Vox Clamantis

Classical music

Apparently classical music is bigger than ever but would you recognize a great modern musician?

Thanks to Chris for the pointer.

Easterly on Development

Economist William Easterly has been at Mason this semester teaching a short seminar on economic development and I've made it to a few lectures, which are quite entertaining.

In the WSJ he's just snarky (Greg Mankiw has a copy of the article here):

The press release describing the findings of the 2006 World Bank report "Challenges of African Growth" announces: the "single most important reason" for Africa's "lagging position in eradicating poverty," finally "has been identified." It is "Africa's slow and erratic growth." The next World Bank report may reveal that half a dozen beers has been identified as the single most important reason for a six-pack.

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who turned small-scale lending to village women into a powerful force against poverty in his native Bangladesh and other low-income countries, was busy breaking other barriers yesterday.

From the Washington Post. He makes a good candidate and this is interesting timing because Tyler Cowen, another economist, recently stated (see this also) that he doesn't believe he could do a better job as a ruler in Latin America. I wonder if he thinks an economist could do better in Bangledesh? Keep in mind that GDP growth is already 6-7% or so, despite some political problems. At any rate, it doesn't sound like Yunus has much shot, so maybe this is idle speculation.

Lost References

If you don't like the show Lost, or don't know what it is, this post will really bore you so don't bother reading.

Unless I'm mistaken it looked like Sawyer was reading The Fountainhead last night (it was definitely Rand - further proof I need a plasma tv). Is this further evidence that Sawyer (real name James Ford) represents capitalism? See here for more on the economics of Lost. Here is a running list of the books that are referenced in the show, or that influence the show. I know what I'll be reading this summer.

Finally, EW has good coverage of the show and this little tidbit offers another literary reference:

A purple sky is a clue suggesting that spiritual forces with possibly sinister agendas are at work on the island.
HUH? ''Purple sky'' is clearly a reference to the Jimi Hendrix song ''Purple Haze.'' Reportedly, Hendrix said that he got the title of the tune from Night of Light, a science fiction novel by Philip Jose Farmer set on a planet called Dante's Joy where ''spiritual forces are made manifest in the material world,'' according to Wikipedia.
[...]
BY THE WAY You guys should really check out Farmer's Riverworld series, because it's loaded with Lost resonances. Does reincarnation explain it all? Do ''the Others'' = ''The Ethicals''? Does ''The Mysterious Stranger'' = ''Ben''? Is it just coincidence that Mikhail Bakunin is a character in the third season of Lost AND the third Riverworld book The Dark Design? And how WEIRDLY COINCIDENTAL is it that the recent Jack episode ''Stranger in a Strange Land'' is also the name of a sci-fi book by Robert Heinlein, which was dedicated to... Philip Jose Farmer! C'MON, PEOPLE! There MUST be a CONNECTION!

See here for more, and here is EW's page on Lost. They have weekly coverage of each show. Here is their coverage from last night's show. Enjoy.

Carsharing

Via an email from Susan Shaheen we learn:

• As of January 2007, 18 U.S. carsharing programs claimed 134,094 members sharing 3,637 vehicles, and


• As of January 2007, 21,817 members shared 994 vehicles among 13 carsharing organizations in Canada.

Dr. Shaheen is the Project Leader at Innovative Mobility Research, UCB. It would be nice to see time series data to have a better sense of this trend, but anecdotally carsharing has increased rapidly. When I became interested in 2000 there were fewer than 5 carsharing organizations, and I think it was closer to 1 or 2. At any rate, there's been considerable growth. See IMR's website for more info on carsharing.

Experiments about guilt honesty and goodness

If people see good, they'll be good. Via Steven Levitt (Freakonomics).

That's Sir James to You

The economist has a racy title for an article about vacuum cleaners. This part caught my interest:

These days Dysons are no longer made in Wiltshire but in Malaysia. Production was shifted because there were no longer any suppliers near the original factory, the wage bill per person had doubled and the local authority had refused planning permission to expand.

The decision to move abroad caused a storm, yet things have turned out just as globalisation advocates would have hoped. Three factories in Malaysia now make 4m vacuum cleaners a year, with all the suppliers within a ten-mile radius, at one-third of the cost in Britain. The Wiltshire factory has become a research and design centre; Dyson employs more people than before, and in more highly skilled jobs.

These stories are far more common than people realize, we just don't hear about them often enough.

"Our House"

Andrea (my wife) and I often joke about our taste differences. When we were shopping for simple things like plates for our wedding registry, we found that our tastes were quite different. We joke that things that I like and that she hates will go into my "office" and that she'll have her own area of the house as well, for the same types of items. Seems there are increasing numbers of people that take this to extremes... (NYT):

Two decades after Woody Allen and Mia Farrow defied convention by living apart even after starting a family, researchers are seeing a surge in long-term, two-home relationships.

They have even identified a new demographic category to describe such arrangements: the "living apart together," or L.A.T., relationship. These couples are committed to sharing their lives, but only to a point.

Hard numbers are difficult to come by; the United States Census does not measure these relationships. However, a survey-based British study published last year by John Haskey, a statistician who heads the Family Demography Unit at the Department of Social Policy at Oxford University, estimated that a million couples in Great Britain are currently in L.A.T. relationships. Other recent studies have found the trend on the rise in Holland, Sweden, Norway, France and Canada.

David Popenoe, the co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, a leading center of marriage and family studies, says that it is clear even from the fragmentary evidence available — "partly what we know anecdotally, partly the fact that every other significant European trend in family life has turned out to be happening in America" — that L.A.T. relationships are on the rise in the United States, too.

I Love L.A.

When I say I am from California, I get one of two responses: either people wonder why I would ever leave paradise, or, nope, that's actually the only response I ever get. Oh, I guess a few people ask me if I think DC is really cold (it's not.) Aside from that, the only other question I get is if I am from the land of fruits and nuts (SF, and yes, people actually use that phrase) or the pretentious stripmall infested wasteland of LA (neither actually, but then, people are always forgetting about the central valley.)

The other night I suggested to a friend that he move to LA. His blank stare didn't require an explanation. Since he's never been, and since many people have only one idea of the place, I think it's worth singing the praises of the city for a minute.

First, the city isn't nearly as sprawling as it seems. By some measures, it's even more dense than NY (that's not a joke about intellect!)

Caltech professor Kim Border writes:

My neighborhood comprises two-block lengths of three streets, surrounded by minor arteries and a private golf course, of which I am not a member. It is a real neighborhood, where I walk to the market and bank, we have block parties, and I know my neighbors. (I know many more of my neighbors than when I lived in Minneapolis or St. Paul. On my block live Al, Alex, Anne, Betty, Bill, Bridget, Carolyn, Connie, Curt, David, Deborah, Doreen, Ellen, Henry, Howard, Joe, John, Joyce, Linda, Liz, Mariko, Mark, Mike, Pat, Paul, Philip, Rob, Robert, Rodolfo, Sandy, Sloan, Steve, Susan, Susie, and Wayne, among others, not including children.) On Halloween, the few people who have moved out of the neighborhood to nearby areas return to go trick or treating in their old haunts. I have lived in my house for seventeen years, so I am somewhat of a newcomer. Some people live in the houses their parents had owned and in which they grew up.

He has lots of other great stuff on his site. For instance, think about crime:

Contrary to what you might think, L.A. is not a crime ridden slum. That is a rumor we perpetuate to keep out the riffraff.

Los Angeles has an overall crime rate 50% lower than Seattle, 47% lower than Minneapolis, 66% lower than Atlanta (no surprise there), and significantly lower than say Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Toledo, Kansas City, Portland, Columbus, or Boston, to name a few.

Some of you have complained that the previous paragraph lumps all crime together, but that L.A. has more violent crime. Well, the murder rate is lower than say Minneapolis, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Cleveland, Charlotte, or Denver. (And those are not the leaders by any means.) The overall violent crime rate is lower than say Minneapolis, Seattle, Kansas City, Boston, Dallas, or Charlotte. Of course it's lower than the really violent cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, or Memphis.

Do we even need to talk about the beaches, weather, and Mexican cabbage salsa?

nomenclature

Why do we name our hurricanes after real people? How many people will want to name their children Rita or Wilma now? Going forward, will we find that these names decline in popularity? Does that happen historically? Why not name hurricanes for the destruction they cause? I propose Hurricane A## Fu**er for one, or how about Hurricane Fist Fu##er? - I think that gets the point across. If you're worried we'll run out of names I assure you we will not. Ask any 13 year old boy if you run out of ideas.