Following decades of declining birth rates, Japan's population is shrinking, particularly in rural areas. To stimulate rural tourism, many regions have developed "soft cream" (not unlike soft serve ice cream) that features regional flavors, from lavender and matcha to blue honeysuckle and squid ink: www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-soft-cream-japan
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Between now and the middle of this month, many state moratoriums on utility shutoffs are set to expire. This topological map, from The Wall Street Journal, shows the number of unemployed people at risk of having their utilities shut off, by state. (from https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-homes-are-going-dark-as-moratoriums-on-utility-shut-offs-end-11601112601)
This article from The Washington Post looks at the rise of effective altruism, which seeks to pair philosopher Peter Singer's argument about our moral duty to engage in a level of giving some may consider extreme with data about charitable efficacy:
"Oxford professor William MacAskill, who helped found the movement, estimates that if you’re a one-person U.S. household earning more than $58,000, you’re in the top 1 percent in the world, even accounting for global cost differences. Since a dollar means far more to the less fortunate than to those living in such comfort, effective altruists donate a large percentage of their income. And to further harness that dollar, they seek out causes that most efficiently save lives. They land on ones that many of us haven’t considered before, especially since those lives tend to be on the other side of the world, or nonhuman — or yet to be lived. The movement isn’t just about donations. It’s a worldview and a way of life that aims to bring rationality to what people choose to care about and how they spend their time. ... In an influential 1972 article, Singer posed an argument that is now the movement’s equivalent of a biblical story: Pretend that you’re walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning, with no one else around. Most people would agree that you should save the child, even it if means ruining your clothes. Children, he points out, are “drowning in ponds” all over the world — 5.3 million people younger than 5 died in 2018, most from preventable causes. ... Think someone who donates $40,000 to train a guide dog for a blind person is generous? Sure, but, as Singer has noted, for that amount you could help several hundred blind people in a developing country get trachoma surgery, an inexpensive procedure that allows them to see. ... Amid the coronavirus pandemic, for instance, many have found it charitable to order from local restaurants to keep them in business. 'Wouldn’t it be better if they took that and donated it to an effective charity?' Singer argues. 'Because there are still people dying of malaria....' Critics ask, how do you possibly measure the greatest good? Doesn’t it require valuing strangers as much as one’s family? Doesn’t it treat mankind as one impersonal mass and ignore the individual? ... Isn’t it better if an art-loving rich person gives to a local museum rather than buying a yacht? But an EA might argue that society is paying for that contribution, in the form of a tax deduction. And can’t wealthy nonprofits find other means of making up the difference — like a museum selling a lesser-known work that it doesn’t display anyway? The arguments can go on and on." www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/09/23/effective-altruism-charity This map, from The New York Times and based on satellite data analyzed by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, shows the locations of Muslim mosques and shrines destroyed (in red) or significantly damaged (in yellow) in the Uighur-majority Xinjiang province of northwest China over the last decade. ASPI found that roughly 8,500 mosques have been destroyed in Xinjiang in just the past three years, as the Chinese government has accelerated its efforts to eradicate Uighur culture, including Uighur religious traditions, and eliminate Uighur social gatherings. (from www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/25/world/asia/xinjiang-china-religious-site.html)
Want to spend a summer or a school year studying a critical language and living in another country for free?! The NSLI-Y program, funded by the U.S. State Department, provides full scholarships for American high school students who want to study Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Bahasa Indonesian, Korean, Persian (Tajiki), Russian, or Turkish in countries where those languages are spoken. Applications for Summer 2021 and the 2021-22 school year are due by Nov. 5, and the selection process is competitive. www.nsliforyouth.org/
As the world has passed the milestone of 1 million COVID-19 deaths, this map, based on data from Johns Hopkins University, looks at current COVID hot spots, as measured by new cases per 100,000 people. (from www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/30/822491838/coronavirus-world-map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-outbreak)
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