Author Archives: legallysociable

Quick Review: Fall

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With classes starting today, I thought I would make the argument that Fall (loosely defined here as late August to late November) is the best season of the year. Here are the reasons:

1. School starts. I’ve always enjoyed school. Now as a professor, it feels good to get back into the classroom and see energetic students again. There is always lots to do. The academic calendar has started anew.

2. The weather improves. I’m not a big fan of really hot summer weather and Chicago has been above normal hot this year. I enjoy the cool edge on the breeze. Today’s weather of about 77 degrees with sunny skies was perfect for the first day of school. And I can’t wait for the chillier days when it feels good to sit inside and read but is still pleasant enough outside to not need a heavy coat.

3. The sports world picks up. After a stretch with only baseball on the air, football, basketball, and hockey start. I enjoy watching both the professional and collegiate level and by October, there is quite a variety of action.

4. Special days. Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer (and summer break), my birthday rolls around, and I enjoy looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I know others would disagree with me but I’m planning to enjoy the next few months.

A common tale regarding taxpayer funded stadiums

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Jeff Passan summarizes how the Florida Marlins misled the public about their profits in order to secure more taxpayer funding for a new baseball stadium to open in 2012.

There is a good amount of academic research that shows that large-scale sports stadiums rarely help the local economy in the way the owners suggest they will. Often, local taxpayers are stuck paying the bill while private owners profit.

Of course, do you want to be the mayor/public official that lets the beloved local team get away?

How diseases become a social problem

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NPR explores how certain diseases, such as cancer, particularly breast cancer, turn from a medical condition that no one talked about to a prominent social cause. Some of the factors, according to the article, that helped cancer become a visible concern:

[T]he women’s health movement, the rise of information technology and a shift in the medical culture itself away from a purely hierarchical system in which doctors were always assumed to know best…

A lot of illness-awareness promotion, though, stems from the way AIDS patients responded to the rise of that disease…The tropes developed with AIDS — clothing accessories such as ribbons, displays of commemorative quilts, marches on Washington — have all since been adopted by groups concerned with other conditions.

How certain issues (and not others) become social problems is often a fascinating tale. What one time period and culture sees as problematic is not an issue for the same culture in a later period – Prohibition would be a great example. There is often a complicated process that takes place by which the problem is brought to the attention of the public and then people become convinced it is a cause that requires their action.

Predicting future crimes

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Professor Richard Berk from the University of Pennsylvania has developed software that predicts which criminals on probation or parole will commit future crimes. His software is already being used in Baltimore and Philadelphia and soon will be used in Washington, D.C.

Here is a quick description of how the algorithm was developed:

Beginning several years ago, the researchers assembled a dataset of more than 60,000 various crimes, including homicides. Using an algorithm they developed, they found a subset of people much more likely to commit homicide when paroled or probated. Instead of finding one murderer in 100, the UPenn researchers could identify eight future murderers out of 100.

Berk’s software examines roughly two dozen variables, from criminal record to geographic location. The type of crime, and more importantly, the age at which that crime was committed, were two of the most predictive variables.

Of course, there could be some problems with this:

But Berk’s scientific answer leaves policymakers with difficult questions, said Bushway. By labeling one group of people as high risk, and monitoring them with increased vigilance, there should be fewer murders, which the potential victims should be happy about.

It also means that those high-risk individuals will be monitored more aggressively. For inmate rights advocates, that is tantamount to harassment, “punishing people who, most likely, will not commit a crime in the future,” said Bushway.

“It comes down to a question of whether you would rather make these errors or those errors,” said Bushway.

I would be curious to see reports on the effectiveness of this software over time. And determining whether this software is effective in areas like reducing crime would present some interesting measurement issues.

Zombies, mindless consumerism, and a $165,000 settlement

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This story has been making the Internet rounds in recent days. Here are some of the details regarding street theater that turned into arrests for possessing weapons of mass destruction:

The payout [$165,000], approved by the City Council on Friday, settles a federal lawsuit the seven filed after they were arrested and jailed for two days for dressing up like zombies in downtown Minneapolis on July 22, 2006, to protest “mindless” consumerism.

When arrested at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and 6th Street N., most of them had thick white powder and fake blood on their faces and dark makeup around their eyes. They were walking in a stiff, lurching fashion and carrying four bags of sound equipment to amplify music from an iPod when they were arrested by police who said they were carrying equipment that simulated “weapons of mass destruction.”

However, they were never charged with any crime…

“I feel great that the city is being held accountable for the actions of their police,” said Raphi Rechitsky, 27, of Minneapolis, one of the seven zombies, who said he and his friends were performing street theater when they were arrested. He is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Minnesota.

While the actions of the police seem overblown, I’m curious to know about the street theater itself: was it comprised of all graduate students? All sociology students? How exactly were the zombies protesting “mindless consumerism”? Is this part of a research project?

Teachers losing jobs over Facebook; some examples

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has some examples of teachers losing their jobs because of certain Facebook posts.

Some of the examples are quite egregious and I find it hard to believe some of them had no qualms about posting them in the first place. While a few of the teachers suggest that information was intended to be kept private and available only to friends, it pays off to be safe and just not post messages like these at all.

Quick Review: The Stepford Wives (2004)

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Not too long ago, I watched and reviewed the original Stepford Wives film (made in 1975). Due to some of the slow pacing of the original, I recently watched the newer version (made in 2004) to see how it compared. Some quick thoughts:

1. The newer version is made to fit modern times: the main character, Joanna Eberhart (played by Nicole Kidman),  is a reality TV maven, the character of the husband (Walter, played by Matthew Broderick) is developed more, and the ending has a twist that is meant to demonstrate the power of love over rigid gender ideologies.

2. The suburban critique is similar: suburbs promote gender stereotypes that need to be challenged.

3. On one hand, I could see why the makers thought a remake was needed. The original film looks like a film from the mid 1970s: the pacing is slow, the camera shots are clunky, and the ending is perhaps unsatisfying since the main character doesn’t resolve her issues with Stepford. The newer film is snappier, more colorful, and packs more in. On the other hand, the remake suffers from its own issues: a storyline that seems like it tries too hard to be modern, rapidly shifting emotional moods (particular between Joanna and Walter who alternate between barely seeing each other and having intimate conversations), and an ending that doesn’t have the same payoff as the original. The character Joanna seems thin; the original spent more time showing the audience her interests, her passions, and her friendships. The new film doesn’t have time for this.

Overall, this film is uneven though more palatable to modern viewers. In the end, the move to include more of a love story between Joanna and Walter takes away from some of the biting suburban criticism of the original.

(This movie was not well-received by critics: it is only 27% fresh, 43 out of 162 reviews, at RottenTomatoes.com.)

A home may no longer be a profitable investment

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The housing crisis in America has prompted a number of commentators to again examine what it means to own a home. A number of sources I have read recently have suggested there was a large shift regarding American homes toward the end of the 20th century: people saw homes less as places to live and have a good life and instead viewed a home as an important investment from which they could continuously generate profits.

A New York Times article makes this argument as well, saying “many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg.”

If this is true, it could have profound impacts on community life. Perhaps owners will stay in homes longer, spending more money on their current homes while also maintaining local social relationships for longer periods. Perhaps the housing sector of the economy (everything from manufacturers to developers to real estate agents) will decline in importance to other sectors.

h/t Instapundit

The real Trader Joe’s

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An interesting story at CNNMoney.com goes behind the scenes at Trader Joe’s. This trendy grocery store certainly has its fans; I had one friend in graduate school who seemed willing at times to drive 2 or 3 hours to shop at one.

Some of the details about the company:

Few customers realize the chain is owned by Germany’s ultra-private Albrecht family, the people behind the Aldi Nord supermarket empire. (A different branch of the family controls Aldi Süd, parent of the U.S. Aldi grocery chain.) Famous in Germany for not talking to the press, the Albrechts have passed their tightlipped ways on to their U.S. business: Trader Joe’s and its CEO, Dan Bane, declined repeated requests to speak to Fortune, and the company has never participated in a major story about its business operations.

Some of that may be because Trader Joe’s business tactics are often very much at odds with its image as the funky shop around the corner that sources its wares from local farms and food artisans. Sometimes it does, but big, well-known companies also make many of Trader Joe’s products. Those Trader Joe’s pita chips? Made by Stacy’s, a division of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay. On the East Coast much of its yogurt is supplied by Danone’s Stonyfield Farm. And finicky foodies probably don’t like to think about how Trader Joe’s scale enables the chain to sell a pound of organic lemons for $2.

Companies are often made or broken based on their image and it sounds like Trader Joe’s want to keep a low corporate profile while building upon its popular name.

A question: would the store’s loyal customers not shop there any longer if they knew where the food really came from? Or knew more about what happened behind the scenes?