Retired husband syndrome — Wet fallen leaves

Japanese men have an identity crisis

Not as unpleasant as that other material you occaionally step in

The great extent to which Japanese men are encouraged to commit themselves to work is another barrier to change. Retired workaholic men are described as a nureochibazoku, or “wet fallen leaf”, because, lacking hobbies or friends, they follow their wives around like a wet leaf stuck to a shoe. A staple magazine article offers advice to wives suffering a severe case of “Retired Husband Syndrome”. For men, the pain of being considered a nuisance by their lifelong spouse can be immense. Mr Fukushima laments that “so many men sacrifice themselves for work to provide for their family—only to realise later in life that they don’t belong at home.”

Le philosophe du rugby

France’s coach, Fabien Galthié, was philosophical after one of the worst defeats of his tenure, pointing to Paul Willemse’s red card as the turning point. “We played with 14 players almost the entire game,” he said. “But I told the players that this is not the time for reflection. There is too much disappointment to be lucid in our analysis.”

“The offensive performance was not there, that’s clear. Waste, turnovers, dropped balls, a lack of speed. We did not prepare accordingly. It’s a moment to live collectively. But the tournament continues.”

End of science (as we once knew it)

Citation cartels help some mathematicians—and their universities—climb the rankings | Science | AAAS

Cliques of mathematicians at institutions in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere have been artificially boosting their colleagues’ citation counts by churning out low-quality papers that repeatedly reference their work, according to an unpublished analysis seen by Science. As a result, their universities—some of which do not appear to have math departments—now produce a greater number of highly cited math papers each year than schools with a strong track record in the field, such as Stanford and Princeton universities.

These so-called “citation cartels” appear to be trying to improve their universities’ rankings, according to experts in publication practices. “The stakes are high—movements in the rankings can cost or make universities tens of millions of dollars,” says Cameron Neylon, a professor of research communication at Curtin University. “It is inevitable that people will bend and break the rules to improve their standing.” In response to such practices, the publishing analytics company Clarivate has excluded the entire field of math from the most recent edition of its influential list of authors of highly cited papers, released in November 2023.

Corporations tend to choose survival over morality in the absence of countervailing power.

Apex predators

Acktivism | No Mercy / No Malice

Scott Galloway

An apex predator known as an activist investor has escaped its cage and is now attacking social issues. What happens to Harvard is a sideshow. Ackman’s billionaire tantrum represents a far more dangerous virus that has plagued humans throughout history: the concentration of power.

Kings of convenience

Europe’s monarchies are a study in dignified inanity

From the Economist.

Every family has an heirloom which is too precious to throw away yet of little practical use. A dozen European countries have the constitutional equivalent. ….Like the human appendix, Europe’s royal highnesses are essentially vestigial: they serve little obvious purpose, but few think there is much reason to excise them until they cause trouble.

And who would have thought…

“Bicycle monarchies” mostly replaced fusty aristo balls. The Dutch king has been a part-time pilot for klm for over two decades. Princess Victoria, next in line to the Swedish throne, married her personal trainer.

NHS

The Notional Health Service.

Heading in last week’s Economist (13/1/2024). Sad, but true.

Not leaving your kids alone

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths: ‘The war in Gaza isn’t halfway through’

At least 136 UN workers have been killed; staff bring their children to work, so they might survive or at least die together.

And what to do?

We have to get much better at pitching into people’s souls.”

Medical science, one trim at a time

The Economist on pogonophobia and pogonophilia.

Many also believed that not shaving offered health benefits. In 1854, more than 400 members of the Dublin police force petitioned to be allowed to join the beard movement on the ground that “almost all, if not all, diseases of the respiratory organs are in great part, if not altogether, caused by the practice which obtains of shaving off the beard.” Beards were even thought to bring productivity gains. An article in the British Medical Journal in 1861 calculated that America lost 36m working days each year to shaving.

The beard craze petered out in the 1890s as fashions shifted, better razors became available and doctors took to warning against facial hair (a damp beard was thought to spread germs). Beards became the preserve of older men as the young rejected the fashions of their fathers. The army was slower to adapt. The requirement for moustaches lasted until 1916; some regiments maintained a stockpile of artificial ones for those unable to grow their own.

Note the tendency to take tenuous and marginal observations and multiple by a big number to make them seem important. Epidemiology 101, sadly, (but beloved by all grant writers).

Edinburgh’s Festivalisation

Rory Scothorne · Short Cuts: Edinburgh’s Festivalisation

The first humans​ settled in Scotland around 14,000 years ago. They must have arrived in summer; nobody in their right mind would choose to live here during the winter. Even as far south as Edinburgh, the sun emerges late only to disappear before 4 p.m., the rain eats umbrellas for breakfast and the Arctic gale is as rough as sandpaper. We don’t have much of a Christmas celebration to distract us from the gloom: the Scottish Reformation stamped out idolatrous Yuletide celebrations and Christmas only became a public holiday in 1958. Instead, we have Hogmanay.

(London Review of Books)

When capital and ideals clash, capital smothers ideals in their sleep

Mammon | No Mercy / No Malice

The collapse and rebirth of the Valley’s preeminent private company was the most bewildering business story of 2023 and an object lesson in a truth that’s hiding in plain sight: When capital and ideals clash, capital smothers ideals in their sleep. The end of the charade that OpenAI was a nonprofit signals the beginning of the end of ESG.

We are always ready, and want, to believe that this time it’s different, we will do good while making billions. The last big corporate jazz hands was the ESG movement, purporting to prioritize environmental, social, and governance concerns over shareholder returns. Succumbing to this siren call, we abdicated our responsibility to discipline corporations and curb the externalities wrought by the pursuit of profit, believing instead that one profit-seeking entity could cajole another profit-seeking entity to seek something else.

When a “nonprofit” takes a billion dollar investment from a for-profit, it has been bitten by the dead and is now also a profit-seeking White Walker.

Which reminds me (somewhat) of some comments made by Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard, with respect to higher education: Institutions choose survival over morality.