of Zambia has signed a deal worth $3.6bn with the private Chinese mining group Zhonghui.

I bring these stories up because I think they’re indicative of the larger cyclical, or perhaps spiral, trend of a-chinese-market-becomes-attractive-to-foreign-investors/laborers –> china-feels-pressure-to-protect-native-chinese-workers-and-not-so-gently-pushes-back-at-ethnic-or-national-”others” –> labor/human-rights-protests –> suppression-of-protests –> slap-on-the-wrist-from-western-news-outlets –> china-exploits-other-countries’-burgeoning-markets –> western-media-cries-foul –> china-says-”uhh…isn’t this what you did (still do) to get where you are in the world economy?”

this is not to deny the hardships of groups like the nigerian workers of guangzhou or the uighurs in china’s western province; this is not to excuse the gross neglect of laborers’ human rights in chinese-owned zambian mines. the point is: we lose the moral upper hand every time we pass limp bills like waxman-markley (cap ‘n’ trade), or hold people indefinitely without charges in bagram, or soak nigeria for its oil…or our newspapers conflate “china” and theindividual, independent, often western-funded companies that exploit laborers both inside of and outside the world’s most populous country—instead of reporting, as the b and mr. osnos do, on the human cost of the world economy’s shared growing pains.

quote of the day: creepy but true dept.

from a review of the economist tyler cowen’s book create your own economy:

“placebo effects can be very powerful and many supposedly effective medicines do not in fact outperform the placebo,” Cowen writes. “The sorry truth is that no one has compared modern education to a placebo…What if we just gave people lots of face-to-face contact and told them they were being educated?” He reluctantly provides the terrifying conclusion: Maybe that’s what current methods of education already consist of.

obesity, soda tax, & calorie counts

The above graph (“% rise in health expenditures 01-06 for people classified as…”), posted on ezra klein’s blog this morning, was one of those visuals that you look at, think “that seems about right,” then realize a few hours later how incredibly depressing and unsustainable the trend it represents (oh, and our nonchalance towards the  backwards reality it depicts) is. so i blog:

1) why/how did we get to this point? pollan (omnivore’s dilemma): massive subsidization of corn and the substitution of food products for, you know, actual food. me: the backwards food industry + inadequate health education + delayed food stamp reform + lack of health insurance –> lack of periodical checkups –> no early interventions + the proven idiocy of fad diets + consumer ambivalence/ignorance towards/of the above.

2) will the soda tax—either 5 or 10 cents—proposed in the house version of the health reform bill to help fund increased coverage (& a public plan, please?), do anything to combat this? not really… unless: a) there are also tax breaks/incentives for buying healthy food, and b) there’s a trigger for a greater tax if the above graph doesn’t change (the fallacy of a straight-up tax is that it doesn’t adapt to the shifting trends of an undeniably dynamic epidemic), and c) it’s labeled, on every bottle. my suggestion: “to accurately represent the actual public and personal health costs associated with drinking soda, the price you see includes a _ cent tax.” seriously.

3) while you’re on labels, should the whole country follow new york’s lead and put calorie counts next to every fast food menu? YES. the faster the better. public awareness is raised when people simply become conscious of the choices they make on a hourly/daily/monthly basis about their food consumption. ever wonder why fast food restaurants give their meals a number? it’s not for their convenience—it’s to alienate you from the simple fact that what is most convenient is not always the best thing for you.

I know, it’s all very rant-y and elitist-as-arugula—but I direct none of my frustration towards the millions of americans who are obese, or the subset of that population that indeed considers these arguments and struggles with their family and doctors to find their own solution.  I was challenged once by some buddies of mine who couldn’t understand why I kept giving a mutual friend of ours a hard time about his eating habits. I apologized for the (unnecessary) anger with which I criticized him, but I added that yes, it was ultimately his choice what he ate—but his decisions now directly contribute to whether or not he is, down the line, given a choice about the clinical options in treating type II diabetes or heart problems or any other obesity-derived condition. and i asked him: which choice did he want to have agency over? the US legislature should be asking themselves that same question as they’re given the choice between what’s politically safe when it comes to health reform and what could be transformative.

depression and persistence

this week’s economist highlights the recent work of researchers on depression. the progression of mild symptoms of depression to chronic depression in young adults may be linked to an inability to let go of some of our loftier goals. “mild depressive symptoms [are] a natural part of dealing with failure in young adulthood.” the researchers assert, while also hinting at an evolutionary basis for these isolated lows: “in this period of low motivation, energy is saved and new goals can be found. if this mechanism does not function properly, though, severe depression can be the consequence.”

what’s most impressive about these studies—and i think this is a positive trend emerging in scientific research as a whole—is their researchers’ candidness and vigor in explaining, and placing their own study within, the evolution of scientific thinking on a particular subject. the breakthrough-plateau-breakthrough paradigm of research just isn’t applicable to the local, specialized nature of the problems science is asked to resolve.

service

i’m back from my michigan vacation with the fam. to make up for the lack of recent posts, here’s my (long) take on service learning:

I am furious. If they laugh one more time when John asks a question, I think, I am going to say some things that would make my Grandmother faint. “Kami,” I start, taking off my glasses and biting the edge of the frames, “Can you translate John’s question for me?”

“We already answered it.” He says, grinning like a fourth-grader whose spitwad just hit the back of a classmate’s neck. “It was a silly question.”

“I’d still like you to translate the question, Kami…there’s a reason he asked it—and even if the question was out of line, we can at least consider some of the ideas or opinions that John has about HIV/AIDS that are making him ask it.”

“It’s silly, though.”

“Sure… but so is the cap you’re wearing.” Kami adjusts his hat so that the word Hustla, with a $ where the S should be, faces away from me.

“…And we’re all here to learn.” I add, somewhat arbitrarily, like the line a politician falls back on in the middle of a heated debate—Country First, or Change We Can Believe In.

“He asked—“ Kami pauses, letting out one last giggle, “How you would know if your condom fell off during sex?”

(CLICK BELOW FOR MORE)

2000 words

Paris, 1968:

Tehran, 2009:

The riots against Khamenei and “Ahmadi”  are not completely led by young, male iranians (they are widespread, too–reports continue to come in from throughout the country, not just the capital); I choose the above photo because of its eerie similarity to the paris snapshot. As Roger Cohen reports:

Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”

Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square.

iran, ctd.

via andrew sullivan: “the good guys are the ones who help bewildered riot police.” i stared at this picture for about 3 minutes.

a dark side to altruism

A new study looks at warfare and the evolutionary origins of altruism. One quote jumped out at me: “Lethal hostility toward other groups could thus underpin cooperation and support within human communities,” writes Ruth Mace, a University College London anthropologist. Does the drive to protect the common good emerge from the creation of a common, generalized (read: imagined) evil? Do we have to create “the other” to conceptualize, through its negation, what is exemplary, what is good?

I’ll stop myself before the obligatory third rhetorical question, and say this: our reasons to evolve, not just how we evolve, are constantly shifting; altruistic behavior now need not be covertly selfish simply b/c of its origins. We should be cognizant, though, of how shaky and shifty perceptions and identity become when we help others.