Monday roundup

There's probably enough here for several theme-based posts... but let's stick with one for now.

Pakistan's water crisis has some roots in bad policy (doesn't every country's?).

Ukraine's impromptu aid workers risk their lives to save lives.

Two books about Russia today.

The First Crusade did, indeed, hit Jews hard. As that column says, religious violence rarely sticks to its intended victims; it likes to maximize its harm.

Nazi Nobelists and Einstein's Jewish science.
 

I can't even type this without getting angry: women scientists of color get mistaken for janitors.

 

Trying to hard to annoint the deserving poor and exclude the "undeserving" leads to screwing over the most vulnerable. Keep in mind that "welfare" is in the eye of the beholder.

People do change their minds (maybe just not right away). Also, even scientists are prone to tribalism when it comes to deciding what to believe.

Could everyone reveling in righteous indignation over the public health risks from antivaxxers please also find some rage for the threats--such as MRSA--from antibiotic resistance in pigs? It's an international threat.
 
Nasdaq is warning investors about the end of meat.

There've been many moving tributes to David Carr; Jelani Cobb's is beautiful. Heer Jeet's is informative.

Plant-based eating helps obese kids. Also: here are some polite responses to stupid vegan questions.

There can be value in unrequited love. And science.

Saccogate, the sequel, may deserve its own post but I don't want to deal with it. Adria Richards has come out accusing Jon Ronson of factual errors regarding her part of the story, and there's the larger overall issue of recentering. Ronson has an important case to make--and you do feel bad for one or two of his case studies, particularly the sign selfie girls--but by spinning the stories, he detracts focus from all that. That being, in this digital age, there's disproportionate punishment for what could be incidental transgressions. There's a mob mentality that relishes the takedown, and next thing you know, the instigator could be the next target. But spinning the offenses to make them seem like innocent mistakes--or just neglecting to explore the damage they inflict or the social context they stem from--takes away from that argument. He could say, "Sacco tweeted something stupid and offensive, here's why it's so offensive even if she didn't realize it" instead of "poor Sacco was misinterpreted." And the point has been made that's it's not the Internet that fired her, or any of those people; the internet merely amplified the transgressions. I maintain that we should forgive people for stupid tweets, statements, etc... but that only works when there's an honest apology.

 

Charles Blow points out that we're already having a conversation about race, and that we don't have to agree about everything to keep having it.

This Jezebel piece is so bad I almost don't want to link to it (read this instead). The irony is that the first piece rants about how uninteresting science is (while noting its importance), but the second, more sciency piece is much better written, more interesting, more compelling. In terms of content: remember when someone accused me of being on the payroll of big food (because I noted that science did not support the assertion that salt was unhealthy)?

Louisiana is getting back in touch with its French side.

This was painful to read. More sex don'ts here and here.

This isn't new, and Jennifer Weiner doesn't add much value to the conversation, but let's take this opportunity to note that we don't need products to fix us.