Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wet and Dry Ear Wax Map
Black means the presence of wet ear wax while white represents dry ear wax
I just found out that there is a stereotype that states Chinese have dry ear wax. Shockingly the stereotype has turned out to be true. Japanese scientists have mapped out wet versus dry ear wax and found out that in prehistoric China a genetic mutation occurred which makes ear wax dry. Dry ear wax is found in areas where prehistoric East Asians' descendants are found: namely East Asia, Southeast Asia, and North America. Despite some theories on sweat and smell there is no known reason why prehistoric East Asians evolved in order to have dry ear wax.
Catholicgauze, despite having R1a genetics, has very, very wet ear wax.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Electoral Geography Gerrymandering's Role in Apartheid South Africa
TDAXP links to an excellent article at the political blog FiveThirtyEight about how electoral geography was used to bring about apartheid in South Africa. The heart of the article explains how in 1948, the then smaller, pro-Apartheid National Party used an electoral system that 1) only allowed whites and a proportion of Coloureds the right to vote and more importantly 2) was biased in giving rural voters a greater representation than normal demographic allotment would allow to win power. The gerrymandered system allowed the party to stay in power until 1994 when all South Africans were given the right to vote.
By 1948, South African politics had been for four decades dominated by veterans of the Anglo-Boer wars, with three defeated Boer generals serving as Prime Minister, namely Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, and JBM Hertzog. Botha and Smuts formed the South Africa party which was an alliance between moderate Afrikaners and English voters. Opposed to it was the National party headed by Hertzog which appealed more to poorer Afrikaners and some poorer English voters.
During the depression, the two parties formed a coalition, which survived until the outbreak of war in 1939, which South Africa entered by a cabinet vote decided by a margin of one. The hard Afrikaner core of the National Party broke off from the ruling "United Party". Highly sectarian (it did not field a single English candidate in 1948) it was considered to have little chance of winning in 1948 against the government which had just won the war.
The United Party however, like other Western governing parties that had ruled during the second world war, had many things going against it, including a serious recession, and concerns that it was out of ideas for the country's future.
Compared to this, the National Party offered the promise of ending English dominance of the civil service and the economy as well ending the competition that African laborers moving to the urban areas posed to poor Afrikaner workers. When the votes were counted the United Party had won a large popular vote victory, 547,437 (50.9%) for the United Party to 443,278 (41.2%) for the National Party. But when the seats were declared, the National party and its allies had won 79, compared to 71 for the United Party and its allies.
The National Party had taken advantages of one of the quirks of the South African system. The first was that seats were allowed to deviate from the population quota by a margin of 15% in either direction in order to accommodate local boundaries and to limit their geographical size. While an average of around 7200 votes were cast per constituency, the National Party only won 2 seats where more than 7200 votes were cast. The United Party by contrast won more than half its seats in districts where over 8000 votes were cast.
Similar results occurred in 1953 and 1958 with the United Party beating the National Party in the popular vote but losing out in the seat allotment because of the overrepresented rural regions. The rural Afrikaner boer became the power wielder despite the facts that South Africa was a multiethnic state where Whites were a minority divided between Afrikaners and English-speakers and the country was beginning to experience an urbanization boom. After 1958 the National Party became a power party which anyone who wanted to be in politics, regardless of political ideology, had to join if they wanted to be in power. From then on the National Party remained the dominant political party in South Africa with only weak opposition from the urban, liberal Progressive Federal Party and the rural and neo-urban (urban dwellers who still hold rural values) radical national conservative Conservative Party. White English-speaking South Africans and moderate Afrikaners began a slow but steady exodus from South Africa in part because of the feeling that the electoral system was gerrymandered against their interests.
South-West Africa, now known as Namibia, also played a role in the continued political domination by the National Party. Despite being never annexed by South Africa, Afrikaners and other European-ancestry Africans in South-West Africa were given the right to vote in South African elections. Identity pressure from the "White versus Black" Border War and the lack of an liberal White population meant that voters from South-West Africa overwhelmingly favored the Nationalist Party thus giving the party yet another boost to its hold on power.
In the 1980s the National Party created the House of Representatives for Coloureds and the House of Delegates for Indians as a way of giving some limited political power to these ethnic groups. The two houses managed to split non-Black minority opposition and gave the National Party some strong contacts with non-Black ethnic minority groups. Even in the 1990s there were leading Coloured politicians who opposed the abolition of apartheid because they felt it would loosen their grip on power and hurt the "better Coloured than Black" social hierarchy.
However, the inability and unwillingness of the National Party to give limited political power to Blacks (the homelands were seen as collaborationist regimes by most Blacks and most Blacks favored integration into the political system of South Africa-proper) only renforced Black and international opposition to the Apartheid regime. Pressure from the majority Black population combined with international sanctions finally led to the downfall of the racist system and the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994.
See also: Dreams of a White Africa: South Africa versus Rhodesia and Native Lands - Reservations, Home Lands, and Republics (Part 1) for more information on the racial geography of Apartheid South Africa
By 1948, South African politics had been for four decades dominated by veterans of the Anglo-Boer wars, with three defeated Boer generals serving as Prime Minister, namely Louis Botha, Jan Smuts, and JBM Hertzog. Botha and Smuts formed the South Africa party which was an alliance between moderate Afrikaners and English voters. Opposed to it was the National party headed by Hertzog which appealed more to poorer Afrikaners and some poorer English voters.
During the depression, the two parties formed a coalition, which survived until the outbreak of war in 1939, which South Africa entered by a cabinet vote decided by a margin of one. The hard Afrikaner core of the National Party broke off from the ruling "United Party". Highly sectarian (it did not field a single English candidate in 1948) it was considered to have little chance of winning in 1948 against the government which had just won the war.
The United Party however, like other Western governing parties that had ruled during the second world war, had many things going against it, including a serious recession, and concerns that it was out of ideas for the country's future.
Compared to this, the National Party offered the promise of ending English dominance of the civil service and the economy as well ending the competition that African laborers moving to the urban areas posed to poor Afrikaner workers. When the votes were counted the United Party had won a large popular vote victory, 547,437 (50.9%) for the United Party to 443,278 (41.2%) for the National Party. But when the seats were declared, the National party and its allies had won 79, compared to 71 for the United Party and its allies.
The National Party had taken advantages of one of the quirks of the South African system. The first was that seats were allowed to deviate from the population quota by a margin of 15% in either direction in order to accommodate local boundaries and to limit their geographical size. While an average of around 7200 votes were cast per constituency, the National Party only won 2 seats where more than 7200 votes were cast. The United Party by contrast won more than half its seats in districts where over 8000 votes were cast.
Similar results occurred in 1953 and 1958 with the United Party beating the National Party in the popular vote but losing out in the seat allotment because of the overrepresented rural regions. The rural Afrikaner boer became the power wielder despite the facts that South Africa was a multiethnic state where Whites were a minority divided between Afrikaners and English-speakers and the country was beginning to experience an urbanization boom. After 1958 the National Party became a power party which anyone who wanted to be in politics, regardless of political ideology, had to join if they wanted to be in power. From then on the National Party remained the dominant political party in South Africa with only weak opposition from the urban, liberal Progressive Federal Party and the rural and neo-urban (urban dwellers who still hold rural values) radical national conservative Conservative Party. White English-speaking South Africans and moderate Afrikaners began a slow but steady exodus from South Africa in part because of the feeling that the electoral system was gerrymandered against their interests.
South-West Africa, now known as Namibia, also played a role in the continued political domination by the National Party. Despite being never annexed by South Africa, Afrikaners and other European-ancestry Africans in South-West Africa were given the right to vote in South African elections. Identity pressure from the "White versus Black" Border War and the lack of an liberal White population meant that voters from South-West Africa overwhelmingly favored the Nationalist Party thus giving the party yet another boost to its hold on power.
In the 1980s the National Party created the House of Representatives for Coloureds and the House of Delegates for Indians as a way of giving some limited political power to these ethnic groups. The two houses managed to split non-Black minority opposition and gave the National Party some strong contacts with non-Black ethnic minority groups. Even in the 1990s there were leading Coloured politicians who opposed the abolition of apartheid because they felt it would loosen their grip on power and hurt the "better Coloured than Black" social hierarchy.
However, the inability and unwillingness of the National Party to give limited political power to Blacks (the homelands were seen as collaborationist regimes by most Blacks and most Blacks favored integration into the political system of South Africa-proper) only renforced Black and international opposition to the Apartheid regime. Pressure from the majority Black population combined with international sanctions finally led to the downfall of the racist system and the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in 1994.
See also: Dreams of a White Africa: South Africa versus Rhodesia and Native Lands - Reservations, Home Lands, and Republics (Part 1) for more information on the racial geography of Apartheid South Africa
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Maps of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak Disaster
Update: Be sure to check out a Google Maps overlay which superimpose the oil slick on any part of the Earth for size comparison (Blogged about on June 1, 2010)
The Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil leak is easily one of the greatest ecological disasters in the United States' history. I have been avoiding writing about the disaster itself because I fear I am unable to give such an event the detailed reporting it deserves. The havoc that has been and will be wrecked upon the various ecosystems and human affairs along the Gulf of Mexico is so far incalculable.
The disaster has spawned a legion of maps which can help one gain a better understanding of its magnitude. The Map Room links to the New York Times' day-by-day map of the oil slick and the threatened coastline. Meanwhile, the official website of the BP-American government unified response command, Deep Horizon Response, has a map page with daily updated maps from NOAA showing where the oil is and where it is forecasted to go.
The disaster is bad. I fear the next series of maps that I will write on will show the oil's damage on Louisiana and other gulf states' wetlands. Sadly, Louisianan governor Bobby Jindal states the state of affairs with Louisiana awaiting for aid from the federal government to protect the state's coastline.
The Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil leak is easily one of the greatest ecological disasters in the United States' history. I have been avoiding writing about the disaster itself because I fear I am unable to give such an event the detailed reporting it deserves. The havoc that has been and will be wrecked upon the various ecosystems and human affairs along the Gulf of Mexico is so far incalculable.
The disaster has spawned a legion of maps which can help one gain a better understanding of its magnitude. The Map Room links to the New York Times' day-by-day map of the oil slick and the threatened coastline. Meanwhile, the official website of the BP-American government unified response command, Deep Horizon Response, has a map page with daily updated maps from NOAA showing where the oil is and where it is forecasted to go.The disaster is bad. I fear the next series of maps that I will write on will show the oil's damage on Louisiana and other gulf states' wetlands. Sadly, Louisianan governor Bobby Jindal states the state of affairs with Louisiana awaiting for aid from the federal government to protect the state's coastline.
Monday, May 24, 2010
The Economist Redraws Europe to Reflect Current Geopolitical Trends
For the longest time Europe has been drawn in two along relatively unmoving lines. The Western/Eastern Roman Empire, the Catholic/Orthodox, Christian/Ottoman, and then the Western/Warsaw Pact divides have shared much of the same territory.
However, as I wrote about before, the geopolitical trends in Europe have shifted the boundary line east in a Brussels (European Union/NATO) versus Moscow (Russian-influenced) divide. There are also other shifts in geopolitical thought as Belgium's ethnic struggle, though peaceful, is like the problems in the Balkans, Central European countries like the Czech Republic are now virtually indistinguishable from Western European countries, and old established states like the United Kingdom and France are feeling stronger pulls for regional autonomy/independence.
The Economist earlier created a map redrawing the map of Europe as if the continent's geography reflected the current geopolitical trends of the regional countries. The video above does a good job explaining the reasoning of The Economist.
Other changes I would have made is to separate Cyprus making the Greek, lower half closer to Europe while the having the Turkish, northern half of the country hover near Turkey. The location of Turkish Cyprus should reflect the strong ties between the two but accurately show the present-day worry that the secular, militaristic Turkish Cyprus has for the religious, anti-military establishment government currently ruling in Turkey. Bosnia should be spiralling down a sinkhole as ethnic tension threatens to tear the country apart again. Finally, Israel should move closer to Europe as it has long been thought of as an extension of Europe though the Gaza Strip and West Bank should be shown as weighing down the state keeping it attached to the Middle East.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Outgoing AAG President Likes Geography Blogs
The President of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), Dr. Carol Harden, who was interviewd by Geographic Travels in April, has written an article in the May 2010 AAG newsletter about geographers reaching out to the press and general public. Dr. Harden writes about geography blogs saying
Elsewhere in the article Dr. Harden writes that some of the most public geographers reach out through intermediateries and established links with reports. She also points out that opinion editorials in newspapers get the word out about the importance of geography. Finally, she stress the importance of promoting the cited work of others because that allows the public to look up references and read more about the aspects of geography that interest them.
Dr. Harden is right on the mark with her thoughts. Writing to the general public is critical because it allows for important geographic insight to be shared, understood, and factored into decisions from daily life to national security issues. Also, blogs are read more and more everyday with serious discussions and insights being shared. Geographers and readers of geography blogs should feel encouraged to e-mail each other, comment, write guest posts, and even create their online resources. This way an untapped/undertapped population can have impact not only in the field of geography but also the world.
"The Internet is a primary source of geographic information for broad audiences. Are academic and professional geographers contributing enough to this resource and adequately supporting those who do? As I explore the blogosphere, I am impressed by the volume and variety of material with geographic content and find myself using information from blogs as points of entry into new topics. Quality control is variable compared to that of peer-reviewed journals and major newspapers, but the more prominent blogs have good intentions and cite their sources. You may remember that Matt Rosenberg, who has covered geography at About.com for over a decade, received an NCGE Geography Excellence in Media Award. Other well-established, geography-oriented sites include Very Spatial, My Wonderful World Blog, Geographic Travels, and Geo Lounge."
Elsewhere in the article Dr. Harden writes that some of the most public geographers reach out through intermediateries and established links with reports. She also points out that opinion editorials in newspapers get the word out about the importance of geography. Finally, she stress the importance of promoting the cited work of others because that allows the public to look up references and read more about the aspects of geography that interest them.
Dr. Harden is right on the mark with her thoughts. Writing to the general public is critical because it allows for important geographic insight to be shared, understood, and factored into decisions from daily life to national security issues. Also, blogs are read more and more everyday with serious discussions and insights being shared. Geographers and readers of geography blogs should feel encouraged to e-mail each other, comment, write guest posts, and even create their online resources. This way an untapped/undertapped population can have impact not only in the field of geography but also the world.
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