Finding community in the Wrigley bleachers

Posted on by

In the midst of a gloomy Cubs season, a new book titled Wrigley Regulars: Finding Community in the Bleachers might provide some hope. Not written by just a normal fan, it is written by an anthropologist. The website Bleed Cubbie Blue provides some insights into the book’s content:

Before I tell you about this book, you should know a couple of things. First, Holly Swyers, who is an assistant professor of anthropology at Lake Forest College, is one of the “Wrigley Regulars” and has been a personal friend of mine for more than ten years. She asked me (and other regulars) to read through her drafts to make sure all the facts were correct, and that means you’ll find things about me (and about this site) in the book. It’s also written not just about baseball and the Wrigley bleachers, but it’s designed to be a college-level sociology/anthropology textbook about communities and how they come together…

This book is highly recommended for anyone who’s a Cubs fan — or baseball fan — to understand why some of us spend so much time in the bleachers. Yes, it’s about baseball, but as Holly points out, it’s also about community and those you get to know so well over the course of many baseball seasons become family. We all found this out just within the last week, when someone who is a bleacher season ticket holder and one of the “Wrigley Regulars” became seriously ill. The outpouring of love and concern I saw everyone show is a perfect example of the family and community that Holly writes about.

A couple of quick thoughts:

1. This sounds like a fun research task.

2. I haven’t read the book but I’ll take a quick guess at the premise: American community has declined over time as we have become more individualized and separated from others. Here, in the unlikely setting of the Wrigley Field bleachers, strangers came together, not just for Cubs game but for authentic social relationships that transcended typical social categories that tend to separate people (social class, age, gender, etc.).

3. The plug from Bleed Cubbie Blue brings up an interesting point: sports isn’t just about competition and winning for fans. Perhaps for males in particular, sports allows people to build bonds over an external focus. A friendly relationship or community can develop without having to sit down and have deep conversations.

Seeing TV tropes as a kind of programming language

Posted on by

A new season of television is nearly upon us. Some of the new shows will survive, many will not. Most of the shows will draw upon established television tropes. (How many procedural shows do we need??)

In the midst of these tropes, Scott Brown of Wired suggests we shouldn’t expect novelty but instead should look for something else:

But here’s an original thought. Let’s embrace the standard semantics of tropery—let’s stop seeing a welter of clichés and instead call it what it is: a programming language. The site [tvtropes.org] was launched by a computer programmer, and the coder’s ethos comes through: Seeing all of TV (and film and literature and theater and manga) history written in Trope, you begin to understand how these story widgets—standard, reusable parts like phonemes or Legos or the basic codons of DNA—can be arranged and rearranged to create something unique.

This is an interesting perspective – instead of focusing on what is being repeated, viewers should examine how writers and producers use their creativity to rearrange the existing pieces of the existing television corpus.

This article reminds me of some other recent news, particularly that about college students and plagiarism. What some research has found is that some students have difficulty accepting the argument for intellectual property; they see content as sharable and open. What matters more then is taking existing content and putting it together in new ways.

Brown suggests “originality is dead.” I hope not. But perhaps taking his advice will make watching similar-but-slightly-different television shows more palatable.

The poor cleaniness of home kitchens

Posted on by

Occasionally, one can find stories about how dirty homes can be. Here is more evidence, this time regarding unclean kitchens:

The small study from California’s Los Angeles County found that only 61 percent of home kitchens would get an A or B if put through the rigors of a restaurant inspection. At least 14 percent would fail — not even getting a C.

In comparison, nearly all Los Angeles County restaurants — 98 percent — get A or B scores each year.

On its own, these are interesting results: restaurant kitchens are generally more clean than home kitchens. But there is more to this story: how exactly researchers found out about the kitchens.

The study, released Thursday, is believed to be one of the first to offer a sizable assessment of food safety in private homes. But the researchers admit the way it was done is hardly perfect.

The results are based not on actual inspections, but on an Internet quiz taken by about 13,000 adults .

So it’s hard to use it to compare the conditions in home kitchens to those in restaurants, which involve trained inspectors giving objective assessments of dirt, pests, and food storage and handling practices.

What’s more, experts don’t believe the study is representative of all households, because people who are more interested and conscientious about food safety are more likely to take the quiz.

A more comprehensive look would probably find that an even smaller percentage of home kitchens would do well in a restaurant inspection, he suggested.

On one hand, this sounds like innovative research that is the first to provide a broad overview of the cleanliness of American kitchens. On the other hand, the way the data was collected suggests one should be wary about making definitive conclusions.

The online quiz is also reliant on self-reporting.

Reflecting on Swedish paternity leave

Posted on by

At Slate, Nathan Hegedus discusses his 18-month paternity leave in Sweden. Hegedus has some intriguing thoughts including the observation that “The dads act exactly like the moms” and more broadly, about how Swedish culture has seemed to prepare men for child-rearing:

I had expected great physical comedy in Daddyland—fathers covered with diaper leakage, babies covered with motor oil, men forcing resentful toddlers into soccer matches. I realize now how insensitive to my Swedish brothers this was. Swedish dads of my generation and younger have been raised to feel competent at child-rearing. They simply expect to do it, just as their wives and partners expect it of them (even though women still do far more child-related work in general). It’s eye-opening in a really boring way…

But there are deeper societal processes at work here, a shift of the very notion of Swedish masculinity. In a 2008 article in the journal Fathering, Anna-Lena Almqvist wrote that Swedish men have developed a “child-oriented masculinity.” Almqvist compared the attitudes of a selection of Swedish fathers with their French counterparts and found that, among couples with similar incomes, Swedish men emphasized the importance of parental leave and helping to raise their children. They also negotiated explicitly with their partners on child care issues. The French men did neither of these things.

While these are the observations of one man, Hegedus hints at the cultural socialization that accompanies child-rearing. It sounds like the policy decisions in Sweden have pushed men toward a new kind of masculinity that involves child-rearing, a domain that was traditionally left to women.

It would be interesting to read more about this, particularly about what this means more broadly for fatherhood and masculinity as well as how Hegedus’ experience is viewed by his American counterparts.

A new kind of TV heroine

Posted on by

The Wall Street Journal reports that television executives are moving ahead with shows that feature a new kind of heroine:

The show reflects new thinking among television network executives: Their core audience—female viewers—want to see a woman take down the enemy, preferably with a little bloodshed along the way. The approach overturns years of belief that violent shows turn off women who prefer to watch earnest nurses, headstrong housewives or quirky career women.

Viewers who grew up with video games and Angelina Jolie action movies are driving the types of shows networks will debut this month and redefining how the classic TV heroine is portrayed.

The market research behind this also found that women tend to think men have gotten wimpier on TV and in movies. Therefore, female characters need to come in and take control.

This article also hints at a question about causation: it is media that drives these images (as the article suggests, through Angelina Jolie action movies) or is it that the culture’s image of women has changed to the point where media now needs to reflect it? It probably works both ways but television and movie executives want portrayals of women that are going to make money.

The highest-paid athlete of all time: a Roman charioteer

Posted on by

There is some discussion these days about the high salaries of modern athletes: are they worth it? Do these salaries demonstrate that society thinks these people are more or most valuable compared to others?

According to a new study, these high salaries are not just a feature of the modern era: a Roman charioteer is considered to be the highest paid athlete of all-time:

According to Peter Struck, associate professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, an illiterate charioteer named Gaius Appuleius Diocles earned “the staggering sum” of 35,863,120 sesterces (ancient Roman coins) in prize money…

Although other racers surpassed him in the total number of victories — a driver called Pompeius Musclosus collected 3,599 winnings — Diocles became the richest of all, as he run and won at big money events. For example, he is recorded to have made 1,450,000 sesterces in just 29 victories.

Struck calculated that Diocles’ s total earnings of 35,863,120 sesterces were enough to provide grain for the entire population of Rome for one year, or to fund the Roman Army at its height for more than two months.

“By today’s standards that last figure, assuming the apt comparison is what it takes to pay the wages of the American armed forces for the same period, would cash out to about $15 billion,” wrote Struck.

It sounds like Roman society was quite willing to make stars out of its athletes/competitors. I would be curious to know: what it is about societies that causes them to confer celebrity status and vast sums of money on people who compete (and win) in games or events?

Male/female wage gap reversed for “unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities”

Posted on by

The gap between male and female earnings has been a persistent feature in American society for decades. However, recent research suggests that a certain group of women are now outearning men:

[A]ccording to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises.

Here’s the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it’s known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don’t live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide.
The article discusses the main causal factors identified by authors: “a growing knowledge-based economy, the decline of a manufacturing base and an increasing minority population.”
At first glance, this may not be that surprising considering the number of women enrolling in and earning degrees at college. Additionally, the restructuring of the American economy away from manufacturing jobs and toward a service/knowledge economy has hit male dominated fields hard.
This bears watching.

Decrease in illegal immigration between 2007 and 2009

Posted on by

Based on data from the US Census Bureau, a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center says illegal immigration has recently dropped with a 67% decrease for the years 2007 and 2009 (about 300,000 people a year) compared to the years 2000 to 2005 (about 850,000 people a year).

A Washington Post piece explores the reasons for the decline:

Douglas Massey, a Princeton University sociologist who studies migration, said the recession and lack of jobs are major factors in the decline of those entering the country illegally.

The unemployment rate for unauthorized immigrants is 10.4 percent higher than that of either U.S.-born residents or legal immigrants, the Pew report said.

Massey said other likely reasons for the decline include an increase in law enforcement and deportations, and enactment of stricter legislation against illegal immigrants. He also pointed to more guest-worker spots, from 104,000 in 2000 to 302,000 in 2009 — allowing more immigrants to come to the United States legally.

While these results are open to some interpretation (the article includes several perspectives), the economic situation has to play a big role. For all immigrants, a weaker American economy likely has a big impact on decisions about whether to come to the United States. Without plentiful jobs, the “land of opportunity” has less to offer.

One way to help assess the impact of economics on illegal immigration would be to see whether immigration of all kinds is down over this same time period.

LA Times portal on value-added analysis of teachers

Posted on by

The Los Angeles Times has put together an information and opinion filled portal regarding their recent publication of a value-added analysis of Los Angeles teachers.

Measuring teacher performance is a tricky subject as there are a number of factors at play in a student’s academic performance. In an article, the newspaper summarizes how value-added scores are estimated:

Value-added estimates the effectiveness of a teacher by looking at the test scores of his students. Each student’s past test performance is used to project his performance in the future. The difference between the child’s actual and projected results is the estimated “value” that the teacher added or subtracted during the year. The teacher’s rating reflects his average results after teaching a statistically reliable number of students.

In addition to these methodological questions, there are number of other fascinating issues: should this sort of information be publicly available and how will affect teacher’s performance? Is it an accurate assessment of what teachers do? What should be done for the teachers who fall outside the normal range? How will the politics of all of this play out?

For those interested in education and measuring outcomes, this all makes for interesting reading.

(As a side note: I can only imagine what discussions would ensure if similar information was published regarding college professors.)

Homeowners’ associations and flying flags

Posted on by

An Arizona man is fighting his homeowners’ association over flying a “Don’t Tread On Me Flag.” While this may appear to be a political situation, it is a broader issue: there have been numerous battles over the years between residents and homeowners’ associations over things like flying flags.

On one hand, homeowners’ associations are trying to maintain a certain image in the neighborhood. On the other hand, their rules are extensive and can often appear heavy-handed. However, this Arizona man and many others have a few options that would limit situations like these: don’t move into neighborhoods with such associations (and they are quite common) and know what the restrictions are before purchasing or become involved with the local association and change the rules. As in this situation, two American desires are in conflict: the desire to maintain some local control (and perhaps boost property values) and the desire to be individuals who can express themselves.

Overall, homeowners’ associations are common today in America. According to the Community Associations Institute, there are over 305,000 “association-governed communities” with over 60 million residents.