Salon: Black voters won Alabama for the Dems. Here’s what they need in return

According to exit polls, 30 percent of the over 1 million people who participated in this election were black, and 96 percent of black voters supported Jones. In short, in an election where Jones’ margin of victory was less than 2 percent, Alabama’s near-unanimous black voters were the deciding factor. [...]

Poverty is probably top on that list of concerns. Alabama is the sixth poorest state in the nation, with a poverty rate of 18.5 percent. In some counties more than 40 percent of people live in poverty. Alabama’s rural areas have been said to show “the worst poverty in the developed world.”

Most of those areas are in the state’s so-called “Black Belt.” In Wilcox County, for example, the white poverty rate is 8.8 percent, but the black poverty rate is 50.2 percent. Nearby Lowndes County has the lowest white poverty rate in the state — 4.1 percent — but almost 35 percent of black people there live in poverty. [...]

Entrenched poverty means that health care access for black Alabamians is also dismal. The Black Belt region has fewer primary care physicians, dentists, mental health providers, and hospitals than other parts of the state. It has a much higher rate of uninsured people than other regions. In most of its counties, more than 25 percent of residents lack access to health care — and that’s with the Affordable Care Act in place. [...]

Finally, black Alabama voters have expressed concern about crime and punishment in the state. Just 26 percent of Alabama’s population is black, yet more than half its prison population is, according to the Sentencing Project.

At the same time, in 2016, Alabama also had the third-highest homicide rate in the U.S., after Louisiana and Missouri, data from the Death Penalty Information Center shows. More than 71 percent of homicide victims were African-American.

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The Atlantic: The Impossible Task of Remembering the Nanking Massacre

While Chang faced a barrage of attacks from other historians, as well as from the publisher contracted to translate her book into Japanese, the debate over what happened in Nanking from December 1937 to January 1938 had been raging before the publication of her book. Japan, for instance, remains divided over the number of Chinese killed in Nanking during those six weeks. The massacre camp generally supports the Tokyo War Crimes Trials figure of “upwards of 100,000” deaths; skeptics claim 15,000 to 50,000, while others venture only up to 10,000. Outside of Japan, James Yin and Shi Young, whose work Chang frequently cited, place the minimum death toll as high as 369,366. [...]

My grandfather, or Yaya, as I call him, grew up in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Life among the soldiers was “not much different,” he’d say when he visited us in Texas. Of course, he had to bow whenever he passed the Japanese on the street. Rickshaw drivers couldn’t complain when the soldiers didn’t pay them. If you failed to remove your hat in the presence of a Japanese soldier, he might beat you with the butt of his rifle and throw you in jail. Yaya himself was never beaten, but he witnessed beatings every day, he said. [...]

With Japan’s recent re-election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who aspires to legitimize the military renounced long ago in the country’s post-war constitution, China has greater reason to revive its image as an imperial conqueror. Even as Abe and China’s President Xi Jinping talk of a “fresh start,” Xi stays mum during the recent anniversary of the start of the Nanking massacre. Territorial disputes roil the East China Sea, and China expands in the South China Sea. And there is the escalating threat of China’s strained ally North Korea, as well as America’s volatile role in all this. The answer to who will lead East Asia into its future may hinge on how each country makes sense of its muddled past. Or makes use.

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Political Critique: A Herculean success: Managing the death of coal mining in the Ruhr region

The last remaining working coal mine in the Ruhr region is located in the town of Bottrop, and it is set to close by the end of 2018, when hard coal mining will end altogether in Germany (though lignite mining is likely to continue for another two decades). [...]

At the height of the coal industry in the 1950s, there were half a million mine workers in the Ruhr region. At the turn of the twentieth century, people from Polish lands came to work in the Ruhr mines (in 1907, a third of the population were migrants); in the 1960s, migrants arrived from south-eastern Europe, especially Yugoslavia, and Turkey. [...]

Like in other places in Europe, the first signs of the coal industry’s demise emerged as early as the 1950s with the arrival of cheaper and cleaner oil from abroad, rendering Ruhr coal uncompetitive (later there would also be cheaper coal from abroad). At the time, the main response was to prop up the industry with subsidies. [...]

Massive funds were necessary to ensure the transition of the labour force, a large part of which was forced into early retirement, while others required retraining. If the coal and steel industries created about 720 000 jobs together in 1957, they amounted to just 60 000 in 2005. [...]

The most successful new businesses created in the Ruhr were the ones relying on the expertise found around it or grown from the opportunities provided by the economic transition itself for example, the logistics business was developed on the back of decades of experience with transporting coal and steel, and environmental cleanup and remediation design emerged in response to the need to return the old toxic sites to daily use.

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Politico: Dimitris Avramopoulos - Europe’s migrants are here to sta

Migration is an emotional, sensitive and political issue. It has helped determine elections across Europe and the world. But we can no longer talk only about crisis management: Migration is our new reality. The time has come to start thinking, talking and acting about migration in a more comprehensive and long-term way, putting in place policies aimed at promoting integration and inclusion.

Over the last two years, Europe has been primarily engaged in addressing the immediate urgencies of the global migration and refugee crisis — and quite successfully so. Irregular flows have dropped by 63 percent. More than 32,000 refugees have been relocated within Europe. More than 25,000 people in need of protection have been resettled to the Continent, with another 50,000 expected to arrive in the next two years. And thousands of migrants have been helped on the ground in Libya in cooperation with international partners. [...]

We must start to be honest with those citizens who are concerned about how we will manage migration. We may not be able to stop migration. But we can be better, smarter and more proactive at managing this phenomenon. However, we cannot achieve this if we don’t accept a change in attitude and a change in our narrative. [...]

At the end of the day, we all need to be ready to accept migration, mobility and diversity as the new norm and tailor our policies accordingly. The only way to make our asylum and migration policies future-proof, is to collectively change our way of thinking first.

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Politico: For Catalan election, independence party goes back to basics

According to opinion polls, when Catalans cast their votes on Thursday, either the ERC or the centrist, anti-independence Ciudadanos could emerge as the largest party and it is far from certain whether either has strong enough allies to form a ruling coalition, meaning the political future of Catalonia — which accounts for a fifth of Spain’s total economic output — is plagued with uncertainty. [...]

Although the ERC — including Rovira — backed the unilateral declaration of independence, Rovira has made it clear she doesn’t favor another “unilateral action.” [...]

What would another pro-independence coalition do differently? “That’s the million-dollar question,” Rovira said. The plan, she explained, is to implement “all those reforms and policies that we are allowed to that will bring Catalonia forward without asking for the Spanish government’s permission.”

She gave the example of energy poverty and equal pay for women. “We’re going to launch a [negotiation] on electricity. We’re going to try not to cut the lights. We’re going to try and implement the laws that we have approved. All this without asking permission from the Spanish government. Without waiting for permission from the Spanish government.”

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Scroll: War on Christmas: Hindutva groups are targeting Indian Christians and their biggest festival

This isn’t all. In Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, the Hindu Jagran Manch warned Christian-run schools in the town of Aligarh not to celebrate Christmas at all. Like in Madhya Pradesh, this was also driven by the bogey of conversions. Earlier in the week on Wednesday, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ wife, Amruta Fadnavis was attacked on social media for simply supporting a Christmas-themed charity event. One prominent right-wing columnist accused Amruta Fadnavis of encouraging Christians in their alleged efforts at “harvesting souls”. Amruta Fadnavis had to counter this charge by reaffirming that she was a “proud Hindu” and celebrated “every festival in my country”. [...]

Targeting Christmas is not new. In 2014, within six months of Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking office, the Union government had declared that December 25 would now be celebrated as “Good Governance Day”. Rather than celebrate the Christmas holiday, schools, colleges and government offices would need to stay open in order to mark this new government occasion. Facing a backlash, the Union government played down “Good Governance Day” in 2015. [...]

Six states in India have strict laws that all but penalise conversion away from Hinduism. Christian clergymen are a particular target of both Hindutva groups as well as the police under this law. In November, for instance, seven Christian children in Madhya Pradesh were detained by the police as their Bible reading teacher was booked under the accusation of converting them – an absurd charge given that the children were all born Christian.

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Quartz: Boys can’t be boys. Here’s how to fix India’s toxic masculinity problem

Globally, India has one of the largest cohorts of young men between the ages of 13 to 26 years. Their situation within the country, however, needs to be addressed. Far too many of them are under-educated, under-employed, and stuck in a low equilibrium. Far too few of them have positive role models and secure family lives.

In addition, most of them wrestle with the perception of masculinity, which, in a feudal society like ours, is very conditional. It is commonly believed that you are not masculine enough if you are emotional, sensitive, or compassionate; that you are not “man enough” if you are not strong, if you are not the breadwinner in your family. [...]

We often talk of men as people who need to alter themselves so that women can be better off. However, we rarely offer concrete, innovative strategies for young men to face issues of patriarchy and masculinity head on and become their best selves. And the fact is, if we want that ecosystem of power around women to change, we need to help men be healthy, happy, and supportive partners to women who are healthy, educated, and earning. [...]

Many countries have examples of successful programmes that use sports, music, mentoring, and more to deliver success in helping young men (especially teenagers) direct their energies positively, and build leadership potential. Programmes like El Sistema in Venezuela have successfully used classical music to help young boys find meaning in their lives. Similarly, the Big Brother programme in the United States allows young boys to be mentored by adults to help put them on the path to success.

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Quartz: The world’s biggest coal port is now preparing for the end of coal

Coal is facing tough times. Nowhere is this felt more than in Australia, the world’s largest exporter of the dirtiest fossil fuel. Last week, one of the country’s biggest banks, the National Australia Bank, said it would no longer fund coal projects. This week, Adani, an Indian multinational failed to get funding from national and international banks to build a coal mine in the Australian state of Queensland.

Now, Roy Green, chairman of the Port of Newcastle in Australia, the world’s biggest coal port, has said (paywall) that the port is preparing for a world without coal. In 2016, coal accounted for 96% of trade at the port, which is mined in the nearby Hunter Valley region. The port is hoping to diversify into non-energy sectors, such as a container port to import and export high-value products, and maybe even a cruise terminal to attract tourists. [...]

That said, it’s unclear how many years it will take for the port to stop shipping coal. The intergovernmental group, the International Energy Agency (IEA), expects the world to reduce, but not end, its consumption of coal in the next few decades. In its 2017 World Energy Outlook, the IEA estimated that, between 2016 and 2040, the world will burn at least a quarter of the coal it burned between 1990 and 2016. Though some coal energy will be replaced by renewables like solar and wind, most will be replaced by burning natural gas instead.

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Quartzy: Adrian Grenier says a toilet-paper-free life is the ultimate luxury

Despite health and environmental warnings, Americans still stubbornly choose paper for cleaning their nether regions. A Scientific American article points out that Americans use an average of 36.5 billion rolls of toilet paper ever year. Switching to bathroom bidets could save some 15 million trees. Doctors also warn that aside from being ineffective, wiping with dry toilet paper even cause painful fissures and hemorrhoids. [...]

TOTO has been pitching the hygienic bidet idea to Americans for more than a decade—partially with the goal of reducing paper waste.”We use water to clean everything else in our lives: dishes, clothes. At this critical juncture, you use paper?,” Campos said to the New York Times (paywall) in 2007. She explains that bidets weren’t common in Japan until TOTO introduced it in the 1980’s. More than 80% of Japanese households now have bidets. [...]

While he is certainly biased, Grenier believes that the Neorest’s high-tech cleansing alternative could…er…wipe away at least part of America’s reliance on paper. “We need to embrace technologies that are more hygienic and save the planet a little bit,” he says. But even if a $10,000 fancy bidet is out of the budget, there are affordable options. Washlets or hose attachments are readily available on Amazon or home appliance stores can be mounted on an existing toilet for under $50 and TOTO even sells free-standing bidet units for around $400.

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