ReHacked vol. 299: Bogotá’s open streets program and How much academic success inherited?

Ciclovía, Bogotá’s open streets program, is the oldest and most successful in the world. I went to find out how it lasted. #society #environment #longread

The city established Ciclovía as a public program in 1976. In 1982 it became a weekly event, and in 1995 it assumed most of its current form. Bogotá’s unorthodox mayor, Antanas Mockus—who rose to fame after mooning student protesters and deployed mimes to control traffic—viewed the activity as a gambit “to achieve self-regulation in the behavior among citizens.”

It is hard to comprehend now just how radical Ciclovía was in those years. Bogotá was one of the most dangerous cities in the world, with a murder rate that peaked in 1993 with 80 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants (New York City’s worst year was 14 per 100,000). Angelica Arenas, then a 22-year-old Ciclovía aerobics instructor, told the Chicago Tribune in 1998: “We want to develop good citizens. We also want to change the image the rest of the world has about Colombia. We’re not as bad as you think.”

Make a donation - support Ukraine. My favourite: Support the Armed Forces of Ukraine | via National Bank of Ukraine. More options if you want alternatives. Also, very important Come Back Alive Foundation - Charity Organization.

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An academic Great Gatsby Curve - How much academic success inherited? | Impact of Social Sciences #science

Rankings are ubiquitous: every week, lists of best-selling records, movies, and books are released, and in sports like tennis, athletes are ranked based on their performance in major tournaments. While we know there is more to a song, book, or movie than its sales figures, we are drawn to rankings because they simplify complexity. They reduce a multidimensional concept like success into simple ordered lists.

In academia, citation-based metrics have come to serve a similar function. With platforms like Clarivate and Google Scholar, measuring an author’s performance through citations has become a common practice, whether we like it or not. In some countries, these bibliometric indicators have even started to dictate career progression, making citations an informal currency of success.

Northern Ireland police unlawfully put reporters under surveillance, tribunal rules | Reuters #freespeech

Northern Ireland's police force unlawfully placed two investigative journalists under surveillance to try and find out their source, a London tribunal ruled on Tuesday.
Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey sued the Police Service of Northern Ireland after their homes and offices were raided and they were arrested over a documentary that alleged police collusion in the 1994 murder of six Catholic soccer fans.
The so-called Loughinisland massacre took place while people were watching the Republic of Ireland beat Italy during the 1994 World Cup.
The 2017 documentary "No Stone Unturned" named a Protestant paramilitary gunman it said police believed had shot six fans in one of the most notorious episodes of Northern Ireland's "Troubles".

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Dainius