{"id":198,"date":"2004-04-27T10:03:27","date_gmt":"2004-04-27T14:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=198"},"modified":"2005-12-06T15:27:42","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T20:27:42","slug":"baby-ka-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/baby-ka-boom","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Baby Ka-Boom&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, I wish I would&#8217;ve been the one to come up with that title. Unfortunately, I can&#8217;t take credit.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1990s, I remember reading about how portable ultrasound units were enabling Chinese villagers to find out if pregnant women were carrying male or female babies. Then, typically, they&#8217;d abort the female babies. According to the article I was reading, it was reaching a point where some regions had a birth-rate of 32 boys to every 1 girl.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a new book on the subject, and it predicts that China will engage in a massive, bloody conflict by 2020, presumably because of the pent-up frustrations of all those grown boys. The book is <em>Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia&#8217;s Surplus Male Population<\/em>, by Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, and the Chronicle of Higher Education just ran <a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/free\/v50\/i34\/34a01401.htm\" target=\"_blank\">a neat article<\/a> on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, I wish I would&#8217;ve been the one to come up with that title. Unfortunately, I can&#8217;t take credit. In the early 1990s, I remember reading about how portable ultrasound units were enabling Chinese villagers to find out if pregnant women were carrying male or female babies. Then, typically, they&#8217;d abort the female babies. According &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/baby-ka-boom\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8220;Baby Ka-Boom&#8221;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-3c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1287,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/china-syndrome","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":0},"title":"China Syndrome","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In the early 1990s I read about the big problem with cheap, portable sonograms making their way out to the Chinese provinces: namely, parents were aborting female babies the moment they got the news about their children's gender, because they wanted sons. It didn't take much advance thinking to realize\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2080,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-june-6-2008","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":1},"title":"Unrequired Reading: June 6, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"June 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My links bring all the boys to the yard. Jessica Helfland laments the death of makereadies. * * * Weapons-grade stupidity (and that's putting it mildly), on display at El Camino High School. * * * Heynow: an awesome interview with Jeffrey Tambor! * * * I have only drunk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Adventures in Gin&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Gin","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-gin"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3956,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-may-22-2009","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: May 22, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"May 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Memorial day weekend! I may be filled with sadness, guilt, rage and oversolicitousness because of my dog's grievous wounds, but that's no reason you shouldn't have some links to get you through the weekend. Just click \"more\"! I can't make this up: the passenger next to me on last night's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1771,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-nov-9-2007","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Nov. 9, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"November 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Unrequired Reading never rests, dear readers! Even when I'm in between business trips! (on to San Diego this Sunday)! Click \"more\" for more! What hath Jane Jacobs wrought? (the writer seems a little surprised that a human being can have thoughts and beliefs that don't all line up perfectly with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4678,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-suppose-captain-spaulding-is-next","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":4},"title":"I suppose &#8220;Captain Spaulding&#8221; is next","author":"Gil","date":"November 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"We decided a few weeks ago that Rufus T. Firefly would be a happier dog if he had a little sister to keep him company. He wasn't getting weird, exactly, but we felt that he'd be better around other dogs if he had a fellow grey around during the day,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"otis.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/otis.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2176,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-aug-8-2008","url_meta":{"origin":198,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Aug. 8, 2008","author":"Gil","date":"August 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's summertime! Why are you sitting around at your computer? I know! You're hoping to find more awesome links to check out! There was a proto-Little Richard? * * * I found this article on the physical aspects of Ad Reinhart paintings to be weirdly compelling. * * * I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}