Recently in Culture Category
The American Spectator: Christopher Hitchens, Remembered: An Index to Remembrances
Links to eulogies of the late controversialist and journalist, including one by his brother Peter Hitchens.
The American Consumer Project: Find Your County - Advertising Age
Interactive maps show each county in the US color-coded for two different "consumer targeting frameworks" -- Patchwork Nation and Esri's Tapestry. Point at a county, see how it's categorized, its median income, and the change in income over the last decade. Tulsa County is classified as "Boom Towns" (Patchwork), "Traditional Living" (Tapestry), with a 2010 median income of $50,267, increasing 0.4% over the decade.
The Occupy movement is experiencing the lessons of history and the development of civilization the hard way. (Via Ace of Spades HQ.)
World power swings back to America - Telegraph
Some good news from the Telegraph's international business editor Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: America is supplying nearly three-quarters of its energy needs, up from half a decade ago. Wage inflation in China is encouraging manufacturing to come back home as the cost gap closes. A caution: "The switch in advantage to the US is relative. It does not imply a healthy US recovery. The global depression will grind on as much of the Western world tightens fiscal policy and slowly purges debt, and as China deflates its credit bubble." But the advantages are real: "It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 - and therefore the ability to outgrow debt - in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia."
World Value Survey Cultural Map
Mapping survey results on a two-axis graph: Traditional vs. Secular-Rational and Survival vs. Self-Expression. There's an interesting Anglosphere cluster (US, UK, Australia, Canada, NZ, Ireland) straddling the Traditional vs. Secular-Rational line but well in the direction of Self-Expression over Survival. (Via Ace of Spades HQ overnight thread.)
Can the Middle Class Be Saved? - Magazine - The Atlantic
"One stubborn stereotype in the United States is that religious roots are deepest in blue-collar communities and small towns, and, more generally, among Americans who do not have college degrees. That was true in the 1970s. Yet since then, attendance at religious services has plummeted among moderately educated Americans, and is now much more common among college grads. So, too, is participation in civic groups. High-school seniors from affluent households are more likely to volunteer, join groups, go to church, and have strong academic ambitions than seniors used to be, and are as trusting of other people as seniors a generation ago; their peers from less affluent households have become less engaged on each of those fronts. A cultural chasm--which did not exist 40 years ago and which was still relatively small 20 years ago--has developed between the traditional middle class and the top 30 percent of society."
(Via Rod Dreher, whose response is also worth reading.)
Speech Accent Archive at George Mason University
"The speech accent archive uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers." (Via a comment on the dearauthor.com blog.)
BBC - Voices - The Voices Recordings
A collection of thousands of sound clips from all over the United Kingdom of people speaking their own various accents and dialects. (Via a comment from Courtney Milan on dearauthor.com)
Aborted Baby Cells Used as Research Base for Flavoring (List of Products Included) : Moral Outcry
According to Children of God for Life, a cell line derived from kidney cells from an aborted baby (HEK 293) is being used by a company called Senomyx in the development and testing of flavor enhancers. The company's website includes information about its collaborations with PepsiCo and Cadbury Adams USA LLC, A unit of Kraft Foods Inc., and Nestlé.
Enjoy Saturated Fats, They're Good for You! by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD
Preferably from grass-fed animals, according to this cardiac surgeon. Interesting to see how the boom in carbohydrate intake correlates with the prevalence of obesity. (Via @DrEades on Twitter)
