on Dad Lit...
Yet Dad Lit is a tricky business, fraught with traps: the putatively self-deprecating vignette that actually demonstrates how pleased the author is with himself; the inordinately delineated neuroses of the overexamined life; the T.M.I. disclosures of sexual proclivities and other familial weirdness; the tone-deaf presentation of some mundane, schleppy aspect of parenthood (e.g., the absence of “me” time, the utility of swim diapers) as some sort of epiphanic discovery.
via nytimes.com
In 1999 the research director at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein invented something called the “Skyscraper index”, arguing that the construction of super-tall buildings is often a sign that an economic downturn is on the way.
via guardian.co.uk
…Or that the school’s endowment is in freefall largely thanks to the ruinous—dare one say girlish?–miscalculations of a former Harvard president best known for deriding the math abilities of the fairer sex.
via theawl.com
A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.
via nytimes.com
Now that the economy is suffering, there is talk of reforming the prisons, of reviving the discredited concept of rehabilitation, of letting some prisoners out early. Some people have even mentioned doing away with the death penalty because of the exorbitant cost to the state of guaranteed appeals. For those of us who have endured a generation of policies intended explicitly to inflict pain, this has a surreal quality to it. After all, it was only a year ago that the state authorities were planning the next phase of prison expansion. Obviously, all the passionate arguments that have been made about the moral wrongs of mass incarceration, of disproportionately affected communities, of abysmal treatment and civil rights violations were just so much hot air. Only when society ran out of ready cash did prison reform become worthy of serious consideration. What this says about the free world is unclear to me, but it doesn’t feel like a good thing.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
“Managers may truly believe that, without their unremitting
efforts, all work would quickly grind to a halt. That is not my
impression. While I encountered some cynics and plenty of people
who had learned to budget their energy, I never met an actual
slacker or, for that matter, a drug addict or thief. On the
contrary, I was amazed and sometimes saddened by the pride people
took in jobs that rewarded them so meagerly, either in wages or
in recognition. Often, in fact, these people experienced
management as an obstacle to getting the job done as it should be
done. Waitresses chafed at managers’ stinginess toward the
customers; housecleaners resented the time constraints that
sometimes made them cut corners; retail workers wanted the floor
to be beautiful, not cluttered with excess stock as management
required. Left to themselves, they devised systems of
cooperation and work sharing; when there was a crisis, they rose
to it. In fact, it was often hard to see what the function of
management was, other than to exact obeisance.” - Barbara Ehrenreich, in Nickel and Dimed.
Cheney makes better sense if you add, “— , Clarice” to the end of his sentences. “Torture worked, Clarice” (via @pourmecoffee)
“EULA: sharing is evil; BSD: sharing is not evil; GPL: not sharing is evil”.
“Reading books is an antidote to urgency and chaos because it
cannot be rushed. Every book has its own rhythm and a physical
intimacy that E-mail and similar instant information can never
achieve. Media glut often confuses information with
understanding. Just when you seem to be most pressed, books
miraculously expand time for reflection, cogitation, and mental
rest.” - Richard E. Cytowic, The Man Who Tasted Shapes.
“At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health
care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex,
the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the
gullibility of voters who believe those lies.” - Paul Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesopinion&pagewanted=print
care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex,
the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the
gullibility of voters who believe those lies.” - Paul Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17krugman.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesopinion&pagewanted=print
Every health care debate swings between emotional and number-based arguments. On the emotional front, those in favor of universal, government-backed health care empathize with the uninsured, while the free-market proponents warn about the nanny state and ask why they should be expected to pay for others’ bills.
That game can be played forever, and neither side is likely to convert the other. Let’s look at some numbers for a change. The Washington Post has a concise and clear story on health care around the world compared to what we live with in the US. Choice cuts:
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France’s health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada’s universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration. In Taiwan, a leaner version of the Canadian model has administrative costs of 1.5 percent; one year, this figure ballooned to 2 percent, and the opposition parties savaged the government for wasting money.
The world champion at controlling medical costs is Japan, even though its aging population is a profligate consumer of medical care. On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.Surely there must be some price to pay for such low administrative costs?
In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)What happens when disaster strikes and you require very costly treatment?
In terms of finance, we force 700,000 Americans into bankruptcy each year because of medical bills. In France, the number of medical bankruptcies is zero. Britain: zero. Japan: zero. Germany: zero.Here’s how big a problem American medical bankrupcy is, according to The American Journal of Medicine:
They concluded that 62.1 percent of the bankruptcies were medically related because the individuals either had more than $5,000 (or 10 percent of their pretax income) in medical bills, mortgaged their home to pay for medical bills, or lost significant income due to an illness. On average, medically bankrupt families had $17,943 in out-of-pocket expenses, including $26,971 for those who lacked insurance and $17,749 who had insurance at some point.
Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say.Just sayin’.
