Kruse Kronicle

Levi’s urges youth to conquer Native Americans again

Aid Watch: Levi’s urges youth to conquer Native Americans again

Levi’s has a new ad campaign that suggests American liberty is still a work in progress. One of its new videos has a voiceover reciting the Walt Whitman poem “O Pioneers” with youths dancing around a fire wearing Levi’s. [Watch video here: Levi\'s Commercial.] The recitation includes lines like

get your weapons ready;  Have you your pistols? … We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend… Fresh and strong the world we seize

Against whom are our weapons supposed to be used? Whose world are we seizing? Any 3rd grader could tell you:  Whitman is referring to the war against Native Americans by westward-bound settlers and the US army. ...

...OK, trying to be a little more serious, Levi’s running this ad shows how we still don’t take seriously enough our Euro-American historical crimes. I know many people are tired of this topic. This is also a constant bone of contention between the Left and the Right, with the Right blaming the Left for apologizing too much and overlooking the great accomplishments of Western Civilization, like Individual Rights.

There is a middle ground: those of us of Euro-American heritage would be a lot more convincing on Individual Rights by acknowledging that we have had as much trouble applying them as anybody else. We were pioneers in applying them to our own ethnic group, but we kept handing out free passes to kill other people’s rights. ...

Here is the ad:

What do you think?

Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight

Kansas City Star: Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight

An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It's cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet.

It's natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation's homes, it's becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.

Natural gas' abundance and low price come as governments around the world debate how to curtail carbon dioxide and other pollution that contribute to global warming. The likely outcome is a tax on companies that spew excessive greenhouse gases. Utilities and other companies see natural gas as a way to lower emissions - and their costs. Yet politicians aren't stumping for it.

In June, President Barack Obama lumped natural gas with oil and coal as energy sources the nation must move away from. He touts alternative sources - solar, wind and biofuels derived from corn and other plants. In Congress, the energy debate has focused on finding cleaner coal and saving thousands of mining jobs from West Virginia to Wyoming.

Utilities in the U.S. aren't waiting for Washington to jump on the gas bandwagon. Looming climate legislation has altered the calculus that they use to determine the cheapest way to deliver power. Coal may still be cheaper, but natural gas emits half as much carbon when burned to generate the same amount of electricity. ...

Israel: First Jesus-era house found in Nazareth

Yahoo! News: Israel: First Jesus-era house found in Nazareth

NAZARETH, Israel – Days before Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what they said were the remains of the first dwelling in Nazareth that can be dated back to the time of Jesus — a find that could shed new light on what the hamlet was like during the period the New Testament says Jesus lived there as a boy.

The dwelling and older discoveries of nearby tombs in burial caves suggest that Nazareth was an out-of-the-way hamlet of around 50 houses on a patch of about four acres (1.6 hectares). It was evidently populated by Jews of modest means who kept camouflaged grottos to hide from Roman invaders, said archaeologist Yardena Alexandre, excavations director at the Israel Antiquities Authority,

Based on clay and chalk shards found at the site, the dwelling appeared to house a "simple Jewish family," Alexandre added, as workers at the site carefully chipped away at mud with small pickaxes to reveal stone walls.

Nazareth holds a cherished place in Christianity. It is believed to be the town where Christian tradition says Jesus grew up and where an angel told Mary she would bear the child of God.

"This may well have been a place that Jesus and his contemporaries were familiar with," Alexandre said. A young Jesus may have played around the house with his cousins and friends, she said. "It's a logical suggestion." ...

The Business Proposition of Africa's Population Boom: Problem or Potential?

Business Fights Poverty: The Business Proposition of Africa's Population Boom: Problem or Potential?

Shashank Bengali of McClatchey Newspapers wrote “Africa is gripped by one of the greatest population explosions ever recorded” in a recent article entitled, “Africa’s Perilous Baby Boom.” In fact, while it is widely reported that India’s population (1.6 billion projected) will surpass China’s population (1.4 billion projected) by 2050, Africa will beat both with a population close to two billion according to the United Nations Population Division.

Bengali paints a picture of the horrible conditions under which and into which many children are born in Africa. However, the problem is the conditions not the population growth. Africa is a continent that has vast resources, which if managed effectively, can sustain a booming population. In addition, Africa as a region has one of the lowest consumption rates globally when compared to developed countries.

In fact, this population boom is a tremendous global business and economic growth opportunity. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, shares the world can no longer expect U.S. and Western households to drive global economic growth. Developing markets like China, India and Africa are the future economic growth engines. ...

... Part of this shift requires a change in the way the African population is viewed. C.K. Prahalad, in “The Bottom of the Pyramid,” points out that businesses have traditionally treated the poor and disenfranchised as victims instead of consumers. Businesses tend to devalue these populations without taking into account the current and future value of these markets, if developed. Businesses have the opportunity to create their own consumer markets while solving endemic problems like poverty. ...

Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists

Wired: Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists

The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image.

New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds may be partially responsible for the dearth of women in the field, as shown by National Science Foundation statistics.

“What this research shows is that the image of computer science — this geeky, masculine image — can make women feel like they don’t belong,” says lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington.

“I think this is an important contribution to the literature,” says Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton of the University of California, Berkeley. He says it raises questions about how much conscious control people have over their choices.

Previous research has found that a person can get a good sense of what another individual is like just from spending a few minutes perusing that person’s bedroom. Cheryan wondered if the same was true of classrooms.

“You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with,” Cheryan says. “You walk in, see these objects and think, ‘This is not me.’” ...

Hewlett-Packard eyes Africa for customer support

Reuters: Hewlett-Packard eyes Africa for customer support

MARRAKESH, Morocco (Reuters) - Computer group Hewlett-Packard is looking to Africa as a potential platform for technical support for its customers elsewhere in the world, said its managing director Rainer Koch.

"We see Africa as a potential base for providing all sort of services and technical support for customers outside of Africa," he told Reuters on the sidelines of conference in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh on development of African cities.

"We plan to invest more in the future on the continent on that perspective," Koch added.

He said by end of next year at least 1,000 people will be working for HP in North Africa to support customers abroad.

Economics: Early Christianity and Now

Peter Oakes, "Methodological Issues in using Economic Evidence in Interpretation of Early christian Texts" in Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception, edited by Bruce Longenecker and Kelly Liebengood.

… In studying the first few centuries of the Christian movement, any attempt to isolate economics from other social factors such as politics would be doomed. As Karl Polanyi argues, all ancient economies were “embedded economies.” Financial decisions in such economies were rarely taken for financial reasons alone. For example, the nature of patron-client relationships ensured constant distortion of what we might expect to be market interaction. Distribution of resources was dependent much more on power relationships than on the market.

With this in mind, what counts as economic evidence? When, as an undergraduate, I took a course on economics, I remember the lecturer defining it as “the study of the allocation of scarce resources.” In one major current textbook, Michael Parkin defines it as “the social science that studies the choices that individuals, businesses, governments, and entire societies make as the cope with scarcity and the incentives that those choices.” Air is not scarce, so it is generally free. Breathing is not unusually an economic issue. Wine is not free. Its production and distribution require land, water, transport, storage, and labor, all of which are scarce resources. We will return to wine production in a little awkward for an ancient context. The focus on choice is problematic in a society where most economic activities are governed more by custom or compulsion. I suppose it works fairly reasonably as long as one remembers that the choices lie with the powerful elite. The stress on incentives might be useful, but only if it is realized that, for most people, they were generally of an “offer you can’t refuse” type. There was not the kind of varying levels of inducement that a modern market system might include.

Oakes also breaks down the social stratification of Roman society according to a poverty scale developed by Stephen Friesen ("Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So Called New Consensus," JSNT 26 (2004) : 323-361.)

Imperial elites - 0.04% - Includes a few retainers and local royalty.

Regional or provincial elites - 1%

Municipal elites - 1.76% - Includes some merchants.

Moderate surplus resources - 7%? - Includes some merchants, some traders, some freedpersons, some artisans (esp. those employing others), and military veterans.

Stable near subsistence (with reasonable hope of remaining above min. to sustain life) - 22%? - Includes many merchants and traders, regular wage earners, artisans, large shop owners, freedpersons, and some farm families.

At subsistence level (and often below minimum to sustain life) - 40% - Includes small farmers, laborers, artisans (esp. employed), wage earners, most merchants/traders, and small shop owners.

Below subsistence level - 28% - Includes some farm families, unattached widows, orphans, beggars, disabled, unskilled day laborers, and prisoners. 

Flying the nest: Age when leaving home

The Economist: Flying the nest: Age when leaving home

Who is most reluctant to leave the parental home?

WITHIN Europe, broadly, northerners and westerners are more likely to leave home when young than southerners and easterners. It may be that university habits explain this, with Britons moving out to attend college at a relatively early age, for example. Strongly religious and family-oriented societies seem to have a higher than average age for children leaving the parental nest. And the housing market probably plays a role too: in countries, such as Germany, where a relatively large portion of the housing stock is rented, it may be easier for the young to find an affordable home away from their parents.

Teen survey shows drops in meth use, smoking

Reuters: Teen survey shows drops in meth use, smoking

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Methamphetamine use and smoking among U.S. teens has dropped significantly in recent years, but declines in marijuana use have stalled, according to an annual government survey released on Monday.

Only 1.2 percent of high school seniors say they used meth, as it is commonly called, in the past year, the survey found -- the lowest level since 1999 when use of the street drug was reported at 4.7 percent.

The proportion of 10th graders reporting meth was easy to obtain dropped to 14 percent, down from 19.5 percent five years ago, according to the survey of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders by researchers at the University of Michigan.

The research was conducted under a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Cigarette smoking among teens also dropped to the lowest level since the survey began in 1975.

Only 2.7 percent of eighth graders smoke daily -- down from a peak rate of 10.4 percent in 1996 -- while 11.2 percent of high school seniors say they smoke daily, less than half of the 24.6 percent rate reported in 1997, the survey said.

It indicated marijuana use among teens has been on a downward trend since the mid-1990s, but the decline has stalled with use rates at the same levels as five years ago. schools in the eighth, 10th, and 12th grades were surveyed.

White House drug policy director Gil Kerlikowske said the survey is a warning sign for parents and policymakers. ...

Indian farmers adapt to shifting weather patterns

Reuters: Indian farmers adapt to shifting weather patterns

GORAKHPUR, India (Reuters) - As global leaders and top scientists in Copenhagen debate how to deal with climate change, farmers in flood-prone areas of northern India are taking it into their own hands to adapt to shifts in the weather.

For decades, people of Uttar Pradesh, whose population is more than half that of the United States, have been witnessing erratic weather, including increasingly intense rainfall over short periods of time.

The rain, combined with heavy mountain run-off from nearby Nepal, which is also seeing heavier-than-usual rains, has inundated villages, towns and cities in the region.

Such floods have destroyed homes, crops and livestock, highlighting the fact that the poorest in countries such as China and India are most at risk from climate change.

While world leaders in Copenhagen argue over who should cut carbon emissions and who should pay, experts say low-cost adaptation methods, partly based on existing community knowledge, could be used to help vulnerable farmers.

In the fields of Manoharchak village, where terms such as "global warming" are unknown, such experiments are bearing fruit, changing the lives of poor farmers who outsmart nature using simple but effective techniques to deal with rising climate variability.

"For the last three years, we have been trying to change our ways to cope with the changing weather," said Hooblal Chauhan, a farmer whose efforts have included diversifying production from wheat and rice to incorporate a wide variety of vegetables.

"I don't know what those big people in foreign countries can do about the weather, but we are doing what we can to help ourselves," said the 55-year-old from Manoharchak, situated 90 km (55 miles) north of the bustling city of Gorakhpur. ...

Christmas Shopping for a TV: 1958 vs. 2009

Carpe Diem: Christmas Shopping for a TV: 1958 vs. 2009

In 1958, American holiday shoppers paid $269.95 for Sears’ “best 24-inch console TV” in its Christmas catalog (see photo above on left), or it would have taken 136.34 hours of work at the average manufacturing hourly wage then of $1.98 to earn enough income (ignoring taxes) to purchase the TV.

Today you can purchase a Sansui 26-inch widescreen LCD high-definition TV (see picture on right) on the Sears website for about $350 (or chose from the several hundred other TVs available), which would be a “time cost” today of only 19.03 hours of work at today's average hourly wage of $18.39, and this represents an 86 percent reduction in the cost compared to the 1958 TV.  ...