i’ve never spent any significant time in africa, other than a week in the canary islands, so it should come as no surprise that i am totally ignorant of the size and number of slums on that continent. which is why the map below was quite an eye-opener for me.

you’d think that someone who lived in lima for as long as i did would know there were not just one, but two large slums there. but i did not.

and now i do.

hat tip: justin

i’m not a huge stickler for the formal rules of the english language (as evidenced by my aversion to capitalization), but there are some things that bug me. using apostrophes improperly, for example, or not using the subjunctive when expressing sentiments that are contrary to the facts at present. i also tend to wonder when people use homophones or the wrong similarly-sounding word. when i come across them on blogs or emails, i usually chalk it up to overly-nimble fingers. when i see it in a transcription of an oral remark, i wonder if the transcriber erred.

so, the following snippet in today’s paper piqued my interest, in an article on O’s executive order to close the prison at gitmo:

Obama added, “We believe that the Army Field Manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don’t torture, but that we can still effectively attain the intelligence that we need.”

did you see it? yup, it’s that “we can still effectively attain the intelligence that we need.” attain. not obtain, which i believe would be the correct word, unless O really means that the government needs to achieve intelligence, rather than acquire it.

(i’ll throw in my two cents about closing the guantanamo bay detention center: it must be done very, very carefully.)

What is more important than current controversies, [Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice] argued, slapping the table for emphasis, is how the decisions will look 25 or 30 years from now. “If you get very focused on whether someone thinks your policies are popular, you won’t do the right thing,” she said.

statements like this have always left me disquieted. i understand the importance of taking the long view, of necessary sacrifice today for more secure tomorrows. but the phrasing of rice’s statement above suggests to me that she takes a binary view of policy: that the right choices for are future are not the right choices for our immediate present, or that good decisions for today are bad decisions in the long term. this us-vs-history view troubles me – it seems to me that it’s just as easy to make bad short- and long-term decisions. and while good short- and long-term decisions may be the most difficult balancing act, might it not be better – and possible – to make mostly-good decisions in both the short- and long-term?

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first river road, then 16th st. NW, now 7th st. NW – what’s with the dc-area water mains?

update: and as of 2:54, the post is reporting another main break, on U place, SE.

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was steven chu not asked about renewable energy, did he not comment about it, or did the post choose not to cover that part of the hearing? i’ll have to read the full transcript¹ to find out; while i agree that improving energy efficiency is a necessary step, we’re going to keep using energy, and i’d like to see the dialogue move beyond “clean coal” and nuclear technology.

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creative expression and cultural exploration through the cinematic medium are common in the west (although perhaps not common enough, if you look at the dreck hollywood keeps churning out). young saudi filmmakers, though, are having a difficult time of it. their subject matter – the role of women in saudi society – is fascinating.

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they’re the 3rd-highest GDP in the world today, so you’d better learn to like them, that’s what i say.

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“a time of great economic peril” is a throwaway line in an article on clinton, kerry, and obama, but it’s compelling nonetheless. the article itself is a good read for the backstory on the political dance of a sec’y of state nomination, and raises interesting questions about whether clinton actually has a developed thesis for the u.s.’ role in global affairs.

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and finally, zimbabwe. a “failed state,” by some accounts, where the fatality rate for cholera is about 5%, and the government serves only the increasingly isolating self-interest of mugabe. the life expectancy today is 58% of what it was fifteen years ago. twenty years ago, 85% of the country had health services within six miles of where they lived. today, the health care system has “essentially ceased to function,” and physicians for human rights wants the u.n. security council to refer the issue to the international criminal court. we’ll see how that goes – the u.s. has never been a fan of the icc.
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¹ that’s odd, no written transcript is immediately accessible. i may have to watch the webcast instead.

yet another study based on data from the national longitudinal study of adolescent health has found that teen abstinence pledges don’t work. those who pledge abstinence have just as much sex as their openly frisky counterparts, and are less safe about it, to boot. it’s an interesting addition to the growing body of literature that indicates abstinence-only sex ed doesn’t work, because the researchers matched the pledge sample to the non-pledge sample on a number of pre-pledge factors thought to influence sexual behavior, such a geographic region, ethnicity, and a host of indicators related to teenagers’ relationship with their parents.¹

one of the more interesting findings, in my mind, is the following:

Few virginity pledgers continue to identify with their pledges 5 years after pledging, with >80% claiming to have never pledged, consistent with an earlier finding that half of pledgers disaffiliated within 1 year. This high rate of disaffiliation may imply that nearly all virginity pledgers view pledges as nonbinding.

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¹ does BMI really influence sexual behavior?

geisha makeup. this video may explain some of the fascination.

particularly the abura, which seals the face against the white oshiroi and provides a base to which it attaches.

as someone who’s never worn much foundation – and i always feel like i’m wearing a mask when i do – i find the concept of impressing one’s skin with a wax/oil compound fascinating. i’m tempted to buy the abura and oshiroi (and appropriate brushes) to take to burning man with me next year. because that’s what the playa needs: a gaijin geisha. not.

for “glue in the lungs“:

• one whole peeled lemon
• one dried cayenne pepper (preferably from your garden)¹
• honey to taste
• hot water, in an amount sufficient to render an imbibible consistency

liquefy all ingredients in a blender. drink the resulting concoction.

i have no idea if it works. with the exception of the cayenne, it sounds like the lemon-honey tea i used to drink when my throat was sore.
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¹webMD notes that capsaicin, the “hot” chemical in peppers (including cayenne), may thin mucus and treat emphysema, but adds a few contraindications, including high blood pressure.

warren brown explains why cakelove keeps the cupcakes in the fridge.

(and i write the post title with a giggle in my heart and nothing but admiration for warren.)

as the world’s human athletes are girding themselves for nigh-unbreathable air at the beijing olympics starting friday, their equine counterparts are heading somewhere more hospitable: hong kong.

i had no idea the equestrian events were being held in HK – i’d figured they would be in beijing with everything else, and couldn’t fathom that the horse-and-pony set would voluntary submit their mounts to the foul atmosphere of the mainland. and they aren’t, although the reason given is that the mainland could not guarantee “disease-free zones” for the horses.

it will be interesting to see how the weather holds, though, as hong kong is prone to tropical storms in august. the weather was apparently problematic enough to lead the swiss team to withdraw from the games.

two news sources cover the same story regarding the release of sealed grand jury testimony in the rosenberg spy case.

nyt: “u.s. judge upholds secrecy of rosenberg testimony”
cnn: “58 years later, records unsealed in rosenberg spy case”

however you parse it, it boils down to this: ethel’s brother, david greenglass, doesn’t want his testimony made public, and the judge won’t order it unsealed as long as he’s alive. (david vladeck, GULC professor and one of the petitioners requesting the documents, argues that greenglass compromised the confidentiality of his testimony by discussing it with 60 minutes and elsewhere in the public record, but that’s neither here nor there as far as the spin goes.) most of the rest of the testimony is now fair game.

so, dr. horrible’s sing-along blog is a lot like buffy season six – big with the getting what you ask for, and realizing that whoops, maybe you don’t really want it.

yup.