A few articles

[conuly]

One suggesting that cities that have no helmet laws encourage bike riding. Because if you require or encourage helmets, people think biking is dangerous and don't do it. They get into their dangerous car, undeterred by the seatbelt laws.

The simple fact that cities without helmet laws have more bike ridership may be true (I certainly assume it is), but I don't think the reason given logically holds up.

Here's an article on a pilot program to keep some convicted mothers with their children. If it keeps these women from recividism and helps keep their kids from crimes later on, I think that's all for the best. Probably a *bargain*.

Providing free birth control leads to fewer abortions and teenage births. I am amazed. Truly, I am astonished. See how shocking this news is? Who could've ever predicted this? WHO? WHOOOOOO?

Here's another set of pictures from North Korea. Judging from the pictures of public transportation, North Korean trains lack air conditioning, their buses lack safety glass in the windows and aren't repaired quickly, and while their stations are *clean* they're clearly not getting maintenance as often as they could be.

What really bothers me is how many of the street scenes are totally devoid of people. Is this a stylistic choice by the photographer? Or were people shooed away by the photographer's guards? Or is the city actually that empty at most times of the day? I mean, can you imagine anybody shooting pictures in NYC and choosing to make pictures that are largely empty?

Shanghai revisits its forgotten Jewish past
The history of the 20,000 European Jews who fled to the Chinese city during World War II is being rediscovered.

Comments

[mc776]

I can get into my car, sit in the driver's seat as long as I want, and in all likelihood no harm will come to me.

I can get onto a bike, fall over and break my skull open. ED: And if I'm wearing a helmet, break my neck and be using another wheeled personal device for a lot of my transport needs for a long, long time.

Simple enough choice for the foreseeable future.


EDIT: Re North Korea, that seems to be a recurring theme I've read from others' accounts of visiting there - lots of huge buildings and streets and infrastructure and no one using it. My own conjecture is that it's all built for show and far more than the people ever need or actually use, though I wouldn't rule out the possibility that people are herded away from the visitors somehow.

[conuly]

Of course, if you look at the bus pictures, there's clearly people in the city. They're just not walking around that much...?

[mc776]

Maybe they're those few who are allowed to talk to foreigners and can be trusted not to beg them to get them the hell out of there?

.......yeah, the "built too much crap" theory seems to be more like it.

[janewilliams20]

Every time I've fallen off a bike, whether due to my own stupidity or collision with a vehicle, what I've damaged has been the bit I've landed on - the hand I put out to break my fall.
I'd regard padded gloves as a higher priority than a helmet.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

“Nobody wears helmets, and bicycling is regarded as a completely normal, safe activity. You never hear that ‘helmet saved my life’ thing.”

The final argument was pretty stupid. If no one wears helmets, and helmets *could* save lives, of course no one would ever say that a helmet saved their life. If they weren't wearing one, it DIDN'T save their life. All that could have been avoided by putting it in 3rd person conditional and saying, "You never hear "a helmet would have saved his life" thing."

I have the kids wear helmets when they ride bikes (I have been told it's the law in either Oregon or specifically in Portland, though I haven't checked) and closed-toed shoes as well. That doesn't stop them from riding their bikes. It might stop people who aren't USED to it, but I don't really believe it completely stops people from riding. My dad wears his seatbelt in the car only begrudgingly, but I grew up with cars with seatbelts and I feel naked without mine. I am not thinking of car crashes when I put it on; it's like the "uniform" I wear to participate in driving. A swimsuit is the uniform I put on to participate in swimming. It would feel weird to do otherwise.

I liked the article about the moms who get to stay with their kids. I think we need to have more programs to rehabilitate people instead of locking them up all the time. Sometimes I read news articles on Yahoo and the comments are always a bunch of idiots screaming for jail time for ridiculous things.

And I also agree that the photos of that North Korean city are too empty. It looks like a ghost town. The one photo of the 2 people crossing the street with a single car feels like it must have been 3am just before a huge snowstorm or something else that cleared everyone out. It just doesn't seem right! And I've never even been to NYC but I imagine the streets don't look THAT empty all night.

[conuly]

Well, you can find empty streets in NYC at night. It's not *that* hard, heck, Lower Manhattan used to close up completely once the sun went down. But you'd be very strange if those were the only pictures you took, you know?

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I don't imagine the photographers got much choice in which photos they took. The one I found unexpectedly empty is that massive square during a rainstorm. I also found interesting the mini-golf picture, with both boys in blue and both girls in pink, and that even the train carriage has pictures of the 'Dear Leader' and 'Great Leader'. (Or actually, is the right hand won Kim Jong-un?)