Social Structure--Tsunami and New Orleans

Heard someone on TV observe that there was more reconstruction activity at tsunami sites he'd seen than there was in Katrina's aftermath. First, I'd take that with a grain of salt--comparisons are tricky, particularly when comparing something that's fresh on our mind and something from a year ago. Second, it's probably true, for a number of reasons:

• the disaster is different--the tsunami, like 9/11, destroyed one time. Katrina's flood waters are still in New Orleans (Biloxi and Gulfport would be similar to the tsunami
• the social structures are different--Indonesia and Sri Lanka have flatter structures than New Orleans
• the technology is different. If the water comes from a dug well, it's easier to reestablish than if it comes from a water treatment plant dependent on power.
• the expectations are different. The rescuees in New Orleans, many of them, accept the idea that the government should be responding. I doubt the rescuees in the tsunami had the same expectation--they'd little experience of a reasonably effective government before the disaster so why should they wait to see what it would do after? (This is the "moral hazard" that insurance companies and right wing economists love to cite--by doing something to decrease risk you change the behavior--sort of like the heisenberg uncertainty principle. However, I don't buy it as an argument against effective government.)

Disaster as Revealing Social Structure

Several years ago a heat wave caused several hundred deaths in Chicago. A social scientist, Eric Klinenberg studied the event and wrote a book . The review on Amazon is fair and interesting--here's an excerpt:

"When the record-breaking heat and humidity arrived and stayed, these men and women started dying, one at a time and quietly, behind closed, locked doors. The immediate reasons were apparent. Many seniors did not have air conditioning in their houses or apartments. Of those who did have air conditioning, many chose not to use it, fearing utility bills that they could not afford to pay. Fear of crime kept others from leaving their homes to use free neighborhood "cooling centers." Still other elderly Chicagoans knew, from a physiological standpoint, that they were hot but were simply unaware that they were in danger. Klinenberg shows in detail how the tragedy was compounded by many factors and interests, including a public health and medical establishment that did not anticipate the magnitude of the looming danger and local news media that treated the severe heat and humidity as little more than a novel topic for lighthearted feature stories. The author also examines key sociological factors relating to the elderly, including the perils of "aging in place" while the surrounding environment changes; the idealization and valuing of personal independence among seniors; and differences between men and women in the establishment of friendships and other interpersonal connections.."

[The review criticizes Klinenberg for politicizing his analysis, which may be fair.]

I'm wondering how much of this is going to turn out to be true in New Orleans, replacing lack of AC with lack of operational cars?

A side note, while some have seen racism in the response to the hurricane, I suspect a fair part of the problems in the pre-hurricane planning is our human tendency to stereotype--that is we can't comprehend the vastness and variety of the human landscape so we simplify, thinking of the two-parent family with car, etc. etc.

What Does "Modem" Mean?

I'm still amazed that there's problems in communicating across radio systems. 25 years ago engineers had solved the problem of converting analog sound signals into digital signals and back in something call a "modem". (Anyone remember when a modem had a cradle for the phone receiver?) Surely you could kludge up a partial solution to the problem without much effort. But I guess FEMA and DHS never made a market for such solutions. Did they hope to convert everyone to the same system? That would be optimal, but the best is often the enemy of the good.

Silos and Katrina

Katrina exposes not only the class divide that David Brooks cites, but the silos resulting from our system of weak and divided government. (Professor Bainbridge cites the opposite position--the problem is big public bureaucracies.) Items:

• each entity has their own communication system and, incredible as it seems, almost 4 years after 9/11 there are still areas where they can't communicate (I note that private enterprise hasn't been able to agree on standards for the next version of DVD so there's no magic there.)
  
• the National Guard works state by state
• each bureaucracy does its own thing by its own rules
  
• the Corps of Engineers and FEMA may not coordinate well (it will be interesting to see in the postmortems the extent to which the design limits of the levee system was factored into disaster planning and whether, in the decisionmaking leading up to the design decision, the problems of evacuating 100,000 people with no means of private transport were realized)

It all gets back to the question of how you achieve aims by organization and minimize the problems across organization. I don't think there's a perfect solution, but we can certainly improve on Katrina

Respect for All Beliefs, or Just Religious Ones?

The Washington Times reports that the Naval Academy will retain its noonday prayer described thus:

" The brigade of about 4,000 students gathers at noon at King Hall. They stand by their chairs for announcements and the welcoming of any guests. Then, one of the school's six chaplains delivers a nondenominational prayer. Sometimes a moment of silence is observed instead.
'Those who want to participate may do so,' Cmdr. Gibbons said. 'Those who do not wish to participate do not have to pray. But they are expected to remain respectful for those who do.' "

While the ACLU might have a problem with this, I don't, except. (There's always an "except".) A paper, maybe the Times, did a piece recently on the chaplain problem in the military, including a table listing the number of military personnel by religious affiliation and the number of chaplains. The focus was on evangelical chaplains, but I was fascinated to see that around 100,000 military had no affiliation. Of course, there were no chaplains with "no affiliation".

My point is that there seems to be no military context/ceremony that would call for religious people to "remain respectful" for those who have different beliefs.

God Is Better Than "I"?

The New Scientist reports on a study of meditation which showed that:

"People practising spiritual meditation were more relaxed and better able to withstand pain than those performing secular meditation.

College students who volunteered for the study were randomly assigned to one of three groups regardless of their spiritual beliefs. The 25 students in the spiritual meditation group were told to concentrate on a phrase such as 'God is love' or 'God is peace' during their meditation periods. Those in the secular meditation group used a phrase such as 'I am happy' or 'I am joyful' while the third group were simply told to relax."

Seems to me a biased study. Surely the variables should be "God" (perhaps using various names and concepts) and "the universe". My image of Christianity is that one's sins are washed away in a union with God; my image of atheism is that one's defects and sins lose significance when viewed with the universe. Am I saying I'm more of a pantheist than an atheist? Perhaps but that's a fairer comparison than asking someone to focus on himself as opposed to God.

Gas Lines and Empty Shoes

A primer on gas lines for those too young to remember the 1970's.

To begin, remember everyone has a routine. That includes when and where to gas up--what's your trade off between having the security of gas in the tank and the hassle of refueling? Do you believe in "just in time" refueling or do you always want half a tank just in case?

The answers to those questions determine how many gas pumps we have and how much gas stations keep on hand.

The routine also determines routine consumption of gas, how many miles we drive.

Now throw a hurricane or an OPEC embargo into the picture. Suddenly everyone gets a little worried, so we all start refilling a little sooner, i.e., a little more often than we used to. That means the supply of gas pumps is not enough, so we start seeing lines. Then there's real scarcity in places. That increases our anxiety. The existence of lines proves that gas is in short supply, so everyone gets really anxious and refills every 50 miles.

That giant sucking sound is the preexisting gasoline stockpile slurping from gas stations into gas tanks. Now there are real shortages and real lines. But the lines don't affect demand for gas, at least not directly. Gas lines raise the price of gas by throwing in costs of time and aggravation.

Gas lines vanish when everyone has gas in their tank at their new comfort level so they stop refueling so often so the supply of pumps rebalances with the demand.

(The foregoing suggests that lines are a creation of panic, which they are and Malcolm Gladwell may or may not have discussed the phenomena in "Tipping Point". Real shortages are solved by higher prices, both in dollars and in time, which end up reducing the amount of driving.)

The empty shoes and sandals on the Baghdad bridge remind that panics can occur everywhere and any time multiple people have to interact. Gas lines remind that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" has limits: our interacting routines are an example of the invisible hand working; our gas lines are an example of the failure of the invisible hand.

Copter Parents

Daniel Drezner posts and gets comments about "copter parents", those parents who hover over their college student children.

My Irish and German great grandfathers emigrated to the U.S. at 17, by themselves we think, which is much the same age as many current immigrants. It seems to me that modern progress, by shrinking the size of families, increasing the premium on competition and learning, and giving us more to learn, is in a race with the healthcare industry, itself a vital part of progress.

What's the race: whether the life span is going to grow faster than the span of adolescence. I fear, over the next millennia, we're doomed to see adolescence grow faster until there's just a month or so between the time the last child becomes independent and the parent goes into the nursing home.

Surprise from Powerline

Powerline is apparently a highly rated conservative blog, which I usually find unbalanced. But in the interest of rewarding fairness, wherever found, there's this bit, arguing against the divided country idea:

"Bill Clinton was a bona fide liberal and George W. Bush is a legitimate conservative, but neither they nor the vast majority of their supporters are as liberal or as conservative as their predecessors of a generation ago. No Democrats talk about nationalizing industries, and no Republicans talk about abolishing Social Security or Medicare. Whether the maximum marginal tax rate at the federal level should be 40%, as it was at the end of the Clinton administration, or 35%, as it is now, is a serious public policy issue; but it is frankly ridiculous to denounce proponents of either view as extemists.

Even in foreign policy, I don't think Republicans and Democrats are as far apart as they might seem. Democrats are violently opposed to the Iraq war, I think, because it is being conducted by a Republican. If the President were a Democrat, the Democrats would support the war just as they did every one of Clinton's military adventures. "

A Tale of the Modern DC Area Economy

Herndon, VA has been in the news as the town fathers debate whether to support a building where immigrant labor could wait for employers to hire them. Dating back 15 years or so, laborers have congregated around a 7-11, which is across from a branch of a bank I used to use. (Or rather the ATM I used--it was the closest branch of the bank that I'd started with when I lived in DC, but merged when Reagan permitted banking across state lines.) The arguments for--it's humane and rational; against, moving the site raises NIMBY concerns and, as the issue gets into the national discussion, it encourages and rewards illegal immigration. The debate's been very heated.

My wife and I almost every Saturday visit a nearby strip mall in Herndon to patronize the Tortilla Factory. I guess it's Tex-Mex. It's been around since 1975 serving good food cheap. There's a supermarket in the mall. When we first went in the late 70's, it was a national chain, maybe A&P. But it's rather small so A&P left. Then a local chain came in. This outfit was specializing in taking over the smaller stores as Giant and Safeway, the two big chains in the DC area, built super supermarkets. If I recall correctly, it survived by being non-union.

But patronage wasn't enough and the local chain left. The supermarket building was closed. The strip mall had a number of empty buildings, although a laundramat was able to survive. Meanwhile, down the road, someone established a Hispanic store in the house next to the bank branch. My wife tried it once, but it was small and didn't attract. Then we stopped using that branch as bank mergers created a branch and ATM closer to home.

Finally someone put a Hispanic supermarket in the vacant building. My wife finds it has good vegetables for good prices, perhaps because it's also nonunion. The parking lot in front is crowded on Saturdays now. As I wait for my wife, I see all sorts patronizing the store, though heavily Hispanic. The patrons are driving cars, and some SUV's, all newer than mine (because I'm cheap). Sometimes you can see people loading up, presumably either doing a week's shopping for a family or for a group home, but it's not that different than my local Safeway, except significantly busier.

What's the moral?