Links 9 September 2022

Bronze beast found in excavations at Sanxingdui, China, 150 kg

Accusations of "indoctrination" in America public schools go back to the 1840s, when there were ugly battles over whether "non-denominational" religious instruction was really anti-Catholic.

Psychedelics have some promise in the treatment of depression and other mental health problems but some worry they are being dangerously over-hyped.

Photographs of interesting human figures made from trash illegally imported into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, half art, half protest.

The "Toledo War" over the boundary between Ohio and Michigan.

Wonderfully detailed picture map of the road to Kyoto, 1690.

A visti to the Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestique in Paris, one of the world's oldest pet cemeteries.

Twitter thread on the dismal arithmetic of book publishing. Most books sell very, very few copies.

And a Twitter discussion of the new labels on the art works at the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, glossed by one writer as "the worst I have ever seen." What happens when the desire to be accessible crosses with wokeism.

Nearly a quarter of Hong Kong's young workers have emigrated in the past year.

Good explainer on the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi: the underlying problem is disinvestment, driven by the falling population, severe city budget crisis, and lack of interest by the state legislature in helping a majority black city. Interesting to note that when a city's population falls, all of the old water infrastructure remains in place – even the parts no longer serving anyone – becoming an ever-greater maintenance burden.

Americans are unhappy with the economy, but our GDP is doing much better than that of the big European economies, and our inflation is lower. And that's without even factoring in Europe's war-related energy price spike. (Kevin Drum)

Ancient Maya graffiti.

An argument that cell phones reduced violent crime by making it less important for drug dealers to control territory. 

Via the Silicon Tribesman, photographs of the array of Roman shoes found at Vindolanda. And more of the same.

South Korean government proposes providing parents of newborn children a subsidy of about $740/month in a desperate attempt to raise their birth rate, one of the world's lowest.

Black flight: hundreds of thousands of African Americans have moved to the suburbs, and blacks are now not much more likely than whites to live in big cities. Some people blame "gentrification" but what's really going on is that all the races are becoming more alike in terms of where people want and can afford to live.

In response to the energy crisis created by the Ukraine war, European governments are abandoning orthodox economics and ramping up their spending amidst high inflation. Some are also enacting price limits, profit taxes, and the nationalization of key firms. “Government intervention is back in vogue in a really big way,” says one consultant. People like or tolerate capitalism when things are good, but quickly move away from it in a crisis. (NY Times)

Interesting that event planners in Britain have for years been taking out insurance in case their events had to be cancelled due to the queen's death.

In the NY Times, David Brooks takes on one of the worst trends in American business, the open-plan workplace: 

For decades, research has found that open plan offices are bad for companies, bad for workers, bad for health and bad for morale. And yet they just won’t die. Human beings, if they are to thrive, need a bit of privacy — walls and a door. And yet employers, decade after decade, neglect to give workers what they need, refuse to do what’s in their own self-interest.