Thanks to Matze, I finally ended up reading an article which I’m sure I had opened before but couldn’t remember anything from, I suppose it was a victim to one of my old laptop’s many out-of-battery shutdowns. It’s „Golden Oldies (Wonkish)“ by Paul Krugman, who I usually enjoy reading but find slightly too absorbed in contemporary economic policies. Not so this time, where he deals a blow to contemporary Economic Science that in most part applies to other social sciences as well, especially Psychology.

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Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz has an accessible article in Vanity Fair talking about rising inequality (of income, wealth, all sorts of things associated with these like education and health, and lastly, opportunity) in the US. He then comes to a brutal description of the association of wealth and power, one of the cornerstones of my „NeuerPlan“ (NewPlan) criticism of capitalist society. Which happens both on a personal level and on that abstract level of „corporations“, that is, businesses:

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• Daten-zentrierter Journalismus http://j.mp/jtd7lx sehr spannend und wichtig, aber: Daten mach halt noch keine Geschichte. #Narration #
• Gipfeltreffen mit Zivilgesellschaft schön und gut http://j.mp/kvu1JZ Hatten wir nicht schon mal nen Atomkonsens? #
• If supermarkets were like public schools http://j.mp/jXhKqB an analogy who’s obvious message I don’t share, but still find interesting #
• Comparing teaching and military can be surprisingly insightful. And McKinsey can do good work http://j.mp/lnWIsw #NYTimes #Op-Ed #
• Oh dear, major computer overdose today. But I’m happy my travel blog is up to date, and my brain has gotten it’s fix of science and politics #
• Why we don’t hear much from physicists against nuclear energy & why we should turn to physicians for the critical science http://j.mp/iHIpp9 #
• It seems the Osama thing makes more talk about torture necessary http://j.mp/jVJSMW Glad we can dismiss it practically a well as morally #
• beautiful little metaphor on publication bias in science http://j.mp/msSDGf #
• Osama capture myths debunked, including the question of torture-elicited information http://j.mp/mwqp9C #
• How anti-Obama „birtherism“ is rooted in old segregation sentiments and former slave states http://j.mp/jfBqQl Very thorough, and sad! #
• Market Design — what economists can do when they stop arguing everything will be alright if you leave things alone http://j.mp/ilRxU5 Good! #
• #travelinsight 42: It does seem like many of the brightest minds in Africa choose to work with and for development projects. Good or bad? #
• More amazing science from our guts — there are 3 distinct types of bacteria ecosystems one can have, like blood types http://j.mp/iJSY05 #
• Patient or consumer — health care reform example of how market theory (and language) shapes the world http://j.mp/laH95w #
• #travelinsight 41: Better to have an explanation of Vernier Calipers in your notebook or use your ruler and express the result in cm and m? #
• What stinks about the reports of Quaddafi’s son and grandchildren being killed by NATO, and his ceasefire offer http://j.mp/lCPPib #
• #travelinsight 40: Seeing a petrified chicken in crowded bus reinforces my veganism. After emphasizing with the livelihood aspect in theory. #
• #travelinsight 39: Moving market failure: get ripped off even knowing the right price. Supply and demand can be very local. Ad hoc oligopoly #
• #travelinsight 38: You can fit 10 people and a big backpack in a car. And the police gives you a friendly wave. #
• Interessante, stellenweise lange Rezension eines neuen Buches über Religiosität in den USA. Fremdes, spannendes Amerika! http://j.mp/l6e51X #

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A fascinating article which I found through the Valuscience Blog of my friends at Magic in Stanford is titled „Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay?“. The authors, Timothy Mousseau, a US-based evolutionary biologist, and Anders Møller, a Danish biologist, basically debunk the myth that already after a relatively (for standards of nuclear waste and pollution) short period of time, the „Chernobyl Exclusion Zone“ has become almost a national park’s worth of happy wildlife. The article is very long and narrative in tone, though, so here are some remarkable findings of my skimming.

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Hatte heute schon meinen ersten Tag als Physiklehrer in Form 1 und 3 (entsprechend Klasse 8 und 11) der Sekundarschule in Kagondo nahe Bukoba, wo auch Justus mit Familie wohnt. Und bin so bewegt, dass ich gleich was dazu schreiben muss.

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I was so happy to see the familiar face of the Action 5-friend Justus in the crowd in Bukoba and put an end to the aggressive offers from several taxi drivers. From then on I was in a constant flow of events attending a bunch of official occasions with him, who has recently taken a political office next to his work and his activities for Action 5, and reminds me of my good friend Johannes not only in that he seems to be able to do with very little sleep.

The first was the anniversary of a Catholic hospital in Kagondo, appropriately with a lot of church Honorables who held long speeches, and good choir music (with percussion).

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After recently meeting a bunch of people who have to go without meals frequently, I was naturally very interested to read an article on reasons and solutions for world hunger, by two researchers from the „Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, or J-PAL“ at the MIT, which is an excerpt from a recent book they wrote.

After some more illustrative than enlightening back an forth on the „hunger-based poverty trap“ (poor people cannot eat enough to be strong enough to earn enough to eat enough) and examples of how poor people make choices that cause malnutrition themselves (spending money on tasty but little nutritious food or on non-food luxuries, mostly entertainment and drugs) they get to the point, and a quite interesting one. Here are some of the central ideas.

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In catching up with blogging (I was both very busy and very offline for the last weeks) I continue in English with mostly some commented pictures. Please bear with me, the next more content-intensive post is coming up (even though it will be again in German I’m afraid). My 10 days or so in Kenya were very good, even though I arrived with a cold that kept me in the house for some days, and caught my second diarrhea in this year just a few days after recovering from the cold.

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This (for now) last India blog will also be an English-and-mostly-pictures one. Even though I feel in many ways I sped through the country and spent most of my time in different means of transportation, I’m happy I divided my time between „India“ and Auroville as I did, mostly staying and working in the latter. I also feel that it was good to take the traveling „slow“ (that is, slow means of transportation) even though I traveled fast in terms of moving on frequently. Sharing the time in transit with the Indians is I think an experience that tells a lot about the country and the culture. And I get the impression that Indians themselves do that a lot — they spend a lot of time in cheap public transport.

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This will be a post of mostly pictures, and as you see another one in English to not discourage anybody. Again, no promises for the future There would be much more to say about Auroville, but I don’t have much time right now, and am in many ways already so far away that I think my next writing on Auroville and India will be concerned with differences between my Indian and East African experiences. So for now just have a look…

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