Nearest book, ith page, jth sentence

The latest fad sweeping the blogosphere is to write a seemingly strange sentence then to reveal the process that generated it. That process is to find the very nearest book, flip to page i, and copy sentence j. When I played the game, the nearest book was the Bible, but page 53 landed me in an Old Testament story not told to children.

The whole exercise reminded me of a similar fad in my high school English department. Teachers would write exams that consisted of several block quotations from an assigned novel. The quotations were placed without context, and the objective of the test was to identify the character speaking and the situation. These tests were popular with teachers in the brief interval after they realized that lengthy essays are poor indicators of whether students read the book and before they realized that quote tests are poor indicators of whether students read the book.

Anyway, I shall combine the two phenomena (using i=75, j=3) and draw sentences from famed books. Bonus points will be awarded for identifying the source without using Google Books; do not worry, it is a matching quiz.


1. “They worked prospects at Lewisville, Otter Creek, ‘the north fork of the middle of the American River,’ and elsewhere.”

2. “How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another.”

3. “Who wants to hear a story that’s nothing but misfortune?”

4. “General James Oglethorpe was in many ways an appealing figure, and enthusiasts were ready to invest him with the heroic qualities for which the age was starved.”

5. “Do you mind me asking what was your native land?”

A. Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom. Urbana: Unv. of Illinois Press, 2005.
B. Boorstin, Daniel. The Americans: The Colonial Experience. New York: Vintage, 1958.
C. Enger Lief. Peace Like A River. New York: Grove Press, 2001.
D. Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Boston: C.H. Simons, 1926.
E. Wibberley, Leonard. The Mouse that Roared. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003.
(As proof of the classic status of these books, most of the editions I cite are not the first.)

Eight Lessons from Grad School

1. Humility
2. The last bus on the 3B route leaves campus at 23:33; the last bus on the 3A route leaves at 01:28.
3. Undergrads value an interesting class only slightly more than a predictable exam.
4. One does not need a separate M file to define a function in Matlab.
5. The illumination of the skyline turns off at midnight.
6. If A is a nonempty, compact, convex subset of R^N and if f:A→A is an upper hemicontinuous correspondence with the property that the set f(x) is a subset of A for every x in A, then there exists a fixed point.
6a. (Corollary) Every mixed extension of a normal form game has a Nash equilibrium.
7. Warm compresses are good remedies for twitching eyes.
8. Ad hoc models and dubious assumptions make the world go round.

Financial Crisis as a Morality Tale

Economists often hesitate to make normative statements, usually preferring descriptions to judgments. In contrast, children’s Sunday school teachers always are seeking stories to promote ethical behavior. As a member of both camps, I’ve been amused by efforts to cast the financial crisis as a morality play.

The most common approach treats the financial crises as the fault of “selfish, greedy, Wall Street tycoons who were ripping off Americans,” to use former Mississippi Governor Ronnie Musgrove’s phrase. (1) Senator John McCain advanced such a narrative saying, “Americans are hurting right now, and they're angry. They're hurting, and they're angry. They're innocent victims of greed and excess on Wall Street and as well as Washington, D.C. And they're angry, and they have every reason to be angry.” (2) Politicians keep their stories brief and vague, but one presumes that the greed referenced involves the purchase of mortgage backed securities on margin. Leverage, of course, is a two-edged sword, and in ignoring risks investors were creating dangers not only for themselves but for the whole financial sector.

Still, such a tale omits important elements. Governor Sarah Palin’s debate slip about “a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street” (3) was a better economic analysis than any candidate dares state intentionally. The losses that leverage amplified originated with mortgage defaults. Real estate speculation and mortgage default are brands of greed practiced by broader demographics and disqualify many from the “innocent victims” category.

Blaming all problems on investment bankers is as poor a Sunday school lesson as it is an economic analysis. The best parables instigate introspection. Creating scapegoats detracts from morals that could be drawn from the news, like the risks of speculative bubbles, the propriety of frugality, and the trouble of contracting with unreliable partners.

Speechwriters are in the business of crafting rhetoric, not economic histories nor Sunday school manuals. My hope is that the slogans and rhetoric are not mistaken for either of the more substantive genres. Elbert Thomas warned, “Very often repeating [a slogan] will make us think we have solved the question that gave rise to it." (4) Questions of economics and morality, however, demand more than slogans.

(1) "Wicker on the Wrong Side of Sub-Prime Lending Reform." A press release posted on Musgrove for U.S. Senate.
(2) Transcript of the Third McCain-Obama Presidential Debate. 15 Oct 2008.
(3) Transcript of the Biden-Palin Vice Presidential Debate. 2 Oct 2008.
(4) Thomas, Elbert D. The Four Fears. Chicago: Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., 1944. Page 5.

A Further Note on Political Ads

Living in an influential swing state, I have been completely inundated by political advertisements this election season (in fact, there is one on right now). It was only upon brainstorming a diatribe and formulating my new theory, a voter apathy threshold (more to follow), that I began to wonder about the history of the ads. Presidential candidates have used political ads since 1952-- check out these websites: The 30 Second Candidate and The Living Room Candidate for a history of the political advertising and a complete collection of ads from presidential campaigns (as if you haven't seen enough political ads already).

Overheard at a Sociology Graduate Program Orientation

"The professors aren't out to get you... We're not economists; we don't hate ourselves..."

Indigo Blues

Today is the birthday of nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford (b. 1871) and chemist Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff (b. 1852), and that is all the occasion I need to launch into my own chemistry memories. In my senior year of a high school, a friend and I registered to be chemistry lab aides. Much like library aides, the lab aides were to ease a teacher’s burden by handling some routine tasks, mostly setting up student labs in this case. The first lab we helped prepare involved measuring the density of sugar. The teacher did not want anyone to taste the sugar, so she had us add indigo powered dye she found in the chemical storeroom. Five minutes of vigorous stirring gave the mixture a pale, purple hue, and so we figured our first assignment completed and washed our hands. When the water from the faucet touched our hands, the whole stream of water instantly turned bright purple. We soon found that the potent, purple powder had dyed a disturbing assortment of our body fluids. I think it was then that we realized that our first period class would be far from routine.

We gained respect and responsibility by diligently doing mundane tasks, like washing the labware. We kept that responsibility by not telling anyone how many close calls we survived. Once we struggled to open a giant bottle of hydrochloric acid sealed much too tightly with a glass stopper. Finally my colleague made an effectual yank, which pulled off the stem of the bottle as well as the stopper. Providentially, none of the strong acid spilled.

Most of the adventures took place in the chemical storeroom, a small room linked by special passageway to the chemistry rooms. One day we noticed a vinegary odor and a white crust in the acid section and were alarmed to notice the corroded remnants of a lid still smoking atop a bottle of glacial acetic acid. Our teacher supervised as we cleaned the area very carefully.

The scariest corner of the storeroom was the fireproof cabinet in which the organics were stashed. The cabinet housed a smell that would lodge for hours as a taste in the back of the throat of whoever opened the cabinet. To minimize our exposure, my friend and I would have one person open the cabinet, the other would find what we needed with all possible speed, and the doorman would close the cabinet as soon as his comrade’s digits were safe. Once we opened the door to find a jar of chloroform tottering on the edge of the top shelf, but some quick hands secured the bottle before the next pulse beat.

We acquired experience with lab equipment and lab skills as well as a healthy fear of concentrated acids. I think we were helpful; we organized the labware, recovered lost artifacts from forgotten storage areas, reshelved the chemicals in the storeroom in a safer and more organized layout, and prepared every student lab.

The school board should be pleased to know that we also learned life lessons, though the water district might be annoyed to discover how. Our school had a manual listing dozens of disposal techniques and a list of chemicals and the proper disposal technique for each. Two of the techniques were simple: technique 21a was to seal the chemical in a bag and place in the trash, 21b was to pour the chemical down the drain. The rest of the techniques were far more complicated, usually involving prolonged treatment with other chemicals. Actual practice for such chemicals, we learned, was to leave the substances by a sink until someone else unwittingly dumped them down the drain. I since have seen analogous situations in accounting and administration, and every time I recall a room with a vinegary scent.

Political Ads

Having grown up in a state with two secure Senators, a late Presidential primary, and Republican dominance in Presidential elections stretching back beyond World War II, Presidential and Senatorial television ads still are a novelty to me. This year YouTube has allowed me to explore the genre fully. Below are my nominations for the best ads of this season.

Best video
Norm Coleman (R for Senate in Minnesota), "Deliver on a Promise"
Mark Udall (D for Senate in Colorado), "Stand Up"
Mark Warner (D for Senate in Virginia), "Virginia Independence. Real Results."

Best short introduction
Al Franken (D for Senate in Minnesota), "Mrs. Molin"
Kay Hagan (D for Senate in North Carolina), "Roots"
Mary Landrieu (D for Senate in Louisiana) "Fighter"
Barack Obama (D presidential nominee), "What if"
Bill Richardson (D presidential candidate), "Job Interview"
Bob Schaffer (R for Senate in Colorado), "Moving Forward"

Best single issue ad
Mark Begich (D for Senate in Alaska), "Energy Leader"
Al Franken (D for Senate in Minnesota), "Invest Here"
John McCain (R presidential nominee), "God's Children"
Barack Obama (D presidential nominee), "Return"
Mark Warner (D for Senate in Virginia), "Budget Mess"

Note I'm not endorsing these candidates or even the positions they take in these ads. Rather I hope to show that its possible and desirable for political discourse to be inspiring (and sometimes even intelligent) in any medium.

Reusable Grocery Bags

Plastic groceries bags are overwhelming landfills, and they take centuries to photodegrade. Surely there must be some trendy product one can buy to remedy this woe! It turns out that most supermarket chains offer reusable sacks for about a dollar.

Of course, many also offer reusable bags for free, since regular paper and plastic bags rarely disintegrate after the first use. I maintain a stock of bags, which I bring when I buy food. Every week, about two plastic bags are reassigned to line the garbage can and one paper bag to hold the recycling. The times I forget to bring my bags merely restocks my supply. The free bags are always durable enough to handle the five loads of groceries they carry in my cycle. Before getting too self-congratulatory, I should note that some of the reusable bags sold are made with especially eco-friendly materials and that serious environmentalists need fewer garbage liners.

Worries over plastic bags have resulted in more than just commercial gimmicks. San Francisco banned “disposable” plastic bags. (1) I think Seattle has a better approach: a Pigouvian tax. (2) The fee rewards conservation. Its major shortcoming is that it influences the production decision not the disposal decision, where most of the externality is.

(1) City of San Francisco Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance 81-07-106883
(2) Kaste, Martin. “Seattle's Bag-User Fee Spurs Backlash.” NPR All Things Considered. 21 August 2008.

Scaevola

Aside from the occasional shamelessly pirated article, my favorite part of Wikipedia is the disambiguation page. The main function of disambiguation pages is to help navigate similarly titled articles, but they often show fun connections as well. The disambiguation banner for Scaevola reveals that the name is shared by a family of shrubs, a mollusk, several Romans (who have their own disambiguation page), and a nuclear test.

Among the ancients listed is Gaius Mucius Scaevola, the star of my favorite Roman legend. During a war with Etruscans, Mucius snuck into the enemy camp to assassinate their king. He was captured after slaying the wrong man. The Etruscans threatened to fillet their detainee, but Mucius delivered a defiant speech and held his right arm in a fire to show his resolve. This type of self-control impressed the Etruscans, who released him. Upon his return to Rome, Mucius was honored with the cognomen Scaevola, meaning the left-handed. (1)

The Scaevola nuclear test was part of the Hardtack I series, which concluded fifty years ago today. Other tests in this series had yields exceeding eight megatons, more than sufficient to neutralize an Etruscan army. But the Scaevola detonation did not, for it was a zero-yield safety experiment. (2)

(1) Titus Livy. Ab Urde Condita. 2.12-13.
(2) US Dept. of Energy. United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992.

Is Irony a Giffin Good?

A printed banner on the microeconomics text I received declares, “Instructor’s Edition. This is your personal copy for use in textbook evaluation. Sale or resale is prohibited and will contribute to higher student textbook costs.” Nice try, South-western Publishing, but microeconomics instructors tend to think that increases in supply lower the price of most goods. The warning on the back includes some copyright law arguments along with the dubious economic statements.

Shower Power

Not long ago, I lived with my parents and care of the lawn was my often neglected responsibility. A sparse mowing schedule minimized air pollution, water pollution, and interruptions to my summer leisure time. Such reasoning rarely persuaded my parents. My visit this week featured a startling role reversal with my insisting the grass ought to be cut and volunteering to do so.

As I pushed the mower that humid afternoon, I wondered what had changed. Perhaps a hiatus from mowing will make anyone’s landscaping philosophy more exacting, but I think the reports of vandalism and the scraggily look of the whole neighborhood are what compelled me to do anything I could for my old street.

After mowing I was reminded of a resource that, in a better world, would secure property value. The shower in the upstairs bathroom delivers water pressure beyond anything Bull Connor could order. Adjustable settings let a bather choose anything from a typical shower to a hockey check. If only showerheads were the measure of a community, then my hometown’s far eastside would be legendary.

Buying Local

In the college town where we grew up, many held supporting local businesses to be an article of faith. Some industries (such as restaurants or photography studios) appear to either have diseconomies of scale or skilled labor demands that discourage oversized firms, but adherents to the buy local mantra usually justified it for cultural reasons. Usually this philosophy subjected customers to poor selections and inflated prices, though our hometown had plenty of notable exceptions.

Moving to a major metropolitan area has really takes the sacrifice out of shopping locally. With a nationwide department store, two major banks, a supermarket chain, and a large number of small businesses headquartered in the region, effort would be required not to support local businesses in my new city. My friend from Seattle can claim Costco, Eddie Bauer, Nordstrom, and Amazon as local businesses. (He is most loyal to Amazon, from which he regularly receives packages containing diverse assortments of canned foods, math textbooks, and socks. I would mock this, but I purchase my pants as well as my books from Amazon.) Chicago (home of Sears, Crate and Barrel, Aldi USA), Minneapolis/Saint Paul (Target, BestBuy, SuperValu, General Mills), and Cincinnati (Kroger, Macy’s, Proctor and Gamble, Fidelity Investments) also are convenient places to buy locally.

Passed Prospectus Defense...

May now start breathing again.

I Work in a Billboard

The University of Minnesota’s historic Pillsbury Hall shows that donor recognition has long been a part of collegiate building nomenclature. Granted some of that history is tackier than others. The University of Delaware has named MBNA America Hall after a bank – classy, eh? On most college campi, the business school has the most flagrant naming. Coincidentally, they also have the nicest buildings.

Last month, my department moved into a new building we will share with the management school. The building is named after the business executive who funded part of its construction, but what most strikes me is how everything inside the building is named as well. I wouldn’t have thought an academic building to be prime ad space, but corporate sponsors have claimed the atrium, all the classrooms, and all the tiny conference rooms. (The conference rooms are called "breakout rooms", in case the MBA students have to be quarantined I assume.) Yet, workers still are mounting plaques. Every morning I have an urge to sneak breakfast into the General Mills Classroom, but instead I sprint upstairs to check if my desk has a “Your ad here” sign.

The Trouble with Blogs

Billy Collins wrote, “The trouble with poetry is / that it encourages the writing of more poetry / more guppies crowding the fish tank / more baby rabbits / hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass. // Poetry fills me with joy / and I rise like a feather in the wind. / Poetry fills me with sorrow / and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge. // But mostly poetry fills me / with the urge to write poetry...” (1) So it is with blogging. After reading a few posts, the mind thinks, “Hey, I’m observant and engaging. What RSS viewer wouldn’t benefit from my wit?” So the cycle continues.

(1) Collins, Billy. The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems. Random House, 2005.

Singing So Softly That You Love Me Too

Today is Mother’s Day. In Mormonism, Mother’s Day is one of the most important holidays, or at least one of the least neglected. (Holy week differs from the regular routine only because we sing “That Easter Morn” once and schedule the Sunday School lesson to be on resurrection.)

Perhaps this is because motherhood is something at which Mormons excel, at least quantitatively. Of Americans identifying themselves as Mormons, 49% reported having children at home. (That edges Hindus at 48%, but squashes the national average of 35%.) Mormon fecundity shines even more in the results for three or more children at home: 21% for Mormons, Muslims in a distant second with 15%, and the national average languishes at 9%. (1)

In my congregation, the lineup included three speakers all talking about motherhood and a children chorus singing two Mother’s Day songs (one with ASL signs included). However, the greatest tribute to the dedication of mothers came from the daughter of two of the speakers. This four year-old girl responded to her parents prompting to go up and sing in the children’s choir by diving under a pew and from that entrenched position screaming loudly how she did not want to sing. She then commenced with a tantrum unrivalled in volume and duration by anything in our congregation’s noisy history. An embarrassed father carried her out of the sanctuary, and closed the doors to give the children’s choir a fighting chance against the louder screams of his daughter. To fully muffle the rant he probably needed to cross the river with her. He might have wished he had when his daughter, still incensed, escaped back inside the sanctuary during the next song. She eventually calmed down, but the message was clear: mothers work hard.


(1) Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

New Staff

My sister invited me to join the staff here at Temiandu Kuera. The two of us have much in common: parents (for starters), but also an upbringing in a Midwest college town, middle school Science Olympiad fame, a world view gleaned from early Dilbert strips, a propensity to sunburn instantly, and admission to social science doctorial programs at large state universities. Therefore, look for more of the same familiar wit. She will retain editorial control, and I shall try not to annoy.

Confessional

So I have this problem... I'm a procrastinator. I will do whatever I can (or nothing at all) to put off something that I don't want to do. In this particular situation, it's my thesis. My project is interesting, but hard. I have to read chapters on the statistical analyses I'm going to use, read more literature and completely revamp my prospectus by the end of April (or more importantly before a class presentation next Wednesday). But here I sit in front of the television and computer. It is the end of the semester and I have successfully wasted our reading days being lazy and cleaning things that don't really matter or that could at least be put off until next weekend, which is the break between classes, or even until we move at the end of August. There are dirty dishes in the sink and my nightstand is cluttered. I should straighten my hair. There is a disorganized cabinet calling to me. I need to shop for apartments in future city. I should work out today (read: or at least once this week).

Maybe it is that the deadline is not pressing enough, however I know that what I need to do will likely take all of the time I have between now and Wednesday if I want to produce a quality product. And I know that ultimately I have to get it done-- I have to graduate because I have a Ph.D. program to enter in the fall. How do you take those first steps? How do you become motivated?

Back in Town

Well, we're back. Classes begin again shortly, and I'm not ready for it. I've enjoyed the sleeping in/all day, shopping, and wanna-be renovating my parents' house (even though I spent time clearing out my clutter). I've come away from Christmas break and the New Year with new resolve for the things that I'd like to accomplish, however I'm also doubting some of the things that I thought that I wanted. It's complicated.