a serviceable substitute

According to Anand, the idea was first conceived by an Indian physics professor at the University of Maryland, who, in his travels around India, realized how widespread bribery was and wanted to do something about it. He came up with the idea of printing zero-denomination notes and handing them out to officials whenever he was asked for kickbacks as a way to show his resistance. Anand took this idea further: to print them en masse, widely publicize them, and give them out to the Indian people. He thought these notes would be a way to get people to show their disapproval of public service delivery dependent on bribes. The notes did just that. The first batch of 25,000 notes were met with such demand that 5th Pillar has ended up distributing one million zero-rupee notes to date since it began this initiative. Along the way, the organization has collected many stories from people using them to successfully resist engaging in bribery.

Photo Credit: 5th Pillar

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available via amazon.com

Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be is a straight-ahead introduction to the fact of evolution, to its mechanisms, and to the misunderstandings that surround it. The book aims to explain how evolution works — and how we know for a fact that it happens. It is suitable for readers aged 8 – 13.

There are many fine kids books about evolution, but this one is distinguished by its skeptical pedigree. While laying out the evidence for evolution, this book also takes a critical look at common objections to evolutionary theory. Those pseudoscientific notions (“Isn’t there a dinosaur still alive in Africa someplace? Doesn’t that mean evolution didn’t happen?”) are major barriers to understanding for many people. Luckily, getting to the bottom of those sorts of questions is what skeptics do.

The writing is as clear as I can possibly make it — and then some. Nothing teaches you to strip out ambiguity and jargon like writing for kids.

the new book just out by Junior Skeptic columnist Daniel Loxton, this one goes out to that teacher who told Kaelin he couldn't do his science fair project on Darwin because the topic was "too difficult"

In the UK, the dates are a little different but the recent drop is similar: crime rose up to the mid 1990s and then fell back down to where it started (source):

The picture is roughly the same in other industrialized countries. Bearing in mind that the vast majority of crime is committed by young people (specifically young men), this is evidence that something is not rotten in the state of today's yoof.

That's in terms of how they relate to others - what about how they feel about themselves? Have rates of mental illness increased? That's a difficult one because mental illness statistics are problematic, but in terms of the body count, suicide rates in young people have declined, albeit slightly, over the same period (source US, UK).

We don't know why crime rates fell. Everyone agrees that it happened, but everyone has their own ideas as to the cause, ranging from more abortions (the "Freakonomics theory"), to less lead pollution, to cellphones making it easier to report crimes, to... I'm sure you can make up your own. Ditto for suicide.

The point is, whatever reduced them, it's unlikely that something else was acting to increase them by any significant amount over the same period. It's possible - maybe something about 21st century life causes loads of crime and suicide, but luckily, some other mystery factor(s) reduced them even more at just the right time. But that's pretty implausible; if nothing else, Occam's razor tells us not to multiply explanatory factors unnecessarily. Which means it's implausible that the internet, video games, and the rest, are causing any significant degree of harm.

Will Pavia of London's The Times reports on efforts by the English Church to incorporate the blessing of modern technology, including ubiquitous Apple products such as the smart phone, into its centuries-old liturgy. The Church's willingness to adapt is evident, as Pavia reports, since "none had been brave enough to adapt its ceremonies to address the modern mysteries of 3G network coverage, iPhone apps and variable battery life" before the new liturgy was held January 11th at St. Lawrence Jewry in the City of London Corporation. Part of St. Lawrence's success in this endeavor is due to Canon Parrott, who exhibits a charisma and dynamism absent in many of England's quickly-emptying churches. "In his former parish", Pavia reports, "he once dressed up as a Christmas tree to promote the message of Christmas".

At first, this novel practice may appear to many as bizarre, newfangled, and even irreverent, as though the timeless character of the liturgy has been diluted. But this rite may not seem so bizarre as one might first think. In the Middle Ages, Pavia notes, laborers would commemorate Plow Monday by bringing their plows to the church door and leaving them there to be blessed by the clergy. Thus, ecclesiastical adaptation to modern-day needs and interests is not a new phenomenon; the Church (at that time the Universal Church, since the English Church had not yet been established) has long been appealing to its laity with innovations which would have been highly personal for, and contemporary with, them.

Why do congregation members bring their plows and laptops to church to be blessed? The ritual may have deeper and more anthropologically significant roots than we imagine...

Image and Source: The Times

An astute commenter points out how the original AMC model kit body was deftly hacked to change the standard van into a maxi-van, which is amazing way beyond the fine detail Tim Hortons cups, bent-bristle snowbrush and duct-taped bucket seats. Red says, "I think this is the first time in history where the 1/25th scale model is worth more than the full-sized version."

From the November 23, 2009 Financial Times: "Paul 'Moose' Curtis [above] founded Symbollix in 2003, after his particular brand of 'grime writing' — creating pictures and slogans by selectively cleaning the dirt off walls and pavements — caught the attention of corporate marketing departments."

I came up the idea of grime writing or reverse graffiti 10 years ago, while trying to promote a record that my record label was about to release. There was no marketing money, so I went to a tunnel in Leeds with a friend who was a great graffiti artist, and in seconds made a huge piece – just using an old rag and his fingers to write in the dirt. We had created legal graffiti. No one had ever invested any time in these tunnels and our work shone like chrome.

After that revelation, I carried on writing on walls as a means of self-expression. It was unique at the time. And it began to dawn on me that I could make money out of it. I had worked as a technician on events for the launch of the Xbox and showed it to the people I worked for – they programmed it into the launch a few months later. That’s when my hobby turned into a business. But I don’t refer to my work as reverse graffiti any more because of the negative connotations attached to graffiti. 

yes!