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Violent youth bulges
From this article in the Financial Times
when 15 to 29-year-olds make up more than 30 per cent of the population, violence tends to happen; when large percentages are under 15, violence is often imminent. The “causes” in the name of which that violence is committed can be immaterial. There are 67 countries in the world with such “youth bulges” now and 60 of them are undergoing some kind of civil war or mass killing.
Read the whole thing.
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Restless Leg Syndrome
The Freakonomics guys have a post on Restless Leg Syndrome. Virginia Postrel comments
If something is a “disease,” it is worth treating. If it isn’t a “disease,” you should just live with it. But why? Why not treat a biological condition you just don’t like? (I’m assuming that you are directly or indirectly paying for the treatment.) We don’t have to call Restless Leg Syndrome a disease to acknowledge that it disturbs some people’s sleep and that those people would like relief. Contrary to what you may have heard, the only sort of character suffering builds is the ability to suffer–a useful ability in a world where suffering is the routine nature of life but not a virtue that makes the world a better place.
RLS is hardly the worst thing that one can have, but why not use all that modern society has to offer.
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RIP Ingmar Bergman
Tyler Cowen has a short write-up here. He made two of my favorite movies of all time in The Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, both Symphonies in black and white. All very gloomy and subtitled, but magnificently done. His passing leaves the world without one of the best visual storytellers of all time.
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Hysterical
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And the best photo site is…
Lost America – Night photography of the abandoned West. Absolutely brilliant. This makes it to the BlogRoll.
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Garrison States
I was listening to this diavlog recently and one of the participants (Daniel Deudney) remarked that the Wilsonian “Make the world safe for democracy” mantra of World War I was not so much referring to bringing democracy to monarchic parts of the world so much as making the world non-threatening enough so that America could maintain it’s non-militaristic way of life and avoid becoming a “Garrison State”.
I haven’t thought about it for a while, but several years ago I thought that was the strongest argument for the Iraq war. Not sufficient on it’s own, but a good reason. The threat in WWI was European militarism; now it’s “The Gap” but the example still holds. The term “Garrison State” is a useful one to describe a militarized police state.
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Back from Chicago
And everyone had a blast. The festival was great. More details and tons of photos soon.
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We arrive in Chicago without incident
Driving exclusively at night resembles time travel. The vulgarity in the car reached new heights and several new terms were coined, none of which can be shared on this family blog.
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Off to the Midwest
Photos to come in a few days.
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Another interview worth reading
In this case, with industrialist Charles Koch. It’s seems that most interviews on the internet are with either celebrities or analysts, and seldom anyone who has taken his own risks and created his own empire.