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from the these-boots-are-made-for-walkin dept.
NewsChina http://new.newschinamag.com/newschina/articleDetail.do?article_id=2414 is running an article titled, "The Walking Dead - The lack of public sport facilities and sites have seen a growing number of urban residents take to public roads for exercise"
Xu Guilin has been restless and anxious of late. As the head of the Outdoor Sport Association of Lanshan District in the city of Linyi, Shandong Province, he's used to organizing hikes and walks in an urban landscape increasingly hostile to pedestrians. But now he's facing a media blitz after tragedy struck his group – while also handling members who are keen to take to the roads again.
In the early morning of July 8, 2017, a taxi rammed into a crowd of walkers on the highway in the city, killing one and injuring two. After the accident, more than 20 teams of walkers were told to halt their activities.
"I am under mounting pressure," Xu told NewsChina. He doesn't know how to cope with his thousands of members. "They want to exercise and walk, where could they go?" He's very worried that some walkers will strike off on their own, risking another accident, and he's facing massive criticism online where netizens flocked to condemn walkers for their alleged intrusion onto public roads.
It seems that with all the new urban construction in China, they haven't built sidewalks, parks or sports fields. Meanwhile, people that want to walk for exercise have banded together in groups and take to the streets for lack of anywhere else to walk. These are not small groups -- one founder started in 2010 with a few friends and by 2015 his group had grown and split many times...10,000 people were engaged in group walking in Linyi city.
We may think that groups of road cyclists are blocking the roads in a few places, but walking in China appears to be in a whole different league. Some groups taking a lane have been run over by cars (there is a picture in the article that purports to show this) and other groups banned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Monday October 09 2017, @10:22PM (3 children)
What drives me nuts is the way the stores decide to charge a lot more for brown rice and brown flour than their white equivalents! Surely, it needs less refining, therefore should be much cheaper. I can see how maybe white being more popular could create some kinda economy of scale but it doesn't stop it being frustrating.
There's also this drive to hype up cheap, healthy basics into fucking "superfoods" or similar and charge the Earth for them. Lentils and chickpeas used to be much cheaper. Frugal people have to eat too y'know!
Once big business figured out anything can be made very expensive if only you market it right to the right idiots, we were all fucked. Nothing will ever be cost effective again.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday October 09 2017, @10:24PM (2 children)
Oh and same thing with brown vs white sugar. There are probably more examples of the less refined product costing more. Maybe it still needs to be selectively refined and that selective process is more difficult than the one used for white sugar.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Monday October 09 2017, @11:02PM (1 child)
Most brown sugar is white sugar with added color and flavor. In no way is it cheaper to produce. I stress "most*, not all. For brown sugar that is truly less refined than white sugar, see point 2 below.
There are two fundamental reasons brown rice, flour and sugar costs more:
1. Buyers are likely to be wealthier and can afford more.
2. These products sell lower volumes so the overhead costs of producing and stocking it are higher.
They are just like any niche product.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:04AM
Most is an understatement. The only exceptions I know of is a Japanese company that ships to restaurants directly. Even the rum industry in the Caribbeans use refined cane molasses. Everyone else will, at best, mix white with molasses [joythebaker.com] or just reintroduce resin from some other source.
And mind you, this is done with good reason. Not only the shipping costs for the extra water content is prohibitive, the whitening process is essentially a form of pasteurization to kill off the germs and remove the insects, insecticides, fungi, heavy metals and the really rare stuff like polio that live in the canes and beets or the surrounding ground and that people won't wash down with soup since it's sugar we're talking about.
Regardless, if people are really interested in raw sugar they can just buy sugar canes.
compiling...