Beware Nostalgia

Good short article

Television

The Mexican home has been transformed. In 1990, one in five dwellings had a bare-earth floor. Now only 6% do. Virtually all have electricity, whereas 20 years ago one in ten went without. A tenth still lack sewerage, but this is better than the figure of one in three in 1990.
More interesting still is what Mexicans put in those homes. More houses have televisions (93%) than fridges (82%) or showers (65%). In a hot country with dreadful television this is curious.

I vaguely remember, in my childhood, a pastor reciting a couple of statistics about rural southerners. He said something like, "99% of houses have televisions, and 95% have indoor plumbing. This means that 4% of the population goes to the outhouse during halftime." And now it would seem that about 3% of Mexicans go to the outhouse during commercial breaks.

He was probably talking about the power that television had over our culture. As an economist, I will defend the rights of people to make choices about their own lives. But I still cannot figure out why they make them. Why does television have such a power over the human mind?

Rock Climbing

Yesterday I went to the rock climbing wall in the gym. I met someone I knew from philosophy club, and he showed me the basics. I have been on climbing walls before, but I now realize that what I did before was just super-simple amateur playing. I had never done actual bouldering problems before, and it showed. I could barely handle the easiest V0 stuff.

It is amazing how specific your muscle and skill development can get. I can easily fling myself up a flat 9-foot wall, grab the top, and pull myself up. I can climb trees very quickly and easily. But when I cannot get a running start, and when I cannot wrap my hands around something large and solid, my ability to scale a surface suffers an alarming decline. In rock climbing, you have to navigate precarious grips one careful limb movement at a time, and keep your body well-balanced. It is a different problem than I have faced before, and my skills do not transfer well.

It has been a long time since I tried any physical activity and found myself doing so badly compared to others around me. I will have to work to develop both the muscles and the skills needed for this. Despite the fact that I am in very good shape, my forearms got tired pretty quickly, my back is sore today. Next semester, I will try to get in the habit of doing this for a half-hour before my martial arts practice, at least once a week.

Links

Race and Economics: A short Sowell column reviewing an economics book. Unemployment among black people was lower than unemployment among whites before the government passed minimum wage laws. Those laws were basically the result of white union workers trying to remove the competition from nonunion black workers. The entrenched poverty and unemployment among black people is mainly due to bad government policies.

College Costs Linked to Risky Teen Behavior Research shows a correlation between high community college costs and self-destructive behavior. When reading things like this, always remember that correlation is not causation, but it certainly is plausible that people are more self-destructive when they see less chance of a good future.

In Defense of Flogging

I propose we give convicts the choice of the lash at the rate of two lashes per year of incarceration. One cannot reasonably argue that merely offering this choice is somehow cruel, especially when the status quo of incarceration remains an option. Prison means losing a part of your life and everything you care for. Compared with this, flogging is just a few very painful strokes on the backside. And it's over in a few minutes. ...
My defense of flogging—whipping, caning, lashing, call it what you will—is meant to be provocative, but only because something extreme is needed to shatter the status quo. We are in denial about the brutality of the uniquely American invention of mass incarceration. In 1970, before the war on drugs and a plethora of get-tough laws increased sentence lengths and the number of nonviolent offenders in prison, 338,000 Americans were incarcerated. There was even hope that prisons would simply fade into the dustbin of history. That didn't happen.

I have discussed a similar thing in the past. Of course, my proposal is more scientific than old-fashioned flogging.

Preferences

The life of the rural poor is extremely boring, with repetitive back-breaking tasks interrupted by periods of enforced idleness ....
the authors remark, "things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor". They tell the story of meeting a Moroccan farmer, Oucha Mbarbk. They ask him what would he do if he had a bit more money. Buy some more food, came the reply. What would he do if he had even more money? Buy better, tastier food. "We were starting to feel very bad for him and his family when we noticed a television, a parabolic antenna and a DVD player." Why had he bought all this if he didn't have enough money for food? "He laughed and said 'Oh, but television is more important than food.'"

Source (read the whole thing)

Before you look down on this guy, remember that the revealed preferences of most Americans show that television is more important to them than their health. Americans would never answer the question so honestly, but just look at where they choose to spend their time.

Best Excuse Ever

One of the students in my class is a maintenance tech taking advantage of a benefit that all staff at the university get: one free class per semester. He is not the brightest student in the class, but he is a hard worker and a good guy. He always shows up at my 8:00 class wearing his 'Facilities' uniform, and his questions show that he is really thinking about the real-world applications of the stuff I teach.

He missed the last two classes without an explanation, which was unusual. Today during my office hours, he stopped by, wearing a diaposable tyvek chemical suit, apologized for missing class, and explained that he had been busy dealing with a large chemical spill in the nearby lab building

That definitely counts as 'excused absence'.

Return to Arlington

Last weekend I was in Washington for an academic seminar. After it was over, and before my flight back, I went back to Arlington National Cemetery. It is the perfect little side trip if you are in Washington on a busy schedule, because it is only a couple metro stops away from the airport. I also like going there. It always has a strong effect on me.

It was different than the last time I went. The weather was much nicer, and it was a weekend, so it was pretty crowded. The crowds and weather robbed the place of a lot of its character, making it feel more like a park and less like a shrine.

In no particular order, here are some musings and observations, based on my memories and notes that I wrote down:

What does it say about our country and our military that we choose to lay our honored dead in precise geometric precision?

The changing of the guard to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is an interesting ritual. I wonder what the history is behind the exaggerated leg swing and the loud heel clicking. Even the regular pacing of the guard feels so mechanical. This seems to be a relic of the old days of the army when keeping formation was the key to winning. Marching-band style maneuvers have been obsolete on the battlefield for over 170 years, but they still linger on in the rituals, training, and traditions of the military. That kind of thing does not just happen in the military; it is fairly common for actions to go from practical to ritualistic as technology changes.

I overheard this just after the guard change:

Little Asian girl: "If he is the guard and he has a gun, does that mean he will shoot anyone who goes to the tomb?"
Her mother: "I don't think so."

The mother seemed disoriented by the question. I understand why. How could you possibly explain this kind of symbolism to a little child? I did not even know if the gun was loaded. When I was there, I thought they were carrying M1 Garand rifles. You cannot tell if those are loaded or not. I just looked it up, however, and learned that the rifles are actually M14's, and that they are not loaded.

If I have to answer a question like that in the future, I will probably say something like "No, he will only shoot you if he thinks you have a gun."

I noticed a lot of jet noise from the airport. It definitely was distracting. I wonder if people complained about the airport being built so close to the cemetery

It was fascinating to look closely at all of the memorials in the display hall. The ones from American civic groups are kind of boring, but the ones from foreign leaders are very interesting:



All of the items in the picture above were presented by the Japanese. Japanese prime ministers and government officials often come to Arlington. I am not sure why. I know that it is traditional for foreign diplomats to visit Arlington to show solidarity with and respect for the USA. However, from what little I know of Japanese culture, it seems like this would be a humiliation. I wonder what it feels like to pay your respects at a place where the pilots who dropped atomic bombs on your country are buried and honored. Politics being what they are, we will probably never get an honest answer to the question of their feelings and motivations.


This is really impressive. More people should make plaques like this.


This is a mere club presented by the prime minister of New Zealand. I know that this is considered a sacred weapon, a symbol of honor and power, but it still feels very odd. How would all of the veterans of the Indian Wars buried at Arlington feel if they knew if a visit to their tombs was memorialized with the weapon of a "savage" like the ones they had been fighting?

There is a big wooden plaque from the 19th century from "The Grand Army of the Republic." I must confess that when I saw this I immediately thought of Star Wars. People do not use names like that any more; they are confined to history and fantasy. I was somewhat relieved when I looked it up and found that this was the Union solder veteran's organization, and not a name used by our actual military or government.

One final note: What is your reaction to this picture?

Give me your gut reaction in the comments.