Monthly Archives: August 2010

Debating how fast high-speed rail should be

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Some legislators in Illinois are questioning whether plans for 110 mph trains actually are high-speed trains. However, as you might expect, working out the details and the funding is complicated with many involved parties:

Officials at Amtrak, which has minimal expertise in operating high-speed rail, don’t see a problem topping out at only 110 mph. An infusion of billions of dollars in federal and state funding will mean better Amtrak service in the Midwest — just don’t mistake it for true high-speed trains.

The genuine article, service at up to 220 mph, is being planned in California and Florida. It already exists to a lesser degree on Amtrak Acela Express trains that get up to 150 mph on small portions of the route between Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

While 110 mph would be faster than current trains, there are some who argue that the speed must be dramatically increased from current levels to have the trains compete with airline travel and attract customers.


Defining the middle class

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A Yahoo! article lays out six markers of being middle class, according to an unnamed government task force. As the article suggests, middle class is a nebulous term in America:

People earning 20% of the average income and people earning 80% all claim to be part of the middle class. More than a few millionaires make the claim too.

Here are the six markers according to the task force: home ownership, automobile ownership, providing a college education for children, having retirement security, having health care coverage, and being able to take family vacations.

Looking at this list, I’m struck by three thoughts:

1. It seems quite American with its emphasis on owning a home, owning a car, and being able to take vacations.

2. This sounds like a life that has to be, or at least typically is, lived in the suburbs.

3. This would take quite a bit of money. Particularly with the point on providing for college, the middle class lifestyle is going to take a decent amount of income. Would the US median household income of $52,029 (2008 estimates from the American Community Survey) cover this? I’m guessing it would be difficult and it means most families would have to have two good incomes. Critical to all of this (and it was not mentioned) is to have a fairly high-paying career.

Teach from the newspapers

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A physics professor at Iowa State suggests that schools should move beyond textbooks and instead teach material based on current news stories:

I have a suggestion for Iowa schools: Don’t buy those [Texas-influenced] textbooks. Instead, buy local and state newspapers as reading material in sociology, history and literature courses. Buy paperback books from bookstores. Let our students read real news, in real time, and let them confront opinion pages and conflicting viewpoints.

An interesting argument. There is certainly plenty of material in newspapers and news magazines that could be used in the classroom. I am particularly intrigued by the suggestion he makes that students should be asked to fill in the “missing information” in a news story – this could work in a number of subject as journalists often leave out much of the relevant backstory.

Another added benefit of this technique (even in limited use): students see that the specific discipline is relevant in the real world. I think a lot of them ask this basic question and linking discipline-specific content to real stories suggests the course can be or is valuable to them rather than just a requirement to fulfill.

If concussions are costly, why still play football?

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At various levels, football organizations seem to be taking concussions more seriously. The effects on players, particularly long-term effects due to repeated incidents, can be devastating.

In an article from the Kansas City Star, a doctor asks a sociological question that I haven’t heard raised within this debate over concussions and what can be done:

“Why would people still play football?” says Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist and co-founder of the institute. “But I must warn you: That is a sociological question.”

This is a great point – is there anyone seriously advocating football is too dangerous for players? If the risks are high for players, should they turn away from football? For players, what makes the risk worth the potential rewards?

The article suggests several reasons for continuing to play such as potential fame, income, and the thrill of playing. But outside of the thrill of playing (which might be quenched elsewhere), these are cultural reasons; these are things endowed upon football players by millions of adoring fans. If the fame and money weren’t there, how many would still play knowing the risks?

Quick Review: Once

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Once is a 2006 film/musical featuring Glen Hansard of the Irish musical group The Frames. I had heard good things about this film and so I decided to watch it. Here are some quick thoughts:

1. I liked much of the music in the film. Since it is a musical, this is good. Hansard and his co-star Marketa Irglova sing and perform a number of indie type songs: lots of emotions, soft guitar, some strings. The main song throughout the film, “Falling Slowly,” is catchy and wistful. If I had to compare the music to other music I know, it is comparable in tone (though with some big differences) to Damien Rice.

2. Outside of the music, I don’t think the plot has much promise. Hansard (playing “Guy) and Irglova’s characters (she plays “Girl”) meet early on the in film while Guy is playing on the streets. They get to know each other, play and create music together, and ultimately consider a romantic relationship. Perhaps this is a problem common to many musicals: the plot seems to be a device to just help the characters get to another song.

3. The film has that indie-film feel due to hand-held cameras. This seemed to add to the intimacy of watching two struggling people try to build a relationship.

Final thought: I should admit that I am not a huge fan of musicals. While I liked the music (and would like to hear more of The Frames), I couldn’t get into the plot.

(This film was loved by critics: it is 97% fresh, 147 fresh out of 152 total reviews, at RottenTomatoes.com.)

Combining quantative and qualitative data collection on the Internet

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I’ve quickly seen some recent mentions of a new project out of Princeton called All Our Ideas. Here is how the creators describe the project:

All Our Ideas is a research project to develop a new form of social data collection that combines the best features of quantitative and qualitative methods. Using the power of the web, we are creating a data collection tool that has the scale, speed, and quantification of a survey while still allowing for new information to “bubble up” from respondents as happens in interviews, participant observation, and focus groups.

Of course, one of the problems with surveys is that they force respondents to fit their responses to the questions that are asked. If you ask bad questions, you get bad results or if you don’t provide the options respondents want, you don’t really get the kind of data you want. Qualitative data, on the other hand, tends to be limited to a smaller sample because it takes more time to interview people or conduct focus groups.

I will be very curious to see what emerges out of this website.

Older age = more wisdom, happiness

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In a youth-oriented culture like that of the United States, growing older may not appear appealing to many. But recent research suggests that growing older leads to more wisdom and increased levels of happiness:

Contrary to largely gloomy cultural perceptions, growing old brings some benefits, notably emotional and cognitive stability. Laura Carstensen, a Stanford social psychologist, calls this the “well-being paradox.” Although adults older than 65 face challenges to body and brain, the 70s and 80s also bring an abundance of social and emotional knowledge, qualities scientists are beginning to define as wisdom. As Carstensen and another social psychologist, Fredda Blanchard-Fields of the Georgia Institute of Technology, have shown, adults gain a toolbox of social and emotional instincts as they age. According to Blanchard-Fields, seniors acquire a feel, an enhanced sense of knowing right from wrong, and therefore a way to make sound life decisions.

That may help explain the finding that old age correlates with happiness. A study published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found a U-shaped relationship between happiness and age: Adults were happiest in youth and again in their 70s and early 80s, and least happy in middle age. A 2007 University of Chicago study similarly concluded that rates of happiness — “the degree to which a person evaluates the overall quality of his present life positively” — crept upward from age 65 to 85 and beyond, in both sexes.

These are interesting findings. Now how could American culture go about showing and sharing these benefits of growing old? Wisdom, in particular, might be a challenge to portray in commercial advertisements.

Also, there is an interesting discussion in the article about how to define and measure “wisdom.”

Passionate vs. “fake” faith among teenagers

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Kendra Creasy Dean, a professor at Princeton Theology Seminary and United Methodist minister,  has a new book, based on data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, regarding the faith of teenagers. While many American teenagers claim to be Christian, their faith can be termed “moral therapeutic deism” (defined roughly in the article as “It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.”).

Dean says teenagers with passionate faith are marked by several characteristics:

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.

This would certainly be of interest to parents and those who work with teenagers. At the same time, we could ask where these teenagers are getting their ideas about moral therapeutic deism.

For more on this topic (and also based on the same data set): read Soul Searching by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton and Souls In Transition by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell.

The efforts of the National Guard after Hurricane Katrina

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This is an article written in 2006 but it’s a reminder of what happened behind-the-scenes in the aftermath of Katrina. Lou Dolinar focuses on the efforts of the National Guard who for several days was focused on search and rescue efforts. While these efforts were not glamorous (rationing of food and water by the National Guard at the Superdome, a lack of bathrooms), they were effective: the number of deaths was much lower than the anticipated figure of 10,000.

Dolinar summarizes the story:

FEMA failed miserably. Yet the Coast Guard, a branch of the much-maligned Department of Homeland Security, operated precisely according to plan and saved up to 30,000 lives amid near total destruction. The National Guard Bureau helped run the show. The State Guard and regular military, which owes its extraordinary professionalism to the administration’s insistence on training and equipage for service in Iraq, saved tens of thousands more.

Well worth reading in full.

h/t Instapundit

Album sales on continued decline

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I still buy a decent amount of music albums in CD form. But apparently I am part of a dwindling crowd: NPR reports that album sales are at a record low (even when accounting for digital tracks), 12% down compared to last year, and way off the peak in 2000.

So what’s the next plan for the music industry?