Curbed: Learning to love the ‘Persian Palaces’ of Beverly Hills

Back then, I didn’t like Persian Palaces much. From what I knew, rich Persians built those swanky homes in Beverly Hills, spending a pretty penny—those columns were said to go for four figures a pop in their heyday. Maybe those Persians longed for centuries-old kingdoms, but the Iran my parents were nostalgic for wasn’t the one of the ancient era, but of the recent past, colored by memories of road trips to the Caspian Sea and the comforts of being raised in large families and always having them close, before the Islamic Revolution and an eight-year war with Iraq scattered the living generations of Iranians all over the world.

Now, I wonder if Persian Palaces should have meant a little more to me then, and to Los Angeles, before they went out of vogue. Younger Iranian-Americans don’t care to build Persian Palaces anymore; perhaps, like me, they are just not into the style, or maybe they were browbeaten out of the sentiment, or the style was outlawed in their communities. [...]

The style was treated as an invader and scourge on upscale neighborhoods all over Southern California, even though the local aesthetic has the consistency of quicksand. Beverly Hills is hardly the place for architectural modesty, and yet locals really had something against Persian Palaces. [...]

Controversy hid in every aspect of what Persians love in a home, according to Omrani. Conflicts arose around height, light, spacious entertainment rooms, window sizes, and grand staircases.

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BBC4 Beyond Belief: Zionism and Judaism

A new term of abuse has emerged on social media, Zio, a shortened form of Zionist. Meanwhile the evidence suggests that anti Semitism is on the rise in Britain. There have been high profile cases of politicians who have been disciplined for anti Semitic comments. There appears to be some confusion even within the Jewish community over what Zionism means, whether a distinction should be drawn between anti Semitism and anti Zionism and what the relationship is between Judaism and Zionism. Ernie Rea brings together three Jews to discuss these issues. Robert Cohen is a Jewish blogger and commentator on the British Jewish community and its relationship to the State of Israel: Dr Yaakov Wise is a Manchester based Orthodox Jewish historian and writer: and Jessica Elgot was formerly a journalist for the Jewish Chronicle and is now writing for the Guardian.

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Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: The Most Gruesome Parasites – NTDs Explained

There are a group of parasites extremely disgusting and mean. Humanity declared war on them.

Social Europe: How To Reform The Common European Asylum System: A View From East-Central Europe

To start with, we acknowledge that migration and asylum policies differ substantially between MS and they and their societies have varied states of preparedness when it comes to admitting refugees. Retaining 28 different national systems operating in the EU is, either way, ineffective and costly. In effect, these systems end up being a “race to the bottom,” each country enacting stricter regulations in order to ensure that the burden for refugee care falls on neighbouring states rather than their own. [...]

A major obstacle to establishing a common system functioning as a single EU protective space is the (self)-perception of transit countries. This means that our countries tend to regard themselves as mere transit countries and argue that “refugees do not want to come/stay here”. Indeed, there is some truth to this statement as, statistically, a majority of asylum applications lodged here end up being terminated because of absconding. However, insisting on being a transit country acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If countries regard themselves as transit they feel no need to build the infrastructure for meaningful inclusion of refugees. Consequently, refugees would not consider these countries as their eventual destination. Naturally, destination countries being forced to receive large numbers of refugees would contribute to this vicious circle by referring to these countries as transit, spreading the message forward to refugee and migrant communities present on their territories who in turn forward it back to newly arriving refugees. [...]

In our proposal, we emphasize the need to balance the legitimate interests of both MS and refugees to increase observance by all. The system we propose recognizes that refugees have different motivations and different ties to different countries and that the current preparedness and attractiveness of countries vary significantly. The interest of refugees of settling in “un-known” countries has to be built-up as well as their trust that the system – if properly observed – will provide them with quick and effective solutions. Therefore, as we have seen, the common EU asylum system we propose requires refugees to stay in the first EU country of entry until any asylum decision is taken. In return, we propose legalization of the mobility of recognized refugees and subsidiary protection holders by the introduction of a new EU-wide residence permit for recognized refugees and subsidiary protection holders. This would enable refugees to legally, freely and safely choose their places of residence within the EU. This would include the obligation to register their place of residence with the relevant national authorities.

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Today I Found Out: Most Streets in Japan Don't Have Names

Motherboard: Pigeons in Spain Can Now Get Birth Control More Easily Than Most American Women

As the population of birds has swelled to an estimated 85,000, the waste pigeons produce in public spaces has become an increasing burden. To curb the number of birds, and pigeon droppings, the city had been mulling over a plan to collect and kill hundreds of the birds. But after push back from animal rights groups, the local government decided to try a different tactic: give the pigeons birth control pills.

First, a detailed census of the pigeon population will take place to determine the size of the population, according to El Mundo. Then, in the spring, the city will install 40 feeders dispensing pellets spiked with the birth control medication around the city, concentrating on areas of most complaint. One Barcelona city councillor reportedly estimated the pills could curb the population by 20 percent in the first year and up to 80 percent over time. [...]

It could set an example for other cities like New York, where pigeons cause perennial debate and where traditional culling methods—like simply shooting the pigeons—aren’t practical. New York City recently launched a program to capture, sterilize, and release deer on Staten Island, where the population of white-tail deer has exploded, so maybe pigeons on the pill aren’t far behind.

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Politico: Why Portugal has become an oasis of stability

A poll published Friday gave Costa an 81 percent approval rating, up from 47 percent in December 2015. Not bad compared to fellow center-left leaders such as Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who’s slipped to around 30 percent, and French President François Hollande, languishing around 4 percent.

“We’ve been able to keep all our promises to the Portuguese people,” Costa said Tuesday after parliament approved his budget for 2017. “We’ve turned the page on austerity … we’ve shown an alternative is possible and we’ll keep building that alternative.”

Far-right populism, surging across Europe, is largely absent in Portugal, and the government has been stealing support from the two far-left parties who back the minority government in parliament. Both the Portuguese Communist Party on 6 percent and the Left Bloc on 8 percent have dropped a couple of points since the election. [...]

Portugal’s aversion to far-right politics can be explained in part by the lasting legacy of dictator António Oliveira Salazar, whose harsh regime lasted for over four decades until toppled by a 1974 revolution. Portugal has also not experienced a recent influx of refugees or a sudden surge of immigrants, like those that fueled the growth of the far-right elsewhere. Its immigrant communities, mainly from Brazil, Portuguese-speaking Africa and Eastern European countries such as Ukraine and Romania, are comparatively well integrated.

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Jakub Marian: Number of foreign languages studied per pupil in Europe

Learning foreign languages is an important part of secondary education in Europe. One could argue that it should be enough to just learn English (which is the language most Europeans resort to when communicating with someone from another country), but this couldn’t be further from the truth. [...]

The following map shows the average number of languages learned per pupil in lower secondary education (based on data by Eurostat from 2013). This phase of secondary education usually lasts around 4 years and is compulsory. Note that the average is calculated with respect to all students in lower secondary education, so, for example, if students in a certain country learned 1 language in the first 2 years and 2 languages in the following two years of lower secondary education, the average would be 1.5. [...]

Many of the figures change quite drastically after the transition to general upper secondary education (excluding vocational schools), which is usually not compulsory, as the map below shows: [...]

There are some surprising differences between the two maps. The figures tend to be relatively similar in most cases, but there is a significant drop in the case of Italy and Portugal and a large increase in the case of Belgium. The situation in Portugal is especially worrying, as it is the only non-English-speaking EU country where less than 1 foreign language per pupil is studied at this level.

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Business Insider: What fruits and vegetables looked like before we domesticated them

The fruits and vegetables we know and love did not always look the way they do now. Here's a look at their ancestors.