Miles to go before I sleep

Williams makes the New York Times

I saw this on Marginal Revolution, and thought it was truly brillant.

...you ask why we Americans work more hours than do Europeans. But perhaps we don’t. While the data do show that Americans work more hours AT FORMAL JOBS, it doesn’t follow that Americans work more hours in total. The reason is that, compared to Europeans, Americans have more time-saving household appliances, as well as greater access to other time-saving amenities such as prepared foods, child care, and housecleaning services. As a result, we Americans work fewer hours taking care of our households and, hence, can work more hours earning income.

I had never even thought of this before. But if I think about it, it is pretty plausible that at least some of the difference in formal work hours is compensated for by "household care" work.

On http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/ you can find translations of English philosophical texts into... modern English.

I've always remarked that it's a lot more pleasant to read historical classics written in foreign languages, as they are then translated into modern English. I don't deny that classical renderings of English can indeed be beautiful, but there are various purposes for reading...

Thanks to for the pointer

State of the Union, tonight at 9.

On the agenda: cutting the deficit, immigration liberalization, social security reform.

Lillian graciously identified the inner-me (as demonstrated by my icon): Domo-kun. Domo-kun is the mascot of Japanese TV channel NHK.

Character description from Domomode:

DOMO is a strange creature born from an egg. One day he fell into Usajii's house, the old rabbit likes TV. After that he began to love watching TV. He is gentle and strong. When he is in a bad mood, he breaks wind.

Well, there's some parts there that I can really identify with: strange, gentle, and strong. The TV and farting... well, not so much.

I read economist blogs for fun; they're always full of interesting stuff. Today's posting on Marginal Revolution was particularly exciting:

In a new paper, Gary Becker and graduate student Julio Elias estimate that for a price of $15,000 the shortage of kidneys could be eliminated from live donors. The risk of death to a live donor is no more than 1 in a 1000. Combine this with a value of life estimate of $3 million and add in some costs for time off work and so forth and you get the Becker/Elias figure of $15,000.

Becker and Elias have a useful response to (so-called) moral objections. Take any argument against kidney sales and apply it to the volunteer army. Do kidney sales "commodify the body?" Perhaps, but then the volunteer army commodifies life. Would kidney sales eliminate altruistic donation? As the example of Pat Tillman and many others demonstrate people still volunteer for the military for non-monetary reasons. ... If you are not in favor of the volunteer army then Becker and Elias don't have any knock down arguments but I suspect that many people who are against kidney sales also favor the volunteer army and for these people Becker and Elias are posing a consistency challenge.

Current American organ donation policy is borderline criminal: by refusing to set up any form of monetary compensation for donation, we've created a huge kidney shortage that leads to many people dying prematurely. Now, it's not even necessary to create a market in kidneys; it would be just as easy for the government/insurers to pay kidney donors a fixed price... perhaps around $15,000. Frankly, it is anti-empirical to expect that people donating out of the goodness of their hearts will provide enough kidneys for everyone who needs one. And don't people who give deserve some compensation? Those of us in the reality based community should see that while people do give, they don't give enough for everyone who needs one.

If paying people to donate their kidneys sounds wrong to you, I encourage you to donate your kidney for free. If enough people did that, there'd be no kidney shortage and fewer reasons to pay people.

Got a new icon: it expresses my inner-me. Thanks to Gianna!

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2039

The Nation makes this point: It is also bizarrely hypocritical. After all, the same NBC network that found the UCC ad "too controversial" airs programs such as "Will & Grace" that feature gay and lesbian characters. "We find it disturbing that the networks in question seem to have no problem exploiting gay persons through mindless comedies and titillating dramas, but when it comes to a church's loving welcome to committed gay couples, that's where they draw the line," explained the Rev. Bob Chase, director of the national UCC's communication ministry.

The CBS and NBC television networks are refusing to run a 30-second television ad from the United Church of Christ because its all-inclusive welcome has been deemed "too controversial." ... According to a written explanation from CBS, the United Church of Christ is being denied network access because its ad implies acceptance of gay and lesbian couples -- among other minority constituencies -- and is, therefore, too "controversial."

Read on at: http://www.ucc.org/news/u113004a.htm

Call:
CBS complaint line: 212 975 3247
NBC: President Randy Falco: (212) 664-5083

This Friday Night, the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Chorus, which I'm in, is giving its winter concert.

We'll be singing Charpentier's Midnight Mass and a number of other works for the holiday season, some modern some old.

The concert is at 8pm at All Saints Episcopal Church, right outside Belmont Center, at the intersection of Clark and Common Streets, Belmont.

Come on by!

This is so good! (Go HRC!)

See the Nightmare on Pennsylvania Ave

Hi everyone--
I'm going to start using the privacy features of live journal, and have posts only for people on my friends list. Which is to say, if you stumble on this page later, or if you've bee silently following along, leave me a message and I'll add you to my friends list.

Journaling is one of those things, the further you get behind the harder it is to start back up (when am I going to get the time to update y'all on two months of stuff?) I'm never going to have time to do a comprehensive update. Oh well. Brief, incomplete, summary:
-Job going well. Research is interesting. Harvard is cool. Programming perl was never so useful.
-People partying across the street late at night: bad.
-Davis Square: cool.
-Boston in general: cool.
-Politics: exciting and scary
-Politics: I'm working for a local candidate for state Rep, Carl Sciortino, who's a progressive democrat.
-Contradancing: I'm a convert
-Harvard Square: great street performers

I've _never_ been a fan of the whole Williams admin's mentality that you should be forced to live with others who are very different from you. The arguments are familar for lots of us. But here's a nifty piece of fact to add in:

Kremer and Levy (http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/webpapers/Peer_Effects.pdf ) find that men assigned roommates who reported drinking in the year before college had a 0.282 lower GPI than those who were randomly assigned non-drinking roommates. No animus against drinkers in particular, but this just shows how the people you live around can have a negative effect on you.

[Thanks to Sarah Dickens for including this reference in her tutorial paper!]

Here I am in the Stats lab again. I was here until sunrise this morning, now I've spent all day here again. Let me tell you how I feel about this project...

You know, whenever I fall behing on my journal, I always hate that catching up phase. Which is why I'm going to make this brief.

1) Went to Italy, had fun, took lots of pictures. I'm glad I went; my bank account is not. ("Costs far exceeded expectations")

2) Rented an apartment in Somerville. Apartment shopping was actually a strange sort of fun. The place is a short walk to Davis Square, and I'm really happy with it. Again, my bank account is not.

3) End of the year time is always stressful-- more so because this is graduation year.

4) The West Wing series really rocks: I just bought season one on DVD, and it is amazing. Season two is released May 18th...

It's midterm time! I've been working non-stop for a week, with a brief respite over the weekend. Literally, non stop. Wake up, work, work, work, eat, work, work, work, eat, sleep for a very short while, wake up and do it all over again. Hurray midterms!

Only 2/4 projects left to go.

Only 2 days left to go.

I can't wait to go to Italy. Venice, Rome, Florence, Sienna, here I come.

I'm only packing a carryon-- that means school books are notcoming along with me. No room. Perfect excuse.

Enjoy spring break everyone (and your next two weeks, for those not at Williams). I'll share plenty when I return!

When Clinton ran against Bush I, his slogan was "it's the economy, stupid". He was right that Bush I had done a pretty lousy job on the domestic front, and the recession didn't help Bush one bit. It might be tempting for the Democrats to use the same message this time around. Bush II has certainly botched domestical governance far more than his father: at least Bush I had the responsibility to raise taxes in the face of mounting deficits. With today's staggering deficit, Bush II is open for criticism. "The economy, the economy, the economy-- he's a failure."

But it won't work.

While people are clearly concerned about the economy, terrorism probably is considered to be-- or should be-- a higher priority this election. Democrats are commonly perceived as being weak on crime, foreign policy, and terrorism, but strong on the economy and social issues. This election gives them the opportunity to challenge Bush on these traditionally "Republican" issues. Voters might well agree that the Democrats would do better on the economy, but still choose Bush if they feel that the Democrats are too weak on terrorism and foreign policy.

In fact, the economy is showing some signs of recovery, which Bush will certainly tout throughout the campaign, reducing (but not eliminating) the salience of the economic issue. But the continued existence of terrorist and fundamentalist groups--al Qaeda and otherwise-- dedicated to destroying the U.S. and Western forms of life presents an even greater danger. In Pakistan and Saudi Arabia these groups not only have strong popular support and a powerful institutional network, but also have begun to infiltrate the apparatus of government. Nuclear proliferation-- North Korea and Khan's network -- hightens the possibility that terrorists will acquire a nuclear device. And of course, our involvement in Iraq will keep reminding the American electorate of these issues.

The Democrats should focus on the weaknesses of Bush on these issues-- they're numerous. He's underfunded anti-proliferation programs and homeland security (especially port security) programs. He's failed to plan the post-Iraq transition. He lied to the country about WMD. They forgot to budget money for Afghanistan reconstruction and have generally been weak on reconstruction and security there.

The multilateralism point might be raised-- Bush's piss-poor handling of international relations during the Iraq war certainly didn't help us get assistance from other countries-- but shouldn't play too major a role in the critique. Too many people will hear "weak on terrorism" when Democrats call for multilateralism. (They're partially right: Bush should have gone ahead with a coalition of a willing even without French/German support. The strong multilateral critique is that Bush's arrogance has cost us help in Iraq and elsewhere that could have made us more safe).

Defeating Bush is key for our country's future. A strong critique of his domestic economic policy and budgetary irresponsibility will be to the Democrats advantage. But the key discussion must revolve around terrorism and America's role in the world: how can we protect ourselves and promote our interests in a world that's increasingly anti-American?

So I went to a comedy club in the city this weekend-- the "New York Comedy Club".

The show would have been good, but for the emcee, who was utterly abysmal. She managed to insult everybody in the audience on every possible category. And while some insulting jokes might potentially be funny, these weren't. They were just crass and repetitive. Kind of like "Roseanne", only louder and more obnoxious. I cringed every time she retook the stage.

The "tragi"in the "tragi-comedy" is that the rest of the comedians were good. One guy had a line about these conservative high schoolers joining "abstinence clubs": there's no need-- they can simply join the chess club.

Hmm.

On the political front, there's the news that Ralph Nader is now planning to run for President. How utterly ridiculous. There are people I can disagree with but understand they're acting with good intentions. But for Nader, I just can't imagine what is going through his head. Is he living on the same planet as the rest of us? Bush certainly proved the claim of "no difference between the two parties wrong." Witness Gore's outspoken criticism of the war and Bush's extremely conservative judicial appointments. Witness the huge give-aways to the rich and powerful. What the f*** is Nader thinking? He's either an egomaniac, a Republican plant, or just plain stupid.

Here's where I take aim at the whole disaffected, independent voter movement: too many people complain that the parties nominate candidates they don't like. Fine, that may be a problem. I certainly have issues with Democratic candidates too. But if you don't like something they way it is, you need to be involved to make it change. And the way to be involved-- with rare exceptions, none of the holding in the U.S. today-- is to be involved with one of the two major political parties.

Why? Well, from basic voting theory, a three-party system is inherently unstable given the kind of first-past-the-post, winner take all voting we have in America (i.e. you either win a given house district or not). Starting a liberal third party saps away votes from the existing semi-liberal party, ensuring a conservative win. (Similarly for starting a conservative third party).

A third party in the America of our livetimesis not "a good idea in theory, a bad idea in practice." It's just a bad idea, both in theory and practice. There's no way it could work, given out electoral system.

(Want a third party? Go change the electoral system to proportional representation first. That's the only real way it'd work)

So this Tuesday's Record carried an op-ed by a Williams student arguing that housing at Williams should be assigned randomly in order to "further commmunity" and help create "bonds of brotherhood".

This is a monumentally bad idea, and follows in the recent tradition of bad housing ideas at Williams. The goal of CUL and others has been openly stated as breaking up housing groups (hence the smaller room draw sizes) and "integrating housing" (read: forcing people to live with people they don't want to live with). The goal is some sort of community.

This "community", however, is illusory: communities need to be based on something. It can be shared interests (literature, sports, bowling, anime), shared lifestyles (heavy partying, quiet studying), shared values (liberal, conservative, etc), shared experiences, or shared needs. The point is that communities are for something. Randomizing housing isn't going to build any new communities because people will still gravitate toward the real communities that support them or that they find enjoyable. It's actually likely for this plan to hurt communities by forcing groups of friends to be spread out farther and have less contact with each other.

Why build a community that has no basis? What kind of community can I build with someone who does not share what is important to me? Perhaps I can gain greater understanding of different, but I'd imagine that's it's more likely that conflict would ensue if I were place near people with drastically different lifestyles.

Williams provides lots of opportunities for smaller communities, but the "Williams community" simply doesn't exist. We share neither a common purpose, nor a common understanding of what is important, nor similar lifestyles. We are different. Differences can coexist, but they don't produce deeper relationships. Any difference needs a bridge, and there are fewer and fewer bridges available. I find liberal politics, liberal religion, pursuit of truth, good literature, and strong personal & familial relationships to be very important in my life. What do I have to gain from someone who drinks loudly and often, sees Williams as the next stop on his/her career path, and finds intellectual talk boring? Why the hell should I be forced to live with them.?

That's my (logical, well-reasoned) rant.