National Geographic: Photos of the Chinese Town That Duplicated Paris

Known as the “Paris of the East”, the luxury real estate development in Zhejiang province was designed to evoke classical European charm. Its residents have their own Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysées main square, French neoclassical-style buildings, a fountain from the Luxembourg Gardens, and the centerpiece of the city: the second largest replica of the Eiffel Tower in the world after the Paris Las Vegas Hotel in Nevada.

When Tianducheng first opened its gates more than a decade ago, it was described as a ghost town. While many of its homes remain vacant, the population has grown into the thousands, and it attracts a steady stream of Chinese and international tourists, including newlyweds looking for a picture-perfect backdrop. [...]

On the outskirts of Beijing, a replica of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is outfitted with cowboys and a Route 66. Red telephone booths, pubs, and statues of Winston Churchill pepper the corridors of Shanghai’s Thames Town. The city of Fuzhou is constructing a replica of Stratford-upon-Avon in tribute to Shakespeare, Fuyang built their own U.S. Capitol building, and the Austrian UNESCO World Heritage town of Hallstatt has a second home in Guangdong. [...]

During an ongoing Chinese geographical survey, officials found that traditional Chinese names were being replaced by foreign ones or disappearing altogether, including more than 400,000 village names. According to the New York Times, a regulation in China has prohibited the use of foreign monikers for locations since 1996 as a means to protect cultural heritage, but has had little effect.

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CNN: Why girls can be boyish but boys can't be girlish

Today, there's not a single traditionally masculine thing a girl can do that would raise eyebrows. Join a sports team? Over half of them do it. Play with toy guns? Nerf makes a line just for them. Cut their hair short? Celebrities Katy Perry, Janelle Monae and Scarlett Johansson all have locks that measure under half a foot. Interested in STEM? On trend. Pretend they are superheroes? Last year's "Wonder Woman" is one of the highest-grossing superhero movies of all time.

Meanwhile, there's still not a single traditionally feminine thing a boy can do that wouldn't raise eyebrows. A boy who likes wearing jewelry or makeup, twirling in a tutu or caring for baby dolls is at best the subject of conversations conducted sotto voce. At worst: a bully's target. [...]

Parents are increasingly giving their daughters boy names like James and Finn; few among us would dare give our sons a girl name, because pity the boy named Jenn or Sofia. Girls fought and won the right to join the Boy Scouts; I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for boys to gain entry to the Girl Scouts. [...]

Barbie has been a member of the armed forces, a presidential candidate and an engineer; boys' dolls continue be, nearly exclusively, action figures conscripted to battle. Disney movies have featured a number of macho or strong and brave female characters, including "Pocahontas" (1995), "Mulan" (1998) and "Moana" (2016); meanwhile, the male characters continue to alternate between brute and naïf. [...]

Raewyn Connell, author of "Masculinities," said many teenage boys still feel as though they must avoid any signs of weakness or femininity. This, in turn, feeds homophobia, because gay men are associated with the parts of themselves that they feel they must suppress.

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Vox: How the Vietnam war created America’s modern “white power” movement

I use “white power” to name the movement that, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, united Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, skinheads, white separatists, tax protesters, and militiamen in common cause, and eventually in a war against the federal government.

Some people have referred to this as “white nationalism.” I think that’s misleading because when you say the word “nationalism,” people assume you mean an excess of patriotism, but that’s not what these people believe. [...]

They believe in a racial nation that would be transnational in scope and would involve a violent ending to the United States and remove all people of color and establish a new society based on the idea that white people are the chosen people. [...]

It’s a fringe movement at every point, but if you include all the various groups that it’s composed of (and you should), it’s quite a lot. It helps to think of it in terms of concentric circles. In the center, there’s a group of approximately 25,000 people who are hardcore members: They attend events, they buy literature, they make their whole lives about the movement. Those are the people who are willing to [commit] violence and sacrifice themselves. [...]

But despite all those efforts, there wasn’t a decisive stop to the violence. There wasn’t really a decisive stop to the organized movement either. I think what history shows us is that this is a movement with flexible ideologies that is capable of going underground when there is pressure and then reemerging when there is not. I think it would take a real change in how people think about and write about and confront this kind of activism for there to be anything like an endpoint.

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Vox: Why black Americans are getting less sleep

 A good night’s rest is critical for your health, and a lot can go wrong when you don’t get enough it. Sleep deprivation can contribute to obesity, diabetes, inflammation, heart disease, and more. The minimum recommended amount for adults is 7 hours (this too can vary from person to person). But, a third of Americans are sleep deprived — and on average, Black Americans are clocking in the least amount of z’s. 

Black Americans already face steep disparities in health, and not getting enough good sleep can compound on those issues. By examining the sleep gap, and addressing the root causes, we may be able to tackle other inequalities in the US too.

The Guardian: Look at Syria, and you can see all the elements that have led to world wars

Qhat on earth are we doing? I have not heard a single expert on Syria explain how dropping missiles on that country will advance the cause of peace or lead its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to back down. It will merely destroy buildings and probably kill people. It is pure populism, reflected in the hot-and-cold rhetoric of Trump’s increasingly whimsical tweets. Heaven forbid that British policy should now, as it appears, be hanging on their every word.

We can accept that the chemical attack on a Damascus suburb was probably by war-hardened Syrian airmen, though rebellions do kill their own to win sympathy. But Britain too has killed civilians in this theatre. No, we don’t poison our own people, but we somehow claim the right to blow other country’s civilians to bits. Theresa May says that the chemical attack “cannot go unchallenged”, but that is a politician’s love of intransitive verbs. Who is to be the agency and under what authority? The time to punish the Syrian leadership is when the war is over. Outside intervention will make no difference to the conflict, except to postpone its end. That is doubly cruel. [...]

May seems trapped by Washington, as Blair was in 2003. It is clear that her advisers do not think bombing Syria is the best way to respond to a chemical weapons attack, but she seems reluctant to admit it. She claims not to need the approval of parliament in firing missiles. That convention dates from when monarchs and their generals needed discretion to ward off imminent threats to national security. There is no threat now. This is not a military but a foreign policy decision. Going to war has serious implications. It clearly merits collective approval, especially from a minority government.

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The Guardian: Finland has found the answer to homelessness. It couldn’t be simpler

I would like to be able to say that Simon’s story is an exception. But in reality it is all too familiar, as new statistics published by the Guardian showed on Wednesday. The number of homeless people dying on the streets or in temporary accommodation in the UK has more than doubled over the past five years to more than one per week. The average age of a rough sleeper when they die is 43, about half the UK life expectancy.  

The tragedy is that it’s entirely within our power to do something about it: homelessness is not a choice made by the individual, it is a reality forced by government policy. As homelessness has rocketed in the UK – up 134% since 2010 – it has fallen by 35% in Finland over a similar period of time. The Finnish government is now aiming to abolish it altogether in the coming years. [...]

Actually, no. The evidence from Finland – as well as numerous other pilot schemes across the world – shows the opposite is true. When people are given homes, homelessness is radically reduced, engagement in support services goes up and recovery rates from addiction are comparable to a “treatment first” approach. Even more impressive is that there are overall savings for government, as people’s use of emergency health services and the criminal justice system is lessened.

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