hutongs, progressives, and handmade knives

1. "Black conservative" John McWhorter looks at how American lefties are unhappy with the demonization of the term "liberal", but don't much like "progressive" either.

2. Artisanal is the new organic: Do-it-yourself butchery

3. Artisanal is the new organic: Handmade cutlery

4. An update on the ongoing destruction of Beijing's hutongs:

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, some of my favourite times as a tourist, anywhere, are the hours I spent walking through the hutongs, once in 2000, and again in 2008. The difference was tremendous -- when I was there two years ago, the whole area was undergoing a massive construction boom. But there was still an undeniable authenticity to the place that was clearly disappearing.

But how much of the concern is driven by nostalgia, mostly by people who don't actually have to live there? As the article points out, lots of residents of the hutongs are happy to leave. But some aren't:

“It’s a treasure to live in a place where you know the people and where your family has lived for generations,” said Mr. Liu, 55, who shares his home with three others, including his 81-year-old father. “Who wants to live in a place where you can live next door to someone and not talk to them for years?”

Gentrification always generates gains and losses, winners and losers. The trick -- and it is a trick that is almost never successfully pulled off -- is to permit development and renovation while preserving, as much as possible, what is valuable about the old neighbourhood. I'm afraid that in this case, the hutongs will simply disappear, except for a few blocks that will no doubt be preserved as a tourist destination and a theme park of "olde Bejing".