The Poorest Countries in America

The US Census Bureau has released some recent data on the rate of poverty in America, and to no one surprise, the results are quite grim: 

In total, more than 15% of the population lived in poverty in 2010, the highest percentage since 1993, according to the most recent data from the Census Bureau. To put that in perspective, that means more than 46 million people fell below the poverty line, defined as $22,314 for a family of four. If you factor in the income spent on expenses like medical costs, child care and mortgage payments, the number of Americans whose remaining income falls below the poverty line is closer to 50 million, or roughly 16% of the population.

As severe as this sounds, some regions in the U.S. are much worse off. In November, the census released a breakdown of the poverty rate in every county in the U.S. in 2010, which showed dozens of counties where more than a third of the population lives in poverty and a handful whose overall poverty rates were closer to 50%.

The majority of these countries are composed of minorities, namely African-Americans and Native Americans. Indeed, contrary to popular belief, the latter group is the most impoverished minority in the United States. Many Indian reservations have been described as having a rate of development equal to third world countries, including a lack of plumbing, sanitation infrastructure, or arable land. 

But given the psychological and geographic distance that Native Americans have from the rest of the country — and the pervasive myths about them being non-taxpayers rolling in casino money — this is hardly acknowledged, let alone addressed. If close to 20% of the population being impoverished doesn’t seem to garner much political or public agitation, what more will it take? 

Slideshow: Cherry Season in Aleppo — The Struggle For Normalcy Amid Civil War

Foreign Policy has another great but sobering slideshow, this time showcasing the plight of Syria’s beleaguered civilians, namely those in its largest and most contested cities, Aleppo. While we’ve heard much about the back-and-forth between the various warring factions, as usual, the fate of those in the middle is somewhat understated (which in some sense is to be expected, given that they’re passive elements in the grand scheme of the war, at least for the time being).

The article’s introduction puts it pretty well:

Aleppo has been under siege for over nine months — ever since the Free Syrian Army (FSA) stormed the city limits in mid-July. More than 94,000have died throughout Syria, and close to 11,000 have died in Aleppo alone. While the international community dawdles and deliberates, while each side fights for the survival of its reality, civilians here must grapple with the fact that their old lives are gone and their future lives are unknown, and that life must somehow go on between now and then.

So people adapt and cope. The blasts of mortars and artillery fire blend into the background, the threat of snipers becomes a reality to grit your teeth through as you walk home, and dark humor seeps into the daily milieu, calming nerves with a white-knuckled laughter that holds tears at bay. Groceries must be bought, money must be made, bellies must be filled, and days must have some sort of meaning.

The reality of a civilian in war is that life must be risked in order to live. Day-to-day acts can become small feats of rebellion. Risking sniper fire on the walk to work becomes not only a testament to human resilience and our ability to adapt, but sometimes a statement: You can take my life, but you can’t take my choice to live it.

I hope this vicious bloodletting ends soon, and to the benefit of the Syrian people. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely for now: the intractable nature of this grinding war of attrition, as well as the growing sectarianism, makes it difficult to imagine that even a relatively pacified Syria will be stable for long.

Guns and Freedoms

By my observation, a good number Americans justify gun ownership on the basis of defending themselves, individually or collectively, against government tyranny (however it may manifest). Setting aside the feasibility of armed civilian resistance (which is a different discussion altogether), I find it interesting that the US seems to be the only stable, long-lived democracy for whom a significant proportion of citizens feel the need to keep the state in check through arms.

By my knowledge, every other free and democratic society doesn’t rely on armed civilians to ensure that their rights aren’t violated — or at least they don’t feel the need to. Indeed, many of the countries that perform better than the US in metrics of civil liberty, economics, and government transparency have no such political rhetoric attached to gun ownership. Among wealthy, industrialized democracies, America is an interesting outlier.

But why is this the case? What are other successful — often more successful — democracies doing  in order to preclude the need for armed citizenry?  And what are the implications of this curiously adversarial power dynamic? What does it say about the nature of our government, society, and culture? I have my own ideas, but I’d rather leave the floor to you all.

The World’s Most and Least Racially-Tolerant Countries

A map of the world’s most and least racially-tolerant countries. Read the methodology of the study, and its conclusion, here. The analysis was as follows:

• Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant. People in the survey were most likely to embrace a racially diverse neighbor in the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America. The only real exceptions were oil-rich Venezuela, where income inequality sometimes breaks along racial lines, and the Dominican Republic, perhaps because of its adjacency to troubled Haiti. Scandinavian countries also scored high.

• India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong by far the least tolerant.In only three of 81 surveyed countries, more than 40 percent of respondents said they would not want a neighbor of a different race. This included 43.5 percent of Indians, 51.4 percent of Jordanians and an astonishingly high 71.8 percent of Hong Kongers and 71.7 percent of Bangladeshis.

• Wide, interesting variation across Europe. Immigration and national identity are big, touchy issues in much of Europe, where racial make-ups are changing. Though you might expect the richer, better-educated Western European nations to be more tolerant than those in Eastern Europe, that’s not exactly the case. France appeared to be one of the least racially tolerant countries on the continent, with 22.7 percent saying they didn’t want a neighbor of another race. Former Soviet states such as Belarus and Latvia scored as more tolerant than much of Europe. Many in the Balkans, perhaps after years of ethnicity-tinged wars, expressed lower racial tolerance.

• The Middle East not so tolerant. Immigration is also a big issue in this region, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which often absorb economic migrants from poorer neighbors.

• Racial tolerance low in diverse Asian countries. Nations such as Indonesia and the Philippines, where many racial groups often jockey for influence and have complicated histories with one another, showed more skepticism of diversity. This was also true, to a lesser extent, in China and Kyrgyzstan. There were similar trends in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

• South Korea, not very tolerant, is an outlier. Although the country is rich, well-educated, peaceful and ethnically homogenous – all trends that appear to coincide with racial tolerance – more than one in three South Koreans said they do not want a neighbor of a different race. This may have to do with Korea’s particular view of its own racial-national identity as unique – studied by scholars such as B.R. Myers – and with the influx of Southeast Asian neighbors and the nation’s long-held tensions with Japan.

• Pakistan, remarkably tolerant, also an outlier. Although the country has a number of factors that coincide with racial intolerance – sectarian violence, its location in the least-tolerant region of the world, low economic and human development indices – only 6.5 percent of Pakistanis objected to a neighbor of a different race. This would appear to suggest Pakistanis are more racially tolerant than even the Germans or the Dutch.

Note that there are many caveats to keep in mind: for example, different societies have different perceptions of race (certain social, religious, and sectarian groups may be perceived unfavorably as distinct races) or may have no concept of race at all. Similarly, there is a difference between actually liking someone of a certain race, and being willing to live near them. Many national surveys from these countries will reveal strong racist attitudes in conjunction with a begrudging ability to tolerate said races.

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How a German Elementary School Taught Sex Ed

This is sexual education done right, and although many German parents found it controversial, it’s refreshing to see such creative efforts being attempted. Teaching children properly about sex is undoubtedly vital, as it reduces the incidences of STDs, teen pregnancy, and — by extension — abortion.

Then there’s this excerpt:

[A] 2012 study…asked children in the U.S., the Netherlands, England, and Sweden to draw pictures explaining where babies come from. The Dutch boy who drew the above picture did better than most — American kids got nowhere near as close to understanding what was going on, and invariably invoked God in their explanations. One U.S. boy said, “I think [babies] are made by a mom and a dad, but I am not sure how; maybe during special time when they are alone.”

The study’s authors concluded that it is possible for kids that young to understand the concepts of conception and birth, and argued that “In these countries [like the Netherlands and Sweden] with more open attitudes toward sexuality and greater recognition of the need to educate young people, there are higher rates of contraceptive use by both male and female teens and lower rates of teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion.”

Where the depiction of contraception in a book aimed at such young children runs into trouble, of course, is that it equates sex primarily with pleasure. The other thing that high school teacher from Idaho is being investigated for is explaining the biological mechanisms of an orgasm to his students. That seems like something that can end up being a lot more damning than using the anatomically correct name for female genitalia. It’s also a lot less common. I remember seeing lots of sex ed materials throughout adolescence that were filled with images and detailed explanations of how it all works, but I can’t remember any of it talking about how it’s supposed to feel: ”So good that it can’t get any better,” according to Wo kommst du her?; then, in the afterglow, “nice and tingly and warm.”

Controversial or not, sex education has practical societal benefits that are measurable. On that basis alone, we should work strongly to implement effective and comprehensive sex education in grade schools — rather than investigating a high school teacher for using proper anatomical terms like vagina.

Number 1 Gun Runner

In constant 1990 U.S. dollars. Source: 2012 SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.

In a recent report for International Studies Quarterly, political scientists Paul Midford and Indra de Soysa looked at U.S. and Chinese arms transfers to Africa from 1989 to 2006, using data collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. They found no statistical correlation between China and the types of regimes it supplied with weapons, while U.S. arms shipments were slightly negatively correlated with democracy. In plain English, China actually turned out to be less likely to sell weapons to dictators than America was.

“It isn’t that China is there to do good; they’re pursuing their national interest,” Midford says. “But we didn’t find any evidence that they’re trying to spread a ‘Beijing consensus’ or promote regimes that are specifically autocratic.”

The report focuses on Africa, but similar human rights concerns have been raised about U.S. weapons transfers to Persian Gulf autocracies such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, which collectively helped drive a more than 300 percent jump in U.S. arms sales in 2011 amid rising tensions with Iran.

Midford emphasizes that the report is not meant to suggest the United States prefers to sell weapons to dictators. “The U.S. is choosing to support autocrats based on a geopolitical rationale,” Midford says, “as is China.”

Source: Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy.

Prostitution

Reblogged from News on Modern Day Slavery:

Victor Jara

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile.

A distinguished theatre director, he devoted himself to the development of Chilean theatre, directing a broad array of works from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of Ann Jellicoe.

Simultaneously he developed in the field of music and played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric artists who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement which led to a revolution in the popular music of his country under the Salvador Allende government.

Shortly after the Chilean coup of September 11, 1973 and the ascension of US-backed Augusto Pinochet, he was arrested. In the hours and days that followed, Jara was repeatedly beaten and tortured; the bones in his hands were broken, as were his ribs. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them as he lay on the ground with broken hands. Defiantly, he sang part of “Venceremos” (We Will Win), a song supporting the Popular Unity coalition.[6] After further beatings, he was machine-gunned on September 16, his body dumped on a road on the outskirts of Santiago and then taken to a city morgue where 44 bullets were found in his body.

The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice worldwide.

On December 3, 2009, a massive funeral took place in the “Galpón Víctor Jara” across from “Plaza Brazil”. Jara’s remains were honoured by thousands. His remains were re-buried in the same place he was buried in 1973. On December 28, 2012 a judge in Chile ordered the arrest of eight former army officers for alleged involvement in the murder of Victor Jara.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Welcome to North Korea

There is little doubt that the regime in North Korea is one of the most odious and evil in human history. The level of cruelty, capriciousness, and sociopathy that characterizes this pseudo-religious totalitarian state is surreal (indeed, I dare say the villainy of NK government is almost Hollywood-worthy in how over-the-top and disturbingly cartoonish it can be).

While the exploits of its bizarre and ruthless leaders –namely the late Kim Jong-il — are well-known and the subject of many pop culture references, there are very few details about what everyday life in the regime is like. What little we know comes from either escapees, satellite images (which have captured the large network of labor camps), and the small coterie of people who manage to visit the notoriously isolationist state. Needless to say, their accounts are profoundly disturbing.

As it turns out, however, there was actually a documentary filmed in the country over a decade ago that managed to portray what conditions were like for average North Koreans. I’m not sure how this rare find managed to go under the radar, especially as it one the International Emmy award for Best Documentary — although I imagine that its release in 2001 was likely overshadowed by bigger events elsewhere in the world, as North Korea has only recently gained its level of notoriety)

Dutch filmmaker Peter Tetteroo and his associate Raymond Feddema spent a week in and around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, where most of the filming takes place. How they managed to get in there, film nearly an hour of intimate footage, and make it out is beyond me (contrary to popular belief, people to visit North Korea, although its exceedingly difficult, and I doubt such filming is allowed).

In any case, this video is well worth your time. Fair warning — it’s probably one of the most disturbing things you’ll see in a while, which I doubt is surprising to anyone.

Everything You Know About the World is a Lie

As a geography enthusiast and self-proclaimed citizen of the world, I have a distinct love of maps, especially those of our planet. It’s hard to pin down exactly what I like about maps — I simply enjoy their aesthetic beauty, in much the same way that one marvels at the inexplicable beauty of art, music, or the natural world (to that end, I have a massive antique-looking map that I paid to have framed, which is placed prominently in my bedroom and which I marvel at every day).

Whatever the case may be, there’s certainly a widespread tendency, perhaps even an intuition, to view maps as utilitarian tools, and to thus treat them as a given. A map, like any tool, is something we assume to be functional and easily accessible, especially in a world of a mass travel and instant information.

In other words, rarely do we question the precision or validity of a map, especially within the classrooms in which we typically first encounter them. Few people look at a map with a critical eye, because, after all, a map is merely a projection of the world; and the world is obviously a real place that we have figured out with great precision, thanks to ubiquitous and advanced satellites and other advanced instruments.

Well, as with most things in life, it’s not that simple. Take for example, the following map, which is perhaps the most commonly encountered one the US.

This familiar classroom staple (at least last I checked) is called Mercator projection. Devised by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, it was developed specifically to assist in sea travels, which is the main reason why it’s been distorted to accommodate the imaginary lines used for navigation. This makes sense, as the first maps of the world were drawn up during the European Age of Exploration, when sea travel was both the main reason and means for mapping the world.

So setting aside the fact that most people don’t realize that this map is terribly inaccurate in its spatial arrangement, how inaccurate is it exactly? Well consider some of the following, courtesy of Wikipedia:

• Greenland takes as much space on the map as Africa, when in reality Africa’s area is 14 times greater and Greenland’s is comparable to Algeria’s alone.
• Alaska takes as much area on the map as Brazil, when Brazil’s area is nearly five times that of Alaska.
• Finland appears with a greater north-south extent than India, although latter’s is greater.
• Antarctica appears as the biggest continent in the world, although it is actually the 5th largest in terms of area.

For this reason, cartographers universally agree that the Mercator projection is ill-suited as a general reference map, although it remains in use for nautical travel. However, this over 500-year-old projection is still ubiquitous across schools and offices, often without the disclaimer about its context and accuracy. Note, I was fortunate to have been informed of its inaccuracy in class (which blew my little mind), although an alternative hadn’t been offered.

Furthermore, a variation of the Mercator has been adopted by nearly all the major online street mapping services (including Bing Maps, OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, and others), not only because it’s familiar, but also because it is apparently well-suited as an interactive world map that can be zoomed seamlessly without much distortion, thanks to Mercator’s emphasis on conformality (e.g. preserving the angles and lines at the obvious expense of landmass and arrangement.

So what’s the alternative? Well, there are several, the best known of which is the Gall-Peters Projection, developed in 1855 and 1973 by two separate individuals:

As you can see, this map shows proportions and sizes much more realistically, with quite the dramatic difference: Africa, for example, is actually twice the size of the US (although Antarctica still looks bigger than it should be). Recall the list of inaccuracies I listed earlier.

Accuracy isn’t the only issue, however: believe it or not, there are political implications to these projections as well: the Mercator map is viewed as being biased towards the mostly wealthy and Westernized Northern Hemisphere, portraying it as bigger and more geographically-central than the predominantly poorer South. To most human minds, the size of something does seem to correlate with its perceived significance (especially to children), and the smallness of already-marginalized parts of the world could be seen as perpetuating this issue (this issue was amusingly featured in an episode of the West Wing, which was probably the first time many people even became aware of its existence).

In any case, the Gall-Peters projection is hardly the only contender — indeed, it’s the subject of much controversy (well, at least among cartographers). The increasingly popular Mollwiede projection, developed in 1805 and popularized in 1857, adds a pseudo-cylindrical shape to the projection developed by Gall-Peters. Then there is the Robinson projection, a personal favorite of mine, and the projection used for the cherished world map in my room. It was devised by Arthur Robinson in 1963 as a compromise between conformality (represented by Mercator) and spatial accuracy (as seen in Gall-Peters), and was adopted by the National Geographic Society for general purpose maps…at least until 1998, when the NGS decided to switch over to the Winkel tripel projection.

The Robinson and Winkel tripel projections, respectively.

Indeed, there are literally dozens of different map projections spanning a variety of types, properties, purposes, and intentions. A personal favorite of my friend, fellow blogger, and geography buff Alex, who writes for Scribbles and Rants, is the Dymaxion or Fuller map. This unusual specimen projects the world onto the surface of an icosahedron, which can be unfolded and flattened to two dimensions, thus displaying Earth’s continents as “one island,” or nearly contiguous land masses. The arrangement heavily disrupts the map in order to preserve shapes and sizes. See for yourself:

Strange but ecumenical.

Ultimately, there really is no such thing as the perfect map, given that each projection is attempting to transplant something that is roughly-spherical into a two-dimensional space. Something will always be lost, which is why most cartographers make a point of warning that rectangular maps shouldn’t be relied upon as an accurate representation of Earth.

In fact, a couple of a decades ago, a number of geographic organizations adopted the following resolution:

WHEREAS, the earth is round with a coordinate system composed entirely of circles, and

WHEREAS, flat world maps are more useful than globe maps, but flattening the globe surface necessarily greatly changes the appearance of Earth’s features and coordinate systems, and

WHEREAS, world maps have a powerful and lasting effect on people’s impressions of the shapes and sizes of lands and seas, their arrangement, and the nature of the coordinate system, and

WHEREAS, frequently seeing a greatly distorted map tends to make it “look right,”

THEREFORE, we strongly urge book and map publishers, the media and government agencies to cease using rectangular world maps for general purposes or artistic displays. Such maps promote serious, erroneous conceptions by severely distorting large sections of the world, by showing the round Earth as having straight edges and sharp corners, by representing most distances and direct routes incorrectly, and by portraying the circular coordinate system as a squared grid. The most widely displayed rectangular world map is the Mercator (in fact a navigational diagram devised for nautical charts), but other rectangular world maps proposed as replacements for the Mercator also display a greatly distorted image of the spherical Earth.

In short, everything you know about the world is a lie. Don’t trust what the maps tell you!

Jokes aside, it’s fascinating  how much goes into something as seemingly mundane and taken-for-granted as maps. I suppose the same can be said of many disciplines and developments. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying such maps should be discarded or banned — it’s all about being cognizant of their flaws and peculiarities. As I noted at the start of the post, there is still something very beautiful about the portrayal of the world.