Closing Prayer

Religion in America comments on and posts the closing prayer of the Dem's convention--the new evangelism.

Why Lecture Courses?

From Brad DeLong:
"

• Budget stringency: lectures are cheap for the university relative to seminars, and even if they are markedly less effective they do soak up students' time

• Alternative information channel: The ears are wired to the brain differently than the eyes, and there is value in not only reading something but also hearing something in producing the synaptic changes that we want to see happen in college.
• A self-discipline device: if people have to show up at a certain place at a certain time to accomplish a task or be disciplined, they are more likely to do so. Lecture as a way of solving our self-command and self-control problems.
  • But why not then just have a study hall? Everyone reads the book, and the monitor circulates and answers quetions?
• A sociological event: East African Plains Apes like to do things in groups that involve language--that is just who we are--and the lecture is just another example of this"

It's Diversity at Work

So now our national tickets include an African-American with an Indonesian-American half sister married to a Chinese Canadian, a woman with an Eskimo husband and a Downs child, two WASP codgers, and our Wheaties boxes celebrate a Russian-American gymnast and a Japanese-African-American decathlete.

Carbon Tax and Locavore

Kevin Drum comments on an NPR piece on the carbon footprint of food, observing a carbon tax would help, probably more than voluntary changes in diet.

Little League Causes Obesity?

Eugene Volokh blogged on the 9-year old who's been banned from Little League because he's too good. It got a lot of comments because it straddles some key issues: the right of an individual to try to excel, the safety of others, etc. I offered a comment remembering the old days before organized youth sports when you scraped together whatever kids in the neighborhood were available and willing, whatever the differences in age and ability.

I got to thinking, resulting in the question which is the title. In the old days, kids stayed in the neighborhood unless they could bike elsewhere (our rural roads weren't favorable for biking, even if I'd ever learned). They didn't rely on parents, particularly mothers, for transportation. Now it's different--mothers spend all their time transporting kids so they don't have time to cook, meaning they go for the fast food and carryouts, leading to our obesity epidemic.

So the solution is to ban Little League.

Analyses of Locavore and Organic

James McWilliams analyzes problems with locavore logic at Freakonomics, Stephanie Page Ogburn analyzes the problems with making a full-time living from organic gardening at Grist.

Both are valuable correctives to books such as Kingsolver's and McKibben's, which tend to play up the possibilities and play down the problems.

AIDS in Rural Areas

The Daily Yonder reports on increasing AIDS cases in rural areas. I've some reservations, because I assume the rural areas started with no AIDS (the whole country started with no AIDS) so we're talking about a percentage increase over a very small base. Of course, it's surprising to find AIDS outside the big cities because the propagation pattern for a virus would seem to require a concentrated population. So maybe the rise is in aging boomers moving to the sticks, a few of whom happen to have HIV/AIDS, as opposed to transmission in rural areas. Who knows?

[Updated--had a senior moment on the proper acronym for AIDS.]

Slips of the Tongue

I've never been particularly articulate, tongue-tied and shy is more like it. So I tend not to laugh at people who misspeak, with the possible exception of the current President, for whom I like to find excuses to laugh at.

I'm also interested in how the brain works, so this analysis of recent miscues, with links to past analyses of past errors on both sides of the aisle was good reading. Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh

Animal Processed Fiber

Erin today has a great post on that staple of agriculture and bureaucracy: animal processed fiber.

(I should add that bureaucrats and politicians collaborate in erecting vast edifices of same.)

American Mobility

Michael Powell wrote in today's NYTimes Week in Review on the mobility and unrootedness of American life. The usual references, keyed off Obama's life. Allow me to be a bit contrarian--it's easy to overemphasize how much Americans move. That's my impression from researching my genealogy. There are lots of people who stay in the same place, the same area, for most of their lives. There are still descendants of Captain John Rippey and Mary Orson living in the York, PA area, some 250 years later. And my cousin has mentioned a resident of Ipswich, MA who traces his ancestry back to the town's founding, some 360 years ago.

None of this means we Americans don't have a (physically) mobile society compared to others. (After all, some Arabs trace their ancestry back to the Prophet.) But mobility is not something everyone experiences.